Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [3]
It was the blood that had swamped his attention before, but Terry now saw the „stuff‟ that Joe had pointed out.
Through the blood he saw that Pete‟s wound was coated with a glutinous, jelly-like ooze. Terry swallowed and shuddered.
He imagined the creature disgorging the gluey substance like poison from its diseased body on to his uncle‟s. Frantic to prevent the stuff from penetrating the wound, Terry yanked at a length of bandage, but it refused to tear, merely stretching instead.
John Baycock delved into the first aid box, grabbed a swab and began to wipe the gel away from the wound. Terry flashed him a glance of gratitude, unscrewed the lid of the bottle and poured antiseptic directly on to Pete‟s hand.
Semiconscious, the bearded man hissed and muttered, his body tensing momentarily.
„Easy there, big man,‟ Joe Tye soothed with a tenderness that surprised Terry despite the circumstances.
When he was satisfied that the wound was entirely clean, John Baycock applied a lint dressing, holding it in place as Terry wound the bandage tightly around his uncle‟s hand. He worked swiftly and carefully, trying to outpace the blood that continued to soak through the lint and the gauze and threatened to reduce his good work to a sodden red mess. As more and more bandage was applied, an almost palpable relief coursed through the men, as if hiding the terrible injury from view could somehow quell the horror of the incident that had caused it. When Terry was finished it looked as though his uncle was wearing a single white boxing glove.
„Will he be all right?‟ Barry murmured, stepping hesitantly forward now.
Terry shrugged and felt his dad‟s hand pat him twice on the shoulder.
„Good work, son,‟ Malcolm said in a low voice as if his words were meant for Terry alone. Then raising his voice, the skipper added, „All right, lads, keep him as comfortable as you can. I‟m taking us home.‟
In the two weeks since he had been given his new job title, Jack Perry had been practising the term in his head and in front of the mirror in his bedroom. „I‟m an environment coordinator,‟ he would say, qualifying the statement with a slight raising of the left eyebrow and a smug little smile. In his mind he would be at a party, sipping Pina Colada and speaking to a woman who looked like a cross between Sally Thomsett from Man About the House and that girl from the Hai Karate ads. The woman would gasp in admiration and her eyes would brighten with interest. Perhaps she might even lick her glossy red lips in lascivious anticipation.
It was at this point that the fantasy would begin to dissolve. If the woman enquired further, Jack would have to admit that he drove a truck for the council and that the only authority he wielded was over a bunch of moaning, long-haired students who were simply out for a bit of holiday money. Not only that but every morning at 5 a.m. he and the students - most of them hungover, or soporific from the pot they had been smoking the night before - pulled up on to the promenade, got out clad in overalls, boots and thick rubber gloves, and tramped down to the beach, laden with shovels and industrial-sized refuse sacks.
Sometimes, lying in his bed at night and hearing his widowed mother in the bedroom next door tossing restlessly in hers, Jack would wonder where it had all gone wrong.
There were no parties in his life, no Pina Coladas, no Sally Thomsett lookalikes. There were not even any friends to speak of - not real ones at any rate. Just casual acquaintances, people he knew on a superficial level: people at work; people he bumped in to now and then who had been to school with him, and who, like him, had never moved away; fellow enthusiasts at the steam railway where he did voluntary work every Sunday.
If it wasn‟t for his trains - his weekly pilgrimage to the railway itself, the books he spent