Duet

by O'Gorman, Brian

  Francis laughed and June joined in with her for a moment. Then she became serious again.

  “Those are the things I believe Francis, but I need to tell you kiddo, that there are spirits knocking about all over the place. I don’t think they float about like a bad fart, rattling chains and all that stuff. I think they exist within all of us, the memory of loved ones that have long departed this earth. I think we carry their spirits around with us. The dreams we have about them, the phantom smells you sometimes get that remind you of them. They are just hanging around in you.”

  Francis had stopped laughing and her smile was slowly fading from her face. June turned from the window and looked at her.

  “You are carrying someone around with you, you have been for around three years now haven’t you?” said June.

  Francis jumped as if she had been goosed.

  “Doesn’t everyone? Hasn’t everyone lost someone?” Francis reasoned. There was a slight hint of panic in her voice. June smiled at her and held out her hands.

  “Some losses are more painful than others kiddo. Some of them talk louder than others, no matter how much we try and shut them up or ignore them. They shout out so loud that perhaps someone like me start hearing them. These are the ones that have a message they need to get across, something important, something that might change the way that you see the world around you, or have done until that one special event in your life forever turned the world a few shades darker. We might solve all that today, we might not. But we will never find out unless we have a look. Now why don’t you take my hands,” said June.

  Francis looked at her mistrustfully.

  “Come on, just humour a crazy bird for a moment,” said June.

  Francis looked down at the outstretched hands. She slowly and carefully reached out for them, almost as if she was scared that they might burn her. She took hold of June’s hands and let out a shaky breath.

  “There, that wasn’t so hard was it?” said June. “Now then, I’m just going to have a little peek at who is knocking around, see if we can get some info for you.”

  June closed her eyes, just for a moment. The visions of everything she needed flashed into her mind. Then she knew, then she understood perfectly.

  “I got you now kiddo, today is all about forgiveness,” said June.

  Francis’s eyes widened, “How do you…that’s not…”

  “I know what you’re thinking kiddo, perhaps the cynic in you thinks I just shoot shit in the dark. But I don’t. I try and help people find peace that’s all, peace within themselves. You carry guilt around like a big sack of coal on your back. I know why kiddo, I know…” June let go of Francis’s hands. A bolt of pain shot through her right elbow causing her to clutch at it and hold her breath momentarily. A moment later another one shot through her right shin. A terrible crippling pain that almost caused her to cry out. She squeezed her eyes shut and was briefly dazzled by two bright blue eyes that shone at her behind the darkness of her own eyelids. Then the next second the pain was gone and the blue eyes were gone. June let out her breath and looked up at Francis. She was shaking visibly and tears were running down her face.

  “Your mother. She was called Eleanor, or Ellie for short. She had the most piercing blue eyes didn’t she?”

  Francis nodded her head, more tears spilled down her face.

  “You were close weren’t you, more like sisters or best friends. You went to see her twice during the week and every Saturday to go shopping. Something went wrong didn’t it.”

  Francis nodded her head again. She was making a mewling noise in the back of her throat.

  “You had a date, first one in months. It’s tough to get yourself out there because you were so committed to bringing up Caitlin. It shows you got character girl, putting her needs before your own. You overslept on the Saturday morning. Your Mum took a fall didn’t she, right down the stairs during the night. She broke her right elbow and her right leg and went into shock. She died because you overslept and didn’t get there in time, am I right?”

  Francis’s head went down and the mewling noises intensified. She began to hitch in sobs that shook her whole body.

  “And you have been blaming yourself for it the whole time. You think that you could have stopped her from dying had you turned up on time.”

  Francis was in full flow. Her head was almost touching her knees and her body was being wracked with the force of her sobs.

  June reached for her table that was on the opposite side of her chair. She had a decanter half full of her special brandy for just such occasions. She poured some into a glass and brought it back to Francis who was mopping her face with a huge handkerchief that she had drawn out of her handbag.

  “Here, cop hold of this,” said June waving the glass in front of her. Francis almost snatched it off her and downed the brandy in two swift gulps.

  “I’m guessing that what I just said is the truth right?”

  Francis nodded, her eyes looking up to the ceiling.

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference Franco,” said June.

  Francis snapped her gaze at June again. “My Mum used to call me that, how did you know….?”

  “I keep telling you kiddo, I can hear what you are thinking and I can hear what your Mum is thinking too. I get the story that is rolling around in your head and I also get the truth from your Mother too. It wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference if you had been fucking that guy until Monday morning or you begged off and showed up early at your mother’s place. She would have been dead on the floor any which way you would have done it. She would have been dead if you had been waiting at the foot of the stairs with your arms outstretched to catch her. The point is that you will not allow yourself to see the truth because you would rather blame yourself for everything. To you it’s just easier, because that’s the way you have always seen yourself right?”

  Francis nodded. Her hands were in her lap fiddling with her handkerchief.

  “You don’t think you are good enough or wise enough or deserving enough to be happy. All because your Dad walked out on you, you take on all that self-doubt and guilt. I will bet my dog and lot that you never arranged to see Robert again after that night did you? I don’t have to be a mind reader to see that one kiddo.”

  Francis sniffed and nodded slowly. June took her hands again.

  “Look at me kiddo, look at me,” said June. Francis’s head came up and her eyes made contact.

  “Your Mum is sorry that she couldn’t say goodbye, she says it was just an accident. She used to tell you herself ‘Shit happens Franco, but what can you do?’ She has been waiting for this chance to tell you to forget about your old bastard father, start moving forwards, stop being so loud and start listening to people. They tell you how good you are because you are just that good, not to blow smoke up your arse. Take it from me, your Mum will be at peace when she sees you being happy and getting on with your life. She wants also, to pass on the fact that Robert hasn’t been on a date since and you would do well to phone him this evening. She knows you kept his number so no excuses. If you don’t believe it, and part of your mind never will, then see for yourself.”

  June put her hands on either side of Francis’s head. She closed her eyes and projected the feelings that were coming from her long dead mother down her arms, through her hands and into the mind of the emotional wreck of a woman sat in front of her. Francis gasped as the feelings flooded her system. June could see the years of self-blame and anxiety melting away right in front of her. June pushed a little harder until all the feelings were gone from her mind and gifted into Francis. Then she lowered her hands and Francis opened her eyes.

  “Good shit, isn’t it?” said June.

  Francis burst out laughing sending snot and tears rolling down her face. She scrambled her handkerchief and caught the torrent before it could get away from her. June joined in with her. When their laughter had subsided, June poured her another brandy. Frances sipped it this time and got her
self back under control.

  “Well kiddo, still think it’s all bullshit?” said June.

  Frances thought for a moment and then smiled. “No, I can feel her inside my head. It’s not bullshit to me anymore, it feels real.”

  June laughed.

  “I feel like something burst and all the sourness and nastiness has been squeezed out of me. I almost feel brand new,” said Francis.

  “Well, if it helps you start living a little then that’s all good,” said June.

  “I can see things that I couldn’t even see before,” said Frances and sipped her brandy.

  “Some people have the gift, the sight, or whatever you want to call it and they never even knew about it. Sometimes it just needs someone to nudge it to get it to work. You never know where your life could lead you kiddo and I have a feeling that we might cross paths again in the future, I don’t know when, but I know it will happen,” said June. She was looking out of the window again at the night sky, watching the first stars twinkling in the growing gloom.

  Francis said nothing. She drained her glass, gave June’s hand a squeeze and then she stood up and walked out of the room. Neither of them needed to speak, they both knew what the other was thinking. Their time would come again.

  13.

  The fog had come over June’s mind over the course of ten years. The last five years it had started to take her down much quicker. It had been during that time that Eric had been sitting in his favourite armchair (the one nearest the television) and had begun to feel, what he thought, was heartburn stirring in his chest. Heartburn was the price that Eric didn’t mind paying for two to three beers of an evening just to round the day off nicely. He had got so used to the heartburn accompanying his evening beers that he usually kept a bottle of Gaviscon on his table next to his chair. After the beers were gone he would wait for the burn to start growing in his chest and then he would reach for that little bottle and chase the evening beers with some of that foul gunk. He would screw his face up every time the thick taste of aniseed ran down his throat but it was worth it to be free of the rising burn of acid in his chest and to continue his evening beer routine.

  This time when he had swigged from that little bottle the burning hadn’t stopped, so he took another, bigger pull from the bottle. The larger hit of aniseed made him feel sick. It made him feel so sick that he was certain he was going to throw up right there on the carpet, something he had never done in his entire life. He stood up from his chair to make his way into the kitchen so he could puke in the sink and his heart stopped dead in his chest. He dropped to the floor, cracking his head on the edge of the fireplace. Not that it mattered anymore because he was dead, stone cold dead. He was dead a good half second or so before his head made contact with the fireplace. The sound of his head making contact with the fireplace had woken June up out of her doze. Her slightly fuzzy mind had seen two things at the same time and it had taken her a moment to register what was going on. The first thing she saw was Eric crumpled up on the floor face down with the edge of his head leaning against the fireplace. There was a small trickle of blood from the laceration on his head but nothing more. The lack of heartbeat stopping any pressure behind the blood flow. The second image that she saw was of her husband standing in the same spot, looking down and not registering what it was he was looking at. He was on the floor, but he was standing at the same time. As June’s head began to clear, the second image began to fade and all that was left before her was the image of her newly dead husband lying on the floor in front of her. She shouted his name, but she already knew what had happened. She went and shook his lifeless corpse, but she knew that he wasn’t going to respond. He was dead.

  And yet she could still hear him. She could hear him as if he was still in the room with her. He was asking so many questions. He knew what was going on didn’t he?

  “It’s your time Eric, it’s just your time.”

  What happens now?

  “Shit, I don’t know, I haven’t ever been dead before.”

  Should I stay with you?

  “You can if you want, but I don’t think you will like what you are going to see and hear.”

  And he didn’t. He shouted and bawled when they took his body away. He fussed all day and night when they did the post-mortem. He whinged and complained all the way through the funeral and moaned almost constantly for a month after it. Eventually she had to tell him to go, he was hanging on waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t ever going to come back.

  Eventually, she banished him. He wouldn’t go quietly, he clawed and scratched at her brain but she screamed at him. Screamed at him with her mind just to let her be. One week later, she was taking out a bag of rubbish to the bins out the front of the house and he went. There was no drama, no long goodbye, just:

  I’ll see you round then.

  And she felt him go.

  Sitting in her chair in the retirement home right now, she wished that she could feel him in her mind again. But he wasn’t talking, and he wasn’t listening. Why would he? She had kicked him out of her headspace many years ago.

  The thing in the water was talking. It was all fuzzy and uncoordinated, but it was talking to her, pulling at her. It was nearly time to go. Perhaps one more cup of tea before she went. Just one more.

  14.

  They were sat in Greg’s living room drinking tea instead of coffee. Greg had guessed that just as Bentley was being subjected to a post-mortem, their whole day was being subjected to one right now in this living room. The worst part about the whole thing was that the day wasn’t even over yet. There were going to be more questions from Soames about what had gone on in the time that he wasn’t in the hospital. He had been pissed off big time when he had discovered that Bentley had not only died, but that he had been allowed to climb off his bed and into the corner of the room to do so. There was all of that and the fact that it looked like they had a mysterious death on their hands, one that was remarkably similar to the ones that were suffered by the local wildlife over the last few weeks. So, Soames was pissed off and he was looking for someone to take it all out on and seeing as they had been the ones that had witnessed everything that had gone on, and the fact that Louis had been asleep at her post and that Greg had gone off on a wild goose chase that he wasn’t even authorised to do, they were going to cop for Soames’s anger and frustration. He had thrown them out of the hospital when he had arrived and found out what had happened. They had bolted out of the hospital and got into the patrol car. Greg had suggested that they go back to his place for a little while. When they had got there they found that Nicola had gone off to visit her mother and wouldn’t be back until later that evening. Greg had decided on making them tea as he just wasn’t as good at the coffee as Nicola was, no matter how much he practiced nor how much she trained him. Tea was his strength, and they both couldn’t have been doing with half measures. They were both sitting in silence, Greg in the armchair and Louis in the middle of the sofa. They occasionally sipped their tea but neither of them made any attempt at conversation. They were both thinking the same thing, that they were both in deep shit. Greg was making the worst out of the situation in the deep recesses of his mind. He was playing out his sacking from the force out in his head. For him it was all over, there was no coming back from it. He was trying to envision how on earth he was going to tell Nicola he was out of a job and off the force. No more man in uniform. Surely she wouldn’t like him the same way as she did when he had the uniform. Surely she would go off him. Surely she would end up leaving him, a sad and pathetic loser on his own to rot. He could feel a deep well of emotion building up from within him. His whole career and indeed his whole life was about to go right down the shit pan, just because of one mistake. He hated himself for going up to that old folks home and talking to June Dobson. Perhaps he was even regretting not acting on what June had told him. Perhaps he should have taken Tina to one of the bedrooms and licked her cunt raw. At least he could have been get
ting all the action he could whilst he still could do it. I mean, it was inevitable that soon he would be a washed up and probably a drunken loser with no job, no wife and nothing to show for his life. Wasn’t that right? Wasn’t that the way his life was going to go now?

  He didn’t even realise it, but a tear escaped his eye and began to run down his cheek. The tickle it made caused him to reach up and wipe it away. He thought he was being cautious enough about it for Louis not to notice, but you couldn’t get much past her, she hadn’t been on the force for as long as she had without becoming a master at observation.

  “Come on, it’s not as bad as all that,” she said.

  He felt another huge bubble of emotion build up in his chest, threatening to crumple up his face and send a torrent of tears following the one that had escaped. He swallowed hard and pushed the emotion back down into his belly as hard as he could. He didn’t want to weaken in front of Louis, in fact he didn’t want to weaken in front of anyone. He had been taught from an early age that all that emotional nonsense was for the weak. REAL men didn’t cry and REAL men didn’t cry in front of other people. He certainly wasn’t going to start in front of his superior officer and that’s for sure. The emotion went down, but not without a momentarily painful fight. It felt like the worst case of heart burn being pushed back down his gullet and into his gut to be digested alongside his tea. He cleared his throat to make sure that his voice was stable.

  “Oh I know, It’s just been a bit of a stressful morning,” he said. He was pleased by how steady his voice was holding up.

  “Look, I have been ripped for a lot worse than this. We are only human Greg, sometimes we fuck up. Don’t stress about it, it will all blow over in time,” said Louis.