There’s
no home for you here
A short story by Denn Killian Matthews
With all due consideration to the circumstances
Killian, Stella’s boyfriend, knew this would have to be done as promptly as could be; sever rather than scratch off.
Not to drag this out was a key to a settlement without a disproportionate uproar as of now amply on by the bye or a scuffle.
He could hear cantankerous shouts from the indiarubber-like garden. He crept across towards the small shed with its corrugated
iron door deliberately left unlocked, and snatched the wooden ladder. Then swiftly below Stella’s window; he reared
the ladder up the ivy overgrown wall right under Stella’s window-ledge. He propped it up and started his ascent with
steady steps. Killian, in a dark hoodie, poked his head through the window. Stella was rigidly coiled up in herself on the
bed in a far too large khaki sweatshirt and canvas trousers – with bristling, incandescent peaks on her head over and
above a piercing in the nose and tears
trickling
down her soft, red-spotted cheeks. She was biting her nails -- well what was left of them. She looked pensive.
Killian breathed, ‘Sweetheart’. He caressed the tears off her reddening cheeks.
The door was shaken firmly and angrily.
‘Will you open this damn door!’ The father hollered. ‘Or do I have to smash
it in right away?’
‘I
don’t care what you may do or not! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!’ Stella called.
She shed more tears. She grimaced. Her fiery lips were a bleeding stigma, her thick painted eyelashes a wound up swarm of
coal-black, her complexion wan with contrast. Killian held out a piece of chewing-gum to her – she pushed it away. He
flicked one into his mouth and champed irregularly. He tried to catch her eye then he gently pressed a finger on her lips
and shook his head imperceptibly. He clasped both her raw hands, tight – tighter now. She turned her face away and stared
at the picture of a pierrot wedged in a corner of the small mirror’s frame on the bedside table.
‘I wish he were dead! I wish he were dead before he got under
my skin.’ Stella murmured in a whining voice.
‘Here, don’t lose your nerve now Stella. Gather yourself now.’
He looked around the untidy room. ‘Where are your things?’ Killian whispered tensely. Stella glared at the gaping
bag on the floor by the bed. Killian crammed the clothes that spilled out of it in hastily. His hands trembled.
‘What am I doing now? What am I about to do?’ Stella
said raising a taut hand up in the air.
‘But you said you were sure about it, honey. Don’t
lose your nerve.’
‘Stop repeating that. Stop it!’ Killian stared at
her and zipped the bag up.
Banging
at the door now between their whispers.
‘Why do you have to repeat that? Why? Why?’ Stella shrugged heavily and winced. Her nostrils flared. She
thrust a haggard look at him.
‘I
can’t do this alone, darling’, Killian said. He clasped her hands again and kissed them. He gazed into her eyes
piercingly. He hummed a comforting tune. He opened her closet silently. He whisked a coat from it and put it round her shoulders.
She shrugged it off. ‘Give me one reason to do it. Just one reason. Just one! Something. Anything!’ Stella buried
her face in her hands. She collapsed onto the edge of her bed.
‘You stay away from this!’ The father barked. ‘You’ve done
enough already.’
Bangs at the door. ‘Stella, open the door for the last time.’ Screams
and glass flying into pieces – a vase fast against the wall. Shrill cries from the mother. Killian opened round eyes.
‘Let’s get the fuck out of here before all hell breaks loose.’ He drew a deep breath. Stella stared at the
pierrot and inclined her head to the left slightly while he chewed steadily. ‘Can’t you see I’m cold? Can’t
you?’ She hugged herself, shuddering. He dodged behind her and embraced her in his arms and
hummed on.
‘You are so wise…..I hope that you choke on your supreme wisdom and principles and rules!’ Stella
threw at her father. ‘You mean nothing to me! Nothing! And leave Mamma in peace. Don’t take your insecurities
out on her!’
The father
tutted. ‘Miss Riot can do and say what she
pleases as soon as she fends for herself’. He laughed a scoffing laugh.
‘He really drives me screaming up the walls’, Stella breathed quite fiercely. Killian
chewed savagely now. ‘Let’s get out of here. Now Stella.’
The father heard them talk in their low voices. ‘Stella, you are not alone, are ye?’
The door handle was pumped ; the father rattled at the door. He banged and kicked at the door fiercely.
He charged into the door with his shoulder point-blank first, then he took a run up and charged into the innocent door again.
He let out a muffled groan of pain.
Stella
and Killian heard, ‘Go fetch me the axe from the cubicle. Go fetch me the axe right away I said! Do you get it?!’
‘I am not fetching anything! Last week I was feeling so dizzy
because it was all in my head I almost fell down the stairs.’
The father came back with an axe. ‘Get the hell out of the way! I’m warning you.’
He shouted.
‘What’s
the use of this? Why won’t you talk this over? It’s not like we’re dead, is it?’
The mother stuck her cheek to the door. ‘Stella, you and your father are driving me mental! If you want to kill me you’re
on the right track. Stella – your father is asking you to open the door. Now! He won’t ask you twice.’
‘You are sick!’ Stella called at her father.
A first stroke of axe into the door. The door quaked.
‘Mam, call the police. He’s being violent. Mam, leave
him! Dump that crazy rascal. He’s useless. Don’t let him threaten you!’
‘Stella, watch your tongue now.’ The father tutted.
‘Yeah, yeah. Hurrah! That’s duly noted. But is it the brain or the fingers you’re
teaching the lesson? Why
don’t
you teach yourself first?’
Killian and Stella lifted her desk and barred the door with it.
‘There’s no delaying now’, Killian said. ‘Come
on, now. Let’s go.’ He nearly wailed. Stella seized a thin bottle from her bedside table and sprinkled the transparent
liquid over the bed. She took a box of matches from the side pocket of her trousers. She cracked a match
and held it up, staring at the pierrot. She stuck her tongue out at him. Killian came behind her, the vein standing out in
his neck, and vigorously blew at it. It was put out at once. In a whisper, she said, ‘Wait’. She gazed at the
pierrot and inclined her head to the right now. ‘Let’s hurry ! Hurry up !’.
He helped her over the window ledge ; he held her hand softly until she withdrew it to grip
at the ladder. She climbed down rung after rung gingerly. He carried her bag on his back, he glanced around the room then
he opened the cage where a couple of budgerigars remained motionless inside for the time being. Then
he spat a gob of spit on the door and followed her.
The door gave way.
They ran across the garden in a body and tore through the gate.
A curve in the street, and the entire biggish house vanished.
