Darkside

He recognized it when it whispered from the high hedges that hemmed the narrow lanes; when it made him shudder alone on the moor on a warm summer’s evening; when it visited his dreams and settled over his sleep in a visceral veil. But he’d also grown adept at throwing it off, at staring it down – and at turning his back on it and daring it to do its worst. Every time he hoisted the weighty DayGlo sack over his shoulder, and every furled newspaper he pushed through springy letter boxes helped him to thumb his nose at fear.

As did the Fracture Snub skateboard he’d bought with the first £60 he’d managed to save; and the secondhand iPod shuffle he clipped to his jeans; and the first real grown-up present he’d bought his mother for her birthday – a slim gold chain with a tiny green birthstone on it.

Something in Steven understood that each of these was a trophy he awarded himself for living his life and kicking fear’s ass.

And now – as the winter made day into early night – he was doing it again.

* * *

Jonas stared into the cooling tea for what seemed like lifetimes while his brain tried so hard to think that a headache blossomed inside it like a mushroom cloud of pain.

‘Jonas?’

He looked up to see Lucy standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She was in jeans and her favourite blue sweater.

She had got dressed for the man.

She rarely got dressed for him any more unless she planned to leave the house; mostly she just wore pyjamas, her bunny slippers and a fleece.

‘Who was that?’ he said bluntly.

‘What?’

He could see in her eyes that she knew exactly what he meant.

‘Here. Just now. Who was it?’

He didn’t want to hear her answer. He had to ask the question, but if he could have, he’d have defied the laws of physics to have missed the man so he would never have to be here now, asking again … ‘Who was he, Lu?’

‘Jonas—’ she started and then stopped and thought hard before going on. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’

‘I come in the front door and a strange man runs out the back. What am I thinking?’

She was having an affair. She couldn’t say it. The thought made Jonas unbearably sad. He’d have thought he would be furious, but he wasn’t. He just felt like sobbing.

‘Come and sit down.’ She held out her hand for his but he didn’t give it. Instead he tucked both hands into his armpits, as if the forearms crossed on his chest might protect his heart from the truth.

‘Please, Jonas. Can we sit down?’

He recognized the tone from the few times he had been to pick Lucy up from the kindergarten before they moved. Although then she would be crouching, so she could look into the face of a tearful child.

Now he realized he was close to tears himself, and felt the image was not far removed from reality, despite the fact that she had to look up to meet his eyes. He still saw love in her face, but his heart twisted as he saw pity there too. Pity for him. Pity because she was going to hurt him.

He bit his lip and wished it were already over; that he already knew the worst and didn’t have to go through the sordid shock of hearing it.

Numb with foreboding, Jonas followed her into the front room.

They sat on the sofa, but not as they always had before. This time they sat at either end, prim and upright, half turned towards each other, like insurance salesmen. The room was dark but for the silent television which tonight showed A Nightmare on Elm Street.

‘I’ve been wanting to tell you …’ she started.

He couldn’t look at her. Instead he watched Freddy Krueger’s arms grow impossibly long and chillingly inescapable in a silent nightmare.

‘… I just didn’t know how.’

She was stalling. It was torture. He couldn’t bear it.

‘What’s his name?’

She looked perplexed that he’d ask.

‘Brian Connor.’

‘How long have you been seeing him?’ Every word sounded wrong to Jonas’s ears, all the emphasis, all the syntax, as if the sentence had been cobbled together by robots, syllable by syllable, from sound bites found in some alien archive. He’d had no concept that he would or could ever say them to his wife.

‘I’m not having an affair with him, Jonas.’

Was she going to deny the fact now? Or had he just caught them before anything could happen?

She slid her eyes from his gaze, which made him suspect the latter. Jonas felt himself unwind just a little bit. It was hardly any better, but it was something—

‘He’s run from me twice, Lucy.’

‘He knows who you are. He didn’t want to … get into a conversation.’

I’ll bet, he thought. Some suitably outraged, angry and cuckolded words swirled in his head for a second but never got the energy to make it out of his mouth. He just gave up on them.

‘He’s from Exit, Jonas.’

She glanced at him to see his response, but he looked blank. She cleared her throat and made a gesture with her hands that was half shrug, half pleading.

‘They help … I mean … they support … voluntary euthanasia.’