The Accident

by S D Monaghan

  Chapter Eleven

  After showering, David stood before the wardrobe, studying the plain white shirt on the hanger. He didn’t want to dress, because then he’d have to get on with the worst day of his life. He wondered how Tara must feel. She’d had less than twenty-four hours to soak it all up – how her husband had killed a man; how he’d seemingly conspired to lose all their money, their house, all their dreams. And yet she’d never wavered in battling for them both. Her enthusiasm for the fight was infectious, and when threatened, her mind was like a switchblade. But David knew it was pointless. Soon, she would have to deal with the fact that he had handed himself in, that her future would no longer involve her husband. David had no choice. He had to provide Tara and his child with a roof and a future.

  Besides that, there was Fenton. After what had been done in his garden last night, David realised that Fenton posed a greater risk to his wife than even losing their home and money did. But once David went to the law and admitted killing Ryan, Fenton would never be able to go near Lawrence Court again with all its attendant media scandals and police attention.

  He pictured Dora’s sleeping face; how she would nullify a bad day by purring it away on his lap. David had found the remainder of the poor creature’s body about twenty feet away, in the middle of the trees. It had been a clean decapitation – perhaps a single swing with a machete rather than a serrated-edged blade. Had Fenton’s guy beheaded her because he’d been instructed to, or simply because he’d wanted to? David considered the underappreciated fact that SS commanders had only defied their Führer when he wasn’t cruel enough – and yet at the end, they’d all claimed to be just following orders. If all was fair in the world, David would get a chance to take at least two of Fenton’s fingers – enough to make him regret for the rest of his life what one of his men had done to a defenceless animal. But life was not fair.

  After dressing, David entered the kitchen. He shouted Tara’s name. Where the hell was she? A moment later, he opened the front door and saw that Tara’s car was gone. His pulse began to hammer. He felt like a child whose mother had gone to the supermarket, leaving him alone with a feeling that everything in the world he knew and understood was about to be blasted to pieces. Quickly, he returned to the kitchen, where his phone was on the counter. He looked at his texts, and with disbelief read the exchange between Gordon and apparently himself.

  ‘No, no, no!’ he exclaimed, rubbing his hand frantically back and forth through his hair. He phoned Tara, but she didn’t answer. Pulling on his jacket, he left the house with a premonition that his wife would never return.

  If he hurried, they’d still be there. They had to be still there. As he sped out of the cul-de-sac, his anger began to rise. She knew that I was going to hand myself in. I was never any good at lying to her. He punched the horn a few times, broke a red light and entered the final stretch to Sobal Hill. But they were gone. So had Tara done it? Had she transferred all their money to Gordon’s account and implicated herself? Parking in front of the bank, his phone started ringing. ‘Gordon’ flashed up on the dial. Don’t think. Answer.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Are you under the impression that this is a game? Do you think murdering your wife’s boyfriend is acceptable in modern society? Your life is over. You. Are. Done.’

  ‘Calm down. Tell me exactly what’s happened.’ David needed to think fast, figure out what was going on. Tara hasn’t paid him?

  Gordon wasn’t listening. ‘And you send Tara up to do your dirty work? What the fuck is that about? She’s “your gang” now? I thought you were a hard man. But you’re a pussy. Well, that’s it. I promise you, you have one last chance to—’

  ‘Gordon, if you’ve touched a hair on her head, I’ll kill you. I will rip out your heart.’ David pictured Tara with her eyes closed. He pictured her having walked into something that she couldn’t get herself out of; something that was too big, too dark, too discordant. He pictured her alone. ‘I will slit your throat.’

  Gordon was finally listening. ‘Zip up your dick, Dave. This isn’t a pissing match. Control your fucking wife and you get to decide your immediate future. Do you want to live in a cage for the rest of your life, or do you want the luxury of being allowed to start again? You, Dave, have the freedom of choice.’

  ‘You’re talking about freedom of choice now? This isn’t civics class.’

  ‘And you’re not a figure from your history class. You’re not a crusader, or a revolutionary. You’re just something close to being shit beneath my shoe. But I’m going to give you one last chance; you and that crazy bitch. So rethink your idiocy, or I—’

  David hung up. That was all he needed to hear – Gordon wasn’t on his way to the cops. What was Tara up to? Where was she now? He took out a cigarette and called her again. It rang and rang, and finally she picked up.

  ‘Tara, what the hell—’

  ‘It’s cool. I’m on top of it.’

  ‘You’re OK? Gordon didn’t—’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain.’

  ‘Yes, you do. But first, where are you?’

  ‘I’ll call back in a few minutes. Trust me.’

  David didn’t like the emphasis on ‘trust’. He lit the cigarette. ‘Tara, I need you to take a few seconds to step back from whatever is going on and then we’ll—’

  She hung up. She hung up before he could do his usual thing: offer advice or issue a warning – the male habit.

  ‘Goddammit!’ He called her back. It went straight to her message box. He turned the ignition, levered into reverse and waited. He had nowhere to go. He didn’t want to be at home in the empty house. He pushed the lever back into park and turned off the engine.

  He felt utterly useless, as if he was a spectator of his own life rather than living it. Everything was now out of his control. He caught himself in the rear-view mirror, looking tired and drawn. A wave of exhaustion crashed down on him and he leaned forward over the steering wheel, closing his eyes, letting the leather cool his forehead. The BMW was drowsily, luxuriously warm. He tried to straighten, to sit tall, but his body didn’t respond. It was as if everything had ended; as if the battery of his life had suddenly, inexplicably, failed. He couldn’t breathe properly. Each inhalation stopped midway, as if there was something plugging his windpipe. As he gasped for air, his fingers gripped the steering wheel. Then he released it and instead clutched his chest, as if it were possible to rein in his heartbeat.

  But he knew it would pass. It’s just a panic attack. He’d experienced it once before, during his first year exams. David took a deep breath now – he would not lose his mind. His phone started ringing again. With miserable resignation, he looked down to that oracle of doom and then answered.

  ‘Bruno, this is not a good time.’

  ‘Good time? No, very bad time, Dave. You need to come. I am at your house.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Why are you at my house?’

  ‘Police. Sirens. There will be an arrest made. It is insane, Dave. All in your house and no one home. Big problem here. The police looking for you. Back patio – all the travertine – it’s wrecked to hell. Get home now. The police looking for you.’

  David looked through the bank window, where Sandra was walking by with a file. She smiled at him and David smiled back. He wished that this was America. Because if this was America, then he’d own a gun. And if he owned a gun, then this would be the moment to blow his brains out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tara was three cars behind Gordon’s Saab. She could make this better. After all, he’d just passed a police station without stopping. That had to be a good thing. You’ve been given another chance. A last chance. Don’t fuck it up this time. Part of her wanted to chase him down, blow the horn, flash her lights, nudge him into the pavement and then bring him back to the bank. But another part of her – the more adamant part – told her to wait and see.

  Gordon finally turned off the seafront to press on into Cawley, an area tha
t consisted mostly of industrial parks, council flats and run-down estates. Tara looked out at the depressing vista as her car wound by petrol stations, billboards and warehouses. In an area where the recession had never ended, four tower blocks stood against the high sun like megaliths that had survived a failed civilisation. It was a glum panorama of sensory deprivation; a place where supermarket trolleys came to die.

  She recognised one of the roads that whizzed past – the street that David had grown up on. He had given her a guided tour a few years ago. Back then, she’d wondered if the houses were as bad on the inside as they were on the outside. Everywhere she looked, there were modern terraces tacked onto whatever land was available, the most recent blocks being uniform bunkers with small windows, built for people who lacked the money to complain. Me, David and baby – we’ll be happy anywhere together. Was it actually possible to maximise a child’s potential here without having to fight as hard as David had had to for a better life? She didn’t like the idea of all those kids growing up as if they were mushrooms in the dark. The countryside. We’ll live in the countryside.

  Gordon turned into a shopping centre car park built for a hundred motors but home to about twelve. As Tara kept her distance, he exited out the far side and parked on a road of pebble-dashed terraced homes with tiny front lawns, no driveways and tablecloth-sized backyards. Gordon exited his Saab, a conspicuous presence among the ageing family hatchbacks and the empty driveways. Flinging open the garden gate of one of the houses, he hurried up the narrow path and disappeared through the front door.

  Tara parked before the low wall that separated the car park and the pavement. An old woman pulled her wheelie bag as she hobbled away from the shopping centre. Summer didn’t suit this area. Everything was parched. Dog piss dried to yellow stains, while the unbagged shit just hardened and crumbled.

  Tara stepped over the low wall, crossed the road and pushed open the creaky gate. No shadows moved behind the bubbled glass of the front door. There was no bell or knocker. A letter box was nailed to the pebble-dash like a birdhouse. She took out her phone and quickly wrote a text. Pressing ‘send’, her mind could almost see the message shooting off to David.

  Tara attempted to bang her fist against the door, but instead of making a pounding noise, the door just swung inwards.

  ‘Gordon?’ she announced – not quite as loudly as she’d intended, as if she was in a crowded room and dreaded attention. The narrow hall stretched past a slim staircase. The walls were papered in a white B&Q-type plastic flock design with a few hanging pictures – nothing personal or noteworthy, just the type of stuff that would adorn a two-star hotel room. There was a small side table clogging up the narrow hall. On it was a coffee mug. Above, on the small landing, nothing moved.

  As Tara stepped into the hallway, she almost doubted having seen Gordon enter this house. The rules of the universe seemed to forbid his very presence in an estate like this. She heard the rumble of a boiling kettle coming from behind the kitchen door. Gordon must be in there. The urge to retreat was like gravity pulling her backwards, sucking her out to the street. You’re a coward. She forced herself to go on.

  The front door clicked shut. Tara spun round. Christine stood in the hall, one hand on her hip, her head slightly back, prepared to tackle anything before her. She was holding a wrapped sandwich roll.

  ‘Christine!’ Tara said. ‘I followed Gordon. I need to see him. Why are you here?’

  Christine advanced, picking up the coffee mug on the sideboard. Even as it cracked against Tara’s skull and white light exploded behind her eyes, her thoughts were, There’s been a terrible mistake.

  * * *

  She knew she had stopped falling because she could feel the carpet against her hands. She hadn’t felt the rest of her body hit the floor.

  She opened her eyes. The ceiling was spinning and listing, as if the entire house was sinking in a storm. Am I about to die? Tara had a flash of memory of her teen years, sitting by the window in school, staring out to the fields, losing herself in her favourite daydream – planning her own funeral in great detail: the music, the readings, the flowers. And only now did she realise that this had been silly, because it wasn’t as if she was going to be at it.

  Tara moved her arms, and her hands rested on something new. It took her a moment to realise that it was her stomach. As she fell away from the world, she told the baby to be good. Stay with me, she urged. ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘I should sew your lips shut,’ Christine said from above. ‘Each time you open them, you sound like an imbecile.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  David parked in the road because there were two squad cars in his driveway, one with its blue lights still flashing. He felt shamed by the police, remembering how their presence had been an almost daily feature on the street he’d grown up on. Crossing the circle of the cul-de-sac, he tried to ignore the neighbours opposite, who were standing in their porch pretending not to look. David wondered what they were thinking. Security was a favourite topic in this neighbourhood.

  I hate Lawrence Court. I always did. Good riddance. But even as those thoughts flashed across his mind, he knew that they were just murmurs of self-deceit. It’s my fault that our child isn’t going to grow up here, isn’t going to attend the local schools and make the special connections. It’s my fault that the kid will be banished to a foster home, probably in some provincial town held together by burgers and booze.

  He passed the empty patrol cars, climbed the steps and entered the hallway. Through the kitchen door, he saw two uniformed men outside on the patio. He turned into the living room and made straight to the bar. One last slug. He unscrewed the bottle and poured. Remember the good times. The two of them, backpackers, lying on a double hammock, drinking, looking at the Andaman Sea. My favourite thing. Getting quickly drunk on an oriental beach at dusk; like shooting up on heroin and slowly, luxuriously dying.

  David poured a second double and glugged it back. It seemed a long time ago that he’d used to drink just to maximise pleasure rather than to minimise pain. And then it occurred to him: Tara was already slipping from his life into his memory. Soon those memories would splinter into fragments, until the only real thing left of his wife would be the picture of her that he would keep hidden in his cell.

  ‘What are you doing, Dave?’ Bruno asked from the hallway.

  David poured another large glass, raised it and said, ‘In vino veritas.’

  Bruno put out his hand for a shake, as he did every time he met David. David took the hand and forgot to squeeze, letting his limp fingers be engulfed by Bruno’s thick, calloused digits, rippled with soil-filled cracks. ‘Do you not think you’ve had enough?’

  David took another sip. ‘I certainly don’t. No.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve had too much.’

  David threw back the remainder. ‘Perhaps you should have one. Make it a double. Loosen you up for once.’

  ‘I am sorry, Dave. A terrible thing is outside. They are waiting. But look, out where I come from there’s always a nearby war on the way – that is life. So you must come and face it. Then, maybe, finally, things will get good.’

  ‘When you’re reduced to relying on miracles, things will not “get good”. In fact, things will never “get good” again.’ But despite saying this, David followed Bruno into the kitchen, hands locked professorially behind his back. As his throat burned and the booze warmed his blood, he thought of how this would all be recorded, how his story would be twisted and shaped by the tabloids, neighbours and the chattering classes. History was the lies of the victors and the delusions of the defeated. It was something that never happened, written by someone who wasn’t there.

  Bruno stopped at the kitchen door and stepped aside, letting David exit the house first. The fresh smell of a recent mowing filled the air. There was a police officer standing by a hole in the travertine, directly over where Ryan’s body was buried. A pickaxe and a shovel lay against the wall, having been used to smash thr
ough the slabs and dig up the foundation.

  The officer tore his gaze away from what lay in the hole and looked at David. Tall and slender in a uniform usually worn by bulky men, he somehow managed to make the police look cool. The peaked cap was tipped low over his forehead and his pale face was baby-smooth, as if he’d just had a cut-throat shave. His hands gripped his leather belt, which contained mace, a mobile phone and handcuffs.

  ‘David? David Miller?’

  David lit up a cigarette and breathed out smoke to the beauty of his garden. He didn’t want to finish the cigarette – because when he did, everything would have changed, forever. But he took a final pull and dropped it to the undamaged travertine at his feet. Slowly, he approached the hole, his hands automatically joining together as if following a coffin. It seemed the right thing to do, in the way that even an atheist genuflects before an altar.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tara was draped over someone’s arms, as if being carried by a fireman from a burning building. But she was being brought up the stairs, deeper into the house. Her eyesight was blurry and the voices in the hall sounded like gibberish. The door to the back bedroom opened and Tara was deposited onto a mattress. Her head lolled to the side and she saw enough of the room to understand that it was mostly unfurnished, with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stacked along the skirting were cardboard boxes and paint tins. Protruding from the wall about four feet above her head was a brass bedside assist bar, the type used by disabled or elderly people.

  Tara tried to sit up but could barely lift herself with her elbows. Her hands slipped against the grimy cheap plastic of a blow-up bed. She lay on the synthetic spread like a germ about to be bleached clean. A man – Gordon? – was in the room, closing the door, shutting them both inside. Then he turned to face her.