He had read somewhere that the desire to put your affairs
in order is a universal one. That death has a way of
focussing attention on unfinished business and that the
instinct of most people is to leave behind as little
trouble as possible.
That had been his initial impulse and he had lit a fire,
the intent being to burn the whole damned lot. Why should
another generation be troubled by the things that had
haunted him for the past twenty years?
So, he had lit the fire in the kitchen, worried a little
that the chimney would not be up to the job and unable to
recall the last time this hearth had been used. His wife
had prettied it up with displays of dried flowers and
candles and would never have dreamed of using the grate
for its original function, but she wasnโt around any more
to tell him what he should and shouldnโt do and it felt
oddly cathartic, tossing the dusty bouquet aside and
chucking the candles into the flames. Catharsis aided by
the now half empty bottle of single malt he had purchased
just for this occasion.
He stacked up all his prospective fuel. Twenty years
worth of birthday cards written to a girl whoโd never
aged since her seventeenth, never celebrated any of those
anniversaries. Twenty years of Christmas cards and tiny,
carefully wrapped gifts. His wife had opened a few of
them and accused him of having an affair when sheโd seen
what they contained. Pretty pendants and slender gold
bracelets, one year a Hermes scarf, though the teenager
who had died would never have worn such a thing. Once, a
pink diary, covered in shaggy fuchsia fur and complete
with a tiny lock then a key ring, shaped like a small
silver teddy bear. He planned to burn the lot, along with
the newspaper clippings and the photographs and those
letters. All of the letters.
Then, when it came to it, he was unable to do anything.
He poured the final glass and stared at the sad little
piles of possessions she hadnโt lived to possess and he
came to a decision. Bugger leaving nothing behind, sod
being tidy and thoughtful and cleaning up after himself.
What had that cost him so far?
Later, when the police attended the scene and the smell
of alcohol was so strong even on his dead body that they
were left in little doubt as to the cause of the crash,
the wonder would be that he could have actually even made
it into the car. Blood alcohol, the Post Mortem told
them, was so far over the limit he was lucky to have been
able to stand up.
โThe only good thing,โ the attending officer said
privately to his colleague, โis the bastard just hit a
wall and not another vehicle.โ
But then, there was no way he could have known that the
wall had been selected so very carefully. The distance
from home was so short, the road so straight, the street
so likely to be deserted. Oh, in that respect he had
planned and set everything in order with the minimum of
mess behind, but the stacks of cards and letters and tiny
presents would tell their own tale for those that found
them and the ending to that story would not be nearly so
decisive or so clean
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