Surface Tension - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

 

The clouds are thickening, incrementally adding layers like blankets being pulled over a bed, the sickly pallor we've lived with, the half light and the cold is changing.  The sun's lost its battle to burn through. It's being buried in the rolling advance of the tombstone grey clouds.  The cold remains, cutting deep and hard into skin and bone but now the wind's picking up forcing the cold in in great gusts.

            “Come on Bill, let's go.” I grab her hand and start off towards the car. She tugs back. “Bill! It's going to snow.”

            “What was all that about Tony?”

            “What? Come on.” I'm out of the garden on the path. Bill's rooted to the spot.

            “That,” she jerks a finger to where the Merc has disappeared, “And this.” She swivels and looks back at the house.

            “Bill...”

            “No Tony, I want answers.”

            I move back to her and take her hands. They're icy.. Her face has reddened in the cold, but it's tight. Her jaws locked, an expression of concentration or anger. She pulls her hands from mine.

            “Maybe the car Bill?”

            “No Tony. Here. Now. I want to know.”

            So I tell her as the first flecks of snow are driven down. I tell her about meeting Liz, her request to come here and having seen this place I understand what's going on. I tell her about Ellen, the tour round McClelland's study, my first meeting with his son and how it ended with me sprawled across a frozen garden with a jaw that still aches. I tell her that I went to the gym this morning, took the money out and went back to McClelland's.

            “Why?”

            “Because...” The words falter. “Why? Because it seemed the right thing to do.” The snow’s falling hard, great white, wet gobs. “She didn't want it. Almost threw me out.”

            “Who?”

            “The grieving widow, Mrs  McClelland.”

            “And?” Bill's lips are thin blue lines, but she's reached out to me feeling for my hand.

            “She didn't want it. Tainted money, and seeing this I understand why.” I nod to the house. “I was leaving and a met junior again. He wants it back.”

            “You've got it here then?”

            The money, there it is, maybe that's the reason we're here.

            “Yes.”

Bill takes my hand and leads me from the garden towards the car.

            “Show me.”

            “Bill?”

            “Show me the money”

            “You think this is the right place?” The snow’s cloaking us, gradually turning us white.

            “Yes.”

            I fumble with the key.  The boot’s freezing to touch, tt hurts my finger and I have to work hard to get the key to turn in the lock. Finally it pops. The duffle bags there, innocuous; it could have my sports kit in, work stuff, my lunch. But it  doesn’t.

            “See.”  I take a step back. “Did you think I'd do a runner?”

            She carefully reaches for the bag touching it with a gloved hand.

            “Go on, open it if you want.”

            “No,” she declines backing away.  “I can see it's the bag.  I trust you Tony, I do,” she blurts, “It's just this morning, finding the locker, you know, smashed up... loosing you last night…it....” She dodges my look. 

            I slam the boot shut.

            “Let's go.”

            We clamber into the car. It splutters into action, immediately sliding across the road on the luxurious white carpet that covers the surface. As we turn away I notice that the trike has almost disappeared in a mound of snow.

            We're bombarded by snow.  It's falling hard and fast, corkscrewing down and then, when the wind comes, driven fiercely in whatever direction the wind comes from.  I've got the windscreen wipers on max, they're barely coping. I'm grateful to turn out of the estate, now I've got car tracks to follow.           As I turn back toward town the car slides, a graceful, balletic swoop that I manage to halt before I collide with a parked car.

            “Tony, what do you think?  Tony?”

            “What?

“Tony, you ignoring me?

“ Sorry Bill, trying to make sure we don't end up the backside of someone else. What’d you say?”

            “I was wondering how McClelland knew?”

            “McClelland, which one?”

            “The thug.”

“Oh. Knew? Knew what?” The car slides again. I grip the wheel tight, as if that will help.

            “About you, the locker, the money?”

            The car rights its self. I tap the break nervously to take another 5 mph of it. A stately crawl seems to be the best approach.

            “Dunno. Asked about new members, asked for our membership details, saw our photo's I expect. That's what I’d ‘ve done.”

            She doesn’t speak for 10 minutes. She clears the window with her gloved hand, watching the snow fall.

Me? There's something inside of me gestating,             “I reckon there is close on half a million in there.”

            It's Bill's turn to be startled.

            “What?”

            “In the bag. £500 grand.  Enough to start over don't you think?” A car pulls out of a side road. I swerve. The back end begins to go.  I catch it before we spin.

            “Tony, I'm sorry.  I didn’t mean things to be this way.”

            “That’s a strange thing to say.”

            “I didn’t know Jonah was going to be there last night, at the funeral”

            My heart misses a beat. ‘Sorry forms on lips, not an apology, a question, an accusation.

            “But he was.  I spent the entire service looking at the back of his head.” I risk a look. She's staring out of her window. “Following the nape of his neck, the way his shoulders tensed and relaxed as he stood or moved in his seat.  I can’t tell you anything about the service, nothing Tony, absolutely nothing.  It was him I was focused on.” She falls quiet.

            It's there, that sense of disquiet, building. I remember the taste of the anger this morning.

            “No, he didn’t see me,” she reads my mind, “I’d made sure I was at the back of church. I was angry with him, but…” I glance at her. A tear wells. Without thinking I reach out and brush it from her face, the car wobbles, Bill jerks back, not recoiling but enough for me to register her discomfort.  I barely hear the ‘no’ that she mutters.  I'm not sure if it’s meant for me.

            “Tony, I was angry, so, so angry but there he was.  I hadn’t seen him for weeks; I’d done my best to cut him out.  Did I tell you that he’d tried to phone and text?”  She looks at me. I pretend to focus on the road, trying to look blasé, but this little nugget hadn't been shared. I resent this, it’s another intimacy I'd not been privy to.  “I’d just cut them short, deleted them.  I wanted things on my terms, not his, yeah?”

            I say nothing, traffics picked up again. I’m grateful.

            “I worked my way out of church as quickly as possible. I didn’t want him to see me but I got caught by someone in the family, McClelland’s sister I think. She insisted, Tony, insisted that I come back to the house.  And then I saw him Tony. He was with a group heading towards one of those big black cars.  The sister was still talking but I was watching Jonah. She wouldn’t stop, you know, going on about the service, her brother and things. And I was watching Jonah.” 

            I shiver, despite the heater being full on.

            “As he was getting into the car he looked over his shoulder and he paused, Tony. He saw me.  He saw me Tony; he faltered, stopped and looked until he was pulled into the car. He wasn’t expecting me. And you know what he did? He smiled.”

            The snow explodes again, white whirling dervishes. The world's gone white. The houses and shops have gone, the people too.  Everything’s white except for two red dots ahead; they brighten, glowing spots of heat against the blizzard.

            “You OK?” she asks.

            There, it's in her words. Something I've suspected, dreaded. There's empathy, a silver thread that still exists between them, Bill and Jonah, Jonah and Bill, that entwines and holds them. 

And I resent it; resent it with all the force that I can muster.  Why should they have this connection, why should it last and hold? This gossamer filament with the strength of a spider’s web, and I know, with a deep seated knowledge, one which burns a hollow deep into my heart and soul that it will not break: love’s a decision. Once the mind is made up there's nothing to un-break it. 

            In one clear, icy moment I know the direction of travel; I can see it written in Bill’s eyes.  I don't want her to tell me. I know it. How she needed to speak to Jonah, the decision to head to the house. It wasn't about McClelland. It wasn't about me. It was Jonah. I saw the sense of anticipation as she travelled with me, her pulse quickening as we entered the big room, knowing that somewhere in the morass of people was her Jonah.  The manoeuvring, the platitudes used to work round the room; the silent anticipation as she stood on the outside of his group, their backs turned until the point where the conversation breaks, drinks arrive, breaking the flow. Then they're there, together alone. They are the centre, all else mere satellites.  I don’t want to hear their words of reproach or reconciliation. I want it all left unsaid, carefully left in its box, filed away.

            “I’m leaving Bill.”  My words come as a surprise. But as soon as they are said I know its right. This has been brewing.

            “What?”

            “I'm leaving, had enough, jacking it all in.”

            “Tony,” sheepishly, “it's not because...”

            “Of you and Jonah?” There, I've said it. They’re reunited. “No,” I lie, “It's everything.”

            “Oh.”

And there probably isn’t a better way of summing things up.