Escaping Life

by Michelle Muckley

  She hadn’t discussed the letter with Graham anymore. They had discussed it at length twice now, and after the last time, she knew that he too had doubt in his mind. There were too many unexplained coincidences; the names, the fact that it was in their local paper. There was nothing more to do yet. She had to wait. The thing that was most on her mind was whether or not to tell her father.

  Her father was sixty-one, a retired engineer, living in the city. He had been a good father, Elizabeth thought. They weren’t close, but she valued him. When his wife, Elizabeth’s mother, died, he retreated into a shell that she had never seen before. It had always been her mum who had called her every week, to talk about the trivialities; what was happening at her women’s club, what she had planted in the garden, and how many hours her father was working still, even at his age. Once she had gone, it was as if he didn’t know how to build a different relationship; before, they had existed with their mother as a permanent middleman, but after her death and then the death of Rebecca, she didn’t see him all that much. But she had to tell him about it. It was time to make that call.

  “Hello?”

  “Daddy, it’s Elizabeth.” She knew when she spoke to him that she still clarified who she was, as if there would be anyone else calling up and calling him Daddy. She knew it was strange, but she couldn’t shake the habit. “How have you been?”

  He described his week: busy and full of people that she didn’t know. Their lives were so different, she thought, realising that it was she who was living a life more suitable for somebody in retirement. Her father had been out to dinner three times with friends and once to a salsa class. She didn’t know if any of these ‘friends’ were female, or indeed, if they were more than just friends. He never volunteered the information, and she never pushed for it.

  “That sounds nice.” He never asked how she spent her time, or about how work was going. She told herself that it wasn’t that he was uninterested, rather that he tried not to pry. “Listen, Daddy. I want to talk to you about something.” As she stood there, the words burning a hole in the tip of her tongue and screaming in her head ‘Rebecca is alive’, she couldn’t find the courage to tell him. She didn’t want to upset him. It was as if the reality of saying those words to her father questioned their validity. He had believed in the funeral. Here, pacing in front of her Victorian fireplace, too decorative and ornate in this cottage to be original, she suddenly felt very silly again. It was the same feeling that she had had when she walked through her front gate after her discussion with Nancy and had decided to tell Graham that she believed that Rebecca was still out there somewhere. It was perhaps safer, if instead she first brought up the subject of Rebecca.

  “I have been thinking about Rebecca a lot recently.” His silence stung her ears. Please say something Daddy, she pleaded. “She is on my mind.” Eventually she heard her father clearing his throat, coughing a little before deciding what to say.

  “I always think about her, Elizabeth. Of course I do. I know we don’t talk about them,” he paused, as she knew she heard a reference to her mother in his words, “but it’s very difficult for me - still.” There he had said it. He didn’t like to talk about them. Her plan to tell him about the letter had been flawed: he didn’t want to hear about her. About Rebecca. Was it really so hard to talk to me about our family, she thought. She wanted to say it out loud. She wanted to ask him who she should speak to if not him. Instead she let it go. She let her mind slowly put the lid back on her thoughts and her carefully planned words floated away from her like feathers on the wind. They spoke politely for a few minutes, before he made his excuses to hang up.

  As she sat back down in the oversized chair next to the fireplace, she curled her feet underneath her. Maybe she was crazy. She could clearly remember that day, as Graham had pulled up at the side of the road. She was out of the car before it had stopped, the road closed off by flickering blue and white police tape. The road was oil black, slick from the heavy storm that had almost passed. They let her through, an officer close by her side, Graham only steps behind. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt the rising nausea of fear at what she was about to see. She was the first on the scene. The other officers backed away, their heads bowed respectfully to let her pass. The officer at her side was talking. He was telling her that it was an unpleasant scene. That maybe she didn’t need to see it. Maybe just stay back at the police car. But it was too late. She could already see shards of light, small flames tearing up into the sky, illuminating the oversized pine trees as they lined the ravine at the side of the road. She knew this corner. She had read about it many times. There had been other car accidents, and she had seen the reports in the newspaper and the accompanying family photographs. Now, as she walked across the road to the broken metal barrier, she felt the officer grip her arm as she peered over the abyss before her. There at the bottom were the remains of a car, white with foam like the aftermath of a nuclear blast and yet still ablaze. She couldn’t tell whose. It was only ten, maybe fifteen metres away, but it was unrecognisable as the dying flames waved out through the broken windows.

  “Are you sure it’s Rebecca’s car?” She turned to the officer, who almost looked like he didn’t want to confirm it.

  “We found her bag at the side of the ravine. That’s how we found you.” The officer tried to sound as comforting as a stranger could, his words soft and sugar coated. “The roof appears to be caved in. She would have been trapped in the car.” The words had stayed with her for a long time. She was trapped. Trapped in that car, she had said to herself and to Graham so many times. For the first few days, when they hadn’t recovered a body, she had convinced herself that somehow Rebecca had managed to get herself out, drag herself to safety. She would be lost in the forest down in the ravine and it could take days for her to find her way out. Search teams did look. They didn’t find anything. Elizabeth had sat by the telephone in their big, empty city apartment day and night. That was the worst moment, when she realised that Rebecca was never coming back, alive or dead.

  After the conversation with her father, she tried to put the idea of Rebecca being alive somewhere to the back of her mind. She forced herself to sit down and finish the work on the website that she had been avoiding all week. She cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and stacked everything back neatly and in order. She even dragged out the ironing board to the back garden as the mild summer days continued and finished ironing the pile of clothes that, in the days where freedom of thought carried with it no burden, had been left, instead indulging in summer walks and gardening sessions. Now, though, she wanted to keep her mind busy. She didn’t want to give it the freedom to wander among the crazy and quite frankly dangerous thoughts that she seemed unable to prevent. Graham had called her on Friday lunchtime to see if she had any objections to some house guests on Saturday. David and Helen were loud and city-orientated, and had fitted in much more with their old life before their retreat to the coast. But she liked it when they came to stay; they were good company. They brought with them that welcome reminder of her youth, before she was able to separate her life into two parts, marked distinctly down the middle, like a freshly incised wound, by death.

  After frantically hoovering underneath the spare bed, leaving neat piles of clean towels, and opening the dormer windows fully to bring fresh summer air into the usually unused room, she could see their sports car winding down the steep seafront road, through the hedgerows and tapestry of fields that lined the approach into Haven. She had no idea how the Porsche Boxster that she could see with its top down managed on the steep gradient, but it amused her to think of the gear box whistling under the pressure of it and of Helen complaining whilst holding onto the seat as if she were unwillingly in a rally car. It would be only another five minutes until they arrived. She headed downstairs and set the coffee machine, and she heard the whirring of the filter as it slowly dripped the hot water into place, clouds of steam rising up and settling on the back tiles. There was something spe
cial, she thought, about the smell of fresh coffee when you arrived somewhere. It was a welcoming smell. It said ‘come in and kick your shoes off - we want you here’. She always felt as if she was opening her cottage as a Bed and Breakfast when their city friends came to stay. But that too was a welcome feeling, and she had told Graham it had been a great idea to ask them to come and stay: a real mood changer.

  As they pulled up on the gravel driveway, the tyres skidded under the loose surface as the Porsche slewed to a halt inches from Graham and Elizabeth’s feet. David always drove too fast; Elizabeth thought even more so in the countryside, but it could also just have been that life was so much slower here. Everything from the city seemed fast to her now.

  “Seriously, I'm going to throw up, David!” Helen bellowed, her home county English pronunciation making her argument sound even the more formal, as she slammed the car door shut. She straightened up her neat blouse and neck scarf, and used her hands to smooth the stray hairs back into her well lacquered French twist. He didn't care though. He had had a great time.

  “I love to open her up in the country baby, you know that,” he chuckled, as he shook his arms to loosen his shirt, not paying his wife any attention. Walking over to Elizabeth, he held his arms out wide. "Hey gorgeous! Thanks for having us!” he said, as he held her in an embrace that was full of warmth.

  As they settled in to a cup of fresh coffee whilst sat on the patio overlooking the bay, the pace of the conversation slowly relaxed as the city couple breathed in the fresh oxygen-rich air, the smell of seaweed still detectable from the churned up ocean since the storm. The remnants of the storm were still in evidence in the garden, with the sound of the waves much stronger over the last few days, and more than a good scattering of leaves and twigs about the grass. They made plans to head down to the beach, where they would walk along the harbour wall, and stop later at Stewart's fish restaurant where Graham had made reservations. The weekend had brought back the tourists, and Haven was buzzing today. David was glad that Graham had extended the driveway since the last time they were here so that he didn't have to leave his car outside on the road again when they went out. It was true, on a busy weekend, their little road overflowed with cars parked randomly on the pavement. Graham had even had a row with one tourist and owner of a particularly shiny Range Rover. The driver parked directly in front of their gate, and when Graham had confronted him, he still couldn't understand why leaving the car there was so inconvenient. It was difficult to see their entrance, and that had been the final incident before they opened up the front garden, paying the council a small fortune to obtain a small section of the adjoining land for a visible gate and driveway. For somebody who had loved his city life so much, Graham had remarkably taken to life in Haven. He was involved in the local council, a real find for them, to have a sharp city lawyer as a member of their Board. He had made good friends with Charles Stewart and had enjoyed a couple of sea fishing trips, proudly returning with his catch to Elizabeth, who filleted them whilst Graham had sat soaking in the late afternoon sun with a beer in celebration of his antediluvian achievements.

  After too much fish and with sticky fingers, they took a slow walk back up the hill to the cottage. They sat outside in the late summer sun, the orange glow softening the view around them, their shirt buttons and tight city clothing loosened as they settled into the slower pace of life. The walls of the cottage came alive at this time of day, bathed in the sweet colour of Merlin oranges, dimpled with imperfections as it shone in through the distorted glass. After a few glasses of wine and the comfort of familiar company, Elizabeth couldn’t help but want to discuss the arrival of the mysterious letter.

  "Something weird happened this week," said Elizabeth, encouraged in confidence by the alcohol that made her eyes feel somehow like they moved asynchronously to her head. Graham immediately knew to what strange occurrence she was referring.

  "Sure you want to talk about this, now?" He stepped in quickly, half question, half request. He was worried about this subject; he thought they had forgotten it for the weekend. That had been his intention.

  "What?" Helen was already intrigued, and she leaned in closely to hear the tale, fascinated by the strange and quaint goings on of village life. Elizabeth couldn’t quite focus on her. She looked like she had three eyes. "What happened?"

  As she told the story of the mysterious letter appearing suddenly before her almost a week ago, she had lost any of the nervousness that she had felt before when she wanted to raise the subject with Graham or her father. David and Helen sat there for a moment, contemplating the cards as Elizabeth laid them out on the table. David was the first to speak. He looked firmly at Graham.

  "You're kidding, right?" David didn't know if he should be taking this seriously. He turned to Elizabeth, smiling a little, like he was about to reveal a secret. "You don't believe it’s really from your sister, do you?" As he went through all of the reasons of implausibility, he explained how so many people knew about what had happened. With all the cynicism that can only be built up after a lifetime of city experiences, he proposed a concept that Elizabeth herself had tried so hard not to imagine could be true.

  “Don’t you think there could be somebody out there who just wants to mess with you?” He had told her rather insensitively that after the funerals, many people he knew in the city had been talking about the deaths, as if she was now something of an unwilling celebrity.

  “Everybody knows about it Lizzy,” he continued. She hated how he called her Lizzy. All of their friends were older than she was, and she found it patronising. She never said anything. “You might not want to be, but you’re kind of famous.”

  “David!” Helen interrupted, embarrassed at her husband’s crass and insensitive take on the situation.

  “What?” he pleaded with his wife, the same outstretched openness that he had greeted Elizabeth with earlier on that day. “Lizzy look, I love you. I do. But I won’t dress it up like he will,” he said pointing at Graham. “Don’t tell me you believe this, Graham?” He looked to Graham, trying to find sense in a conversation that he felt was in urgent need of a hefty dose of it.

  “Elizabeth has a point, David,” he offered reluctantly, but with enough certainty to support his wife. David sat back in his chair, his head outstretched behind him in exasperated acceptance of where his best friend’s point was going. “We never buried Rebecca.” David had been the lawyer who handled the insurance case. He had worked for hours, building a case to fight for the life insurance. He knew every detail of the crash. He never asked for a penny.

  “Lizzy, I know you would love to believe she’s still out there, but I don’t see any way she could have survived that crash.” He paused, unsure if he should share his final thought. He sat forward in his chair, placing his wine down firmly on the table. He said, in the softest words yet, “there was nothing left of that car.”

  Elizabeth lay in bed that night, listening to the usually gentle crash of the waves against the shore, a little louder this evening, still delivering debris from the earlier storm. She couldn’t sleep. Her head was full of thoughts of Rebecca, but these thoughts were not good thoughts. Not the easy memories of past Christmases and birthdays and of Sunday mornings out in the stream. Not of quiet nights, long past the time they should have been asleep when they would sit up talking, their room gently lit by nightlights, underneath the bed sheets when Rebecca would tell her stories of her own life, far more exciting and dangerous than that of her four year old self. Tonight she was consumed by thoughts of her driving the old Ford Fiesta, not well maintained or at all sturdy. She thought about the rain that had fallen in the hours before the crash which, out in the country it seemed, had been heavy. She thought of the road, winding and dark, the barriers broken and flimsy from a previous accident where the car had only just managed to stay on the road. She thought of police tape and orange patrol jackets. She thought of the car, visible as the blue lights flashed all around her and so burnt out that nothing rema
ined. There were no tyre marks on the road. Rebecca hadn’t tried to stop.

  “Can’t sleep?” She hadn’t even realised that Graham too was still awake. She turned her head to face him, her body following so that she could get closer, no matter how sticky the heat of the night air was. There was no breeze.

  “No. I just keep thinking about what David said. He knew the case so well.” He nodded in agreement. David had brought a sense of rationality to the table that had been absent, kept out by their own emotions. “She never tried to stop, did she?” It was barely a question. David had argued the case solidly, and won. The insurance agency had paid out the money. He was a damn good lawyer and he built a good case, and he had made it seem possible that it was just an accident; that she had never intended to kill herself.

  “Maybe we have to accept that she just couldn’t cope with your mum’s death,” he said, as Elizabeth nodded in agreement, “and the way she died.”

  They both knew what he meant. When her mother had been found lying on the kitchen floor, her body limp, her neck bruised and eyes red and swollen from the grip of her murderer, it was obvious that she had been strangled. It was Rebecca who had found her body. She had sat there for hours in that same room, watching her mother’s lifeless body until the neighbours had called by, coincidentally opening the back door automatically as they always did, the sight before them turning their stomachs over like a rollercoaster. Rebecca had barely spoken for three days afterwards, shutting herself in her home, and opening the door only for Elizabeth. On the fourth it had rained heavily, and as Elizabeth listened as Graham told her to get dressed - that there had been an accident, she already knew that somehow it would be Rebecca and that she would never see her again.

  “I have to accept she killed herself,” Elizabeth said quietly. “She didn’t want to be here anymore.” As she pulled her body into Graham’s arms, she closed her eyes to sleep. She pushed herself to box up the thoughts of her sister, even the good ones. I’ll think of you again. Don’t worry, she said to herself as she reassured herself more than the ghost of her sister. But not tonight. She closed her eyes tighter, willing sleep to take over. She would wake up tomorrow and eat breakfast outside with her friends. She would walk by the water’s edge and just enjoy the beauty, rather than wonder if Rebecca was still out there somewhere. She would enjoy the tranquillity that they had built through hard work in Haven, and not let the events of the past creep in. She hoped that David and Helen would stay tomorrow. She would cook dinner, and they would eat together outside if the weather held out. Their guests would squeeze out the last moments of their getaway weekend, and their sobering presence would be the glue of normality.