The Accident

by S D Monaghan

  Holding his mobile tight to his ear to muffle the music, David said, ‘Look, Pete, call me on Monday. It’s Friday night. I’d love to say that Tara and I are busy. But we’re not. We’re having fun. As we always do when we’re not busy. This call is making me busy.’

  ‘I’m sooooooo happy for you guys,’ Pete’s New York drawl slithered down the line. ‘It must be soooooo super-fantastic to be able to la-de-da yourselves over that line between carefree and gross stupidity and still not give a single flying fuckity-fuck. And I get it, man. I really do. Seriously. You’re an historian – an archivist for those in the future. But I’m an art dealer – an archivist for those in the very fucking present. And presently the recent reviews have been soooooo “meh”.’

  ‘I don’t read reviews, Pete.’

  ‘David, I need an answer now.’

  David threw back his Bushmills, tapped the empty glass on the bronze-plated counter to attract the barman and said, ‘OK, quickly give me the question again.’

  ‘Can we put them three onto the—’

  ‘Those three,’ David automatically corrected, just to annoy him, while simultaneously thinking what a waste of money and resources Harvard had been for that prick.

  ‘Jesus! Can we put them onto the auctioneer circuit and see how they move or not?’

  David grunted. He was trying to avoid that market for at least another year. When a new artist had their work peddled too early by auctioneers, it was the equivalent of having their wares appearing on second-hand market stalls. Basically, Sotheby’s was the rich person’s skip. For a moment, David had a dark vision of all their savings shrinking like ice caps over the coming decade or two. But then he glimpsed her. His wife. Tara, on the dance floor, in the middle of about ten people, moving to the music as if she was eighteen. The sight of her wiped his mind of all the boring responsibilities that Pete represented, making him feel as if, until that very moment, he’d been swimming in static.

  David said, ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Talk to you on Monday.’

  Hanging up, he smiled as Tara continued dancing, oblivious to all around her. Her lips moved to the lyrics of the latest songs that David had never heard before. His tastes centred around music that was at least ten years old. And more recently, his dial had been stuck on classical. How did she do that, always remain aware of what was currently cool?

  Shortly, Tara appeared beside him and he passed her a fresh vodka martini. She stared down into the glass as if it were something distasteful and took the tiniest of sips. Earlier, in another bar, she’d barely touched the vodka and tonic he’d placed before her. There was something very slightly off about Tara tonight, David thought. A little bit of distance that usually wasn’t there. They hadn’t really talked recently about her decreasing value in the art world. He’d explained to her a long time ago that it would only be a matter of time before she might be persona non grata, and Tara had replied, ‘As in “persona-not-a-on-da-lista”?’ before giving a so-fucking-what shrug – they’d already cashed their chips. David had believed her. But maybe she’d been fooling both herself and him.

  ‘Come on Tara, what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know what—’

  ‘You’re not drinking. And you think you’re not drinking because of whatever’s up.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘But the real reason you’re not drinking is so that you can show me that there’s something up. So now that you’ve shown me, what is it?’ David smiled sympathetically, looking to be taken back into her confidence, where he belonged. Always.

  ‘Hey, you want another glass?’ Tara knew how to distract her husband.

  ‘Yeah,’ he turned to the bar before immediately changing his mind. ‘Nice try. Talk.’

  ‘It’s delicate.’

  ‘Good – scandalise me.’ David smiled, making light of the sudden ominous mood.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  David took a step back from the bar as if she’d shoved him. Tara suddenly looked strange holding the stem of the martini glass – like she was an adolescent trying too hard to be an adult.

  ‘I’ve done the test three times. I’m pregnant.’

  ‘How?’ was all he could manage.

  ‘Probably after the last time we were here. Remember, I had too many of these – after Vanessa’s launch downstairs in Bollie’s? I puked all night? Well, the pill must have been... ejected from my person.’

  ‘Jesus…’ David muttered. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ She tried to lean casually against the counter, but her body was too tense to pull it off.

  ‘…Jesus.’

  Tara said, ‘OK, I know you’re not happy about this. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s... no one’s fault.’ David was very aware that upstairs there was a rooftop bar with a fine smoking area. He’d been off cigarettes for two years and Tara had no idea how hard he still found it. He’d smoked since he was ten, and giving them up had been like losing a limb.

  ‘David, what do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m as shocked as you are.’

  ‘But I’m not shocked.’

  ‘Well, you were hardly planning it?’

  ‘Of course not. But I can’t explain it. I can just feel it. Jesus – not the foetus or any sentimental earth mother shit like that. I mean, I can just feel what I feel. And I feel calm. Not shock. Kind of like... This is no big deal. Like... Jesus... Don’t get scared, but more like, this was, maybe, supposed to happen.’

  David picked up his drink, swirled the ice but couldn’t bring himself to throw it back because he wasn’t sure if he could swallow. He’d imagined something like this happening, and it was always followed by the certainty that they’d just ‘take care of it’. Many of their friends had done so. David and Tara’s lives were rolling along nicely, following the path that they’d carefully planned. A kid was not part of that plan. Neither of them had ever wondered what it would be like to be a parent. Both of them actually pitied their harassed and stressed colleagues who had families to think about rather than just themselves.

  Tara said, ‘Christ, I do sound like a sentimental earth mother asshole. Right, that’s me told. C’mon – let’s catch the morning flight to London before it’s too late.’ Tara laughed at her own dark humour, but only her lips and throat laughed. Her eyes remained the same – staring, observing, waiting.

  David had to look away, and so pretended to scan for a waitress. Sometimes his wife’s attention was uncomfortable, like the surgeon’s stare just before you go under. David believed – or thought he believed – that there was so much life in this world, people were prone to exaggerate its sanctity. Tara had agreed. But had she really? It was easy to feel that way when it’s not your finger that has to turn off the machine, press the syringe, pull the trigger. David was surprised that something in him was dismayed at his initial eagerness to correct course quickly and set this error to rights. After all, this pregnancy was asking questions of him. And by ignoring all the questions and just inventing certainty – wasn’t that just the syntax of the righteous?

  Tara said, ‘I mean, I may be the one who’s pregnant but I know nothing about being pregnant. I never had a mother, remember. I’ve no role model.’

  David thought of the house they had just designed and were building. It was huge. It would enjoy nourishing, warming, protecting a child. The environs of Lawrence Court – the schools and friends – would be like a preschool for success. The fact was, he and Tara could afford to give this baby the life that neither of them had ever had. He remembered the road he’d grown up on. All the houses had had two normal bedrooms and a dreary, small box room. That had been cramped but manageable for his parents, himself and his sister. Across the road, however, there had been a family with eight kids aged three to seventeen. When they were going to school in the morning, their front
door would open and they would emerge like clowns exiting a tiny clown car.

  ‘I skipped my period,’ Tara continued. ‘And now if I don’t do something about it, I won’t bleed for nine months. That’s it. That’s what I know about pregnancy. I switch off when the girls who have kids talk about being fucking mothers.’

  This time David managed to sip his drink. Does having a kid ever get boring? Aren’t they supposed to surprise you in both good and bad ways forever? Wouldn’t it be an adventure, the way clubs, bars and restaurants one day won’t be? He and Tara would be great parents. He just knew that, the way he knew that the sun would rise.

  What the hell am I thinking?

  Tara continued, ‘Like, when I’m out with Joan and she’s loading her kids into the car, I think, “Joan used to be cool. Now she listens to EasyRock104 while pulling on her slacks. She’s planning a great day out to Ikea to get feathers for the nest. She pretends to get excited over the new menu at the local Italian.” But now I’m thinking: “Fuck – I don’t think her life is so bad any more. Fuck – I don’t think I ever really believed it was so bad. I’m beginning to think that I just told myself that. Fuck – what is happening to me?”’

  David’s feelings continued to seesaw from a sense of potential great adventure to impending certain doom. I have everything I want – Tara, our new house and finally, somewhere in the future, scholarly recognition. A kid would ruin all of that. And suddenly he had two revelations: that life is dull when you know exactly who you are, and that it is terrifying when you don’t. In this way, the potential of them being parents was both thrilling and frightening.

  A botoxed wannabe model approached and began to list an array of special cocktails on offer that night. David politely waved her away. He and Tara picked up their drinks and walked from the bar, passing between the tables until they reached the middle of the club and stopped at the same time. As if they’d rehearsed it.

  Tara neutralised her expression and said, ‘This conversation isn’t going the way I expected it to.’

  David lowered his head. He hated to disappoint her. He wanted Tara always to assume that he would be there for her. ‘I’m sorry. I genuinely didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not in this with you. We’ll always be, no matter what, team Tara and David – Masters of our Universe. Anyone who gets in the way of you and I doing what we want will tremble and weep under the might of our unapologetic self-centredness.’

  Tara laughed. ‘No, of course I know you’re with me. What I mean is, I thought you’d be horrified, and that right now you’d be even more horrified at the realisation that I’m... kind of... open to it.’

  Were they actually going to do this? Were they going to have a baby?

  Tara said, ‘So are you? Are you open to it as well? Before you answer, realise that there is no wrong answer. A yay or nay is the direction we’ll take. Team David and Tara forever! So, your answer is?’

  David was almost afraid to say yes. It was as if she was daring him to be as brave and adventurous as her. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.

  * * *

  How long had David been sitting on the side of the bed? Five minutes? Twenty? His feet, resting on the wooden boards, were numb. Why was the room so cold? It had been another day of the summer heatwave. For weeks now, people young and old had been wearing short sleeves and no jackets at night. He glanced back to the bed. Tara, always so aware of the cold, had at some stage kicked off the duvet and was only half-covered by the light under-sheet. What the hell’s wrong with me? I can’t sleep. I can’t get warm.

  David walked over to the window. Sitting on the sill, he lifted the edge of the curtain and gazed into the darkness of his garden. This could be my first and penultimate night here, in my bedroom, with my wife who is now as distant to me as an old fling. I lost it all before I ever had time to get used to it.

  David remembered just about three years ago, when the first of the big money had gone ker-plonk! into their account. He had felt like a gangster who had pulled off the perfect crime. Within a week, he had finally discovered why a Boss suit cost so much money, and had bought a BMW and meals in three fantastic restaurants. Quickly they’d booked a break to the Caribbean. How they’d embraced the sheer unimaginable joy of flying first class, the wonderful trashy opulence of it, the magnificent vulgarity.

  As David squinted out into the night now, something suddenly moved at the end of the garden: something real, something solid, something that was definitely not a figment of his exhausted brain. A man emerged from the forested area, stepping over the red-brick pathway and onto the grass. He moved across the lawn, heading directly for the house. Was the kitchen door locked? Yes. Was the alarm on? Yes. Were the outside security beams wired? Yes. The entire lawn abruptly blazed into light and David half-shielded his eyes.

  The intruder stretched his arm and pointed up to the bedroom window. With raised thumb, he mimed a fired sniper shot. Then he retreated back into the shadows and the woodland closed behind him like a gate.

  David listened to his own breathing, wanting to convince himself that what had just happened had not happened. But the evidence remained from the security light blasting down from the roof, bright enough to illuminate half a football pitch. Who had it been? What had he looked like? David closed his eyes and tried to focus on what he’d seen – but all he’d perceived was a faceless figure, the outline of a man in blinding light, miming a gunshot. I should call the police. David listened to the thought and had to stop himself from laughing. Tara would never let him go out there. He felt like waking her just so that she could make the decision for him, just so he could feel brave by staying by his frightened wife’s side.

  David stared down at Tara as if about to identify her body. Sometimes he found it a relief to look at her when she was sleeping. When she was awake, her eyes seemed to have a particular view of the world that granted her insight and deductive force when dealing with men. It often disturbed him. Sometimes he was afraid that she could read his mind.

  Silently, he left the bedroom, and on the landing quickly stepped into his trousers and loafers. He descended the stairs and moved towards the kitchen slider. His body was heavy – soggy with lack of sleep. A damp, pale light had already begun to seep into the air; the opposite of the rosy-fingered landscape dawns of romance. A force was tugging at his shoulder, trying to turn his head and focus his attention back into the hallway/gallery where a door led to the bar. Have a primer first. Five fifty a.m. Last night, alcohol had grounded him, solidified his thoughts. Now there was just anxiety and a woolly fatigue behind his eyes, the empty cavern where hope had been. But alcohol could bring the heat of that back. It could get him in touch with his primitive emotions once more. No. I’m not that guy. I can deal with this alone.

  David stared through the glass to the woodland. He knew he was being watched. But by who? It definitely wasn’t Gordon. The mere idea of Gordon standing in his garden at five fifty in the morning was beyond ridiculous. And anyway, Gordon had no reason to spy on him, to harass him. However, David was reminded of the unease he’d felt earlier in his office with Gordon – the feeling that there was something else going on. Something that was contained in Gordon’s slight twitches and rare hesitancies. Something that was behind the scenes. Detective Fenton had mentioned that Ryan had been a ‘person of interest’. What did that mean? Why were the police so interested in Ryan’s disappearance after only twenty-four hours? Everything is connected. It has to be. It was beyond a coincidence that after David had killed a man and had begun to be blackmailed by his architect, a lone nutcase could trespass on his land at 5.50 a.m. and gesture ominously at him. Whatever is going on down there in the woodland, I’ll find out.

  Whoever the intruder was, he could be hoping, praying, that David would leave the sanctuary of the house to do something stupidly brave. But in twenty-four hours, David might leave this building for the last time in a police car. In twenty-four hours he could lose h
is wife, and his child before it was even born. Before any of that happened, he had the chance to act like the man he’d always assumed he was; the man who could protect his family, his home. This is my house. That is my wife upstairs. It’s my child inside of her.

  He flicked off the beam-activated security lights. Then, opening the kitchen door, he stepped out onto the patio and quietly closed it behind him. He was surprised at how calm he felt and wondered if he was simply getting used to trauma – the way people in unlucky parts of the world get used to air-raid sirens. David walked forward, onto the lawn, towards the trees, without any fear that he would never return. Even if there was only one single night that he would ever spend in his house, he would defend it, he would protect his sleeping wife, he would keep his unborn child safe. It was as if he’d always known that this moment would arrive.

  Chapter Four

  It frightened Tara, how close she was to losing everything. On top of what had happened last night with David, Ryan’s wife was now due to arrive within the hour. And so, after sleeping in till ten, Tara quickly began to apply mascara, concealer, cherry lip tint and a subtle blusher to finish over her cheeks. She’d only started wearing daily make-up in the last year, and it often made her feel like a little girl raiding her mother’s vanity bag – which was strange, because she hardly remembered her mother.

  Since last night, life had taken on an intensely hungover quality as she staggered about through the debris of her marriage. Why couldn’t Ryan’s attentions have been enough for her? Why hadn’t it been sufficient simply to know that she could’ve had him? Instead, she’d needed to step back into the past, to when the secret of a well-lived life had only encompassed two things, lust and learning, and nothing else.

  Tara put herself back in Trinity and remembered being amazed at how David had brought more light into the classroom than the windows did. She saw herself outside the Shelbourne Hotel, standing at the top of the steps beneath the portico, David embracing her, lifting her up, squeezing her, and her looking to the sky and feeling as if he was going to fling her into the sun. David was the one irreplaceable object in her life. After the next personal or professional victory, there would be more victories. After you make money, there would be more money to make. But after true love, there was just bitter, salty grief.