Freedom

A short story. Jimmy is finally set free.

Freedom

 

 

-       I’m free, I’m free, I’m free! Yes, I’m free, I’m free!!

 

The sound of Andy Stewart singing “Donald Where’s Yoor Trousers” filled the modest front room of a brown pebble dash house in Brechin. The rousing song of celebration came bursting out of a Panasonic stereo that sat on a shoddy wooden side table.

 

In the middle of this dimly lit room was Jimmy.

 

He danced in front of a battered mustard-coloured sofa, looking at his reflection in the mirror that hung above the fireplace. Swaying and turning, making wide flailing turns of his skinny frame, Jimmy swung his gangly arms through the air, chopping and cutting the dust and smoke that seemed to hang in front of his nose.

 

Feelings of joy washed over him and he remembered being a wee boy with his mammy, playing in the back yard, while overhead, black birds glided through a clear blue summer’s day sky, and the local sparrows darted in and around and through the branches of an overgrown holly tree. He had always loved that moment after school, before tea-time, when nothing pressed upon him and he could swim in his fantasies, thoughts of pleasant things like playing centre-forward for Scotland, or eating a big slice of mammy’s chocolate sponge cake. The pure joy of abandon, something that had been entirely absent for years.

 

-       Oh, my sweet Jesus! I’m free!

 

As he danced, he felt the freedom of no longer being responsible. No longer would Jimmy have to do what he didn’t want to do. He glanced over to the glass-fronted sideboard and eyed the bottle of Famous Grouse that sat on the other side of the glass, along with some chipped crockery and a tarnished silver cup.

 

-       Aye, I’ll have a nice wee drink, so I will.

 

-       Hey hen, do you fancy a wee one too?

 

Jimmy wasn’t alone. In the room, there had been all along a woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in her green uniform, standing watching Jimmy. He had let her in through the back door of the house and after a quick pleasantry - nice to meet you, please come in - he had urgently searched, and then found an old vinyl record, put it on the stereo and began to dance around. The woman in green stood, saying nothing, just wondering what the old man was doing. He gestured with the bottle (now in his hand) and made as if to get another glass.

 

-       Oh, no thanks, Mr. Hamilton. Eh, do you think you should be having a drink? It’s only eight in the morning.

 

-       Are you kidding, hen! This is the best day of my life. I’m free, I’m finally free!

 

Jimmy eyed the woman, and her look of disapproval, with a mild hostility. He didn’t like that she was getting in the way of his joy. He deserved this, didn’t that lassie understand? The drink ran through his veins and warmed his tired body, giving him a sense of ease and comfort.

 

-       C’mon hen, will you nae have a wee dance with me? I bloody love this song, makes me feel young again! Good old Andy, aye he could always bring ma pegs to life! I used tae be a great wee dancer back in the day, let me tell you hen, I wasnae called snake hips for nothing!

 

Jimmy stretched out his thin arms and made an inviting plea towards the woman. Her body stiffened and she moved slightly further back towards the door of the living room. She knew that there were many ways to react, and that different people behaved in different ways, but she found herself feeling uncomfortable. And after all, what is the right thing to do when an old man demands that you join him in knocking back a wee whiskey while he dances around in his front room at eight in the morning on the very day when his wife has died?

 

In his own world Jimmy carried on his dance, with a whiskey glass wobbling in his hand, while Maureen lay dead in the damp back bedroom on a single divan, staring at the ceiling, her eyes cold and glassy. The woollen bed clothes seemed heavy on her lifeless body. Her arms lay by her side and her mouth was slack and half open. Her face looked tired and weary and her skin had the grey papery look of long-term illness.

 

Even in death, Maureen looked pained and her mouth seemed to hint at something she had tried to say, but had never been able to finish. What might she have said? Would Jimmy have listened, or understood?

 

Of course, this was why the woman dressed in a green uniform was there in Jimmy’s house, trying her best to slowly retreat as the manic old man danced and sang and made gestures to the heavens.

 

The phone call, placed earlier at 7.15 am to the emergency services was not made in panic or shock; rather Jimmy had explained to the young man at the other end of the phone with what could have been construed as indifference:

 

-       Send someone round, pal, I’m nae sure, but I think she’s finally gone.

 

Jimmy hadn’t been shocked or scared when he found Maureen; he felt vindicated.

 

In his private thoughts, that stayed deep inside his head, Jimmy had often wondered about what it would finally feel like. No more obligations to a woman that he was duty-bound to care for. A woman whom he didn’t much care for, and who he never really felt that he had known. They had married without thought, or consideration, and they had raised two children through some difficult years. Times of joy and happiness had been few and far between and it was the sense of duty that had kept him there, that, and of course the guilt and shame. But now she was gone, after months of illness and countless nights when her agony and suffering filled every inch of the little decrepit house that they had lived in for over forty years.

 

Jimmy had filled these last few months waiting for the end with daily odd jobs, cleaning the house and going to the shops. He had made calls to his son Paul, who occasionally travelled all the way up from London to lend a hand, but Paul left when the torture of pretending became too much for father or son to bear. His daughter Mollie had visited more often, as she loved her difficult mother, and she had still tried to get something from the old woman who had disappeared into illness and acrimony years ago.

 

So, while waiting for the inevitable, Jimmy had carried on, doing things, wasting time and waiting. Waiting for the inevitable that seemed never to come, and yet now the moment had arrived.

 

Somewhere inside, Jimmy knew that really some unpleasantness was probably in order. After all, death and dying are depressing, aren’t they? But, for now the warmth of the whiskey and the animated music from the stereo allowed Jimmy to feel a pleasant sense of celebration.

 

-       Yahoo! Yah beauty!!

 

Jimmy cried out, as Andy Stewart’s voice raised up in jubilation and the volume on the record player blasted and vibrated the sad old room with its peeling wallpaper and tired furniture.

 

The woman from the emergency services, who had driven round in the ambulance to answer the call made by Jimmy, looked on. She wondered how long she would have to stand here watching Jimmy, as he danced and sang and flailed around the room.

 

After a lull in the music, Jimmy paused and there seemed to be a moment:

 

-       Mr. Hamilton, is there anybody you need to call, do you want to let any of your family know about what’s happened? Do you need me to phone anyone for you, or get a neighbour in for you?

 

Jimmy looked puzzled, as if being dragged back to reality had woken him from some sort of daze.

 

-       Nah, you’re okay, hen. I’ll call the kids in a wee while. There’s nae need to bother, I’m fine, hen.

 

-       Well then, I need to let you know that the GP is coming round to have a look at your wife and then issue a death certificate. She’ll be here in a few minutes. You do realise that your wife is gone, Mr. Hamilton?

 

-       Oh aye, okay then. Just let the GP get on with it then. I’m gonna sit down and have a wee rest here, all this has taken it oot of me.

 

And Jimmy’s mood had changed. The ecstasy had gone and now he felt a strange empty feeling, as if his world was unfamiliar now and he wasn’t sure about what came next.

 

-       I’ll call my daughter. She always knows what to do. I’ve just got tae find ma phone, it’s here somewhere. God, where is it, the bloody thing is always goin’ missing!

 

But on the top of the fireplace in plain sight was Jimmy’s phone and on seeing the little black plastic thing sitting there next to his Celtic mug, he quickly grabbed hold of it, with some anger and shame. Why could he never seem to get anything right, he thought.

 

He sat down and scrolled through the few contacts that were stored in the phone and he called Mollie.

 

-       Hey Mollie, hiya darling, look it’s me. Aye, I’m fine. Look, I’ve got to let you know that yer mum, well, she’s gone, love, she’s, you know, passed away. The ambulance folk are here right now, and the doctor is coming round to have a look, but she’s definitely gone.

 

Mollie, on the other end of the line, was silent for a few moments. Then she said:

 

-       Yes, dad, well we knew it was coming. Are you okay? You sound a bit strange, a bit out of it or something?

 

-       I’m okay, love, I’ve just had a wee drink, you know, a wee whiskey to steady the nerves.

 

-       Oh dad! For god’s sake, don’t get bloody wasted, will you?

 

-       No, I won’t, I’ve just had a wee drink to help me out. Anyway, love, I’d better go, I can hear that someone’s arrived at the front door, it must be the doctor, I suppose.

 

-       Look dad, I’ll come up on the train, I can be there by tea-time. Don’t do anything stupid now, will ya?

 

Jimmy hung up the phone. Jimmy wished he could hide.

 

But he knew he couldn’t hide from his daughter �" it felt to him that Mollie knew him as if she were inside his head. He saw himself for a moment as she must see him: she’d be thinking, he imagined, that he wasn’t much of a man in a crisis, that he was pretending to be okay, while really he was struggling and lost. Mollie knew her dad, and while this comforted him it also made him feel naked and foolish.

 

Jimmy went to the front door and let the GP into the house and then he went back to the living room. The record that had only just recently blasted out joyous sounds that filled the living room, now clicked and scratched at the end of the last song as the stylus remained lodged in the final groove of the record. The sound seemed apt. An annoying, distressed sound, no longer something rousing, or distracting. Something had ended and now it was the time to deal with reality.

 

-       Mr. Hamilton, would you come through, please?

 

Jimmy sighed and he obediently went through to the back bedroom.

 

He found the doctor bent over his dead wife. She examined the body and she made some notes.

 

He saw the doctor looking around the little spare bedroom. Jimmy wondered if she noticed that the place looked uncared for. The sheets on the bed were dirty and there was a plate with crumbs left on a side table. The curtains were drawn and the room had a damp chill. It didn’t seem like a good place for an ill person. It seemed like a depressing place to die.

 

Jimmy watched the doctor. He didn’t like these people being in his house. They were intruders.

 

-       Mr. Hamilton, I am proclaiming death by natural causes at 8.13 am. I will contact the funeral directors in town, and you will need to make arrangements for what you would like to do with your wife’s body and the funeral. Is there anything you want to ask me, Mr. Hamilton?

 

-       No hen, I don’t think so. Did she go peacefully?

 

-       There’s no indication of any struggle or distress, so I think she went naturally, but clearly, she had been very unwell for quite some time, Mr. Hamilton. You were aware of that, I presume?

 

-       Oh, aye she’d had the cancer for the last year or so. I cannae say for sure but I think she knew it was coming.

 

Jimmy shuffled out of the room. He felt guilty that Maureen had suffered, but that feeling fused with some of the old resentment that he had felt towards her for many years. She was gone now, and Jimmy was supposed to feel bad, at least for a while.

 

In the living room Jimmy sat back down, and finished the last few drops of whiskey that were in his glass. He closed his eyes, hoping to block everything out, but Mollie’s voice came into his mind.

 

-        Don’t do anything stupid now, will ya??

 

He had to try. He had to do better. He sat in his chair and closed his eyes. He willed himself to be something better.

 

Outside it began to rain. The sky had turned gun metal grey, as if mimicking the depressed feeling that had started to emerge inside Jimmy.

 

She was gone.

 

Author's Note

A short story, an excerpt from a new novel: The Dreamers Wake

I am interested in comments and feedback.

Reviews

[Mobmil]

Not much to say except loved it. Poignant, but darkly human.
Look forward to the novel.

[George]

Very good writing. Good pacing getting us slowly from knowing nothing other than someone is "free" to learning why. Dialogue is generally tight but one or two times more words than necessary: "Jimmy knew that really some unpleasantness was probably in order". As far as I can tell, good spelling of pronunciation. If this were just a short story I might complain that it doesn't go anywhere, but as part of a novel, the ending, "She was gone." is great.

Keep writing!