Stephanie drew in breath again, feigning shock at the mild curse. She would be sure to guilt her father about his failure to protect her delicate ears from the harsh world, he certainly deserved such chastisement … crèche indeed. Chastisement. She ran the word through her teeth, tongue, pursed lips, and back to her tongue, the silent incantation curling the corners of her mouth. She had been struggling through Les Misérables since seeing the movie (she would tell anyone who cared to listen that she was reading it, although mostly, she jumped about the tome, battling with sentences here and there.) Chastisement was a heavy word, with heavy meaning, and she loved it, at least this week. She patted her back pack contentedly, feeling the edge of the thick volume there, her mind wondering off to the slightly violent fantasy of clobbering that listless waif back at the creche with the full force of French literature.
Back in the car, safe from Stephanie’s flights of fancy, but facing up to the harsher realities, David’s fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, “John, I’m heading into the office, I need to talk to you about this.”
Undersecretary Carlton coughed to clear his throat, “David, you can’t come into the office. You need to lawyer up, and make sure whoever you get is damned good. Make no mistake John, your name is shit around these hallowed halls right now. You have royally screwed the pooch on this. Say Hi to Stephanie for me” Stephanie managed to shriek “Hi Mr Carlton.” From the back seat before the line clicked dead.
West was surprised when Charlene finally sat up and took her hands away from her face. The skin around her eyes was a little red and puffy, but at least she hadn’t been wearing makeup so there were no spider scrawl runs of mascara. He opened his mouth to speak, but Charlene cut him off, holding up a finger to silence him. He nodded slowly and sat back, leaning against a coffee table which occupied the space on the floor behind him.
Charlene wasn’t sure how long it had taken to muster the courage to sit up, and now that she found herself facing him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to West. Charlene had often pondered on the possibility of this event. No, not this, not facing some unworldly doppelgänger of a man she once knew. She had thought about what she would say to the man she knew as Anthony Statham if she ever saw him again.
She had been best friends with Anthony Statham for a year, as close as she had ever been to a man, although their relationship had never broken into the realms of true physical intimacy. Anthony had been patient in his love, understanding of her timidity and naivety and Charlene could think of no better way of spending her life than in his company. Then, a month before her mother passed away, Anthony was gone from her life without a single word of explanation. He had no family that she knew of, no friends she could talk to about what had happened. She had been inconsolable at the time, but the sense of anger and loss was soon swallowed by the emotional turmoil of her mother’s passing.
When she’d thought of Anthony Statham over the years, she had imagined the anger she would unleash, the hurt and indignation she would vent at him for leaving her, for not understanding that she would be good enough, better than good enough … too good for him. She had always felt so cheated, robbed of her opportunity to hate him to his face, and instead she had been forced to spend her years wondering what she had done, how she had managed to turn away someone she loved so much.
“Who are you really?” when the words finally came, they were effortless and they did manage to evince a tempered disdain.
“I have gone by many names throughout my life, although the name I was born to was West Yestler and that is the name I hold dearest.”
Charlene closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, already frustrated by the conversation. She felt she had lived long enough to deserve frank discourse, not half-truths or lies of omission. She opened her eyes and glared at West, trying to push past her own frailty to portray a mask of no nonsense intimidation, “Your name tells me nothing Mr Yestler, except that you’re a canny liar. You know what I mean; who are you really?”
West touched his fingertips to his chin, wishing momentarily that he could remember the feeling of his skin. He had wanted this confrontation for a long time, to be able to reveal himself to Charlene Osterman completely. He looked around her apartment and drew comfort from her collections of trivialities and treasures.
“Charlene, you were a child when you met Anthony Statham and he was a man who loved you, but he was also a man who existed merely as a means to an end. Anthony Statham was a persona I adopted to establish contact with several people in this great city and that should have been the end of him. It was your fault, at least partially your fault that Anthony Statham became more than a figment of my lonely imagination.”
Charlene’s body rocked gently, a slow and throaty laugh building into a coarse cackle, “Impossible. I knew Anthony Statham nearly seventy years ago; how in the name of all that is holy do you expect me to believe …” she laughed harder and the laughter subsided into a fit of coughing, which she struggled to control. She could barely continue, “How the heck …” she coughed again, “How am I supposed to believe that you are that same man? You’re barely a man yourself.”
She was starting to feel comfortable with her thoughts, confident that this was not the onset of the end of her mind. She allowed her thoughts to stretch their legs and race again, trying to fathom how this man had worked such a devious trick, or better yet, why? What could anyone possibly stand to gain from all of this? She had nothing of worth, no great sum of hoarded wealth to pass on to anyone, and that thought puzzled her more than anything.
West smiled gently and nodded, “Let me ask you a question Charlene. You were coughing just now. When was the last time you coughed without your chest being wracked with pain?”
Charlene eased herself back on the couch, brushing the cushions with her fingers. She glanced at her lap as she thought about the odd question. She’d suffered from angina for the past year, that much was true. She tried to remember if it always hurt when she coughed. She glanced over to a small table in the corner of the room, a table on which sat a small jewelry chest in which she kept her nitroglycerin and beta blockers. She hadn’t taken her medication today, but usually it didn’t hurt so much to cough when she had taken nitroglycerin. She answered honestly, “It doesn’t always hurt.”
West nodded, “You were coughing pretty bad just now, did it hurt at all?”
“No.”
West allowed her time to think about this before he continued.
“I need you to relax Charlene, take some deep breaths and find calm within yourself.”
She squinted and leaned towards him, “I’m not into any of that meditation crap Mr Yestler. Say what you’ve got to say and be done with it; I’m too old for this verbal dance.”
West stood up and came to sit next to her on the couch, slow and careful, as if he was approaching a beast of the wild. Charlene moved slightly to accommodate him and she arched her head away from him disdainfully, which gave him cause to chuckle gently. “Charlene, I’m not going to hurt you, don’t worry.” He took her hands in his and held them on her lap.
“Charlene, if you were to drink a glass of water right now with some salt in it, you would be sick, a little sicker than you would usually expect. There is nothing wrong with you, you are not ill, however, when you woke just now, you woke because some small change was working itself in you.”
Charlene tried to back away further on the couch, pressing up against an embroidered cushion behind her, “What kind of a change? What are you talking about?” Her fear was obvious and West kept hold of her hands gently, rubbing the tendons of her fingers in what he hoped were comforting circles.
“The first change would be in your heart. You have had an obstruction that causes angina?”
She nodded nervously in response and West continued, “The first change in you would be in the coronary arteries, where the blockage would be loosened. Within the last few minutes, the muscles of your heart will have changed, almost imp
erceptibly to you, but you will notice already that your pain has subsided.” She pulled her hands away from him and tucked them firmly together on her lap. She didn’t like what he was saying, and she wished there was a way she could back out of this altogether, get him to leave her apartment and forget any of this had happened.
West sighed, shoulders heaving a little, prickled by her continued mistrust of him. “Charlene, you need to understand right now that any change that has happened to you will do you no harm. If you were to drink a glass of salty water, you would be sick and your life would continue as before, except you would probably not suffer any more from chest pains.”
“Doctor Sawyers says I’ll always have chest pains! What have you done? What have you given me?” She asked.
“Damned leeches!” Hannah Beach threw a half folded letter on the kitchen table as she heard the front door close. She glanced at her niece, grimacing and covering her mouth apologetically, “I’m sorry Spiff … Please don’t ever talk like your Aunt Han okay?”
Stephanie frowned. She had been so excited to embarrass her father, regaling her Aunt with stories of how depraved, and callous he was, and now she was more frustrated that her Aunt’s slip up had completely taken the wind out of her sails. She threw her little back pack on the floor in contempt, the weight of Jean Valjean’s misery thudding in satisfying syncopation with her own huff. She was sure if she pictured poor Courgette’s plight, she’d be able to milk this situation and squeeze out a tear (Cosette … she knew, but she enjoyed her father’s exasperation every time he had to correct her.) When no tear came, she tried humming a line of Castle on a Cloud, before conceding defeat, growling at her Aunt, and charging towards her, hugging her tightly around her waist.
David smiled at Hannah, shrugging to signal his confusion at Stephanie’s behavior, “So, who’s bleeding you dry now?”
Hannah ran her fingers through Stephanie’s hair, then shook her gently by the shoulders, rocking her in time to her words, “Oh, it’s just the mean old Po-Pos.”
Stephanie looked up at her aunt, a slightly vindictive glint in her eyes, “You got another speeding ticket?”
Hannah pushed Stephanie away playfully, “Gah, creep, get away from me. I knew I didn’t like you.” Stephanie’s little hands flung about Hannah’s back again, “You lurve me aunt Hannah. You buy me presents, and you take me to the library, and you buy me ice cream, and you take me to movies …”
“Creep, creep, creep, creep, creep.” Hannah rocked side to side in a mock attempt at shaking off her niece. Looking up, Hannah noticed that David was pinching the bridge of his nose with his right hand, his left arm folded across his chest. She wasn’t fantastic with body language, but right now, she was pretty sure that David was about to break down. She turned Stephanie about, and launched her towards the stormy seas, “Go hug your daddy, creep. He looks like he needs it.”
David laughed feebly, but then the tears did come. Stephanie stood between the two adults, glancing back and forth between them, tears starting to well in her eyes, that heady mixture of confusion and empathy building quickly. Hannah stooped close to her, kneeling down, “You know what creep? Daddy will be fine. Go watch some T.V while we talk about miserable grown up stuff, okay?”
Stephanie looked over her shoulder at her father, who forced a smile and nodded, shooing her away with his right hand, his left arm still wound tight over his chest. Stephanie understood the social contract enough to know that she had been released from her obligation.
As he watched Stephanie walk towards the den, David’s tears started to flow more freely. Hannah walked towards the island in the kitchen, and leaned the small of her back against the counter. She patted the stool next to her, “Get over here David. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.” She watched as his shoulders shuddered when he inhaled … bad sign, “Okay, it’s that bad … is it the crap with Tiernan again?” He walked over and took his place on the stool beside her, resting his forehead on the cool slate-topped counter.
“Oh god Hannah. I’m fucked. I’m really fucked.” He sobbed.
Hannah bit her lip and glanced towards the den, patting her brothers back tentatively, “What happened?”
He sucked up the drool that was starting to pool at the corners of his mouth, “They think I’m lying! Hannah, it really sounds like they think I’m involved in this.”
She was quietly glad that he wasn’t looking at her. She was nervous, possibly even scared for her brother, but she couldn’t keep herself from smiling, “David, chill.” She laughed, embarrassed at her own ineptitude, “Seriously though … if they really thought you were involved in the assassination of a president, you’d be hog tied and hooded by now.”
David laughed, and inhaled awkwardly, “Shut up Han, they don’t do that.”
“Oh, I’ve seen the photos”
David sat up and glared at her seriously, “I can’t go back to work.”
Hannah shook her head and rolled her eyes, “Of course you can … get over yourself.”
David’s mouth fell open, “Get over myself? You think this is me being embarrassed to show my face at work? No Han, I mean, I literally can’t go back to work … Carlton told me I couldn’t even go to the office to talk to him.”
Hannah laughed, her hands covering her mouth, “Shut up!”
No answer.
“Shut up!”
Still no answer.
“Oh god David … you’re Lee Harvey Oswald.”
He stood up quickly and walked over to the window facing the back yard, hands shaking as he filled the carafe with water from the tap. Coffee would help. Coffee always helped.
“Oh come on David, it’s funny because it’s true.”
David slumped to the floor with his back against the kitchen cabinets, sobbing, breaths coming in short, ragged, heaving bursts. Hannah finished her brother’s half-assed attempt at setting off the coffee, then slumped to the floor beside him. Sure, this was a big deal, but she felt like David could at least try to make it easy for her to sympathize with him. He was such a pussy sometimes, which was fine … he’d had to deal with a lot of stuff growing up that she had been too young to even acknowledge rationally, but she’d told him, so many times that she felt cold, and kind of nauseated when men cried near her.
“Hell David, what’s the worst that could happen?”
David’s sobbing ceased momentarily, and he lifted his chin from its resting place on his knees, “ … fucking shit, I don’t know Han. Maybe, life in prison … Death penalty?”
Hannah clamped her teeth around her knuckle, and took a slow breath to steady her nerves, “So, I’ll get to keep Spiff, and she’ll grow up a little bit maladjusted, which, let’s be honest, was definitely on the cards for her anyway.”
David started laughing, but this seemed to have little effect on the flow of tears, so Hannah dug deep, and draped an arm over her brother’s shoulder. “Seriously Dave, this is only one of the worst things imaginable, definitely not the worst. You’re allowed to feel a little sorry for yourself, but now you need to pick your sorry ass up off the floor, and put on a happy show for Stephanie, or I swear to god, I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”
With the sound of tiny feet slapping on the hardwood floor of the kitchen, Stephanie came running from the den with her hands behind her back, “Aunt Han, what’s a sphincta?”
David’s smile was crooked, but presentable, “What are you watching Stephanie?”
“Wayne’s world.”
David laughed a little and coughed, “A sphincter is what stops you from drowning in the bath when you let one go.”
Hannah slapped the back of David’s head playfully, “Don’t listen to your dad Spiff. Let’s look it up okay?” Hannah pushed with her feet, sliding her back up the cabinet, and took Stephanie’s hand as she walked her back into the den.
David got up off the floor, and poured himself a coffee. He was glad to be home. He looked out at the back yard and saw the twisted limping
swing-set that longed for attention. He would fix it. Manual labor would take his mind off everything.
West stood up from the couch, glancing around the room, as if one of the porcelain bulls, or china fishermen might have the answer to Charlene’s question. What had he given her? Charlene’s fingers stroked the skin of her neck carefully, tracing a tentative line towards her chest. He knew that she must be feeling better, and in the long run, that would be all that would matter to her. He looked back at the porcelain bull, before finally deciding that so far as demonstrative props went, this would have to suffice.
“Charlene …” He picked up the bull, tossing it from hand to hand before holding it out in front of him, “The cow’s stomach has four chambers, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and the abomasum.”
Charlene glared at him, “Put that down, I’ve had that forty years son.”
West smirking, quickly obeyed, placing the cow back where he found it, amongst the menagerie of ornate fish, and fowl. Charlene continued, “I’ll tell you what, if all my aches and pains can be fixed with cow stomach, and I’ve been suffering all this time, there’ll be hell to pay, and that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.”
West waved his hand in the air, clearing the imaginary slate, “No, I’m sorry … What I was trying to say,”
“Say it man, there is no try.”
“The cow stomach.”
Charlene slapped her open hand on the couch beside her, “Spit it out. I’m eighty-five years old you know; I’ll be in my bloody grave by the time you’re done.”
West licked his lips involuntarily, “Leeches.”
“Leeches?”
West nodded, “I’ve given you leeches.”
Charlene slumped back into the comfort of the couch, “Waste of time lad. I’ve had ‘em before, and they did nothing for me …” her eyes narrowed as a thought seemed to occur to her, “Here, you say you gave me them? You mean you put one in my mouth?”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 4
