Alex Kicks The Bucket Read online

  It seemed so long ago. He liked to think that he had changed, that things were different now. He’d done some good with his last day. He’d saved two lives, even if they were both ones that were likely to end very soon anyway.

  Kate didn’t look up at his approach. The glass of wine sat on the step beside her, practically untouched. Alex hovered awkwardly behind her for a moment, wondering what to do, what to say.

  He decided to not overthink it and just go with the flow.

  “Hi,” he said, sitting beside her.

  “Piss off,” she said. “I want to be alone.” The second bit was a tad softer than the first.

  “Well I don’t,” Alex said. “You’ve got your whole life to be alone, I’ve got twelve hours.”

  Kate was about to say something, but she looked at him. He was staring into space too. He looked a bit… well, there was no other way to put it.

  “You look like shit,” she said.

  “Don’t I?” Alex said. “But I’ve picked up a new party trick. Want to see?”

  “I don’t think I do,” Kate said.

  There was a moment of silence, as they both started up at the sky. It was summer, so not quite full dark yet. That inky, blue darkness that always seemed to confuse the streetlights. It was cooler now, the relief of a cool night after a scorcher of a day.

  The air seemed clear, despite London’s usual coating of filth.

  “It’s funny,” Alex said. “You wanted to die, and I’m the one who’s kicking the bucket.”

  “I fail to see how that’s funny,” Kate said, glaring at him.

  Alex snorted laughter, and then stared at his feet.

  “You’re drunk,” Kate said.

  “Don’t have that excuse anymore,” he said. “I can’t get drunk. Or high. I don’t even need to eat or drink or breathe anymore.”

  “Well,” Kate said. “Don’t worry; you can still be a prick.”

  “Good to know,” Alex said.

  “My parents would have found it,” Kate said. “My note, I mean. They were going for dinner with my sister right after work. A few glasses of wine after dessert, and I’d say they would have rolled home about half an hour ago. I wasn’t invited, I never am. Can’t cover my share of the bill, you see.”

  She sighed, picking up her wine and throwing the contents down the stairs. The smell of cheap white wine was cloying in the air. Sour, like embalming fluid.

  “I wonder if they’ll even look for me,” she said.

  “Of course they fucking will,” Alex said. “They’re your bloody parents.”

  “You’re so naïve,” Kate said.

  Alex gave her a long look, and slowly turned away from her.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Alex said.

  Kate stared straight ahead, like a horse with blinders on.

  “Nothing,” she said, quietly. “I told you, I wanted to be alone.”

  Alex stood up, moving in front of her. Breaking her staring contest with the universe.

  “Then why’d you come to the party?” he said.

  “I dunno,” she said in a small voice, looking at her brand new shoes.

  “I know why,” Alex said. “Because you wanted to be alone in company. You wanted someone to see you be sad. To come and try and comfort you. Just so you could mope some more, because your life is so hard.”

  Kate stood up, and shoved Alex. It was a hard shove, with all the force she could muster. She wanted him to fall to the pavement and shatter like glass. To turn into dust and just disappear.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  “Maybe you should,” Alex said. “Nobody else ever has.”

  She stopped, her hand raised to slap him.

  “What?” she said.

  “That’s right,” Alex said. “Your life was saved by virgin. You might be suicidal, but my genitals have only ever been touched by me, and my doctor. Want to swap?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “No, you’re not doing this,” she said. “I was mad at you. I was ready to slap you. Don’t make me feel bad for you. Don’t spin this around on me.”

  She couldn’t help herself. She started laughing. Alex stood there, a small grin on his lips.

  “What age are you?” she said.

  “Twenty seven,” Alex said, “and a half.”

  She lost it again. She sat down heavily on the step. She was aware on some level that she wasn’t just laughing at Alex, she was laughing at everything. It was like a manic, cathartic release.

  Alex waited for her to be finished.

  “You’re the only one who knows,” Alex said. “My life is in your hands.”

  She looked up at him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said, grinning.

  “Now we’re even,” Alex said. “I ruined your death, and now you’ve got the keys to ruin my life.”

  “Alex…” Kate said.

  She didn’t know where to go from there. She stood up and hugged him tightly.

  “I don’t want your pity,” he said, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. “And I definitely don’t want a pity fuck.”

  She pulled away.

  “That wasn’t on the cards, Romeo.”

  Alex shrugged.

  “Why did you bring this up?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I feel like everything is coming together, you know? I’ve saved two lives…”

  “One was a reluctant rescue,” Kate said.

  Alex waved his hand, as if the fact was neither here nor there.

  “I’m counting it anyway,” he said. “I’ve realised that Paul is like a brother to me. The truest friend I’ve ever had. The best thing that’s ever happened to me. On top of that, I’ve un-estranged by parents, right before I drop dead.”

  He laughed.

  “Or maybe that’s all bullshit, and I was just trying to distract you,” he said. “I thought it might make you laugh.”

  She smiled at him. Probably the first genuine smile she had ever given him. She dwelled on that for a moment. About how badly she had treated this dying man.

  “But now that I think about it,” Alex said. “I guess it would be the last thing on my list.”

  “We could, like, get a girl to, you know…” Kate said, awkwardly.

  “What?” Alex asked.

  “We could pay a girl… to you know. De-flower you.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Alex said. “De-flower? What the fuck? We’re not in a Jane Austen novel.”

  Kate shrugged. There was an awkward silence between the two of them.

  “So…” Kate said. “How far have you gone with a girl then?”

  Alex looked suddenly sheepish.

  “That’s none of your business,” he said.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s my business now, you brought it up. Tell me or I’ll jump in front of a car.”

  “I’ll save you,” he said, “again.”

  “Tell me or I’ll tell Paul you’re still a virgin,” she said, looking devilish.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” Alex said.

  “Well then tell me,” she said, poking him. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

  Alex shook his head.

  “Anal? Oral? Fingering? Heavy petting? Over the clothes action? A tit wank? An under the bra squeeze?”

  “Where did a nice young lady like you learn all those naughty words?” Alex said. If he could still blush, he’d be red as a fire engine.

  “So none of that?” she said.

  “No comment,” Alex replied.

  “A French kiss then?” she said.

  Alex avoided her piercing gaze.

  “No way,” she said. “A regular, garden variety kiss then?”

  “I don’t like this game,” Alex said.

  “Holding hands?” she said. “Come on!”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Oh wow,” she said, covering her mouth to hide her laugh. “I’m really sorry, Alex, I don’t mean to laugh.”
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  “Just go ahead,” he said. “It’s funny. My love-life is pathetic, just please don’t let this be your lasting memory of me.”

  She promised nothing.

  “That hug from you just now was my first contact with the fairer sex in quite some time,” Alex said.

  “Maybe because you call us the fairer sex,” Kate said, putting airs in her voice.

  “I’m a gentleman,” he said.

  “No you’re not,” she said. “You poor creature, I’m sorry.”

  Alex shrugged.

  “It is what it is,” he said. “I gave up on trying long ago.”

  “I could tell,” Kate said, smirking at him.

  “You’re such a bitch,” he said, laughing.

  “And you’re a virgin,” she retorted.

  “Well I bet your vagina looks like a whale’s blowhole,” Alex said.

  “I bet your dick could be used as a cocktail stick.”

  “Too far,” Alex said.

  Kate grabbed him and pulled him close, putting her hand on the back of his neck.

  “For fuck’s sake,” she said. “Why not? Can we call it even after this? You can stop lording this whole saved your life bullshit over me?”

  Alex looked at her dumbly. He didn’t really have any idea what she was talking about.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “I don’t really know how,” Alex said, his eyes locked on her lips.

  He felt a tingling that he assumed he would never feel again.

  “Just put your lips on mine, and say Mars Bar,” Kate said. “It’s easy.”

  Alex leaned forward, closing his eyes. Their lips touched.

  “Mars Bar,” he said.

  “Not out loud, you twat,” she said, pushing him away.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, “I’ve got it now.”

  “Fuck it,” she said. “The moment’s gone.”

  She picked up her glass and made her way back up the stairs.

  “See you upstairs,” she said.

  Her laughter drifted down towards him, as the door swung shut. He touched his lips, with one of his pale, translucent fingers.

  “Just smite me now,” he said, looking up to the heavens. He raised his arms dramatically. “Do it. I’m ready.”

  “Doesn’t work like that,” Stephen said, suddenly beside him.

  He might have come downstairs after Kate. He might have been hiding in the bushes, or maybe in true Stephen fashion, he just appeared out of thin air.

  “Fuck off, you,” Alex said.

  “You’ve still got just under twelve hours to go,” Stephen said.

  “I know, I was being dramatic,” Alex said.

  “Well it’s been a good day, despite a rocky start,” Stephen said. “Let’s put a bow on it, come party some more.”

  “I should be happy,” Alex said, “but this doesn’t really feel like a happy ending.”

  “Everyone strikes out with the ladies every now and then,” Stephen said. “Consider revising your definition of a happy ending. Happiness comes from within, Alex.”

  “Save me the hippy shit,” Alex said.

  “Trust me,” Stephen said. “I’m speaking some cold, hard, agnostic truth.”

  Alex stood in thought for a moment, and then he put his arm around Stephen’s shoulders.

  “I guess you make your own happiness, right?” Alex said.

  “It’s a shame you learned that twelve hours from death,” Stephen said, “but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

  “Great,” Alex said. “Then let’s get back to the party.”

  10:03:53

  After a few more beers that had entirely no effect on him, Alex’s parents hugged him, kissed him, and took his mobile number, and told him to keep in touch.

  He felt kind of awkward that they would never see him alive again. Some small part of him thought that it was cruel to reconnect with them and then promptly die. It was selfish, really, but he took comfort in the idea that it was better for them to remember this night fondly, than hear of his death and regret never reaching out to him again.

  Though the problem was, they would assume that he had died as a result of this party. Alcohol poisoning, misadventure, maybe a dive from his bedroom window.

  He wanted to talk to Kate after that, but the old guy from the burning house cornered him. He remembered that his name was Edgar. The old guy seemed to know a thing or two about Alex’s predicament.

  Edgar was ninety five, and not only had he fought in World War II, he had also been involved in a cockney gang, and was a bank robber for a time, too.

  At least, if you believed his stories.

  “I had a friend, about forty years back,” he told Alex. “Used to work with me.”

  Edgar darted his yellowing eyes around the room as he said work, as if he could make it any more obvious he was talking about illegal activities.

  “You see, one day he came to me, told me he wanted to pull off the Big One. A job we’d been working on for a long time but was too dangerous to go ahead with. I sort of laughed it off, he’d usually come out with hare-brained schemes and it was up to me to shoot them down to keep us both out of jail.”

  He looked at his feet.

  “Eventually, I failed at that,” he said. “But he was long gone by then and the new guys I worked with were fucking arseholes. Pardon my French.”

  “Consider yourself pardoned,” Alex said.

  “So anyway, he comes to me about the Big One, and I tell him where to stick it. We’ll end up in jail, or dead. This is different from a bank job. This is stealing from someone you wouldn’t want to get caught stealing from. But he was insistent. He said he was feeling invincible.”

  He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Alex. They were magnificent brows.

  “You know, invincible. Bulletproof. Maybe even walk through fire.”

  Edgar winked at him.

  “Sounds familiar,” Alex said, grinning.

  “I told him he was fucking loopy,” Edgar said. “I didn’t survive the war to get shot by some greasy geezer in a dirty alleyway in London. He said he could do it alone. He said he was going away for a while and he wanted to leave me a nice nest egg before he left.”

  Edgar sighed, sinking the last of his bottle of beer.

  “Shit beer,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Alex agreed.

  “Anyway, I didn’t think much of the whole thing. I thought he was pulling my leg. Lo and behold, the next morning, there was a knock on my door. When I went to answer it, there was nobody there, but there was a suitcase full of cash sitting on my doorstep.”

  “So what did you do?” Alex asked.

  “I took the money and I fucking spent it, that’s what,” Edgar said. “I know it was him, and I haven’t heard a word from him since.”

  Alex had a feeling the old man might have needed a hug, but he also figured if he did try to hug him, he’d get kicked in the balls and called a politically incorrect name. He opted for putting his hand on his shoulder instead.

  He felt how frail the man was, under his jacket. He was nothing but bone. Skin hanging off a shrunken frame in wrinkled folds. His slight frame didn’t seem like it could contain his personality. He was more than his earthly vessel, and he would soon outlive it.

  “I think my friend was just like you, Alex,” Edgar said, looking up at him with rheumy eyes. “So I’m sorry for calling you Satan and battering you with my cane.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alex said.

  “And thanks for saving my skin,” Edgar said. “Even though the fall from the window could have killed me just as easily.”

  “Well I have some experience in falling from high heights today,” Alex said. “So you were in capable hands.”

  Edgar snorted, and then coughed roughly. Alex expected him to pull out a handkerchief and cough blood into it, like they always do in the films. Just to really drive the point home that the man was old and almost dead.

  Edgar reached for anothe
r beer and popped it open with his calloused hands. It looked like a magic trick.

  “Terrible,” he said. “Just terrible. Tastes like piss. Like drinking bathwater from someone with trench foot.”

  He carried on drinking it, all the same.

  “The way you were in that fire,” Edgar said. “That’s just what he was like. Not an inch of doubt, not an atom of self-preservation. You just went for it. The fire was afraid of you.”

  Alex grinned. He liked the picture the old bugger was painting.

  “It’s easy to be brave when you’re immortal,” Edgar said. “But to use that to help people you don’t even know. That’s true bravery. That’s truly noble. If I hadn’t sold my medals on eBay, I’d pin one to you.”

  6:45:56

  The party had wound down. Alex came out of the bathroom to find the pizza guy, Edgar and Hamish unconscious on the sofa. Paul, Stephen and Kate were nowhere in sight.

  He stepped through a drift of empty beer bottles and cans to pause the music on Paul’s laptop.

  He left the living room, and located Paul. For a moment, he was almost certain he’d find his bedroom door closed with a sock on the handle, and Kate in there with him.

  He didn’t know why the thought bothered him so much, but jealousy was an ugly colour on anyone.

  Luckily, Paul’s bedroom door was wide open, and he was kneeling beside his bed, wearing nothing but mismatched socks and Kermit the Frog boxer shorts. He seemed to have passed out in some sort of prayer position.

  He took a photo of it and sent it to their chat group. His phone was still blowing up with notifications about his earlier tweets and the videos that had emerged of him on the car park, and now saving Edgar.

  He didn’t really care anymore. It seemed entirely pointless.

  He closed Paul’s door quietly, and headed to his own room. He opened the door to see a pair of feet poking out the bottom of the duvet. There was a pair of shoes on the floor by the door.

  Those new shoes he had bought for Kate. The shape in the bed stirred.

  “Alex?” Kate said, in a groggy voice.

  “That’s me,” Alex said, trembling.

  “Come here,” she said.

  Alex stopped at the foot of the bed.

  “You’re drunk,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Kate replied. She rolled over to look at him. “Well, maybe a little.”