by David Haynes
“I’ll go and make us a cup of tea,” he said and reached under the covers. Squeezing her hand was a gesture not only of affection but of placation. That was the end of the conversation. That was as far as it went.
She squeezed his hand back and they both smiled at each other.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
He rolled out of bed and padded down the stairs.
And he did love her. God knew how much he loved her. He loved both of them so much that it ached to see how badly he was hurting them both. When he disappeared over that horizon and was lost completely, they might be better off. They might be able to forget him easier than the slow, almost ethereal vanishing act he was doing at the moment.
He stared out of the kitchen window and watched a couple of sparrows shuffle around the garden looking for their breakfast. Soon enough the ground would be too hard for their beaks to puncture. It didn’t seem to be so long ago that Ollie had celebrated his birthday with a group of his friends in the garden. They’d all enjoyed the water-fight which had turned into a free-for-all despite Lou’s best intentions.
He finished making the tea and grabbed a carton of orange smoothie out of the fridge. Ollie would be awake soon and the daily routine would start. Everyone knew what they had to do and in what order it needed to be done so that Lou was ready for work and Ollie was ready for school. That was how it was supposed to work, anyway. In reality it was a chaotic mess but at least it was a time of day that he wasn’t left alone with his own thoughts. It was better that way.
He walked back up the stairs. By now Lou would be watching the news, and with any luck would be distracted enough to leave things as they were. He pushed the bedroom door open, doing his best not to slop any tea over the beige carpet. One look at Lou told him she wasn’t watching the news. How could she be when her eyes were full of tears?
If he asked her what was wrong, which he should do, then he knew where it was going. He didn’t need to, though, because Lou spoke first.
“I know what’s happening here, Chris. I know.”
He put the tea down and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her.
“I know what this year means and...”
“We don’t need to talk about this.”
“Yes, yes we do for both mine and Ollie’s sake, we have to talk about it.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. He could feel the tension sneaking up on his muscles. A headache would follow very soon but that was okay. It was another excuse for not writing anything worth a jot.
“I don’t know what to say, Lou. I don’t know where to begin.”
“The start?”
He felt her arms circle around him and her lips on his naked shoulder. Lou knew everything about what had happened. When he’d shared it with her, a long time ago, it had felt good to be able to say the things which had gone around and around in his head for so long. It had been a relief to finally say the words.
“I killed my dad.” There, that was the start. “Is that what you wanted to hear again?”
He turned to face her. “I killed him, Lou. I... killed... him.” It never felt right to utter those words and it never would, no matter how many times he said it. “How was that for you? Want me to tell Ollie too?”
In the dim morning light, he could see the pools which gathered at the corners of her eyes. They overflowed and ran down her cheeks, and it ripped a hole in his guts. He regretted his words instantly.
“I’m sorry.” But it was too late. She shrank away from him and flopped back on the bed.
“I can’t go on like this,” she said. “Neither of us can.”
They both sat there in silence for a minute.
“Mum!” Ollie’s voice cut through the atmosphere for which Chris was relieved.
“I’ll go,” he said and stood up.
“No, he wants me.” Lou slid off the bed beside him and slipped the dressing gown over her naked body.
Chris held out the smoothie. “I’m sorry,” he whispered but Lou was already out of the door on her way to their son.
A few minutes passed and he could hear muffled voices coming from Ollie’s room. He’d been wetting the bed recently and was getting anxious about it, overly anxious in Chris’s opinion. He’d wet the bed too; nearly every night for a year after...
“Chris?” Lou’s voice came through loud and clear. The newsreader was talking about dying immigrants off the coast of Italy. He’d been watching the pictures but the words were a meaningless babble.
“Coming.” He walked into Ollie’s room expecting to see his upset and wet son clinging to Lou. Instead, Ollie was beaming up at him, holding a sheet of paper close to his chest.
“What’s this?” Chris smiled back at him.
“I’ve drawn you a picture, Dad. I drew it last night but it wasn’t quite finished. Now it is.” He pushed the sheet toward Chris who took it.
Ollie could make his heart melt just by breathing but when he looked like this, Chris just wanted to hold the image of his son in his head for as long as he could.
“Look at it then!” Ollie was impatient for his dad to look at the masterpiece. He shuffled forward toward the edge of the bed.
Chris turned the picture around and stared. He couldn’t speak.
“Can you see, Dad?” Ollie was tapping the top of the paper with his finger. “There’s you, me and Mum on the beach in France.” Their likenesses were all clearly labelled and all the colours were truly vivid. They were the colours of the world in a child’s mind. But it wasn’t the drawings of Lou or Ollie or himself that made his heart sound like a bass drum in his ears. There was someone else in the picture.
“And that’s Granddad.” Ollie sounded and looked really pleased with himself. “Can you see him? Look, he’s there.” Ollie grabbed the picture and tapped the spot.
There was a picture of a black stick-man lying on top of the intensely blue sea. He was some way in the distance but beneath him Ollie had written the word ‘GRANDDAD’S DEAD.’ There was an ugly red smudge where Granddad’s head should have been and his eyes were crosses.
Chris looked at Lou, whose own eyes showed nothing, and then back at the picture again.
“Only we can’t see him because we’re looking the wrong way.” Ollie sounded disappointed now as if his artistic skills had let him down.
The room was silent for a moment before Chris handed the picture back to Ollie. He smiled at his son but it felt forced and thin. He opened his mouth to speak but he realised he didn’t have a clue what to say, and left the room.
“Didn’t he like it?” He heard Ollie’s question to Lou.
He didn’t hear her reply because he was already halfway down the stairs, heading toward his office. He needed a few minutes to collect his thoughts. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. This was his place of work. This was the place where he’d written the four novels which had enabled him to pack in the job at the hospital and go full time. This was the place where he’d sat day after day for most of the last year and stared into space.
He slumped onto the swivel chair and turned it to face the window. The view was as familiar as the lines on the back of his hand, or the tea-stain on the letter A on his keyboard. They were all things he knew well.
Ollie didn’t know much about his granddad. He didn’t know about the accident, where it was or any of the details. Maybe when he got older he might ask but for now, he didn’t need to know anything other than the fact that Granddad wasn’t around now. Besides, Lollipop Joe, his great-granddad, was enough old man for anyone. Was it just a coincidence that Ollie had drawn him floating on the sea like that? Or had the information come from somewhere else? Lou, maybe. Why would she do that?
There was a bang on the door and then Lou came in.
“Ollie thinks he’s upset you. Can you go and put your arms around him please?”
Chris swivelled around. “Did you tell him about Dad?”
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “Of course not. If and when he asks about Jack that’ll be your job, not mine.”
He stared at her for a moment and rubbed at the stubble on his face. “Why did he draw him like that? Floating about on his back with blood coming out of his head. He shouldn’t have done that.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Chris stood up. He could feel anger and frustration starting to bubble. Neither seemed very far from the surface at the moment.
“The picture, Lou. The fucking picture of my dad that our little boy just drew. I’m pretty sure you can remember it.”
“Don’t swear, Chris. I’m not sure what you saw on that page but it wasn’t that.” She paused and licked her lips. “Chris, you need to come and see your boy and you need to do it now.”
Chris looked away again, out of the window where there was nothing but the hulking silhouettes of the oak trees in the field across the road.
“Well?” Lou sounded angry.
There was a pause and then he heard the door close again. He wanted to go straight upstairs and pick Ollie up. He wanted to kiss his forehead and tell him Daddy was struggling a bit at the moment so he just needed to be patient with him. There was that picture, though. Why had Ollie drawn it like that? He jumped up and kicked the chair. It toppled into his desk and came to rest on two legs. It looked exactly how he’d been taught to leave his chair at the end of a school day. School hadn’t worked out too well either.
He walked into Ollie’s room. The curtains were open and Ollie was trying to read his Lego comic. He looked up and Chris could immediately see the worry in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to...”
Chris took Ollie in his arms and hugged him. “Shh. You’ve done nothing wrong. The picture was perfect, I was just thinking about something else, that’s all.” Ollie wasn’t ordinarily a big hugger but Chris could feel the strength of the boy’s arms around him. Neither of them were in any hurry to let go.
“Dad?” Ollie finally eased himself away.
“Yes?”
“You know at your party on Sunday, can I ask Jake to come? Mum said it’d be okay but she said to check with you first. I think I might be bored otherwise.”
The party. The party to celebrate turning The Big Four-Oh. Lou had organised it, at first secretly, and then less so when emails and texts had started coming in. He didn’t want it. In fact it was the last thing he wanted. It was the same age his dad had been when...
“Dad?” Ollie’s voice shook him out of his thoughts.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“I asked you about Jake?”
“Of course it is, that’s fine.” He broke free of his son’s grip and kissed his head. The boy immediately wiped it off.
“Ten more minutes and then it’s time to come and have breakfast.”
He started to walk out and then turned around.
“Why did you draw Granddad like that?”
Ollie shrugged. “I asked Lollipop about him last summer and he told me Granddad was out in the ocean somewhere and he was swimming around the world. He said Granddad just kept swimming and swimming and swimming and one day we’d all see him again.”
Chris nodded. It was just like Lollipop to make up something on his feet like that. The man had a sharp and creative mind.
“But why the blood? Is Granddad hurt?”
“Blood? I didn’t draw any blood, Dad.”
Chris stepped toward Ollie. “Where’s the picture?”
Ollie rummaged under his duvet and dragged it out. “I was going to throw it away because you didn’t like it.”
Chris took the picture and examined it. The vivid colours were the same, as were the three of them, but something had changed. His dad, Ollie’s granddad, was no longer the lifeless corpse with a red smudge for a head. He looked like he was bobbing around in the sea and drawn across his face was an enormous smile. He held one hand up like he was waving and beneath him was the word GRANDDAD. Nothing more.
“Have you changed it, Ollie? Is this the same picture?”
“No, it’s the same one I showed you.”
He looked at Ollie for a sign that the boy was being mischievous. This wasn’t the right time for that.
“You must have. Granddad was just floating a few minutes ago and his head...” He took the picture over to the window where the light was better and tried to look for a sign that the red smudge had been erased. There was nothing.
He walked back to the bed. “Ollie, what have you done to the picture?”
Ollie looked worried. “I haven’t done anything, Dad. Honestly.”
Chris looked at the picture and then back at Ollie again. He could feel a knot in his stomach and it was twisting painfully.
Lou came into the room. “What’s this?”
“Did you ask him to change it?” he asked her.
“Change what?”
This was turning into something it didn’t need to be but he couldn’t stop it. “This.” He waved the picture in front of her.
Lou took it from him and looked at it. “Chris, what are you talking about? It’s the same picture he showed you earlier.”
He snatched it off her and waved it in the air. “He drew my dad with his head bashed in and he’d written ‘granddad’s dead’ under it. I’m not stupid, I know what I saw.”
He could hear Ollie snivelling in the background and Lou walked over to him.
“Chris, just stop it, you’re frightening him. Just give it a rest.”
He looked at the pair of them and then at the picture. It was just a simple picture drawn by a boy, that was all. There was nothing spiteful or evil about it. It was just a picture.
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure...” He ended there. There was no point in continuing. Neither of them would want to hear anything else that came from his mouth.
“I’ll just...”
Lou waved him away. Ollie’s face was buried in her chest. He wandered downstairs, into his office and shut the door. Another successful start to the day.
He powered up the laptop and waited for it to run its usual start-up routine. It was habit more than necessity these days. He couldn’t remember writing anything half-decent for about a year now. It was a good job his backlist was still selling well because without that, things would be more than a little grim.
He wasn’t mistaken about Ollie’s drawing though. He knew what he’d seen.
Chapter 3
Lou had arranged every detail for the party and that meant it would be perfect. Chris supposed she thought it might distract him but it was the exact opposite. All it had done was put a huge red ring around the date and made him think about it even more. It made him think about the significance of his age.
She had invited everyone he knew, some people he didn’t know and some he wished he had never met. He walked into the garden with the look of a man who was absolutely shocked by all the people there; someone who was delighted at the effort gone into organising a surprise party for him. The look was forced and false but he hoped that was unreadable.
He stepped into the crowd as they clapped him on the back and shook his hand. He wished he was somewhere else. Anywhere else would do.
“How’s my big boy?” Chris smelled his mum’s perfume before he felt her lips on his cheek.
His dad hadn’t had a huge fortieth celebration, but then again his relationship with his wife had been even worse than his and Lou’s. Or maybe she’d listened to her husband and not organised one.
“Hi, Mum.” She didn’t look her age but she never had. “Ken.” He took his mum’s partner’s outstretched hand and shook it. “Thanks for coming.”
“You don’t look thrilled, Chris.” His mum took his hand after Ken had released it and held it.
He was trying hard to maintain the facade of the happy birthday boy and didn’t think it had slipped already.
“Does it show?”
She leaned a little closer. “No, but I know
you and I know what’s going on in there.” She let go of his hand to touch his temple. “I don’t need to be mind reader for that.”
Chris smiled and kissed her cheek. “Have you got a drink?”
Ken held his flute up. “Lou’s been round already.”
“That’s good. I’ll see you in a bit. I suppose I’ve got to circulate.” He started to walk away but his mum grabbed his wrist.
“Dad would be proud of you.”
Chris felt his stomach turn but he managed a smile before she let go. He walked through the crowd to the table where the drinks were. He grabbed the largest glass he could find and poured himself a very large white wine. He downed it in one and poured himself a second.
“Better go steady there, sweetheart.” Lou was by his side.
“I just need something to get me through this.” He took a drink, draining half of the glass.
“Is it that bad? It wasn’t supposed to be such an ordeal, Chris.”
He looked at her. She looked tired and although she was trying to smile, she was sad. He could see it in her eyes. It was crippling.
“It’s perfect, Lou.” He tried to look earnest.
“Don’t lie.” She touched the glass. “Just don’t ruin it, that’s all I ask.”
He swallowed the remainder of the wine and poured another. “I won’t and that’s the last one, I promise.”
“Okay, well Ollie wants to toast you so...”
He held up his hand. The first glass of wine had started buzzing through his brain already and it felt good. “I’ll be on my best behaviour. Now go and circulate.”
She smiled and kissed him. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replied.
The party must have cost a fortune. There were waitresses weaving through the crowd with trays of food and glasses of wine, and there were even a pair of cellists huddled under a parasol. It was more likely to be used as an umbrella rather than a shield for the non-existent sun. There had to be more than fifty people here.
