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He sat concentrating intensely on his seventh consecutive game of Solitaire, listening subconsciously to the melodious tweeting of the birds fluttering their tiny feathers excitedly in the branches of the tall, surrounding trees, scattered sparsely before the vast mountain range of Malaga. For a moment or two, he gazed thoughtfully at the blue, cloudless sky, beautiful and beguiling, allowing the whispering zephyr to soothe the anguish simmering beneath his sun-tanned skin, and tapped his foot nervously against the steel leg of the table upon which he played. Occasionally, he waved away an attacking wasp from in front of his perspiring face, which nevertheless lay submerged in the cooling shade of a canopying tree.
"Hey, Miles," called his wife from the top of the wooden steps leading into the spacious villa. "I've got a special thirst-quencher here for you, perfect for today, I reckon."
He ignored her and continued with his playing, gazing, or tapping.
She approached him, passing by the large, clear swimming pool with a glass of freshly squeezed citrus juice in her hand. "Come on. Have a taste. Don't worry. There's no alcohol in it. It's just sweet orange with a hint of lemon and lime just to give it a bit of a kick."
He said nothing.
"I'll just leave it here then," she said and carefully placed the short, chunky glass upon the far corner of the gleaming table, which seared in the heat.
He watched the tempting liquid and the two ice cubes gently bobbing up and down upon the surface whilst collecting the cards, before leaning back in his chair of twisted red steel and shuffling the pack.
Dressed in sunset pink, she looked down ponderously at him, placing her slim hands upon her curved hips. "Do you mind if I sit here for a bit?" she asked politely.
He lifted his head and stared at her, watching blankly as the tepid breeze flowed through her short, silky, brown strands, which shone pleasantly in the sultry rays of the late afternoon sunlight.
She sat down opposite him, refusing to await a reply, and rested her naked elbows upon the table, placing her interlocking fingers beneath her slender chin. "How was your day?" she asked cheerfully.
"Go away, Claire," he said sternly, turning his face away from her and shuffling the cards vacantly.
"Well, that's kind of hard when I'm your wife," she said.
"Divorce me then," he frostily replied, still with his eyes fixed upon the cards.
"If I'd wanted to do that, then I'd have done it five years ago," she said, almost bitterly.
"Maybe you should have," he grumbled.
She huffed.
He looked far into the landscaped distance, which was outstretched in its own atmospheric peace, with his absent, glacial eyes of timid blue. He was determined to urge his wife to leave him in his lonesome world which was inhabited by the inanimate forms of the four black and red suits; royal faces, blank and expressionless like his own; but secretly he wanted her to stay.
She gazed at him for a while before saying, "You haven't told me about your day yet."
He ignored her.
She repeated her comment.
"Forget about my bloody day!" he snapped. "What the hell has that got to do with anything anyway?"
"I was only asking," she said, not flinching at his abruptness.
"Well don't," he retorted. "Why the hell don't you go and chat with your friends, like that bloody Vanesa?"
"Because I want to talk to you," she replied, slightly annoyed by his evident awkwardness. "You know? You? My husband? The man I married and promised to be with forever, despite what life threw at us?"
"Well, you shouldn't have," he snarled, frustratingly. "You shouldn't have moved to Spain with me. You should have stayed in England with your real family and your real friend Liz. In fact, you shouldn't have got involved with me in the first place. You shouldn't have married me, and you shouldn't have had -"
"Benny?" she sharply interjected with flaring, flashing eyes of urgency.
He fell into a pool of apprehensive silence with quivering lips and trembling limbs, as if tumbling uncontrollably into a dark pit of terror and dismay, dropping the cards onto the table and subsequently his hands.
She gently touched his fingers.
He quickly withdrew.
"Miles," she began quietly. "You have to talk to me. You can't keep this to yourself. You have to let me in."
He remained silent and still.
"Miles?" -
"I don't have to do anything I don't want," he mumbled agitatedly.
After a moment's thought, she picked up the cards and asked, "Would you like to play?"
"Not really."
"Come on," she persuaded. "It'll be fun."
He did not respond.
"I know. Let's play Chase the Ace," she brightly suggested and began shuffling and dealing the pack.
After another long motionless moment, he picked up his pile of cards and said, "Okay. But I'll probably win like always."
"Yeah, but that was years ago when we played last time," she said smugly. "You've never let me forget that horrible, rainy day back in Hull when you won all sorts. Even Snap! Ha! But I've improved a lot since then, you know. And I know you're going to lose."
"Oh, really?" he sniggered sardonically.
"Yes. Really," she replied confidently.
"What? Have you been practicing with that Vanesa, or something?" he teased sarcastically.
"Well, yeah, actually, I have," she returned with an air of self-pride projecting in her softly textured voice. "All us girls have been playing a few games, and sometimes we'd even hit the casino and play something harder like-"
"Snap?" -
"Ha!"
"I didn't even know that Vanesa knew what playing-cards are," he scoffed, knowing that his mocking was irritating his wife beneath her bravado. "I thought the only cards she knows are the ones for splashing out euros."
"Hey, she's not that bad," she said defensively, though pleased that he was speaking, even if it was to insult her best friend.
"Besides," he continued. "There's no skill involved in playing Chase the Ace. It's just luck."
She grinned.
"And," he went on, rocking casually in his chair. "Playing a game like this is pretty tedious when there's only us two. It'll be over in a second."
"Oh, stop complaining, and just play," she said.
"You'd better not cheat," he winked.
"Benny used to cheat," she said with a reminiscent look gradually appearing upon her lightly made-up face.
He quietened dismissively.
"Look," she began. "I'm sorry you find this uncomfortable, but he was my son too, you know."
He nodded.
"Well, then it's not up to you to imply that I can't speak about him," she added dictatorially, whilst emphatically lifting and tensing her right hand.
"You used to let him win," he observed, ceasing his rocking and again, whacking away that same peevish wasp.
"Actually," she giggled, deflating into relaxation. "I think you'll find that it was you who used to let him win. He was a right Daddy's boy."
"Yeah, he was," he returned proudly, and began rocking in his chair again. "We used to do loads together."
She put her cards down and listened.
"He was a pretty clever kid for seven," he said, still rocking and recollecting.
"He was crafty and clever," she elaborated. "Just like his dad."
There was an undulation of silence, during which they played and secretly thought about their son.
"It would have been his twelfth birthday next month," she noted sadly.
"Yeah. He always liked the idea of being the eldest in his class. You know. Big Benny."
"Yeah, that'll be right," she said with a large smile slowly emerging through her dejection. "Not like my Baby Benny, eh?"
"Well, he always used to say that he's a ‘big boy'," he chuckled, imitating his son.
She sighed satisfactorily. "It's good that you're speaking about him," she said. "For five years, ever since it happened, you've done nothing but shut yourself away."
"Do you blame me?" he asked.
"Well, no. Of course I don't. I can see how difficult this is for you."
His face reddened indignantly. "Difficult?" he cried. "Difficult? It's been - it still is, the most painful thing I've ever, ever had to deal with in all my bloody life! And do you know what? I deserve it, because it's all my fault!"
He bashed his elbows angrily against the table, throwing his head down in disgust and clutched his short, flaxen hair frustratingly, expressing a hurtful frown. Luckily, the juice did not spill over the brim of the glass, despite it being almost full, but splashed a little instead.
She watched him inconsolably as the breeze continued to caress her hair and the soft folds of her dress, whilst the pool's relaxing surface rippled behind her in the stillness.
"It's all my fault," he mumbled disconsolately. "Everything. It's all my fault."
"It was an accident," she reassured, despite being conscious of the futility of her attempts to comfort him.
"It could have been avoided," he said. "If only I wasn't so stupid!"
"Don't beat yourself up over this, Miles. It was -"
"I mean. What sort of a father takes his kid with him to a place full of drunks and bloody smack-heads? What sort of dad does that? What sort, Claire? What bloody sort?"
"You made a mistake," she said. "What's happened has happened now. We need to move on."
"What?" he glared disapprovingly at his wife. "I've tried to make a fresh start. We both have. Just look around you, for crying out loud, woman!"
"We need to move on in our minds," she explained with a dignified air of wisdom and unforeseen knowledge acquired simply through deep, recurring thought and consideration of their melancholy circumstances. "Moving to Spain doesn't solve anything. We need to stop avoiding the issue." Her words were unwelcoming and her grim face stared ahead indifferently.
He stared too at his wife. "You make it sound like it's all fine!" he growled with disapprobation. "Like it's just something that always happens. You know, it's so normal and easy to do, like having a drink of bloody orange juice, or whatever the hell it is, on a hot day! Or as normal as a dope having his drink spiked and crashing the bloody car with his boy in the back! That's how normal it is! You know. Every dad does that!"
"It wasn't your fault, Miles," she stiffly repeated, maintaining her lack of emotion. "You weren't driving. Johnny was. It wasn't you ripping it down the motorway. And you just said it yourself that your drink was spiked. I mean. It's not like you did it on purpose, was it?"
"It doesn't matter who was driving, Claire," he said, determined to convict himself for his detestable crime. "The fact is, I shouldn't have gone to see Johnny that night. And I shouldn't have taken Benny with me. I should have listened to you."
He glared agonizingly ahead, whilst visualizing the vivid images of the horrific collision in his tortured mind: the streaming blood; the screaming ambulance; the dead boy. England was a grey horror for him. Grey and tormenting. Spain was a sanctuary: the gently rising heat from the blinding concrete, and the spiralling and whirling blues of the soft, ethereal skies, from which plummeted the frayed fringes of his dreams, were relieving and liberating. It was indeed the desired destiny for any man who fiercely struggled with the petulance of guilt, entwining itself immensely around his repenting heart and soul, which aspired to faint and fade away beyond all known existence.
"Move on, Miles," she said. "You've got no choice but to."
"What? Have you?" he asked disconcertingly.
She hesitated. "Well - I -"
"No, you bloody well haven't!" he interjected ferociously. "You've not moved on at all!"
She wriggled uncomfortably in her chair.
"I do notice you, you know," he continued. "Like when you go shopping for hours and come back with nothing! Chatting for ages on the phone to your friends, going on about nothing in particular! Hitting the casinos with that dog, Vanesa and coming home really late! Doing overtime at work when you know we're doing okay for money! And, you even spend time in the kitchen making glasses of bloody orange juice! I mean. When the hell have you ever done that?" -
"Okay, so that's my way of coping," she admitted touchily. "But at least I'm dealing with it! You're not even doing that! You're not even supporting me through it! You'd rather sit out here day and night and play with these damn things, instead of being there for your own wife! Don't you realize how hard it's been for me? Can't you see how much I've needed you? Okay, so you were involved, but what about me? I have to deal with the fact that my little boy was killed in a car crash all because of the stupidity of his so-called father who always knows best!"
"Oh, yes! Here we go! Blame me! I was waiting for this to happen!" -
"Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself, you stupid, selfish man! Do you realize how pathetic you sound?" -
"Oh, I'm feeling sorry for myself, am I? I'm stupid and selfish and pathetic, am I?" -
"Yes, you bloody well are!" -
"Ha!" -
"I told you not to take Benny with you! I'd made all the arrangements for him to stay with mum whilst I was away with -"
"Your friends! Yeah!" -
"My work colleagues for a meeting, and you were going out that night to meet one of your dodgy friends! But did you listen? No, you bloody well didn't! You just had to have your own way, didn't you? I didn't know that that was going to be the very last time that I'd see my baby! And to think, I'd left him in such a hurry, I didn't even get the chance to give him a proper cuddle! And the next time I saw him, he was lying all smashed up on a bloody hospital bed!"
He gaped icily.
"My Baby Benny..." she quietly sobbed, sinking woefully into an abyss of grief and despair, whilst painfully recollecting the adorable countenance of her child; gelled spikes of golden brown strands crowning the top of his little, round head with little, round eyes of aquamarine, button nose and plump, blushing cheeks, also little and round. She longed to gently stroke his short, stumpy fingers which were once animated and playful, but presently lay coldly between her own frozen fingertips. She needed to whisk her baby boy into her coiling arms and rest his petrified body against her own protecting bosom, caring and tender, but presently, it lay wounded, bleeding and broken, leaving her own motherly form forgotten, bereft and forlorn
He watched her helplessly.
"And do you know something else?" she continued aggressively. "My so-called husband hasn't even had the decency to help me! It was all your fault, and you can't even help me through it, can you? I mean, when was the last time you put your arm around me and told me it's all going to be okay? When was the last time you even bothered to ask me how the hell I am? For five years, all you've ever done is ignore me; say nothing, do nothing but form a stupid love affair with these bloody cards! You won't talk to me about anything like the bloody weather, let alone the crash! You won't even look at me properly!"
"I'm sorry," he said shamefully, cowering in his chair. "I wish I could change everything, but..."
"Don't we all!" she hissed poisonously.
"So why don't you leave me, then?" he asked, as a look of anguish struck his face.
"What?" she exclaimed in a tone of disgust with flashing eyes of disbelief.
"If I've let you down so much, then why the hell have you stuck around? I know just as much as you do that this is all my fault. I know that you're unhappy with me and that you hate me..."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Miles! I don't hate you!" -
"I know that I hate myself," he continued with contrition. "Nobody can ever hate me as much as I do. I don't blame you for blaming me. It's all my fault. I killed Benny. But I don't understand why you're still here. Why, Claire? Why?"
"Because I love you, you stupid, stupid man!" she blurted through her tears. "I was prepared to forgive you for everything, all because I love you. I've lost my son. I don't want to lose my husband as well. You're all I have."
He idiotically apologized again with large, desperate eyes.
"We can still get through this," she said, almost inaudibly. "But it has to be together."
There was yet another strained silence, during which he carefully considered her last remark.
"I can't let you go," she continued. "Because I know that there must be some perfectly innocent explanation behind everything. I don't really blame you. I was just lashing out. But I have always known and believed deep down that you'd never do anything to hurt Benny. Or me, for that matter."
"No, of course not," he replied, shaking his head incessantly. "It was all just a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake."
He cried.
She looked at him full of sympathy and surprise. In all the time she had known him, she had never seen him reduced to such a poor and pitiful heap. Oddly, it appeared that his pain was greater than hers, that his anguish was more compelling and intense. A father could feel a deeper sense of loss at the expense of his child than a mother could. She had never thought that that was possible. But it was.
She leant forward a little and said, "I've been waiting for you to come to me, but you never came. In all this time, I've been alone and the sad thing is, so have you. There's no intimacy between us anymore. You're cold and distant. Sometimes I don't recognize you. You're not the same Miles I fell in love with fifteen years ago."
He gazed again apologetically at his wife, as if unable to compensate for an unavoidable flaw which flickered deep within him, despite his many failed attempts to fulfil her wants, whilst the subdued air of early evening descended faintly upon the drifted pair. Blankly admiring the mountainous horizon which now reflected a beam of apricot amid a plunging blend of slurring blues and prominent purples, they slipped into a whirlpool of memories which depicted the closeness of their souls, a time when smiles were as frequent as the revived daybreak, and kisses were as warm as the summer dusk, in the ambience of which they now remained with simmering anticipation.
"We used to have so much fun," she recalled dreamily. "Every moment we spent together was amazing. We had so many laughs."
She was determined to rekindle that romantic spark which she believed still throbbed between them and rested her hand invitingly upon the cooling table.
With reluctance, he pressed his palm sincerely upon the back of her hand having admired her for a while. "I don't deserve you," he said. "And I don't deserve to be a father again."
"What?" she glared, almost alarmed by her sudden realization. "You're afraid of...?"
He nodded humbly.
"You're a brilliant father and an amazing husband," she praised, taking his hand into both of her own and squeezing it meaningfully.
"I don't want to get it wrong again," he admitted, crestfallen.
"You won't," she assured with relieved eagerness. "You didn't get anything wrong in the first place. Things just happen, I suppose. You're not to blame. It'll all be fine. I promise."
Gazing longingly far into her delicate blue eyes, which had by now attained a red ring of wretchedness, he was soon reminded of why he loved his wife: her natural dexterity to ease his inner anxieties was encapsulating and incredible. He leant forward and kissed her softly upon her plush lips of pink. "I love you so much," he said, releasing her from his tenderness.
"Me too," she replied as a tear rolled down her cheek.
With each of their hands gripping the other's intensely, they pressed their foreheads together and wept mournfully for their son, before falling into a much awaited and prolonged embrace.
"I've missed you so much too," he confessed through his tears.
"Me too," she said again, placing her head against his chest and listening to his soulful heart.
They blissfully remained in each other's arms, whilst quietly contemplating the dawn of a new phase upon them, which rapturously emerged through the lasting rays of the melting sun from beyond the softening summit, until he said, "You're right. I lost."
"What do you mean?" she asked, sitting up and wiping her tear-stained face with the back of her hand.
He placed the ace of spades upon the table.
They giggled.
"You've not tasted the orange juice yet," she reminded, looking at the full glass and running her fingers through the damp strands of his moistened head.
"Oh, I think I've tasted something a lot sweeter this evening," he replied with a flirtatious grin and carried his wife back into the villa.
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