Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  ‘Sorry, what’s that, Mum?’

  ‘I was saying that this is very nice. Everything you’ve got here.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ She looked at Lily playing with her iPad.

  ‘But you know what they say, love?’

  ‘What’s that then, Mum?’

  ‘If it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.’

  The Manipulator

  The manipulator may resort to the use of ‘gaslighting’, a technique to distort their victim’s sense of reality insisting that the victim is imagining it, or it happened a different way. The victim will stop trusting themselves, their own memory of events, their perception and their judgement.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Later that evening Ollie sat with her mother. She’d bought a small bottle of Glenfiddich whiskey because it was her mother’s favourite. She poured her a shot over ice. Then she stepped into her new confidence and poured herself a small glass of red wine.

  They clinked glasses, but her mother frowned at her wine.

  ‘Mum. I want to be a normal person, with a normal life.’

  But Ollie knew what she was thinking. This is typical Ollie. All going well and then do something stupid that she knows she shouldn’t do.

  Ollie sipped her wine, felt the instant kick and placed the glass on the table. Do what normal people do.

  ‘Tell me about Dad.’

  Her mother blinked, surprised. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘That’s easy. He just cleared off like they do. Run from their responsibilities when the going gets tough.’

  ‘I don’t remember it being tough. I remember having good fun with him. That he was a great Dad. Parks, ducks, swings, sunny days.’

  Her mother sipped her whiskey and didn’t answer.

  Ollie spoke carefully. ‘Mum. I can’t remember anything before I was ten. Nothing. I don’t remember being young. I can’t recall starting school or those early school days with friends. I can’t recall any friends until I was eleven. Saran is the first I remember.’

  ‘Happens, Love. We all start to forget as we get older.’

  ‘Mum, I’m thirty not ninety.’

  ‘Look at me. I have a disease that means I forget things and one of the things I’ve forgotten is what it’s called.’

  Ollie took another sip of her wine and placed the glass back on the table.

  ‘But I don’t understand about Dad. I don’t even have any pictures.’

  ‘Disappeared, love. One day he went to work and didn’t come home. Probably back in Grenada for all I know.’

  She reached for her handbag and produced two faded colour photographs.

  ‘This is all I have left. Keep them if you want because I’ll be gone soon in any case.’

  Ollie stared into the laughing face. Brown eyes, short curly black hair going grey at the fringes and huge white teeth beamed a radar of fun from the dark face. She saw only honesty in those eyes and not a hint of deception.

  ‘Keep those happy memories, love. Things are looking up for you. Please don’t go looking backwards. There are dark places there.’ She patted Ollie’s arm.

  ‘Go forwards, love. Only forwards.’

  ​​​​ * * *

  Ollie stood at the gate of her old school in Shoreditch. In the play areas toys lay in tidy piles, the climbing frames were empty, the children all inside. She could see them sitting in small groups around low tables. Behind them walls bright with colourful displays. The alphabet, numbers, animals.

  She’d attended this school until the age of ten, but she remembered nothing of it. She stared and stared forcing images of its windows and walls into the dark empty space in her brain, demanding that they form a link, create one memory that would start a cascade. Release the torrent that would bring her young life rushing back to her.

  But nothing came.

  Someone in a yellow hi-vis jacket came around the corner of the building, saw her and started across the playground. Ollie opened the low metal gate and walked to meet them. Anyone hanging around a school playground was suspicious.

  Ollie had arranged to meet with the headmistress, Miss Joy Booth. She’d made the school her career or maybe the school had chosen her. Whichever it was, she remembered Ollie.

  Joy now had bobbed grey hair, wore slacks and a jumper. Her glasses had frames so thick they would survive the biggest backside trying to crush them.

  ‘I remember all of you. I taught all of you. The good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the loved, the unloved, the confident and the needy.’

  ‘And you still remember me? It was twenty years ago.’

  ‘How can I forget a girl whose name is Oleander Soul. And you were always dancing and singing.’ She leant forward. ‘Diana Ross. That’s who you always wanted to be.’ She reached for the school photograph she had retrieved for the meeting.

  ‘There you are. All smiling white teeth and hair tied in tiny pigtails with yellow ribbons. Always yellow ribbons.’

  Ollie sipped at her tea and wondered if Joy Booth knew what had become of the smiling little girl and wannabe Diana Ross. She hoped not. She didn’t want her disappointed. But then again, what did happen to me, she thought? What took me from the happy kid here to what I became?

  ‘Why did I leave? I remember being at another school at the age of eleven, so I left here, but don’t remember why.’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  Ollie shook her head. ‘It’s blank. I don’t remember you and I think I would and should. I can’t recall any classes, friends, playtimes, teachers… If I was happy here, surely there would be some memories?’

  Joy Booth handed her the school picture. ‘Do you want to take a picture on your mobile?’

  ‘That was a change of subject.’

  Joy Booth smiled. ‘Take a picture and then you will have at least one memory.’

  Ollie did as teacher told her to and handed back the picture. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Have you asked your mother?’

  ‘She won’t tell me.’

  ‘In that case, neither will I, Oleander. You look happy and sometimes it’s best to let the past go.’

  ‘Or?’

  Joy shrugged. ‘Go and ask the police.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ollie headed for the local police station. She had no idea what questions to ask, what she was looking for or even whether this station was involved in whatever it was that no one wanted to talk to her about.

  She was torn between pursuit and letting go. Pursuit was what she always did, to her own destruction. Following her heart and passion. Letting go is what her head told her to do and she never listened.

  Be sensible, a voice said, follow your mother’s advice, listen to Joy Booth. The past is gone. It can’t be changed. Except, Ollie replied, I don’t want to change it, I want to know about it. The history of my life. What created and forged me into the troubled woman I have become.

  What was Saran’s advice? Go and kill the demon that created you, your father. Did Saran know? It was strange to point Ollie in this direction if she didn’t. If so, how long had she known? Why and what hadn’t she told her?

  Ollie stood at the front desk. She was nervous in an environment that she’d only ever encountered from the wrong side. Drugs, prostitution and the sudden disappearance of her partner had kept her on their radar for too long. Add to that the death of two junkies. If there was something else, wouldn’t they have raised it before?

  She tried to explain to the WPC on duty what she wanted. The WPC seemed perplexed.

  ‘You left the area twenty years ago and you want to know why? Have you asked your parents and friends?’ All asked in an ‘are you stupid or what’ voice.

  Here we go again, thought Ollie. Authority. Don’t kick off. This is the one place where it will get you into trouble. A room at the back and an interrogation.

  ‘Look. You must have records in your database. I just ne
ed to sit with someone, have them type in my name and see what pops up.’

  She knew the ‘pops up’ was stupid the moment she said it. Popping up would be a list of charges as long as the arm of the law.

  ‘Have you tried the library? Or Google?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If it was serious it will have been in the local paper. Maybe even the Standard. And Google has everything.’

  They were good points, but she was here now, so, ‘I was ten years old. We just need to put the name Emmanuel Soul into your database and…’

  ‘See what pops out.’

  ‘Exactly. If I go the other routes I may end up here anyway. Who knows, jog my memory and I may be able to contribute to any investigation that took place into his disappearance.’

  That gave the WPC something to hang the request on. Twenty minutes later and another explanation to a Detective by the name of John and Ollie was in a small side room sitting opposite him.

  He typed the name into the database and read the screen for a few seconds. Some other flag popped up because of the glance he suddenly gave her.

  He asked, ‘Which one do you want to know about? Emmanuel?’

  ‘What do you mean? I only had one father.’

  The pause and the thoughtful gaze he gave her, went through her body like the cold wind that arrives pushed ahead by an incoming storm.

  ‘You asked about Emmanuel. It was treated as a disappearance. Never really followed up because there were no leads to follow up. Filed as a missing person. My limited experience has most of these men back in the Caribbean.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well according to the files Emmanuel was your stepfather, your father was murdered in 1999. He was found on the kitchen floor of your flat on the housing estate in Whitechapel.’ He stopped and sat back, his face an annoyed frown.

  ‘Is this some kind of joke? A game? Are you on drugs?’

  Ollie felt her skin start to crawl. She was stressed enough in here anyway. She could feel sweat on her back. ‘Look. I can’t remember. Nothing before the age of ten.’

  Shit, she thought. In 1999, I was ten.

  John shook his head. ‘You must know this.’

  ‘What for Chrissake?’

  ‘You discovered the crime. You were found at the scene. Sitting in a pool of blood. There was no body - still isn’t and no murder weapon. The case is still open, but no one’s worked on it for years.

  He half-turned the screen on its stand. ‘Here’s a picture.’

  Ollie stared, buried her face in her hands to erase the image then stared again. It was a picture of the crime scene, taken from a doorway. It showed a huge pool of blood that had spread, meandering across the floor of a tiny kitchen as the life in it cooled and blood cells died.

  Tiny footprints, her footprints, led away from it towards the camera.

  Ollie’s hands stifled the scream. She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. I should, shouldn’t I?’ She looked at the detective with terror. ‘Something like that. Can I see more? Is there more?’

  Shit, she thought. If an image like that doesn’t shock my brain into remembering, then what the hell willl?

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t because the investigation is still open.’

  ‘Well, do you have a picture of the man? My father. At least you can give me that. Shit. What was his name?’

  He scrolled through images, found one and printed it. ‘Here. Billy Jones. He was a builder.’

  The picture was of a man standing at a barbeque in someone’s back garden with a grin on his face and a can of beer raised towards the camera. Then Ollie started laughing.

  ‘Call yourself a detective, John. That can’t be my father. He’s white.’

  John the Detective took a deep, patient breath. ‘In that case, Miss Soul, you may want to have a word with your mother.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s the one who gave us that picture.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  John the Detective saw Ollie out of the building and returned to the interview room. He retrieved the case notes and quick eyes scanned the summary on the screen. Then he called the detective still charged with solving the long-standing murder case.

  He was busy, huffed and puffed and was not interested. They had the anonymous conversation of two colleagues who don’t know each other, but are duty bound to communicate.

  ‘I have a pile of cases much more current than this one.’

  John pursued it. ‘She was shocked, sir. Really shocked. The extent surprised me. And she was the one who walked into a pool of his blood.’

  ‘And she can’t remember?’

  ‘Complete blank. But she’s well known to us. Drink, drugs, dealing, prostitution and then there’s the still open case of the recent disappearance of her partner.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘A murder with no body. Disappearance of her stepfather. Disappearance of her partner. Three makes one huge coincidence.’

  ‘Who’s handling the disappearance of the partner.’

  ‘DI Donna Small and DS Andy Mann.’

  ‘That’s the most recent so they can have them all. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll contact the Chief and do the paperwork.’

  * * *

  Ollie worked the morning at the Café preparing platters of salad dishes. There was something she enjoyed about preparing the food, perhaps it was the serenity in the creativity. She once had a punter who was a bricklayer and went on about the satisfaction of starting the day in a trench and ending it with a brick wall in front of him. Simple things can create a life of satisfaction.

  The lunchtime she spent serving and delivering food to tables. She was comfortable in this environment. There were no threats, everyone was relaxed and friendly. Customers talked of yoga, meditation, health and fitness, diets, politics, issues with the world and joining protest marches.

  At three pm a dark cloud covered the sun in the form of DI Donna Small with her thin, sharp face, darting dark eyes and taut, painful ponytail. Andy Mann stood beside her like a protector, taller, bulky, cropped hair and shirt and tie. Word had reached them of her earlier visit to the police station. Ollie waited for the goading that was close to abuse.

  ‘Well, well. Here we are again. I keep getting dragged to the door of Miss Imperfect. Walked into a police station of her own accord this morning. That must be a first. What do you think, Andy?’

  He just smiled. Quite a pleasant smile, Ollie thought. The foil for the aggression of his senior partner.

  Small went on. ‘How’s Lily? Missing her Dad, I bet.’ Then, pointedly, ‘Every little girl needs a Dad, don’t you think, Ollie?’

  Ollie chewed at her bottom lip. Clamping the anger rising in her.

  ‘I mean, I’ve just found out that you had two Dad’s. Two. And they both disappeared, although one’s clearly dead.’ Small rearranged a small vase of daisies decorating the table.

  ‘And then we have the disappearance of another Dad. What is it, you don’t like Dads? Or maybe it’s men you don’t like.’

  Andy joined in. ‘Can’t be that, Boss, because she’s…’

  ‘On the streets. On the game. Woman of the night. What do you put on your CV, Ollie?’

  Ollie swallowed. Don’t screw up, don’t let them make you screw it up. If she could trust herself to come out with a sensible reply, she would. Best keep it simple.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Small took a step closer. ‘You, Ollie. I want you. But here’s something for nothing. In case you were wondering about having a white Dad, I had the DNA profiles compared. It’s a match. Billy Jones is your natural father.’ Small waited for a reaction but got none.

  ‘And what’s all this can’t remember shit? You tried that one the other day.’

  But Ollie’s mind had drifted. Why hadn’t her mother told her that? Why had she let Ollie believe that Emmanuel was her father? What had gone on back then that Ollie couldn’t know about? Worse, why couldn�
��t she remember?

  She zoned in again on Small’s diatribe.

  ‘And I’ve reopened the case on the disappearance of your stepfather. So now your name appears in three cases. Add in all those other charges and no wonder we need so much storage space on our hard-drives.’

  Ollie sighed. Enough shit was enough. ‘You’re getting irritating and boring.’

  The tiny eyes bored into Ollie’s. ‘Quite the confrontational little bitch, aren’t you? Lashing out at anything and anybody. What is it makes you so angry Oleander? So unstable. What makes you hate this world we live in?’

  Ollie shrugged. If I knew that, she thought, I might be able to help myself, rather than have to live my life crawling through a cesspit of shame.

  Ollie met her eyes with silence. The monkey was jumping excitedly, crashing its cymbals, screaming at her to lash out, but Ollie was calming it, because Small had asked a question that made her think. Why couldn’t she cope with the world? Why was she so self-destructive?

  Small’s eyes flickered over Ollie’s right shoulder. Joanna was marching angrily between the tables.

  ‘Everything all right here?’

  The two women confronted one another. Ollie wondered whether there was a history between them.

  Joanna said. ‘Don’t you dare bring your business to my Café again.’

  DI Small just smiled. ‘I’ll take it where I need to take it. And if I think you’re involved in it then I’ll interview you as well.’

  Jo sat Ollie at the table and watched them leave.

  ‘You okay?’

  Ollie gave her a quick smile. ‘Just found out who my real father is, so bit of a result really. Thrown my life into bloody turmoil though.’

  ‘You want to talk about it?’

  ‘That my father was white and I was found in a pool of his blood on the kitchen floor?’ She laughed. ‘No, not really.’

  Jo squeezed Ollie’s forearm. ‘Any more problems let me know. The police can’t harass you, Ollie. And definitely not in a public place.’ She took Ollie’s hand and injected some positive enthusiasm into her voice.