The October Boys Read online

  They started to walk. Slowly at first, no-one quite ready to admit they were absolutely terrified of the rumbling vehicle behind them. Tom almost preferred the chimes; at least you knew where the truck was when the chimes were spilling from its speaker like

  Half a pound of treacle—

  something from a bad horror movie.

  “Is it following?” Luke, like the rest of them, was loath to look back. What if it was right there, sneaking up on them, waiting for the right time to strike. What if its driver peered out through the windscreen, teeth blacker than Ryan’s, only the whites of his eyes visible, a demonic grin upon his face? Come and get your ice cream, little ones. Pop goes the weasel!

  “It’s just sitting there,” Tom said, glancing back along the street. And since it was just sitting there, didn’t it prove that they were just being silly, that Halloween had burrowed under their collective skins and nothing more? But they kept on walking, nonetheless, putting as much distance between themselves and the ice cream truck as possible.

  With each step Ryan took, the cauldron, heavy with treats, thumped against his bare knee. It was like a drumbeat—a death march—and Tom didn’t like it one bit. He snatched the cauldron from Ryan’s hand, and just before Ryan could contest, Tom said, “I’ll give it you back when we get to Marcus’s. Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat it all on the way.”

  Half a pound of tuppeny rice.

  Half a pound of treacle.

  The chimes started up a second before the truck’s engine roared, and then it was coming toward them. Speeding. Careening across the lanes as if out of control, almost barrelling into the parked cars lining the street. The lunatic behind the wheel nothing more than a shadow, a silhouette.

  Tom turned to see his friends were already running. Ryan was making a strange noise, a keening, as he fled.

  That’s the way the money goes—

  POP GOES THE WEASEL!

  Tom ran, too, too afraid to turn back, to see how close the truck was. Its engine was loud, its chimes even more tuneless than they had been earlier. It was as if the sudden acceleration had taken something out of the truck, leaving it sapped of power.

  At the end of the street, Marcus and Luke went one way, but for some reason Ryan took a left. Tom knew where Ryan was heading; he was making a run for his own house. But that was seven, no, eight streets away. He would never make it.

  “Ryan!” Tom called, arriving at the junction already breathless, unsure which way he himself was going to run. He didn’t have time to stop—the chimes grew louder to his rear and that engine! It sounded like a jetfighter, something from a war movie—and before he knew what was happening he was rushing after Marcus and Luke.

  I should be at home! Tom thought as he sprinted after his friends. I should be at home waiting for Mom, and she’ll kill me! If the ice cream truck doesn’t, she will! He didn’t realise it immediately, but tears were streaming down his cheeks, tracking clean lines through his faded green face-paint.

  Every night when I go out.

  The weasel’s on the table.

  “Come on, Tom!” Marcus called from the pavement. He had stopped, stood at the entrance to a thin alleyway. Luke had carried on and was halfway down the dark passage by the time Tom arrived.

  Take a stick and knock it off.

  Pop goes the weasel.

  Tom stopped at the mouth of the alley, turned back just in time to see the ice cream truck turn left so fast that the wheels on its right side left the tarmac. A screech of brakes, and then the roar of acceleration, and off it went, its chimes dipping and rising.

  Breathless and nursing a stitch in his side, Tom watched the truck as it meandered along the street, moving away from them.

  Moving toward Ryan.

  “It’s going after Ryan,” Tom said. “That’s what it wanted. It wanted to split us up, and now it’s going to get Ryan.”

  Marcus started to jog down the alleyway. “We’ll call the police from my house,” he said. He looked, Tom thought, so ridiculous, those boxing gloves dangling from his shoulders, that rain-drenched stars-and-stripes robe fluttering behind him as he went. It was almost surreal, and Tom felt guilty as maniacal laughter threatened to erupt from his throat.

  It was shock. He was in shock, and that’s why he had no control over his emotions.

  Tom took one last look along the street, but the ice cream truck was gone, its jangling bells fading, and Tom knew, just knew, that he would never see Ryan Fielding alive again.

  He ran down the alleyway after his friends, tired and scared and feeling guilty as hell.

  THREE

  October 21st, 2016

  Redbridge, London

  "Are you even listening to me, Tom?” The way she said it suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d asked, but Tom had spotted the hotdog truck parked at the entrance to Valentines Park and, as was always the case when he saw one, he froze up. Memories of that night all those years ago came flooding back to him, paralysing him with fear and remorse and a sense of shame. Even though it wasn’t a hotdog truck which pursued them through the streets, even though it wasn’t a hotdog truck which took Ryan, even though there was nothing incongruous about seeing hotdog trucks in the middle of October, the low thrum of an idling engine always set his teeth on edge and brought gooseflesh to his skin.

  “I’m sorry,” Tom said, turning to Danielle, turning his back on the hotdog truck and its long line of patient customers; parents appeasing their hungry children with greasy burgers so that, if only for a few minutes while they ate, they would have complete silence; lovers almost kissing but not quite—not appropriate with so many children about—and staring dreamily into one another’s eyes, oblivious to anything going on around them. “I was miles away.”

  “You’re always miles away.” There was more than a hint of frustration in his wife’s tone, and was that a tear threatening at the corner of her eye? Tom didn’t know what he had done, but whatever it was, Danielle was upset about it. “You haven’t been listening to a damn word I’ve said, have you?”

  Tom shrugged. The smell of charring burgers drifted under his nose, and for a moment he thought he might be sick. He hadn’t felt right all day, but that damn hotdog truck, combined with Danielle’s apparent anger toward him for Lord knows what reason, might be the thing to push him over the edge. “I couldn’t hear you properly over the sound of that bloody truck.” It was an awful excuse, and he regretted it as soon as it passed his lips. Danielle looked mortally offended; that he thought he might lie his way out of it beyond her comprehension. He knew he had to try again. Start from the beginning and try to find out what was wrong. What was wrong and how he could make it right. “I’m listening now. I’m sorry, but that damn truck—”

  “I’m going to stay with my sister for a couple of weeks.” Pinched lips, wide eyes, she looked like a caricature of herself. Her dark brown hair whipped across her face as the wind blustered through the square, and she cursed, spitting it out. How angry did you have to be to reproach your own hair?

  Tom was, for a few seconds, lost for words. What had brought this on? What could he possibly have done that had pissed his wife off so much that ‘a couple of weeks’ at her sister’s was the only possible answer? When he did finally manage to speak again, his voice was cracked. “I… I don’t understand. What have I done—”

  “Oh, come on!” Danielle said. In the queue for the hotdog truck, people turned, wanting to get a look at the domestic dispute unfolding next to the park gates. Children sniggered, as they were wont to do when such things happened in broad daylight. Danielle lowered her voice. “Things haven’t been right between us for some time, Tom. You know as well as I do that we’re failing. I just need a little time to recharge, time to think…”

  Angrily, Tom interrupted. “It’s because of the kid thing, isn’t it?” It wasn’t a question; it was always because of the kid thing, because he had just turned forty and she was only thirty-two, because all of her friends had childre
n, because her sister—the one she was about to go and live with for fuck knows how many weeks, even though they despised one another at the best of times—had a whole litter of boys, and because Tom had no desire for such things. In his mind he was too old now to start raising a child. By the time the kid was ten, he’d be fifty, and far too old to kick a ball around the park. By the time the kid had left university, he’d be about to draw his pension. But that was just making excuses, trying to ignore the real reason why he didn’t—had never—wanted a child.

  The ice cream truck.

  He feared that sonofabitch would come back, only Tom was far too old now for that evil prick, and so it would take the next best thing. His offspring.

  “It’s not just that,” Danielle said, though judging by the trepidation in her voice even she wasn’t sure that was true. “You’ve been drinking a helluva lot lately, and I want you to get some help.” She sighed; Tom tasted the coffee on her breath a second before the wind whipped it away. “I know things are always hard for you at this time of year but drinking yourself into a stupor most nights isn’t going to help. Do you have any idea what it’s like? I’m scared to talk to you, in case you fly off the handle at me—”

  Tom thought about protesting, but he knew she was right. He had been a little edgy recently, but didn’t he have a right to be? Wasn’t that his prerogative?

  “—and I just think some time apart, just to figure out how best to approach this, would do us both the world of good.”

  It would do you the world of good, he thought caustically. It would probably be the end of me. Now was not the time to be alone; it was October. Halloween was fast approaching, and with that all the memories of what had happened back in ’88. The only way he would get through it was ensuring he was drunk for the duration, something he could do more freely if Danielle, judgmental bitch, wasn’t there to chastise him every time he refilled his glass. Now that he knew she resented it, he knew he would have no choice but to tone it down a notch. But if she wasn’t there, the world was his oyster and to hell with the hangovers. Oblivion here I come.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Tom said. “I have been drinking a bit too much recently, but that doesn’t have anything to do with…” He trailed off there, too terrified to even finish the sentence. Staring into his wife’s eyes, he could see she knew how that one was supposed to end, and he could also see that she didn’t believe a word of it. It always came back to that ice cream truck, that fucking demon barrelling toward them in the night.

  “I just want you to get some help,” Danielle said. “This has been going on for too long now, Tom. You’ve spent half your life looking over your shoulder. That’s no way to live. That’s not fair on you and it’s not fair on me.” And now there was a tear; Tom could see that she was trying so hard not to completely break down. A quick glance toward the queue off to their left revealed the hotdog truck’s potential customers were no longer interested in the arguing couple. They were far too busy drooling over the prospect of a heart attack wrapped in bread.

  “I can get help,” Tom conceded. “I can make an appointment, see the doc, get some medication.” God this was hard. Had he already been aware that he had issues? Hearing the words coming from his mouth, admitting it for the very first time, was like a stab to the heart. He winced, not with pain but with shame. That he had put Danielle through this was inconceivable.

  She deserved better.

  He would do everything in his power to make sure she got it, even if that meant a couple of leather couch sessions with some head shrink.

  “I love you, Tom,” Danielle said. “We can get through this, I know we can. I just want us to be happy. I just want you to be happy… with me.”

  Tom nodded. He wanted to be happy, too. He wanted it so badly.

  Pop goes the weasel, he thought.

  It was going to be a tough few weeks.

  * * *

  October 24th, 2016

  Redbridge, London

  The waiting-room was just about as typical as it could be, bordering on cliché. Upon coffee tables, well-read celebrity-scandal infused magazines were stacked in piles. Pan pipes—was there anything less relaxing? —were pumped into the room via concealed speakers. A vending machine offered a plethora of unhealthy snacks, the thought of which turned Tom’s stomach. Behind the reception-desk, a pair of ageing women wearing far too much make-up and unbelievably fake smiles discussed their events from the previous weekend: Oh, it was lovely, June! We had the pool to ourselves, and on Sunday morning we had strawberries for breakfast! Tom felt sick just listening.

  Other than him, Doctor Kurian’s morning appointments seemingly consisted of an elderly male who had chewed his fingernails to the quick and was now sucking on his thumb, a woman whose face was contorted into a perpetual frown and whose legs danced nervously as she sat waiting, and a young boy whose mother kept assuring him ‘Everything’s going to be okay, Simon. It’s for the best… it’s for the best.” Simon didn’t believe her, and Tom wanted to intervene, tell the poor kid the truth, that it wasn’t going to be okay, that the nasty head doctor was going to extract all sorts of information from him—stuff he’d wanted to keep a lid on—and then use it against him.

  The pan-pipe melody suddenly cut out, and a too-loud male voice, no doubt belonging to the shrink Kurian, filtered into the room. “Alex Wise to room one, please. Alex Wise to room one.”

  The nail-chewer stood up, took a deep breath, and marched toward the doors at the end of the waiting room.

  Room one? How many rooms were there in this place? How many doctors, other than Kurian? Not that it truly mattered; one shrink was as good as another. Besides, Tom didn’t really believe he could be helped by words and emotional confessions alone. He had agreed to see Kurian for one reason. To get back his wife. Danielle had insisted he get help, and so here he was, doing everything he could to placate her, to make her come home, to prove that he was willing.

  It was all nonsense, of course.

  As was the drink problem Danielle insisted he had. Tom could stop any time he wanted, but that was the thing: he didn’t want to. He needed the release, needed that extra help to sleep without dreams, needed booze to steady his nerves so he could get through the day in one piece.

  Just yesterday at work—a small Ford dealership, at which he talked people into buying the latest models on shitty credit terms—his boss had taken him aside and voiced some concern of his own. Martin Cook wasn’t a bad boss (he always bought the sandwiches on a Saturday morning, and for three Christmases in a row had taken the entire team out for drinks) but yesterday, when he began prattling on about how the devil’s whiskey had destroyed his brother-in-law, and how it would do the same to Tom if he wasn’t careful, Tom wanted to punch him in the head so hard.

  This wasn’t about drink.

  It was about doing what he could to avoid October.

  Pop goes the weasel.

  Twenty minutes after the nail-chewer was called into room one, he emerged looking none the better for it and, after making another appointment with the ersatz-chirpy ladies at reception, he slunk out of the building like a broken man, a part of him left behind in room one.

  “Tom Craven to room one,” said the voice as the panpipes were interrupted once again. Tom stood, nodded at the nervous-looking Simon for no particular reason, then made his way toward the doors leading to Kurian’s office.

  Kurian was an amiable-looking man. He reminded Tom of Mark Ruffalo, the guy who had played The Hulk in the Avengers movies, before he changed into a giant green monster, of course.

  If the reception area had been a cliché, then Kurian’s office was about as formulaic as it could be. Upon the walls, Kurian’s accreditations hung in expensive-looking frames. An off-white ceramic phrenology head sat front and centre on Kurian’s desk, surrounded by flyers and support leaflets. A single filing cabinet sat against the wall to Tom’s right.

  That’s where he keeps us all, Tom thought. That’s where he stores a
ll our fucked-up stories. That filing cabinet probably contained more horror than Stephen King’s out tray. Sitting on top of the cabinet, a stack of mind-related books stretched up toward the ceiling. Their spines—Prescribing Guidelines: 3rd Edition, Draw on your Emotions, The Compassionate Mind—suggested some heavy reading. E.L. James must have been shitting herself.

  Tom settled himself down on a leather armchair across from Kurian. He wasn’t quite ready for the couch yet; that was reserved for people with real problems. The guys who had been molested as children by their perverted uncles; the ladies who had survived sexual encounters and yet continued to live the nightmare; the children—like Simon out in the waiting room—who secretly harboured murderous thoughts and were just one step away from becoming the next Dahmer or Gacy.

  Kurian cleared his throat, glanced down at the paperwork attached to a clipboard in his lap, and said, “Mister Craven.” His smile revealed two rows of perfect white teeth. “I’m just going to run through a few things with you before we start. I apologise in advance for how tedious this part it, but it’s essential that I make some notes to get a better idea of your life up to now.”

  “I wasn’t molested,” Tom said, a little too defensively. Where the hell had that come from? This was a head-doctor he was dealing with; surely such a statement, spat out before proceedings were even underway, could mean only thing: he was molested. Lots.

  Kurian’s smile widened; Tom could now see the inside of the man’s cheeks. “I’m very pleased to hear it,” he said, and then he began to scribble frantically upon the page attached to the clipboard.

  Tom shrank into the armchair, wishing he hadn’t spoken at all.

  Kurian ran through the confidentiality agreement—that he had a duty to inform the proper authorities if he believed Tom, or a member of the general public, was in danger. He quickly ran through a few basics: ethnicity, smoker/non-smoker, married/single, the kind of thing Tom had come to expect from such sessions. His GP must have worked off the same checklist.