Resolution

It is the last night of the year and he is sitting alone in his shabby sagging armchair in front of a hissing gas fire. There is a television on in the corner of the room but the sound, like the lights of the room, is off. The walls are covered with cheap woodchip paper, studded with occasional nails that once supported pictures, but which now highlight the fact that they are missing. There is a second ancient armchair that does not match the one in which he sits. It occupies its own space on the other side of the fire, closer to the TV. The carpet is worn and stained.
The ash from his cigarette topples and falls to the floor, as a thin column of blue smoke drifts towards the yellowed ceiling. He is staring into the flickering flames with rheumy and unblinking eyes and his face, lit by the flickering light of the television, carries no hint of expression. There are sounds coming from the kitchen - cutlery clanks and crockery chinks while slippered feet shuffle over the unswept bare floorboards. Somewhere he registers and processes this information, but he does not move.
Outside it is dark and bitterly cold; old snow lies on the ground, flattened into hard white ice, and the air is painful to breathe. The unlit rural streets are silent; any sounds there may be are muffled, as if they are frozen at source. The unsmoked cigarette burns away between his fingers, the ash stub growing and drooping under its own weight, before it falls again.
He is sixty-four years old, but he looks older. His unattended hair, a nondescript grey colour, lies in thin disarray and his unshaven face is covered in white bristles. He still has his own teeth, though some are broken and there are many gaps. The right hand, in which he holds the cigarette, has the word “hate” tattooed across the knuckles. There is another tattoo on his left hand, but that is in his trouser pocket. It reads “love” but he knows very little about that.
The kitchen door opens and in she shuffles, carrying two mugs of tea. She holds one out to him and he, without redirecting his stare, takes the mug and holds it between his hands, absorbing some of the heat into his icy fingers.
“Cold as a witch’s tit out there!” she speaks almost as to herself. A cigarette dangles from her lower lip and she coughs and wheezes as she sits down, or rather collapses into the depths of her own chair.
He looks away from the fire and into the mug. “Not much better in here.” He growls and slurps his tea. The double meaning is not lost on her.
Silence is restored, punctuated only by wet drinking noises and small coughs as she finishes her cigarette and lights another from it before crushing the remains into the overfilled ashtray.
She reaches for the remote control, presses a button and nothing happens. She bangs it on the coffee table and tries again. This time the channel changes and she flicks through the options several times.
“Bugger all worth watching again.” The effort of talking makes her cough again. He half expects her to spit on the floor but she doesn’t.
“No, there never is.” He turns towards the screen. He recognises the film. Familiar faces from a distant past, doing familiar things, but there is no real interest there. He looks at the screen rather than look at her.
Somewhere in the frigid distance a church bell is striking the hour. It can just be heard over the white noise of the fire, seven………eight…………nine…………ten. In two more hours it will be finished.
They met on a New Year’s Eve, thirty something years before. He was in his prime then and was making real money. His talents were prized and his fees reflected the demands. That night, he was at Marcie’s bar, drinking and chatting with Marcie. The party was in full swing and he was feeling good. The bar was packed, the band was playing well and the dance floor was filled to capacity. He looked as good as he felt and he took pride in his new dark suit. He’d had a couple of drinks, just enough to take the edge off, when she appeared. Her bright red dress clung to her like a second skin and the above the knee hemline drew his eye to legs that seemed to go on forever. She strolled to the bar and, standing alongside him, ordered a dry white wine.
It was she that initiated the contact. Her deep brown eyes had locked onto his and she had smiled in a way that had confused him. “Can I buy you a drink?” she asked, lighting her cigarette and offering the packet to him.
“Isn’t that my line?” he said, taking one and fumbling for his lighter. “Thanks, but no thanks, I need to keep a clear head.”
“On New Year’s Eve? You must be the only one here that does.” She blew a thin stream of smoke towards the dance floor. “Tell me. Why do you need a clear head tonight?”
He said nothing for a moment, his eyes glancing around the bar, as if looking for something or somebody. His gaze met hers again. “To stay alive.” he said in a matter of fact tone and without any hint of a smile.
They danced that evening, bodies pressed together getting to know each other, and it felt to him that this was what was supposed to be. Her perfume entranced him, softened him and like the drugs that he had avoided all of his life, it grabbed and held him. They left long before the clocks struck twelve and her place was warm and welcoming. The dress had not lied, her body was everything that it promised and more, and they made love until the early hours of the morning. Lying side by side under her crisp Egyptian cotton sheets, they could hear the raucous sounds of late night revellers returning to their homes.
“I should be going,” he said rising and began to gather his clothes from the floor.
“Stay,” she whispered and reached for his hand. “It’s ok. You’ll be safe enough here.” He squeezed her hand with an uncharacteristic tenderness. “Besides, you’ll never get a cab now.”
He walked to the window and stared out into the street. The moon was almost full and white frost was crusted on the roofs and windows of the parked cars. The revellers had gone and the streets were silent.
There are times in our lives when we make decisions. I mean really important decisions that change the path that we are on. Once acted upon, there can be no going back, and he knows that this was the moment when his life changed forever. His eyes are watering; it might be the cold but maybe not. He takes a deep gulp from his rapidly cooling tea while she continues to flick aimlessly through the TV channels hoping to find something to escape into.
“Please come back to bed.” Her voice was soft and seductive, and in that moment of weakness, he closed the curtains and answered the siren’s call, dropping his clothes once more and returned to the warmth and wonder of her arms, their naked bodies entwining with a passion that he had never experienced before.
“Why do you carry that knife?” She asked. The early morning sun oozed through the gap in the curtains, and she looked just as good as she had the previous night.
He told her about his life and his dubious profession and she listened. From that point onwards they were bound together. Some weeks later they had married, quietly, out of the public eye, and to begin with it worked.
“Ha!” he surprises himself by speaking out loud as he recalls the slow process by which the passion turned sour and how once that had gone there was nothing left. How his work went out of fashion and how he had become the subject of a contract, forcing them to seek anonymity in the depths of the country, and how like fish out of water they had slowly but surely suffocated, and they had grown to hate each other one day at a time.
He still has the knife. Each day he cleans it and strokes it. It has never let him down, never questioned him, and never belittled him. It has only ever given him what he wants and he knows that it still can. He moves to put down the mug but it falls into his lap, spilling the tepid remains between his legs. He tries to get out of the chair but his body will not respond. Nothing will move.
She looks away from the silent TV and smiles. “Did you enjoy your tea DEAR?”
The last things that he hears, as oblivion absorbs him, is her wheezing laughter, the sounds of washing up and the church bells chiming midnight.