The Hollowed

by Jay Caselberg

  She laughed. “Oh yes. Of course it doesn’t. I’m not thinking straight, am I? Of course you’re going to say that. Well you can just shut up. I’m not going to listen to this shit anymore and I’m not going to play your little power games.”

  She pushed passed him, stalked up the corridor and pounded upstairs.

  Chris stood for a few moments, still rocked by her reaction. Licking his lips, he followed. The bathroom door was closed.

  “Stase, are you in there?”

  “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  He tried the door, but it was locked.

  “Just go away. Leave me alone.”

  Chris slowly withdrew his hand and headed reluctantly back downstairs. He stood at the back door for a long time, looking out into the garden. He’d tried. She was due a check-up in about four weeks, but in the meantime…

  He didn’t really understand where all this stuff about power games had come from. He didn’t force her. He didn’t push his points too hard. He was the more passive one in their interactions most of the time. If he didn’t agree with something he found it easier just not to say anything. Sure, he tried to steer her in more sensible directions, or so he thought, but more, he just wanted her to get on with it when he saw that whatever he thought was not going to change her mind—and that happened more often than not. In some ways, he had learned just to shut up and take it.

  He sighed and headed back inside, resigning himself to waiting until she decided to emerge of her own accord. There was just nothing he could reasonably do to force it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Appealing

  They spent the next few days filling in the paperwork. Michael came round and suggested that they seek independent advice to help with the process at the local authority. The plans and details filled Stase’s head once more, and her focus refined, narrowed and the appeal became virtually her sole topic of conversation. The words swept over Chris, battering him with the constant repetition, the same questions over and over again. Sometimes, he just felt like screaming: “Enough. Do we have to talk about this again?” He held his tongue. In a way, it was as if he felt culpable for the whole cancer thing, that her accusatory glance in the hospital had squarely apportioned the blame on his shoulders for everything the world had conspired to do to Stase. This was what she wanted, so this was what she’d get.

  Looking ahead, he could see more plans, builders, dust, architects and more invasions into the little world that hung together in a fragile net around him. Secretly, he started to hope that their appeal would be rejected, not that he’d ever dare voice it. Stase would get over it and start to look at the whole thing sensibly. They’d do up the house as it was, maybe make some more modest alterations and then sell it and reap the benefit. Those thoughts came often while he watched her making her plans.

  Stase asked around, and they found an independent town planner and asked him over for a consultation. Peter McNally turned up in long hair, old army pants and checked shirt—not what Chris had expected at all. He brought a stack of papers with him and a pad and pencil on which he took notes as they went through all the existing paperwork.

  “Yes,” he said, finally. “I think you’ve got a good chance. The local authority inspector they sent, well, he shouldn’t have said what he did. That puts them at fault immediately. You might want to consider some other options though.”

  “Like what?” Stase asked.

  “Well, you might want to put together some lesser plans. Something not quite as contentious. Then we can use those as a bargaining point.”

  Inwardly, Chris sighed with relief. Stase shook her head. “No way.” Her jaw was set.

  “You have to consider the possibility,” said Peter.

  Stase shook her head again. “No chance. It’s this or nothing.”

  Chris’s inner sigh became a sigh of something else entirely.

  “Okay,” said McNally, looking slightly doubtful. “We’ll do what we can.”

  What else was McNally going to say? He was going to get paid for whatever fight Stase wanted to embark upon.

  He pulled a small camera out from his bag. “Can you show me out the back? It’s best if I can have some images to support the arguments when we put in the paperwork.”

  Stase led him outside while Chris sat in the kitchen watching them through the window. There wasn’t a lot he could do out there anyway. The pair of them walked around the backyard and Peter took photos from several positions while Stase talked animatedly, pointing out either this or that.

  Chris happened to glance up at the next-door neighbor’s rear side window; he could just see it from where he sat. He thought for a moment that he saw the shadow of a face up there. The pale shape was only there for an instant, but it was enough. Notice had truly been served, he thought.

  McNally and Stase finished what they were doing and came back in through the back. Stase was still animated, excited, more than she had been for weeks.

  “Okay,” said Peter, packing his things away. “I’ll be putting together the arguments over the next few days. I should have a draft for your approval by early next week. Of course I’ll want you to read through it before we submit anything so we’re sure that we are in total agreement; that we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.”

  Stase nodded, her eyes shining.

  “What about the architects?” she said.

  Peter shook his head. “No, we should keep them out of it. It creates the wrong impression, especially with a firm like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he said slowly. “They’re going to think that you’re throwing money at the issue and you just want to make a quick profit. You don’t want to look like developers, do you? Remember, you’re up against the common people, your neighbors, the locals. They’re going to be looking at it from that perspective.”

  Chris shot her an accusing glance.

  “But I don’t see what—”

  “Trust me,” said Peter. “I’ve seen a lot of these. It’s better this way.”

  Stase nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and then saw him out.

  The paperwork arrived the following week and they looked through it together. Chris thought it looked like a cogent and well-argued case. They submitted the complete set of forms, photographs and supporting papers, then settled back to wait. They received a letter a couple of days later, telling them that interviews would be occurring with the neighbors and there’d be room for any formal objections to the appeal to be lodged over the following four weeks. One by one, the letters rolled in. The neighbor had hired her own expert, and it appeared she’d also been busy, talking to other neighbors and voicing her concerns. There were letters from people who hadn’t even bothered before. The objection period came and went, and they could do nothing other than wait. It was another three weeks before their case even came up before the authority.

  As the days passed, Stase became more drawn and nervous.

  One afternoon, she came home, a look of fury on her face.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “What? What is it?” said Chris.

  “The bitch is selling her house. That’s what it’s all about. She was going to sell her house all along. I bet she thought that if she had building going on next door, it would reduce her chance of selling it, maybe affect the property value.”

  “Are you sure? You’re reading a lot into it. Perhaps she’s just giving up. Perhaps she’s simply had enough.”

  “No. She’s doing this deliberately.” Stase dumped her bag and stalked out into the backyard. She stood there in the middle staring up at the blank windows, her teeth set, a visible snarl etched across her features.

  Chris headed for the back door and stood there. “Stase, come inside. That’s not going to do anything.”

  “No,” she snapped. “This time, the bitch is really going to know.”

  The ritual occurred every night for the next ten days. Nothing Ch
ris said would change her mind. He’d sigh, prepare dinner and wait for her to tire and come back inside. When she spoke to him, it was only to snap responses through closed teeth, not prepared to enter into conversation. He couldn’t understand where so much anger and resentment had come from.

  The capper came two weeks later. Chris came home to find an official-looking letter in a brown envelope. He hesitated before opening it, thinking that he ought to wait for Stase to get home, but then thought better of it. He wandered into the kitchen and tore open the envelope.

  It was the letter from the local authority. Their appeal had been denied. They were welcome to submit modified, more modest plans, but in the case of what they’d submitted, they were “not approved.” He put the letter down on the table, turned it over and went to make himself a cup of coffee. While he fiddled with the jars and the kettle and mug, he tried to analyze what he was feeling. There was trepidation, but that was about how Stase was going to react to the news. Apart from that, it was simple relief. Perhaps now, they could put this madness behind them and get on with their real life. He glanced out at the empty house next door—the neighbor had moved out the week before—and then back down at the letter lying face down on the table. There was something positive, with the neighbor gone, at least. Perhaps the next person wouldn’t be so protective about the whole thing. They’d be in a position to plan something that was more in keeping with the size of the house and realistically more in keeping with their budget.

  He heard the key in the front door.

  “Chris?” Stase called from the hall.

  “In here,” he called back.

  He heard her dump her bag, get rid of her shoes and head in his direction. She appeared in the doorway a moment later. “What are you doing in here?” she said.

  “Come here, Stase,” he said, pulling out a chair.

  “What is it?”

  She didn’t take the proffered chair; rather she stood in the doorway leaning slightly, one hand supporting her, a frown flickering on and off on her brow.

  “It’s come.”

  “And…”

  Chris turned to face her. “We’ve been knocked back.”

  Her face blanked. She stood there for a moment, and then simply collapsed in the doorway. It was as if her legs had just crumpled. She huddled there in the doorway in a heap. Chris had no idea then how similar that action would be to something that would come later, be so important for him, for both of them, but then none of that stuff had happened yet.

  “Noooooooooo.” Long and low, the sound came from deep inside her.

  “Stase?” He pushed back his chair and quickly moved across to crouch down beside her. “Stase, it’s not the end of the world, baby. Listen.”

  Her face was hidden by her hair, but her shoulders were shaking. He put out a tentative hand to touch her arm. She lifted a hand to ward him away. Again he touched her.

  “Listen, Stase. We have other options. It’s not all that bad. Look, we can do the place up; we can sell it. We can move somewhere else. It’s not the end of the world.”

  She shook her head without looking up, her body jerking. He didn’t know what to do. This reaction was more than he expected. He’d expected tears, screaming perhaps, shouting, but not this. He put an arm around her shoulders and tried to ease her to her feet, but she slumped within his grasp like a sack of bones. He got a firmer grip and tried to pull her upright.

  “Come on, Stase. I know you’re upset. Come into the lounge and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  Again, she shook her head.

  Finally, he managed to encourage her to stand and steer her gently into the lounge where he positioned her on the couch. Her shoulders were still shaking, and she refused to look at him. He stood looking at her, and then went back into the kitchen to do just that, to make her a cup of tea. There was really nothing he could say.

  When he came back into the lounge, she was still sitting in the same position, gently shaking, her hair falling over her face.

  “Stase, listen, drink this. You’ll feel better.” He placed the mug gently down in front of her.

  She looked up then, fixing him with a look of total hostility. “What the fuck would you know about what would make me feel better. Nothing will make me feel better,” she spat. “Nothing!”

  “Jesus,” he said. “It’s a house. It’s a fucking house, Stase.”

  She shook her head and burst into tears. “But it was our house,” she said between the sobs.

  Looking at her sitting there sobbing, the way each breath wrenched through her, he understood. She really had believed they were going to win this. For the first time, Chris recognized with an awful certainty exactly how important Stase’s plans were to their life together. He stood watching her, helpless, knowing he was unable to say anything that might possibly help.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Growth

  After their planning appeal was rejected, Stase refused to talk about the whole thing. She shut down any discussion of the house, the planning permission or anything, and over the next few days, she carefully filed all the paperwork, the documents, the photographs and architectural drawings in lever-arched files and packed them all away. After a couple of days had passed without a single mention of what had happened, Chris tried to broach the subject. It was a Saturday afternoon, the sun streaming in the back windows. The seasonal change was almost upon them, but the afternoon felt like a mild spring day, warding off the knowledge of the impending cold and grey damp to come.

  “Stase,” he said. “Can we talk about what we’re going to do?” He’d been busying himself in the back garden, just for something to do. He desperately wanted to do something inside the house, something that might improve their living conditions, but every time he even mentioned it, she would cut him off with a simple hand gesture, telling him that he knew what they had decided. He leaned against the back door, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  She stopped in mid-step and slowly turned to face him. “Going to do about what?” she said. She’d been occupied in one of her cleaning frenzies and was wearing the yellow rubber gloves, carrying a cloth, her hair held back with a scrunchy. A couple of strands of dark hair trailed across her forehead and down across one cheek. He’d caught her on the way to the kitchen to get something.

  “About the house, Stase. What do you think?”

  She sighed and wiped the back of one yellow-clad hand across one cheek, disturbing the strands of hair that hung there. Here in the light, the red slash of her scar, now fading, was plainly visible. Chris forced himself not to focus on it, not to let her find him looking. She was still really self-conscious about it.

  She pressed her lips into a tight line. “I’ve told you already. There’s no point. If I can’t have the house the way I want it, then there’s no point in doing anything.”

  “Come on, Stase. Don’t you think you’re being a little bit unreasonable about it? We can still do things. If you’re worried about increasing the property value, then there are still things we can do. Look at the state of the place—the walls, the floors. What do you want?”

  “It’s not the same,” she said flatly.

  “Jesus, Stase. Show a little common sense will you? It’s not lost. There’s still plenty to do.”

  She glared at him. “There you go again. I’m not thinking rationally, am I? Stase is unbalanced. Stase is losing it. Well, I’m not listening to your shit anymore. You can’t control me like that. I’m not going to listen to you.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, his exasperation bursting from him.

  “Yes, that’s it. Shout at me why don’t you? Enforce your domination. Be the big man. It’s not going to work.”

  “I’m not shouting.”

  “No, of course you’re not,” she said.

  He stared at her incredulously. She turned away and headed into the kitchen, forestalling any further discussion. When she reappeared, she stalked past and refused to look at
him.

  He had no idea where she was getting this stuff. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared up the hallway after her.

  He followed her into the lounge to try and talk to her again, but it was clear from the set of her shoulders, the furious way she was straightening things, rubbing at small spots on the table where there was no real visible mark that needed rubbing, that he wasn’t going to get anywhere.

  The distance between Chris and Stase was palpable. Her responses were curt, and every time he caught her looking at him there was a sheen of hostility, almost accusation, in her expression. Chris busied himself, staying late at the office and working on projects, or bringing presentations home to fiddle with while continuing to wander through the pantomime that their relationship had become. He was still not convinced that her medication levels were right, but every time he tried to broach the subject, Stase flew into a rage and accused him of trying to undermine her. Partly because of the hostility, partly because of his own perceived inability to do anything about it, Chris withdrew from the problem. Things might have been better if he tried to do something more proactively. But it seemed that everything that had happened had also drained his will to take those few steps. Stase, on the other hand, obviously aware too that everything wasn’t rosy, compensated in her own ways.

  Over the next couple of weeks, her circle of friends seemed to expand mysteriously. From the little he could glean from their conversations, terse as they were, there were new names, people he didn’t recognize coming up in the offhand comments she dropped. Suddenly, the number of work parties or drinks seemed to escalate. For some reason, Stase was feeling a need to be social, to mix with crowds of people, or at least that was the story. She never invited Chris, not that he asked. She was clearly looking for something that he was incapable of giving her right then, or that she wouldn’t let him give her because she had identified him as one of the root sources of her problems.

  It was only much later that he found out she was having bi-weekly counseling sessions as a response to how she felt about the disease and she’d kept them from him, going either at lunchtime or after work. Later, looking back, it would make a kind of sense. She was desperately seeking someone or something to blame and Chris was the closest thing to her, or had been. That was the only real thing he ever saw her getting out of those sessions, a directed capacity to blame.