As he stepped up behind his wife, a floorboard creaked loudly under his feet. Steve turned and stared at the wooden board, the dark knots glaring back at him as he pressed his foot up and down, causing it to squeak over and over.
“Hmm…we could do without that,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Steve,” the agent blushed slightly at her unintended and unprofessional use of his first name, “in your Welcome Pack are a couple of snagging lists. Fill in the first one with any issues you find over the next few days, drop it into the office and we’ll send someone round to fix them. There’s a second sheet for you to detail any further problems in a few months’ time – new builds have a tendency to settle over the first few months so you might see minor cracks appearing in the walls or doors dropping on their hinges, for example. You can put that creaky floorboard on the first list – I would hate to think of anything keeping you up all night…”
11
The past few minutes had been a blur.
Roger had sprinted from Lisa’s flat until breathlessness and pain had forced him to stop. The intense tearing in his gut had now shifted to his lower back, a pounding, stabbing at the base of his spine that was turning his legs to jelly and threatened to loosen his sphincter. As he gasped for air, leaning against a brick wall with one hand, synapses fired deep in his subconscious mind - an unheard voice, its syllables owing more to concept than to sound, sowing a seed - telling him to turn around.
Without being truly conscious of his actions he obeyed, the pain immediately returning to his belly, a fiery wrenching at his bowels that refused to quit. Crouching on his haunches, fighting to get his breath back, it felt as though his innards were attached by a hook to some invisible rope that was pulling at his insides, attempting to drag him forwards or disembowel him in the process.
Roger stood up straight and stumbled back the way he had just come. The instant he started walking the agonising ache eased a little – as if he was being rewarded for his actions. As his energy levels recovered from his earlier sprint he began to walk faster, the pain in his gut subsiding further. He upped his pace to a light jog, the discomfort waning a little more until it suddenly dawned on him – the faster he moved in the direction of the tugging, the less pain he felt.
He started to run, the hurt easing even more. Running faster, almost sprinting, in the direction he felt compelled to go, the pain was now little more than a niggling reminder to keep up the pace.
He suddenly felt good. Sweat was dripping from every pore, each wheezing breath was harsh in his throat and his leg muscles burned, but it was a paradise compared to the agonies he knew he would be forced to endure if he slowed down. As if to remind him of that fact, the pain suddenly struck once more – a stabbing in his right side that twisted him around, almost throwing him to the ground.
He was way out of town now, the road flanked by summer-green fields on both sides, the meadows separated from the tarmac by a snaking rank of crew-cut hedgerows. The pain hit him again, much stronger this time and Roger knew he had no choice but to turn and run in the direction that the wrenching in his guts was excruciatingly suggesting. He left the road and clambered clumsily over the hedge, briars tearing at his skin. Stumbling as he landed, a jolt of pain shooting through his weaker knee he trampled off through the long, waving grass – the turmoil in his belly immediately subsiding.
Eventually, he was forced to rest. The threat of the agony he knew he would have to suffer had become secondary to overwhelming exhaustion. His legs were like lead and his ribcage throbbed. He lay down in the grass, breathing deeply, the warm breeze licking at the slick sheen of sweat that saturated his skin, cooling him a little.
He had braced himself for the return of the pain in his guts the second he stopped running but, so far, it hadn’t materialised.
He closed his eyes…
*
A piercing tugging at his bowels woke him sharply from his sleep. The sun had dropped below the horizon, the sky in front of him burning with an angry red hue.
His throat was desert-dry; he needed water but the pain in his gut forced him onto his feet, his legs stiff and unforgiving beneath him. Setting off at a weary walk the pain shifted to the left. Roger turned in that direction immediately, like a well-broken horse responding to a pull on the reins and within minutes his ears picked up the irresistible babbling of running water, trickling and splashing over rocks. He increased his pace, desperate for the taste and touch of the cool liquid, falling to his knees at the edge of the stream and thrusting his hands into the icy flow.
He splashed his face with handfuls of the cold water, groaning with joy as the liquid hit his skin, before cupping his palms to bring the fluid to his parched lips, greedily slurping his fill.
Only as he lay back in the grass, thirst quenched, did he ponder the wisdom of drinking from the stream. Such was his desire, his need, for the icy cold water that he hadn’t given any thought before now as to its cleanliness and purity. It could be contaminated by animal waste, a sewage outlet, toxic run-off from agricultural chemicals or industrial spillage further upstream. All he knew was that it had tasted better than the choicest of wines and even those fine
