35. The only side that mattered
35
THE ONLY SIDE THAT MATTERED
Colin buried his head in the pillow. It was just gone four a.m. No time to be awake. No time to be asleep either, according to his brain. It was Ursula. He’d dreamed about her in that stark, sterile house filled with stark, sterile objects. He’d seen her in that meticulously landscaped garden, wearing her bright blue dress. She’d been digging, her lean muscular arms taut with the effort. On her feet, she wore Athenian style sandals. Dirt was stuck in between her toes. Her toenails were black, but she paid them no heed.
She’d carried on digging until she was so far down, he’d only been able to see the top of her head. Frightened he might lose her, Colin had called out to her to be careful. She’d hauled herself out and beckoned him over. ‘Look what I found.’
The hole had been deeper than he’d imagined. Too deep to see the bottom. In the time between her climbing out and him walking over, it had filled with something liquid. Not water. Too dark and thick. A small white speck had been just about visible far below the surface. He’d squinted to get a better look and saw that it was getting bigger, but that was because it was floating upwards. As it got closer to the surface, he’d been able to make out a roundish shape. A ball? The liquid had been dark red against the pale shape. Like blood in fact. And what was that shape? Oh fuck. It was a head. And as it had bobbed on the top of the well of thick red blood, Colin saw that it was his head. Its eyes had opened, and it was silently screaming one word. Help.
He was glad to be awake now. Frightened to close his eyes in case he drifted back into that awful nightmare. He retrieved Will’s sweatshirt from under his pillow and pushed his face into it, glad to inhale its comforting odour. Was it too early to get up? He couldn’t just lie here with that dream still fresh in his mind.
He crept downstairs, careful not to wake Frank. Colin hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning. After lunch with Ursula he’d gone to a pub and waited there until it was dark enough for another night of spying on those bastards who were squatting in his home. Frank must have been in bed when he’d returned.
Fred emerged from the little room Frank used as his studio. Unlike everyone else, Fred was indiscriminate with his affection. Colin liked that about him. That was the knowledge he was beginning to gather about dogs. Generally, they were pretty decent companions. Even that dog that belonged to Chambers was happy to accept a scratch behind the ear from him. Come to think of it, where was that dog? Colin hadn’t seen him in the garden for a while. Fred made a whimpering sound. Colin put his finger to his lips. ‘Shh. You’ll wake him up.’ The dog’s eyebrow whiskers lifted, then he went back into the studio.
Colin ran the cold tap to fill a glass with water and just about caught a glimpse of orange fur disappearing into the hedge. A fox probably. Netta had said they had them here. He occasionally got them in his own garden. Arianne sometimes left food out for them. Unsurprisingly, it was rarely touched. Even foxes had their standards.
Fred was whining again in the other room. Colin stood in the doorway and twisted his head around to see what the fuss was about. Another fox was on the other side of the glass looking at Fred who was looking at it, his tail wagging. Dogs. Indiscriminate. The fox fixed Colin with a stare that seemed to go on forever. Eventually, it turned and stalked off in the same direction as the other one. Colin shuddered. First the head, now the fox. The morning was turning out to be very unnerving.
Liza’s portrait caught his eye. Frank had said she was finishing it off yesterday. He didn’t want to see it really, but he knew he had to face it one more time. He held his breath and stepped inside. The smell of drying oil paint and white spirit hit him as he got closer to it, and he was reminded again of the last time he was in his own studio. Determined to block it out, he focussed on the painting. He could see where she’d made the changes. She hadn’t overworked it, but it had a more finished, less spare look to it. As an artist, Colin preferred the unfinished version. It was more raw somehow. As the subject, he hated both versions equally. No, that was wrong. He didn’t hate the painting. He hated the man in it. Everything about him was loathsome, but the eyes were the worst. Mean and unloving. It wasn’t Liza’s fault; she’d just painted what she saw. It wasn’t all his fault either. He was a victim of circumstance. If only people could be made to understand that.
He turned away, went back upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom where he threw up.
Arthur was his usual aggravating chirpy self when he came to pick Colin up. Possibly even more than usual. Colin didn’t want to imagine what he and Geraldine had been up to that would make him so happy. Liza had once told him that they still had a good sex life. Although why they thought it appropriate to share that with her was more than questionable. Sex wasn’t a word that came up in his own parents’ house. Neither did love for that matter. They hadn’t shared a bed in years. He was pretty sure his father had had affairs though. Colin didn’t agree with it. It was true that he’d been having relations with Arianne by the time he’d asked Netta to leave, but it wasn’t really an affair. It couldn’t be an affair when your wife had already cheated on you. And anyway, Netta had already left the marriage mentally. She just lived in the same house. It had been a kindness to put her out of her misery and ask her to go.
He climbed into Arthur’s car. There was no sign of Chambers, or his car. ‘I take it Chambers isn’t coming today?’
‘He’ll be along later,’ said Arthur. ‘I hear you’ve had a few late nights recently.’
‘Two, Arthur. I’ve had two. News travels fast in these parts. I can just imagine the messages flying back and forth, lighting up your dreary days.’
‘You know, Colin, you really are quite obnoxious, aren’t you?’
‘Yes I am. Especially when I’ve had very little sleep.’
‘Something playing on your mind? Conscience perhaps?’
‘My conscience is clear, thank you.’ Colin knew he was stretching the truth a bit. For example, he knew he’d been adulterous with Arianne. And he also knew the way he’d treated Netta had been wrong. But it had been under extreme provocation. He was as much a victim as she was and as he’d realised earlier, people needed to hear his side of the story. That was why he was going to explain it all to Ursula when he saw her.
Ursula was already at the allotments. He was glad to see she had a yellow dress on. The thought of her in the blue dress would forever be associated with that vivid memory of his bodiless head screaming for help. Although he did note she was wearing sandals that while not strictly Athenian, were definitely strappy.
‘You’re an early bird,’ said Arthur.
‘There are some people coming to view my house this morning. I’m staying out of the way. Are you okay, Colin? You look worn out,’ she said.
He willed himself not to look at the sandals, or to think of her digging that bottomless pit of thick red blood. ‘I had a disturbed night. Otherwise fine.’
‘Okay. I’ll see you later.’ She treated him to another of her serene smiles. Yes, definitely a lovely lady. If anyone was going to understand, it was going to be Ursula.
Because there was only the last patch that needed digging, Arthur left him to get on with it while he saw to his own allotment. Colin wasn’t in the mood for Arthur’s sanctimonious carping. Neither was he in the mood for Chambers and his threats, so the absence of both suited him. He started digging, pleased that he was going to be able to finish this project by himself. It would be rather nice to say that he’d completed something. He hadn’t been able to say that in ages.
Ursula came to see him at the point where tiredness was beginning to slow him down. The warm wind whipped her loose dress against her, wrapping it around her bare legs and forcing the spare cloth to float behind her like a sail. The outline of her pants and bra were just about visible through the thin cotton as her body formed a barrier that stopped the dress floating away completely. Standing on the edge of the loose soil that he’d just turned over, she held up two mugs. ‘Coffee. I thought you might need a pick-me-up.’
His eyes shifted to her feet. The soil had fallen between her toes. He told himself it was nothing. Not at all connected to his nightmare.
The coffee was strong and black. It sent him a little light-headed and a bit shaky. It was the caffeine burst attacking his sleep-deprived nervous system. That, and the anticipation of what he was about to say. With no one else here, he couldn’t have asked for a better time to bare his soul. ‘The things you said yesterday about your husband. I’ve been running them around in my head.’
She frowned. ‘That’s not what stopped you sleeping, is it?’
‘In a way I suppose. Do you think he meant for you to be so… hurt.’
‘You mean so broken.’
Yes, he had meant that, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it since Arthur had used the same word to describe the way Netta had been when Colin and the children had asked her to move out. ‘Do you think he realised what he was doing?’
‘That’s an interesting question.’ She paused for a minute. ‘When we first married, I thought he didn’t know he was doing it. He’d say little things that hurt but make a joke of it, like poke fun at what I was wearing, or something I said. You can imagine the sort of thing. It built up from there really. I just accepted it as one of his silly little quirks and changed the way I was to stop it. It’s easier sometimes to do that than to fight it, isn’t it? Except once I stopped doing the thing he didn’t like, he’d find something else that wasn’t acceptable. It was only when I came here and talked to someone about it that I understood how controlling he was. By then, it was too late for me to do anything but ride it out. I just spent as much time here as I could, which he ridiculed, but I think he saw it as a way to keep me quiet. He didn’t know this place and these friends were my quiet revolution.’
‘The person you spoke to, was it a therapist?’
She smiled. ‘You could call him that. I spoke to Samuel. He helped me to see what was going on.’
‘I think sometimes it’s possible for people to do wrong things for all the right reasons.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘The kind of things your husband did.’
A set of wrinkle lines appeared on her brow. ‘What are you trying to say, Colin?’
‘I may have done the same things to Netta, my wife. Ex-wife. Arthur must have told you.’
She shook her head.
‘He seems to think I broke her.’ He laughed. He didn’t mean to, but it was the nerves making him do stupid, crass things.
‘You broke her.’ It didn’t sound like it was a question, more a confirmation of what he’d said, and yet her expression was undeniably questioning.
His heart was thumping. He’d gone too far, said too much. But to say no more would only make it worse. He had to explain. ‘It was never my intention to do that. I was just so angry and hurt. The thing she did to me. Her and Chambers. Doogie. You know, Doogie? The thing they did. It tore me apart.’
‘What thing? What did they do?’
‘They had an affair. She was having his child, but she lost it.’
‘She lost the child?’ Her hand reached for her mouth. ‘Oh the poor woman.’
She wasn’t getting it. She was focussing on the wrong thing. ‘You don’t understand. I’m trying to say, it was me that was broken first. They broke me. Everything I did after then was their fault. I can see it was wrong, but I had a good reason. I had extenuating circumstances.’
‘No. I don’t think so. There is never a good reason. I didn’t finish answering your earlier question. I don’t know whether my husband meant it or not, but I don’t think it matters. What matters is what he did. The same applies to you.’ She stood up.
‘Please don’t go.’ Colin reached for her arm, but she was already too far away.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t stay.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he called after her, but she passed through the gap in the hedge without looking back.
Devastated. Colin was devastated by her lack of compassion. He went back to his spade and shoved it in the ground, pulled it back out, tipped off the soil, and repeated the process. He told himself to keep going. It was important to do that and not let things get to you. But every movement was an effort, and he wanted to be sick again. And the walls. The walls were closing in once more. He dropped the spade and walked out with his head down, past Ursula’s allotment, past Arthur’s, past the retired couple who’d let him in the other day. The gate at the entrance was closed. He climbed over it rather than have to speak to someone. He’d messed up big time. He should never have said anything. Now he’d lost the only person he could talk to. The only person other than Netta.