by Nikki Dudley
22 Swelling Blood
It is the fourth time I have stood in Daniel’s empty room, including the time I snuck in during his wake. I have been staying at the Mansen’s house for four days now, steadily becoming a fixture, whilst Daniel wilts with each passing day. Or does he?
The family and I are still transfixed on him. He is like that book, The Catcher in the Rye, because after you’ve read it cover to cover, you’re not really sure what happened when someone asks you years later. And it seems neither the family nor me are really sure what happened with Daniel. Was it our stupidity, or was Daniel a genius who left behind an unsolvable puzzle? Or was he simply an ordinary man who wanted to die?
I sit on the bed. As I think about what his death has done to me, I realise it has awoken me again. For several years before his death, there are entire weeks and months I cannot recall. I have no idea of the length between my leaving the hospital and meeting him in the street. Even the days when I stalked Daniel seem a blurred series of photos, merging into one continuous film.
Yet since the moment I watched him fall, every sense has been on alert. I have smelt the sadness radiating from the house, touched the vibrancy of red, heard the guilt slinking after the family like a venomous snake, and watched depression grow from stubble to a beard on Thom’s face. And I’d tasted him. I’d tasted Thom’s guilt and confusion like heavy wallpaper paste gluing his tongue down, causing his words to huddle at the back of his mouth in a sticky trap.
I want to open Thom up. I want to cut his words free and examine his feelings; their colours, their textures, the way they fit together and interlock.
The door flings open then.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Thom whispers loudly and checks behind him as he closes the door. “Aunty Val wouldn’t like this at all”, he adds.
I stand up and touch his arm. I notice that whenever I touch him, he stares at my offending body part with either disbelief or reluctant intrigue. “I’m sorry. I was just curious”, I say gently. His lips are taut like they are two sizes too small for his face. Although, he tries to smile and appear casual by placing his hands in his jeans pockets, shuffling from one foot to the other.
“It’s okay”, he mutters, not convinced.
“I’ll get out of here”, I reassure him. He nods but as I start towards the door, his hand shoots out.
“I’m sorry… if, I frightened you”. He squeezes my arm with one hand and then raises the other to grab hold of my other arm. He is holding me like I am a person who needs shaking.
“I just wouldn’t want you to touch his things”. Thom’s voice breaks. “It’s too soon to be touching… his things, his… life”.
“Have you looked in any of the cupboards or drawers, Thom?” I ask, without thinking, regretting it as soon as I see his face. In an instant, his wet sadness is wiped off and replaced with frown lines.
“Why would you say that?” he asks, his grip tightening. He seems more distressed than he should be. He is biting his lips and already he has punctured them, a dot of blood marking his front tooth. “Why would you say that?” he repeats; both his words and his grip harder.
“I’m sorry. I just wondered”. I shrug and try to pull away but a second later; he releases me anyway.
Thom walks over to the chest of drawers by the window. He looks over at me, a child asking for permission or seeing how far they can go without being told off, a person testing another’s love for them by putting themselves in a dangerous situation. And all I can do is say nothing and wait for the inevitable.
Thom opens a drawer. He lets out a small yelp and for a moment, I hope that he has found something; a severed hand, a blood stained shirt, a weapon. Yet, when I look over his shoulder, there is nothing. Only the wood that the drawer is made of.
Thom catches my eye again. He has started to shake, a tree battered and relenting in a violent wind. He keeps my gaze as he places his hand on another drawer handle and slowly eases it open, a drawn out yawn and finally, he turns towards it.
Another yelp.
I know what he is feeling now. His heart is probably racing faster, his mind filled with the colour of that wood. Worse for him, he probably knows exactly what should be in that particular drawer and all of them. Whereas, I only expected something, anything…
Like a sense of déjà vu, he begins flinging everything open. He finishes the chest of drawers in five seconds, moving onto the drawers beside Daniel’s bed, and flinging open the wardrobe. All empty. Gaping holes in everyday life, empty shells that are now devoid of function, life departed from the body it once filled.
There are no words for Thom. He is screaming like a baby who cannot understand anything yet. He is pushing the chest of drawers over and pulling the curtains down. He is punching the mirror on the front of the wardrobe and kicking the door in until it cracks in half, like broken ribs.
I watch the destruction of the empty room. I watch the blood swelling out of his knuckles and forget the whiteness of the room. The red is beautiful and I’m surrounded by it, a calm sea lapping against my brain, until I realise the lapping of the sea coincides with my pulse.
I remember. Thom. He is sobbing on the floor and smearing the carpet with blood, like a child finger painting. He picks up the slithers of glass and throws them at the wall but they only chime quietly and fall to the floor.
I dive towards him and take his hands by the wrists. I press them into my chest and don’t let go. His blood soaks into my chest and I feel like he has taken a knife and slit my chest open.
I am alive. Mum, I am so alive. And Daniel is still dead.
23 Mrs Tray
The empty room tears a hole in Thom, literally with his slashed hands and, in another sense, perhaps intellectually. Either way, he has to mend this hole somehow. The only way he thinks this might be achieved is by getting some clarification, on anything he can. So he contacts the solicitors the next morning and after a bit of negotiating, he feels his hand moving in the shape of letters and when he replaces the phone receiver, he has an address.
Mrs Tray. The woman with a face like deteriorating fruit. The woman who silenced them all with the door. The woman with no reason for attending the reading, according to those who were meant to know Daniel. Yet clearly, they had been standing much further from him than they realised.
All night, Thom dreamt of falling through an endless white hole. Not the standard black hole dream, but a white hole. Obviously, the blank walls of Daniel’s room were taunting him. The walls that have been painted recently, without anyone being aware. They are hiding Daniel’s secrets. His room is a huge void, only filled now with Thom’s blood and the smashed glass.
And now here Thom is, trying to get the woman with a face plagued with holes to fill his own. Perhaps she, as no one else has so far, will turn the whiteness of his mind some other colour. Even pearl would be something.
Mrs Tray lives in a cluster of flats designed for the elderly. It’s a small community with a well-kept green in the middle that the flats surround. There is nothing remarkable about her front door. It is painted green but the green is like her skin, cracked and faded past its original state. He finds her name on the bell and presses it several times.
It’s only now that Thom ponders about Mrs Tray. Is she a friend of Daniel’s? If so, how did they meet? Perhaps she is a relative of one of Daniel’s friends or girlfriends (though Thom isn’t aware of many). Perhaps they met accidentally and formed a friendship. Or perhaps they had been having a sordid and, frankly, creepy affair. Thom relishes this idea for a moment but he fails to laugh. Whatever the details, there has to be something helpful he can find out here.
Thom hasn’t noticed the door skulking open and he jolts slightly when Mrs Tray’s cratered face floats ahead of him. She is smaller than he remembers and this time, she props herself up with a wooden walking stick, the texture as knotted as her hand that appears to have shrunk around the top of it permanently.
“Mrs Tray…” he say
s. It’s the beginning of a sentence but he has no idea how to complete it. He hopes she will rescue him or ask him who the hell he is or invite him in without a word, yet she only stares. Her eyes are the colour of faded bark and they examine him closely, as though she is waiting for him to pounce.
“I’m Thom”, he tells her finally. He wants to slap himself across the face. His stupid name means nothing to her! Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. Maybe the answers he seeks so hard are also the thing he wants to run away from.
“You were at the reading of the will”, she says. Thom feels like she has thrown him a piece of driftwood in the sea. Her voice is much softer than he would have anticipated and, even more surprising, is the gentle Irish twang to it. Her raspy face has given him false impressions. He should know better than to trust his own judgements at the moment, he keeps getting tripped up whenever he does.
“Yes. That’s why I’m here!” Thom exclaims, too excitedly for the subject matter. He composes himself and holds his hand out. “Thom Mansen. Sorry”. Her hand moves upwards in slow motion and Thom finally grasps it. In situations like this, people often say ‘pleased to meet you’ but Thom isn’t sure he is and doesn’t want to lie to the woman.
“You’d better come in”, she says, neither pleased nor displeased. It’s all very lukewarm. Thom shrugs to himself and lets himself in. She directs him to a lit doorway down the darkened hall and ushers him ahead of her, the slow thump of her walking stick pursuing him.
“Sit anywhere”, she shouts ahead and Thom sits himself in an armchair near the door. He digs his fingernails into the fabric and waits for the unknown to catch up with him. He closes his eyes, his blood thumping inside his head, the rhythm smashed by the door. Once again, her work is decisive and unquestionable.
“I wondered if anyone would come”, she sings without trying and lowers herself, with some effort, into a chair facing him. He tries to look as disinterested as she does, hoping that it will have the strange effect of drawing truth from her. Thom has found this sometimes works with people (especially those who were trying to make fraudulent claims) who, so desperate for some clarification, end up spilling their secrets.
On the table he sees a pack of cards set up for solitaire. She is playing three-card draw and Thom instantly respects her a little more. What is the point of playing one-card draw? It is one of his pet hates.
“You took longer than I expected actually”, Mrs Tray says and folds her arms. If anyone saw her now, they’d say she looks like any harmless elderly woman, yet Thom believes she is hiding something. Her face is full of nooks and crannies where she can conceal things.
“I’ve had a lot to do”, Thom claims. When he really thinks about his words he wants to laugh. What has he actually achieved? He’s failed to get out of bed, sat around in the darkness, invited a strange woman into his home, and sliced his hands open. It isn’t exactly the traditional definition of ‘progress’.
“I imagine so. Do you play by the way?” She gestures to her cards. Thom nods and leans forward.
“The seven of spades can go over there”. He wonders if he should’ve said it but she nods gratefully and performs the action.
“Sometimes all it takes is a fresh eye”. She smiles but Thom gets caught up in her words, a wind stuck in a pipe, rattling and whistling. A fresh eye? Perhaps that is all he needs.
“Do you live alone?”
“I’m alone”, she answers. The two words are small and quiet, yet they seem to pull at Thom’s lips and like a puppet, he mouths them a few times: “I’m alone”.
“Did you enjoy your inheritance gift?”
“Why would you call it a ‘gift’?” Thom cocks his head, like a detective in a film.
He wants her to know he mistrusts her, but even he has no idea why. Some detective…
“Well, didn’t your friend, Daniel, call it a ‘gift’ in his will?” Thom is disappointed that the explanation is so simple and picks up on the fact that Mrs Tray referred to Daniel as his ‘friend’.
“He was my cousin”, Thom tells her. She nods quietly, perhaps having suspected it and folds her hands in her lap. She gives Thom none of the usual ‘I’m sorry’ and merely waits.
“How did you know him?” Thom asks finally.
“I didn’t”, she says, “not really”. The words are simple but Thom feels like his eardrums are pressured for a moment and he doesn’t believe he really heard them. I didn’t – what does that mean?
“I’m sorry?” he asks, using the phrase he expected from her.
“I didn’t really know Daniel”, she repeats, more forcefully. Thom watches her lips move and churns the sentence around in his chaotic brain, filled with all the things Daniel left behind.
“But why were you there? At the reading?” Thom splutters.
“He looked after my husband. In the hospital”, she explains.
The hospital! Finally, something Thom knows about! For several years, Daniel worked full-time at a hospital for those with mental health problems. He’d only taken a job as an administrator at first but later worked as a mentor for several patients. He hadn’t spoken too much about it to Thom but Aunty Val often passed on stories. Thom often wonders how Daniel found contentment in the job, as he seemed to have limited empathy for others and preferred to be alone. Yet, Daniel spent around three years there and Thom heard of no complaints throughout that time. Why he left, Thom isn’t sure. Yet it wasn’t long before he died, perhaps six or eight months at the most.
“Your husband was a patient then?”
“Yes. He spent several years at the hospital but before Daniel arrived, he was making very little progress”. Mrs Tray stops for a moment and smiles to herself. The gesture and its relation to Daniel seem foreign to Thom.
“Daniel helped my husband greatly. I think he finally felt like someone was listening and even that helped a little. But like I said, I didn’t really know Daniel. I heard a lot from my husband, when he felt able, and met Daniel only a few times myself”, she pauses. “He seemed like a lovely lad though. He was quiet, shy, but he helped my husband so much. I think my gratitude embarrassed him”.
“He helped your husband?” Thom is asking himself to believe it, rather than asking her to clarify. How could someone who hardly said a word to his own family help a mentally ill man?
“Yes. So when he sent the letter, I had no reservations agreeing to his request”.
“His request?” Thom repeats. Thom can’t construct his own words; merely regurgitates those of others instead.
“He sent me a letter several months ago. He asked me to attend a meeting”.
“The reading of his will?” Thom surges forward with his words.
“As it turns out – yes”, Mrs Tray verifies. Thom sags backwards, his body jolting and struggling to function normally. Just breathe, just beat, just swallow.
“Did Daniel commit suicide?” she asks. Thom stares at her for a moment, wondering if she is really asking him a question. He thought she might have the answers but here he is, on the spot, as it were.
“I don’t know”, Thom says, “I’ve wondered...” His throat is getting smaller. He starts to cough like a cat trying to retrieve a hairball. Mrs Tray pours him a glass of water from a jug he hasn’t noticed and he gratefully gulps it down. His hand shakes so much that he spills it down his shirt. “Sorry”, he gargles as he slams the glass down on the table. “Do you still have the letter?”
Mrs Tray leaves the room and returns a few minutes later with a perfectly crisp envelope. It has been torn open with an old-fashioned letter opener, judging by the perfectly straight tear across the top of it. Thom looks up and Mrs Tray nods her approval. He plucks the letter from inside and places the envelope neatly on the table beside him. He unfolds it and Daniel’s handwriting instantly drowns him.
Dear Mrs Tray,
I realised it’s been a few months since I contacted you. I hope you are coping with the loss of your husband, a great man whom I have missed greatly since
I left the hospital. Thank you for inviting me to the funeral, I was happy I was able to see him off properly.
I would have come to see you but it’s just not possible right now. So I’m afraid I have to ask you a favour by letter. I know it’s not polite to ask something of you, especially as my friendship was solely with your husband. Yet I have no choice and as you’re related to someone I trusted, I feel like I could ask you and perhaps you would find it in yourself to help me.
It’s a simple request. I need you to attend a meeting that will probably occur within the next month. The address is enclosed on a business card. You will probably be called nearer the time. I just wanted to ask you personally. Please be there.
Yours, Daniel
“He invited you to his will reading in advance?” Thom asks, holding the letter away from him as though it’s diseased. All Daniel’s paper trail seems to be offending him.
“I know. I don’t understand it either”, she says. Silent for a moment, she finally adds, “I guess he must’ve known one way or another he was going to die”. The statement is the next obvious step but it knocks all sound from the room. It winds the situation and, for a few seconds, nothing and no one moves or breathes or comprehends.
“I found a note too”, Thom reveals finally. He hasn’t told Emma, Aunty Val, or anyone else since he found it. It has burnt its every curve and line into his brain, but he hasn’t said it out loud. Until now...
“What did it say?” She is just as intrigued as he is about hers.
“It had the time and place of his death”. Thom winces. He doesn’t know what effect the revelation will have. He’s been dreading it since he found it.
“Oh goodness”. She shakes her head.
“So he knew”, Thom vocalises their thoughts. “He either jumped in front of a train or he was pushed by someone he knew”.
Thom feels an inappropriate waterfall of relief beating down on his shoulders and back. He wants to close his eyes and let it beat him unconscious. “I thought I was going crazy”. Thom wants to scream and smash everything in the room apart. He wants to punch his way through the wall and draw blood again. He thought he felt confused but all he feels surging through him like a current is anger. Anger pumps into his heart and gets stuck, inflating it until it buzzes like a threatened beehive.