by John Marrs
Simon became both mum and dad and told them that, although I was very sad, I still loved them and I’d come out of my room when I was ready. But until then, they had to be patient.
Throughout Billy’s funeral, Simon had never let go of me, holding my head against his shoulder as my mascara melted into the lapels of his jacket. And when we arrived home, he let me stay in our bed for weeks without complaining.
I always felt worse when I woke up than when I tried getting to sleep. Because for the first few seconds of consciousness, I’d forget what had happened. Then it would all come flooding back to me and the grieving process would start again from scratch.
When I tried to focus on anything else, I’d recall the moment I found Billy’s body and it hijacked all other thoughts. Some nights I was convinced I could hear him crying, and on motherly instinct I’d jump out of bed and be by the door before realising I was hallucinating.
My body and mind operated separately. My head knew I’d lost him, but my breasts punished me further by continuing to produce milk.
I missed Billy’s babyness and longed for the cherished droop of his head on my shoulder as he slept. I missed wiping the sleep caught in his eyelashes. I missed how he’d made me feel like a woman again after what Dougie had done to me.
No matter how much Simon tried to reassure me it had just been a terrible, terrible accident, deep in his heart he must have hated me. How could he not? I did.
12 April
Simon’s support never ended, but no amount of reassurance was enough. I even took my self-loathing out on him, blaming him for not being in the bathroom where I’d expected him to be.
But he never took the anger he must have felt out on me. He dealt with his grief in his own stoic way. And he was always there for me when I needed to roar or bawl. He was the perfect husband.
I’d always said Billy had the smell of pink roses about him. So Simon dug up a patch of land under the kitchen window and planted six rose bushes there. It was a place where I later grew to find peace, by just sitting near or inhaling through the open window while I washed the dishes. It was just what I needed for my healing to begin.
22 October
When I was so completely, utterly empty and there were no tears left to fall and nothing left of myself to hate, there was only one direction left for me to go.
So I gradually opened my eyes and allowed myself to slowly fill up with the love that had surrounded me for months, but that I’d shunned.
The love from my family; the love from my friends; but mostly, the love from my husband.
SIMON
Northampton, twenty-six years earlier
3 January
I paused under the architrave behind Robbie and James, riveted by the pain that forced her body into awkward angles as she endeavoured to bring life to a little body for the second time in fourteen months.
Billy lay wet and motionless on the floor; his eyes held their sparkle but his body was lifeless. I’d often caught myself looking into them and wondering what they saw when they looked back at me.
It was the second time I’d been in the bathroom in the space of a few minutes.
When she’d called me to keep an eye on him, I’d been in Emily’s bedroom helping to dry her hair after her bath. I heard Catherine’s muffled conversation behind our bedroom door as I made my way to the bathroom. Billy was playing with his smiley-faced boat when he saw me and offered a gummy grin. I gave him nothing.
I watched him throw the boat too far to reach with ease, and he looked at me, expecting me to sail it back. I didn’t move. Frustrated, his arms, still just doughy rolls of skin, reached out to bring it closer. When he failed again, he clambered to his feet, holding the sides of the bath with his hands for support. Then, as he shuffled along, he lost his footing and slipped, spinning as he went down and smacking the side of his head on the tap and then again on the brutally hard porcelain. As I watched, his body came to rest face down in the water.
After a long, still moment, he startled me by lurching to life, arching his back and trying to force himself free of the water, but when he opened his mouth to scream, it filled with water and bubbles. His arms flapped as he tried to prop himself up but he possessed neither the strength nor the coordination to push himself back up.
And then I waited for the inevitable.
I remained stationary, as almost two years of fogginess began to clear.
I knew what I was supposed to do, what anyone with an ounce of humanity would have done. But I was no longer that person. Catherine had drained me of my compassion and left a cold, cold man in his place. Billy and I were both her victims.
My reaction was the fault of Billy’s abhorrent chromosomes. And I couldn’t live with him in my home, pretending to be like those I loved any longer. So I watched as he slowly and quietly drowned; the helpless leaving the helpless to flounder in a fight only one of us could win.
As the last bubble of air left his lungs and bathwater seeped in, I glided out of the room as quietly as I’d arrived.
18 January
In the weeks following Billy’s death, I would lie with Catherine in the darkened cocoon she’d created in our bedroom, listening to her agony until she fell asleep. Then I would replay the moments in my head that had destroyed her.
‘Oh God,’ she’d repeated after yelling my name. ‘Oh God, oh God.’
I’d run along the corridor and stood behind Robbie, James and Emily as the consequences of my inaction became clear. I panicked, and needed to take back what I’d allowed to happen. I pushed the boys out of the way and began CPR, attempting to take back the madness of those five minutes and to repair my damage.
Billy’s mouth tasted like washing-up liquid as I struggled to get a firm pinch on his nose and give him back the life I’d allowed to slip away. I felt sick with adrenaline and fear as his first rib broke in my heavy-handed desperation.
You were wrong, I heard my inner voice tell me. You could treat him like your own. A second rib snapped. It will take small steps, but you could spend more time with him; buy him a bigger and better boat; teach him how to ride a bike like you did with the others; watch him from the sidelines as he scores the winning goal for his football team . . . Yes, you could do all of that if you were given a second chance. But you won’t be.
In the time it took me to watch him die, I had mapped out our next sixteen years together as father and son. My son. Not biologically, but my son nonetheless.
Even when the ambulance men appeared from nowhere, I refused to admit failure. But inside I knew it was too late. Billy was dead and I had let it happen.
I’d stroked Catherine’s hair as she lay deep in the floor sobbing her heart out, her baby by her side. Her world had been shattered and she was reduced to rubble and ruin. The hurt she had caused me was nothing compared to what I had done to her.
20 March
For weeks Catherine did little but blame herself, my decision condemning her to an intolerable purgatory. And my inability to reveal the man she loved had been responsible for her son’s death cast a shadow over all our lives.
Each time she chose sleep over reality, I’d put on my running shoes and sprint as fast as I could until my legs folded beneath me. I deliberately chose hard surfaces so I could feel every jolt of concrete jar my knees and spine, because the physical pain eased the mental one.
Each time I hurt myself, I’d hope it would take some of hers away, but there was nothing I could possibly have done for that to happen.
12 May
To the outside world, I was the portrait of a consummate husband. But inside, I was in bedlam. I dragged myself through the motions to keep the family engine running. I became an expert in forging smiles and convincing the concerned that everything would be all right in the end, given a little time.
I made myself responsible for all the children’s needs while Catherine was too empty to cope. I was the face that friends saw when they turned up on our doorstep to see how we were.
I took a leave of absence from the business to take charge of the everyday tasks like shopping, housework and gardening. I cooked all our meals, made sure the children had clean school uniforms and kept them occupied when their mum needed to be alone.
We spent hours together pretending to fish in the stream near the cottage. Sometimes I’d stare into the water, convinced I could see Dougie’s blood caught in a whirlpool and unable to dissolve. We took drawn-out walks through the fields searching for snaggle-waggles or spent time in the garden playing board games. At a time I should have been close to them, I’d never been so far away.
I juggled so many balls at once and only I knew what the repercussions of dropping them would be. I saw the consequences of my actions in my wife every day. And it helped me to understand that it wasn’t just remorse over Billy’s death I was feeling, but towards the death of our marriage. Opportunity had presented me with a chance for revenge I’d never considered. Yet once my mission was complete, I felt nothing. It hadn’t healed me like I’d hoped it might; we were broken, with or without him.
I’d been weak when I’d tried to bring him back to life. Filling his lungs with a stranger’s air would not have helped me long-term. Even with his blood on my hands, I still felt the same kind of rawness as when I’d discovered Catherine’s affair. All I’d done was force four people to feel as worthless as myself. And my misery didn’t love company.
I frequently had to remind myself it was her duplicity that provoked my reaction. She had brought this on us. I watched in silence as she floated without aim through the house, unable to associate herself with the world. Now she knew how I’d felt when I found out about her and Dougie.
The pressure on me to keep up my facade was immense, as I had nobody to confide in. So I took to sitting in the woodland near to the man buried below the blue rope. It was the only place where things made sense.
I’d talk to Dougie like I did when we were innocents. He understood me and I believed that wherever he was, he knew what he’d done to me was wrong. I became envious of how easy it was for him to accept it and how uncomplicated things were for him now he was resting beneath a carpet of dirt.
It would be so much simpler if I, too, were six feet under.
22 October
For nine long months, Catherine remained in darkness. Then, gradually, the sun began to reveal itself and she rose from the bottom of the hill and navigated her way back up it.
We were sitting watching The Two Ronnies when she unexpectedly laughed at a sketch. We all turned sharply to look at her, as it was a sound we’d not heard for so long.
‘What?’ she asked, surprised by our attention.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, and I knew my time was coming.
As she slowly healed, my disintegration was close to completion. My wife was on her way home, but in doing so, she was leaving me behind. She had learned to live with what she thought she’d done. But I couldn’t live with what she’d done to me.
Christmas and New Year passed, and as winter merged into spring and then summer, my trips to the woodland copse grew more frequent. I’d pick up the rope from the ground and feel my way around it, tugging it between both hands until it was taut. Then I’d face the canopy to search for the strongest, sturdiest-looking tree branch. Several times I thought I was ready to kill myself, then I’d make an excuse as to why it didn’t feel like the right day to complete my mission. Each time I’d walk back home, cursing myself for not having the strength to go that extra mile.
Tomorrow, I’d tell myself. I’ll be able to do it tomorrow.
And eventually tomorrow came.
Northampton, today
8.20 p.m.
She shook her head vigorously. She was adamant that the horror story he’d told her about Billy wasn’t true.
‘No, your Alzheimer’s is making you confused,’ she began faintly. ‘Let me call Edward. He can come back from the golf club and help you.’
To this point, making anyone else aware of his secret existence had been the last thing she wanted to do. But now her need to prove that his confession was actually confusion became a much higher priority for her. Edward could examine him, test him. Allow her to dismiss the abomination he’d just admitted to committing.
But Simon fixed a watery gaze upon her and slowly shook his head. Her stomach began the first of many somersaults.
‘I was there, don’t you remember?’ she continued, gently coaxing him. ‘I left Billy alone, not you. I was the one who found him and shouted for help. It wasn’t your fault: it was mine, wasn’t it? Remember?’
He gave her the weakest, most apologetic look she’d ever seen, but still she could not believe him. She did not want to, because over time, she had learned to accept her pivotal role in Billy’s death. It had been an accident.
For it to have been deliberate . . . for her husband – the boy’s father – to have allowed him to die . . . that was so much worse than her negligence. It was evil. And she had loved this evil man. She raised her voice in a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to concede he was muddled.
‘I accept you’ve done a lot of wicked things,’ she continued, ‘but the man I adored back then would never have let that happen. You could never have held me and dried my tears and kept our family together like you did, knowing it wasn’t my fault. So I’m begging you to tell me now that you’re confused and that you didn’t let Billy die.’
He couldn’t have answered even if he’d wanted to. The stranglehold guilt had on him was so tight it barely allowed him to breathe. He couldn’t move, yet he swore he felt his body convulsing.
She sank deep into her armchair while she evaluated what it all meant. She had never got over Billy’s death, because no parent ever does when something so tender and innocent is wrenched away from your arms without warning. But gradually, the image of his lifeless body in the bath wasn’t the first that came to mind when she thought of him. It was of his warm, toothless smile in photographs she’d taken during his first and second Christmases. She’d pored over them hundreds of times since.
And every year on his birthday, she’d lock herself in her bedroom away from everyone, take his tiny blue satin booties from the crushed-velvet box in her wardrobe, and rub them gently between her fingers like she’d done as a child with her mother’s clothes. She’d hold them to her nose and inhale deeply in the hope of picking up a long-faded scent.
Only, now she’d learned Billy hadn’t died because of her careless parenting, but because of the insanely misdirected spite of his own father. She pictured him standing over Billy like the Grim Reaper, captivated by the panicking infant drowning before him.
It enraged her. She wanted to kill him.
He was oblivious to the escalating fury before him. He’d been used to finding ways of justifying his aberrations by blaming other people. But now there was no one left to blame. Kenneth had been right when he told his only son he was a monster.
The first physical contact in twenty-five years between Simon and Catherine Nicholson came after she jumped from her chair with such speed for a woman of her age, it terrified him.
‘You bastard!’ she screamed as her fists pummelled his head, over and over again. He had little time to raise his arms to protect himself from her blows. He struggled to push her away at first, but when he succeeded, she came back more ferocious than before.
He grabbed her arms, so she kneed him in the groin. He bent double in excruciating pain as an onslaught of slaps and scratches began. She caught slivers of flesh from his cheeks under her fingernails. Finally, he was able to muster up the strength to grab her arms and twist them behind her back. She shrieked in pain.
‘Kitty, Kitty, please,’ he begged, trying to catch his breath and calm her.
‘Get off me!’ she screamed, and squirmed to release herself from his grip, but to no avail.
‘I’m sorry for what I did to Billy and for not trusting you. You have to know that.’
‘Don’t you dare us
e his name! You aren’t fit to use his name!’
‘I know, I know, but I had to tell you the truth before my disease made it impossible.’
‘Am I supposed to be grateful? How could you let me spend my life believing it was my fault when it was you who’d killed him? His own father!’
She tried to jab her elbow in his stomach but her arm wouldn’t budge against his clutch. The last time she’d been forcibly restrained by a man, she’d eventually given in and accepted her fate. She would not make that mistake again.
‘Please, please forgive me,’ he cried. ‘Don’t let me die knowing you couldn’t find it in your heart to accept my apology.’
His desperate hope filled the room as it fell silent. Finally, she replied in a voice so fuelled by venom, he barely recognised it.
‘Never.’
Her response immediately drained him of his energy and she wriggled until one of her arms came free. It flailed around behind her, trying to hit anything that felt like him. A fingernail scraped across his eyeball, and instinctively his hand reached to cover it.
While he was temporarily blinded, he failed to notice her grab a metal picture frame of his children before it smashed against the side of his head. He fell to the sofa, dazed, but moved just before the orange glass vase from the fireplace shattered against the wall above him.
‘Kitty, please!’ he yelled, but she would not listen. A man capable of such evil did not deserve to be heard.
As he opened his mouth to beg for her forgiveness one last time, she reached for a brass poker from the fireplace and swung it above her head. He backed away but not fast enough to avoid the brunt of its force on his wrist. They both heard the bone crack, but he felt nothing as he fell to the floor.
Then, as she raised the poker again, he didn’t flinch or try to protect himself. Instead, he lay there, sodden and shaking, accepting his fate, as weak and pathetic as she’d ever seen a man. With a final lift, the poker was as high as she could carry it.
