Acts & Monuments

by Alan Kane Fraser

  “But what if it wasn’t his fault?” he asked.

  “At the end of the day, we all make our own choices, Barry. And when you’re caught between the Devil and the deep, blue sea, there’ll always be those who’ll opt for the Devil. Which is such a shame, because everybody knows right from wrong. I really believe they do. We all do – in our hearts. It’s just that we spend so long trying to silence that voice inside us because we’ve convinced ourselves that the voice is just a figment of our imagination. That we’re silly for listening to our heart. But I don’t think we are. I think that voice is real.”

  A rather awkward silence descended on the room. Barry’s jaw locked shut as his face became redder and redder.

  “I’m sorry, Barry. That turned into a bit of a rant. It wasn’t meant to be.” She changed the subject. “How are things at home? Your wife coping any better with your daughter being away?”

  But Barry remained tight-lipped. “Well, you know. We’re taking each day as it comes. It’s pretty frustrating really,” was as much as he would say.

  “You’ve just got to keep on loving her, Barry,” Jean said. “She’s your wife – that’s the deal. And the one thing we know from bitter experience is that love hurts. It’s just the way it is sometimes.”

  Barry had spent forty-eight years on this earth biting his tongue, but now he rose from his seat and without further thought let those forty-eight years of frustration finally come tumbling out of his mouth.

  “People always say ‘love hurts’, as though that’s a proper answer, but it’s not,” he said, quaking with rage. “Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Sitting in silence when your heart is bursting with things you can’t say – that hurts. But that’s not love. Love’s supposed to cover all that up, isn’t it? Love’s what’s supposed to make you feel wonderful. Love’s the only thing in this godforsaken world that shouldn’t bloody hurt!”

  And without further ado, he grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and stormed out of the office, leaving Jean motionless, in a stunned silence.

  It appeared that the E.R. Hughes exhibition would be receiving Barry’s custom that day after all.

  Fifty-One

  Edward Robert Hughes was a Pre-Raphaelite painter who wasn’t particularly highly regarded when he was alive and whose reputation had suffered a precipitous decline in the first sixty years after his death. As a man ill-disposed toward the Pre-Raphaelites generally, it wasn’t difficult for Barry to understand why, and the early sections of the exhibition merely confirmed his prejudices.

  However, those sections were, in reality, only the hors d’oeuvres before the main course. The fact was that Hughes had been the subject of reappraisal by more recent critics, and was now the subject of his first one-man show more than a century after his death. And as far as Barry could tell, this was largely due to the enduring appeal of one of his last paintings, Night with Her Train of Stars and Her Great Gift of Sleep (1912).

  Despite his general indifference to all things Pre-Raphaelite, even Barry had to concede that this painting was a masterpiece. He liked to think this was because it was, strictly speaking, more of a Symbolist painting than a Pre-Raphaelite one, so he still felt he could admire it without betraying his general principle that all Pre-Raphaelite art was rubbish.

  Symbolist artists, as Dr Potter had elucidated to Barry and his largely uninterested classmates all those years ago, wanted to transcend the mere depiction of the material world. They set about creating works that were designed to provoke profound emotional, even spiritual, responses. And, being Symbolists, they did this by using the physical objects in their paintings as symbols that pointed to another world – a world that could be experienced in our day-to-day lives, but that was, perhaps, not fully seen. It was a deeper world, invisible to the naked eye, and one that thus could only be brought into view by the ministrations of art. It was a world of the soul, and, staring at Hughes’ masterpiece, Barry became aware of something within him. It was something beyond a gnawing sense of guilt, but it spoke to him of guilt nonetheless.

  The painting itself was set at twilight and showed a winged female figure, Night, flying through the sky, cradling a small baby in her arms. Behind her followed an army of tiny winged creatures – putti – some carrying glowing lights, others playing with Night’s long robes. She had her finger on her lips to silence them.

  Barry seemed to recall that it had once been his wife’s favourite painting. She’d even put a print of it on the wall of Christopher’s nursery. Many was the evening that Barry had held his screaming son in his arms and stared at that print, imploring Night to silence Christopher with the same effortless alacrity that she managed with the nameless baby in Hughes’ painting.

  And then, of course, she had. At which point, his wife had put the print in the loft. Barry had found it there when he’d gone up to get his painting kit before Christmas. He’d brought it down because it seemed a sad waste for such a beautiful picture.

  Barry couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that she’d got over her aversion to it. He’d even caught her staring at it that morning in what looked like an admiring way. It was what had prompted him to think about taking in the original.

  One of the things that he liked about exhibitions was that the notes and displays gave you a chance to learn more about the artist and their work. For instance, he’d never much thought about it before, but the highly unusual title of the painting had not come from Hughes himself but from W.E. Henley’s poem ‘Margaritae Sorori’. Barry read it for the first time from the large reproduction that accompanied the painting as part of the exhibition:

  A late lark twitters from the quiet skies:

  And from the west,

  Where the sun, his day’s work ended,

  Lingers as in content,

  There falls on the old, gray city

  An influence luminous and serene,

  A shining peace.

  The smoke ascends

  In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires

  Shine and are changed. In the valley

  Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,

  Closing his benediction,

  Sinks, and the darkening air

  Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night

  Night with her train of stars

  And her great gift of sleep.

  So be my passing!

  My task accomplish’d and the long day done,

  My wages taken, and in my heart

  Some late lark singing,

  Let me be gather’d to the quiet west,

  The sundown splendid and serene,

  Death.

  Barry had looked at the picture so many times, yet it was only now that he read Henley’s poem that he felt as though he truly saw it – as though he saw it for the first time as Hughes had intended. It suddenly hit him that it wasn’t a picture about the innocent sleep of babes at all. The wings of Night were not the white wings of an angel, but the black wings of Death. The figure of Night bringing sleep was a symbol (of course it was!) of Death bringing oblivion. The child she cradled in her arms represented the departing soul. The dividing line between day and night in the picture actually symbolised the line between life and death.

  Barry couldn’t believe that he’d never seen it before, but suddenly all the other elements in the painting began to make sense. The putti clutching at Night’s robe were not playing with her; they were trying to pull her back. The finger that Night placed on her lips was not merely an injunction to the playful putti to be quiet so they didn’t wake a sleeping child. It was a bidding to let Death take its course because, as Henley had observed, death need not be sorrowful. It could be ‘splendid and serene’. And there, beneath Night, a flock of birds were seen flying home to roost. It felt to Barry a particularly apposite metaphor.

  He realised that he couldn’t ever be truly free, not no
w. He knew he would never again be free to say the first thing that came into his head, and probably not even the second. He would forever be calibrating in his mind what it was safe to say. And he would do that because he had to stop people discovering the truth. The fact was that everything in his life was a lie now. It was all based on the lie that he’d made people believe, that Barry Todd was a good man. He wasn’t, not anymore. Iulia had been right. He was a bad man, “a very bad man”.

  Barry looked back at Hughes’ picture, at the sleeping child in Night’s arms. Unlike the putti, frenetically chasing after Night and trying to pull her back, the sleeping child was at peace. He saw no need to fight his fate, to struggle free from Night’s arms. His heart may indeed even have thrilled with a sense of ‘triumphing night’, as Henley had supposed. And Barry felt as if he finally understood – fully understood – the painting’s title. This sleep, this deepest sleep, truly was a ‘great gift’. Because the baby didn’t have to worry anymore. It was all over; the struggles and travails that still wracked the putti were his no more. Death was not a grim reaper, but a protective, motherly figure who cradled you with true love.

  And perhaps that, after all, was all he’d ever wanted.

  Fifty-Two

  The more he thought about it the more it made sense. He’d got the money put aside to pay for Lauren’s maintenance whilst she was at university. It didn’t need him to be physically present to pay it to her; he could just send it through in one payment. He’d bought a car, so his wife wouldn’t be left without one, and she could exchange the Subaru for something more suitable if she wanted to. And there was twenty grand still left, which he could use to clear the mortgage. With the insurance money as well, she’d be all right. In fact, she’d probably be better off.

  Besides, she didn’t want him around, not really. Occasionally, she said that she did, but what Barry always suspected was that she wanted his help. She wanted a good home in a nice area, a decent car and, of course, she had wanted help looking after Lauren. But, Barry was reluctantly forced to conclude that she didn’t want him – Barry Todd, specifically – to provide those things. Anyone would have done. It was just that she’d got stuck with him.

  And then, as if to prove his point, his phone pinged with a text message from his wife advising him that she wouldn’t be back home for dinner that evening. Yes, he knew that she was trying to speak to Lauren, and, yes, she’d apologised (“I’m really really sorry”). She even said she’d left him a note explaining “everything”, which, on the basis of Barry’s previous experience of her explanatory notes, he assumed meant explaining how he could actually cook his own tea for once. But all that was hardly the point. The fact was that – as her text message amply demonstrated – she’d rather be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else. She didn’t want to be around him. And, if he was being honest, he didn’t want to be around her either, not anymore.

  But, given his ample frame, thinning hair and potato-like face, it appeared almost inconceivably unlikely that he would be able to find another, more suitable, life-companion now. The sad fact was that he had just received proof positive that he couldn’t even pay someone to have sex with him. For all his sudden wealth, it appeared it wasn’t enough to give him the one thing he actually wanted. That, it seemed, was altogether more elusive.

  “That’s all right” he texted back, after pulling up on the drive at home. “I’ll sort myself something out. Love you x”

  It was a lie of course. Yet another one. It wasn’t all right, and he probably wouldn’t be able to sort himself something out, no matter how idiot-proof his wife’s cooking instructions were. And he didn’t love her; not if love meant being patient and kind and all that other stuff Jean had gone on about. But he couldn’t face telling her that.

  “Love is looking into the filthy, black heart of another human being and defying the urge to jump ship.” That’s what Jean had said. Well, Barry had looked into his own heart and he was done with defying. It was time to jump.

  “When you’re caught between the Devil and the deep, blue sea, there will always be some people who will choose the Devil.” Well, Barry had tried that and was reluctantly forced to conclude that it hadn’t worked out for him. In light of that, the deep, blue sea now looked a surprisingly attractive option.

  The house breathed out its silence as Barry entered and hung up his coat in the hall. The fact that he was on his own was helpful; it would give him time to research online without having to worry about his wife getting suspicious. He checked the kitchen table, but couldn’t see any note, so he pulled the Dial-a-Pizza leaflet off the noticeboard instead. He phoned through his order then went upstairs to get changed.

  He’d barely got out of his work suit when the doorbell rang. Given that it had only been ten minutes since he’d placed his order, Barry was surprised. But, as he approached the front door, he saw that it wasn’t the pizza-delivery man as he had supposed. Instead, through the frosted glass, he saw two blobs of fluorescent yellow, one large and round, one small and thin.

  “PC Rathbone? PC Molloy!” This was not what he’d expected at all, but, judging by the look on their faces, seeing him was not what they had expected either.

  “I thought you’d been taken off the Malford case. DS Norton told me…”

  “Uh, we have been,” said Gemma. “That’s not what this is about.”

  A horrible thought entered Barry’s mind and the colour drained from his cheeks. “This isn’t about Iulia Nicolescu, is it? Because if it is—”

  “Who?” asked Gemma. “No. No, it isn’t. Look, can we come in, Mr Todd?”

  “Umm. Yes, yes, of course. Come in,” Barry replied, ushering them into the lounge.

  He had come so far, and if they’d just left him alone, he would have brought matters to a conclusion himself soon enough anyway. But now it looked as if even that rather hollow consolation was to be denied him.

  “So why are you here?”

  “Of course,” Gemma replied. “I’m sorry, Mr Todd, but I’m afraid there’s been… an accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “Well, an incident,” Molloy corrected. “We’re on traffic at the moment. Our colleagues from motorways have asked us to come and see you.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…”

  “A car belonging to you has been found abandoned,” Gemma said.

  “Belonging to me? But that’s imposs— oh, hang on…”

  “A Subaru BRZ?” Molloy asked. “SE Lux. Flame red.”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s my car.”

  “We found it on a road near a bridge over the motorway. There was a note,” said Gemma, reaching inside her folder and withdrawing a manila envelope on which was written “To whom it may concern” in beautifully crafted handwriting.

  At which point, Barry realised that the note the earlier text message had been referring to was not, as he had supposed, his wife’s instructions for how to cook her mother’s chicken and leek pie.

  “What’s happened?” asked Barry, grabbing the envelope from Gemma and frantically removing its contents.

  Barry’s wife had been a secretary at Dudley Art College. She’d often talked of doing some of the courses on offer in her own time, but, in the event, the only one she’d ever done was calligraphy. So, whilst her painting skills were non-existent and her knowledge of art history was distinctly patchy, her handwriting was always beautiful – in marked contrast to Barry’s spidery scrawl. He’d always rather admired that about her, if nothing else. And he admired the beauty of her note now. There was a goodness to it, somehow, that shone through, even before he’d had a chance to read what it actually said.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Todd, but there are some questions we have to ask. It’s for the paperwork,” said Molloy.

  But Barry’s attention was wholly focused on the letter in front of him:

  Firstly,
let me say how sorry I am if I’ve caused anyone any trouble or put anyone out. I really didn’t mean to. Please pass on my apologies if I’ve made a nuisance of myself – that wasn’t my intention.

  But I wanted to explain things.

  Obviously, I’m not happy, but it’s why I’m not happy that really bothers me. It’s that I seem to make the people around me miserable. I don’t mean to, I just do. The people I’m supposed to be closest to actually feel the farthest away. I do care about them, but they just regard me as an inconvenience. I think they’d prefer it if I was dead, to be honest.

  It used to be so different. I was at an art college once. I had dreams; I knew what I wanted to be. But somehow I’ve lost sight of all that. My daughter talks to me now like I’m an idiot – when I can get her to talk to me at all. She doesn’t respect me anymore. No one does. I think that’s what hurts the most.

  Losing our son tore us apart. When Christopher died, it pretty much ended our marriage. We don’t communicate now, not really.

  It’s funny, because I feel I have so much love to give, but no one seems to want it. It’s like money, I suppose – you always think you want more of it, but if you keep it all for yourself, it just becomes a burden. You really need to be able to give it away, and if you can’t, then frankly, what’s the point? You don’t have anything to live for if no one wants your love, do you?

  Sorry again. Please make sure my daughter knows that I do love her. This wasn’t about her; I want her to know that.

  Thank you.

  Barry looked up at the officers in stunned silence. It didn’t make sense; it just didn’t make sense.

  “We believe, from her driving licence, that the note may have been left by Julie Todd. Do you know if that’s her signature?” asked Gemma.

  Julie Todd. He rolled the name around his mind. It seemed familiar, and yet also somehow strangely distant, like the memory of someone he used to know. But it was unmistakably her signature. It wasn’t wholly legible, but Barry would recognise its flamboyant swirls anywhere. After all those years he’d seen it so many times.