Two-Way Split by Allan Guthrie

knife and ran. Mum strode forward, slung her arms around Pearce's waist and told him she was fine, just fine. Lies. Nothing but lies.
    "You going to tell me or do I have to guess?" Another pause. Finally Ailsa said, "I'm awake, now, Pearce, but I might as well go back to sleep if you won't talk to me."
    The moment his mum died, a firework had started flying around inside his skull. A young nurse tried to console him. She called security when he threw a chair at the wall. He apologised. Didn't point out that he could have thrown the chair out the window. And could have thrown the nurse and the security boys out the window after it. They let him sit for a while and, gradually, the anger seeped out of him as it became clear what he had to do. He'd never really had a choice. He saw the years stretch out forever. His life was over. God knows how long he'd get this time. His mum shook her head and accused him of having failed to learn anything.
    His eyes snapped open. The illusion vanished. She was wrong. He had learned something. The last ten years may not have taught him much, but one thing he knew. This time he wasn't prepared to spend all morning sharpening a screwdriver.
    He said to Ailsa, "I need your help."
     
     
    9:15 am
     
    The cash was bundled in hundreds.
    Robin flicked through a stack of tenners. The notes were limp and faded, well-used. He pressed the wad against his nose and inhaled. Sour beer, fag-ends in loaded ashtrays, the lingering trace of cheap perfume, two in the morning, the barman who looked like his father saying, "You're a leech, son," a woman whose name he didn't know leaning against his shoulder, lifting her head, breathing against his cheek, hair tickling his chin, lifting her head, whispering in his ear, whispering her name, whispering her name again and again, as her eyebrows darkened and fattened and wriggled and fell on his neck.
    He sat up with a start, frantically rubbing his neck. Leeches. He'd dreamed of leeches for sixteen years. Ever since his father… Breathing too fast. Why couldn't he dream about something else for once? Deep breath. Should he write down the dream while he remembered? No, his current therapist wasn't interested in dreams. Some were, some weren't. This one seemed more interested in his early sexual experiences. Slow. Deep. Breath.
    First orgasm? Ten years old, standing up in the bath. Makes my knees buckle. Think I've damaged myself. Think I'm going to tell you?
    Picking the money off the floor where he'd dropped it, he lobbed it onto the table. He stretched, reached for a smoke. Fuck sex. It wasn't worth getting excited about. Boom fucking boom. His lighter was low on fuel, but after three attempts it finally sparked. He eyed his money through the flame. Fourteen stacks of tens, six stacks of twenties, a single stack of fifties. Not bad for a nutter. Above the table, smoke coiled and drifted. He snapped off the lighter and exhaled through his nose while thirty one thousand tax-free pounds flaunted itself on the table in front of him.
    With Carol and Eddie out of the way, the money was all his.
    He had a plan, one that might even work. If he got caught, so be it, he'd plead insanity. He wouldn't be short of witnesses.
    He'd sat up all night drinking coffee, chain-smoking, watching television with the sound off, listening to news reports on the radio. Time after time he counted the money, flicking through the notes with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. Several times he got up to wash his face. He cleaned his nostrils with both ends of a twist of toilet roll and when that failed to remove the stench he shoved a couple of cotton buds up his nose. Finally he smeared toothpaste around the inside of his nostrils. It stung all right, but it didn't get rid of the stink of the post office cashier's hairspray.
    He checked on Carol. She was sleeping like a baby, dreaming sweet dreams about Eddie, no doubt.
    When the news report came at five thirty he was slouching on the settee.