by Laura Elliot
‘Fuck the Glasgow Coma Scale and listen to me.’ Composure was no longer an option. ‘Does a woman called Karin Moylan visit my wife?’
The nurse shook her head. ‘There’s no need to be abusive, Mr Saunders.’
‘Does she?’
‘I don’t recall that name. Check at reception. If she’s been here she’ll have signed the visitor’s book. I know you’re upset. Believe me, we all want what’s best for Nadine.’
He left her talking to the air and took the elevator to the reception desk. The receptionist showed him the list of names from the previous weeks. She had no recollection of anyone called Karin signing in. Jake scanned the signatures. Not so many visitors now, although he noticed that Hart came regularly. He had talked to Jake about working on Nadine’s chakras. Positive energy released into the white light of awareness. No sign of Karin’s name anywhere. Jessica Walls had been to see her. Quite a few visits, which surprised him. He had not realised she and Nadine were that friendly. She always came outside visiting hours on Wednesday evening when he was at band practice.
He phoned Lustrous. Jessica Walls apologised profusely when he introduced himself. Life was so hectic these days. Everyone in the fast lane. Nadine’s accident had caused her to pause and consider what all this rushing around was about. She had intended visiting her and would do so as soon as the latest issue of Lustrous was put to bed.
CHAPTER 72
The carpark in Mount Veronica was hidden behind a screen of trees. Cars came and went but, as yet, there was no sign of Karin’s blue Subaru. Jake parked his mother’s car – Eleanor had yet to start driving again – under the sheltering branches. He was still stunned by the speed with which Nadine’s medical team had swung into action once they realised she was responsive. He imagined her brain, new pathways criss-crossing each other, forming new connections, new functions and, how, when she held his hand, her grip was a little stronger each time.
He remained out of sight behind one of the pillars in the foyer when Karin entered. He could see her clearly, her pert, confident stride as she approached the reception desk and signed the visitor’s book.
‘Hello, Jessica.’ He was beside her before she looked up. A faint gasp, a pause, her hand fluttering upwards as if to touch her cheek then falling to her side, the signs of shock so fleeting as to be imagined.
Maria, the receptionist, closed the visitor’s book and watched as they walked silently towards the exit.
‘Nadine is fully conscious,’ he said when the automatic doors closed behind them and they stood facing each other.
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘She must have been in hell.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘In a hell of your making. If you ever attempt to contact her again I’ll kill you with my bare hands.’
‘Kill me, Jake? You desired me once and now you want me dead.’ A nerve jerked beneath her eye but, otherwise she remained impassive. Perhaps that was her madness. Not to care or be afraid of the consequences of her actions. What barrier had she stepped across to arrive in that space?
‘It’s not an idle threat, Karin. I love my wife. I’ll do what’s necessary to protect her.’
‘You think she loves you? Fool! The only man she ever loved was my father – ’
‘This has nothing to do with your father.’
‘It has everything to do with him.’
‘I don’t want to know – ’
‘You needn’t worry, Jake. I’m not going to divulge some pathetic incest confession. My father was a charmer, not an abuser. Those other women meant nothing to him. I could cope with them but it was intolerable when she was my best friend. You read her letters. I had to make you understand what it was like for me, knowing what she did with him… I saw them. Do you understand… I saw them together.’ Her voice quivered suddenly. ‘Have you any idea how that affected me?’
‘You caused that accident–’
‘It was no accident. She drove my father to his death. All those years I’ve been tormented… I can’t forgot… can’t forgive. I saw them together… so many times. She thought I didn’t notice but how could I not see what was going on… she was trying to steal him away from me. Why couldn’t she have been satisfied with you? She’s to blame for everything…’
A sob refused to break. She touched her throat, as if to free the sound then swung away from him and walked towards the car park. He let her go, afraid of what he would do if he touched her. She had driven away by the time he reached Eleanor’s car. He pressed his hand against the door and bent over until he was able to breathe normally.
Berlin rocks. An analysis of the cell site would show that the text came from the vicinity of Mallard Cove on the night of the accident. But what could it prove? Shortly after Cora’s funeral, he had hammered a small wooden cross into the spot where she died. Every week he laid fresh flowers there. The guards had inspected the trajectory of the skid. The scum of seaweed that turned part of the road into a greasy slick. Only one set of tyres had been visible. Even they had been washed away when another high tide sent the swans swimming with lofty indifference over the accident scene.
A text bleeped on his mobile. He sat in the car and read it.
‘I’m in the beat of your heart, Jake,’ Karin had written. ‘Always remember that. I’ll be there until the moment it stops.’
CHAPTER 73
NADINE
A month has passed since my awakening. I struggle with memory. My speech is slurred and slow. I take one step, then two before my knees buckle. The following day I’m back at the bars again, one foot following the other. As a case study I’m presented as a triumph over hopelessness. This is what my medical team believe. My neurosurgeon diagnoses selective retrograde amnesia, a rare condition, he says. I detect a tremor of doubt behind his certainty. I’m a medical mystery, a fragmented woman, whom he’s trying to put back together. The odds are against my full recovery. I’m given this information gently but firmly. My coma was profound and prolonged. I’m terrified the dark waves will carry me away again. The events that occurred before my accident are lost but I remember the younger years and, also, the memories I formed when I struggled from the blackness.
Jake collects me from Mount Veronica for my forty-second birthday and wheels me over the threshold of Sea Aster. They are all there to greet me, Donal with his patient smile, Eleanor on a walking stick, Brian with clay under his nails and a new pottery collection called Luminosity. Ali has Sara attached to her hip, and the twins, on Skype, are here in spirit if not in person.
Some memories are as bright as diamonds and as enduring. My heart folds over with love when I rock Sara in my arms and think about the random nature of existence. Ali is here in all her dark, moody beauty because of a faulty condom. Brian with his gift for moulding beautiful shapes exists because I forgot to insert my diaphragm one night when Jake and I argued over something long forgotten and made up with a few moments of frenzied sex. Sam and Samantha owe their athletic prowess to a bout of food poisoning that had expelled the last residue of the Pill from my system when I recovered and slid back into Jake’s arms. And I’m here again with all of them because he heard and understood the music I played for him. How content they seem, this family we created. Was it always like this? How could it be so if Jake and I had decided to divorce? My brain is a sponge mottled with gaps that memory once filled. My family’s patience is infinite as they explain my past. I can retain this new knowledge but I want my own memories, not those chosen by others.
Ali will leave us soon. Her agent contacted her about a new television series to be shot in London Studios. It’s a small part but has, I’m told, the potential to be developed. Opportunities have to be snatched when they orbit past and change direction. Like me, Ali has to begin again.
Mark Brewer has tried to contact her but she refuses to take his calls. She’s heard on the Barnstormer grapevine that things are not working out as he expected in New York. Every month he lodges money in an account for his daughter. He sends
presents. They arrive by courier, a buggy and high chair, dresses in rainbow colours, sparkly shoes and cute hats.
She and Christine plan to move into Wharf Alley and look after Sara between them. Christine is still a sylph. The Arboretum Affair continued to attract full houses while I was steeped in darkness. Ali could return to the cast and work under their new director but she wants a fresh start. No negative echoes, she says, yet I see her grief when she believes she’s unobserved. I want her to face her loss. Not hide from it as I once did, seeking oblivion in pain.
My mobile phone rings during the meal. The number of my ID screen is unknown. No one speaks when I answer. The silence vibrates with hatred. She’s one memory I retain. Is she listening to my family’s voices around the table, the clink of dishes being passed from one to the other, the slosh of wine in glasses? The silence stretches. One of us must break it. I’ve learned patience during those months in Mount Veronica and she is always the first to hang up.
‘Wrong number,’ I tell them when her phone goes dead. Only Jake pays attention, his expression alert and tense.
* * *
‘Was I very unhappy?’ I ask him when he drives me back to my ward.
‘You needed the freedom to make your own choices,’ he says.
‘And did I?’
‘Yes.’ Something in his voice prevents me asking further questions.
He will leave me for a few days soon. Shard are building a German fan base. He worries about leaving me but I’m fine. Madge Brennan has taken me on as her pet project and has organised a visitor’s rota that includes some of my old neighbours from Oakdale. I’ll be well entertained until he returns. The day has taken its toll. My arms are limp, my mind blank. And once again I’m filled with dread in case I fall headlong back into the void.
Jenny rings to wish me a happy birthday. She tells me about a holiday we spent together, trips we took to Whistler, Grouse Mountain, Vancouver Island. Her words form pictures, ski slopes, snow sculptures, a clock that puffs steam like an old-fashioned train. Lakes glinting like shattered crystal. Someone is standing beside me, not Jenny or her friendly Larry, but someone whose name escapes me until Jenny gently nudges me into the past. Daveth… Daveth…
He came to Mount Veronica. I remember his voice. He talked about a green sky but his words made no sense until now. I close my eyes, almost swooning as my body reacts to what my mind cannot grasp. His hands on my hips, lifting me. Shafts of pleasure slanting upwards and I shudder into the hard thrust of his passion, beg him to reach deeper. I recall how we cried out in that dense space and how the sultry tang of our spent passion perfumed the night.
All is silent in Mount Veronica. It’s time to sleep. Instead of fighting the waves that threaten to overwhelm me, I sail with them through the glittering floes.
CHAPTER 74
JAKE
Ali returned to London. Until she boarded the plane with Sara, he feared she would change her mind. Ali’s role in the fantasy series was minor but her agent believed it had the potential to be developed. When she told Jake the series was based around a race of superwomen with incredible telepathic abilities he immediately thought of body stockings. Men leering. Ali ordered him to get over himself. Some men would leer at a piano leg, she said, and that was their problem. She said it kindly and nodded, as if she understood when he told her that, as her father, he was programmed to worry about her. It was an incurable condition.
He was alone now but he had no time to be lonely. Nadine hoped to be home for Christmas when all the family would be together again. The attic must be finished by then. Once it was floored and rewired, two skylight windows would be installed in the roof. Light would illuminate the shadows beneath the eaves. The walls also needed insulation and plastering. The settlement from the insurance company for the fire would help but the budget was growing alarmingly. The bank managers Daryl approached with his business plan were not interested. Their attitude, once he mentioned monitors, mixing consoles and multi-track recorders, suggested they were dealing with a regressed teenager.
Undaunted, Jake set up a crowd-funding campaign called Attic Action and invited Shard fans to donate small amounts of money to the establishment of Tõnality Recording Studios. To his amazement there was an immediate response. This was linked to the Shard website. A Facebook page with photographs showed the various stages of progress in the attic. He posted the Before photographs when the crates, boxes and bags still had to be removed and captioned it, How is it possible to lose everything in your life except clutter?
The After photograph was captioned, De-clutter is the new Xanax. Feel much calmer. Finally believe it’s possible to make a fresh start.
The number of Likes and Comments increased, as did the hits on the Shard website. His tweets on Twitter were read and retweeted. He was in the whirl of social media, feeding information on forthcoming gigs, relaying messages to fans, encouraging comments on Collapsing the Stone, releasing sound bites of new songs, retro photographs and posters of the young Shard. He rescued an old electric guitar from one of the crates, restrung it and played it for a YouTube video. This was posted under the caption, Two old friends reunited. Rosanna had bought it for him for his fourteenth birthday. This present had led to the formation of the original Shard and Jake blogged about it being his favourite guitar.
Before leaving for Berlin he took a final look around the attic and nodded, satisfied. An electrician had already inspected the attic and the rewiring would begin as soon as he returned. He drove to Mount Veronica. Nadine was sleepy by the time he left, exhausted from the rigorous therapies she endured every day.
The band were staying in an apartment owned by the promotor. They played aboard a boat on the Spree and in beer halls, nightclubs and at a Christmas market. Jake searched for a flash of blue among the revellers, an upraised arm. He would recognise that slender curve from a forest of heaving limbs. He thought he glimpsed her once but the women in the shimmery blue top had spiky blonde hair and a sinewy physique that was at variance with Karin’s sensuous form.
It was after two in the morning when he went to bed after the last gig. His mobile rang as he was drifting asleep. He banked down his panic when he realised the caller was not phoning from Mount Veronica. He thought of Eleanor. A relapse? Sara, still so tiny? He lived at a constant level of high anxiety.
‘I know my bitch fiancée is with you.’ Liam Brett was loudly aggressive. ‘Tell her to answer her phone so that I can inform her in person that our sham of an engagement is off.’
‘Tell her yourself,’ Jake replied. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Don’t mess with me, Saunders. Put her on the phone.’
‘You heard me. She’s not here.’
‘How’s that then?’ Liam demanded. ‘She’s been to every fucking gig you ever played. Why should this one be any different?’
‘Because you’ve moved to Brisbane.’
‘Brisbane? What the hell – ’
‘Gold Coast… beach wedding. Fresh start. Don’t tell me Karin was lying.’
‘Put her on now and I’ll talk to her about lying.’ The slurred words were followed by a clatter, as if Liam had dropped his phone.
Jake felt an unexpected sympathy for the other man, drunk and at the mercy of his own imagination. They had each experienced that same high octane passion and were now hollowed out. Karin Moylan was like a moth that flew too close to the flame, seeking its heat, not just for her own searing but for those she chose to fly with her.
‘Listen, Liam, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Karin but it’s nothing to do with me. I’m in Germany and it’s two in the morning – ’
‘I know where you are. She’s not the only one who reads your Facebook page. You’ve done everything you can to break us up and you’ve succeeded. You’re welcome to her, you pathetic fuck.’
Jake ended the call and stepped outside to the balcony. The city still rocked, the sky flared ruby-red. No sign of blue anywhere.
CHAPTER 7
5
Outside Dublin airport the queue for taxis moved briskly.
‘Mallard Cove?’ The taxi driver sighed heavily when he heard Jake’s address. ‘You could walk there in the time it’ll take me to drive you. Have you any idea how long I’ve been queuing for a decent fare?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’ The man’s obvious displeasure provoked an angry response from Jake. ‘And I’m too tired to work out the maths.’
They remained silent on the short journey, apart from a low expletive from the driver when the taxi juddered over a pothole on Mallard Cove.
‘What happened there?’ His truculence was replaced by curiosity when he saw the blackened walls of the barn.
‘Arson,’ Jake replied. His hands, he realised, were clenched into fists.
He paid the driver and removed his luggage from the boot. At the front door he stopped. Something was wrong. He could not name it or, even, define what he was experiencing but it trembled through him. He seldom used the back entrance since Sea Aster had been made whole again but he quickened his pace and hurried around to the side of the house. His feet crunched on pebbles as he walked towards the parking bay. She had parked her car where she always left it when she came to see him.
He leaned against the wall, his legs weakening, and imagined sliding slowly, spine against stone, to the ground. To coil into a shell of nothingness. He remained upright, breathing deeply as he inserted his key and unlocked the back door. The first thing he saw when he entered the breakfast room was her blue pashmina, neatly folded and draped over the back of a chair. He lifted it to his face. The scent of her perfume still clung to the cashmere. She had made coffee. The cup was cold, scum on the surface. The purple imprint of her lips against the white rim. She had curled on the sofa, as she had done so often in the past, her arms clutching a cushion to her chest or luring him downwards to lie beside her. One of the cushions had been thrown to the ground, the other still bore the indent of her body. Nadine said her comatose state had been like a disjointed dream, like music played off-key, like words that tangled together and made no sense. In her confused recollections she believed her father and Karin had been together in the ward. It was an uncertain memory, one of many that made no sense to her. But, now, it made sense to Jake. That was the only way Karin could have acquired a key, made a copy. How many times had she come here with Eoin? She would have flattered him, stroked his ego… and what else? Jake closed his eyes against the sudden image of them together. But, no, she would have kept him at bay, expressed her reservations about married men. A breed conditioned to lie and cheat.
