Shades of Nothingness

by Gary Fry

  A bit of pointless paper.

  I nearly lost my temper at that moment, and was about to denounce the man as unworthy of Trish when I glanced up…and spotted my means of salvation, of coldly telling revenge.

  A woman stood in the room’s main doorway. She was alone, backlit by soft light, the sparkly sequins on her dress giving her a look of something wet and slimy, as if her flesh was covered in scales…But then I adjusted my focus and recognised her.

  It was Alice Simmons. And she was smiling from ear to ear.

  I think she could tell, in that knowing way she summoned at will, that I’d just been offended by Martin. After stumbling through my toasts, I went to the bar and confronted her. She was standing beside some Adonis, having already sunk her hooks into this poor sap of a man.

  Before I could speak, however, she turned, looked at the bride and groom across the room, and said, “They make such a lovely couple, don’t they? It’s a shame, really. ”

  Despite the way I was feeling—full of rage and bitterness—I didn’t reply. I knew I ought to be mindful of the reputation Alice had of twisting everything to her own devices. But then she pushed a little harder, and I’m afraid this was a step too far.

  “Trish isn’t a bad sort, really. I mean, Martin’ll never want for a clean pair of socks, will he? But…well, at the end of the day, that isn’t what guys are after, is it?” After a lengthy pause, during which the DJ kicked off a tacky disco, Alice added with a feigned sigh, “Yes, I don’t think it will be long before Martin is knocking on my door again. ”

  The thoughts this comment induced were almost savage enough to prompt violence. That this tipsy strumpet (by her slurred tone, it was obvious she’d been drinking all day) had belittled the only woman I’d ever been attracted to was one thing. But to suggest that Trish was second-best to the vulgarity Alice and Martin represented was too much. The worse thing, however, was that she might be right: Martin probably would soon commit adultery with her.

  Retaliating with a deviousness to match hers, I snapped, “Oh, you think so, do you?” By this time, raucous music was rolling around the dance floor. “Well, that’s not the impression I got. ”

  Maybe if Alice had been sober, she might not have risen to my bait. But she wasn’t sober; she was full of booze. Her voice self-conscious, she asked, “What…what do you mean?”

  And I was more than happy to elaborate. “Oh, it’s quite simple, love. Martin told me you were crap that night. In fact, this convinced him that…that Trish was the one for him. It’s because of you that he went through with the wedding. ”These lies had come effortlessly, and I was now in my flow. “Sometimes it takes a disappointing last fling to realize that all the other fish in the sea—even the exotic ones which taste of poison—are not worth worrying about. ”

  I’m reluctant to reveal what happened next. It’s not something I’m proud of, to be honest. What I will say is that before I’d downed even one glass of lemonade, the room erupted—in warring relatives, friends of the bride and groom, and even impartial observers. Alice had of course gone directly across to Trish to tell her all about her new hubbie’s stag night exploits. To lend her spitefulness veracity, Alice’s sexual modus operandi involved raking manicured fingernails down her victim’s backs. And after a few minutes of incredulous protest, Trish admitted that Martin did presently have such cuts on his back. He’d told Trish that he’d caught himself on a lintel at work. He’d even got her to kiss the scars better, from one end to the other and then back again.

  To say the evening ended prematurely would do it a disservice. Its termination was authentically nuclear. There’d be no first night of passion for bride and groom. Trish vowed never to have anything to do with her “lying, cheating bastard of a husband”. The final scene involved me, Martin’s dutiful best man, stepping in to try and salve so many open wounds.

  “Trish, my love, ” I said to my oldest friend, who’d been reduced to a pitiable wash of tears. “Let me take him away with me, just for tonight. We can all get together tomorrow and talk this through. Yes?”

  Huddled in my arms, Trish protested, but I held her as tightly as I could. This was a lover’s embrace, the most secure kind in such an unforgiving world. Trish had always known this, even when we’d been kids together. We understood each other so well, and at our best were as one.

  After calming down, she nodded and wafted a hand, as if to be free of the loathsome man she’d married. Stepping back to drag the shell-shocked Martin towards the hotel’s exit, I noticed Alice Simmons smirking across the room, one hand grasping the latest in a long line of ruined anglers who’d toiled at her toxic lake. Then Martin and I went out.

  We’d got as far as moonlit Windermere before he spoke. “I’ve done it now, haven’t I?” he asked, hoisting a huge bottle of beer he’d retrieved from the hotel bar. He supped from its neck, scowling as the yeasty brew combined with the champers he’d also sunk. But then he offered a leery smile and added, “Mind you…even having just one crack at Alice wasn’t half worth it. ”

  I felt like hitting him and am convinced I’d have done so if I hadn’t heard a gurgling from the lake. I glanced that way and saw only ripples on the water, as if something had just broken the calm surface, before ducking back into the depths.

  Whatever this had been—an errant fish, maybe—had tripped a fuse in my mind, summoning reason. Martin was just drunk, I reminded myself. He was very drunk and didn’t know what he was saying. Of course he hadn’t meant to hurt Trish deliberately, no way at all.

  Like the proverbial drowning man clutching at straws, I tried to convince myself that this was true while directing the groom back to my accommodation—the small B&B that had once been home to a family whose daughter had suffered similar wedding day distress. I suppressed these thoughts, especially after beginning to suspect that I heard damp, unsteady footsteps pursuing us along back streets I’d chosen to avoid other pedestrians.

  Just my imagination, I told myself. Auditory hallucinations arising from emotional arousal. Indeed, after looking up at the building to which we were headed, I saw nothing at my room’s window but a scattering of reflected stars.

  Once I’d got Martin inside the building—he was now singing a troubled song about tainted love, which had prompted a swift escalation of the wet footfalls in our wake—the landlady came to greet us and I shut the front door. Then I said, “I’m afraid there’s been a bit of trouble at the wedding I was telling you about yesterday. This is the groom. ”

  “He’s very…drunk, isn’t he?” the landlady replied, and we both watched as Martin took another gulp from that large bottle of beer.

  “He’ll be okay after some sleep, ” I explained, and immediately wondered whether this was true. Once a bastard, always a bastard—that was a motto by which I’d oriented my life. Maybe all policemen find it difficult to avoid drawing such sour conclusions about humanity.

  The landlady said, “Well, he won’t be able to stay in your room, I’m afraid. It’s not that I’m unwilling to help you out, my dear. It’s to do with health and safety regulations. Imagine if there was a…well, an accident. ” Her voice had grown vague, as if she’d experienced trouble in this property, perhaps even in the room in which I’d been staying…But then she added, “I’m afraid one of you will have to pay for another room. But you’re in luck. The one next-door is free. He can have that. ”

  My next comment was intuitive—the kind of response whose origins are unknown until after the event, with only the benefit of hindsight. “I want to settle him down soon, if possible. He’s in a helluva state. I’ll take him up now. ” I paused, thought for a moment while listening carefully for more noises from outside, and then added, “He can have my room. ”

  Ten minutes later, Martin was tucked up in my bed. The wet sheets had been changed, and I knew I should be grateful to the landlady for not offering me a disapproving look downstairs. The damp spots on the carpet had dwindled to a row of faint stains. I took up the book I�
�d been reading the previous night, vaguely aware that I’d left a chapter unfinished. What with the upheaval of the last few hours, however, I was unable to recall what this had been about. Then I stooped to Martin. “You get some sleep, mate. We’ll try and patch things up tomorrow. But now you need to rest. ”

  Something stirred in the bathroom, but the noise had surely just been the shower-head dripping a bullet of water into the bath.

  “Yeah, ” Martin mumbled, his mouth still suckling that beer bottle. Despite being laid flat on his back, he was able to work at the large quantity of liquid left inside. “Yeah, she’ll forgive me, won’t she? She’s as good as gold, really. She doesn’t hold grudges. She’ll be fine, fine, fiii…”

  I was unsure who he was referring to and unable to dwell on the issue. Another watery sound had just come from the bathroom. However, I dismissed this at once and then, tautness energising my limbs, I stood, stepped out of the room and shut the door. I had the key to the room and after locking it, I told myself I’d done so in my friend’s best interests. In his condition, he might stray from the bed, stagger onto the landing and even tumble down the main staircase. Accidents like this—simple, foolish and avoidable—happen all the time. I’d learned that from my job, too.

  After handing my credit card to the landlady again, I retired to the room beside my previous one. It was getting on for ten p. m. and the moon through the window was a bloated object in a pitch-dark sky. Last night, when I’d seen its reflection in the window of the room next-door, its face hadn’t been as complete as it was now…But this thought didn’t trouble me for long. After all the day’s exertions, I was exhausted and knew that a quiet spell of reading would settle me for sleep.

  There was a message from Trish on my mobile. It read: “I can’t believe he’d do that, the bastard, but do make sure he’s ok x thanks mate, I love you. ” She was obviously drunk; this was the only time she’d ever revealed intimate feelings towards me. I knew she wasn’t thinking clearly for another reason, too: she’d just asked me to take care of her husband, despite the fact that he’d ruined everything they’d ever had together. After sobering up, she’d surely see that. There was nothing left of their relationship; I was convinced of it.

  Feeling uncomfortable with my own role in what had happened today, I sought distraction in the book I’d brought from my previous room. This wasn’t the collection of M R James stories, even though at some subconscious level that was the book I’d been expecting. It was the guide to Cumbrian history. And then I did remember what I’d been reading about last night.

  The jilted bride of Windermere.

  Perhaps I’d abandoned this story through incipient fearfulness. Over the next page was more about the unfortunate woman. I read on, and soon found myself back under the tale’s spell. The author had already claimed that the bride who’d drowned herself in Windermere still occupied her former home. She was waiting, the following part suggested, for her treacherous lover to return and spend a first night with her. However, it was apparent that this ghostly girl—who’d been dead for over eighty years, and might now be rotten and eaten away—had less than pleasure to bestow upon her dishonest spouse.

  This was all nonsense, of course, and in any case my attention was then snatched from the book by the sound of something stirring in the next room.

  I sat up at once in my new bed, listening carefully. Then the silence of the building dramatized the noises growing louder behind the wall that separated my present location from my previous one.

  Had Martin, with so much drink in his system, got up to use the toilet? The footsteps I heard were certainly unsteady, as if the walker was incapacitated in some way. I placed my ear to the wall and heard the low, snaffling sound of snoring. But surely that couldn’t be right. If Martin was asleep…just who was pacing the room?

  A quick splash and a gurgle followed. Was the cheating man washing his hands in the sink? However, these liquid sounds seemed much closer to me. The bathroom was located on the far side of the room, beyond the bed. But the noises I heard were surely undiminished by distance. It was as if whatever occurred in that room was happening only inches away.

  I pressed my ear closer to the wall, listening eagerly.

  There was a sound like gargling, full of smothering wetness—the world’s stickiest goodnight kiss. Then, as the snoring I’d detected earlier died away, I heard a noise like gleeful laughter, but such a loose example of mirth it was impossible to believe it had come from a mouth possessing a coherent structure. And when this sound ceased as abruptly as it had begun, those footsteps struck up again—slow, muted, sloshing.

  That was when I jerked away from the wall, every part of me shaking as if some frightful fever was taking grip.

  Telling myself that Martin had just been using the bathroom, I tossed aside the book, flicked out the room’s light with a strand dangling above the headboard, and forced myself down into the bed for merciful sleep.

  I didn’t wake until morning, when stark sunlight chased countless demons from my mind. I’d dreamt of terrible events, and the worst thing was that I’d been their architect, I’d been the one who’d triggered them into action…After dressing for the day, I tried suppressing these dark recollections. I had much work to do today, not least an attempt to repair whatever hurt Martin had caused Trish yesterday.

  When I went to rouse my friend from slumber, however, I found him dead.

  What must have happened was this: after visiting the bathroom last night, he’d returned to bed, taken up that beer bottle again, and then laid on his back while swigging from its neck. This would account for the slack-jawed laughter I’d heard, as well as the sudden silence afterwards. With his mouth full of beer, Martin had surely lost consciousness, his muscles relaxing to allow the unforgiving liquid into his lungs. And he’d drowned, simple as that.

  It’s important to forgive the offhand way I announce all this. I’m a policeman. I see this stuff all the time. As I’ve already said, it happens all too easily, tragic but true.

  Once I’d feigned a horrified cry and the landlady had come upstairs, we both stepped close to the corpse and prised back his neck. The liquid that poured out of his mouth didn’t resemble beer. It was silty and impure, and stank like a rancid pond. However, this was surely just an effect of stomach acids, the natural reflux of a body threatened with extinction. The man was still clutching that bottle and I had a witness to attest to that. It was booze that had done for Martin, no question about it.

  An hour later, after local police had arrived (my job in another county’s force led officers to trust me unimpeachably), I headed across town for the hotel in which two serious pledges had been made the previous day. In this tawdry age, however, such vows were easily broken, just as Martin had proved. It was different from the noble past, when a man tended to act in less vulgar ways. Indeed, for jilted in 1934 read adultery now. But the hurt caused by each act was much the same…and demanded similar retribution.

  I genuinely believed—even back at that stage, in such a nebulous state of mind—that my new assistant and I had served our finest dish cold. As cold as a huge lake.

  Again skirting the fringe of mysterious Windermere, I’m sure I saw something briefly break its surface, wriggle with a slimy darkness, before returning—perhaps satisfied at last—to the water’s heaving belly.

  I offered a little wave of gratitude, and then headed off to see my beloved Trish, to offer bad news and support her through this difficult time.

  Maybe I could now show enough compassion to make her feel the same way about me.

  MOTHER’S PRIDE

  ———

  “I don’t believe it. ”

  “What don’t you believe?”

  “This, ” replied Tanya, and held up the book she’d located in a dusty corner of the attic.

  She and Oliver had come to clear out her mother’s house before putting it on the market. They’d already dredged up many memories of growing up here, deep in the Yorks
hire Dales, but none had grown so powerful that Tanya had suffered another episode of the grief she’d nursed since her mother’s death six months ago. She’d put off this essential task until she’d felt able to cope with it, but now it was almost done, she was proud of how stable she’d remained.

  But now she’d found this book…and twenty-five years of life appeared to have been swallowed whole, as if by some time-hungry beast.

  Tanya shuffled across the bare boards of the attic and came to a halt in front of her husband, who was filling bin liners with litter near the attic’s hatch. When she wobbled a little, almost stumbling towards the opening, Oliver put out a hand as if to steady her, but instead snatched the book from her grasp.

  “Hey, ” she protested, as if he’d violated a secret part of her. This was a foolish thought, she realised, but she experienced it all the same.

  But now Oliver was reading the title.

  “The Monster Book for Girls, ” he said, his voice faux Hollywood-Horror, deep and sinister and a little bit slower than usual. Then he chuckled. “You know, most young lasses are into The Secret Garden or The Chronicles of Narnia. But not you, eh? Even as a kid, I see the social worker in you was looking for trouble. ”

  A draught rushed up from the rest of the bungalow, but only because the place hadn’t been occupied for a while. Tanya snatched the book back from her husband and said, “If I recall correctly, this was all innocent stuff. ” Its hardback cover showed a hideous creature with hair and teeth and claws lurking behind a Wendy House in some perfect child’s bedroom…Just then, a memory tugged at Tanya, and not one she cared for. “But…but…”

  “Hey, what’s wrong, Tan’?” Oliver asked, clearly noticing her edgy expression. He rested a hand on one of her shoulders to show support. “You look like you’ve seen a…”