Open Your Eyes

by Paula Daly

  And sitting amongst it all was Leon. Leon, his head between his knees, his fingers laced around the back of his neck, rocking forwards and backwards.

  Jack was over in the corner, his back to the room, and he was on Leon’s computer. I let out a gasp of relief. He was here. He was OK.

  Images I was familiar with bounced across the screen in front of Jack. It was a children’s programme – some low-budget, ten-minute, BBC thing that I would sit Jack in front of periodically, whenever I needed to complete a task that required concentration.

  ‘Leon?’ I ventured cautiously.

  He lifted his head. His corneas were bloodshot, his lids swollen and heavy. He looked like a wounded animal. Get too close and you could get killed. I could see he’d been crying. Was still crying, in fact.

  ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘leave that alone for a minute and go and check on Martha for me, will you? She’s in the kitchen. You can help yourself to a biscuit.’ My words were delivered unusually brightly and Jack was instantly suspicious.

  He climbed down from the office chair, turning to glance at the screen, unsure if he should plead his case for remaining.

  ‘Jack,’ I repeated levelly, my voice firm. ‘Go.’

  ‘Bye, Daddy,’ he said.

  ‘Bye, son.’ Leon didn’t look up as Jack left the room.

  There was stuff strewn everywhere: hundreds of loose pages of what appeared to be Leon’s old manuscripts; also there were bills and receipts scattered about. The whole place looked as though it had been tossed by looters.

  The two chest-height filing cabinets, in which we housed old accounting records, birth certificates, as well as Leon’s research material and work-related stuff, had been emptied. Each of their drawers had been pulled open, the contents strewn across the room. The cabinets looked ravaged, almost.

  My gaze moved to the floor. There was a hole. A proper, great, gaping hole. The floorboard was splintered and it stuck up at a wild angle.

  My first thought was that someone had broken in.

  And then Leon lifted his head and whispered, ‘Thanks.’

  I looked at him, uncomprehending. ‘Leon, has someone been up here?’

  He gave a lazy kind of laugh before saying, ‘You well and truly fucked me, didn’t you, Jane?’

  ‘Fucked you?’

  This was not something Leon would say. Not to me.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘How’s your head? Frankie said—’

  I stopped. It was now dawning on me that this was not the work of some crazed intruder, but Leon himself.

  Which meant he was confused. Which meant he was upset.

  He’d clearly been searching for something. Something that might make sense of his new situation? Something to shed light on how he ended up with a brain injury? Or was he simply trying to figure out who the real Leon Campbell was before all of this happened?

  Christ, I thought suddenly, he’d not come up to try to write, had he?

  Surely he’d not set to, trying to pick up where he left off with Red City, and this chaos was the result?

  He wasn’t ready to tackle something of that magnitude. He needed baby steps. That’s what Dr Letts said. ‘Try to get him reading. Short things to begin with. Shopping lists, the sides of cereal boxes, the Daily Mirror.’

  ‘Aw, Leon,’ I said, making my voice soft now, encouraging. ‘What’s happened here?’

  I spread my arms wide to indicate the room’s disorder but he didn’t respond and it struck me, looking at the contents of what were once meticulously organized files, now dropped haphazardly, or flung far from where they should be housed, that the files themselves resembled Leon’s brain. What was once an ordered system, containing a multiplicity of information, easily accessed, was now more like a dumping ground for useless facts and memorabilia.

  I moved towards him. My intent was to comfort him. But as I approached he reared up.

  He flew from the floor to his full height in a split second.

  ‘Leon,’ I said, my heart beginning to thud hard inside my chest, ‘what’s going on?’

  I reached out to him, but he slapped my hand away hard and left it there, stinging. Memories of being slapped as a child crowded my thoughts. Humiliation. The shock of the strike slackening my insides. My face beginning to burn with quiet rage.

  ‘Leon,’ I said, quietly, and he glared at me. His eyes were locked on mine and he looked at me with a wildness that was something close to hatred.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Explain this. What happened?’

  He shook his head in defiance. The thick muscles of his forearms began to twitch.

  ‘You can’t tip this place upside down and let Jack witness whatever it is that’s sending you off like this,’ I said. ‘It’s not fair.’

  Leon turned away.

  ‘He’s beginning to change, Leon,’ I pressed. ‘He’s not the same little boy any more.’

  Leon didn’t speak and at first I thought he might apologize, ask for help. But instead he sighed out long and hard before setting his jaw. ‘Two sets of prints,’ he said simply.

  What?

  ‘Your prints were on that nail gun, Jane,’ he said.

  I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again.

  Where was he going with this?

  He’d known this information since regaining consciousness. Why was he bringing it up now?

  I regarded him levelly. ‘And so were yours, Leon,’ I said. ‘Two sets of prints.’

  He widened his eyes and then he laughed. ‘Well, I sure as hell didn’t shoot myself in the head.’

  I held his gaze.

  ‘What?’ he said, challenging. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You’re not really suggesting I would do that? Why would I do it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, Jane,’ he said. ‘Don’t fucking joke about this.’

  His voice had taken on a warning quality. His don’t you dare tone.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ I said quietly. ‘But if you feel you have the right to accuse me of doing that to you, after all we’ve been through these last few weeks, then you should know it’s crossed my mind that you could have done it to yourself.’

  This was true. In my quieter moments, I had thought about it. When nothing else seemed to make sense, and I’d questioned Leon’s sanity before the brain injury, I had wondered if it was possible. Had he wanted a way out? Had he thought about ending it so he didn’t have to face up to things?

  ‘Again,’ he said, but through his teeth this time, ‘why would I want to do it?’

  Leon didn’t know about the loan from Charlie. On a couple of occasions, I’d mentioned money, mentioned how Charlie could be generous-to-people-who-found-themselves-in-difficulties, but I was met with a bewildered look. He also didn’t know about the videos I’d found. And, of course, he didn’t know about what had just happened with Ryan Toonen.

  Could he have shot himself as a way out of whatever shit he’d got himself into?

  I cleared my throat. ‘I don’t think you were altogether clear-headed in the weeks preceding the attack.’

  He laughed. ‘Maybe I wasn’t.’

  I was about to say that he was in trouble. That he was being threatened. But he pulled a folded piece of paper, a brochure of some sort, from his pocket and without warning he threw it at me.

  The corner hit just below my right eye.

  Too frightened now to move, to pick it up, I whispered: ‘What is it?’

  ‘Read it.’

  ‘I don’t know what it—’

  ‘Read it! In fact,’ he added nastily, ‘why don’t you read it out loud, you bitch? Read it so we both get to hear.’

  I unfolded the brochure and stared at it. I began to shake. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered.

  Not this.

  ‘Read it!’ Leon yelled again, and he slammed his fist into the wall next to my head.

  I cried out in fear. My legs turned to liquid as I slid down the wall.

 
; Leon had never hit me. Never shown violence around me.

  ‘Read it!’

  I pleaded with him to quieten. ‘The kids will hear … They’re not used to this, Leon … they’ll be scared. Please …’

  He punched the wall over and over until the plaster broke through. He punched until his knuckles were bloody and he was breathless with exertion.

  Then he took the brochure from my shaking hand.

  He read from it, his words coming out like bullets, purposely meant to wound. ‘“Magellan House”,’ he said. ‘“A modern care facility that includes ten bedrooms. Magellan provides skilled and loving care. The level of service is besp … The level of service is bes …”’ He began to stammer. He didn’t know how to pronounce the word ‘bespoke’ any more. ‘Who was he, Jane?’ he yelled again instead. ‘Who the fuck was he?’

  ‘Who was who?’

  ‘The shit you’ve been screwing all this time!’

  ‘He wasn’t anyone.’

  ‘You’re lying. You’re lying to me.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m not. There is no one else. How could there be?’

  He had it in his head that I’d planned this. That I’d planned his incapacitation because I’d been having an affair with another man. He yelled that I’d wanted him out of the picture, but was too afraid to leave him. So I shot him in the head instead, and now look at him. Look at us.

  I couldn’t tell him it was his mother who had given me that brochure. That she’d handed it to me and told me to keep it safe. That I might need it one day.

  He pushed the brochure into my face. He was smothering me. Hurting me as he moved the flat of his hand backwards and forwards as if rubbing it in, as if trying to somehow screw the thing into me.

  ‘Leon,’ I said, my speech stifled. ‘Stop, I’ll call the police.’

  He pulled away and I sank to the floor.

  ‘You won’t call the police. You’re too scared to call the police. Because then they’ll know. They’ll know what you’ve done. That detective was right. She told me you’d done this. She said I remembered you doing this.’

  ‘Leon, I—’

  He towered above me. His chest was a huge slab of muscle. His thighs, visible through the thin cotton of the joggers, taut and massive. They were like a sprinter’s. Overdeveloped, powerful. Unnatural.

  ‘You wanted me gone,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t. Why would I?’

  He had evidence, he said. Proof. ‘And,’ he said, ‘didn’t that detective say that no one was seen at the front of the house that day but you? Didn’t she say that, Jane? Didn’t she? Answer me!’

  ‘I didn’t try to kill you, Leon.’

  I was trying to make myself small, edging along the floor towards the sofa, my knees pulled in tight to protect my chest.

  But he caught hold of my hair.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, pulling my head back. ‘Tell me, Jane.’ His eyes were bulging, his face inches from mine. ‘Who were you sleeping with?’

  ‘You!’ I cried out. ‘It was always you … Jesus, Leon, listen to yourself. You can’t remember anything. You can’t remember anything about our life from before. You’re not being fair. We loved each other.’

  ‘When?’ he said sceptically. ‘When did we love each other?’

  ‘All the time.’

  He seemed to find this fact incredible. Unfathomable. And I could see how it could be a stretch – the two of us entwined, naked. This, when there had been no physical contact beyond a few awkward hugs since he was brought out of the coma.

  Right now it seemed an impossible feat to try to persuade him of what we were like before. What we had. Who we were. The love between us that was at times fierce, frightening, brutal, but then could also be astonishingly tender, and so, so easy.

  I felt beaten, crushed.

  I had nothing left.

  ‘I loved you, Leon,’ I whimpered quietly. ‘Only you.’

  And then I sat, curled up, my breath coming out as quiet, raggedy gasps, my head buried low, waiting for this to all be over.

  Eventually Leon gave up trying to get the ‘truth’ out of me and went downstairs.

  I lay on my side, my face turned to the wall, and stared at the knots in the wooden skirting board.

  I ran my finger over them. I was too shattered now to cry. Too worn out. There was no emotion left. It was all so bloody sad. It was all so sad and there was nothing anyone could do to make it better.

  I had to ride this out and see how long I could last. For better for worse.

  I’d vowed to love Leon. Vowed to stay with Leon. But this wasn’t Leon. As his mother said, this wasn’t her son, this was some stand-in from hell, and I was supposed to stay and look after him. Help him get better. Rehabilitate him somehow.

  I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Jane?’

  Leon was calling out my name from the first-floor landing.

  ‘Jane, are you up there?’

  ‘What is it?’ I said weakly.

  Would he apologize? Did I even want him to apologize?

  I rubbed at my eyes. An apology wouldn’t cut it. I would have him readmitted to the rehab unit. Or admitted to Magellan House. That, or else have him arrested. We couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t risk the kids being in the same house as him. There was no—

  ‘Jane,’ he called out, ‘where’s the bread?’

  I crawled towards the door. ‘What?’

  ‘The bread?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Jack’s hungry,’ he explained, ‘and I can’t find any bread. I’m going to make beans on toast for everyone. Where do you keep it?’

  ‘The freezer.’

  A pause, and then: ‘Why the freezer?’ There was no trace of anger in his voice.

  ‘It stays fresher.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said brightly. ‘Oh yeah. Makes good sense. Do you want some?’

  ‘No … no, thank you.’

  I heard his footsteps retreat down the stairs and my weight fell heavily against the wall.

  Leon was like a dog now. He lived only in the moment. He would have no real memory of causing the destruction of the past hour. And I could go downstairs, rub his nose in the mess, yell at him, and he would look at me sorrowfully, but confused nonetheless, and he wouldn’t understand my actions, wouldn’t grasp the reason why I was being so mean. And he would cower at my raised voice, my raised hand.

  My phone pinged. A text from Erica. Charlie on his way.

  I sent a reply. No need. Sorted.

  For a time, I remained amongst the detritus, amongst the double-spaced typed manuscript pages that had once held such meaning for Leon, thinking: We can’t go on like this. We can’t go on like this.

  I looked at the hole in the wall, at the hole in the floor, and thought: What if he’d hit me instead?

  What if it had been my head?

  What if he’d hit my head against the wall?

  And I curled myself up and wished to be someone else.

  24

  All night I thought about leaving.

  After Leon had gone to bed, and I was in the shower, the water scalding my skin, I thought about nothing but leaving. As I scrubbed the traces of Ryan Toonen away from my body, not stepping out of the shower until the water ran cold, I thought of leaving Leon.

  But I had nowhere to go.

  I considered the notion of turning up at my mother’s: kids at my feet, suitcase in each hand, telling her that I simply couldn’t take it any more, but I knew it wasn’t the answer.

  My mother wouldn’t have me for more than a couple of nights, and, when it came down to it, I couldn’t leave Leon.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Not until I’d at least tried to find a way through this. Exhausted every available avenue. That’s what I’d vowed to do when we married; I’d vowed to stick it out until the end.

  I went to call Hazel Ledecky, tell her about what happened at Walton Gaol, but then I cut the call off before it connected.
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br />   What if whoever had done this to Leon found out I’d gone to the police? What if they found out I’d ratted out Ryan Toonen, and there were repercussions?

  Toonen had given me a warning: No more trying to find out who hurt Leon. The people who hurt your husband really don’t want to hurt you too. Or those little kids.

  Of course, on paper, it seemed so simple. I absolutely should report it to the police. They could find the connection between Ryan Toonen and Leon – some lowlife who was known to both of them – and the police could make an arrest.

  But as I pictured Jack and Martha’s faces, terrified, because there was a man in the house, a lunatic they’d sent to frighten us, I wasn’t sure I could go through with it.

  So I didn’t. I didn’t call. Instead I contacted the rehab unit in the morning and I told them I needed help. I called and said I was not equipped to care for Leon alone. But though exceedingly sympathetic, I sensed they were not unused to these pleas from desperate family members, and it took some real imploring on my part before eventually they agreed to send someone over to assess Leon. Someone would come by tomorrow, they said. There might be the chance of a part-time carer, they said. But it was clear they weren’t promising anything.

  Now it was ten thirty at night and I was propped up in bed. Bonita was curled up on my lap and I was trying to think of ways to keep Leon calm. I needed to prove to him that I did not put that gun to his head. That I was not responsible for the state he now found himself in, lest he became violent again whenever he remembered. Did I have anything that would prove I had nothing to do with this? Perhaps showing him the correspondence between himself and his agent Jon Grayling might persuade him that he’d not been altogether equable. That he was not quite himself in the weeks leading up to the attack. Perhaps if he knew about his unfinished book, the debt he’d accrued, he might then begin to better understand—

  ‘Who’s Alistair Armitage?’

  Leon was standing in the doorway, fully naked.

  He was piggy-eyed and did not appear completely awake. Was he sleepwalking?

  But then he saw my eyes drift southwards, and he became embarrassed – covering himself with his hands.

  ‘I just woke up,’ he said, frowning, ‘and I can’t get the name out of my head. Alistair Armitage. Do I know him? Do I know anyone by that name?’