London When it Rains

by C. Sean McGee

  “Why don’t you just learn to grasp your fears? If you do not fear death, then you are free to make what you will of existence.”

  “Without fear, what’s to stop any of us from killing ourselves?”

  Already his heart was starting to palpitate. He could feel an attack coming on.

  “I can help you,” said The Old Man. “You and your family.”

  “We’re fine. As long as we have randomness, we’ll get through.”

  “Well, at least let me show you something I’ve been working on. It’s very similar.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I understand you. I have my own ways of dealing with these kinds of feelings. Let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you something you’d never expect.”

  The Father looked adoringly at his wife and child.

  “It’s fine,“ said The Old Man, “you can bring them too.”

  XXXVI

  There could have been a hundred reasons as to why The Old Man killed The Hughes’. Each would have been just as right as the other. They could have all been right, but that doesn’t mean The Old Man would admit to either one. Whatever his reasons were, for the first time, The Old Man felt a sense of remorse. He walked back to camp feeling a little less zest than he normally would. He didn’t regret killing the family, but he didn’t feel good about it either. It was an odd feeling - an uncomfortable one. It was one that he had felt once or twice before. Sometimes the right thing felt so terribly wrong.

  There were just the three back at camp – The Girl, Hillary, and Greg.

  “I’d thought you’d left,” said Hillary. “That’s lucky. What shall we do?”

  The Old Man stared at The Girl.

  “I think it’s about time,” he said.

  The Girl got up from her mat. It was the first time she had smiled in weeks.

  “I’ll get my things,” she said.

  “Where are you going? What are you doing? What’s going on?”

  Greg was panicky. He didn’t want to be left alone.

  “Can I come?”

  “Oh we’d love to,” said Hillary, hugging her husband. “Where are we going?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to take you with us….”

  There was a long pause – a strange and awkward silence. Surely he should have finished that sentence. Surely there should have been some consoling reason as to why they were not welcome. Maybe there was but as The Old Man started to speak, maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he didn’t want them to come – as simple as that.

  “What about our deal?”

  Greg made no effort to hide his distress.

  “What deal, honey flower?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What deal? Is it a surprise? Is it something for us? Is it….”

  She squeezed him so tight that he felt one of his ribs pop.

  “He’s a little old, but he looks good for his age. I mean, you have to make do, don’t you. Oh, I’m so happy, baby.”

  Greg watched through a gap in Hilary’s arms as The Old Man walked out of the hut and with The Girl beside him, he walked out of their lives forever.

  Eventually, Greg and Hillary made their way back to the city. Things were a little shaky at first but they learned to settle back into their old rhythms. They never did have their sexual encounter. Instead, they kept themselves busy in other ways Greg got his old job back and he even joined a bowling team; while Hillary really dug her heels into motherhood. They looked happy, as most couples did, and in the end, Greg was relieved that The Old Man didn’t kill her. Every now and then he’d think about it and then he’d feel so guilty that he’d either massage her feet or disinfect the bathroom sink – things she’d least expect. They lived long lives – well into their sixties. On the eve of their fortieth anniversary, the sedan they were driving hit some black ice and swerved into a tree. They both died instantly. Later, in the inquest, it was shown that the driver had made no attempt to brake, but to this day, even their children don’t know who was driving that night.

  Charisma tapped away on the surface of that lake for weeks. She didn’t even know that the camp had entirely gone. She assumed as much. But if she only knew they had all been murdered and none of them had abandoned her, she wouldn’t feel half as bad.

  Something happened, though, that even Charisma would be lost for words to explain. It was the end of a long day of calling, at the point where she about to give up and make her way back to camp, that something happened.

  “Holy shit,” was the first thing that came to mind, and it was also the first thing she said out loud.

  “What? What is it?”

  Charisma had no idea what to say. She tumbled backwards, unable to look away, but lost for anything useful to say, outside of “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”

  There in the water was a Merman. Charisma couldn’t believe her eyes. From the waist down he looked like an enormous dolphin, but from the waist up, he was a hunk of manly flesh; albeit a little scrawny. He looked mad as hell, though.

  “Look, normally I’d just ignore it, but you’ve been banging away for weeks now. It’s getting really difficult to get things done down there. Now, what is it? What’s the big dilemma?”

  “You’re real?”

  “That’s it?”

  “No, I mean, you’re really real.”

  The Merman shook his head.

  “Oh fuck,” he said. “You’re one of those.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Did you eat some of those berries?”

  He pointed to a small bush behind Charisma.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “They were awesome. A little bitter, though.”

  “Yeah, you’re having a seizure right now. This here,” said The Merman, point to him and her. “Yeah, this isn’t actually happening. Your brain is shutting down. Probably you’re not even conscious. How long have you been here?”

  “I just got here.”

  Truth was, the more she tried to remember the least she could.

  “If I were you, I’d stick my fingers down my throat as quick as bloody possible.”

  When he spoke, his tail flicked at the water. It made the cutest little splashes. He looked so conflicted. The top half of his body was so serious and grumpy looking, while the bottom half looked like it was the life of the party.

  “Can you take me to your underwater kingdom?”

  “Kingdom? Lady, I have a one bedroom cavern at the bottom of a murky lake. I don’t know what kingdoms you think we Merpeople have, but I hate to disappoint ya, the housing market’s a tough one. There’s no kingdoms here, just flats and bloody suburbs.”

  “Can I see?”

  “What’s wrong with your world?”

  “I don’t know. Do you ever feel like you don’t belong? like you’re an alien or you’re meant for something bigger?”

  “Like to rule the Merpeople of the placid lakes?”

  “Yes,” said Charisma, ecstatic.

  “No, you’re delusional. And if it’s not the berries you ate then maybe you just have the wrong type of friends. Have you tried a different hobby?”

  “I’m an empath.”

  “What is that?”

  “I feel things.”

  “We all feel things, lovey.”

  “I feel things more than normal people. I’m special.”

  “Really? You kind of sound like a douche. I’m not saying you are. I’m sure you’re a nice person and all, but I wouldn’t go around making that your mantra.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m not banging on your fucking door, now am I?”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You know, it’s not all that difficult. Nobody’s having it easy, but we all have our way of dealing with shit. Maybe if you tone it down a notch or two, don’t be so…..”

  “Expressive?”

  “I was gonna say excessive, but yeah, whatever floats your boat. Look, life is tricky, it is. There’s no sure-fire
way to anything. You’re an eight or eighty girl, I get it. With all these people you’re pushing away, what or who are you holding onto?”

  “I’m sorry for being pushy, I am. I just, I don’t feel like I belong in this body. I don’t feel like I belong in this world. I love being underwater. I love taking long baths. And if you’d let me, I’d love to come with you, and maybe be your Merwife.”

  “You don’t even know my name.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Gill.”

  “That’s beautiful, Gill. I’m Charisma.”

  He knew it was wrong, but still, he didn’t refuse. This said more about Gill than anything else. “Ok,” he said. “But you have to enter yourself. It has to be on your own accord.”

  Charisma was elated. She was over the moon. She was on cloud nine. She was…

  “I love you,” she said, as her paralysed body slipped from its placing and rolled down the embankment towards the water’s edge. There was a loud splash as her body entered the water, and there were some bubbles too, as the last of the air was expelled from her lungs. She floated silently towards the middle of the lake, and there she stayed.

  XXXVII

  He didn’t head back to the city. He could of, but he didn’t. Instead, The Old Man wandered aimlessly through the forest. He went in whatever direction he was heading as long as it was far from whence he had come. It was quiet out here. It wasn’t silent but it was quiet. There were thousands of birds all chatting amongst one another, and there were billions of insects buzzing and ticking away. Some of them would buzz right by his ear, but none of them would ever touch. There was a fair amount of noise, though. It sounded like a forest should. Still, for all that noise, it was, in its own way, peaceful and quiet.

  Most of the trees were quite high. Finding one with a low enough branch would be quite a challenge, especially one that was strong enough to take his weight. He wasn’t in much of a rush anyway so he took breaks whenever he could and allowed himself the odd cat nap here or there, sometimes sleeping away half the day. He hadn’t felt this free for as long as he could remember. It wouldn’t last forever – he knew that, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you sped up just for the sake of getting to the end.

  He thought about his kids a lot. He supposed that this was common so close to the end. It had been a while since he had sat down and actually tried to remember anything. Usually, a memory would spring out of the blue here or there and catch him off guard. Rarely, though, had he ever willingly tried to sift through his old head and see what he could find.

  In the end, it was quite depressing. He could barely hold onto a single memory long enough to remember when or where it occurred, or to which one of his two children it belonged. He could remember their births perfectly, but he couldn’t remember either one of their faces. He could remember the doctors and nurses and his wife, cursing for Jesus at they cut open her perennial. He couldn’t, though, remember if they were crying or not; if they had hair on their heads; or even if their eyes were open.

  What he could remember was all the fighting. He could remember all the times he shouted and lost his cool. He could remember how his children would block their fingers in their ears and hide under their pillows. He could remember all the times that he swore to himself that it would never happen again and that he would be a better father from that point on. And he remembered too, all the times he wished they would go away, and all the times he told them in those exact words.

  And now they were gone, at least all the good memories. They were the ones that escaped him, and they were the ones that he needed most. He hadn’t been a bad father – not entirely. There may have been millions of fond memories but it was the one percent of the bad ones that were the cornerstones in how he judged and ultimately defined himself. There were so many good memories, this he knew but they were so much harder to prove, and even one – right now - would be worth all the loneliness that he had felt.

  The Old Man saw the perfect tree in the distance. As he walked towards it, he took the long string from his pocket and he fashioned a noose. He could have sworn that leaves crackling beneath his shoes were louder than usual.

  The tree was perfect. The low lying branch could have taken twice his weight, maybe more. He was lucky to find a tree like this. It wasn’t very common. Were he a superstitious man, he would surely have branded a fluke like this as a god-given sign.

  It was strange at this point. He had taken more lives than he cared to remember. He had watched the life disappear from enough eyes to fill a hundred theatres. He had witnessed death enough times that he could tell you exactly at what point a body stopped being a person.

  But still, it was strange. No matter how many people he had killed, he had never himself assumed that he would ever die. He knew he would – intellectually speaking, but he always assumed it would be sudden like a car crash, a gunshot, or a shark bite. As he tied off the string, he cursed himself for not owning a gun or living by the sea.

  “This is gonna hurt,” he said to himself. “Is it gonna hurt?”

  He tried to remember each and every strangulation. All those people, all those countless times, and not once did he ask: “Does it hurt?”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid. Stop being such a fucking coward. It’s your time goddamnit.”

  He’d never used an expression like that before, not since before his wife. How fitting then that she should decide to show herself after all these years. She’d come to him from time to time either as a thought, a passing likeness or as a ghost in his dreams. She was never the focus, though. That was her way. That’s what made her the focus. She’d always stay on the outside of his nightmares and feverish daytime delusions. She’d never be the focus of the dream, but she’d be there nonetheless – aged as he had aged and looking nothing like the woman that he married, nor the woman that he found hanging from a light fixture. She would always come to him as the woman that he had always imagined herself being. And it would take some time for him to realise that it was her, but in the end, he always did.

  The woman before him now was the woman he remembered. It was the woman he last saw when he stumbled accidentally upon her hanging and thrashing body. He looked at her now as he had then. He wanted to help her but he couldn’t decide if that was to let her hang to death, or to grab her legs and slowly ease her down. Looking at her now, it was no easier than it had been when he first found her. She probably thought nobody would find her. She probably thought it would be quick and quiet and nobody would know until the morning. But she hadn’t counted on the thrashing about, and what kind of toll that would put on the walls and the ceiling. And it was the cracking sound, which sounded like the whole foundation was collapsing, that had woken The Old Man from his sleep and had him stumble down the stairs.

  The Old Man stared at his noose now. It hung from the lowest branch on the sturdiest tree, and from it hung his dead wife. She thrashed about, gripping at rope that squeezed around her neck with one hand, while the other reached desperately to the man that she had spent the latter part of her life demoralising, emasculating, and blaming – for making her impure; for divorcing her from the piety of Jesus Christ, and finally, for how she hated herself because of it.

  There she hung before him, just as she had hung before.

  “Just bloody do it you old fool,” he said out loud.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  The Old Man froze.

  His wife vanished.

  His hands trembled.

  All of his bravery was gone.

  “Excuse me?”

  There was a voice, as old as his, coming from through the brush.

  “You there.”

  It was a woman’s voice.

  The Old Man stood in front of the tree. The noose swung back and forth lightly. His wife, though, was gone. Her face and her image had vanished once more. He stared at the noose, incapable of taking it down, just as he was, incapable of tying himself to it. He merely stood there, stunned and defeate
d as the sound of footsteps got louder and louder, and then eventually, he felt a soft hand on his shoulder.

  “I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I’m a little afraid of what I might hear.”

  She too was staring at the noose. She’d seen many before.

  “I’ll be getting cold soon,” she said, taking off her cardigan and putting it onto The Old Man’s shoulder. “Let’s get you inside. Get you some grub, and a nice port. That’ll warm you up.”

  The Old Man turned – not on his own accord, but because he let her turn him. He let himself free into her warm and gentle spirit. He let himself look in her eyes. And he let himself let go for a second of all the burden he had been carrying. He let his muscles relax. He let his defences all fall down. He let nervousness get the better of him and he let his cheeks redden. Then he let a shy smile wash over his face. He let all the ghosts of his past float away, just as he let The Old Lady turn him away from the noose, then take him by the hand and guide him – away from his past and into the present moment.

  They walked the short distance to her cabin, and in that time, The Old Man had never felt so light and free. His legs felt young, as did his rampantly beating heart. His body felt both hot and cold. He felt like he was freezing to death in the middle of an active volcano. His hands shook. His feet shook. Even his head shook. He hadn’t felt this kind of nerve before. It felt like something to be concerned about – that maybe one of them should call a paramedic. He had never wanted to kiss another person so dire in his life.