Conn Iggulden - Blackwater

‘What do you want?’ I said.

‘Have you got whisky?’ he said. I nodded, and out of habit I half rose to get it.

He pressed a hand on my shoulder, holding me down with no trouble at all.

‘You just tell me where,’ he said, looking at the cupboards along the kitchen wall.

‘By the door, there,’ I told him. He would turn and I would reach for one of the knives by the sink behind me.

Instead of following my plan, he reached out and belted me across the face, giving it everything he had. I think I must have blacked out for a while as I lost track of where he was and had to crane my head round, looking for him. He was pouring a little Laphroaig into a glass and everything in the kitchen seemed brighter than usual, like a film.

‘Get out,’ I mumbled at him, feeling ill. Even as I spoke, I felt the acid come back into my mouth. It’s always been the way with me, after some problem with a deteriorating valve. Stomach acid is powerful stuff. I get a blast of it in the back of the throat when I’m frightened or angry, and it burns and burns. There’s a name for the valve problem, but the operation is brutal.

‘I’m not getting out, Davey. You know that,’ he said. I hated him calling me that. My brother and Carol called me Davey, no one else. No one else in my life had known me young enough.

I saw he was wearing black leather gloves to grip the whisky glass. I shook my head to clear it and touched my lips gingerly, trying to feel if they could honestly have swollen as far as they felt. The whole side of my face belonged to someone else. I could only look out of it at him.

‘I don’t want to be doing this, Davey, I want you to believe that,’ Michael said. There was real regret in his eyes, almost a fellow feeling. I hoped to God he wasn’t there to kill me.

‘Doing what?’ I said, terrified. The acid was pooling in my mouth by then, more bitter than vinegar. I wondered what would happen if I spat it into his eyes. Would it burn him the way it seemed to burn me?

‘Giving you a little warning, Davey. And drinking your whisky. Telling you to let her go.’ He seemed almost apologetic as he said the last part.

‘Let who go? Carol?’ I said. I wasn’t thinking well, with my own blood on the table in front of me. It wouldn’t stop dripping out of my nose and I could almost draw loops with it on the pine surface.

‘Someone we both know thinks she may be afraid of leaving you, Davey. I think you and I know that’s not true. You’re not the type, are you, Davey? You’re a sensible sort who won’t make me have to do something more permanent, aren’t you?’

‘She won’t leave me,’ I said, which may be one of the most idiotic things ever to come from my mouth. I should have offered to drive her over to Denis’s house in my own car if Michael would have gone. The thought of his house changed the direction of my spinning thoughts.

‘What about his own wife?’ I demanded. ‘I remember her. What does she have to say about it?’

Michael shook his head, as if saddened by all the world’s troubles. ‘She’s left him, Davey. It hasn’t been good for a while, and I think your wife was the last straw. He’s a free man, Davey. And that’s not good for you, I’m sorry to say.’

‘You’re insane,’ I told him. ‘You can’t just tell a man to leave his wife.’

‘Where do you think she is at the moment, Davey? What do you think she’s doing?’ Michael demanded. ‘This isn’t like the local vicar’s wife, is it? I wouldn’t like to imagine what she’s getting up to, would you? If I was you, old son, I would leave the bitch and say good riddance to her. What do you want with a woman who takes off like that? We may be doing you a little favour, if you think about it. In the long run, you know.’

My lack of shock seemed to surprise him, and he frowned at me before refilling the glass and corking the bottle. I saw his hand move, but I had hardly begun to duck when the whisky splashed across my face. It burned worse than the stomach acid inside and I yelped, holding up both hands. My eyes streamed with tears and I don’t know if it was the fumes or rage at her for doing this to me, for letting these people into our lives. I couldn’t think, and when he hit me again I cried out for him to stop, over and over, sobbing.

‘You drank a bit too much, Davey, and you fell down the steps outside, catching your face on the ground, something like that. When she asks, Davey, you know. I wouldn’t want you telling lies about strange men in your kitchen, would I? You wouldn’t want to try and turn her against her new friend with a few whispers, believe me. If she hears I was here, I will show you what I call a second visit, understand? It’ll be a lot worse, Davey.’ He shook his head slowly, as if imagining it. ‘Don’t make me come back.’

I was shaking when he left. I drank a little more of the whisky, and by the time she came home the following morning I was still awake and I was drunk and I was raging. I heard her cry out in shock when she saw the wreck Michael had made of my face. Before I could say a word, she was searching in the medicine cupboard for creams and plasters.

‘What happened?’ she demanded as she sat down in front of me. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ came before I could open my mouth. ‘Did you fall?’ I wondered if Denis had fed her the line, and I winced as my lips cracked. I hesitated just long enough to wonder what would happen if Michael was sent back to make the lesson stick. I didn’t have a plan then, I just hadn’t fully understood their world. It was too far away from mine.

‘Denis Tanter,’ I said softly, watching her reaction. She was in the middle of dabbing dried blood out of one of my nostrils and I watched her whole face tighten. Her eyes lost the warm care and tenderness she had been lavishing. Lost it all.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, and suddenly I was afraid that the coldness was for me, that she just didn’t care any more.

‘He had his man come round while you were out last night. You know, to give the husband a little lesson? While you were whoring with his boss. He was warning me off, Carol, making threats in our own house.’ I heard a tremble in my voice and shut up before the drink brought me to tears.

She looked down at her hands and I could see they were shaking. I couldn’t find any sympathy for her.

‘That’s what you brought into this house, Carol. That’s what you did to me last night.’

She’d gone very pale, I saw, as if I’d slapped her. She still held a damp tissue tinged with red. I saw her hand begin to move back to dab at my face and I did slap it away. I didn’t think I could bear it if she just went on like nothing had happened. I wanted it all out.

She stood then and her tongue came out to touch the top of her upper lip. She does that when she’s really worked up, and I welcomed it. I stood as well to face her, and suddenly the desire for a fight went out of me. I couldn’t bear the argument, couldn’t stand the words being said again. It was just too much on top of the night I’d had. I’d said them all a thousand times and won the arguments over and over and over. I really didn’t actually need to say them aloud to her face. She knew them all.

‘Just fix it, Carol. I don’t care what happens any more. Just sort it out.’

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together so that all the blood and colour had gone out of them. I’d never seen her so shaken and, ridiculously, I found it cheering, so that I almost bounced up those stairs to bed. Before she had the shower running, I was asleep.

OF COURSE, SEEING ME sitting there with a bloody nose put Carol in a difficult position. The truth is a strange thing, in case you’ve never been forced to contemplate its twists and turns. It doesn’t matter how bad something is. If you don’t admit what’s going on, if you don’t say it aloud, it can be forgotten. It can be managed. It can be ignored. I remember the first time I heard someone joke about ‘the elephant in the room’. They meant something that everyone tried to ignore, but who could ignore an elephant? You can take it from me that after a while you hang your clothes on the trunk like he was part of the furniture. You can get used to anything, and as long as you don’t actually die, all pain goes. All pain goes. Think of that the next time you think you can’t stand it. Think of me. If you don’t ask about Bobby Penrith, it’s always an accident. Even if you know, you just don’t force the words out into the open.