The Way Out (3 page)

There was no point going back to the States. There was nothing there for him anymore, not even a decent cup of tea. At least here he could feel he was still with Kath, surrounded by what remained. This house. These memories. She used to joke he was her war bride. Instead of the pair of them shipping off to the States when they'd married after the war, she'd convinced him to make the move to her side of the Atlantic. Not that he'd put up much of a fight. He'd have moved to Timbuktu if that was what she'd wanted. They'd had a good life together. Children hadn't come along, which was a sadness, but they'd always had each other.

Sometimes the lack was like a great ragged hole in his guts, other times it was worse. He hadn't believed he could miss her more until yesterday when, for a whole horrifying minute, he had completely forgotten her name.

The memory gaps were happening more often now. At least he thought they were, but how could he know for sure? He shook his head as he set the kettle to boil again. Stood to reason, if he could recall that his memory was bad, then it couldn't be so bad as all that. It was a little patchy, that was all. No big deal.

He sat at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of tea and picked up the envelope from the Council. It contained details of the home help they were sending to his house. He'd told them he didn't need any help, thank you kindly. Didn't want some do-gooder poking around his kitchen, prying in his fridge, handling things. He could manage just fine.

When the gas main exploded under number 36 flinging slates, bricks and assorted debris high into the night sky, winking across the stars to land in the back gardens and hedges of neighbouring
houses, Marvin looked up.

On the heels of the initial boom of the explosion, the low growl and crackle of fire breathed through his open window. He got up from the table, walked towards the window and blinked slowly. Perhaps the street would be back to normal when he opened his eyes, but when he did, he found himself looking straight into the face of the woman across the street. Both her and the baby were staring straight back at him, framed in their window, while fire splashed lurid orange light over the houses.

Lights were going on up and down the street now. People were emerging, bewildered in their nightclothes, stumbling over slippers; drawn towards the fire, they still looked to each other and raised their hands to their mouths, hoping someone else would know what to do. Marvin pulled on his bathrobe and went outside. The crowd milled and clustered, and stepped over the smouldering remnants of exploded house strewn around the street. He was standing at the edge of the crowd when he felt a tug at his sleeve. The baby giggled and tugged again, his chubby hand clasped a handful of Marvin's bathrobe while his mother was busy talking to a woman with long grey braids wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Marvin held out a finger and the baby grasped and pulled it towards his mouth.

‘Hungry are you, buddy?' he asked the baby conspiratorially. ‘That what keeps you up at night?' At the sound of his voice, the mother turned her head towards him and narrowed her eyes. ‘I always see your light on,' Marvin smiled. She didn't respond. ‘Your bedroom light,' he said, wondering again if she spoke English. She raised her eyebrows and drew her baby towards her. ‘Not that I'm watching you or anything,' Marvin raised his hands in a gesture of reassurance. ‘Nothing like that.' As the woman backed away to the other side of the crowd, he heard the lonely howl of approaching sirens, drawing closer.

The fire engines blasted into the street, a controlled explosion of red paint and blue lights, scattering the residents before them. Firefighters jumped out wearing dayglo jackets and helmets with visors. The police arrived and set about crowd control.

‘Move back, please. For your own protection. Stay back.' A kid in uniform herded them across the street, away from the burning building. ‘Sorry,' he told them, ‘you can't return to your homes just yet but if you'll be patient, we'll let you know as soon as it's safe.'

Finding himself entangled in the docile shuffling of the crowd, Marvin fought his way clear. There must be something he could do to help. Where were the couple that had lived at number 36? Perhaps they were wandering around somewhere dazed and lost, disoriented from the shock, or injured so badly they couldn't move or call out. Someone should be trying to find them. He set off, looking into gardens, around sheds and behind bushes. The cold air poked chill fingers into the folds of his bathrobe and he realised with a familiar dismay that he needed to go, and soon. It was bad enough at his age without the cold, and it sure wasn't helping. He glanced around. He needed to find somewhere quickly.

Marvin edged around a box hedge into a deserted front garden and found a good dark corner. As he stood there, sighing with relief, he looked up at the smoke drifting past the stars. The folks from number 36 had likely been blown up and burnt during the explosion and could even be floating by, within those clouds.

He was just finishing off when he heard a noise behind him. Startled, he spun round and came face to face with a thin, young woman with lank hair, holding a baby. There was something familiar about her. She looked at him and her eyes dropped to his crotch where his hand still flapped and jerked as he attempted to tidy himself back into his pyjama pants.

Her eyes widened in shock for a second then narrowed and her mouth twisted sideways. She pushed a breath out through her nose
and turned away. Marvin understood well enough what she meant.

‘No. It isn't…I wasn't…It's a tremor…'

Marvin tried to explain but she was already gone. He started to follow and his foot came down on something soft. Oh crap. Please, not dog shit on my slippers, he thought. He looked down and gently lifted his foot.

There on the garden path was a human hand, lying palm up, open, like a strange pale flower in the dark. It had been severed at the wrist but was otherwise intact. By the size of it, and the rings, he could tell it was a woman's hand, must be Mrs 36's. It was her left hand, Marvin noted. He felt a little dizzy as he stood staring at it, wondering what he should do. The ring finger bore an engagement ring and a wedding band, grown slightly too tight over the years and digging into the flesh, the same way Kath's rings had. He remembered the way her hands had lain open on the bedspread, pleading for relief, even as the warmth left her body. And there had been nothing, not one goddamned thing, he could do for her.

Maybe he should pick the hand up but he didn't want to touch it. In any case, he reasoned, you weren't supposed to move a body so probably you shouldn't move pieces of them either. He went to the edge of the garden and looked around, hoping to find someone official nearby, but there was no one. He could see the fire was being brought under control, the flames sinking lower behind the black shadow-puppet silhouettes of his neighbours.

Perhaps he should call for help. He cleared his throat. ‘Help?' he tried, but his voice sounded thin and papery. ‘Help!' he tried again, but the word jammed in his throat and crushed itself, like it was too big to get out.

As Marvin debated the matter, the hand lay passively on the ground, the fingers curled inwards slightly, lines on the palm picked out by the fading orange light. As he gazed at it, he
felt strangely peaceful. Like the scent of some macabre night-blooming flower, the hand released a hypnotic innocence, a frank helplessness that both charmed and troubled him.

Time passed.

The yapping of a dog brought Marvin out of his trance. A small tan-coloured terrier was in the garden, padding eagerly towards the hand. Marvin stepped between the hand and the dog. The dog stopped and looked at Marvin with its head cocked to one side for a second but then continued on, trotting around him towards the hand, its pink tongue poking out over white teeth. Marvin put himself between the two again and, before he thought it all the way through, he growled, low and threatening, and finished with a sharp warning bark and a step forwards. The dog whimpered and backed off out of the garden, then bolted off up the street. Marvin allowed himself a small smile. Not such a helpless old coot after all.

The hand was still there. He'd have to pick it up. That was the only thing to do. He'd pick it up and take it to somebody official and they could deal with it.

The wrist end was seared like a Sunday roast. He bent down and grasped the hand firmly by the wrist. It lolled slightly as he lifted it. It wasn't stiff yet and although it was cool to the touch, it still felt human, real.

He walked to the edge of the path and hesitated. The whole street was outside, including women and children. He couldn't just go wandering around with a severed hand in plain sight. He stepped back into the garden and tried putting it in the pocket of his bathrobe but whichever way he put it in, the other end stuck out and would be clearly visible. Then he had an idea.

Before he could think or change his mind, he tucked the hand inside the elasticated waistband of his pyjama pants, and knotted
the cord of his bathrobe tightly over the wrist. He could feel the cool palm and soft fingers resting against the skin of his stomach but it didn't feel bad. The hand was good and secure and wouldn't be upsetting anyone there.

Marvin left the garden and walked back towards the dying fire. All he had to do was find someone in a uniform and explain the situation. Simple.

He was only a few steps away from the crowd when he felt the hand begin to slip. He slowed to a shuffle and tightened the cord on his bathrobe again. But it was too late. Just as he reached the crowd it skidded down further, then stopped. Had things been just a little different, thought Marvin, if a few specific details could've been adjusted, a woman's hand down there would have been welcome.

His shoulders slumped as he looked at the firemen, continuing to pour gallons of water onto the blackened, smoking ruins of number 36. People were bustling about being efficient with clipboards. ‘You can go back to your homes now,' a voice announced. ‘The gas is off so it's perfectly safe. If you could all clear the area.'

Marvin didn't move. He was worried the hand would slip again, drop down the leg of his pyjama pants and out the other end. The other residents started to drift away in ones and twos, back to their own homes. One of the firemen was looking at Marvin.

‘Alright there, mate?' he asked. ‘You lost?'

‘Um, no, not exactly,' muttered Marvin. He wanted to tell them, but the prospect of fishing the hand from inside his pyjama pants in the middle of the street seemed like a very bad idea.

This wasn't the way he'd imagined things would work out. The ambulance doors slammed and the driver switched the lights off and started the engine. They must have the rest of what was left of the couple from number 36 in there. Perhaps he could run
after them, tell them they'd dropped a bit. But before he could form a plan, the ambulance was driving out of the street.

‘Are you sure you're okay?' asked the fireman. Marvin nodded, although he wasn't sure, not sure at all. ‘You can go home now. Get some rest.' He patted Marvin on the shoulder and moved back to the business of clearing up. Marvin turned and walked, very slowly, back to his house.

Climbing the step to his kitchen door forced him to lift his feet above the low shuffle that had got him this far. The movement dislodged the hand and it skidded down his leg, trailing fingernails down his thigh, fumbling over his kneecap and finally flopping out from the cuff of his pant leg and onto the floor with a slap. He stooped to pick it up, closed the door behind him and gazed around the room. He felt an obligation to the hand now, to protect it and see that it came to no harm. He would figure out what to do later. For now he laid the hand on the bottom shelf of the fridge and closed the door.

He went to the sink, poured a cold cup of tea down the plug hole and set the kettle to boil. This was happening more often lately. It felt like he was forever making tea but hardly ever got to drink any. Through the window, he watched the morning dissolve the remains of the night while the wall clock ticked off another new start.

Marvin sniffed. There was a strong smell of burning. He checked the toaster, the hob and the oven. Sometimes he forgot things so it was best to check. He didn't want to wind up burning the house down. He sat at the table and picked up the letter from the Council, pausing to inspect a red mark on the back of his left hand. It was roughly the shape of India. How had that happened?

There was a banging sound. He listened to it for a while before he realised someone was knocking at his front door. The knocking
came again, louder this time. He opened the door. The woman on the doorstep beamed at him, grasped his hand and pumped it up and down.

‘You'll be Marvin,' she shouted. And before he could either agree or disagree, she was in his house, bustling down the hall towards the kitchen. ‘I'm Judith,' she said, ‘the home help? Remember?' She laughed. ‘Don't you worry, Marvin, we'll get you sorted out.' She began unpacking a supermarket bag, laying bread, butter, tea and milk out on the worktop. ‘I've brought you a few basics. Let's start with a nice cup of tea. Would you like a cup of tea, Marvin?'

How to Not Get Eaten by Tigers

Jack doesn't look up when the fighting starts. A breeze ruffles the pages of his newspaper and sends the washing on the whirligig spinning. Carol tugs it back around to peg a sock beside its partner. The rusting metal protests with a hoarse squeal. She sighs and goes inside to arbitrate over whose turn it is to choose the cartoon this time, then returns to the garden.

She watches Jack turn a page and give the newspaper a sharp shake, as if telling the stories to stand up straight while he's reading them. Sunlight filters through the garden fence and falls in stripes across his face, which reminds her:

‘Molly said a funny thing yesterday.'

There's something about the way Jack doesn't react that makes Carol want to snatch the paper from his hands and throw it over the fence. Instead, she puts her energy into telling him what their daughter said, whether he's listening or not. Despite knowing that the more her words flood out, the more they wash right over him, she can't stop. This is the way they are now. River and rock. She can't be sure exactly when they turned each other into opposing forces.