Sense of Necessity
This is the second version of this story. It's where it stands after a week or so of thinking-over, poking and prodding. I wouldn't necessarily say it's finished - when is a story ever finished? - and I'm not quite happy with the ending, but it feels a little closer now. Thanks again to goldatamera for the prompt of skate ramp, plastic forks, and Ikea
Sense of Necessity
The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity. - Lord Byron
“How long has he been out there?”
“Hmm?” Tom looked away from the window, nodded to Harry and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Three hours. Tea or beer?”
“Tea.”
Tom nodded again, went to the counter and began fussing with mugs and teabags.
“Maybe he'll work off whatever's been bugging him the last couple of days.” Harry leaned towards the window until his hair brushed against the glass. “Starting to rain again. Heard from Gi?”
“Yeah. She's fine. Her mum says I look too thin. Gi says she's threatening to fatten me up.”
Harry grunted, then sucked a breath through his teeth. “That must really hurt.”
“Don't start.”
“Huh?” Harry glanced at Tom, shook his head, turned back and nodded towards the window. “Sorry, no… Him.”
Tom moved behind him and craned his neck to see over his shoulder. Below, amid plywood curves and ramps, a hooded figure pulled himself upright and reached a gloved hand towards a skateboard.
“Another wipe-out?”
Harry nodded.
“He hasn't nailed one yet. Won't give up, though.” Tom bit his lip. “If he breaks something, hurts his hands…”
“Do you want me to have a word?”
The kettle clicked, and Tom went to tend to their mugs. “No point getting your head bitten off too.” He handed a mug to Harry, glanced out the window and turned away. “Come on, let's go sit down.”
As they reached the doorway to the living room, Tom paused. “Ah,” he said. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.”
Harry stopped and cast his eyes around as Tom stepped through the gloom and opened the curtains. “Not cleaned up from the other night yet?”
“I did, but…” Tom's nose wrinkled. “James came round, brought Steve and Dai and a bucket of KFC. Danny was here and, well.” He waved a hand towards the game console.
“And the explosion?” Harry picked his way through scattered paper to the sofa, began clearing magazines and displaced cushions out of the way.
“Steve and Dai.” Tom shrugged. “Artistic differences.”
Harry grinned, turned and sat. “Ow! Fuck's sake…” He rose quickly, rubbing his backside, set down his cup and began to run his hands over the sofa cushion. “How is James, anyway? How's the new album coming on?”
“About the same. What's wrong?”
Harry half-turned and held up a white plastic fork. Two of the tines had snapped off. “I'm guessing this isn't yours.” He dropped it onto the coffee table.
Tom set his mug beside Harry's, cleared papers from the armchair and lifted the cushion. A couple dozen forks rattled into the space it left behind. “Bastards.”
“He must be…” Harry grunted, turned and dropped another fistful onto the table. “Must be shitting himself. The label-”
“Don't even go there.” Tom nodded at the pile. “That all of them?”
Harry shrugged and gave the sofa a last going-over before lowering himself cautiously onto it. He picked up his mug again, sipped at it and glanced over the rim at Tom. “You have your hands full enough with this band.”
Tom sighed as he replaced the cushion on the armchair. “I know.” He sat down, dabbed a finger at something on the surface of his tea and wiped it on his jeans. “It's just, we go back a long way.”
The drummer nodded, took another sip. He lowered his cup at the sound of a key in the front door. Something clattered on the floor, someone grunted, and then there was a crash like the roof falling in. Tom and Harry leapt from their chairs and bolted into the hallway.
The carpet was hidden beneath a jumble of spruce beams and planks. At the far end, Danny stood with his back to them. He shut the door, turned and grinned. “Eh up!” He poked at the wood pile and nodded at Tom. “Got them shelves you wanted,” he said, and heaved a bright blue nylon bag off his shoulder and set it down with a clank. “Put them up this afternoon if you like.”
“Err…”
“Eh, guess what?” Danny chuckled. “You know what the Ikea word is for shelves? Ikean. Ikeyish…” He prodded the pile again, knelt down, picked up one of the wooden beams and ran a finger along the grain. “Go on, guess.”
Harry and Tom looked at each other, then shook their heads.
“Gorm!” Danny started laughing. “Brilliant! It's true, look in catalogue. So next time someone says you're-” He saw the expression on Tom's face and struggled to keep his own under control. “It were a bit busy down there. Almost got spotted a couple of times, but…” He lifted a plank, held it in front of his face. “Just used my Gorm.” He peeked around it, looked from Tom to Harry and back again and his grin slowly faded.
He nodded at Harry's mug. “Any chance of a cuppa?”
“Sorry, Danny.” Tom turned and went into the kitchen. “Sorry,” he repeated as Danny entered the room, “the noise startled me.” He switched on the kettle and turned around. “Thanks for getting that for me,” he said, “You know what happened last time I tried any DIY.”
“The bowling ball?” Danny grinned as Tom went red. “Never understood how you didn't have a hammer but you did have a-”
“It was Dougie.”
“Speak of the devil,” Harry said from the window. He winced. “Ouch.”
“Is that…” Danny sidled up beside him. “He been there all morning?”
The others nodded. The three of them stood, watching.
“Doing that.”
Tom and Harry nodded again.
“And you just… Fuck's sake.” Danny turned, crossed the kitchen in two steps and disappeared into the hall. The others followed.
“Danny? What? You know what he's like.”
“We thought he wanted to be on his own.”
Danny paused at the front door and glared over his shoulder as he twisted the latch. “Trouble with you two sometimes. So busy thinkin and knowin, you never see what's right in front of you.” He pulled the door open and stamped out.
“Wait! What?” Tom stepped forward, stopped as the door clicked shut, and turned to Harry. “What?”
Harry shook his head. “Buggered if I know. Do we follow, or watch?”
They stared at each other for a second, then nodded. “Watch.” They headed back into the kitchen.
Three storeys below, Doug sat up, pushed himself onto his feet and fetched his board from the grass at the edge of the ramp. He set it down, rested one foot on it and lined it up with the further of the two quarter-pipes, pushed off, coasted and brought his other foot up as he reached the curve. He rode it up, turned the board one-eighty and bore down on it, kicked himself thump-thump-thump along the flat, up the other end, turned again, faster, higher, turn, push, kick kick kick, crouch and flick and-
His board slipped from his fingers. It tumbled away to the side, and the marine plywood rose and slammed against his shoulder, his chest, his hip.
Danny let the garden door close behind him, watched Doug sit up, catch his breath and struggle back onto his feet, frowned as the lad limped to the side to retrieve his skateboard. He glanced up at the grey sky and blinked as the heavy drizzle stung his eyes, listened to the hollow rumble of the wheels and the thumps of Doug's shoes on the plywood. He lowered his head and began walking, not towards the ramp, but towards the north-west corner of the garden. The rumbling behind him stopped abruptly, but he kept walking, barely flinching as another muffled thud echoed round.
He reached the gravel path at the edge of the lawn and followed it to the clump of three young trees that marked the end of the hedge Tom said would one day hide the fence. Two weeks earlier, he'd helped dig this corner bed: turned it and forked in compost while Tom measured out seedlings and tucked a blanket of shredded bark around them. Danny slowed.
Two more steps brought him to a low mound of newly turned earth, a rough oval three feet across. He crouched in front of it, tutting at a few leaves and sweet wrappers that had found their way onto it from over the fence. He knelt, picked the litter away and smoothed the damp soil with his fingers.
The drizzle grew heavier.
A pair of feet crunched along the path and came to a halt to his left. Danny glanced at the scuffs and dirt on the shoes, turned away from the scrapes and welts on the skin higher up, and stared instead at the earth in front of him. He shifted a little, and patted the gravel beside him.
Doug squatted, still panting. Gradually, his breathing slowed.
“My tortoise.” Danny cleared his throat. “Shelly. You know how they sleep in winter, box of straw and all?”
Doug nodded.
“When I were twelve, no, thirteen, winter were really cold that year. In spring, Shelly…” Danny shook his head. “First time I'd ever seen it that cold. Didn't think. He were always all right before.” He lowered his hand, pressed his fingertips to the mound of earth. “Did this for him, too. His favourite spot in garden, nice and sunny. Thing is…”
On the other side of the fence, a car door opened and closed. An engine started, revved, and faded into the distance.
“Thing is, I were doing boxing then. After that, every bout, every training session, I got a right pasting. Kept dropping my guard, walking into punches. Always went the distance, mind. Made sure I got what was coming.” Danny looked down at the flowerbed and nodded. “Time to stop now, mate,” he said. He turned his face towards Doug's, met his eyes and glanced towards the skate ramp. “It's time to stop this.”
Doug stared at the little mound of earth, his lip trembling. He jumped up, turned to run, but Danny grabbed his arm, scrambled to his feet, circled in front of him and held his shoulders. Doug shook his head, lifted his arms and pushed back, but his shoes only scraped the surface of the gravel path. Danny leaned in, whispered, and Doug stopped. He buried his face against Danny's chest and stood shaking in his arms.
The garden door swung open. Tom and Harry ran out, slipped and slid across the grass. As Tom struggled to open a golf umbrella, Harry unfolded a towel onto Doug's shoulders. Danny nodded and stepped back.
“I'm sorry.” Harry slipped his arms across Doug's chest. “You said you were… I thought…” He rested his chin on Doug's shoulder. “Why didn't you tell me?”
Doug winced, grabbed Harry's wrists and tugged until the drummer eased his grip. “Same reason you never do.”
“Then you're an idiot,” Harry said.
“Fuck off.” Doug tilted his head away, but the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “What does that make you, then?”
“Come on.” Harry gave a hefty nudge towards the building. “You're wet and you stink.”
“I can walk, you know.” Doug ducked out of Harry's grasp, then slipped an arm around the drummer's waist. “And stop trying to chat me up.”
“Thanks, Danny.” Tom draped his free arm across his friend's shoulders and nodded at the others. “What did you say?”
Danny cocked his head. “Told him it were time to stop.”
“But…” Tom's mouth fell open.
Danny shrugged and took a step towards the house. “Right. Where d'you want them gorms?”