The Watcher

by Ross Armstrong

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s really tough. Him not being here.’ I smile.

  He frowns. Confused at something. He has a startled look. ‘Yeah, tough. How long has he been gone now?’

  He looks at me meaningfully. He’s coming on a bit strong. He puts his hand on mine, what’s his game?

  ‘About five days.’

  ‘It feels like that, huh?’

  ‘No, it is that. But don’t worry. He’ll be back. His bike’s gone. So he must have gone out in that.’

  His mind is doing mental long division. He softly punches his hand.

  ‘Didn’t they… wasn’t it written off? In the… crash?’

  Now I’m doing it too. My eyes moving from side to side. My feet shuffle. I’m outside myself. ‘I’m sorry. Did you hear about a crash? I didn’t hear about a crash.’

  ‘You told me about it yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  Is this a game? Does he know something I don’t? Is he playing with me?

  ‘Just after you moved in. The wet night. A car came at him on the blindside. They didn’t see each other.’

  I feel faint. It’s all I can do to keep myself standing upright.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I manage to utter.

  My knees turn to jelly. I lean on the hall table, to stop myself from hitting the ground.

  ‘Oh, Lil. Oh, man. You need to sit down for a second.’

  The day it comes. Evening.

  My knees buckled.

  When I come to, I am in bed. A cold flannel on my forehead. The first thing I see is him. Leaning over me. His face filling my field of vision. He starts off in a blur, like a nightmare, then comes into focus. I am pleased he is here. So at least someone is here. But I have some questions to ask. I try to handle it with calm and grace. But I don’t think I handle it with calm and grace.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ I say.

  ‘You fainted. You were… There’s some things you need to… hear.’

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?’ I attack straight away. Attack is the best from of defence.

  I watch his face for weaknesses. For a smile or smirk. For a tell, a look to the side, the sign of a liar. I’ve done a lot of lying recently. And I’ve been played with a lot too.

  The police, ‘Rich’, Lowell. What’s he trying to pull? What’s in it for him?

  ‘Lil, your husband died five months ago. In a bike crash. I remember seeing you a few hours after it all happened. You’d had to go and identify the body. You’d got a call. It was sudden. He didn’t suffer. He didn’t feel a thing, you said. It was just like that.’ He clicks his fingers. ‘I came around to talk about it. I’ve been here, in your living room, talking to you about all this. Before.’

  I look down. I blink. I can’t take it all in. He fills the silence.

  ‘You said you’d been seeing someone about it. Then a month or so later, you told me you stopped seeing someone about it.’

  I’m angry. A fury that rises deep from within. I can’t stop it.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know my own mind? I… I know my own mind. What’s happened to him? Do you know where he is? Where he really is?’

  ‘Lil, I think I should go.’

  ‘Yeah, go. Get the fuck out,’ I shout. I’m so angry with him. I almost can’t control myself.

  ‘But you need to see someone. You told me you still had the number. Just in case. In case you needed to see her again, you said…’

  ‘Are you trying to get someone to put me away? Is that it? The way they put my mum away?’

  ‘It’s not like that. I… I think I should go. You just need a little help. Don’t be alone with this. I don’t know what the protocol is… but I’m going to give you some time. I’m just beyond the wall.’

  I’m not sure if that’s a threat or a promise. I don’t know what to make of any of it.

  ‘Here. Here’s my mobile number too. Just in case. Wherever you are. If you need anything. I’ll be on call. Promise,’ he says, examining me.

  ‘OK. Whatever you say. OK.’ I yield.

  He lets himself out. And I’m alone. I’ve felt this loneliness before. But not for a long time. I think. It’s a particular type. A particular feeling. It’s got its own shade and colour. Yes. I’ve felt it before. In my flesh.

  I search my drawers for clues. I don’t know what I’m looking for really. I turn the house over. A scrap of paper falls out of a Daphne du Maurier book I read months ago. On it is a written a number. I don’t recognise it. It’s a London number, above it is written ‘Helen’. I touch the ink, the words, running my finger along them as if they might disappear under my touch. It is my handwriting, but I don’t remember ever writing it. I don’t know any Helen.

  I check through my wardrobe, frantic. Looking for a memory that might unlock things. Once and for all. That might prove or disprove. My theory.

  I touch his clothes, still nestling in his drawer, ironed and neat. Still warm from his body, surely. I notice the grids and charts on my walls, a madwoman’s cove, think how they must look to Lowell, the only one I’ve let in here. His discomfort makes sense now.

  I see my room like a stranger, like a detective or anthropologist, I touch the words, my forefinger feels the pencil-indented lines of my grid. The numbers and names. The cross-references. The coloured pins stuck hard into the charts, piercing them and sticking into my walls. The brown string that runs from one name to the other, the links, the clues. The inside of my head exposed for all to see. The quirks of a fantasist. I seem so transparent from a distance.

  I run my hands through his jumpers, high in the wardrobe, I can barely reach them. They too feel warm. I hold my ear to them. I rub my face against them, my features feeling every thread. His smell is here, so close. It must be a trick. It’s impossible, he was just here. I’m sure of it. He’s so close. Between two jumpers I find a note. Blue pen on crisp, white paper again. A number, and beneath it, ‘Helen’.

  I throw open his drawers now. His private things. The ones you’re jealous and guilty if you rifle through. I tear them apart.

  I find the boring stuff, the proofs of him. His accounts, receipts, proof of life. He was here. He was just here. His passport photo stares back at me. No smile. He looks right into me. I jump back. My hands to my face, warm tears fall to the carpet that holds me. In my cell. That stops me falling through to the cell below. That keeps the others in their cells around me from seeing me. From touching me. I am the tiny cell on an Excel spreadsheet. On a long empty page, with endless unfilled entries, so alone.

  I grab for the files at the bottom of his side of the wardrobe. They lie next to his shoes. His Converse, his Nike, his Doc Martens, all worn in.

  In these files are his writings. The unpublished words of his book. Of his most recent novel. I grab them, throwing them around the room. The pages swirling through the air throughout the room. Pages and pages. Meticulously arranged by date. The room is covered in them. They’re still filed by number. Every one. He never let himself go. He kept everything just so. Here they are. The pages he wrote. The pages and pages. He’d print them out at the end of the week. He said it didn’t feel real when it was only on the screen. He said he couldn’t judge it.

  Here they are. The words he wrote. Proof. Not just his things, but his words, time coded. I go back to the start. I smile now. It was them that were playing tricks on me. Them. Everyone else. I can trust myself. I know my own mind.

  February. Here’s all the writing he did in February.

  An introduction. The words: ‘Russian’; ‘Camera’; ‘Kudos’; ‘Splash’; ‘Snow’; ‘Feet’; ‘Painting’; ‘Ardour’; ‘Beautiful’. Beautiful, the words he wrote. Him flooding back to me. I know he was here, I saw him, I spoke to him. I held him. Kissed his cheek. We made love. Only a week ago. My breathing slows. I calm and think about my next move. I continue through the pages, by date, here they are. His words.

  I empty al
l the files and put them in a big pile. I go through it chronologically. February leads into March. His words, flooding my room. I skim them all to take them in. To breathe him in again.

  I wonder when he will come home. No one could take him away. He rides on his motorcycle so free. He’s broken free of this room. That’s what he’s done. Maybe he finished his book. Then went out to ride and see where he ended up. To celebrate. He’s a free spirit. He’ll be back soon. When he’s done whatever he’s doing.

  No one could hurt him. I said he was weak. But he’s not, he’s strong. He’s free. He rides into the cold night air, I can picture him.

  April comes. I read his April words. Week by week. Dated day by day. The many words he wrote. Prolific. Each one a little victory. How smooth he rode. Nothing could stop him, nothing could slow him down. He was a professional. That rarest of things. An artist. I never knew how much. I never realised how strong he was. I picture him on the motorcycle. In the rain.

  May. We’re closer and closer. Chapters sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen go by. Everything he wrote. There’s so much. He’s done so well. And there’s so much more within these files. My hands are heavy with paper. His little life, that I’m holding. His heart in my hands. His life and blood. It’s all here. The proof that they’re lying. I saw him writing them, right in front of me, and here they are. Adjectives, nouns, adverbs, scattered across my room. Weeks of them. There’s so many of them. And so many to come. My hands are still filled with reams of pages.

  I charge through them. The words rushing at me each time. Then nothing. A blank one. I stop. May twenty-first. Then nothing.

  I go to the next one. It’s blank, but I stare at it like it couldn’t be fuller. Like it holds something hidden within it. I study it for clues. For codes. There’s nothing there. I go to the next one.

  I stare. Nothing there. No words! The next is blank too.

  Another blank. Another blank. Another blank.

  I flick ten ahead. My breathing getting heavier. A plane passes over head. Whoosh! They come so close.

  There’s nothing, no more. No more words. That’s it.

  The rest of the heavy pile is blank. But I saw him write the words. Whoosh! Another plane passes, so close it could have taken the roof off.

  I want to go to the window to look. Did it crash? Has the plane landed in the lake?

  No more words. It’s impossible. I saw him write them. Whoosh!

  All sounds disappear. I put my had to my ears. The ringing in them gets louder and higher pitched. I fall back into the pages. That cover my room. They flood the place. They smother me. I clutch the paper with my fists. My ears deaf to everything. I don’t hear my body writhing in them. Because the ringing stings my ears, like I’ve been next to an explosion.

  I wait for them to recover. But they’re not doing it. It’s impossible.

  I bite down hard on my lip. Nearly drawing blood. My chest lifts to the sky. Then it comes. Then it comes.

  The day it comes. One minute later.

  My body shakes. Uncontrollably. It’s not me doing it. It can’t be. It’s like foreign bodies, invisible bodies, have stalked into my room and have hold of me. Shadows that have me by every muscle and limb and are shaking me. Every sinew shakes. It’s a horrible sight. An exorcism. But I close my eyes. I don’t see a thing. My skull hits the carpet. I can’t do a thing about it. I can’t stop.

  Then my hearing returns. Slowly, the shaking subsides, the fit passes and my body stops. But I can’t move. I tell my arms to lift me up. I tell my spine to drag itself from the floor. I tell my feet to at least give me a sign that they are still there. But they all say nothing back. I am catatonic. I am still. There has never been, in my life, anything as terrifying as this.

  I hope my heart can beat by itself. I hope my organs can pump. The millions of things that keep us alive, that you take for granted.

  My breath still works. I feel it, across my lips. My lungs pushing along, automatically. Everything else is still. Except my eyes. They turn and look at another note to my right. I see that number again. I see the name: ‘Helen’. There’s another that rests on my chest, a yellow Post-it. Same number again. My writing. ‘Helen’. I stare at it, in wonder.

  It’s so hard to describe the feelings you have in this state. When you can’t move a muscle. Like every bright thought has a dimmer on it. A black cloud hanging over it and casting every memory into a shade. I try to switch my mind off. I would try to sleep but feel I might swallow my tongue. And anyway, I’m far too afraid for that.

  I think about images and things. I think about Aiden. On his bike. Riding in the dark. It feels like a nightmare or a threat or a fear.

  But it’s a memory.

  I remember getting a phone call on my mobile. An unknown number. I don’t usually answer those so I reject the call. They try again; I reject it. I’m at work. Bored and busy. They try again; I answer it.

  ‘Yes,’ I say loudly, the entire open-plan office turns.

  ‘Ms Gullick of forty-nine, Riverview Apartments?’

  ‘Yes. What?’

  ‘I think you might need to sit down.’

  I am sitting down but I don’t want to be in the office, so I go outside for this. I go into the corridor, out of earshot of my co-workers, who seemed to sense something. With their prying eyes and ears.

  ‘Yes. Go on. I’m sitting,’ I lie. I’m standing staring out of the window in the corridor. People from other offices pass. There’s no privacy here. It’s one of those buildings.

  ‘Your husband has been in an accident. In the early hours of this morning, around 6.45 a.m., he was involved in a collision.’

  There was another car involved. And a lorry. Heavy rain.

  He had an early meeting. Something about his new book, somewhere out of town. Sussex or Oxford. Hampshire or Hertfordshire. I don’t remember.

  In the hallway, people pass by me. Going from office to office. Almost nudging me as they go past. I stare out of the window. A flock of starlings swoop and fly into the clouded skies.

  I go down to hear the story from the local police. They are kind. They are trained in this. I am not. I’m scared of them, tentative and nervous. But I can’t summon the right feelings. Not on cue. Not even when I see the body. I almost feel like there’s something wrong with me. But then I dismiss that thought. My mind locks it away somewhere. And I just look.

  I get in a car and it takes me home. I watch the world go by me as I look out of the passenger window. Nothing has stopped. Everyone goes about their day. The world still keeps going on. I pass by a park and people sip coffee on a bench in the rain. An old couple. They fascinate me.

  I’m given some numbers to call. A checklist. I make some appointments for myself. I do this blankly. Matter of fact. The tears don’t come. Someone has sapped all the energy from my body. It’s like some husk is making the calls for me.

  Then I call his brother. A couple of friends of his. His agent. His brother cries down the phone so hard. I listen to it. Interested. But unmoved. For the first time I feel the slightest guilt at this. But that quickly passes.

  At home, I look at his clothes and consider what to do with them. He’s only just gone. I look at his jumpers, hanging in the wardrobe. I look at his files, his passport, his personal effects. I iron some shirts of his. Methodically. I hang them up. Then I sit down. And that is that.

  In time, I’m forced to talk about it. That’s the advice I get. I tell lots of people. People I’d lost touch with because I had Aiden. He took up all of my time, we did everything with each other and for each other. He was my best friend. I didn’t need anyone else. Even they cry. I ring up old friends from work I hardly see any more. I ring up cousin Sarah in Devon. I listen to it down the phone. It doesn’t touch the sides.

  I remember telling Lowell. I do. I remember it now. In the hallway. He came inside. He’s been here before. He hugged me. I didn’t soften or move a muscle. I didn’t really know him then. I hardly know him no
w, but even less then. I’d practically just moved in. He left.

  I want to phone you, Dad. But I’m so stubborn. I’m still cross with you. Every message and voicemail I ignore is a little punishment for saying those words to me. For comparing me so perfectly to her and all her faults with one dismissive phrase. Every time you call. ‘You Know Who’. You. It’s another bit of the marathon. Leaving it to ring out or hitting the ‘reject’ button. Another feat of endurance. And it makes me feel good.

  So I started a journal. To meet you halfway. So I could control the narrative. Have things my way without you undermining me. Or ‘trying to help’, you’d say. Of course. Well, maybe. But this way you don’t get a chance. It’s just me and the page and I dispense justice my way and I can have things how I want them.

  I blame you. As I remember the light shining past you in the hide. We said nothing. Just watched the birds go by. And never talked about it. About her. About how we felt about it all. We never cried together. We never did any of that.

  I don’t know whose fault that is really. But there we are. I do blame you. And maybe that’s unfair. Maybe I’m being unfair. But that’s how I’m being. That’s me. Here I am.

  I sent you my dispatches week by week. I must have sent you five by now. And every time, you call. You say you’ll come over whether I like it or not. And in between the calls, you text. But I’m not ready yet.

  I have another thought. It might be daydream. It might be an imagining. I picture myself in there, with the student. In her place. Sonya. She has a chest infection, she’s had it for weeks, she says. She doesn’t know if it’s from all the dust and muck that’s around from the demolition of the buildings. She can’t seem to shake it off and she’s wondering if it’s something she should be worried about. She’s heard about me. She’s heard about Dr Gullick. She wants me to look her over.

  I put my hand to her chest and feel her heartbeat. She looks afraid. Of me. Of what I might say. And do. I touch her skin. I look at the glasses case next to her hipster fruit bowl. Her handsome bookcase. Her humble little cactus. I tell her to breathe in and out. In and out. I tell her to cough. Which makes her cough more still. Deep and rasping. And going on and on. What a cough she has. She leans into my hand, which I manage to keep firmly against her chest all the while. Feeling the mechanism quake beneath her thorax. The fascinating feeling of the ribcage dipping and rising. And the echoes of everything beneath. I click my tongue and look at her. She looks quite, quite afraid. I hold my breath and look her in the eye. Right in it. Before telling her to inhale some steam. And that everything will be fine.