by Chris Ward
Please save him. There is little time. He killed one of them, and now the doorway is closing. We must go back, and we cannot leave him here.
Matt stared, still dumbstruck, but something in Ian’s face changed. He nodded, almost unnoticeably, with understanding.
Ian turned away from them, walked calmly across the floor to where Red lay, face contorted out of shape, too stretched, too elongated, as though a thousand invisible hands were pulling him apart.
Ian pulled Red into a sitting position and crouched down beside him. He pulled his friend into a hug, their faces close.
‘None of this was ever your fault,’ he said. ‘Just like her, you were given no choice. There were good days, Red. More than the bad, many, many more. I’ll always remember those days, I swear to you.’
Red let out a low moan. At first Matt couldn’t hear, then Red’s words came again, almost too faint to be audible, but containing all the meaning of the world: ‘I’m sorry.’
Ian reached into an inner pocket of his jacket, pulled out something too small for Matt to identify. He took the gun up off the floor. Flipped it open, slid the bullet inside.
‘What are you doing?’ Matt’s words were barely a whisper. Beyond his father’s shoulder, the two women watched impassively from within their wavering glow.
Ian hoisted Red into a sitting position and pulled his face close. He lifted the gun.
‘Forgive me . . . forgive me . . .’
The words came from Red. His eyes lingered on Ian for a second, then lifted, peering into the glow.
Matt could do nothing but watch as his father pushed the barrel of the gun into Red’s mouth.
‘Goodbye, Red. My friend, my dearest friend.’ He leaned close, their foreheads touching.
Matt shut his eyes as the gun went off. Nothing could have made him watch.
When he opened them, the room was filled with a blinding light, brighter than any he had seen before, brighter than anything he could ever hope to stare into and keep his eyes, as though the sun had fallen from the heavens to nestle in the little cottage’s living room. He cried out, wanting to close his eyes but unable to close them, unable even to squint against the brightness.
He saw their forms, three now, just blurs within the light, like streetlights beyond a window in the rain. And another, darker form, on one knee in the centre of the room, like a knight waiting for permission to rise. One of the figures stepped forward and reached out, and tender fingertips lifted the figure’s head towards her own. She crouched to meet him, and briefly the lips of light met the lips of man and the heavens and the mortal world were united as one.
I will see you soon.
Then the world exploded as darkness and light combined; somewhere a door slammed shut, while in another world, another door was flung open.
Epilogue
Memories
November 18th, 1999
At first: darkness. Then, an echo from somewhere out there, the sound of a name, a familiar sound, a word he recognised.
‘Matthew? Matthew, wake up! Won’t you please?’
‘Rachel?’ Like gravel on his tongue, speech. As though it had been a while since the last time.
He opened his eyes and waited for them to adjust to the glare. Rachel, his wife, his beautiful wife, leaned over him, the hospital lights behind her, framing her head like a halo.
‘Are the children here?’
She smiled, her eyes glittering with tears of joy, relief. He gathered he had been asleep for some time.
‘They’re here, Matt. They’re outside in the hallway, waiting for you. Shall I bring them in?’
Without waiting for his instruction she started to move back, but his hand closed over hers. ‘Wait . . .’
He paused, closing his eyes. Even breathing took an effort. Later she would tell him about the puncture to his left lung; a rib broken by Red’s boot had become razor sharp. He would find out about the fractured collar bone, and the hemorrhaging around his stomach which could have killed him, but for now it was time for joy, for relief, for the comfort of each other’s arms and the slowly healing ruins of their love.
‘I hurt a lot, Rachel,’ he muttered.
She nodded. ‘I know, Matt, I know. But you came through the operation. You’re going to be fine.’
‘But nowhere more than here.’ He lifted his other hand, let it drop over his heart. ‘In here, I hurt like . . . like all the pain in the world is in me. And especially . . . for what I did to you.’
Rachel grimaced, shook her head. ‘Matt . . . you don’t have to, just get better. Just concentrate on that.’
His hand closed over hers again. ‘Rachel. I hurt you. I hurt you badly. Mentally and . . .’
Involuntarily, one hand went to her cheek.
‘But, you have to understand, I was hurting myself . . . inside me, everything was hurting.’ He sighed, looked away.
‘Matt –’
‘But I’m healed now. Things have changed. I don’t hate myself anymore. I don’t hate . . . my past. And more than anything, I know I love you. I love you more than the world can imagine. I’ll change, our lives will change. It won’t be easy, with the drinking, and everything that came with it, but we’ll pull through, I promise.’
She smiled, and the radiance lit up her face. Her eyes beamed, so bright they could sink ships, Matt thought.
‘Matt, the painkillers are starting to talk through you again. Get some more rest, eh?’
‘Okay.’ He squeezed her hand.
‘The kids want to see you, but I’ll put them off for an hour or so, take them downstairs to play some video games or something. Let you get a little rest.’
‘Thanks.’ He smiled. ‘Tell them I love them.’
Rachel leaned forward and kissed his forehead. She smelled the sickly aroma of disinfectant, wanting to get him home and washed clean of hospitals for good. She remembered when she had first got into the car, led out of the house by his father, Ian, to see Matt wrapped in towels in the front seat, blood all over his face. She had screamed, felt a terrible, passionate love for him and anger at what someone had done to her husband, that someone had hurt him like this, before she had had a chance to mend the bridge that crossed the chasm between them.
She had wanted to feel a murderous desire for revenge, a unparalleled hatred for his attacker, but only a desperate love for him had surfaced, a desire to see him healed, returned to her arms. Soon now, he would be. Everything would be okay.
She remembered little herself. Only her smashed up car, a lot of rain and darkness; then everything jumped forward to a strange room, a cold floor in an empty house somewhere out on the moor. She had waited, feeling light-headed, faint, but somehow better, somehow restored.
And soon enough the car had come, carrying her husband. There, she had met his father for the first time, though his face had seemed somehow familiar, a memory from a long forgotten dream.
‘I will,’ she said, starting to turn away.
‘When this is over,’ he said from behind her, ‘When I’m out of here and we’re back home, I’d like to talk to you.’
‘Yeah? About what?’
‘About my mother, and my father. About my sister, too. My past. I want to tell you about them. Would that be okay?’
She smiled, felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘Matthew, that would be fine. That would be just fine.’
June 4th, 2000
For Ian Cassidy, the pain would never completely fade. There had been too much death, too much damaged and destroyed. But it would ease, with time. Everything did in the end.
But things were resolved now, had come to a conclusion that satisfied him, made him comfortable as he sat in his chair, sipping a glass of whiskey and mulling things over as one of Matthew’s books lay open on the arm of the chair beside him, a single lamp glowing over his shoulder.
Not dead, he reminded himself. They’ve gone home, that’s all. It’s better for them there, happier, safer. They can never be hurt again.
>
And he hadn’t lost everything, of course. In some ways he had gained, he thought, as he glanced up at the mantelpiece, at the postcard from Italy he had received last week from Matthew and his family. And most importantly, within the densely packed scrawl on the reverse was the promise of an imminent visit, this time with the children, so he could meet his grandchildren for the first time.
Oh yes, things were different now. But not all for the worse. Some doors had closed, of course, but others had opened, doors leading to the future.
He let his eyes drop. It was late, she would be waiting for him.
‘I’ll be seeing you soon,’ he whispered, setting the glass down on the coffee table beside him. ‘We’ll walk beneath the stars, just as we did back then.’
As lovely in his dreams as ever, sometimes, more so. And untainted, unharmed. Perfect as the vision he had first seen, all those years ago, lying beneath the trees.
And he knew that sometimes, a dream was a little too light to call it. Matt would never understand, Rachel even less so, assuming Matt could ever convince her of anything. But Ian understood, or at least had drawn his own conclusions. He had gone back into the Merediths’ cottage expecting to find a body, but instead had found a dazed young woman wandering about the house, unsure of her own mind let alone anything else.
And Liana gone.
He had seen something in Rachel’s eyes, something he recognised.
Liana’s residue, used to bind and heal his daughter-in-law’s broken body, had left the door a fraction ajar, and sometimes, just sometimes, Gabrielle came to take a peek. In his dreams they walked together, laughed, talked, sometimes made love, and he knew she wasn’t only part of his memory. A little sliver of her was in there too.
He leaned back, feeling the ease of the chair. He thought of the future, of the time when he would get to see his son and his family again, of the good times they would have together.
It would be good. After so many years, they had a chance to be close again.
But he couldn’t keep that one mind’s eye closed. The one eye that stayed focused on her, on Gabrielle, his angel, and that one day to come in the future, when he would go to join her, the day when they would become one.
HERE ENDS
The Man Who Built the World
Acknowledgments
The Man Who Built the World was written way back in the winter of 2003, when I was a spritely 24 years old. Although it has undergone a dozen edits since then, the story is essentially the same one that I wrote in the little bedroom of my shared house in Bristol on a 17-inch computer monitor that was the size and weight of a small car (don’t things change so quickly?). My life was a lot different then to how it is now. I was still broke, of course, but was struggling with the fallout of finishing university and the lack of direction that came with it. The Man Who Built the World was written on the many long nights when I was too poor to leave the house and so a special thanks goes to some of my housemates and friends of around that time, who put up with my stresses and frustrations on the few times I remember coming out of my bedroom. In no particular order: Graham, Jim, Jane, Fabian, Sharon, and Andy, this is for your help in one way or another, whether it was by supplying booze, food, a calming influence or just plain friendship.
As always, love to my family for believing in me even when I talk a good game without the results to match; one day I’ll be paying the bills for all of you, but even if I’m not, I’ll tell you I will. To my wife, Shoko, for putting up with me, and my cat, Miffy, for allowing me to put up with you. Our 5 a.m. walks are some of the most interesting of my life.
Thanks also to my proofreaders for this one, Vasant and Robyn, who helped to tighten the text and fill in the potholes. Thanks also to Jenny Twist, for pushing me to give it one more shine. Your help was much appreciated.
And a special thank you to everyone who has read anything I’ve ever written and been happy at the end that they took the time to do so. I write for myself first, but you people come a close second. Without you, these words are just marks on a screen.
CW
September 2012
