Telling Lies continued page 1. by Nicholas Boldock Continued from First Page Telling Lies.

Harry relived the accident every time he saw the junction where it had happened. Sometimes he saw it all from start to finish, sometimes only excerpts, but always it was there, haunting him. It hadn't been his fault of course. If the sodding lorry hadn't been there then everything would have been fine.

And if Jean hadn't insisted on being such a bitch then everything would have been fine too. Despite his protestations to the contrary, deep down Harry knew he had to take some responsibility for what had happened. And he had been punished. Oh, how he had been punished. Night was beginning to move in when Harry pulled the Cavalier into the driveway outside his house. The house was semi-detached and had small, manageable gardens to both the front and the rear. There were two bedrooms, one of which Harry had arranged as an office so that he could work at home if he needed to.

He locked the car up and strode to the front door. Once there had been a step leading up to the door. Now it had been replaced by a ramp. He'd had to make several alterations to the house after the accident. Jean had suffered extensive spinal damage and been confined to a wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down. They'd had to have some of the doors made wider to enable the wheelchair to go through. The bathroom had been completely redesigned. It now had a special shower cubicle for Jean, a lower basin and low level mirrors. There were handles bolted to the walls in various places to help Jean in and out of her chair when she showered or used the toilet.

To start with Harry had had to help her with everything, until she became more accustomed to the wheelchair. Amy had fallen by the wayside after the crash. Harry had been hospitalised himself, and by the time he had been allowed home, it hadn't seemed appropriate to carry on seeing Amy. Apparently she thought the same. She had resigned and moved to Birmingham. Continuing his relationship with Amy would have been impossible anyway, because, in the two years since the crash, Harry had been afflicted with a severe case of Mister Floppy. He had tried everything he could think of to awaken his dormant penis, from herbal medicines to European pornography, but even that had failed to give him the slightest tingle of arousal. Jean, for her part, had not shown the vaguest interest in sex since she had become at one with a wheelchair. Despite the paralysis, she did apparently have sensation down there, or at least the doctors had said she would have. She shunned his rare advances as if he were a stranger. She needn't have worried. His erections were a thing of the past. Lasagne. Not a roast dinner, but lasagne. And steamed vegetables. Not quite what Harry had had in mind, but he was hungry and he wolfed it down with ease. They spoke little over dinner. Jean asked about his day, he replied politely, stock answers, never the truth. Never could he give her the satisfaction of knowing that he was as deeply unhappy at work as he was at home. Although he wouldn't have to worry about it for much longer. They drank wine with the meal, a moderately expensive Shiraz Cabernet, one of Jean's favourites. A passion for good wine was one of the few things Harry and Jean still had in common. The life they endured together had been forced upon them, and for different reasons neither had been able to sever the ties that kept them bound together in a loveless marriage. Jean needed him, of course, because she couldn't cope on her own, not in the wheelchair. True, she was pretty much independent nowadays, but there was a world of difference between being independent and being alone. There had been occasions when Jean had fallen from her chair and was unable to get herself back in. Without Harry she would have been in all kinds of trouble. Once or twice she had had to pull herself over to the phone and Harry had been forced to come home from work to help her back into her chair. Harry knew that Jean no longer loved him. He often thought that her love had died at the very moment he had run the red light on Lancaster Road. If he were honest with himself, he had to admit that his own love for Jean had walked out of the door long before that. But he couldn't just leave her. Not now, not with her in a wheelchair. What would people think? He had thought of going away, somewhere he wouldn't be found, somewhere he could start afresh among strangers. Perhaps even somewhere overseas. What stopped him was the knowledge that Jean would still be here, hating him even more than she surely did now, and in effect nothing would have changed, except that Harry would be somewhere else. People would still blame him for everything that had happened, the accident, the wheelchair, the broken marriage. Lately he had been giving his situation a lot of thought. He couldn't leave Jean, that was definite. But there were always other options. After dinner they moved into the lounge. Despite their indifference towards each other they still sat together each night, a habit they had been unable to break. 'Open another bottle,' Jean suggested. Harry looked at her in surprise. Ordinarily she glanced at him with disapproval if he opened a second bottle of wine after dinner, politely declining his offers to refill her glass. Tonight was obviously different. Harry supposed it was because the anniversary of the crash was today. Neither of them had mentioned it out loud to the other, but the fact was hanging in the air like a neon sign. He strode into the kitchen and returned with another bottle. She proffered her glass and he refilled it for her before topping up his own. He sank down into his armchair and savoured the taste of the wine. Continued below

Telling Lies continued. by Nicholas Boldock

'I'm leaving you,' Jean said. Her face was impassive, her words calm. 'What?' 'I said I'm leaving you.' Harry had acted out this conversation in his head a thousand times. Now it was real, and he found himself stuck for words. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel how he had thought it would feel. 'Where will you go? Have you thought this through?' 'Have I though it through? I'm in a fucking wheelchair, Harry, I've had plenty of time to think it through.' Her anger caught him off guard. He hadn't expected anything like this. He had expected to be in control of the situation, if and when it arose. He hadn't considered the fact that Jean had done little except mumble to him over the past two years, and it seemed that she had been keeping something inside. He felt stupid. He should have realised this could happen. 'I'm going tonight,' she continued, calm again now, 'But I'll need to come back soon to collect my things. Can you pass the wine please?' Stunned, he passed her the bottle of wine. She poured a glassful and took a gulp. She looked different somehow, empowered, liberated, as if these few moments were the beginning of her own renaissance. She looked...happy. In two years Harry had never seen her smile, not once. Now she looked as if she might burst out laughing at any moment. 'You're leaving? Tonight?' he said, confused, 'But how?' Somehow he couldn't picture her wheeling herself off over the horizon, a suitcase on her knee. 'Don't worry Harry, you don't have to take me anywhere. I've organized everything.' She leant forward in her wheelchair as if she were divulging a terrible secret. 'I don't need you. Not anymore.' 'That's it then, is it?' Harry said. He was angry that he'd lost control of the situation. When he'd rehearsed this moment, he'd rehearsed it with the Jean of the last two years. That was his mistake. This Jean was an entirely new proposition. She seemed angry and she seemed determined. She was quite clearly in control. She sighed. 'Yes, that's it. I'm leaving because I can't stand it here anymore. I can't stand you. Look at me, Harry. I'm in a wheelchair. And it's not even my fault. It's your fault.' After all this time, she had said it. Harry winced at her words. Of course he'd known all along that she blamed him for her predicament, but until now it had remained unspoken. 'How can you say that?' he snapped, shouting now, 'It was an accident.' 'Was it? And Amy, was she an accident?' Harry jumped out of his chair. He tried to speak but there were no words ready to come out. He had never told Jean about Amy. He had thought she didn't know. Obviously she had found out somehow. He wondered if one of his colleagues had betrayed him. How long had she known? Christ, Jean was running rings round him. The lines he had practiced over and over in his head were long gone. He should have been feeling triumphant by now, but instead he felt weak and pathetic. He had never suspected for a minute that the Amy thing would come back to haunt him, yet here it was, a weapon in Jean's hands. 'What are you on about?' Harry offered desperately. Jean looked at him with disgust. 'Oh, don't even bother. I pity you, Harry. I know all about her, I knew then, even before the accident. Why do you think I made you come to Gloucester? It was obvious, you pathetic bastard. I saw you with her. I went through your things. You weren't very good at having an affair, you know. Did you really believe I never knew? Do you honestly think I'm that stupid?' 'No, I...' Harry trailed off. He was having trouble with all of this. 'Anyway, it doesn't matter now. I don't even care anymore. I'll be out of your way in a couple of minutes. You can keep the house, you can keep everything, whatever you like. I don't want it, any of it. It all smells of you.' Harry just looked at her. She was leaving him, she really was. Harry had expected this night to be a memorable one, but he hadn't thought for one minute that it would turn out like this. Jean picked up the phone and dialled a number. 'Who are you phoning?' Harry said. 'Come and get me now,' Jean said into the phone, ignoring Harry's question. She put the phone down gently without saying anything else. 'Who was that? Who were you just talking to?' She took a deep breath. 'That was Steve.' 'Steve who?' Harry was getting annoyed, backed into a corner as he was. She didn't even know anyone called Steve. 'Steve is...' she replied, 'Well, he's my partner I suppose.' Harry glared at her. 'Partner? What are you talking about? I'm your fucking partner.' 'Don't you dare raise your voice at me!' she snapped back, 'After everything you've done I deserve a little bit of happiness. Steve loves me. He's nothing like you. He's kind and selfless and I know I can trust him. He respects me, Harry. That's something you've never done.' The doorbell rang. Jean propelled the wheelchair towards the door. 'That'll be him,' she said, 'He was parked up the road waiting for me to call his mobile.' Harry watched her leave the room and listened as she opened the front door. He heard a man's voice. Jean came back into the room. 'I'm going now,' she said quietly, 'I'll be in touch about picking up my clothes and things.' 'Right...' Harry felt he should say something meaningful but couldn't think of anything suitable. Instead he kept quiet and stood still as she turned the wheelchair around and left without any further words. As the front door clicked shut he walked over to the window and watched Jean and her boyfriend as they went down the path. He was pushing the wheelchair for her. He looked to be younger than Harry, and certainly in better shape, his posture upright and toned. Bastard, Harry thought, why can't you be a fat little dwarf? He watched Steve as he helped Jean into the car then folded the wheelchair and stashed it in the boot. Harry had lost count of the number of times he'd done exactly the same thing. There was still a half-full bottle of wine on the table. Harry poured himself a glass and sat down on the sofa. He giggled a little, just a small laugh, and sipped at the wine. Life had a funny way of springing odd surprises on you when you least expected it. Tonight had been one of those surprises. In a strange way Harry was relieved that it had not turned out the way he had intended. He gulped greedily at the wine, warming to the taste, wanting more. Suddenly he felt like celebrating. He went into the kitchen. Harry opened the door to one of the kitchen wall cupboards. This one was too high for Jean to reach so it had usually been left empty, or at least used to store things she wouldn't need. At the moment it was empty apart from the gun that Harry had been intending to kill Jean and himself with tonight. Two months ago he had decided that the only feasible way of resolving the situation with Jean was to kill her. He had decided to rescue them both from their miserable lives. He would shoot her first, then himself. He was shocked by how easy it had been to acquire a firearm. It had only taken just over a week of tentative enquiries around a number of unsavoury pubs before he had been able to buy the gun for the grand sum of one hundred and fifty pounds cash. A bargain really.

Continued on www.thisisull.com...... Next Page Telling Lies.

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