The Rope Jury
Jon stared at the screen in front of him.
Signs, Symptoms and Stages.
The stages seemed simple enough: early-stage, mid-stage and late-stage. Mild, moderate, severe, each stage progressively and significantly worse than the last. He read on, and as he did, his anxiety grew. He was hoping his concerns would be assuaged. He was hoping there would be a paragraph, highlighted or boxed, that would reassure him. Or maybe make mention of a rare, untested herb that users described as a miracle. But there was nothing remotely reassuring in the article, or indeed in anything else he had read.
Jon allowed himself another wary glance at the last paragraphs, at the late-stage symptoms, at what was to come: the seizures, total bowel incontinence, panic attacks, aggression. The words began to swim on the screen. He stared hard, trying to focus through the blur, trying to make out the individual letters.
The phone rang on his desk and made him jump. He looked at the caller ID. It was home. He grabbed at the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Are you busy?’
He clicked the browser closed. ‘No.’
‘Oh, Jon . . .’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
She didn’t say anything, and he could hear she was breathing heavily. ‘Kate, sweetheart, what’s happened?’
‘He killed himself.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Stephen. Stephen killed himself.’
Jon cast his eyes around the office: open-plan, contemporary, levelling, so good for team morale, bloody awful for conversations best kept private. ‘How do you know?’ he said quietly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Lizzie was sent home from school.’
‘Oh my God,’ Jon breathed.
‘He jumped off the roof.’
Jon didn’t say anything.
‘The caretaker found him. Lizzie said the place is in chaos.’ Kate began to cry. ‘This is all such shit.’
‘I’m coming home.’
Jon rested his head against the window of the black cab. The driver was talking to him, but Jon wasn’t listening. He was trying to make sense of all the different things he was feeling. There was pity, satisfaction, relief, shock, even regret, and the overall mix gave a peculiar sensation; horrifying, but also sickly exhilarating.
He found Kate sitting on the floor in the kitchen.
Her eyes were puffed and red. The sleeves of her black woollen cardigan – far too hot for the weather – were pulled low over her hands and she clutched a disintegrating piece of loo roll. She looked up and began to cry again and held her arms out towards him. He sat beside her and took her hand.
‘This is my fault,’ she whispered.
‘Of course it isn’t.’
Kate bit back tears and nodded. ‘It is, Jon. It’s my fault.’
‘How can it be your fault? He killed himself. He clearly felt guilty for what he’d done. It was his own turmoil, nothing you or I did. He couldn’t live with his actions. You did nothing.’
‘There was a meeting yesterday. About him being suspended. I stood up in front of everyone and spoke.’
Jon stayed quiet.
‘I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t keep away.’ She shook her head. ‘It was hearing him try and deny it when he’d just been here and admitted it. So I stood up and told him he was accountable for his actions.’
‘Did you mention Anna?’ said Jon.
‘I didn’t say anything that would directly link her to him. I just said the truth would get out and he would have to face it. And then this morning, when you were in the shower, Angela came here and told me about Stephen.’
‘Angela?’
Kate nodded and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Kate shrugged and pushed her sleeve against her eyes to blot the tears. ‘I was in such a state. She said terrible things about Anna.’ She rested her forehead on top of her knees.
‘What things?’ he asked.
Kate was quiet for a bit, then lifted her head and looked at him, trying to smile through her tears. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quietly.
Jon put his arm around her and pulled her in for a hug.
‘And there’s another thing,’ she whispered. ‘The graffiti.’
‘What about it?’
She hesitated. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘It was me who graffitied his house.’
John pulled back in surprise. ‘But you were with Dan that night.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘We did it together.’
Jon wrinkled his brow with confusion.
‘You and Dan?’
She sighed deeply. ‘We were drunk. I took a pill. It seemed like a good idea.’ She groaned.
Jon was suddenly bombarded with his own recollections of that night. Watching the clock on its relentless march as he waited for Kate, walking to think through his feelings of loss, convinced of her infidelity, crushed by it. His stomach caved in.
‘I thought you were having sex with him.’
Kate looked confused. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘I saw you go off with him. You were gone for hours.’
‘How long do you think it takes to get so drunk you can’t think, then graffiti a house without getting caught?’
‘I didn’t know you were vandalizing a house. I thought you were sleeping with my brother.’
‘Jesus, Jon! What a fucking idiotic thing to think. I can’t even do it with you. Why the hell would I do it with Dan?’
Jon could think of a thousand reasons why she would sleep with Dan and not him.
‘You know what?’ She stood up. He could see her anger and frustration boiling over the edges. ‘Stephen Howe has just killed himself. I have no idea how I’m feeling about it. All I know is that sitting here listening to your pathetic jealousy of Dan for the umpteenth time is the last thing I need. I mean, come on, Jon? As if our family needs an affair thrown into the mix? How could you even think—’ She was cut short by the tears she was trying to fight back. She pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘How could you think I would do that?’
‘You got into his car.’
‘So? That doesn’t mean I’m having sex with him.’
‘I saw you smile.’
‘You saw me smile? Have you any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Dan always makes me bloody smile! You think just because I smile at him I’m going to jump into bed with him?’ She shook her head with total incredulity.
‘I don’t know . . . you just seem so distant from me.’
‘Well, that has a lot to do with the heap of shit that I’ve had land on me. Believe me, I’ve got more than enough on my bloody mind than bloody sex. I would have thought you did, too.’
‘Why do you do that?’ he asked.
‘Why do I do what, for God’s sake?’
‘Say things like that. Insinuate I don’t love Anna like you do, that I’m not suffering like you are. You seem to think that me wanting to be close to you, to make love to you, is wrong. But I need that, Kate. I need your love. I need you there for me. I try to be there for you whatever you do. At the memorial. The funeral. God, I watched you throw my mother to the floor at my daughter’s funeral, and what do I do? I make excuses for you. Remind people what you’re going through. You think you’re the only one in pain? You’ve no idea. And all this time, through all this bastard sadness, I’ve been terrified of losing you. But you were already gone, weren’t you? The night Anna died, you left us.’
He stopped talking, out of breath with the effort of allowing so much out of him. They never mentioned the funeral. It was like it never happened. It should have been a day to remember Anna, to lay her to rest, to honour the short time they’d had with her, but all he had were livid memories of Kate’s crimson rage, a demon that thrust its way through the haze of tranquillizers the doctors had pushed, a demon that continued to thrive, unconcerned with the passage of tim
e that everybody said would weaken it.
The morning of the funeral she hadn’t said a word, not to anyone, not even Lizzie. She was glazed over, on autopilot. She brushed her hair, got dressed, pinned the silk flower she’d bought especially to her tailored jacket, her face fixed and grim. She sat on the pew next to him and stared straight at Anna’s coffin, at the flowers, the sealed letter written by Lizzie propped between them. The church was full of friends and family and strangers, all of them moved to tears by the tragedy. His mother made her way to the front of the church. She adjusted the height of the microphone. Opened her book. She lifted her head and began to read the words she had chosen. She read beautifully. Her voice was soft and gentle, sad, and sang out joyful; her love for Anna beamed through every word.
And then Kate screamed.
She sat there, next to him, and screamed. At first he had no idea what the dreadful noise was. Then he realized people were staring at Kate. Then he tried to calm her; he put his arms around her, but she scratched his face, pushed him away. Then Jon’s mother was at their side. She tried to soothe her. Jon, the vicar, Lizzie, they all tried. His mother took Kate’s arm and attempted to lead her out of the church, changing the tone of her voice from gentle to firm, then stern.
‘Kate, control yourself. This is a funeral. We are in a church. The people here have come to pay their respects to Anna. Please get a grip on yourself.’
But Kate continued to scream, tearing at her hair, gouging her skin with her nails and leaving red grazes all over her face.
His mother tried to take hold of her arm. ‘Come with me now, Kate.’ Then Kate shoved her so hard she stumbled backwards, tripping and falling on to the polished stone floor. Jon shuddered at the recollection.
‘You have been there for me on those occasions,’ said Kate. Her back was to him, her shoulders hung low. ‘But there have been times in the past year where I’ve never felt so alone; when my grief and missing her devours me and there’s nobody able to stop it. But I don’t blame you for that. I have behaved terribly, irrationally, lost control of myself and said awful things you don’t deserve. I can’t explain or excuse these moments, and I blame nobody but myself. If Stephen was right, if she took her own life, the only person I will blame is myself. I will be responsible for her death because I wasn’t a good enough mother, because I wasn’t the mother she needed when life got too much for her. You’ve been so strong for me and Lizzie, and I know you think you’ve shelved your own sadness, but you haven’t. How could you? Of course, I don’t think you love Anna any less or more than I do. Love is completely unquantifiable. All I know is that most of my days and nights I can’t see straight, or think straight. I’ve been a dreadful mother and a dreadful wife. And, oh my God, Jon, if this means I lose you or Lizzie then I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, but I can’t change it. I reacted the only way I could have. We can only look at ourselves, Jon. You need to stop trying to deal with me and deal with yourself.’
And then she walked out of the kitchen and left him at the table.
The phone rang soon after, and though he tried to ignore it, the thing kept on and on at him. He pulled himself to standing and answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Hello, it’s Marlena Sanders speaking. May I speak to Kate?’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Would you be able to give me her mobile telephone number?’
‘She hasn’t got it with her. I can see it on the kitchen table,’ he lied.
‘In that case, could you pass on a message?’ said Marlena Sanders.
‘Yes,’ said Jon. ‘I can pass on a message.’
‘Could you tell her there’s a collection going round at school for flowers for Mrs Howe, and that . . .’ Her voice fell into a stage whisper. ‘I also wanted to make sure she was feeling OK . . . you know, about Dr Howe?’
Jon put his finger on the receiver button to cut the call, and then slammed the phone against the table again and again and again as hard as he could.
Alone in the Dark
Haydn and Lizzie sat on his bed and held hands. Haydn smoked. Lizzie stroked her finger against his thumb. She was staring at the photo of herself as a fairy princess, A4-sized, breasts exposed, hair laced with flowers and ribbon. Haydn had pinned it next to Anna’s sketch, the one she’d drawn of the girl in the cage with folded wings and pleading eyes. The longer she stared, the more surreal the photograph became. It was as if she were staring at somebody else. The girl in the photo looked so grown-up and self-assured. She was beautiful, too. It didn’t look like her. If someone had showed it to her she would have said it was Anna. She couldn’t believe how much she resembled her sister. It was mad. All those years she thought they were chalk and cheese, and really they were quite alike.
Haydn sniffed loudly and jolted Lizzie from the photograph. She squeezed his hand.
‘How are you doing?’ she asked him.
He shrugged.
‘I can’t believe he did it,’ she said.
Haydn didn’t reply; he leant over and flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the floor.
‘And I don’t believe what they’re saying about him. Surely, if he had done something like that the police would arrest him. It must be made up.’
‘He killed himself, didn’t he?’
‘Maybe he was just really sad.’
‘I don’t care, anyway.’
‘I can’t imagine being so upset that I’d ever kill myself.’ She laid her head in Haydn’s lap and he ran his fingers through her hair. ‘You know,’ she whispered, ‘it’s the one thing that terrifies me about Anna, that she might have killed herself. I mean, can you imagine how desperate she must have been if she did do that?’ Lizzie closed her eyes against the pain she suddenly felt. ‘Why couldn’t she talk to me? I’m her sister.’
‘Anna didn’t kill herself.’
Lizzie sat up then and wiped away her tears. ‘We’ll never know, will we? I’ll always have that with me, in the back of my mind, that maybe she did.’
Haydn leant forward and stubbed his cigarette out on a textbook on his desk and they watched the thin plastic coating on the cover fizzle and melt. ‘I know she didn’t kill herself. I was there, remember?’ He sat back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.
‘I know, but you were drunk. You weren’t near her. What if she just decided to do it? It might have looked like an accident to you, but wasn’t. She was on that wall, and then it came to her.’
‘Look, Lizzie, I’m not going to keep on saying it. But I know she didn’t jump.’ He turned his head and looked straight into her eyes. ‘She didn’t kill herself. OK?’
Lizzie felt unnerved by the intensity in his face. She knew she wasn’t helping him deal with what he was trying to deal with. How stupid of her to talk about Anna right then. ‘I am sorry about your dad,’ she said.
Haydn broke his stare from hers. ‘Yeah,’ he said, kicking at the floor. ‘Shit happens. But it’s fine; I hated him anyway.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s true. He didn’t care about anybody but himself, not me, not mum, just himself.’
Lizzie didn’t know what to say. She knew that Haydn and Dr Howe hadn’t got on – Haydn had mentioned it enough times – but the venom in Haydn’s words was shocking, especially given that Dr Howe had just jumped off a roof with a rope around his neck.
‘At least he did it at school and not in the house,’ Haydn said.
Lizzie shuddered. ‘Can you imagine having to live here if he had?’
‘Fine if he hung himself, but what if he’d used a gun and blown his brains out?’
‘Oh, Haydn, don’t!’
‘Fucking blood and brains everywhere. That’s fucked up, man. How someone does that.’
‘What do you think will happen now?’ she asked, keen to move their conversation away from the suicide.
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I suppose they’ll get a new headmaster.’
‘I mean to you.’
<
br /> He shrugged and reached for his cigarette papers. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘So do you want to do anything today?’
Haydn didn’t answer immediately. ‘No, I’m going to stay here, but we could still go to the cinema tomorrow. I reckon I’ll need to get out of the house by then.’
Lizzie rested her chin on top of his knee. ‘I really am sorry, you know, and it will get easier. Not for your mum, well, not if she’s like mine, but you’ll be OK.’
He rested his chin on his other knee so their cheeks were pressed together. ‘I love you,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I love you too.’
Her phone rang then. It was home. Lizzie didn’t answer it.
‘I should probably get back. That’s Mum. She’ll be getting stressed and I can’t cope with any hassle today, not after this.’
She kissed him on the forehead. ‘Text me later?’
He nodded.
Lizzie closed Haydn’s door as quietly as she could and checked up and down the corridor. She didn’t want to run into Mrs Howe; she had no idea what she would say to her. She trod the stairs carefully, toe to heel, in case there was a squeaky one. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she exhaled silently and crept towards the front door.
‘Elizabeth?’ Mrs Howe’s voice came from the living room.
Lizzie froze; she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to run for it, maybe pretend she hadn’t heard anything, but on the other hand, Mrs Howe’s husband had just died and she should really say something to her. Lizzie tried to gather some comforting words together, tried to recall some of the best things people had said to her when Anna died, but she couldn’t think of a single sentence.
The living room was dark; the drawn curtains had to be lined with blackout lining or something like it because the only light that came through was a thin strip where they hadn’t quite pulled together. Mrs Howe sat in an armchair in the corner of the room with the white chink falling across her chest and over her lap like a chalk line.
‘I’m very sorry about Dr Howe,’ Lizzie said, her voice quivering a little.
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