Death is Now My Neighbour

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger

(Lamentations, ch. i, v. 12)

FEELING A WONDERFUL sense of relief, Shelly Comford heard the scratch of the key in the front door at twenty-five past eleven. For over two hours she had been sitting upright against the pillows, a white bedjacket over her pyjamas, her mind tormented with the terrifying fear that her husband had disappeared into the dark night, never to return: to throw himself over Magdalen Bridge, perhaps; to lay himself across the railway lines; to slash his wrists; to leap from some high tower. And it was to little avail that she'd listened to any logic that her tortured mind could muster: that the water was hardly deep enough, perhaps; that the railway lines were inaccessible; that he had no razor in his pocket; that Carfax Tower, St Mary's, St Michael's - all were now long shut...

Come back to me, Denis! I don't care what happens

to me; but come back tonight! Oh, God - please,"God - let him come back safely. Oh, God, put an end to this, my overwhelming misery!

His words before he'd slammed the door had pierced their way into her heart 'You hadn't even got the guts to lie to me ... You didn't even want to spare me all this pain.'

Yet how wrong he'd been, with both his accusations!

Her mother had never ceased recalling that Junior High School report: 'She's such a gutsy litde girl.' And the simple, desperately simple, truth was that she loved her husband far more than anydiing or anyone she'd ever loved before. And yet... and yet she remembered so painfully clearly her assertion earlier that same evening: dial more dran anything in die world she wanted Denis to be Master.

And now? The centre of her life had fallen apart Her heart was broken. There was no one to whom she could turn.

Except, perhaps...

And again and again she recalled that terrible conversation:

'Clixby?'

'Shelly!'

'Are you alone?'

Tes. What a lovely surprise. Come over!'

'Denis knows all about us!'

'What''

'Denis knows all about us!'

'"All" about us? What d'ycm mean? There's nothing for him to know - not really.'

Wooing-? Was it nothing to you?'

"You sound like the book of Proverbs - or is it Ecclesiastes?'

'It didn't mean anything to you, did it?'

'It was only the once, properly, my dear. For heaven's

sake!' ijjj 1 'You just don't understand, do you?'

'How did he find out?'

'He didn't'

'I don't follow you.'

'He just guessed. He was talking to you tonight-'

'After Hall, you mean? Of course he was. You were there.'

'Did you say anything? Please, tell me!'

'What? Have you taken leave of your senses?'

'Why did he say he knew, dien?'

'He was just guessing - you just said so yourself.'

'He must have had some reason.'

'Didn't you deny it?'

'But it was true!'

'What the hell's that got to do with it? Don't you see? All you'd got to do was to deny it.'

"That's exactly what Denis said.'

'Bloody intelligent man, Denis. I just hope you appreciate him. He was right, wasn't he? All you'd got to do was to deny it'

'And that's what you wanted me to do?'

' You 're not really being very intelligent, are you?'

'I just can't believe what you're saying.'

'It would have been far kinder.'

'Kinder to you, you mean?'

To me, to you, to Denis - to everybody.'

'God! You're a shit, aren't you?'

'Just hold your horses, girl!'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'What do you mean - "do" about it? What d'you expect me to do?'

'I don't know. I've no one to talk to. That's why I rang you.'

'Well, if there's anything-'

'But there is! I want help. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'

'But don't you see, Shelly? This is something you and Denis have got to work out for yourselves. Nobody else-'

'God! You are a shit, aren't you! Shit with a capital "S^.'

'Look! Is Denis there?'

'Of course he's not, you fool.'

'Please don't call me a fool, Shelly! Get a hold on yourself and put things in perspective - and just remember who you're talking to!'

'Denis!'

"You get back to bed. I'll sleep in the spare room.'

'No. PU. sleep in there-'

'I don't give a sod who sleeps where. We're just not sleeping in the same room, that's all.'

His eyes were still full of anger and anguish, though his voice was curiously calm. 'We've got to talk about

this. For a start, you'd better find out the rights and wrongs and the rest of it about people involved in divorce on the grounds of adultery. Not tonight, though.'

'Denis! Please let's talk now- please! -just for a litde while.'

'What die hell about? About met You know all about me, for Christ's sake. I'm half-pissed - and soon I'm going to be fully pissed - and as well as that I'm stupid -and hurt - and jealous - and possessive - and old-fashioned - and faithful ... You following me? I've watched most of your antics, but I've never been too worried. You know why? Because I knew you loved me. Deep down I knew there was a bedrock of love underneath our marriage. Or I thought I knew.'

In silence, in abject despair, Shelly Comford listened, and the tears ran in furrows down her cheeks.

'We're finished. The two of us are finished, Shelly -do you know, I can hardly bring myself to call you by your name? Our marriage is over and done with - make no mistake about that. You can feel free to do what you want now. I just don't care. You're a born flirt! You're a born prick-teaser! And I just can't live with you any longer. I just can't live with the picture of you lying there naked and opening your legs to anodier man. Can you try to get dial into your thick skull?'

She shook her head in utter anguish.

"You said' (Comford continued) 'you'd have given anything in life to see me become Master. Well, / wouldn't - do you understand that? But I'd have given anything in life for you to be faithful to me - whatever the prize.'

He turned away from her, and she heard the door of the spare bedroom close; then open again.

'When was it? Tell me that. When ?

'This morning.'

"You mean when I was out jogging?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He turned away once more; and she beheld and could see no sorrow like unto her own sorrow.

The keys to her car lay on the mantelshelf.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Monday, 4 March

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what's really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die (Philip Larkin,

NEVER, IN HIS lifetime of muted laughter and occasional tears, had Morse spent such a horrifying night. Amid fitful bouts of semi-clumber - head weighted with pain, ears throbbing, stomach in spasms, gullet afire with bile and acidity - he'd imagined himself on the verge of fainting, of vomiting, of having a stroke, of entering cardiac arrest. One of Ovid's lovers had once besought the Horses of the Night to slacken dieir pace and delay diereby the onset of the Dawn. But as he lay turning in his bed, Morse longed for a sign of the brightening sky through his window. During diat seemingly unending night, he had consumed several glasses of cold water, Alka-Seltzer tablets, cups of black