by A M Russell
All the best
Jules xx
Ps. No. we didn’t!”
I must have held my breath then. I put the photo and the address sheet side by side. The picture was an old library shot from one of the newspapers in the city near where I came from in Yorkshire. It was of a young Janey winning some sort of science prize. She was holding the shield and grinning in that cheesy way you do for the press. She was surrounded by people all clapping. There! Right behind her was Jared….. I stared, hardly able to take it in. He really was there. And here Alive…. In a Coma. But alive! Janey…. I pulled the white sheet towards me: “Harriet Edison” and an address somewhere near Wood Green.
I stood up. I went in the bathroom and ran ice cold water in the sink. I plunged my face into it. An old trick I learned. Calms you down almost instantly. Wrapping the towel round my shoulders I smoothed back the dripping hair.
I went and sat down again. I stared at the piece of paper for the longest time. She was here. Physically. Actually. Geographically: and only a shortish journey from my house. I thought perhaps I would celebrate. I reread Jules’ letter. I was clear that he understood the implications of trying to convince someone of a truth that required some proof to corroborate the story.
I had nothing; not even the samples. I stared at her face in the photograph. She had a carefree look. And the people around her, her family seemed so full of joy. I fetched my journal. I put the photograph with the flowers. I copied the address in the journal too. This was scary stuff. But I needed to sleep on it. The decision to see Janey had passed through my filtering system with a magic clear all spell. I could refuse her nothing. I would see her and tell her what I had got. The truth certainly. But that darker story of obsessive love. Would I tell that as well? She needed to know enough to realise that I would do anything for her; but at the same time she didn’t need overwhelming with my doe-eyed soppiness.
Leaving the letters and tea tray I took my journal upstairs. In the bathroom I stripped down. With a towel round my middle I got out the shaving kit. It was time to return Davey to the pre-expedition state.
When I had done I went in the shower. Slowly I worked my right arm around. Easing the ache. The blue stuff on my cheek had worn away. The scar was silvery and light. Not too rough looking. After getting out I flicked the latch and let the steam begin to clear out of the window. I swept the mirror with a hand towel. There I was! The same, yet so different. I looked older… and yet in another way I looked exactly as I had done before, but perhaps more tired. It was something about the eyes. Sam had told me about that thing he recognised. I thought I got what he meant now…. Sort of. At least I didn’t look like a hairy scruff anymore.
I watched old movies. Normally I would have drunk bottled beer and nibbled snack food. But largely due to Alex and his generosity I was in need of neither. I tried some soothing herb tea my Mother had given me the last time I was up in Yorkshire. She said it would come in handy and to keep it in the cupboard.
With feet up on the coffee table and a slanting light of the evening sun tracing its way across the rug I felt quite content. The steam rose in curls of refreshment and I felt.... What shall I say? Almost normal; My mind was distracted. I wasn't chewing on that same piece of mental gum and getting nowhere. I put down the cup, picked up the remote and paused my movie show.
The phone rang....
I dropped the remote. It hit against the table. The sound on full volume blared out from the TV. The remote had rolled under a chair. I fell forwards reaching towards the off switch on the front of the Tele.
I was sat on the carpet in a silence that shouted at me so hard I wanted to hide.
One thing…. And like some roulette wheel of existence bringing either pain, joy or unwanted offers for garden furniture: the phone rang again.
I felt the stress level come back from a 2 to a 10 almost instantly. I hadn't realised I was so phobic about the world that had become so alien in the last 3 weeks. Oh God help me! Please make it stop! It wasn’t Alex. It couldn’t be Mum, time of day was wrong. I pressed my hands over my ears. That sound… insistent, begging you to comply; telling you to obey. You must….. I realised the answering machine was unplugged from before I went away.
I crawled across to the skirting board and pulled the plug out of the socket. I was breathing far too hard. I concentrated for a minute on calming down. Then I stood up swaying. The kitchen seemed liked a good idea. I found my keys, opened the door, put the kettle on. I liked to stand by the back door. In the late afternoon I heard the beginning of the evening song of birds. That was it…. What I needed. Not machinery. Nothing would let me feel better now; except the birds and the breezes. I did not want Janey or anything. Just to be left alone. Alex had been right. Alex was always right. He knew how far and how fast I could fall.
Ten minutes later, I locked the door and took a hot chocolate up to my bed. The bedside clock said seven-thirty pm. I ignored it, and huddled under my duvet. Now I was safe. Now I could let go….
Something woke me up. For a second I was back in the sleeping pod hearing the creak of the wind on the dome. But the lights and shadows, as well as the fact I was sprawled diagonally across my bed, brought me back to where I really was. I sat slowly up. There was a sound. Strange, comforting, familiar. Something that drew tracks and lines in patterns onto a shadow image, as light shone from behind my curtain.
‘Oh God! It’s Rain!’ I grabbed my dressing gown, went to the window, and looked out. Blustery, splattering, tracking tears down the outside of the pane. I stumbled down stairs in the dark. My keys were on the kitchen table.
Outside it was softly lit and velvety. The damp and the smell of real earth tinged my nostrils. The scent of life, of green growing things, even though it was still mid-October. My bare feet felt the lick of grass blades. And those tumbling ovoid liquid packages flew down in flocks impacting on my face and the palms of my upturned hands. Can I say what I felt at that moment? Not really. But the certain knowledge that all I had felt, like a mist in my mind that had tormented me, was drowned in that downpour. I stood there until I was quite literally soaked to the skin.
You have made your choice. Well so have I. It was then I chose a life that defied the cold logic I was used to. I choose to feel. To love. To mourn. Maybe to die. But no longer was I to choose to be safely robbed of the spark of all things that had flickered so dully. Before, I had not fed that small mote of dying brightness. I had tried to eradicate it. I had I suppose asked God to stop me from feeling anything. But if No is a word that had positive power; then now was the time for it to be emphatic in its effect. I heard. But at the time I did not think it unusual…. A Voice. One thing it said; one phrase and then silence. Until the silence became a solid thing; and I heard it again….On that silence the turn one way or another. I chose and ever after that I made it my path.
‘Follow Me.’
I was stood there getting wet and I thought my neighbour from the other side had spoken.
No one there… it was Two am and I was stood in my back garden listening. I was still not certain that no one had been lurking behind the low wall. I looked over. It was empty of anything except damp vegetation.
‘Follow Me.’
It seemed to come from all directions at once. But perhaps the sound was from within rather than without.
‘Who are you?’ I said out loud. I wasn’t really aware of how potty I must have seemed to anyone who could have been listening.
I turned right round slowly. The breeze dropped. The drops were still falling into my hands.
‘I am here.’ This time a thought that was so loud it had a sound, but so quiet it was only a whisper.
'Where?' I asked idiotically.
There is always time to decide. And I knew it instinctively; certainly it came with no guarantee. No safety zone. But one thing:- there was the peace that had eluded me: It was light like sponge cake, yet solid and firm like a well-made wooden chest of drawers; also unbreakable like a diamond
cutter. And quiet…. so quiet like the sun on my back, in the park on a mid-summer day. I closed my eyes.
A little while later I was back in my bed in a tee shirt and leggings. I was sat cross legged on the top of the duvet. Not moving; just listening to the rain. I was there was a long time. The rise and fall of the wind was the music of this silence. I had crossed into a place I had no name for. I relaxed against the pillows; then curled round, half covered. I passed into sleep with a transition I could not remember, and barely moved for the rest of the night.
*****
The End
