The Wrong Story by James Ellis

Author:James Ellis [Ellis, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2018-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

14

Two weeks after leaving hospital, a weekday routine had developed in Tom’s home that accommodated but didn’t include him, much as a tide ebbs and flows around a pebble. Monday to Friday he seldom saw Karen or the children. She said he needed time and space to recover and their presence would disturb him. So she worked all day, came home late and slept in the spare room while Dan and Holly stayed with her sister.

Tom disagreed. He missed them all. He missed waking up with Karen, their legs tangled up, her face close to his on the pillow, her breath mingling with his. He missed Dan’s hair-obscured face, his casual disregard for everything, his slouch, his directness. He missed Holly and her heavy movements from room to room, her personal micro-climate of resentment, the way she slammed doors hard enough to loosen plaster and vibrate the dying nerve in his broken tooth.

He spent the weekdays in long periods of silence, during which he sat in his chair in his airy eyrie and seldom moved, seldom blinked, seldom did anything except watch the rise and fall of his chest, and listen to the passage of blood in his ears and the internal hissing and humming and growling that accompanied it.

Sometimes he looked up at the twin skylights in the roof and watched rain fall against the windows and roll downwards, droplets that criss-crossed each other’s tracks when the wind blew and raced each other to reach the woodwork. And when he shut his eyes he could still see the window imprinted on his retina, with the black dots running downwards like insects. He listened to the hollow sound of the house’s central heating and wondered how long it would be before a pipe burst or an element failed or the ceiling caved in and the house fell in on him.

Occasionally he checked his email, but seldom got beyond looking at his in-box with its pages of unread messages. He was tempted to delete them all. He had no social media accounts other than those administered by Borkmann’s creative team and so, after a few minutes of aimless clicking, he logged out and returned to his quiet contemplation of the passing weather.

He wanted the chaos of family life: the loud voices and bruising movements, the kicking off of shoes and throwing down of bags, the thundering up and down stairs, the talking and shouting and eating and clattering of dishes. The only human contact he had, if you could call it that, was with Borkmann during their daily telephone calls; oases of terse information exchange.

How are you?

I’ m fine.

Drawing yet?

Not yet.

Don ’ t leave it too long.

The weekends were different. At least the house was populated at the weekends and, as promised, Lawrence had shown up on the first Saturday, inflicting his willowy, weaselly presence on Tom with Karen’s apparent endorsement.

‘Hello, Tom,’ he had said, standing in the kitchen and making tea, as if Tom were the guest. ‘Sit yourself down.’ He wore trainers and jeans and a T-shirt that was tucked in.

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