Silent Voices

so much he could have said — should have said — but none of it would come. He kept it all inside.

He went upstairs and undressed in the bathroom. His body ached. He felt older than his years. Staring at himself in the mirror, he saw a small man with too much loose flesh around his middle; a beer belly hanging down over his waist. Thin arms. Pale skin. Thinning hair, pale as straw. When he’d looked at Simon earlier that day, he’d seen a man who spent a lot of time in the gym, dressed in expensive clothes, and ate good food. The two of them could not be more different, and yet back then, when they’d been children, they had been like brothers.

Sometimes memories acted like a wedge, coming between people and pushing them apart. Time broke your heart and skinned you alive. It was a madman with a flensing knife, grinning as he stalked you from behind, drawing incrementally closer to his prey with each passing moment.

The shower was hot; the water prickled his scalp, burned the tops of his shoulders and sent a shiver of pain down the back of his neck. The spots and buboes across his back and shoulders at first flared up, and then the hot water began to soothe them. It drew out the sting of pain, made him feel for a moment that he wasn’t suffering from this dreadful acne, that his flesh was fine and unblemished instead of ravaged by infection.

Brendan reached over his shoulder and gently patted the wounds. They were always wet; they never seemed to dry out. But this time, under the shower jet, it was a clean wetness. The water washed away the vile yellowish ichors which had bled from the burst pustules and crusted over the top like a fine honeycombed layer of cinder toffee. The skin around the infected areas felt smooth and clean. Brendan closed his eyes and pretended that he was healed. That he was normal and healthy, that he was like Simon Ridley.

Sometimes he was certain that the damaged flesh could hear his thoughts, that it knew exactly what he was thinking, and it was displeased. The response would be a massive flare-up, where the blisters would rise, and burst, and bleed… sometimes it felt like he were being punished, but he had no idea what his crime might have been, or when he was supposed to have committed it. He tried to be a good man. His only vices were alcohol and self- pity.

Just as he was dabbing himself dry with a towel — one of the ones only he was allowed to use, because they got dirty quickly from his back — Jane knocked on the bathroom door.

“Are you decent?”

“Never,” he said, rubbing his leg with the towel.

“Well, I’m coming in anyway, so you’d better put that weapon away.” She was smiling as she pushed open the door and walked into the small, cramped room. “Here, let me.” She took the towel from his hands and finished drying him off. “They look a bit better than they did this morning,” she said, standing behind him as he leaned against the shower glass.

“They always look better just after a shower. They’ll be clogged and clotted again in an hour.” He closed his eyes and wished that he didn’t need his wife to do this. He knew Simon didn’t have open sores on his back; his skin would be toned and tanned. It would be flawless.

Jane hung up the towel on the hook and moved to the sink, where she opened the door of the cabinet on the wall — the one that was mounted too high for the kids to reach. She pushed a few bottles of pills and mouthwash out of the way and then brought out the tub of benzoyl peroxide ointment. “Here we go,” she said, smiling at him in the mirror. The smile lit up her face, but it didn’t touch her eyes. She washed her hands with disinfectant soap, using her elbows to turn off the taps, just like Brendan had seen actors do in Saturday night hospital dramas. Then she walked back over to where he was leaning against the bathtub, his forearms resting on the edge of the tub and his knees pressed into the cool tiled floor.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wishing that things could be different — that she didn’t have to do this for him.

“Don’t be silly.” Her hands were shockingly cold — the lotion was smooth and clammy against his inflamed skin.

Brendan closed his eyes. He pretended that there was a stranger tending to his needs, and not his wife. He often did this; imagined that she didn’t have to see his wounds. He wished that someone else could do this in her place.

“You’re right. They’re really bad today, babe. The worst I’ve seen them for a while, now that they’re dry. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, but you’re probably going to feel some discomfort.”

He nodded. He kept his eyes closed, hoping it would help stop the tears from falling. He winced, his entire body tensing and stiffening, bit his bottom lip, and bent his head forward over the bath.

“Sorry… God, this is bad. Most of them have popped. The rest of them are filled with fluid. I’ll try to be gentle.”

“How can you do this? How can you do it and still love me?” Immediately, he wished he hadn’t said the words.

“Don’t be stupid.” Her voice was hard, sharp. “I love you no matter what. You know I do. Why should this change anything?” Her hands moved over the infected area slowly and gently, sparing him more pain. She was good at this; she’d had a lot of practice. “I’ll always love you, whatever happens…”

You wouldn’t have had to do this for him — for Simon fucking Ridley. The thought hurt him. It was like a knife stirring around inside his skull.

“Feeling any better?” Her hands… they were magical.

“Yes. Thanks.” No. No, I feel worse. I feel like a bastard, a hideous monster, for having you do this. I wish it could be different. I wish I was different… “That’s much better.”

Afterwards, Jane stood up without saying anything more. She brushed the back of his neck with her lips, a small show of affection. Then she went to the sink and washed her hands again, put away the lotion. “I’ll go and get the twins from school,” she said, leaving the bathroom. “I won’t be long.”

She hid it well, but he could sense the revulsion behind her words. Despite what she said, and how she acted, he knew that she secretly hated him for what she was forced to do. He could smell it on her, like a strange spice. The resentment, the bitterness, the regret that she’d ever become involved with him and his loathsome flesh. It was all compressed inside her, held in by the cage of her bones: some day, he knew, it would come spilling out and everything would change.

Brendan went into the bedroom and started to get dressed. He picked out the newest pair of trousers he owned: a pair of black chinos Jane had bought him last Christmas. Then he selected his best shirt, the grey one with the fake Lacoste emblem on the breast pocket. The front door slammed shut as he buttoned the shirt. His hands trembled.

Perhaps she’ll take the kids and never come back. Maybe Simon will take her away and show her a better life… better than this one, anyway.

Why did he do this to himself? It was a form of flagellation, a self-imposed punishment for crimes he had not even committed. He knew that in reality Simon would want nothing to do with Jane, not now. Their time was past. He probably spent his time shagging models and B-movie actresses, so why the hell would he want to take a faded, washed-up ex-beauty from the old estate to his bed?

He instantly regretted thinking of Jane in those terms. She was still beautiful, despite the hard times they’d gone through. She still shone; was always the light of his life. Her beauty was a counterbalance to his ugliness.

Trying to distract his mind, he thought again of the acorn Simon had shown him during his visit. He’d feigned ignorance, trying to make out that he had no idea what the acorn meant or who might have sent it to his old friend, but the truth was that he had more of a clue than he’d let on. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d been so reticent to speak, but it had seemed like the right thing to remain silent, to keep a secret.

Brendan walked over to the fitted wardrobes, pulled a sturdy wooden box from under the bed and moved it in front of the wardrobe doors, and then stood on the box. The timber joints creaked, but the box held, as it always did.

He reached up and opened one of the small doors at the top of the wardrobe, near the ceiling. Behind the doors was one long storage space, stretching the entire length of the unit. Jane never used the space; it was Brendan’s little hidey-hole, where he kept his stash. She pretended that the doors were not there, and ignored the things which lay behind them. It was not her concern; she refused to even acknowledge what he kept there.

He moved a stack of imported bondage magazines out of the way, and slipped his hand behind a box set of hardcore fetish DVDs imported from Amsterdam. There was a moment of panic when he couldn’t find what he was