spanna
The Fly
to everyone who've posted...especially Bella U2topia! This story's entirely fictional! etcetera, etcetera, etcetera 5th December 2001
Chapter Eight
I’ve no idea where I am, what time of day it is or anything when I wake. All I know is that my whole head is filled with blinding pain. I lift my hand to my forehead and gingerly trace my fingers along a thin line of dried blood that is above my right temple. It takes a few minutes for me to register that I’m moving, the floor I’m on is moving.
I manage to force back the urge to throw up. I’m hurtling along, what the fuck is happening. It’s a surreal feeling, I know vaguely that it’s been weeks, maybe months since I saw civilisation, not days like I was originally promised. Memories coming back.
Day I saw first press conference with O Connell. She’s pregnant! My girl’s having our baby and I’m not there to hold her, tell her how proud and delighted I am. O Connell raining down abuse and verbal insults on me. He sits next to me and unties my wrists. I flex them and rub them violently to try and get the circulation moving. As much as I’d love to punch him, my hands are just too weak to respond to my brain.
‘So is our Bono ok now he can move his arms?’ his voice full of faked concern.
‘Fuck off,’ I growl ‘stop acting like yer give a shite about me.’
‘Oh but I do Bono,’ he says softly ‘yer know I do.’
My brain isn’t up for this, why is he acting nice. My rationale is fading fast.
‘Come on have a drink,’ says O Connell and takes what looks like a harmless looking glass of water from the desk ‘yer must be dehydrated.’
I am so thirsty, my tongue feels swollen and my throat is so dry that liquid would be welcome. I nod gratefully.
‘Manners, manners Bono,’ he smiles.
‘Please,’ I whisper opening my mouth and he pours in the liquid.
I never should have done it, the liquid does nothing for my thirst and instead burns, stings and attacks my throat and lungs. The taste is oily and harsh. I cough and splutter while shouting ‘what the fuck was that yer bastard.’
‘Oh Bono, just a little toxicity for our toxic guest,’ he sneers.
He starts to question me about Helena. I’m furious as he asks about private matters between her and me.
‘She was good, wasn’t she!?’ he growls suddenly, a new vulnerability in his eyes that I’d never seen ‘she let you touch her, if I wanted to, she never let me. That’s why I hit her.’
‘Yer never built up trust with her,’ I retort with bile in my mouth ‘yer just abused her from the word go!’
O Connell draws a knife from the desk beside him. He rolls up my sleeve from my tied left wrist though I am thrusting my body against my bonds to stop him. He draws a deep slit in my forearm. I clench my teeth and look at the red river of blood snaking down my arm and falling to the floor.
‘For every time that you answer back, you revolting upstart,’ he pushes the blade to under my chin.
All the movies with bad guys that I’ve come into my mind and I feel the urge to laugh hysterically. O Connell’s just a movie villain, he’ll be defeated. Good always overpowers evil…doesn’t it?
‘What yer smirking at choirboy?’ he snarls.
‘Nothing,’ I reply hoarsely.
‘Yer better not be,’ he says cutting a thin line in the skin between my rosary and shirt and then dabbing at it with a piece of white cloth ‘see I’m a nice guy Bono, I help you when you’re injured.’
God this man is insane, he needs to be locked up. Nice guy, evil guy, bad cop, good cop. That’s it, the good cop, bad cop routine. Where had I read about that, I don’t read thrillers. Oh it was that book about some famous kidnapping that Edge was reading on tour with a passage on ‘the dark art of interrogation.’ I shudder.
‘Yer just don’t fucking deserve to be alive getting that girl pregnant,’ he says and beckons to Shane who’s been drinking vodka in the corner ‘give the man a drink of water, not much, just a little.’
Shane gets a glass from the desk and I turn my head away clamping my lips together.
‘Oh stop it,’ he says ‘it’s water!’
He prises my lips apart and pours the liquid in. I am deeply relieved to feel water slipping down my throat though it still tastes pretty disgusting. I gulp thirstily but he withdraws it all too quickly.
I look over at O Connell who’s making another phone call.
‘Alec, yes hi. Yeah you’re nearer to gettin’ Grace, good. I’ve sent the death threats. Just get a trap ready and I’ll send Shane ’
I scream expletives into my gag as soon as I hear him say that and struggle up from my seat. I stumble towards him but I’m knocked to the ground and once again lose consciousness.
Other days all similar, hours spent in cell and then a few being made to talk or listen to O Connell. Forced in the mornings to watch televised appeals with my loved ones. Fed meagre amounts in three meals every day. Fed like a dog. Exercised little and drugged loads. I realise that’s why memory’s so fucking terrible and distorted. Relief in some ways to have the trauma buried. But start to feel sick at what drugs they’ve been feeding me day in, day out. Occasionally given a pen and paper where I write the darkest lyrics of my life, all about pain and suffering. A crumpled picture of Grace is given to me by O Connell when he gets very drunk one night and I keep that close to me.
That’s all I remember as I am thrown about the floor of the van like a trussed doll. Please say they never caught Grace. She’s carrying a child for fuck’s sake. I manage to get myself into a kneeling position. It hurts to breathe but I manage uit and ignore the constant tirade of curses and insults from the driver and passenger seats. Will I ever see anyone I know again? Where are they taking me, what’s going to happen. I pray, my faith and my love for Grace are things they’ve not managed to take from me.
oh noes!
