Short story: Margret's bones.

Margret’s bones

By Saul Hudson

It had been a mistake, a very bad mistake. That’s the first thing Ron Hutchinson decided he would tell everyone the day they put the cuffs on him. Not that they’d believe him of course. Too many years had gone by; too much public money had spent on his behalf looking for a woman they would never find. The second thing he would tell them was that he was not crazy. No, sir, he most certainly was not.

            But he supposed that was how she would make him look. Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. And he also supposed she’d succeed too. God knew she had spent much of her formative years, the years between ’88 and ’92, the time before the accident, making him look the habitual fool.

            Honey, I’ve burnt the pasta, it’s all your fault. Honey, I’ve put a dent in the car pulling into the driveway; it’s all your fault. Honey, I’ve been screwing the goddamn postman; it’s all your fault.

            At least, that is what he thought. And if the previous years had taught him anything at all, it was that life could be a vicious, cold-hearted, bitch when it wanted to be.

            Except right now she should not be able to make him feel that way anymore because those days, those horrible days, had long since gone. But she did. Somehow, he didn’t quite know how, she did.

            (I might not have been the best husband in the world, but I gave that bitch everything she wanted.)

            Except love.

            (No. I gave her that too. Kind of.)

            Just not the kind she wanted.

            (It was the only kind I knew. I’m not a touchy feely kind of guy ... never have been, never will be ... not even in the sack.)

            Then that’s part of the reason your marriage failed the way it did.

            (It didn’t fail because of me. It failed because she stopped trying.)

            According to you, yes.

            (I’d say the goddamn postman proved that, wouldn’t you?)

            His name had been Steven Cotton. He’d been delivering the post around the neighbourhood for almost three years. He was young (he was thirty-two), athletic looking (toned was the actual word she used), and he always had a smile (especially for her). Margret loved that about him the most, he knew, especially the way his cheeks dimpled whenever he pulled out one of his trademark bright-toothed smiles.

            He was the kind of guy ... kid, actually ... that would spend much of his youth a single man because he could take his pick of women whenever he wanted with only a smile and a flash of his dimples.

            Ron didn’t understand how that kind of thing could happen, not without having first romanced the lady. But, somehow, it did. Goddamn it, it did. Wasn’t it a strange fucking world we lived in?

            He had discovered the affair by accident, although he supposed he had always known. He had discovered it because he had come home an hour early and found them in bed: her to top of him, mumbling his name, his hands mauling her breasts like they were a piece of meat.

            And that, ladies and gentlemen, was when things really did go from bad to worse.

            “It was a mistake, Ron, I promise,” she said. “It was a moment of madness. I don’t even know how it happened.”

            “You’re lying.”

            “No, I promise, I’m not. I don’t know what came over me ... I don’t know why I did it ... oh God, Ron, you’ve got to believe me.”

            For a while he had wanted to.

            “It won’t happen again. He won’t come near the house again; I’ll make sure of it.”

            “And how’re you going to make sure that doesn’t happen, huh?”

            “I don’t know ... I just will.”

            “Until you think I’ve forgotten, then it’ll be back on again.”

            “No. It won’t.”

            “Liar,” he screamed in a voice that barely sounded like his own. It was much deeper, much hotter. “You’re a goddamn whore. That’s what you are. That’s what you’ll always be.”

            And then it happened. The only thing he remembers from that day is that a veil of red mist descended over him. Nor does he remember reaching for the crystal vase and swinging it through the air. He doesn’t even remember cleaving a nine inch trench into the side of her face. But he does remember the sound she made as she hit the tiled kitchen floor.

            Hell, he doesn’t even remember cleaning up after taking her lifeless body into the garden, although he suspects there must have been a lot of blood and a lot of cleaning up to do.

            But he does remember burying her in a grave that should have been impossible to discover.

            Except someone has discovered it, haven’t they, Ron? Someone came in and found where you put her, isn’t that right?

            It shouldn’t have been true, but it was.

            Lord forgive him.

            Yet ... and yet here he was, sitting on the corner of his bed, staring at the mouldy bones of dear old Margret. Her face was drawn into a perpetual silent scream. Her burial clothes, bloodstained from the neck down, mottled and mouldy. Worms, fat and wet, squirmed in what now passed for soup filled eye sockets.

            Maybe it’s lover-boy, have you ever thought about that? Maybe he figured it all out.

            (No, he’s long since gone.)

            Are you sure?

            “Yes,” he said in a voice pitched only half a step above a whisper. “I’m pretty sure.”

            So how’d the bones get here, Ron? Who dug them up? Who took the time to put them on your bed like this?

            (I don’t know.)

            You’re going to have to bury her again, you know that, right?

            (Yes, of course I know that.)

            But where? Doesn’t seem like anywhere’s safe right now, does it? He’ll be out there; watching you ... waiting ... knowing he’ll be able to do it all over again once he’s lulled you into a false sense of security.

            He looked back at her, winkled his nose, and grinned. There was one place he could put her where nobody would ever be able to retrieve her: at the bottom of Tenby Lake. He’d have to forsake his car in doing it, he knew. She’d have to be locked in the trunk. And that was ok. He would buy another one; a better one. Something sporty perhaps.

            He turns towards the silver cigarette case resting on top of his jacket in the wicker chair by the window, and takes a Rothmans Royal out of it. He puts the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, rolls it between his lips, and lights it. He doesn’t smoke a great deal anymore, he’s close to kicking the habit, but he keeps one or two handy nonetheless ... for those just in case moments.

            (It’s not him, it’s her. It has to be. She’s always been determined to make my life a fucking misery.)

            How sure are you about that, Ron?

            (I actually don’t know.)

            He sat there for a long time, smoking, his head down, not thinking about anything.

            Then, sound; light and eager like the creaking of old bones in winter. Infinitely close.

He didn’t look back, not once; not even when for a second as a cold and slightly clawed hand fell upon his shoulder.

“Hello, Darling,” a wet and watery voice said. “I’m home.”