Weekly Short Story

"The Downstairs of Happiness" by Richard Ridyard (continued from the newsletter)

He pauses to drink whiskey. I watch his thin, cracked lips parting to allow the golden liquid to enter. I notice he shudders slightly as it goes down, smiling contentedly against its warm hit.

'Well, that's where I met her. She was the evening librarian. I remember the first time I saw her over the top of a book I was struggling to read. I'll never forget that initial sight of her.'

His eyes leave me for a moment, looking over my shoulder, seeing something not in the room with us. When his eyes meet mine once more, they sparkle with a childish joy.

'Magnificent. There's no other word to describe her. Tall and elegant; stunningly beautiful. She seemed to carry with her an innate charisma, as though her looks alone could hold your interest forever. I was immediately captivated.

I couldn't believe someone so beautiful could exist.

'Now I know that sounds cheesy, perhaps a little over-the-top, but that's the way it was.

'I didn't speak to her at first - in fact, it was a long time before I even plucked up the courage to meet her eyes and return her smile. But eventually I did, more through necessity than any degree of courage. Because, you see, I simply had to speak to her. The thought that another day would go by without her being part of my life was unbearable. You understand that?'

I nod. I'm thinking about Claire. She sits at home now while I drown torturing thoughts. I understand love very much.

I look at my drinking partner and see him properly for the first time. He is not as old as I initially supposed him to be, his dilapidated frame belying his sparkling, youthful eyes. It might be the dim light or the bright whiskey that installs in them their glow.

Or maybe they reflect the beauty he looks in upon.

'I started going to the library more and more. Now I had an extra incentive to put the time in on my studying. Only I was spending less time reading and more time talking to my delightful new friend. Her name was Eileen, by the way.

'Now I won't bore you with all the details of our courtship. But we started seeing each other outside the library and very soon realised we were both in love. She was the one person I could really talk to, and I mean that literally. You see, I had this stammer back then. It was quite disabling, more through the way I perceived myself than any real inability to speak. But with Eileen, I didn't stammer, even with my initial nervousness. For the first time I could be myself with someone. Very soon, I didn't have a stammer anymore.'

A sip of whiskey. A puff on the cigar.

'Anyway, we eventually got our own little place together and lived happily ever after.'

I'm surprised at the abrupt end to the story. I had been warming to the old man and his tale. I turn to my companion expectantly but he is engrossed in his drink and it is apparent he has finished his story. I wonder if painful memories have been stirred.

I don't know what to say, so instead I turn to my own drink. I tip the bottle and allow the numbing liquid to fill me. When it is empty, I buy another. After a while the old man says:

'So tell me about your woman. Why are you drinking like it's going out of fashion?'

Earlier I would have felt reluctant to talk about my problems, but the old man has shared much with me and I feel I should return his confidence.

And perhaps the alcohol has helped to loosen my inhibition.

My beer bottle is revolved between my hands, I pick at the label, starting to peel it from the condensation-wet glass. I begin my own story.

'Her name's Claire. We met a couple of years ago at a mutual friend's party. I fancied her straight away - she's a gorgeous woman - and we starting going out. It was quite a while before I fell in love with her though. I'm normally cautious about such things, I don't like to invest everything in one person.

But with her I couldn't help myself.'

The old man smiles around his cigar.

'Things have always been so good between us, far better than they've ever been with anyone else. We've always been so happy together.'

'So what's changed?'

I look at him. Behind the veiling smoke his eyes hold a hospitable kindness. 'She's having an affair with my boss. They think that I don't know but I do.'

'How?'

'It all started when I got the job as his personal assistant three months ago. I didn't like him then but the salary was good. Anyway he invited myself and Claire around for a meal. I reluctantly accepted. The both of them were flirting all night it was as if I wasn't there.'

'That doesn't mean she's having an affair with him though does it.'

'No, but then one day I finished work early, my boss hadn't turned in all day as he was on a business trip. When I got back I saw his car outside my house.'

'Did you go in?'

'No I didn't need to. I waited around a while until the car went. When I was inside I went up stairs and found a stubbed out cigar at the bedside table. He always smokes cigars so it's obvious he was there. Claire just went on as if nothing had happened.'

My companion is silent for a moment, tipping his drink so that ice-cubes rattle. He looks contemplatively at the smoldering tip of his cigar and then says:

'How much do you love her?'

I answer immediately. 'A lot'

He shakes his head. 'No, tell me how much you love her.'

I think for a while, not really understanding what the old man means, looking for an answer that will satisfy him. But when I eventually speak, it is with a heartfelt honesty.

'Sometimes I think I couldn't go on without her. She's everything to me. When she smiles I feel alive. If I didn't have that smile to look upon, why would I want to continue seeing? What is there beyond her?'

'That sounds pretty serious.'

'Yeah, I guess it is.'

'Do you know what you must do?'

He stubs out his cigar, drains the last golden remnants of his drink and looks deep into my eyes.

'You must kill your boss and then kill her.'

I choke on my beer, leaning forward to cough-up loose liquid. When recovered, I stare at him incredulously, thinking I must have heard him wrong.

To dispel any doubt, he repeats.

'You must kill your boss and kill Claire.'

I am lost for words. My mouth opens and closes impotently, as though it knows there are words that should be spoken but which my brain is unable to supply.

'That's what I did. I murdered Eileen. I loved her so much that I had to kill her, and if she had been cheating then I would of killed him too. You understand that? I sit unbelieving, listening with a horrified fascination.

'There came a point where I loved her so much I couldn't bear the thought that it would come to an end. So I ended it myself, while things were still so good. There's so much pain out there. People get cancer; people die slow, horrible deaths: what if such a fate should befall her? How would I cope with that? The way I saw it, things were so good that they couldn't get any better. They could only go downhill. Everything was so perfect I had to end it then.

'I smothered her with a pillow while she was asleep one night. She woke up, started thrashing about, but it was a quick, painless death. I went down for ten years for that, but it was worth it. Because when I remember her, it is only ever good. I finished it before the bad things could settle in.'

I sit in stunned silence. My head swims not just with the effects of alcohol. 'And that's what you've got to do. You've got to kill your cheating boss then kill Claire. While things are still good.'

The old man turns away and waves a ten-pound note in the bar tender's direction. My mind swarms with a multitude of emotions: confusion, anger, fear. I still recoil from the old man's startling disclosure.

'That makes no sense,' I tell him.

'Why would I want to kill her? My boss I understand, but why would I want to hurt someone I love so much?'

'Because you know it can't last forever. Things are going to go bad. She'll get ill; she'll become old and ugly; she'll find someone else and leave you shattered and broken. Maybe she has found that someone else?'

I'm thinking back to the day she was cheating on me with that pig of a man. My blood temperature rising.

'If you kill her, the present will be suspended in time. Things won't have to degrade, she won't have to hurt you.'

My mouth splits in an ironic smile. Despite the ridiculousness of his argument it does hold a twisted logic. Someone more gullible might lend it some credence; start to see some persuasiveness in such crazy ramblings. Claire, for example, has always been one that is easily led, listening to people with a trusting belief. But I'm more cynical than her and look at things with a cold, logical reasoning. I dispel the old man's argument unequivocally.

'You're crazy,' I tell him, standing up to leave. I no longer wish to sit with the man I had supposed to be so genial, but whom I now see only as a sick, twisted lunatic.

As I go, he says to me:

'If you truly love her, you will kill him then kill her.'

I ignore him and leave the bar quickly without looking back.

I walk away in a daze, my mind filled with the old man's poisoned assertions. They have struck me hard, maybe because of the growing fear that my wife is going to leave me for my boss, they don't seem so unreasonable. I decide to do it to kill my boss. I know he's having an affair with my wife. He doesn't think he'll get caught because he thinks he's untouchable, but he's not I'll show him.

I go around to the office straight away. I know he'll be alone now doing the figures in his office. I go into the staff room and get a knife I remain undetected. I go into the office quietly he's standing up sorting through the filing cabinet. He doesn't hear me come in. I run up to him and as I do so he turns around, but before he could say a word my knife is in his chest. I make sure he's dead, wash the blood off my hands and head back home with the knife.

I walk back home with a sense of achievement, that he is out of our lives and Claire is truly mine again. Now Claire and me are as one again. I couldn't kill Claire no way not now knowing that the person who threatened us is out of our lives. I'm nearly home now, I speed up excited to see her again.

With the house now in sight my heart suddenly sinks. This could be my worst nightmare for my boss's car is outside my house. Questions going around my head so fast. Who was here? Why? How? I run into the house and look around downstairs starting in the living room. With no one there I turn my attention to the kitchen. Still no one there. I begin to breathe heavily. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. Deciding that they must be in my bedroom I rush upstairs. I stop just before entering with one question deep in my thoughts who was here? I open the door slowly and I am stunned. My heart sinks further with the realisation of what I have just done. I feel ashamed and yet shocked at what I am actually seeing. Total disbelief as there laying next to my wife is my bosses chauffeur with my bosses cigar in his mouth looking smug. Angry for being so stupid I quickly run downstairs and out of the house.

I walk around for a while with my heavy thoughts. I just can't believe what has happened. What I have done. Should I run away. Should I turn myself in. I just have not got a clue. After a short while I decide to head back into the house and talk to Claire before I decide anything else.

When inside I go through to the kitchen where I find Claire sitting at the table. She stands as I walk in and turns towards me with wide, worried eyes.

'Where have you been? I've been waiting for you.'

'I just went for a walk to clear my head,' I tell her, my mind still heavy with what I've just done and that of an old man's twisted evil.

'We need to talk,' she says, wide eyes now looking slightly fearful. I sit at the kitchen table to wait what she has to say. Knowing quite well she is going to grovel for my forgiveness and tell me how stupid she has been. Not knowing the truth of what I have done and how stupid I have been.

So I'm not expecting the words that actually leave her lips.

'I went to that American bar after work last night,' she says, and I start to feel fear slowly creeping through me. 'I got talking to an old man there. He made me think about a few things. That's why I've stopped seeing the chauffeur and why I have to do what I'm about to.'

She takes an object from the draw below the microwave and holds it in both hands before her.

'I love you so much,' she says.

Stunned with silence and disbelief, she comes at me with the knife.

 

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