Heart Stopper

by R J Samuel

  Reyna asked, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  She was looking at Priya’s crinkled clothes, at her damp hair, at the look in her eyes. Priya took another gulp of wine then finished off the rest in the glass and placed the glass on the floor. She gestured at the armchair and sat back down on the sofa, pulling her legs up into her and hugging the rounded arm.

  Keeping her voice steady, Priya asked, “We have a problem?”

  Reyna remained standing, but she’d moved around in front of the couch.

  “I don’t know how to say this, especially since you’re obviously not okay.” Reyna knelt beside the couch and took Priya’s hand. Priya stared at their hands and then back up at Reyna. Even through her daze, she felt the power of Reyna’s eyes. They were brown like Valerie’s, but a million shades away. The pupils were wide and Priya saw a universe inside the shadows.

  Priya closed her eyes. “Just say it.”

  Reyna took in a deep breath then let it out in a rush. “Gerry phoned James and demanded your suspension from the clinic and an investigation into your breach of security.”

  “Gerry? Or Valerie?”

  “Gerry.”

  “And what did James say?” Priya felt surprisingly calm.

  “He was under pressure from TechMed Devices as well. He said we have no choice and has asked me not to go against the decision.”

  “So I’ve been suspended.”

  Reyna got off her knees and sat beside Priya without letting go of her hand.

  “I’m sorry. As far as TechMed and James are concerned, the rules were broken. Only you and I, and Catherine, know that it turned out to be for a good reason. And Gerry and Valerie have a right to demand this as it was their material.”

  “And you’re not going to go against them.” Priya yanked her hand out of Reyna’s grip.

  Reyna said, “Priya, I would have fought it, but I actually think right now it might be a good thing.” She hurried on as Priya turned to glare at her, “Have you considered the danger you are in? It would be safer if you weren’t near the clinic for the moment. Not till we find out what’s going on.”

  “Danger from what? The only thing in common between the attacks is the equipment the technicians were using. So if, I’m in danger, so is Tara and so are God knows how many others who use the same equipment every day.”

  “But you’re the only one who’s been followed. You’re the one Daniel trusted along with Catherine.”

  “So, now you trust me? But you’re going to suspend me?” Priya sprang up and felt the wooze of wine rush to her head. Or was it light-headedness from a rush of blood to her legs, or a lack of food. She hadn’t eaten since that half of a sandwich at lunchtime yesterday. Her hands trembled as she poured out another glass, splashing a few drops onto the floor, the red drops brightly dark against the black and white tiles. She drank the glass in one go and poured another.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Reyna said.

  “Don’t you mean ‘Priya, you obviously can’t handle your drink as you’ve proven before’? What is it, Reyna, can’t you ‘handle’ me when I’m drunk. You’ve done it before. Or is it when I’m sober that you don’t want to know?” Priya spun around to face Reyna.

  The fast motion made her head spin and the wine spilled out again and dripped down into the fold of skin between her thumb and finger. “Why do women like Valerie get whatever they want?” She watched the drops of red creep down towards her wrist.

  Reyna got up, took the glass from Priya’s hand, and placed it on the low table beside the window and stayed, staring out of the window. The night had snuffed out the lingering light of the Irish summer and Priya knew the occasional sweep of brightness from the passing traffic was not that interesting.

  It struck her that Reyna was forcing herself to remain turned away. She felt a surge of power. For the first time. She wondered if this was what Valerie felt. Was it more satisfying when the woman who was struggling was strong?

  Priya wanted to be in the game. To feel what it was like to participate, to control, to direct it. She walked over to the window, her steps deliberate. She felt Reyna’s body flinch away as she took Reyna’s face and turned it towards her. Keeping her eyes fixed on Reyna’s, she placed her hands on Reyna’s hips and pushed, slow, but firm, until Reyna was leaning on the sill, her back pressed against the glass blackness. Priya looked down at the pulse that thrust against the line of Reyna’s neck. She ran the tip of her finger over the movement and down to the edge of Reyna’s top where it bunched at her collarbone, she could feel the grain of the cloth rough against the silk of Reyna’s skin and she could feel Reyna’s fast breath against her cheek, warm and cool, hot and cold. As she lowered her head to kiss Reyna, she saw the helplessness she had seen in Reyna’s eyes before, but there was hurt attached now. The feel of Reyna’s lips drowned out the protest that surfaced in Priya’s heart. She wound her fingers through Reyna’s hair, her knuckles tapped against the cold of the pane, her palms cupping the heat, pulling it closer, her body pushing Reyna’s.

  She was losing herself in their kiss, but the shade of hurt in Reyna’s eyes wouldn’t leave that part of Priya’s mind that knew. She pulled her mouth away and laid her cheek against the base of Reyna’s throat. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent.

  With as much strength as she could marshal she took herself out of Reyna’s arms and sank down onto the couch.

  She kept her voice calm and it came out low. “I don’t play games, Reyna. I’m as competitive as the next person, but not when it comes to feelings.”

  “I am not playing games.” Reyna was still slumped where Priya had left her and her voice sounded like it was being forced through a rigid tube.

  “Well, everybody seems to. And I honestly don’t know anymore who’s playing and who’s not.” Priya slid her body flat onto the couch and rested her head against the arm. “You’ve done what you came to do; I have been well and truly suspended. You know where the door is.”

  The click of the door closing a few minutes later stung deep in her chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Friday, July 22, 2011

  The man sitting across from him was tense. The diplomat noticed that the man’s blue suit had just one wrinkle, arcing its way down below the knee to the hem of the trousers. On the desk between them lay the device. The temporary one the diplomat was using. He was now expert at working the device. Hold it over the collarbone, wait for the beep, press the button. That was to communicate with his implanted pacemaker. For the meeting, he would be holding the device in his pocket, standing within three feet of his target. He couldn’t get the device any closer without arousing suspicion. And when he pressed the button, everything would stop. And his pacemaker would start.

  The diplomat said, “Why am I practicing with this? It is not the real thing. I will not need to hold it in the same way.” His voice was harsh with fear.

  The man frowned. “It is close enough to the real thing. Everything will be in the same place. It will work though.”

  “You are sure? We will never get another chance, you know that.”

  The man nodded. His eyes burned and the old acne scars stood dark against his tanned skin.

  “I will make it happen. If it is the last thing I do.”

  The man got up and walked to the door. He used the same tone that he had when they had first met, the reassuring tone, the convincing tone. The diplomat found it disturbing, that flat confidence, the arrogance that still managed to creep through.

  “I am going there today. I have a few things to clean up. The device will be ready before the 28th. That is the latest date for the device to be ready in time and get it to you for the meeting on August 1st.”

  As the man left the room, the diplomat tried not to think of the lack of options for him, and more importantly for his country, if the device was not ready in time.

  They had 10 days.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sat
urday, July 23, 2011

  Priya woke up on the couch, her spine fixed in pain. She groaned as she tried to crawl off without moving her back too much. Her neck was stiff too and she knelt on all fours beside the couch trying to work her muscles loose. The empty bottle was lying on the floor and it felt sticky as she picked it up as she got to her feet. Her head hurt; the light from outside made it worse.

  She checked her phone, it was late morning already. She had slept for hours. The last few weeks had caught up with her. It was now two weeks to the day that she had woken up with a dead man. She wondered for how long more she would measure her days from that moment. Like she had done from the morning she’d found out about Kathy, and then the moment the machine was switched off. Anniversaries of death. After a lifetime with no close experience of death, they were now sudden and intimate friends; she had the mental photographs to prove their relationship.

  She wouldn’t look into the mirror as she cleaned her face. This time she remembered. Every detail. The strength and movement of Reyna’s cheek against her palm, the softness of her earlobe as Priya’s finger brushed against it, the scent of the hollow at the base of Reyna’s throat. She remembered most of all the feeling of coming home as she laid her face against that scent.

  She raised her eyes to look into the mirror. So, the long search for home ended with a woman who was married, emotionally unavailable, and in Valerie’s clutches. And Priya would never play that game. At least she could look herself in the eyes on that count.

  ∞

  Priya sat on her cliff at the end of the field behind her house, legs dangling, feet bumping off the eroded earth wall. She watched the seagulls argue on the beach as they chased the glint of the afternoon sun. The participants in the debate changed often, some joining in from the air, others leaving to go for a bob on the waves. She had observed them for years and she thought she could recognize some of the regulars.

  She’d cleaned up and taken a taxi in to the clinic to collect her car. It had looked lost and blue in the empty car park.

  She heard a voice calling her name and turned to see Catherine walking down the path that led by the house and down beside her field. There was a break in the low loose-stone wall and Catherine edged through it and picked her way through the boulders.

  Priya’s immediate feeling was that of a child about to be scolded, but Catherine smiled at her with her usual warmth.

  “May I join you?”

  Priya nodded.

  Catherine slipped off her shoes and settled down beside Priya. She refused Priya’s offer of a drink and they sat for a few minutes absorbing.

  Catherine took both of Priya’s hands in hers.

  Priya looked down at their hands and said, “I’ve noticed in the last while that people have held my hand when I wasn’t feeling okay.” She looked back up and smiled. “Do people see me as a child or something? Though I probably come across as one. Is it the height thing? Little Priya. My dad is tall, I got this from my mum, she was exactly 5 feet tall. My dad and I used to use her to measure the height of the badminton net when we played back there.”

  Catherine laughed. “You are little, my dear. But you certainly don’t come across like a child.” Her face turned serious. “In fact, you come across as a beautiful, confident, powerful, young woman. But you just see the child.”

  “Powerful?” Priya snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, Priya. I’m not.” Catherine turned to look at the sea and the blue reflections deepened the color of her eyes. “You know, we all have the same power, it is just that some people know it and use it and others don’t and give it away. I used to be like you. My father was a powerful man; he wanted things for me, for his family. All for the right reasons, of course. When my mom died, I was 17 and he was only 39. He didn’t realize what it would do to me, he was devastated and he withdrew, but he couldn’t see that losing a mother is as difficult as losing your wife. Maybe more. Because when she’s gone, it feels like that one person in this whole lonely world that is there for you, isn’t anymore. And I don’t mean it was a perfect relationship or anything, we fought a lot, but I just knew, I just felt it, right here.” Catherine took one of her hands and touched her chest.

  Priya’s eyes filled and she rubbed them with rough fingers.

  Catherine’s voice was gentle. “It is okay to cry. I wish I’d done that instead of lashing out. But then, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have had Daniel if I hadn’t rebelled and hung around with Leo. I was only 17 when I met Leo and he was 30. I can’t look back now and regret my mistakes because each one left me with something good too. I was young. I made mistakes. I’m still making them. Every day. Along with a few good decisions. You have so many bruises, Priya. And they are not all inflicted by other people. Stop beating yourself up.”

  Priya whispered, “There are things I’ve said and done that I can’t forgive.”

  “So you’ve made mistakes. Did you mean to hurt anyone?”

  “No. I can’t stand hurting anyone.”

  “Except yourself. I guess that doesn’t count.” Catherine smiled as Priya shot her a look.

  Priya said, “I seem to have gone through life with no direction, or letting other people and their needs be the signposts for me.” She sighed. “But anything else means figuring out what I want and that always seemed selfish.”

  “It is not selfish, Priya, It is essential. I have been trying to tell Rain that.” Priya stiffened and Catherine said in a softer voice, “You see yourself as this powerless person when it comes to women like Valerie and Rain. Yes, Rain told me about Valerie and about Kathy.”

  “Did she tell you Valerie ‘had’ Kathy too? No, she couldn’t have, she didn’t know. Like I didn’t know.” Priya’s voice was rushed and angry. “How could someone do that? I’ve been paralyzed by guilt ever since I cheated on Kathy with Valerie. Then Kathy killed herself and I thought it was over me. Can you imagine what kind of guilt came with that? I tried not to feel anything for Valerie after that, but somehow she got to me. That night, on my birthday, I tried so hard to ignore her. I didn’t know about her and Kathy then, I was such a fool. Valerie played with me, she flirted with Daniel. I don’t know why I reacted. She had that effect on me. I mean, how could I have flirted with Daniel, a guy, to stop her? She had that kind of power.” Priya shook her head. “It wasn’t a game. Her games affected too many people in such awful ways. I don’t want to be powerful if that’s what it causes.”

  They sat in silence for a minute.

  Catherine said, “You know that saying, with power comes responsibility? Well, handing away power doesn’t lessen responsibility. It is not a game, but it is an interaction. And if you hand all the power to the other person, you’re giving up your responsibility for yourself. The difference between a Valerie and you is that when someone hands you their power you don’t abuse it, in fact, you seem to take on all the responsibility for them. Valerie just takes on all the power.”

  “And Reyna…?”

  “Reyna is not like Valerie. Not one bit. But she has lost her power. For the moment.” Catherine smiled, “She was such a cool kid, shy, but so naturally cool. She didn’t have to try; people were just drawn to her. I guess that was Leo coming through in them, Daniel was like that too, but he knew it. Rain was the kind of kid that would hear you talk about something you liked and she’d remember and get that for you on your next birthday. She liked to find out what would make other people happy. There were a load of kids in the commune, but I think she was the leader, not in a loud kind of way, it would just seem to default to her.”

  Priya said, “She still has that.”

  “Yes. But she doesn’t trust it.” Catherine’s hand was tugging at the grass beside them. “She had her share of relationships; she was considered quite a catch I gather, but none of them really serious. And then she met Simone.” The name hissed out.

  “Her wife?”

  “Yes. They got together about a year before Leo died. Simone was a sou
s-chef in a French restaurant in San Francisco. Rain had just finished college and was working at helping a start-up, a dot com thing. I think the relationship wasn’t that serious at first, not for Simone anyway, and then Leo died, and he left money to Rain.” She sighed. “Next thing, Simone wants to get married. And I think Rain was quite isolated from her friends by this stage. Simone had a way of doing that. And I had just moved to Ireland. Rain had withdrawn from me because I made the mistake of telling her what I thought of Simone. So they got married and I wasn’t invited. And Rain set up a restaurant for Simone. I’m afraid I didn’t handle it too well, Rain was such a responsible person with money and she did this without thinking. She said she wanted to make Simone’s dreams come true.”

  Catherine’s fist clutched a handful of grass, slender roots dripping dry earth into the open grave.

  “But Rain didn’t have any background in restaurants, did she?”

  Catherine shook her head. “She could usually do anything she put her mind to. And she did. She learnt everything she could, she used to work as a waitress there as well as manage it, while that, that… woman lorded it as the chef. The restaurant was actually quite good. But a month after they opened, Simone had an affair with a waiter there. A really young guy, only nineteen, twenty or something like that. Practically flaunted it in front of Rain’s face. And when Rain confronted her Simone got violent.”

  “I can’t see Rain, sorry, Reyna, putting up with that.” Priya asked, “What happened, did she kick Simone out?”

  “That’s what I couldn’t understand. How a strong woman like Reyna could let someone control her like that. No, she didn’t kick Simone out. Simone created havoc in the restaurant. She would scream and shout and threaten Rain, sometimes in front of customers. And I think when there were no customers, she would hit Rain.” Priya’s mouth dropped open. “Yes, Priya, I thought that too, but it turns out it happens between women as well. I didn’t know about this, one waitress saw something once, but she didn’t want to get involved. The bitch said to me later she didn’t want to take sides. Sorry for my language, but if you see someone being physically threatening to another person who won’t defend herself, at least say something.”