The Winter Man

by Perry Bhandal

  I make myself every day and I am the centre of it.

  All the world is a façade – If my eyes were quick enough then perhaps, I could glimpse oblivion behind it.

  People go, I let them.

  Some stay, and become part of me.

  I hate that I made you angry, sad, happy,

  vindictive, tearful and jealous

  I hate that I made you love her and not me.

  I made you god.

  I made me yours.

  The universe revolves around you.

  And will only stop when I die.’

  A familiar heaviness shifted in his gut, and his heart felt hollow. He placed the pad gently on the drawer and walked softly down the stairs to the silent lounge where Julia was sitting in the dark with another glass of wine, waiting for him.

  Outside heavy rain battered the windows. Cars swished as they drove by, cars that were going home to families that were still intact. He did not love the woman he was having an affair with. He stood in the doorway, his silhouette thrown across his wife, the woman he did love, and tried to think of something to say.

  She sat in the darkness, the only other light in the room coming from the streetlamp outside. A half empty bottle of wine on the table. She took a sip from the glass.

  He knew he had to do something right here, right now, that if he turned and went, what was left between them would wither and die.

  ‘Do you love her?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ he said as he closed the door quietly behind him, feeling a familiar sinking sensation in his chest.

  ‘Do … you …love …her?’

  He walked across the room and knelt down on the rug beside her knees, taking her hand gently in his. It remained limp in his fingers like the body of a lifeless bird.

  ‘No,’ he said, ’I love you.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘There is no ‘her’.’

  Julia closed her eyes and even in the dark he could see tears escaping onto her cheeks. Her fingers came back to life for a moment, clinging on to his like a frightened child.

  ‘Sometimes I think Sara is the only one holding us together.’

  Blake took the wine glass and placed it on the table. He took her hands in his.

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘I remember the way you used to look at me. The way you used to want me.’

  ‘And still do.’

  Julia took his hand and placed it on her breast. It was a cold gesture. Blake slowly pulled his hand away and placed it on her cheek.

  Julia looked away. Tears welling.

  ‘Let’s go out tonight.’

  She said nothing. Her eyes were red and cheeks tear-stained. He touched her chin, gently lifting her face.

  ‘Hey?’ he whispered. She blinked and looked at him as if for the first time.

  ‘Let’s go out tonight,’ he whispered. She didn’t reply as he reached up with his free hand and wiped a tear with his thumb. He stroked her cheek, gently lifting her face.

  ‘Please.’

  Outside the wind picked up, battering the window.

  ‘It’s raining,’ she said.

  Guilt filled Blake’s eyes, threatening to overflow.

  ‘Please, Baby,’ he pleaded, ’for me. Let’s get out of here for a few hours.’

  Julia stared at him as if unable to hear him. ’Where the stars are bright,’ she whispered, ’where the lights all shine.’ She sniffed and wiped her eyes, allowing a tiny smile to break through as she leant forward so that her lips brushed his ear, ’where everything’s alright.’

  He gathered her into his arms, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder, and held her tight, closing his eyes and shutting out the world.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  That night they went out. Nowhere special, just to a restaurant they had always liked. They sat and talked like they used to. They laughed and, for just a while everything was good once more.

  A heavy silence had filled the car on the drive back home. Neither of them wanted to be the first to speak.

  As Blake pulled into the driveway, the front door opened and a hopeful Sara stood in the doorway.

  Rain started to pock the windscreen.

  ‘I’ll say goodbye here,’ said Julia and got out of the car.

  Sara and Julia exchanged a few words and she went inside. Sara put on her shoes and walked to the car and got in.

  ‘Hey pops.’

  ‘Hey baby girl.’

  ‘So? How was dinner?’

  ‘It was good.’

  ‘You coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Blake said, shaking his head.

  The rain began to batter the roof of the car.

  Sara said nothing. They watched it cascade down the windscreen blurring and warping the light from the windows of the house.

  ‘You coming over tomorrow?’ said Blake, breaking the silence.

  ‘Yep. Pick me up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘You will.’

  Sara leant over to kiss her father on his cheek. The small eternity pendant around her neck glistened as she sat back.

  ‘Miss you, pops.’

  ‘I miss you too.’

  Sara opened the door and ran to the house. She stood in the doorway as Blake reversed out. He waved to her as he pulled away. She waved back.

  One month later they were all dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  the darkness rises...winter...a monster dies...a monster escapes...

  The incessant rain swept across the graveyard in thick heavy sheets. The black clouds above gave no sign of abating.

  The cream marble stood out like a beacon against the grey decaying stone. One big, one slightly smaller. These ones had not been dead for long. Blake, his raincoat slick with rain, hair plastered to his skin, knelt in the space between them and brushed the mud from the letters engraved in the smaller one. Fat droplets spattered in the grooves and washed away the remainder, revealing a name.

  Sara.

  More water joined the wetness on his face as he bowed between the two bright sepulchers, one hand resting on each. Blake reached inside his coat and took out a small gold eternity pendant, warped from intense heat.

  ‘I should have been there,’ he whispered. He kissed the locket and slipped it back underneath his coat.

  The graveyard wind rose and with it the rain.

  Blake finally stood, his clothes sodden underneath his heavy raincoat. Water dripping from his hair, chin, eyes. He wiped the tears from his eyes with hands as cold as stone. ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough to save us.’

  It was dark when he got back to his block. There were lights on in some of the apartments as people prepared for the evening.

  Another light flickered on. A woman in her kitchen. Her dark outline surveying the contents of her sink with a shake of her head. Another outline joined her carrying a small child and she raised her arms and embraced the new arrivals.

  His apartment entrance was twenty feet away. More lights came on. Someone opened a window releasing the tinkling sounds of a piano lesson.

  The wind howled and the rain fell harder.

  Blinking away the ice water he watched silhouettes dance across drawn curtains. When he had seen enough, he turned and walked back the way he came.

  Later that night, when all the windows were dark once more, he slipped in through his front door, stripped off his sodden clothes and stood under a hot shower until the shivering finally subsided.

  Outside, dark night clouds swirled and made their slow movements in the sky. The harsh icy wind that had been buffeting the anonymous block of flats, whistling eerily between the gaps, had died away, leaving an empty stillness in its wake.

  ‘So, you chose to avenge her.’ Rivers said, closing the file and dropping it on the table, as if deciding to talk man to man rather than doctor to patient. For a second it didn’t
look as if Blake was going to respond. Rivers waited.

  ‘What would you have done? If she had been yours?’ Blake asked eventually.

  ‘Let the police do their job.’

  Blake made an involuntary scoffing sound, as if the very idea was ridiculous.

  ‘And you’d have done nothing?’

  Rivers leant back in his seat and folded his arms. ‘Here it comes,’ he thought to himself.

  ‘When I looked into his eyes, I knew he’d suffer quietly. His pain would eat him from the inside as he watched those that took his loved ones live free in the world. His suffering borne in acquiescence. His hands tied by the very laws that let the rapists and murderers go free. Revenge, retribution, an eye-for-an-eye, these would rage inside him and he would suppress the instinct that should have poured forth a spasm of violence but instead was transformed into an acceptance of injustice because it came from a man in a fucking judge’s wig.’

  ‘A passage often used by misguided men in your position to justify breaking the law.’ replied Rivers holding Blake’s unflinching gaze.

  Blake looked around the room. ‘You talk of law in a place like this and you call me misguided.’

  ‘Quoting the homicidal ravings of Nathaniel Winter is hardly going to help you in your situation. We have laws for a reason.’

  ‘Laws,’ Blake shook his head, feeling the anger rising inside him, aware of the weight of the chains on his wrists, anchoring him to the floor, biding his time. He glanced again at the clock. ’There is no law, except what you make for yourself.’

  Rivers felt the man’s resolve stiffening. He decided to relent slightly.

  ‘The law failed you, failed your loved ones. I can see that.’

  ‘No. My failure. I forgot the world for what it was until it was too late. I won’t make that mistake again.’

  ‘It won’t bring them back. And it won’t bring you peace,’ said Rivers, his tone softening.

  ‘I don’t want peace. I want catharsis,’ replied Blake.

  Rivers leant forward slowly, eyes locked onto Blake’s.

  ‘And when you have that?’

  Blake’s thoughts turned to a time in the recent past when he had considered that very question.

  A thin, worn leather bound book entitled ’Erebus by Nathaniel Winter’ lay open on the bedside table, an automatic pistol resting next to it. He felt for the gun in the darkness, fingers closing around the grip. He brought it to his face. The gun oil smelt sharp. He peered into the barrel. He could make out the coppery head of the bullet inside, like a slug cocooned. He placed the muzzle into his mouth. His teeth felt brittle against the cool metal. He flicked the safety and slid the hammer back. It clicked.

  Darkness uncoiled and the room darkened. Shadows shifted, rising from the foot of the bed traveling up the sheets, forming pools on either side of his naked torso like wings.

  He rested his thumb on the trigger.

  He felt its eyes upon him. Raw bile rose in his throat as it manifested disgust.

  ‘Still weak,’ it whispered. Blake let the hammer down gently and rested the gun on his chest and closed his eyes.

  He felt it turn away and then slowly felt himself succumbing to sleep hoping he would not dream that dream.

  Blake forced himself to return to the doctor and his questions.

  ‘Oblivion.’

  Rivers shivered despite the heat in the airless room. Something cold had entered. He shook himself free of the grip he could slowly feel forming around his thoughts. He had never felt so off balance before. He switched his attention back to the file before him. Time to even things up a little.

  ‘Tell me about the dreams,’ Rivers said.

  Blake looked away. ’The ones where I found her were the worst.’

  White surf cut crescent shapes in the yellow sand. A warm sea breeze speckled white where it caught the swell of crystal blue water underneath a cerulean sky.

  She was seated under the frond shading of a beach bar, a cool drink on the table before her. Beside her sat a teenage girl. Blake walked across the beach to them.

  He had found them. They were okay. Not dead at all.

  ‘Hey.’

  Sara and Julia turned to him.

  ‘Hey.’

  They both turned back, faces up to the sun, eyes closed.

  ‘You’ve been here all along?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you know?’ Sara replied, not opening her eyes.

  ‘No. Nobody told me.’

  ‘It’s been a long time, Blake.’ said Julia.

  ‘Yes, it has. Do you mind if I stay for a while?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Blake took off his jacket and slipped off his shoes and socks.

  ‘Beautiful day.’

  ‘It is.’

  He felt a hand on his face and turned to look into his daughter’s eyes. She was small again. She looked the same as the day they had collected her from her foster carer. She opened her mouth to speak.

  Blake woke. Bright sunlight streamed in through the floor to ceiling window.

  Sara was sitting on the side of his bed smiling at him.

  ‘Sara.’

  Blake woke into reality. His room was dark and cold. He looked at the space where his daughter had sat in his dream. A gust of wind-driven rain raked the floor to ceiling window. Heavy droplets kicked up fat splashes on the windowsill. The blurred roofs of buildings opposite seemed to sag under a lidded sky of dull grey marble.

  The aching hollow in his chest pulled at his insides as the last wisps of the dream faded and disappeared. He couldn’t help but cry.

  He squeezed the tears from his eyes. He willed the emptiness away, refilling it.

  ‘I would wake up and for those few moments everything would be alright.’

  Blake turned to Rivers.

  ‘You’ve no idea of the emptiness left in the wake of those dreams.’

  ‘And how did you deal with it?’ asked Rivers, a surge of excitement, he was finally getting somewhere.

  ‘The only way anyone can...fill it with something else.’

  ‘And that would be?’

  Slowly, Blake looked up to the clock high on the wall behind.

  The hand clicked onto 12:00am. A few more seconds passed. Blake levelled his gaze at Rivers, saying nothing, almost as if he was waiting for something to happen.

  Then a loud boom shook the room as if trying to loosen it from the building itself and Rivers jumped out of his chair with shocking agility for a man of his size. Blake remained seated, undisturbed by the explosion.

  ‘Jesus!’ Rivers said, breathing hard.

  The shrill screams of the fire alarm filled the room. Rivers turned to the door as three bulky, white-jacketed figures came in, their name tags spelled out Rafferty, Janus and Mitchell. They were all carrying electric shock-sticks.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Rivers demanded.

  Rafferty shook his head, more irritated than concerned. ’Gas explosion. We need to evacuate.’

  Mitchell, the biggest and most brutal-looking of the three, stepped forward, staring at Blake until he eventually looked down. ’Tough guys!’ he sneered to his colleagues, ’I shit ‘em.’

  Janus took a position to the side of Blake as Mitchell slapped the shock-stick into the palm of his hand. He was obviously agitated, just waiting for Blake to make a move. The sprinkler system kicked in like a rainstorm, dousing the room.

  ‘I’d think twice about using that now,’ Blake said, without looking up.

  Mitchell stepped forward and placed the tip of the stick under Blake’s chin, jerking it to push Blake’s face up, forcing him to look.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ Rivers snapped.

  ‘You gotta make time for discipline, Doc,’ Mitchell growled then turning his full attention to Blake. ‘Don’t make me give you another one, boy.’

  ‘I don’t recall making you give me this one.’

  ‘You want reminding?’ Mitchell hissed, pushing the stick up further.


  ‘Ok,’ Rivers said, ’That’s enough. Get him up.’

  Mitchell stepped back, gesturing for Rafferty to unlock the floor ring. The lock clicked open. As the cuffs came free Blake blurred into action. Grabbing the table with both hands he flipped it up into Janus, tumbling him to the floor, his activated shock stick jamming into his side making him fit uncontrollably. Blake slammed his bare foot onto Rafferty’s knee.

  It snapped backwards and he fell to the floor, screaming in pain. Mitchell swiped his baton with a roar of fury. Blake caught it on his cuffs and twisted, bringing it down. He slammed his elbow under Mitchell’s chin, lifting him off the floor. Mitchell was out before he hit the ground.

  Rivers fumbled desperately at the door. ’Help! Someone! Help!’

  Water continued to fall in torrents from the sprinklers. Sirens wailed. Rivers’ file spilled onto the floor, pages wet and ink running. Rivers realised no one was ever going to hear him outside. He turned around slowly and saw Blake picking a key from Mitchell’s belt. His eyes on Rivers, Blake unlocked the cuffs and dropped them to the floor. Stepping forward he placed his hand around Rivers’ quivering throat.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ wailed Rivers.

  ‘Do as I say,’ replied Blake.

  Outside in the corridor Blake walked with his hands behind his back, the cuffs apparently back on. Rivers was beside him, hand on his arm as if escorting. The sprinkler system was still going full pelt as everyone focused on getting out and retaining control. Two orderlies stood outside an open cell door.

  ‘Hey, Doc,’ one of them called over, ’You’re going the wrong way. Assembly point’s that way.’

  Rivers and Blake approached the cell just as the inmate, Horowitz from Blake’s phone, stepped out of his cell with an amused, contemptuous smirk on his face. Horowitz was tall and thickset. The orderlies were deferential to him.

  Blake took a step back, grabbed Rivers by the nape of his neck and hurled the full weight of his bulk into the first orderly. The second orderly was still fumbling at his baton when Blake stepped forward and uppercut him so hard, he was lifted off the ground. He was out before his head thwacked down onto the wet concrete floor.