Crazy Bear , livre ebook

Circaidy Gregory - Mark Rickman

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97 pages

English

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Description

A page-turning thriller, a satisfying dark comedy, a breath-taking murder trial and a message of hope for anyone who has suffered the lingering death of a loved one - how can one book do all these things? Read 'Crazy Bear' and find out.

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Political

Politics

Informations

Publié par	Circaidy Gregory
Date de parution	01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781906451332
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0240€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Crazy Bear
A Novella by
Mark Rickman
Circaidy Gregory Press
www.circaidygregory.co.uk Independent Books for Independent Readers

Chapter One
‘But of course you’re going to have a flat warming, darling,’ my sister-in-law purred from somewhere behind the complicated mix of coloured threads attached to her embroidery frame. ‘How can you move into your lovely new flat and not have a flat warming?’
Crazy Bear rises catlike to his moccasined feet, folds his mighty arms, and stares coldly down at the woman now crouched in terror, her hands raised skyward in supplication. ‘Foolish one,’ he rumbles from somewhere deep inside his massive chest, ‘Cease your clack and hear me. This sorrowing chief without squaw must carry his blankets from four bedroom wigwam with garage and gardens front and rear in Mitcham to three room shithole with carport in Cheam and you say I have flat warming? You sick in head.’
Aloud I said, ‘I’m only moving from the house to a small flat, Delia. I really don’t want a lot of fuss making.’
Delia lowered the embroidery frame and clicked a disapproving tongue. ‘It’s not a lot of fuss-making to meet your new neighbours, is it? It’s not a lot of fuss-making to invite a few old friends over for a farewell drink, is it?’
A few old friends? Crazy Bear drops a battle scarred hand on to the bloodstained shaft of his tomahawk and narrows his eyes to slits. Would that be old friend Richard who swung round a lamppost and pushed open the letterbox flap to scream happy new year to a dying woman? Or could it be the ones who’ve been crossing the road and staring in shop windows rather than find a few words to say to the poor sod of a bereaved husband? If they’re the ones, of course I want them at my flat warming. With a bit of luck, they’ll choke on their cocktail sausages.
Closing one eye, Delia squinted down at the embroidery frame, licked her lips and guided her stubby needle up through the printed canvas and down again. I watched the length of scarlet thread appear, loop, disappear, and grow shorter with every stitch. When it disappeared for the last time and my sister-in-law stopped clacking on about sausage rolls and canapés and became fully occupied in selecting and licking a new length of thread, I meant to tell her politely and firmly where to stick her flat warming.
Thank you Delia, I was going to say, but no thanks. I’d rather creep in to the flat when no one’s looking and eat pigshit.
I lost the chance to say anything at all when halfway through the length of thread, she asked who I was going to invite. I stared at her and took out a handkerchief to wipe my eyes.
‘Oh for Heaven’s sake, Michael,’ she said snappily. ‘You’ve got to stop brooding. Of course you’ll have a flat warming. You need to get over yourself and start meeting people. You’re only forty three. It’s important you don’t become a recluse.’
Important I don’t become a recluse? What is a recluse, I wanted to know. If it’s someone who crawls into a corner to die, lead me to it. If they teach reclusery in evening classes, I’ll join tonight.
Delia clicked her tongue again, put down the embroidery frame, and said, ‘Michael, are you listening to me?’
‘Listening to you?’ I repeated. ‘Of course I’m listening to you. You want me to have a flat warming.’
‘Honestly, darling, I’ve gone on miles from there. I was saying you spend too much time alone. It’ll do you good to meet some new people.’
‘People as in woman? Now that my wife is dead and cremated, you want me to find a new woman to shag? I’d sooner make love to my hand.’
‘That is disgusting!’ Her front teeth dug into her lower lip. ‘I ought to tell your brother some of the things you say to me. I bloody would if he wasn’t so sorry for you. It’s just that he thinks…’
‘I know what Bobby thinks,’ I shouted and had the moody satisfaction of seeing her flinch. I held up my hands in apology and ploughed on, ‘I’m sorry Delia but I know what you and Bobby think. The boys think the same. Go ahead with the flat warming, if you think it’s such a good idea. Ask anyone you like. I have to go now. It’s getting late.’
Delia put the embroidery on a table and rose gracefully to her feet. Brushing down the front of her dress, she gave me one of her understanding smiles. ‘Why don’t you stay and eat with us, Michael? Bobby will be home in half an hour.’
I shook my head. ‘Not tonight, if you don’t mind. I’ve got my dinner waiting in the flat. You know what Margery used to say? It’s a shame to waste good food.’
‘I know,’ said Delia, ‘Of course I remember. Do you want anything to take with you? Milk, bread, anything at all?’
I shook my head again. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. Really I am. I’ve got plenty of everything.’ I walked to the door, knowing she was watching me. When I reached it, I turned and said awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry if I upset you, Delia. I don’t know why I say things sometimes. I never mean any of it.’
Delia shrugged and stood on tiptoe to put her hands on my shoulders and kiss my cheek. ‘Just remember we love you, Michael,’ she said as I left the house.
‘Hey, do you remember that one?’ I asked Crazy Bear as we crossed the Madden Road and walked towards Cheam and the new flat. ‘That’s the party trick Margery and I used to pull on the boys when they were small. Stop crying, George, stop crying Dicky, Mummy and Daddy love you. Show us where it hurts and we’ll kiss it better.’
Only kissing it better doesn’t work. I spent all night trying it on Margery. In the morning I was kneeling by her bed with my head on her pillow and my eyes closed when the little fair haired doctor followed a nurse through the screens, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘It’s all over, Mr Brent. Mrs Brent has passed on. You have to come away now, Mr Brent. She isn’t yours any more. She belongs to us now. There are things that have to be done that can only be done by doctors and nurses. You can come back and see her after we’ve made her presentable for you. Mr Brent. Please!’
I could hear the doctor’s voice getting higher and scratchier. I could smell her perfume. I could feel her sharply pointed fingernails digging into my shoulder. I tried to get to my feet and go with her but my knees had stiffened and one of Margery’s eyes was half open and looking at me and I couldn’t stop saying, ‘I love you Meg. Show me where it hurts, my lovely girl. I’ll kiss it better.’ The doctor’s voice became a hysterical squeak in my left ear and her nails were digging deeper but I couldn’t let go of Margery’s hand and I couldn’t stop trying to kiss it better. Begging her to wake up and live happy ever after but she couldn’t do it. Not even for me. After a time, the doctor gave up and the boys were sent for.
George and Dicky lifted me to my feet and half carried me through the screens and out of the side ward. They held my arms when I struggled to get back. After a while I stopped fighting and was glad of their support. They took me through double doors and into a corridor while the fair haired doctor and two nurses did to Margery whatever it was doctors and nurses did for dead people. My sons sat me on a bench outside an office and through the crazy buzzing in my head, I thought about Margery who was thirty eight years old and too young to be dead. And I thought about me, a year older and too young to be left alone.
The door was a faded light blue and badly scratched where keys had spent years scrabbling around for the lock. Above the keyhole was an incongruous and highly polished brass knob. The walls of the corridor were beige and brown and smelled of sick and disinfectant. Between my feet lay shiny, chevron patterned brown lino tiles. People walked past me without speaking. Some drifting towards the wards as though afraid of what they would find in them. Others walked more briskly as they made for the glass doors at the end of the corridor happy to be free of the hospital gloom, happy to be anonymous, lost among the crowd in the busy sunlit street.
Tucked away at the back of a wardrobe at home was a rarely worn dark suit and tie. I had no black shoes. Which was Margery’s fault. She didn’t like me in black anything. But there was no help for it now. She was dead, there was going to be a funeral, I had to have a pair of black shoes. The buzzing in my head increased its volume, I was desperately tired after spending the night holding Meg’s hands in both of mine, but I got jerkily to my feet and followed the people walking through the glass doors into the street. Blinking in the clear morning light, I rubbed a hand across my scrubby face and saw a shoe shop on the corner of the roundabout.
‘Can I have a pair of black shoes, size nine, wide fitting please,’ I said to the woman who rose from a chair as the shop door opened.
‘Don’t cry, my love,’ she said. ‘For the love of God, don’t cry.’
Delia and Bobby took care of the death certificate, the funeral arrangements, and the letter from the Inland Revenue telling me I would now be taxed as a single man. Meaning to be kind, they took away Margery’s clothes, shoes, handbags, gloves umbrellas, and make-up case. They took the bottle of perfume I bought for her last birthday. It was a mistake. They left an empty wardrobe and nothing to touch. Nothing to glorify. I needed to glorify the dead Margery. To prove to myself she was perfect and at peace with God. Any niggling reminders of squabbles we had over TV programmes, the children’s education, or washing up after dinner had to be suppressed or remembered as my fault. The Margery I needed to create at the start of my long period of whisky-soaked mourning was without fault.
‘Why don’t you care about the boys?’ a suddenly aggressive Delia asked, about a year after the funeral. ‘It was hard enough for them to lose their mother, they shouldn’t be losing their father too. It was Dicky’s birthday last week. You didn’t even send him a card.’
‘Of course I care about the boys,’ I mumbled at her through the