The Deal

I can’t see the clock, but I’ve been here long enough to get to know their time keeping, so I know that it’s about time for them to make their appearance. The wife, well she’ll be very quiet, no doubt. Sometimes she looks so ill it would make more sense to me if she was lying here instead. I want to get up and say – here hen, lie down a wee while, but the fact that I’ve practically got my arse in the grave, never mind the just the one foot, kind of stops me, if ye get my drift.

Oh, fucking wonderful – she’s here again. Not the wife, no, not my Cath, it’s my nurse. My Florence Nightingale, assigned to my bedside to make me feel better – an’ if ye think I’m putting any belief in the hope that that’s gonnae happen, well lets just be polite shall we and say that I’m not.

And how are we today, Mr McLean?
Well I’m just fuckin’ peachy hen – yersel?
Isn’t it a rotten day out there again – who would have thought that it could rain so much in July?
Aye – an’ I just fancied a walk in the park as well.

Thank Christ for that - she’s away. Mind you, she’s opened the curtains wide so I can see the lovely grey sky and the freezing cold rain dribbling down the window. Now that’s guaranteed to cheer me up. I’ve stared at the pattern on those cheap curtains long enough to know every flower and tear that’s on them. There’s a hole in the one on the right side, about the same size as the tear on the new bedspread they put on this morning. Falling apart, the whole bloody place is falling apart. And me right in the middle of it. I feel quite at home.

I don’t really speak to her – Florence, I mean - like that, you’ll be relieved to hear. But if I had the strength to speak, I’d leave her wi’ a flea in her ear. But that’s unfair of me; she’s just a wee lassie doing her job. Badly.

Look, I’m not kidding myself here. I know I’m just about away. I’ll be sorry for Cath and my lassie Lynne, but I’m just worn done. I wish I could tell them it’s going to be today but, of course, I can’t. I’m the one who’s ready for it – it’s them it’s going to catch by surprise.

So it’s come to this; I’ve made a deal with him upstairs. I’ll go quietly if he lets me visit them. I’ve come to some sort of peace about dying and now I’ve shook hands with Him, I don’t feel so anxious about going anymore. But I want to be able to come back every now and again – I want to watch over my family. I want to see my grandbairns when they come – ‘if’ they come Dad, my Lynne would say – and, of course, I want to keep an eye on Cath. But most of all, I want to come back to do a bit of haunting.

You see, one of the good things about being laid out like this – one of the very few good things, is that people forget that even though I cannae speak, it doesn’t mean that I cannae hear. I’ve been here for over five weeks now, skiving off in bed ever since the stroke. Apart from Cath’s visit every day, I’ve had quite a few visitors, but there’s just the one that I’m bothering about now.

And speak of the devil. Speak of the fuckin’ devil incarnate. Right on time – Cath and Archie. Archie’s my younger brother, a right sleekit wee bastard. Now that they’re closer I can see that Cath’s brought me some flowers from the garden, that new variety of sweet peas I was trying out, white with a lilac middle; she’s such a wee darling. I hope the garden isn’t too much for her after I’m away. We’ve worked hard in the garden in all the twenty years we’ve been in that house. We’ve worked side by side, and Cath always rolled up her sleeves and shared the hard work. She was never one to just come out and pull a few carrots or cut a bunch of chrysanth’s for the house, no she would be there beside me, digging and planting and tidying. We worked well together. There was pleasure in every task – weeding the vegetable patch or turning over the ground at the end of the year was a joy because she was there alongside me.

She would disappear for a minute and come back out with a mug of tea and a wee biscuit for me and we would take a seat on the bench that I had made for us just after we moved into the house and we would sit in the sun and talk over all of our grand plans. Not just for the garden, of course, we’d talk about Lynne and her future and about looking forward to spending the long days after my retiral together. We never got tired of being together, you see. It was never a bother to talk to one another. Cath never nagged and I hope that I never gave her much cause to, but I suppose every husband hopes that of himself.

But my tongue’s running away with me. Getting back to the reason for the haunting.

When Cath and I had been married about ten years we used to spend a lot of our time down at the village bowling club. There was a long ten years between our ages and I must have been a right boring so-and-so to be married to. Of course, I loved her and would have done anything for her but I didn’t see that although I was perfectly happy with the way we were, it couldn’t have been so exciting for her. Now, mind you, I never let her want for anything – not that she asked for much – and I never raised my hand to her in all our years together but still, I was a long way from a knight in shining armour. I’m ashamed to say that I was a long throw away from being the husband that she deserved.

So, Cath was only twenty-nine, had been married to me since she was nineteen and she was always a bonny, popular lassie. There were quite a few men taken with her so why she settled on me was always a queer puzzle. I was never an oil painting but once we were together that was it. All bets were off – she was my girl. Both from the village, we’d known one another for years, meeting up occasionally at the dances or in a crowd at the pictures. She always had a smile for me, but for a long time I just thought that she was polite! That is until the night of the Christmas dance at the Masonic hall in the next village when she put herself in front of me and demanded to know why I had never asked her to dance. What a girl she was – shy one minute and then sparking like a firework the next. We danced the whole of that night together and from then on we were together. It was meant to be – fated – destined. Although given what I want to do with my afterlife, perhaps I’d be safer saying that it was God’s will that brought us together. I’m not sure that He wouldn’t approve of me saying we were fated to become husband and wife though – I’m sure that the God I believe in is a secret romantic. So we were happy and content and blessed with a wonderful, bonny daughter. But no one’s life is ever that straightforward, is it?

If there’s one thing that I’ve taken from what I’ve found out since I’ve been in here, it’s that I don’t blame Catherine for any of it. I know where the blame lies and after careful thought, I’ve divvied it up 50/50 between Archie and me.

It seems that Cath and Archie had a wee fling. I don’t and can’t blame her – he was always the smooth one. He was better looking that me too - and only five years older than her, instead of ten like me. Fine, her part in it is forgiven and forgotten as far as I’m concerned. But from their conversations outside my wee cell here, I’ve managed to piece together that my gent of a brother has been taking money from my wife every few months since she ended the affair, just to keep him quiet. Just to stop me knowing. She’s had to carry the guilt around for twenty seven years and that bastard hasn’t even got the fucking decency to leave her alone when her husband – his brother, for Christ’s sake – is dying. He’s reminded her over and over of the times they lay together, rubbing her face in their lies and reminding her of how much it would break my heart to find out about it now, after all these years when she could have told me but said nothing. Oh Cath, I wish I’d been an easier husband to talk to. I wish you could have told me, hen. I’d have forgiven you sweetheart. If I could just have another year with you Catherine, I’d show you such love. I’d carry you around in my arms for every day of the whole twelve months, just so I’d never lose the sweet feeling of you against me. I’ve never been a man for showing my feelings too openly but oh, for a second chance. I know it isn’t coming – I’m not hopeful of a complete recovery, or a recovery of any description, but the thought of all of the wasted afternoons watching the football when all along I had the chance to take your hand and lead you up to our bedroom makes my heart sore.

She looks so tired. It’ll soon be over, Cath. For you anyway – Archie isn’t going to be so lucky. Not with me behind him from now on. At least he’s got the good grace to look shifty in my presence. His eyes never stay on me long – I must be too clear a reminder of death. And that’s just how I want him to see me. But while he’s worrying about hereditary weaknesses and wondering if he’ll go the same way as me one day, my brother doesn’t know that I’m considering how he’s going to die and I’m not prepared to wait for any chance illness to set in. I’m decided and determined and if God feels I’m a vindictive bastard, well he hasn’t sent any angels to the foot of my deathbed to warn me against it.

So that’s me then. I can feel my grip on the room around me slipping a bit and know that it can’t be long to go now. I don’t know how I’ll torment him yet, but not knowing has kept my mind ticking over for three weeks now. The possibilities are endless, the choices unlimited. I’m going to take my brother’s life and wipe the slate clean for Cath.

Maybe I’ll be a sudden fog bank that makes him drive straight into the central reservation of the motorway one night. Maybe I’ll be behind the knife that takes a funny angle and falls from the rack on the kitchen wall straight through his heart. I could be the whisky filling the drunk driver who mounts the kerb and mows him down – the black ice – the oncoming car – the fire.

It doesn’t really matter. The deal’s made and I’m ready.