The twins Wally and Carl Hern bore not the slightest resemblance to each other. Wally was several inches taller and several stones heavier.
From the day they could walk Wally was as easygoing as Carl was mettlesome. Wally’s features were uniform and softly drawn against Carl’s angled, almost severe lineaments.
Carl’s nose was unusually long and pointed, his jaw jutting and hooked, contrasting sharply with Wally’s chubbiness.
Wally’s was a slow, lumbering gait whereas Carl’s was precise and undeviating. Wally was a careless dresser. Carl was natty and orderly.
In temperament the difference between the pair was more marked. Wally was an amiable hunk of boyhood slow to rouse, easy to mollify.
Carl, on the other hand, angered easily, was ever alert for slights and took offence from seemingly innocuous banter. When this happened redress was immediate and painful. He was clever with his fists. Add to this the looming form of his twin brother continually dominating the background and it was easy to understand why he never lost a fight.
From an early age Carl was to grow more and more perplexed by his brother’s cheerful disposition, his way with people, old and young alike, the ease with which he shrugged off affronts and other forms of disparagement which seemed intolerable to Carl. Inevitably the perplexity turned to resentment and eventually to jealousy but this was not to fully fester for some time. It would remain dormant for a period thanks to the intervention and shrewd good sense of the twins’ mother Maisie.
There were five other children but the twins were the eldest. In their tenth year their father lost himself in the East End of London where it was said he had settled in with another woman. Maisie Hern made no attempt to locate her husband. She sent no word reminding him where his real responsibilities lay. She was too proud for that. Anyway where was the satisfaction in holding a man against his will! She simply readjusted herself and made the most of the situation.
She was quick to interpret the dark scowls and barely subdued mutterings of the smaller twin whenever Wally came in for any sort of favourable mention from neighbours or others. It was the concealed menace underneath Carl’s surface discontent that worried her. He became more snarly and vituperative at each recital of his brother’s accomplishments.
One night his spleen erupted into a vicious physical assault. A furious fight followed. Maisie Hern, shocked, sat powerless until it ended. At first it seemed that the bigger, stronger Wally must yield to the passionate yet accurate onslaughts of the smaller twin. He took a severe pummelling in the early stages and was content to merely defend himself. He was, in fact, unable to do anything more. Then as Carl’s fury slowly abated after the first murderous offensives the superior strength of the bigger twin asserted itself.
Carl clung to his brother for dear life knowing that if he let go he would be knocked senseless. Inexorably Wally forced him to arm’s length and drew back his clenched fist preparatory to delivering a stunning chastisement. Slowly, however, he managed to gain control of himself. His whole body slackened, as did his grip on Carl. He opened his fist and looked at his hand in puzzlement, wondering how it had ever come to be closed in the first place.
Seizing his opportunity Carl made a last do-or-die attack but there was no strength left in him. He spent himself fully and futilely until he was forced to hold on to the table for support. Wally wiped his own face clean of blood and handed the cloth to Carl. Unperturbed, Wally went upstairs to bed.
Word of the fight spread. Maisie Hern had to confide in somebody and who better than a neighbour especially since her husband had deserted her. Maisie had fully recognised the value of the fight. It had shown her that Wally could contain Carl without physical domination. The neighbour suggested boxing gloves and undertook to instruct the boys in their use.
The twins were to fight many times after that first occasion but never privately. Encouraged by Maisie they were much sought after by pubs and clubs. Whenever there was a boxing tournament anywhere near they occupied a special place on the bill. Wally never won or never seemed to win but he did not mind that. There was always a bag of sweets or fruit after the fight. Deep down he knew that he must let Carl have his way. It was the only means of keeping his brother’s insane jealousy on a leash.
Without the mollification of these public victories there was no telling what form the smaller twin’s jealousy might take. The fights always followed a fixed pattern. Unlike the first conflict in the kitchen it was Wally who had the better of matters in the early stages of all the fights thereafter. He would, of course, be roundly booed by the crowd. After all he was nearly twice the size of his seemingly gamier, pluckier opponent. Acting to the prescribed pattern, Carl would feign hurt and injury as he allowed himself to be thumped and slapped around the ring. He was not above taking a count at times while the onlookers shouted themselves hoarse for his recovery.
At the end of the first one-and-a-half-minute round those who were unacquainted with the procedure would call upon the referee to discontinue the bout. The second round was but a repetition of the first with Carl at the time at the receiving end of what seemed to be countless callously delivered punches. Midway through the third and final round he would bring the crowd to its toes with an all-out, unexpected assault on Wally.
He would throw punches from every conceivable angle. There were flurries and combinations bewildering to behold. As the bigger twin wilted under the sustained barrage there was hysteria all around. When he finally fell to the canvas, unable to rise, the crowd went berserk. Carl beamed when, after the count, his hand was raised aloft. The blows had been real enough even if they had little or no effect on Wally. He lay there patiently until a second lifted him to his corner. He fully realised that as long as Carl was chalking up such victories there was an assurance of peace in the home. He was well content to play the role of underdog. He was worried by the fact that sooner or later they would outgrow this form of confrontation. He hoped with all his heart that such a day might never come. He hoped in vain.
Time passed and with puberty came the realisation that the fighting must end. Anyway they had ceased to be a draw. This sort of bout was strictly for children and children they no longer were. Despite her circumstances Maisie contrived to send them to secondary school. For the first few months all went well until both boys sat for a house examination. Unfortunately, Wally secured better marks. Neither did particularly well but the fact that Wally had shown himself to be the better of the two brought a return of the old anxiety to himself and his mother. They had not long to wait. Carl absented himself from school the very day after the results were made known. Every so often after that he would spend a day touring the countryside while Wally invented different excuses to cover his absence.
Came the next house examination and the positions were reversed. Wally had seen to that. Both boys fared poorly, so poorly that the president of the school, Father Ambrose, suggested to Maisie that it might be a more sensible course if the boys were apprenticed to trades. Being a deserted wife Maisie occupied the same status as a widow and as such had little difficulty in persuading two local tradesmen to take the boys on.
Carl was apprenticed to a plumber and Wally to a carpenter. In a short while Wally was making himself useful around the house. He showed an aptitude for woodwork from the beginning and although Carl was adapting himself without difficulty he was presented with no opportunity to display his developing skills. Inevitably the jealousy crept in. Wally wisely desisted from any further enhancement of the home. From that time onward he never even mentioned his work.
Eventually both boys completed their apprenticeships and were retained in employment by their masters. Then came the incident of the greyhound. Wally’s master, in his spare time, was a respected breeder of coursing dogs and like all such devotees was forever seeking likely converts to the sport. Wally seemed to him to be an ideal candidate. He, therefore, presented him free of charge with a black greyhound pup on the final day of his apprenticeship.
Carl, not to be outdone, with the accumulated wages of several weeks went further afield and purchased a white pup of impeccable background from another breeder.
Carl’s was clearly the better prospect for a distinguished coursing career. He was perfectly bred and shaped exceptionally well as a sapling. Wally’s charge clearly lacked the style and class that were so evident from the outset in his brother’s hound.
Then came the annual coursing meet when both dogs were entered for a stake confined to no-course duffers. Carl’s dog started as a clear favourite and at the end of the day had effortlessly won his way to the final. Wally’s also managed to scrape his way to the final course but was given no chance against his better-bred, lightly raced opponent.
It was at this juncture that Wally’s master stepped in. An old hand at the doing-up of tired finalists, he took charge of the unfancied black. He set to work on the dog’s back and shoulders with his powerful hands until the exhausted hound responded and started to show signs of gameness. From his hip pocket he extracted a flask of poitín and applied the stimulating liquid to the dog’s pads. He poured a dram into his palm and forced it into the dog’s mouth. After some initial spluttering the creature shook its head and pricked its ears, declaring its gameness for the coming course.
On his master’s advice Wally refused the first three calls to slips and it was only when threatened with disqualification that he deigned to lead his dog to the start. Carl’s white was meanwhile left to fret and whimper in anticipation of the hare’s breaking. The longer he was kept at the slips the more would be taken out of him for the rigorous buckle that lay ahead. It was an old trick, frequently resorted to by handlers whose hounds needed time to recover their strength.
The slip was a fair one. The black carried the white collar, the white the red. From the moment they were slipped the pair were inseparable. The hare was a strong and stagy one and had been especially held over for the ultimate buckle. With half the course covered they had come within a length of the fleeing puss. The white hound seemed to forge ahead but then with a tremendous surge the black excelled himself and put his nose to the fore. He lifted the unfortunate hare effortlessly in powerful, murderous jaws. In a second the creature was being cruelly torn apart between the two dogs. The black had won. He had killed in his stride in text-book manner. If the dark look that over-shadowed Carl’s taut face spelt extreme disappointment, the look of alarm that crossed Wally’s spelt disaster. He was, therefore, mightily relieved when Carl congratulated him on the win. It was only a temporary respite. He knew no good would come of his success and cursed himself for allowing his master to take charge of the handling.
In the morning when Wally went to the makeshift kennel to take the black for his morning exercise the hound lay stretched in a pool of blood, its throat cut. Without a word to anybody he located an old coal sack in which he deposited the bloodied carcass. He heaved it on to his back and made his way circuitously to one of the deeper holes in the nearby river, making certain that he was seen by nobody. On the river bank he added several weighty stones to the bag’s gruesome contents and flung it far out into the dark depths. Returning, he scoured the kennel free of all traces of blood. Then he went into the kitchen where his mother and Carl sat at the breakfast table with the remainder of the family.
‘How’s the dog?’ his mother asked.
‘He seems to have run away,’ Wally answered.
‘Run away?’ his mother echoed. ‘Why would he run away?’
‘Don’t know,’ Wally returned, ‘all I know is he’s gone.’
‘Would he have been stolen?’ his mother asked.
‘It’s a possibility,’ Wally told her.
At that moment Carl arose and without a word left the kitchen. His sudden action made everything clear to Maisie Hern.
Shortly afterwards Carl sold the white dog to a local trainer. As if by agreement there was no mention of either dog in the Hern home after that. The people of the locality accepted the black dog’s disappearance at face value. It certainly wasn’t the first time a promising greyhound had been stolen and it wouldn’t be the last. It was around this time that Wally decided he would have to leave home. It wasn’t just the incident of the butchered greyhound. This was only one of many deciding factors, the chief of which was Carl’s sudden obsession with any girl Wally might take it into his head to court. Carl simply had to have her as well but not all of Wally’s dates were willing to co-operate. When this happened Carl would fly into a rage and frighten the girl in question. In so doing he also queered the pitch for Wally.
The girls might be forgiven for concluding that, because he was a twin, Wally was just as likely to explode into a tantrum as his brother. He knew that he would always be in danger of being tarred with the same brush unless he made the break. He discussed every aspect of the matter with his mother. She was forced to concede that there was no other course open to him. He promised to return for good some day but this was not his intention. He wanted to get as far away from Carl as possible and to stay away so that he might build an independent and natural life for himself. London he believed would afford him the anonymity he desired. Nobody would ever find him there. He would miss his mother and his younger brothers and sisters and, of course, Carl.
Despite the envy and the resentment he loved his twin more than any other member of the family, his mother excepted. He would keep in touch with all of them but he would not reveal his address. He would send his mother money on a regular basis and he would bring her for a holiday occasionally but the life he would begin in the city would be strictly his own.
It wasn’t long before he invested in an ancient house in south-east London. In his spare time he restored it to its original appearance. The area he chose was singularly free of Irish emigrants. He didn’t want anybody returning home with word of his whereabouts until his relationship with Carl assumed reasonable proportions. This might never happen but he dared to hope that one day it would. Until such time, however, as he could be absolutely certain that a normal relationship was assured he would keep the location of his house a secret. Then he met Sally. She was a midlander several years younger than he. After a brief courtship they married secretly. After a while, at Sally’s insistence, Wally let his family know that he had taken a wife. He promised to bring her on a visit as soon as possible. Two years were to pass before he decided to present her to Maisie and the family.
Sally knew all about Carl. Wally had told her everything. Mercifully Carl accepted her as a member of the family. He too had married a few months previously and was, according to himself, as happy as any man could wish to be. There followed a wonderful holiday. Wally was amazed at the change which had come over Carl. He seemed to have recognised that he no longer had anything to be jealous about. His wife was a vivacious and lovely girl, far more attractive than Sally, highly desirable in every possible way. No man could wish for more in a girl. He had set up his own plumbing business and there was wide demand for his services. It seemed that in Wally’s absence he had given his true character a chance to develop. Financially he was far better off than Wally who, after all, was only a clog in a wheel and hadn’t the sort of initiative or drive to start off on his own. He would always be content working for somebody else.
Carl owned a bigger car, a bigger house. If he compared his lot with Wally’s, and it was highly unlikely that he was any longer given to such a purposeless practice, there would have to be a glow of satisfaction when he considered his position.
When, on the eve of Wally’s departure, Carl asked him if he could help him in any way, financially or otherwise, Wally’s last remaining reservations vanished and he knew he no longer had anything to fear from his twin.
Wally thanked him profusely for the offer of assistance but declined on the grounds that he already had all he wanted. No sooner had he said this, however, then he realised that he might be giving Carl food for thought. He realised that to suggest he had everything he could possibly want was a mistake. It was possible that Carl might not have everything he could possibly want, so to place himself at a disadvantage he asked Carl for a loan of twenty pounds until he got back to London. Carl was delighted to hand over the money and suggested that Wally keep it as a belated wedding present. Wally agreed to this. For the first time in his life Wally really knew what freedom meant. Always at the back of his mind while he was in London had been the fear that Carl might show up and wreck everything. That was all behind him now and he could breathe easily. He could also go where he liked in London and renew old friendships with other exiles.
At the end of four years of marriage neither twin was blessed with issue although there had been assurances from both family doctors that there was no apparent reason why this should be so. About this time Carl and his wife took a holiday in London. They stayed with Wally and Sally, both of whom took a week off from work so as to be fully at the disposal of their guests.
It was a week of non-stop activity. If Carl had accumulated a great deal of money it wasn’t because he was miserly. He spent prodigally throughout the week. When at the end they left for home exhausted but happy, Carl declared that it was the most wonderful week of his entire life. For Wally it was much more. The normal brotherly relationship for which he had wished so devoutly for so long had manifested itself unmistakably for the length of the holiday. He began to experience a contentment and sense of fulfilment which brought a totally new dimension of bliss into his life. The ominous shadows which had hovered over his deepest thoughts up until this time were now irrevocably dispersed and had been replaced by an almost dizzying feeling of release. There were times when he suffered fleeting pangs of guilt so rich and full was his new-found situation. He resolved to adopt a truly charitable and selfless approach to life in return for the great favour which had been bestowed upon him. He no longer recalled the hideous events of the past nor feared in the slightest for the future. He relayed his feelings to Sally and she in turn revealed that she also felt a sense of relief.
Around this time Wally’s firm secured an overseas contract as a result of which he would have to spend at least three weeks abroad. There was simply no opting out. If he were to decide in favour of such a course he could easily find himself looking for a new job. Sally assured him that she would be all right. She had her job and after all what were three weeks in a lifetime! The last of his reservations disappeared when she said that one of the girls in the office had volunteered to stay with her until he returned home. At the airport just before his departure he found himself quite overcome by a nauseating feeling of loneliness. It was as unexpected as it was painful.
‘I didn’t realise it would be like this,’ he told Sally, who had taken a half day off from work to drive him to the airport.
‘It’s only three weeks,’ she consoled.
‘But I’ll be so far away from you. Ecuador’s almost half-way round the world.’
‘Look,’ Sally laid her hand on his arm, ‘you don’t have to go. It isn’t as if we need the money and besides you can always get another job.’
‘Too late for that now,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t very well back out at this stage. They’d never find a replacement at such short notice. Then there are my mates. No! I have to go. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to but something tells me I’d feel a lot lousier if I stayed behind.’
‘It will be worth it all when you come home to me,’ she whispered.
They kissed and he held her briefly in his arms. He released her without a word and walked off hurriedly to the departure area. She stood unmoving for a long while before turning towards the car park.
In Ecuador Wally lost himself in his work. Because of labour difficulties the job took longer than was anticipated. At night he wrote long letters to Sally. In these he told her how much he longed to be home and how much he pined for her. He received several letters in return but they arrived weeks late so that he could only guess at the existing situation. The letters were full of warmth and concern for him. Finally the contract was fulfilled and the time came to return home. He sent a telegram from Guayaquil indicating the approximate time of his homecoming. Because of various delays it took two days to complete the journey.
Exhausted but elated he set foot on English soil at eight o’clock in the morning. Immediately he hastened to the nearest phone booth. Sally never left for work before eight forty-five. He would have no difficulty in making contact with her. In the booth his heart fluttered in anticipation. He longed with all his heart to hear the sound of her voice. He was surprised and disappointed when she did not respond. The phone was ringing all right but nobody came to answer. He was not unduly alarmed. There had been mornings when she was forced to dash for work without breakfast. It was, therefore, quite possible that she was still slumbering. He smiled fondly at the thought of her lying beyond her time in their comfortable double bed. He replaced the receiver and left the booth. After a cup of coffee and a sandwich he decided to make a second call. He looked at his watch. There was still time enough to catch her before she left for work. Still the same mechanical response. He laid down the receiver, bitterly disappointed.
In the taxi he comforted himself with the thought that she had probably slept it out altogether. This had happened on one or two occasions when he had been away overnight on the firm’s business. He could think of no other reason unless she had been taken ill. In this unlikely but remotely possible circumstance she would have gone to her parents’ home outside Northampton. He ordered the driver to pull up at the nearest phone booth. It was Sally’s mother who answered the call. No. Sally was not with them. The last time she had heard from her was three weeks before. She had sounded all right then. He told his mother-in-law about the calls. She advised him not to worry. Sally was certainly at home asleep in her bed. Where else could she be? He made a third call to his home but there was no reply.
As they drove through the empty streets the first feelings of disquiet began to assail him. He asked himself a number of questions. Where, for instance, was the girl who was supposed to be staying with Sally during his absence? Surely one of the two should have heard the phone ringing and answered it! Where could Sally be if she wasn’t in her own or her parents’ home? Why was she not on the alert when she knew approximately the time he would be arriving? There could only be one possible answer. She had slept it out. But what if she had not? What if she hadn’t slept at home the night before or on previous nights?
All sorts of terrible conclusions entered his mind. The most dreadful of all he dared not contemplate. As the taxi neared its destination he grew more apprehensive until finally he reached a state where he dreaded the prospect of entering the house. Almost at once he chided himself for his lack of faith in a woman who had all her married life been an exemplary spouse. There had to be a perfect explanation for the lack of response to his calls.
When, at length, the taxi driver deposited him at his front door he hesitated. He fumbled for his key and located it. He was about to insert it in the lock but he changed his mind and rang the doorbell instead. He waited a full minute before ringing a second time. The second summons proved as futile as the first. He inserted the key and entered the hallway. Her name was on his lips but no sound came. Slowly he climbed the stairs to the bedroom they had shared for the past four years. The bed was empty, the room deserted. There was still the possibility, of course, that she might have just vacated the house in a scramble to reach the office on time. He decided to ring the office. After a short wait he was put through to her supervisor. His wife had not been in all week nor had she made any form of contact. The last time the supervisor had seen her had been the previous Friday afternoon. It was now Thursday. No. She could offer no explanation nor had she any idea of her whereabouts. He asked if he might speak to the girl who had elected to stay with Sally during his absence. She came on the line at once. Yes. She had stayed for the required period. She presumed that he had returned when he said he would. Sally had made no mention of an extension of the contract. He replaced the phone and sat on the stairs. Suddenly he became violently sick. He staggered into the kitchen for a cloth with which to clean the area where he had vomited.
The sheet of notepaper was pinned prominently to the kitchen cabinet directly over the sink. Despairingly he forced himself to read it. There wasn’t much. It was signed Sally. It said: ‘Gone with Carl. Sorry.’
All the old depressions which he had experienced since childhood came flooding back. He sat on a chair and started to sob uncontrollably. He crumpled the sheet in his hand and flung it at the far wall. It bounced on the tiled floor and landed at his feet. He became sick a second time. Afterwards he went upstairs and lay on the bed. Wave after wave of total despair engulfed him until he was all but suffocated. He had never felt so despondent in his life. What had happened was the culmination of all the worst fantasies he had ever experienced, the ultimate in sheer human hopelessness. He cursed himself for having ever left for Ecuador. He should have known that what had happened was always well within the bounds of possibility provided the proper set of circumstances presented themselves at a given time. He could not find it in his heart to blame Sally. He saw her role as inevitable, as a necessary part of his destiny. He lay in bed all day but even after several hours he was still badly stunned by the shock of her departure. He tossed and turned until, from sheer force of fatigue, he fell into an uneasy sleep. When he awakened the phone was ringing. He rushed to answer it. His mother’s voice greeted him. At once he burst into tears. She had guessed the worst when Carl had disappeared without warning the week before. She had known for some time of Wally’s impending trip overseas and so had Carl. It required no great detective work on her part when Carl’s wife arrived at the door in a distraught state a few days after he had gone off without warning. Wally was glad when his mother informed him that she intended to spend some time with him.
She arrived the following evening and stayed for a month. Anxiously she listened as he moved about the house long after she had gone to bed. Always it would be well into the morning before he eventually retired. Even then it was doubtful if he slept. His eyes were bloodshot in the mornings. He found it as much as he could do to drag himself to his place of employment.
For the first few days after his homecoming he absented himself from work but the days had proved too long and dismal and it seemed that they would never pass. He decided to return to work. It was better than mooning around the house where everything he touched reminded him of his absent wife. The weeks passed but no word came. Every so often he would ring her parents’ home in the hope that they might have heard something. It was always a fruitless exercise.
Towards the end of the fourth week his sleep returned and so did his appetite. His mother was grateful for these symptoms of a return to some sort of normalcy. She told him that she had overstayed her leave and he accepted this. She bade him a tearful goodbye promising to return at once should he relapse into his earlier despondency. Carl’s wife recovered from the loss and the shock at the end of the second day. She flung herself wholeheartedly into the business which she had helped her husband establish. The employees, instead of resenting a female at the helm, became her devoted followers and worked harder than ever to ensure that she should succeed. She played every card at her disposal, using every womanly wile with workforce and customers alike. Her desire to succeed was exceeded only by her hatred of her husband. She was determined never to forgive him. Let him return if he wished one day and he would find his business at least as successful as he had left it but he would find her as cold as stone. In this her resolve was rigid. It was the sheer detestation of him that kept her going during the first difficult weeks while she endeavoured to acquire a working knowledge of the business.
She felt no sorrow for Wally. He was after all the twin brother of the man who had forsaken her and what sort of witless weakling was he, she asked herself, that couldn’t hold on to his plain Jane of a wife! She had little sympathy for Maisie Hern either. She found her guilty by association. By dint of hard work she would erase the memory of her husband. By ploughing a lone furrow she would become independent of him until one day he would cease to be an impression on her lifestyle. She knew she would succeed in this. It made her work, hard and demanding as it was, enjoyable and satisfying. She would be self-sufficient no matter what. This was the goal that sustained her.
Six months were to pass before Wally Hern found himself responding rationally to the life around him. The grief remained but it was now in a secondary stage, less painful although no less lonely than the first. It was a change from the all-consuming heartache of the first months.
His mother revisited him for a few days the following spring. She found him haggard in appearance but otherwise healthy. He stayed up late and rose early but there was none of the fretful pacing of the first visit. Her concern for him kept her awake into the small hours. Of all her children he deserved to be hurt the least. Repeatedly she asked herself how they had reached such a dilemma. Carl’s envy was the obvious answer but it wasn’t as simple as that. If her husband had played his rightful role they might never have found themselves in this deadly predicament. Typically, she refused to absolve her daughters-in-law, particularly Carl’s wife, whose initiative she interpreted as downright bitchiness. She could not or would not blame herself. She had done her utmost. Granted, this was not enough but no mother in a similar set of circumstances could have done more. She left for home after three days. Wally promised faithfully he would spend the summer holidays with her. She knew, however, that he would never leave the house, not even for a day, while there remained the faintest hope that his wife would return.
Sally returned on Christmas Eve after an absence of fifteen months. Using her key she let herself in silently and stood in the hallway not daring to go further. Wally knew from the unexpected draught that the front door had been opened. Only one other person had a key. He rose unsteadily from his chair, his heart thumping, not daring to believe that she might have returned. Mustering his courage he opened the kitchen door and saw her standing there.
‘Happy Christmas.’ He managed to get the words out. He took her in his arms, smothering the apologies that sprung to her lips with loving fingers. Later, after they had made love, no matter how hard she tried he would not allow her utter a self-condemnatory word. For the first time since her absence he slept deeply. The morning after, he did not awaken till shortly before noon.
‘We’ll have to talk,’ Sally said after they had breakfast.
‘There’s no need,’ he told her. ‘All that matters is that you’re back.’
He steadfastly refused to hear any sort of explanation, reassuring her with kisses every time she tried to start. That night Carl arrived. Wally it was who answered the door. Carl brushed past him silently and went straight to the kitchen where he confronted Sally. Ignoring Wally, who had followed him, he pushed her on to a chair.
‘Why couldn’t you have told me?’ He glowered down at her at though he were about to strike her. His hands hung by his sides, his fists clenched. ‘Why did you sneak off like that?’ he demanded.
‘Watch how you talk to my wife,’ Wally spoke menacingly.
Carl turned on him and spat on the floor at his feet.
‘Your wife,’ he scoffed, ‘your wife indeed. I’m not talking to your wife brother dear. I am talking to my woman!’
He made every word sound more loathsome than the next. He raised an arm aloft but Wally seized him by both hands and held him in a vice-like grip. He forced him on to a chair. Carl fumed and ranted but he was powerless to move.
‘You’re leaving here now and you’ll never return,’ Wally told him. ‘All my life you’ve wanted anything of value I ever owned, my dog, my peace of mind, my standing, my wife. There’s an end to it now. You can take no more from me.’
‘I can take your life,’ Carl spat back at him.
‘Be careful,’ Wally warned, ‘that I don’t take yours.’
Releasing him he put an arm around Sally.
‘Just walk out that door and go about your business. Let me to mine from this night out or you’ll be sorry. Go now and a happy Christmas to you.’
Carl rose and addressed himself to Sally.
‘Look me in the face,’ he screamed. ‘Look in my eyes and tell me I must leave.’
Slowly she raised her head until her gaze was level with his. She spoke calmly and unwaveringly. ‘This is my husband,’ she said, ‘and this is my home.’
‘Is it?’ he asked, his face distorted with rage. ‘Suppose I tell him what you’ve been to me, what we’ve been through together. You have no more right to this home any more than you have to him. You gave yourself to me willingly or was it a whore I held in my arms? Was it a whore? Answer me and I’ll leave peacefully.’
‘Say another word to her and I’ll smash your face in,’ Wally cautioned.
‘Are you afraid to let her answer,’ Carl taunted.
‘You were warned,’ Wally cried hoarsely as he smashed a mighty fist into his brother’s face. Carl fell to the floor. Wally stood towering over him ready to knock him down again. The gun appeared as if by magic in Carl’s right hand. Wally stood paralysed. He had never looked into the barrel of a gun before. On Carl’s face was a look which sent the cold terror running through him. The finality in his brother’s eyes was terrifying to behold. Suddenly Wally knew how it was going to end. He lunged forward in a despairing effort to restrain him but even as he moved Carl had turned the gun inward towards himself and fired it into his breast. The gun fell from his hand. The blood gushed outward in a spate as the force of the blast threw him backwards on the floor. Death came instantly. Wally knew the moment he lifted his brother’s head that life had departed. Death had also removed the snarl from Carl’s face and replaced it with a look of serenity that Wally had never before seen there. It was as though he had finally resolved the terrible enigma which had tormented him all his life.