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Tick Tock
Sarah-Louise Knight
Copyright 2011 by Sarah-Louise Knight
Mary listened to Derek breathing as he slept beside her. In with a snuffle. Out with a wheeze. In with a snuffle. Out with a wheeze. He lay on his right hand side. Having been awake for nearly two hours, her eyes were accustomed to the darkness. She watched his shoulder rise and fall beneath the duvet with each breath. Her lower back was aching- a niggling throb like knuckles pressing into the muscles from the inside out. No matter which way she shifted, she could not find any lasting relief. Perhaps she should not have worn such high heels to the party. Saying that, they were nothing compare to the skyscrapers she used to wear in her teens. She remembered the hot pants and jeans so tight she needed to lay flat on the bed to do the zipper up. She used to have a great pair of legs. ‘They go right up to your bum and then turn cheeky’ Derek used to say. Used to say. She flicked back the duvet to look down at them. They were still okay. Maybe a bit wider around the thighs, but not bad. In fact - she pulled herself up to rest on her elbows for a closer inspection- not bad at all. Firm. Varicose free. If she wanted to – really wanted to- she could probably still wear a mini skirt.
As she stared at the ceiling she became aware of an additional sound in the room, punctuating her husband’s rhythmical slumber. A drip? A tap? No. It was a tick. Definitely a tick. A tick tock. Of course. It was coming from that bloody awful carriage clock Smithson & Sons had given Derek last night at his retirement party. A thing of true ugliness. A rectangular silver grey surround – about half the size of a shoe box- framing a fat, round, gaudy gold face. It stood on four silver stubby legs which matched the handle straddling the top. On the back, scrawled across the silver plated door was
Derek Palmer
Loyal Employee of Smithson & Sons
1980-2010
Mary could not help laughing when Derek, clutching it close to his chest, like precious bounty, had stepped down from the podium among the obligatory round of applause to show it to her.
‘What?’ he queried.
‘Nothing.’ She pulled her lips between her teeth.
‘Mare? What?’
‘It’s just the inscription. It looks like a memorial. Anyone would think you’ve died, not retired.’
Following her sleepless night, Derek was at the breakfast table before her, stuffing a rasher of bacon into his mouth.
‘Just in time’ he said thickly, scraping back his chair to move over to the oven. ‘I didn’t like to wake you, but a couple more minutes and this would have been as dry as a bone.’ He was wearing his pale blue terry towelling dressing gown usually reserved for weekends. The collar of his paisley print pyjamas poked out from the top. With a tea towel clad hand he grabbed a food laden plate from the oven.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ he encouraged, sliding it in front of her.
Mary stared at the feast before her and the feast stared back- curled bacon strips; a plump mahogany coloured sausage; sliced fried tomatoes; fat mushrooms; beans and egg. The succulent aromas wafted like a warm breeze into her nostrils, causing saliva to gather at the back of her jaw. She lifted her fork before suddenly pushing the plate away from her – burning her fingers in the process- as if struck by a volt of electricity.
‘I’m sorry, Derek, but I’m cereal only on a weekday.’
His shoulders slumped as he retook his seat.
‘It’s not your fault. You weren’t to know. You’re not normally here when I eat breakfast in the week.’ She felt obliged to qualify her reaction seeing as she had just kicked a puppy in the face. ‘It’s my own rule. We can’t all be as naturally wire thin as you. I have to watch my figure, now, don’t I?’
‘That’s ridiculous, Mare. What’s the point in dodging calories at our age? I mean’ he bit into a sausage, ‘neither of us are spring chickens any more. We’re retired, now.’
She clamped her tongue between her teeth, pushing her lips out into a pout. Silently, she approached a cupboard for the cereal box.
‘You are retired, Derek, not me’ she stated, roughly pouring papery cornflakes into a bowl.
‘Only because you never worked, Mare. In fact, if you had, you would have retired two years before me.’ He prodded for food on his plate, allowing the fork to clink heavily on the china.
Mary felt as if a pressure, rather like a thumb, was being pressed firmly against her temples. She rummaged in the drawer for a spoon. It was then she noticed a mark on the back of her hand. Is that dirt? She rubbed it, but it stayed firm. Stepping towards the window, where the light was better, she realised she was looking at a liver spot – a flattened tea coloured freckle. And there was not just one. There were a cluster of them. The pressure on her temples increased.
‘Mary? You alright, love?’ Derek turned in his seat, frowning.
‘No’ she snapped. ‘I’ve got a headache, which isn’t surprising with that bloody noise going on.’
‘What noise?’
‘The ticking from that bloody clock. Have you brought it downstairs?’
‘Yes, it’s in the living room, but I can’t hear anything?’
‘That’s because you’re tone deaf from all the snoring you do. It keeps me awake all night and then you bring that downstairs to terrorise me in the day.’
‘Terrorise you? Mary what-‘
‘I need to lie down.’ She held up her hand like a policeman stopping traffic. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
Mid morning on the following Wednesday, Mary was sweating profusely after completing an hour long DVD aerobic work out. Wearing a tight fitting shiny red leotard – allegedly able to lift her bum and pull in her stomach - her skin glistened with moisture. As was her custom, she took a moment to look at her post work out physique in the bathroom’s full length mirror. She pinched hard at the point where the flesh of her buttocks overlapped to form the top of her legs. No amount of body brushing, detoxing diets or expensive lotions had been able to budge the stubborn clusters of dimples reminding her of orange rind. No matter, though, as she still had a body which could pass for a forty year old at least. As she lifted her arms to fix her hair, she felt an unexpected wobble. It couldn’t be. Gently she lowered her arms to her side, before raising them above her head once more. Definitely a wobble. She turned her head to examine the tops of her arm. Her mouth dropped open as she spied a flap of baggy skin hanging like a sheet on a washing line pegged from under the arm pit to the elbow. No! She flicked with her finger. It moved. Dammit - it moved. She needed to a plan of action to get rid of it, but all she could hear was the ticking of that damn carriage clock from the living room. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Derek called from downstairs.
‘Mary, I’ve got a surprise for you. Come down.’
He was in the kitchen, hovering by the kettle, humming to himself.
‘You look very pleased with yourself’, she sniffed. That tick tock was driving her mad. How come it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest?
‘That’s because I am.’
‘Can you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘That ticking. That tick tocking.’
‘Can’t hear a thing, love.’
‘You must be able to. It’s loud enough.’ She rubbed the back of her neck.
‘Nope, can’t hear it. Mind you,’ he chuckled, dropping a tea bag into a mug, ‘hearing’s one of the first things to go at our age isn’t it?’
‘Your hearing, maybe, but there is clearly nothing wrong with mine, because I can hear the damn thing everywhere I go. I swear, Derek, if you don’t move it out of the living room, I’ll smash it to pieces.’
‘Oh, Mare, you’re so funny. Anyway, back to my news.’ He poured boiling water over the tea bag. ‘I have just signed us up f
or bowls.’
‘Bowls?’
‘Yes, bowls. Every Tuesday afternoon behind the community centre. It’s a good way to keep fit, get fresh air, meet people.’ He emphasized each point by tapping the fingers of his left hand with the index finger of his right.
‘Bowls.’
‘Mmm. Great isn’t it? And I was speaking to this old dear while I was down there and she said the sports shop on the high street does some really cheap white hats and pumps, because there’s quite a strict dress code. Mare? Mary? Where are you going?’ He followed her into the living room.
‘I can’t hear myself think’, she shouted, snatching the carriage clock off the mantelpiece. She yanked open the engraved silver door and stuck her finger into the twisting mechanism. Silence filled the room like a thick fog.
‘Start that up again’, she shoved the clock into Derek’s hands ‘and I want a divorce.’
Derek attended the bowls meetings alone. Mary found herself looking forward to Tuesday afternoons at three o’clock when he would leave the house. It reminded her of life before he retired – when the house was hers and hers alone; when she did not have to make polite conversation with the familiar stranger who sat on her sofa; when the lunch time news was not put on religiously at one thirty; when weekends did not merge into weekdays and the weeks did not stretch before her like an endless prison sentence, with no hope of parole.
On a Tuesday when rain cancelled bowls, Derek planted himself on the sofa, like a hardy perennial. Mary’s lip curled as she stared at him in his khaki board shorts, brown open toed sandals and grey socks wrinkled at the ankles. She did not expect him to continue wearing the suit and tie of his working days, but surely standards did not have to drop quite so low. He turned each page of his newspaper slowly, deliberately and with more noise than if he were crushing a packet of crisps. Her urge to say something about his attire; his being; his noise; his breathing was greater than the impulse to fight for air when drowning, but she managed to resist, deciding to busy herself by dusting the mantelpiece.
As she carefully moved the ornaments, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror hanging behind them. Several shiny silver strands of hair had infiltrated her auburn bob. She tugged out the most prominent ones, making her eyes water and made a mental note to ring the hairdressers for an emergency appointment. How could she have not noticed those before? Then she heard it. Soft at first, then harder. Tick tock. Tick tock. She looked at the carriage clock. The hands were not moving, but it was certainly ticking. She opened the back. The mechanism was motionless.
‘Can you hear that, Derek?’
No response.
‘Derek!’
‘Huh?’ He peered over the top of his paper.
‘I said can you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘That tick tock.’
‘Oh not the clock again, Mary. I haven’t touched it since you broke it.’
‘I didn’t break it.’
‘Well’ he put down his paper ‘seeing as I am forbidden to start it up again, I wouldn’t really know for sure, would I?’
Mary placed one hand on her hip and the other on the top of her head.
‘I can’t believe you can’t hear it. Listen.’
Derek cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.
‘Nope, can’t hear a thing.’
‘Listen.’ She ordered ‘I didn’t notice it until I was looking at my hair and-‘
‘Oh, that reminds me.’ He kept his sitting position, but lifted his bottom off the sofa to take a leaflet out of his pocket. ‘I saw this at the community centre and thought of you.’
Mary took the A5 sized sheet covered in bright neon pink and yellow lettering from his hand.
‘Why are you giving this to me?’She scrunched the flyer offering discount hair cuts to OAPs within her fist.
‘Well, you always moan about how much that fancy hairdresser charges you, so I thought-‘
‘You thought’ She squinted, The ticking was getting louder – infiltrating her skull. ‘No. You didn’t think.’
‘Mary you have to accept you, like everyone else on the planet is getting older, so why not take advantage-‘
‘Of an OAP offer?’ she screamed. She had to scream or else he would not hear her over the deafening noise.
‘Mary? Are you okay love?’ Derek rose from his seat, but kept a tentative distance from the red faced fury before him.
‘No Derek, I’m not okay. I’m not okay with you trying to push me into an early grave and I’m not okay with the constant ticking of this bloody clock.’
Mary lunged at the carriage clock, catching it in her right hand. With an over arm motion, like a fast bowler, she sent it soaring into the air, aiming to smash it into the wall. At the exact same moment Derek chose to retreat in the identical direction. The clock fell short of its target, making a nauseating thump as it drove straight into his face above his nose, between his eyes. Derek took a shaky step towards his wife, gazing at her blankly. Blood began pouring from- Mary had no idea from where exactly, as there was so much of it. He collapsed onto the rug before her, causing the parquet flooring to shudder.
Mary checked for a pulse. That was the right thing to do wasn’t it? Blood pumped from his lifeless body, soaking the rug; spreading its tentacles towards her; trying to pull her in. She backed away by shuffling on her bottom. Scenarios ran through her mind. She could tell the police he attacked her - that he was having a mid life crisis - not coping with his retirement. It was self defence- yes self defence. As she formulated a plan, she realised the ticking had stopped. She held her breath and there it was. Complete silence. She had done the right thing. It really was self defence.
After calling the police, she hauled herself into the bathroom. She splashed her cheeks with ice cold water and looked up into the mirror at her reflection. Surely not. She moved closer to the mirror. At the outside corner of each eye were deep creases. Beneath the eyes were puffy sacks like miniature stuffed pillows. Her mouth fell open, but she could still see baggy jowls hanging from her lower jaw.
‘No’ she whimpered, but she could not hear her own speech, as it was drowned out by a tick tock.