The Legacy
Paul Leighland MacLaine

 

the legacy

a short story from the collection:
the tales of socrates dancing
by
paul leighland maclaine



Clouds filled the sky that August morning.
They threatened rain, but clouds seem to threaten rain at all funerals. This was no different – no different at all. Three people gathered round the grave's edge, the priest giving the service, and a young man and a woman, both were dressed in black.
Arm in arm.
They watched as the coffin descended deep into the grave. A tear dared to form in the girl’s eye. She whisked it away with her hand before it became visible. She no longer spared tears for people. They had become too precious. She had to think of herself from now on. She had to look after number one.
‘You realise it wasn't your fault.’
Not my fault, she thought.
‘Amy?’
‘Amy. Are you listening? I said it wasn’t your fault.’
Amy raised her head, and stared into Ben’s eyes.
She hadn’t been thinking those words – they were being said to her. She smiled.
‘I’m sorry, Ben. I never meant to hurt him. It had to be done.’
It just had to.
‘He was no good, Amy.’
Amy lowered her eyes, and caught a last glimpse of polished wood before the coffin disappeared completely into the darkness.
  
She remembered the last time she had seen him, staring from his lounge room window as she drove past with Ben. How thin his body and face had become. And how he looked at her as the car pulled away – that lonely, hollow look.
How had he known to go to the window just as she was passing? Hundreds of cars pass that house each day, but there he’d been just as she travelled by, knowing she was to pass...or had he been there for days?
He was no good...but I still loved him.
  
Ben pulled at her shirt, trying to recapture her attention. His shirt pulling was such an annoying habit.
‘Amy, the guy was a drunk, self-proclaimed, fucking writer. He never had one of those stupid horror stories published, and I don’t think he ever would have. Let him go. You still have me around. I’ll look after you. Don't you worry about a thing. It'll all be ok, and in a couple of weeks you won't even think about him...you’ll see. Trust me.’
He squeezed her arm, hoping to steer her in the direction of the car.
Another annoying habit.
Now I'm counting habits, what’s next for me, John?
Amy maneuvered from the light grip, and stepped closer to the grave. She knelt and peered into the black hole.
I’ll always love you. I told you that when I left.
Why, John? We might have got back together. You never know what might have happened. I just needed time to get my head together.
She took a deep breath to help control the urge to cry, and tossed a small bouquet of flowers (purchased at the last minute) into the black opening. The briefest of seconds passed, then she heard a dull plod as they landed on the lid of the coffin.
Another tear formed on her eyelid. This one she allowed to develop. It ran the length of her face before plipping onto her bare knee.
I love you, John.
She took another long look, and pushed down on her knee to stand.
A hand reached out from the grave and touched her, holding her face gently and, for a split second, a pair of lips met with her own.
I love you too, Amy.
She jerked back, stood, and fell backward in one fluid movement of terror. From where Ben stood it looked like she had simply lost her footing as she rose. He shot forward and caught her by the arms a split second before she would have fallen into the grave.
‘Are you all right?’
Her face was ashen, her red lipstick making her mouth look like someone had slashed it with a knife. Ben stared into her bright blue eyes. They were wide and filled with fear. He hated seeing her like this...but not because of her pain. He hated how that bastard still had control over her...even if it was from the fucking grave. Ben’s hand tightened into a fist at his side. A hatred bubbled and burned in his gut. Amy opened her mouth to say something, anything.
Nothing emerged.

Luke Marshall stopped writing. He punched the page-up key on his word processor, re-read a line, and made a correction. His eyes flicked to the photo on the desk, next to his computer. The picture was of a woman, sitting on a lawn, enjoying a summer’s weekend a long time ago. In her eyes, Luke could see the love she had given to him for four years, then, she had withdrawn her affections coldly, and taken up with someone else.
Sometimes I wish I really were dead. That would show her.
  
He picked up a pencil, and tapped the rubbery end on the desk. He gazed lovingly at the image on the desk and smiled. If only she had waited a little longer or understood the wall that had separated them had come from a bottle, and not from Luke’s heart.
He was angry, lonely, furious, in love and...
and what...
murderous?
Different and confused emotions swept over him all day, and for most of the awake-and-seated-in-darkness nights.
  
Luke took a long pull from his coffee mug, once a beer glass, and replaced it on the hotel coaster next to the photo. He tapped out a cigarette from the packet in front of him, and lit it with his faithful Zippo.
IT WORKS OR WE FIX IT FREE. The Zippo promise.
All things should have that guarantee.
Anger stirred in his head. And another feeling Luke had never experienced, loathing. It boiled threatening to consume him. A lamp stood witness to this newfound anger. It lay broken next to the desk.
‘Fucking bastard. I’ll give him unpublished, fucking, writer.’
Luke tilted the monitor to get a better viewing angle, and continued to write. His face pulled taunt as he typed. The sunken hollows of his poverty pinched marks in his face.

Ben parked in front of his house, scraping the tyres on the gutter before coming to a halt. Amy didn't wait for him to kill the engine. She opened the door, climbed out onto the footpath, slammed it shut, and walked up the path to the front door. Ben cursed under his breath. He grabbed the keys from the ignition, got out, and slammed his door to let Amy know how pissed he was at her attitude.
  
Amy strode directly to the lounge and sat, cross-armed. Ben walked to the fridge, flicked aside a loaf of day old bread, and took a can of beer from a shelf. He tore at the ring pull.
The can hissed awake.
‘Here’s to dead poets and drunken writers.’
Ben held the can aloft, then lowered it to his thin lips.
She watched him swilling the beer down. Fury reddened her face.
‘Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on,’ she spat.
Amy opened her mouth to continue, but instead closed it again with a click. That was John’s line. She shook the thought from her mind, stood, and stamped into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. It echoed down the hall. Ben followed her unhitching his belt with one hand, beer can in the other. He opened the bedroom door gently, tiptoed up behind Amy, and kissed her on the back of her neck.
‘Shit, Ben. How many times have I told you I hate that smell? Go and brush your teeth if you want to kiss me.’
Ben pulled away. His face filled with blood.
‘Sorry, Miss August Sobriety, I forgot beer was your ex-lovers favourite after shave...O’ de Piss Pot by Chanel.’
Amy turned and slapped his face...hard.

That’ll teach the prick, thought Luke.
He tapped the pencil on his temple. His eyes narrowed. He pondered the notion to change the line so Amy kicked Ben in the balls, but decided that might be taking literary revenge too far. A good slap would suffice...for now.
Best thing about being a writer is I can do anything to anyone I hate and get away free. Kill anyone, beat them up, let them live to the end of the story, or mash them like roadkill. The choice is mine, the options endless.
‘You’re just a god among mortals,’ said the face in the picture on the desk.
‘Why don’t you shut up.’
‘Why don’t you just have another drink. It might make you easier to live with.’
‘GO AWAY, FUCK YOU!’
‘Have-a-drink-Luke-have-a-drink-Luke-have-a-drink-Luke.’
  
Luke released a deep, controlled sigh. He turned the picture to the wall, snatched a quick drag from a fresh cigarette and replaced it on the ashtray.
I just wish the things I put to paper might become reality, just once. What I’d give for that.
‘Just what would you give, Luke?’
He placed the picture face down on the desk, took another drag and resumed typing.

Amy placed her hand on Ben’s, reddening face. She kissed the injured area gently.
‘I'm sorry.’
‘Yeah, I bet.’
He twisted out of her grasp, returned to the fridge, and grabbed a couple of cans. Once seated on the couch, head lowered, he checked for Amy out of the corner of his eye.
She emerged from the bedroom and took a seat next to him.
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about John like that. I loved him once, very deeply, and it was the hardest thing I think I've ever done in leaving him. Please try to understand how I feel.’
‘Well, all I know is I put up with weeks of that bastard mooning around you, trying everything he could think of to get you back. I just got pissed off with the whole scene, and that crap about giving up the booze was the biggest pile of shit I've ever heard.’
Amy’s head was hurting with confusion, and the tears she had felt at the funeral threatened to flow any second now.
No time for tears, got to look after number one.
  Sometimes she missed the emotional John, and the way he could make her feel like the most important person on earth just by listening and helping her with her problems. Ben was different. Cut and dried. The only thing both men shared was a sense of humour. That's probably what had attracted her to Ben when John’s problem worsened. She’d needed to laugh again.
‘I think he would have kept his promise and never touched a drink again.’
Tears inched, slowly, down her face.

Luke wiped the wetness from his cheek. He threw the hanky onto the desk and took a swig from the coffee glass. The pencil lay, snapped in two, on the desk.
‘You bet your ass I would have.’
The thing that ate away his insides was, just when he realized what was wrong with him, and how much he really did love her, she had gone. He had returned to sanity, and she had gone without even seeing what would transpire. Perhaps he was asking for a chance that wasn’t his. Luke went to the kitchen and searched through his junk drawer.

Ten minutes later he strode to the front door, and placed a package outside to be collected. He filled in the courier docket, signed at the bottom, and placed the copy on top of the package. He returned to his study, and squatted in front of the bookshelf, near his desk, running his fingers along the dusty spines until he found what he was searching for. He removed a very old, battered publication, opened it two thirds of the way through, and located the chapter he wanted. He read the first page, went to the bathroom, returning with a couple of towels and his straight razor. A trip to the kitchen added a bread knife to the items on the floor in front of the desk. He sat cross-legged with the items spread out in front. He picked one up and...
a scream filled the room.

Twenty minutes later he was back, seated in front of the word processor.
He continued to type.

Amy had fallen asleep on Ben’s lap, and the sound of the heavy cast-iron doorknocker shook her. Ben had started to doze after his third beer. He uncoiled himself from Amy, walked to the front door, flicked the deadlock catch and opened the door.
‘Good Afternoon, sir. Package for you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Sign here.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Some guy with a package.’
Ben unwrapped the plain brown paper, flattening the edges out on the coffee table. Inside were three professional chef’s knives. They flashed white, capturing all the lights in the room in their shine. Ben opened the letter attached to the package.
‘They’re John's cooking knives,’ said Amy.
‘Why on earth would that crazy bastard want to send me anything?’
‘Read the letter, Ben.’
Ben opened the envelope. Inside was a small card.
REMEMBERED HOW MUCH YOU LIKE TO
COOK BEFORE THINGS GOT MESSY BETWEEN US.
USE THEM IN GOOD HEALTH.
REGARDS JOHN
‘Well, what do you know? Who’d have thought a crazy bastard like that would want to leave me anything? These are really beautiful.’
‘See I told you he was all right. He really was a nice guy, Ben.’
Amy thought of all the great dinners John had prepared for her with those knives, and her heart started to ache for him.
 
He removed the plastic covers, placed the knives into a wooden utensil block, then stood back and admired. The handles like an army roll call, stood in neat rows. Order was the sign of a good cook.
And with the best knives, that’s just what he was.

A smile emerged on Luke’s face as he wrote the last few words. The pain throbbed a little, but he focussed his concentration back to the story and typed on.
  
Ben prepared dinner using his newly acquired gifts. The two, now free, lovebirds sat hand-in-hand and watched television until late. Amy didn’t think about the knives until it was time to go to bed. Ben stood, yawned, stretched and turned the television off. Amy walked to the kitchen and stared at the pile of dishes in the sink.
‘The horrors of dining in.’
‘Are you coming to bed?’
‘Not yet, I think I’ll do the washing-up first and get it out of the way. You know how much I hate to do it in the morning.’
‘That’d be the only thing you hate doing in the morning.’
 Amy laughed and threw a damp tea towel at him. It struck his shirt leaving a wet patch.
‘I’ll help you if you’re going to be like that,’ said Ben laughing and pulling the wet section of his shirt away from his skin.
‘No, you go to bed. You cooked...it’s only fair. Besides we can’t afford the dishes.’
  
Ben was in no mood to argue the finer points of communal living. He turned and disappeared in the darkness of the hall. Amy started to unload the dishes from out of the sink and piled them onto the counter. She pushed the plug in firmly and turned on the silver taps. Hot water bubbled and foamed round the sink. She added detergent, and removed two rubber gloves from the hanger under the sink. She hummed to herself as she washed the food stains from the white service.

The pain was a steady ache that hammered right at the core of his head. Luke stopped typing and pressed his fingers into his temples. He was close to fainting but he had to go on.
‘Have-a-drink-Luke-have-a-drink-Luke-have-a-drink-Luke...’
‘Shut up.’
He had started this and, by Christ, he was going to see it through to the last word. No one would say Luke Marshall; writer, never finished what he started. He swiveled his chair and looked down at the three towels spread out near his feet.
IT WORKS OR WE FIX IT FREE.
Luke sank to his knees and picked up the razor. He looked at it, transfixed by the lights it reflected, then went to work, turning the pages in the book, reading, then continuing.

In fifteen minutes he was back in front of his desk.
He resumed typing.

Amy stared at the carving knife. The beauty of the sharp, metal blade held her. She picked it up and turned it over and over. The detergent on the blade reflected blue then white. Amy thought she had never seen colours so real and so fresh.
Over and over she turned the blade.
Over and over.
The dishes in the rack were dry.
Amy placed her hand into the dishwater and whipped it back out.
It was freezing.
She checked her wristwatch on the counter, a present from Ben.
Three hours had passed.
How on earth...?
Amy placed the knife onto the drying rack, went to the fridge, opened the door...
‘Have-a-drink-Amy-have-a-drink-Amy-have-a-drink-Amy.’
...and took a beer from the shelf.
The lights inside the fridge appeared dull compared to those of the knife.
‘Wishy washy.’

She closed the door using her hip, and sat on a bar stool drinking the beer straight from the can.
The knife on the dryer flashed sexily at her.
Winked?
Amy finished the beer and tossed the can, across the kitchen, into the trash bin.
‘Two points!’
She made a sound of a crowd cheering, grabbed another beer from the fridge, and returned to the stool.
Beer in one hand...
‘Beer: another annoying habit.’
...knife in the other.

Ben opened his eyes and peered into blackness.
He propped his head up to see the digital clock.
3:31am
He skidded his hand back and forth across the bed, looking for Amy’s naked, sleeping body.
The bed was empty.
Ben sat up, placed a pillow behind his head, and lit a cigarette. Under the dull-red glow he saw the outline of his hand. Smoky light dissipated into the blackness.
He decided to sit, finish the smoke, then go out, and find where the hell Amy was, and what had pissed her off enough to choose crashing on the couch.
  
The minutes ticked away slowly. The cigarette glowed brightly with each puff, then died to a dull red. Ben heard her footsteps in the hall, walking slowly, trying hard not to knock anything over in the dark.
‘Got cold and changed your mind? Typical crazy-woman.’
Ben thought he recognised something different in Amy’s walk.
‘Probably pissed.’
He grinned at the irony.
‘Sleeping with a drunk must make you catch their habits. It’s sexually transmitted staggering,’ he muttered to himself.
He chuckled.
  
Luke’s sight was fuzzy, his head tossed with pain. The throb was now a pile driver. He lit another cigarette, pulling deeply on the filter. His head swam when the rush of fresh nicotine combined with the almost unbearable pain. He pulled the keyboard closer, squinting at the blurred letters on the screen.

The footsteps halted outside the bedroom door.
Ben heard tiny clicks as the handle slowly turned.
He lifted himself up higher in the bed.
‘Amy?’
He closed his eyes to make his pupils open wider.
The door opened and swung back into the corner of the oak dresser. Ben rose to his knees and crawled towards the end of the bed.
‘Shit, Amy. How many times have I told you to be careful...’
He pressed his lips back together. He didn’t know why. He certainly had intended to finish the sentence. Ben knelt at the end of the bed, a puzzled look on his face.
The cigarette dropped from his hand.
Something had touched him briefly through the darkness. He had glimpsed a tiny flash, and then he had felt a finger-like touch caress his throat.
He heard a sound like water being poured onto wet earth and, balancing his weight on his other hand,
touched his neck.
It was sticky.
IT WORKS OR WE FIX IT FREE.
The room revolved, fading into darkness.

Luke Marshall woke, slumped on the floor next to his desk. He looked at the window. Light shone underneath the curtain.
‘Good Morning.’
He smiled. The pain throbbed. It didn't matter any more. He had finished his major work, and buzzed with fulfillment. Luke rolled onto his back, smiled at the ceiling and closed his eyes.


9 MONTHS LATER.
Luke Marshall stepped down from the bus and ran through stopped traffic, across the street, excited to the point of wanting to cry for joy from the highest building in town. A publisher had, only this morning, offered him over fifty thousand dollars for his first major work. He was on his way to sign the deal and collect the check. The sun shone brightly on this crisp morning. Luke noticed the colours of the city seemed brighter. He crossed another street, a skip invading his walk, and passed a paper stand.
The flyers screamed the big story of the day.
The first woman in the history of the state was going to the chair today for the murder of her boyfriend. He passed by the stand, and made his way to the publishing house.

Luke opened one of the huge glass doors, entered the office, and was greeted by the publisher. James Smith strode to him, his body moving with grace under the expensive tailor-made suit. He shook Luke’s hand, then pulled his face into a painful grimace.
‘What's wrong,’ asked Luke, ‘changed your mind?’
James waved his hands from side to side.
‘No...no, nothing like that at all,’ the elderly publisher smiled. ‘It’s just that...well.’
The old man scratched the side of his temple with his index finger, realized the significance of the gesture, and plunged his hands deep into his pant’s pockets.
‘I hate to ask, but curiosity gets the better of me sometimes. Don’t you find it slow going writing with a nasty handicap like that?’
He nodded at the spaces on Luke's right hand where two fingers had once been.
‘No...not really.’
Luke smiled a warm friendly smile.
‘I’ve lost other things that were much more important.’

 

 

Copyright © 1991 Paul Leighland MacLaine
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"