‘If it’s not there?’ I don’t care, my head says to me. I don’t care if it’s not there.
‘It’s still yellow,’ she says, and she says it with such finality that any doubts I might have had slip away.
I sit and look at the yellow as it slides into black. People don’t think yellow can go straight to black, but I’ve seen it. I saw it that night, and on many others since then.
Helen doesn’t rush me even though she’s worried about parking. I sit in the car, thinking how much I’ve missed yellow. I didn’t know how much until right then.
I feel like I’ve lost something when it’s finally gone. Even if it wasn’t ever really there.
It makes me wonder about the burning man. Am I in the grip of some strong, long-winded hallucination?
I wish I hadn’t said anything about the sunset. I don’t want Helen to think I’m losing it, or having some kind of relapse. I want to move, and that’s all I want to do. I don’t want to spend the next week in a hospital bed while they run scans on me. Most of all I want to be well.
I’m calm, though. I’m not having a stroke.
The yellow’s gone, totally, completely, and with it, the pain in my head fades to background noise. I can live with that. I hope. Headaches worry me.
I nod and we drive to the hospital.
‘Help me out?’ I say, after she kisses my cheek.
She nods, gets out, and slams the driver’s side door. It’s quiet for a few seconds, then my door opens and she’s holding me, supporting my weight as I shift and huff. I weigh far less than I used to, but still a hell of a lot more than Helen.
I get my stick in place. I let her take some of my weight as we walk. I’m grateful. I don’t think I’d make it on my own today.
Rehab’s a flat add-on to the main hospital. The parking’s close, closer still for those of us blessed with crip stickers.
We’re late, but Seetha’s there. Waiting for her ride. She’s not married. I can’t imagine many men brave enough for her, though she’s got so much to give.
Her mum’s late, too. We’re lucky. She’s standing by the front door, beaming as she watches me walking toward her. Helen seems to sense what I want. She takes her support away. I totter a bit, but I know Helen won’t let me fall. I’m glad for both of these women. Neither one of them let me fall. Helen’s job is lifelong, I hope, if I’m lucky. Seetha’s job was done, but I wanted to say thank you properly.
I’d been rehearsing the words for a few days. Everything was wrong, though. How could you say thank you to someone who saved your life? Not just saved, but gave it to you like it was something fresh?
Words work, sometimes. But not this time.
‘I’m glad we caught you,’ Helen says.
‘Mum’s late. It’s good to see you. Both of you.’
She’s got a smile for Helen and a smile for me. They’re different, but they’re both good, in their way.
‘I got you a gift,’ I say.
‘You know I can’t…’
‘You can. This you can. Helen, hold me up?’
She does. I take my left hand from my stick, resting its head against my thigh. I put the bag from the sports shop in between my legs and with my good hand take the tennis ball out and hold it out for Seetha.
‘For you,’ I say. There are tears in her eyes, and for whatever reason, I know she has tears held back for all her patients. She comes to take the ball, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and I smile and pass the ball to my right hand, and concentrate, concentrate so hard on making this right.
Timing, Helen says. She’s right. That’s how you say goodbye. If you don’t let someone down, saying goodbye is easy.
‘You cock,’ says Helen, and I laugh.
‘I’d second that,’ says Seetha.
But, ‘You’ve just got to walk the line,’ she says, too, before me and Helen and Seetha dry our eyes and part ways, and that’s what I need to hear.
I promise her I will. I’ll walk the line.
But that’s before the estate. It’s hard to walk the line in the estate, especially when the stranger’s in me. When the stranger takes hold, all bets are off, and I think he’s awake. He’s coming back, and God help me if I didn’t miss him.
*
Part Two
-
The Sea and the Sunset
10.
It’s eleven. The sun’s long set and the evening’s done. The furniture is in the right place in so far as it’s in our new house and that’s about as far as it goes.
I haven’t been this tired since the early days, when I was more dead than alive. I’m so tired parts of me ached that you wouldn’t think. It’s not like my ears ache, or my eyes, but odd parts like my ankles, my elbows.
I didn’t even do anything, not really. I made the movers a couple of cups of tea. There were only two of them, but they made short work of the lifting. I watched. I made tea. Helen did the tray thing, but I made it. I stirred, I poured. Thankfully nobody wanted sugar otherwise I would have quickly gone from helpful cripple to pointless spastic.
Helen says I shouldn't say that kind of thing, but fuck it. I can’t have a wank without worrying about tugging something loose. I figure I can call myself whatever I want.
I’m sitting in my armchair. It’s my old armchair I got in a second hand furniture shop back when I was single. It was my second piece of furniture, back then. First was the bed. The bed didn’t last. The chair’s got to be thirty years old, maybe more.
The ball’s in my right hand and holding it is enough for tonight.
Helen’s sitting on the couch. I watch her as she drifts in and out. This move was our idea, but she’s the one who did all the work.
I’m thinking of ways to make things right for her. There’s no easy way to do that. It might take the rest of our lives and I’ll be behind on points the whole way.
But for tonight, it’s enough to watch and I’m enjoying watching. Her hair on her neck, her chest rising and falling, her delicate, strong hands, one tucked between her cheek and the arm of the sofa, the other kind of bent inwards under her ribs.
That couch used to be for her and Samantha. That’s one thing she’s held onto all the years since.
I’ve held onto my chair. I’m enjoying my chair, too. The chair’s sway-backed. I sink low in it and it’s a bitch to get out of. But that chair and me, we’ve been through a lot.
I know this chair better than I know my wife.
I want to wake her up. I’ve suddenly got the urge to talk to her, to hear her voice. It’s selfish, but there’s so much to say. I want to share the watching. But then I wouldn’t be watching, I’d be talking, and it wouldn’t be the same.
I want to do something nice for her.
Time was, I’d just buy her something. Flowers, jewellery, lingerie…
I’m such a fuckwit, though. I never bought her a book. Not once.
She reads most nights, most days. She reads about five books a week, whether she buys them from eBay or Amazon or borrows them from the library.
And I never bought her a book. I never even thought of it until right then. New house. Two decades married. It takes me straight and sober, watching her sleep, to think of this. Suddenly I don’t feel so sweet anymore, I just feel like a cunt.
I’ve got to make it up to her, but then I feel even worse, because the thing is, she reads absolutely anything. How am I going to get her a book she actually likes?
This is suddenly the most important thing in the world.
What does she really like?
The books are packed away. They’re in taped-up boxes in the garage.
They’re going in the living room, eventually, right in the alcoves. That’s where a lot, but not all, of the books will go. The alcoves could probably be used for something else, like a standing lamp or something, but I like the shelves. People don’t always have books, but shelves are always useful. I’m glad of the shelves. I’d just have to pay someone to come in and put shelves up if they we
ren’t there, because Helen’s got a ton of books.
There are shelves in the kitchen. She’ll put the cookery books in there. Then, probably, pots and vases and nutcrackers and other things that women put in the kitchen.
There are shelves in the dining room, too, and in two of the bedrooms, but not the third, called a bedroom/study in the estate agent’s blurb, but really you’d have to be a dwarf or a baby to fit in there. It seems weird to me, size aside. Who’d want books in the dining room, but not in the study?
I can’t get her a book at this time of night, anyway, even if I could drive. No way I’m getting her a book. Not tonight.
She’s snoring and I’m thinking. I get my stick planted, heave, and I’m up. I teeter at first, but I make it onto my feet. I don’t know if I can do this, but then I realise Helen’s probably thought the same thing a hundred, a thousand times, during our marriage, and she did it. She keeps on doing it.
So can I.
The living room’s carpeted, the dining room has wooden flooring. It’s not easy to be quiet on a wooden floor with a stick, but the stick’s got this hard rubber nipple on the end rather than just wood on wood. It’s a little quieter. Plus, cripple or not, I’m good at being quiet. Five years of creeping in, mashed, not wanting to wake Helen and deal with the shit.
I can do it fucked up on drugs. I can do it lame.
It’s harder sneaking than just walking. I was tired to start with and on the way back from the garage I’m going to be in trouble, but if I stop, I won’t start again.
If she finds me half way through the garage with a box of books on me, passed out, she’ll look at me with the old eyes. Maybe. Maybe not. But I want her to look at me with the new eyes. Proud eyes.
So I work out the logistics of getting the box back while I make my way to the garage. I could kind of slide along the wall, using it as support. I try to think back. Can I use the wall all the way to the living room? No. There’s a break one side of the dining room, leading out to the conservatory. On the other side, there’s a big opening through to the kitchen.
No go.
Now I’m in the garage and so far none of my scenarios work, but there’s a blanket covering an old dresser that we didn’t know where to put and didn’t want to get rid of.
The blanket could work. I can’t see any other way.
I’m tired, but I’m enjoying myself. I’m starting to think about what I can do, not what I can’t. I can do more than I think.
Getting the box down isn’t easy. It’s too heavy to lift down. I just can’t do it.
But I can get to the door between the garage and the house. Shut the door, go back to the box. Push it off the top of the stack. There’s a bang, but I’m not worried. The door’s shut and the door’s a tight fit, so the bang will be muffled. I go back and open the door. Go back to the box, which is sitting on its side at the edge of the blanket. I try to plan my journey before I get down.
The thing is, for me, getting out of bed, getting out of a chair, that’s not so hard.
Getting up from the floor is really fucking hard.
I can probably pull myself up using a chair, when I have to. I plan on that being my chair, because I don’t want to do it twice.
I foresee no problems. So I lower myself as far as I can, then just give it up and flop the last foot or so onto my arse.
I scoot the box into the centre of the blanket then I grab the edge of the blanket and place my left foot on the floor and push. It’s harder than it looks. The floor in the garage is concrete, rough and dusty. There’s no slide.
My foot slides on the wooden floor in the dinning room, but I take off my sock, and it’s better. The blanket is easier to pull on the smooth surface than it was over the concrete in the garage.
I go slower through the living room. She’s right there. Her arm is thrown above her head, now. I want to wake her up, all of a sudden, just to touch her.
But not yet. That’s just the same as taking out credit. I don’t do that anymore.
I figure she won’t mind if I stack from the floor up.
I look at the books as I’m stacking them. I’ve never really paid that much attention to what she reads before. There’s a huge variety. Some old, mouldy books, with penguins on the side by authors I’ve never heard of before. The spines are cracked.
There are some new books in there, too, right along with the old. Dates in the 90’s. A Lee Child novel – I’ve seen his books on the shelves in the supermarket. Some science fiction – I can tell by the rundown on the back, but mostly I just know by the covers. Like I said, I don’t read much, but I know if it’s got a robot or a spaceship on the front cover, it’s science fiction. There are a few by Robert Silverberg, one by Poul Anderson. I’ve only heard of Arthur C. Clarke.
I don’t really like science fiction, though. Maybe because I spent most of the last five years staring at the tip of my nose I didn’t have time to look at the stars.
Either way, it’s hard enough for me keeping my feet on the ground.
Walking the line.
A book catches my eye, because it’s a book of short stories. There’s a big stain on the front. Wine, maybe.
It’s by Roald Dahl. I know he wrote children’s stories. I figure I can probably manage a children’s story. This one’s got a big pair of lips on the front. It seems cute.
I put it to one side and stack the books.
I look up. Helen’s still there, sleeping, so I lean back against the wall and start reading.
I finish the first story. I’m freaked out about landladies. It isn’t a story for kids.
I look up again and Helen’s crying, quietly. I don’t know how long she’s been crying. I haven’t looked up from the book for a while. It was hard to concentrate, and the words swam away sometimes, so I didn’t want to look away, in case I gave up.
I always seem to make Helen cry these days.
I’m not a smart man, but I know that’s good, somewhere deep down, because I never used to see her cry. I imagine she did it in private before.
‘Welcome home,’ I say, and we’re in. We’re home.
*
11.
We sleep late the following day. We’re in no rush. I can feel the day ticking out when I wake up and see it’s just gone ten, but it’s not the clock that’s ticking. The clock’s digital, so if I can’t hear it, it doesn’t count. I push the clock round so I can’t see the readout. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t count.
Helen rolls over and holds me.
We get up around eleven with smiles on our faces.
‘You want tea?’ she asks when I finally make it downstairs. I hate the stairs, but I won’t let her help me anymore. Although I know stairs are good for me, in the way bran is good for me, I still hate stairs. Just about as much as I hate bran, though stairs, in general, don’t make me feel like I’m shitting out a fir tree.
‘Let’s push the boat out,’ I say.
She makes the tea.
‘Crumpets?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Simple choice. Bran. Crumpets.’
‘Put like that…’
She makes crumpets. We eat in comfortable silence.
The kitchen’s so different from our old one. It’s got this huge double range. It’s way too much cooker for us. I don’t even know how to turn it on. I’m kind of looking around between bites.
‘What do you think?’
She sees me looking. ‘The kitchen?’
‘The kitchen. The house.’
‘I like it.’
‘Like it?’
‘I don’t love it. I don’t know it, yet. It’s still early in our relationship. I like it.’
I think about this.
‘Author, then. Not like. Love.’
‘That’s a hard one.’
‘I’ve got all day.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
I finish my tea.
‘You want to go for a walk?’
‘Are you
up for it?’
‘Maybe just down the road. Break in the neighbourhood.’
‘Then I’m game. Let me shower.’
‘OK. I’m going to play with the cooker.’ I’m already dressed. I’m not doing the shower. Some guys are coming later in the week to fit the idiot chair. It’s Sunday. Nobody fits idiot chairs on Sundays.
I spend a few minutes playing with the cooker. I fuck up the timer and leave it alone.
Helen’s a luxury showerer. I’m in and out, ten minutes, max. I figure with Helen, she’s going to make the most of it. It’s not just a shower. You walk in, get lost among all the marble. It has jets that come out of the walls. It looks impressive. It’s not a shower. It’s a waterfall. Helen will enjoy it. Maybe it’ll take more than an hour, plus she’s going to ache from the move, too.
I do man things. I wash the dishes. I do things like that now. We’ve got a dishwasher that came fitted into the kitchen, but I want to use my hand. Use my leg. That kills some time. I want to read some more, only if I sit down I might not want to get up. I want to go for a walk, and in order to go for a walk I need to not be stuck in my sway-back old chair with my nose in a book.
There are plenty of man things I haven’t done for a long time. I want to know where the bins are. They’ll be wheelie bins. An estate, like this? Definitely wheelie bins.
I look in the bin between the fridge and the pantry. Just a plastic milk carton. A pint. The kind people only buy if they’re skint, on holiday, old, single, or moving. There’s a small collection of tea bags, pretty much together in the bottom of the bin, because I put them on the side of the sink when I make tea, then dump them when the tea bag tower gets too high. There’s a cork in there, with the foil and a wire contraption to hold the cork in.
I tie the bag up and head for the back of the house. I unlock the back door and the smell hits me straight away.
It’s completely and utterly new to me. Forty-two years old, and there’s a new smell. It knocks me back. I rock on my heels and use my stick to steady myself.
It’s the sea. I didn’t notice it on moving day, but then maybe the wind had been blowing away.
RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural Page 24