Chapter 4
"I have excellent news Timothy, my dear friend.” Shaun had burst into the guest room where Timothy lay awkwardly spread across the bedspread in complete lethargy.
“I have managed to find you a job not far from here; just across the wonderful little bridge which offers such shelter from the elements while walking down the river.” Timothy was still totally oblivious as to Shaun’s presence in the bedroom let alone the information he was relaying.
“I called in a favour from an old friend, and he is more than willing for you to start in your new position in the next few days.”
Stirring Timothy began to comprehend Shaun’s speech, not knowing how to react as he didn’t wish to upset or offend Shaun and his constant acts of goodwill. Timothy contorted his cheekbones as to force a smile. There was minimal lighting in the room which made it increasingly difficult for him to read Shaun’s body language to judge whether or not his wordless answer had sufficed.
“It’s 6 in the evening Tim so I would suggest joining me for an evening meal or in your case breakfast. You’re going to struggle to sleep again this evening.”
In the handful of days the two men had known each other, it had become evident to each of them that the younger more naïve gentleman had indeed become the paternal figure and Timothy rather embarrassingly the helpless child.
By the time Timothy had ambled down the stairs and into the kitchen, dinner had been prepared, and the table spread immaculately; much more suited to a banqueting hall or restaurant than the humble stone cottage. It dawned on him that since arriving how little of the interior of the home he had absorbed. He didn’t remember making his way to bed that morning or taking his things to the spare room, but he did remember the natural feeling of togetherness brought on by the stargazing and intensified by the presence of his companion.
The kitchen was rustic; no more than twenty square metres in size with the dining table sitting in the centre taking up most of the room. The fixtures and fittings were quaint and antiquated, small porcelain animals perched on oak shelves mixed between ancient tins, pieces of copper pots and the sort. The walls were solid stone as you would expect with an ageing property with one solitary window sitting on the furthest wall looking out on the land surrounding. Interrupting the current surveillance of his house, Shaun lay down his cutlery in a manner as to not disturb any of the ambiences of the situation.
“Timothy. What is your backstory? Can you please explain to me what is going on?” For the first time since their meeting, Shaun had been abrupt and careless with his words.
He spoke in a much more common tongue than usual, and his body language portrayed the same. For the past day the question had been burning in the hearts of both of them; however, the time and the place had never been more adequate.
The depth of the sleep Timothy had managed seemed to provide him with all the necessary strength to address the problem at hand. He exhaled sharply and began to speak.
“Before I begin have you heard of the COFI at all Shaun?”
Shaun was swift and precise in his reply as if imploring for Timothy to let everything go.
“Please enlighten me, my friend”. Therefore Timothy continued.
“Well, I am pretty much an alien in this everyday world of yours Shaun. For the past ten years, I have been living in what would seem like a different planet. My identity however now is completely clean, or at least that is what I am led to believe. The COFI or Cost Of Freedom Initiative is an implemented framework by which the government aims to offer any rehabilitated prisoners a way back into the real world. A way back into life.”
“You mean to say?” Shaun had briefly interrupted rather pointlessly in hindsight.
“Yes. I spent ten years in almost complete darkness; locked away from society, from development and evolution and most of all from compassion. It wasn’t all bad I suppose, life with no meaning other than to tick another day off the calendar, waiting for death to arrive like it was Christmas, it taught me a thing or two about ageing. Growing old, it turns out isn’t some kind of disease but an honour of which many are denied. It isn’t peaceful because if it were, we would all have it easy, wouldn’t we? But in embracing ageing, we can find some enjoyment within this madness. So basically I won the lottery of life, and now I’m supposed to be completely incognito, but I believe deep down I can trust you, Shaun.” Timothy exhaled once more.
Utterly speechless Shaun glanced between the meal which sat staring blankly back at him and the lifeless glazed eyes of Timothy Fawn. His body had shrunken as if the chair on which he sat began to eat him from the waist upwards. Timothy cowered like a wounded animal in an attempt to block out Shaun’s analysis of what he had just said.
“So does that technically mean you’re a free man or are you under scrutiny while you go about your new found life?”
“I believe I am free, but that’s not because of what I have been told that’s simply down to how I feel. Last night I sat and drank in the evening air, a fine scotch on the rocks; just like I used to. I actually had a malleable dream as I slept peacefully for the first time in as long as I can remember. I am beginning to embrace the graciousness growing deep within me like a flower sprung to life in late March.”
As Timothy continued, his glassy eyes began to leak tears which he caught in his palms as they left his face and plummeted to the floor.
“But I will never be normal, I will never just fit in. I ruined my own chance at such a fate, I will forever be on the run.”
By now the tears had become far more apparent, but to Shaun, they didn't portray Timothy as weak but showed a much greater fear; one which only arises in a man who is scared of himself.
“Timothy my dear friend I implore you to cast your eyes on mine. I am running too. Running is a part of life; the way I see it we are all running from something. You’re either running, or you're dead.”
Taking a break to admire what a knowledgeable young man he had become Shaun drew a breath deep enough as to feel his lungs expand and thrust his rib cage forwards.
“I will never get that breath back Timothy, but the grace and beauty lie in sharing it with you. I need you to trust me and put yourself in my position I can help as long as you help yourself. I am wholeheartedly here for you my friend.”
The pair sat once more in total silence and enjoyed the meal which lay before them. There was very little more said of Timothy’s situation that evening or indeed for the coming days, the friends were jovial and Shaun had taken some time off work to prepare Timothy for the start of his new job.
It was Wednesday, August 10th, Timothy Fawn left the little cottage that morning with a skip in his step and a sculpted smile on his face. Weekdays had never sat heavy on Timothy’s heart as they did in the lives of most others. He was a calm man by his very nature, dragged continuously throughout life over flat open plains and dark, sodden woodland; he took the rough with the smooth all the same and always hoped to learn a thing or two on the other side.
Shaun moved just as triumphantly behind Timothy as though he was admiring the difference a few days of preparation could make. It wasn’t so much the obvious physical attributes, but it was the deep-lying pain and scorn which Timothy appeared to have shed as easily as a reptile sheds his skin as part of the process of growth.
Shaun cast his mind back to the dishevelled man on the train. The thinning hair that looked almost placed on his head by accident, the browns battling with the overwhelming greys and running off into a combed over fringe, which sat on his the right side of his face at the height of his eyebrows. His face attempted to offer no emotion but was wholly unsuccessful in its mission. He was heavily wrinkled, far too wrinkled for a man of his age. His eyes had been far more successful at retaining their dark brown depth than his hair; they were glassy and told a story of their own while sitting either side of a rigid upturned nose. Cavernous haggard lines ran from the corner of his eyes off towards his ears and looked as if they would explode if any more pressure were to be placed within their vicinity. He was of average height but was carrying very little body weight. To the point where his limbs were skeletal and looked as if a handshake could result in a similar outcome to pulling a celebratory cracker at Christmas time.
Shaun found warmth in how senescence had taken hold of Timothy Fawn and had no intention of letting go. Shaun believed that he could always delve into the background of a man by inhabiting and sharing the air which surrounded him. The overpowering scent of ancient cologne must have affected his read on Timothy as in retrospective he could not have been further from the truth. A down and out, possibly homeless most definitely luckless, someone who was trying so positively hard to blend in that he so hideously stood out, a man who wanted to be alone more than he wanted to reach his destination. However as the malaise mixed harshly with the peppermint essence of menthol radiating from Timothy, Shaun’s eyes had been opened in a way which they had never been before. He could actually be salvation to this miserable human being.
The pair marched through the thickness of the early morning air as the heat emanated from the water beside them, and the scarcely running water wished the men on their way. Shaun caught up to Timothy to bid him good luck on what would be his first taste of a whole different life and in actual fact his first taste of human contact other than with himself since turning his back on incarceration.
Timothy Fawn was sincerely intent on becoming a piece of the furniture and a face in the crowd. Situationally he knew that a simple stress-free life would not come cheap and his days would be far from untroubled. The very apogee of his happiness lived in a time long ago where days were long and warm nights were longer still. Shaun’s arrival in his life had come to pass so miraculously that his face had become the lifeblood that stirred within Timothy; he had become besotted with love for him. The type of paternal love shared in a flourishing household between father and son forever at one another’s side.
After leading the way for some time, Timothy slowed his continually stuttering pace to a halt and waited until Shaun’s footsteps rang louder as they crushed the beige dirt firmly into the ground with the wooden sole of his brogues. A flurry of questions raced endlessly through Timothy’s mind and sapped most of the energy he had reserved for his walk to work as his fidgeted and fought to consume them.
“Don’t worry about a thing Mr Fawn, sometimes in life, the darkest places are where we find the light we were so desperately missing.”
Timothy hated not only how Shaun had learned to read his mind but also the way the words danced from his mouth after fighting through the most polite and polished smile. The thing he hated, even more, was the way Shaun seemed to slide from verging on affectionate and caring to entirely formal. He called him Mr Fawn the way a psychologist would when trying to get a read on a patient.
“When there has long been darkness and darkness alone candlelight seems ever harder to come by.”
Timothy replied in a rather jovial nature, thinking strained him far more than expected as he attempted to place each word and struggled to hide the angst of what Shaun would make of his botched quote.
“Hurry along Tim, you’re going to miss the bus! And that really would be an awful way to start the first day of your new life.”
It would have been effortless for Shaun to sound condescending but once again his warm nature held precedence over every word, and it was genuinely easy to feel the compassion he showed towards Timothy Fawn.
The pair of them had run through the travel procedure numerous times in the previous days. Timothy knew how much to pay the driver and to look out for the quaint thatched pub called The Last Drop, there he would disembark and cross a number of slightly busier roads than to be expected in such a one-paced area.
Everything seemed much more difficult today. Maybe it was merely the lack of Shaun’s presence that caused Timothy's hands to tremble and his stomach to growl as if it has not received a good meal in years. Ironically it had only received a few in the last ten years, all of which had been eaten in the past week.
“£2.20 please sir” Timothy addressed the bus driver in a manner befitting of a private chauffeur.
A man of gigantic proportions stared back through the protective plastic and looked at Timothy for at least 10 seconds without taking any notice of what he had said. Everything about the driver was oversized, from his bulbous head which was shaven close to the skin and took up the majority of his working area, to his stone-like hands which sat heavily upon his lap. It was difficult for Timothy to work out whether the man was angered by his politeness or simply shocked either way he failed to acknowledge him whatsoever.
“£2.20 please sir.” Timothy tried again to gain some form of interaction with the bus driver.
“No worries mate. Just get on, this one's on me.” The driver lifted one of his boulders from his lap and flicked it back to signal Timothy to sit down.
Confused by the whole situation he took a few steps forward followed by a few back again just to check that the driver was indeed sure and that his deal hadn’t elapsed.
“Take a seat please mate, we are in a rush here.” The urgency in his deep and somewhat intimidating voice seemingly picked Timothy’s panicky feet from off the floor, placed him in a bear-hug and tossed him onto the nearest available seat.
The journey itself he found quite pleasant, the village was embossed in luscious greenery and was lively enough to avoid being a complete ghost town. The bus wriggled its way through streets which would typically be suitable for a single car, passing coffee shops overflowing with smiling people and countless eateries which remained closed at this ungodly hour. Much to Timothy's surprise, the bus was fair quieter than the streets through which it manoeuvred. He desperately tried to work out whether people actually worked whatsoever, or if indeed they all went to work in such close proximity that they needn't travel other than by foot.
Upon reaching the public-house he had been so adamantly looking for, Timothy disembarked the bus, thanking the driver as he did. As Shaun had advised Timothy headed across the three busier streets which seemed so out of place, like a funnel, the cars forced their way down the thinning streets before dispersing into the silence beyond them. Timothy eventually arrived at a tall red brick building, which was set back a quarter of a mile or so from the main street. It was uninspiring and unsightly, everything he had imagined for the past few days and more. The sight of the building caused the worry which had been firstly eradicated by Shaun's calming tone and more recently by the quaintness of his setting, grew stronger upon him. The starchy collar of his shirt wrapped itself like fingers at his delicate throat, and the beads of sweat which trickled from his brow hit the floor in steady explosions at his feet.
If he could turn back and replay the last few days, at this one moment Timothy would have undoubtedly never accepted the job offer, nor would he have allowed the young man on the train to be any more than a face in the street. In reality, he wouldn't have ever put his name forward for the COFI, and would have remained happy sat against the dampness of his cell wall reading until sleep arrived. After drawing what quite easily could have been his last breath before his pending execution, Timothy headed through the foreboding glass doors and into the reception of the building.
Timothy’s first day of work had managed to grind him down piece by piece with the mind-numbing chatter and distinct lack of interest anyone around him showed in anything other than work. Shaun's presence had certainly been missed and the calming effect his carefully chosen words had Timothy's erratic nature. The life he so craved seemed more distant than he could ever have imagined and a fall from grace so much more probable. In his head, he would dream of the body of Icarus sitting at the bottom of the ocean due to his naivety and lack of foresight. Could Shaun possibly be his Daedalus and have constructed such magnificent wings of confidence and hope which would eventually be his death; a death most decadent and immoral that a true sinner would long of nothing more.
As Timothy walked under the bridge that evening, he struggled as he attempted to get his tongue around how the rest of his life would taste. He chewed the idea of a nine-to-five around a little bit and spat it into the glistening water which ran beside him. Surely, there was more to life than to merely exist? He mulled thoughts of his hopelessness over, seemingly forgetting that only a handful of weeks ago he was a luckless soldier of rehabilitation, lost in a system as a number someone else had given him. He cared very little for 10345 he hated it as a number and the way it rolled off the tongue every time he was spoken to. He much preferred Timothy, it was painful and awkward on the lips, he would find particular pleasure in watching someone pronounce his name, especially a woman as their struggle was attractive to him in a way he dared not evaluate.
Shaun headed in Timothy's direction as he meandered in the shade provided by the bridge. The closer he grew the more evident it became that he was dishevelled and unkempt as if he has been in a fight or rushed himself while getting ready. His hair was out of place, and the bottom of his pink shirt sat out on the left-hand side but was roughly tucked into his jumper on the right. The jumper had been grey upon purchase, but the distance between then looked a slightly darkened brown colour. Timothy found Shaun’s attire deeply disturbing as he knew how out of character it was for him to look this way.
“Shaun! What is wrong you look totally ridiculous? What’s happened?”
“Nothing Tim honestly, I was in a rush that’s all. More to the point how was your first day? Enthralling I bet, let’s get home and talk about it.”
Tim didn’t want to tell Shaun how he really felt. It was an altogether different lifestyle to what he had remembered and was also a complete juxtaposition to what he had expected. There was something bland about the taste it left on his palette and deafening about the constant ringing which occupied his ears.
Work seemed a lot more stressful than the comfortable days he envisioned when thinking of his past. There had been one particular woman who had captivated him, not by her era transcending beauty or her eloquent tone of speech but purely by the way she moved around the office like a whirlwind of hope with the occasional white lie thrown in for good measure. She had actively sought out a target of weakness, a new face in the crowd who looked slightly more apprehensive than those around him. That man was, of course, Timothy.
Timothy had never been scared of confrontation in fact in days gone by he would thrive off a good debate and during his prison time he had to learn to fend for himself, or he would have been a lonely rabbit to the wolves, only the wolves were in considerably better shape and the rabbit was ageing rapidly in its solitude. Her name had become ingrained in his thoughts, after all, he only had a handful of names from his life that he was condemned to remember. Margaret was much shorter than Timothy, and he was by no means a large man, she was more cumbersome than him too, but not to the point where she had become uncomfortable with it. Her very nature was brash with a modest air of arrogance, everyone Timothy had watched her come into contact with had angled their body towards hers as if to open their lives to her charm. Her seniority was inconclusive to Timothy; he could not come to terms with what her role entailed and indeed why she was in the office whatsoever. It was plainly obvious that her presence heightened morale, maybe that alone was her role. The way she wandered from desk to desk had a dystopian feel about it, but she wasn’t big brother, and numerous colleges outranked her she merely wanted to share the happiness which guided her so pleasantly through the day.
Margaret had initially approached Timothy as he had poured a coffee for himself, questioning him as to why he had not asked if anyone else wanted one. She came across like the playground bully, throwing her input into the situation as his arrival had meant she was no longer the centre of attention. There were apparent situations where her wit would cloud those around her as to whether she was indeed a pleasant person or not. He quickly offered her a drink which petulantly she refused, she reminded him of the baby who would cry in her pram for a certain toy and toss it straight back out and onto the concrete below.
The door slammed shut behind him and brought him back to reality. He had travelled the whole walk home running through the day’s proceedings without speaking a word to Shaun. However, the lack of interaction worried Timothy as Shaun’s behaviour was becoming so uncharacteristic that he knew something had gone on either immediately before they had crossed paths or earlier in the day. But why would Shaun hide anything from him? They had become almost wholly besotted with each other, in the previous day’s Shaun had even given up on attending work merely to prepare Timothy for what was about to come. Nothing could have readied him for Margaret, he thought to himself about her once more.
“So how was the day?” Shaun’s speech was muffled by his jumper as he raised his arms in unison while sliding the wool across his face and up over his head.
Timothy caught sight of the rear of Shaun’s shirt, just around the seam at the bottom left-hand side of his spine he noticed a few speckles of mud. They were no bigger than a pinhead, and there was no more 6 in total, it was hard to tell from the chair in which Timothy had perched, but from a distance, they looked crimson, blood red maybe.
“My day…My day was ok.” Timothy struggled to find the words to honestly express his feelings, partially due to his hatred for the working day and substantially due to Shaun’s increasingly strange behaviour.
“Come on now Tim! You and I both know how lazy the use of the word OK is. In fact, it’s so excruciatingly lazy I refuse to recognise it as a word, It's two letters thrown together in haste by a troubled mind. So go on how was your day really? You don’t have to worry about upsetting or offending me Tim.” Shaun appeared to be desperate to probe into every little detail.
“The people there feel faceless, it’s almost as if they bounce around the office judging their own reflection in the blank countenance of those around them. I worry about this world Shaun, I worry about the future. For me, for you, even for those I have yet to meet. We all seem so caught up in how we want to appear that we lose all those characteristics that make us special.”
“You certainly have a plethora of those my friend.” Shaun jumped in on Timothy’s speech and offered the kind of confidence boost he was renowned for.
Timothy smiled without showing any teeth in an attempt to portray his thanks but also his disappointment in being interrupted.
Having had some time to think Timothy continued with a slightly altered harangue.
“I haven’t given people enough time; it was day one after all maybe they will become more expressive as I become more comfortable.”
Timothy looked towards the living room ceiling, his eyes wandered from one corner of the room across the oak beams which he recognised as replacements installed at a later date to offer the cottage a second chance at life while retaining its original characteristics. Standing there vacantly he made it painfully evident that he was overthinking the whole situation and that something to take his mind away would be irresistibly welcomed.
“Do you fancy a cold drink and we could go and watch the river? Although it does get murky at this time of year, the sweet spring transparency has long gone, and the much-quickened tempo tends to cause the sediment to rise to the surf."
In selling the unsellable Shaun had won Timothy over at the offer of a drink, all that followed was forgotten as quickly as it was mentioned. Timing was everything to Shaun, he knew how and when to entertain and very rarely misread situations. He returned from the kitchen with two tumblers which were frosted on the outside but perfectly crisp on the inside. Three blocks of ice sat nodding their heads to-and-fro like ships in the rough autumn sea. They fell in and out of the liquid which engulfed them as Timothy swirled the glass gently his index finger and thumb. The liquid was as murky as the river hidden beyond the door and was almost certainly whisky. Timothy’s prediction was reaffirmed as he raised the glass to his dry, sunken lips; he inhaled one massive waft of the woody aroma. As a man of many years’ experience, he picked out the Oak from the leafy aldehydes and without actually drinking the liquid he knew precisely how the sour blend would feel as it roused his taste buds.
He thought genuinely about how deviously the devil did move in the form of drink. He could bring a man to his knees as swiftly as a Sunday sermon and break his heart like his first love with every empty glass. Timothy was incredibly selective when it came to drinking; it was an incredibly rare occurrence that he would drink for enjoyment. He drank for confidence, but overconfidence was the death of many a great man before him.