The Physics Of The Dead - A Supernatural Mystery Novel (19 page)

He sighs again, blowing the air out forcefully now, turning the sigh into a psyche up, and starts to walk. He should never have stalled; his fear is greater now, but he pushes it back as best he can.

Then he's already inside, up the stairs, and putting the key into his front door. He feels cold inside. Hollow. Sick, and it's not the vodkas. He pushes the door open gently, delicately, and walks into the small hallway. It's dark, lit only by the thin halo of light around the closed living room door. He can hear the TV on. It's peaceful in the hallway, comforting. He's scared of the other side of that door, frightened by the possibility of a memory of warmth, frightened that it might take away his resolve or hurt him and make him think again.

But he knows it's gone too far. It's time to talk. He strides to the living room door and opens it without hesitation.

Suzie is sat on the settee, legs curled up alongside her. She's wearing a pair of his joggers, combined with a lazy, about-the-house jumper, her long blonde hair pulled loosely up on her head in a ponytail. It's her usual end of the week wear, the sort of thing she's always worn on a Friday night. It doesn't do justice to how pretty she is, yet at the same time it does because she's able to shine through it, proving how good she looks in it. And similarly, he loves it and hates it in the same breath. He loves it because it's just her, relaxed and low maintenance, warm and soft and loving. The way she always was with him. So much so-that level of dedication-that he sometimes felt awkward. It meant he would be that little bit more mean to her just because he could, would push her just to get her to stand up to him, would overreact over nothing just to get her to stand up for herself. And after she did, she would be hurt and things between them would be that little bit less. And he hates this reminder because she is
not
that way these days-that now-missing level of dedication-and it's a mockery. It's a disguise. It's a shell, a painted face. These thoughts are really of the way she
used
to be. That will never return, and just as he feared, it's
extremely
painful to know, made worse because he knows there's no turning back.

She has a glass of red wine in her hand, and on the floor is the bottle. It's nearly empty.

And he realises she hasn't looked up at him yet. She sits in their small living room, lit only by the tall
Ikea
lamp in the corner, giving the rather sparsely furnished room a warmer feeling than normal. She still doesn't speak, not even after he noisily kicks off his shoes and steps onto the thinly carpeted floor, and not after he drops his jacket onto the small round
Ikea
dining table in the corner. She was supposed to start shouting.

He feels anger starting to build, and it feels good, in a self-righteous way. She's being rude, and it gives him a leg to stand on. It gives him confidence.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she does before he gets the chance.

“Are you waiting for something?”

She's still looking at the TV, and she's caught him unawares. She turns to look at him now, a soft, patronising smile on her lips that makes his hand twitch, and he struggles to see any lingering affection her eyes. Right now, in fact, there is none. And now it comes to it, he hasn't got anything to say. He doesn't know where to start.

“No,” he says, resorting to flatness, curtness, in lieu of anything else. And he adds, dumbly, “Are you?” Inwardly, he winces.

She chuckles, and it's a sneer. She's drunk too.

“Very good, Frank. On top form, there.” She takes a sip from her glass that becomes a gulp. “Unfortunately, how drunk you are isn't going to shock or impress me either, tonight,” she says, scooping up the bottle and pouring the last of it into her glass, “Because as you can clearly see, I'm not too shabby myself. How was
your
night, Frank? Had a good time feeling sorry for yourself? But that's
all
you do these days, isn't it?” She points an unsteady finger at him. “That's your favourite pastime now, eh?” No shouting. Calm speech. That was worse. This was going wrong from the start. He had it scripted in his head, and it was supposed to start with her shouting when he walked in.

“Fuck off,” Bowler says quietly, and walks into the kitchen, needing a chance to regroup. This isn't going how he'd anticipated an hour ago. He fumbles open the cupboard to get a pint glass, to get some water in him and help him focus, but she's gotten up and padded in behind him.
Shortie
Suzie as he used to laugh with her, all 5'2” of her. She's still holding the glass, and the anger inside her is on her face now, the smug front dropping away.

“You think I should?” she says. “You think that's fair, do you?”

Bowler is at the sink, filling up the glass. This is clearly not the time for confrontation. He can't get his head together, and is suddenly very emotional and confused. She needs to be punished with silence, he decides. This is the best option. He's angry too, but he can't drop the bombshell now; he expected shouting, that would have made it easy. Best to get out of there, start again another time. It's all gone wrong.

“Do what you like, Suzie. I'm going to bed.”

But she's barring the doorway now, and as he goes to leave, she doesn't move. He can't stop this now without calming down,
backing
down, and that isn't going to happen.

“Let me ask you something. You remember Glasgow? You remember all that?” Bowler rolls his eyes, but only for her benefit, to annoy her and to hide the fact that she had been successful with smashing him in the emotional balls. An incredibly hurtful, cruel question. How could he ever forget? How could she use that so casually? Who was this?

“Yeah, of course you do,” she continues, voice shaking and eyes watering as she nods at her own statement. “I'LL never forget it, as long as I live. You probably won't either. But here's the thing, Frank, how long did I wallow over that? Over something as, as, as
devastating
as that? Any ideas?”

Bowler folds his arms and set his jaw. His own anger is building now as he realises she is turning Glasgow into a weapon, and also because he knows what her point is going to be, and knows already that she is right.

“And last year, Frank, when Corrigan gave you the boot? You remember that, when this...this
bullshit
started?” Suzie never swears. The most she ever normally manages is a very quiet
Shit
when, and only when, she was near tears. There are no full tears here. Just watery eyes from her anger. Her face is red, and her eyes are accusing slits staring up into his face. “What was I always saying?
It'll be all right, it'll be all right, I make enough, I make enough.
But you went off into your own little world, and never came back.
You
. When I'd done nothing of the sort, I'd done nothing like that even when we'd lost...” She stops herself, composes herself, swallows. She then goes on, mouth turned up into a hurt sneer. “And I kept trying, kept trying to keep everything nice, whilst all you wanted to do was make me feel guilty about something as shitty and pointless and
nothing
like money! Pushing me away, until the idea of everything being nice became a sick joke! Over money!
Money! Nothing!
When I was there for both of us after...” She stops again and folds her own arms now, openly shaking her head at him, assessing him and finding him sorely lacking.

“So here's the thing,” she continues, with a stiff, bitter smile, “who do you think had the bigger thing to feel sorry for themselves about? Who had the bigger thing to overcome for the sake of us? Who cared enough?” And for a second she weakens, and the way she used to look at him flashes across her face, and then it's gone, replaced by near hate. It's the saddest thing he's ever seen. It's a tragedy.

“But you wouldn't, would you? A job, a...a fucking job!” A bit of her spit catches him near his eye as she shouts. “Everything else I could handle, all the arguments, but that,
that
you couldn't even pull your head out of your arse to save
us
...” She deflates now, quickly, sadness drawing her back in. “You'd rather go out and run away, and leave me alone. And that's when I started to think differently. It really surprised me at first, the very thought that we could ever end. The thought that I could find someone else who
would
try.”

Bowler realises that she's been doing the exact same thing he has; drinking to prepare for this. And his skin has a cold rush, and he starts to panic a little. He doesn't want to hear this at all, because he can see that she's calming down, and fast, because she's leaving behind the thing she
is
upset by; the sad memories. And by catching up to the present, she's calming down. The distance is coming back.

“And I realised something else, Frank, I mean, I don't know if you were always like this and I didn't see it-I don't think so, you know, because before Glasgow you were just so...
there,
always there-but I realised that now, at least...you're a coward.” And she says this last bit with so little emotion-she's bang up to date now, right back to where she was before the
shouting
started-that the contrast is stunning, her eyes gently examining his face, as if she was thinking
what did I ever see in this guy
. The woman who once said
I've never met anyone like you
and
Don't ever let me go
and
I love you so much, I'd be nothing without you
and
I'm
gonna
take care of you forever.

And if there was one, tiny, helpless pinpoint of a chance to save this, the moment is now, but once again Bowler's anger-anger he has never felt as strongly with anyone else than the woman he loved-blasts it away, even as he knows what he is doing (that's what he could never get over after the rows in the past, when the guilt hit; he knew exactly what he was doing, and knew he was wrong, and most of all he knew he would give anything afterwards to take it back, and yet the next time it happened he
did it again
anyway, a choice that somehow was never a choice) as he hears that word.

'
Coward.
'

And Bowler throws the pint glass full of water into the empty sink, where it shatters-
smashes
-with a bang, spraying glass fragments and water into the air, and he sees her jump, stung and scared, and for a moment he's back in control. This is the moment he will remember the most afterwards; seeing that little scared girl in her eyes, the little girl that would have done anything for him at one time. When he remembers it later, he will think that if he could pull out his own eyes to be able to comfort her, to go back and protect her, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

“
Fuck
you, Suzie,
fuck
you! Coward? You know what's it's been like for me?” he roars, and she shrinks back slightly, and he knows this is how he takes control again, by scaring her into submission, even when he knows he should listen. The urge to destroy is too big to swallow.

“Being a fucking housewife to
my
wife? Being the bitch about the house, bringing in nothing? I work with my
hands,
my
hands
Suzie!! Why don't you get it?! You throw Glasgow at me like it's something I don't care about?!” He's wrong, dead wrong, he knows it, but this is all he has. Well...not all. He still has the bombshell. And he can see her blinking fast and swallowing, taking a deep breath, while looking at his feet, and this is something new. Normally she'd be looking into his eyes while hers were full of tears, but she's acting differently. She's trying to be brave. The emotions that normally would make this moment his victory are gone, and all she is doing is riding out the rage of a man that has become a stranger, and he sees it, but he can't stop now. If anything, it makes it worse. Like an angry child, he needs a reaction, he needs to shock her, needs to
jolt
her into her old self. He needs to shatter this composed front, needs to say what he came here to say in the first place, and he realises that this is why; he needs to shatter Cold Suzie, and dropping the bombshell will do it.

“Where the fuck do you get off calling me a coward? Eh?” He needs to let the anger build, he knows, hit a climax. She's still breathing deeply, and now she even raises her eyes to meet his, face pale but set. No anger. Bravery. It scares him.