James Smythe - The Machine

I don’t know, he says. I didn’t even think about it. It was when I came back from Iran, and I had the – you remember – the blind spots. Couldn’t remember things properly. And the dreams. It was a rage, really. I took it out on you.

Where were we?

In the car park of a pub. I told you that I was going back to war, and you said that I couldn’t, so I lost it with you.

You told me what? Beth stops and squints at him. That had never happened.

I told you that I was going back to Iran.

That didn’t happen.

Of course it did, he says. He looks terrified then, as if he knows it sounds shaky even as it comes out of his mouth.

Tell me more about it? (She has no idea what time it is, but there’s no noise from anywhere else, only the Machine stirring away, as always.)

What do you mean?

If you were going back, tell me more about it. Why?

They called me and said that I was important to them. And that I had to go back to Iran, to help with a mission.

You left the army.

They said that they were reinstating me. Look, he says, this is what happened. I can remember it! I can remember everything! Why the fuck don’t you believe me? He stands up and starts pacing in that little room, in the space between the bed and the dresser. The door is shut. Jesus fucking Christ, this is exactly the problem. This is why we argued before, and why we’re going to argue now.

I put your memories back inside you, she says, in her quietest voice. And I didn’t put some story about you going back to war in you. That’s from the Machine.

I told it to the doctor then. I told it to him, and that’s how it’s back.

You didn’t. I’ve heard every recording. I know who you are as well as you do.

Shut up.

I know you as well as you know yourself.

You don’t have a fucking clue what I know! he yells. He picks up the potpourri dish and throws it at her, one swift movement; the circular vessel spinning through the air like a clay pigeon, and it collides with her, on the side of her head. It scrapes across her hairline before bouncing away at her ear, and everything in the dark room flashes white suddenly – the light, the walls, the Machine itself, as impossible as that sounds – and she falls backwards. Not from the impact, but the shock. And then Vic’s body – which, from that angle, is hulking and malformed, like the twenty-year-old Vic, with his constant intake of vitamin drinks and bench-pressing – disappears into the living room and then out of the flat.

Beth lets it all go black. She lets the whiteness fade and the sleep – because that’s what it feels like – washes over her. She’s out of control, and alone; and there, on the pillow, the Crown is lying right next to her.

Somehow she sleeps most of the day, waking when it’s night and dark in the flat, and when she wakes it’s to sobbing and clattering from the living room. She sits up and sees that the pillow is damp, and the Crown has somehow been knocked to the floor. She sits up further but she’s woozy, and she has to brace herself and focus on the only light in the room – the Machine – to steady herself.

Vic, is that you? she asks. She sees the potpourri tray beside where her head had been. Vic? She stands up, using the chest of drawers to keep steady, and her knees shake, but she’s strong enough to move along the line of the furniture and to the doorway. She looks out into the dark flat, and she can hardly see him. His shape in the light from the window and the door.

Don’t, he says. I’m so ashamed.

It’s okay, she says. She thinks about how she’s going to blame herself, because that’s the path of least resistance: to just take the fall, and say that she pushed him. They’ll get past this. After all, she thinks, hasn’t she already decided that she’s going to live with him and his temper and – if they start again – the dreams? That’s going to be her lot. Listen, she says to him, things happen. I’m fine.

It’s not that, he says. She steps forward into the living room itself, and she can see the trail of darkness that runs around the collar of his t-shirt, and down his arms.

What happened? she asks. She touches him, and he’s wet and warm, but not the warmth of the outside, not that dry heat: a pulsing, damp warmth. The smell of cleaning products and something else, something rotten. Oh my God, she says, you’re hurt. His tracksuit is soaked through, but it’s drying off, mostly; and his hair is wet and the water droplets in it cling to the strands.

I’m fine, he says. He’s shaking, like he’s the Machine itself, and his flesh the channel for those vibrations.

I’ll get a towel, Beth says. She turns on the light in the bathroom and sees the blood that covers her hands, which is now on the light cord and the sides of the sink and the taps as she tries to wash it off, and she looks in the mirror and it’s also all over her head: but this isn’t the blood from Vic, it’s from the gash that runs nearly all the way from her eye to her ear, so sharp and deep it looks to have been made with a knife, not a seemingly harmless ornamental dish. She lifts water to her head and feels the sting, but it’s okay. Not as bad as it looks, she thinks. She takes a flannel and soaks it and wrings it out, and then rushes back to Vic, picking up a bucket from the kitchen on the way. She peels his t-shirt off and starts wiping at the blood, to see where it’s coming from; and she gets it off his arms and then his neck, or at least makes it more liquid so that it runs clear and down his body and starts to soak into the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms. He notices her blood when she’s cleaning him, leaning in close to him.

Your head, he says. Oh my God, Beth. What have I done?

It’s okay, she says. I’ve made my bed, I’ll lie in it, she thinks. She nearly says that as well, but stops the words. There are no cuts on Vic’s shoulders or neck. What happened? she asks him. She wrings the flannel into the bucket.

I saw that kid, he says.

Oh God, she says. She knows instantly what he’s done, because there’s no other way that this story can end. She doesn’t want to know any more, but she has to. She knows that.

He, uh. He said things.

He always says things.

You said that he threatened you, and he did it again. The things that he said.

Where is he?

On the beach, Vic says. I left him there.

Come on, Beth says. She grabs her keys and opens the door and tells him again to follow, but he’s shutting down. You have to show me where! she shouts, and that shouting makes him move. He slopes towards her, dragging every part of himself, and she’s sure that he’s making a noise – a moan, something from deep inside, and it’s a noise that she knows so well, a noise that’s been there for so long, sitting in that room and in every part of her flat and her life, and inside her head. She pulls the door shut behind them and rushes down the stairwell, and she almost forgets about the blind corner until she’s past it, and she has to tell Vic to keep up. He doesn’t seem to be listening: this is all happening at his own pace, Beth thinks. She can’t shout at him here, because the whole estate will twitch their curtains and peer out at them. So she whisper-shouts, her voice feeling hoarse in the warm still air. Where is he? she asks him, and Vic points: not to the sandy beach at the end, but to the area of scree before the pebbles begin. Beth rushes to the line of shops and then down the steps that she never goes down, because what’s down there, at the water’s edge, is rough and hard and unpleasant, and it’s never used. It’s where the seaweed and rubbish get caught up on the rocks, and that’s it, nothing more.

Only now, she sees, there’s the boy. His eyes are shut and his body is at such an angle that she just knows, before she’s even there, because he’s been placed there, rather than having chosen to lie like that; and there’s so much blood, and it seems to be coming from every part of his skin. As if every pore decided to bleed at the same time. His clothes are torn and his face is beaten and red and swollen, and Beth swears that she can see fist marks in his cheeks, but that could be swelling from being in the water. She squats next to him and thinks about touching him to check, but there’s no need. And there’s no doubt that it’s the same boy. He’s eleven, maybe, twelve, maybe older. She has an urge to check his body for evidence of his age. She tells herself how sick that is: as if knowing might make this better or worse.