Berserk Read Free Page A

the brief but intense sense of hopelessness that always followed.
    It was a bad afternoon. He sat at his desk and stared out the window, occasionally shuffling papers or opening up new files on his computer to convince himself, at least, that he was working. Steven was there as always, but there was also the huge chasm of emptiness and regret that threatened to swallow Tom whole; regret at a life wasted behind a desk, watching his ambitions and drive rot beneath an assault of nine-to-five indifference; and the emptiness in his own mind, where once had dwelled such grand aspirations. He had always regarded his job as a means to an end, but he had never come close to achieving that end. He sat at his desk for five days each week crunching numbers and paying for his mortgage, forever mourning the career in music that continued to elude him. So many opportunities taken up and blown away, so many deals scuppered because of bad luck or his own stupidity. The fact that he had barely played a note since his son’s death did little to quell his regrets.
    In their third bedroom Tom’s instruments sat on their stands, monuments to lost dreams. They had once been the means by which he hoped to make his mark on the world, but now they merely took up space and drew dust, all potential long since echoed away to nothing. These walls had heard wonderful music, but they gave none back. He would stand in that room sometimes and wonder whether he had changed anything at all. Had a bird heard him playing and changed its course? Had the molecular make-up of the house been subtly altered by the vibration of his double bass, the sweet serenade of his guitar? Was there, anywhere in the world, evidence of the talent he had squandered?
    Sometimes he believed that the ghost of his music wandered the Plain with the lost spirit of his only son.
    But today, with autumn sunlight making beauty from dying leaves, there was something else on his mind. That doubt, risen from its uneasy grave. And the old anger at the lies they had been told, still tempered by grief, but no longer quashed by its intensity.
    By the end of that afternoon, Tom needed to do something productive. He left work early and walked to the pub, hoping against hope but realising how foolish and naïve he was being. And yet he was still not completely surprised to see Beer-Gut sitting at the same table he had shared with his friend that previous Friday, alone this time, pensive and scared.
     
    * * *
     
    “Can I get you a drink?”
    “Oh shit, I didn’t think you’d be here!” Beer-Gut stood at his table, wide-eyed. He looked toward the door as if searching for an escape.
    “But you came anyway?”
    The big man shrugged. He was breathing fast, eyes averted, perhaps going over whatever he had to say in his head.
    “Guilt’s a weird thing, isn’t it?”
    “Look, don’t fuck with me like that,” the man said quietly, staring at Tom for a few seconds before looking away again.
    “I’m so sorry,” Tom said, shaking his head, meaning it. He offered his hand. “I’m Tom Roberts.”
    Beer-Gut shook his hand; he had sweaty palms, but a strong grip. “Nathan King.” He sat back down.
    “Pleased to meet you.”
    King did not echo the sentiment, and Tom realised that this was probably the very last place he wanted to be right now. His whole manner – the shifting eyes, tapping fingers, frequent sips from his glass – projected nervousness and disquiet.
    “Let me get you a refill,” Tom said. At the bar he took a few moments to compose himself, and he was suddenly hit by a cool, inexplicable terror. I may discover something terrible now, he thought. Something I haven’t known for ten years, and something it may be best I never know. Nothing will bring Steven back. We have a life, Jo and I. We deserve to live it in peace. He paid for the drinks and carried them back to the table, and his deeper inner voice spoke up, the one that occasionally rose to see past the bullshit. Truth