A Visitation
‘I was eleven years old when my dog died,’ I said. ‘Didn’t just die, let’s be clear. Some swine killed him. Let me… let me start again.’
‘I…’
‘No, wait. It doesn’t matter. Let me just get this off my chest. You have to understand I’ve never told this to anyone. I mean, you’re really very privileged. You should be flattered. Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘So, let me set the scene. I was brought up in this small village. Not even a village. Five houses and a dangerous bend. I didn’t get on with many people. There was my sister but she was a girl so that was that. Then my mum and dad were always working. The next door neighbour… he was a sick toe rag. So, my dog - Harry – he was my best friend, if you like. We spent all our time together. Over the fields. We’d go down to the beach, to the estuary, the rock, the slag pier. Or up the fell to the stone circle and the quarries.’
‘What kind of quarries?’
‘Slate,’ I said. ‘Everything there was built of slate. A cold stone. Slate. It’s mud you know. Fossilized mud. You tap it with a hammer at the edges you can break it off in sheets as thin as paper. Why am I talking about slate? Ah. I see what you’re up to. Trying to delay the inevitable, huh? I admire your spunk, sir! And we’ve got time, so I don’t mind. But anyway, Harry and I were best of pals. And when I found him dead, I was… well, I wasn’t happy. Not one bit. I wasn’t blowing up balloons and hanging streamers from the rafters. An eleven-year-old boy faced with such a thing? Horrible. But it was done. There he was; eyes bulging and tongue agog. A pool of dried blood as hard as treacle-toffee stuck to his head and the road.’
‘He was run over?’
‘No, he wasn’t run over. No, I told… pay attention or there’s no point me telling you this! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just, I appreciate the opportunity to tell someone this. I’ve been walking around with it for years like a terrible secret, even though, I personally don’t think it’s a terrible secret at all. In fact, I think it’s almost like a gift. Anyway, where was I?’
‘Treacle toffee blood.’
‘Gotcha. Yes. So, me and a pal of mine - Gary Hardwick - we put him in a plastic bin-liner and we tied it to a stick and we took him down to the estuary, but the tide was out. So, I decided we’ll take him to the end of the slag pier where we can throw him off the end. There’s always water out there. A channel that goes out to sea. Gary didn’t want to do it though. It was beginning to spit with rain, and he wanted to get home and watch The A-Team. Gary thought Mr. T was amazing. Mr. T?’
I shake my head.
‘So we have a bit of a to-do and Gary ends up going off crying and I end up dragging Harry with the bag half-split and the bloody spilling out all the way to the slag pier as the rain starts to come down in earnest and what with Harry being dead, and me getting soaked and the wind blowing in one ear hole and out the other I am not a happy camper.’
‘Listen, I think that…’
‘Hear me out, first. Please. Don’t interrupt. Unless, you know, you want to ask a question. Resolve something that is confusing you. Could you do me that courtesy please? Don’t change the subject though. That’s just rude.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Okay. Let’s see. I’ll try and cut it short because I can see you’re eager we get on with…’
‘No, I’m fine. Please. Tell the story at your own pace.’
‘Why thank you chief! Very nice of you. Okay. We are on the end of the slag pier and I’m standing on the edge holding a corner of the bag. I want to heave Harry right into the middle of the channel. That’s how I’d seen it in my head, and I was sure that would be the best thing to do. But I was alone now, and Harry was heavy, and I was tired, and you have to remember I was eleven years old at the time and not as strong as I am today. So I made a right pig’s ear of it. I swung the bag back and then forward and then as I let go the bag tore and I lost my balance and I fell down and there was this enormous splash and I was in the water and it was freezing. So cold. I mean, I don’t know if I can say freezing because it would have been ice if it was freezing, but someone told me once that water can be below zero and not freeze if you keep stirring it so that ice doesn’t get a grip so to speak and this was salty sea water remember and I’m tumbling about in it. And I can feel the current tugging at me. But I reach out and obviously the first thing I grab is Harry and he’s no use whatsoever. His bulging eyes and dirty flopping tongue rolling over me in the water. A sloppy embrace at best. And I’m beginning to panic. I’m beginning to think, this is it. I’m going to die. Eleven years old and my life is done. Staring at death. Have you ever been in that…? Never mind.
‘Luckily, there was this low shelf of slag and I got a hand on it and I pulled myself up. And it was dark. I dragged myself over the stone and I lay there heating myself up with gasping and shivering and I don’t know if I passed out or what, but it seemed like time had passed and it was now really dark. I looked around and I was in a small cave that the tide had gouged out underneath the slag pier and would probably be underwater once the tide was properly in. I was looking about myself when this light - this golden light – shone from the dark end of the cave.’
‘A light?’
‘At first I thought my dad must have come to get me and I wasn’t relieved one bit because he didn’t half enjoy slapping children my dad. You have to hand it to him, as much as he neglected us in every other respect, he did not spare his own enthusiastic and imaginative brand of corporal punishment. As it was, I was liable to get a pasting, turning up with wet clothes, but if he’d had to get out of his chair to come and look for me. Perhaps Gary had grassed me up. But I didn’t need to worry because the light wasn’t a torch and it was coming from the inside of the cave. From deeper within.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was a vision.’
‘A….?’
‘Don’t laugh, don’t… You can see why I never told anyone this and personally I never believed much in this stuff myself. Yes, we were Catholics. Mum took us to church three times a week, the bitch, but I just sat there with my finger in the missal willing the priest to skip to the end. Father Kieron had a stutter though. Just my luck! Ha ha! You have to laugh, or you’d cry, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose.’
‘But we had heard all about Lourdes and stories of Prophets being visited and all the rest of it, so I knew what I was seeing as I was seeing it. A bloody vision. Gold and shining bright, lighting up the cave and it were warm. I mean physically warm. I stopped shivering and my clothes began to steam and I stepped closer. And then I saw in the heart of the beautiful gold light there was a figure emerging.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Roger Moore.’
‘The actor?’
‘I recognised him straight away. He was wearing a white tuxedo, black tie and had a cigar in his hand, like this. And he said, “Good evening Samuel.” Samuel. Not Sammy.’
‘You’d hit your head, or something.’
‘No, no, no I hadn’t. It was a real vision. A visitation. As real as I’m looking at you right now. I know you don’t believe me. No one ever believes me. It doesn’t matter though. It really doesn’t. He was so clean, so suave, so effortless. And he spoke to me like no one had ever spoken to me before and he told me what I could do. What I should do. He told me I was talented and should not be ashamed of my talent. He said that we were the same and our mission was holy. That I should do what he had done. That he would guide me. Visit me and guide me throughout my life, my journey he called it. And I was filled with the most overwhelming sense of well-being and love. Nothing made me feel this good. Nothing ever has. It’s what made me who I am. I was warm and dry and for the first time in my life I knew who I wanted to be: Roger Moore.’
‘But that isn’t Roger Moore.’
‘What?’
‘You’re visualizing James Bond, Roger Moore playing James Bond. Roger Moore never…’
I shot him once in the face and once in the chest.
‘Shit,’ I said to myself. The contract said to make it look like a suicide and Murray Pembleton might be something of an arse but even he wouldn’t kill himself twice.
I sat back to consider my options.
The hotel room was doused in a golden light, emanating from the en suite bathroom.
A reassuring voice spoke from behind me: ‘Don’t worry Samuel, the man was provoking you and got exactly what he deserved.’
‘They never believe me Roger. I tell every single one the story and they never believe me.’
The sound of a cigar being lit.
‘They don’t have to believe you, Samuel. Only you need to believe.’