Chapter Text
Plink. Plink.
Malcolm listened to the drip, drip, drip of water droplets striking porcelain. The kitchen sink was leaking. The kitchen sink had been leaking for days. So for days he had been waking to the dulcet tones of his fucking apathetic incompetence; who needed an alarm clock? There must be a pipe wrench somewhere, not that he’d have a clue what to do with it. Maybe he would’ve been better led spending his time on tools. Could’ve fixed fucking sinks instead of being absorbed into the pit crew masses of the derailed, fucking irreparable wreck of a semi-sentient machine that was the British government. Didn’t fucking matter. He closed his eyes again and tried to block out the broken metronomic sound but it only seemed to amplify. Filling the empty space around him. Mocking him.
Plink.
Each successive drop bounced around his skull. The empty fucking abyss where a functioning mind was meant to reside. With every drop the waters were rising, and how was he supposed to hold back a flood? Malcolm opened his eyes. He directed a lacklustre glare at the offending tap. It did not so much as flinch. Defiant disobedience of his ocular fucking order. Well, more of a plea, really. Fucking hell. Here he was, sunk into his sofa on who-the-fuck-knows-day at who-gives-a-damn-o’clock, begging an inanimate object to shut the fuck up. Fucking pathetic. Couldn’t even speak the words aloud, have a good shout for old times sake. Bollock the damned tap until it begged for mercy, turn the water to blood and watch it run down the drain. But blood coursing through the pipes was apt to cause a blockage. Might burst, stain the streets. Red rivers streaming down the streets with his house as their bank. A right sick sight. Slick state, at that. Might bring the police round, and that wouldn’t do at all. He’d have to speak to them. Fuck, was he mad?
Stretching out his arms, Malcolm leaned back, yawned widely, and shifted his head so that one ear was fully buried in the cushions. He was fucking shattered. Didn't matter how long he'd slept. And he just wanted to go home. Whatever the fuck that meant, didn’t he live here—wasn’t this his home, this place between these walls? How was he meant to go home when he was already there?
Plink.
Malcolm pushed himself up enough to reach the television remote and pressed the volume control until the taunting sound was drowned out by whatever inane jabber BBC One had settled on for this hour. He promptly turned it back down. Breakfast, starring the fascinating characters of ‘Man on the Left’ and ‘Woman on the Right,’ driven on by the cracking plot of ‘chinwaggery with Minor Public Figure of the Morning.’ He’d rather hear the fucking tap. A toss of the remote dislodged a few satsuma peels and papers from the coffee table, and Malcolm folded his arms over his face.
As the unmeasured minutes—seconds? hours?—ticked by, rain started to pitter-patter against the roof. His eyes wandered, drawn to a spot above the television to fix upon a patch of dust as the rain intensified, transforming from a gentle patter to a torrential downpour, and a suffocating pressure grew his chest. The kitchen tap was still audible beneath the roar of the rain, diligently carrying on its message.
Plink. ‘Remember me?’ Plink. ‘Still here.’ Plink. ‘Leaking away.’ Plink.
With a heavy sigh, Malcolm dragged himself from the sofa, feeling his knees creak in protest at the unanticipated movement. He desperately wished to sleep. Bedrooms were made for sleeping. Maybe he could sleep in his bed. He shuffled away toward the stairs, the distance only growing as he covered more ground. Rainwater streamed down the front windows of the door, bathing the street beyond in a dreich, blurred grey. The landing of the staircase may as well have been the summit of Everest and he turned back around, avoiding the windows this time. Paused to stretch out his stiff back before stopping for a piss in the fucking weird wee toilet under the stairs while he was in the area. Best not waste a trip.
The return journey felt like trudging through treacle with leaded limbs and when he reached the sofa he collapsed, lying back and closing his eyes and trying to just exist but he needed to breathe and how was he meant to draw oxygen into his lungs when Fatty was sat atop his chest pinning him down and crushing his ribcage and his heart was pounding trying to break free and FUCK. Malcolm shot upright, burying his face in his hands, running his fingers through his hair and waiting for it to all fucking stop.
Plink. Plink.
He was surrounded on all sides and on the verge of drowning in a terraced house in central fucking London.
Malcolm grabbed a cushion and clutched it to his chest like a life ring as he tried to calm his heart, steady his breathing. Started fucking counting. All that zen bullshit he came across on the internet when, during a similar episode, it crossed his mind to have a wee look to confirm that he was not, in fact, actively dying. He’d actually clicked links. Shutting out WebMD, because contrary to the betting pool rumours of his illustrious colleagues—former colleagues—he’d have you know his heart was not on the verge of fucking exploding, by the way. At least not according to his GP. After bypassing the endless lists of symptoms of an impending cardiac event, he’d stumbled upon words like ‘anxiety’ and ‘disorder’ and ‘panic attack,’ and against all natural instincts he’d kept reading. Not dying, merely fucking mental, and he could live with that. He wasn’t a fucking MP. So here he was years later, stuck to his sofa by the crushing weight of his fucked up mind, trying to fucking breathe. Inhale, hold, exhale. Repeat. Find a steady rhythm.
He should probably be more concerned with what might happen if he did manage to get back to sleep. Last week he woke to find that he had missed Tuesday. Then again, an entire day had passed with him unconscious or near it and it hadn’t mattered a fucking smidge that his fucking presence had been missing from the fucking world. He should close his godforsaken eyes again. Maybe time would spare him more than a day. After all, the vice grip around his chest had finally loosened, he’d stopped his heart and lungs strangling him and nearly gotten the hang of breathing, and sleep was beckoning once more. He tugged his blanket up from the end of the sofa and curled onto his side.
The rain abated as quickly as it appeared. While the sun rose to start the day, Malcolm’s eyelids fluttered shut.
Plink.
Malcolm blinked his way back into consciousness, sitting up and glancing at the television. Breakfast had ended. Now it was some bloke dressed like he’d let Oxbridge students with a vendetta throw bits of cloth at him, thinking he was auditioning for London fucking Fashion Week. Slick-haired twat in a puffer, half his spray-tanned chest poking out. Escape to the fucking Country. The appearance of gratuitous footage of houses large enough to fit even the fucking inflated heads of posh cunts and their even more egregiously inflated budgets meant he must have slept through at least the news at one. He reached a hand out for his phone to check the time, saw his wrist, and was reminded that he was wearing a fucking watch. Fucking hell. Nearly half two. His stomach growled at him, having kept far better track of the passing hours. “Oh, fuck off,” he muttered roughly, before shaking his head. He was not going to start speaking to his internal organs. He considered trying to appease it, but the thought of eating formed a gnawing pit in the offending organ. Water might do, his mouth felt drier than the fucking Party’s last failed manifesto. And he would know, having found himself writing most of the damn text. Trying to inject some kind of fire into fucking noncontroversial, noncommital blue sky fucking bullshit. None of it had fucking mattered in the end.
Plink.
Malcolm stood, finally answering the call of the tap. He grabbed a used glass from the counter and listened to the rush of water for a moment before returning the tap back to its natural leaky state. Raising the glass to his lips, he sloshed around some of the water before slowly drinking down what remained, letting the cool liquid soothe his parched throat. He gulped down a second glass before turning to look out the window, wincing a bit at the bright winter sun streaming through.
Plink.
“Shut up,” he muttered.
Plink.
“Would you please shut the fuck up?”
Plink.
Malcolm clenched his jaw before he knelt down, opening the base cabinet and digging around until he emerged wielding a wrench. He couldn't recall how it had got there; must have been part of the 'new homeowner in London in possession of cash' spree he'd gone on what felt like a century ago. He stared at it, the exposed pipes, the tap, and back at the wrench again, eyes darting between them as he tried to process what the fuck he was meant to do now he had the damned thing. He turned it around in his hand, as if instructions would magically appear etched into the metal surface, before a thought struck. Certainly not the correct methodology. What the hell. He lifted the tool and before he could think better of the manoeuvre, he was raising his arm back, swinging, and striking the tap with as much force as he could muster.
Plink. Plink.
He took another swing, and a third for good measure, before throwing the wrench down and daring the tap to do its worst. A few minutes of silent observation, listening for any sign of life, and he was satisfied that the issue was well and sorted. Who needed a fucking plumber when you had a flash of righteous Glaswegian fury and a weapon on hand? Malcolm tossed the wrench onto the counter and turned round, fetching his blanket from the sofa and heading for the staircase. Somehow the water and the adrenaline of victory over an inanimate object stirred just enough stamina for him to attempt the climb, and this time he was able to ascend. He walked through his open door. Sprawled out on the mattress for a moment, letting his back appreciate the firm surface, before curling up under his blanket and yanking the covers overtop that. It was warmer upstairs than the ground floor, but he’d take any extra heat he could get. Once settled in his cocoon, he took to reading the bare wall. Scanning the faintly peeling paint. Alright, yeah, he was just staring at the wall. Doing absolutely fuck-all but staring into the fucking void in the form of Farrow & Ball on a fucking wall. He’d managed a glass of water, a broken sink, and a staircase; he’d fucking earned the right.
What else was he supposed to do? Take up fucking gardening? He didn’t have the requisite power complex about fucking flowers. Hedges, maybe. He should really have them pruned. It could wait until spring.
Malcolm had always found the ticking of the wall clock across the room soothing. Now it was the sound of being left behind. Lucky for the clock, the stairs had sapped what little energy he had, so it remained in one piece. For the time being. He continued to stare at the wall, occasionally closing his eyes, possibly sleeping; how was he meant to know when he was asleep? His thoughts drifted aimlessly between indefinable spaces, none sticking around long enough to pin down. The soft ticking went on and on and somewhere along the way, somewhere in the darker recesses of his mind, an engine kicked on and threw the whole mechanism into overdrive. All the otherwise torpid space besieged and overtaken by a barrage of his fucking fuck-up Greatest Hits. The sound of a distant siren blared, growing closer as an emergency vehicle rumbled past his front garden. His street was a far cry from Westminster or Whitehall. No disgruntled civil servants, no dashing about corridors, no ministers in desperate need of verbal castration. Only a crushing emptiness and a creeping cold that seemed to permeate every corner of the house. Malcolm pulled his blanket tighter around himself with a shiver, feeling a chill seep into his bones despite the layers.
One by one the interminable file folders of his mind flipped open and poured out, each line on a scrap of paper another bullet with no identifiable entry or exit wounds. Only the searing burn as they ran through him. He jerked his head slightly in response to a few of the harsher replays.
Politics had felt, more than anything, like a battlefield. Show up and rally the troops into formation, issue orders, prepare for action. Set his sights on a target and if need be, open the files and fire away. Build them up and break them down—that was just how it was done. Chances of escaping unscathed were slim to none. And they’d all signed up for it, himself included. But now the battlefield was gone.
He was back from the war, while it continued all around him.
The faces, the intel, the headlines. Fragments. The whispers, the shouts. Fractures. The truths and the lies and the blurred lines in between. Figments. The rise, and the fall.
“Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his temples as if he could massage away his own memories.
Over a decade in British politics had culminated in running, in all his flailing, undignified glory, from a herd of bloodthirsty hacks outside a fucking prison. He’d been one of them for years—had almost certainly supervised one leading the pack at Brentford. And he’d become just another one of the cunts he’d relished in tearing to shreds. Staring out at a sea of flashes and shouts as Greg read a statement on his behalf, on his life, that he hadn’t even written. Unable to find the words and not trusting his voice. Dodging microphones, swallowing hard, and trying, desperately trying to smother the burning at the corners of his eyes. At least he’d fucking managed that. By the time he was out of the spotlight the dulled embers couldn’t manage a spark.
CPS had decided not to pursue the charges after all. Probably realised they’d have to lock up half the fucking government if they tried, not just one foul-mouthed cunt from Glasgow. But he almost wished they’d had the guts to go through with what they’d fucking started.
The air was growing heavier and thinner at the same time. The walls crept closer. The covers were trying to suffocate him. Too hot. Too cold. Too much. He could feel his pulse quicken, his chest tighten. “Oh, get a fucking grip,” he whispered fiercely, extracting himself from the covers and scrambling back against his pillows. Looked up at the ceiling. The clock ticked. Turned over to the wall. The clock ticked. He let out a frustrated growl, pushing himself up. He needed to move, to do something, anything. Needed to escape it all. The clock ticked. He sprung out of bed with a restless, wired energy sizzling under his skin as he paced. The old floorboards creaked under his weight. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. Thoughts rushed around, they collided, merged, and burst. The clock ticked. Scattered shards flew around. He couldn’t dodge them. A strangled noise escaped his throat. The clock ticked. Malcolm took a few steps forward until he closed the distance between himself and the wall holding the clock. He reached up, stretched until he’d grabbed ahold of the metal and plastic, and tore it off the wall. The clock ticked. He tried to pry open the battery compartment. It was screwed tightly shut. Carrying the clock, he wandered over to the small back window and flipped the lock. Pushed the window open. Stuck his head through and out into the frigid night air with a gasp. Leaned forward, peering down into the darkness. The clock ticked. Malcolm wrenched his shoulders out of the frame with a grunt. With one last glance at the ground, he hurled the clock down to meet it, and listened to the cracking sound as it made contact with a tree trunk.
Silence fell.
He slammed the window shut and re-engaged the lock, then slowly backed away until he was sitting on the end of his bed, hands on his knees, breathing in shallow gasps. Fucking Christ almighty.
He turned and grabbed his blanket, folding it into a ball and carrying it with him as he descended the stairs, driven on by some unseen force until he was sat on the sofa again, phone clenched in a shaking hand, ignoring the notifications and thumbing through his contacts. Sam? No, she was best kept far, far away from whatever his fucking life was. Jamie—he shook his head. Severed the thought mid-thread. Not going there. His sister? It’d been so long she might actually pick up. So he kept scrolling, up and down, unsure of what he was looking for until his finger froze over one name.
She certainly deserved a fucking apology, and as a bonus, there was no way in hell she would answer. He’d just talk to the answering machine, she would delete the message, and that would be that.
With a sharp inhale, he let his hovering thumb drop onto the call icon and brought the phone to his ear. It rang once, twice, three times before finally connecting.
A greeting.
A non-pre-recorded greeting.
Fuck.
“Nicola, hi,” he said. “Yeah, it’s Malcolm.”
He let her rave about whatever she thought he had going on in his head for a minute before cutting her off. “No, no, I’m not, that’s not why I’m calling. 30 seconds, right, 30 seconds and then you can hurl the phone at the fuckin’ wall.” It was now or never. “Look, I just wanted to—I thought I should…fuck’s sake. I’m sorry. That’s it. Really fucking sorry. For everything. I’m not trying to—I understand if you never want to hear from me again. But I thought I might let you know I’m no’ proud of what I did.” His blood was rushing in his ears as he started speaking faster and faster, each syllable tumbling out like loose gravel from a crumbling cliffside. “We don’ have to make amends, right, I’m not—listen to me, fuck’s sake, ‘make amends,’ like fuckin’ ‘Politics Anonymous’—that needs work. That’s a fucking terrible name. You get my point? I—” he stopped abruptly. “Sorry. Dunno what I was thinking.”
Malcolm tore the mobile away from his ear and ended the call before she could even start to respond. He tossed it onto the coffee table, feeling as if he’d just sprinted through DoSAC. Throwing his blanket off to the side, he fell back into the plush sofa cushions with a ragged, breathless sigh. The words had tumbled out, raw and unfiltered; he couldn’t have controlled them if he’d tried. He wasn’t even sure what he’d just said. It had certainly been a mistake. But surely that had been the right thing to do? Apologising? Nothing felt right anymore. And he was so fucking tired. As the adrenaline rush faded into a background hum, Malcolm whispered, “I want to go home,” and closed his eyes.
His fragile peace was broken by a car door slamming shut. Followed by the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching his front door.