Bring Me Back

by B.A. Paris

anxiety, spawned from the two Russian dolls we found, and I look over at Ellen’s set suspiciously, because

They wanted to call the police, I remember, but Harry, spitting blood from his mouth, told them not to. Guilt replaced the rage I’d felt. I couldn’t bear to look at his bruised and swollen face so I left him bleeding in the bar. I knew I couldn’t go back to the flat so I found a hotel for the night and asked you to meet me there. When I told you what had happened, you were horrified, and then angry, because you’d never seen that side of me before. How I wish it could have stayed that way.

That’s the thing about losing someone; you tend to remember every careless remark, even those made in jest.

To me it was physical proof that I was carrying you through tough times. Except that when life had got tough, I hadn’t carried you at all.

Instead, you told me that during your weekend in London, you’d slept with somebody else.

I promise, eyeing the Russian dolls balefully, wondering how it’s possible for them to emasculate me just by being there.

‘It could be somebody pretending to be her,’ she points out carefully.

His descent into hell had been self-indulgent. Financially stable and without dependants, he could allow himself to wallow in depression.

If he’d had to work for a living, or had a child or children, he would have given himself the proverbial kick up the backside;

Think about it, Finn – they were all carbon copies of mine because you thought they were the sort of girls you should be going out with. But you were never very interested in them. Then you met Layla, as different from those girls as chalk is from cheese.

The voice began to intrude more and more and the effort of blocking it out made my head tired. I needed to impose a deadline. I couldn’t let Finn prevaricate indefinitely. It wasn’t good for him.

The next day – Tuesday – there was another envelope in the post, containing another doll, and another email in the evening – EIGHT. Layla’s subsequent emails, on Wednesday evening – SEVEN – on Thursday – SIX – and again last night – FIVE – only add to the sense of helplessness I feel, at being unable to stop the wheels of fate from turning.

Bizarrely, the overriding emotion I feel is shame, that at forty-one years old, and six-foot-four, a few little dolls can unsettle me so much.

There’s a sudden explosion in my brain, the sound of every theory I’ve just considered being blasted apart, leaving nothing but a roaring in my ears.

First of all, I don’t know anything about emails and secondly, the only Russian dolls I have any knowledge of is the one I found and the ones you told me about.’