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A Bit of a Thing
By
Barrie Darke
THE FIRST THING revolved around a smashed cassette lying on
the edge of the path. Not a video cassette, an old-style C90
tape for the hi-fi; Marie passed it while walking the kids
up to school, and she passed it again on the way back. It
was all fractured plastic that made a dental association
somewhere in her mind, and a loosening spool that would take
over the whole road before long. It was there for a few
days, dirty, blasted and saddened (one night it rained, and
she could only begin to imagine how slick and dripping it
would be), then it was gone, sucked up by the council’s
funny little van with the hoover and the brushes.
She wished she’d picked it up, however
compulsively she’d have been washing her hands for the rest
of the day. Even in that hopeless condition there might have
been a way to dry it out, rig it up, listen to pieces of it.
She spent far too much time flicking through the options of
what could have been on it: it was the first words of a now
grown-up child, left in a CD-cassette player that had been
stolen, the tape discarded with a sneer at its antiquity, or
it was a recording of a Ouija board session, thrown out of a
window for fear something awful had been captured on it.
But the most likely answer, she knew, was a
compilation tape made by a middle-aged man who didn’t know
how to burn CDs. It had been given to a middle-aged or
younger woman he was pursuing. She got rid of it after an
early, disastrous date, or even just when she heard the
terrible musical taste on display: 80s soft metal ballads,
with a token nod towards the blander fringes of soul music.
Something that deserved to be thrown away. That sounded
about right to Marie.
* * *
The second thing had arrived while she was watching a
murder-mystery programme on Sunday evening TV. Someone had
just been killed, with a modicum of blood in a pretty
location, and Marie wondered what in God’s name was going
on: it was like snapping awake to something undeniable, and
she was amazed that no-one else had said anything, that they
hadn’t tried to put a stop to it. Since when was murder, the
absolute worst crime on the books, a fit subject for snoozy
light entertainment – how could death be reduced to a
slightly taxing parlour game?
Marie asked these questions of her husband,
Charles, who was also watching the programme, or who at
least had his eyes in that direction. He shrugged when she
was finished speaking. He supposed he could see her point,
but then again, what did she expect from the TV – art and
responsibility?
Marie fell silent, which didn’t mean the matter
was closed. The next day, she wrote the letter to the TV
channel that she’d spent most of the night composing in her
head; a phone call, even a long email, wouldn’t have
transmitted her feelings robustly enough. She messed around
with it endlessly on the word processor until it had the
world-altering storminess she had hit on in the dark, and
then she wrote it out in her neat, readable longhand.
Once it was posted she thought of a few more
things to say, and worked on those over the next couple of
days. She sent three handwritten letters in all, each one
more afire than the last. In the last one, she made – as she
later came to acknowledge – an intemperate suggestion.
Instead of a decorous murder each week, why not a crossbow
through the face? That could be the programme’s selling
point. A guest actor of reasonable standing (someone whose
name was on the tip of the tongue for only a few minutes)
could have a crossbow fired through their face by a guest
actor of similar standing. Then investigate that, if you
wanted.
A few days later, a standard note came saying
her comments had been logged and appreciated. She sent one
or two further letters on the subject before leaving it
there.
One chilly spring morning, Marie let their fat old black
Labrador, FancyDan, out into the back garden for his morning
messes. She usually waited at the patio doors for him to
finish, but that morning it was there again. When FancyDan
lumbered over to sniff at the almost invisible intruder, she
followed him.
They’d moved house the previous summer, for
school catchment purposes, and Marie hadn’t been
particularly bothered that there was a cemetery nearby; but
then it averaged out that perhaps once a month she’d find
cellophane in the garden. It had blown over the wall from
flowers left on the graves. She’d felt ill, the first time
she realised, wavery as she stood holding it, and couldn’t
stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. Most of the
neighbours faced the same ordeal, though Marie had no doubt
her garden was on the most unlucky flightpath.
Sometimes it was even worse: on more than enough
occasions there were small cards still attached to the
cellophane. That morning she could see it, the pale
rectangle in the struggling light, and she stared down at it
for a while, till FancyDan was making pitiable notes at the
patio doors. It was his right and privilege to be lying in
front of the big radiator by now.
Marie took the bundle inside. The cellophane was
pressed down into the kitchen bin without a second thought,
though the card went with the others at the back of a drawer
in the work unit. The house then lurched with the usual hour
of crowded commotion as breakfasts, uniforms and mouthwashes
were dealt with. Charles left for work. She took the kids to
school. FancyDan lifted his head briefly at each leaving.
He was up on his feet, tail on the wag, when
Marie came back. He usually received some attention at this
time, but she made straight for the drawer. She didn’t even
put the kettle on. She took the cards out – there were three
of them – and sat down on the couch. FancyDan heaved himself
up, tried to give the cards a sniff and a lucky lick, but
she absently held them out of his reach.
She read them through a couple of times, then
put them back. She hadn’t hung her coat up, had just left it
over the back of the chair near the window, as though she’d
known she’d be needing it. FancyDan followed her to the
door, and she could hear him complaining as she walked up
the path.
The day had warmed up a little, but not for
standing around in. There weren’t many people about: a young
mother with a toddler, showing the toddler where to put
something, though it couldn’t stoop very well without
unbalancing; a hawkish old man with a raw, red face and a
painfully straight back, trying to smooth down strands of
hair in the breeze; a young man of about student age and
scruffiness, the scruffiness being something to disagree
with, she thought, in such a place. Marie moved around the
rows, no-one taking any notice of her. She didn’t need to be
there much longer than half an hour.
She couldn’t wait to collect the kids from school, and had
even, during the longest part of the afternoon, considered
ringing the headmaster with the news that the kids’
grandfather was on his deathbed, asking to see them. (Both
grandfathers, in fact, showed no ill-health whatsoever, and
she wouldn’t have been able to decide which one to lie about
– though that was only one reason why she didn’t go ahead
with the plan.) She paced the floor, told herself to stop
looking at the cards, took FancyDan for a long and pensive
walk that did nothing to smooth a runway in her mind. She
was the first mother at the gates.
It was hard to keep from talking about it on the
way home; there was always someone catching them up or
passing them by, and she was still clear-thinking enough to
know that being overheard wouldn’t be good. At home, all the
kids wanted to do was get changed and play in their rooms,
have a mad half hour, but Marie sat them down at the dining
room table almost before they’d gotten their coats off. She
slid over a pad of paper each, handed out pens. Their faces
were hollow at the sight.
Marie thought a big smile from her might make
the whole thing easier, but the only one she could manage
didn’t reach her eyes; it barely reached her lips. ‘Now,’
she said, ‘listen to what we’re going to do.’
‘Can we do it later?’ Francesca asked.
‘You don’t even know what it is yet.’
‘I know, but can we do it later anyway?’
‘It won’t take long. Not too long, anyway.’
Nicholas was already doodling a pair of
goalposts, and she asked him to stop. He did so without
looking her in the face.
‘I just want you to imagine,’ she said, ‘that
Mrs Cathcart and Mr Stacy had died.’ These were their
moderately popular teachers. ‘And you have to write a card
to … you know how they put cards on flowers, to put on the,
on the grave? To say, you know the sort of thing, to say
goodbye and thank you, and what you think of them. So – what
would you put on the card?’
Francesca was looking at her like she was
proffering the worst possible Christmas present. Nicholas
was looking down.
‘If you just put down, you know, what you would
say on a card.’
‘What’ve they died of?’ Nicholas wanted to know.
‘That doesn’t really – car crash then, okay,
we’ll say it was a car crash.’
Nicholas pulled a face. ‘Both of them, in
a car crash?’
‘Yes, both of them. Mr Stacy was giving Mrs
Cathcart a lift home. It was a terrible tragedy. Now, come
on. The quicker it’s done.’
‘Do we really have to do this?’ Francesca
asked.
‘I’d like you to, Francesca, yes.’
That was enough to get them started. She wanted
to sit opposite them, scrutinising their efforts, but she
thought that might be off-putting. She would be able to see
any crossings-out anyway. She went through to the kitchen to
give FancyDan his dinner. Between the rattles of the dry
food and his scrabbling paws, she could hear the kids
muttering to each other, and it seemed an important point to
shout through: ‘No conferring!’
They were ready to show her what they’d done
long before the five minutes was up, and when she read them,
she sat them back down for another five minutes. Francesca
had written: To Mrs Cathcart, you were my favuourite
teacher. Marie knew this to be an exaggeration at best,
and a lie at worst. Nicholas had written: To Mister
Stacy, I will miss youre football leson. Neither had any
previous efforts scratched out.
‘Okay, right,’ Marie said. ‘Right. Now I want
you to do it again – just listen, listen – I want you to do
it again, and this time I want you to think of someone you
care about a little more.’ Grandfathers came to mind again,
but the same difficult choice made her move on. ‘One of your
friends. Make it your best friend, that’ll be better. And
think carefully about it this time.’
‘Why do we have to do this?’ Francesca
asked.
‘I’m just asking you to, that’s all,’ Marie
said, after a longer pause than she liked.
‘I actually don’t like thinking about this kind
of thing?’
‘This ‘sort’ of thing,’ Marie said.
‘This sort of thing?’
‘She’ll have nightmares,’ Nicholas said,
laughing.
‘No I won’t, Nicholas, what are you
saying that for, shut up.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Marie said. ‘No talking now. Five
more minutes.’
They put their heads down and got on with it.
They were good kids that way. Marie stood at the window,
joined there by FancyDan, still licking his chops and
belching. She could hear scribbling, but lots of silent gaps
as well, which seemed a little more encouraging. Neighbours
were round and about outside, busy but not cripplingly so,
and for a brief moment she felt envy shoot through her
spine. But she knew, or at least fully expected, that when
she was on her deathbed she would be able to say she’d
gotten a lot more out of life because of these things.
After five minutes, her count this time, she sat
back down at the dining table and took in their pads.
Nicholas was looking vastly bored now, but Francesca was
reddening, a mix of anger and upset that would lead to a
tantrum before much longer.
Nicholas had written a single sentence: To
Mark, I liked playng football with you. It was all Marie
could do to refrain from tutting and rolling her eyes; maybe
this wasn’t a boy’s area.
Francesca had taken a few swings at it, but her
earlier versions had been coloured over in blocks of ink
that had gone through the paper. Marie saw this as a
spiteful act. She had finally settled on: To Carly, I
will remember you forever and ever. You were an Angel.
Marie shook her head, and felt the onrush of a
depression that was as severe as any she’d felt in her 35
years; they were a strictly non-religious household, so why
Francesca was thinking in those terms, she didn’t know.
‘It’s going to have to be one more,’ she said. ‘You can both
do a lot better than this.’
Francesca got redder, her body less settled on
her chair. Nicholas had sunk into himself, just planning on
getting through it; it would end eventually. Neither of
these postures did anything to soften Marie.
‘This time, to really get you thinking, do one
for me,’ she told them. ‘Pretend I died. Just pretend, it’s
all right.’
There was a gap. Outside, a car lock chirped a
couple of times. Francesca was already crying when she fled
the room. ‘I don’t really want to do that one either,’
Nicholas said carefully, sliding slowly off his chair. Marie
sat without speaking.
She was out in the garden when Charles came home. It was no
use telling herself she wasn’t looking for more cellophane
and cards, because she was. They were only ever there in the
mornings, though; statistically, that had to be unlikely,
but there it was. FancyDan was bumping about in one of the
other corners, and she heard his strangled excitement before
she heard the patio doors opening. He didn’t get much
attention then either. It wasn’t his day.
There were hesitations in Charles’ movements,
she could feel the air behind her stuttering with them, but
he eventually did as he usually did: squeezed her shoulders
and kissed the back of her neck. She knew that was how he
told whether or not she was relaxed. He had his answer right
away.
He stood next to her, looking down at the
borders. The garden wasn’t particularly his domain.
‘Francesca’s upset,’ he said.
‘Still?’
He cleared his throat, a nervous tic that
annoyed her. ‘Not so much ‘still’ as ‘again’. When she told
me.’
‘That’s silly,’ Marie said.
‘Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure it was a good
idea, whatever it was you did. What was it?’
She told him, as blankly as she could. His
knowing wasn’t going to change anything in any direction,
but she supposed he had a right to know what was going on.
‘I had a look at the graves,’ she ended. ‘At the cards
there. Some of them are beautiful, but some of them are …
ordinary.’
‘Well,’ he said, not placatingly, but letting
her know that a different viewpoint was on the way. ‘Not
everyone’s so good at expressing themselves in words.’
‘At a time like that, though …’
‘That might be the hardest time.’
‘Not for everyone, obviously. Some were
beautiful, as I said.’
‘Okay, okay.’ The throat clearing again. ‘So …?’
‘So I thought I’d see which way it would be for
me.’
He sighed, softly. ‘I wish … Marie, I really
wish you’d talked to me about it first.’
‘It couldn’t wait.’ She nodded to herself. ‘It
just couldn’t.’
‘You could’ve – anything like that, in the
future, ring me at work. Don’t let it build up.’
She looked up at him, with another smile that
didn’t work too well. ‘What would your advice have been if
I’d rung?’
‘I think you can guess. Don’t put the kids
through anything like that. Wait till they’re in their
thirties at least.’ He nudged her shoulder, as he did when
he made a subtle joke.
She didn’t respond to that. ‘It’s important to
me now. You think I would do that lightly?’
He stiffened a little. ‘So were you satisfied
with what they said about you?’
‘We didn’t get that far.’
‘Well, okay, but would you’ve been satisfied, do
you think?’
She had to swallow before she could speak. ‘It’s
something to work on in the future.’
He shook his head. ‘No, come on, it isn’t. Drop
it. Not unless you’re planning on dying soon?’ Another
nudge.
‘No, I’m not.’
‘That’s what I wanted to hear,’ he said. ‘Can we
go in? I’m cold.’
He turned and walked inside, loosening his tie.
FancyDan followed, and finally got some attention, though
not as much as he wanted or thought he deserved. Marie came
in a few seconds behind. Charles was sitting on the couch,
FancyDan standing up on his back legs, having his neck and
stomach rubbed. Marie stood in the middle of the room.
‘What if I’d asked you to write a card for me?’
she asked.
‘I’d tell you not to be so bloody morbid.’
‘No, come on. What would you write?’
‘I wouldn’t write anything, Marie. I’d refuse
outright. Out. Right.’
Marie nodded. ‘That’d be for the best, I’m
sure.’
He stopped patting FancyDan. ‘And … what does
that mean?’
‘It means I wouldn’t want to know what you
said.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
‘No.’
He frowned, always a theatrical experience. ‘Why
would that be?’
She shrugged, looking at the window, the
streetlights.
‘Because you’d be disappointed, you mean?’
She shrugged again. ‘I’d just rather not … risk
it.’
‘Right. I see.’ Charles took a pen and notebook
from his jacket pocket.
Marie gave him five minutes. It didn’t seem long
to wait, though there were sapping nerves this time, and she
had to fold her arms to know what to do with them. She took
her position by the window again. Not many people out there
now.
When she turned round, his frown was gone. If
anything, he looked like a man who’d just given himself a
shock. This came as scant surprise to her. He ripped the
sheet out of the book, screwed it into a ball, and put it in
his pocket. The urge to wrestle it off him was there, but
she stayed where she was, somehow. He went upstairs for an
hour or so, and when he came back the subject wasn’t
mentioned.
Not too long after, Marie hit on a new idea for plastic
surgery: eye transplants. In her opinion, there were far too
many people, on the TV and not just on the TV, who had dead,
blank eyes. They weren’t nice to look at, and were even
worse to think about; the state of their souls could only be
parlous.
What she thought they needed were eye
transplants: give them the eyes of jungle voyagers, of 60
year old tramps, of those who’d conducted prolonged
experiments with LSD. It would be a start, at least.
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