The Chain

by Joy Richards

  Over the next few days and weeks, faced with an impending divorce, a broken affair and homelessness, John started taking the pills more and more often. He slept in the office for a week, and then found a sub-let of a bedsit a few minutes away from the office. He had no money to spare. After he had gone through his accounts with the lawyer he had realised he would not be able to afford a proper home for many years to come. Florence would have to move out from that stupid little house too, a fact that gave him the perverse pleasure of knowing that while he was uncomfortable and unhappy, she would soon be as well. What’s more, work kept piling up on his desk. The longer he spent at the firm the more he realised he hated his job. The next step was always supposed to be when the good times came, but they never did. First, get a job. Then, go on secondment. Then, make partner. And yet, the next step always sucked almost as badly as the one before. Except now he had more money, but the money was rendered useless by his incredibly expensive separation, soon to be an incredibly expensive divorce.

  To make matters even worse, Corinne refused to quit her job. So he had to see her every day, looking more beautiful than ever as she stared at him with cold distant eyes. He had hurt her more than he would ever know, he realised, and now she was making him pay for it. He thought of attempting reconciliation, but he could not cope with the idea of how much effort it was going to be. So he just retreated into himself, a shallow existence of work, Netflix and drinking.

  In fact, he was drinking more every day. He would go for pints every night, always with someone new. Mostly he managed to find some of his actual friends who wanted to come to the pub, but when he couldn’t he would settle for anyone. People he hardly knew from work. People from different offices, but in the same building. Neighbours. After the pints, while the others retreated to the normality of their full lives, he would grab a takeaway and a bottle of wine and finish both in the depressing privacy of his bedsit. Then, he would crack out the vodka. Whenever he could, he would forgo this ordeal in favour of a real night out, with dancing and bartenders and other people. He even tried to hook up with strangers, with almost no success.

  He was gaining weight rapidly. He had always been tall and well-built, but all the muscle had been replaced by fat. A quickly expanding beer-belly was beckoning. He even had to buy new shirts, as the old ones strained to contain him. He hated looking the way he looked. He had always been into exercise, and loved to take long runs with Spencer. God, he missed that dog. He missed his wife and child too, but the dog had been his one real companion for over a year. He had thought of taking Spencer with him.

  Nobody would miss him: Tim was barely aware of him and Florence certainly wouldn’t. She hated that dog. She hated the fact the dog liked him better, and she hated how they had bonded. She hadn’t even wanted a dog in the first place, although she had demanded he get a stray from the rescue centre instead of a Labrador. Typical Florence; she had demands about things she didn’t even care about. His childhood dog had been a Labrador, and that dog had been his best and probably only friend for many years. Not that she knew. Not that he’d told her, upon reflection. Either way, Spencer could not come to the bedsit. Pets are luxuries for people who can afford them, John realised. How heartbreaking.

  Either way, without the dog he lost all motivation to exercise. Combined with the daily takeaways and the binge drinking, this explained his horrific shape. Which explained why he couldn’t get any women interested in him on nights out. Not that he cared, his libido had melted like snow in the sunshine. Except on this one night. He was leaving work, feeling blank as always. Actually, his mind was mostly preoccupied with work. As well as his physical and mental health, his standards at work were also deteriorating. He was making mistakes, some of them serious. He had just made one. One of the junior associates had realised in time, and had told him. She was bright and was still up in the office sorting it all out for him. Thank God for ambitious young people.

  At any rate, as he was coming out he caught a glimpse of Corinne. She was crossing the road, and she was holding hands with a young man. Probably her age. Tall, lean, with flamboyant hair that flowed down to his shoulders. She was laughing, oblivious to John’s presence behind her. She was happy. A gust of wind blew up her open coat to reveal she was wearing a tight miniskirt over black tights. Suddenly, he remembered the way she made him feel. He felt miserable, but also like he needed some female companionship.

  He lurked around a few bars, but he quickly realised his fantasy of walking in, finding an attractive young woman in a suit and going back to her place after a couple of G&Ts was just that, a fantasy. He was older than most women there. He was fat. He was sweaty. He probably looked awful. He started back on his way home, when he noticed the ads. He must have walked past them hundreds of times, those smutty brightly coloured stickers that encrusted the sides of old phone booths. He’d probably made jokes about them before. Who uses phone booths anymore? People who are looking for a prostitute, that’s who.

  He could barely recognise himself as he quickly typed in the number on his phone. The voice on the other end was female, soft and surprisingly kind. She was also efficient. By the time John made it back to his bedsit, he knew to expect company within twenty minutes. He could not think about what he was doing, because he felt as though if he stopped to think he would not be able to go through with it. Bizarrely, he tidied up his room. He popped one more Adderall. He needed to concentrate if he was going to go through with this. He poured himself a vodka. Someone knocked on his door.

  After she’d left, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The neon light coming through the gap in the curtains illuminated his face like a ghost’s. He looked like a perverse caricature of his father. John turned round in disgust and grabbed onto the vodka bottle. He’d offered some to the girl, but she hadn’t wanted any. She’d been foreign, Eastern European probably, and not very attractive. She was very skinny though, and blonde. She had not looked like she was doing this for a good time. To be honest, neither was he. He collapsed on the floor. Why had he taken that Adderall? The pills meant he was struggling to feel the numbing effects of the alcohol. John took another swig of liquor. His phone pinged him. It was past two in the morning, who could it possibly be? He imagined it might be Florence, lonely at night, begging for him to come back. He let out a stridulous laugh at the idea. He checked his phone.

  Fuck.

  It was the associate he had left back at the office to fix up his mess. One of the senior partners had noticed she was working late and had gone over for a chat. She had been only too happy to talk to him, desperate to etch her face into his memory. Young kids like that were always trying to be noticed, going above and beyond. One thing led to another, he’d found out what she was doing. Not only that, but apparently John had made a series of other very bad mistakes that had come to light. Very expensive mistakes too. So it was up to him to fix it.

  “If you can work out exactly what we need to do by tomorrow morning at ten, she had written in her email, we can go talk to the client and resolve this.”

  Fuck. He pulled up the attachment on his phone. It was a long document, over two hundred pages, and the lines blurred in front of his eyes. He was supposed to go through it and figure out exactly what needed to be changed. He could barely read. He took a few long sips of vodka from the bottle. Wait, what was he doing? That was not going to help him focus. Focus. He needed to focus. He reached over to his pill bottle, and took two more. Wait, that couldn’t be right. Could it?

  He stood up. Wow. The room started spinning and he folded onto the floor. He could not seem to focus. He was so thirsty too. He took some more sips from the bottle that was next to him. Oh wait, that was vodka. His phone buzzed again, and with enormous difficulty he lifted it to his face. He couldn’t read it. In fact, he could barely make out the screen through his blurred vision.

  “I’ll just close my eyes,” he whispered to himself. “Close my eyes for a few minutes, and then I’ll be able to concentrate.
” He curled up on the floor and rested his head against his arm.

  15

  Michael

  Aaron and Penelope sat at the kitchen table, looking straight ahead. Michael noticed they had not touched each other since they had come through the door. Penelope was wearing a loose grey hoodie with a large bleach patch on the collar, and light-wash jeans. She looked haggard; they both did. How ironic, they had come home from a war zone looking young and happy, and a few months in this country had been enough to beat them down.

  They hadn’t come when Elijah called. They had taken their time, only making their way to Surrey the following weekend. They seemed to not be able to even look each other in the face. Michael drew a deep breath. Of all the things in this world, the only one he did not feel prepared to help his children with was marital problems. He had never had any. They had been through hell and back, but had never doubted each other. The rest of his boys seemed to have made similarly solid choices. In fact, it had never occurred to him Aaron would have an issue. Penelope was a lovely woman, and the two of them had been so clearly in love, so oblivious to the rest of the world. Michael and Claire had always been more concerned with their youngest son, Gideon, and his wife, Melissa.

  Gideon and Melissa had started seeing each other on assignment: he was a journalist, she was a photographer. For a few years they had been long-distance: he was travelling the world for work, she spent more and more time in London. They saw each other once every few months. Michael had assumed they would eventually split up. Then, she found out she was pregnant and the rest was history. Claire had been concerned: a child is no solid foundation for a marriage, she thought. And yet, they seemed happy. In fact, they had both never looked happier than they did in their quiet suburban lives. Michael was happy to be wrong. On the other hand, the tension between Aaron and Penelope was palpable.

  “Darling.” Claire reached out to clasp Aaron’s hands across the table. He quickly moved away.

  Penelope turned towards him. “You need to tell them.” Her voice was cutting, like glass.

  Aaron took a deep breath with his eyes closed. He looked like he was about to explode. “Mum, Dad, Penelope and I are separating.”

  “We are not separating,” Penelope came right back at him, rolling her eyes with an exasperated flourish. “We are getting a divorce.”

  “That’s the same thing.”

  “No it’s not. If you tell them we are separating, they’ll think we want to give it another go.”

  “How would you know what my parents would think?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Penelope got up.

  Michael realised she must have lost at least a stone. Her face was gaunt, her arms almost skeletal as they peaked through the hoodie sleeves.

  Claire continued, with her calm and nurturing voice. “Darling, what’s going on?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Penelope repeated. With a few quick steps, she reached the kitchen door and ran out of it. She tried to slam the door, but the springs were old and all she achieved was the soft sound of plastic hitting against the wall.

  Claire stared at her son in disbelief.

  That was very out of character, Michael thought. Not in this family, that’s not what we do. He quickly realised Penelope was not technically a part of his family in that way, she had not been taught the same ground rules he and Claire had laid for their children.

  Aaron shook his head and buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t crying, he just sat there, silent. Claire got up and sat next to him, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. He looked up.

  “I don’t need to tell you,” he said. “None of this is your fault. Things were already pretty bad in Yemen.” Claire rubbed a circular pattern across his shoulder blades, like she used to do when he was a baby.

  “Coming home was a last-ditch attempt to make a go of things. The refuge project was an attempt at sharing something again. And for a while it worked, it made us feel like we were working together. But now that’s over, we don’t…” he waved his arm around. Claire nodded, knowingly. Did she know what he was talking about? Michael also nodded, trying to look sympathetic. He felt his son’s pain, but was having a hard time imagining what that was like. He could never imagine not feeling connected to Claire, not feeling like they were part of the same team.

  He was so lucky to have her. He put a hand on her shoulder to feel her reassuring warmth, her scent and her presence. Without even looking, she flicked his hand away. Fair enough. Their heartbroken son probably did not need to look at his parents being affectionate. Michael felt very much in the way.

  He awkwardly lumbered towards the door. “I’ll go check on Penelope.” He had no interest in doing so, but he felt this would get him out of having to sit in the kitchen, powerless as his son’s eyes filled with tears. Neither Aaron nor Claire looked like they noticed in the least.

  Michael ventured outside. It was a blustery day, but he did not want to go back inside for a jacket. He strode out to the garden. I’ll go check the bird feeders, he thought. That was a job for him. As he walked towards the back of the garden, he recognised Penelope’s faded grey hoodie past the fence. She had made it onto the public footpath and was sitting in a clearing in the wood, on the ground, sobbing. He did not want to, but knew he had to go over. If anything, Claire might see him from the kitchen window.

  He closed the gate behind him, and walked over. He felt even more useless than in the kitchen, lumbering over his sobbing daughter-in-law and shivering in the winter air. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes were red raw. She was shaking. It took Michael a few seconds to realise she was looking at him with hatred. He was not used to being hated.

  “How fucking dare you?” Penelope screamed.

  He took a step back as she shot up.

  “How fucking dare you?” she asked again. “Coming here, trying to… to comfort me.” She looked disgusted. Michael was distressed, but also very confused. What had he done?

  “You, and your wife, and your perfect little lives with your perfect little home. How fucking dare you?” she screamed, folded in half by pain. Michael felt a few drops on his balding head. It was starting to rain. Perfect.

  “Penelope?” he asked, trying to sound as clear as he could. “What happened?” He used to be a professional advocate, a negotiator. And there he was, unable to comfort a woman who by all accounts he should care for.

  “Do you want to know what happened? Do you?” she was screaming. The neighbours would hear. Oh dear Lord, what had happened to him that he was now the sort of old fogey who worried about the neighbours?

  “Listen,” he said quietly. “You can tell me anything. It is my job to listen.” It was at moments like these when he wished he could speak properly, so that people could understand him. If he could get through to her, she would listen.

  She was somewhere else in her mind, her eyes glazed over. “What happened?” she said with a shaking voice. “Is that I killed my child. Your son and I,” she said, her face deformed in a mask of disgust. “We killed my baby. And there is nothing you or I or anyone can ever do about it.”

  “Penelope, what happened?” Michael asked again.

  What had happened? She wasn’t making any sense. Aaron had never had a child. Penelope was never pregnant. Unless she had been?

  She shook her head, walking backwards towards the path. The cold drops had stopped and a gentle breeze was whistling through the bare tree branches.

  “I was pregnant, Michael, that’s what happened. It was an accident, but we were both so, so happy. And we decided it was a good idea to go on a three-week mission to a refugee camp because, well, because of you!”

  “Penelope, I don’t know what Aaron told you but we didn’t even know you were pregnant… and we would have never, ever told him–” He could feel his words slurring.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she interrupted him. “Of course you didn’t tell him to do it. But all his life,
all his life he has been trying to live up to your… your legacy.” She looked like she had just said a dirty word. “The great Michael and Claire Woodward and their fucking legacy. So he couldn’t give up going, because people needed his help. At the expense of his wife and his fucking child. Do you understand? He chose other people’s children, over mine. Over his.”

  As she spoke, yelling over the wind and her own tears, Michael started piecing together what had happened. They were on assignment in Yemen, at a field hospital. Penelope had somehow become pregnant, by mistake. They had both been thrilled. There was a three-week mission to an isolated refugee camp planned, and Aaron had insisted they still go. The pregnancy seemed healthy, and Penelope was strong. She’d agreed. In fact, the more she talked the more she seemed heartbroken about the fact that she had wanted to go. She had wanted to go so much she had lied on their paperwork, denying she was pregnant. Once at the refugee camp, they were dropped off and had to wait three weeks for a pick up.

  The first week had been fine. In fact, it had been a success. They were immunising children and seeing people with all sorts of conditions. The days went fast. As the mission lead, Penelope had made sure she gave herself enough time to cool down and rest. Aaron had covered for her where needed. They’d made a good team. Then, they’d all got sick. It was probably typhoid, they’d thought. One night, while they were all up with high fevers, Penelope had started to bleed. The bleeding had not stopped for several days, while she came in and out of consciousness. When she’d finally come round, she was at a military hospital in the UAE. Aaron had fought to get her out, but they’d had to wait for their scheduled pick up three weeks after they had arrived. The baby was gone, and Aaron had authorised an emergency hysterectomy while Penelope was unconscious, to save her life. She would never be able to have children, ever.