Blood Tears
Page 32
Her earliest memories were of the floor in the living room being cleared each night after dinner, the scratch and crackle of the stylus before music filled the vacant space and her parents swirled around the room, bodies tight against each other.
She tried to join in, pushing a small hand between their waists. At first her father would gently chide her, throw her in the air and laughing place her on the settee. Then he became more insistent until his laughter changed to shouts. She left the room then in a loud huff to see if they would notice she was gone. They never did.
So she put on her pyjamas, brushed her teeth and put herself to bed like a good little girl. In the dark of her bedroom she listened to the music drifting upstairs and imagined the dance and the spinning shapes her parents made as they moved with grace and art around the room below.
The nurse gently pulled a strand of hair away from the patient’s face. In another life, they might have been friends. Gone for a coffee and cake, with bags of shopping decorating the space around their feet. They would have talked for hours, about everything and nothing. They would have shared the same love of old Hollywood movies. They would have known what the other meant with a simple look, ending each other’s sentences and smiling at the same instant at the same joke.
The husband clearly didn’t deserve her. Regret for mistakes made was loud in the shape of his hunched back as he sat by her side day on day. And what was he doing placing the ring on his finger after he arrived at her bedside? Who would benefit from that little display? That pale band of skin where the ring should have nestled was a sign of one thing only.
That was one thing her father would never have done: been uncaring of his wife’s feelings. Behaving in this manner to his daughter was another thing entirely. A picture of her father bloomed in her mind. His cropped, grey hair and slim dancer’s build. Another picture replaced this, both her parents running down the path of their house towards the car. They turned and waved to her before opening the gate. She kept waving until they were driving down the street. A small act of devotion that her parents missed every time they went off for a weekend’s dancing competition.
Mrs Peele, her babysitter, would pull her back from the window, throw her in front of the TV and switch it on.
‘Not a sound out of you, you little bitch. I’ve got Mr Peele’s dinner to make and I don’t want to be disturbed.’
And there the little girl would sit between meals and bedtimes, terrified to make a sound but eager for the distraction the world of Hollywood could provide. She wasn’t good with the names of the movies, but she would always remember a face, a hairstyle or a dress. She studied the way a manicured hand would hold a cigarette, the way a thought could be implied by the simple act of lifting an eyebrow and the way those strong women held power over the people in their lives.
What power those women held, she thought as she again brought her fingers down the ridge of her patient’s nose. She placed her thumb on one nostril and pressing against it closed off one air-line. With her index finger she touched the other side of the nose. Power was a simple thing. Either you take it or you don’t. Either you grab the power or they run over you. She squeezed and brought both fingers tight together.
How long would it take, she wondered.
The patient’s eyelids fluttered. Her chest rose.
For then the tragedy would be complete. The errant husband would be hunched over a grave instead of a hospital bed. The world would sympathise with him. His pain would cause others to shed more than a few tears. The music would build to a crescendo and then the camera would pan out, letting the audience see the vastness of the sky behind him.
The skill with power, the nurse thought, was knowing when to use it. She relaxed her fingers, turned with a squeak of her rubber soled shoes and left the room.
As the sound of her passage faded, it was replaced with loud and panicked breathing. And the rustle of linen as the patient sat up in her bed.
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About the Author
As a blogger and reviewer, Michael J. Malone has long demonstrated a passion for crime fiction. Blood Tears was awarded The Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers and his poems have been broadcast on radio and published to high acclaim in magazines and anthologies. Based in Ayr in the south of Scotland, he is currently employed in the publishing industry.
Table of Contents
Blood Tears
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Watch out for A Simple Power
Prologue