Alex Barclay - The Caller

‘Shaun broke up with Tara,’ said Anna.

‘Really?’

Anna nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Yeah, I never ended up with the girls my ma didn’t like.’

‘You didn’t like her either.’

‘That’s not the point. It’s all about Mom. I think maybe it’s like a dog whistle. You send out some repel signal that’s only picked up by girls who look like tramps. Which is exactly what teenage boys are looking for.’

Anna slapped Joe’s shoulder.

‘What?’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s OK. I’m past that phase.’

‘We could have another boy and have to go through it all over again. Or worse – a girl to keep control of.’

Joe said nothing.

‘What?’ said Anna. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ said Joe.

‘There is something. We have barely had a conversation this week-’

‘I’m pretty busy, Anna.’

‘Me too.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, yanking his belt from his trousers, ‘if I sometimes can’t connect your level of busy with mine, OK?’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Life’s not fair. Who says life’s fair? The shit I see… I could care less if stripy wallpaper is making a fucking comeback. Can you see how that might not matter to me?’

Anna stared at him. ‘No-one can ever win with you, can they? You arrogant-’

‘Whoa, I’m not arrogant,’ said Joe. ‘I’m just not living up in the clouds…’

‘Up in the clouds?’ she shouted.

It spurred him on.

‘Yeah, making up these fake little worlds where everything is perfect and everyone is happy and the sun is shining and all the people are sitting on the sofas or dancing around their fucking kitchens and bedrooms in their cute underwear with their perfect bodies, with big smiles on their faces and-’

‘Are you OK?’ Anna said, her voice softer.

‘No! No I’m not.’

‘You’ve changed so much.’

Joe rolled his eyes. ‘Why do women say that shit?’

‘What?’

‘Look – it’s not a bad thing if I have changed, Anna. People change. At forty, you want to be married to some immature asshole with no clue about responsibility or no major ambition who likes to get drunk every weekend with the guys? You can’t start idealizing this guy you married.’

‘That’s the thing, it’s not idealizing you. I didn’t need to. You were-’

‘Don’t give me that crap. I used to drive you nuts, same as always.’

‘We never fought like this.’

Joe looked down. ‘No. We didn’t.’

‘What is wrong with you?’ said Anna.

‘OK. You want to know? You really want to know? I’m furious! You know, I’ve tried to be cool, but I’m not. We have one more year before Shaun goes to college and I thought great, just the two of us, you know? I cannot believe that right when I think my life is going to go one way, someone hits rewind and I’m right back where I was eighteen years ago. I feel like I’ve worked my ass off for nothing, Anna.’

‘That’s not how it is.’

‘Yes, it is! I feel paralysed here! This baby feels like an excuse for something.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Like an excuse for you not to have to face what has happened to us. An excuse for you not to have to go out there-’ He pointed to the window.

‘Out where?’ said Anna.

‘Anywhere,’ Joe shouted. ‘Anywhere! Look at how you’ve been living. You’ve hardly gone outside the door, you fall apart when you do, you’re here all day, in the evenings-’

‘I’m depressed!’ she shouted.

‘Exactly,’ shouted Joe. ‘Which is why we should not be having this baby. Who wants to bring a kid into this home?’ It hung there in the silence.

‘We have a wonderful home,’ said Anna. She started to cry.

Joe sat down on the bed. ‘Doesn’t feel that way,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I’ve forgotten. I don’t know any more. I don’t think about it. I never think about us any more.’

‘I know,’ said Anna, pressing her sleeve against her eyes.

He looked up at her. ‘I… love you so much, you and Shaun. You’re everything to me. But we’re not the same. I mean, things have changed.’

‘Maybe the baby will…’

Joe shook his head sadly. ‘That’s one hell of a scary job for a newborn.’

The sun beamed down through a slice in the grey sky over Denison, Texas. Wanda Rawlins held her hand up to the television set, the bones in her fingers rigid and spread.

‘I have been clean and sober for-’ The telegenic preacher, his grey hair smooth and waxy, paused for his audience to fill in their ‘time spent walking with Jesus’.

‘Sixteen years, three days and seven hours,’ said Wanda.

‘Before I walked with Jesus I-’

‘Danced with the devil.’ Wanda’s voice was as fiery as the man with the headset microphone striding the stage in the crowded white marquee.

‘My salvation was-’

‘Vincent Farraday.’ Wanda shouted. She was talking about her husband, the singer who plucked her off a strippers’ stage in Stinger’s Creek, cleaned her up and welcomed her into this loving home in Denison, forty miles south. The studio audience had already answered ‘The Lord’.

‘Oh yeah, the Lord,’ said Wanda. ‘Duh. My salvation was The Lord and Vincent Farraday.’

The preacher stood with his arms outspread, his hips thrust forward. ‘My power is in-’

‘My sobriety,’ said Wanda.

‘My love,’ said Wanda.

‘My destiny,’ said Wanda.

‘My denial. My detachment. My ice cold soul.’ Duke Rawlins stood in the doorway, gripping the frame above his head, his long, lean body rocking gently back and forth. The audience cheered.

‘Dukey,’ said Wanda, struggling to get up from the floor.

Duke looked at the television. ‘You won’t recall this, Mama,’ he said, ‘but it was soap operas you used to watch. All day sometimes. I would run all over the house, all over the yard. I would come in to you, lying there and I would have scratches and bruises and dirt on me, just, you know, to see…’ He shrugged. ‘And you would lean your head around me, use all your weakness to push me aside and you would say, “Mama’s got some other people’s lives to watch.”’ He smiled. ‘Well I see now that Mama’s got her some Jesus to watch.’ His face twisted into an expression of the hate down deep and rising.

Wanda’s eyes were love and fear and sixteen years, three days and seven hours of veneer.

‘You’ve done some very bad things, Dukey. A lot of people want to talk to you. That detective in New York…’ Duke’s expression stopped her. She raised calming hands. ‘But I understand why now,’ she said, ‘why you did those things.’

Duke tilted his head.

Wanda nodded. ‘I understand. The devil entered my body with the sin of my ways. I opened my lifeblood to him and he flowed right in. He rested alongside you in the womb. And he grew alongside you. And when you came out of inside me, he was gone. And the only place he could…’

Duke had a new laugh for this, one he had never used before, high and staccato and minutes long. ‘You crazy motherfucking bitch,’ he said at the end. ‘Damn, you’re crazy. Maybe the crazy fairy fucked you up the ass. He went in one way, the devil went in another. Maybe they met in the middle, had themselves a little party. Hell, maybe I joined in.’ He laughed again and started walking towards her.

‘I want to help you, Dukey. I want to redeem-’

‘Yourself, Mama. As per usual. You want to redeem yourself.’

‘No, no!’ said Wanda. ‘I’ll do whatever you want. You need money? I got money.’ She pointed at her pocket book. ‘I won’t tell anyone you were here. You can even stay here! I won’t tell a soul.’