1
It was a terrible dark day clouds drifted across the evening sky. May Baker was parking her red Fiat Punto in front of her semi-detached house. She wore her dyed light brown hair in a bob.
One by one hailstones began to fall, they were small at first, but then they became larger. Anthony Baker was staring through the living room window. The cold wind didn’t belong to the time of year.
“I’m home,” Anthony heard his wife calling from the front door. She was short in stature and spoke with a young voice. A minute later, May entered the living room, outside the hail ceased. For a moment Anthony glanced at his wife’s dyed hair. A chain with brown wooden beads hung around her neck. She wore green eye shadow much to his dislike. Why did she have to make such a mess of her face? A little bit of make-up he didn’t mind. His mother never put much on. She only used lipstick and rouge. He turned to face the window again.
“She looks like a whore. Why is he still with her?” A voice spoke inside Anthony’s head.
“How was your day, sweetheart?” May kissed her husband on the cheek. “I’m going to make tea, do you want some?” Awaiting no answer May left Anthony alone and headed into the kitchen. She turned on the chip pan, and switched on the kettle. When she returned to the living room she held two steaming mugs of tea in her hands.
“Terrible weather isn’t it? I’m glad I took the car to work this morning. Come sit here on the couch darling.” May patted the empty space beside her. As she leaned forward towards the coffee table she put the back of her hands against her mug to warm her fingers.
“She talks too much.”
Anthony did not move; he quietly stared out of the window. His body slightly slumped. The hailstones had damaged every single daffodil in the front garden. They reminded him of death. All flowers reminded him of death, but daffodils especially did. He turned around, carefully counting his steps to the couch. Politely smiling at his wife he sat down beside her.
Ever since he lost his job, May worked full time at the County Council in Dublin. Although she told him she worked there, Anthony wasn’t sure she actually did. It was hard to know what to believe.
Strange things kicked off around him after his father’s death. Before long Anthony discovered his wife turned out to be a member of a secret group. Of course, she denied everything when he asked her. Nevertheless, he could see it in her eyes every time she came home from her so-called council job.
To protect himself, Anthony couldn’t let her know that he didn’t believe her. He might be in great danger if she ever found out. She might inform her superiors. They could change his life into a nightmare. They’d tried to kill him once already.
One day while driving home from his work, the car abruptly gave up the ghost. The car came to a sudden stop in the middle of a traffic jam. Afterwards Anthony learned he had been extremely lucky. Thanks to an electrical failure in the car, the bomb placed by one of the members of May’s secret group had failed to explode. Barely a few seconds after he switched on the radio, all the electrical equipment had ceased to work.
When the car was fully repaired, May was the sole driver of the vehicle. Not for any money in the world would he drive that car again.
“You scored five points for making the tea,” Anthony said after he saw the tea in front of him. He stared at a painting hanging on the wall across from the couch; a picturesque scene of a young deer and its mother. The young animal looked back at him.
“That is very kind of you, darling,” May smiled at her husband. What is wrong with him giving me points for things I do, as if we play some kind of game? She worried about him ever since his father’s funeral. Lately things got worse with Anthony. One of her colleagues at work suggested he might be depressed. But what did she know about Anthony? May never heard that a depressed person got up in the middle of the night to fry potatoes. After they finished their tea, May went outside to put the rubbish bin at the side of the road for collection. Normally this was Anthony’s job, but she wanted to have a chat with the neighbour. Anna usually worked in the garden at this time of the evening.
“Sometimes it’s like he’s living in a world of his own,” May confided in her friend. She spotted that the plants in her neighbour’s garden were damaged too by the downpour. “At times I get the feeling I don’t exist anymore. I pretend everything is hunky dory, but I wish I knew what is going on inside his head.”
“Have you asked him to seek professional help?” Anna leaned on the dry stonewall her husband built the previous summer. The mortar, which held the different sizes of stones together, looked fresh, although here and there little patches of moss emerged between the grooves.
“Well I tried, but you know how he is. He says there is nothing wrong with him. I am worried about him. I am afraid that one day I will find him in big trouble. There are nights he hardly sleeps. I hear him getting out of bed, and then he goes around the house as if he’s looking for something. I don’t know what he’s doing. When I ask him what the matter is, he just says he can’t sleep.” May‘s eyes looked tired.
“I’ve done everything to convince him to visit our GP. If only he decided to be less stubborn! He is opening new packages of food, even when already opened items aren’t finished. It is very worrying to me working full-time. Anthony is doing the cooking and cleaning. It is getting to a stage that I am afraid that he might hurt himself. The other thing is that he doesn’t want me to help him with the household chores. Whenever I offer him a hand in the kitchen, he doesn’t want to hear it. This isn’t the man I married. Now and then he lets me make the occasional cup of tea, like tonight, but that’s about it.”
“Well, what can you do, May. You’re doing everything you can already.”
Unexpectedly Anna touched May’s hand. “There is a lot of smoke coming out of your kitchen window, is Anthony cooking something?”
“What? Oh, no,” May exclaimed, “I left the chip pan on.”
May ran as fast as possible to her back door. When she opened the door smoke had filled the kitchen. “Anthony,” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Anthony where are you?” In the meantime Anna showed up with her husband Roland.
“Are you alright?” Roland asked.
”I don’t know, Anthony isn’t answering, I’m calling 999, it’s ringing,” Anna said. “We must get him out,” May cried. Ready to enter the house Roland grabbed her by the arm. “Wait,” he said. “Let me go in.”
“No, he’s my husband, I will get him,” May argued. Before Roland could stop her she touched the door-handle. She let go with a shriek of pain. Roland took the opportunity to force his way past May. Keeping as low as possible he crawled towards the living room. He knew the layout of the house. He found Anthony sitting in front of the TV. The man seemed oblivious to everything.
“My goodness, are you stupid or something?” Roland asked. “Hey, are you blind and deaf? I’m talking to you. Your house is on fire. Come on, you have to go,” Roland encouraged Anthony to get up.
“Leave me alone, everybody leave me alone. I don’t want to go,” Anthony roared.
“We don’t have time for arguing.” Roland shouted back, he grabbed his neighbour by the arm and made an attempt to raise him from the couch.
“Oh no you don’t, I’m staying put. It’s up to you what you want, but I stay here.”
To Roland’s relief the door between the kitchen and the living room kept the smoke out of the room, but not for much longer.
Roland concentrated on the sound of the sirens of the fire truck, he jumped when the doorbell rang; at the same time someone banged on the door. “The fire service,” A man shouted.
It took a couple of hours before the Bakers were able to go back to their house again. The kitchen would need to be re-decorated though. Nevertheless except for the smoke from the chip pan there wasn’t much other damage. A fire extinguisher was enough to quench the impending fire.
“Why didn’t you want to get out of the house?” May asked, when she and Anthony were back home. They kept the door between the kitchen and the den closed. The windows stood wide open in the kitchen to let the burned fumes escape.
“What do you mean, I didn’t see the need,” Anthony answered.
A deep sigh escaped May’s mouth. “You are unbelievable, our house was on fire and you sat there watching TV. Don’t you realize Roland risked his life for you?”
“I said I didn’t want to leave,” Anthony declared.
“So you wanted to kill yourself?” May asked.
“No of course not,” Anthony answered.
“My goodness, do I have to spell it out for you?” May shrieked her patience ran thin. “We are skating on extremely thin ice you know.”
“I didn’t know you could skate, but I can’t,” Anthony said.
“Will you stop this?” May exclaimed. “I’m getting tired of your games.”
“What games?” Anthony asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“You’re incredible I’ve had it with you, I’m going to bed. Oh, and before you deem to join me the answer is no. You may sleep here on the couch,” May said. She slammed the living room door behind her.
Sure his wife wouldn’t disturb him Anthony removed a couple of books from a shelf. He pulled a 400 page A5 copy book through the opening. He hadn’t used it yet, he didn’t know what to write. No, he didn’t know where to begin.
Dear diary, or what shall I call you? I have nobody who I can trust these words to. I have difficulties even to tell you. My thoughts are all in a knot. I don’t know where to begin. It’s like being in a whirlpool. There is no beginning and no end. I am afraid of showing my feelings to others. Even my own wife can’t be trusted and she doesn’t understand me. At least here with you nobody can see me. But still it is hard to let go. Some people say it’s good to cry some times. It clears up the clouds around you. But I’m afraid when I start crying I won’t be able to stop and continue for the rest of the week. I have the same dream every night. I’m trying to leave a house, but there are all these doors I have to go through. The doors keep coming and I never am able to leave the house. I’m getting nowhere.