Beyond the Frame's Edge by Berndt Sellheim

Author:Berndt Sellheim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 4th Estate
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE CROWS

But something had to break and when it did it was final and without redress. Even before Dylan left for his evening shift at the pub, she was drinking solidly, and by the time he returned to the house, sometime after midnight, she could scarcely stand — this despite her vast and growing tolerance for booze. As he came in she put on music, trying to dance him down the hallway, but after a few steps she stumbled into a bookshelf and fell backwards to the floor. His pleading for her to ease off only seemed to encourage greater volumes to be poured down her gullet, and when he attempted to properly dress the gash on her forehead she slapped him hard across the mouth. She was very strong, and he raised his hand to his face, tasting blood. In that brief instant their eyes locked and the remorse he saw in her gave him hope. But a moment later she was laughing and falling about the room, pointing and mocking him as a sad puppy that got spanked.

After hours trying to calm her frenzy, at 3 a.m. he gave up entirely. He crawled beneath the covers with a pillow over his head, trying to shut out the sounds from below. By the time she crashed by his side, the first time they had shared a bed in the weeks since Marcus’s assault, the stench of her breath was so fierce that even the dog couldn’t stand it, shifting herself from the bed end to slink off to the room’s far corner.

In the morning she was, if possible, worse. Any relief she’d gained from the drunkenness had utterly dissolved, replaced by bitterness and mumbled speech. Dylan woke to the sound of her coughing, incomprehensibly berating herself between contractions of her stomach as she emptied herself into the toilet. He got out of the bed, looked in at the shape of her, hands clasped around the rim, and stepped into a pair of shorts. A million words circled inside his head but none seemed adequate. Standing in the kitchen he ate a bowl of cereal, staring out at the faint russet of early sun that lit the top of the eucalypts. Then he slipped on his trainers, picked up his climbing shoes and chalk bag, scratched the dog behind the ear, and walked from the house.

It was early and the air was hushed and still: not even the faintest curve of wind shifting the leaves of the higher branches. He had been drawn to this crag for its morning sun, and the upper half of the cliff caught an orange glow that seemed to inch down towards him as he watched, a slow, wavering brightness.

A thin flake of rock ran vertical and jagged towards the cliff’s arête. He knew the climb well and did not think about whether he could do it, the possibilities or consequences of failure. It was only the reach and stretch of his body, the dance of vertigo and pressure as he pitched his body upwards.

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