The Way Out Read Free Page B

Kath’s shape, and although she hadn’t filled it for over a decade now, when he woke with the scent of her around his face, the taste of her on hislips, he would reach into the empty space and find her gone all over again. After forty years together, what was left now but to miss her?
    There was no point going back to the States. There was nothing there for him anymore, not even a decent cup of tea. At least here he could feel he was still with Kath, surrounded by what remained. This house. These memories. She used to joke he was her war bride. Instead of the pair of them shipping off to the States when they’d married after the war, she’d convinced him to make the move to her side of the Atlantic. Not that he’d put up much of a fight. He’d have moved to Timbuktu if that was what she’d wanted. They’d had a good life together. Children hadn’t come along, which was a sadness, but they’d always had each other.
    Sometimes the lack was like a great ragged hole in his guts, other times it was worse. He hadn’t believed he could miss her more until yesterday when, for a whole horrifying minute, he had completely forgotten her name.
    The memory gaps were happening more often now. At least he thought they were, but how could he know for sure? He shook his head as he set the kettle to boil again. Stood to reason, if he could recall that his memory was bad, then it couldn’t be so bad as all that. It was a little patchy, that was all. No big deal.
    He sat at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of tea and picked up the envelope from the Council. It contained details of the home help they were sending to his house. He’d told them he didn’t need any help, thank you kindly. Didn’t want some do-gooder poking around his kitchen, prying in his fridge, handling things. He could manage just fine.
    When the gas main exploded under number 36 flinging slates, bricks and assorted debris high into the night sky, winking across the stars to land in the back gardens and hedges of neighbouringhouses, Marvin looked up.
    On the heels of the initial boom of the explosion, the low growl and crackle of fire breathed through his open window. He got up from the table, walked towards the window and blinked slowly. Perhaps the street would be back to normal when he opened his eyes, but when he did, he found himself looking straight into the face of the woman across the street. Both her and the baby were staring straight back at him, framed in their window, while fire splashed lurid orange light over the houses.
    Lights were going on up and down the street now. People were emerging, bewildered in their nightclothes, stumbling over slippers; drawn towards the fire, they still looked to each other and raised their hands to their mouths, hoping someone else would know what to do. Marvin pulled on his bathrobe and went outside. The crowd milled and clustered, and stepped over the smouldering remnants of exploded house strewn around the street. He was standing at the edge of the crowd when he felt a tug at his sleeve. The baby giggled and tugged again, his chubby hand clasped a handful of Marvin’s bathrobe while his mother was busy talking to a woman with long grey braids wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Marvin held out a finger and the baby grasped and pulled it towards his mouth.
    â€˜Hungry are you, buddy?’ he asked the baby conspiratorially. ‘That what keeps you up at night?’ At the sound of his voice, the mother turned her head towards him and narrowed her eyes. ‘I always see your light on,’ Marvin smiled. She didn’t respond. ‘Your bedroom light,’ he said, wondering again if she spoke English. She raised her eyebrows and drew her baby towards her. ‘Not that I’m watching you or anything,’ Marvin raised his hands in a gesture of reassurance. ‘Nothing like that.’ As the woman backed away to the other side of the crowd, he heard