Ellipsis

by Nikki Dudley

  “His name was Daniel”, Thom tells him, hoping the personification will appeal to him. Sam nods and exhales heavily.

  “What do you know, Thom?”

  “I know he’s dead, that’s all”. Thom doesn’t tell the entire truth, that Daniel knew about his own death, that he left behind clues to let Thom know. It will only confuse this man if Thom tries to explain.

  “I think I need to show you something”. Sam stands, scratching at his short afro. He puts his mug down on the table. Thom does the same. “Come on”, Sam gestures and leaves the room. Thom scrambles after him.

  He takes Thom further down the corridor, stopping in front of a door. The sign says surveillance room. Sam enters and Thom slowly follows him, the room seeming like a tunnel leading into a deep cavern. Even if he physically exits the room, will he ever be able to really take himself out of here?

  “Do you really want to see this?” Sam asks as he takes a seat in front of a screen. On the screen, people are standing on the escalator, staring ahead or playing on their phones for the last time before they are cut off. Thom meets Sam’s eyes and nods weakly. Does he want this? Does he need this?

  “I didn’t think about a video”, Thom mutters inaudibly, shrinking into himself.

  “I’m sorry”, Sam says, digging under the desk and retrieving a DVD. He checks the date on it as though he is checking which film he recorded from the TV, nodding to himself in agreement. “I may have held onto it for a few days afterwards”. He flashes Thom a guilty look, bowing his head as he pushes the DVD into the machine. “But I gave it to the police last week. Didn’t they call you?”

  Thom guesses that it explains why Aunty Val has only just heard from the police, simply to be brushed off with the words ‘open and shut case’ and ‘suicide’. Thom begins to speak but, as the fuzzy screen flicks on, Thom's head feels just as fuzzy.

  The platform appears on the screen, a time and date tattooed on the edge of the screen. It says 15:29. It is nearly time. Thom guesses Sam has looked through the footage and recorded only this part. Perhaps he has watched it several times, wondering why Daniel jumped too.

  The camera must be at the far end of the platform, near where the train will soon shoot out of the tunnel. The platform looks crowded. Lots of the people seem to be wearing scarves, hats or a football shirt. If Thom didn’t know better, there would be nothing remarkable about this scene. In fact, it wouldn’t even be worth his attention.

  However, he is searching for Daniel in the crowd. The people look blurry and Thom has to concentrate hard to distinguish them. Yet eventually, he manages to recognise Daniel. Thom finds it strange seeing him again: moving, breathing. Thom has the urge to touch the screen so maybe he can feel Daniel’s life once again. This is his brother, minutes before death. This is his brother, and he hadn’t known.

  Thom focuses hard on Daniel. At a few points, Daniel’s head seems to turn as his curly hair flashes in the camera. As Thom locks his gaze on Daniel, Sam stares at Thom. Strangely, Thom feels safer knowing someone is watching him.

  Thom can hardly understand what he is watching. The clock is rolling ruthlessly fast, indifferent to the fact it is counting down to the moment that Thom will lose Daniel forever. Thom wonders what Daniel had been thinking at this moment. Thom wonders if his legs had ceased up as he waited. Thom wonders if Daniel hesitated. Thom wonders how much longer Daniel would have lived otherwise. Thom wonders and thinks until his mind is a vacuum.

  Thom doesn’t realise he is sitting on the edge of his seat. He is gripping the sides so hard that his hands are turning numb. Yet all he can do is stare at the screen, helpless, wanting to climb inside and pull Daniel back. Why hadn’t he wanted to be Thom’s brother? Why was this a better alternative?

  Then Thom sees it. Some people’s hair has started to move, their clothes flapping from a wind that Thom cannot fully understand. He can’t feel it, and he wants to, more than anything. He wants to have the air rushing towards him as Daniel felt it in those few seconds. The only way he could relate was standing on that platform before, hoping he could connect to Daniel, too late.

  Then the train is there. 15:32 – his note is two minutes early. And Daniel is falling. In a snap second, Daniel disappears and the train keeps rocketing through the picture. Thom screeches, rocking in his chair but unable to let go. Sam jumps up and switches the screen off. He grabs Thom by the shoulders and tries to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry”, he whines breathlessly.

  “Put it back on”, Thom orders. Sam stands up, his forehead furrowed, putting himself between Thom and the screen.

  “I really don’t think...”

  “Put it on!” Thom shrieks, jumping up and pushing Sam out of the way. He jabs the ’stop’ button and then ’play’ again. It’s 15:29 and Daniel is still alive.

  Thom watches it all again. Thom counts down the longest three minutes. Thom grabs the sides of the screen and is so close his nose is touching. It is almost time when he sees something. Behind Daniel: a person. This is not spectacular at all, being a crowded platform, but Thom knows this person.

  Thom has been fascinated by this person; her strange mechanical voice, her dark curls, her evasive love. The only woman who has kissed them both. She is there. Thom turns and grabs Sam, pointing at her.

  “Do you see her?” he asks desperately, pushing Sam’s head close to the screen.

  “Who?” Sam asks; trying to push back but Thom holds him there.

  “The woman with the black curly hair. Do you see her?” Thom wheezes.

  “Yes”, Sam nods. “I see her”.

  Thom releases Sam. So he isn’t imagining her… She is standing right behind his brother on the day he died. She is there and now she is in Thom’s life. How did she get from this platform to his lips?

  Thom is gawking at Sarah. Daniel is now a secondary character in this short film. The crowd sways and swells as the train approaches. He loses her several times but keeps his eyes on the space where he thinks she is. He barely notices Daniel is gone until the train shoots through the left-hand side of the screen.

  The crowd is moving back like it is being showered with glass. Faces are contorted with shock. The doors remain shut as the whole platform seems to freeze. Thom has to look at the clock to see that time is still moving.

  He is searching the spot where she’d been standing. And then he sees it. As the people continue to move back, he sees a hand outstretched, holding a piece of material. This could mean nothing, but Thom knows inside, that it is her. He also knows that despite the fuzziness of the screen, the material is a scarf. And although it is a black and white picture, Thom is also certain the scarf is red. It is Daniel’s.

  49 The Video

  Thom presses the eject button and snatches the DVD. Sam immediately tries to block Thom’s exit but his body is slumped slightly, showing that he isn’t convinced he has the right to.

  “Are you going to stop me, Sam?” Thom dares him. “Are you going to stop me having the video showing my own brother’s death?” Thom shakes it in Sam’s face. “Would it be better to leave it here so it can collect dust?” Thom spits.

  “I shouldn’t have even shown you it”. Sam shuffles on his feet. “And you seem to be obsessed with that woman in it. Are you going to try and find her?”

  “I don’t need to. I already know her”, Thom tells him, smugly.

  “Are you going to hurt her?”

  “Did you show this to the police?”

  “Yes I did, last week – I promise”. Sam nods vigorously, emphasising to Thom that he has completed all the ‘right’ actions, although delayed.

  “And they didn’t see that he was pushed?” Thom’s limbs are flailing beyond his control. Sam is pressed against the door, looking as though he wishes he were on the other side of it. “They said it just looked like a jumper”, Sam repeats and winces as he speaks, waiting for the repercussions he doesn’t personally deserve.

  “A jumper?” Thom laughs bitterly. “A fucking jumper?
Are they blind?” Thom screeches. “She’s standing right behind him. She’s holding onto his scarf”.

  “I don’t think they saw what you saw”, Sam argues, holding his hands up.

  “No one seems to”. Thom is feverish, his clothes drenched, the sweat from his hair dripping onto the dusty floor. “No one can see what I see. That you’re all liars, that you all betrayed us, that he only wanted to show us the truth”.

  “Take it. But please don’t hurt anyone”. Sam moves away from the door.

  Thom holds out his hand. “I need your keys”.

  “Did you hear me tell you not to hurt anyone?” Sam lets his hand linger above Thom’s as he gives up his keys.

  “I heard you”, Thom says, snatching them and flinging the door open. “But I don’t think I can promise that”, Thom calls back as he runs towards the exit. He unlocks the door hastily and throws the keys on the floor.

  As Thom bursts out onto the platform, he knocks out a man with the door. The man sags to the ground, cradling his head. Some people quickly gather around the man, and one of them bends down, trying to look at the injured man’s face.

  Someone begins to confront Thom but cowers away when he sees that Thom is wet with sweat and all his veins are thick underneath his skin, like pipes about to burst. Thom quickly forgets the scene and runs towards the exit. He passes many people, he barges through the barrier behind someone else, he dodges the cars in the road, yet he feels immune.

  If Thom had been thinking, he would’ve known there is no other place he can go. With the DVD clenched in his aching hand, he looks up at the building. It has become his comrade, the friend he keeps around who reflects his mood. It is the place that still connects him to her.

  As he unlocks the front door, he thinks about where he is. He thinks about how there is only a slight chance she will actually be here. Yet Thom feels his heart honing in on something or someone and with each step, he feels more certain. As he turns the key in the lock, he can see her turning towards him, smiling?

  Yet he is greeted by no one when the door of the bedsit creaks open. He sags against the door frame for a moment, before accepting it and wandering inside. He slumps onto the bed, the DVD still fastened to his hand, almost cutting through his skin.

  The bed is still unmade since he was last here. He looks at the disc in his hand and shoves it into the covers, burying it.

  Thom gets up and walks to the window. He tweaks the blind, the dust coating his fingers. He leaves his fingerprints on the slats, so if a policeman investigates later, he will know that Thom has been here. He will be implicated. They can accuse him of stealing something or hurting someone because he has left something behind.

  “Thom?” a voice says from behind him. He wonders why it is a question. She must know it is him. Who else would be in her bedsit? Who else looks like him? Except Daniel… That thought makes Thom’s chest flush cold as if someone has pulled the toilet handle.

  “Sarah”, he says, turning. Sometimes when he says her name now, he blushes. After all, it isn’t really her name but he is holding onto it, as he is holding onto her.

  After seeing her in the video, he thought when he saw her, he’d attack her. He thought he’d scratch her pale cheeks, tear at her bouncy curls. Yet, as he looks into her eyes and she smiles at him, the coldness rushes out of him and his blood flushes instantly warm instead.

  “I hoped you’d be here”, she says, closing the distance between them. At first, Thom jumps back, crashing against the blinds. Her face momentarily twitches, yet she shakes out her curls, dismissing it. “I’ve missed you”. She smiles, holding up her hand in openness. Thom stares at her fingers, shaking in the air and finally locks his hand with hers.

  “Have you really missed me?” Thom asks quietly. She reaches up with her other hand and plucks at some of Thom’s hair. He shakes her touch off, but smiles faintly. He feels like he is seeing her through a heavy fog. He can’t help grasping onto her hand for fear he will lose her, for fear he’ll slip further into the fog and never climb his way back out.

  All the time he is looking at her, half of his mind is preoccupied with the video. He is playing the scenes over in his head. They are flashing across half her face like a horror film, and he is helpless to change the ending. He wants to rewind everything, never let the clock reach 15:32. Yet it isn’t to save Daniel as much as to save himself.

  “Where have you been?” he asks, pulling her into him. Her heart drums against his body. He wonders what she has to feel so anxious about. Has she seen the DVD buried in the covers somehow? Is she going to leave him? Thom squeezes her tighter at these thoughts, trying to decide which option is worse.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve been resting”, she answers simply. Yet Thom knows there is much more she is leaving out. Does she know she killed Daniel? Or has her damaged mind hidden it from sight underneath the madness and delusion?

  “You feel better”. Thom nuzzles his words into her neck. She smells like soap and toast. Thom thinks about eating breakfast with her, about reading the paper with her – ordinary things they have missed out on since they met. How can he really have a relationship with this woman? This murderer?

  Yet the word murderer offends Thom. How can he possibly attach that evil concept to his beautiful Sarah? Even if she pushed him, there must be a reason. Daniel must have hurt her, or he has imagined it all.

  “I’m much better than I was”. Sarah nods gently. Thom presses his thumb against her cheek, her pulse and his pulse mixing together until he can’t separate them. Thom doesn’t think he can ruin her now, after all, she has made progress and she looks happier. When she smiles at him now, it makes him want to slap her and squeeze her in the same moment.

  “I’m so happy for you”, Thom croaks. Yet his eyes are welling up with water and threatening to spill over like an avalanche gathering momentum. Sarah grabs him by the wrists.

  “You’re not okay though are you?” Thom wants to let his legs melt. He wants to sink. He wants her to love him so much that he will forget everything on that disc and everything he knows.

  “Sarah, I need to…” Thom begins, yet he can’t finish. He won’t only be finishing a sentence; he will be finishing both of them. He digs himself a burrow in her arms. Her chest is sticky against his cheek. As he inhales her sweat, he looks down and sees the top of her breasts.

  Thom thinks then about the day of the phone call. The moment he stopped, as though in preparation for the news that would jar his routine forever, jab a stick into the spokes of the wheels that make his world turn. He’d been worried he wouldn’t be able to move from the desk, wouldn’t be able to meet Emma and lie next to her in bed. And now, all he can think about is touching Sarah instead.

  Thom lifts his head up, catching the softness in her expression as she’d been looking down at him. She instantly corrects herself, as though her feelings are a secret she doesn’t want him to discover. Thom stands face to face with her, their toes touching, their hands grasping onto one another’s. He is thinking about how it is so simple to kiss her and, at the same time, how his fingers are tingling in anticipation of strangling her.

  So Thom kisses her instead. The throbbing anger and confusion suck desperately at her, trying to recover something caring instead. It strikes him that getting these things from a murderer is a paradox but he can’t stop. Her lips seem even softer than only a few days before. The longer he kisses her, the more he wants to kiss her and get dragged into her mouth, into her body.

  She brings him closer and slides her hand underneath his top. It feels cold, so he tracks its every movement over his stomach and chest. She digs her nails into his side and feels the grooves of his ribs that have become more prominent over the last few weeks. Thom wonders whether he should touch her and decides that she made the first move, so why not? He has one hand on her hip, on top of her clothes and he now moves the other underneath her top and up her back.

  Her backbone curves beneath his touch. Her body wrigg
les in his arms; pressing so hard into him he almost falls backwards. In the next moment, she is pulling off his shirt. It almost pains them to part for those few seconds. Their lips instantly spring back together as Thom’s top lands on the floor.

  The longer Thom kisses her; each second feels like he is withering inside. As his hands grip onto her and his muscles tense and relax, he feels like he is shrinking inside. He begins to feel like he is floating or that he is standing on top of a high building, staring at the dizzying lights below.

  Sarah pulls back, sensing Thom’s distraction. His eyes directed at the floor, as though they are being circled by sharks. She takes him by the hand and leads him over to the bed. Thom suddenly remembers the DVD buried there and rushes forward, flinging the duvet towards the wall.

  Sarah raises an eyebrow at Thom, worried by his sudden surge of energy and by just how keen he is to get her into bed. Thom realises these same things as Sarah thinks them and instantly says, “The sheets haven’t been changed”, blushing. Sarah nods dismissively and sits beside him.

  Thom has forgotten that the last person she kissed before him is Daniel and, before that, she was raped. And Sarah has forgotten that he attacked her brother, that he is Daniel’s relative and that he is slowly losing grip on reality. There are only the two of them, in this darkened room filled, for once, with life.

  As the thought that she has murdered his brother flickers through his mind, it sparks him into leaning forward and giving her a long hard kiss. She grabs hold of his face and pulls him even closer, moaning quietly and pushing her lower body into his side. He imagines he can feel her clit, hard against his hip.

  He forces himself to pull away, staring into her eyes for a moment and slowly moving his hand up to unbutton her shirt. She watches his hand moving down her top, smiling faintly to reassure him, until her stomach and breasts are exposed. He gently releases her bra, then instantly presses her body against his.

  Sarah pushes Thom down onto the bed, moving on top of him. She closes her eyes, imagining he is already inside her. She bends down, kissing him and reaching down to undo his belt and trousers. Thom almost gags at the speed of this, and can’t help remembering the man who hurt her. Why does she trust Thom? He is a violent and reckless person who knows her secret.