Jimmy
hugged the now empty flowerpot to his chest and crawled up the path. He fumbled
with the key momentarily, but then collapsed gratefully through the front door
into the hall. He lay there for a moment before finding the energy to kick the
door and shut out the unforgiving night. He briefly contemplated the beckoning
comfort of his bed, or even the sofa lurking in his peripheral vision. His
aching, bruised body however had other ideas and the rug in the hall took on a hither
to unrealised level of comfort. He laid
his head back and drifted in and out of a sleep that resembled unconsciousness.
He
was aware of time passing but he couldn't be sure of how long he lay there,
minutes, hours, days. Eventually something, a noise, a movement, caught his
attention and his focus snapped back as the door suddenly swung inward and
after a pause, a scream followed. Emilia his Slovakian housekeeper was hysterical;
as he tried to calm her, he was aware of another strangled cry. It took him a
moment to realise it was his own mangled voice.
Only
when his neighbour Mr Marshall, arrived did Emilia’s screams subside to sobs.
She stayed weeping at his side until the ambulance crew arrived. He let them cut off his clothes and remove his
watch and the simple gold neck chain he wore, but refused to relinquish his
grip on the flowerpot. He grimly, gripped consciousness and clutched it tightly
to himself every time an attempt was made to remove it. For a while everything
was chaos and noise. The ambulance staffs questions, the ream of vital statistics being exchanged
above him like a mathematically tennis match, Emilia’s hiccuping account to
Tricia of how she had found him, more questions from the consultants which he
mutely, failed to answer. He could hear them, but very little penetrated the
darkness in his suffocating brain. “Irregular heart beat” and “lower than
expected response rate” meant little against his sense of desolate isolation
and atop the tightening noose of anxiety.
Eventually,
a sort of quiet fell. The hubbub of intensive care became background noise as
curtains were pulled, leaving him alone with only his sisters calm but
concerned face looking down at him.
“Jamie?” She asked.
Tricia
was the only person who called him Jamie, to everyone else he was Jimmy or Mr
Jacobs. Mr Jacobs, mild, timid even, English and Art teacher. He turned towards
her and tried to keep her in focus, despite his swimming head, a result of
tiredness, threadbare nerves and his not quite right heart.
“Jamie,
please can I have the flowerpot?”
He
clutched it closer and screwed his face up turning away from her.
“Jamie,
Nat was bringing me the orchid, so it’s my flowerpot anyway.”
Hearing
her name, hurt more than the cuts and bruises, more than his struggling heart
or his crushed windpipe.
“Jamie,
please.”
His
sister held out one hand and gentle stroked his brow with the other. He looked
into her worried eyes. It had been him and Tricia for as long as he could
remember, they were intricately and irrevocable woven into one another’s lives.
Siblings with little in common but who loved one another never-the-less. They
were a team, always there for one another in times of need.
“You
know I loved Nat too” she said, her voice faltering.
He
gentle nodded feeling the pull of the stitches on taut skin at the back of his
head as he did so. Slowly, gingerly, he held the ceramic pot out and let her
take it. The moment it left his hands he felt a release. He sunk back onto his
pillows and before long, fell into a dreamless sleep.
He
awoke to the sound of voices. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Tricia talking
to broad, squat policeman, who now held the flowerpot, which was inside a
plastic evidence bag.
“We
are fairly sure it is the murder weapon, but we need DNA to confirm.”
“I
don’t understand” said Tricia. Hugging herself defensively and staring at the
floor.
“He’s
such a gentle soul,” she went on “I just can’t begin to comprehend why, how”
she trailed off.
“The
things is” said the copper “and if you don’t mind me saying, it’s all rather
odd. The thing is, we are pretty certain he killed her in self defense.”
