Abide Abode (4 page)

‘
Sure I can. I’ll bring the car with me to the burbs tonight
and head over to Peacehaven tomorrow and pick up those photos your
mum’s been asking for.’ It’s been near three years we moved Sylvia
into the hospice. ‘Have you been to see your mum recently Evan?’
Maria asks.

Evan becomes disgruntled and angry instantly,
‘You're

Page 29 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

our assistant Maria, we ask you to help us with our affairs
not get personally involved in them.’

‘
Sorry Mr Mason.’ She apologizes.

‘
Evan, please.’ He says. ‘And you've no need to apologize. Let
us move on.’

‘
To Evan.’ Maria raises her glass. ‘And the captains of
Atlantis!’

Drinking, laughing, eating, and somewhere along the evening
it gets messy with a few lines of click in the bathroom, a super
drug that enhances the senses and sexual prowess. Evan whispers in
my ear and I take him by the hair and let him ride me in the
cubical, his life banging against me, two animals in the throngs of
passion, I hold his face towards mine, lick his mouth as he grabs
my hair. He looks longingly at me, kisses me and makes his way out
of the bathroom, helping inch my leggings back up. I fix my hair
and reapply my lipstick and head out to have a cigarette of the
balcony and think of the luck in being in such a position. If only
it wasn’t at the cost of time with Evans mother. I worry for
her.

The party is rambunctious. Today people move to sea whilst
others fight for their space on land. Some dodgy karaoke is taking
place and it’s hazy, I’m high. My eyes flicker out and it looks
like a wolf is moving between people’s legs but then its gone, a
shadow. A helicopter comes in sometime later, my husband gets in
first and helps me aboard and we

Page 30 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

fly home. Down below the city is in turmoil, I clock some
click again and time is lost flying over a city of rioters with the
occasional fire erupting from the world below, figuratively and
very literally I am very fucking high.

∆

I’m within our lush penthouse, cosy and warm, home. Evan is
dealing out a line more click. I can take or leave the stuff until
I get started, its harder for Evan, he been losing himself in it
since his father threw his arms up at his inheritance. Our life
lines the walls in photos, our trip to the troposphere where we
passengered the reaches of Earth and experienced zero
gravity.

‘
After all’s said and done’ Says Evan. ‘If these people want
to get themselves out of poverty they have to work at it. Its their
own laziness keeping them poor.’

‘
And what of the top one percent that have bought up all the
property and keep everyone in rent arrears as they gather interest
on their accumulated wealth. Where’s the fair tax?’

‘
This is money I’ve earnt why should I be penalized for it’.
‘You know that I’m not working, I’ve spent the last few

years looking after your mother…’

Evan cuts in ‘Why bring her into it? Maybe you could
work…’

It irks me to hear him talk like this but I don’t want to
upset him. I shouldn’t have bought Sylvia into this. As
strong,

Page 31 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

noble and kind as he is, sometimes he’s like playing with
fire. I guess he’s right but I stopped working for the right
reasons and against my own judgment maybe. I wish he remembered the
sacrifice it was for me. Loved me that bit for having done what he
suggested best for us.

‘
I’ve wanted to get back into acting’ I say. ‘The last
production that I was offered was when your mum got worse and I
couldn’t commit to it. We decided it would be better for me to look
after Sheila, we talked about having a child then.’

‘
Raise a child into this. It’s senseless violence out there.
They're not our people, there are too many people on the ground, no
solution, everyone's interested in having what the neighbors got
rather than earning their own.’

It’s true in part about raising a child now with excessive
population problems but further and further I see intelligent
people not having children for this exact reason whilst others
without life experience feels it’s their natural obligation to have
children before thinking, before living their own life, forming
their own identity, before becoming something they themselves are
proud of. What am I proud of? I think.

‘
Couldn’t we do more?’ I say. Change the mindset, like your
dad did? With random acts of selfless kindness.’

‘
Russell did enough for them, that was my inheritance he gave
away! Anna, can we get back to this evening? You are pissing me
off’ Dark fury floods his face, it feels like the air has been
sucked from the room, he balls his fists. Why‘ do

Page 32 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

you have to bring my parents up?’

I get scared of him when he’s like this; I pacify and smile
at him. ‘Let’s not talk about mum tonight.’

‘
She's not your mum Anna’

The pain’s back, the degree of separation that has to be put
in after these years of marriage, nothing is let go.

‘
I mean as family, mother in law’ ‘She's my family’

I want to say I spend more time looking after her than he
does seeing me. My face reacts somehow, he’s furious. I‘ care for
her at the hospice around the clock’ I attempt to explain ‘it's my
full time job these days, she still thinks I'm her sister, calling
me Valerie she doesn’t even recognize me..’

‘
You are so defensive the whole time! Valerie is dead. What
are you doing to me? Why tonight?’ he rages.

I take a deep breath not wanting to argue and try bringing
the conversation back around, my energy is heightened, my natural
instinct is to kiss him, tell him its okay but then he wont feel
listened to. ‘Forget it! This has been biggest project for you
sweetheart, but you've not seen your mum in months, I've been
supportive with Atlantis, with your Ma, I love you.’

‘
Supportive? Anna, you've just been here.’ Evan takes another
line of click.

‘
Please Evan, I love you I'm just saying I see your mum and
its what she needs. She'd be so proud of you tonight, share
it.’

‘
You're thinking about yourself, what about what I
need?’

Page 33 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

I reach out for him.

‘
You need to know when to back off.‘

‘
Let's sort this out, what's it going to be like when we start
a family’

‘
I don't want children’ ‘You said you wanted kids’

‘
Well that was then.’ He coughs. ‘I was just telling you what
I thought you wanted to hear.’

Evan’s angry and just when I feel this is it for another
night and he’s about to shut conversation down for good he comes
back to me like he disappeared into another world and now he’s
back.

‘
I don't want to upset you baby, I don't want to pass on my
genes.’

The emotion is a little too much tonight, I want to see a
small Evan running about, I love this man and have dedicated myself
to him, my life now wrapped so completely to his. The strong guy
that people know and underneath how I held him when his father
passed and how he made me promise never to leave him and how I’ve
stuck with him through his weeks of disappearing. ‘We wouldn't be
married if I didn't want to see more of you in the
world.’

‘
I'm not a good person, this isn't me, I'm cold it's just who
I am’

‘
You are a good man Evan’

‘
Leave it Anna, I need to be alone a while, stay here for a
while I’m going to the lounge.’ He takes another line.

‘
I’d like to take a walk if you’d like the space.’

Page 34 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

‘
Don’t be stupid, its dangerous.’

‘
I’ll be safe and will stay on the estate.’

‘
No Anna, you’ll be raped or murdered, do this for me’. I’m
angry, I dig my fingers into my hand to keep me

awake, I don’t want an argument, its unfair, he can’t control
his sense of abandonment. It’s not your fault Anna I tell myself,
it’s all okay, it’ll be fine by morning. My seventh grade school
teachers voice repeats in my head. You’re an actor Anna.
Act.

‘
Okay sweetheart’ I say. He looks at me incredulously and
tells me goodnight, leaving the room.

MARIA

Peacehaven. Love this place. A quiet viliage on a meandering
river. Ford Fiesta ST has pulled in. Brakes on. Maria, you have
arrived at your destination. I snigger. Welcome to the Masons
Mansion. So sad that no one visits this place any more.

I’m on the phone to Anna, I love her, and I wish things would
sort themselves out with Evan, she’s such a good girl, he has her
acting like a personalassistant and that’s my job. I open the front
door, put down my bright pink suitcase.

‘
I'll pick up Sylvia’s brush too.’ I say into the phone. ‘As
long as the hair is combed through a mother will always be giving
her girl a good education.’

Page 35 of 57

ABIDE ABODE

I can hear Anna still driving on her way to see Sylvia at the
hospital down the phone.

‘
Sylvia’s well past her education years.’ Anna says. ‘She
wants the family picture on the mantle and there's one of her that
Russell kept in his work shed.’

I pick up a picture off the mantle, removing a layer of dust
from the glass exposing a 15 year old Evan, a scrawny boy with
fitted clothes, and his parents Sylvia and Russel. They are all
suited and booted and a reminder to the privileged lifestyle they
used to live. I have to give it toEvan he made it in his fathers
stead, he is his fathers son.

‘
Anna, give this photo to Evan and he’ll get to see his mum.’
Suddenly I’m biting my tongue on bringing this up but knowing that
Anna would see it injest.

‘
I’ll give it to Sylvia’ she says. ‘Encourage her to become a
model again.’

‘
I’m sure respirators are in this season, bless her heart,
hospital pageants ain't what they used to be.’

‘
Hospice pageants, ha’ Anna laughs. ‘Oooh -‐ level
Up!!’

I put the picture of Sylvia and Evan in thesuitcase, unlock
the back door and survey the wild green that used to be a garden. I
mouth the word fuck. Not that anyone’s watching but it feels right
to do so. Sometimes in my head I’m a reality TV star and a total
dick. A total dick mostly.

‘
I tell ya the gardener is doing a good job’

As I step outside I hear a creak and a murmur. I turn to
follow the noises that next doors fence is obscuring. So

Page 36 of 57

ABIDE ABODE
someone is watching, someone is
listening.

I hold the phone up to my ear and whisper to Anna‘hang on a
second, I’m being watched.’

‘
Who are you?’ Comes a voice from the fence as I take the
phone from my ear.

Nothing can be seen, some ominous, obvious rustling and
breathing comes from behind the fences border. It’s Elizabeth
Snelgar, she’s awful, about 68, I’d befriend her but she makes a
point of seeing the worst in everything. If it’s sunny it’s too
bright, if it’s raining it’s not sunny. She moans about her family
that they don’t visit and the last time they did, about eight years
ago, she chewed their bones for not being who she expected them to
be.

‘
It’s me Ms. Snelgar’ I call out. ‘You’re
trespassing.’

‘
No, I’m not Ms. Snelgar I’m here to collect things for
Sylvia’

‘
I heard you are you trying to sell the house? Is Sylvia still
in hospital or does she just not want to come back?’ I open my
mouth in response but Snelgar continues. Can’t‘ imagine I’d want to
live in a house where my husband was found murdered!! And look at
thatgarden!! Russell wouldn’t put up with this mess, he's turning
in his grave.’

‘
Yes, yes Ms. Snelgar there’s nothing more devastating than an
overgrown bush is there dear? – No, she’s not selling and if you
must give water to tales like that they will abound to become
bigger.’ Ms. Snelgar huffs and I think about Russell lying in the
field up the hill in the pouring rain by