Running Away

She stands on the edge of the dark lake, blackness engulfing her.

The lake reflects the face in the moon as a perfect circle. She holds her breath.

Drip-drip, drip, that bloody tap! If it wasn’t that it was the leaky guttering outside the bedroom window, the same but slower, drip… drip… drip… She has lain awake all night, waiting, listening to that incessant dripping, knowing each drip brings her a second closer.  It is time. She slithers out from under the sheets and in the moonlight, gathering her clothes from the broken wicker chair at the foot of the bed, she shivers and silently pads barefoot towards the bedroom door.

On the lake a gentle breeze sends ripples across the face of the moon.  

*** 

The previous evening, after the party, after he knew that she had seen him with ‘The Other’, she had studied her reflection in the broken mirror above the washbasin and she had known it was time. The lines beneath her eyes betrayed the years of waiting, hoping and disappointment. She had given up so much for him, too much.  All she had wanted had been a sign of commitment but somehow he was always waiting too, waiting for something… or was it someone… someone better maybe? But he had always said he wanted her, and she had wanted him.

In the distance, the dried up waterfall that feeds the lake began to trickle.

“Will you marry me,” he had said.

“Why now?” she had replied, surprised.

“Because I need you.”

Drip-drip, drip-drip, drip. She had turned the tap tighter, then suddenly overcome by the hopelessness of the action she had turn the tap on full and watched as the basin had filled. It was time, she knew it was time. The closer to the edge the faster the water level seemed to rise, faster than the overflow could cope with.

The waterfall was suddenly full and crashed onto the jagged rocks below, the lake shuddering in rippled surprise.

“No, I won’t,” she had replied.

“But why, I thought that was what you had always wanted?”

“Why? Because you need me but no longer want me.”

She had pulled out the plug and watched the speeding vortex descending until the basin was empty.

***

The dark lake is still once more, reflecting hollow eyes on the face in the moon.

She dresses quickly in the hallway then opens the front door and slipping silently outside she closes it gently behind her. Drip… drip… the dripping gutter above her head suddenly releases a cold torrent. She pauses to watch as the rainwater runs across the pavement, into the gutter and disappears down the drain. She buttons her coat against the hostility of the darkness.

She walks slowly into the dark lake. As she breaths out the bubbles gently break the surface.

The face in the moon diminishes, a little more each night, until it’s gone.   

(by Sally)

Running Away

He had not been prepared.

People had warned him, he supposed, about what he might feel.  They had told him it would be overwhelming.  They had spoken of waves of emotion; of a love that was so deep, so raw, it would sweep him away.

But they had not warned him about the fear.

From the moment she was born, he was trapped in a paroxysm of fear which excluded all else.  Yes, there was love in there, but the love was so tied up in terror that it was impossible to isolate it, to just feel it, without experiencing the accompanying, heart-clenching panic.  He felt unmanned, unprepared for the onslaught of adrenaline which coursed through his veins perpetually.  It denied him sleep; it denied him clarity; it even, in its worst moments, denied him breath.  It was so big that it rendered everything else insignificant.

He had, like all dutiful, modern-day dads, watched the birth from the business-end.  He had watched the minute head appear from the unrecognisable chasm that seemed completely detached from his wife.  He had watched the little head (don’t say “little” in front of her – it sparked a furore of analogies involving watermelons and the penis) turn spontaneously, a miracle of nature to allow easy egress (ditto with “easy”.  Not advised.)  He had marvelled, and felt proud, and felt manly, and felt that he was in the presence of something amazing.

And then they had placed his daughter in his arms.

Immediately, he saw that he had been a fool.  How on earth could he be expected to protect this tiny, perfect miracle?  She was fragile, needy, a perfect victim for nature’s cruel humour.  A thousand – no, a million – different things could happen to her, each equally terrible, and each beyond his power to stop.  He had ripped out his heart and placed it in a glass jar, to be kicked about by a dyspraxic elephant.  He was an idiot.

His wife didn’t understand.  She fussed and fondled and bundled and bobbed and took to the experience like a duck to water.  She was a natural mother: deeply loving, yet wanting to encourage independence.  She was thrilled when her child first rolled over.  He imagined her rolling off the sofa, hitting her head on the flagstone floor and bleeding to death.  Was his wife blind to the possibilities of doom?

Whereas before he had imaged his love for his spouse to be unconquerable, he now saw that it was nothing, a mere drop in the ocean.  He knew, unquestioningly, that if she did anything that hurt or damaged their daughter, he would leave her without a second glance.  She was nothing.  He looked at her sometimes with a clarity and dispassion which made his blood run cold.

Desperate for a channel for this tidal wave, he took up running.  Every day he would don trainers and jogging bottoms and run away from the fear and the pain and the heart-stopping, sweat-inducing terror which gripped him with the ferocity that his daughter gripped her favourite blanket.  And every day he would realise, as he thumped through the streets, that he could not run away; he could not escape.  He would arrive back, sweaty and red-faced, and lollop up the stairs to her nursery, where he would stand, desperately trying to calm his gasping, while he listened for her breath.

He was trapped in a cage that would be his until he died.

He went to see his doctor, unknown to his wife, and explained his feelings of terror.  The GP looked at him with limpid eyes and spoke of anxiety.  The inadequacy of the word made him want to laugh.  The doctor prescribed some pills which he never took.  The idea that mere drugs could salve this wound was ridiculous.

At the casual instigation of a friend, he tried yoga.  He attended a couple of classes filled with an assortment of women; some unpleasantly sinuous, some improbably lumpy, all impossibly smug.  During the meditation session at the end he found himself wondering how they could possibly leave their children to come and do the class.  What kind of monsters were they?  He gave it up.

His mother told him he looked stressed and recommended camomile tea.  It was disgusting.

By the end of the first year, his daughter was walking and he was a nervous wreck.  He jumped at every squawk and squeal of the baby monitor, his phone ringing caused him acute distress, and when he arrived home one night to see an ambulance in the street (thank God it was only his neighbour having a heart attack), he nearly lost control of his bladder.  He was a man on the edge.

And so, he came to the realisation one night, as he sat upright in bed, listening to his daughter breathe, that there was only one way to run away totally and completely.  Only one course of action could stop this spiralling fear which would chase him until he was dead.

He reached for the pills and the whiskey.

PSK

The Runaway

Gabe rests his chin on his daughter Scarlett’s silken crown and inhales the fresh air and innocence tangled in her curls. He turns the page. Her little brother Joe leans in, studying the image of a rabbit intently through snotty rattles. Both children look confused. The book, a remnant from their father’s childhood, is a far cry from the sugar-coated tales they’re used to, and so far has raised more questions than smiles.

‘But why did the rabbit get out of it’s hutch?’ Scarlett demands to know as she looks into Gabe’s eyes for answers. ‘What about the boy? Won’t he feel sad?’

‘I think the rabbit was just a bit lonely and wanted to meet other rabbits,’ offers Gabe weakly. Scarlet isn’t convinced.

‘But that’s stupid. Now the fox might eat him. And who will feed him? And won’t the boy cry when the hutch is empty?’

All very good points. If only Gabe could have had the same foresight 18 months ago. Maybe then he wouldn’t be feeling so nostalgic now – so nostalgic that he’d spent a whole afternoon poking around in tatty old boxes until he found this disturbing little book and felt the need to read it to his children. Of course what he really wanted was for his dad to read it to him. To do the voices just so. And to cuddle him tight when the fox appeared.

It occurs to him that life is just one long quest to return to childhood; to that state of absolute security that seems your birthright until the age of 16. Or whenever your dad walks out on your mum, or your nan dies, or your cat gets run over. Whichever comes first. Then you suddenly see life for what it really is. And once you realise that the story doesn’t have a happy ending, all you want is for someone to spin you one that does. To hold you close and tell you everything’s going to be OK.

He tucks a wriggling Joe beneath his free arm and looks at the clock. He could cry right now. Big juddering sobs. Instead he turns the page. But Scarlett is insistent. ‘Well the other rabbits don’t seem very interesting anyway and now he has lost the boy who loved him.'

‘That’s very true,’ concedes Gabe. He can hardly bring himself to read the bit about the boy finding another rabbit, but knows it will quell his daughter’s fears.

‘Oh,’ she says, semi-satisfied at the end. So the boy was fine? He just got another rabbit. And maybe he liked the new one better anyway?’ She looks thoughtful. ‘Mummy’s friend Dominic says he’ll buy us a dog if we like.’

Gabe pretends not to hear. Takes a deep breath.

Joe speaks for the first time since they picked up the blasted book. ‘Will the rabbit be OK?’

Gabe is touched by his son's concern. ‘Who knows’ he replies. ‘Then sees a shadow of uncertainty pass across Joe’s face. ‘Of course he will, buddy. Of course. He has new friends, a cosy little warren and… freedom.’ It sounds so feeble. Eighteen months ago freedom seemed such a huge word: space, away from home, the expectation, the routine, the crushing predictability of it all; a chance to reassess life. But all it had really amounted to was empty sex, hangovers, ODing on microwave meals, self pity and porn.

Catching Scarlett’s porcelain profile, it’s impossible not to see her mother’s reflection – the one he fell in love with when they shared a rickety coach that zig-zagged across Australia all those years ago. He’d studied every expression as she’d studied the grandeur of the barren landscape through the fly-specked window. The look of awe on her face had moved him in a way the almighty Uluru had failed to. Then after five weeks of familiarity in a foreign land it dawned on him – being with Sara felt like coming home. And suddenly all he wanted to do was set up home with her. Create a family. Make them feel as safe as he longed to feel. But even as he’d painted the nursery and held the newborn Scarlett in his arms, he knew he couldn’t protect any of them from himself, his dark moods, his dissatisfaction with life… and before long the security he had longed for had begun to feel like a trap.

Gabe is snapped from the past by the sight of a red car pulling up outside. ‘Mummy's here. We better get your coats and shoes on.’ He kisses Joe’s sweaty head; squeezes Scarlett as she burrows into his chest and squeals with laughter. He wants to howl with homesickness. But he remembers all too well just how terrifying it was to witness his own father's tears. He’ll crack open a few cans when they've gone and stare at his laptop instead.

He closes the book. ‘Get back in your blasted hutch!’ he wants to scream at the rabbit. ‘You don’t know how good you’ve got it.’ Sara’s had her hair cut; looks lighter in every sense. Happy. He might have run away – but she’s the one who escaped.