The Concrete Grove

CHAPTER FOURTEEN





LATER, AS HE drove away from the Grove, Tom thought about what a strange day this had been. Nothing had seemed to go right on the surface of things – the junkie trying to rip off his own face, the tense mood once the three of them had finally reached Hadrian’s Wall, the revelations regarding Hailey’s problems, and that odd, insightful moment with what had looked for all the world like a hummingbird – but underneath all this, he felt that it had all been so perfect he wanted to wrap up his memories of the day and lock them away inside a little box.

He had wanted nothing more than to stay for a while at Lana’s place, but Hailey’s mood had soured once they got out of the car and he thought it best to leave them, to give mother and daughter some time together. It was getting late anyway: they’d remained at the site longer than expected, leaving reluctantly only when the sun began to set. And he had promised Eileen Danby – the neighbour who was keeping an eye on Helen for the day – that he wouldn’t be back too late. He had already broken that promise, just like all the others he had broken simply by spending the day with Lana.

He drove slowly through Far Grove, trying to prolong his time away from home, but deep down inside he knew that wherever he went and however long he stayed away, he would always have to return to his wife. It was his duty, his penance. His entire life had been lived in the shadow thrown by an obstacle he could never quite define, and now he was facing the punishment for so many lost years and wasted chances. There wasn’t even anyone to blame, not really. Because That Man had not been a monster, just another human being making mistakes like everyone else.

He turned into their street and parked the car on the drive. Then he sat behind the wheel for a while, filled with a dark regret. He stared at his hands on the steering wheel. They looked old, wrinkled. He imagined that in a few years’ time liver spots would appear, marking the onslaught of death.

The radio was playing a song by Otis Redding, and despite the hi-tempo beat the tune filled Tom with a sense of regret. Why could he not have met Lana, or someone like her, when he was still young enough and sharp enough and free enough to take advantage of the opportunity? Why had it happened now, when he was already resigned to spending the remainder of his years looking after a wife he hated?

Hate. It was such a strong world… but in rare honest moments, like this one, he knew it to be true.

“They call me Mr. Pitiful,” he said, smiling, looking for humour in a situation where there was none. His eyes, when he looked at his face in the rear-view mirror, were dull and flat and lifeless, like pennies thrown in a pond to rust, corroded by dreams so heavy that they could not be lifted from the bottom.

He got out of the car and walked slowly along the drive. The lights were on downstairs – Eileen, the neighbour, must still be in there, watching over Helen as she lay sweating in her bed. He paused outside the front door, wishing that he could turn back, run away, and head off into some movie-scene sunset. Then he opened the door and walked inside.

“Tom?” Eileen Danby appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a mug and her face was drawn, tired.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Tom, taking off his coat. “I hit some bad traffic.”

“It’s okay.” Eileen smiled, and when she did so her tired, heavy face lost at least a decade. He recalled that many years ago, before her husband had left her, she was an attractive woman. “No, it’s not that. I don’t mind. It’s Helen… she’s had a bit of a bad time.”

Tom glanced towards Helen’s room. The door had been left ajar. The handle looked like a weapon, but before he could puzzle over this thought and where it had come from, Eileen was speaking again. “She got a little paranoid.” She tightened her grip on the mug, wrapping her fingers around a faded comedy decal of Bugs Bunny dressed as a French Maid. “She seems to think that you’ve been doing something wrong, or visiting a place you shouldn’t.”

Tom’s stomach seemed to drop into his knees.

“I couldn’t really be sure what she meant. Her voice, her words. It was all just gibberish.” She smiled sadly.

Tom looked down at the floor, at his walking boots. Dried mud was spattered on the toughened toe caps. “I’ve been with a client. We went for a walk near where he lives, had lunch in a nice rural pub. There’s nothing else.” He felt like crying. He always felt like crying.

“I know that, Tom – God knows, you’ve been loyal to her, caring for her when a lot of men might have walked away. You’re a good man, a saint. I know how tough it must be for you.”

He felt like grabbing her by the shoulders and screaming into her startled face: I’m not a good man, I’m a bastard. I’ve been thinking about nothing else but f*cking another woman all day!

He nodded. “Thank you, Eileen. I really appreciate that.”

She took a few steps closer and reached out, one hand still clutching the mug and the other grabbing his hand, groping it before finding purchase. “A very good man.” Her fingers were hot and clammy.

Tom could not raise his head; he was unable to look up, into her eyes. He knew that Eileen Danby had been attracted to him for years, and that attraction had grown since Helen’s injuries. She’d made a blatant pass one New Year’s Eve, about seven years ago. Her husband had left her the Christmas before, and she was feeling lonely and neglected. They’d been sitting on the steps at the back of her house, listening to the revellers inside – this was back when Helen was still willing to get around in her wheelchair, so even she was present at the party.

Eileen had placed her hand on his knee, moved it almost casually up his leg. Then, without uttering a word, she’d undone his zip and masturbated him. Right there on the doorstep, smelling of beer and cigarettes and staring away, across the garden, as if the act was separate from her, a part of something else she was thinking of.

And Tom had let her do it, enjoying being complicit in such a blatant act of sexuality.

“I’m not a good man,” he whispered. “Never was.”

Afterwards, when he was breathing hard and spots of light were scattered across his vision, Eileen had wiped her hand on a paper tissue she’d produced from the breast pocket of her blouse. She kissed him on the cheek, stood up and went back inside the house, all without speaking, without acknowledging in any way what she had done. Tom had sat there for another ten or fifteen minutes, drinking his beer and wondering what the hell had just happened.

They had not spoken of the event since, pretending that it had never happened. Those scant few moments on the back doorstep were like a shared wet dream, something that might vanish if they confronted its memory.

“You know where I am if you ever want to talk.” She pulled her hand away, placing it behind her back, as if to hide the evidence of her touch. She always said the same thing, and not once had he taken her up on the offer. But he knew it was there: he still felt the pressure of her grip on his penis, even all these years later, as if she had never really let go.

“I know, Eileen, and it’s really appreciated.” At last he raised his eyes from the floor, glancing at her. She had stepped back, and her face seemed unable to fix on a single expression. “Thanks.”

Eileen smiled, nodded, and then frowned. “She’s sleeping now. She slept most of the day, to be honest.” She put down her mug on the table near the stairs and grabbed her coat from the hook on the wall. “I’ll leave you to it. Tell her I’ll pop in on Tuesday, as usual, to see if she wants any shopping.”

Tom remained where he was as Eileen let herself out – she’d had a key for years now, and came and went as she pleased whenever Tom asked her to help out while he was away on business. She never overstepped the mark of their unspoken agreement, and had not once given him reason to think that she might have an ulterior motive for doing what she did. Eileen had been a good friend to Helen, despite that one slip at the New Year’s Eve party. She had also been invaluable to Tom whenever he needed support. She’d never again strayed beyond these personal boundaries, but the unspoken offer was out there, whether he wanted it or not.

“See you, Eileen.” The door slammed shut on his words.

He walked across the hallway and pushed open the door to Helen’s room. Every time he did this, stepped into her darkened room, he thought of that film, The Exorcist. The one with the possessed girl in an upstairs bedroom, strapped to a bed in the dark. The way the visiting priests’ breath misted in the icy air; the oppressive pressure of the silence in the room, apart from the ragged sound of her breathing.

“Helen? You awake, Helen?”

He could hear her breathing, just like the demonic teenager in that film. It was low, heavy, asthmatic, and punctuated by soft little snores.

“I’m home. Sorry it took longer than I thought, but the guy wanted a full report on how I’m planning to save him money on last year’s taxes.” He hated lying like this, but the demands of his accountancy work were a gilt-edged excuse. Helen knew he had to visit clients, to keep them sweet and reassure them about their money and investments, so she rarely questioned his motives when he left the house for a day, and she always enjoyed Eileen Danby’s company.

“No.” Her voice was thick; he could tell immediately that she was still asleep.

“It’s okay, pet. I’m here. I’m home. There’s no need to fret.” He approached the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. There was a jug of water by the bed, half full, and a crumb-covered plate containing half a slice of buttered toast and a folded chocolate biscuit wrapper. “No need to worry, now.”

The television at the foot of the bed was switched on, but there was no picture, just a silent screen filled with surging static.

The top of Helen’s head, along with part of her face, was visible above the covers. He could see the sweat glistening on her forehead like crushed ice. Her eyes were closed but her eyelids twitched, holding back a dream. The bedclothes covered her mouth, but he could see by the movement of the muscles in her jaw that she was grinding her teeth and mumbling in her sleep – something she often did when she was uneasy, when she was feeling disturbed or anxious.

He reached out and stroked her forehead. The skin was warm and wet; each furrow or crease was filled with greasy moisture. Tom held back a wave of nausea, feeling guilty for the way he disliked to touch his wife.

“What did you do?” Her voice was louder this time. The covers shifted down a few inches, exposing her open lips. Her teeth were large and discoloured. “What did you do with her?”

“Hush now, it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong. I’m home…” He was running out of things to say, and knew that she probably couldn’t hear him anyway.

“Bastard!”

She did that too, sometimes: swore at him, abused him as she slept. Once he had fallen asleep beside her, curled up on the bed, and woken to find her hands around his neck, tightening, trying to choke him. It had been the last time he’d ever allowed himself to doze in her room. After that he made a point of heading upstairs as soon as he felt tired. Something else she had spoiled; another thing for him to feel guilty about, but on her behalf: a sense of guilt by proxy.

Give me all of it, he thought, bitterly. A man can never have enough guilt.

Tom turned and looked again at the television. The static danced before his eyes, threatening to take on forms, to twist into the shapes of dancing figures. He stared at the monochrome blur, narrowing his eyes. Could he see fists in that chaos of interference? Where they swinging, as if throwing punches on the other side of the screen?

Helen moaned: a soft, wordless noise.

A face seemed to loom forward from the screen, breaking away from the mass of dots. Its eyes were closed but its mouth was open, widening as Tom watched. Other, smaller faces poured out of it, dancing around the original features. He was tired, seeing things.

“Tom?” The picture broke apart at the sound of Helen’s voice, as though afraid to be witnessed by anyone but him.

“Yes… yes, it’s me.”

“Where’s Eileen?” She blinked into the darkness, the wash of TV light softening her features, making it look as if there were no bones beneath the skin, or like the bones there had melted.

“She went home. It’s late.”

“What time is it? I… I must’ve fallen asleep again. I’ve been very tired today. Exhausted, but I’m not sure why.” Her hands fidgeted on top of the bedclothes, exploring like pale stick insects. Her eyes were wide and wet and slightly imbecilic.

“It’s almost nine o’clock. I’m really sorry for staying out this long.”

Helen shivered. “No. It’s fine. You need to work, to bring in the money. I know that.” She looked like a plastic doll, rigid and unblinking.

“Just lie back down and go to sleep. I’ll clean up and have an early night myself. It’s been a long day. Tiring. I need to catch up on a lot of work tomorrow, so will probably be up and about early.”

One of her flailing hands settled on top of both of his. Her fat fingers enveloped them, spreading out across his knuckles like a jellyfish. “Okay, Tom. I love you.” Her voice was filled with a desperation that he found offensive, even frightening. She said it because she wanted him to say it back – she needed to hear him say the words, to reassure her, to put her mind at rest. He hated it when she got like this, and he despised himself for begrudging her the slight demonstration of affection.

More guilt for him to carry, and it always prompted him to give her what she needed.

“I love you, too,” he said, through tight lips. The words sounded like someone else was in the room, speaking for him.

She squeezed his hands and then relaxed her grip. He pulled his hands away, just about resisting the urge to wipe them on his shirt, as if she had left a residue, a taint that he could not bear to feel against his skin.

“I had a strange dream,” she said as she nestled her head back against the pillows. Her eyes were open. Even in the darkness he could see the pulse in the side of her neck jerking like a jumping bean.

“Don’t worry about that now. Just tell me in the morning, when we’re both less tired.”

“But I might forget.” Her eyelids were flickering shut. The pulse in her neck was slowing, its movement becoming less frantic. “What if I forget it, Tom?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, adjusting his position on the bed so that he could get up without disturbing her. “It’s nothing, just a dream. And dreams can’t hurt you.”

“The TV people told me.”

Tom felt his limbs stiffen. His eyes widened in the dark and his shoulders tensed.

“They said that you were with someone – another woman.”

He stared at her face, her slack cheeks and her closed eyes. Her small, hard nose. Her slit of a mouth and the multiple chins beneath.

“I don’t mind. I know you have needs. You’re a man, still a young man, really, and you can’t deny your desires.”

She was asleep now: he could see that she was. He knew her well enough, and had spent so many years by her side, that he could not fail to recognise when she was no longer awake. Yet her speech was crisp and erudite. She was speaking lucidly, unhurriedly. Her words were as clear as the sound of falling water.

“But they said she’s dangerous. The TV people. They told me that she’ll hurt you. Something’s going to happen, and everyone will suffer. We’ll all pay a price, a debt that’s owed. We’ll all get hurt because of her.”

She’s sleeping, he thought. Talking in her sleep. She does this all the time – don’t get freaked out. She knows nothing.

But he was freaked out. In fact, he was terrified. How could she know that he had been with a woman, and one whose very presence made him weak and senseless with desire? It wasn’t real, couldn’t be. This was some kind of fluke, a random circumstance. There was no way on earth that Helen could know, and there certainly were not any people inside the television to divulge the information.

He looked over at the screen, needing to keep an eye on it, to watch it more closely. The static was going crazy. It was like a swarm of monochrome bees trapped in a jar, bouncing off the glass walls, confused and trying to get out, get free, back out into the open.

“She’ll break everything. Cause damage. They told me this, the TV people. They had skinned faces and long, bent-back legs. There were tiny birds with bright wings hovering around them and landing on them, sitting in their open palms.”

The television screen bulged. Just once, like an air bubble. Then it went dark. Reflected for a moment in that jet black surface, Tom saw something that could not possibly be his father’s face, no matter how much it resembled the man’s features.

“She’ll open doors that should stay closed.” Helen’s voice was drifting now, growing weaker, quieter. “She’s going to let them out, and... she doesn’t know… it.”

Then she went quiet, apart from her ragged breathing, and the faint sound of her little snores.

Tom prepared to get up and leave the room. The face in the television screen – the one that he refused to acknowledge looked like his dead father – was no longer visible. He shifted his weight on the mattress, causing it to creak and rock slightly beneath him.

I’m seeing things, he thought. That’s all.

Helen sat bolt upright, her eyes open wide. They were all white: no pupil. Just big white marbles stuck into the pale dough of her face. Her mouth dropped open, her tongue lolling like a fat dead worm. “Kill me.” She said. “You deserve better.” Her eyes were normal now; the pupils were dilated but at least they’d gone back where they were meant to be. Her face had regained some of its firmness, and looked less like the face of a corpse. “I know you want to, Tom.” She slipped back onto the pillows, her eyes closing. “I know it’s what you want.”

Tom stood and backed away from the bed, terrified that he might disturb her and the whole performance would start up all over again. He moved towards the door, keeping one eye on Helen and the other on the dead television screen.

“Maybe I want it, too.”

He could not be certain that she said the words, but he heard them anyway, inside his head. The stale air in the room buzzed with energy, like the air before a storm. Helen’s statement – whether real or imagined – was stuck in his head, refusing to budge. The words hung there like dead animals nailed to a wall: a reminder of something bad, the first bloody act in a chain of events that could not be prevented from running its course.

He backed out of the room and tried to shut the door. He could not remove his fingers from the handle; they were glued there by fear. Perhaps if he remained where he was, with his hand on the door, then nothing Helen had predicted would happen? Perhaps he could stop the world, simply by standing there, unmoving.

Or perhaps the world would simply keep on turning without him, unaffected by his ridiculous protest, and the damage his wife had spoken of would still destroy them all. One by one, like diseased trees falling in a dying forest, or plastic targets put down by gunshots.

Maybe nothing he did would ever matter, not any more. Not now.

Because what if his life was already over – if in fact it had ended ten years ago, right after the accident – and since then he’d just been playing catch-up?

He shut and then re-opened the door – just an inch or two, the way Helen liked it. When he leaned in close and peeked through the gap he saw a large, grey hairless mass on the bed. Fins twitched above the covers like the legs of a dog dreaming of the run. At last the sea cow was sleeping…

…then it was her again: it was Helen, asleep on the bed, her nightdress in disarray. His wife: the person who depended on him so completely. The woman he was meant to love.

As he moved away from the door, Tom had the terrible feeling that he was leaving behind one kind of darkness only to enter another.