Stranger Still

by Marilyn Messik

  After our morning’s planning session, I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with David’s entirely justifiable concerns, many and varied as they were. I did try to put any information omissions down to not wanting to worry him, to which he responded a trifle tersely.

  “And how’s that working out then?” I felt I had to take into account he’d been bearing the brunt when it came to family matters, which was enough to leave anyone tetchy. Last night, at an ungodly hour, David had called his now frantic father to reassure him Laura wasn’t really missing; was safe and well with us, and then divert attention with the baby announcement, although Melvyn apparently was still almost as frantic at the end of the call, as at the beginning.

  The call to my parents didn’t go well either, up till now my Mother had maintained an affectionate yet dignified, Mother-in-law to Son-in-law dynamic, but in the face of what he had to say, I gather that temporarily went out the window and there was a fair amount of sobbing, some of which was joyful, a fair portion recriminatory and the rest; sheer disbelief all this had happened without her knowing. She couldn’t quite get her mind around the fact that not only was I not comfortably ensconced at Edgware General in a pink bed jacket, but was snowbound at an unknown school, miles away in ‘the country’, and that Laura was with me instead of my own Mother! I gathered at this point, and before anyone could say anything they’d regret, my Father had commandeered the phone.

  Whilst we’d had our crisis talk in the dining room, Laura, to my surprise and I gathered to hers too, had been press-ganged by Mrs Millsop to lend a hand in the kitchen, providing breakfast for the half dozen kids who were still boarding over the holidays. When I popped down to see her, she was helping clear up and greeted my arrival with some relief. She’d had to borrow some clothes and from the vivid scarlet loose trousers and black and scarlet splashed top, I could see who from.

  “I’m a bit worried about phoning Melvyn,” she confided, “David said he wasn’t happy.”

  “Just worried,” I reassured her, “he’ll be fine.”

  “And your Mother? I hope she doesn’t feel I’ve been treading on her toes.”

  “Absolutely not,” I lied. “Would you like a cuddle with your granddaughter?”

  Laura eyed Sara cautiously, “Maybe later, I’ve been washing up,” she leaned in and hissed, “no Marigolds!” then in normal tones, “my hands are a bit slippery; I might drop her.”

  Mrs Millsop, giving the wooden table a good seeing to with a soapy brush, looked over at me and frowned.

  “You, young lady, should have your feet up, not be rushing here, there and everywhere. I’ll be finished here in just a mo., I’ll take Baby; you go and have a rest.”

  Laura nodded sagely, “I’d listen to Enid.” Enid, I was impressed, I’d no idea Mrs Millsop even had a first name and was mighty impressed Laura had been given permission to use it.

  “No,” I said, “thank you,” then because it sounded a bit short, softened it with a laugh, “you’re so kind to offer but honestly, I’m fine, don’t want to let go of her.” Which was the truth, but nothing like the whole truth. I didn’t know why, but knew it was essential she was in my arms, and I’d been around me enough years to know a feeling which seemed to carry no logic, proved all too often to make sense at a later date.

  “That was sweet,” I said to Laura, “you lending Alison your scarf.”

  “She could hardly go around as she was, could she, she’d frighten the children.” But beneath the words, I felt her shock and distress. In the face of experiences so far removed from anything she’d known; she was thinking she had little to offer other than a pretty scarf. She stopped me as I moved towards the door.

  “When are we heading home?”

  “Soon,” I said, “just a couple of things I have to do first.”

  * * * *

  On my way out of the kitchen, I was intercepted by Boris accompanied by a smaller, distinctly truculent figure who stood stock still when he saw me, then retreated a little.

  “Hello Devlin,” I said.

  “You gave me a fright,” he said accusingly.

  “Boris told you I was here, didn’t he?”

  “Not now,” he was impatient, “before.”

  “Ah...” I said, “you were very ill, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “It seemed the only way to help you.” I wasn’t sure whether you told a child just how close to death he’d been.

  “You scared me.” In his indignation he took a step forward.

  “I did,” I conceded. Boris, watchful behind him was surprised; he and Devlin had talked this through; he thought he’d explained, I gathered though he wasn’t accustomed to twelve-year old boys who well knew how to grab a grudge and hang on and there was no arguing, what I’d done that day hadn’t been nice. He was still glaring at me, fists clenched and I saw the depth of his outrage. I took another risk. “I’m sorry you’re angry,” I said crisply, “and I understand how you felt about it; let me show you how I felt.”

  It wasn’t hard to summon from a couple of years back the sounds, the scents and echoes of the critical care equipment; the appalling emptiness in Devlin’s head as everything swirled away down an ever-deepening hole and my desperation to stop it. I parcelled all that up, exactly as it had been and put it firmly into his head.

  “Ow!” he took a step back. “I didn’t know you were scared too, thought it was just me.”

  “No, not just you.” I said. He looked at me thoughtfully and I decided to seize the moment.

  “And you’ve been copying what I did, haven’t you Devlin?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve been giving people bad frights, haven’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Poor Jane, what made you pick on her?”

  He shrugged, scuffed a sneaker toe-down along the carpet. “Dunno. I just knew her.”

  “You scared her so much that you made her ill.”

  “Really?” there was more than a hint of pride.

  “And all the others,” I said, “in cinemas, theatres, people were injured, did you know that?”

  “Wasn’t my fault,” sulkiness set in, “they all just ran; I didn’t make them run.”

  “Two people died - after the butterflies.”

  He looked up shocked, bravado abandoned, “Because of me?”

  “They were knocked down and killed by a taxi. They didn’t see a single one of your butterflies, they ran because everyone else was running.” There was another silence. “Everything has consequences Devlin.”

  “But…”

  Boris interrupted, “I’m afraid Devlin, there is no room for a ‘but’ in such circumstances.”

  Devlin swung round to face him, “You said, I wasn’t in any trouble.”

  “You’re not,” I said, “but if you still remember so clearly, how dreadful I made you feel, why would you want to do it to anyone else?” He was crying now, not the quivering lip and forced tears that always melted his mother. I wasn’t feeling great, just a big bully, but Boris forestalled me offering comfort.

  “Too important for that.” He said in my head, then aloud, “Do you understand what we are telling you Devlin?”

  Devlin scrubbed his face quickly with a jumper sleeve. “S’pose.” Focusing hard on his carpet-raking sneaker he muttered “didn’t know…”

  “Well, you do now.” I thought I was sounding more like Rachael than Rachael and saw from the small twist of the lips that Boris did too. “So, Devlin, you and me, are we OK?”

  “S’pose.” This was a boy with a lot to take in, “I didn’t want to come here you know. Mum made me.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yeah. He,” Devlin paused, he’d nicknamed Boris, ‘Bones’ but didn’t feel that ought to be shared aloud, Boris and I exchanged an amused glance, “…came round yesterday, he and Mum talked, then she said I could go with him,” he shook his head slightly in wonder, after so many years of being told never to go off with a stranger,
his Mother had changed her tune, just like that!

  “Boris can be very persuasive,” I said. I imagined Susan would have no idea afterwards quite what had possessed her either.

  “He said I’d be back by this evening, but now the snow’s come I might have to stay longer. Don’t mind, I like that Sam. Will you be there? Will it hurt?”

  “What?”

  “He said I had to have tests.”

  Boris was impatient to get on with things now, shepherding me and Devlin ahead of him down the hall. “I thought I explained,” he said, “we only want you to solve a few puzzles. Nothing will hurt, you have my word.”

  Devlin sniffed unconvinced, but regaining some of his normal nosiness. “Is everyone here a bit ‘funny then?”

  “No,” Boris was short. He was turning things over in his mind. He was unsure of the outcome and Boris hated to be unsure of anything. If I’d inadvertently passed something to Devlin, then tracing that back, understanding and reversing, would not only be taking a loaded weapon out of the hands of a child, but the key that was needed to try and save Ruth and the unknown others. It would also allow them to break whatever connection there might be between Obnoxious and me. But was it possible what had been put in, could be taken out? Was it reversible?

  * * * *

  “Down here,” Boris said, unlocking a door at the other end of the corridor. There was a well-lit flight of carpeted stairs. Devlin went first, I instinctively drew back, I’d gone down another staircase recently and that hadn’t gone well. “Don’t be silly,” Boris had a hand at my back.

  In my arms, Sara murmured and stirred and descending I held tightly to the wall-mounted rail, I thought if I fell on top of young Devlin, it could well ruin our new friendship and it wouldn’t get Sara and I off to a great start either.

  I needn’t have worried. The space Obnoxious had led me to was cold and clinical, this was warm and welcoming. Polished wooden flooring, with soft ceiling lighting reflecting back from mellow wood panelled walls, there were a few groupings of leather easy-chairs, and a couple of tables and chairs for work rather than relaxation.

  It was a larger duplicate of the basement in the Peacock’s St. John’s Wood home. I looked around for the booths and there at the far side of the area were the same type of glass-walled, telephone-box sized constructions, this time there was a row of six, ranged at intervals along the wall. Each held a leather chair facing a shelf on which were a pair of substantial black leather headphones and a mic. To the left of the wall with the booths was a wide corridor with doors opening off. Rachael’s sharp peppermint was near, she was with Ruth, or rather the shadow of Ruth, deeply unconscious, totally absent.

  I swallowed, but my mouth was dry from talking or maybe apprehension. Sam had already come down and rose from one of the deep leather chairs to pour me a glass of water, I smiled thanks.

  Devlin meanwhile was turning in entranced circles, “Wowzers gershmowzers, it’s like a secret hideout, like in a film. Like MI5 or like maybe the baddie who’s going to blow up the world. Cool bananas! What d’you want me to do?”

  “A jigsaw puzzle,” Sam, pointed to a box on the table, “I warn you, it’s a complicated one.” Devlin wilted a fair bit, he’d been thinking along the lines of donning a helmet with wires on it and possibly being strapped down in a special chair, and now here he was with a rotten old jigsaw, the purpose of which, although he didn’t know, was simply to distract him while Sam and Boris did their stuff.

  Sam immediately saw where things were falling short. “Of course, that’s not all,” he said. Devlin brightened, “While you’re doing the puzzle there’s going to be something a bit frightening going on. You’ll be able to see your own brain.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Devlin was nobody’s fool.

  “It is,” said Sam solemnly, “And if you don’t want to look, you don’t have to, none of us will think any the less of you, I promise.”

  “Here Stella,” Boris indicated the chair Sam had vacated, “make yourself comfortable, doze if you want.” “Devlin, let’s have you here at the table; sooner you get going, the sooner we will.”

  Sam and Boris took a couple of the upright chairs and settled themselves a little way away. They were going to go through my head and Devlin’s with a fine-tooth comb, looking for similarities, differences, traces of memory, emotion, anything that might provide explanation and the way forward. I knew it had to be done, but had no intention of dozing while other people tramped through my mind.

  I settled Sara more comfortably in my arms, I hadn’t had any experience with babies, but she seemed to be remarkably well-behaved, which considering how hectic my life was at the moment, was a blessing. I knew I should be paying her more attention, and made a promise, once we’d got all of this head to head stuff out of the way, I’d do just that. I made a deliberate attempt to relax and did an automatic scan around to check who was where and what they were doing.

  Ed wasn’t in the building at the moment, I knew he’d taken David and the large van to the nearest shops to restock on essentials. A quiet Christmas had originally been planned and the deluge of guests had been unexpected.

  Alison was outside. Ed had wheeled her onto the patio at the back of the building, overlooking the lawns. They’d had a brief but intense disagreement about the weather. Ed, who’d been raised to caution on such matters by the Peacocks, said it was far too cold to sit out. Alison who’d been starved of ‘outside’ for more years than she could count, was having none of it. They compromised with an extra jacket on top of the one she was wearing, a hat on top of the turban and a pile of blankets firmly tucked in by Mrs Millsop who happened to be passing when they were setting up. I knew how tight a Millsop tucked blanket could be so Alison wouldn’t be going anywhere soon, but I also shared what she was feeling, the bliss of breathing in the cold clear air.

  Glory was with Phillip; they’d all agreed he needed to be watched, conscious or not while the investigation operation was conducted and it was her couple of hours. She was leafing through a magazine, seated as far away as she could possibly get from him in the small room; beige painted walls, no window and a door which looked as if it wouldn’t stand any nonsense. Glory was used to being on an even keel, so pessimism had taken her by surprise and she didn’t like it one bit. But whichever way you looked at it, Ruth was not doing well. With a grimace and an effort, Glory pulled her mind back to the printed page.

  Rachael and Ruth were nearer to me, in a room along the corridor. Rachael had spent the night sleeping on and off in a chair by her sister’s bed, jerking awake every few minutes, full of fear and helplessness. She couldn’t remember a time in their lives when Ruth hadn’t been there, always instantly reachable. Now, nothing.

  Bella, who since Ruth had gone downhill, had refused to leave her side was sleeping, a massive brown weight against one of Rachael’s legs which had also consequently gone to sleep, but she didn’t want to move away from the warmth and affection. She was automatically shielding but seeping through was her grief, raw and intensely personal. Like Glory, she feared that whatever Sam and Boris came up with, it would be too late for Ruth. I withdraw quickly and guiltily.

  Near to where I was sitting, Devlin despite himself, was rising to the challenge of the jigsaw, but was also fascinated with the slowly revolving holographic images Sam had created of our brains, mine and Devlin’s. I could feel Boris and Sam in my head, although from the lack of any reaction, I don’t think Devlin could. Sam and Boris were outwardly relaxed, leaning back in their chairs. They were working calmly and methodically, thoughts flashing between them. The speed of thought that was the only indication of how worried they were that they wouldn’t find what they were looking for.

  Despite myself, I must have drifted off. When I woke, it was because death was approaching in the beloved form of Ruth.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  My first thought was that I was dreaming. My second thought was that first thoughts like that can make the differen
ce between life and death.

  I reached out for Rachael and Glory, but got nothing. Sam, Boris and Devlin were on the floor, each lying neatly by the chair on which they’d been sitting, and there was silence there too. The only thing I could hear was the underlying hum of the air-conditioning system. It was accompanying Ruth, who was also humming. I briefly thought, what the hell was I going to say to Devlin’s Mother and then I thought maybe I wouldn’t be around long enough to say anything to anybody.

  It was such a wonderfully familiar sound, Ruth’s tuneless hum; she did it when concentrating, although, strenuously denied any such thing if anyone was tactless enough to mention it. Her caved-in cheeks were hectically red, like one of Dottie Lowbell’s dolls. Her eyes, usually deep hazel and shining with humour were currently white rimmed, blood-shot and empty; devoid of intelligence or feeling.

  Ruth and the air-conditioning weren’t the only things humming now. The room was too, an almost inaudible low vibration bouncing off the walls and felt deep in my chest, the massive amount of psychic energy being generated. It was feverishly unnatural and uncomfortable familiar.

  It seemed, on balance, retreat might be the better part of valour right now and holding Sara tightly, I started to move towards the stairs, then I paused. This was Ruth, my Ruth. How could I not at least try and get her back, but as I took a breath to speak, so did she. Ruth’s mouth, but not her voice, nor her vocabulary; a hoarse torrent of obscenities spat directly at me, venom-filled and hitting me like a fusillade of shots, one after the other after the other.

  “Ruth,” I yelled, because I needed to reach her wherever she was, “Ruth, it’s me,”

  She stopped abruptly, refocused those empty eyes and tilted her head. “Why Stella dear, so it is. How lovely, nobody told me you were here, now that’s naughty isn’t it?” she waggled an admonishing finger, paused and smiled, her lips stretching and parting over her teeth. “And the baby, the baby’s here.”