Debt Collector

By David Gardiner

This story may be reproduced in whole or in part for any non-commercial purpose provided that authorship is acknowledged and credited. The copyright remains the property of the author

Benjamin was out of breath from forcing his way through the tangle of springy sycamore shoots and blackthorns. He could see little by the faint shards of moonlight that broke through the heavy forest canopy above him—he merely pressed blindly ahead, knowing that he would reach the clearing sooner or later, as he always did.

The first thing he saw was a slowly pulsating glow through the branches, like a distant lighthouse flashing on and off, and as he drew closer, making as little noise as possible, he could hear the whirring of some small electrical device and catch glimpses of a moving figure between himself and the light. He held his breath and slowed to a snail’s pace in a desperate effort to approach undetected. He could see the source of the sound and the light now: it was an old-fashioned slide projector like the one they used at his school years ago, its internal fan buzzing and shafts of light spilling out from the horizontal slats on its battered sides. The projectionist was sitting on a low wooden chair by the table that held the machine, and lifting slides out of a large cardboard box at his feet. He inserted them one by one, to be projected on to a cheap roll-up portable screen on a rickety tripod. In the intervals between his pulling one slide from the projector and inserting another the screen became glaringly white, then dimmed again to offer a sepia-tinted image of some long forgotten moment in Benjamin’s early life.

A sense of invasion, of having his territory violated, seized Benjamin. That isn’t his life, he thought angrily, that’s my life. What right has he got to be looking at my life? He lurched forward, snapping a branch loudly as he did so.

The projectionist instantly rose to his feet and turned around to look straight at Benjamin. Back-lighted as he was by a picture of the seven-year-old Benjamin on his first twowheeled bicycle, it was impossible to make out his features. He growled a phrase in a low voice and a thick foreign accent. It sounded like: “You or me”, or perhaps it could have been: “You are me”. It was meaningless to Benjamin, yet deeply disturbing. As soon as he had said this he turned and hurried off into the forest, leaving the projector running and the dim, slightly out-of-focus picture motionless on the screen.

Benjamin stepped forward tentatively for a better view. The sound of the fan stopped but the picture remained for several seconds. Then it rippled and melted grotesquely from the centre outwards, and red and yellow flames and thick black fumes spewed from the ancient projector. A foul smell of burning celluloid choked Benjamin’s lungs and he woke up, coughing and retching, alone in his darkened bed-sittingroom, with sweat soaking his pillow and running in rivulets into his eyes and down his temples. He sat up and wiped his face with the sheet. Take it easy, he told himself, calm down. Just a dream. Just that stupid dream again. He placed his right hand on his heart and felt its pounding slowly subside.

o OO o

It was a scene straight out of a nineteen fifties Western. Benjamin stepped into the bar and everybody stopped talking and looked at him. Just like John Wayne in the movies. Not that this was a Texas prairie-town saloon with sawdust on the floor, spittoons on the counter and a honky-tonk piano in the corner playing The Streets of Laredo. This was Benjamin’s quiet local which in the last few months had gone so far as to start describing itself as a “wine bar”, and its location was less than five minute’s walk from the Clock Tower at Crouch End, but still the moment achieved that cliché b-movie quality of hushed anticipation.

Benjamin’s immediate impulse was to leave again. Although he traded a lot on his good looks and was used to drawing a few female glances, this was something entirely different. Their stares were curious, intrigued, eager for whatever novelty and entertainment value the developing situation might hold. Roll up! Roll up! See the freaky drunken driver who knocked the old man into eternity! First appearance at this pub since the second of February!

That was when it had happened. Monday three weeks ago. Now Benjamin’s life had changed forever. He would never be the same light-hearted womanising hard-drinking rising star of Aspects Media. If the company kept him on at all it would be an act of charity, because his driving licence was one of the requirements of his job, and he wouldn’t get that back for two years. He would be twenty-seven the next time he legally sat behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle. That was old in the media industry. You needed to have made your mark in a big way by then. But more importantly his own image of himself had changed. The carefree self assured young guy who had everything wasn't there any more. Days of sitting alone in his tiny flat, too scared to face the world, nights of that crazy recurrent dream, moments when the darkest thought of all had come into his mind . He didn't really know this new person that he had become.

There were three tables partly occupied and a few more people on stools at the bar. Benjamin knew virtually all of them, at least their first names. He steeled himself to go through with it. Life had to go on. There was no other option. He selected a nearby table where two young men of his own age in smart/casual baggy sweatshirts sat either side of a pretty young blonde woman who looked vaguely uncomfortable in a blue shoulder-padded business suit.

“Okay if I join you?”

“Benjie, of course, good to see you again,” one of the men enthused. Despite the welcome Benjamin could detect a faint undercurrent of unease in the voice. He pulled up a chair and took his place opposite the woman with as casual an air as he could muster.

Everyone said hello. Then the first Freudian slip. The woman, Rose by name, something at Loring Merchant Holdings and girlfriend of the man who had greeted him, asked him if he was drinking, then quickly corrected herself by asking him WHAT he was drinking. It gave Benjamin the opening he needed.

“Yes, I’m drinking, Rosie. Drinking the same as usual. Not driving tonight, you see, I can drink as much as I like. And in case any of you want to know, the old guy is still in the coma and he isn’t expected to come out of it.”

“Jesus, Benjie,” Rose’s boyfriend protested, “it could have happened to any one of us. Any one of us here tonight. I heard you were barely over the limit. Hardly been drinking at all. It was Monday night for Chris’sake!”

“It’s happened, Mike,” Benjamin said sadly, “nothing is going to change it now. I didn’t see him step out. I just heard the crack. I don’t know whether it would have been any different if I hadn’t had a drink. Probably not. Even the police said that. But I’ll never know. Nobody will ever know. I was over the limit and I hit somebody. That’s all there is to it. Can we talk about something else now?”

The evening didn’t go too badly after that. Everybody was very sympathetic, all buying him drinks, telling him: “There but for the grace of God...” Benjamin knew perfectly well that most of them had come in cars and would be driving home in them, and that wasn’t lemonade they were drinking. People don’t learn anything from a thing like that, he mused. Not really.

Benjamin had assumed that his easy rapport with women would have gone with his self confidence. But Rose looked straight into his eyes all evening and at closing time kissed him goodnight, full on the lips. He supposed that she was sorry for him. Maybe, he thought fleetingly, he would see her in the pub by herself some time...

In bed that night, although he’d had more than his usual two or three doubles, Benjamin found it very difficult to get to sleep. He lay flat on his back in the middle of the big mattress, gazing at the ceiling and waiting for the computer monitor to switch itself off and plunge the room into complete darkness. It functioned as a night-light on a timer for the nights that he slept alone, which, since the accident, had been every night. Usually he was asleep before the shut-down moment arrived, tonight he was not. The light died and dim swirling shapes formed before his eyes, resolving themselves slowly into the familiar dark, brooding forest landscape of his recurrent dream.

A watery moon peeping through momentary gaps in the branches lighted Benjamin’s slow but purposeful walk through the forest, his feet sinking into the soft dry leaf-mould with every step, above him the heavy canopy of ancient beeches, oaks and ash trees. The spaces between the trunks were choked by the growth of the younger vigorous sycamores and blackthorns so that he had to pick his way through, bending the branches as he passed and allowing them to spring back into position behind him.

Benjamin knew what was coming next. He had been in this dream many times before. It was never exactly the same but the variations were only minor. There would be a glimmer of yellow light up ahead, barely detectable at first, then it would grow brighter. Yes, there it was. He must try to be quieter now, to approach the clearing with the absolute minimum of disturbance, not to make the intruder run off. That was how Benjamin always saw him, as an intruder, although intruding into a clearing in the middle of a moonlit forest didn’t make a great deal of sense. But somehow Benjamin knew that the clearing was his own territory, his own very personal space, and the other had no right to be there.

This time the intruder was sitting at a small desk surrounded by filing cabinets, some of which had open drawers. He had his back to Benjamin’s vantage point behind the branches, hunched over some papers which he was reading by the yellow circle of light from a small angle poise lamp. Despite the care and silence of Benjamin’s approach it was obvious that the intruder knew he was there. He straightened up and looked directly towards Benjamin, mumbled something that sounded like “You or me” and rose briskly from his chair, hurrying into the woods before Benjamin could disentangle himself from the thicket of branches that barred his way. In the few moments it took him to get to the desk the intruder had vanished, but not before Benjamin had got a good look at his face, the old lined and sunken Negro features, the Afro hair, thin and almost white with the ravages of age, and the peculiar series of dark horizontal scars on the cheekbones just below each eye.

“Leave my things alone,” Benjamin spoke aloud as he packed the papers that the old man had been reading back into the filing cabinets, “these aren’t yours. These are my things, my memories.” The words were of course completely redundant. The intruder was no longer there to hear. Benjamin carefully filed away the picture of his mother as a child, his first school report, the love letter from his first girl friend, the smell of the dentist’s surgery when he had an impacted wisdom tooth removed in his first term at University...

o OO o

Benjamin took the Underground train in to the West End that morning and went to the studio for the talk that he had been dreading with his boss Wes Bewler. He had never really liked Wes, with his blond goatee beard, sculpted sideburns and affected American accent, and he was convinced that Wes thoroughly enjoyed telling him, so very politely, that legally the company owed him nothing and he couldn’t really see much “on the creative side” for a man in Benjamin’s position just at the moment. Words like “sacked” or “fired” were never even hinted at, but it was made perfectly clear that Benjamin’s employment with the company was at an end.

After the interview, feeling close to rock bottom, Benjamin strolled around a few West End shops in the cold winter drizzle before re-boarding the Underground on impulse and making his way to the main Reception at the hospital to which his victim had been taken. There was a very pretty mixed-race girl at the desk, and the act of talking to her cheered him up a little. When he explained who he was and who he had come to see her face became serious and she asked him to wait while she talked for several minutes in a very low voice on the internal telephone.

“Mr. Lojo’s condition is unchanged,” she said rather formally when she put the phone down, “He hasn’t regained consciousness and the nurse in charge of Intensive Care says that very little purpose would be served by your visiting him. Also the official visiting hours are between two and six,” she cast a sidewise glance towards the wall clock which was reading twelve twenty. Benjamin shrugged and was turning to go when she called him back. She waited until he was right back at the desk before giving him a heart-melting smile and telling him very quietly: “My lunch break begins in ten minutes”.

They sat in a quiet corner of the crowded and impersonal hospital canteen and looked out at the strengthening rain. Benjamin wasn't concerned about the girl's motives in calling him back. He guessed that she had felt a little sorry for him as Rosie had the night before, that his plight had triggered some nurturing motherly instinct. Whatever her reasons he found himself pouring out his heart to the girl in a manner that was quite uncharacteristic. He told her about the way he had been feeling that night, the things that had gone wrong at work, the hurt when somebody named Debbie had rejected his advances, his decision to have just one drink and then go straight home, the way that one drink had become two and then three, the stomach-churning crack of breaking bones and the splatter of blood across the windscreen. She listened attentively and without interruption - would have listened for longer but Benjammin had questions of his own. He asked her to tell him about Lojo, the man who had been hit. Was that a West Indian name?

“He’s from Trinidad originally,” she explained, “I don’t know how long he’s been in this country but he has no family over here. His sister is here visiting him now. She’s a funny old thing. Really strong Trinidad accent. She says his spirit isn’t there any more, only his body. In a way she’s right, the doctors think he’s brain dead.” Her voice softened, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’d give anything in the world if I could take back those ten seconds after I drove out of the pub car park,” he whispered.

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” she said, taking his hand, “we all are. It was an accident. Accidents happen. All the time. Nobody can stop them happening.”

He squeezed her hand gently. “Would you like to come out for a meal tonight?” he asked as casually as he could.

“Can’t make tonight,” she replied with what seemed genuine disappointment, “but tomorrow would be okay.”

o OO o

Benjamin had his usual dream that night. He told it to his lovely new companion over dinner the following evening. She listened with a quiet fascination, gazing into his eyes. Benjamin had never felt so interesting before. He didn’t have to play-act or make anything up. This delightful creature whose name was Marcia really cared about his feelings and his dreams and his innermost longings. Perhaps life wasn’t so cruel after all. He could feel the attraction grow, the desire to sit nearer, to touch her, to let his arm fall casually over her back...

Her head was on his shoulder and they were almost lined up for a kiss, sipping the last few drops of wine from their glasses, when he reached the part about the dark scars underneath the intruder’s eyes. Marcia suddenly tensed. “Scars under his eyes? How did you know about those?”

“Know about them? What do you mean?”

“Mr. Lojo has scars under his eyes. It’s some kind of tribal marking. He was a voodoo priest or something back home.”

“Mr. Lojo...” Benjamin’s strange haunted dreams suddenly began to make some kind of sense. The intruder was Mr. Lojo. He hadn't seen his face on the night of the accident but he might have seen a photograph of him somewhere, in a newspaper perhaps... and yet he had no recollection of it. “ I suppose it’s guilt,” he whispered, “those must be some kind of guilt dreams...”

Marcia put down her glass and reached over to embrace him with both her arms. “You don’t have to sleep on your own tonight,” she whispered, “not if you don’t want to.”

o OO o

It was the pleasantest way of getting off to sleep known to mankind. Certainly the nicest thing that had happened to Benjamin since the accident. The exhiliration of having a pretty girl in his arms felt like the first step towards bringing the old Benjamin back to life.

Benjamin felt strong tonight. He strode through the forest snapping branches under his feet and breaking them crudely with his hands to keep them away from his face. He didn’t care if the intruder ran away or not, or what happened to the trees or the memories or the filing cabinets. This was a dream, something going on inside Benjamin’s mind. It couldn’t do him any harm if he didn’t allow it to.

The angle poise lamp was still switched on and the intruder was still there, standing in front of the desk and the filing cabinets, back-lighted by the glow of the lamp, but Benjamin could still see him clearly, the white hair, the dark skin, the scars beneath either eye. This time the intruder did not move, did not try to run away. Benjamin walked right up to him and stopped. For a moment their eyes met in silence. Then the old man spoke, very quietly in a heavily accented voice: “You owe me”.

“So that’s what you’ve been saying,” Benjamin returned in a conversational tone, “you think I owe you. Well, I suppose you’re right, I do, but it’s a debt you can never collect. I’m strong tonight, old man. There’s nothing you can take from me tonight.”

“You’re wrong Benjamin,” he warned quietly, “you aren’t strong.”

“I’m not afraid of you. Not now, and not ever again. I’m walking away from you old man. And I don’t care what you do with these things. They aren’t real. You aren’t real. There’s nothing you can do to me. Good bye old man.” With these words he strode past the man and the desk and the lamp and kept on walking across the clearing to where the forest closed around him once again, but here the path was broad and well trodden. He did not need to push the branches aside any more, he could walk as quickly as he wished. Without looking back he lengthened his stride and pressed on and on towards some distant unknown goal in a part of the forest that he had never visited before...

o OO o

Benjamin could hear voices in the darkness, very far away. He was waking from a deep heavy sleep. As he edged closer towards consciousness the voices grew a little more distinct. One belonged to a crisp official-sounding man who spoke in a clipped Standard English. “I know this decision has not been easy for you, Miss Lojo,” he was saying with affected concern in his voice, “but I am glad that you have come to see that it is the only sensible course of action.”

Benjamin struggled to concentrate and to draw nearer to full consciousness but there seemed to be something preventing him, a barrier. His eyes would not open, his body would not respond. He heard the woman’s voice next, it was high-pitched and had a sort of sing-song quality as well as a heavy West Indian accent: “My brother he not here no more, Mister. He gone a someplace else.”

“Quite so, Miss Lojo. I think perhaps you should leave the room now.”

“I leave in a one a minute, Mister.”

“As you wish. Nurse, would you switch off the artificial respirator please. And hand me the notes if you would. Time of death...”

With a superhuman effort Benjamin managed to open one eye. There was a woman’s face staring down at him, an old plump black woman’s face that he had never seen before. As he drew her features into focus he saw his own face reflected in the lenses of her round brass rimmed spectacles. Before the scream could reach his lips the blackness engulfed him.

o OO o

Marcia, cuddled up close to his side with her head snug in the crook of his shoulder, felt a wakening twitch in the body of the man with whom she lay. She kissed him gently on the cheek. “Good morning. Did you have any bad dreams?”

He opened his eyes and beamed down at her. “Marcia darlin’ that the best night’s sleep of my life so far!”

“Hey! That’s clever! I didn’t know you could do a Trinidadian accent!”

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