by John Moralee
Beth nodded almost imperceptibly. Tears tracked down her cheeks.
When we left the police precinct, it was late and dark. It was a long ride home and everyone was exhausted. It looked as though Beth would be given a few hundred hours of community service, but no jail time as a first offender.
I thought of Lucy Ash, the girl and the woman. She must have known the park was dangerous. It made me wonder if, perhaps, Lucy Ash had come home not to live, but to die, free of her father for the first and only time in her life. Maybe that was all she wanted. Maybe.
That was the enigma of Lucy Ash.
A Deadly Prelude
He looked at the small town and felt compelled to stop. There was just something that appealed to him about the way the light fell through the trees along Main Street, the shifting patterns of light and dark. It had been a long time since Delaney had noticed anything like that and took any pleasure from it, but he did that day. He was taking a wild detour, just driving for the sake of driving, trying to enjoy the day, trying to forget Miami. He did not have many opportunities to be alone with his thoughts. It was nearly noon, but the streets were quiet and traffic free. With his windows open, a sweet breeze cooling his face, Delaney could hear birds chattering and the rhythmical creaking of a BUY COCA-COLA HERE sign that looked as if it had been painted fifty years ago. He stopped at a gas station and asked the old man at the pumps if there was somewhere he could get a cold drink and something to eat. The old man did not recognise him, fortunately. The man directed him to a bar on the corner, telling him they served the finest seafood in South Carolina. Delaney parked his Saab and walked over, stepping inside the cool interior and into a different world.
When he first heard her singing, he thought it was a record on the jukebox. Her voice hit him like a jolt of electricity. It resonated within his body, making his spine ripple. He walked to the counter and ordered the Meal of the Day and a Bud while looking for the jukebox, interested to know what was playing. But there was no jukebox playing.
There was a young woman playing a guitar on a tiny stage in the partial darkness. She had to be eighteen, nineteen. She was singing a bluesy song, accompanying herself on a well-used Gibson J-45.
Delaney had never heard the song before, but it seemed familiar, like seeing an old friend again. He listened to three amazing songs, entranced by the sheer emotional power of her performance, then realised she was making them up as she went along. Such talent was rare, he knew. She had a skill for lyrics and music that made her shine. She was special.
When Delaney had been her age, he had been like that, able to make music out of nothing but his own feelings at that moment, expressing himself in the way he wanted. Now, Delaney never picked up a guitar. At 45, his musical career was over. He earned a good living from his backlist of albums and the two nightclubs he owned in Miami, but he no longer played music because he was no longer inspired; he no longer possessed the burning soul that this complete stranger did. He asked the bartender about her.
“That’s just Kimberley Moon,” he said, as if that explained why someone so talented was playing in an almost empty bar in a hick town.
“Does she play here often?”
“Every day between noon and one. Kimberley keeps the customers happy, so I don’t mind that fancy jazz stuff, though I prefer country music myself.”
“How much do you pay her?”
“Pay her?” The bartender grinned, revealing yellow teeth. “She does it for free.”
Delaney took his beer and sat in the middle of the front row. For a time, he was completely, wholly absorbed in Kimberley’s music, taken on a journey of rarely tapped emotions, her music disturbing memories of his childhood, his adolescence, his middle years. By closing his eyes he could see her words as clearly as pictures. When it was one p.m., she stopped playing and shyly thanked her audience for listening. Delaney clapped, but no one else did. There was no one else present. She looked embarrassed, cringing slightly as she packed her guitar away and quickly made her way off stage through a side door. He half-expected her to come back, but when she did not, he paid his bill. He followed her outside into the hazy sunshine, but she was gone. An irrational panic struck him – he had to talk with her! He dashed to the street corner and looked all directions, but could not see her.
“No,” he muttered.
He needed to talk to her, to tell her how talented she was. Damn - he was in a position to help her career! With a few calls to the right people, he could get her a record deal and some studio time to make an album. He knew she would be a huge success. All she’d have to do was play like she had done today. He returned to the bar and caught the attention of the bartender.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you tell me where Kimberley’s gone?”
“I don’t know, fella. She comes and she goes, but I don’t ask her anything. I don’t like prying into other people’s business. I always get the impression Kimberley don’t like questions.”
“Do you have her address or telephone number?”
“No. Sorry.”
Delaney thanked him, then walked outside, angry and frustrated. Forget it, he told himself. You don’t have time to find her. But when he started up his car engine, he could not drive off. What if he was the only person who ever recognised Kimberley’s talent? What if she stayed her whole life in this place, playing for nothing? He could not leave. Not yet.
He drove around the town, looking for her.
He had no luck.
He stopped at the town’s library, where he flicked through the local telephone directory under M. He moved his thumbed down the list. Kimberley Moon was not listed. No Moons were listed. He went inside the store, bought some Coca-Coca and queried the assistant.
“I know Kimberley Moon,” she said. “Used to go to school with her until she dropped out in the fourth grade. Never came back. Her mother was sick or something. It was a real shame because she was a real pretty girl, real smart, too. Sometimes I see her shopping, but I don’t know what she does for a living …” The assistant sighed and shook her head. “Anyway, she lives about a mile out of town. You take the road north of the church, look for a big, lonesome house. You can’t miss that old place, but I reckon you’re wasting your time. She doesn’t talk to strangers. She doesn’t talk to anybody.”
The road was rough and wild, the asphalt pitted and broken. He had to drive slower and slower in order to stay on the road. He passed a number of houses that were no more than shacks. They looked abandoned, but he feared they were not. The houses were almost hidden by kudzu growing up their walls. The kudzu was as tall as the telephone poles spaced every hundred or so feet, which it also climbed up, carpeting them with thick, leafy vines. He crossed a bridge and came across a big house just how the assistant had described: it did look lonesome, set in the middle of an overgrown field of tall grass and weeds. A yellow Ford was parked at the front. He drove up to it and stopped. He could see a guitar case on the back seats, so at least he knew it was the right place. He stepped outside and stared up at the house. He could see where kudzu had been cut away from the porch by whoever lived there.
He climbed the rickety stairs. The wood was ancient and warped. Delaney approached the screen door – intending to knock – but he was startled by someone looking through the gauze curtains straight at him.
It was Kimberley. She looked small and vulnerable, and he was sure she only dared to stand so close to him because the glass and two doors protected her. She did not say a word.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s me. You saw me at the bar. Can we talk?”
She shook her head and started to turn away.
“Wait! I loved your music. I know this sounds like a cliché or a pick-up line, but you have real talent and I know I can help you. My name’s Joe Delaney. Have you heard of me?”
She nodded and sang: “I saw you in my tomorrows. Say goodbye to yesterdays.”
It was the beginning lines of Delaney’s Misty Twilight, the song that had mad
e him famous. She knew his work. He should not really have been surprised – Misty Twilight had sold millions of copies – but it was flattering to know she had heard of him and that she was willing to speak to him. He laughed, putting her hopefully at ease.
“May I come in?” he asked.
When she unlocked the door, he stepped inside and went with her into a living room. She was so nervous she tripped over her own feet. There was a lot of antique furniture crammed into the room. It did not look like it belonged to her. Most surfaces were piled high with CDs and vinyl records. She had a big collection of second-hand albums on one wall. There was also an upright piano. She invited him to sit in the light of the windows. She did not sit down. She shuffled her feet on the carpet.
“I – uh – don’t have many visitors. I know the place is in a bit of a mess.”
“It looks great to me,” he said, picking up an album and reading the cover. “You must listen to a lot of music.”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes I just hear it in my head. That’s the best kind of music. Sometimes, I need to play it out loud.” She paused, looking down at her feet. In the pervading silence, he could hear a ticking clock. No, he corrected himself, it was a metronome on the top of the piano. She must have been playing shortly before he arrived. He had interrupted her practice.
“Do you play the piano as well?”
“Sometimes,” she repeated. “Would you like some coffee, Mr Delaney?”
“Joe. Friends call me Joe. I’d be delighted to have some coffee. Thank you.”
She looked relieved to have something to do. She pointed at the door, then rushed out. He thought about following her into the kitchen, but he changed his mind and waited. Instead, he looked around the living room, attempting to learn something more about her. But she returned before he learned anything. He accepted his coffee and drank it appreciatively.
“The bartender told me he doesn’t pay you.”
“No. I like playing for free. It’s bad manners to charge for something that should be shared. My music is a gift from God.”
“So what do you do?”
“Pardon?”
“For money.”
“Oh, I have a little job in town. I clean people’s homes.”
“You could be a professional musician,” he said. “Have you thought of that?”
“I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t like to leave my home.”
“Why not?”
“I look after my mother,” she said. “She needs me. I couldn’t put her in a nursing home or let some strangers look after her. You hear all sorts of terrible stories about things happening to old people and it just would not be fair. If I became a professional musician, I’d have to leave her with strangers. She doesn’t have any other family. My father left us when I was a baby. There’s just the two of us. Me and her. We need each other. My music isn’t as important as looking after my mama. She gave me life.”
Delaney saw the tears on her cheeks. He also saw through her brave words for the screen they were. “Kimberley, you have to listen to me. You have to let the world hear your music. It’s an absolute waste of your talent if you don’t give it a try. I know - because I know genius when I see it. You have a unique skill, something too important just to hide in this backwater town. There’s something about you, Kimberley. It can’t be explained or defined; it just is. You must let me help you get a record deal. I can make your dreams come true.”
He was about to say more when he heard a woman’s cry. It came from above. It was racked with pain. “Kimberley? I need you! Kimberley!”
“Mama needs me,” Kimberley said, with some urgency. “Excuse me.”
Delaney watched her leave the room and heard her run up the stairs. He decided to follow. After a minute, he reached the landing and saw one door at the corridor’s end ajar. He heard voices within: Kimberley’s was soft and gentle, but her mother’s was anguished and tired. He went to the door and quietly opened it wider, but when he saw Kimberley at the bedside of her sick mother, he did not enter.
This was a private moment, he knew.
The room was dark, the curtains closed.
He was shocked by the state of the older woman. She looked like a living skeleton wrapped in sheets. There was a machine by her bed – a ventilator, perhaps. He could not tell. Delaney had seen pictures of the victims of Nazi Germany - she looked like one.
To be so close to mortality made him uncomfortable. He stood in the doorway, watching Kimberley give her mother some pills and water, admiring her patience and caring. While Kimberley did this, her mother locked eyes on Delaney, her gaze holding his complete attention. The room became claustrophobic. He wanted to look away, but he could not. The woman looked into his heart.
Suddenly, Kimberley straightened her back and sensed him behind her. She walked over to him and whispered, “She needs to sleep now. You shouldn’t have followed me. You could have brought all kinds of infection.”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, quietly. He was thinking cancer.
“My mother has AIDS.”
“Oh.” He did not know what to say. “Maybe … maybe I should go.”
“No!”
That was Kimberley’s mother.
“Mother, you need sleep.”
“Nonsense. I’m okay now,” her mother said, struggling to sit up. “I can feel the pain going already. Your friend doesn’t have to leave. I’d like the company. Come in, please. Take a seat.”
He chose a chair facing the old woman. He was aware of the cold sweat clinging to his back. Now it was Kimberley’s turn to stand in the doorway, not sure what to do. Her mother solved her dilemma by asking her to bring some fresh coffee. Reluctantly, Kimberley left them alone.
“My name’s Wanda,” the woman said. She paused for what seemed like days, just breathing in and out, each breath taking its toll on her strength. “Has she gone?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I heard what you said downstairs.”
“I’m sorry if I was too loud.”
“Nonsense. I wanted to listen. I need you to do my a favour.”
“Of course. What?”
“Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
He approached the bed and the dying woman. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Kill me,” she said, her weak voice thick with suffering. Mercifully, the room was dark and he could only see her dark shape. There was a strong smell coming from her body, which made Delaney think of dead flowers. She smelled of dead flowers. He sat by her side, where she could see him. He could see her better now, as his eyes adjusted to the poor light. Her skin was very pale, shiny with dampness. Her hair – which had no doubt been strawberry blonde when she was Kimberley’s age – was a listless brown, streaked with white. It was stuck to her pillows like wet hay. “I can’t stand it any more. Please kill me.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because you know why it has to be done. My daughter could never do it.”
He was glad for the darkness, for he could cry without her seeing. “I can’t do that.”
“It’s time,” she said. “I know. I’m quite looking forward to it. I would do it myself, but I’m too weak. I could live for years like this … putting my daughter through hell. Kill me … for her sake.”
He could hear Kimberley returning.
“Will you do it?”
“How?” he asked, rather than give an answer.
“You’ll find a way.”
*
Later, Kimberley walked him to his car. The evening was cool and golden. In the distance he could see orange clouds above the foothills and detect the first rumbles of a storm. The moment was tinged with the sadness of final goodbyes. He did not want to just walk away like this – abandoning the greatest talent a man could ever meet – abandoning something wonderful - but it was clear Kimberley’s mind was resolute. She had spent all of her life living with her mother, who had been given AIDS by her father when Kimberle
y was just a kid. Her father was now dead; she did not have any other living relatives. He stopped at his car and tried one last time to persuade her. But she would not agree.
“I’m sorry to waste your time, but you can see my hands are busy enough as it is. I love my mother more than my music.”
And your mother loves you more than her own life, Delaney thought.
“I’m … going to be staying in town for a few days,” he said, altering his plans mid-sentence, “so I may see you around?”
She half-smiled. “Maybe.”
*
Delaney booked himself into a motel and cancelled his business schedule for a week. That night, he lay on the bed, unable to sleep. Kimberley’s music haunted his thoughts … and so did her mother’s request.
After staring at the ceiling for hours, he dressed and went out wandering through the sleeping town, walking and thinking, thinking and walking, feeling more alone than he had ever felt.
Moonlight made the town look ethereal. He could see little droplets of rain every minute or so, just enough to moisten his hair. There were no clouds above, though, just a clear sky sprinkled with stars. He walked as far as the river, where he looked down at the glistening water, listening to the soft sounds. The night was filled with the chirping of cicadas and the rustle of grass. They were black clouds burgeoning with power on the horizon, where he’d seen orange clouds earlier. Lightning lit them up and struck the ground in a dozen places. Neon after-images were left on his retinas, quickly fading to red. The storm was both beautiful and ugly, just like the situation he faced.
He thought of Kimberley and Wanda.
He did not know what to do. He just felt as though he had to do something. He could not let Kimberley’s talent go to waste. If it meant killing Wanda to save Kimberley’s life, could he do it? Could he kill her?
It started to rain on him. He did not move. He let the rain soak him. He stretched his muscles, releasing some of the tension that had built up. He shouted at the storm.
