“Oh. It’s just a letter.”
He put it straight back again. The absolute soul of propriety.
♦
Ronny had so much energy. So much that he didn’t know quite where or how to direct it. It was flying out of him. The energy. It had been uncorked. Unplugged. It was everywhere. Reverberating off the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the windows.
On the cooker was a pan of spaghetti hoops, but the hot plate was still cold under it. Ronny was sitting on the lino, close by, his legs stretched out in front of him. In the palm of one hand he held a small, frozen butter pat. In his other hand he held the clutch of letters. He was trying to read them but he could not. Why? His eyes? No. Fear! That was it. He simply couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Because suddenly he had a bad feeling about everything.
Too much energy. When there was too much energy, where the hell did he direct the excess? And a portion of it was always bad energy. A small portion. A purple-black energy. Like a bruise. Spreading. Poisoning. Bleeding. Creeping. Deep down inside and under his skin.
If anything happens to Monica, he kept thinking, how could I stand it? He felt a moment of panic. What if I’ve found my home at last but the door is closed already? What if I’ve found my home, finally, and the door is locked and barred to me?
There were two more letters. He hadn’t read them. Two more. The last one, very short. Just a few words. I need some money, he thought, I need some money. Then I won’t have to read. I can go out and I can find.
The butter pat was melting. Ronny stared at his watch. How long had that taken? In his palm. From freezing to melting? He calculated.
Then he turned the watch over. “To Big Ron, with love, your Elaine.”
For some unknown reason, he found himself shuddering.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Thirty-Seven
Margery pushed the door open and walked inside.
“Nathan?”
She called out although she knew already that the flat would be empty. She shut the door behind her and leaned up against it. She held the note he’d written in her hand. It had not fooled her. Her eyes scanned the room. She breathed deeply. She could smell him. Hair oil. And another scent. Sandalwood.
She walked slowly around the room, touching things. The television. The back of the sofa, the bookshelf. It was a plain room. There was very little to feel in it. She noticed something on the carpet. A brown stain. Scuffed. Was that blood? She paused. She knelt down to inspect it more closely. Stop! she told herself. Stop looking for confirmation. Confirmation? Of what?
A paper clip and a little fragment of tissue were messing up the carpet near where she crouched. She picked them up, automatically, and threw them into the wastepaper bin.
She almost walked away and then…hang on…she peered inside the bin, reached out her hand – tentatively, fastidiously – and from its depths she withdrew a square of material: crisp and brown at its edges, moist and pink at its centre.
Like liver, she thought. Red and raw in the middle, brown-edged. Lamb’s liver. Calf’s liver. Liver. But of course this was simply Nathan’s hanky. And this was blood. Probably his. Nosebleed. She dropped the hankerchief and walked through to the kitchen to rinse her fingers.
Here she found another trail of red-brown spots leading from the sink unit to the refrigerator. The honey was out. Left open on the worktop. And the milk.
She picked up the carton, instinctively, to return it back to the fridge. But as she yanked at its door and registered the suck of its rubber seal, her mind screamed CRIME SCENE.
She put the milk back in anyway. She forced herself. But the police are such sticklers for detail, she thought furtively, and my prints are everywhere…
She returned to the living room. She blinked back the tears. Was this a betrayal or was this just life? It was neither. It was the end of love. This is the end of love, she told herself. This is the end of love. Without trust there is suspicion. And suspicion’s closest ally is contempt. And contempt? What relation could that ever bear to anything good?
Nathan’s life was so full of spaces. Margery felt too small to fill them, too mean to overlook them. Spaces. And now she would leave yet another one.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Thirty-Eight
“So did Luke get what he was after?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table. Ronny was speaking.
“No. He wanted his cigarettes.”
“But you’d thrown them away.”
Jim glanced up from his meal of tinned spaghetti, minted peas and meatballs. “How did you know that?”
“I must’ve seen them. In the bin. Poor old Luke.” Ronny laughed. His mouth was half-full. It was like watching the interior of an inefficient Hotpoint struggling with its fast-coloureds programme.
He was eating at a quite remarkable speed and using both his hands. His fork, Jim observed, was held perfectly normally, but his knife was clutched in his clenched fist and was pointed, somewhat disconcertingly, directly towards his own chest.
While Ronny ate, he talked, intermittently, and he waved the knife, but not to emphasize anything of particular significance. He didn’t seem able to maintain a single train of thought from one moment to the next.
Jim, by contrast, as a kind of forced reaction, ate slowly, using his right hand only. He consumed just a tiny portion of the meal Ronny had prepared for them and then pushed his bowl away. He was the very epitome of simplicity and restraint. If I try hard enough, he thought desperately, maybe I can transform Ronny into his better self again through my own positive example.
Under the table, inside his pocket, his left hand rested limply upon the half-empty pill packet. Ronny was speaking. He was saying, “I collected three whole bags full of shells this afternoon. For the mural. You could come and help me with it after dinner if you wanted…”
Jim smiled, heartened. “I’d love to help you,” he said, “only first I promised Luke I’d go and fetch his car from the farm. For some reason he doesn’t want to go over there and pick it up himself…”
“The farm?”
Ronny stopped chewing and focused in on Jim’s smooth face. He was scowling. “What’s at the farm?”
For the briefest of moments, Jim’s mind was inexplicably filled with a vision of Connie. She stood before him, pale, in the waves, her small white hands shielding her little nipples.
“What’s at the farm?” Ronny reiterated, almost harshly. Jim blinked. “His car’s at the farm. Luke’s car.”
Ronny laid his knife down on the table. He stared at it morosely. There was suddenly a great chasm between them. Jim couldn’t fathom it. It was as if some kind of extraordinary betrayal had recently taken place. But on which side? And by whom?
“I’ve been considering what you said earlier,” he observed gently, “about needing money. There might be a way of aquir-ing some…”
Ronny just winced. “I can’t think of that now,” he said quietly. His eyes were flitting, like two anxious greenfinches, around the room.
“There’s some plaster in the cupboard under the sink,” Jim said, attempting to re-direct him again, “and there should be a trowel…” He glanced over towards the window, “but it’s already getting dark out, and it looks like rain.”
Ronny stood up, abruptly. “It’s only right that I should finish things,” he said, turning and yanking the cupboard door wide, “that I should complete the things I’ve started before moving on.”
With both hands he grabbed hold of the tub of plaster, the trowel and an old J-cloth. Jim remained seated, watching Ronny blankly, trying to figure out what he meant exactly. Moving on? Moving? Where?
Ronny headed outside, clutching his booty to his chest, his shoes squeaking and squelching as he walked through the lounge and then out into the grey.
Jim stared up at the ceiling and then down at the remains of his meal. He picked up the two bowls, the cutlery, with his right hand, piled them together and then took them over to the pedal bin
to scrape them clean. He pushed the pedal with his foot and the lid sprang open. He leaned forward. But before he tipped, he paused. He peered.
Luke’s cigarettes. Were they still there? He looked closer. Benson & Hedges. Gold box…Nope. No sign. He squinted. Glinting underneath a quantity of other refuse lay not the cigarette packet but another metallic, glimmering object. A watch. The gold watch. “To Big Ron, with love, your Elaine.” Its face all crushed in and smashed.
Jim dumped the plates and pulled open the cutlery drawer. He inspected the selection of knives. One blunt bread knife, a smaller, sharper Kitchen Devil, one steak knife. He scooped them up. He also picked up the knife he’d not used for his own meal and Ronny’s knife which was still on the table. He walked through to the living room, over to the sofa, bent down and retrieved the hunting knife from under it.
He walked to the open doorway and looked outside. The tide was lurching in. Its great, dirty tongue lapped and licked, foam-tipped, about ten foot away from where he stood. He walked down on to the sand, stared briefly at the knives in his hand, and then threw them, with as much force as he could muster, out, out, out into the rumbling belly of the sea.
Back inside the prefab, Jim hunted around for any other potentially hazardous objects. The tooth glass in the bathroom, a small mirror inside the bathroom cabinet and the razor. In the living room he picked up an old black and yellow screwdriver. In the kitchen, a ketchup bottle, half-full, and a glass jar of damson jam. The tin opener. Yes.
Back outside again, he tipped his head slightly and listened. Seagulls, the growl of the tide. He threw the second set of objects into the waves. He returned indoors. He stood next to the cold fire. He picked up the poker and appraised it, frowning, then he placed it back down again. He turned towards the sofa and noticed Ronny’s cardigan. He walked over and grabbed it, plunged his hand into its pocket and withdrew the letter. He sat down and opened it.
♦
Ronny darling,
We’re still not speaking, Louis and me. He’s slow to forgive. It takes him a while. Each new situation leaves him spinning. He has to dig in his heels hard, hard, take a deep breath and struggle to acclimatize.
So I’m back in the cave. The bat cave. You understand these places, don’t you, Ronny?
♦
Jim blinked.
♦
So I’m back in the cave. The bat cave. You understand these places, don’t you, Ronny?
♦
He shook his head. He turned the letter over.
♦
We both feel around blindly. Like deep water fish. Touching, whispering, bumping, retreating.
♦
Jim screwed the letter up and threw it towards the fireplace. It hit the wall and landed. His shoulders were drawn up so high that they almost touched his ear-lobes. He struggled to stand. He was stiff. His body was stiff. It took a considerable effort to move himself. He was like a little tin robot; no neck, all shoulders.
He began to run. Had anyone seen him they would have laughed. He looked so silly. He looked so funny. He was hunted. His head, his chest, his legs looked as though they were prepared for some kind of extraordinary impact. Something huge. Something massive. No mere body could be big enough, could be tough enough for that kind of an assault. No mere body.
He ran out of the prefab. Stiff, stiff, stiff. Along the beach and then on and on and on and on.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Thirty-Nine
“I never realized before,” Connie whispered, “how terrible the outside could feel.”
Sara was walking several paces behind her. Connie had been perfectly calm at the outset, but then she’d heard the gun being cocked at her back and her entire torso had jolted. A small sound.
“You honestly never realized that?” Sara’s voice was hushed.
They both paused for a moment before shuffling onwards. The giant grey sky seemed to draw everything up into its muffling clouds. Voices, sniffs, footfalls. Sara had been right about the quiet.
They reached the Volvo. The plan was for Sara to walk, in an ever-expanding circle, from the boar enclosures outwards, until she’d reached the furthest boundaries of the farm. She would go alone. She would take the gun. Connie would take Luke’s car. “It’s a Volvo,” Sara reasoned, “it’s got to be tougher than your little city runabout. If you make any sightings you’ll have to come back and fetch me. Everything’s really muddy. The tracks especially. You won’t leave the vehicle, not even for a moment. Promise?”
“Promise.”
Connie had begun feeling like the whole world was threatening. Even the air. Even the mud. Everything. Sara had pulled on her waterproofs.
“Report back every half hour or so.”
“Fine.”
She climbed in. She adjusted the seat and the mirror. Sara handed her the keys. “And hurry,” she said, “the sun’s almost setting. When it gets dark here it’s like pitch. It’s like swimming in black treacle.”
Connie started up the engine. She pulled off. This was a big car. The wide bumpers reassured her.
♦
Sara began walking. She was still skittery. Her eyes were peeled but she could barely concentrate. I must evaluate what this means, she kept thinking. This escape. I must calculate its significance. But she couldn’t. She was moist-eyed and full of wonder. Her lips kept forming the shapes of words. She had no voice left though, no breath. But her lips worked anyway. I’m alone, they said. I’m alone. I am finally alone.
♦
Connie drove slowly, her headlights on already. Twice she pulled up, befuddled by stiles and by hay bales. She drove past a field head-high with maize. And she noticed that there had been some kind of a disturbance among a portion of the stalks which were crushed and broken and pressed down flat. She braked. She peered. It could have been the wind. It could have been a big dog. Or a small cow. Even a tractor. She touched the accelerator for one moment and then lifted her foot again.
No.
Everything seemed so glowy, outside. Like the whole earth was covered in a sweet pink candy. The sun was setting. It had started to rain.
But inside, inside, everything inside seemed so bloody noisy: the engine, the tyres turning, the loose stones hitting the car’s hard underbelly.
She turned off the engine.
Quiet. She glanced down at herself. Pink! I am glowing! I am all-glowing! Her voice sounded strange. Was she thinking? Was she speaking? She tried to focus and to listen but the voice she heard was too distant. Like a memory. Like a muffled sneeze behind somebody’s hand. A seductive whisper through a pane of glass, or a curtain, or a flimsy hardboard partition. There was no air.
She opened the car door and stepped outside. Yes. She could breathe again. It was cool. And the voice was clearer here, too. Something called her. Was it the sea? Or the wind in the top of the maize? Was it the rain? Was it her heart? Her bladder? It could have been anything. She was transgressing. She was outside again and she suddenly felt fearless.
♦
You know when you think that death will come quickly, Ronny, but it doesn’t come quickly? You know? You think death will come quickly but it doesn’t come. It goads you. It strings you along. It presses down on you. It steals the fucking breath from you. It glares at you. It takes the piss out of you. But it won’t come. It won’t come.
You know when you think that death will come quickly, Ronny, but it just won’t come?
Let me die! Let me die! Please God let me die! Release me! Free me! Consume me! Kill me!
But it won’t come.
I waited and I waited for Louis. But like death he would not come. I watched the sun setting and the sun rising. I missed you. I remembered those conversations we’d had. Remember? Those whispered conversations. And that time when you squeezed my hand? Remember?
I dreamed that I was lying on a table and I couldn’t move my body. But you were there in the dream and you squeezed my hand. Did I mention that before?
At dawn I
left the shack. It was all aglow outside. And the mist. The vapour seemed to coalesce. It formed such tantalizing shapes only a few yards in front of me. I saw a thin, pale creature and he beckoned to me. I followed him, mutely.
The ground was swampy. Then we reached some fields. And the crop? Was it coffee? There was a path that was established and then the path merged with the jungle again. The sun was rising and I saw the vapour disappearing. Into nothing. Evaporating.
I almost panicked. I was surrounded by trees. They were tall and it was too dark and the sun poked through their branches only very occasionally. It was damp. I was shivering. I tried to find glimpses of light so that I could warm myself in them. I stood in one particular patch for a long, long while. My bones were aching. I looked up into the sun’s eye, squinting.
The sun winked at me. For one second. It really winked at me. And in that second I saw that in the tree directly above, swinging from its canopy, like a giant bat, a black sloth, something, was a man. All I could see from below were his big, dark boots. Like a soldier’s, or a policeman’s. Giant boots.
The branch was creaking. But it was a good, strong branch. A proper, powerful branch. It had been carefully selected. The sun stopped her winking, began her shining, and then he was all fuzzed out and gone again.
I was not sad, Ronny. No, not at all. In fact I felt like singing. I skipped and I ran and I grabbed hold of that tree’s wide waist like she was my dancing partner. I found knots and juts and bits of bark. I held on. I waltzed and I rumba’d. My knees began bleeding. My palms. But I scaled her.
Soon I was above him. I looked down. He was balding. You know I never even noticed that before? He was balding. On top. And he still wore his camera. I took out my knife and I cut it free from his neck (how else to remove it? ).
There was something poking whitely from his front pocket. Money? I reached down. It was so far 11 stretched and I stretched. My arm touched his face and his nose and his cheek. All cold. Finally I reached it. A piece of paper, neatly folded. I opened it. On one side, the receipt from a magazine for an article he’d written. On the other? Three words. Three little words, in capitals, Ronny.
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