by CM Thompson
She feels like a helium-filled balloon, rising above everything, like she is falling in love for the first time, limbs shaking, heart racing, words slurring, stuttering love. She floats out of the room, gliding down the stairs, hands gripping the smooth walls to steady herself. Then she is down, barely remembering the journey, not remembering what she wanted. Where was she going? Why is everything so dark? Where is Daniel? Danny? Danny? DANIEL???
“SHUT UP and go back to sleep!” comes the irate yell from upstairs. He is not going to get up at 4 am to deal with her shit AGAIN. He has to go to work in four hours and ten minutes.
Danny, it’s so cold. Danny, it’s so dark. Why has she come down? What did she want? The alcohol has made her lips tingle, thirsty for more. Why is it so dark? Her hands rise up, groping the wall. Why is she on the floor? Why can’t she get up? Her hand hurts, something is trickling. Why can’t she get up? A plaster, she needs a plaster …
“DANIEL!”
Chapter Three
“I want a plaster,” she wails as Daniel rushes down the stairs. “I want a plaster.”
He panics at the sight of the smeared blood.
“PLASTER!” she screams after the ambulance arrives, pointedly showing the paramedics the glass-embedded wound.
“I just want a fucking plaster,” she continues to screech as they load her into the ambulance, Daniel glumly following behind. “Plaster, piggy, PLASTER.”
The neighbours peek out from behind curtains, pretending not to see. No doubt they are rejoicing that Anne-Marie is being taken away and hoping that they don’t bring her back.
Then the questions start.
“What happened, Mrs Mills?”
“No, really how did this happen?”
“How much did you drink, Mrs Mills?”
“Do you often drink that much, Mrs Mills?”
“How are you feeling, Mrs Mills?”
“Where is Anne-Marie?” Peter asks impatiently, his eyes wrinkling in disgust at the sight of Daniel. He would not have agreed to dinner if he had known Anne-Marie was not coming. He reluctantly agreed to see his sister at his mother’s insistence. He has not forgiven her for her last “joke” when she “borrowed” money from his wallet and he is not expecting an apology. He grits his teeth and waits for the weary “She is unwell”, or “She has another headache” or “She will join us later if she is feeling better.”
Instead his brother-in-law mutters, “She is in the hospital. I would have called you but I didn’t get the chance.” Peter wouldn’t have thanked him for a 4 am phone call. “I thought it would be better to tell you in person. It’s not serious, she is only being held for observation.” Daniel tries to reassure.
Peter loudly grits his teeth.
“I thought we could eat then go and see her. Visiting hours aren’t for another two hours.”
Typical Daniel, always thinking of food, Peter thinks. “What happened?” he asks finally.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know what happened. She doesn’t remember.” All Daniel really knows is that she just wanted a plaster.
Everyone keeps asking what happened? What happened? Daniel feels guilty every time he has to admit he was asleep. But it was four in the morning when she fell. “She fell down the stairs.”
At least Daniel hopes she fell. He doesn’t know what happened before she fell, all he heard was “Danny, Dannnnnnnnyyyyyyyyy, DANIEL,” using that voice that told him this was more than drink-induced sadness. That’s what finally made him get out of bed. He knew that tone of voice too well. It always meant trouble. He knew he had to get up before the neighbours called the police, again. He dragged himself out of bed, finally flippantly flipped the light switch, expecting to see her doing something stupid, not expecting to see all that blood, not that he would tell Peter this. Peter is not a sympathetic ear. To Peter, Daniel’s behaviour is always inexcusable. Anne-Marie’s behaviour is inexcusable too, but she is family.
Daniel thought it would be easier to lie to Peter here. Yes, they could have met at the hospital but the food is better here. Just not at the house, Peter can’t see the house! Nor the state of Anne-Marie’s room. No twisting of the truth would be believed if Peter saw the full carnage. Daniel had gone home briefly, to shower and change, and had been overwhelmed. He was grateful the paramedics didn’t go upstairs otherwise he would have had even more difficult questions to answer. It didn’t take a genius to realise what had happened though. She broke a bottle, probably to get out the last drops or because she was enraged that there was no more, and she had cut her hand on the glass, quite deeply. Then, like a naughty child with a crayon, she had smeared the blood across the wall as she struggled to get up, continuing to the hallway then stopping abruptly halfway down the stairs. A puddle of stagnated blood marked where she had lain, screaming for him and how long it took him to answer. It had scared the breath out of him when he turned on the light, a nightmare trying to stay strong enough to pick up the phone, to stammer to an indifferent operator that he needed an ambulance.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the paramedic had said, as his wife tried to smear blood onto the man’s face. But they still needed to take her to hospital. Six stitches and a minor sprain, mercifully held for observation. His wife refused to say another word to him or cooperate with anyone. She just wanted a plaster. Daniel needs to clean up the blood before she gets released, he can’t let Peter see it. He can’t let anyone see it.
Peter is pretending to study the menu, but he is really adding the evidence in his mind. A fall late at night, the guilty expression on his brother-in-law’s face, excuses he has heard before.
Peter gives his order to the waiting waitress as pleasantly as he can, but as soon as she moves away, he starts. “How drunk was she?” His voice is stern.
Daniel’s face answers for him, he can’t look his brother-in-law in the eye.
“How did she get it this time?” Peter’s voice drops. “You brought it for her? After everything we agreed?”
“I brought it for back-up.”
Peter watches the worm snivel. “Back-up? What the fuck do you mean, back-up?”
“You are not there when she can’t get a drink, you don’t know what she is like, what she might do.”
“I told you to call me.”
Actually, you told me not to call you, Daniel wants to say, you said you were done with this shit. Daniel knows it is not worth protesting. Peter is like his mother, they are never wrong, they always know best, they are never anything but “reasonable”. There is no point pointing out their inconsistencies, it is not worth a fight.
“I haven’t told your mother yet.”
How typical of you, you fucking coward, bet you are waiting for me to volunteer to tell her, Peter thinks. He clenches his teeth, sealing in his retort.
There are a few minutes of silence broken by the food clattering down in front of them, the now nervous waitress quickly tip-toes away without a comment.
Daniel isn’t one to let food go cold, so he bows his head, avoiding Peter’s accusing glare, and starts shovelling.
Peter picks at his food, composing his next attack and wondering what should he tell his mother. Sherri is prone to seizing the wrong end of the stick. Telling her Anne-Marie had an “accident” will not go down well. It is not something he can keep hidden from her either. Go to the hospital first, he decides, see how bad it is. No need to set his mother on a rampage unnecessarily. It is for the best that Daniel doesn’t tell her, she can barely tolerate him and his excuses on a good day. Peter can feel the headache building, an angry bubble of pain behind his eyes. Anne-Marie’s drinking isn’t the only thing that is becoming a big problem.
“I know things are difficult right now … but …” No, that isn’t the right approach.
Daniel immediately tenses, readying himself for stronger defences on hearing the “but”.
“Do you know Anne-Marie is thinking of leaving you? She thinks you are not being sympathetic enough, that you
are making her worse. She is only thinking about it at the moment,” Peter lies softly, hinting that maybe Daniel could still change things. His mother is not the only one who can manipulate, she is just better at it. A lot better.
This is news to Daniel. At first it hurts, she can’t leave him, not after all they have been through. Then he reminds himself of how much he has been thinking of leaving her. He is tired of always being taken advantage of.
“Well maybe she should.” Daniel stabs angrily at the remains of his food.
Peter had not been expecting this kind of response. Normally his brother-in-law is more docile, more apologetic. Anne-Marie must have really gone too far this time.
“She is just depressed.”
“She is always depressed. She has been depressed for over a year now.”
“Well, whose fault is that?”
Daniel’s fork hits the plate with an extremely angry ding. “I said I was sorry.” This reply escapes through gritted teeth, while the knife scrapes across the plate.
“Well why don’t you act like you are sorry, instead of …” Peter doesn’t venture any further. This is not a good time to be pushing his brother-in-law further by listing his many faults. As fun as it would be.
“There is only so much I can do.”
“But you don’t do anything. You can see she is hurt, that she is depressed and what do you do to compensate? You ignore her, you mutter stupid comments and hurt her even more. How is that helping?”
“FUCK OFF.” Daniel is done with this family. She has been spreading lies again, hasn’t she? “I do nothing to help her? Without me, she wouldn’t even eat, she would sit drinking in squalor, day in, day out. Why don’t you help her for once?” Daniel is not the one who hasn’t spoken to Anne-Marie since she was caught stealing money from a wallet, Peter’s wallet.
He slams back his chair and pulls on his coat.
“Where are you going?”
Daniel doesn’t answer, he just keeps walking. Let Peter go to the hospital and deal with Anne-Marie and her moods for once. Let him do the comforting, the soothing, let him do all he can to cheer her up, only to be let down again by her lies and then afterwards, when he remembers what a lying bitch Anne-Marie can be, he can be the one snivelling with an apology, broken, begging for help.
Daniel marches towards his car, lowers himself in and slams the door. Not that Peter could hear him but it felt good. He is not a man to be messed with tonight. The Fowlers need to learn that he is not a man to be messed with at all. He starts the car, over-revving the engine, and squeals out of the car parking space.
Fuck playing nice, fuck Peter, fuck it all. It’s all Peter’s problem now. He should just kick Anne-Marie out of the house, send her to live with Peter. Peter would soon change his tune, when he has to deal with Anne-Marie on a daily basis. Sure Anne-Marie was easy to love when you only saw her once every two or three weeks but on a daily basis? Peter would soon learn the importance of having a back-up drink supply then. The fool wouldn’t even last a week with her, he would be begging Daniel to take her back. Daniel speeds down the road, smiling for the first time that day, fantasising over and over in his mind how Peter would grovel. He should do it, while she is still in the hospital. He could just gather up the remains of her stuff and dump it, along with the mountain of empty bottles all on Peter’s doorstep; better yet, dump it on Sherri’s doorstep. Then he should just coolly bellow, “She is your problem now.” Just imagine the look on Sherri’s face. It has been years since anyone stood up to the old bitch. She would be stunned into silence. Then he would leave quickly, before she regained her senses.
But then if he did that, the neighbours would think he is a monster, so would the nurses. “I see why she drinks,” they would chorus. Anne-Marie and Sherri playing the roles of the innocent victims, villainising the cruel, cruel husband, who purposely got his wife drunk, let her fall down the stairs and then abandoned her. “Disgusting don’t you think so, Nurse?” Milking it for drop of pity, the whole town would be on their side. Wherever Daniel went, everyone would whisper about him. Worse still, what if Sherri got in one of her moods, she knows where Daniel lives, she would just go storming into his house, screaming out his faults, the neighbours listening intently. He would have to watch his step every time he left the house, fearful that she might be hiding in the shadows, readying for a fight. Imagine how the police would treat him? “Waah waah baby can’t cope with his mother-in-law?” Even if they did believe him, if they went round to caution Sherri, she would ply them with cookies or pie, something mumsy. Sherri has had a lot of practice over the years at manipulating police officers, if you believe his wife. Then over coffee, Sherri would launch into a well-practised sob story: “He just kicked my daughter out, Officers, no warning.” All this whilst urging Anne-Marie to show the nice young men her current bruises. The next thing Daniel knows is that he is in jail for assault, and Anne-Marie is getting a divorce and his house. It just wasn’t worth it.
Fuuuuuck.
What did he do to deserve this?
Daniel slams his front door shut and then immediately regrets it. What if the neighbours heard him? He can’t face any more questions about last night. He needs to clean up before anyone sees the shameful mess. He waits for a few minutes, but no, no one rings his doorbell. Everyone is pretending that they heard nothing, that he is not home. The neighbours are past the polite all-is-forgiven smiles, past the you-are-off-the-Christmas-Card-list stage and onto the next-time-she-does-this-I-am-calling-the-police-this-time-I-swear stage.
Daniel stares at the bottom of the stairs. The blood has dried into a blackish puddle. The sight of it reignites Daniel’s anger. He hits the back of the front door with his fist, hard enough to leave a bruise on his hand. He curses silently at the world, Anne-Marie, alcohol, his parents and every single action that brought him here.
But that doesn’t change anything. His curses don’t magically clean his house, no fairy godmother arrives, mop bucket in hand, to help. He moves into the kitchen and turns the radio on for distraction. There is so much to clean – the floor, the walls – then he will have to go into her room, sort out the broken glass and other stains. Take out recycling. The radio blares out a gushy dedication to a husband loved with all her heart. Bollocks, despite their twerpings and twutterings, they didn’t really love each other. It is all a fucking lie. Happy couples are a lie; they just call up radio stations with their lies to annoy everyone else, to gloat. They weren’t really happy.
They sold him into this lie with an “I do”. No one said in the “for better or worse” part that it meant he would be stuck washing his wife’s blood and vomit off the floor in the name of love. He plunges the mop deep into the bucket of warm soapy water and returns to the stagnant mess. In the background he can hear the radio drone with a gloomy song about a man, left at the altar, that just goes on and on. Daniel doesn’t know why the singer is so miserable, he got off lucky.
Anne-Marie’s blood is determined not to leave, refuses to budge without a fight. Every time Daniel thinks he is finished, he sees another droplet, mocking him. The whole time he is scrubbing away at his anger, but is creating a bigger mess. Maybe he shouldn’t have left Peter like that. He needs all the friends he can get – but Peter is not his friend, a dark thought interjects, no one from the Fowler family is his friend. He should go to the hospital, first give them time to conspire, then show up with a bunch of flowers, prove them all wrong. Yes, he will finish the stairs then go. The fingerprint smears on the walls can wait until he gets back. Why is he clearing up after her again? He spent all weekend cleaning the house, so she should be the one scrubbing. Why is he thinking of going to the hospital, he should take this opportunity to leave? Why is he even thinking of apologising? He has nothing to apologise for, they should be apologising to him. He shouldn’t go to the hospital, he should let her stew. If he goes, she will only sit there, complaining about him to Peter, screeching the old he-never-takes-cares-of-me-anymore. Daniel slam
s the bloodstained mop back into the dirty water, then thinks about kicking the bucket. He thinks about creating a huge bloody mural to their marriage and then leaving everything, including her, out to dry.
He didn’t force her to drink the whole bloody bottle or the other bottles. He didn’t break the glass. He didn’t push her down the stairs. So why should he feel so guilty? Why is it his problem? Why does he have to spend all his time and money on her without getting anything in return? Fuck Anne-Marie, fuck Peter, fuck them all. If Peter cares so fucking much about his sister then why didn’t he help her? No, that is Daniel’s job while her family sit on the sidelines, criticising him just like his mother always did. Fuck them all. He is quitting. Yes, he is going to clean the house, put it on the market and sell it before Anne-Marie is released. Get out of the range of Sherri’s fists and go where no one bleeds, criticises or drinks. An isolated farm, in the middle of nowhere, just him and a dog.
Daniel closes his tired eyes and sighs. If only he had the balls. He tries to go back to the old fantasy, the one that has kept him going for a few years, the fantasy of a chubby little angelic girl, with Anne-Marie’s hair and his eyes, asking politely for a bedtime story; for a little boy to declare that he is the greatest Daddy in the whole wide world. A happy wife and a loving family to come home to, that’s all he wanted. He tries to believe that he can still have that, if he can get them through this. They could still have a happy future together. That’s all he wants, why can’t they have that? Why can’t they try again?
He goes back into the kitchen, carefully empties the red water into the sink, then washes out the bucket and refills it. He arms himself with bleach, a disinfectant spray and as many old rags as he can find. He can’t let the hand smears stay on the walls. He needs to wash away the shame before anyone else sees.
The paramedics last night, they saw too much, they were probably talking about him right now, the pathetic loser and his blood-smearing drunk of a wife. Shame burns at his cheeks as he scrubs. Memories come flooding back of all the times he wet the bed as a child, and then tried to scrub away the evidence before the slaps came. As he scrubs at the blood, he is tensing, waiting for another stinging slap, of feeling that his skin is about to burn with more than a sense of shame.