Eighteen Months
Eighteen Months
By Glenn McGoldrick
Text Copyright @2019
Glenn McGoldrick
All Rights Reserved
Thinking of you always, mother…
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Eighteen Months
She got out of the Audi, broke up some bread and scattered the pieces on the grass by a wooden bench. Then she got back behind the steering wheel and watched the birds arrive.
Starlings, crows, gulls. Maybe a couple of different types of gull. Or was the smaller one a tern? The crows perched on top of the bench, looking down on the bread. But the starlings went straight in, picking up a piece of bread and flying off.
A few moments later, the crows got down and finished off the bread. The crows had the size, but the starlings had the nerve.
As the starlings flew away they were harassed by seagulls, hoping to make them drop the bread from their beaks.
I watched the birds then slept for a while. When I woke up the Audi had gone. I switched on the car radio but wasn’t really paying attention. I stayed for another hour or so, staring out to sea, thinking about her.
I’d almost bumped into her in Asda the previous week.
I went into the World Foods aisle before she saw me, then doubled back to watch her as she shopped. Her hair looked darker than I remembered, and she seemed to have lost weight. Understandable.
She took her trolley to the underground car park, where her Audi was parked not too far from me. When she left the car park, I followed her home.
I watched from my car as she took the shopping into her house then closed the front door. Five minutes later I drove home.
That night I drank a few whiskies, but they didn’t help me much. I slept poorly, dreaming of trees without leaves.
I was late into the office the next day, and I didn’t get much work done. It was after 6 p.m. when I left, and already dark.
Figuring sitting alone in a car in her street might be a bit conspicuous, I pulled in to the Blue Bell car park, just across Acklam Road from her house. The back of the house was clearly visible over a low wooden fence. There was a bluish light in what I guessed was her front room. Probably watching TV.
When did she get out? How long had she been in? Can’t have been more than two years. Maybe only eighteen months. A father loses his son, but she gets eighteen months. What a fucking insult.
And what had she said in court? She thought she’d hit a fox or something. She stopped the car and checked the roadside, but didn’t see anything. A fox. Bullshit.
When I got home, I poured a whisky and sat at the kitchen table. I thought about her fox story, how she’d had the nerve to even tell it. An idea presented itself to me, so I sipped my whisky and let the idea take shape.
The next day I got up early, did a bit of research and ordered a few things online. My wife came by at lunchtime.
“I thought you’d be at work,” she said.
“No,” I said. “I took the day off.”
“Well, I just popped in to get the last of my things.”
I stood in the bedroom doorway, watching her check the closet and under the bed.
“She’s out, you know?”
“Who?”
“You know who,” I said.
She sat on the bed, gently shaking her head.
“I saw her,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Doesn’t it bother you? Knowing she’s out walking around, while our son is-”
“Of course it bothers me! I don’t like that bitch any more than you do.”
“And?”
“And what?” she said. “Just leave me alone, will you. Let me get my things and go.”
I sat in the garden until I heard her drive away. We’d had a few arguments when our son was growing up.
“He doesn’t have to go out every weekend, does he? You’re his dad – you can tell him no sometimes, you know!”
“He’s twenty years old, what do you expect? He’s not doing any harm.”
Things got worse after he died. She blamed me for his death, said I was too soft on him; I hated her for it. So we argued. For two years. Then she moved in with her parents in Ingleby Barwick.
I stayed in the house; our house. I’d be living there until we figured out what we were going to do. It was over, so there’d be a divorce when either of us had the stomach for it.
Sunday night I pulled in to the Blue Bell around 9 p.m., sipped a coffee and watched her house.
The lights went out just before midnight. Half an hour later, I crossed the road and climbed quietly over her fence. I stood still in her dark garden, taking slow breaths, looking around, listening.
I tried the handle on the back door. Unlocked. I opened it half an inch, then carefully closed it. In such a nice neighbourhood, she probably didn’t feel the need to lock her doors every night. Good.
Monday after work I drove to the Royal Mail depot in Stockton to pick up my package. I sat at my kitchen table and opened it, reading the instructions and putting the pieces together.
When it was dark, I put the special sardines in the back of the trap and placed it in between two rose bushes at the bottom of my garden. The house being so close to Bassleton Woods, I figured the trap would have an occupant fairly quickly.
I found it in the trap yesterday, when I returned from watching her feed the birds at Redcar.
Now I’ve got it in a bag in the boot of my car. I’m watching her house. The lights have just gone out. I’ll give it twenty minutes, then go in.
I don’t believe her bullshit fox story. She hit him, saw him dying, panicked then drove away. She made up the fox story afterwards, to cover up the fact that she was drunk and fled the scene.
I want her to admit it to me. Just once. Then I’ll know. And if she doesn’t want to talk, then I’ll show her what’s in the bag.
“That’s what a dead fox looks like,” I’ll tell her.
Then she’ll know I’m serious. Then she’ll talk to me.
Thanks for reading!
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Until next time.
Glenn McGoldrick.
If you enjoyed reading this story, then you might like to try a collection in the Dark Teesside series:
UK: http://amzn.to/2ArCP96
US: http://amzn.to/2hbkogy
Glenn McGoldrick, Eighteen Months
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