Don't worry, it won't take up too much of your time, as it's only 2500 words. You could read it over a quick cup of coffee.
As always, your comments are welcome.
And now, without further ado:
Angus Breaks Free
CW Lovatt – 11/11/11 – 25/02/2012
“Ain’t no
use, Betts, it’s over!”
“Yes,
dear.”
“Fifty years spent living with the
likes of you is about enough to send any man around the bend!”
“I’m sure you know
best.”
Angus glowered
at his wife, his shaggy brows beetling like a wet cat’s whiskers. “Ain’t no use,”
he repeated, all surly, like he was challenging her to rise up and protest.
He wished that she wouldn’t just sit there
like that, so placid, with her hands folded on her lap, and that damned,
patient smile plastered all over her face. But she did remain that way, just as
described, and it set his blood to boil!
Maybe it was
the sight of those hands, dish-reddened from half a century of marriage: the way
they sat there on her lap, accusing him with such cunning patience. Who were
they to accuse? Hadn’t he offered to buy her one of those new-fangled
dishwashers forty years ago? But no, that wasn’t good enough for her, was it?
She’d claimed that it would leave spots on the glassware – like anybody’d care
– and refused it outright. So be it, then. It hadn’t all been a bundle of joy
for him either. The attrition had taken away the best years of his life, until
he wasn’t much good for anything anymore, except to accuse in his own turn, and
accuse her he did.
Oh yeah,
accused plenty!
Maybe it was
all those wrinkles on her face, or the liver spots on her arms, or the stretch
marks across her torso, beneath the faded housedress she’d made over a decade
ago. A man could only take so much of that, too.
Surely she
could see that? The woman wasn’t stupid after all. She had to know just how
offended he was - how all those accusations could never be born by only one
suffering soul, but he had born it all these years, and he
resented the hell out of what it had cost.
He growled,
“Well? Haven’t ye got anything to say?”
Betts sighed
and got up from their kitchen table, but her smile remained serene. She went
over to the stove, taking up the kettle on the way to the sink.
“I think I’ll
make us some tea.”
“God’s teeth,
woman, you irk me!”
“Yes, dear.”
She took two
bags of Earl Grey from the canister and put them in the teapot, carefully draping
the strings over the edge. He hated the way she made tea, since the time he
could first remember – the way those strings hung over the edge like that,
reminding him of a woman’s monthlies. It was downright repugnant, that’s what
it was!
“Don’t call me
that!”
Betts held the
kettle under the spigot and gave the faucet a twist, filling the kitchen with
the sound of drumming water.
“Call you what,
dear?’
“That, goddamit
– that!”
“What?”
“Dear!”
Angus felt like he was close to coming unglued. “I ain’t your goddam ‘dear’ no
more – not now, not never again!”
“Very well,
darling.”
If there was
ever a man that was close to erupting, it was Angus at that very second. He
cast a savage eye around the kitchen, looking for something close to hand that
needed smashing. It lit on a chair, and it occurred to him that the pine would
splinter very satisfactorily on the floor. That ceramic tile was hard as hell:
he’d installed it himself thirty years ago, and it was still good as new. He
snatched it up in both hands, swinging it high above his head. He wasn’t a man
ordinarily given to violent measures, but this was a bona fide exception if
ever there was.
Running water
continued to be the only sound, the liquid pitch rising as the kettle gradually
filled.
The chair
remained poised over Angus’s head while he hesitated, struggling with the memory
of when it had been given to them - it and the table, and three other chairs.
The set had been a wedding present from his parents – both twenty-five years in
their graves now, his dad passing first, his mother two months later. He
decided that the chair didn’t need smashing after all. However, the sentiment
wasn’t enough to keep him from setting it back on the floor as firmly as he
dared.
Unheeding, Betts
twisted the faucet and the flow of water ceased. She set the kettle on an
element, turning it to high.
They’d bought
that stove the same time that he’d set the tiles, when they’d re-done the
kitchen, back in the winter of ‘82. He’d wanted white appliances. Betts wanted
ivory, but had given in when he’d insisted on having his way. Angus couldn’t
rightly remember why he’d felt so strong about something so insignificant to
him as the colour of a stove, and he was damned if he could tell the difference
between white and ivory anyway; but he guessed that it had something to do with
the way his wife had of always being right, and how that gave him the sense
that his own opinions didn’t matter. Maybe that wasn’t any way for a grown man
to feel, but it didn’t make it any less true. Her always being right was
something he could never quite forgive.
Angus entertained
a dark suspicion that maybe Betts had understood all along - that woman
understood everything, it seemed! That was probably why she’d given in so
readily, and that had pissed him off so much that he’d insisted on changing his
mind, so they’d bought ivory appliances after all. Damn her to hell!
Betts set a cup
and saucer in front of him. He wanted to swipe them away and hear them smash
into the wall, and watch while they blossomed into a thousand shards, but the
tea set had been a gift from the kids on one of their anniversaries. Which one
he wasn’t sure, they tended to mingle at his age, but that wasn’t the point.
Fealty to children didn’t stop the minute they walked out the door.
Denied that
vicious pleasure, he was left frustratingly denuded of intent, so in the end
decided that he might as well take his place at the table, sitting on the same
chair that had come so close to being rendered into kindling only a minute
before.
He sat with his
hands clasped together - two fists entwined - and tried to think of something
hurtful to say.
Betts took the kettle
off the element when it began to whistle, and poured the boiling water into the
pot, settling the lid with a gentle porcelain ‘clink’. She brought it to the table,
wrapped in the cozy she’d knit sometime in the ‘70’s. Over on the stove, the kettle
resumed its somnolence with a throaty sigh, while Angus glared at the teabag
strings, reflecting in spite of himself.
Fatherhood had
been another area where he hadn’t exactly excelled. Not that the kids hadn’t
turned out all right, but there was no use denying that it was because Betts
had been around to guide him through it. Those memories brought on guilt, the
same as they always did. He knew that he should be grateful, and maybe that
gratitude had been real when it mattered, but now there was time to take stock,
and be duly offended, as well. He hated the guilt, so it only stood to reason
that he hated the cause of it, too.
Betts pulled
back her chair, preparing to sit, the legs scraping across the tiles.
Angus winced
dramatically.
“For Christ
sake, woman, do you have to make so much racket?”
“I’m sorry,
darling.”
“And I’m not
your goddamned ‘darling’ either!”
“I’m sorry…” Betts
fished briefly for a substitute, “…Angus.”
“It gets on my
nerves!”
“I’m sorry.”
“And stop being
so goddamned sorry all the time!”
“Yes, dear.”
Once more his
teacup came perilously close to taking flight, but in spite of his rage, he
knew it wasn’t her fault that the chair scraped; she was just a slip of a thing
after all. Still, it was an imperfection, and he seized on it, hoping against
hope to reveal an even greater flaw…only to reach the conclusion that if the
chair’s scraping bothered him so goddamned much, he could just get off his ass
and move it for her. That made his scowl grow darker than ever.
If she would
just say something to defend herself, then he would really be free to vent his
spleen, but Betts was never one to lose her temper - not like some folks he
could mention. Arguing with her was almost like arguing with himself.
So instead he
growled, “What are you smiling at?”
Betts poured: a
weak, amber stream - just the way he liked it, of course.
“I was thinking
maybe we could go into town tomorrow. We could get you a new sweater.” She
glanced at his sleeves, “That one’s getting frayed around the cuffs.”
“Bloody hell,
woman! How many times do I have to tell you? There ain’t no ‘we’ anymore!”
Angus shot his cuffs, giving them a perfunctory glance, “’Sides, nothin’s wrong
with this one.”
She spooned
some sugar into his cup – exactly two – and stirred. Her smile remained a
picture of contentment.
Angus slurped
from the cup, knowing how much she disapproved. Distracted as he was, he soon found
himself relishing the taste, and his scowl almost lightened a shade, but he
caught himself just in time. Instead he grimaced, his self-reproach passing as
disgust, as he slammed the cup back in the saucer. Tea spilled over the brim,
huddling in the saucer in a frightened pool.
“Tastes like
horse piss!” he cried, and then delivered his verdict, “That does it, I’m outta
here!” and with that he was on his feet, not so much charging toward their
bedroom as steamrolling. Woe betide anyone who stood in his way.
That didn’t
turn out to be a problem, however. There was no screaming wife clinging to his
leg, begging him not to leave. Nor were there any cries or pleas, or appeals
promising to do better in the future. Betts remained at the table, sipping her
tea, like she hadn’t a care in the world.
Angus had
intended on getting their old leather suitcase down off the closet shelf, but
when he got to the bedroom, he was surprised to find it lying open on the bed, already
packed, awaiting his inspection.
Hesitant, he
stood in the doorway, glowering in deep suspicion.
That suitcase
had been spanking new on their honeymoon; he couldn’t recall using it since. Betts
had taken it with her when she’d gone to visit her sister in Portage five years
ago, and maybe once or twice before that, but without question it remained the least
used of all their possessions. Staring at it now, he felt the years fall away,
remembering how it had looked the same in that fancy hotel, down east in
Niagara Falls.
Funny how things stuck in the mind: the
suitcase couldn’t have been on that bed any more than a few minutes, but the vision
remained frozen in memory like an old photograph. One moment it had been there,
the next he’d swept it to the floor – he could still see the scuff mark along
the edge, from where it had struck a side table along the way. There hadn’t been
time to set it elsewhere with any sort of care; their need had been urgent, and
the damn thing had been in the way. He remembered how they had laughed about it
later over dinner.
That had been
the beginning, when the future hadn’t been anything more than an exciting
jumble of promise and fear. Now the future was the past, and the fear had been
faced. The promise had been rejoiced over, or mourned, with each success and
failure, and there’d been plenty of both. The whole ordeal had been gone
through together, through thick and thin. Now they’d finally reached the end.
Angus ran a
cursory inspection over his wife’s packing. Everything was neatly folded and
arranged: shirts on the left, pants on the right, with socks and unmentionables
(also neatly folded) in between. Grudgingly satisfied, he closed it, pressing
the clasps firmly into place. It wasn’t as heavy as what he would’ve thought
fifty years would weigh, but that was all to the good when it came to shifting
from one life to another.
Betts was
standing when he returned – her lone acknowledgement to the gravity of the
occasion.
“Everything’s
ready?”
Angus nodded,
“Seems so,” but refused to look her in the eye.
“Well, I guess
that’s it, then.”
“Uh huh.”
He made his way
past, bending sideways from the weight of the suitcase - away from his wife
while the suitcase tried to draw him closer.
He’d reached the
landing when she asked, “Will you be coming up for supper?”
He paused, the
silence pensive. He stared into the basement, at the suite where he’d just
finished applying the final coat of paint the day before. There lay his future,
his bold venture into a brave new world, one he was determined to make on his
own.
Those stairs led
to a life fashioned for him, and for him alone. Down there, being wrong wouldn’t
matter, nor would there be any liver spots, or stretch marks, or dish-reddened
hands, or any other badges of sacrifice to accuse him. What had been his own imperfections
could now be embraced as part of himself, without all those reminders that kept
him aware of how much he had failed the one person that mattered. Maybe in time
he’d be able to see what she’d seen in him all along.
At last, still
without looking at her, he asked, “What’re ye having?”
“I thought I’d
cook a pot-roast.”
Damn the woman!
“With potatoes?”
“Yes, dear.”
“And carrots?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And gravy?” Betts
always made the finest gravy.
“Of course.”
The pause grew
longer. He stared down at his new life with naked yearning. Everything was there,
just waiting for him to begin.
“I thought that
I’d make a batch of biscuits, too.”
His shoulders
slumped, like the bones had suddenly been yanked from his body.
“Oh, all right,
then.”
“Fine,” she
said, “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Okay.”
“And tomorrow we
can get you that sweater?”
Angus stared at
his cuffs. They were indeed frayed, as Betts had claimed. Clearly its best days
were well in the past; but she had knit it for him when their youngest was
still in diapers. Her fingers weren’t as nimble as they once were, so her knitting
days were well in the past, too. A person couldn’t just discard something like
that.
He shook his
head, for once speaking without rancour.
“No need.”
And in that
moment, he knew without question that, this time at least, he was right.
Angus Breaks Free is an insightful, humorous, well-written story with masterful descriptions. I enjoyed reading every word.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sharon. What a nice thing to wake up to on a Sunday morning! :)
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