Kiss the Bullet

by Catherine Deveney

“Could they be in the same coffin?” she asks suddenly. She looks up at Pete and catches the jolt that crosses his face. “Could they … maybe?”

  “I don’t think … I think probably … it’s maybe best this way, Danni.” He exerts a little pressure on her shoulder, guiding her towards the door.

  Danni looks back, frowning.

  “I wish they were together,” she says.

  Touching, she thinks.

  Pete looks at her awkwardly.

  “I understand,” he says.

  But he doesn’t.

  At the door, she looks back, She has come to say goodbye but they have already gone. They have left without her, and for a moment, it feels like betrayal.

  She dreams of him often in those early months of searching. Sometimes, he is behind glass, a floor to ceiling barrier. There is no way round it, no way through it. She catches her breath each time he appears, holds it, scared to breathe out in case the tiniest of movements will make him disappear. Only when he holds out his hand, palm towards her, does she risk reaching out tentatively. She tries to lay her hand against his, feel the warmth of his skin, but the glass barrier lies between. She sees his lips move but can hear no sound.

  “Marco,” she whispers. “Marco …”

  She knows it is not just a dream. He comes while she sleeps but she woke once, she knows she woke, her eyes screwed tight to keep him there inside her head, a whispering apparition she strained to listen to. It was important, what he came to say. She watched his lips carefully, wanting to reach out and run her finger across them as he spoke. He nodded as if she could hear, pleaded with his eyes, then suddenly fell silent, watching her. “Don’t go …” she whispered. “Marco, please don’t go …”

  Both his hands came to the glass then, and he bowed his head, his hair falling forward. He was no apparition, she thought. No ghost. If only she could reach beyond the glass, she would feel real hair, thick and wiry in her hands. She could remember the exact feel of it; her fingers running gently down the nape of his neck as he kissed her, the little involuntary shiver that ran through him, the pause as he looked at her. That night by the lakeside, she remembers suddenly, in a silvery June darkness that never quite blackened, her fingers knotted in his hair. The slow heat of the memory washes over her now, the warmth of summer, of longing …

  He is going. The pressure of his fingers on the glass is ebbing and she feels a jolt of panic. He lifts his head and his eyes wash over her, pleading. His mouth moves.

  “I can’t hear you,” she whispers frantically. “I can’t hear you.”

  He shakes his head.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” She presses her hands more firmly on the glass, as if that will make his hands remain on the other side. But his fingers are melting away.

  “NO,” she screams. “MARCO …” His body is shimmering, as if in a heat haze, but still he continues to talk silently. “I can’t hear you …” She slaps her hands on the glass, feels the cold hardness of it. “I can’t hear you.” She is crying now, banging her hands over and over against the window, ignoring the sharp bursts of pain against her palms. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

  He has gone. She does not want to open her eyes but she does. Outside, the dawn chorus has begun, stray, plaintive chirrups filtering through the open window. The room is bathed in half light. Her pillow is damp and streaked with the remnants of black mascara, an ominous, spidery dark trail across white linen.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sable, the eyeshadow pot said. Danni looked at it doubtfully. A creamy brown, the colour of wet sand but with a grainy sparkle in its darkness. She tucked her short hair behind her ears, then smoothed it on, a light, shimmering slick over her eyelids. What was she doing this for? She didn’t want to go out. It was her best friend Katy who wanted her to go out.

  “It’s only a party, Danni,” Katy has said. “You said yourself you haven’t been out in a year. You might meet someone.”

  “I don’t want to meet someone.”

  “For God’s sake! I’m not asking you to jump on the nearest man. Just be … be open to possibilities.”

  Possibilities.

  Danni looked critically at her reflection, fingering the dark circled area under her eyes. She sank her head forward onto her arms on the dressing table. How long was it acceptable to feel this way? There were social boundaries to grief, she realised now. It was expected – demanded even – that the young widow be heartbroken … and then, suddenly, time up. Other people were made uncomfortable by a grief that was too long, too intense, too unyielding. But where was it supposed to go, all that emotion?

  The day of Marco’s funeral, one of his oldest friends had taken her hand with tears in his eyes. “Don’t worry, Danni,” he’d said. “We’ll all be here for you. Always.” He phoned three times after that, but she never saw him again.

  Life moved on, she knew that. But other people’s expectations were always a shock. A year after Marco died she met a friend she hadn’t seen for six months. She greeted Danni with a wave and a smile and then followed up with a frown. “Oh you look tired,” she said. “Everything all right?” All right? Danni thought. All right? Oh, Danni had replied vaguely. She wasn’t sleeping that well. “You’re not still …?” said her friend, then halted abruptly “Well, of course,” she said, eyes softening. “It takes a while doesn’t it?”

  Danni took her dress down from where it hung from the old picture rail, slipping into the smooth, fitted silk, an abstract print of purple and pinks with soft storm clouds of charcoal black. She had loved it in the shop but now looked critically at it in the mirror. Why had she bought this, for God’s sake? She was far too short to carry it off. She hauled a pair of higher shoes from the back of the wardrobe, cursing.

  The radio is on as she gets ready. She pauses, one foot unshod, as some pop princess is interviewed. “Anyone special in your life?” the interviewer asks. “I don’t have time for relationships,” says the princess. “I just have …” and she pauses, giggling lightly. “… liaisons!” Yeah, Danni thought, slipping her other foot into the shoe. Dead right, whoever you are. She couldn’t cope with relationships any more. Liaisons. That’s what she’d have.

  “Drink?”

  It is his hand on her back that makes her panic momentarily. A light gesture but there is something proprietorial about it. She is not ready to be owned Where the hell is Katy? Why has she left her with this guy … Raymond did he say?

  “Wait here,” he says. “What would you like?”

  “Anything.”

  He laughs.

  “Gin? White wine? Anti-freeze?”

  “What year’s the anti-freeze?”

  “The wine’s better.”

  “Okay.”

  For a moment after he leaves, she stands against the wall but it feels too exposed. The music thumps in her head.

  “Excuse me.”

  She pushes out past the group standing at the door, and heads to the stairs, sitting on the second step from the bottom, half sheltered by a pile of coats draped over the banister. She leans her head against them, the music distant now. Her coat might be under here, she thinks hopefully. Perhaps she could just go.

  “Are you hiding?”

  Raymond’s head appears over the banister.

  “No … sorry … it got … I needed to sit down.”

  He says nothing but swings round and sits on the step beside her, handing her a drink. She steals a sideways look. He is sort of handsome, she decides, but in an insignificant way. Dirty blond hair that is cut a little too neatly to be stylish. Blue eyes – or are they grey? – that have too little vivacity to be interesting. He wears jeans and a black shirt and the jeans are fractionally too short. Marco always … well he is not Marco. He is too neat. Too polite. Too, too, too …

  “I haven’t been out in a year …” she blurts out.

  “Goodness!”

  “I had a husband.” A bicycle. A cuckoo clock. A husband. She could be saying anything.

&nb
sp; “Oh.”

  His response is so neutral; she glances up curiously.

  “Didn’t work out?” he says solicitously.

  “It did,” she says. “It did work out. Except it didn’t.” For a moment, she thinks she might lay her head down on the stairs and howl because it’s just too much effort not to.

  She takes a gulp of white wine, feels the chill of it hitting her empty stomach.

  “His name was Marco,” she says.

  He nods politely.

  “Did he leave?”

  “Yes. Yes he left.” She wipes her cheek roughly, quickly, with the heel of her hand.

  “His loss.”

  “He died.”

  She hears a scream of laughter as the door opposite them opens wide.

  “Fuckin’ idiot …” says a man in a striped shirt, walking to the door. A girl with waist length hair follows him, tottering on silver, platformed stilettos.

  “Oh, get a sense of humour, Gerry.”

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  Danni watches as he opens the front doors and slams it behind him. The girl stares at the closed door, hesitating. The world is bedlam, Danni thinks. All this emotion whirling and colliding … The man in the striped shirt’s anger. Her grief. The drunk girl’s bewilderment. And Raymond, she thinks, glancing up at him. What’s he feeling?

  “I’m really sorry,” Raymond says. His eyes have flicked down to her legs. “About your husband.”

  She catches the glance. Desire, she thinks dispassionately. He feels desire. She wishes she could be pleased but it makes her feel lonelier than ever.

  There is no normality. There will never be normality.

  “It was a mistake for me to come out,” she says, half to herself.

  “I don’t think so.”

  When she looks at him, he smiles.

  “How long ago?” he asks.

  “A year.”

  When she talks, he appears to listen so acutely she wonders if he listens at all. Sometimes, too much ‘interest’ is a giveaway that you have none at all. But the need to speak about Marco is overpowering. She cannot help herself.

  “He was a journalist.”

  “Interesting job.”

  Still she ploughs on

  “He wrote about terrorism.” She sniffs. “He was … he was …”

  She has to stop this and yet she can’t. She looks at him bleakly and there is something about his politeness that tips her over the edge. Politeness is unemotional. Controlled. Everything she feels is the opposite. She doesn’t blame him for not caring. How can he care? And how can she not? But it’s so alienating. She’s in a small, select group that no one wants to be part of, no one wants to join.

  “I miss him,” she says.

  Her voice cracks and she buries her face in her knees.

  She feels his hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” he says.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  She lifts her head.

  “It’s just … it was a big deal you know … coming out …”

  “You don’t need to explain.”

  He has not asked how Marco died, she thinks. She sniffs again.

  “I’m sorry. Do you have a tissue?”

  He fishes in his pocket.

  “Napkin from earlier. Can’t certify it’s 100% un-used.”

  He talks oddly, she thinks, as she quickly swallows down the last of her wine. As if making a selection from a phrase book.

  “It’ll do. I’m not the fussy type.”

  “You look very … particular … to me,” he says.

  Particular, she thinks. What a strange word.

  “That’s … well …” she says. The chilled wine bites.

  “I like your dress.”

  “Oh,” she says looking down at it. “It’s new.”

  “Fits like a glove.”

  Danni drains her glass, though she knows it’s empty.

  “You’re blushing.”

  “I’m not the blushing type either.”

  “Must be the light.”

  “Must be.”

  She pulls at the coats beside her, trying to find hers.

  “Look,” she says, “You’ve been kind. But I need to go. She pulls her coat from the pile and the others topple. She picks them up quickly, arranging them haphazardly in her confusion.

  “Here, let me.”

  He takes her coat and helps her on with it. It makes her feel awkward. Her dress sleeves ride up inside the coat in her haste but she keeps stuffing her arms in, longing to be out.

  “Thanks,” she says. “And thanks for the chat. I’m sorry I got upset. Marco was … well, he was everything to me. I miss him. I never stop missing him. He was … you know … we were married and … and I know it’s a year but maybe it’s too soon … too soon for me … maybe it’s always going to be too soon …”

  She stops suddenly.

  “Anyway … nice to meet you.”

  “Listen …” says Raymond.

  Someone bumps into Danni from behind and she turn to see the girl with the silver shoes.

  “Oh sorry,” the girl says, holding onto Danni for support. “I’m really sorry …”

  “No worries,” says Danni.

  “Sorry,” repeats the girl. “Just looking for the wee girls’ room.”

  “Shirley!” shouts a voice behind them. “This way!”

  “Comin’!” She turn to Danni again. “Sorry.”

  “Anyway …” says Danni, lunging for the door “Nice to meet you, Raymond, and thanks again.”

  “Listen …” says Raymond.

  Danni turns from the door.

  “Can I take your number?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your number.”

  “Oh.”

  And then she laughs. He doesn’t mean anything by it, she thinks. It’s just that he’s alive and therefore open to possibilities. And she isn’t.

  She saw him for a few months. There never seemed to be a particular reason not to. And maybe some of it was okay but it was all that effort. The feigned politeness. The dressing up. There wasn’t enough excitement in it to give her the impetus to keep trying. Her relationship with Marco had moved into that comfort zone where they knew one another too intimately to have to pretend. A laugh was all it took. A look. A flicker that licked into a flame without a word being spoken. Things didn’t need to be spelled out. The truth was Danni wanted to be there again without the effort of all those early stages. She had forgotten what hard work it was.

  And then one night Raymond came round to her house. He had never mentioned the pictures before but she saw him silently looking at the framed photographs of Marco, the baby shots of Angelo. She wished suddenly she hadn’t invited him here. She didn’t want him in her space.

  “Drink?” she said.

  “Lovely,” he replied.

  “Do you think,” he said, when she came back into the room, “that perhaps it would help you to take these pictures down?”

  She scarcely missed a beat as she handed him a glass.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  “But you’ve moved on from Marco. If you have photographs of him everywhere, he’s always going to be around.”

  “He died, Raymond! It’s not like we divorced!”

  Raymond put his hands up in a ‘don’t shoot me’ gesture.

  “Just saying,” he said. “Just trying to help.” He took his drink and looked up at her. “Don’t go all huffy on me.”

  “I’m not,” she said, trying to keep the tightness from her voice.

  “Good.” He patted the seat beside him.

  She tried desperately to smile as he kissed the top of her head.

  “Maybe,” he murmured against her hair, in that ever reasonable tone that was really beginning to grate on her, “you should talk to someone … you know, a counsellor or a psychiatrist or something.”

  No more parti
es, Danni told Katy. No more men. No more.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Glasgow, 2010

  She wants to reach inside the television. She wants to smash the glass with her fist and pull those figures out of the safety of that square screen. And when the glass breaks and cuts her skin, she wants to pull their stupid fucking balaclavas off their heads and smear her blood all over their faces. Stain them with it. Standing there in their black uniforms, waving their guns like a badge of honour. Their props give them an identity they could never achieve unaided. An identity, a purpose, a power, a perversion. Danni’s hand shakes as she picks up the remote control to increase the volume.

  A documentary. The young dissidents of the Republican cause in Northern Ireland being filmed on a training mission in a wood. She has caught it only by chance. There is, Danni was to think later, a mere heartbeat separating one path in life from another. Between triumph and disaster, joy and tragedy. It was the lesson of her life.

  Eighteen years ago, had she not been five minutes late, her husband and son might still be alive. Tonight, had she stopped off at the supermarket as she intended, had she not had that sudden overwhelming desire to get out of the world and back into her own self-contained space, then she would have missed the television programme that changed her life. Tonight, when she flicked channels impatiently, with the same restlessness she had felt all day, she did not even look at which button she pressed. Life was a series of whims. Was it chance that she saw this documentary today, of all days? Or was it meant to be? Today should have been Angelo’s 21st birthday. The phone has not rung once. The morning brought no triumphant rattle of the letter box, no heavy thump onto the mat. There has been no torn wrapping paper, or curled ribbon, or half open boxes, littering the neatness of Danni’s sitting room. There has been silence, order, emptiness.

  Today, she has been haunted by the feeling that Angelo has died all over again. Not Angelo the child, but Angelo the man. She has only ever experienced him running to her, a child lifting his arms up to her for comfort. All day, she has tried to imagine the reverse, the comforted becoming the comforter, the strangeness of lifting her arms up to a grown son to hug and be hugged. Her lost, unknown, man-child.