Chapter 66
When Ted walked into the living room, he was feeling a bit down. For some reason, finally laying his wife to rest had not been the glorious release he had expected it to be. For years, he had dreamed of putting the annoying woman six feet under and had always said he would dance on her grave before going to the nearest pub and celebrating with a pint or two. Somehow, though, standing in the dank, depressing graveyard in a thick, drizzling rain watching the box being lowered into the ground by two overweight men with large beer bellies had sent an ice-cold shudder rippling through his body and a deep heaviness had descended upon his heart and jolted him back to reality. He had thanked the vicar for the words he had said about Joan although he had not taken any notice of had been said. Then, after nodding a ‘thanks’ to the two gravediggers, he had walked alone along the cracked and crumbling tarmac path leading to the main gate. He could not face going to the pub. No one had bothered to come to the funeral. The church had been empty save for himself, two undertakers, and the vicar. The undertakers had disappeared as soon as the coffin was offloaded from their trolley, in a hurry to pick up their next ‘customer.’ So he had trudged the few hundred yards back home. Alone. With only his thoughts to keep him company.
It had been a night of mixed emotions after the men in black had carted Joan’s body off to the morgue in a nondescript coffin. The same coffin, which had probably been used over, and over again to carry any number of corpses on the same lonely journey. At the time, he had vaguely wondered if they cleaned the thing between each use.
First come the elation, happy to know the miserable old witch had finally keeled over. Glad to know he was finally rid of her and would no longer have to put up with her constant nagging. From now on, he would be able to go to the pub whenever he wanted to, without her winging and whining both before he went and after he returned.
Second, come the realization just how much he would miss her. After all, she had, albeit with Appollinaire’s help, carried out all the chores: cooking, cleaning, washing, and shopping. He had never had to lift a finger to help her. He was the breadwinner. Man’s job was to bring home the money and woman’s was to look after the home. Supposed he would have to get someone in to do the cleaning and such.
Third come the doubt—the denial. No. It was too silly to think about. She was not dead. She had only been nagging him a short while beforehand. How could she have died so suddenly? She was fit, wiry, and a lot healthier than he was. People like her did not just fall over and die. He had toured the whole house, more than once, convinced she must be hiding somewhere. Even looked in the wardrobes and cupboards. Right up until the day of her funeral, he had expected her to walk into whichever room he was in at any moment. In bed, waking up during the night had thought she had just gone to the toilet whenever he had turned over and tried to cuddle her. Strained to hear the toilet flush and listened for the sound her footsteps as she crossed the landing on her way back to the bedroom. When neither had happened, he had tried to convince himself she had fallen out with him and gone to sleep downstairs on the sofa. She would be there when he went down in the morning. Course she would. He would quietly creep downstairs to find her waiting for him with a plate of eggs, beans, and bacon, accompanied by the eternal questions about his whereabouts the previous evening. A scathing statement about how, if he had been five minutes later he would have had to rescue his dinner from the dog. No. Not from the dog. The dog was gone. He had never liked the bloody dog anyway. Was glad it was gone. Poor dog. Dig his dinner out of the bin then.
He stopped in front of his armchair. Stared around the empty room and sighed deeply.
Now that reality had begun to set in he was feeling even more depressed than he had on the journey home. A few weeks beforehand, everything had been normal. Joan was her own bitchy self. The boy had been his own miserable self. The dog had been—the dog.
Ted shucked off his damp fleece and threw it over the back of his chair.
He started, was taken aback when he glanced at Joan’s armchair.
“Eh?”
She was sitting there!
Or, was she?
Ted shook his head and squinted at the apparition before him.
Before he had a chance to say anything, the transparent Joan started to fire questions at him in that high-pitched annoying whine that always set his nerves on edge.
“What did the police have to say about our Appollinaire?” she rattled, almost tripping over her words in her haste. “Have they heard anything yet? Do they know where he is? Where is he? When is he coming home? Why didn’t you dance on my grave, like you promised? You said you would.”
She peered at Ted over the rim of the ghostly teacup from which she had been drinking and growled deeply. Held the cup tightly with both hands. Raised her left eyebrow, and narrowed her eyes the way she always did when she was trying to read his mind.
“Oh. Shut up for Pete’s sake,” he muttered in despair as he removed his fleece jacket and threw it over the back of his armchair. “Leave me be, will you?”
He sat down heavily in the chair and hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, a hand clasped to each of his temples.
“It was bad enough when you were alive, you old crow. Don’t want to have to put up with this shit every time I walk in the room. Why don’t you just sod off to wherever it is dead people go and leave me alone?”
But he knew that was not going to happen. Not in Joan’s nature to let him be.
‘What happened to ‘until death do you part?’’
“Well?” hissed Joan.
As if he were pondering a reply, Ted hesitated for a couple of seconds, belched loudly, and reached down with his right hand to scratch his backside before he deigned to answer her question.
“Didn’t say much at all,” he muttered unconvincingly. “Made another note in their big book, said they’d continue to keep an eye out for him, and told me not to worry–he’s bound to turn up, in time. If they hear anything they’ll let us, me, know.”
Joan’s hand trembled as she shakily took another sip of ghostly tea, before slowly replacing the cup on its saucer and lowering the pair onto the small table situated between the two armchairs.
Ted made a mental note to get rid of the armchair. If it were gone then she would not be able to sit there and nag him silly.
Because of her naturally suspicious nature, having been married to Ted for the past twenty-four years, and knowing what a bone-idle, lying asshole he could be at the best of times, Joan peered accusingly at him. It was obvious she did not believe a word he was telling her. Never had. It was now the twenty-third of August. Forty-three days since Appollinaire had walked out of their lives. Forty-three days seemed to her to be a long time for someone to be missing, without trace, apparently vanishing into thin air, and he, Ted, was trying to tell her the police were not worried, and did not intend doing anything to find him.
“You’re a bloody liar, Ted,” she snapped. “It’s been well over a month since Appollinaire disappeared. I don’t think you’ve been near the station for days, if not weeks.”
Ted glared at the apparition in his mind.
“I don’t think you really give a toss what’s happened to him, do you?” he snarled. “You just like nagging the shit out of me.”
He shook his head and snarled at the tears, which started to form in her eyes, and imagined her trying to make brave by pretending to blink them away. A simple act she had used many times to try to make him feel guilty when she had been alive.
Ted snorted and shuffled uneasily on his armchair. He pretended to cough and splutter whilst he tried to think of a suitable answer.
As it was, Ted could think of nothing.
“You’re dead,” he muttered. “You aren’t real. I can get rid of you any time I choose to.”
Ted curled his top lip in a lopsided grin and imagined how Joan would be growling at him. Was taken aback when the image in his mind cackled like a demented witch, “Ugh, ugh. No yo
u don’t. I’m here to stay. You ain’t getting rid of me that easy.”
High-pitched laughter made his ears ring and set his teeth on edge. He slammed his hands to his ears, closed his eyes, and tried to shake the evil bitch from his mind.
“Shut up!” he cried. “Shut up. Shut up!”
Suddenly,
All went quiet. The hysterical screaming stopped. And Joan disappeared.
Ted heaved a sigh of relief and lowered his hands. His head drooped, chin on chest, and he inhaled deeply before saying, “Like I always said, the idle bugger’s run off with some little slag of a whore and is holed up with her somewhere. Probably shagging her silly the way boys of his age do when they discover what their penis is really for.”
Joan’s face appeared behind his closed eyelids and threw a disparaging look at the telltale guilt in his eyes.
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” she hissed quietly. “I’m going to haunt you day and night. Drive you mad, I will. You’ll wish you had had me cremated instead of buried.”
Oops. Ted groaned aloud. He did no like the sound of this.
“Yeah. You do that. I’ll get a priest in. He’ll soon send you on your way to ghost-land.”
He gave his dead wife a sneering grin and mentally crossed his fingers before opening his eyes. She instantly disappeared.
“Thank shit for that,” he sighed.
He had had enough of her nagging for one day. Perhaps he ought to go to the pub after all. If he was pissed-up when he returned he might be brave enough to tell the miserable witch exactly what he thought about her.
He glanced down at Tinker’s empty bed and imagined the dog lying there, curled up moping and sulking.
“Stupid bloody animal,” he grumbled.
‘I’ll get rid of your smelly bed when the bin men come in a couple of day’s time.’
Then,
Ted made shocked and laughed at the realization he had been talking to, not only his dead wife, but also an absent dog.
He made another self-conscious laugh and whispered, “You silly old fool.”
He shook his head.
‘Next thing, you’ll be talking to yourself.’
“As if you don’t do that already.”
To his absent wife, he said, “You were a bloody nuisance when you were alive. Now you’re dead, I hope you rot in Hell.”
To the dog, he thought, ‘And you can stay away as well. Don’t bother coming back.’
“Him as well,” he added, referring to Appollinaire.
It then occurred to him, thinking about his son, how the boy would not be aware his mother was dead.
“Huh. Shit.”
But,
Why should he care? The boy had walked out without a ‘by-your-leave’ or a ‘kiss-my-ass.’
“Stuff him.”
‘If he was interested in his mum’s state of health he wouldn’t have pissed off. Would he?’
“Perhaps be best if Appollinaire never comes back home. That way he won’t miss the old crow.”
Ted was fed up. He did not want to play at referee between ghosts and missing dogs all night. Enough was enough.
Ted thumped the arm of his chair, obviously frustrated. Annoyed at how his wife had gone and died, left him on his own. How unfair.
‘Selfish cow.’
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and growled under his breath. His mind went into overdrive, but try as he might, he couldn’t think of an excuse, and realized he had been double sixed by his devious wife, as usual. Did not matter how the pair of them always seemed to be snapping and snarling at each other when she was alive; he would never hurt her physically and he never wanted anyone else to hurt her either. But, now she was dead, the gloves were off.
‘Bitch!’
“Ok. Ok!” he huffed resignedly. “I suppose I’ll have to take you to the bloody pub with me. You’ll only follow me anyway.”
He bared his teeth at the dog’s empty bed, ground them together, and inwardly groaned.
‘Bloody dog.’
“And we’ll call in at the Police Station on the way, if it stops you bloody nagging. Anything, for a bit of peace and quiet,” he huffed again, defeated.
Joan stood to one side of the kitchen doorway and made a smug smile, relishing her victory.
“Don’t worry. I am coming to the pub. Every time you go there, I’ll be just behind you, looking over your shoulder.”
Ted turned his head and threw her the kind of look, which would have turned a mere mortal to stone. The Gorgons would have been proud of him except Joan was no longer a mere mortal. Now, she was made of something different. What, he did not know. Even in death, her heart was probably made of granite in Ted’s mind.
“Yeah, yeah. Ok,” he groaned. “Just stop your bloody nagging, would you?”
He struggled to his feet, threw the dog’s bed a hate-filled look, and headed towards the stairs, making like a small boy in a tantrum. He angrily snatched his fleece up and stomped across the room…
Chapter 67
Pol, minus his jeans and socks, sat on his ‘favorite’ rock in his underpants with his back resting against the cliff face, in the shady place between his larder and the entrance to his cave. Had his arms folded and his bare feet resting on a smaller rock with his legs crossed at the ankles. Even though sweat beaded his face and his shirt was sticking to his body, he was wearing a satisfied smile. He and Tinker had just polished off a whole cooked fish between them, and Pol had scoffed two apple-like fruits, and three plum-like fruits.
Earlier,
Having made a quick trip into the forest, Pol and Tinker had found an abundance of plum and apple-like fruits. Had plucked as much of the fruit as Pol could carry and took them back to the cave rolled up in his sweatshirt. The fruit tasted fine and supplemented his fish and meat rations. So far, Pol had suffered no ill effects from the fruit.
The new water reservoir was working well, maintaining his store of water at a relatively cool temperature without any of the nasty green scum floating on it, and, importantly, it did not leak. The few insect-like creatures he did find floating on top of the water were easily scooped off and he tended not to think too much about whether the nasty little beasties had pissed or shit in the water before dying!
At that particular moment, he was feeling relatively happy and quite stuffed!
The reason Pol had scoffed so much was because he had been working all day, was now feeling knackered, and had been hungry to the point of pain.
Now, he was in the lazy, sluggish state of after-dinner calm that precedes sleep. He did not intend to fall asleep outside the safety of his cave; anything could swoop down from the sky, or creep up and attack him.
Stay awake and stay safe.
Tinker was of another mind. He was already curled up in the shade, fast asleep.
Pol cast his eyes around the area in front of him and slowly nodded his head. He was feeling rather please with himself because things were beginning to come together.
In a wide arc, sweeping away to each side of a stout central stake, which he had rammed into a convenient crack in the ground, were a variety of small, loose rocks, close together but not touching. Between these rocks, he had also scattered a lot of small, sharp stones and supplemented these with hundreds of twigs and small branches sporting pointed thorns, which he had patiently cut from a small group of the umbrella trees.
Behind this band of loose rocks, he had set up various snare-points, literally, consisting of short, sharp spears of varying thicknesses, which he had planted at an angle of about forty-five degrees, protruding from small piles of rocks, porcupine-like. Little room was left between these lethal points. It would be difficult for any large animal to get through, or over them without them getting injured in the process. In addition, he had platted a mixture of dry grasses and strands of the strong hairy material to make ropes, which he had firmly tied to the larger rocks. After making a noose with the free ends of each rope, he laid them fl
at on the ground in such a way that, in theory, any animal putting a foot in the noose would pull the rope tight thus snaring it.
The idea behind this set-up was to provide a ten-foot wide band, of unstable ground where any marauding animals would find it difficult to gain secure footholds. Would hopefully stumble and cause damage to their paws as they headed up the hill. This would hopefully slow their advance, and should give him some time in which he could retaliate or retreat into the cave depending on the threat.
All in all, a lot of hard work, but worth it, in Pol’s opinion—as long as it worked how he thought it ought to.
Clever, eh?
Ok.
So.
Perhaps it was not the best of defenses. Nevertheless, Pol thought it was better than having nothing at all. To set it up had taken a lot of hard work and he felt some sense of security.
Pol had also been busy in the armament department and now had a half-decent stack of weapons at his disposal.
He had made three new bows, in case one or more should break, with over thirty arrows. He had also made six eight-foot long spears plus ten shorter, five-foot long spears, each with a six-inch long sharp umbrella-thorn for a tip. The spears were leaning up against the side of his cave, near the doorway, in a ready position where he would be able to grab, aim, and throw them, one after the other. The bows also rested by the door of the cave, with the arrows neatly arranged beside them.
Even though he had not seen any other animals, since being attacked by the Roc, Pol was reasonably happy whatever should come his way, he was ready for it.
His last means of defense would be to retreat into the cave where he had placed another stack of spears. There were another ten of these spears, each about four-foot long, which could be rammed into anything silly enough to poke its head into his refuge. As an added feature, he had rammed a thick branch into the roof of his porch with the idea of dislodging a host of rocks, which, hopefully, would fall upon and crush any intruder. The only problem with this might be if he was to be trapped inside his cave for any length of time. He might die from thirst of hunger but rather that than be ripped to pieces whilst still conscious. One pot of water stored at the lower end of the cave would keep him going for two or three days.
Appollinaire: (The Other Side of Nowhere) Page 19