Who Needs Flowers When They're Dead

by George Lincoln

  Gary nodded slowly, his fists clenching.

  ‘Some of my colleagues think you shouldn’t have your daughter back because of your violent past.’

  He let this sink in, watching Gary’s body language very carefully. You learn to spot the early warning signs when someone is about to attack you.

  ‘There’s one person I work with in particular,’ David continued, ‘who is kind of like my supervisor. She doesn’t think we should support your case due to the history of domestic violence.’

  ‘I’ve never been charged or convicted with anything,’ Gary fired back at David, ‘and you can’t refuse to help me just because of some bullshit allegations.’

  He was right, of course.

  ‘She’s going to come along next time so you can meet her.’

  The stage was set. David had been careful not to make any promises, but he’d been able to gauge Gary’s temperament. With his usual punch-bag now out of the country, he was a tinderbox waiting to explode.

  David relayed the conversation back to Kath later at the office, with a little gilding of the lily here and there for maximum effect. Kath couldn’t help herself, her menopausal crusade for women’s rights brimming out of every world-weary orifice, outraged that any man would feel victimised by these circumstances.

  ‘I’ll set him straight,’ Kath pledged with pride.

  We’ll fucking see about that, David thought to himself.

  A few days later, David and Kath were sitting in Gary’s living room. He’d taken the trouble to wear a shirt this time, David noticed. What this would portend he did not yet know. From the outset the atmosphere was tense. Gary and Kath both sized each other up, seething inside with judgement and resentment. The years had not been kind to Kath – greasy, bedraggled grey hair, her body ravaged by years of poor diet and minimal exercise. Over a thirty-year career she had seen more misery and anguish at work than most and her face showed every nuance of this. She was a fucking mess.

  ‘What you need to understand, Gary, is that you can’t spend years beating your wife up and then act surprised when she leaves you.’

  Kath couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Frankly, from what I’ve read about you, your wife has done the safest possible thing for herself and for your child by taking her away from…’

  She didn’t even get a chance to finish the sentence. Gary had managed to contain his rage for about thirty seconds before laying her out with a savage right hook across the table.

  Kath lay in a bloody, crumpled heap on the floor, her jaw broken, groaning in pain. The arrogance of having gone so many years without being hit proving her downfall. Men are better at reading these situations, knowing when to shut up. Kath understood this now, as she spat out two of her molars onto Gary’s polished floor.

  Gary turned towards David, expecting to be restrained. His face twisted in rage.

  David calmly turned to Kath, leaned down towards her and whispered, ‘When you are suffering, remember I have betrayed you.’

  He slowly stood and walked outside, leaving Kath to face the consequences of her actions.

  ‘And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.’

  (Peter 5:10)

  David took the unmarked police car and drove away. He knew Kath never even bothered carrying handcuffs or a baton any more; she felt such things were beneath someone of her stature. She could find her own way out of this situation or die trying, David thought to himself.

  It didn’t matter. David didn’t need the job any more to complete his mission. He knew what the likely consequences would be for him, depending on the severity of Kath’s injuries.

  Suspension.

  Gross Misconduct for Neglect of Duty.

  Dismissal.

  CHAPTER 26

  Kath’s injuries were life-changing, though sadly for David not life-threatening. She would spend the next month eating her meals through a straw from a food blender, unable to chew or move her fractured jaw. She was hospitalised for two months due to multiple facial fractures and a swelling on the brain. She had a punctured lung and shattered collar-bone, caused by Gary repeatedly stamping on her weak, defenceless body as she lay in the foetal position begging for her life. Gary would spend the next twelve years behind bars for GBH with intent. Marisa was safe from his reach at last.

  Most people raised in a loving and caring environment, where the needs of the child are put first, never truly understand how the absence of this nurturing affects a child’s social development. When raised in a climate of constant tension and fear, that child’s ability to interact normally and recognise conventional social cues is severely limited. And the further away from that childhood experience the individual grows, often the more focused these issues become in their mind. You may coast through life generally fitting in and getting along with most people you meet, the occasional personality clash here and there. For a child raised with violence forever an imminent prospect, their ability to rise above even trivial annoyances or turn the other cheek weighs heavily on their mind in some perverted zero-sum idea of strength in the face of adversity. To give ground, to concede any point, would betray weakness. And any display of weakness would render you at the mercy of a predator. So better to always project strength through hostility and aggression, the way a rhino’s horn serves as a permanent deterrent to his predators. No matter how hard it might try, the rhino cannot simply remove his horn one day. It is part of who he is.

  That person may seem normal to the outside world. They may function at a high level, play sports and have a favourite novel just like you. But inside they are empty. Unable to properly love or show warmth and affection, because that crucial part of their upbringing was absent. They grow away from extended family, their existence a permanent reminder to others of something not quite as it should be. They become awkward to be around, their pain forever etched across their face. Most people don’t want to be around that while they pull a Christmas cracker or blow out the candles on their birthday cake. Even a smile they can disguise as a grimace. All because deep down their sense of self-worth is so low they don’t even believe they are worthy of real love and affection.

  Other people are merely transitory – they simply do not matter.

  There had been further rock fall earlier that day at Beachy Head, heading westwards towards Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters. The shingle beach below had been closed, some rocks narrowly missing sunbathers’ heads by inches. The boy walked along the cliff top, comfortable knowing precisely where the danger lay to his left as he walked towards the small lighthouse on top of the hill. He looked over his shoulder to see his favourite view in the whole world, the calm summer sea gently lapping against the white cliffs, their sheer size and grace matched only by the beauty and tranquillity of the scene set before him.

  It had not been difficult to bring his father here. Years in the emotional wilderness had done nothing to dampen his sense of moral superiority. The boy was always too sensitive, he would say. The boy had grown strong, benefitting from the iron hand of his upbringing. Everybody suffers sometime, he insisted.

  Something else people not raised in such a lion’s den of fear fail to fully appreciate is the disjointed, unpredictable way inner rage manifests itself. Not necessarily against the person it should really be directed towards, any given situation can release years of suppressed anger and despair.

  ‘He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.’

  (Isaiah 53:3)

  There was no wave of acknowledgment or recognition from either father or son. Each knew the other’s silhouette well by now, the way a rabbit recognises a fox through the long grass. The coastguard helicopter hovered in the distance, inspecting the cliff edge for any signs of further erosion, completely invisible to the two men standing atop the hill, their attention only on each other. They spoke in shor
t, staccato sentences, each one unwilling to fully engage the other for fear of what might spill forth.

  ‘So you like it here?’

  His father’s unmistakeable sneer. They could be sitting atop the clouds in heaven admiring the Sistine Chapel and his father would find fault somewhere. Nothing would ever change that.

  ‘It’s peaceful here,’ the boy replied.

  There are three instinctive reactions humans have when confronted by a threat: fight, flight or freeze. People always forget about the third option and usually just do one of the first two. Sometimes in the void of inner feeling, doing nothing seems the most apt response.

  The boy need not worry about the everyday stress of work any more. His search amongst the hopeless for redemption was over now. Roberto, Lloyd and Gary in prison. Clare, Anel and the Ferreiras at rest. Kath and Colette forever broken, given time to re-evaluate their choices. The boy had served justice to those in his path.

  He felt nothing.

  There is a cycle to misery. One child raised a certain way begets another who begets another and so it goes. Every once in a while, one of them manages to wriggle free from beneath the weight that crushes them. But most of them don’t.

  The boy crept closer to the cliff edge, as he realised he had nothing more to say to his father.

  ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.’

  (Isaiah 43:2)