Down

 

                   start of  ***DOWN***

👎  Days of drinking and long drives were of no use. He'd now swapped anger for stolidity, his mind on continual reminder that he was a first class arsehole, and work didn't even fall into consideration; texting Jacqueline a succinct message to say he wouldn't be working meantime . Every follow up call or message from her he simply ignored. Saskia had also been leaving umpteen texts begging him to call her, but dealt with them by blocking her number. 

   A nightmare that had shaken him awake suggested he'd had some sleep, a few measly hours, and for the first time in his life he had to take what sleep he could. But he rose for days, to this now familiar, lifeless feeling and his own beleaguered features staring back through sleep-deprived, swollen eyes, and on waking, it was not even a millisecond until all the grim recollections flooded his heavy head again.  

   Despite his millions, there was no coping strategy money could help with; no golfing off this grief, or baking it off along any foreign shoreline either. Right now he'd rather give away his money if it could erase those happy memories overlaid with deceit. He had no chance to break this treachery down into easy to swallow portions; his torpor expended so much energy he couldn't summon enough focus to scramble a half-decent egg or butter some toast. Now all a hangover was giving him was a dull throbbing reminder that life was still busted and screwed up.

   So it took him a short while to get to grips with things, and it was only now that pieces started making sense, signs he'd missed or gave no previous thought to fitting into place: Corrine's supposed non-attendance at her father's funeral; the panic at the cancer donation he gave; the convenience of having a similar eye colour to Corrine; that sudden, last minute visit at Christmas, and the way she was reluctant to speak in depth about her mum, to name but a few. He'd been played spectacularly from the baby-album to the shaved head. Saskia had been his main focus and company for months, isolating him from his previous network of friends. And with her in exchange for them, he was too wrapped up to notice or even care.

    However, Saskia was enduring her own hell. Admitting everything to the police felt like a nail bomb detonating within her. And rather than blocking her number, she would have preferred to have Neil in person, pounding on her door, angry and wild, baying for the blood that they no longer shared. At least that way she would know what emotion was stirring and what action, if any, he was planning.

   No car screech outside was ever his one. All she wanted was to say sorry in what ever form it took, despite knowing he wouldn't accept it. Right now he was searching for sense in it all, and she was in a state of disbelief. Although she knew the ruse couldn't go on for ever, she never wanted it to end this soon. Because she'd fallen in love with him; something her mother hadn't bargained on but suspected at times, though it turned even her bitter-torn stomach. But the need of his money and destruction of his soul mattered to her more. Now all this had come to her regrettable fore, Beverly's mind was constantly regurgitating worries of the consequential fraud they attempted to commit, in virtue of her daughter choosing to live some confabulated, delusional story in her head.

              end of  ***DOWN***

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