Two questions: why kill a man, and why tell someone you did?
I told the psychologist I beat my wife under the influence. She left. Women can realise their independence. I gave up the sauce. That was the irony: I had love – which I maimed – when drunk, but when I was sober, only the company of my guilt. The psychologist said that guilt was a gift. It illumined our past. That’s right, he used the word illumined. The light compels sobriety, he said: when did you ever see an addict in the daylight? I left.
Guilt is no gift.
Guilt is a stench. Pub carpet steeped in spilled liquor. Dead rat behind dry wall.
That wife and psychologist gig wasn’t my story. It was the story of Jake there, the scrawny one with the BO like wet cardboard, between dad bod with his misshapen ears and a man whose yellow teeth constantly chewed his past. A dozen of us, bottled farts in a ring, each shaking to keep our corks in, frightened of what might happen if we let go. Frightened of the stench of freedom. Each one with a story to tell, a confession to confess, in five-minute intervals. Betrayal of friends, loss of jobs, self-loathing, the refuge and refuse of alcohol. We had it all. Like a layered truth cake. We all eat the same pie.
Except me.
Or maybe not. Maybe they hide the same, all the while faking others’ lurid woes. Like me and the psychologist. Honesty is not the best policy when your game is self-protection. Or self-destruction. The latter leads to the former, in case you hadn’t realised.
I could sit here and tell them I killed a man. They’d nod, trick the homicide in their own hearts and slide me some solace. It was a drunken rage, the diseased abyss of alcoholism.
It wasn’t. I did kill a man. They might have too. God knows they’ve used their fists to throttle more than the bottleneck of their souls. They just haven’t told the group, yet. I am about to. It is the moment.
Why? Not why did I kill a man, but why is this the moment? Honesty? Step five: admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs? The gift of guilt? Sick of the stench? Courage? Bravado?
Why this convivial AA meet, and not a priest? There’s no secrecy of the confessional here; they could call the police. Maybe rely on the credulity of the forlorn. Rely on the vestige of pride, the knowledge they haven’t sunk the lowest. All they’ve done is ruin their lives, not someone else’s. That’s a semblance of redemption right there. Fake. They know it’s fake, but it keeps them coming back each week. Keeps them keeping the cork in.
Truth is, I don’t know why. Like I didn’t know I drank. I found out after the event.
It’s my turn to share. I look at them. They wait, blank as cows in a paddock.
‘I killed a man,’ I say. I watch for their reaction. Cow bellies shuffle. Butter yellow teeth churn. An ear flicks.
‘But the killing bore no relation to the disease,’ I say. ‘I can’t blame it on the grog.’
The meeting hall is silent. Credulity spins like dust specks in rays of window light, mixed with anticipation.
‘I’ll start with the woman,’ I say. There’s always a woman. ‘Not that the story is about her. I mean it’s about her, but not about her.’
Jerry, a balding ex-rocker with a ponytail says, ‘When was this?’
* * * *
‘Thirteen years ago. I hadn’t started real drinking then. I was still at the aspirational stage, looking for the finest reds, the most piquant champagnes, bouquet, legs and terroir.
The night we met wasn’t my finest. Nor my worst. I’d been kicked out of a blind tasting for cheating. With fifty large up for grabs, I did a little prior research. The fact that I cheated didn’t irk me: it was being caught, and worse, by a bunch of foppish pseudo-spitters in shiny brogues and brylcream.
Turns out security didn’t share their pretensions of civility. They took me out the back, beat me as red as the wines I’d tasted, and threw me into the eyeless dark, in rain so thick it seemed God had broken his promise to Noah. I was lying in the flooded road bemoaning my state when a pair of headlights screeched to a stop an inch before my terrified eyes. The rain hissed off the grill and she growled. She was a dapper sports car, all curves and capacious lights. Convertible, closed obviously, wipers manic on the windshield.
I stepped to the side. The driver’s window opened a crack. That was my first and most enduring glimpse of her. Dark eyes in shadow, lips lit and moist, hair as red as sunrise.
‘You’d better get in,’ she said, in a voice as sure as sunrise. It wasn’t just an invitation though, or even an observation; it was a pronouncement of the truth, that we’re all in need of shelter, we all weather a storm.
I legged it to the passenger side and apologised for drenching her car when I got in. She said that was to be expected. Her smile was impervious to the weather, however inclement. The rest of her was a storm in waiting, muscular form beneath a silk chemise, chiseled cheeks and hair swept into dark clouds.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said. Her voice was a light in the car.
She reached into the glove box and pulled out a towel. I thanked her.
The car was cream leather and wooden trim; rain hammered the roof. This baby would sing on a clear day with the roof down.
‘1955 Jaguar XK140 roadster, 3.4-litre inline-six,’ she said. The red edge of her lip curled.
‘How’d you come by it?’
‘How d’you think?’
‘The follies of men?’
‘Oh honey,’ she said, ‘it’s rarely about the men. Where you headed?’
I replied, ‘Wherever, nowhere booked.’
‘Then you’re coming with me.’ My head jerked as we plummeted into the dark. Yellow lights on spit rain, steam on the bonnet, otherwise she veered into blindness. The roadster never skipped a beat.
With only the fearful night outside, I ogled my saviour. The lip curl again.
‘I like a man who’s been in a fight.’ The car slid wildly across the dim bitumen, headlights lit the gloom. As we straightened she announced, ‘Call me Red.’
‘Rodney.’ I’d always hated my name.
‘Rodney,’ she repeated, as if choosing an item off a menu.
I closed my eyes and smelled the rain. I smelled sea air. I smelled her perfume, I smelled my lechery. The car lurched, then stopped. Her hand touched my knee. ‘We’re here.’
A massive iron gate swung open to a sweeping driveway. The mansion loomed behind. Two armed guards in the shadows like brick outhouses. They nodded without looking at us as we passed them. We got out and tore through the rain to a covered portico.
The mansion was as grand inside as out. An ornate circular staircase spliced a marbled foyer. Artworks abounded, chandeliers, polished furniture. A richly tapestried carpet began at the summit of the staircase and led to many doors.
‘You’ll want to dry off,’ she said. ‘Bathroom’s there. I’ll get you a robe.’ And she was gone.
The bathroom was marble, mirrored lights, a gigantic bathtub. I stared at my haggard face. A circus clown stared back, bloody lipped, swollen eyed, hair a common tragedy. I removed my soaking clothes and pulled a bath sheet off a shelf. I was about to start drying myself when Red entered. I was naked, a fox caught in headlights. She took a good long look and said, ‘Good thing you chose a bath sheet.’ She placed a silk robe and a pair of leather slippers on the bench. ‘Library. Third door on the right.’
The library was a wood paneled chamber replete with leather tomes, a couple of easy chairs and side tables. A fire was lit on one side. She stood at the stone mantelpiece.
‘I poured you a scotch,’ she said. ‘I hope you like them peaty.’
I swirled the honeyed liquid. ‘Lagavulin,’ I said. The bottle stood on a polished salver, uncorked.
‘Fifteen years.’ She was swathed in diaphanous silk, her body brazen beneath its folds, all legs and curves and breasts. Hair a flaming waterfall. A vast smile trapped my gaze. Her eyes flashed.
She was queen bee. I was either worker or drone.
The whisky hit my tongue in a hot storm. The rain vexed the windows.
She sculled her drink and walked over to me. Her long fingers opened my robe.
‘You can tell your story after,’ she said.
She was a keening kite on the winter coast. I was gully mullet in the foam, easy pickings for the swooning raptor. She pinned me down with talons on my torso and shredded my spleen. I was never more enthralled.
After, she said, ‘You are a wastrel,’ and I folded beneath her grasp. ‘Without ambition, background, or future.’ Her eyes were clouds marauding winter skies, her touch the scar of storms. My body thrilled. I told her, ‘Anything you say is true’.
The days passed. She was in and out. I had nowhere to go. When she was out, I read poetry, novels, biographies of great names. When she was in, we supped and screwed. Always she was in control, a pilot to my laden steerage.
Did I learn why she slept with me? No. Maybe I was easy for her, unconnected to any past or current troubles. A simple entertainment. Women mostly avoid trouble.
But did I enjoy my kept status? You bet. I had no one to answer to, only pleasure to find, and relaxation in between. How long it might last I did not know, but it was good while it did.
Increasingly she looked dishevelled when she returned. Her face was stretched, and her movements sharp. One afternoon, as we lay in the heat of our lovemaking I said, ‘Are you okay?’
She said, ‘I don’t need you.’ She didn’t get up though, but remained with my arm under her neck. I looked at her. God she was exquisite. She said, ‘If you feel the need to get out, take the jag for a spin’.
I heard voices behind the library door. Hers and a man’s. I could not hear what was being said, but it was heated. I took the car keys from the entrance table. In the driveway stood a gleaming Rolls, its chauffeur standing in front like an enlarged bonnet piece.
‘Who’s the bloke inside?” I said.
‘Blake du Monde,’ said the chauffeur.
‘Is he someone I should know?’
Chauffeur shrugged. ‘Some find it better never to have known him. Others, they get along.’
So, a bigwig, but the chauffeur wasn’t about to tell anymore. What was his relationship with Red? I figured maybe he owned all this, let her live there. But at what rent?
I gunned the jag down the gravel drive. She handled the road like a woman giving directions. Smooth and reassuring in the clear day, venomous with potential. I rocketed past green fields, through willowed groves, the savage coast always to my side. I felt both free and captive, on a long and wanted leash.
The Rolls was still there when I got back, Chauffeur still on guard. I nodded as I entered the massive front doors, but he barely even moved an eye.
I heard screams inside. Hers. His growling responses. Both animal, at the edge. I pushed open the door to the library. Papers and books were strewn about, a shattered lamp, glass and spilled bottles on the floor. He had her pinned down, spreadeagled on the couch. His buttocks astride the belt of his unbuttoned trousers.
‘Hey!’ I shouted. She looked at me. There was neither need nor plea in her eyes, but the smile of another option. Another possible way out of her dilemma.
The gun clicked; he stood one arm on her and the other with the weapon pointed at me. I raised my arms.
‘You either walk away and never saw this, or I kill you,’ the man said. He had the devil’s hair, and his ruthless eyes. He said ‘kill’, not ‘shoot’. He meant business.
I faltered. A man shoots as well with his pants down as with them up. I had a sudden vision of Chauffeur closing the trunk on my lifeless body, rendering me to the dark of my bloodied soul.
‘Easy, Tiger,’ said. I feigned submission, saw the whisky salver and swung it at him. It knocked the gun from his grip and I rushed him. His pants tripped him. He hit the rug and I was on him. We rained blows, I felt the rip of ringed knuckles on my cheek, my lip split. We twisted, I throat punched him, he jammed my eye. I reeled and he had me in a headlock, and my brain began to swirl. Loss of air, loss of blood, his breath viciously mocking in my ear. I kicked my heel into his shin, he tightened his grip. I felt blood fill my swollen eyes.
I caught a glimpse of Red. She was offering me the gun. Not pointing it at the man, but offering it to me, handle first, as if I’d requested a clean serviette. I reached over and took it, my mind swirling in dark agony, and turned the gun to my captor.
The shot was deafening, as if I had killed myself, and the two of us slumped to the floor. After a moment I stirred. I could see Red above me, mouthing something, but could not make out what. I shoved his arm off me, and tried to stand. The corpse was a headless mess of grey offal and spattered blood. On the rug, the chair, the fireplace.
Red’s hands were under my arms, pulling me up. Still she talked and still I heard only silence. She led me to the library door. Chauffeur was there. I started but she held me firm, again her lips moving silently on her lovely face. Chauffeur nodded, and took me from her. I could not resist his grip, and staggered after him, looking back at Red’s stately form. She lifted a manicured hand to her lips and blew me a kiss.
Chauffeur shoved me into the Rolls, happily not in the trunk. He was speaking, but I heard nothing and only shrugged. We turned down the driveway, and I looked back at the imposing mansion, with its ivied stone walls. I searched for a glimpse of Red, hoping she had parted a curtain to watch my departure, but it was not to be.
We drove for I don’t know how long, past this morning’s fields, the grazing cattle, the raging surf, the windbreaks of willows and oaks. We threaded through towns and villages, past sportsgrounds and gas stations and cafes and car repairs. Into the city, where Red had picked me up that night.
We stopped in a back alley. Chauffeur handed me a bag and said something to me, but I shrugged, as if to say, I’m in your hands, mate, you have to take care of me. I got out when he pulled a gun on me.
As he drove off I touched my swollen lips and cheeks. My ribs ached too. The bag contained cash, lots of it.
I searched for her for months. I hired a car (something far less grand than the Jag or the Rolls). Even with my swollen face I drove the coastline, and swung into hinterland roads, but found no access to her mansion in the hills.
That’s when I took to the bottle. Not to drown out her memory, but to preserve it, to swim in the abyss of her touch, to breath the liquor of her perfume. To commemorate too, the death of the man, my triumph over him, my defeat at his hands, my rescue at hers. The easy willingness to shoot. The calmness of her gift to me at the moment. To loathe myself, for my weakness, my failure to win her and the fight, my reliance on the one I desired. I reasoned I had served her purpose, but had not proven my worth; she had relished the easy task of love, but could not rely on me for the bitter task of defence. Sure, I’d tried, but failed; he had me in a headlock, I had to rely on Red. My failure was my guilt, and I had been jettisoned. And with that had forfeited a great potential. I had known so little about her. Had experienced her capacities, but knew nothing of their limits. I had had but a few days before I unravelled.
* * * *
I look about the motley group. Jerry with his ponytail. Cardboard Jake. Dad bod and the Yellow Toothed Ruminator. The rest of them. Alcos with untold pasts.
Someone eventually says, ‘That’s a real story, Rodney.’
I’d always hated my name.
‘Thank you for sharing it.’
I grimace. Maybe they’d killed a man too. Maybe they were pleased they hadn’t. Maybe they’d only killed when drunk, behind the wheel or in a catatonic state. But I’d bet, none of them had become a drunkard over such a stupendous love.
Why kill a man, and why tell someone you did? We know the first, but the why tell?
I don’t know. Maybe truth just needs to be out. Maybe the soul needs to be unburdened, and we unburden on others. We are social creatures, and can share a load. Maybe to test the stories of others, to share identity of experience. People such as these are vulnerable to their past: maybe to strengthen their resolve. More likely I suspect, to elevate myself, by boasting – or worse, believing – I had the grand love, the love worth killing for. Dying for. Losing.
* * * *
Photo by Med Badr Chemmaoui c/- Unsplash
