After university, we stuck together. The alternative would have been to go back home to indifferent parents. She was an only child too, with an equally distant family. About all we had in common. Living together, the dreariness of day-to-day living, nine-to-five jobs, little money, no common interests – lust soon wears off after a year or two, and what’s left, in our case, was not much.
Our marriage stop-started along. I think we both thought about separating. But we did not. Instead, we got married. I must have gone out drinking one Friday night with people from work. Got horribly drunk. I don’t really remember it that much. I just recall the conversation on the doorstep when I got home.
“I’m pregnant.” She sounded more disappointed than excited.
“You’re pregnant,” I stated, a drunken echo. Trying to take in the enormity of it.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, a strange tone to her voice.
“Oh,” I said, pushing by her to the toilet. She told me later that I had said, “Oh shit,” but I do not recall it like that.
The early years of our marriage, raising Lucy, were happy enough times. I was happy enough, anyway. My drinking was, if not quite under control, not yet taking me over. I have memories of us – a small family – enjoying simple pleasures. Paddling in the sea by the pier at Felixstowe. Having fish and chips at Aldeburgh. Walking up and down Southwold Pier and throwing pennies off the end of it. There was drinking. Nights spent on the sofa. One or two in nearby fields, waking up to see cows looking down at me. But not too many. My alcoholism was there, though. Waiting not so patiently. Restlessly.
We did not try for another child. Laura said she did not feel she could. At the time, I took that to mean she could not physically face it; the pregnancy and birth of Lucy had been difficult. I did not mind. I never wanted a son. I did not want to replicate my relationship with my distant father. And we had Lucy and did not need another girl. That was how I felt at the time, as I spiralled downwards. I think now that Laura knew which way things were heading with me. And she did not want to bring another child into the world.
I do not know, looking back, why my wife stayed with me all through those years up to Lucy leaving for university. I think she must have done it for Lucy’s sake. She did talk now and again of going, taking Lucy with her, maybe to try to shock me out of my drinking. But nothing she could say or do made any difference to me. By the time Lucy left, and I have no real memories of it, I was gone completely. By then, our lives were separate. She did whatever she was doing. I drank.
“I wish it were you who was dead,” she said to me, on the stone steps of the building after we had identified Lucy’s body.
And she turned and walked back towards the hotel. I slept on the back seat of the car, an old blanket from the boot covering me, in the hotel car park overnight.
We drove home in silence the next morning. She wept and shook uncontrollably most of the way. I wanted to get home to drink myself unconscious.
Somehow, we kept going. Her in the routine of work, day after day. Me working my way to oblivion on a daily basis. Both of us still living in the cottage. Her sleeping downstairs in the nookery. Me in what was our bedroom. Separate meals. Separate lives. Easier not to say anything to each other after a while. Just moving around the other like ghosts.
Neither of us could face Lucy’s room. Neat and tidy, with everything she did not really want, or had outgrown, left in the wardrobe and drawers. It all stayed there untouched, part of a shrine. In a rare moment of sobriety, I stood there once in the doorway. Breathed in stale air. Touched my finger on the chest of drawers, leaving a print in the dust. Picked up the discarded cellophane wrapper of a small tampon from beneath the bed, illuminated in a shaft of light. Rolled it round my fingers, dropped it back.
We went on like that for a while. My wife disappeared at times. More than I noticed, most likely. Sometimes, she was gone for days. During school holidays, I think, looking back. To friends, maybe. To parents, elderly and living in an apartment high upon a hill in Edinburgh. I don’t know. The idea of a lover crossed my mind. But I did not think it was likely then, and less so now. She was following the same path as me in her own way, ever downwards.
I kept my job at the local council all this time.
In truth, it was not a difficult job to do. I turned up as often as not. Pushed papers around. Sat in group meetings. Filed things. Waiting for five o’clock to come round so I could go home and start my proper drinking.
But there were asides and conversations and one-on-one meetings, and more formal interviews, and I knew the end was coming. Sooner rather than later.
Then, one evening, just after I had opened a bottle of whiskey and downed glasses one after the other, there was a knocking at the front door. An echo from before. With Lucy. I opened it, to get whoever was there gone as quickly as possible, and saw two police officers standing on the path. A middle-aged man who looked steadily at me. A younger woman who seemed to be holding her breath. I knew straightaway that Laura was dead.
After a few polite words, the policeman as good as confirmed it and took me to identify her. I remember sitting in the back of the police car and watching the young policewoman. She seemed to be sweating, even though it was a cold night. I recall thinking, quite clearly, that she must be a special rather than a regular officer. She seemed more nervous than I was. Some silly banter came over the radio, and the older policeman turned it down before saying, “Sorry,” over his shoulder to me. I smiled back. More dazed than drunk.
They only let me see her head, the rest of her body below the sheet looking odd and disjointed. I thought the shape was not quite right, that it was not all her. That, somehow, something had been added to make her body look whole. Her face was bruised and battered, although someone may have applied some sort of make-up to make her look better. All I remember thinking is how old she looked with her grey hair roots and lines cut in around her eyes and mouth. She never used to look like that.
Laura had waited, quite calmly, by the side of the A14. In amongst a copse of trees. For ten to twenty minutes, based on statements taken from car drivers over the following days.
As a petrol tanker gathered speed, she stepped out and strode into the middle of the dual carriageway. Her head down. Body turned away. I don’t know what she must have been thinking at that moment. Whether she could somehow calm her mind. I doubt it.
Four people died in all, including her, and the blaze of the tanker and the cars and the bodies could be seen far away over the fields, towards the pretty little village of Kirton.
I look at the illuminated clock.
Coming up to two a.m.
I must try to get some sleep.
13
Thursday, 28 November, 7.10 Am
Early morning, and I am walking Fluffy through the snow towards the fields. The air feels more damp than chilly, and I think a thaw may be coming, at least temporarily.
The Lump is at the window of the front room of his house. Inane smile on his face. Mug of tea in his right hand, raised up. Taunting me.
I think he is waiting for me to disappear into the distance before he sneaks across to the cottage to try his luck.
I hesitate, not sure what to do. I want to march up his path, bang on his door and tell him to keep away from Rosie. That’s all. Just stay away. But I am not sure how he would react to that. Whether he would meekly agree. Or if there would be an argument, a brawl, with me ending up flat on my back and humiliated on the path.
I could walk Fluffy further on and turn towards the trees, hiding behind them, watching. But I do not know what to do if he comes out of his gate and turns left. I could chase him off, send him away, as he approaches the cottage. But I wonder if he might lose his temper and lash out at me. Knock me unconscious. That would then leave Rosie at his mercy.
I could call the police. I don’t know what I would say. That the man next door is bothering my niece? But they might not come for days. If at all. I do not want the police he
re, anyway. Looking. Talking. Assessing. And Rosie would run just as soon as she saw a police car. And the police cannot arrest someone on the basis of what they might do. Only after they have done it.
I stop at the top of his path. Look towards him, unmoving.
He looks back. His big stupid face.
We stand there, as if locked together, neither of us wanting to move first. He then turns and disappears from sight.
And he is opening the front door, striding down the path towards me in his dressing gown and pyjamas and slippers. He still clasps his half-full mug of tea in his right hand. This idiot of a man. This dim-witted fool I have to engage with.
“Yes,” he says in his high, nasally voice. A question, really: What do you want?
“You must be cold,” I say mildly, conversationally, looking him up and down.
“I’ll be alright for a minute,” he replies, then stands there looking at me expectantly.
“My niece,” I say ever so blandly.
“What about her?”
“She’s not for you.”
He pulls a face, makes a noise at the back of his throat. This simpleton who thinks he is normal. He shakes his head slightly from side to side, and I wonder if he is rising to anger already.
“She likes me.” His eyes are locked on mine, as if staring me down.
“She doesn’t know you,” I say instinctively, derisively. And go to add, You’ve never met. But then I suddenly realise that they have. That he must have called round when I was walking Fluffy. Maybe twice yesterday. That they have talked. I do not know what to say. I am taken aback by this unexpected development.
“She likes me,” he insists, his voice rising higher. “She said so.” He will brook no argument. “And I like her.” As if that settles it.
His tea sloshes over the edge of the mug onto his fingers. He does not seem to notice.
He seems to be shaking.
I know I should back away. But the anger is rising within me. I must subdue it.
“You’re a … a nice man, but, you know …” My voice tails off as he stares at me. I am not sure how else to put it. Diplomatically, at least. That he’s not all there. He thinks he is normal. Nobody else does.
“She likes me more than you,” he says. “She said so.”
I sigh loudly, involuntarily, suddenly realising the pointlessness of this conversation.
“She’s told me about you,” he goes on, a look of satisfaction on his face. As if he is oh so smart. A clever debater.
I pause, thinking. I turn away, my back to him, pulling at Fluffy’s lead. “Come on,” I snap at Fluffy.
“I know,” he says loudly, following me down the path to the lane. He is so close he could reach out and touch me. “All about you.” Louder still.
I ignore him.
“Get your dog off,” he yells nonsensically. “Dog shit everywhere.”
I laugh at this. His incoherency.
I feel the spray of tea across my shoulders.
I turn back angrily. “You come round again, and I’ll have the police on you.” It’s all I can do not to swear and call him a freak.
His face contorts. He throws his mug on the ground towards me. It breaks. Fluffy backs away.
I turn away too, anxious now to be gone. This can only end in a fight. And I will come off the worse.
“Cunt!” he yells as I walk away. He repeats it six, seven, eight times, louder and louder, like a small, angry child who has lost his temper.
I do not know what will happen next.
If he will turn up at the cottage.
And, if he does, what I will do.
Breakfast is a quiet affair. Radio 1 is turned up louder than ever. Rosie seems happy just to listen to it. I am stewing over what the Lump has said. I’m not sure how to raise it with Rosie. If at all.
She looks across at me occasionally. Smiles. As if everything is the same. Nothing has changed. Of course, I know it has. She does not yet realise that I know.
I am going to sit back and look and watch and listen. I do not doubt they have spoken. But I do not know if they have talked in the way the Lump has described it. Whether she has betrayed me. Told him about me. Quite what she has revealed.
She goes upstairs as I start my dusting and cleaning and tidying.
Comes down with something that she slips into her pocket as she passes me in the living room.
Goes through to the nookery, shuts the door behind her. I can hear the shower running.
I busy about as usual, dusting one room at a time. In the living room, I shake the dog blanket and the cushion over the fire, watching the fur and the dust and the dirt dropping into the flames. Fluffy is stretched out on the sofa, ignoring me.
I move into the dining room, rubbing my cloth at the edges of the ice that has formed on the inside of the window. I cannot chip it off. I peer out through the glass and out to the snowy lane. My face, from the other side, must look twisted and distorted. The Phantom of the Opera. There is no one about. I wonder how long it will be before the Lump appears at the gate.
The kitchen always seems a mess, with too many packets and bottles on the sides dotted between the kettle and the toaster and the other pieces of old and dated equipment. I wipe over the surfaces, which seem to be covered with crumbs of toast and smears of butter today. And flakes of porridge.
I dust and polish. Hoover about. Room by room. Except the nookery, of course.
Pick and rub at odd marks and smears and stains.
Killing time, really. Waiting to see what will happen next.
I tense, expecting the knock at the door. The Lump. I imagine him sitting in his house, thinking about Rosie, obsessing, working himself up into something close to a climax. Then storming round here. Only me standing between him and Rosie.
But there is nobody out there. No Widow Woman. No Lump. No Man in the Suit. It is like Christmas Day, everyone inside and getting on with their own lives. It will not last. This stillness. This quiet. This peace.
Christmas is not so far away. I wonder what Christmas Day will be like this year. I drank my way through so many. The last year or two, I have struggled along with Fluffy by my side. I gave him a whole plate of sausages from the local farm for his dinner last year. He spent the evening breaking wind and looking at me in something close to disgust as he hurried away before returning later to repeat the process (more than once). I cannot imagine Christmas dinner with Rosie and me eating and the Lump’s face pressed hard against the window.
The door from the living room to the nookery is suddenly pushed open. Rosie comes through. Her hair has an odd blonde-gingery hue. A touch of orange at a certain angle. She must have found a packet of hair dye somewhere in a drawer.
I am not sure if this is the colour her hair is meant to be. I suspect the hair dye may have been years out of date. Or that it has reacted with whatever she already had in her hair.
She kind of tiptoes by me like a model on high heels – her interpretation of a sensual walk – and makes her way to the kitchen. Puts the kettle on to boil. She does not look at me, but expects me to look at her.
I do not know what to say. My wife, many years ago, in happier times, once had a dramatic haircut, going from long brown hair to a short blonde bob. I did not comment on that at the time, although, later, she claimed that I said, “Fucking hell,” without thinking when I first saw it – apparently, in a derogatory manner. I do not recall that.
Instead, I get up and follow Rosie into the kitchen and watch her as she prances and preens. She reminds me suddenly of my daughter when she was little and had her ears pierced. She walked about just like this. I breathe in hard – these sudden flashbacks move me unexpectedly. Tear at my heart.
Rosie puts two mugs on a tray and fusses about with teabags, sweeteners, milk and teaspoons. Adds boiling water. Looks at me and beams, her face all lit up. She gathers up books and pads and pens, ready for our next reading and writing session. Fiddling about, getting everything just so.
>
And I look at her and see a happy girl. Someone who is at ease. Has shaken off her troubles and worries. Is settling into her new life here with me. And can go on, as I had hoped, to lead a good and kind and fulfilling life. As we make our way to the dining room, she turns and looks at me and smiles. I smile back.
“Your hair looks nice,” I say, a lilt in my voice. “Really nice.”
She seems to swell close to bursting. “Thank you.” She laughs.
Then it hits me. I wonder who she has done it for. Herself? Me? I think it is for the Lump.
We spend an odd morning together reading and writing.
She is jolly, silly, even childlike at times.
I am on edge, constantly watching for the Lump.
I decide to talk to Rosie about the Lump over our lunch. I think I have to. To warn her. As gently as I can.
I turn down the music on the radio next to me. Clear my throat. She looks across at me, her mouth open and full of baked beans.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say. Her face is blank and neutral. I do not know what she is thinking.
“The boy next door. Well, man, really. He’s simple, but I think he might be a bit of a nuisance.”
Rosie angles the fork she is holding to her right, towards No. 1, as if to ask, That way? She swallows her mouthful of beans.
I nod.
“The one who wanted tea bags?”
I nod again.
“He’s early twenties, but, like, fifteen in his head. He’s … not quite right. He’s lived on his own since his parents died. He should probably be in assisted living or a home or something, but I think he’s somehow slipped through the net … he probably needs reporting.” I add that last almost as an afterthought. I pause.
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