Short Story: An Honourable Statesman

[Chirios]

I'm looking for advice on this. It's a "Sometime in the Near Future" short story about the strained relationship between a Prime Minister of England and his wife.


He used to take his wife here. They’d lain in the long sweeping sea of red, white and green. They’d marvelled when the colours were broken apart by apple trees, which, in carefully measured disobedience, had stretched towards the sky. Now the grass was overgrown. The meticulous rows of lilies and tulips were scattered into small clumps here and there and between them lay weeds and thistles, stems and vines which crept along the ground and dug into the soil. Even the trees had changed into dark spectres.
Daniel lifted up his cigarette and sparked up the flame. His guard walked to his side and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Sir,” Richards said, all black suit and serious tone.

“Have you ever been in one of these parks John?” Daniel replied.

“Yes sir, your wife is–”

“They built them about forty years ago, during the crime epidemic. Some researcher somewhere came to the thrillingly incisive conclusion that
all the inner city needed was some parks that kids could play in and then they’d all get back into school, be good students and stop killing each other. Twenty billion, spent on landscaping, clearing buildings and growing plants.” Daniel paused. “They did a pretty good job wouldn’t you say?”

Richards looked at him blankly. “Sir, your wife is here.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

“Yes sir.” Richards turned to leave.

“John!”

“Yes sir?” Richards replied.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“They did a terrible job, sir.”

“Why?”

“You’ve seen the state of the world. Do you really need me to say?”

Daniels laughed. “No, I guess not. Go bring my wife.”

Daniel breathed the cigarette smoke in deep. He felt it course down into his lungs and settle there, warming up his chest. He held it in, and felt his head go woozy. If he could hold it for longer, the smoke might make him drop, if he held it further than that, he’d drop further still. He exhaled, and wondered: if he hadn’t, would the smoke have still felt warm?

“Hi Danny.”

His wife looked up at him with green eyes and smiling red lips. But the eyes were cold and the smile was faked. She embraced him with soft arms and a wide berth, and tried to kiss him without touching him. She looked up at him, and tried to put light in her eyes, but darkness and hatred had taken hold, and their roots were long and deep.

“Babe, I’m so sorry.”

He stood still.

“I know that she meant a lot to you.”

Nothing changed.

“She was a great woman, and what happened to her wasn’t fair. If you need me to be, I’ll be here for you.”

He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. He backed away from her and curled over with laughter, the park and its weeds and trees swimming as his head rocked back and forth from the force of it.

“I’m, I’m really sorry, it’s just, I had this whole plan, I was going to be all, stern and cold and then you, then you,” the laughter cut off his words. He took a few seconds to compose himself, and then breathed out heavily. “Jenny, come on. Really, I know. I’ve known for a while, actually.” She looked at him strangely; he looked back at her, unable to keep himself from grinning.

“Known... what?”

“It’s funny you know, a man in my position gets a lot of pressure, or at least, he used to. Nobody pressures me anymore. But, in the early they did. The press hounded me with camera’s, you too. We both knew that if anybody saw either of us doing anything untoward it’d be everywhere, BBC, Sky News, the Daily bloody Express. So, what I don’t understand is how exactly you’ve been able to keep an affair going for four years, with the head of my DPC, and nobody apart from me saw it.”

She stood silently for a while. The wind rustled through the trees and sun shined brightly through the clouds. “Why today?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you’ve known for a while. Why today?”

Daniel shrugged. “Why not? Six years ago today I was elected prime minister. Five years after that you started ‘associating with’ Agent John Richards. Five days ago, a woman who I practically raised brought me proof of the fact. I couldn’t believe her. In fact I had her kicked out of No. 10. Three days after that, she was stabbed and killed by one of the ‘helpless’ little kids the Left loves so much. Six years ago today I was elected prime minister. It seemed appropriate. Why did you do it?”

Was it just him? Did the park whisper its encouragement? Was that just the morning breeze, or were the rustling leaves really his audience providing a thunderous applause? Were they his adulating fans, screaming: confront her and rejoice?

“I wanted my husband.”

“You had me.”

“No, I didn’t. You changed.” she bit her lip. She always did that when she was nervous, or afraid. When did she start to become afraid of him?

“When we were first together you were... you’ve always been tough. You were always willing to lead but, the job changed you. First it was the thing up north, then the thing in Dublin, then those kids-”

“They deserved it.” He said.

She looked away. “You’ve always been tough. And even as a kid you’ve been smart. In college you told me that you wanted to help people who grew up like you, that you wanted to do the right thing. But the years passed, you became cold and doing the right thing became doing the necessary thing. I didn’t want John, not really. I wanted someone who wanted to help people, someone who wanted to do the right thing.
I wanted the man I married.”

He snorted. “Come walk with me.”

“Why?”

“So that I can show you something.”

She looked towards the gate. “I’d rather stay here.”

He laughed quietly. “My dear, they’re my guards and my policemen. You honestly think that if I wanted you dead they’d do a single thing about it?” She didn’t reply. He continued: “Come on, walk with me.”

He started walking, and soon enough she followed cautiously behind. He took her to a secluded spot, deeper into the woods. There was a small stream there, hidden beneath crossed foliage and adorned with violets and ancient rocks. There, scarred into the face of old stone were the words: Danny+Kelly 4Eva!!!!!!!

They had been very eloquent youths.

“We had our first kiss here,” she said, stopping.

“Yeah we did. But that’s not what I remember best. I remember telling you that I wanted to help people who grew up like us; I remember telling you that I wanted to do something, to make something of myself. I remember telling you that, and I remember you telling me: ‘I believe you’. What happened to that?”

“You succeeded.”

He paused. “How old were we when we first came here?”

“Thirteen maybe,” she shrugged, “does it matter?”

He picked up soil and ground it into his palms. “It matters. Time flies, the world turns, things move on and the ground we stand on, crumbles.” He turned to her and looked her straight in the eyes. “I can’t apologise for who I am. I admit I’ve... changed, but I had to.” She looked angry now, but he kept going. “You’ve seen the news; you know what’s been happening. Kids, slaughtering each other, men ordering the deaths of barristers and politicians and everyone turning their heads away so long as they could keep getting paid. What was I supposed to do about that? Look away? Give these people cake? Start, handing out flowers and teapots, no. Somebody had to... somebody just had to.”

“And that somebody was you?”

He turned to her. “There was nobody else.” He laughed, “Anyway, that’s all ancient history. Now, we need to deal with our little predicament.”

“Is this the part where you take control?” she asked, angrily.

“When have I not been in control? Do you still love me?”

“No.”

“Do you think you could ever fall in love with me again?”

“...No.”

He ignored the twisting in his heart. “Then, the only thing for us to do is get divorced I suppose.

“The kids?”

“Stay with me.”

“Daniel…”

“I need them,” To stay sane he didn’t add.

“Fine.” Tears in her eyes. Too many of them.

They walked back to the gate, their footsteps marked by the crunching of leaves and the dripping of water. The journey was cold and silent. They both became accustomed to the rhythm of foot, crunch and drip, somewhere overhead a bird chirped. Then a gunshot rang out, and someone screamed.

Kelly looked at him, eyes wide. But he didn’t respond. It didn’t matter that his throat was closing up, that his hands were dying to tremble. There was a fucking principle here. Danny stood there, a blond monolith and waited for her to realise.

“Please don’t.”

The decisions been made.

“I’m begging you.”

No turning back now.

“Don’t do this.”

A stone voice said: “someone has to.”

A gunshot rang out, and someone screamed.

[LadyTevar]

And now, I'm absolutely curious to know if Richards shot Danny, or Danny had Richards shot.