by R. H. Dixon
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27
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When Peter Graham came to take his daughter Natasha home, minus his granddaughter, John had left the hospital. He went to the beach banks where he sat on a ledge with a bottle of vodka, berating the world for his loss. Darkness was setting in and nobody knew where he was. And nobody but Natasha and her dad knew the tragic news yet. He wasn’t ready to tell people that despite how perfect his daughter had looked he’d been denied the joy of fatherhood.
On his grassy perch he swigged neat vodka from the bottle, sobbed a lot and got angry every now and then, shouting obscenities to anyone or anything that might be able to hear, because he didn’t know how else he should be venting his emotions. He didn’t think he’d known such sadness or rage existed within him.
To the north a solitary star shone, its brightness intensifying as the lilac sky turned to violet and then deep purple. At one time John might have thought it symbolic of a higher power that was looking down on him, offering comfort from the heavens, but now, on this night, the star was nothing more than a ball of gas suspended in the same galaxy as him. He’d renounced all hope of a sentient God the moment he’d held his daughter in his arms. Tonight, going forth, he was faithless.
It was the North Sea that provided John with all the unintrusive company he needed for the next few hours. Its foaming movement, way below, where he could see and hear it, was a constant in a world where babies were allowed to die without rhyme nor reason. It listened to his rebukes against life. And it stayed there till he was done.
By the time he went home everyone else was in bed. Nick was living in student digs and his dad had long since been kicked out, but Chris still lived there and his girlfriend Toni was staying over. John had seen her shoes by the back door. On the landing he heard his mother snoring, but all was quiet from behind Chris’s door. He crept into his own room, not wanting to wake any of them.
He’d been lying in bed for only ten minutes when his bedroom door opened and Toni walked in. At first John thought she might be sleepwalking and had come into his room by accident, but then she closed the door behind her and said, ‘Hey, I heard you coming in.’
Toni was a large girl, each of her thighs as big as Natasha’s waist pre-pregnancy, but standing there in a short, tight nightdress she didn’t look nearly as big as usual. Her long brown hair was black in the gloom and her massive breasts were squeezed together beneath a large crown printed onto the cotton fabric of her nightdress.
John grunted, unsure how else to respond, and watched, dumbfounded, as she walked to the bed and climbed under the duvet next to him.
Sitting upright, he jolted away from her, rubbing his tear-swollen eyes. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Aw poor baby,’ she said, edging closer and running her fingers through his hair, the gesture more sexual than it ever should have been. She then pulled his head down so it rested against her chest and continued to stroke his hair. ‘There, there, I know what happened. Poor, poor baby.’
He sat there stunned, in a grief induced vodka fugue, listening to her heart over the noise of his own, all too aware of the softness of her breasts against his cheek. The soft, soft comfort.
‘Tell me all about it,’ she urged. ‘Go ahead. Cry.’
‘But…how did you know? Who told you?’
‘I didn’t have to be told.’
‘What’re you talking about?’ He pulled away from her.
‘Hush now, I know you.’
‘No. No you don’t. You don’t know me at all, you’re my brother’s girlfriend. You shouldn’t even be in here.’
‘Oh but I do and I should. I know you better than you know yourself.’ And then she kissed him on the mouth and touched him in places she really shouldn’t have.
28
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‘I still don’t know how she knew,’ John said.
Emily was regarding him with a look of horror. He could only hope that she was trying to find some valid excuse for what he’d done, so that she wouldn’t have to think any less of him.
‘I know I should have turned her away, refused her,’ he went on. ‘But it was like I just couldn’t stop myself. As though someone else was controlling me. I can’t even explain.
‘The next morning I decided I had to leave. I couldn’t face Natasha again, I felt sick thinking about what I’d done. I couldn’t even look Chris in the eye. And Toni. She came downstairs and acted like nothing had happened. She looked me square in the eye and asked how I was. She said she hadn’t seen me in over a week, then had the audacity to ask how Natasha was doing and when the baby was likely to be born. I mean, how cruel can a person be? I packed my bag and left. I was so full of shame and disgust and loathing for myself, I went for a drive not knowing where I was going or what I meant to do. I wound up at a friend’s place in Manchester and ended up staying there. All I could think at the time was that Natasha deserved better than me.’ John laughed scornfully. ‘Christ, I was such a selfish little prick.’
‘Shit, John,’ Emily said at last. ‘Why didn’t you just confess?’
‘Well, yeah, that would have been the most logical thing to do. That’s what any normal person would have done. But I was consumed by these really dark thoughts and I was acting far from normally. Looking back I can see I had absolutely no regard for anybody. And that’s what confuses me, Em. I’m not like that. I’m really not.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I guess you don’t have to say anything, what I did was inexcusable. I hate myself for it. You’re the first person I’ve told any of this to.’
‘Wow.’
‘Wow indeed. Now you know what a bastard your big brother is.’
‘Was.’ She put her hand back on top of his.
_
…
_
John found Seren in the lounge. She was sitting on the floor in front of the television.
‘You all packed, kidda?’ he asked. ‘Aunty Emily is gonna go for a walk with you and the dogs while I…’
Seren turned to him, her eyes wide and fearful, and whispered, ‘Dad. She’s here. Right. Now.’
‘Aunty Emily? I know she is, dafty.’
‘Not her. Her.’ She tilted her head back and pointed to the ceiling.
John looked up. Red streaks veined the ceiling, a tangle of arteries bloodying the white. He gasped and, at the same time, a quick stabbing sensation brought him to his knees. It felt as though an invisible hot poker had been rammed through his chest, scorching flesh, muscle and tendon. His body instantly became stiff and his eyes rolled back. He could hear and feel the sea in his head, red waves creating white surf behind his eyes.
I know you. I know you. I know you.
‘Dad?’ Seren jumped to her feet and gripped his arm. She tried pulling, her face frantic as she urged him to get to his feet. But he dropped on all fours and hissed in pain, so she let go and ran from the room. ‘Aunty Emily! Quick!’
John watched the lounge door slam shut after her. He knew Seren hadn’t done it. The ruckus of plywood against the doorjamb was as deafening as a gunshot and he imagined the furniture in the house next door would be trembling. He splayed his hands on the carpet and began to crawl towards the closed door, inch by agonising inch, with his back arched and teeth ground together. He had to get out. His temperature was soaring, pitching him into some red fever where the room all around him throbbed and undulated with the flow of blood. Whose, he didn’t know. But he suspected if the ceiling were to split he’d drown in it. When eventually he reached the door and clenched its handle in his clammy hand, he found that it was jammed fast.
‘Emily?’ The pain in his chest made his voice sound terrifying, even to himself. ‘Emily!’
‘What’s happening, John?’ She was on the other side of the door, her voice a crescendo of panic.
He could feel pressure on the handle as she also tried to get the door to open. ‘I dunno, just get me out of here.’
‘A
lright, hang on I’ll…’ She screamed; a primal, horrible sound that made gooseflesh prick the back of John’s neck. His pain then dissolved to nothing and the door handle turned easily in his grip. The door clicked open.
Staggering into the kitchen, barely upright, he found Emily cowering by the table, her hands cupped to either side of her head like blinkers, and Seren by the back door with both dogs.
‘What happened?’ he asked, gripping the back of a dining chair for support.
‘I…I saw her,’ Emily whimpered. Her eyes didn’t seem to focus on him, even though she was talking to him.
‘You saw who?’
‘Megan. Over there. Next to Seren. She was pointing.’
‘At what?’
‘That.’ Emily looked at the Quaker Oats box on the draining board. Her hands were trembling. ‘And Seren was right, John. She was so right.’
‘Right about what?’
‘Megan. She looks just like me.’
_
29
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Natasha was yet to hear from Lee. She’d sent numerous text messages, to which he hadn’t replied. So when her home phone started to ring, she expected it to be him. It wasn’t. John Gimmerick’s old number was showing on the display. She faltered for a moment, contemplating whether or not to answer. In the end curiosity won through. ‘Hello?’
‘Natasha.’
That voice she hadn’t heard for so many years made her gasp before she could stop herself. She took a deep breath. ‘What do you want, John?’
‘Listen, I’m so sorry about this…about everything in fact…I just…I don’t know what to say.’
‘You’ve waited almost eighteen years to say you’re sorry?’ Natasha could feel anger swelling in her chest, threatening to break through the calloused husk of her heart.
‘No. I mean, yes. I mean, I’ve wanted to say sorry so many times before but I didn’t know how.’
‘So why now? Is your conscience finally too heavy for you to carry around? Is it such a burden on your otherwise happy life that you need to offload some of the weight?’
‘Natasha, please…’
‘No. Don’t. You got your daughter to call me,’ she spat. ‘That’s really warped, even by your standards.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I had no idea. Why would I get her to do that? She’s only six for chrissakes.’
‘The same reason you’d do anything I suppose. And I’m not interested in hearing your bullshit excuses by the way, you sick bastard.’
‘I swear I didn’t know. I have no idea where you are or how you’re doing. How would I even get your number?’
‘Same way your daughter did. Look me up online.’
‘Tash, I’m so sorry. You have no idea…’
‘Oh believe me, I have every idea. And don’t you dare ask me to forgive you if that’s what this is about.’
‘No, no, no. I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness, I wouldn’t expect that of you. And I wouldn’t intrude into your life for the sake of redeeming my own conscience. I have more respect for you than that.’
Natasha laughed, a humourless sound that conveyed the extent of her animosity.
‘For what it’s worth I would like you to know that I’m eternally sorry for what happened, for what I did,’ he reaffirmed. ‘But that’s not the reason I called. The thing is, I need to ask you something.’
‘What could you possibly want to ask me?’
‘I’m sorry this is out of the blue and that it’s insensitive and totally unacceptable, but, please, I need to know…what did you call our baby?’
The question was as good as a kick in the stomach to Natasha. Her eyes blurred from the impact. ‘Why? Why torture me with this?’
‘I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t really important. Please, Tash, tell me this one thing and I’ll leave you alone. You’ll never hear from me again.’
Tears had begun to seep from her eyes and she struggled to keep her voice even. ‘We lost our baby then shortly afterwards I lost my mother. I went through hell and back, John, but you wouldn’t know that because you just disappeared. You left me to sort everything. And now, all these years later, you have the gall to harass me? I hate you. I can’t even put into words how much.’
‘If I could change the way things happened I would in a heartbeat. I’d do everything differently. But, as I said, I’m not seeking your forgiveness. It’s just, I’m in some strange trouble right now. So please, I’m begging you, what did you call our baby?’
Natasha was now openly sobbing. ‘Why should I tell you? You don’t deserve to know her name. You never cared. As I recall you weren’t there to pick out her coffin or choose a headstone. In fact you probably don’t even know there is a grave, do you? Because if you did you’d know her name. You’d know where to find her.’
John fell quiet and Natasha could hear choked sobs on his end of the line. The sound of his pain made her feel in some way avenged, but nowhere near enough. She wanted to hurt him even more, to keep twisting and plunging the knife till his heart fell out of his chest, a pulp of unfixable mulch.
‘Of course I cared,’ he said eventually. ‘I still do.’
‘Keep telling yourself that, one day you might believe it.’
‘You think I don’t remember when her birthday is every year? That I didn’t, and still don’t, grieve her death? And that I don’t think about all the different milestones, like when she’d have left school and the fact she’d be coming up eighteen? That she might have a boyfriend to fetch home by now or that I might be teaching her to drive. Each year on her birthday I still don’t know whether I should be celebrating the memory of her or commiserating the fact she isn’t here. So don’t tell me I don’t care, Tash. I might have been the lousiest shithouse of a boyfriend, but she was my daughter.’
‘Sounds wonderfully sentimental. But, still, you never even knew her name.’
‘Angel. She was always Angel to me.’
‘Cute. So why change that now?’
‘Because now I need to know her official name.’
‘You don’t deserve to know.’
‘Please, Natasha, I’m begging you. If you won’t do it for me, then please do it for my little girl’s sake. Do it for Seren. She’s six and I think she’s in danger.’
‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re pulling a stunt like that. What danger could your daughter possibly be in that has anything at all to do with my daughter?’
‘It’s not a stunt, Tash, I’m being serious. Tell me this one thing and you’ll never hear from me ever again. I promise.’
‘You better mean that.’
‘I do, I swear.’
‘Megan. Her name is Megan,’ Natasha said. Then before terminating the call she told him, ‘I hate you, Gimmerick. I really, truly despise you.’
_
30
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John tipped the box’s remaining contents out onto the counter. Two soggy photo albums and a plastic wallet full of old car documents slid across the formica and onto the floor. Something clanged against the stainless steel draining board three times before falling into the sink. It was a cameo brooch that came to rest in the plughole, face up, too large to fit through the slots. John picked it up, confused as to why it should have been amongst his stuff. His fingers brushed the aged enamel and he studied the milky profile of a lady on its terracotta-coloured background. Her wavy hair was swept into a Victorian updo and her thin-lipped mouth curved upwards. The roundedness of her face and thick neck suggested a high-end, sedentary lifestyle of fine dining, whereas the area where her eye had once been was worn to a dark socket. There was something unavoidably sinister about the contradictory cherubic skeletal image, and she wasn’t smiling so much as leering, John thought.
A loud clatter from somewhere overhead made him jump. He pocketed the brooch and hurried upstairs to find that the loft hatch had swung open, taking a gouge out of the doorframe to his mother’s bedroom. His stomach lurched when he saw famili
ar dark tendrils creeping from the opening in the ceiling, spoiling the artex with shadowy branches of mould that loomed over him.
‘Megan? Is it you?’ John kept his voice low. He listened. There was a stillness to the house, but he could hear nothing but the ticking of a clock somewhere and the hum of an electrical appliance. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
Still nothing.
This is crazy.
As soon as Emily returned with Seren and the dogs it was time for them to leave, he decided. He felt bad for running out on his kid sister, especially since he’d hoped to offer her more than just a few days of high drama and the sort of head-fuckery that would give social services every good reason to come knocking on his door.
He went to his old room to pack his stuff together. When he opened the door he was taken aback by the smell that wafted out. It held the sourness of stagnant water in a vase of dead flowers, stinging his eyes with all its pungency. John gagged, automatically looking up, and saw the ceiling was laced with bulging grey veins which threaded down onto the walls, turning the room itself into some postmortem-like ventricle.
He marched to the window and threw it wide, to get rid of the stink, and saw that around thirty dead flies had collected on the sill. He frowned. Using the back of his hand he tried to sweep them outside, but most of them got stuck in the groove of the window frame. He’d need to pick them out.
Shit, shit! Fucking shit!
‘Dad?’
The voice was a simple plea that brought with it a chill that swept over John, freezing him rigid and killing his fury. Then slowly, expectantly, slowly he began to turn, afraid of what he’d see but too afraid not to look.
Standing by the door was a hazy version of Emily. Only, it wasn’t Emily. His sister’s lips were fuller and happier. This girl was too pale, her face shrouded by deathly woe and her blue eyes lacklustre. Dark hair fell down to her waist and a long black dress looked at one with the darkness that must surely keep her. She was an image of pure torment.
