In the depths of the night, reliving the worst moment of his life, Nick Price thrashed out wildly as he fought against clenching hands in his struggle to get to the open doorway of the airplane. He screwed his eyes up against the fierce, icy torrent of air flowing around the fuselage.
‘Mal!’ he screamed into the freezing cold wind. ‘Mal!’
And there she was, just a few inches away, impossibly floating in mid air.
Nick grabbed hold of the side of the airplane door and reached out into the abyss. ‘Please, Mal,’ he sobbed, ‘don’t go away. I need you. I love you.’
Maliwan drifted further away.
With every ounce of strength left in his body, Nick stretched as far as was humanly possible. But it was simply not far enough. ‘Mal! No!’ He screamed as his wife’s body drifted off into the distance. ‘No! Come back!’
She was gone, her body beyond reach, drifting off into the void to disappear forever. In desolation, he jumped out of the airplane. For if he couldn’t live with her, he would die with her.
His body fell gracefully through the air and a blissful sense of serenity washed over him. He would join her, alone on top of this bleak, unknown Tibetan mountain. They would end their days together, wrapped around each other, embracing death.
As his body came to hit the rocky mountainside, his legs jerked involuntary in anticipation of the blow that would crush the life out of him. The jerk snapped him to his senses.
‘Fuck sake!’ He sat up, wiped the wetness away from his face. His bed sheets were soaking wet. He tried to focus. Maliwan was dead. He would never get her back. He would never again touch her warm, loving body. Why could his mind not accept that? It had been eighteen years since he’d lost her. Was he doomed to relive this intolerable nightmare for the rest of his life? He looked at his alarm clock; five past four. He groaned wearily, he knew he might just as well get up, there was no way his troubled mind would give him any rest now.
He put on his dressing gown and slippers, shuffled out of his bedroom and quietly unlocked the door to the adjacent room. It was his place of pilgrimage; the only place in the world where he could find solace. He picked up one of Maliwan’s shirts that had been left lying casually over the back of a chair, raised it to his nose and took a long deep breath. Fresh tears flowed down his face.
He looked longingly at the precious mementos of his long dead wife. Her clothes, unwashed, still retaining her fragrance that only he could smell. Her hairbrush, with a few surviving strands of long silky black hair. Her jewelry box, littered with glitzy items lovingly chosen from street vendors in Bangkok. Her photographs, a happy girl splashing around in the warm tropical seas off Dongtan Beach. Everything brought back a memory. He couldn’t let go.
Nick let his hand fall on to the record player. There was only ever one record in the room; Maliwan’s favourite. In the three years they’d been together, she’d never grown tired of it. He pressed a switch, closed his eyes, took his wife in his arms and glided slowly across the floor.
Nick didn’t hear the door open. It was another few seconds before his daughter coughed. ‘Are you all right, Daddy?’
Nick stopped dead in his tracks, his daydream shattered. ‘Sorry, Nit. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘That’s okay, I couldn’t sleep either. Your door was open, I came looking for you.’ She walked up to her father, put her hands around him, buried her head in his shoulder and swayed to the music.
Nick allowed his arms to envelope her, just as he’d held her mother, and resumed his slow dance. ‘Sometimes I can’t seem to cope, Nit. I’m really sorry.’
‘There’s nothing to be sorry about, Daddy. I understand.’
Nick said nothing in response. He never did. He never could. When it came to his wife’s death, he was burdened with too much guilt. And hatred. Hatred and contempt for the man who was responsible for her love being taken away from him.