He supposed he must be happy, in an abstract way, because he had everything he was supposed to have. He had his job. He had his wife. He had his health. He had his end-terrace. He had his car. But all the same he wasn’t happy. All the things he had only made him feel more trapped. Everything he had, everything he bought, even every letter he received, was a string, a tie. Eventually they would combine to make him a Thunderbirds style puppet. Hollow. He felt like he already had as little freedom as one. He felt frustrated angry powerless. He felt that anger fear feeling where nothing could express how he felt and instead it paralysed him. It tightened in his chest and pricked at the corner of his eyes.
#
Sometimes, pint in hand, he would drift off in his mind to somewhere else. He couldn’t say where exactly, just somewhere else. Somewhere far. And then he would wake up to find his friends laughing and he had missed something. The joke would be explained but his laugh was half-hearted and tinged with secret resentment for bringing him back.
#
In the cruel month of April his wife woke to find him sat staring out of the wide open window.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, go back to sleep,” he would say while memory and desire mixed in his heart. His mind ran over his early memories gingerly, like fingers on the keys of a piano they have not touched in years. He remembered no holidays from his childhood, only the journeys.
He ran his hand over the hot metal of the car which waited to whisk them away. Summer always seemed to surprise them, packing was always hurried and breathless before they tumbled into the car which was half way down the road before they had settled in their seats.
And then the road stretched out forever, and at the end of forever lay the blue sky waiting for them. The windows right down to let it all in. The wind flowed over him around him through him, cleansing him. With each journey he started anew.
#
When he got home from work he felt not only tired but numb and he would sit quietly, tie loosened and jacket off, waiting for feeling to return. Sometimes hours would pass and he would barely notice. In fact when he was like this all he noticed was his own breathing and the rhythmic beating of his heart. The thump-thump thump-thump of it seemed like a taunting reminder of the monotony of his life. Its regularity was the like the second hand of the clock, marking the pieces of time which ultimately made up his life. He felt the seconds tick by, and then the minutes, but they didn’t register. Somewhere, he felt, the minutes of his life were being taken. Although there was nothing worth recording. His slow breathing rolled in and out like the ocean and he begged the tide to take him with it.
#
When she told him she was leaving it was like a rough hand shaking him from sleep. As he had increasingly ignored her he had failed to notice her furtiveness, and after that he had failed to notice her blatancy. He had not noticed the increase in her phone bills or the decrease in the time she spent at home. The end of her attempts to talk to him had been like that moment when a bluebottle finally finds it way out of your window.
#
In the empty house the phone rang and rang and went to voicemail. This happened a lot in the days immediately following his departure. The messages left were many and various, outpourings of anger fear hope.
CLICK
‘Hi mate, it’s Harry, we’re going for a pint tonight if you fancy it? Erm … Royal oak eightish, prob’ly see you there.”
CLICK
“******, it’s me, er, Kate … anyway, I spoke to Sharon and she said you weren’t at work today so I just called to see if you’re ok … I hope it’s nothing to do with … with you know? Call me if you get this…”
CLICK
“Mate you should’ve come down the other night it was a right laugh. Alex got totally trolleyed and tried to get the-lass-behind-the-bar’s number. Prat. See you soon anyway.”
CLICK
“Hello love, it’s Mum here, and Dad. Dad sends love. Just ringing for a chat … Don’t walk mud in there, dear! Your father’s just back from the club, good round I think. Next-door’s cat has been playing havoc with my beds recently but we’re having carbonara for supper. I’ll try you again tomorrow, bye!”
CLICK
“******, this isn’t fair … you can’t just refuse to talk to me. I know I hurt you but you have to talk to me! We’re still married for God’s sake! Please stop ignoring my messages.”
CLICK
“For fuck’s sake, ******, just answer the bloody phone!”
CLICK
“We’re starting to get a bit worried about you, darling, if the whole thing with Kate is getting you down, how about coming to stay with us for a few days? I’m cooking your favourite on Saturday.”
CLICK
#
Dear Mum and Dad,
Don’t worry about me, I just had to go away for a while. Don’t ask me why. I just had to. I’m fine. I’ll keep in touch.
******
He sat back from the postcard for a moment then picked it up carefully by the edges and held it in front of him, carefully lining up the picture with the view. After doing this he addressed the card carefully:
***** and ***** *******,
451 ***** *****,
*******,
*************,
UK.
He hoped it would be enough for them. Isn’t that all a parent wants? For their child to be alive and healthy?
#
CLICK
“God, ******, I rang your parents, you’ve read too many fucking Kerouac novels. You can’t just fuck off in search of ‘Dharma’ or whatever!”
CLICK
#
Dear M+P,
Car barely made it to *******. I am working in a bar to pay for repairs. Did you know a Moscow Mule is vodka with ginger ale (not beer) and lime? Also, have grown a beard, you would hardly recognise me. I look a real desperado!
Love, ******
#
The metal hit the glass and he wondered what his funeral would be like, imagining his mother and father alone standing over a small patch of freshly dug earth. He saw the car slowly concertina around him and watched in fascination as pieces of glass flew around him in slow motion as though he was in a Hollywood blockbuster. He felt strangely detached; he had always expected to feel involved in his own death. Instead the feeling was strangely similar to the way he felt before he had left England.
#
