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He Made Me Pay

Norm Hudson

    I paid. I always did. So it was nothing new. But this time it was different. I was alone.
    I looked at the single ticket in my hand the cashier behind the desk had handed me. Screen One. It seemed symbolic. I made my solitary way through the double doors into the silence of the cinema. The lighting, subtly subdued, could not dim the fact the cinema was deserted. I waited for the background music. There was none. I made my way carefully down the shallow steps of the small art house cinema and slid into the aisle seat gracefully.
    I’d been to the cinema many times before. It was Jack’s and my favourite place. But never alone. Strangers would straggle in like lost souls searching for something. One at a time. The coffee cup clutcher who always sat in the centre. The mobile phone maniac his screen a searchlight in a prisoner of war camp. The fastidious fan casting every item of clothing while facing you. Occasionally you’d get a couple. Like Jack and me. But not often. Most men were working. And most women. At 11 in the morning.
    I always paid.
    I’d been self-employed for years.
    And Jack?
    Jack had never been employed at all.
    Ever.
    I should have stayed away from him from the beginning. Realised what I was letting myself in for. But I was a soft mark. A push-over.
    And Jack knew it.
    “I’m writing a novel,” he’d told me when I first met him.
    And I believed him. Even when he never surfaced from bed till 1 in the afternoon. And there was no sight of any writing being done.
    “I’m coming up with ideas,” he said.
    “Well, come up with an idea that makes money,” I said six months after I’d moved in with him. “We have bills to pay.”
    “Mum will lend us the money to muddle through,” he said.
    Mum.
    I wondered where she got her money from.
    I guessed Jack’s dad must have been a man of means. Before he died. That would explain Jack’s marvellous manners, good looks and suave suits. The things that had attracted me to him. The things that made me love him. If only I’d thought. But thinking doesn’t come into love, does it?
    So I paid the mortgage. I paid the bills. I paid the petrol. I paid for provisions.
    I paid.
    And Jack existed. Relaxed. Unconcerned.
    On the money his mum gave him.
    “You need to get a job,” I said. “Anything to pay the bills while you’re writing. Other artists do it!” I insisted.
    Though the only art I’d ever seen Jack perform was waving his hair.
    “I’ll look tomorrow,” he promised.
    But he didn’t.
    “You need to get rid of him,” my friend said when we’d been together two taut years.
    “What do you suggest?” I said bitterly. “Bump him off?”
    There was no reciprocating laugh. Sonya was too busy studying my scrawny, sunken face.
    It wasn’t a joke.
    “Well, at the very least, talk to his mum. Stop her giving him money!”
    So I did.
    “Jack’s so creative,” she said. “He gets that from his father. Les wasn’t in the least bit practical. I had to do everything for him. Even when it came to money.”
    She pulled a paper handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed the corners of each eye.
    “A lovely man.”
    She lowered the handkerchief and looked me straight in the eye.
    “A bit like you.”
    Her flattery made me flinch. I felt I wasn’t making any inroads.
    “Why, if it wasn’t for that insurance policy I made him take out, I don’t know where Jack and I would be today. Jack’s so like me, you see. I guess that’s why I spoil him a bit. He always does such lovely things for you. You can’t help spoiling him, can you? Not like his sister Jo. She has to be told everything to do.”
    There was the briefest flash of fire in her eyes at the mention of Jo who I’d never met. I thought I’d imagined it, it was smothered so suddenly.
    She looked for corroboration from me.
    I stupidly obliged.
    Like I said. A push-over.
    I guess it was the insecurity he’d inherited from his mum that made Jack suggest we take out life insurance policies. One in his name and one in mine.
    I thought it was a good idea.
    “I want you to be looked after,” he said.
    He said such lovely things. I didn’t mind paying for both policies.
    And he did lovely things. Especially for his mum. To tell you the truth I was a little jealous. She seemed to manage to get him to stir from slumber. She only had to turn on the charm and he fell at her feet. He cut her grass, serviced her car, painted her house and did her shopping.
    “Just like I did for Les,” Ruth said when I had the temerity to comment one visit. “I did everything for Les” she re-iterated. “Everything. Up to the end.”
    It sounded final somehow.
    What could I say?
    So I said nothing.
    I did nothing.
    Until today. I’d decided to give Jack an ultimatum.
    “Get a job or I leave!”
    I guess Jack must have sensed something was up. He must have foreseen it.
    “I’ve got a big surprise for you for your birthday,” he said.
    My ultimatum withered like a wet leaf in the wind.
    “What is it?” I asked inanely.
    “It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait and see.”
    I wondered what the lovely thing was. Maybe I’d misjudged Jack. It wasn’t only his mum he did lovely things for. I thought he’d forgotten my birthday. But he’d remembered it after all.
    I almost regretted going to the cinema alone. But Jack knew it was a film I’d always wanted to see.
    And he was going over to see his mum.
    “Go and enjoy it,” he said. “We’ll celebrate later.”
    The silence in the cinema was beginning to sit heavily on me when I heard the door to the rear of me open. I waited for someone to pass me. Would it be a coffee clutcher, a mobile maniac or a fastidious fan? I wondered.
    But whoever it was sank into seats somewhere behind me.
    Well, at least I’m not alone in the cinema, I thought.
    The eerie silence had been unsettling me for some reason.
    I waited for voices. Anything that would confirm I was not alone. There were none.
    There was only the comforting rustling of a plastic bag. Someone shopping, I guessed.
    I wondered if Jack was shopping.
    For my surprise.
    No, Jack was with his mum. That jealous feeling stirred slowly from somewhere low in my seat. Why was he always with his mum? Why wasn’t he here with me? Maybe Sonya was right. I needed to stop Jack’s mum giving him money. I needed to stop being a push-over. And I needed to stop Jack slouching about.
    I thought of Sonya’s words “You need to get rid of him” at the same time I thought of the insurance policies. It was an evil thought. I smothered it straightaway.
    “Surprise!” said a voice behind me.
    I whirled round at the sound of Jack’s voice. He wasn’t alone. His mother and a girl were rustling about in plastic bags.
    “Jack! What are you doing here? I thought you were shopping with your mum!” I said.
    “You don’t think I’d miss your birthday, do you?” he said.
    I wondered if he’d bought me a present. Then I realised. He’d let his mum choose the present.
    “I had a good idea,” said Jack. “And Mum and Jo are helping me with it.”
    Jo didn’t look as if she wanted to help. She was fumbling feebly in the plastic shopping bag.
    Jack’s mum dug her with her elbow.
    She pulled a plastic bag from the depths of the others. I wondered what my surprise might be.
    “You’re such a lovely lady. Just like Les,” said his mum. “I’ll miss you.”
    I gasped. Jack must have stood up to his mum. He must have suggested she take a step backward. Not help him so much.
    I felt a tear come to my eye.
    “I did everything for Les. Even when it came to money,” she went on. “And now Jack’s going to do the same for you.”
    She dug Jo in the ribs again. Jo reluctantly relinquished the plastic bag.
    Jack opened it up.
    I couldn’t wait. All the wailing of the past few weeks would soon be over. Jack’s mum would stop giving him money. Jack would get a job. The future looked rosy.
    Just like my face as Jack brought the bag down over it.
    “Surprise!” he said.
    I shouldn’t have struggled. I should have succumbed. Saved my air for the coffee cup clutcher, the mobile phone maniac or the fastidious fan that would frequent the cinema at any moment and rescue me.
    But no one came.
    “We’ll take good care of the money from your life insurance policy,” said his mum. “Just like I did with Les’s. You can rest in peace knowing that.”
    Jack pulled the bag tightly round my neck.
    “It’s a good idea, isn’t it?” he said. “I told you I’d come up with one. One that made money. I’ve always been creative. It’s a pity you couldn’t see that.”
    Even through the steamed up bag I could see, for the first time, the similarity to his mother. The tight, determined mouth. The cold eyes.
    Why had I not seen it before?
    And his sister?
    I guessed she was like Les. A soft mark. A pushover. Like me.
    Nothing new then.
    I wondered how long it would be before she would be persuaded to take out a life insurance policy.
    As I inhaled the last atom of air and saw her sad face, I knew it wouldn’t be long.
    “I told him to get a job,” she said softly. Almost apologetically.
    Jack bent down and whispered in my ear. They were the last words I heard.
    “It’s all your own fault, you know. You said get a job or you leave.”
    “You leave! It’s as simple as that. Goodbye.”
    I left all right. I slowly suffocated.
    Even in death he made me pay.

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