Dark is the Day, Dead is the Night: 456 (Part 1)

456

From Dark is the Day, Dead is the Night

Deep in the Yorkshire moors, intentionally far from the nearest town or village, stood the home of Howard Barker. Now in the twilight days of his life, Howard remained on the very edge of solitude, his last link to civilization being the weekly visits of the housekeeper – Mrs Jones.

From outside the house looked derelict. The walls were irreparably cracked and on the verge of crumbling, while the foundations nervously held the structure together. The gates at the bottom of the drive were rusted and groaned their disapproval in the high winds coursing through the hills. West of the house was a roofless barn, the interior infested with rats and the ground now uneven and covered in murky puddles.

Howard Barker had lived the rich life but now in his final years the privilege of money offered little comfort. He was fat from wine and good food, his clothes had sunk into neglect and his lungs barely functioned with the daily abuse of nicotine and smoke they were offered. Alone in this isolation, Howard contemplated his life, the list of highs in his youth then the increasing lows of his maturity. It had been a life of two halves.

It was a cold October day when Howard learned the fragility of mortality. It had been raining that morning but in the afternoon the weak sun managed to break through the dark clouds overhead. It was enough of an incentive for Howard to sit outside in the garden, a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky in tow. He had turned to whisky only recently – the years of drinking wine had built up his immunity and it took many bottles before he felt the slightest tingle of inebriation. With whisky it was different – just a few glasses numbed his senses and he could try and forget his nostalgia.

Howard longed for his youth. Ever since his marriage he felt life had never been the same. He had loved the chase of the village skirt, whether they were single or not; the best were always taken, it made him feel more proud to have another man’s woman, even for a single night. Howard had seldom been refused what he wanted. Drinking and women went hand in hand; he didn’t need alcohol to build up his courage to approach a woman, he just loved a drink, but he wouldn’t succumb to the bottle’s stranglehold until he was certain of some company for the night. They were wonderful days. Who needed the excitement of the city when you could enjoy all the vices in the countryside?

When Howard stepped into his thirties he bowed to the obligation of marriage. He saw it not as a full-time commitment but simply as a means of keeping his wealth and home in the family. His wife, Diane, had loved his money but all she gave him in return for the make-up, dresses and shoes were two daughters – no sons, just daughters. Howard hated her for that. One son was all he asked for, yet after their second daughter was born, Diane lost all interest in sex and Howard knew the marriage would soon run its course. It lingered on for eight years, only collapsing into dust when Diane found Howard on the back seat of his car with her best friend. Howard didn’t care then and he certainly didn’t care now.

Howard’s one monogamous love that he embraced in his twenties and remained faithful to into his sixties was fox-hunting. He felt like a king as he rode through the village and out into the woods. Did not the medieval kings hunt deer with their nobles? He adored the chase just as they had – the hungry hounds’ lust for blood, their teeth dripping with saliva and their aching legs driving ever onward towards their next victim. It was sheer poetry – the ideal blood sport, but now it was over.

Tony Blair with his hopeful grins and uncertain hand gestures had brought Howard’s first love to an end. In the space of a year Labour put paid to fox hunting and arthritis ended Howard’s dreams of ignoring the new legislation. He retired to his home with his wealth and whisky, finding no solace in his existence anymore.

Today Howard was too old and frail to hunt and too weary and incapable to chase skirts the way he had in his youth. Even the housekeeper, Mrs Jones – the last link to the sumptuous world of femininity – could not ignite the dying embers of his wilting lust. In her early sixties, she was the unwanted reminder to Howard of the increasing void between the happiness of his youth and the bitterness of his contemporary deterioration.