Torch Song – Daniel 18

[For back story go here: Story so far at 27 July 2020.]

The best thing about living out of his car, thought Daniel, was that there would come a time when he no longer had to do it. The rubbish accumulating on the back seat was one thing, the limited diet and discovery of strange places where one could just about wash your face without endangering your life was another, and making a trip home to get enough clothes to last had also been interesting from the point of view of what one could get away with. But ultimately, thought Daniel, the whole thing would be better if he wasn’t actually doing it.

Unfortunately, with no job or girlfriend or really anything to hold him at home he was well and truly lost. The work colleagues he’d had were moving on or had disappeared already. The friends he had still occasionally phoned him, but they were easy enough to handle and put off the scent and usually Daniel just didn’t answer. When he did he didn’t say there was a problem and no one enquired to find out if there was. If he was non-committal and played his usual everything’s OK and now let’s switch the focus to you approach, nothing about his current existence was in the least bit problematic.

If Chrissy had taken Daisy to her parents Daniel did know where they were. But he could see turning up in the car with a five o’clock shadow and a massive attitude wouldn’t do any good. To her not very great credit Chrissy has sent him one text message: “Sorry. Bit delayed. Will call you when we are back.” A message which Daniel felt didn’t require his response, indeed, how could he respond? If he picked a fight over it they’d be fighting again, if he acknowledged it Chrissy could argue he’d accepted the situation and that was that.

Getting in touch with the police would also not get him anywhere. The child was with her mother and it wasn’t as if any laws were being broken. It was a domestic disagreement and no one was in danger – at least no danger which he could see. Which ever way he cut it there was little he could do so he just remained in place, occasionally finding somewhere new to buy food, slowly but surely becoming more removed from the situation he wanted to be in and the world in general.

On Sunday night however, he was woken from his early evening slumber by the arrival of a car in the driveway of Chrissy’s house. Rather than immediately getting out, Daniel watched. Alert. Waiting.

Out of the car came a man. He placed a trilby hat on his head covering white wispy hair. The man was spry on his feet despite his apparent age and Daniel had absolutely no idea who this might be. It wasn’t Chrissy’s dad or any other aged relative he knew from their relationship.

The man went up to the front door and seemed to be trying to find the right key. He was having difficulties with this which suggested he’d not been here before. Moreover he was more than a bit nervous about what he was doing. He’d look left and right and readjust his hat throughout. Finally the door opened for him and he swiftly went inside, closing the door, but not turning on any light.

Daniel sidled out of his car and crept half way up the drive. Obscured by a half hearted privet hedge he watched the house. Whoever it was who’d gone in there didn’t believe in using lights or maybe they’d gone to the back of the house. 

Despite himself he phoned Chrissy’s mobile again. Naturally he got the answerphone. “I’m outside your house,” he whispered ferociously. “Someone’s gone inside and I don’t know who it is. Can you let me know if it’s OK? Just that and then we’ll deal with everything else.”

He hung up just as he noticed that upstairs a torch type light was sweeping around first one front bedroom and then the next. The light concentrated in certain areas suggesting a search of certain wardrobes and drawers perhaps and a packing activity. 

Daniel breathed deeply and moved closer to the house. The light upstairs had gone out and from his new vantage point, crouched close to whoever it was’ car, Daniel could see the figure coming downstairs.

Daniel figured out what he had to do. It was going to require careful timing and there would be no second chance. When he was certain of the man’s movements he also moved, swiftly towards the front door.

Just as it was opened from the inside, Daniel ploughed straight into the front door, knocking the man behind it flat on his back and landing heavily on top of him. There was a painful exhalation of air from the man and he dropped the suitcase he was carrying, his hat fell off and then, to Daniel’s consternation, his hair came off as well.

Despite the distraction, Daniel was already on his feet, closed the front door without slamming it and worked to pull the man by the arms to the back of the house where the kitchen was. Only when he felt they were safe and unseen did he stop and catch his own breath.

He leant against the kitchen doorframe and flicked a switch. He was hoping this would introduce general lighting, but actually he just got some very nice, but low level atmospheric lights from under the wall cupboards. 

“Right,” said Daniel, and then he noticed the lights under the cupboard were changing colour in a slow disco kind of way.

“Right,” he said again, trying to establish some kind of authority to the scenario. “Who the hell are you?”

The man laughed gently from the floor. “She told me you’d do this,” he said. “Well, kind of this. Maybe not so physical.”

“Well,” said Daniel off-hand. “That’s what you get for doing weeks of Joe Wicks.”

The man sat upright. Dark hair, middle aged, well built. “Mate, were you as disappointed as me when he stopped?” he asked.

And then Daniel’s phone rang.