House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  Poppy closed her eyes as she heard the bedroom door slam hard against its frame. Gone were the crazy ideas that had spun around in her head that day. Her daydreams had been replaced with reality, a stark reality that had literally picked her up and kicked the living daylights out of her that night. She was beaten now, she had nothing left to give. She crawled into the bathroom, using the side of the sink to pull herself up. As she lifted her arm to reach the flannel, a sharp pain ricocheted through her body. She screwed up her face in agony as it carried on upwards to the side of her head. She swallowed her pain and ran some cold water, gently dowsing her face and neck. It didn’t help. She turned off the tap. Poppy found her reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t the image of the girl that had put on her makeup that morning, the one with all those half-baked notions of a happy future in her head. No, this girl was just the shell of that person, a shattered replica of the girl with all those crazy dreams. As she sat holding the damp flannel against the back of her aching head, Poppy promised herself that, whatever happened in her life now, she would not forgive him for what he did tonight. She would never ever let Cameron get the chance to hurt her again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sinking man continued to stare aimlessly out of the hospital window, his tired and ghostly reflection peering back at him from the rain-covered glass. In the streets below, the pavements were deserted, the reflections from the neon signs glistening in the puddles below. The undercurrents of the gloomy waters around him were still dragging him down, further and further into the depths of his own despair. He hoped that his journey through the smokescreens of his past would bring him some answers, some reasoning behind it all. It may save him from his fate. But the lights on the shores were far away now, those waters were too deep. He could feel them pulling him down, he was beginning to realise that they had him now.

  ‘I would never have known,’ Dean said, hoping that the figure in the bed would finally acknowledge his presence. ‘I would never have known if I hadn’t bumped into that Millie woman outside that gym, the one where the boy, where Jamie works.’ He explained his comment to the statue-like figure wrapped up in those warm bedsheets. ‘She never liked me, Millie, her friend, she never liked me. She was always telling Krista to finish things with me. Always poisoning her mind against me.’ Dean pulled the lapels of his long coat together. There was a colder chill in that room now, an icy chill. It was strange because the window was shut tight and the radiators were still warm. ‘She told me about the boy, she thought I must have known. She never gave me a straight answer of course, but I could tell by her face. I bet she raced home to call Krista. Maybe it was her, maybe his mother warned him off me.’ Suddenly, Dean looked across at the bed. He thought he heard some movement behind him, but he was mistaken. ‘They have a girl, Krista and her bloke, they have a daughter, her picture was on the lad’s Facebook page. God, she looks so much like her mother. So my lad has a sister, he has a little sister. No, I can’t really call him that, my lad, my son, I can’t really call him that. He wouldn’t know me from Adam, would he?’

  The self-pity kicked in again as Dean searched for some consolation, not that any was likely to be forthcoming. ‘I just wish he would have called me. I just wanted to meet him, maybe just once, you know to talk, just to see him. He is handsome. Did I tell you I saw his photo on that Facebook thing? Such a good-looking lad with a big smile on his face.’

  Dean turned to look around the room that had stolen his life away. He desperately wanted to get out of that place, it was draining every bit of energy left in him. Nothing ever changed in that hospital room – the broken clock on the wall, the untouched glass of water on the bedside cabinet, even the newspaper seemed as if it had the same picture on the front page each day. Tapping the face of his watch, he scratched beneath the strap. It was becoming more irritating by the minute. ‘And now my bloody watch has stopped working,’ he said. ‘Cheap foreign shit!’

  The streets below remained empty. One or two cars passed by. It seemed as if the whole world had now taken refuge from the downpour. ‘I thought that was going to be the last time that I saw her, that day at the clinic, where she…’ He stopped mid-sentence and shook his head. ‘I thought that she had done it on purpose, getting pregnant I mean, she was like that. I thought that she was trying to trap me, just like Hannah had done. When Krista told me she was pregnant, it was like a reality check. I knew then that it couldn’t carry on.’ Dean frowned as he faced the reality of what had really happened that day. ‘I should have worked it out sooner. The things she said, the way she was. I should have known. I know now why she came to see me that night. Oh, my beautiful Persephone you certainly got one over on me there, didn’t you? God, I must have been such a fool, such a bloody fool!’

  Krista may have used a much stronger word than ‘fool’ for him if she was here now. It may have been one of the rare occasions that she needed to find a harsh profanity to describe the man she had once loved. But on that night, all those years ago, she still held onto a small hope, a hope that her dreams had not yet been shattered. She had thought it through. Somehow, she still hoped that the two of them could get through the crazy mess they had created. She had worked it all out. He would not have to leave his sick wife and precious daughter, she would accept that. It was a fact that Krista had never planned, nor wanted, to have children. It would probably happen at some time or another, why not now? Why not now with the man she truly loved? So she would share him, as she had done these past few years. She would continue to share him with his wife and daughter. She would bring up the twins, Millie could help her. Her best friend had brought up her five-year-old son on her own, it can’t be that hard. Then Dean could come round to see them, to see her and his beautiful twins. She was convinced that once he saw how it all worked out, he would be back in her life. Their feelings for one another would be as strong as ever. It would be just as it had been before. After all, he had told her that he loved her, the night of the awards dinner. He meant it, when he said he loved her. She had waited all those months to hear those words, he must have meant it. So why give up on the dream, when the dream is not over?

  Krista Nylund was a highly intelligent and resourceful woman, but she was a lost soul blinded by her obsession with a man that would never be hers. She was prepared to sacrifice everything, including her pride, in her quest for utopia. That dark and chilly night in February 1998, while excited young lovers were planning how to spend Valentine’s evening, it was time for her to carry out her plan, a simple plan, one which would end in her producing the small blurry image of the beautiful creations that would bond her and Dean together forever. But the man she adored would show his true colours that night, a side to the him that would bring Krista crashing back down to earth.

  They were meeting at the Castle Moat public house, the very place where it had all started on that crazy spring evening almost three years earlier. Krista stood outside the bustling bar, in a slight daze, just watching the world go by. A young couple crossed the road in front of her, holding hands, laughing, wrapped up in a picture of sheer happiness. Why couldn’t her relationship with Dean be like that? she thought. Uncomplicated, carefree, exciting, the way it used to be. Why did everything have to change?

  He was late, nothing new there, but he was not as late as he usually was. Fifteen minutes was an acceptable delay. Maybe this was a good sign, maybe it had finally dawned on him what he might be about to lose. She desperately wanted to give him a simple peck on his cheek, but as soon as she felt his breath on her neck, that all changed. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and kissed him fully on the lips for at least a full minute. She did not care that passers-by were staring at them. She wanted that kiss to last for as long as possible. Somewhere deep inside, she feared that this may be their last embrace.

  Inside the pub Krista refused his offer of a drink, making a feeble excuse about picking up Millie from work later that night. She realised when she sat down
that the smart Yves St Laurent dress she was wearing was getting too tight for her. She kept her coat done up. She did not want to reveal the seven pounds that she had already gained in weight. Dean was certainly in no mood for copying her alcohol abstention, sinking three pints and two whisky chasers before they had started any sort of real conversation. Krista was still smitten with the man beside her, holding his hand tightly each time he returned from the bar. But Dean could see that all was not right. For the first time ever he saw something different in her eyes. Those mesmerising whirlpools of enchantment would still drive men to insanity, but there was something unfamiliar about them, a look of sadness, the sort of look a child would give you if they had lost their way home.

  ‘Hard day at the chateau, Nylund?’ Dean asked. ‘You look a little tired.’

  Hardly the best way to start a conversation, Krista thought, but she responded with a knowing smile. ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘God, it seems so long since I saw you. I know it wasn’t the best of places to go, but we did the right thing, you do know that, don’t you?’ Krista waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. His conversation drifted away and he started to tell her about a new job he had applied for in Birmingham.

  She wanted to scream out loudly at him, ‘Is that it? Is that really it? All forgotten, we just pretend it never happened? Is that really what you expect me to do?’ But she said nothing, she listened to him as he droned on about new products and sales targets, losing a tiny bit more respect for him each time he opened his mouth. Suddenly out of nowhere she found some words to change the direction of his pointless conversation. ‘How are things at home? How is Hannah?’ she asked.

  It had worked, he was caught. He took a large mouthful of lager before answering. ‘Still much the same,’ he said. ‘She has good days and bad ones. But I do my best for her.’

  Krista wasn’t finished there. ‘And your daughter, how is she?’ Dean wasn’t quite sure where this conversation was leading, she had never asked about his home life as directly as that before.

  ‘Poppy,’ Dean responded. ‘You know that her name is Poppy. She is OK, causing havoc, you know like most two-year-olds do. I think they call it ‘terrible twos’ or something like that.’

  Krista smiled and nodded. ‘But she is three soon right? It is her birthday in the summer, the eighteenth of July, isn’t it?’ Krista only remembered that date because of their amazing experience at the boating lake, the date she discovered some time later was the day that Poppy had been born.

  Dean took another drink. ‘Yes, she is three in July, but that’s five months away. How did you remember that?’

  Krista shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, you know me, I am just good with dates and stuff like that.’ She wanted to hit him with that glass he was holding now. Why had that night at the lake always meant so much to her and not to him?

  Dean made his way to the bar to fetch some more drinks. As he waited to be served he looked back at Krista. He sensed that there was something different about her. It wasn’t just the fact that the sparkle had gone from her eyes, he wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t feel comfortable. He began to wonder if there was something she might be hiding from him. Maybe she had found someone else, maybe she had come to tell him that they were over. The friendly barmaid gave him a big smile when she served his drinks. ‘Cheer up,’ she said, ‘it may never happen.’

  Dean returned the smile and laughed at her comment. ‘Let’s hope so,’ he replied.

  When he arrived back at the table, Dean delivered a large glass of white wine to Krista. ‘I told you I couldn’t drink tonight, I am picking Millie up.’ He apologised and returned to his conversation about his new job prospects, but Krista wasn’t listening, she had more to say. ‘She is new, that girl who served you, the one with the spiky hair. Do you know her?’

  Dean shook his head. ‘Of course not, she was just being friendly.’

  Krista stared at the bar and looked her rival over for a second or two. ‘A bit overfriendly if you ask me,’ she said.

  They sat in stony silence for a few minutes. Dean was in no mood to have another conversation about her uncontrollable jealousy. They had visited that subject more times than he cared to remember over the past twelve months. Krista was still formulating her plan, trying to think of the best way to drop her bombshell, the one which was going to determine how this evening and indeed the rest of her life would play out. Dean, being Dean, had simply assumed that the two of them could resume where they had left off before the trip to the clinic. But he knew now that all was not right with Krista. An alarm bell in his head told him that he was sitting next to a different person this evening. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be there anymore that night.

  Krista now decided that she would follow her original plan, the one that would mean Dean could have the best of both worlds. Where better to start, than to see how he really felt about having children. ‘So, Poppy, are you going to do anything special for her birthday?’

  Dean grinned. ‘No, I don’t think so, I think we might give her a party. She can invite her friends from playschool.’

  He was on the end of her hook now, so she continued. ‘What about presents? What is she into, you know, what cartoons or stuff does she like?’

  Dean was slightly confused but still answered the question. ‘Eh, I don’t know really, I suppose anything with bears in it. Hannah has not been well recently, so we have not really had a chance to talk about it, besides it’s months away from now.’

  Krista became agitated that he had brought his wife into the conversation, she had only wanted to talk about Poppy, about other children, about little brothers or sisters for his daughter. He was obviously not going to play her game, so out of nowhere she simply lashed out. ‘She looked OK to me, Dean, your sick wife looked OK when you were at Croydon shopping centre last week. Hannah didn’t look like a recovering alcoholic crazy woman to me.’ Dean was totally stunned but Krista hadn’t finished yet. ‘Is that holding hands thing part of her new therapy? It seemed to be working, she seemed happy enough to me. That is definitely helping her depression.’

  ‘You were at the shopping centre?’

  ‘Yeah, I go there sometimes. Don’t worry I wasn’t going to make a scene.’

  ‘Why would you go there? You don’t live anywhere near Croydon.’

  ‘I just fancied a change of scenery.’

  Dean’s facial expression had now changed. Krista had seen she had touched a raw nerve. ‘You were spying on me! You must have followed us from the house.’

  Krista did not want to admit that he was right. Her stalking expedition had started right outside his front door, so she lied. ‘Relax, Dean. It was a coincidence. I did follow the two of you around for a while though.’ Krista was really enjoying watching him squirm. ‘God, she does like some terribly drab clothes shops, doesn’t she?’ Adding sarcastically, ‘Maybe that is part of her illness.’

  She had angered Dean with that comment, but she didn’t care, she was feeling as if she had nothing to lose now. Maybe it was her unbalanced hormones or the fact that he had been flirting with the new barmaid. Whatever it was, she was in the mood for straight-talking. She was devastated to think that Dean had lied to her for three years about the true mental state of his wife. She wanted to just come out and say it, to reveal the truth – ‘You are going to be a father of twins, you need to get used to it’ – but she also wanted to retain her dignity, the small shreds of self-worth that she had left inside her fragile body. Krista was waiting for Dean to explain, but his eyes would not meet hers, they were staring at his drink, as if he would find the answers to her questions somewhere at the bottom of the pint glass he was holding.

  Finally, but not before he had finished half of the contents of that glass, he found his voice. ‘You have made a big mistake, Krista, coming to my house, spying on my wife. I thought you understood, I thought you got
it.’

  Krista’s retaliation was instant. ‘It was all bullshit, Dean,’ she said. She was in no mood to be patronised. ‘Everything you have told me about her is just bullshit. Helping each other through rehab, keeping each other dry, it is all crap, Dean. Jesus, ever since I have known you, all you have ever done is drink. I have often wondered what it would be like to spend a full day with you sober.’

  Dean shook his head but something deep inside told him that she was right. The truth was staring back at him from those empty glasses on the table. Krista was still waiting. She knew Dean well enough now to know that he would invent some line or another to convince her that he was the ‘good guy’ in all of this, after all. In her heart she was hoping that she would hear those lies, that he would fight to save their relationship. God, she thought, is it even a relationship anymore? Krista knew that she didn’t want to lose him, she loved him, they could still make it work, but her original plan was falling apart at the seams. Why isn’t he speaking? she thought. Why isn’t he at least trying to salvage the situation? But his excuses were not forthcoming. Dean sat beside her in deep contemplation, as though he knew that things had finally come to an end between the two of them. Krista suddenly realised that her badly timed admission to following him and Hannah at the shopping centre had backfired, it had changed everything. He confirmed her fears with a few simple words which tore at her soul and ripped a massive hole in her heart. ‘I am still in love with her, with Hannah, I still care for her, I still love her,’ he said.