JANUARY 1, 2021

The old year was particularly bad for Dilbert

Dilbert Grangesmith pushed the stick of a rocket firework into the tub of sand he’d prepared specially for the turn of the year celebrations, checked it and made quite sure he’d aimed it as accurately as he could in the dark, then stood back and admired his thoroughness. It had been a lousy year and he wasn’t going to make it any worse by making a silly mistake in this final minute. Then 2020 could fade into the footnotes of future boring history books and 2021 could herald a great new future for him and his family. Maybe they’d all get back together again. Maybe all old wounds could be healed.

January last year had been the beginnings of things going wrong when Sheila (his still beautiful wife of twelve years) had been seen by the bloke next door carousing with a strange man he’d never known existed. It hadn’t been her ex, that mush was certain because Henry (that’s the bloke from next door) had said he was young and her ex was older than she was, even a smidgen older than Dilbert himself. And neither could be described as “young” even though Sheila looked a darned sight younger than her forty- three years.

But Henry was quite adamant. He knew that it was Sheila, he even described the coat she would have been wearing on the particular day he saw her, and Dilbert had only bought it for her a few days earlier as a Christmas present. Then Henry said the young man kissed her, on the cheek, true, but that was almost as good as on the mouth, wasn’t it? And she responded in kind before they walked away hand-in-hand to get lost in the crowds. There had been crowds back then, in January of last year. How he missed the crowds…

So he had challenged her and she had gone all coy on him and denied having a lover.

“But what else could he be?” he had demanded, “snogging in the street like a common w***e?”

And that had done it, calling her a w***e. She was particular about that. She hated it and woe betides anyone who called her anything like a w***e, and he had.

And to compound matters he had repeated it. “W***e,” he had grated like the moron he could be, but it was right, wasn’t it? To link kissing with prostitution? He bet the bloke bought her something or paid her in cash or something like that in return for that kiss. And then what? Henry had lost sight of her, so where had she gone? To some sleazy pay-by-the-hour hotel where they could get down to it as dirty as they liked? She and her young man. He felt soiled when he even thought of her.

“You are a toss-head,” she had said to him, her face sad, her eyes moist, her eyes accusing.

“Then say you weren’t with a young bloke and kissing in the street!” he had snapped, “prove Henry wrong!”

“Oh, so your informant is Henry, is it? Henry of the bulging eyes and glass-bottom spectacles?”

“He can still see!” he had responded, almost on the defensive, though he didn’t know why, “he’s not blind!”

“Then did he see twenty-four years ago when I gave birth to him?” demanded Sheila, “did he see me in labour? Did he know that I had him adopted because I was in no condition to look after him? Did he explain that this w***e in front of you made one mistake all those years ago, was taken in by someone who should have known better and who ran away the moment his mistake started showing on my belly? Did he explain how I was all alone in the world back then, this w***e of yours, and how much it hurt to give up my baby, but I made the decision to do that because it would be best for him, at least I believed it would be? And did he tell you, this half-blind neighbour of ours, how he set about trying to find me, and when he did he wanted to meet me somewhere public, like in a cafe in town…?”

“You had a baby?” Dilbert whispered, “you never said…”

“That I was a teenage single mother with no baby to show for it? No, I didn’t. I kept it to myself, bottled up, where it could do no harm. Until Adrian turned up, that’s what they called him Adrian... And kissed me on the street before going back to work as a traffic warden, a humble job but at least he manages to support his wife and my grand-daughter…”

“I didn’t know…”

“But your ignorance didn’t stop you calling me a w***e…”

And after that she went out of Dilbert’s life. Almost a year ago, and he missed her every moment of every day. But he had lost her. He knew that when he got her solicitor’s letter concerning a divorce.

She had given no thought to the fact that the two of them had a family of their own. Well, Winifred, just the one and quite a handful with her problems. Not that either of them blamed her, nor the hospital where she had been born even though they might have fought a bit harder to help her when Sheila had been in labour. Still, what was done was done and they both loved Winifred, at least Dilbert did.

And he was left with her after Sheila had gone, and Winifred didn’t understand why a man on his own was going to struggle with her temper tantrums. but he was coping until Henry, bless him, stopped Dilbert in the street during the summer.

“I’d keep an eye on that lass of yours,” he said, “she’s only a kid I know, but she seems to have inherited some of her mother’s personality.”

“What do you mean?” Dilbert demanded.

“She’s a bit loose with the lads, I notice,” he said, “and without wearing a mask, too.”

“She’s only eleven!”

“I saw her kissing that awful MacKenzie boy,” grinned Henry, a bit too lasciviously for Dilbert’s liking, but that was Henry and he had some odd ways.

It was after he challenged Winifred about it that she went all moody and flared up at him, her less that perfect face a sudden and unexpected mask of anger.

“He liked me,” she raged.

“But you’re so young and he’s much older,” Dilbert had said, trying not to be angry, but anger was his middle name these days.

“But he loves me, and you hate me!” she raged. That was August, and in August she almost died. It was called an overdose, but Dilbert knew from the way she behaved that she meant it. That bloody Henry. If he hadn’t said anything … he knew, surely, what Dilbert could be like, possessive, Sheila had always said he was that, though he had never seen it in himself.

It was late and at the dead end of the worst of years. He stood and frowned at the sand tray and his large lone firework, and waited for the midnight hours, which was mere moments away.

Then, all over the place, some close and some distant, he heard the clamour of midnight bells tolling the end of 2020 and the start of 2021.

“Why, Henry,” he called as he heard his neighbour’s back door open and saw the outline of the plump man dressed, by the light of his kitchen behind him, for bed already.

“Dilbert, my friend,” responded the neighbour as he bent down and lit the blue touch paper on the huge firework.

“Some friend,” replied Dilbert, “what a year for celebration.”

“I’m sorry for your own problems,” added Henry, “your life’s been quite a mess this last twelve month, I see!”

The firework rocket fizzed, ready to hurtle like a bullet from a gun, and it had been aimed at where Dilbert knew Henry would be standing. “Take that, you swine,” he muttered under his breath.

“Good night then, friend,” said Henry, “and a happy new year. And remember, only a fool shoots the messenger rather than take heed of the message.”

And at that moment the firework shot past his head, missing it by inches, and fizzled to cold silence somewhere on Henry’s stone kitchen floor.

“Crikey! That could have hurt!” muttered Henry, “you can’t do anything right, old friend, can you?”

© Peter Rogerson, 01.01.21

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is a hard-hitting story with a heartbreaking lesson. All too often this happens -- nosey busy-bodies filling someone's head with pure nonsense (like our last prez) which propels such gullible people to go out & do something that ruins the rest of their lives. It's so sad, as you have demonstrated with deeply troubling details, that many people don't think for themselves or they don't trust their own perceptions, and rely too much on others to guide them (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie