by Allan Watson
An hour and a half later we were taken to the intensive care unit where we stared at our seriously ill daughter through the opaque surface of an oxygen tent. Her bed was surrounded by electronic equipment that blinked impersonally. A nurse took Alice away for five minutes to give us time alone with Denise. I expected Teri to break down into floods of tears but she merely gripped at my hand while fixating blankly at the distorted form behind the plastic sheeting. Denise’s face was swathed in white hospital dressings that already were flowering scarlet as we watched.
I wanted to reach through the plastic and hold my daughter’s hands, but they too were wrapped in heavy gauze bandages. Tubes protruded grotesquely from her nose and mouth while others snaked from beneath the sheets, emptying their discoloured contents into plastic bags hanging from the metal rail of the bed. The guilt I had felt earlier that night when considering how Teri and I had neglected Denise in her hour of need, amplified into a giant sinusoidal waveform of bitter self recrimination. Unable to look upon Denise any more we returned to the flat in St Andrew’s.
As I lay on the couch clutching my empty mug of coffee, exhaustion finally began to sink its weary teeth into me. I was on the verge of dropping off when the living room door opened and Teri reappeared. I was surprised to see she had changed into her best summer dress. I struggled into a sitting position to let her sit beside me on the couch. It was only then I realised she had done more than just change her clothes. Teri was wearing make-up. Nothing too drastic. A little foundation to camouflage the heavy shadows beneath her eyes, and a thin smear of red lipstick on her mouth. She had also combed out the worst of the tugs in her hair, but it still looked lifeless and greasy. Combined with her exhausted demeanour, the make-up made her look like one of those sad, pathetic woman who hang around bus stations trying to sell their bodies in order to buy another few grams of heroin.
Teri took hold of one of my hands, holding it between her own, saying nothing, keeping her face turned away from me. Her hand felt clammy and damp and I had to force myself not to pull away. I was puzzled by her behaviour. She should be upstairs in bed, not tarting herself up as if going to a party. For a brief second she met my stare and what I saw in her dull blue eyes surpassed by far the terrible need of any junkie’s needle fed addiction. A cold knot of anxiety formed in my stomach as I realised why Teri had tried to make herself alluring.
She confirmed my worst fears when she softly said, ‘Do you want to make love, Matt?’
The cold knot in my stomach hardened into a rough stone the size of my fist. The need I saw in Teri’s eyes had nothing to do with lust. This was no seduction. It was the warm contact of another human being she craved so badly. She desired proximity not passion. I on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to sleep. I justified my stance by telling myself that to indulge in sex while Denise was lying critically ill in hospital would be an obscenity. Another part of me knew the truth.
Our marriage, which we had come to St Andrew’s to save was in danger of sliding into the abyss. Circumstances beyond our control had pushed it to the very brink where it hovered, trembling like a panicked animal. Teri was attempting to haul it back. She must have been aware that she risked humiliation if I refused her. That was why she kept her gaze directed at her lap. She was ashamed by the way she was being forced to conduct the rescue mission, but she still had the courage to sit there with her best dress on and wearing red lipstick as a pitiful lure for a man who had betrayed her.
If I had just held Teri at that moment, things may have turned out differently. A kind word or affectionate gesture would have been enough to reassure my wife that she was loved and not alone. Instead I let the silence spin out like a glittering, ice-coated thread. I tried to think of a way to turn her down without hurting her feelings. Nothing came to mind, so I sat there, painfully self conscious of my own mute act of rejection. Eventually, still without ever raising her gaze to mine, Teri let go of my hand and slipped out the door. I might have heard her sob as she returned to the bedroom, but I convinced myself it was merely the stairs creaking beneath the weight of her tread.
Sleep was beyond me after that. I knew then that I would never be returning home with Teri and the girls. I had been given a way back but I had spurned it because of my own selfish need to wallow in isolation. I reached for the mug of coffee I had earlier made for Teri and drank it cold. The caffeine pushed sleep further away from me. Above my head I heard the floorboards groan as Teri climbed into bed alone. It still might not have been too late to go to her and tell her that I loved her. Instead, I took my jacket from the chair where it hung and prepared to leave the flat. I wanted to clear my head, to think straight. Pausing only to pick up my camera, I quietly left the house and walked into the army of ghosts waiting for me outside in the street.
CHAPTER 13
The ghosts kept me company as I navigated the fog bound streets. Feet away, cars crawled past like sinister alien craft, the fog both absorbing and reflecting their headlights like a porous, opaque mirror. Sound too, was distorted by the fog, the acoustics dead and muffled, like the way you can hear your own heart beat in the quiet of the night. Aside from the anonymous cars I saw no other living soul on the streets. It occurred to me that these cars may have been cruising driverless, looking for prey in the fog. The thought did not make me afraid, it delighted me. I found that I liked this peculiar white world.
I emerged onto North Street and decided to give into a craving that had been growing stronger over the past few days. I pushed open the door of a newsagent, half expecting the shop to be devoid of human occupation. A cheery middle aged woman smiled at me from behind the counter, dispelling the impression that I had strayed into another dimension. We exchanged pleasantries and commented upon the fog. The woman told me that last summer a similar haar had descended upon St Andrew’s and stayed for over a week. I made an appropriate comment and bought ten cigarettes along with a disposable lighter. With the shopkeeper’s warning to be careful when crossing the road ringing in my ears, I took my change and left the shop.
Outside I pulled the cellophane from the cigarettes and lit up. The first draw tasted better than I’d expected and immediately made my head swim as the nicotine invaded my bloodstream. I stood there for a few moments, sucking in a mixture of smoke and fog and getting high from both. I felt quite safe smoking in the fog. The perfect cloak of invisibility should anyone feel the need to berate me for lapsing back into my old bad habit. I wondered if Teri would smell the smoke from my clothes when I returned and decided that I did not care in the slightest.
As the initial nicotine fugue began to lift from my buzzing brain, I walked up North Street, keeping close to the buildings for fear of stumbling into the road and being mown down by a prowling car. All the familiar landmarks I had become so used to over the past four days had vanished beneath the rampaging army of ghosts. I thought of Denise as I walked, wondering if she too walked in such a grey, lonely world. It struck me that I had come out here in order to clear my head but instead had accomplished quite the opposite. My thoughts were growing strange, as if I were becoming someone else.
My feet took me east towards the ruined Cathedral, walking me through the open gate and into the graveyard. I inhaled the fog like a fragrant narcotic, letting it fill me as if I were an empty vessel. I felt it drift into levels of my being that I had no direct access to. The fog found my buried memories and teased me by dragging them close to the surface of conscious thought. It found its way to the Garden of Remembrance and laughed at what it found there. It discovered the secret identity of who I really was and little by little changed me to someone I never had the chance to be. As I stepped between the labyrinth of grave stones, the dead of St Andrew’s stirred contemptuously beneath my feet and although my flesh was still warm they accepted me as one of their own, their whispering voices mocking my ignorance. I paid them no heed. They were nothing but a jealous collection of pitted bones and dry dust.
I soon left the dead behind me as I
exited the Cathedral by the rear gate, which took me onto the cliff path. The sea had also been claimed by the ghosts. They covered everything with their cold, damp touch. I walked down towards the harbour taking the same route I had taken with Teri and my daughters three nights before. I remembered how I had lectured them by the site of the Church of the Culdees and smiled to myself. That had been a different Matt McVey. There was only one piece of history that concerned me at that moment and it resided within my head, not in any dusty book. The narrow metal bridge took me onto the walkway of the east sands and I let my thoughts flow inwards as I followed the invisible coastline. I had assumed my stroll with the ghosts to be a random journey, but I was beginning to realise my course was predestined all along.
I passed a children’s play park, the swings empty of high pitched laughter, the metal frame wreathed in mist making it look like a red painted gallows. The squat oblong of the East Sands Leisure Pool loomed up on my right hand side. This was where Teri had excluded me from my family. It had been a turning point. A catalyst of sorts. Then I was climbing a steep incline that I knew took me up to Kinkelbraes caravan park at the point where the coastal walk began. At last I knew where I was headed. The Spindle Rock, as I know thought of it was calling me. Like me, it too had secrets held deep in its stony heart. I remembered the affinity I had felt with the rock and wondered if that was where I would find the sign post to the Garden of Remembrance.
Unable to see the true height of the drop below me this time, I had no problems scrambling down the precarious cliff path. I had thought the rugged beaches here to be desolate enough when I first made my way across their rough terrain, but the fog made them appear as an alien landscape. An empty barren world, light years from earth. The solitude was delicious. I really was the only soul on this bleak planet. And with this knowledge, I discarded baggage I no longer needed. I forgot my name, I forgot about Teri, I forgot about Alice, I forgot about Denise. There was only the sound of my boots on the shale, terrifyingly loud as the acoustics threw the noise back at me. I walked and climbed until I finally reached the beach where the Rock and Spindle awaited me. A dark finger beckoning me ever onward.
As the rock loomed out of the shifting fog bank, I found myself running, heedless of tripping into treacherous rock pools and snapping my ankles. Its touch brought solace to me as I spread my arms as far as they would go around its girth. I was insignificant compared to this ancient, crumbling monolith. There was no sudden revelation of who I really was, but I was comforted all the same. I must have stood like that, clutching at the rock, for ten or fifteen minutes before something of my own mind was returned to me and I stepped back laughing. I sat on a nearby boulder and smoked another cigarette, feeling at peace with myself but not sure why. Excitement burned in my belly. It was important that I should be at this spot today. I had a vivid premonition that something would happen here. I had no idea what - but I was happy to wait. Beyond the fog I heard the tidal whisper of the sea as it crept away from me like a thief in the night.
I remembered the camera I had stuck in my jacket pocket before leaving the flat and decided to take some photographs of the Spindle Rock. Whereas most folk now had digital cameras, I still persevered with my old Olympus trip SLR. The low light level triggered the auto flash on the camera, sending sheet lighting rippling through the fog. The effect pleased me. It made me feel like God. The elements were mine to command as I circled the rock, photographing it from all angles. The automatic motor whirred while bolts of lighting filled the air around me. I was so caught up in what I was doing I only heard the scrunch of someone walking on the shale a second before a hand touched my shoulder. I got such a scare that the camera fell from my hand, firing off another flash as it hit the loose stones at my feet.
In the half second it took me to whirl around, I pictured the phantom old man standing behind me dressed in his black suit. The fog I had inhaled earlier on wrapped itself around my thudding heart and I wondered if the old man would show me his face. If he did I would remember everything. But there was no old man. Instead, the girl from the library, Alison McCulloch stood there grinning at me insolently.
‘Hello again Matt McVey. So you really are a photographer then. I thought you might just have be spinning me a line.’
I could only stare at her for a moment, still breathless from my fright. The fog had dampened her red hair to dark auburn and made her delicate, pointed face appear like she was a mischievous wraith. She was wearing a thick jumper and jeans against the chill of the morning. Stout walking boots covered her feet. To cover my loss of composure, I picked up my camera and pretended to examine it for damage.
‘You might have spoken up sooner, this camera cost me a lot of money you know. You gave me a hell of a turn sneaking up on me like that.’
The girl laughed indignantly. ‘Sneaked up on you? You must be deaf not to have heard me.’
I gave the camera casing a wipe with my sleeve and snapped closed the protective window that covered the lens. ‘So, you’re an expert on photographic equipment are you then, Alison?’
She smirked and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Might be,’ she said in a tone that told me she was most definitely not. I asked, ‘So what brings you down here this morning? Shouldn’t you be working in the library?’
‘I don’t start until eleven o’clock. I was just taking a walk along the top of the cliff when I saw all that flashing in the fog. I wondered what was going on and then I thought it might be you. So down I came.’
‘I was not flashing in the fog. It’s too cold for that sort of thing.’
‘That’s a pity,’ she smiled slyly.
I became aware that my heart was thudding again. I stared into Alison’s green/grey eyes and they didn’t flinch away. I watched as she stepped across to the tall finger of rock, laying her hand on its whorled, pitted surface.
‘It’s nice isn’t it?’
I nodded. Something she had said when she first startled me, tugged at my memory like an insistent child pulling at his mother’s skirts.
‘What did you mean, you thought I might be spinning you a line about being a photographer? What made you think I might be lying to you?’
Alison broke eye contact and began tracing lines with her hand on the rock. Her movements made the fog swirl like an agitated spirit. She acted coy but I knew it was contrived. ‘Oh, you know. Guys are always trying to make out they’re something they’re not. They think it makes it easier to get into a girl’s knickers.’
The certainty I’d felt that something was going to happen here suddenly became more acute. I was going to fuck this girl right here beside the Spindle Rock. I knew it with absolute conviction. We had already commenced with the verbal foreplay. It would go on like this for while, our words circling each other like carnal snares until one of us uttered something that would spring the trap. Then it would begin.
A distant part of me begged me to consider Teri and my daughters. What the hell did I think I was doing? I dismissed this small voice with as much consideration as I would have flicked dandruff from my collar. The fog had changed me. Made me stronger. My perspective had become flat and wide angled. Fucking a pretty girl on a deserted beach was no reason to get tangled up in ham fisted guilt.
Alison proved me right by saying, ‘You know how I was telling you about all the sacrifices made here, all the blood spilled?’
I nodded and pulled out my cigarettes, offering one to Alison. She waited until we had both lit up before continuing.
‘In a way I was one of those innocent girls offered up to the rock.’
‘How’s that,’ I replied.
She leaned back against the rock, arching her back so that her pelvis was thrust towards me.
‘I lost my virginity down here, right on the spot I’m standing now. My blood is mingled with all the other poor lassies who died here. That means I belong to the Spindle Rock body and soul. It likes blood. Can’t you sense it.’
Alison dragged hard on her ciggie, studyin
g my face hard for some reaction. I thought she might be trying to shock me, but I was beyond those childish games. I merely shrugged and asked, ‘Who was it? Boyfriend?’
‘Hah, more man than boy. He was twenty seven if you must know.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Fifteen.’
I took a last draw from the cigarette and flicked it into the swirling fog where it vanished like an falling star.
‘Wasn’t he a bit old for you?’
A look of genuine annoyance crossed Alison’s face. ‘You’re a bloody hypocrite. I suppose you’re telling me that if a fifteen year old girl dropped her pants, you would just tell her to run on home. Like hell you would.’
I tried to act cool. ‘Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Depends on whether I thought I could trust her to keep her mouth shut or not.’
Alison smiled a wide, contemptuous smile. ‘You mean you’re scared your wife might find out.’
I slipped the camera from my jacket and held it to my eye, framing Alison against the Spindle Rock. ‘If this hypothetical girl was fifteen I’d be more concerned about the police getting to know about it.’ I released the shutter and fired a lighting bolt at Alison. Then I took two steps to the side to photograph her from another angle.
‘How would you like a special holiday snap for your family album, Matt McVey? Maybe you could even use it in your book.’
I looked over the top of the camera as Alison peeled her sweater and t-shirt over her head and struck a sexy pose against the rock. The fog tentatively caressing her bare breasts like an clinging incubus. Once safely back behind the lens I felt free to stare at her breasts without fear of feeling self conscious. Through a tiny window of glass, I peered at Alison, feeding on the small, hardness of her breasts. Her nipples so pale I might not have seen them without the chill of the fog teasing them erect. I snapped off another picture.
