No one noticed. Well you wouldn’t would you? It’s dark and cold and you just stay in, keep yerself to yerself.
In the winter the walls always close in, and you’re stuck in around a dim light bulb, these modern bulbs are shite!
One day the tinkle tapping, buzz permeated her consciousness, as she sat on the wall, waiting for the bus, having her fag in the warm spring sun. It was so quiet, but the tap, tap, tappin’ was there and when she finally turned to look to the sound it was like a fuckin’ horror movie! The window was alive with the hot, hairy bodies of disgruntled flies bangin’ their heads trying to work out how to
get out.
Her bus was trundling its way up the brae towards her, but this bus was not to be her bus.
The fag end was tossed and she walked quickly through the squealing, rusty, Iron Gate and up the path fumbling in her pocket, for her phone.
How long had it been since she had seen Jim, six months? Time had changed, so hard to judge now with everything goin’ on.
She reached the door in a daze and rattled the letterbox, ducking down to call his name through the slit. “JIM, hello Jim, are you there? Jim?
No sound, but she could see an ominous mess of fliers and letters.
Her hand shook, 999
“Police please”
“Hello, hello, hi, it’s probably nothing, but there are flies everywhere”
“I’m just at the top of the brae, . . .
“I have rung the bell and chapped the door but no response and there is mail everywhere in the hall, and the flies!”
“ The address? Oh hold on . . . 23 Braehead Road, yes that’s the one; just by the bus stop . . . My name? Shelly, Shelly Thomson, aye this is the best number to get me on.”
Back on the wall, puffing hard and fast on a fresh ciggy, eyes darting up and down the road, the next bus was 20 minutes.
She phoned work,
“Hi Gina, sorry I had to miss my bus, I’ll explain later, but I will be a bit late, sorry.”
“That’s alright love, you’re never late, I’ll cover for you, take your time, don’t worry not much happenin’ anyhow.”
“Thanks darling, see you soon.”
The flies bounced.
She heard the siren wailing through the streets towards her, her heart was banging in her chest like those desperate flies. Louder and louder the wail came to her and through her.
The car pulled up and two cops got out, with cops you never really look at them do you? You just see the front, the uniform a wall of authority, she saw these two she saw the trepidation on their faces, the whites of their eyes, the sweat of their palms that they wiped down their trousers as they straightened themselves out of the car.
She approached “Hi, I’m Shelly, I’m the one who made the call.” Thanks Shelly, pleased to meet you I’m PC Stayton and this is PC Lynch. Do you know who lives here?”
“Aye it’s Auld Jim, been here forever. Always with a wave and a cheery smile, or a wry joke. Lovely guy!” And with those last words she chocked up, tears swelling in her eyes, gulping to control it, she turned away, she could see Jim in her minds eye, bent forward waving to her though the window.
“OK love, we’ll take it from here . . . try to have a good day.”
They went to the door, knocked with that special policeman’s knock that would awaken the dead, but no one awoke. Talking into their radio, they returned to their car to retrieve a scarlet battering ram.
The bus was trundling up the brae towards her as it indicated in and she stepped forward, she heard the wood of Jim’s front door splinter. Head down she walked down the bus to a vacant window seat, eyes brimming, as the police entered the house.
Stepping over the pile of unsolicited mail they entered the dark hallway, with the foreboding of entering a pit. The smell was nae good at all; the air had not been stirred in here for some time.
Jim had spent his life working the coalmines Victoria, Michael, Francis, Seafield they had been times of camaraderie and some great crack. But in winter you never saw the sun, you spent the day in the dark picking and shovelling coal and the night shovelling the same coal into the grate to push away the biting cold. Summers you’d emerged into blinding the sun that you knew you missed a day of, for you had seen its kiss on the blushing morning clouds before you descended.
As they went in, the police opened each door, letting the light flood in. Every room was neat as a pin, empty of life. But they didn’t need to open the last door to know what was waiting for them for the smell, that dreaded stench, was already in their noses and lungs.
They braced themselves against what they were going to see and were hit by the wall of odour as they opened the door. Under foot dead flies crunched and shattered.
Jim was there in his chair, the chair he had always sat in watching the world walk past to get the bus tae work, or mums and dads trailin’ their kids up and down from the school, or nippin’ to the corner shop for errands.
He knew them all to smile and wave at, you know everyone when you live in a wee town like Kirkcaldy.
“How long’s he been here, do yer recon’?” Asked Lynch, the younger PC of his senior, horror in his eyes.
“About a couple of months, I’d say . . . poor ald bugger.
Open the window lad . . . get these bloody flies out.
Loneliness is a killer.