by C. P. Wilson
Hatred of himself burned strongest of all.
He hated how much shit he had taken from everyone. He hated how far he had let his wife recede into herself and not asked for help. He hated her for being someone else, someone he didn’t know, or want or love. Mostly, Dougie hated himself for needing so badly for Mary to be who she had always been to him instead of simply being capable of accepting whoever she was turning into.
Hate and pain and furious loathing became his entire world within the cheerfully-flowered walls of their little bathroom.
After what seemed an eternity, and the briefest of moments at once, something shook loose inside burning what remained of his malevolence out. A primal, guttural cry marked its passing.
Glimpsing his own raging face in a shard of mirror on the edge of the sink, Dougie Black fell to his knees onto the bathroom floor, heedless of the tearing glass and mirror fragments. Dougie Black curled in on himself and began the process of figuring out how to move forward, how to reclaim something of his life. How to place all of his rancid, unpalatable hatred and pain into a box and never look at it again.
How to best help his darling Mary and that new person who wore her skin.
Chapter Thirty
“How’s things, Dougie?” Mr Storrie asked entering the Biology teacher’s classroom.
Stood cleaning out some test-tubes, Dougie whipped his head around to greet the head teacher.
“Oh, hiya Bill. Aye, not bad. Yourself?”
Storrie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Not bad, glad it’s end of term though.”
Dougie snort-laughed his agreement.
“That you doing your end of term tidy?” Storrie nodded at Dougie’s soapy hands.
“Aye, you know how I hate to come into a mess at the start of a new term.” Dougie’s eyes narrowed. “What you after, Bill?”
"Nothing really, just doing the rounds, checking in with everyone before the holidays."
“Uh-huh,” Dougie replied unconvinced.
Awaiting Storrie’s coming question, Dougie turned his attention back to his cleaning,
“How’s Mary?” he asked.
Dougie sighed. Keeping his attention on his task, he replied without looking back at Storrie.
“She’s alright. Some good days, some bad.”
Storrie allowed a short silence to hang between them before speaking again.
“More good than bad?” he pressed gently.
Dougie shrugged, leaving another silence that he wouldn’t break.
The sounds of Storrie’s steps closed a few metres between them.
“You look tired, Dougie,” Storrie said. “Do you need some help?”
Dougie placed a beaker onto the drying rack. “Na, I’m nearly done here.” His tone held no humour.
“You know what I mean, Dougie,” Storrie said.
Several replies flitted through Dougie’s mind. Most of which were a variation on Mind yer business.
Dougie swallowed the momentary indignation he’d felt. Bill of all people understood at least part of what he and Mary were going through.
He turned to face the head teacher, fetching himself a handful of paper-towels as he moved.
Drying roughly at his hands, he locked eyes on Storrie, intending to dismiss his boss’s concerns.
Without deciding to, Dougie opted for honesty.
“It’s brutal just now, Bill. Mary’s completely unpredictable and impossible to speak to at times. She’s retreated further from herself.”
Shame flushed Dougie’s cheeks. A deep pain at what felt like betraying Mary lanced him. Dougie’s eyes fixed to the floor, unable to meet Storrie’s.
Despite every instinct screaming at him to be silent, Dougie continued.
“She gets confused more often now, forgets where she is. I can see her sitting there in the same chair she’s sat in for decades, in the heart of our living room, in the home we have shared for so long. She sits there, Bill, looking around at the walls like it’s the first time she’s ever been there.”
Storrie nodded silently, allowing Dougie to offload.
“Sometimes she looks terrified, sometimes excited at the newness of her surroundings. Mostly she’s just perplexed.”
Dougie’s eyes flicked up to assess Storrie then quickly returned to boring a hole in the floor.
“She doesn’t remember anything about our lives. Not her house, not who she is…” Dougie gulped in a breathful of air, fortifying himself. “She doesn’t know who I am anymore. She calls me ‘Tom’.”
Storrie moved to sit closer to Dougie. He didn’t reach out to comfort him: lifelong friends they may have been, but that wasn’t their way. Instead he shouldered next to Dougie, giving him a gentle dunt.
“That’s awful, Dougie. I’m really sorry.”
Dougie nodded his gratitude.
Both men stood silent, their shoulders touching for several quiet minutes.
Each of them thought mutely of the day they had visited Bill’s mother and she hadn’t known her own son.
Old Mrs Storrie had sat describing her son Billy as a boisterous seven-year-old to the grown man she didn’t recognise in front of her.
Bill and Dougie had drowned his pain in the Jinglin’ Geordie bar for the rest of that day.
I understand.
It didn’t need said, not between them: it hung there mingling with the shame and the pain they both felt about the women they loved so very much.
“She’s so young for all this,” Storrie said, breaking the silence.
She was, certainly compared to Mrs Storrie who had been in her late eighties when Alzheimer’s took her.
"How long has it been?" Storrie asked eventually.
"Six months since she started calling me Tom," Dougie admitted.
“Six months and you haven’t said a word?”
Dougie nodded. He didn’t look at Storrie. He couldn’t. He could feel Storrie reining in his anger. Dougie recoiled minutely, waiting for the inevitable question. Storrie didn’t disappoint.
“Does she remember Karen?”
“No,” Dougie hung his head. “Not for over a year now.”
“I suppose that’s a good thing,” Storrie replied. His tone made plain he didn’t believe this.
Storrie simmered in silence once again, breaking it with a growl.
“Don’t do that again, Dougie. You come speak to me from now on, okay?”
Dougie coughed hard.
“I will.”
He looked up to meet a judgmental glare from his friend. You better had, the look promised.
Storrie locked his eyes on him for several seconds, then nudged him again with his shoulder.
“Pint?”
Fifty reasons why he couldn’t go for a drink shuffled through his thoughts. Dougie’s mouth took over, making the decision for him.
“Aye. Please.”
“Right, you finish up here and come meet at reception when you’re done. Mary be alright for a couple of hours? I can get Jan to go around and keep her company?”
Dougie shook his head. “I have help in.” He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “I had a bit of a bad day a couple of months ago and decided I needed full-time help.”
Storrie nodded his approval.
“Well, at least you’ve done something smart then.” He grinned and headed for the door before turning back around again.
“Why Tom?” he asked.
Dougie smiled sadly.
"She had a brother who died when he was eight... Tom."
Storrie nodded, mirroring Dougie’s expression.
“Well, at least it wasn’t an old boyfriend,” he offered, laughing as he left.
Dougie allowed a half-hearted laugh of his own out. It was mostly forced, but felt good anyway.
Dougie spent several minutes tidying away and shuffling equipment and books that didn’t require it. At length he breathed out, purging himself. A half-smile, Dougie Black clicked the light off in his room and went to catch up with his friend.
Chapter Thirty-One
Storrie cast a hawkish look down over the top of his glasses, which rested part-way down his nose. Regarding Dougie, he watched his old friend return from the toilets. Staggering slightly, pink-cheeked and looser of gait than he had seen him in quite some time, Storrie decided that Dougie had benefitted from the hours they’d spent in the Jinglin’ Geordie.
Seated in a dimly-lit alcove in a quiet corner of the bar, they’d huddled together, hunched over the table, leaning towards each other that they might chat in relative privacy. To his friend’s surprise and relief, Dougie had taken the opportunity to relay many of his fears and worries, as well as the details of quite how much his daily life had been taking a toll on him.
Dougie made a drinking gesture with his hand. Another pint? he mouthed to Storrie.
Giving him the thumbs-up, Storrie watched with gratification as Dougie spent a few minutes casually chatting to the young man behind the bar who happened to be an ex-pupil of Cambuscraig High. Watching Dougie, always at his best when with his pupils, Storrie could almost feel that his friend had forgotten his woes, at least for a while.
This was a good idea, he decided to himself as Dougie retuned to place two pints of Guinness on their table.
“Hold on,” Dougie said with a grin, returning to collect two glasses of whisky from the bar.
Storrie lifted his eyebrows questioningly and jutted his chin at the whisky tumblers.
Dougie nodded over his shoulder at the barman. “Freebies from the lad,” he explained. “Single malt, Auchentoshan.”
Storrie searched his memory for a few moments, mentally flicking through thousands of ex-pupils’ faces until he arrived at a name.
Holding his glass up in salute, he called across to the lad, “Very kind, Stephen. Much appreciated, son.”
The kid lit up the bar with his smile. “Nae bother, sir. Good to see ye baith.”
Turning to face Dougie, who had re-seated himself, Storrie leaned in to speak, his tone conspiratorial.
“What a wee bastard he was in school. You remember?”
Dougie nodded, a lop-sided grin and a raise of his eyebrows conveyed that he remembered Stephen Laurie very well.
“Good to see him in a job and doing well, isn’t it?”
Dougie agreed with a nod as he sipped his pint. Wiping a strip of foam from his top lip with the back of his hand, he added, “Best part of our job.”
“Aye. It is.”
The theme from Django Unchained blasted out from Dougie’s pocket, interrupting Storrie as he leaned in to resume the conversation Dougie had left to go for a pee.
Dougie fished his phone from his pocket, checking the screen.
“Mary’s home-help," he explained. "Probably just checking in. It’s only seven-thirty, she’s in until ten tonight, special favour for me,” Dougie said with a wink.
Storrie nodded and scooped up his whisky as his friend rose from the table. Watching Dougie leave the noise of the pub to take his call, Storrie sniffed at his whisky before taking a sip which he allowed to swirl and numb his tongue pleasantly before swallowing. It’d been a long time since he’d had a whisky, and he’d never tried the Auchentoshan before. Draining the glass, Storrie shoved his seat back and strode over to greet Stephen at the bar.
“Very nice drop that, son,” he greeted the lad. “Thanks again.”
Storrie placed his glass on the bar.
“Stick another in there for me, and one for yersel’.”
Stephen smiled broadly at his former head teacher.
“Ah dinnae drink, Mr Storrie, but I’ll stick the cost in the tip jar if that’s okay?”
“Of course, it is, son. You fire in.”
Storrie observed the lad as he fetched the whisky. Memories of arranging a social worker for a thirteen-year-old Stephen skated across his memory. Alcoholic father, mum he never knew.
Storrie leaned on the bar as Stephen placed his second whisky in front of him.
“You look good, Stephen. You keeping well?”
Stephen smiled warmly. He knew exactly what Storrie alluded to. With a shrug, he replied, “I am good, Mr Storrie.”
They regarded each other for several short silent moments.
“Good,” Storrie broke the moment. “Glad to see you doing well, son.”
Stephen laughed.
“I was a wee dick at school, eh?” Despite being in his early twenties, the kid’s cheeks reddened at using bad language in front of Storrie.
“Aye, you were,” Storrie agreed with a roaring laugh of his own. “But you’re supposed to be at that age. So long as ye catch onto yersel’ at some point, and you’re obviously a dick no longer.”
Stephen laughed loudly, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
“Well, sorry,” Stephen said. “And… y’know. Thanks.”
Storrie waved him off. “No bother, Stephen.”
Storrie jabbed a thumb at the door. Dougie’s silhouette was visible through a strip of frosted glass.
"Mr Black and I were exactly the same as teenagers, y’know."
Storrie motioned for the kid to lean over the bar. “We didn’t have the family difficulties you had to deal with though, Stephen. You should be really proud of yourself, son.”
Stephen’s eyes flicked away, unable to meet Storrie’s for an instant. The kid mastered himself, met Storrie’s eyes again and nodded his thanks.
Storrie lifted his glass, and handing a tenner over the counter to Stephen, he spoke over his shoulder as he returned to his table.
“Keep the change. Good to see you, Stephen.”
“Aye, you too.”
Storrie placed his refilled glass on the table. Pressing both fists into each side of his lower back, he kneaded the tender muscles there. As he released his spine, Dougie wandered in through the door.
Storrie’s heart sank when he saw his friend’s face. Ashen, drawn eyes rimmed with red, tears flowing freely, Dougie Black appeared to have aged a decade.
Storrie knew before his friend opened his mouth to speak.
“She’s dead,” Dougie mumbled to no one.
“Mary’s dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Shoulders hunched against the chill, chin tucked into his chest, Dougie peered up through half-shut eyes as they lowered her coffin into the frosted ground. A passenger in the moment, Dougie wondered idly at his own remoteness, but only in a mildly-interested manner. He wasn’t truly feeling anything at all. What was there to feel anymore?
The anger he had kept secured for so long had departed, dissipating into the air, as irrelevant and transient as the fogging breath appearing under his nose with the rhythm of his lungs. Again, Dougie noted with only minor interest that his anger had abandoned him at the exact moment he could have used its fortification the most.
Dougie sighed, filling the air with his visible breath. Storrie placed a heavy hand on Dougie’s shoulder. Incapable of meeting his friend’s eyes, Dougie ignored it, shifting his attention back to the coffin.
A gentle thud reached his ears and the straps loosened as Mary reached the bottom of her fresh grave. Dougie’s eyes unfocused, releasing any real image of the scene around him. He looked through the world before him, not really seeing any of it. His thoughts drifted away, to Karen.
She should be here. He needed her here, but it would have been a betrayal to have her with him. As much as he himself may take comfort from her presence at the graveside at that moment, it would ultimately bring only pain.
Feeling a tug at his coat sleeve, Dougie realised that he was expected to do something. Storrie nudged him toward the priest who stood, inviting Dougie to throw a handful of dirt into Mary’s grave. Dougie blinked dumbly several times, only partially clearing the haze he had retreated into. Reaching out he closed his hand around a fistful of earth and dropped it without sentiment into the hole his wife lay in.
He stood there gazing inattentively down at her coffin lid and the earth scattered across its f
ormerly-pristine surface. Dougie waited. Waited for some unfamiliar pressure to build and send tears boiling from his eyes. Waiting for the growing wind to shove him into the hole. Waiting for someone to point and accuse him, expose this failings, numerous as they were. Dougie Black stood staring into the white-frosted hole in the world, waiting to feel anything at all.
Feeling someone step alongside him, Dougie inched to his right and coldly observed Storrie drop some earth onto Mary. Storrie took one of Dougie’s hands in both of his. Giving it a squeeze, he locked his eyes on Dougie’s. Dougie was aware of him, but allowed his unfocused eyes to stare through the man.
A series of people followed Storrie’s example: Mary’s nurse, and some old friends, most of whom hadn’t seen Mary in years. Dougie stood nodding, accepting each of their condolences, waiting for bitterness at their hypocrisy to crest, bringing the anger he desperately wanted to claim him.
By the time they had all filed past, Dougie Black was utterly vacant. Empty of any, and all, emotion.
The last of them finally departed, headed to the wake leaving their flowers and their condolences behind at the graveside with Dougie. Hearing a heavy step crunch the grass behind him, Dougie turned his head languidly to find Storrie by his side.
“You’re doing well, Dougie,” Storrie offered. “You ready to go, yet?” he asked.
Surprising himself, Dougie discovered that something clawed at him to remain by the graveside. Responding to Storrie, he shook his head.
“Okay. I’ll wait in the car.” Storrie trudged off across the grass leaving Dougie alone.
Staring at the box that held what remained of his wife, Dougie Black forced himself to imagine his life without Mary. How would it unfold? Did he even want a life without her in it? Forty years is a long time to love someone.
A voice inside whispered at him.