Human Remains

  May 5, 2011. It was about three in the afternoon, a fine day, and although it had been hot for weeks, stifling, that day was cooler. There was a breeze, relief from the heat. I was going to the supermarket in the car thinking about my friend’s wedding, which was the following weekend, and wondering if the weather would hold. It was also a bank holiday, which is relevant because of course if it had been a normal Monday I would have been at work and it might never have happened.

  I was at the traffic circle waiting to turn in to the supermarket, and was about to go when a car came from the right at full speed. So I braked. I remember having time to think something like “glad the brakes work” when a van slammed into the back of me, propelling the car onto the circle and into the path of the other motorist.

  I was lucky: the injuries weren’t too bad. I had cuts and bruises, especially down my right leg, which was trapped by the impact. The other two drivers were all right. The whole drama happened in stages: waiting for the emergency services, while lots of people milled around and talked to me reassuringly through the smashed window; then, when the fire services arrived, there was the long process of cutting me out of the car. Then the hospital. Graham arriving. The police, asking me questions.

  They let me out the next morning, with a prescription for some painkillers and instructions to get my GP to excuse me from work. I remember thinking I’d had a lucky escape. That evening, Graham and I were enjoying a glass of wine—medicinal purposes, he said—and I was smiling despite the shock of it all, smiling with him when he said I must be made of rubber or something.

  It took time to realize that we’d been laughing too soon. Something, somewhere, had happened inside my body at the moment the car struck, and I had broken.

  The pain was constant after that. At times it would quiet down, like going through the eye of a storm, and I could function properly, walk to the stores, put in a load of clothes—but then it would rise in a surge and on bad days I could barely move without crying out.

  They said it was whiplash, since sometimes the pain would be isolated in the neck, and that it would be possibly months before it healed. The insurance company arranged for physical therapy, eventually, which didn’t seem to help at all. Besides, the pain moved: it was in the neck, then the next day it would be my shoulders, then my lower back, even sometimes in my legs. Wherever it was, it was always there, a demon that had possessed me and was subjecting me to a trial that had no apparent end.

  I had medical investigations, one after another: scans, therapy, with weeks of waiting in between. Advice on how to manage the pain. Alternative therapies, too. I went to the pain clinic at the hospital though it never really helped much, other than to dull everything with medication—and the ordeal of getting there in the car canceled all that out. My doctor kept extending my medical leave until in the end I decided it was easier to resign. By then I’d signed up with a proper personal injury firm to try to get some sort of compensation from one or other of the drivers who had been responsible for ruining my life. They warned me it might take years, and I couldn’t help but wonder what difference money would make anyway. Even money couldn’t take the pain away. But Graham had insisted, and once I’d started the ball rolling I lacked the motivation to stop it again.

  Those drivers had ruined my life, completely. Everything that had been normal for me was in that instant thrown up in the air and smashed. I had no job. I couldn’t get out in the garden, which I had always loved so much. I couldn’t sit comfortably in the car, even as a passenger, so I rarely went out of the house. Graham and I had been talking about having kids one day, but how could I even contemplate starting a family?

  I thought sometimes that it might have been easier if the accident had just snapped my spinal cord and paralyzed me, because then it would have been obvious to everyone. As it was, I looked perfectly normal. Nobody can see pain. They have no frame of reference for pain that’s happening to someone else. They can only see inactivity—which they interpret as laziness. My friends and family, who stopped by often at first, gradually stopped coming around. They all thought I should just make more of an effort to get over it, that I wasn’t helping myself by staying in bed or on the couch, that I should try a little bit at a time and that it would get better. They thought that staying still was making the problem worse. And meanwhile the pain came in waves, which made me miserable, and irritable, and so I snapped at the few people who persevered with me, and eventually they stopped bothering with me, too.

  The thing that hurt more than any of it, though, was Graham. I was happy with him, but you never know how people are going to deal with problems until you have to face them. We never got married so he never promised all that “sickness and health” shit. It kind of went without saying, I thought, and if the situations had been reversed I would have done everything I could to take care of him. But there you go.

  The worst accident he’d ever had was a broken ankle playing rugby, and it had healed well with proper physical therapy afterward. He thought what had happened to me was the same thing, or maybe that the pain of my accident should, logically, be less than the pain of his, since I hadn’t broken any bones. He got fed up with taking time off work to ferry me to medical appointments that were always inconclusive. Like the others, he couldn’t deal with the way my moods had changed, and when the pain was particularly bad he would go. He would just walk out of the house, take his wallet and his car keys and his cell phone, and go somewhere else, to the pub or to his sister’s, or just somewhere he could forget about his miserable sick partner.

  When he did that, I was relieved, because it meant I could make noise then. I could cry and moan and swear about the fucking pain and my fucking back and he wouldn’t have to listen.

  And of course it wasn’t just the misery and the extra effort of fetching and carrying, of helping me dress and getting takeout every other night or getting the shopping done. We had no intimacy anymore. Even on good days, when the pain subsided to a dull ache, the most we could do was hold each other and kiss. He needed more, of course, and didn’t like to ask or push me, because he was afraid of making it worse. And even when I felt all right and could have tried, I was afraid to start anything that I might not be able to finish.

  He lasted five months after the accident. I don’t know if it was a gradual buildup or if I said or did something that triggered it, but one morning I woke up and he wasn’t there. He’d left a note on the downstairs table.

  His sister stopped by over the weekend and together we packed up his things as best we could.

  I thought about killing myself a lot, even before Graham left. There were times when I wanted nothing more than death, because afterward it would be pain-free, but I couldn’t do it when Graham was still with me. What if he found me? And he would hate me for giving up, when he had put so much hard work into keeping me going.

  Once he had gone, though, I had no reason to go on living, no one who cared about me enough to bother whether I lived or died, but I was afraid to do anything about it. I was afraid of getting it wrong, and ending up in even more pain than I was in now. And, despite the copious amounts of medication I was prescribed, it was hard for me to save up enough tablets to be able to do the job properly. But I thought about it; I fantasized about it. I dreamed of death the way previously I’d dreamed of the pain leaving me, and the way before that I’d dreamed of gardens and children and weekends away. Death was my elusive lover, treasured and longed for and jealously guarded, and always distant. Always out of reach.

  And my life, such a waste. Such a ruin of everything that was good, everything ripped from me, leaving this void, this chasm of pain and grief.

  Who knew that it could all be so simple? I just needed someone to talk to, after all. Someone who understood how close I was to that point, and who told me it was OK to think of things like that. Everyone should have the right to decide when they’ve had enough. Why should I have spent years and years going through this hell, when leaving it was so be
autifully straightforward?

  Colin

  I was at Vaughn’s house at exactly half past seven this evening, grasping a tissue-paper-wrapped bottle of white wine. It had been half price in the supermarket, reduced from an amount that I would consider to be extravagant to one that was acceptable; the likelihood was that Vaughn would think I’d spent more on it than I had.

  “Colin!” he said, opening the door for me. He shook me warmly by the hand, which I found very strange. I’m not used to physical contact from Vaughn Bradstock. I’ve known him for nearly four years and I can’t remember the last time I actually had to touch him. If, indeed, I ever have.

  He stood aside to let me in, and I took my coat off in the hallway and handed over the bottle. His house is surprisingly large, and decorated very much according to the current trend for laminate flooring and neutral-colored walls. What do you call that color? Mushroom? Taupe? It’s hideous, anyway, like the color of the water once you’ve finished rinsing your watercolor paintbrush a hundred times. And he has one of those dreadful vases full of twigs in the corner of the room—twigs, sticking out of a perfectly functional ceramic umbrella stand. Why people wish to follow fashions in this way I shall never fully comprehend.

  “Come through,” Vaughn was saying cheerfully. “Come and meet Audrey.”

  I was also surprised to see he was wearing jeans, and a shirt that I thought might have been designer. He looked so much younger than when we meet at lunchtimes, the tired old shirt and tie, the top button always undone. I’ve always assumed he has ten years at least on me, but now I’m not quite so sure.

  The living room was open, with a high ceiling and painted in another one of those terrible contemporary colors that is going to date so badly in a few years. What was this one? Wheat? Cornbread? Double Gloucester?

  I was so busy looking at the decor and at the generic artwork on the walls that I didn’t even notice the woman who’d come through from the kitchen, until Vaughn gave a subtle cough and said, in words with a curious inflection that implied adoration, “Colin—this is Audrey.”

  I turned away from the abstract swirls of chocolate and mocha and held out a hand automatically to shake hers. She took my hand with a smile but also pulled herself up to my height and kissed me on both cheeks, which took me embarrassingly by surprise. I may even have flinched, pulled away a little. I’m so unused to this, this social contact. I felt ashamed to be there. And it was Vaughn, for Christ’s sake, not even anyone of any consequence. I felt my cheeks flush and for a moment I couldn’t bring myself to look at her in case she noticed my discomfort.

  It mattered not in any case, for she had disappeared back into the kitchen, having said a few words I’d barely taken in—nice to see you, thank you for coming, nearly ready, dishing up—something of that nature.

  “Have a seat, Colin,” Vaughn said at last.

  Vaughn had leather sofas of the kind that were constantly on sale, presumably replaced by their owners whenever they redecorated. I eased myself down onto the nearest one. I noticed the music for the first time—some contemporary classical piano—was it Alexis Ffrench? Or possibly Einaudi?

  “You all right, mate?” Vaughn asked. “You look a bit—tense.”

  “Ah,” I said, the first time I think I’d managed to speak. “Yes. Got stuck in traffic, you know.”

  He didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest by my sudden inability to make conversation, and chatted away regardless about all manner of crap—the state of the economy, his new car, whether or not to add an addition to the house—and all the while I thought about Audrey and wondered what the hell she was doing with Vaughn.

  I’d always had the impression that she was older than him, and now I can’t think why. She has smooth dark hair, bright blue eyes in an unlined face. She is petite, and even wearing jeans she seemed elegant, chic. I’ve never really considered the meaning of the word “chic,” but to Audrey no better word would apply.

  While Vaughn talked, I got up and made my way to the kitchen, without thinking about what I was doing or whether it might be considered rude to walk away from my host while he was trying to engage me in conversation.

  I wanted to see Audrey.

  I stood in the kitchen with my glass of wine, leaning against the doorway in a pose I hoped was casual, open, friendly. She didn’t notice me at first, busy stirring something on the stove. I watched her move.

  “Oh!” she said at last, when she saw me. “It won’t be long.”

  I didn’t know what to say to her—the perennial problem—and yet I didn’t want to remain silent.

  “How long have you known Vaughn?” I asked.

  She looked at me in surprise, as though I’d asked her age or weight. What on earth was wrong with that question? Was it too late to take it back?

  “Did he not tell you? I met him last year. We met on an Internet dating site.”

  “Really?” I asked, with genuine surprise. “Which one?”

  “Matchmakers,” she answered.

  Of course—that would have to be one of the newer ones, probably one designed for people of a type I would discount as beneath consideration. I prefer ones where the selection criteria include details of educational achievement, career aspirations, and salary brackets rather than cock size. Although perhaps that’s where I’ve been going wrong. Maybe I should think about dating sites again; after all, it has been a long while since I dipped my toe into that metaphorical pond. But my needs are a little different, now, aren’t they? And besides, women don’t join dating sites in the same way these days. They join and tell their friends all about it. They tell their friends and family where they’re going, whom they’re going to be meeting, what time they expect to come home. They don’t join dating sites unless they have hope for the future.

  “Ah,” I said, wanting to ask a dozen questions and wondering which of them would be the least offensive.

  She handed me a plate containing slices of melon with prosciutto draped over them. “Could you take this in?”

  For a moment we held eye contact. Did I imagine it, that she held on to the plate for a moment after I’d already taken hold of it? That she held my gaze for a fraction too long? That there was a challenge in her eyes, a curiosity? Maybe—almost—a dare?

  I smiled at her, feeling the warmth of my shame melting a little for the first time since I’d arrived, not relaxing exactly but starting to see the possibilities in the evening ahead. Audrey, Audrey, I thought, you little minx. You little bundle of surprises.

  Vaughn sat her opposite me at the dining table, presumably so that he could touch her knee with his sweaty paw, but she clearly had other things in mind. I felt her foot brushing mine as we started our main course. At first she pulled it away and glanced up at me with a little smile of apology, as though she had kicked me hard and not just mistaken me for the table leg. I gave her a direct gaze in return, and left my foot where it was. And, a few moments later, her foot returned and this time gently rested against mine, while she listened to Vaughn yammering on about share prices and served him an extra spoonful of sauce. And the food was reasonable. I’ll give her credit for that.

  After dinner Audrey asked Vaughn to take the plates into the kitchen and she led me into the living room with the second bottle of wine, topping my glass as I sat on Vaughn’s leather sofa. As she leaned forward I had an excellent view of her cleavage, although I tried not to make it obvious. Her breasts were well rounded, the fabric of her top stretched across them, and I caught a trace of her perfume—or maybe it was even the soap or the shower gel she’d used earlier this evening, readying herself for my arrival. I wondered if she’d thought about the prospect of me burying my face between her breasts, if she’d considered the possibility that I might want to have sex with her.

  “This is nice, isn’t it?” she asked then. She’d seated herself on the sofa next to me, even though there was another sofa across the room from this one. She’d folded herself into a comfortable, catlike curl, her feet to
ward me, neat little bare feet, with toenails painted a pale pink. How had I ever thought she might be nearly fifty? She was thirty, if that.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “The wine.”

  “Yes,” I said, although it tasted like vinegar to me. I should have brought something decent with me after all, something we could discuss properly. I could tell she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

  From the kitchen, the sound of Vaughn rattling plates and silverware provided an encouraging percussion to the melody of our conversation.

  “What do you do?” she asked. “Vaughn’s never told me.”

  “I’m an executive performance analyst for the city.”

  “That sounds exciting,” she said, and laughed, which was a relief to me, as it had been a clear lie. She was being ironic. A man could fall in love with a woman like this I thought. Never mind fucking her, I wanted to marry her.

  “Anyone for coffee?” called Vaughn, from the kitchen.

  “Yes, please,” Audrey replied. She tilted her head back to rest on the cushions, exposing her throat to me, and more of that delectable cleavage. I wanted to run my tongue from the space behind her ear, down between her breasts, pushing the fabric out of the way.

  “What about you?” I asked. “What do you do?”

  “I work with Social Services,” she said.

  My usual sharp conversational skills struggled at this, most likely due to arousal: too much blood flow diverted away from the brain and down into the more vital parts of my anatomy. What, after all, was the point in a conversation such as this? Surely we wanted to do away with it; surely we should just get rid of Vaughn so that we could fuck? That was what she wanted as much as I did.

  The moment the thought crossed my mind I knew I had to do something about it.

  I cleared my throat and stood up. She looked up at me in surprise.