No-Man's-Land
A series of interconnected short stories from my 2018 collection "Degrees of Separation"
No-Man’s-Land
(August 2008)
“I don’t know,” he said, a tone of frustration in his voice. “Do we always have to mean everything we say?”
“I hope so!” she replied, similarly upset. “Otherwise how do we know what’s true?”
The heat didn’t help. In addition to the persistent topic of Brigette’s ailing father, a hot Indiana summer was just another thing to drive a wedge between them. Jim could manage well enough until the needle hit around ninety-five, but after that his temper shortened and he became increasingly brusque, even with Brigette. He recognised the failing and knew he shouldn’t succumb to it, but his willpower, his self-control, was simply inadequate. Although he rarely showed as much publicly, this trait bothered him - and it especially bothered him now Brigette was struggling with her father. At least she had given up work, one of his suggestions she had acted on. “After all,” he had said then, “it’s not as if we need the money.” Having sewn the seed, it had taken her a few months to come round to his way of thinking, and once she had he’d seen an improvement in her very quickly - though she was clearly not yet quite back to her best.
But now they were arguing again. The return to some modicum of stability once freed from the burden of work had lasted perhaps two or three weeks at most. As they stood at either end of the kitchen, the table in the centre of the space acting something like no-man’s-land, they found themselves combative again; quick to judge, to attribute motives, and all too ready to believe the worst. Jim knew this last part was a mutual failing. He expected it of himself because this was the person he had grown into, the one who had been shaped and nurtured by superficial and sometimes brutal parenting; but it was a new departure for Brigette, totally out of character.
He had forgotten precisely what the trigger had been this time. It didn’t really matter. It was just sufficient to serve as a vehicle to propel them into more nebulous and philosophical territory. Jim’s weaknesses, once he had stepped across that particular threshold, only served to agitate him further. Brigette always had the edge in such exchanges. Her jabs always landed, were cumulatively punishing. Backed onto the ropes, Jim resorted to the linguistic haymaker in the hope that one of them might land. Occasionally they did and usually with dreadful consequences. But such success (if you could call them that) seemed to occur less and less often these days - which only served to make him increasingly desperate.
Brigette’s own desperation had little to do with winning or losing; from her perspective, as soon as the decibel level rose and irrationality crept in they were both losers. Her frustration related to loss of control - and on a number of levels too. She was always tired these days and her ability to manage anything - especially where Jim was concerned - was deserting her. These rows (which always seemed to manifest themselves in the kitchen or when they were together in the car) were evidence of that. She used to be able to steer, cajole, compromise; was emotionally intelligent enough for the both of them to ensure they navigated well through life. But it was precisely that ability which had deserted her. She was fighting to keep control, but it was now more a fight in the gutter than the saloon, and she was a poor brawler. What made it even worse was that scrapping levelled out the playing field somewhat, eroding any superiority she felt she had over Jim - a superiority she needed in order to be able to keep them together as a single unit.
And that was what, underneath it all, scared her more than anything else. He was slipping away. And no matter how hard she tried, his drifting seemed unstoppable. It was a tide that showed no signs of turning. She guessed from his perspective that contentious situations might look unlike anything she meant them to be; she knew he would most likely see her as an argumentative bitch, and now it seemed beyond her to appear any other way. The more desperate she got, the more she sensed that time was running out, the closer they edged toward a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This time it had been about money. Again. It was often about money these days. Supporting her father was an expensive business - both emotionally and financially. His insurance covered most of the costs, but she was committed, beholden almost, to try and make his life (what was left of it) as comfortable as she could. That meant indulging in what she liked to call ‘little extras’ but which she knew Jim saw as a waste of money. It wasn’t really Jim’s fault. After all, given the kind of upbringing he’d had, how could he possibly understand an abiding love for - and warmth towards - one’s parents? Especially if they were one’s only remaining parent. Jim was more likely to dig the grave and pull the trigger. She was conscious of arguing from a position of increased weakness given she was no longer earning any money of her own. These days when she spent, she was spending Jim’s money. On at least one level, she knew he had a right to resent that, even just a little bit.
“Look, I didn’t mean what I said…”
“Hang on,” Jim interrupted, “a minute ago you were saying that we should mean everything we say!”
“No. OK. I did mean it, but not in the way you seem to have interpreted it.” She tried to regather the threads that had loosened and were spilling out all around her. Perhaps if she could get a grip on them for long enough she might be able to tie them together, to braid them back into something useful. “I’ll stop Jim, all right? If me trying to do the things I’m trying to do for Pop, the trying to make things a bit easier for him, if that’s a problem because you don’t think we can afford it…”
She let the sentence trail away, hoping for a sign, some clue from Jim that there was a compromise to be reached. Lately she’d been indulging her father more, that much was obvious. As he slipped further away from her, the measures she took to try and pull him back became increasingly extreme. Brigette had hoped that by bringing him into contact with replicas from his past, by buying him duplicates of the things he had once owned and treasured, she might be able to throw him a lifeline - one she could haul on from the other end. There were no indications that the strategy was in any way working; in fact, its only tangible outcome - other than the increasing volume of clutter which now seemed to surround him - was that for the third month in a row their bank account had seen more going out than coming in, and this time by a wide margin.
His features suddenly calming, Jim shook his head; the folded bank statement which had started this latest confrontation still visible in the top pocket of his shirt. It was a transformation which offered her no respite, no hope of conciliation or accord. He suddenly had a look of resignation upon his face - and the look of a man who had made a decision.
If that were the moment when the camel’s back broke, Jim was not conscious of it; but something had suddenly wearied him beyond belief, and he knew, like a man drowning, that he needed to surface for air. It was probably callous in the extreme that he chose to ignore her plea and simply walked across the kitchen and out through the door behind her. It was a walk that seemed to possess purpose, and yet from Jim’s perspective was about nothing more than escape. He needed to be somewhere else.
She didn’t try and stop him, didn’t turn to watch him go, but rather gauged his progress by what she could hear: the door to the cupboard under the stair opening; Jim extracting something familiar; then the front door opening and closing. The sound of the Jeep starting up. “He’s going fishing,” she said to herself. And then, “That’s good. That’s what he needs. Some space.”
When Brigette returned from visiting her father later in the day the Jeep wasn’t in the drive, though she noticed fresh tyre indentations in the loose gravel. In their depth and sweep they seemed to betray agitation, anxiety. Although she was no expert in such matters, they looked like the kind of tracks one might leave if you were making a quick getaway.
Ostensibly nothing had changed inside the house. The strange air of foreboding she felt when she left to go to the hospice had lifted only marginally. From experience she knew such a worry was a thing of her own invention, merely a concern that something might have happened to her father since she had last seen him; that he might have slipped, declined somehow. That the self same nervousness remained on her return was sufficient to prove it was caused by something else - and that the slipping away had nothing to do with her father.
Instinctively she went up to their bedroom first. At first glance there seemed nothing amiss, nothing shouted ‘change’ at her. And then she noticed things missing from Jim’s side of the dresser: his after-shave, the spare set of office keys, his work phone. Opening the door to the large under-eaves cupboard at the top of the stairs, the vacant space where the large red suitcase had been - the one they had bought to go to Florida all those years ago - screamed at her. Leaving the cupboard door open, she checked Jim’s wardrobe and drawers. She guessed he had taken enough for perhaps a few days away; perhaps a week at most. Rather than an emotional reaction, she knew this represented calculation on his part and, as she sat on the edge of the bed, was something which only marginally took her aback. She wanted to be surprised, but failed. She wanted to again say to herself “that’s good; that’s what he needs, some space” - but was unable to do so. She knew there was no point checking downstairs to see if he had returned his fishing rod to its normal home; it would still be in the Jeep.
That night she slept well. If she had expected some kind of collapse following Jim’s departure, then she felt none. She busied herself making dinner after which, ignoring the single place she had set for herself at the kitchen table, she proceeded to eat sitting in front of an “It’s a Wonderful Life” re-run on cable. Even faced with the ultimate pathos movie, she remained engaged but detached. It was a film that cracked Jim up so much he couldn’t watch it any more; its affects on her were much more subtle.
Rising at her usual time the following morning, she took a long bath rather than a shower, mentally preparing herself for that morning’s visit to see her father. Once out of the bath and dry, she examined herself closely in the bathroom mirror as she applied her usual minimal layer of make-up; little more than a dusting of foundation, the merest touch of mascara, no lipstick. She was surprised at the face which stared back at her. Not only did it show no outward signs of the previous day’s trauma, if anything it seemed fractionally less careworn than in the recent past. If Denise from next door saw her when she made her way to her car, Brigette knew she might comment; Denise had an eye for such things.
It was rare that her father was awake when she arrived, and this day was no exception. He lay on his back, as usual, eyes closed, his face a picture of supreme relaxation. As she removed her coat and sat in the chair alongside his bed, she wondered - not for the first time - what might be going through his mind, what secret thoughts he might be thinking, how his life was behind those closed eyelids.
“No story today, Pops,” she said, glancing at the small pile of Steinbeck on his bedside cabinet. He had always liked Steinbeck, and Brigette liked to read it to him as much for her own peace as anything else. It was another attempt at searching for a meaningful echo.
“Well, Jim’s gone. I’m not surprised. Can’t say I blame him really. And I guess you knew he would hightail it at some point, didn’t you? You’d probably be too loyal to say that it was all my fault - but just let me know if that’s what you think OK? I can take it.” She paused to give him a chance to respond. There was nothing, of course. “Took some of his stuff - and his rods. I’m guessing that he’ll be back to the house when he knows I’m not going to be there - he may be there now - and gradually take his other stuff, the things he needs. I’m pretty sure this is it, Pops. I don’t think he’s coming back. It’s not temporary. I reckon he’s been on the verge of doing this for a little while. And it hasn’t mattered how hard I’ve tried. Didn’t make any difference. Should I be surprised? I don’t think so. In fact - and here’s the weird thing - I’m kind of relieved.” Another pause. “Really.”
She took a sip from the Starbucks coffee she had collected at the ‘drive thru’ on the way over and reflected on what she’d just said.
“Is that a bit strange, Pops? Unnatural? Me being relieved at Jim’s walking out on me? If you’d suggested it to me this time yesterday I would have told you that I’d be devastated, in pieces; that I’d wail and beg him to come back.” She paused; more coffee. “You know what? I haven’t even thought of calling him. Not once. Honest. Even though I guess that somewhere there’s a part of me that still loves him. And why’s that? Why haven’t I called him? I thought about it before I came over. I had a long bath - for the first time in ages! - and played the whole thing out in my mind. And I was surprised. There was a part of me, a big selfish part that maybe I haven’t been in touch with for a while, that was actually glad. Oh, I’m sure I won’t be glad later, not when it sinks in, or when it gets to being ‘practical’. But right now…? He’s simplified things. Made it easier. On that basis, why should I want him back to make it even more complicated than it was before?! Now there’s just the two of us. A third of my worry has just walked out the door, which just leaves me and you, doesn’t it Pops? And it’s not like you’ll be going anywhere - no matter how much I might want that to happen. In a good way, I mean.
“And soon enough it will just be me; me and the world. Haven’t had that experience for quite a while! Maybe I’ll have to give it some thought. Maybe you can help me work out what I do next, when I’m on my own. ‘Sure, that’s fighting talk now,’ I can hear you say, ‘but what about later? It’ll hit you later’. And you’re probably right, like you always are. But I don’t know, Pops. It might not be like that at all.”
For links on where to buy Degrees of Separation, click here.