At the Window

At the Window
by
Jill Steeples

  I stood at the window watching the developing commotion in the street. It was the noise that first grabbed my attention, a gut-wrenching scream that reached my insides. Like a mother who wakes seconds before her baby cries, I knew instinctively who it was. Mark was on his knees on the front path of the house across the street.
‘Help me. Please! Somebody help!’ He cried.
I wanted to help, to rush to his side. That was my place, where once I’d belonged, but not any more. Tina had eased herself into that role. I couldn’t see her now, but I knew she’d be there, in the thick of it, taking centre stage.
They hadn’t wanted to hurt me, that’s what they said. They just couldn’t help themselves.
‘Believe me, Sue,’ Mark implored. ‘We’ve tried, really tried to fight this thing. It’s taken us both by surprise.’ Not as much as it had taken me by surprise, I wanted to add.
And to think I’d considered myself lucky having my best friend living across the road.
‘Time for a coffee?’ Tina would ask, poking her head round the back door, her impish grin offering a welcome distraction from the dishes.
We’d sit and chat for hours, with the kids playing happily in the next room, only stopping to intervene in their more robust spats.
She was everything I wasn’t. Petite, blonde and unflinchingly optimistic. She seemed to take motherhood in her stride, unencumbered by the anxieties and neuroses that were a part of my daily life.
When my Adam was sickly pale and sweaty, she’d reassure me that it was a bug, nothing that fluids and rest wouldn’t cure.
‘Relax, Sue,’ she’d say. ‘He’ll be fine.’ And she was right.
When Mark and I went through a sticky patch, she could see it for what it was.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Tina. ‘It’s just a phase. You’ll get through it.’
And we did. That time.
Only Tina didn’t have the same luck. When she fell pregnant for the second time, Dave, her partner, decided parenthood wasn’t for him after all. He upped and left. Then it was my turn to offer what support and reassurance I could. Tina handled it much better than I knew I’d ever be able to.
‘Come for lunch on Sunday,’ I would offer, as we sat sipping at our coffee, her newborn baby nestling in her arms.
‘Listen, Sue. Don’t think you have to invite me every week. You need to have some time alone with Mark.’
‘Don’t be silly. We love having you over.’ It was company for me, and Adam enjoyed playing with little Sasha and the baby. And Mark? Well, he would have said if he wasn’t happy with the arrangement.
It was one Thursday afternoon some months later when things started to go wrong. Mark was at home looking after Adam and I’d been out to do the weekly shop. When I returned I found Mark alone with Tina in the kitchen, his arms locked around her, his mouth dangerously close to hers. I laughed, unable to come up with any better response and dropped the carrier bags on the floor.
‘Sue!’ They said in unison.
They were quick to explain. She’d been upset and Mark had been comforting her. That was all. A moment of madness is how Tina described it. It hadn’t happened before and it wouldn’t happen again.
I forgave them, of course. There wasn’t really anything to forgive. With Tina’s family living miles away, we were her only means of emotional support and if she needed to lean on Mark at times, then that was understandable. We were best friends, after all.
Now, as I looked through my bedroom window at the scene below, I wondered how it could have come to this. I felt sick and light-headed and grabbed the window frame for support. A crowd of people had converged around Mark and I was able to catch a glimpse of Tina’s fair hair shining out from a dull pavement. Should I run down the stairs and across the street to offer my support, I wondered? No, I was the last person they’d want to see.
Not long after that Thursday afternoon, came the “we didn’t mean for this to happen” speech from Mark. He’d sat with Tina on my sofa, the both of them looking suitably shame-faced.
‘We’re so sorry. This isn’t about you. You do see that, don’t you? It’s us, just one of those things.’ I supposed so. Couldn’t help themselves, poor loves.
So, I lost my husband and best friend in one swift move. Mark moved out the next day, taking his clothes, stuffed into a holdall, across the road to Tina’s. They wanted us all to stay friends, they said. That might be hard at first, they reasoned, but given time they seemed to think we’d all adjust to the new situation.
It was hard. Watching from the window as Mark lived a new life with a new woman, holding someone else’s child’s hand on her way to school, when only days before he’d been holding our son’s hand to school.
Outside, in the fading light of the afternoon, the crowd had grown. Sirens heralded the arrival of ambulances and police cars. I couldn’t see Mark or Tina. They were lost in the masses. I’d wished plenty upon them in the last few weeks, but this was something else entirely.
I heard the faint ringing of my doorbell, before its more insistent tones dragged me from my spot. My legs were heavy and reluctant to budge, but slowly I made my way downstairs. I opened the door to a policeman, flanked by three others.
‘Mrs Susan Mellings?’
‘Yes.’ He stepped forward, gently removing the bloodstained knife from my hand.
‘We’re arresting you for the attempted murder of Tina Woodward. You do not have to say anything, but..’ he snapped a handcuff around my wrist.
A moment of madness. That’s all it was.

- end -