Page 17 of Drink Up, Darling
“I suppose I’ll never let them go. They’re part of me.”
Shirley smiled at him sympathetically.
A few years went by, then Shirley began bringing her boyfriend to the house, and would occasionally leave him to roam when she went to work. Dariel found it uncomfortable when he’d bump into the man and often kept his head down—but Shirley had shared enough about Dariel to him that it didn’t take long for him to start calling for Dariel when he was around.
Dariel was always a slight man—struggled to build a lot of muscle, and only being five foot six on a good day meant Shirley’s boyfriend, who was easily a good few inches over six foot, would tower over Dariel’s space in quite an unsettling way.
“Hey, mate, I wanna talk to you.” It took three attempts to ignore him before one day Dariel decided he would have to get their interaction over and done with, for Shirley’s sake.
On the day Dariel obliged, the pair took a seat in the kitchen. It was about an hour after Shirley had left for work and time for Dariel’s evening meal, but he figured he would get the conversation out of the way.
It started off as a normal ‘getting to know my girlfriend’s close friend’ conversation, but slowly his voice grew firmer, and at some point he started leaning over the table slightly—asserting his dominance. Dariel had expected it. You know, a pretty young woman’s best friend is a single young man who lives in the same flat as her. It didn’t matter how uninterested Dariel tried to present himself around Boyfriend, it was clear he wasn’t buying it.
The conversation ended with something along the lines of ‘stay away from my bird’. Dariel had almost opened his mouth to inform Boyfriend that women are in fact not animals, but he found he quite enjoyed having naturally straight teeth, so upped and left in silence.
Dariel was quite content with leaving Boyfriend to bathe in his own fragile masculinity for as long as Shirley wanted him around, and he had even considered moving out, just to make things easier for all of them, but then came the shouting. It was a Victorian building, with thin 60s divider walls, and Shirley’s bedroom was right beside Dariel’s. Sometimes he’d hear raised voices and would listen in. It was normal for couples to argue, but in that manner? He thought of Annette, and how neither of them had so much as glared at each other in their six years together. Maybe he was just lucky. People fight. They argue. This wasn’t any of his business.
Until it was.
Dariel made it his business.
One day, he waited up in the kitchen for Shirley, knowing she’d be alone, but she never returned home. She hadn’t said she’d be staying with Boyfriend, which would have been fine, simply a miscommunication. When she did turn up, three hours later, she’d hurried up the stairs, ignoring Dariel’s call. He went up after her, banging on her door. He could hear her moving about frantically on the other side.
“Shirley?” he called, trying not to sound too aggressive.
There was no reply. He tried calling again, then finally, after his third attempt, Shirley flung open the door and stood there in nothing but her tights and a vest top; mascara staining her cheeks and rimming her bloodshot eyes.
Dariel took in the bruises, working his eyes across her body. Herwholebody. Her arms were battered in shades of green and brown, marks in various stages of healing, and though hecouldn’t see them, his eyes homed in to the various bruised pulses across her abdomen and thighs, even the back of her head, covered by her tattered, mousy brown waves.
“Shirley…” he breathed out.
“What do you want?” she snapped, the remnants of tears in her throat.
“How long has this been going on?” Dariel’s gaze darkened.
“He doesn’t… it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“How long, Shirley?”
She clamped her mouth shut and gulped. “He gets frustrated sometimes, he doesn’t mean to. He’s had a hard few months. He…”
“How long has he been throwing you around like a worthless rag doll? Using you as a punching bag? Raising a fist to you in… has he?—”
“Never. Kit, I promise. He’s never done that to me… it’s just…”
“Just what? A one-sided boxing match?” He practically shouted this, and immediately regretted his tone, watching the fear swim in Shirley’s eyes.
“Enough! Please, Kit. Please. I…” then she burst out crying and when Dariel lifted his open arms to hold her, she flopped her head onto his chest and relaxed into his embrace. She felt tiny in his arms. He didn’t want to tighten his grip too much, but he wanted to support her, to let her drop her full weight into him if she wanted to.
How dare he.Dariel thought as her sobs soaked into his shirt, his gaze fixed out of the window in the flat where the sun was beginning to peak through.How fucking dare he.
Then there was only rage. Something Dariel hadn’t experienced since he woke up to ashes.
Boyfriend’s body was found in the woods a few days later, time of death recorded as being specifically when Shirley was miles away at work. As it turned out, she wasn’t his first victim. At least she would be the last.
Dariel was already in America by the time the news started reporting it though. The shadows followed him as always.
He deserved it.
