The issue, I realised one morning in the supermarket, holding my little list of necessities, was that I couldn’t take my own life. I was wheeling the trolley about, dropping things into it from my brief list, when I came to a stop on the cold meats aisle. There, laid out in cuts and slices and sausages, was pig, every shape and flavour of it, in discs and dice, smoked and cured, all ultra-illuminated by the fluorescent light; like laminated bruising. And somewhere out of view there was a person, with a job and a smock dedicated to this.  

For weeks since Anne’s funeral I had waited on suicide, shopping for half the food, wanting no more of these dry sandwich afternoons or nights of flat bedsheets. No more of hands in the kitchen sink or milk in the coffee. No more standing alone on the weekend, staring at the pig. 

Empty-handed, I left the supermarket, drove back home and tried to come to an agreement with myself. I said very carefully, we are going to die; before now this had led to nowhere: bleach, fire, pills (of which I have plenty), hanging, drowning, electrocution, a bridge over a busy road, nothing; it all just turned to hypothesis, no drive, no promise. I simply did not believe it. The closest I had finally come was with a shaving razor, held the sharp end to my wrist and said to myself, now do it. It’ll just be like licking shut an envelope. But I cut my thumb first as a little test, saw the blood well, and went back to the TV to watch crime. Mostly I watch the detective shows, though I really have no clue nor interest in the goings-on. People walk by or are found dead or make an arrest and I just sit there, like a cow watching the traffic. 

In the end, what reminded me of Big Mick must have been the combination of death on the screen and the death in my head. I hadn’t seen nor thought of him for as long as I’d stopped walking along to The Red Lion. Anne and I used to go and drink red wine there and make eyes at each other; as if we still knew how to flirt. Big Mick was always there, every week like a fixture, crowding the pool table. I don’t think I ever saw him play, chances are people were too scared to ask, instead he stood around, drinking and talking and sometimes singing, the only killer for pay I’ve ever met in the flesh (that I’m aware of). It was no secret what he did. After his fifth whisky, Mick was anybody’s. He yarned on about killings and old gangs, and the sawn-off shotgun in his car. This frightened people. It also made them feel interesting. I know this because I fell for it, too, and nobody ever called the police or had Mick removed.  

Somebody did once doubt the shotgun, though, so Mick went out to fetch it, carried it in both palms like a fresh-caught trout. Everyone loved it. ‘Call me Big Mick,’ he said to his little crowd, ‘I’ve got a bowie knife somewhere, too.’ 

On the night I went out to The Red Lion, he was right where I left him, holding one of the cues over his shoulder like a sword. I looked over to mine and Anne’s old table, where a middle-aged couple were eating steak pie and chips so casually I hated them. I ordered a Jack and Coke at the bar and took off my gloves. My hands were cold, and sick with nerves. Soon the drink came. I said that I need to die, very lightly so the bartender wouldn’t hear. I said again I need to die. I said Mick a little louder. I said here’s a drink, and like the missed step on the stairs, he was there. All six-foot-something of him.  

‘What’s this for?’ 

‘I um…look…’ 

I fumbled from my coat pocket the note I’d written out three times. The paper had taken the indentations from the first two. Mick accepted the note and ran through it. He squinted and said one-fifty. He asked if I wanted it done now. 

‘No, no, tomorrow night, please. Thank you.’ 

‘Whatever,’ he said, and then he drank the whisky. 

 

I spent the next day preparing for Mick to knock. Things needed to be set in order; the house wanted a clean. I dusted and hoovered each room, something I hadn’t done since Anne died, and at twelve I sat at the kitchen table. Usually I would have made my turkey sandwich and watched the empty chair opposite. Instead, I threw the turkey away and scattered the loaf to the birds. Pigeons began collecting in the garden. I watched them pick around while I drank brandy from a birthday two years ago. What’s shocking is how little I had to do before dying – the lack of administration or arrangement. There was nobody to call (my brother Paul had died a decade ago; what was left of Anne’s family had lived in New Zealand since the seventies), no will and testament to correct or music to choose. By two o’clock I was nearly drunk in the garden and falling asleep. 

It was after seven when Mick finally arrived. By then I’d slept through the afternoon, woke up and looked around the house once more. Everything – the slouched mattress, the ceiling high wardrobes, our spare bedroom packed with old paperbacks and furniture, the soap-coloured bathtub – everything was bereft. Live in a house together for ten years, and every teacup and carpet involve the past. After Anne’s death there was no safe place; I couldn’t eat from a bowl without her dying again. Knowing that I myself would be dead by the end of the day, however, the rooms turned cold. I felt like a maid in a hotel. 

Mick jammed the doorbell constantly until I came to the door. I was no longer scared of the man, and as soon as he stepped inside my house, it seemed odd I ever had been. Only seeing him at the Red Lion for so many years, I had never thought that he might have a home of his own, that he might sit in an armchair and hold a TV remote. But now here he was, sitting in my armchair with his knees tucked up, looking as domestic as a teenage boy.  

He took an Adidas strap bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the floor. It made a sound like an ornament. 

‘I’m confused,’ he said. 

‘Oh. Sorry.’ 

‘Why did you write down your own address? Are they here?’ 

‘Oh…yeah. Listen.’ 

I sat down in front of the TV and held my hands together.  

‘It’s me,’ I said and immediately felt stupid, so added, ‘I’m them.’ 

‘You.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Do you understand what that means? You’re not demented, are you?’ 

‘I’m sorry?’ 

‘You’re about my Nan’s age when she lost it, that’s all. So I’m not-’ 

‘Are you asking if I have dementia?’ 

‘That’s what I said.’ 

‘I don’t have dementia. I would just like…to not be here. To not be here anymore. And I can’t do it myself.’ 

‘Why not?’ 

‘I don’t know. It just wasn’t happening.’ 

Mick cleared his throat and cracked the knuckles on his left hand. He stood up and looked into the mirror above the fireplace. 

‘This is weird,’ he said to the reflection. 

‘I know.’ 

‘Your wife died, then.’ 

‘Yes, she did. How did you know?’ 

‘I remember you two coming to the pub. She used to laugh like a horse.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

‘You know when they get excited and make that noise.’ 

In the mirror again he suddenly tried to imitate whatever this horse noise was. He curled his top lip and went for it like he was alone. I didn’t know if I was supposed to look so I put my eyes on the blank TV. From the fireplace, Mick picked up an angel made from glass and rested it on his palm. 

‘Have you ever seen an angel?’ he asked. 

‘That’s not mine. My wife used to collect them.’ 

‘Okay,’ he said very flatly and turned to me, ‘but have you ever seen one?’ 

‘No I haven’t. Have you?’ 

‘No, no. My mum reads all about it. Apparently they come to people in surgery.’ 

‘Right.’ 

Mick put the angel back in its place and wiped his hand on his coat. There was a smell on him like too much aftershave, like leather and suntan. He crouched down over the Adidas bag. My vision began turning flat. I was panicking. I’d known since he came in that the shotgun was in the bag, but now that he was unzipping it, reaching in with both hands, all I could think of was the front door. I said to myself I want to die.  

I said to Mick I needed a little more time. 

‘ I just need a few more minutes.’ 

‘Yeah, whatever.’ 

‘Do you want a coffee?’ I asked. 

‘Yes please.’ 

‘I’d offer you a sandwich, but I gave my bread to the birds.’ 

‘I’m not hungry.’ 

I said to myself, after this. After this you’ll be ready. I set the kettle to boil and brought out two mugs from the back of the cupboard; mugs Anne never used. Outside, one or two pigeons were still pecking around in the soil. I loved that garden at one point. I’d spent my summers in that soil.  

The kettle boiled and I carried the two drinks through to the living room. Mick was where I had left him, muttering quietly to himself. I passed him a coffee. With his free hand he reached down into the sports bag and brought the shotgun to his lap. I froze then, in my chair with my drink, as if a wild animal had entered the room. I looked at Mick and he was doing the same. We sat together for what felt like hours, like hostages, sipping carefully from our cups. We listened to the traffic pass and I must have died almost a hundred times. Mick was looking at the blank TV. I asked if he wanted me to turn it on. 

“Yeah, sure. There’s no rush.” 

“No.” 

“I can do it.” 

“Sorry?” 

“I said I can do it.” 

“Okay.”  

I switched on the TV. We were midway through some rerun of a crime drama. 

“I can do it.” 

I said okay. 

Connor Harrison’s writing has appeared at the LA Review of Books, Evergreen Review, Hinterland, and The Moth, among others. He currently lives in the West Midlands.