Swan Song

by Tom Butler

  She did, but she hated the thought of it. Almost as much as she hated herself for turning him against her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, which he hadn’t quite expected. ‘It goes without saying we have to put them first. Thank you for making Noah’s day, and I do understand, but unlike you, I can’t give up on us. I simply never will.’

  He broke the rule he had imposed on himself and fleetingly looked at her. It was annoying to think he couldn’t punish her any more than he already had without it harming the children. The urge to physically strike her had manifested again, and he was so close to doing it. His eyes refocused on the match day programme Noah had so proudly brought home to show her, and that brought him back from the edge, calming his inner feeling sufficiently to prevent it happening.

  But for how long? He had held together remarkably well, considering. He wanted more days like today, and next time, it would be all three kids, and their dad out together again, reasserting the bond they had. Leaving his fallen angel even further in the wilderness, courtesy of one very devastatingly bad decision.

  Michael and Angelica did join the children at their school for Mayday celebrations, mixing with other parents and teachers as though nothing was wrong, and they even had a conversation about the children on their walk home which gave Angelica false hope.

  It wasn’t until several days afterwards that they spoke in earnest again, Angelica having taken time off work with particularly heavy period pains and nausea and Michael coming home unannounced to get away from an extremely irritable Solomon who wished he was still eating Thai food and discovering the quirkiness of Bangkok.

  His mother’s boomeranging health had been a topic many times since the stroke, and she had started to moan much more about not seeing enough of her grandchildren and, indeed, Angelica, culminating with a bit of a rant from her when he spoke with her last night.

  ‘I might not go back in and take the kids to see her straight after school instead,’ he pondered, noting how off colour his wife looked.

  ‘Rule Noah out; he’s got gym club, and by the time he prises himself away from Ashley, it could be far too late.’

  ‘I’ll take the others and suggest he comes with me to see her at the weekend,’ he decided. She seemed fine with it. Her date with a bag of flour and everything else needed to invent an edible treat was getting further and further away. The children wouldn’t be at all happy as it was Wednesday and cake day, but Angelica really did feel awful, and with morning going into afternoon, she hadn’t even showered yet.

  ‘I doubt I’ll bake today, but I’ll see how I feel,’ she told Michael who wasn’t bothered either way. Like his children, he had used to look forward to cake day but not now. Each end of the day was tolerable and so far pretty uneventful. Today would be different, though still wearing his work suit, Michael even went to pull out a few annoying weeds from the back garden flower beds and cut back an overgrown hedge. He had somehow found it therapeutic.

  She knew he was avoiding her, but it was preferable to having him sitting beside her mostly in silence for the sake of appearances. The sound of the squeaky shed door consoled her, and she did now take a shower and spend longer than usual over it, watching the water cascade down for quite some time before stepping in and feeling it’s warmth on her head, shoulders and back. Perversely, Michael and Angelica were both getting therapy from very different sources. Virtually at the same time.

  Michael looked at the lawn and deliberated over it and then his mind wandered to some other distant garden which was not a happy place. He had a vision in his head, and he saw angels. But not his Angel. His Angel had been demonised. She had welcomed the devil to her side, and she had lay with the devil, and he could now see the face in the sketch as he remembered it even though it was unfinished. Was that the face of the devil?

  A voice was telling him that he had to cut the devil out from her so that he himself could be vanquished. He picked up a pair of garden sheers from their usual place in the shed, but he thought it to be a far more delicate operation and put them back, looking around for alternatives. There were saws, secetors, a hand trowel and small three-pronged fork. None of them fit for purpose.

  He fought with the electric cable of the mower and cursed it for not doing what he had demanded from it then he took another look inside the shed, upsetting things on the shelves he had always kept immaculately tidy. Nothing he found was of use and much of it was now lying around his feet in a heap which he likened to the mess his life had become. He picked up a tent peg that had spilled out of a bag and ran his fingers over its point. It wasn’t sharp enough. Certainly not what was needed.

  But in the kitchen, he thought logically, there would something there, something made for the job. Ideal.

  And there were knives of all descriptions, differing lengths, some really light in weight and others a bit heavier. Long blades, short blades, one in between. Some having serrated edges. He would have to choose very carefully. It had to be right. It had to be perfect. It was akin to buying a house, you had to wander around it and feel that you could live in it and be happy with it.

  It was a difficult choice, but he got it down to two and then plumped for the one that had a slightly longer and thinner blade and a suitably proportioned handle. Perfect for what needed to be done. He had chosen well. The voice in his head told him so.

  When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he stopped with one foot on the bottom step and listened. At no time did he look at the knife in his right hand or think about right or wrong. His mouth was dry, and he wondered where his next breath would come from. His left hand pulled against the handrail, but his feet barely moved in unison with his upper body until all the muscles in his limbs became taut, and there was upward movement. It was slow at first and then gathered momentum. He was now at the top of the stairs, feet from the bathroom door, taking shorter than usual breaths.

  Angelica had finished her shower, slipped back into her bath robe and was preening her hair with a comb. She had her back to the door and clearly saw Michael open it via a reflection in the over sink mirror. He came in with his hands at his sides, and she perhaps thought he just needed the toilet. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Seeing the knife, she stopped combing her hair and shuddered. The man holding it was her husband for sure, but the expression on his face was not one she recognised. The stare was fixed; his eyes might have belonged to someone else. The comb fell to the floor.

  ‘Oh no, please oh, god,’ she said, freezing on the spot. His raised arm was bent double and the knife clenched in his right hand was unmistakeably being guided towards her. She had no time to react, no impulse to fight him off. She thought in a split second he might have merely been trying to scare her, but she was wrong.

  Her back, between her shoulder blades felt the first impact; then there was a second one much lower down just above her right buttock. There was little time between them, a matter of seconds. And no real pain inflicted by them either. Just a feeling of cold inside. She had never considered him to be a strong man in terms of brute force before, and this was no time for her to discover his inner strength. Surely, if he wanted to kill her, he should have been aiming for her heart, so perhaps this was his way of showing her that what she had done was unacceptable, and by not fending him off, she was saying, ‘Go on, I deserve this. I have hurt you, and now you must hurt me. Let your anger out, and then maybe we can move on with our lives and start to live again, like before.’

  Her face in the mirror had turned white, it was drooping over the sink and her hair was covering her eyes. Her knees could no longer hold her weight, and she was drifting as if in a downward spiral. Strangely, the hand not holding the knife was reaching out to her, guiding her.

  It had been too late to hope she might save herself. Any screams came from the coldness within her. How strange that something so audible as a scream could be so silent. This was a dream that was being played out in reality, and the reality was that she might never wake
up.

  ‘Everything will be fine now,’ he was telling her in an almost reassuring voice. ‘Now I can get my Angel back.’

  He had held on to the knife tightly, and it had been well chosen. It had rid her of the devil, and she was now sinking down, and he was at least trying to give her head a soft landing. It came to rest against the shower cubicle door, and she was looking up at him, as though thanking him for freeing her. Her eyes were wide open, and she looked content. The way he always wanted her to look. It was done.

  The knife was still in his hand, and he thought he had heard her murmur. He was kneeling over her, telling her this was how it had to be. That there was no other way. She looked in no pain at all, and he moved her so that her head was now propped more evenly. Her skin felt warm, and again he thought she was trying to say something through tightly pursed lips. Perhaps she wanted to thank him for releasing the evil from her body and making her whole again. Or repeating how much she loved him.

  Deep down he loved her too; what she had done was wrong, but that had now been attended to. They could move on, and become a family again. There would be no more guilt and no more reprisals. It was closure.

  He moved and slowly sat down on the toilet seat, looking at her. Something he hadn’t been able to do for some time. His Angel was back, and she was more beautiful than ever. Serene, at peace, contented. The way he always pictured her in his head from very early on when she first agreed to be that very special person in his life.

  Whatever it was she had wanted to say to him didn’t matter anymore. He could read it in her eyes. They were still and yet so alive. It felt like he needed to cry, and then maybe they would cry together and re-plan their future. They would pour out their souls and ensure that nothing could ever endanger their wellbeing again. They would be together forever.

  He sat in silence for a while, and then the tears came out like a flood. They were good tears in the beginning like the tears he had shed when he had watched his children being born. Such joyous occasions, unforgettable. He repeated the words ‘My Angel’ over and over again, in his head at first but then loud enough for her to hear if she had a mind to. Then those tears subsided quickly and he became sad.

  He began shaking, and the handle of the knife dug hard into the palm of his hand, but inexplicably, he couldn’t let go, and if anything, his grip on it tightened. He had bowed his head as if in prayer and was now uttering the word ‘Sorry’ and interlocking it with ‘My Angel’. Suddenly, he felt helpless and unsure of himself, and as the tears wouldn’t dry up, he was left floundering. Inconsolable.

  ‘Oh, God what did you make me do? Why did you make me do it?’ He said aloud.

  He took massive deep breaths, cried some more, took more breaths and stood up. Careful not to step on his wife, he left the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and with much unsteadiness, he went down the stairs, his feet feeling like they were detached from his body, making him stumble and almost missing his footing before treading heavily on to the floor of the hall. He tried rebalancing himself and suddenly found himself seated on the last but bottom step. For a while, he sat with his eyes fully closed though his mind was unbearably active. He could never have believed that a person’s breathing could be so loud, blotting out all else and becoming so annoyingly repetitive and relentless.

  Now, he craved fresh air, and with one concerted effort, he practically ran and noisily exited through the front door, banging it shut behind him. He thought of a place he could go. A peaceful place. But his car keys were not where they should have been in his left hand jacket pocket, and he swore. He swapped the knife from hand to hand to search for his latchkey in another pocket, and his car keys came to hand. He never left them there. What had made him do that? Any inquest would have to wait, and did it really matter on today of all days.

  To enable him to drive, he had to put the knife down and did so in the footwell of the front passenger seat. It was stained and so was his hand. Both hands. There was also an indentation line across the palm of his right hand because of the tight grip he had imposed on the handle of the now discarded weapon. It was similar to a lifeline and ran all the way along the length of his palm, from end to end. It felt sore when he squeezed it against the curve of the steering wheel.

  The journey wasn’t unlike others he had taken except he cried a lot before eventually regaining a semblance of composure, impairing his vision but only slightly. He had driven right through the centre of Desford, past his office and after taking a cut off from the main road ended up at Bagworth Heath Nature Reserve. He had stopped off here only yesterday on the way back from valuing some derelict outbuildings near Bardon Hill. He had thought this to be a good place to be. Though not quite so peaceful today with a few more cars parked it was still where someone could come and find relative serenity. And it was an excellent place to do some serious thinking. Exactly what Michael believed was needed to comprehend what he had done. But first, he needed to switch off his car radio and shut his eyes.

  He must have fallen asleep. He had not slept well for weeks due to there being far too much on his mind and worsened by his bad back aggravated by the general discomfort of not sleeping in a bed. Oddly, he now felt comfortable and didn’t want to move. Visitors had come and gone to the heath, but he had been impervious to them all.

  He remembered sitting in almost the exact spot yesterday and shutting his eyes, but his phone had sounded out. Solomon had conjured an emergency out of nothing, and he had asked Michael where he was. He really should have lied but fifteen minutes later he was back at his desk, telling the senior partner in the business to go and attend to his sudden crisis. Mrs Randall’s had probably broken a finger nail, run out of make up or been unable to swat a fly that had been annoying her, he had thought cynically. Or maybe she had mislaid the TV remote control. Such things that were trivial to others were life threatening to the likes of the Randall’s, and Michael had been happy to oblige Solomon.

  How different people’s lives were. Some were woven with not much material at all, but others were so complex they were akin to the Times crossword puzzle. Tricky to solve and sometimes a little too testing.

  His own life was a mere conundrum yesterday. He had spent most of the afternoon thinking about it after Solomon had left. How best it could be resolved or tolerated? What did the future hold for him in the long term?

  It had ended up an inconclusive muddle in his head, but it hadn’t been for the want of trying, and it had been aided by at least two mugs of strong coffee and some chocolate digestive biscuits.

  Today, things were so much different. He had taken Angelica out of the equation. He had released her from her demons. Though aware of what he had done, he couldn’t bring himself to look at the knife still lying in the footwell. Nor could he imagine that the stains on it were really Angelica’s blood.

  He began sobbing uncontrollably and considered his options. Perhaps the world might be a better place without him. There would be people too ready to prejudge him and condemn him for what he had done. Those that would not see things from his point of view or show him sympathy for being the injured party. And many who might never consider forgiveness.

  As a shaft of sunlight splintered against the windscreen of the car, his eyes opened and shut almost in tune with his quickening heartbeat, and the tears abated at last. He dabbed his face with a tissue he found in a side pocket of the car door and then blew his nose with it. It sounded like a trumpet.

  There were children in the car parked next to him, a boy and a girl. There was also a woman with a Jack Russell puppy, and they all went off together, the children happily skipping and calling out the name of the puppy which was trying to bite its own lead.

  Michael wondered if he would ever see his own children skip again. Throw a ball on a beach or play rough and tumble. One day, he might. But then again, it was sheer speculation.

  What he had done had to be done. He hadn’t taken the decision lightly. It had been a joint decision with his soul.
Suddenly, the tears were back, and he just wanted them to stop. He also wanted to sleep and wake up refreshed. And to make a better life for himself. Was that too much to ask?

  ******

  Chapter Eight

  It would have been so easy. After all, he had chosen probably the sharpest knife in the drawer, and there it was. Virtually in front of him. All he had to do was reach across to pick it up and then show some courage.

  So what was stopping him? Why was he now rigid with fear?

  Though it was a warm afternoon turning slowly into evening, he felt cold; he was shivering inside. People outside were wearing tee shirts and shorts, and he felt in need of an overcoat or blanket. Perhaps, he was catching a chill. He had often called his house “Germ City” in a joking way what with all the coughs and colds and the junior medicines being administered. That’s what you got with children as well as all the good stuff of course. It made him smile though he knew he shouldn’t.

  He looked at his watch and really couldn’t remember what time he had arrived or how long he had slept for. But he had needed it so badly, and it had reactivated his mind. There was still the unfinished paperwork on his desk from this morning that Solomon would be expecting first thing tomorrow, and he had a full diary to consider. It included a meeting with a couple who were travelling down from Tyneside to view a neglected cottage in Market Bosworth which both Harold and Solomon were anxious to get off the books as it had been a none mover for over six years. It had gone under the hammer a number of times but failed to reach the unrealistic reserve the over optimistic owner had sought. However, he had now had a change of heart, and Michael felt sure he could negotiate a sale without the lottery of another auction. That would make him even more popular with his bosses and end a long running saga.

  He thought about switching on the engine and employing the heater, but it was practically summer outside and seemed a crazy notion. Then he looked at the knife again and went back into a self-imposed trance.