Darkside

Ten Days

Jonas hated the doctor.

Dr Anil Wickramsinghe was his name and Jonas had come to hold him personally responsible for Lucy’s decline. Dr Wickramsinghe was middle-aged, balding and utterly inoffensive, but Jonas always felt in his guts that he was holding out on them. That, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, Dr Wickramsinghe thought it would be in everyone’s best interests to watch Lucy Holly in pain, fear and depression.

Like today.

Today Dr Wickramsinghe had listened to Lucy’s halting description of the progress of her disease with his head cocked to one side, feigning concern. When she said she had dropped a mug of tea on Wednesday, unable to feel that she wasn’t gripping it properly, he nodded and tutted. When she recounted two episodes of MS hug, which had left her writhing on the floor in agony, he nodded and made a little sound like ‘mm’ in the back of his throat. And when her lip trembled as she told him that her eyesight had faltered in the middle of The Evil Dead, he sighed as if he shared her pain.

‘When?’ said Jonas sharply. ‘You didn’t tell me that!’

Lucy bit her lip.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Lu?’

‘I’m sure I did, Jonas.’

When she used his name that way, she was lying. Not lying like criminals lie, just… being economical with the truth, like a politician.

‘If you don’t tell me these things, Lu, how can I help?’

She was too kind to say it but he knew the answer. He couldn’t help – so what was the point?

Dr Wickramsinghe placed his palms flat on the table as if he was about to make a decision. As if he was about to get up and go to the secret safe behind the ugly sailing ships above his desk and get the real medicine; the actual pills that would put an end to Lucy’s suffering. Spin the dial and Open Sesame on a cure. Every single time they were here, Jonas expected him to confess that so far they’d been giving her sugar solution and peanut M&Ms, but that now – at last – she was sick enough for them to break out the good stuff.

Instead, Dr Wickramsinghe leaned back slightly in his chair, as if distancing himself from the awkward case before him, and said, ‘This is the progression we can expect, I’m afraid.’

Jonas wanted to pounce across the desk, grip him by the throat and bang his skull repeatedly against the ships until the sea ran red.

Can’t you SEE? he wanted to shout. Can’t you SEE that she needs HELP?

Lucy’s warm hand on his thigh told him she knew what he was thinking, even as she agreed with Dr Wickramsinghe: ‘Of course, I understand. But is there any more we can do for the symptoms?’

So like Lucy. So like her to calm him down, and to make the bastard who was killing her feel less like a shit while doing it. What can we do for the symptoms? As if Dr Wickramsinghe and she were both in this together. Not for the first time, Jonas imagined Lucy breaking up a fight between two five-year-olds, resolving the row, drying the tears, making them shake hands. It made him love her more than ever, even if it meant the man across the desk was getting off lightly.

‘We’ll try some more M&Ms,’ said Dr Wickramsinghe, ‘and throw in some Smarties and a big bottle of Lucozade.’

Of course, he didn’t say exactly that, but Jonas thought he might as well have.

Jonas took it slowly on the way home. The bigger roads had been gritted but if they hadn’t had the appointment he would never have ventured out in Lucy’s old Beetle. It had all its weight over the back wheels, leaving the front end to wander about at will, tilting at hedges and flirting with ditches. He was so used to the Land Rover with its four-wheel drive and traction control that the VW felt like a roller skate in the snow.

As they came down the hill into Shipcott, they could see a knot of people standing in the road roughly halfway through the village. In the brief glimpse they had before they lost sight of them again behind the hedges, Jonas thought he saw a horse, and felt unease start to pulse in his chest.

Lucy glanced at him questioningly, but he could only shrug.

They lost sight of the crowd until they rounded the curve in the road. Jonas slowed to a crawl and then parked a little haphazardly outside the shop and got out.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked Billy Beer.

‘The Marsh boy’s gone mazed,’ said Billy impatiently, as if it happened all the time and they were sick of it.

Jonas felt his stomach twist at the words. He hurried through the crowd and saw Danny Marsh dressed in hunting scarlet – complete with velvet hat, white britches and conker-topped boots – holding the reins of a large bay horse. It was saddled but ungroomed; there was dried mud up its legs, and its mane was a dusty tangle of dirt and twigs.

Before Jonas could speak, Danny saw him and broke into the biggest of smiles. ‘Jonas! We’re going hunting! You coming?’ He rushed towards Jonas, making the horse throw its head up and roll its eyes. Danny jerked the reins. ‘Steady up, Tigger! Stand!’ Then he threw his arm around Jonas, laughing.

Jonas took in the scene. Danny and the horse, which Jonas knew wasn’t his; beyond him stood Marvel and his team, including the woman – Rice, he thought her name was – who looked troubled, almost tearful. Framed in the doorway of his home stood Alan Marsh, his face blank as he watched his son disintegrate in front of him.

‘What’s up, Danny?’ Jonas said, trying to keep his voice level.

‘Going hunting,’ said Danny again. ‘Brilliant day for it.’

Jonas looked at the leaden sky that promised more snow.

‘The hunt’s not out today, mate. You’ve got the wrong day.’

‘Aaaaah,’ said Danny with a dismissive wave, ‘bollocks to that! Who says it’s got to be Thursdays? Me and Tigger are going today! You want to come?’

To Jonas’s surprise, he saw hope shining in Danny’s eyes. As if he really expected Jonas to say yes.

That’s not Tigger, he wanted to say. That’s not Tigger and this isn’t right.

‘That’s my horse!’ said John Took angrily from somewhere. Jonas didn’t bother looking. ‘And my fucking coat!’

Why hadn’t Marvel and his men just grabbed hold of Danny, thrown him down in the slushy road and bundled him back into the house? Why did he have to be involved? On a day like this, with Lucy sick and getting sicker? It was almost as if they’d been waiting for him.

Marvel stepped out of the crowd, looking like a man who’d seen enough and wanted to get back into the warm. The moment Danny Marsh caught sight of him, he let go of Jonas and swung the bay around in a short, clattering arc, which made Marvel – and all the crowd – recede like water to stay out of reach of its rump and heels. Danny did it again, using the horse to clear a space for himself in the middle of the road. Jonas took two nervous steps backwards. The horse snorted again and gave a confused little prance, scattering people behind it.

‘STAND, Tigger!’ yelled Danny and slapped the horse’s muzzle, making it back rapidly into a parked car, rocking it and crumpling the door like tin foil, then skittering sideways as more of the crowd parted around it.

You’ve lost it, thought Jonas dully. You’ve lost it in front of all these people. Danny Marsh thought he was ten years old and they were still friends. And he was trying to drag Jonas back there with him – back to when they were kids hanging out at the farm, with their dreams and their lives intact…

Jonas felt anger swelling inside him like a gross burp.

He reached out and gripped Danny’s bicep, pulling him close in an attempt at privacy.

‘Danny,’ he said tightly, ‘let’s go inside and talk about this.’

Danny looked at him, suddenly serious. ‘You want to talk, Jonas? I’m ready. I’ve always been ready.’

Jonas dropped his arm. He had no idea what he meant, but there was a sense of threat in Danny Marsh that caught him unawares and sent a shiver down his spine. Right here in the middle of the day, in the middle of the street, surrounded by half of Shipcott and fellow officers of the law, he felt in serious danger for the first time that he could remember.

Danny Marsh opened his arms in a loud ‘bring it on’ gesture, flapping the reins and making the horse flinch once more, but when he spoke again it was softly – as if he and Jonas were the only ones there.

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, Jonas.’

Danny was crazy. They all knew that. He was stuck in some recess of his own mind. Jonas wouldn’t play his game. This had to end.

‘That’s not Tigger,’ he said brutally. ‘Tigger’s dead.’

‘Fuck you!’ cried Danny, and he let go of the horse and swung a wild fist at Jonas.

Jonas hit him so hard he felt it in his feet. Danny went down and Jonas followed him to the ground, unaware of Lucy shouting from the Beetle, unaware of the horse spinning round and bolting up the snowy road with its reins dangling – unaware of anything but the feeling of flesh and bone connecting, and hard velvet hurting his knuckles.

Until he remembered where he was and who he was and what he was.

Then he got up and walked away.

More than anyone, Lucy knew what Jonas had sacrificed for her.

He’d had his eye on Glock 17s and body armour, but her diagnosis had forced them to make other choices.

They had married in the local church with poor Margaret Priddy playing a clunking, wheezing ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’ on the eccentric little organ. They had only sent invitations to her family and friends; he’d told her everyone in Shipcott would come anyway, whether they were invited or not. And they did – standing at the back and outside among the leaning tombstones to watch Jonas lead his bride into the sunshine.

His parents had beamed.

Desmond and Cath.

Lucy had only met them twice before the wedding and would only see them once again, before they were both killed instantly in a head-on collision on the A39 link road. The other car had rolled right over the Hollys’ demure Rover, which had been so flattened that when she and Jonas were later allowed to see it in the police pound, a box of tissues in a hand-crocheted cover was still held in its place between the roof and the parcel shelf. Lucy would never forget it – or the way Jonas’s hand had twitched and tightened a little around hers at the sight.

Lucy had always felt the need to protect him. It was ridiculous really. Jonas could take care of himself.

She was the one who was weak and feeble. She with her endless medications that he had to fetch and store and prepare, and administer in injected doses. She with her tears and her depressions and her dropping of crockery and her failure to cook or clean properly and her mood swings and her despair. She with her weight gain, her weight loss, the regular desertion of her libido. He would go weeks – sometimes months – without seeing her naked behind unless he was about to stick a needle in it.

Hot.

Not.

He never complained. Never got impatient. Never made her feel bad.

But today, just maybe, she’d seen the effect on Jonas for the first time.

He never talked about growing up in the village – as if he thought she already knew his business the way everyone did here in Shipcott – but she knew that he’d grown up with Danny Marsh because he’d told her after Danny’s mother was killed.

‘She used to make us beans and chips,’ he’d said suddenly in bed that night.

She had turned to him in the darkness, even though she couldn’t see his face.

‘Mrs Marsh?’

‘Yeah. She was my best friend’s mother. When I was at school.’

‘You mean Danny Marsh from the garage?’

‘Yes,’ he’d said.

‘I never knew that. He’s sweet. Why don’t you hang out with him any more?’

‘ “Sweet”?’ he’d said, and she’d heard the laugh in his voice. ‘Is he sweeter than me?’

‘Much,’ she’d said, only too pleased to feel his mood lift, and there it was – they’d changed the subject. He’d changed the subject.

And today she’d watched him beat up Danny Marsh. There was no other word for it. She’d sat in the car and watched him lose control. And it made her think for the first time how much control he must have had to lose.

She wanted to hold him and tell him it was all going to be all right. To stroke his hair like a child’s. It made her think again of Jonas’s face at the hospital – before he knew he was being watched. That fear. That raw, innocent fear that she’d only ever seen before on the faces of small children.

It was a face that made her wonder where that little boy inside him hid for the rest of the time.