"The Gloom" by Stephen Barnard

The Gloom

by Stephen Barnard

Something is following me home. I’ve just been to the hardware store across town to pick something up, and I’m in the middle of heading back – perhaps a thirty-minute brisk walk – but maybe five minutes ago I noticed a peculiar thing just half a block behind me. I noticed it when I stopped for a moment outside the picture house, to take a look at those movie posters of the latest releases, pictures Ged will never take me to see: ‘Network’ and ‘Marathon Man’. And I also saw the shadow behind me walk, and then pause when it noticed me stopping.

It has the outline of a person – female maybe – but comprised solely of the Gloom. My grandmother told me of the Gloom when I was a child. Those moments when there should be light present, but instead there’s a shape that has no light in it. Not pitch black – you can still see through it if you strain your eyes – but a shadowy space that shouldn’t exist. And one that might move independently, not reliant on other objects to cast it into darkness. Like this one.

I pick up my step and turn the corner onto Henry Street. Halfway down I stop and take a look. The Gloom has followed me. It’s lurking near the wall of the tenement building, staying away from the glare of the streetlight. Then it slinks forward and proceeds along the sidewalk. I quicken my pace, keen to get home.

Ged will be waiting for me. He hasn’t worked for five months, and so if he’s not hanging around Dooley’s Bar he is in the house, wishing that he wasn’t, bubbling with frustration. A part of me hopes he isn’t home, the part that feels the bruises under my ribs and on my upper arms. He’s always careful not to strike my face. But then another part needs him to be there, because if he isn’t in the house he’s out spending money – money we can’t afford to spend. I fear they might cut off our water next week. We’ve had the red-lettered demand five times in our mailbox.

At the end of Henry I’m almost home. I give another look over my shoulder. The Gloom is still there. It’s weaving between other pedestrians, dancing its way along the sidewalk. They don’t see it, but a toddler in a pushchair suddenly starts crying, and a dog sniffing round the drain covers by the edge of the road veers out of its way.

I don’t know what it wants with me, but I’m certain it’s me it wants. My Grandmother also told me that when you see a Gloom you bond with it, and it can’t be shaken off. She said her daddy saw a Gloom – told the family when they pressed him on why he was so melancholy. Two days later he was dead, taking half of them with him. My Grandmother had been lucky to survive, but she said she then looked out for her own Gloom from that point on. It was cancer that took her in ’74. I don’t know if her Gloom was present when she died, or maybe it somehow gave that disease to her in the first place. She talked no more about it to me once I was grown. Like it was only a tale for children. Except, what’s following me isn’t a bedtime story.

It’s a quieter walk to the house – no one comes down here unless they’re residents. It’s late afternoon and workers won’t be home yet. Unless you’re me: I have a cleaning job in the mornings so I’ve done my shift for the day. Ged was still in bed when I got back, and then skulked around when I told him I had to go out and get some things. “Don’t you be spending all our money!” That was rich, coming from him. Our money. He doesn’t make a cent. He punctuated his comment with a slap across the back of my head. Sure, my hair took most of it, but I still feel it now as I walk up to the house. The hand that isn’t holding the bag touches it, and it’s still a little tender, just below where my hair crowns. I guess there may be more coming for me when he sees I have spent money after all.

I quickly check behind me. There’s no one else around, but that Gloom has definitely followed me. There are trees on the sidewalk by every other property, and it’s slinking from one to the next, like it’s playing a game. Having fun.

No fun for me. There’s a lamp on in the living room; that suggests Ged’s home. He would have turned it off if he’d gone out to Dooley’s. I take the three steps of our porch one at a time, slowly, deliberately. The bag isn’t especially heavy, but I suddenly feel its weight – in fact I feel a weight all over my body. The porch creaks like I’m about to fall through it.

Ged calls from inside. “That you, Delia? Christ, you’ve been gone awhile! You better have brought me something good to eat!” I can hear it in the lack of precision in his voice and the way the furniture is pushed around to facilitate his cumbersome movement. He’s been drinking.

And then I’m not alone on the porch. The Gloom has caught up with me. It takes all the light away from my right-hand side, catching me by surprise. I drop the bag. But I don’t take fright. Shoulder to shoulder, the Gloom feels like a friend. It bends towards the bag, perhaps to pick it up for me. To carry my burden.

What it does is find the hammer I bought in the hardware store and places it in my hand.

I can see Ged’s silhouette in the hallway. “What have you got for me, woman?”

“We’ve got something for you,” I say.

And smile.