The Man Who Built the World

by Chris Ward

  ‘Don’t you see? His anger might be part of it. It might have unsettled her.’

  ‘Well why don’t you go find him, give him a good seeing to, bring a smile back to his face and then it’ll all be okay again? How’s that for an answer to all the riddles of the universe, eh?’

  ‘Oh . . . you!’ Liana scowled as much of a scowl as she could.

  They were silent for a while. Then suddenly Elaina stood up, held the baby out from her and muttered several expletives under her breath. She startled Liana, who had drifted off into a daydream.

  ‘Come and take your baby, if you want him so much,’ Elaina growled. ‘Let him do this to you.’ She indicated a damp patch on her skirt then rushed out of the room.

  Liana smiled, hugging the baby tightly in her arms. ‘Don’t like her, do you, my sweet one,’ she cooed softly. ‘I don’t blame you, she’s a real misery guts. But you showed her, didn’t you?’

  The baby, just a few weeks old, gave her a little smile, and Liana felt a tear well up in her eye. She would absolutely die for a child of her own.

  ‘Well, while I’ve got you, I’m going to look after you,’ she said quietly, rubbing the child’s nose with her little finger. ‘But now I’d best get you changed.’

  She stood up and carried the baby through into the kitchen.

  8

  Ian and Red faced each other across the table. Two mugs of coffee stood between them, wisps of steam drifting up into the air.

  A couple of months ago, the precarious world they lived in had slipped out of control. At the time neither had understood, both had been blinded to something that had turned both their lives upside down. Now they understood, could see the answers through the mist. Matt’s floundering, demented intervention had been the soft, revealing light through the fog.

  They both knew what they had to do. After they had finished their coffee they would get up and head out to Ian’s truck. They had a journey to make, a short one by distance, maybe, but in terms of the journey of their lives perhaps the longest one of all.

  They were almost ready. They knew the importance of time; both could sense that little remained before whatever needed to happen, happened. But they were weary, so, so weary. Their bones felt heavy, their skin felt dragged down by gravity, sucked into the soil of the earth, and they stood alone, just soul and flesh, burdened by the knowledge of their past and aware that a culmination of everything might be close at hand.

  But they had time to rest briefly before they got up to go. Enough time for a coffee, and a few minutes of quiet reflection.

  For a few final minutes together as friends.

  Red smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s funny really, thinking about it. All these years, and I never told you.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ian’s response was muted, his eyes had glazed. He was thinking about Gabrielle, Bethany and Matthew. All dead or out of reach, all lost.

  Red didn’t look Ian in the eye. ‘I never told you about why I didn’t ever marry.’

  Ian looked up, lifted one eyebrow. ‘I assumed you never found the right girl, Red. Huh.’ He grunted a short laugh, the deep-throated sound of a cornered dog, but one ready to submit rather than fight. ‘Not everyone gets married, Red. It’s a myth of childhood. Children see their parents and think that’s how it is. They don’t see the full picture until they’re adults themselves.’

  ‘I guess it was difficult for you, wasn’t it? Me and Bethany together.’

  Ian smiled, took a sip of coffee. ‘You’re right. I struggled with that for a long time.’

  ‘I could tell.’

  Ian shrugged. ‘But I figured, after a time, what with her mother dead and her brother deserting her – us – and also her disability, she deserved to find some semblance of happiness. I thought, you, if anyone, would do good by her.’

  ‘I tried my best.’

  ‘I often wondered how you communicated, how you managed to speak with her when no others could.’

  Red shrugged. ‘I guess we had our ways.’

  ‘Yeah, and you can hold that. I don’t want to know about that.’

  Red shook his head, gave a weary smile. ‘I don’t mean like that. I mean, I guess I could just tell what she was thinking. I knew what was going through her head when she looked at me. I guess you’d call it intuition.’

  ‘Well, whatever.’

  ‘I hoped the kid might bring her out of herself. I asked her so many times why she refused to speak, but nothing. Not a thing.’

  ‘It was to do with her mother,’ Ian said. ‘So much to do with her.’

  ‘Gabrielle,’ Red barely whispered the word, just rolled it over his tongue like he might a lit match; respectfully, careful not to press too hard lest the flames scold him.

  Ian looked up, eyes narrowing. He stared hard at his friend. ‘Red? It was her, wasn’t it? That’s why you never married.’

  Under the dim glow of a lamp at the far end of the table, it was impossible for Ian to see if Red’s cheeks darkened with colour, but such a mixture of shame and regret poured from his eyes that had it been wine it might have filled a glass.

  Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

  ‘Forever I’ve known you, Ian. Forever we’ve been around each other, as far back as I can remember. As children playing together down in the woods, as young men in the fields, now old men sat at a table sifting through memories as though sifting sand for gold. In all that time I’ve loved you like a brother. I would have given you my entire world at any time, had you asked. Everything of mine could have been yours.’

  He rubbed his eyes with a thick, weather-beaten finger that resembled a gnarled piece of wood. ‘And I wanted nothing in return. Not drink from your table, a book off your shelves, nothing. Except that one thing you would never have given me.’

  Ian nodded. ‘I get it now. Gabrielle.’

  ‘I was there the day you brought her back,’ Red continued. ‘Remember? The day you came out of the forest with her in your arms, wrapped in your coat to cover her nakedness. I’d been into Plymouth, bought a few things I’d brought round to show you. Some blues records, some new clothes . . .’ He paused, shook his head, expression thick with resignation. ‘And there you were, coming out of the forest with the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.’ Red drained the rest of his coffee then held up the mug. ‘Jesus, I could do with something stronger.’

  ‘It’ll get us nowhere, you know that.’

  Red nodded. ‘Yeah I know. This is just so damn hard to talk about.’

  ‘Well I guess some things have come out over the last few hours none of us really wanted to be thinking about right now.’

  ‘Huh. Might as well keep going then.’

  Their search for Matthew had tailed off. The house was huge; he could be hiding in any one of a number of nooks and crannies and it might take hours to find him. They had climbed up as far as the attic, looked into a random selection of rooms, but could not even be sure he had come back here. Matt had been rambling when he had run off, still drunk, and shaken up by what he had seen. He might have gone home already, though Ian didn’t think so. He could sense his son’s presence, the same way he could sometimes sense his daughter’s, and even Gabrielle’s, even though they were both dead.

  No, their main concern had been what Matthew had seen, but over the course of a few prayers said to Bethany’s memory and the walk back up to the house, the answers had come of their own accord. Vague, absurd answers, but answers all the same.

  Or at least fewer questions than before.

  ‘Gabrielle,’ Red whispered. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter to tell you now. That woman bewitched me. If I hadn’t seen the way those golden eyes stared up into yours, telling me so much, I would have killed you and taken her from you.’

  Ian just watched his friend, saw the terrible agony in Red’s eyes, the sheer heartache the words caused. He had never thought anyone could hurt as much as he had over Gabrielle’s memory, but perhaps – just perhaps – he was wrong.
/>   ‘I would have done anything to have been you that day . . .’ Red stared into his empty mug. ‘But I guess everything happens for a reason.’

  ‘Maybe it does, maybe not,’ Ian said. He watched Red. There was more, he knew it.

  ‘And then Bethany, of course. I watched her all those years, watched her growing up into the beauty she became . . .’

  Ian felt a sudden unease grow inside him, a black, shivery feeling that accompanied his friend’s words like a shadow at the shoulder of a haunted man.

  ‘. . . watched as she became more like Gabrielle every day. Never as beautiful, never in a million years, but close, so close . . .’

  Ian felt his fingers grip the edge of the table, his knuckles whitening.

  ‘So beautiful, so . . . glorious. So much like her mother that as Gabrielle’s memory began to fade, I could barely tell them apart –’

  Ian came slowly to his feet. He planted both hands on the table top and leaned forward toward Red, eyes sharp, piercing. ‘What are you telling me Red? What are you trying to say? I don’t like what you’re implying with this –’

  Red looked up, shocked, broken from his monologue like a man snapped from a trance. He appeared lost, as though barely aware he had been speaking at all.

  ‘Ian, I – I didn’t mean . . . I never touched Bethany until we became together, she was twenty – I –’ He looked into Ian’s eyes as if searching for the incriminations that waited there.

  ‘I trusted you my whole life, Red. On the strength of our friendship I’ll believe you had no contact with my daughter until she became an adult like you and me. If you’re suggesting anything more, I swear I’ll . . .’ He trailed off, but his threat was far from hollow.

  Red stood, hands coming up defensively. Suddenly the huge hulking strength that had so terrified Matthew seemed nothing but a memory.

  ‘No, Ian, no. Look at me. Could I have done something like that? She was a child, Ian. Bethany was a child! I loved her mother, and the image of her that your daughter became, but back then she was just a child!’

  Ian forced himself to relax a little. He took a deep breath, trying to diffuse his anger.

  ‘I think the last few months have taken their merits on us,’ Red said, eyes pleading. ‘The last two days have all but broken us. I think we need another drink.’

  Ian nodded and gave his friend a wry smile. ‘Maybe something stronger.’

  Red went to the cabinet and returned with two glasses of whiskey. They jumped on the table when he put them down; his hands were shaking so much.

  Ian watched him with a steady gaze. ‘I think you’d better explain what you meant by that,’ he said, downing half his drink. ‘Exactly what you meant.’

  ‘Ian, I –’

  ‘I know you’re my best friend, Red, but Bethany was my daughter. My flesh and blood.’ He stared at his friend, and for the first time, perhaps in his life, he wondered if he really knew the other man. Were they just strangers after all, or was it like Red told it, just the weight of the last few days hanging like a heavy thunder cloud over their heads, clouding their judgment and their reason?

  Red rubbed his eyes, shook his head. ‘After Gabrielle . . . died, I guess I turned my love towards Bethany – but not as you think – I loved her like a daughter, as though she were my own. But as she grew up, as she became a woman, I don’t deny that my feelings changed, my love changed. I began to love her as a woman, and because of what she reminded me of, because she reminded me so much of Gabrielle, your Gabrielle –’

  ‘You loved my daughter because you wanted her mother?’

  Red shrugged. ‘I guess so.’ His words seemed to echo across the room.

  Ian sighed. ‘Gabrielle was mute when I first found her, if you remember?’

  Red shook his head. Ian smiled fondly, gazing down into the dark varnish of the tabletop, mind drifting back through the years. ‘All she did was smile and touch things, the flowers, the grass, even the bugs that crawled through the dirt. As though she’d never seen living things before.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘For weeks she said nothing, just listened to my words with her head cocked as though everything I said was like sweet music. I began to despair of ever hearing her voice, but then one day she just began to talk. Just like that.’ Ian sighed. ‘For years I thought the same thing might happen to Bethany. Prayed for it, every day.’

  ‘But nothing.’

  ‘Not a single word.’ Ian expelled a sharp breath, and suddenly tensed. Red narrowed his eyes, noticing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think what happened to Gabrielle had something to do with speech. When she spoke it let the world in. It let us in, and it allowed her to experience everything that was corrupt in our lives, and it caused her to suffer because of it. Our lives and our world helped to taint her, to turn her bad. I think that’s why Bethany never spoke. She was afraid of the same thing happening.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Is it? Is it really? You saw what happened to Gabrielle.’

  Red rubbed his eyes. Ian took another drink.

  ‘And I think somehow Gabrielle found a way to communicate this to Bethany.’

  Red’s face turned hard. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Ian looked at up at his friend. Tears shone in his eyes. ‘Because one day I found out something about Bethany, found out something special. And I couldn’t handle it. It tore me apart, until I in turn . . . I in turn . . .’

  ‘Ian, what did you do? Oh God, what did you do?’

  Ian choked back tears. His face had turned dark red, his eyes watery. ‘I found out how she communicated.’

  ‘What?’

  He grimaced. ‘Bethany could communicate. She communicated all right. But only with herself.’ He shook his head violently, as though the memories jostling inside could scold his brain. ‘She wrote . . . she wrote a lot. In notebooks . . . in – in journals.’

  ‘What, like diaries?’

  Ian nodded sadly. ‘I don’t know where she got the books from, or the pens. Maybe she stole them from one of the tutors I used to take her to. I don’t know. But I found them one day, while cleaning out her room when she was out in the garden. In a cavity under a loose floorboard. A whole stack of them, going right back to just after Gabrielle’s death.’

  Red exhaled slowly. ‘Oh my good god.’

  ‘I never told you. Never told anyone. Whenever she was outside or I’d taken her down to the village, I would sneak up into her room, and one by one I read through them all. Oh, Red, the things she wrote about! There was life in her all right, locked away behind the visage of a mute little girl.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Things, just things. About the world, about us. But a lot about her mother. About Gabrielle.’

  He stood up, went to the cabinet and refilled his glass. ‘I began to suffer nightmares, really bad ones, the images I got in my head staying even after I woke. I got sick, and it began to drive me mad. One night, you were away . . . I got drunk. I got drunk as hell. The next morning I could I barely remember what had happened.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You see, they weren’t just memories of her mother. Bethany claimed to still see her, to see her mother watching her, wanting her back. God, they scared me. For a little girl, her writing was so damn vivid. But you know what? The worst thing was that I found myself believing them, that I actually believed she could still see Gabrielle, and I became jealous. Jealous of my own daughter because she could see her mother and I could not.’ He frowned and gritted his teeth to hold back tears. ‘Jealously. Ha! I could have done so much for her, knowing that she really did exist behind those blank eyes, that my little girl was actually in there. But I didn’t. You know what I did? You know what I did instead of helping my little girl?’

  ‘I don’t think I want to know.’

  Ian ignored him and carried on. ‘After I’d put away a bottle of whiskey to wash away the pain, I went up into her room, a
nd I took them. I took them all and I went downstairs and I burnt them, every last one. Put them in the grate. Whether she knew what I did with them I don’t know, but the smell of burning paper filled the house for days, and I felt so cruel and evil I wanted to kill myself right then. But I couldn’t, I had to stay, had to try and make it up for her. But that night, that night –’

  Red said nothing, just watched Ian as he continued to talk, pouring out a confession that seemed to corrode him with its very bitterness.

  ‘I knew, afterwards, that there was no chance she would ever speak. At least not to me. By doing that I had dug a hole between us, one I’d never fill. You have no idea how bad that made me feel. That I’d alienated my own daughter completely, and it was all my fault. All my fault.’ He shook his head. ‘First I took away her mother. Then I drove her brother away. And then . . . and then –’ He downed the drink, coughed once, twice. ‘I took away her father. I destroyed all image of a man who loved her. Until you came along, Red, she had no one.’

  ‘That’s not true, Ian. She must have known –’

  ‘You’re so wrong, Red. So wrong. I ruined her life, just as I ruined her brother’s. Just in different ways. Just by being flawed. By not being good enough to cope, by not being good enough to handle what life put in front of me.’

  Red looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. For a few moments Ian let his despair drown him, drag him down into a place where Red couldn’t reach him. Where no one could reach him.

  A couple of minutes passed. They sat in silent contemplation, Ian with his head lowered, Red with his fingers rolling slowly around his whiskey glass.

  The balance between them had shifted. Red had stood on the brink, but had dragged himself back. It was Ian’s turn to linger there, on the verge of breakdown and self destruction. He thought back to all the things he had done wrong in his life, and wondered if anything was as bad as destroying his daughter’s voice. He didn’t think so.

  But perhaps life had gifted Ian one last chance to make amends. It had found him a drowning body screaming amongst the mire of his life, that only he and Red together had the strength to pull free.