by Gary Fry
He’d considered phoning social services about the possibility of squatters, but had resisted for two reasons. First, he was unsurprised that, in such an economic climate, anyone could be reduced to this level. And second, recent experiences of getting the local authority to review his financial situation had led to much anger. Even his wife had suffered, leaving that morning with a strained look on her face.
However, Tim had to know a particular something, and to do so, he must pretend to be a potential buyer of the house beside his own.
He stood outside until the suited man arrived in his silver BMW. What would happen next was far from rational—Tim understood that well—and during ten minutes spent waiting in the chill, he’d feared neighbours asking what he was up to. In truth, however, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them. All he knew with certainty was that he’d been under a lot of pressure, and that the mysterious boy he believed to be occupying the property next-door had become an anchor holding his rocky world steady.
Once the agent had let them inside and begun his bullshit spiel, Tim glanced around with intense scrutiny. He’d been here before, of course (at Keith’s barbecues, which he and Deborah had attended with some reluctance), and although the family had long since departed, the place wasn’t much dirtier. The absence of furniture and carpets lent it a look of dereliction, but nonetheless there was evidence of movement: dusty footprints on the staircase, in the hall passage and towards the kitchen, where a disused fridge did indeed stand. Tim didn’t get to open it, however, because the agent had followed him through the property. They went upstairs and found nothing hinting at the presence of a young boy, let alone any parents. The wooden loft hatch was festooned with wilting cobwebs; surely nobody could be hiding in the attic.
Perhaps Tim had been imagining everything, after all.
After saying goodbye to the man and promising to get back in touch, he waited until the BMW had departed and then re-entered his home. Was any of this sane behaviour? But that question didn’t concern him. Now he’d solved one problem in his life, he could concentrate on the rest. There was nobody living next-door: it had been all in his head. It was time to move on, to think about his imminent child. And when Deborah returned later that day, he did just that.
——
The ultrasound photos revealed what he hadn’t wanted to know: his and his wife’s baby was a boy.
He was anxious that evening, the prospect of tackling the bank and the housing association making his mind whirl. And when his boss called to say that there’d be no work the following day, he lost his temper with Deborah.
She’d been perusing home decoration catalogues and suggesting— quite practically, in her view—that as he was out of work at the moment, he could repaper the spare room. That had made him snap, “Do you think I can worry about that now? Have you any idea of the difficulties we face?”
Of course she hadn’t; he’d yet to tell her the full story. Part of the reason was that he’d been unwilling to cause her stress. Conception of their child had been far from easy. They’d tried and failed for years. Something about her blood pressure—a genetic problem, apparently—had been the doctor’s best guess, but eventually they’d overcome this. But now everything was unthinkably fragile.
Tim hadn’t wanted to behave like his dad—private, sullen, proud—but then found himself doing so. After apologising for his outburst, however, he acknowledged Deborah’s look of disapproving mistrust and vowed to try harder. He would have to.
——
Life did its best to hinder him, however. The following morning, Tim received another call from his boss. The man dressed up the message in appreciative language, but its import had much the same impact as being told to go fuck himself.
“I’m going to have to let you go, mate. It pains me to do so—you’re one of my best ’leccies. But the work just isn’t there. It’s this damned recession. I’m sorry. And in your situation…”
Whatever the boy was taking from the fridge next-door while Tim hung up could be matched in his own: after pulling open the door, he found several cans of lager he hadn’t touched for weeks, each soliciting consumption with their seductive designs.
He watched the boy flit away with that same glassful of whitish liquid, his face definitely red-black and not simply an effect of shadows in the kitchen.
Tim took a slurp from the first of many cans that day, and when Deborah returned from a credit card-permitted shopping trip, he was as drunk as he wished he could remain.
——
The argument began that evening. To justify his behaviour in light of the horrors that followed, Tim would claim in hindsight that he’d considered it an appropriate time to offer his wife a reality check. Without a full appreciation of their financial situation, she’d been nagging about his failure as a man and this had tilted him over the brink.
“Well, get off your arse and find another job, ” she’d said, hardly in the best of moods herself.
And he’d replied, “It isn’t that easy! The recession is hurting everybody, and the first casualty is always my trade. Folk don’t spend money on their homes when they can’t be certain they’ll even own them in the future. ”
“Well, at least they have homes. Look at us. And with the baby on the way, too. What kind of a start in life is that for the poor thing?”
Then moments later, even though Deborah had protectively hugged her stomach, Tim had really let rip.
The drink hadn’t helped. He’d felt boxed in, the alcohol doing its usual trick of reducing everything to a single, impenetrable issue. He’d raged and raged. The bank was a monolithic bastard. The solicitor needed shooting. The housing association was a joke. And the less said about social services, the better.
By the time he’d finished, there were tears in his eyes—of anger, frustration, and self-pity. Perhaps if they’d been in the kitchen instead of the lounge, a witness might have been present…but that was another mental trick the booze had played on Tim. Indeed, thoughts of the boy next-door were soon driven clean out of his skull.
His wife had started gasping.
The drive to the hospital had been fretful, panicky and dangerous; it was amazing that he hadn’t been stopped by police. After reaching the emergency block, however, he’d helped Deborah into the building and then felt utterly useless as officials had taken over her care.
He was left alone in a room. There was a drinks’ machine opposite seating so ripped and grubby he couldn’t believe it belonged in a publically funded institution. He resisted seeking refreshment and merely reflected on life, specifically the way he’d only ever enjoyed a part of it, a fragment. As a child, he’d been controlled. As an adult he’d kept a low profile, satisfied with renting and a non-aspirational job. And now that he was about to become a father…well, was this going to be blighted, too? Would all he’d retain from the attempt be a grainy ultrasound photograph and a few tortuous memories of what might have been?
He was called into his wife’s room about an hour later. “Sorry sir, ” a nurse said, “we did all we could. I’m afraid she’s miscarried. Yes, it may have been her blood pressure—we can’t be certain until a post-mortem has been performed. Of course you can see the child, but…we must prepare you for that. After only four months’ development, he doesn’t…well, he doesn’t look like what people think a child should look like. ”
And he hadn’t. All these preparatory words had come to Tim in a swirling mass, intermingling with a vision of Deborah crying in bed, holding the half-formed infant in a too-tiny shawl. And then he’d seen. Not pink at all. Red and black. Fingers like wisps of gossamer, like wilting cobwebs. Limbs only a little bigger. And the face…oh the face …
He’d been unable to continue looking, not least because his wife had stared at him stooped over their dead child, accusation heavy in her expression. Then he’d ducked away, ashamed and confused, shock over-ruling the onset of grief. That would come later, but now he could do nothing other than flee the hos
pital, crying profusely, yelling out.
After reaching the car he climbed in at once, moonlight failing to turn its spotlight on him. He relished his reckless drive home. Other vehicles cut in front of him; he hammered on his horn, shaking his fists, screaming profanities. A significant part of him (…a fragment …) would have welcomed being arrested, locked up, kept away from others. He was that dangerous right now.
When he returned to the house that wasn’t his and never would be, the council estate was deserted. Tim climbed out of his car and then took the opportunity to darken his character further. Instead of advancing up his garden path, he hurried along the one next-door. Then he kicked at the property’s front door, punctuating each strike with the words, “Come on, you little bastard! Come out of there! I know you’re waiting for me! I just don’t…know…why!”
The latch gave way with a splintery crack, and despite seeing lights go on in other properties, he soon found himself inside. The night had rendered the interior a realm of nothingness, just like…like his dead child. Tim flinched away from the thought and began inspecting every room. There was nothing upstairs, the loft hatch remaining inscrutably sealed. Downstairs, the lounge was as black as his soul had grown lately, its boarded up window letting in no hope. Then he advanced to the kitchen where he knew he’d find at least some illumination.
The room was empty and silent, the fridge lacking that humming sound all such devices possessed. Nevertheless, he approached the thing, dust-thinned moonlight guiding his motion. Finally he pulled open its door.
Inside was just a single item. It appeared to be a jug full of pale liquid. He reached inside and removed the receptacle, the white stuff lapping in its base. Then he smelt it…Milk, was it? The scent seemed familiar, though ages-old, like a recollection from boyhood or even earlier than that. The liquid was sour, as if yet to be processed and only recently extracted from a mother’s breast…
He dropped the jug; it smashed on the carpet-less floor in an invisible explosion of lethal shards and its slopping contents. Then he fled the building, refusing to close the front door in his wake. He wrestled for his keys and gained access to his own home. Without a job and after all that had happened lately, he found it difficult to imagine him and Deborah living here now or even their marriage surviving. He felt numb inside, deeply traumatised. Mental images of his dad shuttled through his mind. Then Tim realised that he’d left the hospital like a coward and that nothing could ever excuse that.
In the event, he didn’t try to justify his decision. He merely removed a few cans of lager left over from his afternoon drinking session. And then he drank. Drank until the pain left him and there was nothing left but an empty shell in which no single part was occupied at all.
——
The telephone woke him the following morning, drawing a killer hangover to his attention. Nevertheless, he somehow located the handset, clicked the Receive button and hitched it to his ear.
“Your wife is ready to come home now, ” a nurse told him. “Overnight monitoring revealed nothing requiring further medical attention. She doesn’t blame you, sir. Off the record, she’s annoyed that you left her, but that can be sorted out, can’t it? She needs you. I think you should come now, before it’s too late. ”
But was it already so?
Tim needn’t get changed; he was still dressed in the clothing he’d worn yesterday. He felt the need to shave, but then realised how trivial this was compared to what really mattered. He’d spent too long striving for modest ideals; life hadn’t allowed him to achieve that. The whole world had changed recently, terminating his desires. He’d have no job, no home, no baby…But he could at least save one thing that remained important.
Gathering his coat from the kitchen where he’d flung it last night, he realised he’d learned something crucial. Despite his throbbing head, he didn’t feel crushed anymore, as if the walls around him—the ones either he’d put there or had been built by others—had finally fallen. He felt brighter, even optimistic.
While rifling his pockets for his car keys, he saw the figure moving in the house next-door. This time the boy was unable to get his drink. It was gone, of course; soaked into the floor like a mother’s futile dreams. Then he turned to address his onlooker: the man in the house opposite who should be unable to see into this unreal home. The boy moved closer to the window, his red-black flesh caught in daylight, and started waving at Tim.
After seconds of bewildered misery, Tim automatically waved back. And the devil of it was that he couldn’t be sure whether the boy was saying hello or goodbye.
THE JILTED BRIDE OF WINDERMERE
———
Nobody could have ever described Trish and Martin as love’s young dream.
I’d known them a long time and had endured the wild swings of their on-off relationship. A quiet, relatively stable companion, I’d rarely taken sides, often talking either down from a high moral position after one violent row or another. Or another. Or another.
Yes, they’d always been that kind of couple, one unable to live together and yet who struggled to get by apart. But then—approaching their thirties, with biological clocks ticking towards oblivion—they’d decided to get married.
When I first heard the news—Martin had called me at home—I was put in mind of a comment once made about the great historian Thomas Carlyle and his wife, that as long as they were still together they were unable to make two other people unhappy. However, the moment hadn’t lent itself to wit; the news had come as a shock.
Still, I stood dutifully by as they went about preparing their wedding, which would be a lavish affair in the glorious Lake District, hosted in a classy hotel with sweeping views of majestic Windermere.
I was asked to be best man of course and also tasked with the role of organising Martin’s stag do. On the morning of this grand hoolie, Trish called me on my mobile—her lovely voice was like fresh water breaking on some ancient rock—and told me, with all the directness I’d come to expect, not to let her lummox of a fiancé get arrested or into any other trouble. I assured her that nothing like this would occur—I’d always been willing to do so much for her—and then went about my elected duties with a policeman’s seriousness of purpose.
The good thing about being a bachelor was that you never had to be home at a specific time. The bad thing about being a teetotaller was that even if you did stagger in at some unthinkable hour, you had nobody to answer to anyway. And that was pretty much what happened that night.
I’d been tired from another long shift at work, and at two a. m. I left the partying guys to their debauched tomfoolery. By this stage, Martin had decided to balance bottles of beer on his forehead, and as his other mates had encouraged him to do the same with pint glasses, then litre jugs and finally larger vessels of Lord knew what quantity, I quietly made my exit. They surely couldn’t get into much trouble if they just kept on playing silly games like this.
My walk home that evening was tainted by feelings of regret. I spotted many lovers walking hand-in-hand down side streets, climbing into taxis, huddled against walls. The city could be a cruel place for a man alone in life.
However, there was the beautiful Lake District to look forward to at the weekend. As soon as I got back to my squat terraced house, I sent Trish a text—“all ok x your man safe x sleep well, my dear”—and then went to bed with a sensible mug of malted milk to chase the chill from my bones.
The bad news—no, scratch that: the terrible news—came the following morning.
It was one of Martin’s work colleagues, another guest at the stag do, who called me. Apparently he and the other guys had moved on from the pub and found a sordid nightclub, all thumping sound and dazzling light. Here they’d “bumped into” a bunch of girls, including “some lass who knew Trish quite well, like. ” And that was the last the blokes had seen of either her or Martin, “cos they’d both gone off, innit, to the lavs or summat and, well, you don’t need an imagination, do you?”
&
nbsp; Once I’d translated this tradesman’s speak into coherent English (Martin ran a builder’s yard and this fella was one of his skivvies) the truth hit me hard. Only a few nights before getting married to the delectable Trish, the groom had scored a cheap moment of ecstasy with some strumpet. Worse, this woman knew the bride-to-be.
Look, I’m no prude. Despite a chaste reputation among peers, I believe I understand human passion, insurmountable desires and the thorny perils of temptation. But just then, I was angry. For one night only, I’d been tasked with keeping my roguish mate Martin free from petty corruption…and I’d failed, hadn’t I? I’d let my old friend down (Trish, I mean: the delectable Trish).
Some copper that makes me, huh?
Once I’d come to terms with the problem, however, I decided that I needed a plan. In anticipation of the late night out, I’d booked a day’s Annual Leave from work, and my first job that morning was to drive round to Martin’s gaff and extract some fast answers.
I don’t conduct interrogations as a policeman, and certainly none at the station in those sense-depriving rooms. That’s not my role. Still, when the moment beckons, I can often rise to the occasion.
In the end, however, getting information out of my seriously hung-over friend was like stealing snuff from some incapacitated fool. I asked him, “Okay, Martin, you have to tell me: who was she?”
And he replied without hesitation. Christ, I thought while observing his bejewelled grin, at some primal level he might even feel proud about having bedded Alice Simmons.
Which was not to say the girl wasn’t quite a catch. The age-old proverb reminds us that there are plenty of fish in the sea, but girls like Alice render such wisdom meaningless. She was the fish, the one great anglers use their best rods to catch, who sometimes falls into eager hands and yet who always wriggles free, ever wild and alluring…