Mr Todd's Reckoning

by Iain Maitland

Adrian.

  My twitching, jerking, stuttering son. My useless, unemployable waste-of-space son and heir. I had no plans for him either. But then he stood there, with his hands at his face and his great big ‘O’-shaped mouth by the open door of the air-raid shelter. And I did what I needed to do, no more and no less. I regret it, though. I don’t know why, but I do.

  Baby Todd.

  Baby Todd.

  So long ago now, near the start of the marriage, that I can barely remember the babies. The screaming, yes. The endless whining. The snuffling, for sure. But I remember little else.

  Baby girl.

  Baby boy.

  The girl had a birthmark, a red rose on her tummy, just above her belly button. As I rested my hand on her tummy, I remember the mark was the same size as the fingernail on my little finger. He, the baby boy, was a nondescript thing. Forgettable.

  Flora Beatrice Todd. A stupid name she chose. Like the margarine.

  Jonathan Todd. I forget the middle name. Another one she picked.

  She gurgled. The little baby. I remember that. The sweetest little hiccupy gurgle. I had forgotten. I used to listen to that funny little noise stopping and starting. It had slipped my mind, that. I am crying now. I don’t know why. For the babies, I suppose. And everything else. So much that I have done. So many dreadful things.

  Through my tears, I complete my list.

  Josie.

  Lily.

  I look at these last two names on the list long and hard. Considering the options. Thinking things through. Deciding. Planning. Reaching my decision. I then take my pen and strike a line through Josie’s name and then another through Lily’s. There, I have made my decision. It is done.

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 2.49PM

  I have decided that Josie and Lily must go. Back to where they live. Taking their non-stop questioning and endless nonsense with them. To leave me here on my own to live out my days in peace and quiet. It is not what I want in a perfect world. I want love and warmth and a happy little family. But it is the right thing. The only thing to do. I must do it when they wake up, before their hide-and-seek game ruins everything for all of us.

  I glance up, at the sound of my bedroom door creaking open. I push my diary and the papers beneath the duvet as casually as I can.

  Josie stands there. She looks shocked and frightened.

  “Leon’s outside. I don’t know what to do.”

  I jump to my feet, reach out and hold her by the arm. “Don’t be scared,” I say, and then add quietly. “Is he at the door now?”

  She shakes her head. “I just woke up and looked out of the window. I’ve seen him on the other side of the road, at that house with the broken gate. An old woman came out and spoke to him and then closed the door. He went to the next door, the one with the caravan, and rang the bell. No one answered and he’s gone in through the side gate.”

  I move, with Josie, to my bedroom window, and we stand there, side by side, my arm on hers, watching the far side of the road.

  Josie points at the house with the caravan and says, “He put his hand over the gate, unbolted it and went in.”

  I can barely believe what she is saying.

  But I smile, nod, and humour her. I think she’s been dreaming vividly and has just woken up.

  Minutes pass as we wait for him to reappear.

  Or not. If she has imagined it in her sleepy state.

  Then she adds, a tremble in her voice, “I think he’s going from door to door, down that side and then up this, ringing and speaking to whoever comes to the door, and forcing his way in if no one answers.”

  I go to say, “He’s got some nerve to do that.” But, as I start the sentence, Leon comes out of the side gate over the road and walks to the pavement. He stops there, a short bull of a man, with his shaved head and tattooed face, arms and legs, and lights a roll-up cigarette that he takes from a pocket of his shorts. He is dressed completely in black, T-shirt, shorts and trainers.

  “Oh God,” I say involuntarily.

  “Exactly,” she replies, as she watches him turn to his left and move towards the next house over the road.

  Away from us. For the time being.

  Until he turns at the bus stop down by where Adrian and Josie got off.

  And then works his way back up this side, one by one, and gets to the bungalow.

  “You’re not going to be able to reason with him, are you?”

  “No, what Leon wants, Leon gets. And if he doesn’t, he’ll destroy it.”

  “What… I mean… how… why are you with him… were you with him?”

  “He was nice at first. Attentive. Paid me lots of attention. And he was different. And everyone seemed to think he was something special.”

  I nod, to indicate I am listening as I monitor Leon going to the next house and, rat-a-tat-tat, banging on the door.

  “Then he turned… wanted to control me, the way I looked, what I wore… once Lily was born, it just got worse. He wanted to… He’s a control freak… and the drugs just make him worse… more paranoid.”

  There is a long pause as Leon waits for the door to be answered. It is opened. Leon steps forward. An aggressive stance. Words are spoken. I find I am holding my breath. Expecting a confrontation, sudden violence.

  “He wouldn’t hurt Lily, though, surely?” I whisper. “Nor you, as her mother?”

  “Oh, he sees himself as the best dad in the world. That’s a laugh. He even had her name tattooed on his forehead. Lilly. With two Ls. No one’s dared tell him… and yes, he hurts me. All the time. He thinks nothing of it.”

  “Can you not go to court, get a restraining order?”

  She laughs, a bitter sound. “He’d take no notice… it would make it worse… his brothers would just take over, harassing me… then his mates. It would never end. He told me once, if I left him, they’d all take turns with me. It’s why I stayed so long. But then he started with Lily…” She tails off.

  I hear her swallow.

  I don’t know what to say.

  We watch out of the window.

  Eventually, Leon turns away, the door closes, and he moves towards the next house. Again, further down and the last one in sight to us. After this, he will disappear from view for a while.

  “He used to make me dress up in front of his mates… and then accused me of cheating on him. Four weeks after I had Lily.” She shakes her head. “I broke up with him months ago and he still won’t leave us alone.”

  “What does he do? Does he work?”

  We watch as Leon comes away from the next house. No one answers the door. He tries but is unable to open the side gate. He peers through the windows at the front. Then scratches something with a knife into the front door.

  “That will be his initials… No, he doesn’t have a proper job now. He’s done various things… he trained as a bricklayer. But he’d always lose them… fall out with the boss… hit someone… he’s been in court so many times. He’s been on benefits for ages but does cash jobs for his mates… night clubs, security stuff. Where he can push people about.”

  And then Leon has gone, out of sight over the road.

  Still working his way down to the bus stop. Then across the road and up this side, towards us.

  How long? Five minutes? Ten? Five I’d guess. Ten if we are lucky.

  “We should call the police,” I say. “Anonymously. Just say we’ve seen someone going up and down, going in and out of the back gates.”

  She looks at me and almost laughs again but manages to stop herself. “What? A police car racing to the rescue? You’d be lucky to get one turning up tomorrow night… anyway, he’s like that with one or two of the police round here (she holds up two crossed fingers). He acts as an informant…”

  Her words halt as she sees my look of incredulity. But then she adds, “We need to hide… or go. Me and Lily. He’ll be here in five minutes.”

  I look at her, not sure what to say. Either I answer the door and bluff him that they are not here. Or I
don’t answer it and he comes round the back gate, forces his way in, snooping in the garage, peering through the back windows and walking down to the airraid shelter.

  “We could hide in the shelter,” she says, turning away from the window to go and get Lily.

  I look at her.

  “Or we could go over the railway tracks and wait until he’s gone.”

  I am not sure what to say.

  “Me and Lily could make a run for it back to where we live… and then come back this evening when it’s all quiet?” She goes to walk by me, to wake Lily, decide what to do.

  I grab her arm, stopping her. It is too late.

  I look beyond her, out of the window, and she turns back to follow my gaze.

  Leon must have crossed the road earlier than expected and is now walking up the path to the front door.

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 3.01PM

  We hear Leon opening the porch door, stepping inside, stamping his feet.

  We stand there looking at each other.

  The doorbell goes, then the aggressive, rat-tat-tat, ‘answer the door now’, knocking.

  “Lily,” whispers Josie.

  The child, in Adrian’s room, woken by the knock-knock-knock, will be sitting up, rubbing her eyes, wondering what woke her, looking around for Josie.

  Getting up off the bed, she will come running out into the hallway.

  He will see her, start shouting and then break the front door down.

  Grab the child and then Josie before yelling at them to “Wait there” before turning on me with his knife.

  Josie holds my gaze and raises her left hand to her mouth, making a “ssshhh” gesture, then lifts her right hand too, fingers crossed.

  There is a long silence. From the road, neighbours, the railway line. The world has stopped turning in this instant.

  There is no noise from Adrian’s bedroom. Is she awake, the child, pit-patting her way over to the door?

  I hear another sudden stamping of feet in the porch. Wait in agony for Adrian’s bedroom door to be opened.

  “I go… to the door?” I whisper, half-stating, half-asking.

  Josie shakes her head. “Wait,” she mouths and then puts her hands to the side of her head and mimes the child sleeping. And does the finger-crossing gesture again with both hands.

  “I go if she…” I whisper and do a walking gesture with my fingers.

  She nods.

  The doorbell goes again. He holds his finger on it and it ding-a-ling-a-lings artlessly through the bungalow, on and on, for ever and ever.

  Josie shakes her head, a look of despair.

  Then it stops and the knocking starts again, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  Loud.

  Angry.

  Insistent.

  There are stirrings from Adrian’s room.

  I move towards the bedroom door. I have to be quick, getting to the front door before the child appears.

  Josie grabs my arm. “No. Wait,” she whispers urgently.

  Another unbearable silence.

  Leon, angry and impatient, standing in the porch.

  The child, half-woken and turning in her bed, to be woken fully at the next round of furious ringing and knocking.

  Josie and I, tense and straining, holding our nerve until the instant we need to make a decision.

  That next ring or the next bang will be the end of us.

  The child up and running.

  And we will be facing down Leon, knife in hand, in the hallway.

  I start counting.

  1… 2… 3…

  I don’t know why.

  … 4… 5… 6… 7…

  It calms me a little I suppose.

  … 8… 9… 10… 11…

  Any moment. God help me.

  There is a sudden scuffling noise from the porch and we hear the porch door being slammed shut as Leon walks away. So loud that it seems to echo down the hallway, shaking the walls of the bungalow.

  “Mummy?” A thin, uncertain voice from Adrian’s room.

  The child, just woken, is calling, almost plaintively, for Josie.

  Josie opens my bedroom door carefully and peeps out up the hallway. She crosses the hall in two or three steps and steps into Adrian’s bedroom.

  Not a second look back at me.

  I stand there, suddenly realising that I am bathed in sweat. A reaction to the terror of facing this brute of a man and the blessed relief that he has gone.

  I move into the hall and follow Josie into Adrian’s room.

  It is dark as the curtains are almost fully drawn. But I see Josie sitting on the bed, her arms around Lily. The child is half-asleep, still drowsy. Josie is soothing her, keeping her still and quiet. Calm. Then she looks up at me and speaks, in a hesitating, low voice.

  “Leon’s walked by the window.

  “He’s just opened the back gate.

  “He’s gone into the back garden.”

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 3.06PM

  I cannot breathe properly.

  The moment of truth is now.

  It was not meant to end like this.

  If he is in the back garden and looks through the window, he will see the child’s things in the living room: her Peppa Pig toy, her scribbled drawings.

  The door to the kitchen is unlocked.

  He will be inside the bungalow in little more than a minute.

  I move out of Adrian’s bedroom, down the hallway and into the kitchen. I know what I have to do. Try to do anyway.

  Dear God, he is in the garden, his back to me, facing the air-raid shelter, which has caught his attention.

  He walks towards it. Then stops, looking.

  I have no choice about what to do.

  I don’t know how I will manage it.

  I reach for the biggest knife from the rack on the side by the fridge. Tuck it into the waistband of my trousers in the small of my back. Move it slightly to the side so I can walk comfortably with it there.

  I stand for a moment, willing myself to step into the garden, feeling sudden, dreadful movement inside my stomach and lower down; a reaction to the fear I feel for this horror of a man.

  It occurs to me that my best, my only, chance of survival is to walk out and tell him they are inside, that he should come and take them, somewhere else, anywhere but here. That I want no part of this, it’s all my son’s doing, and I just want to be left alone and not have anything to do with this anger and fury and madness.

  But I see Josie’s innocent face. The child’s eyes.

  For all I have done, I doubt I can let this man have them, to go back to whatever hell they have had to endure for so long.

  I think there must be some other way.

  I know that if I go for him with the kitchen knife, he is likely to overpower me, take Josie and the child and maybe then come back and stab me repeatedly in anger. My life over, ended in the next few minutes.

  If I were to kill him, what next? Josie would call the police and then where would I be? It would all be for nothing. It strikes me, a forlorn hope, that, if I were to kill him, there is a chance that Josie might conspire with me, agree to…

  Leon turns and sees me watching him from the kitchen.

  I wave as if I am expecting him. I don’t know why. Instinct I suppose.

  I step outside as he walks towards me. I speak, my voice cracking with fear.

  “Have you c… come about the shelter?”

  He stops and looks at me like I am an idiot, as if it is perfectly normal to come into someone’s back garden without so much as a by-your-leave and not have to explain yourself.

  “Shelter?” he laughs, more of a sneer. “No. I’m looking for…”

  He takes his phone out of his back pocket, presses buttons, scrolls through the screen with his thumb.

  Up close, with his tattoos and piercings and a ring through his nose, his face has a look of bovine stupidity. But there is a sense of barely suppressed anger and he is clearly strong and itching to fight. I fear him. He c
ould brush me aside so easily if he knew they were in the bungalow.

  “… them two.” He shows me a photo of Josie and the child, much as they look now, in bed together. Josie has pulled the duvet up to her shoulders, to cover her nakedness. All I can see of the child is her face, maybe a touch chubbier and less defined than it is today.

  “No,” I answer firmly, shaking my head. I then maintain eye contact, as warm and as friendly as I can, and, puzzled, I ask as a normal person with nothing to hide would do, “Who are they, your family?”

  He breathes out heavily. “Wife and kid. The whore left me for some cunt. The old woman across the way says he lives here. Some big fucker.”

  I step back, try and look as shocked as I can. Not by his words but for the suggestion they might be here. Thinking fast, I surprise myself with my own invention.

  “No, not here. I lived here with… my husband… Roger… but he passed on a while back and I am in mourning for him.”

  “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters under his breath.

  “Roger had a nephew who came to visit for a while. He was quite tall. Six foot and more. He left a month or two ago after Roger passed away.”

  He shakes his head, as if he cannot believe what he is hearing. This brutal pig of a man. He sighs heavily, clicking his phone off and putting it back in his pocket.

  “What about the neighbours?” he says, demands really. Like he owns the place.

  “Oh,” I reply. “Peter and Lynn, that side, a middle-aged couple. A blonde woman, I forget her name, Shannon I think, with two young girls over there.” I point towards the garden gate. As if he might take the hint and go.

  “Fuck.” That’s all he says.

  I have no idea what to say to that so I fall back on my HMRC training and say nothing. Wait for him to go on.

  He turns around to face the shelter and says, close to conversationally. “What the fuck’s that doing there anyway?”

  I could stab him now.

  In the back, six or seven times. I feel a surge of desire to do it.

  Put paid to him once and for all. Then Josie and the child could go home and I could live out my days here in peace. My only real chance of happy-ever-after.

  But he turns to face me, a look of contempt on his stupid, in-bred face. And I do not think I could pull the knife out from behind me fast enough to slash across his throat in one clean, smooth move so that he would drop lifeless at my feet, spurting blood from his fat, bulging neck.