Them or Us

Even from this distance I can tell by his height and the way he’s moving that it’s Rufus. What the fuck does he want now? Why can’t everyone just fuck off and leave me alone? There’s always someone looking for me, and they all want something. None of them ever wants to do anything for me. Well, they can all go to hell. I’ve got nothing left to give.
    “Danny,” he yells as he flags me down, his voice sounding even more tense and unsure than usual. “Thank God I found you. Hinchcliffe wants to see you.”
    “Hinchcliffe can fuck off,” I tell him, pushing past and continuing on toward the house. Rufus scurries after me, again overtaking and getting in my way, desperately trying to stop me.
    “Where have you been?”
    “Leave me alone, Rufus.”
    “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
    “Now you’ve found me.”
    “You have to come—”
    “I don’t have to do anything,” I tell him. “You can tell Hinchcliffe to go fuck himself. I’m through running around after him. I quit.”
    “No, Danny,” he says, beginning to sob, “you can’t. Please. If I go back without you again he’ll kill me.”
    “Then don’t go back. Make a stand. Let someone else deal with him.”
    “I’ve never seen him like this before. Please, Danny, you’ve got to come.”
    Decision time. How much longer do I keep putting up with all this crap? I don’t enjoy seeing Rufus like this, but at least he’s still got a choice. My hand has been forced.
    “Listen,” I tell him, a hand on either shoulder, standing him upright and looking into his face, “I’m not going back. I’m finished with this place and with Hinchcliffe. I’m going to pack my stuff and get out of here, and if you’ve got any sense, I think you should do the same.”
    He just looks at me pathetically, dumbstruck and terrified. What he does next is up to him, but my mind’s made up.
    “You can’t … I can’t…”
    “Yes you can, Rufus. Hinchcliffe is an evil cunt, and the only hold he’s got over you is fear. Don’t go back. Walk out of here tonight and find somewhere else. That’s what I’m doing.”
    “But there is nowhere else. I—”
    “Good luck, pal. I hope everything works out for you.”
    With that I force myself to move and sidestep him. When I look back I see he’s still standing in the pouring rain in the middle of the street, just watching me go.

 
    28
    I KNOW I’VE MADE a rod for my own back, but that’s just how it is. Once Rufus plucks up the courage to go back and face Hinchcliffe (and I know he will—he’ll be too scared not to, and he doesn’t have the strength to walk away from this place), then the shit will hit the fan. He’ll probably send Llewellyn or one of the others out here to find me. I know I’m doing the right thing, but I’ve managed to put myself under a whole load of pressure I didn’t need. Well, you have to go with your gut feeling, I guess, even when your gut is apparently stuffed full of tumors.
    The day has evaporated and it’s late now, but I force myself to keep working, packing up as much stuff as I can carry before word filters down to Hinchcliffe that I’m no longer playing ball. The fucker is going to explode. I’ll get as much together as I can, then maybe move it to another house nearby, just to get it away from here. I’ll find a way of getting a car, and once I’ve done that, I’m gone. Good-bye Hinchcliffe and good-bye Lowestoft. Good-bye Rufus, too. I feel bad for him, but he has to make a stand. He doesn’t even have to fight, just walk.
    I’ve packed almost everything except for the food under the floorboards. I head upstairs to see if there’s anything of any worth left in the bedrooms. I rarely ever come up here because all I’ve ever needed to use in this house has been the living room and kitchen, so these upstairs rooms are just as the previous occupants left them, and it freaks me out. I spent a few nights up here when I first started using the house, but I couldn’t sleep among the memories. Coming upstairs is like stepping back in time a year into a dust-covered reminder of the prewar world. It’s like the people who lived here just got up one morning and never came back, and that’s probably exactly what happened. There’s a pile of laundry still waiting to be put away on the end of an unmade double bed, and a board game on a kid’s bedroom floor, abandoned before the last game was ever finished. There are pictures of the people who lived