Michael had a perfect life until the day his wife was kidnapped.
They had moved from the city to a perfect fishing village for him to write and she to tend house- it was his choice, as if the coloured walls and painted gables could rekindle the spark of a perfect marriage underplayed with tension. She wanted the city and he wanted the coast so a compromise was reached. She wanted to be close to her mother, he to his friends, so a compromise was reached. She wanted a modern house and he wanted traditional so again…
They arrived at the village with an autumn mist and he left her in the car to open the door with white all season paint over weathered wood in a traditional style. He couldn’t wait to move in, to invite his friends and show off his home. Low beams overhead, tiled floors underneath and white walls hung with shelves waited to be filled with his photographs.
It was perfect.
A range in the kitchen overlooked the cliff bay where boats moored for winter tossed in the spray. He liked the poetry- it would do for his next book. Ducked low under beams as he went up the stairs to the bedrooms above, his mind with the picture of how life would be. He surveyed the bedrooms where they would sleep and the bay window in which he would sit and stare moodily out at the waves and conjured up images of…
The house was in silence. Where was she? The car sat outside on the road with the doors closed, engine silent. She was sulking again.
He turned to leave and felt he had been there too long when a movement caught his eye- two figures walked a third away down the road. The third was struggling, crying, but they pulled…her…inexorably on. She wore the same coat as his wife, the same hat as his wife, she was…
Michael was down the stairs and through the kitchen without a glance and out of the front door in a second. The car was empty, the mist complete and of his wife there was no sign. Instead, a man sat on the break wall opposite. Long black coat, white hair, middle aged. He had good shoes- Michael always noticed the shoes- and the man was looking at him.
“My wife…” Michael crossed the road in an instant, “two men took my wife, did you see where they went?”
“That would depend” began the man. His voice modulated- Michael noticed accents too- a hint of Dutch with English words and something else. Michael stared in disgust- so this was the sort of unsavoury character that lived in the village. A leech, a local willing to sell any story for money; decency did not apply and the abduction of his wife didn’t matter. He fumbled in his wallet for a twenty but the man just shook his head.
“Let me introduce myself” said the man, “I’m Peter”
“I don’t give a damn who you are!” roared Michael, feeling the vertigo. He was out of control, spinning into an abyss his ordered life could not comprehend. A cry, sobbing from the mist, from his wife snapped him out of his torpor- she needed him.
“Let me explain” said Peter, but Michael was gone- running headlong into the mist, past old cars and painted houses towards the terrible sound that summoned him. He did not hear his shoes as he ran for nothing else mattered. Rough slate walls and gateposts rushed by and people were on the streets, nothing more than vague images of form within the rolling fog. The cries had come from a house and he banged upon the door, shouting himself hoarse until…
Peter stood once more behind him. Michael rounded in anger- this was not how things were supposed to be. They had come here to start again- after the failure of his third book, after the death of their child, after his wife stopped discussing and left him to make all the decisions, this place was to be their rebirth. This was the place they could be free of their past. Peter listened without emotion. He understood, but did not comment- he was as little use as the now silent house beside them.
The police station was staffed by a faded constable who took all the right details and made all the right noises, leaving Michael with the feeling he was being humoured. Peter was on the wall outside, waiting for him but Michael walked straight past. He had to find his wife, had to make sure she was okay, although he imagined himself sitting in the window bay staring out to sea, reflecting on the death of his partner who never returned like so many sailors wives of old. It would be good for his next book, a good angle for a comeback, and people would read it and feel pity…
“If you would just let me explain” Peter tried again. A lady graced by in old clothes with a nod to them both and Michael heard his wife crying.
There she was again- in the near distance, dragged by two men off the main street. He did not want offers of help for money from Peter, did not want to hear how he knew everyone and their business, he did not want…
He reached the gap between the houses and a new road ran towards the front. Someone peered through curtains at him and when he looked, they shut the folds across. A man walked heavily by with a bag over his shoulder and a blue cap pulled low past his eyes. People saw him but did not ask, did not care, eyes avoided his gaze until there was only the loneliness of the street.
Pennons rattled in an offshore wind that brought in the fog, lanyards tapping masts along the front. Michael searched every road for a sign, sometimes seeing his wife in the distance only to race, to search and find her gone. Peter had disappeared and Michael was left alone. He returned to the police station but found it locked. He tried his phone but could not find a signal. Everything conspired to hide his wife’s kidnappers from him. In desperation, he began to look for Peter.
Michael found himself back at their house. An ambulance and a police car sat outside and two paramedics were carrying a body on a stretcher. It couldn’t be… it shouldn’t be…
“You don’t want to see this” Peter was at his side, watching him, gauging him. Michael stood still. There was only one explanation for the stretcher- they had killed her. They had taken his wife as grief followed thought, murder had followed the kidnap. He had tried to find her, tried to save her, though too late to act and prevent the tragedy before him.
It will be good for the comeback
But his wife was dead. She had read all his poems, edited his books, provided support in the early years till a professional editor and publisher became his all. What did she know? She was a wife, his love, but she didn’t know the industry like them. She couldn’t help his writing.
She couldn’t help him…
He began to move, step by step towards the house, towards the ambulance onto which they loaded the covered stretcher. Again, Peter’s hand was on his arm.
“You don’t want to see this, Michael”
When had he announced his name? It didn’t seem to matter. Of course Peter would know his name- that would be why she had been kidnapped in the first place. They knew he was once a successful poet and wanted ransom- but she had fought back, clinging to the life she valued more than anything else, desperate for his love, desperate to hold him again and be a part of his life…
He had to look upon her once again and found himself at the back of the ambulance. They left him alone- why wouldn’t they?
“I’m so sorry” said a man. Michael ignored him. There was dignity in grief this cold autumn day. They obviously knew who he was, as would all who came past this house from this day to many more. They would stare at the bay window in which the figure of the poet would sit, staring at the bruised sky under which he gained his inspiration, a lonely icon of tragedy…
“I’m so sorry” said the man again, his wife cried from the back of a car and Michael turned to stare. She was alive? She couldn’t be alive- if she was alive, how could he be the lonely man? How could he be tragic, unless…
“He just moved here” said a paramedic, “cardiac arrest in his own kitchen”
Peter laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder.
“I want you to come with me now” was all he said.