Head Injuries by Conrad Williams Page B

if something was developing, then it had its roots in a previous episode, something that we'd managed to bury within ourselves, like a murderer's diary of confessions hidden in the attic.
        

FOUR
        
DELTA-9-THC
        
        I missed the last bus back to Morecambe and spent the rest of the night accepting bottles from arms that snaked out of the floor. I guess I must have smoked something dodgy too because I wound up in the bathroom, lying flat on my back because I thought my head was going to spin off. I followed the cracks in the ceiling with eyes that felt too dry. The dark against a window free of any net curtain seemed packed in layers, like soil. Its glass bulged inwards the longer I stared. Somebody had replaced the lightbulb with a mist-filled glass pear. The flex hung loose near its housing; brown and blue wires made a brief helix there. Jesus, I was unwell. Somebody knocked on the door three times, then once more after a pause.
        Wrong sequence,' I croaked. 'Do you know today's password? I'm busy. I'm in a meeting.'
        Somehow I managed to stand, just in time for a glut of vomit to loose itself from my throat. Eyes watering, but feeling better despite the shock that the violence of being sick awakens in me, I covered my mess with lines of toilet tissue, hoping that whoever rented the house would see the act as something approaching an apology.
        I opened the door on a strange beast with two heads.
        'You parked that well,' said one, stepping to one side so I could see they belonged to the drummer and bassist from Deep Pan's band. 'Come and have a chatette,' he said, gripping my elbow. I might have thought uh-oh if I was in any fit state but I allowed myself to be led downstairs, back to the garden where I'd held Seamus' arm briefly millions of years ago.
        'Some joker's swapped your eyes for cherry tomatoes.' This was from the bass player. He shrugged his leather jacket-which was a size too big for him-around on his shoulders as he spoke. The legend on his T-shirt read: Do I Not Like That. I noticed one of his eyes was blue, the other green, its pupil dilated stubbornly. I toyed briefly with the thought of asking him what his eyes had been swapped for but realised, stoned as I was, that it wouldn't be met with a smile and kind words.
        'What can I say?' I slurred. 'All the better for keeping them peeled. That's what I fucking say.'
        'Are you taking the rise?'
        A distant, sober part of me wagged its finger. I shook my head, waiting for the first blow. 'Have you seen Shay. Mus?'
        'Gone home. You're Davey, right?' The drummer's voice was a tight whinge. He was probably from Manchester.
        'David technically. And you are?'
        'I'm Frank,' said the drummer.
        'You are that if nothing else,' I said and fell over, laughing. My fun ended when the edge of a low wall took about a foot of skin from my back. I thought about screaming, realised what time it must be then thought sod it and screamed anyway. The pain fled from one end of my spine to the other, as though someone were rolling a ball of flame up and down it.
        'And this is Tonka,' he jabbed a thumb at the bass player before lifting me up. 'You all right, you dizzy cunt?'
        I knew my back wasn't bleeding, that the wetness was that clear, weeping lymph which lies against the skin. 'Yes,' I said, my voice strangled.
        'We've been looking at you all night, David,' Tonka breathed, his voice little more than a husky whisper.
        This I knew, but I wasn't expecting a confession. It was hard, getting used to all this brutal honesty and I wasn't at all sure that I liked it that much.
        Trying to work out which planet I'm from, I'll warrant.'
        'We think the Bag Lady would like you. We think a meeting would be a good idea.'
        'And the Bag Lady is?' Ripples of heat moved slowly across my back. The pain was shifting my drunkenness