Guilt

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I hurry downstairs and wait by the open door. Soon enough, a paramedic in one of those mobile cars arrives. He drags his case off the passenger seat and heads straight for me.

  “Where is he?” I’m asked.

  “Upstairs, end of the corridor.”

  He hurries upstairs just in case something can still be done, even though nothing can.

  I stand in the doorway while he relays it was a DOA to a colleague over the phone.

  “Can you tell me what time you got here this morning, Mrs Fitzpatrick?” he asks.

  “I got here just before eight. About twenty minutes ago.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I was at my mother’s. She’s looking after them right now. Gage and me, we have two… kids…”

  The floor seems to fall away from beneath me and my legs go, and the next thing I know, I’ve got my back against my chest of drawers and the paramedic is getting me to breathe in and out of a paper bag.

  “It very much appears he choked on his own vomit, Mrs Fitzpatrick. There’s nothing you could have done. Even if you’d been here. He was unconscious. He wouldn’t have felt it.”

  I blub in the paramedic’s arms. I know he’s just trying to make me feel better, but right now, that’s not happening.

  “The hospital is sending some people to pick him up. The transport will be here soon,” he says, as he holds me while I continue to cry. “Should I call someone for you?”

  “Yes, call my sister, Hetty.”

  “Okay.”

  I reel off her number to him and vaguely hear him relaying details over the phone. Hetty is good at dealing with things like this. She was going to be a cop before she decided to be a dressmaker. She can cope, whereas I don’t think my mother can. I don’t think I’m ready for the kids to know yet.

  The transport arrives and I’m led out of the room while they scour the bed and the bathroom for evidence to corroborate the theory that he drank too much… then choked on his own vomit.

  I wait downstairs on my own, hugging myself while they deal with his body and the scene of his death. It all seems like a nightmare and time slows down. Then Hetty comes flying indoors and swoops me straight into her arms. Joe’s here too, carrying Elizabeth who’s crying and screaming, yanked off her mother’s boob no doubt, as soon as Hetty got the call.

  “What the fuck has happened?” she asks, still in her pyjamas.

  Then Joe stands stock-still in the hallway and Elizabeth stops crying. We all stare bleary-eyed as a stretcher with a black bag on top is whisked down the stairs and out to the black van parked outside.

  “Oh my god,” Joe says, breathing heavily. “He’s dead?”

  “I should’ve been here,” I mumble to myself, not sure if Hetty hears me because she’s got me pulled so tight into her chest.

  “He choked on his own vomit,” the paramedic tells Joe. “There is nothing anyone could’ve done. There will be a post-mortem, but he displays all the signs of alcohol poisoning and asphyxiation.”

  “I should’ve been here,” I yell. “I should’ve driven him to the hospital yesterday. I should’ve rolled him over. I should’ve never let him go to Copenhagen. I should’ve made him get his stomach pumped and I should’ve never left him last night!”

  Hetty urges the paramedic to go and to call her when there’s news or if there’s anything that needs sorting out.

  Once the front door’s shut and all the strangers have gone away, taking Gage with them, I look up at Hetty and beg her, “Please, tell me this is a nightmare, Het. Tell me to wake up! Tell me! Tell me now.”

  She’s crying… and Het never cries. She looks down into my eyes and whispers, “He’s dead, babe. He’s dead. I’m so sorry.”

  She holds me up as my frail body threatens to fall to the floor, my heap of bones heavier than it’s ever felt before. I wonder if that’s why I felt the way I did this morning… that I already knew something was wrong… that my body was already reacting to his death, even before I knew it had happened.

  The next thing I know, I’m in Hetty’s lap and she’s holding me tight, like I’m a child in her arms, bundled up against her. We’re on the kitchen floor and she’s gripping me in a vice. Have I been thrashing? Has she quelled me? Did I attack her?

  Time speeds up and then slows again… I lose track… and then I wake up as if out of a coma.

  “The demon drink,” she whispers. “It’s got a lot to answer for, Liza. It’s got so much to answer for, babe. Just know that we’re here for you, we understand completely, we’re not going anywhere. We’ll be here with you every step of the way.”

  She’s saying all these beautiful things, trying to pacify and comfort me, but the truth is, all I can think about right now is that bed upstairs… and why I allowed him to die in it.

  Chapter Nine

  SAMUEL WAS A SCARED CHILD, that was all. He couldn’t see things from my point of view, but I’m sure if he wasn’t so small at the time, he would’ve understood. For a while, I had myself convinced there’d be no comeuppance. It’d been dealt with – sewn up. So why did I carry this nagging in my mind? I had no idea, but I knew I didn’t like the thought of any sort of comeback whatsoever.

  “Your sister’s gone away on a trip,” I convinced him, and he believed me – at least at first.

  He knew, though.

  Yes, he knew.

  Deep down.

  He knew.

  “She’s never done as she’s told; it was just her time to leave and spread her wings. When you’re older, you’ll understand.”

  Samuel was an accessory, but he didn’t know that. He was just seven years old.

  I had to keep him on side, that was all. It was so simple: make the child believe he’s culpable, and he’ll never tell anyone. Kids hate getting into trouble. They’ll do anything to stay out of harm’s way. Easy.

  People say that guilt eats you up. Me? No guilt whatsoever.

  Clara had to go. No other choice. She was a liability. She was going to ruin my life.

  So what if my wife knew? So, what?

  She knew what she signed up for when she married me.

  Her addiction anyway… the pills clouded her mind.

  The authorities blamed her fogginess on grief. They didn’t see she was dependent.

  I hadn’t planned on dwelling on the whole affair. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it all if it wasn’t for the way my own son looked at me sometimes… as if he knew. With eyes that were knowing… with eyes that judged.

  I couldn’t live with those eyes staring at me. I’d sheltered him long enough.

  “You’re going to boarding school,” I told him one day, while I had him on his own. “And if you ever tell anyone about that day, your mother will get hurt. Do you hear me? You’re not to tell a soul.”

  Samuel said nothing, but his eyes... Ooh, those eyes spoke. His gaze expressed untold anguish and I knew he had to go. I wasn’t going to put up with being judged by my own damn son. Not for getting rid of that willing harlot… not for anything.

  “Remember what I said, Samuel,” I reminded him before our driver took him away, “people carrying secrets aren’t innocent either. You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you could get in trouble, too.”

  He said nothing. Infuriating.

  I was glad to be rid of him.

  Chapter Ten

  THE NEXT THING I KNOW, I’m in bed at Mum’s. I have no recollection of how I got here or why I’m here. Scared, I get out of bed and wander the upstairs rooms, finding the kids absent. When people hear me coming down the stairs, they pile into the hallway looking frantic.

  “What’s happened?” I ask quickly. “How did I get here?”

  There’s my mum and dad, plus Joe and Het, who’s carrying Elizabeth and Rupert at the same time. She holds out Rupert to me and I take him, kissing his head.

  “Are you okay now?” Hetty asks, motioning towards Rupert.

  It takes a few minutes, but I realise
she’s motioning that I was acting strangely before and that I should try to get a hold of myself for the sake of Rupert.

  Once we’re all in the living room, I notice it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. I must have had a few hours kip then.

  “I’ll make the tea,” my dad says, because he’s not good with situations like these.

  “I don’t remember much of what happened after the paramedic went,” I admit, rubbing my temples while Rupert crawls off my lap to play with his toys on the carpet. “I didn’t sleep well last night and then there was the shock of it all. I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”

  “I’m going to pick Emily up from school in an hour, darling,” my mother says gently, “but perhaps we shouldn’t tell her just yet. It’s up to you, but perhaps we should wait until we can get some professional advice on how best to tell her.”

  I look at my baby boy, Rupert and my heart breaks. How will I ever tell him? He will never know his father. He’s only eighteen months old and I doubt he will grow up with any clear memory of his daddy.

  The sadness sitting on my shoulders is so heavy, I haven’t even got the energy to cry anymore. I’m completely gutted, utterly empty.

  Gage wasn’t perfect and he did cause me pain, but he was still my husband.

  I catch Joe staring at me with a funny look in his eyes and I demand, “What is it? Can you stop looking at me like that?”

  He appears upset and shrugs. “I just know how you feel, that’s all.”

  “How could you possibly know?” I snap.

  How could he? My own actions killed a man, his didn’t.

  “His mother was an alcoholic,” Hetty whispers, after Joe leaves the room to help my dad with the tea.

  “Gage wasn’t a drunk,” I decide, firmly asserting myself. “He was just stupid. He drank too much when he was with his friends, that’s all.”

  Maybe Gage’s friends are to blame. Maybe I’m to blame because Gage was an alcoholic and I should’ve got him help. God knows how he was keeping up any standard of play if he was, though. No, he was just stupid on nights out with his friends. Stupid and feckless and not thinking about me or the kids. Not thinking about the fact that his actions might leave his children without a father. Drink driving…

  I mean, he might have eventually died in a car accident, if he hadn’t died last night.

  He might’ve ended up killing not just himself then, but loads of other people, too. Maybe it’s a blessing he’s gone. Maybe he was too much of a hazard and God decided it was his time to go.

  No, I’m not having that. I’m not.

  “I’m angry,” I blurt out. “Angry for so many reasons.” I grind my teeth, I’m that angry. “I’m angry I stayed with him. I’m angry he’s gone and there’s nowhere for this to go now.” I slap myself in the chest, trying to hit myself in the heart. I feel crazy and I must look it, too. I didn’t apply make-up this morning and I know my hairdo is probably all kinds of all over the place right now.

  Hetty nods for my mother to leave the room and Granny takes Rupert to the playroom, out of the way of me, the crazy mother.

  “Do you want me to get Warrick? He’ll know exactly what to do and say and he’ll take care of everything. He’s an ex-social worker, remember? If he can fix me, he can fix anyone.”

  I take Hetty by the wrist. I know my head’s shaking and my eyes are dry as I explain, “Don’t you see, Het? I find love and then this happens, all in the space of a few days. It’s my punishment, it must be. Why did he drink so much? Was I that bad a wife? Was I that horrible to live with?”

  Hetty gently separates my fingers from her wrist and walks to the window. “Can I call Warrick then, or not?”

  “You can call him, but it won’t make any difference. Someone’s done this on purpose, to punish me. Wherever Gage is now, he’s not the one in pain, I am. It’s always been me in pain and I do not know what I have done to deserve this!”

  Hetty turns around and swings for me, slapping me hard across the face, almost knocking me off the end of the sofa. I grasp my cheek and reel from the shock, my eyes peeled wide open.

  “Wake up, Liza. Wake up! He was on a mission to self-destruct before you even married him. You couldn’t have done any more for him than what you did do. Some people like to think that it’s life that’s got them down, but do you know what? Gage brought himself down; he didn’t need any help from anyone else. You’ve been living with this catholic guilt shit for as long as I’ve known you.” She shuts the door on the living room and lowers her voice: “I’ve just about had enough of this shit, Liza. I’ve had it up to here,” she gestures, showing me a level of annoyance that’s well above her head. “You are the single most talented person I know and he didn’t care, not one iota. You’re the cleverest of anyone I’ve ever met and the most beautiful and the most gorgeous soul… and this is the day this shit ends, okay? This is the day he got what was coming to him. He didn’t love you, Liza. If he had, he would have never put you through the ringer like he has all these years. He would’ve seen the pain in your eyes as plainly as I’ve seen it over the years and he would’ve bucked up. He had no excuse whatsoever. No excuse. He had you, but he still went out and fucked other women and drank himself to death. But he had you. And he still did this.”

  “But did he ever really have me, Het? Or did he always suspect there was someone else I loved?”

  Het turns on her heel and, after shaking her head, yells for Joe to get his arse in the car because they’re going. She’s lost patience.

  “I’m calling Warrick to come and deal with you. You’ve been warned,” she tells me over her shoulder as she’s on her way out – no hugs this time.

  My mother enters the room after they’ve gone, wondering why I’ve got a big slap mark across my face. It’s funny because I can’t feel a thing. She knew it, too – she knew not even a scolding would fix me. Not today. Not any day. Maybe never.

  Chapter Eleven

  ALL I WANT RIGHT NOW is a dark room and for everyone to fuck off, but for some reason my parents’ house has become a circus, with everyone passing in and out – bringing with them their own comical take on all this. I’m fed up of it.

  Gage’s mother came round, crying and wailing and holding the kids tight while doing so. Emily heard at school that her father had died. I had no control over it. It was on the local news. Someone leaked it: Hull FC Prop Forward Gage Fitzpatrick Found Dead . . .

  They haven’t released details of his death, thank goodness. Just that there are no suspicious circumstances. I’ve been wondering when the police are going to turn up and take me in for questioning – ask why I wasn’t home. Ask why I allowed him to go drinking. Ask if we were officially separated and whether I had a grudge against him to act as I did. For some reason, everyone has decided it was a terrible accident and they’re trying not to place blame – even though inside, I’ve personally placed all the blame at my own feet, nor can I see how this will change anytime soon.

  Emily has gone from crying one minute to being her usual self the next. She’s four. She does and doesn’t understand. All she knows and feels is what’s happening in the moment and Gage was out of the house so often, it’s only my absence she would ever really notice because I’m the one with them all the time.

  I sit in the corner while people drop by with flowers and lasagnes or pies or sympathy cards.

  Eventually, when it’s quiet and I’m sure that’s going to be it for the day, Warrick turns up on our doorstep. His twin boys follow him inside and he whispers, “Is it okay if the boys come in too? Jules has a meeting tonight.”

  “Everyone else has made themselves welcome today, you may as well join the club. Do you want something to eat? We’ve got a dozen lasagnes in the fridge.”

  “I wouldn’t say no. The boys have eaten, but I haven’t.” His tone is level, calm and collected. (Not like Hetty.)

  “Let’s sort you out, then,” I tell him, feeling weirdly okay for a moment or two.

  I�
��ve been like this all day… fine one moment… utterly destroyed the next.

  Warrick and Jules’ boys make themselves at home in the playroom, trying but failing to boss about Emily. Rupert is with my mother upstairs, having a bath.

  Warrick joins me in the kitchen and spots the light on in the shed at the bottom of the garden.

  “What’s your dad doing?” Warrick asks.

  “Checking the levels on his home brew apparently.”

  “Staying out of the way,” he guesses.

  “He’s always been like this. He was never there.”

  “I’m lucky,” Warrick says. “Dad was always in my face. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, of course. He was present, though. You know what I mean.”

  “Hetty slapped me,” I whisper. “She actually slapped me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she doesn’t understand. I don’t think she will ever understand what it was like for me before she came along. She thinks she’s the only one who had it hard growing up. She never stops to think. She only sees what she wants to see, and she refuses to see that I’m not perfect either.”

  Warrick clears his throat. “She’s a livewire, we’ve always known that.”

  I grab one of the lasagnes out of the fridge and shove it in the oven. When the doorbell goes again, I roll my eyes and Warrick asks, “Do you want me to get rid of them?”

  “Please, would you?”

  “Sure, you stay here out of sight.”

  He heads into the hallway to answer the front door. I hear him talking to a man and think nothing of it. It’s probably another one of my mum and dad’s neighbours or another of Gage’s teammates dropping round wreaths or whatever makes them feel better.

  “Liza, I think you should come to the door, love,” Warrick shouts through.

  This must be the police, I decide. They’ve finally come to take me away. It’s about time.

  When I get out into the hallway, I see the back of Warrick, but beyond him there’s a bigger, more imposing shape filling the frame.