Matilda Wren

by When Ravens Fall

  “Sometimes good people make bad choices. It doesn’t mean they’re bad… it means they’re human!”

  She tried to push him away from her then.

  “Human? Sean how can you be human? What you did to that poor girl, what you did to your own sister; and Greg… I can’t even go there.”

  “Because of you. It’s all because of you. I couldn’t bear anyone getting in the way of us. I couldn’t lose you again.”

  He interrupted her, feeling the panic rise again; realising she hadn’t stayed for him, she stayed so the others could go.

  Rachel was mortified. She had bought all this about.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Opening her mouth to say something she suddenly changed her mind. Before Sean knew what had happened, she had taken the gun out of his hand. It had been such a complete and quick manoeuvre, even Rachel was surprised at her agility and speed. She pointed it up at Sean who impulsively stepped backwards.

  “Rach?”

  “This wasn’t because of me. You chose to do all of this Sean. You chose.” She screamed at him.

  She knew she was beginning to lose it. She told herself she had to remain calm. She knew she should just run out of the house, but she couldn’t, not yet.

  “What did you expect? Getting yourself involved with omeone like him… eh?” Kenny’s voice came out of what seemed like nowhere.

  Both Sean and Rachel became aware of not being alone in the room. She spun round and pointed the gun at him.

  Kenny put his hands up in mock terror; laughing at her he moved towards her, stopping just a few feet from where she stood. He could see the fear and chaos in her eyes as she had Sean’s.

  “All of this was always going to happen sweetheart.

  There were never any choices. There is no such thing as free will. It’s just an illusion. The universe is either determinate, where the future is set, or indeterminate, where thoughts and actions happen at random. Neither option works with free will.”

  Sean put his hand up to silence Kenny but he chose to ignore him. The drama was all getting too cliché for him.

  He adopted the self-educated, intelligent persona he liked to use when he intimidated somebody. Coupled with his coarse accent, it always served well to throw his opponent off balance.

  “Now our actions have consequences and choices arise out of those consequences; But even if we can make choices that make a difference, does that make them anymore our own?”

  Rachel knew this man was trying to play games with her head, but she couldn’t figure out why. Kenny knew it too.

  He didn’t see what Sean was so entranced with when it came to this woman. She was attractive, held a nice figure and all that, but she seemed to consist of nothingness.

  There was nothing special about her that made her stand out. For Kenny, people had to stand out, make an impact, otherwise what was the point of their existence. Rachel he found was just plain annoying in every sense.

  “I tried to stop it. I tried to make him see that you would be the catalyst to the end. Dozy sod wouldn’t listen though; believed that you were the one that could change his destiny.

  But that’s the things about fate. It’s already set in stone.”

  Kenny snapped at her.

  He loathed the power she wielded over Sean. It was jealousy, although Kenny would never admit that. He despised the love he saw between them. It ate away at him, even more so since Rachel had come back into Sean’s life; an act that was down to Kenny’s own making, though he would never accept that either.

  “If people have the ability to act differently from what anyone expects, then surely free will exists. Each action follows a conscious choice.” Rachel retorted back.

  She looked at him up and down. He spoke well but had that cockney, east end tone to his voice. She had heard Sean speak about him before, he held him in high esteem.

  All Rachel saw, was somebody that seemed to spur Sean on in his perverted demeanour.

  “The problem with that idea my love, is that we may just be merely automatically reacting, to the incentives in our environment. Therefore, all of our actions are restricted by powers beyond ourselves, or by casual chance.” Kenny begun to look bored.

  He took out a pack of cigars from his jacket pocket and made a prolonged show of taking out a cigar and lighting it with a silver Zippo lighter.

  “You still aint getting it; are you? Oh I aint making fun of you, it took me a while too, to fully understand.” Kenny said, still fiddling with his Zippo. “You see free will, is nothing more than a mere illusion; like I said. It’s a velleity, an artificial feeling, which is falsely related with many of our actions when we perform them. On reflection, you realise that they were necessary and determined all along, by fate and destiny Rachel.”

  “This… this is fate and destiny?” She turned back to Sean. “You listen to this guy? Seriously, you actually listen to the utter crap that comes out of his mouth?”

  “Rachel… baby I can’t explain any of this… I don’t know what you want me to say. I do these things but it’s not me, well… it is… I know it’s happening… but it’s like something is telling me I have to… it needs to be done…”

  “I don’t know who you are.” She wailed. It was like a child whining for something she had been told she couldn’t have.

  Both men could see she was faltering. Her hands were shaking with the gun. She looked back at Kenny with disgust.

  “You were there! When he murdered Greg… Maisy’s letter said you were there? You manipulative scheming bastard.”

  “This isn’t about him Rach” Sean tried to reason with her. She knew this. It wasn’t going to work; she was never going to be able to understand any of what had happened that day or this one.

  “I have to get out of here. I can’t listen to anymore.”

  She backed away a little but Sean moved towards her. “Just let me go.”

  She retreated slowly towards the front door. Kenny, who was still standing in the middle of the room, smiled at her as she reached his line of vision. Rachel didn’t return it. Instead she turned and ran as fast as she could to her car, for once being grateful she never locked it.

  She yanked her keys out of her jacket pocket; how she managed to find the coordination to put them into the ignition and drive off she has no idea. Her whole body was shaking. She glanced at the gun that was sitting on the passenger seat next to her. What the hell had just happened?

  Who was he? What was he? Had she really spent ten years missing a monster?

  She knew he had done the most despicable things. She thought about James’ wife and what she must have been through, at the hands of the man she professed to love; that she did love ultimately. Then she saw it; the reason why she ran the first time.

  At seventeen she never understood the voice that lived way back in the depths of her head; the one that screamed at her to get out as fast as she could. Things had been great between them. It was intense and commanding from both of them, but they had both wanted it that way.

  They would hardly spend a minute apart. Then the voice started to get louder and she listened. She had always punished herself for listening; but she should have kept listening. Then she wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe none of them would.

  She didn’t know where she was going to, or that Sean was just a few minutes behind her. It had been a long day of motorways and she had no idea where she was heading.

  She had to get away, so she could think. It had only taken just over an hour to hit Leeds. It wasn’t far enough; so she kept going.

  There was the option of turning off the major busy roads and follow a more scenic route up to Harrogate and then across to York or to keep going. As strange as it seemed, Rachel saw the decision as an indicator. Does she change the direction in which she is going?

  She had been changing direction for as long as she could remember, so this time she wasn’t going to look back or think. She put her foot down on the accelerator and sped off from
the roundabout. If changing direction is bad, then she decided going forward had to be the way. Changing direction had made dreadful things happen.

  Having no idea why or how this made sense humoured her for a while. It did though; make sense that is. In her muddled and confused head, there was a small glimpse of some clarity. She joined yet another motorway, this time the M621 that was going to take her to Hull.

  The rain was coming down heavily now. The wipers on the windscreen were frantically trying to clear the water away. It was late and she was completely shattered from the day. She hadn’t even let herself reflect on the fact she just let James take her baby; the one thing in her life that had been constant and pure.

  She wouldn’t allow herself to ponder on the colossal effect of that decision. She needed to have Adam safe; James was all she had left to ensure that would happen.

  * * *

  Sean had run out the flat almost immediately afterRachel had. He had just seen the back of her car turn out of James road. He was in his and right behind her within seconds, although when he had caught up to her, he made sure he kept a safe distance between them. He didn’t know what he was doing yet. He couldn’t let her disappear though; he knew that.

  She was the only one that could stop all of this, stop him. She had stood in front of that gun and put her hand over it. She had touched him in a way nobody else had ever done. That simple action had reached deep into his soul; entirely blowing him away. Sean didn’t even know he had one, although he was sure there was many a person who would argue against that revelation. Sean was almost certain, that if Rachel hadn’t of done that when she did, he would have put a bullet straight into Ginnie’s skull.

  Kenny had tried to stop him, tried to reason with him to let her go.

  “Every woman has a breaking point; even Rachel. Just because she didn’t say “it’s over” doesn’t mean you haven’t already lost her.”

  Sean wouldn’t listen though. He had pushed Kenny so hard, the older man had flown across the room. Sean hadn’t stayed to see if he was alright. Sean was adamant that Kenny was a major contributor to the downfall of everything around him.

  Kenny should have known that Ginnie was still in Liverpool, he should have told Sean that that’s where he had taken her. It was a loose end that had been waiting to unravel. Kenny was supposed to be the guardian of information. He had let him down and he made sure the old man knew it too.

  Another hour had passed when he followed Rachel off the motorway and into the centre of Hull. It was the early hours of the morning by now.

  Hull is situated on the northern bank of the Humber estuary. The city centre is west of the River Hull and adjacent to the estuary. The city was built upon alluvial and glacial deposits which overlay chalk rocks. It was these that were shinning from the dock lights; their vast and immense sharpness bordering the picturesque scene.

  The Hull Tidal Surge Barrier is at the peninsula where the River Hull joins the Humber Estuary. As soon as the river reaches the outskirts of Hull, its course is marked by a series of bridges, most of which open to permit boats to pass.

  There are swing bridges, lift bridges and bascule bridges and the river becomes part of the Port of Hull.

  The river, which is the dividing line between the East and West of Hull, bisects the city’s industrial area. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield and enters the Humber estuary at Hull It was along one of the many bridges that cross the infinite watercourse, that Rachel’s car begun to cough and splutter. She looked down at the dashboard to see the petrol light frenziedly flashing.

  “No! No! No!” She groaned loudly, slamming her fists down onto the steering wheel.

  As her car breathed its final rev and cut out she slumped down in her seat. The head lights that pulled up behind her were bright. She expected them to turn off once the car had stopped but they didn’t.

  Rachel looked into her mirror. She couldn’t see anything with the lights blaring into her car. Nobody got out. If they had stopped to see if she was okay, they weren’t doing a very good job she thought. Squinting at the light, she tried to make out the car but she couldn’t really see anything.

  Then the dread came over her. It started in the pit of her stomach and rose up to her chest. Sean, she realised, had not let her go quite so easily this time. The lights went out and she immediately recognized his car. A wave of anger and frustration swept over her; grabbing the gun from the seat next to her she leapt out of the car and walked towards his. The aggravation and obstruction exasperated her. She couldn’t do this anymore. The conflict between her head and her heart was too much for her to handle. How can you love something, you hate so much at the same time?

  The rain was in the midst of a torrential down pour. It was the rain that got you from every direction. The wind blew it sideways and the ferocity with which it hit the ground made it appear to be raining upwards, as well as downwards.

  When Sean saw her walking towards him, he slowly got out the car.

  “I can’t let you go Rach.” He shouted to be heard over the wind; the howling was deafening.

  “You were the one that watched me walk away before and did nothing to stop me. Why did you come back Sean?

  Did you hate me that much? Was all this to punish me in some way; because I left you?”

  She had stopped just a little in front of his car. It was so dark, now the lights were out, she could barely make out anything around her. She knew the bridge was quite narrow, only allowing one car to pass through at a time.

  The edge was close; even if she couldn’t make out exactly where. She could see him though; maybe his image was imprinted in her brain for the rest of her lifetime, she didn’t know. But he was as clear as day. The rain was pounding down between them.

  “I don’t want to punish you. You are the only thing in my entire life I have ever genuinely cared about Rachel.

  Nothing has ever come close; don’t you see that?”

  “You have destroyed everything. Maisy was right. You annihilate and demolish at your own pleasure. You live in your own self-flagellation; a fantasy world that is governed by your rules.”

  He began to walk towards her. “Not with you, you make me someone else.”

  She backed away. If she let him near her it would be all over; she knew that. He still held the power to draw her in.

  Would he always have it?

  “How do I do that? Huh… come on please tell me. Why am I the special one Sean?”

  “You saw something no one else did. It’s that simple. I don’t know why. I don’t have any answers for you Rach.”

  She couldn’t see properly, the rain in her eyes made everything blurry. She tried to concentrate on her surroundings. Sean had reached her within a few paces. The force with which he grabbed hold of her made them twirl violently around each other like a pair of angry dancers.

  “I get confused in what I should do, what is right…

  and what I can do, what I am allowed to get away with.

  Nobody stopped me. Nobody made me question my actions or motives. Most people see me for exactly what I am; a monster.” He paused, searching her face.

  “Oh I know exactly what I am.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand. “You stopped me. You made me think there could be another way. That maybe I could be a normal person, regular like…” He urgently needed her to understand.

  She felt the pull of him once more. The man she frenetically loved, with all her heart. He tugged her closer to him, she tried to push him away and they stumbled further towards the edge of the bridge.

  “No wait, I have to tell you this, all of it.”

  Rachel stopped struggling against him and felt herself relax in his arms. There was something in his voice; an imperative need, that no matter how much she knew she should ignore, she couldn’t. She knew she should be running as fast as she could, but something made her stay.

  “I love the pain and destruction. I revelled in the control I had over Maisy. G
innie or Jane or whatever she was called was just a prop, for me to pretend for a while I had you back; that I could touch and kiss you any time I wanted. Then, when I finally had you for real, Greg was in the way. He stayed too long, arrived to early. He had a vested interest in you and I couldn’t stand it. It drove me mental. I had to remove him from our lives so we had a chance. In the end it all counted for nothing; didn’t it?”

  She leant forward and kissed him; her lips buzzed with exhilaration when they touched his. It was unpremeditated; astonishment and distress devoured her. The conflict between her head and her heart was overpowering.

  Was he confessing? Did he want liberation from his sins?

  The physical ache inside her was too much too bear; all she wanted was to dissolve into his embrace but her head was fighting her at every step; both entities just as potent and dominant as each other. She pulled away from him, this time he allowed her to.

  “I was wrong you know, when I said people get to start again. No-one can go back and make a brand new start.

  You can make a new ending though Sean. You could give yourself up. Pay for what you have done.”

  He laughed at her then; a sarcastic dry laugh.

  “And spend the rest of my life in prison. ‘Cause it will be the rest of my life Rachel; they won’t ever let me out. You gonna wait forever are you? Making do with prison visits every couple of months? Never feeling me kiss or touch you again?”

  Rachel shook her head again. He wasn’t listening to her.

  She wasn’t making him understand what she was trying to say. “Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is.

  The way you cope with it, is what makes the difference Sean.

  You can’t just obliterate things when they don’t go your way.

  Don’t you see that?”

  He took hold of her again. He wanted to believe, wanted to have faith in redemption for him. He needed peace so very much.

  “It’s because of now; this very second. What we are living right now; that’s why I ran Sean. Because I knew, one day it would come down to me or you. So here we are.