Voids

by Jeffreys, Tim

  Flint Torino becomes white noise. At that moment he might as well be a detuned radio, a flickering hologram broadcast on the MesmeriChannel.

  I remember sitting alone in the hospital anteroom. Emily was medicated up to her eyeballs in the adjoining room. It had taken enough injections to fell a horse just to stop her screaming, and now she lay staring into space. I looked at the tiny figure of my Marnie, cleaned and swaddled in her little basket, perfect in every way except for the fact that she was dead. Emily’s womb had nurtured her and then became her tomb. The basket Marnie lay in was like something for a child’s doll, but to me it was a vast abyss and I teetered on the brink, fighting with all my soul not to plunge straight in.

  Casting my eyes around the room, I see it hovering, framed against Torino’s huge picture window, lending the expensive curtains a ripple effect as if they’ve been caught in a slight breeze.

  It isn’t in my head, I’m convinced of it. If it was once behind my eyes, then my head must have become too insufficient a space to contain it and now it’s out. It’s hovering just a few feet away from me. I gape at it but my mind fails to form coherent thoughts and the interior of my skull feels like a vacuum. The void is huge, it’s growing exponentially, almost filling the room, swallowing me, swallowing everything, all the furniture, every ornament, maybe even Flint fucking Torino himself. I sit on the floor with my head cocked to one side. Torino still stands above me. Is this how it felt to be Victor Laguna? I look away from the void, back at Torino, his mouth forms a ghastly grin. It resembles one of the tribal masks that hang on his walls.

  “Look at you, you’re pathetic!” His spittle hits my cheek as he leans towards me.

  I can only stare at him. I try to speak, but there’s nothing there. I’m drifting away, losing it. I stare back at the enormous undulating shape that threatens to engulf the room whole. Torino is almost screaming his words now.

  “This is why it’s worth it! This is why we fight! You have to be felled like a diseased fucking tree. We have to end you!”

  I think for a moment that maybe I’m dead. If there is a hell, perhaps this is it, Flint Torino’s front room? Maybe the shape, the void, will smother us all and will become my shroud for an eternity of pain as I’m locked in a perpetual confrontation with the man who fucked my wife. The thought intrudes once more: can a man also sense when he’s lost his mind?

  It’s fury that saves me, as tragic as that may seem. At last my scrambled mind finds something solid, something to hold onto. Some anchor point to fix me in this space and this immediate moment. I look at the leaflets fanned out across the carpet and see what I hadn’t seen when I first toppled them. I pick one up and get to my feet, looking at it in all its startling detail.

  “You’re…you’re Vas Defense?”

  He laughs and gives some mock applause, the clapping of his hands sounding like firecrackers going off in rapid succession. “Fucking genius! Actually, I’m only a supporter, a cash donator.” Torino picks one of the leaflets off the floor and waves it in my face. “They’re doing great work, fine work!”

  That one hurts like hell. Of the people Emily could’ve fucked around with, she had to pick this guy.

  In my mind I see it all happening. I see me pulling back my fist to break Torino’s perfect enamels, undoing all the expensive dental procedures in one mighty blow of rage. I see Torino crawling on his carpet, blood drooling down his swollen face as he begs for mercy. Adrenalin surges through my body. I picture the agony on his face as I gouge his fucking eyeballs out with my fingernails, before crushing his genitals beneath the heel of my boot, over and over and over, stamping, pounding, beating, mauling. I see the whole nightmare circus of carnage unfolding before me. But instead of attacking him, tears fill my eyes and I begin to sob.

  Maybe it’s the image I can’t shift from my mind: of Emily, her eyes closed in ecstasy as her body yields to Torino’s. Maybe it’s the thought of her gasps of orgasmic pleasure. Or perhaps it’s the image of Jerry Frosche’s wife screaming in despair on the hospital floor, just as Emily did when she was told that Marnie was gone. Mostly, though, I think it’s the thought of me sitting in that anteroom alone, sitting with my Marnie, but still alone. Whatever it is, it drains the life from me. I collapse against the wall and break into a sob.

  I cover my face with my hands. I can hear Torino laughing. “Look at you! What kind of a man are you? It’s no fucking wonder she came looking for something else, someone else.”

  I look up at the gigantic shape; it’s now traversing the ceiling and seeming to ooze down the walls. It fills me with blind panic, but I steel every ounce of nerve I have left and remain standing there because, strangely, I don’t wish to race from Torino’s house like a frightened child. I’d rather be swallowed up by hell than allow him that final victory. As I gape up at his ceiling, Torino gazes up there too, tilting his head to one side, continuing to mock me.

  “I seduced her, you know, I made aaall the moves. All the right smiles, the comforting gestures, the subtle strokes of the arms. It wasn’t long before she came to my bed. She was the easiest lay I ever had!”

  My vision blurs. I can’t lose it, not here, not now. I take a huge lungful of air.

  It takes a massive effort, but I manage to turn on my heels and walk steadily from his house, like a man who has just completed his official business in a satisfactory fashion. Torino follows, shouting after me from his doorway, rabid, spittle flying.

  “A murdering fascist like you will never understand what a woman needs. But I do. I do!”

  ~

  I find a bar, thinking to drink myself into oblivion, but for some reason, despite the pain crippling my insides, I just can’t do it. I’ve seen other people numb themselves with alcohol, but that’s never been my way. My first drink arrives and I sit and stare at it for an hour. Eventually, I decide to head back to the apartment.

  I find Emily sitting in front of the MesmeriChannel again. She gets up when I enter and is about to say something when, seeing the desolate look on my face, she closes her mouth. I look away because I can’t bring myself to see her face.

  “Danny? Look at me. What the hell’s going on?”

  I turn around, slowly.

  She smiles, but there’s anxiety behind it.

  “I called my parents.” She’s beaming now.

  “Yeah? What did they say?”

  “What did they say? They’re beyond thrilled! My mom started crying and had to put Dad on. I could see how pleased he was, his face was…”

  “Elated? He was elated?”

  “Yes. It means the world to him, to have a grandchild.”

  I knew how much it meant. I saw his face at the hospital when he first heard about Marnie. He shook the doctor’s hand whilst Emily’s mom went to pieces. He looked over at me but his eyes were like shattered crystals. He took hold of my arm but his hand was trembling; the gesture was less to comfort me and more to prevent himself from collapsing to the floor.

  For a brief moment, standing there in our apartment, I forgot my own misery and I felt an emotion approaching joy. It surprised me at first, but Emily’s pregnancy made me feel glad. For him. For her father. For the fact that he’d got what he wanted, a grandchild.

  “They want to come and see us, Danny. My mom was practically packing as we spoke. I know they’ll be worried, it’s only natural, but I feel it, Danny. I know this time it will be alright.”

  She takes a tentative step towards me, but I hold out my hand.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Know? Wha…?”

  “Torino.”

  She drops her head. “Oh,” is all she can think to say.

  “What did you think would happen, Emily? What was your fucking master plan? Just have this kid and pretend for the rest of your life that it was mine. That it was ours?”

  “But it might be ours, Danny! We can check, we can…”

  “I’m fucking sterile, Emily! The baby’s not mine. It’s impossible. Goddamn it, y
ou’re carrying Torino’s child!”

  Emily sinks back into her chair and looks up at me, unblinking. Her face creases, but she doesn’t make a sound. I almost feel pity for her. Almost.

  “Oh, and did you know he was a fucking Vas Defense supporter?”

  “I…Not until today, no.”

  “He’s ploughing money into an organization that wants me dead, Em.”

  “I know that now, Danny. I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t know.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She looks down and exhales through her nostrils, then lifts her head again. “Have you met him? He’s kind of a dick.”

  “Then why?”

  For a long moment, she says nothing. Then: “I want my baby, Danny. I want our baby, even if I have to raise it on my own. It’s what I want more than anything, to be a mother.”

  She closes her eyes, like she’s in prayer. Tears stream down her cheeks and I see, maybe for the first time, just how much she wanted this. I’m forced to face the gaping hole Marnie’s death left in her life.

  “You knew I was the problem, then?”

  “I had the tests. I knew it wasn’t me. We’ve been trying for such a long time, like you said. There had to be…something.”

  “Why him? Why Torino?”

  She takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “Because he’s that type. A runner. I didn’t want him hanging around after the child was born, trying to get custody or whatever. I didn’t want him. I just wanted someone I could…use.”

  Emily looks mortified, as if the stark realisation of her actions has only now occurred to her. She looks at me, her cheeks and neck flushed as they often do when she became contrite. When she speaks, there’s a hint of confused awe in her voice.

  “Does that sound bad? I guess it does, but it didn’t make any difference to me, really. After I lost Marnie, I’d have done anything, Danny, anything.” Emily opens her arms in a gesture of supplication. She sobs, taking in gulps of air that break up her words, until eventually she regains her composure. “He’s been chasing me for ages. He kept making jokes about us having an affair. It was just…easy. Well, anyway, the real reason was because he’s what you’d call a Bunny, right? He can father a child, but he’ll never be a father. You, Danny, you’re a father.”

  “But you knew about the baby days ago. Why’d you go on seeing him? You were there today, at Trib’s and then at his place. I saw you.”

  “Dan…?” Emily stands and walks towards me. She cups my face in her hands; my cheeks burn against the coolness of her palms. Her face is blotchy. Her eyes are raw and her own cheeks glistening wet. Her voice wavers as she speaks. “Today was the last time. He wanted to see me for sex. We did go back to his place, but when I got there, I couldn’t do it.”

  “That’s fucking big of you.” I reply.

  Emily puts her hands together. It’s funny how people still do that when they’re pleading, even if they’ve lost all their faith.

  “Danny, please believe me. I told him it was over for good. That was when he started telling me about his involvement with Vas Defense.”

  “He knew you were married to an agent?”

  Emily lowers her eyes, as though she senses my disappointment. She must have felt comfortable with Torino if she talked about me, even as she was betraying me.

  “I think it was his way of saying fuck you. It just confirmed to me what I always knew about him, about the kind of man he is.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I do, because it’s the truth. I promise you it is. And a promise is a promise, right?”

  I want to lower my gaze, but Emily cups my face in her hands once more and holds it firmly, like a paramedic supporting the head of a crash victim.

  “So what now? You expect me to stay here with you, and raise that moron’s kid?”

  She gazes at me, right into my core. But I can only look through her.

  “I’m leaving.”

  I turn from her and walk towards the door. Opening it a crack, I pause and look back at her. She‘s still standing looking at me, her arms by her side, her eyes still hopeful. I can see she’s already blooming from her pregnancy. I only feel hollow inside.

  “Danny?” she says.

  Her voice stops me, and I hang in the door space. Is this it? After everything we’ve been through, am I finally acknowledging it’s over? Me and Emily, my Emily, we’re finally finished?

  Waves of nausea course through me. I feel the same way I did when first given the news about Marnie. I mean I feel exactly the same. I groan and lean against the wall. My heart feels like it’s smashing through my ribcage and dragging my lungs with it. I look across the dim landing, my eyes bulging.

  “Danny, you know how much I want a baby,” Emily says behind me. “Any idiot can father a child. You should know that better than anyone. But to stick around, to raise a child, to actually be a father, that takes certain qualities. Why do you think I married you?”

  I have to think about that. After everything we’ve been through together, stretching way back to the old days in Ashfields, I honestly can’t remember. I can hardly recall yesterday. It seems like a different life. I begin to speak, but the words falter and Emily takes the chance to fill the silence.

  “I married you because you were the finest boy I’d ever met.”

  I don’t want to listen and walk towards the kitchen but Emily blocks my path. “You remember what a daddy’s girl I was? You remember how he was my whole world? Well it was going to take a special person to take me away, and you were that person, Danny. You were that special guy. I felt blessed.”

  I look at her face again. It’s crushing me to do so. I straighten up and walk back towards her. The aggression in my stride unnerves her.

  “I was special. So fucking unique my dad couldn’t stand to be with me and my mum killed herself. Yeah, you could call me special, Emily. I guess.”

  Emily slaps me hard in the face. I’m too surprised to do anything but gawk at her, my cheek stings like it did in the harsh sun at the Skypark, but this sensation is anything but pleasant.

  ‘That’s for him. That’s for Danny Seraphine, the man I love. I don’t know where he is right now, but if he was here, then for sure he’d kick your worthless ass all over this fucking room, just for saying that.”

  I make a lunge for her but she backs off and runs around the KarmaChair. I circle around it but Emily evades me again, and for a moment we resemble a cartoon cat and mouse in a slapstick chase sequence. Emily stands and stares at me, waiting for my next move. I vault the entire chair but catch the headrest with my arm, knocking the chair onto its side and activating the optical projection device. The three-dimensional multi-coloured abstracts glide across the floor, some of them fluid, others jerking in a staccato rhythm, fractured into crystalline shards that strobe and bleed into one another. I manage to tumble into Emily, knocking her to the floor and she begins to crawl away from me. She slides through the transparent bloom of bright coloured shapes like a leopard slinking through some kind of psychedelic jungle, and for a moment I marvel at the surreal nature of the scene.

  I pick myself up, and placing both hands around her waist, I haul her to her feet. She moves to strike me again, but I grab hold of her wrist and twist it. Emily bites her lip but she looks directly at me, her eyes ablaze.

  I hold her tight against me; her feet are barely touching the floor.

  She grimaces and looks about her. With her free hand she reaches out and snatches a vase from the table, the fake flowers spilling out all over the floor.

  I knock the vase across the room and it smashes against the doorframe. Pieces of ceramic cascade to the floor and water explodes out to slither down the wall. I look at it, aghast.

  There’s a moment’s silence in which we embrace amidst a swirling mass of liquid colour. I can’t stop looking at the water glinting on the far wall by the doorframe. I let go of her waist and she takes a step back.

  “Water? Yo
u put water in a vase full of fake fucking flowers?

  Emily wrenches her wrist out of my hand and rubs it.

  “It doesn’t hurt to give them a drink.” She looks at the red welt on her wrist. “Flowers need water.”

  “Even fake flowers?”

  She looks up at me with resignation and shrugs her shoulders. “Why not?”

  I want to laugh, even though it seems…inappropriate. Still, the urge is there. Instead, I rub my face roughly with the palm of my hand and when I take it away I notice blood is smeared across it. A scarlet trickle issues from my nose.

  “You gave me a nose bleed.”

  Emily looks churlish, and then reaches into her trousers to take out a handkerchief. She hands it to me and I wipe my nose.

  “Self-pity doesn’t become you,” she says with gentle defiance. I look at the blood soaking into the cloth and raise it towards her.

  “I’ve fought full grown men—absolute psychos—who couldn’t do this to me.”

  Emily almost smiles. “I’m an altogether different kind of psycho.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I dab my nose again.

  “Yes. I’m a pregnant woman.”

  I nod.

  Emily looks around the disordered room. “You can lecture me all you like about over-population and the food crisis, but it won’t change how I feel. I want to be a mother. And this child’s a fact now so there’s nothing we can do except take care of it. My baby needs a father. I want you to be its father. I’m asking you. You can be this child’s daddy, and we can be a family.”

  I’m not looking at her, but I’m listening. My nose has stopped bleeding and I touch the dried blood forming a hard collar around my nostril. I think of my own father, throwing clothes into his Panthers bag, walking past me as I hold the football out to him as if I’m nothing, nothing to do with him at all—fatherhood like a room he’s grown tired of sitting in. There’s a lesson in that, Emily used to say to me, and it’s only now that I realize what she meant. It was a lesson all right, a lesson in how not to be.