The Angel Who Overslept

10 NOVEMBER 1995 I lay out of sight on the back seat of the car listening to Lyndsey pepper the air with some choice phrases as she tried to get the car to move faster. If it didn’t hurt so freaking much, it would have been funny. Nobody hijacks an old '64 VW Beetle as a getaway car. Nobody lifts a Beetle for anything except maybe some spare parts if you happen to own one yourself. But Lyndsey had stolen a Beetle. An orange Beetle at that. As I climbed into the back spewing out language that Harvey Keitel would have raised an eyebrow to, she turned the radio up louder to drown me out where we found Lennon dishing out some Instant Karma on an all night rock station. Classy.

If we made it the hospital before I died, it would be a fucking miracle. If the explosion in my gut didn’t kill me first, then her driving would surely finish me off. Man it hurt. I’m surprised my teeth hadn’t shattered down to stumps I was biting down on them so hard.

We’d been through the plan a dozen times at least. It was so simple a child could have understood it. Hell, she was a child - what was I thinking of. It wasn’t so much breaking and entering. We called it 'justice'. Twelve months ago, a hit and run driver had taken her mother away and left the two of us alone together. Shit, I couldn’t even take care of myself and at sixteen, the last thing Lyndsey wanted was to be taken care of. On this we agreed to disagree.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know we found ourselves in this predicament for good reasons and that we weren't bad people. We wanted the bastard dead - and now he was, but I had shot him from four inches away like the amateur I was and as he went down, he’d twisted the gun around on me and stung me good and proper at close range too. The bullet had gone straight through me taking what felt like my liver or kidney with it - and if it hadn’t, it must be damned close. I’m glad it wasn’t my own car I was leaking over.

Lyndsey ground the clutch pedal into the floor and grated around looking for fifth.

“There is no fifth Lynds.”

“What do you mean, no fifth? What kind of frigging car is this!”

“Well you fucking took it!” I growled.

“It was unlocked - what did you expect me to do?”

“OK, OK, just don’t drive it into the ground before we get to the hospital.”

The words had hardly even left my mouth when there was a sickening thud followed by the sound of breaking glass and the Beetle coming to a very abrupt halt. Next thing I knew, Lyndsey was screaming hysterically, pounding her fists against the wheel. I, on the other hand, had made it into the footwell. If you’ve ever been in the back of a Beetle, you’ll know how small a space that is. I was surprised I got down there actually and I was now lodged in quite firmly. Ah, the good old days of car manufacturing when not only was it not compulsory to wear a seatbelt in the rear, but they didn’t even bother fitting them.

“Lynds? Tell me what’s going on.”

Between sobs, she came up with: “Oh Jesus, Daddy. I think I’ve hit somebody! I’ve killed somebody - I didn’t even see him!”

I talked her down a little and she calmed not a jot.

“Get out of the car and take a look honey. Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything, just take a look and come back and tell me what’s out there.”

She pushed at the door and pretty much fell out. From what little I could see, she wasn’t badly hurt. I think the amount of hairspray she was wearing took the brunt of the glass imploding. I promised myself I would never say another word. I heard her crunching glass underfoot as she walked around the car, acutely aware that we wouldn’t be going any further than this judging by the shape of the bonnet pushed up where the windscreen should be. Hey, maybe it was a good thing she took the bug. With the engine in the back and all, thank heaven for small mercies.

She reappeared and flipped the seat up to talk to me. The tears were running wild now. “I’m sorry Daddy. I don’t know what to do. We have to get you to the hospital but there’s nobody around and I can’t drive this anymore and… and…”

I held my hand up for her to take it, which is when we noticed him at exactly the same time. The figure sitting in the passenger seat that is. This was probably because whoever it was categorically hadn’t been sitting there a few seconds earlier. Lyndsey dropped my hand and backed away from the car. I can’t say I blame her. I on the other hand, had no option but to stay right were I was.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I wasn’t in the best position in the world to be asking questions in that tone of voice, it just kind of came out that way. The figure said nothing at first, then turned slowly to face me. What at first I thought was a man, apparently wasn’t. Now, I wasn’t so sure it was even human. Rather than looking at me, it looked into me. I in turn studied its face - or rather the place that its face should be - only to find it had many. Not all at the same time obviously, but it was constantly changing subtly with every blink of an eye. I must have been hurt worse than I thought.

It reached down and lifted my hands from my stomach and I let it. Fuck it. I was going to die here anyway. I just hoped Lyndsey was running like the wind and whatever it was about to do with me would buy her as much time as she needed.

It placed an oversized hand, palm down on the leaking hole in me and my whole existence exploded in a searing, blinding white heat. I reacted like a baby and screamed loud enough to empty a forest.

And then there was no pain. I was a goner.

In hindsight, I should have realised that no afterlife in any religion, not even in the craziest drug-induced cult, would have boasted an afterlife that looked and smelled like the back of a VW Beetle.

Which meant only one thing. I wasn’t dead.

What’s more, I wasn’t hurting either. I checked myself with my hands, pressing hard into my stomach. Nothing. No pain. Gain! It wasn’t the regular rhyme but right now it suited me just fine. I reached my arm up and my hand scouted for the seat release. With no small amount of grunting, I released the catch, pushed the seat forward with my head and slithered out onto the road.

I lay there for a moment and checked myself over again while I was still horizontal. I didn’t want my insides slipping out of me and all over the tarmac. I could see Lyndsey cowering beneath a tree out of the corner of my eye. She hadn’t seen me. Or maybe she had and was keeping her distance anyway. I can’t say I blamed her.

I appeared to be just fine. I stood up, for some reason brushed at the sopping wet blood that was still on my shirt and then leaned my palms on the top of the car to talk to the guy-thing in the passenger seat but it was empty.

“Lyndsey. Lyndsey!” I yelled in one of those whisper type shouts that would fool nobody. I motioned for her to come over and seconds later we were both standing in front of the Beetle, marveling at the man-type dent our visitor had made in the bonnet. It was in the shape of two legs with maybe a little crotch thrown in for good measure. Whoever, whatever it was, had done a good job on writing it off. He’d done an even better job of disappearing which is something that we should have been doing before the dawn broke and people we really didn’t want to be speaking to showed up.

We did look for him, admittedly not very hard but it was the effort that counted. It was too weird and far too unexplainable for either of us to answer each others questions, so we simply didn’t bother and over time, it became an 'unspoken event'. So much so that even though I thought about it everyday, even I began to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing.

18 AUGUST 2002

I spread myself out over the picnic blanket, not really caring that I was sharing it with some of nature’s finest scavengers. The sun was beating into my face and life was good in a ‘tea in a flask and limitless cakes’ kind of way. Lyndsey had grown up fast. Here we were with her kid on his fifth birthday and he was growing up fast. I have to admit, I found it all pretty fantastic. I was going places as a painter with more than a few exhibitions under my belt and she was making a real go of her latest career working for some television production company. I should know what their name is but I don’t have a head for details. Never did.

Little Nicky seemed to having a good time too. I can’t say the same for the birds he was chasing. There were some other people up here too but out here, souls all look the same. I love this place. I don’t know why it’s called Lands End because it doesn’t end at all. Perhaps it’s just as far as a place namer could be bothered walking before they turned around and went home. I dropped my sunglasses back onto my nose and closed my eyes to soak up some of the good stuff.

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke, it was getting dark and I was by myself. I raised myself onto my elbows looking around for Lyndsey and Nicky. Maybe they had gone for a walk. I put what was left of the picnic in the cool bag, picked it all up inside the blanket and threw it in the back of the camper van. They couldn’t and wouldn’t have gone far without Lyndsey waking me up.

I headed over to the edge of the wood which is the way I would have gone exploring only to find Nicky sitting cross-legged by himself at the edge of a pot-hole. I forgot this place was littered with them. We used to come here as kids, me and my cousins. Back then, we had the fear of God put into us about them with over the top stories of what was ‘down there’. Sometimes, we’d get here and see groups of men armed with hard hats and rope go exploring but it was never something that I wanted to attempt myself.

Now, to get to Nicky, I had to go closer to them than I ever had before.

“Nicky?”

He looked up at me and then looked back into the hole.

“Don’t lean too close there buddy!”

I whipped him up into my arms and took a nifty step back away from the hole.

“Where’s Mum gone Tiger?”

Nicky looked back over his shoulder and pointed to the hole. I frowned and took his hand in mine. I jiggled him around a bit like grown-ups do to kids for some reason. “That can’t be right can it buddy? Where did she go? Back to the car? Chasing birds?”

Nicky pointed to the hole again and said:

“Down there.”

My brain kicked into some gear that doesn’t really exist. I ran back to the camper with him, dumped him into the passenger seat and drove over to a reasonable distance from the hole. Close enough to watch him through the window and close enough to try and check this crazy shit out.

I checked him one last time, gave him a pointless thumbs-up and then got down on my hands and knees to get closer to the edge. This sort of shit scared still scared me. Lying flat on the ground, I poked my head over the rim. Black. Good thing I’d pulled the torch from the glove box. I flicked it on and it helped me to see even more black, only a bit further down than before. Not helpful.

I raised myself up on my haunches to consider my next move and there it was. Standing on the other side of the hole. Looking at me and not really looking at me at the same time. It stretched out its hand to me which somehow made it all the way across the mouth of the hole. I didn’t reach out to take it. That would have been too weird, but that’s not what it was doing. It got hold of me by... well, I don’t know what it had got hold of me by but the next thing I knew, I was standing in the dark.

Man, it smelled bad wherever this was. In my heart, I already knew where I was but I turned the torch on all the same to check. Yeah - that would figure. At the bottom of the freaking hole. I shone the torch around. Nothing but wet rock. Even though I could see the evening coming through the mouth of the hole above, I shone the torch up there and then down the walls. Now I knew why those guys used ropes and wore hats. It would be like trying to climb up the neck of a bottle to get to the top. A wet bottle at that. Man, I was confused. What the hell was the point of dropping me down here anyway?

“Hi Dad.”

Lyndsey. Of course. I was shining the torch mindlessly at the floor which was just about the only place I hadn’t investigated.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah - no problem Lynds but, for crying out loud, what the fuck are you playing at down here? I’ve left Nicky in the camper by himself!”

Seeing she was safe, anger was spilling over.

“Well,” she announced, getting to her feet. “I didn’t actually fall. Much as you didn’t fall, you grumpy bastard. I’m just here. Being as you didn’t fall either, we can probably assume I got here the same way you did.”

That shut my mouth. Couldn’t argue with that logic, mad at her or not. We stood not saying anything for a moment. She broke the silence first.

“It was real wasn’t it. That thing in the car from way back. We didn’t make it up did we.”

It was a statement not a question.

“We probably should have talked about it, huh. But no, we didn’t make it up.”

“Fuck.” She spoke for both of us.

I shone the torch around some more. We obviously weren’t going upwards anytime soon but there was a ‘road’ we could take that went further down. With less options than a death row inmate, I took Lyndsey’s hand and we took tentative steps down the path.

Crouched almost double for hundreds of yards, we came to a part of the hole that was bigger than the rest where we could stand up. There wasn’t much to see though, or so I thought at first. More wet walls, maybe a few fly type things buzzing around but not much else. Apart from a bundle of rags dumped in the corner. Lyndsey gave them a kick as she was standing next to them and they didn’t quite behave as they should. I put the torch beam on them and Lyndsey shrieked back at the skull that was silently shrieking at her. God knows how long it had been there but it didn’t look good. Feeling brave, I crouched and inspected it a little more closely. It was a woman.

Correction. It had been a woman - either that or a man who had been wearing a bra before he died. Jesus. How long had she been down here and why did she have her hands cuffed behind her back? The cuffs had long since slipped down the wrists but I felt it was an educated guess that this was the case. I’m not normally good with dead things, though my experience only extends to animals in this domain. Now that the flesh had left the building, working with a skeleton seemed to be fine. I guess it didn’t look like it had ever been alive. Funny the way your mind works.

“Dad - there’s something sticking out of its back pocket.”

Sure enough, when I looked, there was the corner of what looked like a wallet showing itself from the 501s. Curiously, I actually took the fact that they were 501s on board quite seriously. I had worn them for years and felt vindicated that my faith in them as a lasting product was valid. I pulled the wallet and and flipped through it.

It was a tiny thing with just two cards in it and something that possibly used to be paper that hadn’t stood the test of time quite so well as the Levi’s. Lyndsey came to view them over my shoulder as I pulled them out of their little slits. I handed one to her and tried to make sense of the other one myself, but the torch was showing signs of fatigue, so I gave up and handed it to Lyndsey who still figured it was worth the effort. I was about to suggest that we should start thinking about making a plan to get out of here, when we were.

Out that is - and it was still comparatively light too. Lyndsey hadn’t even noticed we were back on solid ground for as I turned I saw that she was still squinting at the cards with what was left of the torch light.

“Lynds...”

“Hang on a minute Dad - I think I can almost make out a name.”

“Well come and make out a name in the camper. There’s lights in there and your son is probably wondering where you’ve been.”

I didn’t feel like I should say anything else to her. She could adjust to this and figure it out just as I had. I got into the drivers seat and looked at the clock. I couldn’t be sure but I don’t think we had been away for any time at all - not even a few seconds. Nicky certainly didn’t appear to think so.

I didn’t have to ask if we all wanted to go home now. I didn’t even care truth be told. I wanted to go home, so home it was. There were no objections when I started the camper and pulled away. From the back, Lyndsey reached over the front seat to strap Nicky in and then rummaged in her bag and came up with some biscuits. I didn’t even know I was hungry until she dropped the packet into my lap.

We drove in silence. Munching.

Later that evening, with Nicky in bed, I lay on Lyndsey’s sofa looking at the cards that belonged to a Grace Lewis while Lyndsey battered away at a keyboard at the table behind me to see if google really did hold the keys to the universe - the answer to which of course is that they do. A couple of minutes later, populated by ‘Oh my God’s’, she began to read to me.

“Apparently, she went missing three years ago - but you’ll never guess who she was married to...”

What actually happened is irrelevant to the story. Rather a bi-product of our mysterious friend. Sometime later, a very grateful and humble Mr Lewis handed over a large sum of cash out of gratitude, which of course we took gladly. I paid my car loan off with it and give the rest to Lyndsey. She’s probably wasted it all, but that wasn’t the point.

Nor was it the end of the story. What happened next was the end of the story - or maybe I'm just hoping it is.

7 FEBRUARY 2008

I was looking vacantly out of my bedroom window when it started. The snow that is. Moments earlier, it had been a crisp night, but not cold by any means. The next thing you know, the snow was beginning to lie thick as blankets one on top of the other on the ground. Within an hour, as far as I could see was a total white-out. It was going to be a cold few days ahead if it continued like this.

The snow brought with it a sense of impending doom. Over the years I had come to learn that some kind of ‘doom’ was more than likely coming anyway - always coupled with a visit from our extraordinary friend. Since the pot-hole incident back in ‘02, there had been maybe half a dozen lesser incidents in which he had chosen to become involved. There were a couple in 2005 that didn’t include me but saved Nicky and Lyndsey from being in a far worse scrape than they would have been otherwise.

There was also one memorable time in 2007 too when I hit a patch of black ice on the most lonesome stretch of road you could even imagine whilst driving back to Inverness airport after an exhibition on Skye. I guarantee that one wouldn’t have ended well. We kind of got used to having it around. Would it be so bold as to say we began to take it for granted? Probably not. In fact, it would be pretty honest of me to admit it. In recent years, we had even discussed its origins. Angel or alien - those were the main trains of thought and who could blame us. There was little other point of reference to run with. Neither seemed to fit quite right enough for us to hang our hat on though but what would you suggest?

It would appear and disappear at will. No time ever seemed to pass during these incidents either and yet, neither did time appear to stop. Which is a good thing - that would have been a step to far.

The snow gave up its assault mid-afternoon on the following day. Nicky and Lyndsey trekked over to my place not long after and we made a plan to go collect some wood from the forest that both of our houses backed onto. Virgin snow and layered beyond measure, we hit the woodland with the sledge and a length of rope. If you’ve ever tried to carry wood home for burning yourself, you’ll know just how essential these two items are. A couple of brutal snowball fights later, we began loading what sticks we could find onto the sledge - and yes, I know we could never have used them for fuel. The point of the trip wasn’t really the wood, it was the collecting of the wood as a family that meant something to us.

Nicky was pretty adventurous these days and it was something that I encouraged, much to Lyndsey’s displeasure. He found himself a tree and whipped up it like a squirrel.

“Hey, guess what! There’s a birds nest with eggs in it - in the winter! What kind a bird would lay eggs in the winter?”

“Can you get over to it safely?” I shouted up to him. “See if you can shimmy over there and see what kind they are.”

I got a punch on the arm. Nicky wriggled his way along the branch. Then, just as he raised himself a fraction to look into the nest, there was an ear splitting crack that filled the silence as the branch split in two.

Time appeared to slow down. It’s amazing how many things can happen in a few seconds really. I remember looking at Lyndsey and her looking at me. I remember watching Nicky fall through the air and to the ground just like he would have in a movie. There were sounds coming from all three of us and then - remember all that time that had slowed down I spoke about? Well, it has to go somewhere and today it was condensed into a sickening tenth of a second thud as Nicky’s head hit the roots of the tree that were visible above the snow.

I’d never heard anything like it. Blood splattered across the snow very much in real-time as Lyndsey and I simply stood there waiting for an answer. It was unreal. In hindsight, I think we were both in shock. I never really knew what that meant until then, but we both genuinely seemed powerless to do anything. Seconds later - if indeed it was that long - it, (or that ‘fucking thing’ as it became known after this), appeared at the base of the tree, arms outstretched.

When I think back now, it appeared to be confused or maybe even disappointed in itself. Whereas once I could have honestly said that it always appeared with an aura of majesty - for want of a better word - today, it was all gone. It was there in body but the spirit was nowhere to be found. Its numerous ever changing faces glanced down at Nicky and I swear it groaned. Not human by any means but the intonation was certainly that of a groan. Lyndsey fell to her knees, cried and babbled like a river. I - for all my guilt - simply stood and watched. I’m not sure what ‘it’ was doing. It appeared to be thinking very hard. So hard was it thinking, that it didn’t see Lyndsey get to her feet and round on it with no small amount of bile.

She began pounding at its chest and face with fists clenched so tight, they must have been as solid as marble. A long string of guttural and foul language came from a place I have no desire ever to see again. It stood right where it always had and took every broken pound from her.

I think I was still expecting the 'expected' to be brought forth. It was time to pull something spectacular out of the hat, but nothing came. Nicky didn’t magically sit up. There was nothing. Lyndsey fell to the ground pounding at nothing now. It was gone. Whether it was gone forever, I don’t know. Part of me thought it would be better if we never saw it again, another part of me felt a little sad that we might not but I don’t know why. Maybe some of that sadness came from how we had come to rely on it only to be let down. If it had never been a part of our life, would one of us been there to catch Nicky a little quicker? I don't think so.

Truth be told, I wouldn't even be here at all.