Love Patterns

by Michael B. Malone

  Alan’s parents were devastated by the news. Isobel was inconsolable, remembering Alan as a baby, holding his hand, him pulling her skirt and in all the stages of his growing up.

  “We don’t know how seriously he’s been injured,” David tried to reassure her, but privately he knew that the chance of surviving a shot in the head were very slim indeed. He suggested gently. “We will have to tell Kirsty before she finds out from the media.”

  At the thought of Kirsty and the child she was carrying, Isobel burst into a fresh storm of tears. It was some time later and after phoning Kirsty that they set off for Dundee. As David drove up the motorway, he wondered if Kirsty knew already. She’d phoned in a state of hysteria the previous day, convinced that something had happened to Alan. In his dealings with women, he’d learned to respect their intuitions and had been deeply worried even before he got the phone call from Farik.

  As soon as Kirsty opened the door, she knew from their sombre expressions that they had brought bad news. They sat in the lounge weeping and trying to console each other. Claire whose suspicion was hardening into a certainty that her letter had been the cause was the most distressed of them all as she carried the extra burden of guilt.

  After David and Isobel had left Claire leaned back on the settee and pushed her sobbing sister a little away. Unable to carry her load of self-reproach any longer she decided to confess.

  She began. “I’m sorry Kirsty, I’m really terribly sorry. I’ve got something to tell you and you’re going to hate me.”

  Kirsty pulled closer and rested her head on Claire’s shoulder, “I could never hate you Claire.” Claire felt even more miserable, she almost changed her mind, but her guilt was overwhelming.

  She forced herself to continue. “Remember Alan’s last letter? Well I got in a temper and threw it against the wall and the envelope burst open.”

  Kirsty sat straighter. “So that’s why it was sellotaped.”

  “Yes, and to get the pages back in order I had to read them.”

  Kirsty was aghast. “You read my letter?”

  Claire hurried on. “Yes, and I read the bit where Alan mentioned Frank’s madwoman, and I misunderstood and thought that it referred to me. I thought the three of you were ganging up against me and making fun of me.”

  Kirsty looked even more horrified. “How could you possibly think that Claire?”

  Claire didn’t answer but raced on, desperate to get the story off her chest. “I did something terrible.” She wrung her hands then finished in a rush. “I pretended I was you and wrote to Alan, telling him I was seeing someone else and not to write again.”

  Kirsty sat in stricken silence. Claire tried to put her arm around her, but it was knocked away. “I saw Frank and he told me the truth.” Claire went on. “I wrote a letter apologising the next day.”

  Kirsty put her hands to her head and let out a piercing scream. She lunged at Claire and grabbed a handful of her hair. Claire jerked away, leaving a handful of hair in Kirsty’s grasp.

  Kirsty’s eyes were wide with fury. “I’ll kill you,” she screamed.

  Claire, terrified, got the settee between herself and her sister. “Remember your condition Kirsty,” she cried out.

  But Kirsty, her face twisted with rage, shrieked. “You’ll worry about your own bloody condition when I get my hands on you Bitch!”

  As she dodged around the settee Claire shouted, “They closed the border soon afterwards, he probably didn’t get either

  letter.”

  Kirsty came to her senses and stopped. She threatened. “You’d better hope for your sake he didn’t. If he did, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

  Claire didn’t know whether to feel relief or despair. “I’m sorry Kirsty I’d do anything to have that letter back.”

  Kirsty collapsed on the settee sobbing. “What if he died thinking I’d deserted him? How could you Claire?”

  Claire felt wretched. “We don’t know that he’s dead,” she murmured feebly, but Kirsty had retreated to some place inside herself and looked at Claire as if she wasn’t there. Claire was again terrified, but this time for Kirsty, at the anguish in her eyes.

  Kirsty disappeared into her bedroom, sobbing, and Claire heard the key turn in the lock. Her worry increased. She tried to remember if Kirsty had anything in her room she could injure herself with, and listened outside the door to the terrible audible pain of Kirsty’s wracking sobs. She knocked, and rattled the door knob and shouted, but there was no response. She didn’t know what to do. She prowled about the house, occasionally coming back to listen at the door or peer through the keyhole. About midnight, she brought her duvet from her bedroom, wrapped it around herself and sat listening for any suspicious noises, her ear near to the keyhole.

  Kirsty could think of nothing but her grief. It descended on her crushing all other thoughts beneath it. Her only recourse was tears and pain and as she sobbed she dug her nails into her arms. She hovered somewhere between conscious and unconscious, her shoulders shaking and quivering until early in the morning, when exhaustion claimed her.

  Claire heard the sobbing stop and although she listened intently, she could hear nothing more. She went out to the garden to look through Kirsty’s window, but the curtains were drawn, and the room was in darkness. The window was closed which was unusual. Her idea for a quick entry gone, she had another idea and took her torch and rummaged around in the garden shed until she found an old hammer, that had belonged to her father. It was very heavy and would certainly demolish Kirsty’s door quickly if the need arose. Returning indoors, she put the hammer to one side. Wrapped her duvet round herself and sat listening outside Kirsty’s room again.

  She started the breathing exercise she’d learned at her transcendental meditation class and became calmer. She looked inside herself. Examining the intertwining of thoughts and emotions. She gave a start, shaking her head from side to side and sobbing. She’d found what she’d hidden from herself. Deep in her heart a flower still bloomed she still loved Alan. Dawn broke and Claire heard Kirsty stirring. She went back to her own bedroom, replaced the duvet on her bed then had a quick wash.

  She came back to find Kirsty dressed and having breakfast. “Don’t you want to take the day off work?” she asked.

  Kirsty replied listlessly. “I’d rather work than sit about the house all day, brooding.”

  Claire breathed a mental sigh of relief and prepared to go to work herself.

  Kirsty tried not to let her misery show too much but Mr. Low, her boss, looked concerned at the change in her. When she told him that her fiancé had been shot in Iraq, he gave her a hug and advised her to take a few days off. When she said she would prefer to work, he nodded.

  “Well, if you want to, but go to the staff room if things get too much for you.” She realised that he must have passed the word around as she felt the sympathy when members of the staff looked at her.

  At tea that night Kirsty wouldn’t look at Claire and answered her in grunts if she spoke. She retreated to her room immediately after the meal and Claire heard the strains of Boney-M’s “Rivers of Babylon” being played over and over.

  Much later Kirsty came back into the lounge, her face streaked with dried tears and wearing Alan’s clothes with the trousers rolled up at the bottoms and sat near Claire on the settee. Claire’s eyes widened but she didn’t comment.

  Kirsty started speaking, as if to herself, so Claire switched off the television to listen. She talked about her memories of Alan. She talked and talked till late in the night. Claire listened quietly, realising it was part of Kirsty’s healing.

  When Kirsty finally went to bed she rummaged through the clothes Alan had left with her, smelling and touching them. She had washed and ironed everything except the duvet, so she climbed into bed wearing his pyjamas and hugged his duvet to her face. She remembered his words about a person being in two halves and felt she’d only been half a person until she met him and then she’d been made whole. Now the other
half of her had been ripped away. How could she go on living? But she must. She had all that remained of him growing inside her. The child he would never see or even know about. She looked at the photographs of him that she kept on her bedside locker. What were his last thoughts? Had he been thinking of her? She traced his journey through her heart, pausing at moments of happiness forever engraved in her memory. She remembered him on the Tay Road Bridge, his fair hair blowing in the wind, so young and strong and full of life. She remembered the tender lover. She would never wake to find his arms around her again. The sun had gone from her life and would never rise again. Nights of mourning stretched endlessly ahead of her, measured in heartbeats as heavy as tombstones, each keening the epitaph “IN LOVING MEMORY.”

  Sobbing, she bundled up the duvet and held it to her face again. She remembered the picnics in Edinburgh and Glen Clova. A shocking thought sliced through her sorrow. She had joined him to her. What had he felt when he thought she’d rejected him? She remembered the feeling of warning. Maybe she was to blame? She felt guilty. Grief overcame her again and she cried until she fell into an exhausted slumber.

  Claire sat up long after Kirsty had left. She remembered her own grief after her parents had died. The memory was always there but roses had bloomed in that part of her mind. It had helped to ease her loss. She knew that eventually Kirsty’s grief would soften, and flowers would bloom among her memories. Perhaps poppies she thought, reflecting how that flower had come to be associated with the death of young men. The next evening Dr. Taylor’s wife visited. She’d heard about Alan from Professor Grant who’d been contacted by Farik. She sat commiserating with Kirsty for a while. Later Professor Grant and his wife called. When Kirsty told him, she was pregnant and that she still hoped to carry on at the university, he promised that he would make sure arrangements were made at the university to help her. He told her he’d been in touch with the Foreign Office to try to find out what had happened, and they had promised to get back to him. Claire left them talking and took the opportunity to have an early night, as after two sleepless nights she was almost dead on her feet.

  After the visitors left. Kirsty dragged herself to bed, where her thoughts turned morbid. Had anyone held Alan’s hand when he died? Would they send his body back? She wanted to see him before he was buried, if only to touch his hand and say goodbye. Maybe they cremated bodies? She’d still want the ashes. There would be something special about them. They wouldn’t be just ordinary ashes there would be something. She rose, found Alan’s lock of hair, then lay in the dark touching it. It seemed that she felt a tenuous connection to him again. She slipped into sleep and dreamed strange dreams of Alan, Claire and herself in different places and different times.

  Claire got back home, before Kirsty on the Wednesday and to her dread, found a letter from Alan. She put it on the mantelpiece where it stared at her accusingly. The thought crossed her mind that she could destroy it, but she rejected it. She’d done enough damage already.

  She heard the door and her heart started racing. When Kirsty came into the lounge, she said, surprised at the calmness of her voice.

  “There’s a letter for you from Alan.”

  Kirsty approached the mantelpiece, gingerly picked up the envelope then examined both sides, noticing that it been posted in London. A thrill of hope rose in her, to be immediately dashed as she realised it would have been posted by Farik. She shuddered at the thought of Alan speaking from beyond the grave.

  She sobbed. “Claire, I can’t you open it.”

  Claire reluctantly took the envelope. She slit it open and drew out the single page. With a feeling of impending doom gathering around her, she unfolded the letter with shaking fingers and read.

  Dear Kirsty

  I got your letter two weeks ago and still haven’t got over the shock. I’m dying a little bit with each minute and hour that passes, but your happiness is more important to me than anything else. I’ll remember you as long as I live. Love Alan

  The colour drained from Claire’s face. She felt her chest constrict as if she would never take another breath. She’d killed Alan as if she’d shot him herself. She handed the letter to Kirsty. Kirsty read Alan’s last words to her and the grief and the guilt already twisting inside her multiplied until her tortured mind retreated to some corner deep within herself in self-defence. Claire watched as the letter fell from Kristy’s fingers. When she looked up, Claire’s blood ran cold. It was no longer the Kirsty she knew, this was an alien Kirsty. Her face was a white mask of hatred, the eyes blazing with madness. Claire watched petrified as Kirsty’s fingers curled into claws. She shrank away but the stranger in Kirsty’s body came for her. Claire had never felt such fear in her life, she tried to wrestle the suffocating hands away, but felt like a child trying to wrestle a tiger she managed to twist free to run screaming in blind panic to her bedroom, Kirsty padding unhurriedly behind her. She slammed the door, twisted the key in the lock and stood panting. She watched the door knob turning to and fro. There were mewling noises and scratchings as if Kirsty was trying to tear her way in with her fingernails. Then there was silence. Claire sank onto her bed, her heart thudding so much she felt that it would burst. She shivered, frightened at the silence. Where was Kirsty? What was she doing? She would have to get help. She didn’t dare open the door. She thought of the window and tiptoed quietly over. She looked out then looked back at the door, listening intently. Making her decision, she turned back to open the window and gave a terrified shriek. Kirsty was grinning at her from outside. She started back from the window breathing in great heaving sobs and fell over the bed. Wrapping her duvet round her, she curled into a ball, with her arms over her face and her knees up to her chest. She was brought back to consciousness by a rhythmic pounding. Bewildered, she sat up on the edge of the bed. The door was vibrating to loud regular blows. She put her hands to her ears and screamed. Kirsty had found the heavy hammer! She watched the door starting to splinter and in her terror called on her mother to help her. She imagined that she felt a presence beside her.

  A feeling of peace came over her as she watched the door cave in and Kirsty’s crazed face appeared. She prepared herself to die. Her life flashed before her; memories of her mother; Kirsty as a young girl; turning Kirsty against Alan; Alan’s eyes when she’d turned him away from the door; the disparaging way she’d looked at Kirsty’s ring and turned her happiness and excitement to hurt. She watched Kirsty clamber through the wreck of the door and walk towards her, an obscene grin on her face. Claire felt hypnotized, she couldn’t move. She thought sadly that she’d ruined three, no! four lives, Alan dead, herself about to die. Kirsty in an asylum and Kirsty’s child goodness knows where. She looked up into Kirsty’s eyes and recoiled from the raw malevolent madness, remembering her as a young girl and how sweet and affectionate she’d been. For some reason a vivid memory of plaiting and brushing Kirsty’s hair when she was small came to her. Her love overcame her terror.

  She murmured. “I’m sorry Kirsty.”

  As Kirsty raised the hammer, Claire looked again into the demented eyes, trying to see the young girl she loved so much. Just for an instant she thought she’d succeeded. She gave a sad smile, then as she saw the hammer reaching its apex, she whispered, as if in farewell.

  “I’ll always love you Kirsty.”

  Chapter 41

  Professor Suleman returned to the fort the next day to explain to the group that, because of intense diplomatic pressure from Britain, orders had come from the Iraqi hierarchy that Alan was to recover, or else. He’d seen Alan and he was unconscious, but alive. He had not been shot, but had been hit on the head with a rifle butt. The doctors had assured him that there was no skull fracture or brain damage and that they couldn’t understand why he was still unconscious. The news was greeted with enormous relief by the group, and especially by Dot who felt guilty about leaving Alan when he had needed her.

  The softness of Claire’s voice awakened Kirsty in her dark hiding place. Sanity reappear
ed in her eyes. A scream burst from her throat, and as if she felt impelled to take her rage out on something, she turned from Claire to smash the hammer down on the bottom of bed, but as she was pulled forward and down by the weight of the heavy hammer, it bounced back from the mattress to meet her descending head with a loud crack. Claire, unprepared for the sudden reprieve, sat stupefied with Kirsty’s sprawled body on the bed beside her with blood oozing from a huge growing lump on her temple. As if in a dream, she pulled the still body fully onto the bed then sat with Kirsty’s head on her lap, rocking backwards and forwards, stroking the tangled hair and singing the lullaby that had been Kirsty’s favourite as an infant.

  Alan woke up with a desperate sense of something wrong. He sat straight up in bed and gave a loud cry that had the doctors scurrying around him, checking all his life signs on their monitors. His heart was pounding furiously. They gave him a strong sedative, then with eyes looking wildly round the room and shouting “Kirsty,” he slipped back into unconsciousness.

  Claire’s voice faltered but she continued rocking for a while, seeing but not taking in the significance of the head in her lap. She came back to real awareness with a jolt. Her nurse’s training asserted itself. She examined Kirsty. Her breathing was shallow and slight, the pulse almost non-existent.

  She rushed to phone for an ambulance then returned to hold a cold compress to the huge lump on Kirsty’s temple while she waited. The ambulance arrived. The medics examined Kirsty, enquired as to the circumstances of the injury then strapped her onto a stretcher and carried her out. Claire hurriedly collected her handbag and coat, and followed them. She clambered into the back of the ambulance and sat holding Kirsty’s cold hand. Siren blaring, the ambulance sped down the road. Past knots of curious neighbours, and within a few minutes, arrived at Dundee Royal Infirmary. Medics, with the ease of long practise, lifted the stretcher onto a trolley, then wheeled Kirsty into the casualty department. Claire pushed back her mounting hysteria and outwardly appeared a model of calmness and efficiency as she told the doctor what had happened, not forgetting to mention that Kirsty was two months pregnant. There was a long wait after Kirsty had been wheeled to the X-ray department. Claire’s thoughts went around in circles, going over all the possible outcomes. Eventually a nurse approached.