The Middle Place

by Kealan Ryan

  46

  Danny feels like his eyes are going to pop out of their sockets. Everything has gone red and the ringing in his ears is deafening. He kicks out, which jerks the cord further up his neck, and he can literally feel the life being squeezed out of him. He begins to lose focus on the room and his thoughts are not about his life or the fact that in a matter of minutes he won’t have one anymore – like I said before, none of the life-flashing-before-your-eyes shit. All he thinks about is the physical pain and discomfort he is going through. He kicks out again and this time it’s even more excruciating than before. His forehead burns; he can feel every hair on his head tingle as the oxygen struggles to flow past the rope wrapped tightly around his thick neck. His thoughts turn to Robbie and he is once again glad that he will be dead soon. He takes a breath that goes nowhere and as the last scrap of oxygen leaves his brain he passes out.

  I’m helpless once again. My mind is rattled – I am willing the man who killed me to live. What is the point in his death? Life is too precious a thing to throw away. I know that now, only too well. His death would serve no purpose – would it make my family any happier? Not really. They might be glad he’s dead, alright, but it won’t change how they feel day to day – it won’t bring me back.

  Watching him passed out and strangling to death, I yell at him.

  Wake up!

  I’ve screamed at him like this many times before but always for my own amusement. To keep him up at night, to try and torture him.

  Wake up, Danny!

  This time, though, it’s no joke – I want him to hear me now more than ever.

  Life is precious, Danny, wake up!

  I have woken him up in the past when he was asleep. I know I have. Can I wake him up when he is unconscious and when his life depends on it?

  Life is precious, Danny, don’t give it up for me. Wake up, Danny, wake up!

  I can see behind his eyelids; he is trying to stir, trying to wake.

  Life is precious, Danny!

  His eyelashes flicker but he can’t open his eyes – he’s too far gone. He’s lost. I know he’s lost but still I give it one more shot, pleading with him not to give up, to wake up. He can hear me, I think, but he can’t respond.

  Wake up!

  His leg kicks out for a third time – one last attempt by his body to cling on to existence. The fierceness of the twitch forces his whole body forward and his fifteen-stone frame is almost too much for the cord. It stretches further and moves up past his Adam’s apple to around his jaw line. He drops slightly so the tops of his toes are touching the ground. The noose isn’t a good one and the shift in position makes just enough room for air to rush back to his brain.

  His eyes spasm open, just for a second, then close again. His tongue is beginning to stick out as he coughs and grabs hold of the cord with his fingernails as best he can. On the tips of his toes he can relieve the slightest bit of tension from the vice grip around his neck. It won’t be enough. He squints his eyes open again, darting them around the room, then reaches his leg out to his bed, but slips and feels the ferocious tightening surging through his entire body. He can’t fail again. His head is getting lighter – in a matter of seconds he will pass out again. He spots the chair he scuffed away at the beginning of all this. It’s still standing just a few feet from him. Keeping his right foot scraping the ground to balance himself, he stretches out his left leg, digs his heel into the chair as hard as he can and pulls it towards him.

  When the chair is close enough, he puts his left foot on the seat and transfers his weight to it. Then he drags his right leg on top of it too and feels an immense amount of pressure lifting from his neck. His tongue is retracting as he claws his fingers between his neck and the cord. He gets the tiniest of gaps, just a few millimetres, but it’s enough. He takes a deep breath and the gravity of the situation hits.

  He is going to live and he is glad.

  He stays in that position for a few moments, gathering his strength before tackling the knots. They have all tightened so much that they are a bastard to undo – the fact that he is so weak doesn’t help. He just wants to be free.

  It takes a full fifteen minutes until he is able to untie the first, then slowly, one by one, the rest follow until finally he is able to slip his head out, get down off the chair and collapse onto the bed.

  He turns over onto his back, rubbing his neck. Soft tears roll down his temples as he stares up at the ceiling, his lips mouthing the same four barely audible words over and over. I can see the faintest of smiles as he whispers again to himself, ‘Life is precious, Danny.’

  47

  His remaining time in prison goes by in a daze. He manages to conceal the bruising around his neck by wearing his hoody zipped right up as far as it will go and walking around with his chin down. He isn’t worried about the inmates noticing; they take no notice of him, anyway. But the guards. They’d have sent him back down to Dr Brady and God knows what else. He doesn’t need that. He just needs to get through the last few weeks peacefully, before trying to figure out what the hell he will do on his release.

  When that day arrives, he stands outside on the busy street and can’t help but do the customary look up to the sky thing that you see in every movie when someone gets out of prison. He does it on purpose, wants to experience the cliché. It feels good. He has to admit that to himself. Christ in heaven, it feels good. Wacko was right; that place really was a kip.

  He has survived the most boring place on the planet. Only just. But he survived nonetheless, and with each step he takes away from Mountjoy, the feeling of relief grows. The burden he wears in his heart remains, however, stuck tightly inside his chest. It’s telling him to try. To do better. Not to be such a prick all the time. And to somehow figure out a way to help Robbie and Pam.

  He takes the bus home. There’d of course been nobody to meet him when he walked out into freedom, but it was the way he wanted it. Still, it was a lonely feeling. He’s thinking along those lines when he notices a young man on the bus, standing close to the driver. A father, clearly, his little boy asleep in the pram beside him. The child is close to the age Robbie had been when I was taken from him. Danny just sits and stares. A flash of him wrapping the noose around his own neck leaps into his head, which makes him feel nauseous. He did the right thing, though, he thinks. It’s better that he is alive. He’ll just have to prove it.

  ***

  People look at him funny. They treat him differently too. His dad was well known in the neighbourhood, so, by default, Danny is well known too. It’s an old enough estate and the same people have been living in it for years. Every time Danny had visited his old man – before all the shit hit the fan – the neighbours had always been friendly, saying how lovely it was to see him and all that. Now, they act like they hate him.

  The house also acts like it hates him. Not one damn thing works in the place. The heating is bollocksed, or at least he can’t figure it out. None of the doors close properly; all the locks are finicky. There is crap everywhere. He always knew his dad was a bit of a hoarder, but he didn’t quite realise to what extent until now. Shit pops out of every drawer he opens with the same enthusiasm as a jack-in-the-box. It’s all worthless junk. Stuff like ribbons, which he can’t figure out why his dad owned, and about a million measuring tapes, newspapers from decades ago. Still, he can’t bring himself to throw any of it out.

  The solitude of the house is tough. Prison was lonely, but at least he could use the walls as an excuse for his loneliness. On the outside, though, he can’t hide from it. None of his so-called mates reached out, nor he to them for that matter. He rang Michelle once but she didn’t even answer. Never rang him back either. His message, he thought, had been a good one.

  ‘Hi Michelle. I just wanted to let you know that I’m out and that I’m okay. I understand why you had to end things. You did the right thing. Anyway, no need to call me
back or anything, just wanted to let you know. Give us a bell if you want to chat. Okay. Talk to you.’

  Perfect, he’d thought. No pressure. Down to earth. Quite cool, if anything.

  But there’d been nothing from her. Not a word. He knew he said the no need to call back thing, but fucking hell, he didn’t mean it.

  What in God’s name is he still doing here? His nights are still sleepless. He hates the gaff and the more contempt the neighbours show him, the more he begins to despise them back. They don’t want him here. Michelle doesn’t want him here. He doesn’t even want himself here. Why not leave? Sell the house and sail off into the sunset. Head off to London or someplace where nobody knows who the hell he is.

  He has a thought then, which gives him a feeling close to happiness. It’s the first time he’s felt good about anything in over two years. He had promised Robbie and Pam in his suicide note that he would give them the house. He failed at the suicide, but he won’t fail at that part of the note.

  Excited by this feeling, he sets to work straight away.

  He knows Pam won’t want to deal with him so gets it all done through a solicitor. Just as well, he’s terrible with forms and all that, so the solicitor does all the grunt work on getting the deeds ready to be handed over. The whole thing only takes a week.

  Only problem is when Pam gets the call from the solicitor to explain the situation she hangs up the phone. She’s fucking sick to her stomach and wants nothing to do with the place.

  ‘It’s probably worth a lot of money, Pam,’ Orla points out.

  ‘Fuck him! Does he think that will make everything better?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘It’s hard enough knowing that he’s out of jail but now he’s trying to do what? Help poor old me? The fucking nerve of the prick, I’d fucking love to kill him.’ She’s not crying, she’s furious.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘I don’t get it. I just want him out of our life – I don’t want help from him, the arrogant bastard, we don’t need his help. It’s his fault everything is so horrible. All of it’s his fault. He has destroyed my life, he’s ruined everything.’ Now she’s crying.

  Orla feels like her heart will explode. She can’t stand to see her best friend like this. Just as things were turning around too. All she wants to do is take Pam’s pain away but knows there is no way of doing that. ‘I’m so sorry, darling. You poor thing, Christ I wish there was something I could do.’

  ‘There’s nothing anyone can do. I’m trying to get through each day the best I can, then I get some call out of the blue. You should have heard the asshole on the other end of the line – as if he was giving me this amazing news.’ Orla stays silent. ‘What does this Murray prick think anyway – I don’t understand what he’s trying to do? He’s going to support us now, is that it?’

  ‘I don’t know, sweetheart, maybe he’s just trying to say sorry.’

  ‘He’s not. The sick son of a bitch is probably getting off on this. He’s killed my husband so, what, now he’s my protector? I feel fucking violated.’

  Orla puts an arm around her, trying to fight back her own tears as she comforts her friend.

  ***

  Danny wasn’t thinking, all right – of course none of that was his intention, he just wanted to say sorry but went about it all wrong. Still, there is probably no right way. He was going to devastate Pam no matter what. The very mention of his name terrifies her. Owning his house all of a sudden was only going to upset her all the more. Dosey bastard. Still, despite the setback he decides that he won’t give up. He’ll put off leaving the country, sell the house himself, get the money together and then figure out how to give it to Pam.

  Another problem is Pam isn’t the only one who doesn’t want his shitty house. No one is biting. To be fair, the house isn’t that shit, it’s just that his dad left it in a bit of a state. He figures he’ll do it up and drop the price.

  It’s a big job doing up a house if you’re on your own. A terrible job. Danny isn’t much of a handy man either, so I get a kick out of watching him work. The painting part is fine but a monkey could paint a wall. It’s the little things that have gone unnoticed over the years that trouble him. Among others, the hot press door has to be lifted, the bathroom hot water tap doesn’t work for some reason, there’s missing skirting in the kitchen, the kitchen itself is in bits. Every room needs something. And that’s not even mentioning all the shit he has to throw out.

  He has none of the right tools, the poor bastard, or the know-how. He’s on Google every five minutes, checking how to fix this, how to fix that. A million little things that the right man with the right tools would probably get done in a day take Danny three months.

  Men today are crap. I was the same. As a kid I’d look at my dad in awe as he’d tackle electrics, carpentry, engines. Whatever the fuck. He built our garage, our patio. But it was no big deal, everyone’s dad did that kind of shit. I remember asking how he was able to do so much and he told me that it comes with age, that by the time I was a dad I’d be able to do it all too. I was delighted. The older I got I kept waiting for this day to come when I could do all that cool stuff. Except it never arrived. So disappointing.

  ***

  When he finally gets a buyer he can’t believe it. Ironically, it’s a couple in their thirties with one child. They’ve a daughter, but still, he feels strange about it. He meets them only once on their first viewing and thinks they somehow know about him and what he has done. That they study him with a morbid curiosity – as if to show their daughter what a bad man looks like. He’s wrong, of course. They don’t know shit about him. But he feels that way about most people he comes across, like somehow they all know. As if his experiences before and during prison are now so etched in his face that they are as obvious as if he were wearing a badge.

  Three months of fucking about with hammers and screwdrivers, paintbrushes and step ladders has finally paid off. €420,000. Fucking sweet. It does cross his mind to keep the lot, travel around the world and live it up. I can’t blame him for entertaining the thought; after all, you can’t help what pops into your head. Entertain it is all he does, though. He doesn’t see it as his money. He takes €10,000 off the top for himself and justifies it as covering all the work and effort he’s put into getting the house ready. That’s just what he tells himself, though; truth is that he hasn’t a penny and heading to England with €10,000 is a lot better than going there with nothing.

  With the easy part over, he gives a sigh of relief. How to get Pam to take the money will be the tricky bit.

  48

  Tim has been worried about Brian the past few months. Well, the past six months, really, but the last few in particular. Brian just isn’t himself. He’s well aware that Danny Murray is out of prison and puts a lot of Brian’s behaviour down to that. They used to be able to talk about everything, but that isn’t the case anymore and the way that Brian has become quieter with each passing week really makes Tim anxious. But any time he brings it up, Brian just shrugs it off and says he’s grand.

  The more he watches Brian the more convinced he becomes that Brian is suffering from depression. Tim knows fuck all about depression but he figures this must be it. Once he comes to this conclusion, he starts worrying about what he’s heard people with depression do – he starts worrying that Brian might try to top himself. He can’t figure out a way of approaching the subject. Guys are funny like that, even two as close as Brian and Tim – there’s no way in hell he can ask him if he’s suffering from depression. First of all, he doesn’t want to insult him, but even if he does say something Brian would only laugh at him and he doesn’t want that either. Best to keep his mouth shut, Tim decides, and just keep an eye on him. Go for pints and stuff, try to cheer him up.

  Brian isn’t depressed; he’s angry. That anger festering inside him grows stronger and stronger as the days p
ass. He’s furious that Danny Murray is out of prison, running free while his brother is dead. It’s funny because I’m kind of over it, whereas he’s gotten worse. I’m still heartbroken about not being a part of everyone’s life – Pam and Robbie’s most of all. But I’ve accepted it. The same way as people with terminal cancer end up accepting their fate. They go through all the emotions first: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then they accept it. Just like if you put a scratch on your beloved car or shit yourself instead of farting – the emotions all come in the same order.

  I’ve come to terms with it, kind of. Being dead is all I’ve known for over two years now, although I don’t really look at myself like that anymore – I’m alive in some fashion. I exist. I watch over the people I love.

  But Brian is stuck way back in anger. Stage two. He’s never really been able to move on. He goes about his business, but the pain that makes him hate is lodged deep down in his underbelly. Danny getting out of prison just sets it free.

  He has thought long and hard in the months since Danny’s release and has finally decided to do something. He wants Danny to hurt; he wants him dead.

  It’s surprisingly easy to find out where people live. Brian googles Danny Murray and at first finds fuck all – a bunch of Facebook guys and some Gaelic footballer, but none are the one he wants. He’s known the area that Danny hails from since the hearing, though, so tries Danny Murray Castleknock, and lo and behold up pops the obituary of Danny Senior, picture and all, survived by son, along with address. Easy. He does a slight double take as he’s a bit surprised to see that his old man is dead, but decides not to dwell on it.

  He drives out to the address and watches Danny at the house taking down the For Sale sign. He almost jumps out of the car right then and there at the sight of him; that big galoot strutting back into his house, all proud as punch after selling his gaff. Fucking wanker. Laugh it up now, you piece of shit. He pulls on the handle of the car and steps out, but when he looks up Danny has gone back inside. Kick the door in. No. I still have time, he thinks. Not much time. God knows where this guy is off to with the house sold for himself.