On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  ‘Joseph.’

  Miriam’s mother was standing in the doorway of his father’s bedroom, framed in a rectangle of dim yellow light, wearing a white nightdress.

  ‘I found this in one of your father’s drawers,’ she said quietly. She held out to him a rectangle of white paper. He crossed the landing and took it from her.

  ‘It’s addressed to you.’

  Something shot up the back of his neck. His mouth was suddenly dry. He took the envelope from Miriam’s mother. She looked up at him expectantly.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  In the darkness he could see the black, inky swirls of the handwriting on the envelope. He placed a corner of it at his lips. His mind was jumbled. He turned away from Miriam’s mother and slowly descended the stairs.

  He went to the kitchen and poured some water into the kettle, setting the envelope down on the counter. He did not know if he should open it. The image flickered in his mind again, of the powdered white face and the lips red with blood.

  His fingers tapped the unit restlessly as he waited for the kettle to boil. The writing on the envelope clearly belonged to his father; he knew its elegance. The kettle whistled on the hob. He made himself a cup of tea and made his way through to the living room. It was dark but he knew his way around the house without light. He sat in the armchair near the window, his father’s chair, and turned on the small reading light at his shoulder. It threw long shadows over the surface of the envelope. He could see his own reflection in the glass of the window, a spectre in the blackness – a head and two dark holes for eyes. Placing his thumb at the corner of the envelope he felt its edge press into his skin. Bringing his thumb under and cracking the paper along the envelope’s apex he pulled out its contents and held them up to the light. Two sheets of paper.

  His father had always liked nice writing paper. Seeing the script made his throat heavy. It was as if he was reading beyond time and his father was there in the room. He sensed somebody behind him but when he looked there was nobody there, just shadows and gentle light playing across the furniture. But he sensed something there, something being drawn out of the room through an unknown fabric, two worlds merging.

  Son,

  It feels strange writing this letter. It is not something I ever thought I would be doing. You probably know why I am writing and I know the circumstances under which you must be reading.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this at all, but since your brother died I have been feeling the regret of never having said the things that I should have. I’m sure he knew, but it’s just not the same. I should have said those things. It’s funny how you always think back at times when you should really be concentrating on the future. But still.

  Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about the night you were born. It’s all still so vivid. I went outside the hospital for some air and as I was standing there I saw a shooting star in the sky and then when I went back inside there you were. I remember seeing you for the first time. You might find this funny but the thing that really struck me was the colour of your skin. You were as pink as a salmon! But the colour was aliveness and I remember you crying and wriggling in your mother’s arms – a tiny unit of life. And then there was a very deep-seated feeling of joy and achievement.

  Everything changed after you came along; it all opens up when you become a father for the first time. Everything starts to make sense. Those first few years, when it was just you, me and your mother, are still cherished. I used to love being in work and thinking of you at home, and knowing that I had you to look forward to at the end of the day.

  I know that you sometimes felt I doted on your little brother, and perhaps I did, but I am writing this now to put the record straight. I loved both of you equally, with all of my heart.

  Henry was the sort of kid who needed love demonstrated to him. You were not like that. I always thought that you were more instinctive and that you always knew how much I loved you. In recent years I have started to see that maybe I was wrong and it has perhaps driven you further away than I ever wanted but I hope this letter will put an end to that. I was not the perfect father.

  Henry was always like me and you were like your mum. Henry was openly (and brashly!) affectionate whilst you were always so staid. But you were the most sensitive and caring of the two. You were always the most thoughtful and generous. All you wanted to do was be good and do the right thing, ever since you were a kid. These characteristics made me very, very proud of you but, more than this, they brought me great happiness. In this respect you gave me more than Henry ever did. I always felt a depth of bond between us because you were the shooting star. I want you to know that this was how I felt even if you didn’t realize it.

  You can be the man you think you should be, Joseph. You very nearly are. If you are reading this letter then take care of Miriam and the kids because they will be relying on you. Do not let them come to any harm.

  I’m going to finish now. There are things I need to do. Take care, son, and always remember that I love you.

  Yours,

  Dad

  On clear days the sea would appear as a deep green. The different layers of current interlocked behind one another until they became a solid, uniform mass.

  ‘Do you think about him much?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Not much.’

  A tanker was crossing the horizon, the first they had seen in a month. Pele had ventured out in front of them to the edge of the cliff, his ears standing to attention.

  ‘I think about him,’ she said, ‘about what happened.’

  The face flashed before him again, stark and vivid.

  ‘It’s in the past,’ he said coldly.

  Miriam nodded and wrapped her hands around her body.

  ‘It’s all in the past,’ she repeated.

  And then there was a sound, faint and thin, a sound that neither of them had heard in a long time. They looked up towards the house, at the open front door. The sound was coming from there. The telephone was ringing.

  ‘It’s Father Moore,’ said Miriam’s mother, immediately and without warning, the phone hanging loose in her hands.

  She was crying. She looked at Joseph as he closed the front door. Miriam stepped forwards.

  ‘What about him?’

  Her mother nodded slowly, her cheeks wet.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Miriam clasped the top of her head in her right hand. ‘What happened?’ she said, her voice high.

  ‘He was’ – the old woman reached out her hand to the banister – ‘oh God.’

  ‘Mum? What happened to him?’

  Her mother looked up at her. Joseph felt he shouldn’t be there, that this was a personal thing between Miriam and her mother.

  ‘They . . . he was stabbed.’

  A cold creep slumped into the room.

  ‘So he wasn’t ill?’ he said.

  His voice was loud. But he wanted the information. He knew the type of man Father Moore had been. He had to know.

  ‘What?’

  Miriam’s mother looked at him in confusion. She had to think for a second. ‘No, he was ill.’ She rubbed her nose with a tissue. The skin prickled on Joseph’s arms. ‘They killed him to save themselves,’ she said. ‘They had no choice.’

  Joseph went upstairs and lay on his back. As a boy he would lie and stare up into that same patch of space that he stared at now. He was no more sure of anything than he had been then. At no point had his mind finally clunked into the smooth rails. Had the adults of his youth, the people who seemed so assured, been the same? He wondered whether some people were able to find a footing in life whilst others spent their whole time fumbling in the dark. Was that how it worked? Or did everybody feel the same as him but was able to hide it better? Was it a little secret that everybody felt but never discussed?

  Father Moore had become violent. Whatever trait was responsible for turning people into monsters had been in the old priest and Joseph knew now what it was. The illness amplif
ied the kernel of every individual it invaded. Gentle people became more gentle, violent people became more violent; a distillation of people’s innermost ways. It turned you into who you really were. How it did it, the dissection of its epidemiology, no longer mattered; with each passing day, its nature and origin had grown in the collective unconsciousness into something legendary, mythic and unholy.

  He knew the thing that had been in the priest was inside him too: a black orb in his centre, a circle of badness. It was the thing that made him do the things he did, the reason he was stubborn, conceited, intense. It had always been there, that underburn of aggression. It was the thing that made him petulant, made him hold a grudge, made him tell too much truth. He knew when he was behaving a certain way because the black orb would vibrate inside him, cancerous and malignant. He had too much hate in him, hated too many things. There was a discontentment, a resentment that was too strong. It was the reason he could never get close to people, the reason he didn’t have any real friends, the reason he had not called anybody when the illness first struck. Its presence was as clear to him in some as its absence was in others. He knew immediately if a similar blackness was in somebody else because the people who had it were the people he disliked. He had it, Father Moore had had it. It was that simple, it was a truth.

  The image of Miriam and the kids smiling happily up at him in the branches of the cherry tree came to him and he closed his eyes. Why am I trying to be something I’m not?

  He took Edward out to the grass at the front of the house. There were no rabbits out but Joseph could sense that when the time came, Edward would not feel the same guilt towards killing that his mother did. When he had been young he had always been able to tell which of his friends would be willing to pull the trigger and which wouldn’t. The people who wouldn’t pull the trigger were the ones who asked all the questions. Edward listened to Joseph’s instructions and carried them out in near silence.

  They fired at empty tins for over an hour. It was cloudy and cold, the sea was in high swell. There was more bad weather on the way.

  ‘Did my father used to like shooting?’

  ‘No.’

  Edward had taken to speaking of his father more regularly in the past month, as if by filling in gaps in his knowledge, he could keep the memory of him closer.

  ‘Did he like bunny burgers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he didn’t like hunting?’

  Joseph turned to his nephew and placed his hand on his head. A quick decision was made.

  ‘You should stop thinking about your father all the time.’

  The boy’s head was tiny. His long hair was soft, like feathers. He had large brown eyes, the same colour as Miriam’s. They looked out at Joseph questioningly, phrased with a confused hurt.

  ‘Thinking about your dad will not bring him back. Now let’s try again.’ Joseph nodded towards the cans. ‘Try to stay still or you’ll never hit anything.’

  As he watched Edward lower his head to look through the sight he remembered how he had been as a child when he had fired at tin cans – the weight of the weapon, the exhilaration. It never really went away.

  ‘Uncle Joseph, what’s Pele doing?’

  Joseph turned towards the sea. Pele had moved all the way to the cliff edge, to the few feet of grass that sloped down to the precipice. He was staring out over the water. His mouth was open and his tongue lolled. Joseph followed Pele’s eyes out to sea but there was nothing there.

  ‘Wait here, Edward,’ he said. He rose awkwardly to his knees. ‘I’ll go and fetch him.’

  As he stood a gust of wind caught his coat and he had to steady himself. The physical work he had been doing in the garden and on the house was taking its toll on his body. His collar flapped loudly against his neck.

  ‘Pele,’ he called.

  The dog turned its head inland. Upon seeing its master it lowered its mouth to the floor and looked at Joseph with sad eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter, boy?’

  He knelt in front of the dog and placed his hands on either side of Pele’s head. He stroked underneath his chin and the dog responded with a loud panting.

  ‘Uncle Joseph.’

  Edward looked small and distant on the square of blanket. The grass around him blew in the wind, cutting currents. The boy was pointing towards the house. His voice came in and out on the wind in half sentences.

  There was a man there, hunched over and wrapped in a dirty blanket, at the garden gate. The front door was wide open. Joseph was caught for a second, unsure, and then his mind was clear, and he ran towards Edward, towards the gun.

  The man was already in the garden. Beneath the blanket he wore a pack that made him look like a hunchback. Joseph thought about shouting but stopped himself. If the man knew he was there he might make a run for the house and lock himself inside.

  His breath burst out of him with each stride. The oxygen burned his lungs. He was almost at the gate. The man was feet from the door. He was going to go inside.

  Joseph opened his mouth and shouted at the top of his voice.

  The figure in the blanket turned round. His eyes widened. His face was filthy, the bottom half covered in a dirty beard. Through the grime Joseph could see the yellowy-whites of his eyes.

  ‘Take one more step towards that house and you’re a fucking dead man,’ he said loudly.

  He stepped cautiously towards him and raised the gun. The gravel of the garden path crunched under his shoes. The gun was not loaded but the bearded man did not know that. He lifted his hands into the air and his dirty, dark blanket fell away.

  ‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t shoot me.’

  He turned his face away and closed his eyes tight shut.

  ‘Get away from the door.’

  He did as he was told. He moved out towards the middle of the garden. Joseph kept the gun trained on him. The man’s clothes were stinking. He was thin, emaciated, the skin of his face stretched tight over his cheeks and jaw. His skeletal appearance was shocking. This was the first time somebody had come to the house looking like this.

  Joseph tried to breathe. His chest was tight. Adrenalin surged through him. He moved up the path, twisting his body to keep the gun on the stranger. At last he was between the man and the door. There was a squall of noise behind him and then Miriam was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ she said.

  ‘Stay out of this, Miriam.’

  All he cared about was keeping the house safe. He didn’t take his eyes off the stranger, who had folded his arms into his body, making himself as small as possible.

  ‘You promised me we weren’t going to do this any more. We had a deal.’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  He swung his head round to her. She was talking to the stranger, who looked back at her through darting, sunken eyes. The stranger turned to Joseph and their eyes met.

  He could feel the volatility of the situation. The man standing before him was wasted to such an extent that he might do anything. Joseph did not lower the gun.

  The stranger smiled at him, his teeth gleaming out from between dry, grey lips.

  ‘I don’t mean any harm,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Joseph raised his rifle higher.

  ‘Please,’ said the man, again. But now he said it more lightly. He was less afraid. His back had straightened.

  Joseph could feel Miriam’s eyes on him. He wanted to smash the stranger’s skull in. Something at the back of his head told him that the threat he had been expecting since they moved to Cornwall had finally arrived.

  Miriam went into the garden and placed her body between Joseph and the stranger.

  ‘Put it down.’

  He expected her to be angry, but there was something else in anger’s place. It was almost as if she felt sorry for Joseph. Her eyes were open wide and pleading. They sucked the energy out of him.

  He lowered the gun and looked over
Miriam’s shoulder to the stranger. His teeth were yellow, his face vaguely rat-like with a long, thin, triangular nose and a weak chin. His eyes were jaundiced. Joseph knew that some people were bad from the start and you could tell who they were just by looking at them.

  ‘Let me deal with it this time,’ he heard Miriam say at the corner of his mind.

  Joseph held his breath.

  ‘Joseph,’ she said to him.

  Her hair had blown in front of her face and she had to squint to see as she pulled it to one side and held it there in a fist.

  ‘You promised,’ she said.

  The sun had almost set and the light in the house was dim. They went into the kitchen. Joseph did not want this man in his father’s house. It felt like an invasion, a surrender.

  ‘I’m sorry if I caused any offence,’ said the stranger.

  His voice was ragged and throaty. There was an odd timbre in it, something that Joseph could not place. Miriam placed a cup of tea in front of him and sat down opposite. There was an agelessness about him. He could have been twenty or he could have been fifty.

  ‘Joseph is just a little wary.’

  The stranger’s eyes moved across to Joseph.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t stopped you?’ he said bluntly.

  The man cocked his head to one side. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You were just going to go inside? As easy as that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The stranger paused. He looked at Miriam.

  ‘My name is Paul. Paul Crowder.’

  He had realized that it was Miriam who was going to listen. Joseph had been dismissed.

  ‘Where have you come from?’ she said.

  ‘London.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ She gestured to his filthy clothes.

  ‘I’ve been living rough. I didn’t have anywhere to go.’