Just Close It!

He, that is, the man of this story, for whom it would take another 17 years until he became ‘enlightened’ (it happens during a rushed, strained crap before a relaxing walk), was pulling into a DIY store carpark with his mutually suffering wife. They have names, but to the extent of their respective uniqueness, their names don’t matter. So, he pulled into the space, and she said It wasn’t quite straight or some such, to which he replied—after one of those looks—that It was, but he’d do it again anyway.

Their marriage wasn’t necessarily a failure for the very fact that it can’t really be defined ever to have been a success. They had met, said enough things to one another, done and performed all the various restaurant-cafe-park-getaway movements, went out with friends, moved in together, got a pet (Piggles, a cat, long since dead. They didn’t want another), moved somewhere bigger, had one child (Peter, a male, long since moved-out and casually estranged. They didn’t want another), started going on longer holidays, retired, sat around bored for a bit, and now, in their waining years, have decided—as so many do—to build an extension. And so, as it is, and I guess as it always would have been, the flimsy, false shell that is their marriage is currently held together by the thread of a single, successful, normal trip to a DIY store on a Saturday afternoon. If only, I shall add, their marriage had found, discovered, or opened itself to just a handful of moments of real quality, perhaps this wouldn’t be written? Perhaps his eyes wouldn’t be dead? Perhaps she wouldn’t be so sour? Perhaps that feeling, the one gnawing at our guts, would have gone away? Who knows, not me, and I feel it now pointless to ask, for the time has passed.

So he pulled in again, looking back and forth between his wife’s dead-ahead stare and the car’s reversing camera screen. A mere inch incorrect in this situation and dinner would become an even more silent, bitter affair than usual. Hark! He managed to get it right. She sighed deeply all the same. She got out first. Closing the car door behind her, checking her phone, fiddling with her handbag, looking back inside to see where he was, as if he was going to magically evaporate from existence. Tap tap. “You coming?” she said to nothing and no one, looking absently at the store. “Sure, yeah, one second.” he said into the steering wheel, half-rubbing his face, trying to brush away a tiredness that really had nothing to do with actual, physical fatigue.

So he got out of the car and stood with the door open, perusing the carpark like a Boomer-hawk. Lazer focused on minor errors, things he thought he could fix, but in truth knew he couldn’t. Carts listing around the lot. Rubbish strewn up the curbs. Crisp packets with designs going back to the 1980s tumbling by, making him wonder where they came from. Then the noises flood in. Some screaming child holding everything intended to make it happy (gigantic bag of sweets and a screen); some complaining teen (vape and a screen); some melancholic student (rolled cigarette and a screen); some middle-aged professional (screen and a screen); and a dithering old lady (trolley and a faded blue carrier bag). Amidst this orchestra of whinge came the rest of it: trolley clattering, Jackdaw cawwing!, an assortment of beeps, vehicle reversing, a scream, a cry, Charlotte! Get over here right now! I will not tell you again! (she will, three times), a really loud zip, cars passing, a jet engine far away, vehicle reversing, police siren, two beeps, car starting, car shutting off, car hitting curb, vehicle reversing, Charlotte! — He sighed.

“Well, are you coming?” his wife said, looking back at him a few steps away from the car.

“Sure, let me just…” he trailed off. His hand was pressed against the car door, ready to shut it. But something broke. Something bloody collapsed. Something inside him had just twanged off. He couldn’t put his finger on it, and his thoughts were no use. It was like with each new thought his own brain just said ‘Next thought!’ and that meant there was no sovereignty at all. He couldn’t hold to anything. And, as the feeling popped through, unannounced, uninvited, and un-thinged, this non-problem—shutting the car door—became all problems that ever could have been. He couldn’t fathom it. The door didn’t make sense. How did it ever get open? How would it ever get shut again?

“Well, are you coming or not?”

“Huh?”

“Whatever are you doing? Shut the car door, and let’s get a move on. I want to be back in time for Countryfile.”

“Huh?” he said, frozen, his hand still against the door. She took two steps over to him.

“Come on, let’s get going,” she said, a bit more serious now. But he didn’t reply, he just looked into the floor. “I said, come on, let’s get a move on!” she said, with a half-laugh that badly concealed concern. Not concern for him, no, of course not, the only concern there was these days, that someone close to one might turn out to be not normal, that they might make a scene, and that, worst of all, other people might find out. Her thoughts spiraled into a full-blown nation-wide drama, the phrases ‘What’s this I hear about your husband in the car park?’ and ‘Is everything okay at home?’ and ‘Let me know if you need anything, anything at all.’ span around in her head, each its own social death-sentence. “Stop being so silly and shut that door, will you!” she balked. He took his hand off the door and took a step away from it, turning to get a good look. “How am I meant to shut it?”

“Whatever do you mean? Just push the damn thing closed!”

~

There they stood, man and woman, husband and wife, with a problem. With a bloody issue. With something or other that just, well, is, and, well, shouldn’t bloody be! It had been 10 minutes or so. She got in the car. Sat, waited. She got out of the car. Told him to Pack it in. Stood, walked about. Got back in the car. Got out again. All the while, he stood, looking at the door, not able to fathom it. People were driving by. People were looking. People were looking!

“Right! Stop this at once. Either close the door or forget it, and we’ll just go home!”

“But how would I do that?”

“Do what?”

“Close the door.”

“Whatever do you mean? You’d just…close it like you have any other time?”

“How?”

“Push the damn thing!”

“Like just push?” his hand rose, half-twitched, and fell back down. “I don’t get it.”

“Just push the door closed.”

“I’m worried about it being open. It’s open right now, isn’t it?”

“…yes?”

“That’s very worrying. What can we do?”

“Close. It.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy. Because, well, it’s open now. Look.”

“I see it, yes. But you can just close it.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Has it always been open?”

“No, we just arrived?”

“But it’s open now. What can we do? Who opened it?”

“You did.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”

“Look. We can’t just stand here all day. Do you want me to close it?”

“Can you?”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” she said, walking over and pushing it closed. “there!”

“Okay. I’m not sure it is,” he said, automatically opening it again.

“Right, leave it or close, I don’t care. We need to order this timber. Stay here or whatever you want; I’m heading in.”

“Okay. I shall follow.”

~

He followed her into the store, trailing behind like some lost lamb, dragging his feet. Every few steps he would stop, pause, and look back at the open car door. He missed it. He missed being there, stood beside it. He felt, deep down, that he really did miss it. “You know what, if you’re going to be like that, I’ll sort this out myself!” she said, walking off in a huff. “Mmm,” he replied, turning back fully to look at the open door.

Almost walking backwards, he made his way into the store, spotted his wife at the help desk, and walked in the opposite direction to the big windows that looked out onto the car park. There he stood. Looking out. Out across the lot. Over all the shit. Staring wistfully at the open car door. Pondering it. Why wouldn’t it shut? How did it get open? Why is it open? Should it be open? Is it really open? What does my wife have to do with it? Can I shut it? Is this my fault? Why do I feel guilty? Has my stomach always ached? Have I ever not been tense? What would it mean for this gnawing to finally evaporate? And on and on these thoughts and questions went, his mind reeling with a cyclic excitement, developing pains and aches all about his body. Two hours passed. His wife had finally ordered the timber needed and walked over to him. “Right, are you coming?”

“I think so, yes.”

“What do you mean you think so? Either you are or-”

“I figured it out, come on,” he said, marching to the car.

“Figured what out?” she replied, hastily following.

“The car door.”

“Yes, just close it.”

“No, not that. I don’t care about that. I don’t think that can be done. That’s all a lie.”

“What?”

“I think I figured out whose fault it is.”

“What? What on earth do you mean?”

“It’s either my teacher, you know the one I mentioned was a bit of twat to me in school. But then it could be to do with my father, maybe. But then, you remember by Uncle Jim, he asked to borrow that money. But I was thinking, it must have some connection to Alan, you know, from No 59? But then, Christmas last year with your mother, dear me! Maybe it’s all of them, but it’s there, definitely,” he said, clutching his aching stomach.

“I haven’t the foggiest what you mean.”

“Mmm, I’m sure you don’t. Look, just get in!” he said as they arrived at the car.

“Okay, sure,” she said, following his movements and getting in quickly.

“Right, we should be back in time for Countryfile!” he said, starting the car, pulling away at speed, smashing the open car door against a steel bollard, slamming it falsely closed, speeding out of the car park and into the road, homeward bound, man and wife.