You may want to read Part 1 here.
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Image courtesy of mack2happy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There were shoes outside the door. A man’s shoes. Not his. He stood the bicycle against the wall, took off his own shoes and pushed the door. It opened. He could hear sounds in the house. Suppressed laughter. Coming from the bedroom. Margaret’s voice. A male voice as well.
Frederick walked towards the bedroom in his socks. At first he tried not to make any noise then he reminded himself that this was his house. The other man was the intruder, not him.
The two voices fell silent.
“Someone’s coming,” Frederick heard the male voice say. Was that fear he detected in the voice?
Frederick pushed open the bedroom door.
Margaret was standing next to the bed towards its foot. She had partly turned to see who was at the bedroom door. Facing her, and near the head of the bed, was a tall young-looking man. He had also half turned towards the door. Frederick and Margaret’s son was asleep in his small bed at the foot of his parents’ bed.
“Hello Fred,” Margaret said. “You scared us”
“Who is this?” Frederick asked, eyes fixed on the tall stranger.
“This is my cousin Tom,” said Margaret. “I was just showing-”
“Cousin, eh?” said Frederick with a sneer. “In our bedroom?”
Margaret was silent for a moment. Perhaps surprised by Frederick’s apparent anger. Or perhaps feeling caught.
“Tom IS my cousin,” she said. “He dropped in to visit. I was showing him the design of our bed. He recently moved out of home and wants to have a bed made.”
“Get out of my bedroom,” Frederick said to the alleged cousin.
The man turned towards the door, but did not get out.
“You will wake up the baby,” said Margaret.
“Don’t tell me how to talk in my own house and you and this ‘cousin’ were laughing in here!” said Frederick, his voice louder than before.
“Don’t yell at her,” said Tom.
“Oh, you are defending her, are you?”
“Don’t yell at him. You will wake up the…”
“And YOU are defending him?”
Frederick moved towards his wife.
Tom held him by the shoulder and restrained him. The movement caused Frederick’s socks to slip on the PVC carpet. His arms waved. Tom caught him before he could fall.
“I thought I told you to get out!” Frederick said, embarrassment feeding his anger.
“Are you drunk?” Tom said.
There was silence.
Margaret moved away from the two men and towards her sleeping son’s bed.
“What did you say?” Frederick asked, standing straight and looking at the taller man directly in his eyes.
“You seemed a bit unstable.”
Frederick, a teetotaler, felt his blood boil.
He strode out of the bedroom, through the sitting room and into the kitchen. He saw a knife in the sink and took it. He went back to the bedroom.
Margaret seemed to be urging the young man to leave. The man was unwilling to go.
“He might hurt you,” the man said to her.
When they saw the knife, they both froze for a moment.
Tom lunged towards Frederick.
“No!” Margaret leaped towards Tom, trying to hold him back.
Frederick instinctively raised his arm and moved to his left, dodging Tom. He stood next to the still-sleeping child’s bed, facing his wife and the stranger in his bedroom.
“Tom, just leave” Margaret pleaded.
“I have to get that knife.”
Tom lunged again and Frederick turned his back towards him. Frederick extended his arms to keep the knife out of Tom’s reach. The two men struggled next to the child’s bed. The arm bearing the knife was pushed violently downwards. The knife plunged. Deep.
Margaret screamed.
Realisation sank quickly.
Tom now turned and ran out of the bedroom.
Frederick felt as if he would lose control of his bowels.
Margaret was kneeling next to the child’s bed. She was making strange sounds – half crying, half talking.
She threw off the covers and confirmed her fears. She took her son’s body in her arms and started sobbing. Her cries sounded animal-like. Like the moaning of a cat.
Frederick sat on the floor. He felt sick. His hands were shaking. He got up. He ran out of the bedroom. He ran out of the house. He did not know if he was running after Tom or running away from the nightmare in his house. He just ran. He ran past neighbours drawn to his house by Margaret’s cries. He ran on, even as he heard shouts that someone should catch him.
John drove towards the town. Music was coming from the lorry’s radio. It was a good thing there were many radio stations to choose from nowadays. Cocotea was singing.
“Go home to your mama, your mama
Go home to your papa, your papa
You’re too young to be my lover”
“Maggy,” John said to himself. “You are not too young to be my lover.”
She certainly was not too young, but she was married. John would see if he could visit her again today and try to make her comfortable being around him. Then he could work on making her actually like him.
Someone dashed onto the road. John slammed the brakes so hard that he lifted himself off his seat. It was too late. The thud-crunch sound of the impact made John’s stomach turn. He leaped out of the driver’s cabin and reached the body at the same time as a crowd that had apparently been pursuing the dead man. He looked at the body of the man. It was covered in sweat. He had no shoes and his socks looked like he had been running in them for a considerable distance.
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The end.
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This story is based on an actual news story. Sorry I lost the newspaper cutting.
Baba Amor's Thoughts 