F - Debt Collector

It was a scene straight out of a nineteen fifties Western movie.
Benjamin stepped into the bar and everybody stopped talking and looked
at him. Just like John Wayne in the movies. Not that this was a Texas
prairie-town saloon with sawdust on the floor, spittoons on the counter
and a honky-tonk piano in the corner playing The Streets of Laredo.
This was Benjamin's quiet local which in the last few months had gone
so far as to start describing itself as a "wine bar", and its location
was less than five minute's walk from the Clock Tower at Crouch End,
but still the moment achieved that clich? b-movie quality of hushed
anticipation.

Benjamin's immediate impulse was to leave again. Although he traded a
lot on his good looks and was used to drawing a few female glances,
this was something entirely different. Their stares were curious,
intrigued, eager for whatever novelty and entertainment value the
developing situation might hold. Roll up! Roll up! See the freaky
drunken driver who knocked the old man into eternity! First appearance
at this pub since the second of February!

That was when it had happened. Monday three weeks ago. Now Benjamin's
life had changed forever. He would never be the same light-hearted
womanising hard-drinking rising star of Aspects Media. If the company
kept him on at all it would be an act of charity, because his driving
licence was one of the requirements of his job, and he wouldn't get
that back for two years. He would be twenty-seven the next time he
legally sat behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle. That was old
in the media industry. You needed to have made your mark in a big way
by then. But more importantly his own image of himself had changed. The
carefree self assured young guy who had everything wasn't there any
more. Days of sitting alone in his tiny flat, too scared to face the
world, nights of that crazy recurrent dream, moments when the darkest
thought of all had come into his mind . He didn't really know this new
person that he had become.

There were three tables partly occupied and a few more people on stools
at the bar. Benjamin knew virtually all of them, at least their first
names. He steeled himself to go through with it. Life had to go on.
There was no other option. He selected a nearby table where two young
men of his own age in smart/casual baggy sweatshirts sat either side of
a pretty young blonde woman who looked vaguely uncomfortable in a blue
shoulder-padded business suit.

"Okay if I join you?"

"Benjie, of course, good to see you again," one of the men enthused.
Despite the welcome Benjamin could detect a faint undercurrent of
unease in the voice. He pulled up a chair and took his place opposite
the woman with as casual an air as he could muster.

Everyone said hello. Then the first Freudian slip. The woman, Rose by
name, something at Loring Merchant Holdings and girlfriend of the man
who had greeted him, asked him if he was drinking, then quickly
corrected herself by asking him WHAT he was drinking. It gave Benjamin
the opening he needed.

"Yes, I'm drinking, Rosie. Drinking the same as usual. Not driving
tonight, you see, I can drink as much as I like. And in case any of you
want to know, the old guy is still in the coma and he isn't expected to
come out of it."

"Jesus, Benjie," Rose's boyfriend protested, "it could have happened to
any one of us. Any one of us here tonight. I heard you were barely over
the limit. Hardly been drinking at all. It was Monday night for
Chris'sake!"

"It's happened, Mike," Benjamin said sadly, "nothing is going to change
it now. I didn't see him step out. I just heard the crack. I don't know
whether it would have been any different if I hadn't had a drink.
Probably not. Even the police said that. But I'll never know. Nobody
will ever know. I was over the limit and I hit somebody. That's all
there is to it. Can we talk about something else now?"

The evening didn't go too badly after that. Everybody was very
sympathetic, all buying him drinks, telling him: "There but for the
grace of God..." Benjamin knew perfectly well that most of them had
come in cars and would be driving home in them, and that wasn't
lemonade they were drinking. People don't learn anything from a thing
like that, he mused. Not really.

Benjamin had assumed that his easy rapport with women would have gone
with his self confidence. But Rose looked straight into his eyes all
evening and at closing time kissed him goodnight, full on the lips. He
supposed that she was sorry for him. Maybe, he thought fleetingly, he
would see her in the pub by herself some time...

In bed that night, although he'd had more than his usual two or three
doubles, Benjamin found it very difficult to get to sleep. He lay flat
on his back in the middle of the big mattress, gazing at the ceiling
and waiting for the computer monitor to switch itself off and plunge
the room into complete darkness. It functioned as a night-light on a
timer for the nights that he slept alone, which, since the accident,
had been every night. Usually he was asleep before the shut-down moment
arrived, tonight he was not. The light died and dim swirling shapes
formed before his eyes, resolving themselves slowly into the familiar
dark, brooding forest landscape of his recurrent dream.

A watery moon peeping through momentary gaps in the branches lighted
Benjamin's slow but purposeful walk through the forest, his feet
sinking into the soft dry leaf-mould with every step, above him the
heavy canopy of ancient beeches, oaks and ash trees. The spaces between
the trunks were choked by the growth of the younger vigorous sycamores
and blackthorns so that he had to pick his way through, bending the
branches as he passed and allowing them to spring back into position
behind him.

Benjamin knew what was coming next. He had been in this dream many
times before. It was never exactly the same but the variations were
only minor. There would be a glimmer of yellow light up ahead, barely
detectable at first, then it would grow brighter. Yes, there it was. He
must try to be quieter now, to approach the clearing with the absolute
minimum of disturbance, not to make the intruder run off. That was how
Benjamin always saw him, as an intruder, although intruding into a
clearing in the middle of a moonlit forest didn't make a great deal of
sense. But somehow Benjamin knew that the clearing was his own
territory, his own very personal space, and the other had no right to
be there.

This time the intruder was sitting at a small desk surrounded by filing
cabinets, some of which had open drawers. He had his back to Benjamin's
vantage point behind the branches, hunched over some papers which he
was reading by the yellow circle of light from a small angle poise
lamp. Despite the care and silence of Benjamin's approach it was
obvious that the intruder knew he was there. He straightened up and
looked directly towards Benjamin, mumbled something that sounded like
"You or me" and rose briskly from his chair, hurrying into the woods
before Benjamin could disentangle himself from the thicket of branches
that barred his way. In the few moments it took him to get to the desk
the intruder had vanished, but not before Benjamin had got a good look
at his face, the old lined and sunken Negro features, the Afro hair,
thin and almost white with the ravages of age, and the peculiar series
of dark horizontal scars on the cheekbones just below each eye.

"Leave my things alone," Benjamin spoke aloud as he packed the papers
that the old man had been reading back into the filing cabinets, "these
aren't yours. These are my things, my memories." The words were of
course completely redundant. The intruder was no longer there to hear.
Benjamin carefully filed away the picture of his mother as a child, his
first school report, the love letter from his first girl friend, the
smell of the dentist's surgery when he had an impacted wisdom tooth
removed in his first term at University...

o OO o

Benjamin took the Underground train in to the West End that morning and
went to the studio for the talk that he had been dreading with his boss
Wes Bewler. He had never really liked Wes, with his blond goatee beard,
sculpted sideburns and affected American accent, and he was convinced
that Wes thoroughly enjoyed telling him, so very politely, that legally
the company owed him nothing and he couldn't really see much "on the
creative side" for a man in Benjamin's position just at the moment.
Words like "sacked" or "fired" were never even hinted at, but it was
made perfectly clear that Benjamin's employment with the company was at
an end.

After the interview, feeling close to rock bottom, Benjamin strolled
around a few West End shops in the cold winter drizzle before
re-boarding the Underground on impulse and making his way to the main
Reception at the hospital to which his victim had been taken. There was
a very pretty mixed-race girl at the desk, and nobody else waiting to
be seen, and the act of talking to her cheered him up a little. When he
explained who he was and who he had come to see her face became serious
and she asked him to wait while she talked for several minutes in a
very low voice on the internal telephone.

"Mr. Lojo's condition is unchanged," she said rather formally when she
put the phone down, "He hasn't regained consciousness and the nurse in
charge of Intensive Care says that very little purpose would be served
by your visiting him. Also the official visiting hours are between two
and six," she cast a sidewise glance towards the wall clock which was
reading twelve twenty. Benjamin shrugged and was turning to go when she
called him back. She waited until he was right back at the desk before
giving him a heart-melting smile and telling him very quietly: "My
lunch break begins in ten minutes".

They sat in a quiet corner of the crowded and impersonal hospital
canteen and looked out at the strengthening rain. Benjamin wasn't
concerned about the girl's motives in calling him back. He guessed that
she had felt a little sorry for him as Rosie had the night before, that
his plight had triggered some nurturing motherly instinct. Whatever her
reasons he found himself pouring out his heart to the girl in a manner
that was quite uncharacteristic. He told her about the way he had been
feeling that night, the things that had gone wrong at work, the hurt
when somebody named Debbie had rejected his advances, his decision to
have just one drink and then go straight home, the way that one drink
had become two and then three, the stomach-churning crack of breaking
bones and the splatter of blood across the windscreen. She listened
attentively and without interruption - would have listened for longer
but Benjammin had questions of his own. He asked her to tell him about
Lojo, the man who had been hit. Was that a West Indian name?

"He's from Trinidad originally," she explained, "I don't know how long
he's been in this country but he has no family over here. His sister is
here visiting him now. She's a funny old thing. Really strong Trinidad
accent. She says his spirit isn't there any more, only his body. In a
way she's right, the doctors think he's brain dead." Her voice
softened, "Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'd give anything in the world if I could take back those ten seconds
after I drove out of the pub car park," he whispered.

"I'm really sorry about what happened," she said, taking his hand, "we
all are. It was an accident. Accidents happen. All the time. Nobody can
stop them happening."

He squeezed her hand gently. "Would you like to come out for a meal
tonight?" he asked as casually as he could.

"Can't make tonight," she replied with what seemed genuine
disappointment, "but tomorrow would be okay."

o OO o

Benjamin had his usual dream that night. He told it to his lovely new
companion over dinner the following evening. She listened with a quiet
fascination, gazing into his eyes. Benjamin had never felt so
interesting before. He didn't have to play-act or make anything up.
This delightful creature whose name was Marcia really cared about his
feelings and his dreams and his innermost longings. Perhaps life wasn't
so cruel after all. He could feel the attraction grow, the desire to
sit nearer, to touch her, to let his arm fall casually over her
back...

Her head was on his shoulder and they were almost lined up for a kiss,
sipping the last few drops of wine from their glasses, when he reached
the part about the dark scars underneath the intruder's eyes. Marcia
suddenly tensed. "Scars under his eyes? How did you know about
those?"

"Know about them? What do you mean?"

"Mr. Lojo has scars under his eyes. It's some kind of tribal marking.
He was a voodoo priest or something back home."

"Mr. Lojo..." Benjamin's strange haunted dreams suddenly began to make
some kind of sense. The intruder was Mr. Lojo. He hadn't seen his face
on the night of the accident but he might have seen a photograph of him
somewhere, in a newspaper perhaps... and yet he had no recollection of
it. " I suppose it's guilt," he whispered, "those must be some kind of
guilt dreams..."

Marcia put down her glass and reached over to embrace him with both her
arms. "You don't have to sleep on your own tonight," she whispered,
"not if you don't want to."

o OO o

It was the pleasantest way of getting off to sleep known to mankind.
Certainly the nicest thing that had happened to Benjamin since the
accident. The exhiliration of having a pretty girl in his arms felt
like the first step towards bringing the old Benjamin back to
life.

Benjamin felt strong tonight. He strode through the forest snapping
branches under his feet and breaking them crudely with his hands to
keep them away from his face. He didn't care if the intruder ran away
or not, or what happened to the trees or the memories or the filing
cabinets. This was a dream, something going on inside Benjamin's mind.
It couldn't do him any harm if he didn't allow it to.

The angle poise lamp was still switched on and the intruder was still
there, standing in front of the desk and the filing cabinets,
back-lighted by the glow of the lamp, but Benjamin could still see him
clearly, the white hair, the dark skin, the scars beneath either eye.
This time the intruder did not move, did not try to run away. Benjamin
walked right up to him and stopped. For a moment their eyes met in
silence. Then the old man spoke, very quietly in a heavily accented
voice: "You owe me".

"So that's what you've been saying," Benjamin returned in a
conversational tone, "you think I owe you. Well, I suppose you're
right, I do, but it's a debt you can never collect. I'm strong tonight,
old man. There's nothing you can take from me tonight."

"You're wrong Benjamin," he warned quietly, "you aren't strong."

"I'm not afraid of you. Not now, and not ever again. I'm walking away
from you old man. And I don't care what you do with these things. They
aren't real. You aren't real. There's nothing you can do to me. Good
bye old man." With these words he strode past the man and the desk and
the lamp and kept on walking across the clearing to where the forest
closed around him once again, but here the path was broad and well
trodden. He did not need to push the branches aside any more, he could
walk as quickly as he wished. Without looking back he lengthened his
stride and pressed on and on towards some distant unknown goal in a
part of the forest that he had never visited before...

o OO o

Benjamin could hear voices in the darkness, very far away. He was
waking from a deep heavy sleep. As he edged closer towards
consciousness the voices grew a little more distinct. One belonged to a
crisp official-sounding man who spoke in a clipped Standard English. "I
know this decision has not been easy for you, Miss Lojo," he was saying
with affected concern in his voice, "but I am glad that you have come
to see that it is the only sensible course of action."

Benjamin struggled to concentrate and to draw nearer to full
consciousness but there seemed to be something preventing him, a
barrier. His eyes would not open, his body would not respond. He heard
the woman's voice next, it was high-pitched and had a sort of sing-song
quality as well as a heavy West Indian accent: "My brother he not here
no more, Mister. He gone a someplace else."

"Quite so, Miss Lojo. I think perhaps you should leave the room
now."

"I leave in a one a minute, Mister."

"As you wish. Nurse, would you switch off the artificial respirator
please. And hand me the notes if you would. Time of death..."

With a superhuman effort Benjamin managed to open one eye. There was a
woman's face staring down at him, an old plump black woman's face that
he had never seen before. As he drew her features into focus he saw his
own face reflected in the lenses of her round brass rimmed spectacles.
Before the scream could reach his lips the blackness engulfed
him.

o OO o

Marcia, cuddled up close to his side with her head snug in the crook of
his shoulder, felt a wakening twitch in the body of the man with whom
she lay. She kissed him gently on the cheek. "Good morning. Did you
have any bad dreams?"

He opened his eyes and beamed down at her. "Marcia darlin' that the
best night's sleep of my life so far!"

"Hey! That's clever! I didn't know you could do a Trinidadian
accent!"