Open Writing

The man was a colleague of mine. There’s nothing like the camaraderie in a teachers’ staff room, and it seems to take on an extra dimension if your students are from another land, another culture. It was a busy language school, all year round.

He was taller than most and charismatic almost to excess: a silver-grey pony-tail, a deep voice, and a tendency to say, at the end of a hard morning, that it would be wonderful if someone could give his stiff shoulder muscles a bit of a massage.

“Come here,” I’d say. “Sit here and I’ll loosen them up.”

And so I would. I was older than Steve and not likely to have a rush of adrenaline from working my thumbs gently into the hard little knots above his shoulder blades. We were good friends, and he was an excellent teacher. If you were young, and had the misfortune to fall in love with him - ah well, that was a different story. For a time all would be wonderful, but when Steve wanted to change direction - what would happen then?

*******

The tide would be turning in half an hour; not long to wait now. She couldn’t afford to have it left high and dry on the sandbank, surrounded by flotsam and pecked at by seagulls in the cold light of morning. It had to go in the water soon, or it would be too late.

It was quite a walk from the underground and she hurried along, the small package clutched deep in her pocket. It was no weight at all, just a light little thing. Something heavy would sink, then swirl about and be washed up later on the sandbank for all eyes to see and fingers to prise open.

“It’ll be alright,” she said under her breath, “that won’t happen. It’s much too light for that, it’ll just spin away on the tide.”

It had been a wonderful, happy relationship, and she had no idea why it was over. He had gone away for a week and left a brief note by the phone. It said:

“Sorry, I have to go. Look after yourself, Steve.” And that was it. The end of everything. No-one knew what had happened or why. Although she asked everyone (as the young usually do) they could provide no answers. Then someone said, trying to blow the dark clouds away, “Make a wax model and stick pins in it. That should sort the bastard out.”

It had taken a week or two for the comment, thrown out in jest, to crystallise. Now she was here, walking through the dusk down to the river, and the little clay figurine, punctured with a score of pins, was carefully wrapped and sealed in layers of old sheeting, and then a little cloth bag. It lay snug within her curled fingers, secret and precious.

The clock began to strike nine. It was dark now, and a light rain was falling. Everyone had dissolved into the gloom, hurrying home to somewhere warm and dry. She reached the rail and stopped, standing still until her breathing was quiet. No-one else was to be seen, and only a police siren across the river disturbed the evening hour.

She looked down at the water, waiting for the subtle, silent frothing and eddying that meant the tide was turning.

There it was - that soundless whim of the moon to exert its pull on all the waters of the earth, and make them change direction and flow another way.

She waited a moment until the pull downstream was a little stronger, then at last, she brought up the little package from her pocket, and caressed it with her thumb and forefinger. She could feel the bumps where the pins were sticking into the wrapping, and for just a moment she wondered if it was a wicked thing to do: to make a wax image of someone she had loved so much and for so long, and then disfigure every beautiful part of him with miniature swords. The thought lasted only a moment, and with a swing of her arm, the package was gone. A plop, and it was gone. All that misery, all her crying, had disappeared into the oily water, bobbing with the flotsam, lost in the darkness.

There was a train standing in the station because one of the doors was jammed. It was still raining when she got home. She walked quickly up the road, and hurried from the glare of one street lamp to another. An overwhelming feeling of guilt came upon her and she spoke out loud:

“Oh God, what have I done? What on earth have I done?”

There was a police car outside the block of flats and the two of them said they’d been waiting for her: the girl upstairs had told them she was always home by eight, only this time it was ten. They were only young, not long in the force, and they asked if they could come in for a moment. They knew Steve was her boyfriend, or had been, because the girl upstairs had said so.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” said the older looking one. “I’m afraid it’s very bad. He’s dead.”

She sat down in her chilly room, the unasked question in her sad brown eyes.

“He fell off a balcony, ma’am. Just an accident. Nobody else was there, he just lost his balance, it seems, and went straight through a conservatory down below. Shards of glass everywhere, sticking out of him like needles, or pins in a pincushion, you might say.

“When … when did it happen?”

Her voice was a whisper.

“Last night, ma’am, some time, but they took him to hospital and he died this evening, about nine o’clock. I’m very sorry, ma’am, we’ll let ourselves out.”

She heard them close her door and tread quietly down the stairs to the outside world. She lay on her bed all night with her clothes on, and stared down into the oily waters of her mind, waiting, waiting for the tide to turn.