Mr. In-Between Read Online Free

threshold.
    â€˜Do you need any more help?’ said Phil.
    Jon shook his head, leaning against the wall.
    â€˜Are you sure?’ said Phil. He made a comical face as Jon closed the door on him. Then, jingling his keys, he walked to the car.
    Jon fell against the wall. He stumbled to the kitchen and threw up in the shining sink, running the tap to wash away the thin bile. Then, beneath the frigid glare of the strip light, he stripped naked, and, shuddering in flurries that made his teeth click, walked through the lifeless front room, up the stairs, and into the Oblivion Suite.

2
    For Ever and a Day
    It was in the bleak midsummer that the timeless threads of his life began to tie together, to make something strange and half-familiar. It was a small coincidence, but it was a small coincidence in which he perceived the machinations of something impersonal and terrible.
    On a Saturday afternoon, on his way to Fat Dave’s, Jon’s passage was blocked by a small crowd that had coagulated about an old man who lay half-spilled into the road. His legs were awkwardly folded beneath him and one trouser leg was hiked up his shin, revealing a brown, ribbed poly-cotton sock gathered in a pool about his hairless, very white ankle. It was clear that he was dead, despatched perhaps by a heart attack merciful in its instantaneous savagery. Nobody in the crowd, which gazed at the corpse with bovine vacancy, had either attempted first aid or called an ambulance. Instead they scabbed around him like paid mourners or village idiots. Jon tried to squeeze through them, causing a domino-spread of awkwardly corrected balances, and was struck in the cheek by an elbow, for which he received the mantric apology, ‘Oh shit. Sorry mate,’ to which there was but one possible reply, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ as he shouldered on. Something within him recognised the voice even before the man reached out and touched his shoulder. Its tone touched a dizzying string of recognition and connotation and in the passage of half a second, as he turned to face the man, he was bombarded by the memory of smells and sounds that belonged to another life.
    â€˜Jesus Christ,’ Andy’s voice broke to a fragile falsetto on the final syllable. ‘Jon?’
    Jon looked into familiar eyes, the eyes of a boy set in a man’s flesh, eyes that had crossed time. He smiled without knowing if the smile was genuine or merely a Pavlovian reaction, a deep association of this face with the act of smiling. ‘Hello, Andy,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
    They pushed from the crowd and faced each other.
    â€˜Jesus Christ,’ said Andy in the same strangled falsetto. ‘Look at you. You grew up.’
    For the first time in many years, Jon thought he might cry for what he had become. Instead, he shrugged, the smile stiff on his lips. ‘Not so you’d notice,’ he lied.
    There was too much to be said, things to be explained, excuses to be made. There was nowhere to begin. There was not enough time, or too much. Unspoken memories: youthful dreams of escape.
    â€˜Listen,’ said Jon, and a cloud passed over the insipid summer sun. Distantly, the sound of an approaching ambulance. ‘Do you fancy a pint? If you’re not too busy.’
    Andy’s hesitation was slight, but it cut through Jon like cheese­wire. ‘Of course I’m not too busy.’
    They walked in uncomfortable silence the few hundred metres to the pub, masking their awkwardness with cigarettes. Once, Jon caught their reflection in a shop window, and was sad.
    The pub was an old man’s place; dark and quiet, pools coupons, dogs curled at Hush-Puppied feet. They walked to the bar.
    â€˜What are you having, then?’
    â€˜Put your money away,’ said Andy. ‘The first one’s on me, mate.’
    He tried not to notice that Andy paid with a pile of loose change, counting out the coppers and silver after excavating