Drift Stumble Fall

by M. Jonathan Lee

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn. In front of me is Mark, the landlord. He is clutching a handful of poorly photocopied A4 sheets and a pint glass full of pens.

  “Rich. Paul,” he says, nodding between each name. “You doing the quiz?”

  His timing is impeccable.

  “Yep,” I say. I dig my hand into my pocket and pull out a handful of change. It clatters as I drop it onto the hammer- beaten brass table.

  “Prize is up to a hundred and forty quid. How many?” he says.

  “Two please, mate.”

  “Four pounds.”

  I count the money and slide it to the edge of the table, before passing it to him. He hands me the quiz sheets and a pen. Then he moves on to the next table.

  Paul smiles. “Hundred and forty quid,” he says. “Wouldn’t mind that at all. Seventy quid each.”

  “Same here,” I say, already deciding that he can keep it all if we win. It seems like the least I can do.

  We don’t win the quiz.

  Around eleven thirty, Kenneth returns from the snooker table, his arm around Paul’s dad. We spend a few moments listening to them describe their best shots through slightly slurred speech. Then, under the light of the pub sign, we say our goodbyes and head in opposite directions.

  Me and Kenneth. Paul and his dad.

  I knew right there and then I’d never see Paul, or his father, again.

  Kenneth and I stumble drunkenly back through the driving snow. There is no doubt that, due to his age and lack of tolerance to alcohol, Kenneth especially would be stumbling had we been returning on a warm summer’s evening. The walk is made considerably more difficult by the snow and ice underfoot. It doesn’t help that our faces are continually whipped by Tic Tacs of ice which sting on impact.

  For the first time since the snow began, I wish the weather would change.

  wednesday 19th

  CHAPTER_THIRTY-SEVEN

  Christmas? Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.

  I am woken by excited squeals at around nine the next morning. It was after twelve thirty when we finally got home the night before and I had hoped for more of lie-in. It’s not to be. I can hear Lisa’s voice outside the bedroom door.

  “No, you’ll have to wait until Daddy gets up.”

  The exaggerated volume of her voice and her inflection tell me that the statement was more for my benefit than the kids’. I imagine her aiming the words at the other side of the door, the landing empty aside from her.

  I rub my eyes and stretch. “I’m awake,” I sing-shout from my bed. The door handle lowers and I am greeted by both children cheering. They run over to the bed and leap on top of me. I hug them – one under each arm – for a few moments before they pull away and begin chattering excitedly at the same time.

  “Slow down,” I say.

  The chattering slows to a pace I can understand before quickly speeding up again.

  “One at a time.” I turn to Hannah. “Go on.”

  She takes a necessary breath and then speaks as slowly as the excitement will let her.

  “Mum says that we’re allowed to put up” – she takes another breath – “the Christmas tree when you are awake.”

  “When Daddy gets up,” says Oscar, to confirm.

  “Oh, really?” I say. “That sounds cool.”

  “She needs you to get it from the attic,” Hannah says. “Attic. Attic. Attic,” says Oscar, suddenly turning into a robot.

  “Right, well, I’ll just have another few hours’ sleep,” I joke. “No, no, no!” they both shout at the same time. Hannah begins pulling my arm, as if trying to remove me from the bed or it from the socket. Oscar does the same.

  “I was just kidding,” I say. “I’ll get up now.”

  Hannah loosens her grip and looks at me warily. “Now?” “Yep, two minutes. Let me get changed, and I’ll be ready.” “Yay!” they both shout. I’m lucky that I didn’t quite drink enough for a hangover. It’s going to be one very noisy day.

  I carry the first of five boxes down the stairs and into the lounge. I am surprised to see that Lisa has already cleared a space near the window for the tree. I am also surprised to see Dina, still in her dressing gown, on the sofa.

  “Morning,” I say.

  “Hello, Richard,” she says without looking up from her book.

  I detect a slight tone of annoyance in her voice. “You’re up early.”

  “I’ve been down here all night. Thanks to him,” she says, wagging a finger in the general direction of the ceiling.

  “Oh dear,” I say. “Why?”

  “How much did you give him to drink?”

  I don’t know the answer to this, but think it’s a strange question. After all, Kenneth is more than capable of looking after himself. He’s had more than fifty years’ experience of judging the amount he should drink. It isn’t as though we spiked his drink or made him bow to peer pressure and throw drink after drink down his neck. Not like we did to Andrew Peaker at school when we gave him half a bottle of vodka and made him eat dandelions, and he was sick in his dad’s glove compartment.

  “I don’t know. He was playing snooker.”

  “Don’t you think you should have checked?” Dina places her open book on her knee.

  No, actually, I don’t. Is what I want to say.

  “Er –” is what I actually manage to say.

  “He snored all night. As soon as his head hit the pillow. I didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

  Kenneth was still snoring moments earlier when I went into the attic eaves and removed the Christmas boxes. To be fair to Dina, it is loud. Like a ride-on mower. A diesel one.

  I shake my head and fake empathy. “Poor you.” “Don’t you worry. I’ll get my own back.”

  I smile.

  “He’ll pay for it,” she says, smiling. Her eyes look serious. I have no doubt he will.

  Half an hour later, all the boxes are downstairs. It would have taken far less time had the kids not insisted on following me step by step with each box. I nearly tripped over Oscar on several occasions as he stopped abruptly part-way down the stairs, suddenly distracted by a piece of fluff or peeling wallpaper.

  The floor of the lounge reminds me of a museum we once visited that depicted life in wartime. We walked through a scene of the Blitz, inside the home of a startled-looking woman who was in the bath. Cardboard boxes, dust and bricks surrounded her. The tip of a doodlebug poked nosily through the ceiling. Our lounge is the same, minus the bath. And the bomb.

  I get on my hands and knees and open the box that contains the Christmas tree. It is easy to identify, as some of the branches are bursting out through the cardboard. Over the years, not for lack of effort, I’ve found that trying to put a Christmas tree back in its original packaging is impossible. I imagine that the manufacturers have a line of obese employees that they feed all day long whose sole responsibility is to sit on the trees prior to them going into their Christmas coffins.

  The kids are a little too excitable, and their tiny hands get into the boxes with the baubles. While I am trying to remove the Sellotape from the Christmas tree box, they distract me by holding up decorations.

  “Dad, look at this one.”

  “Dad, is this an angel or a princess?” “Dad, this one’s shiny.”

  “Dad, so’s this.”

  “Dad.”

  “Dad. Dad. Dad.”

  I begin to sweat, last night’s beer probably playing a small part in this. Suddenly, I feel surrounded, like I need to escape. I’m getting hotter and hotter, and the children’s voices appear to be getting louder by the second. As I lean over the Christmas tree box, Oscar cheers and jumps onto my back. My initial reaction is to shake him off, as if sweeping a spider off my arm. I take a breath, which is difficult as his arms are around my throat, his bodyweight constricting my windpipe. I manage to stop myself hurling him into the fireplace and wriggle free. For a moment the room is silent, even though I can see the children’s mouths moving.

/>   All I can hear is my heartbeat.

  All I can feel is the need to get out. Right now.

  I imagine myself standing slowly and striding over the boxes and out into the hall. And there, in the space where I have more options than any other, I choose what has become the only option available to me: the front door. Barefoot, dressed only in my pyjama bottoms and an off-black Pearl Jam Alive t-shirt, I step into the snow, each footprint marking a further step to my new life. The stasis finally over.

  Then I’m back in the lounge, and as the Sellotape finally snaps and the box bursts open, the volume suddenly returns and the children’s cheers sound louder than ever.

  CHAPTER_THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kevin had been sitting with Rosie and Bill for almost thirty hours. The previous day had been punctuated by telephone calls, and each time the telephone rang, Bill had taken a visible breath before pressing the button to answer.

  Rosie had kept herself busy by preparing food at mealtimes and offering biscuits and nuts and snacks and hot drinks and cold drinks and…well, whatever else she could think about to be away from the television. Bill, on the other hand, sat in his chair like some documentary filmmaker, camouflaged and hidden away, his camera trained on wild animals. Not moving, not letting the television out of his sight. As if the TV could make a bolt for the door if he took his eyes off it.

  Kevin sat at the end of the sofa furthest away from the television, which had looped twenty-four-hour news for the entire period since he had arrived. Every twenty minutes or so, the footage would return to the view, the same view, from the helicopter hovering over the gardens in South Wales. The same view of the officers, dressed in crumpled white forensic suits, discussing something near the gate of the property. When the footage came up on the screen, the room went quiet and Rosie made her excuses to leave the room.

  The news reporter would go over the same facts again and again, adding little to the story since it was broadcast twenty minutes previously. Kevin imagined the production crews were scrambling around in the studio, trying to pull together a montage of footage from over the years. Faces of victims, the missing girls, timelines, dates.

  Neither Kevin nor Rosie nor Bill had made it to bed, each of them instead taking small naps in the chairs where they sat. Kevin noticed that Bill seemed to fall asleep for at least fifteen minutes every hour, his back arched, his body still leaning in toward the television, his mouth wide open, his eyes closed. It was only when his body relaxed to the point that he leaned back into the comfort of the chair that his eyes would snap open and he would sit up straight. Rigid. In contrast, Rosie would prepare herself for sleep, pulling cushions around herself and a rug over her knees. Once she was comfortable, she would take a long nap, perhaps for an hour or more, her face blank, almost accepting.

  In between the news broadcasts and the food and drinks, they played Scrabble to pass the time. Kevin had suggested that they go for a walk, but his idea fell on deaf ears. He felt the need to get away from the suffocation of the bungalow, even for a short while. Fifteen minutes even. To the top of the garden. To the end of the drive. Just, outside. Bill had turned to him, narrowing his eyes, before spitting:

  “I don’t think it’s wise for Rosie to be going outside in that weather, do you?”

  Kevin walked over to the window. It was pitch-black and the snow fell diagonally, from left to right, as if on an endless conveyor belt. Bill had a point. Kevin went to pull the curtains across, but Bill’s shout made him visibly jump. He did as Bill instructed and left the curtains as they were, before sitting back down alongside Rosie.

  The sun rose, shooting blinding white light through the bungalow window. The kind of light that makes driving near- impossible in wintertime. Kevin woke and rubbed his eyes. He looked around the room. Rosie and Bill were still asleep. Bill looked comfortable for once, fully reclined in his chair, and Kevin was struck by just how small he looked.

  Kevin checked his watch. Eight twenty. He moved the small coffee table, being careful not to disturb the unfinished game of Scrabble from the night before. He got to his feet and went into the kitchen. The room was dark and gloomy, so he pulled up the blind and flicked the kettle on.

  For a moment, he stood watching a robin collect food from the bird table. Ever since Samantha had died, he seemed to have been tracked by a robin which had a knack of arriving at an appropriate time. When the pain was too much and he had broken down in his car outside work, he would look up and there in front of him, sitting on a fence post or a wall, would be the robin. When he was walking alone in the nearby woods, thinking about Samantha, a robin would come from out of nowhere and fly from branch to branch alongside the path for a while. He began to consider that somehow Samantha was the robin. She would arrive to tell him to keep going; that everything would be okay; that she was watching over him. Of course, deep down he didn’t believe it, but it did bring him some comfort.

  The robin flew toward the house and landed on the windowsill outside. Water dripped from the icicles that hung like glass carrots above the window, making a ‘pu-pu-pu’ sound as it landed. The robin hopped from side to side, dodging the drips, its red breast the only discernible colour in the covering of white outside. Kevin leaned in to be closer, hoping that today would be the day that it opened its beak and actually spoke to him.

  “Good morning, Kevin.”

  Kevin turned to see Rosie. She stood in the doorway, smiling. “Sorry, I was a bit distracted,” said Kevin. He removed his glasses and nipped the bridge of nose with his finger and thumb. “Tea?”

  “Yes, please. Then I’ll do the breakfast.”

  Kevin nodded and took two cups from the draining board.

  “I shall just freshen up,” Rosie said.

  Rosie returned five minutes later to find that Kevin had set the table for breakfast. Packets of cereal sat in the centre, alongside the fruit bowl and a full bottle of milk. Two spoons and two empty bowls. Next to them, the steam rose from the cups of tea. He was too kind. Rosie squeezed his hand as a thank-you, and closed the dining room door so as not to disturb Bill, who was still sleeping soundly in the chair.

  Rosie placed her napkin across her knees. She was tired.

  Tired of waiting. Tired of all these years. They both poured their cereal at the same time and placed the packets back on the table. Alpen for Rosie, as always. She watched as Kevin peeled his banana and began to cut thin discs, which fell onto the cornflakes in his bowl. She smiled. Some things never changed.

  “Just like Samantha liked them?” Rosie said.

  Kevin smiled. There was no shine in his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “Every day of my life.”

  Towards the end, Samantha had only eaten cornflakes and bananas. It was really all that she could manage, and it brought her a little pleasure at a time when there was only a little. Rosie thought back to the final week, when they were fortunate enough to have Samantha come home to die. Samantha was insistent that she wanted to spend her last days at her childhood home – the bungalow – and not at the house she shared with Kevin. Reliable as ever, Kevin had been very understanding, and Samantha had moved back into her old bedroom, right next door to her sister’s room.

  Her room was pretty much as Samantha had left when she moved in with Kevin. Most of her possessions had been removed, but the bed was still there, and the wardrobes. There were a few pictures on the walls that remained, along with the faded rectangles of posters past. Kevin had brought her favourite possessions over from their house: a few cuddly toys, family photographs (including the last picture of her and Victoria together), her radio and, of course, the cardigan.

  The cardigan was the only possession of Victoria’s that Samantha was allowed to keep. Long and brown, with baggy sleeves and baggy pockets. She’d had to beg her father to allow her to remove it from Victoria’s room. Its absence was the only way the room differed from the day Victoria left. Kevin had helped Samantha into it when she arrived at the bungalow on that first day and she had worn it from
that moment until she died four days later. Indeed, she was still wearing it to this day.

  “I’m tired of it all,” said Rosie.

  Kevin looked up from his bowl. Her face confirmed her statement. Rosie looked tired. And not just because of her lack of sleep the night before. She looked different. Like her last drops of enthusiasm for life had drained away. She looked as if she could just take herself off to her bed, pull back the covers and lie down, and that would be it. The struggle would be over. Kevin put down his spoon and took her hand. He looked into her eyes.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” he said.

  “I’m just tired of the weight,” she said, “the feeling pushing down on me. Each day when I wake. I just want it to be over.”

  A flash of colour crossed Kevin’s line of vision. The robin had landed outside on the windowsill, just over Rosie’s shoulder. It hopped from side to side.

  “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t speak like this. Bill and I…” She paused. “We’ve been very fortunate in life. Really we have.”

  Kevin gently rubbed her hand, noticing how her thin skin gathered between his fingers.

  She continued:

  “Lucky enough to have had two beautiful daughters.” Kevin noticed her eyes. They were empty.

  “A lovely house.”

  She continued to stare. “Wonderful friends.”

  The words were delivered without any emotion. Almost like the newsreader on television, repeating the same script each hour.

  “New cars.

  “Lovely holidays…”

  She smiled to herself. A sad smile.

  “…when the girls were little, of course.”

  Kevin was relieved when the telephone rang. He had never seen Rosie like this before. So deflated, so ready to give up. Rosie got up from her chair and picked up the telephone. Her hands shook as she pressed the ‘answer’ button.