Agency

In Which Berry Finds Himself in a Hole

still Monday afternoon

When he arrived back at the house, it was awfully quiet. No dad, no dog, no wife, no children. Berry stood in the front hall and felt the preternaturally still air buffer around him. He did not want an empty house.

Earlier in the day, right before Margot made her announcement and redirected the attention of the room, he and Allegra had tasted real fear.

Whatever people meant when they said 'the jig was up,' that's what Berry felt. And he could see she felt the same.

The more he thought about that moment — those milliseconds during which he understood his guilt, the size and shape of it — the more he realized what he stood to lose.

Trying to shake the fear that was by then clinging to him like a bony-fingered reaper riding piggy-back, he'd left the office.

On the drive home, his phone lit up over and over again.

He pulled it from his pocket now. 6 missed calls:

Al (Managing Director) 2:41 pm
Al (Managing Director) 2:43 pm
Al (Managing Director) 2:48 pm
Al (Managing Director) 2:52 pm
Al (Managing Director) 3:01 pm
Al (Managing Director) 3:10 pm

He powered the device off entirely and shoved it back into his coat pocket, which, in turn, he shoved into the closet. Temporarily lightened, he rolled his sleeves up, took off his shoes and damp socks, and went through to the kitchen.

Robotically, he reached up into the cabinet above the fridge where they kept the liquor. He pulled the cork from an 18-year-old Balvenie and poured a few fingers into a whisky glass. On second thought, he poured another few fingers in.

Leaving the bottle uncorked, he took it and his glass down to the basement — to what he thought of as his Dad's room now.

***

Sitting on the couch, heavy glass between his knees, Berry broke. A lump in his throat swelled until he choked. Tears gathered in his eyes until he finally let them go. He wept. Frightened as much as he was sad; repentant as much as he was worried about being caught; angry with himself as much as he was angry with fate.

He pushed the tears from his cheeks and took another mouthful of scotch. The warmth of it flooded his belly but delivered no succour. He moved to set the bottle down on the coffee table, having to push aside, as always, his father's dictaphone and little tapes.

What was his Dad always doing with these?

Berry had heard Jim mention 'his project' plenty of times. The day he'd helped his Dad transport his record player and crates of LPs seemed such a long time ago now. When Berry had asked, Jim said it was just something to 'keep himself busy.' Berry hadn't asked again.

Now, with the loss of his father bearing down on him and the idea that Jim might never be able to come back here to his records and tiny cassette tapes, Berry was unable to let it go.

He wanted to talk to his Dad right now, and he knew, whatever was on these tapes, there would be his father's voice.

He reached into the long, slim box where at least 20 tapes sat in an orderly, alphabetized row, plucked the first from the box and inserted the tape into the dictaphone.

He pressed play.

***

More than an hour later, Berry had listened to the first tape, finished a good portion of the scotch and moved outside to the backyard.

When Berenice found him, he was sitting in the depths of the original hole. His pants were muddy. His face streaked with tears and dirt. He was still as a pile of bones, waiting to be found.

"What the hell..." she exclaimed when she saw him. "What are you doing home?"

He blinked up at her. His beautiful wife, silhouetted against the fading sun.

"I am so sorry," he croaked.

"Sorry for what? You're sitting in the dirt, Berry. Come out of there before the girls see you."

"Are they here?" he asked.

"Of course they're here. I picked them up from school, and we're about to head over to the hospital. I assumed you'd meet us there later."

He nodded.

"Listen," Berenice said. "This probably isn't the time to ask, but do you think you can pick them up tomorrow? I have a professors' meeting that's going to run a little late. You have to get them before 6, okay? Or the staff gets annoyed."

Berry nodded again. He could do that. It would mean leaving early again tomorrow, but that felt like an old-Berry concern. This Berry, new-Berry who'd been born in whiskey, fear and dirt, understood that family came before work.

"Yes, I can get them."

"Are you coming out of there?" she asked again. "I think you'd better grab a shower before we go see your Dad."

Instead of climbing out of the hole, Berry asked, "You knew he had cancer. Did you know he was making tapes for me? He was recording his favourite songs and talking to me. Leaving whole conversations for me to find... later."

"Is that what he was doing?" Berenice asked with amusement. "I wondered. Sometimes, I heard him chattering away down there. I thought he might have taken up phone dating."

Berry laughed softly.

"No. He was talking to me. Sometimes these arcane musical history facts, sometimes personal anecdotes - where he first heard it, what it made him feel. Mostly he's just talking. Giving me advice. Stuff like that."

Berenice smiled at Jim in his absence. That man.

"What a wonderful gift. He loves you so much," she said, offering Berry a hand up.

Before he took it, Berry looked up at her again and said, "Do you love me too?"

"Of course I do," came her quick reply.

"I love you, Berenice. You might think I don't. But I hope you'll remember that I do."

He knew the threat to his job and marriage had not receded, but he'd done all he could for now. He reached up, and she helped him out of the hole.

***

While Berry went inside to shower, Berenice hung back. She glanced down into the hole and made the sign of the cross over herself.

"Sorry about that, spirit. He didn't mean any offence sitting in your resting place like that. He's got a lot going on."

She listened for a reply, but (not surprisingly) heard nothing.