Relatively Strange

by Marilyn Messik

  “Won’t let me have a mirror.” she murmured, “Look a fright I expect?” We both shook our heads in pointless denial and each received a painfully sharp prod in the back from an admonitory nursing finger,

  “Cat got your tongues?” Rajitha obediently leaned forward across me and carefully took Lauretta’s hand, the knuckles scraped and scabby the carefully filed almond oval nails, undressed without their usual red Revlon.

  “Don’t be silly, you look fine, Laur.” she said, “Just fine. How’re you feeling?”

  “Feeling? Oh, well, thank you.” Lauretta smiled politely with her newly shaped mouth, “Well,” she repeated, “Bit shaky still at times of course. So sweet of you both to come.”

  “Couldn’t miss the chance of a day off, could we?” Rajitha said, “And Colonel and Mrs H-B send you all their very best and we’ve brought you chocolates, Suchards you like those – from them too.”

  “Kind. Lots of people’ve sent flowers.” Lauretta gestured with the dripless arm in the direction of a serried rank of vases.

  “Shame,” she said, “ You’ve just this minute missed Mother, she’s here every single day. Taxi there and back … won’t hear of not coming, bless her. Have to get out soon, she’s not managing well on her own.” She licked dry lips that trembled,

  “I want to go home, they won’t say when I can.” a tear slid out of one eye and traced the path of the bruise. She sniffed hard, “Sorry girls, all the way to see me and here I am wet and woolly. How’s things at the office? What about all those letters I’d taken for Professor Kenyon, did you find them?” I leaned forward, shoulder to shoulder with Raj, so Lauretta could see us both easily. I took her hand from Raj’s,

  “Done and dusted. No problem, I found your notebook and your shorthand’s always so easy to read. He said they were fine, says get well soon.” My voice sounded far too jolly.

  “Does he know … what happened? Another tear leaked and dribbled. “Does everybody know?” she moved her head restlessly from one side to another, voice rising, “I didn’t want everyone to know, I really didn’t, they didn’t need to know.” I looked helplessly across at the policewoman, who moved to the other side of the bed.

  “Now then Lauretta,” she said firmly, “We’ve been through this haven’t we, no point in upsetting ourselves all over again. You know it was in the papers, we talked about that. But we have to catch the so and so, don’t we?”

  “I can’t tell you any more. I’m sorry, so sorry, don’t remember, I’ve said, haven’t I? Want to, just can’t. I’m sorry.” With each sorry she was turning her head back and forth on the pillow in escalating upset, small bubbles of spittle gathering at the corners of her lips, nose running. Her raw distress was breaching my barriers. I belatedly realised, tried to pull away but could do too little, too late. With a rush, all the more devastating for its suddenness, I was suddenly open to her, flooded.

  My head rocked back with the shock and I knew, to my shame and without a shadow of doubt, I’d have run if my hand hadn’t been wrapped tight in hers, a grip so frantic I couldn’t loosen it. Slamming into me was her pain, disbelief, grief, shame and overwhelmingly vivid images. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t rest un-drugged, the recollections were continuous and, all the more terrifying, out of chronological order. No beginning, no end, no time frame. Shock had reduced memory to a never-ending parade, a grim merry-go-round of sight, sensation, smell and pain, all the more surreal because she was unable to sort them into any sort of coherent order. But I could.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding, hauled another one in through a constricted throat. Like a ripped picture book, images were scattered every which way. I didn’t want to look, but of its own accord my mind sought to make sense out of what it was seeing. Order out of disorder, placing things in sequence and context, however dreadful. I knew instinctively that for Lauretta, order might be the only path back from endless re-living.

  “Out the way now, quickly.” Nurse Brogan had a hypodermic. Lauretta saw it and began to sob louder.

  “No, no. No injection. Please, not again.” she didn’t want to be put under. Awake was haunted enough, unconsciousness worse – no control. They thought they were helping but they were only intensifying and prolonging her nightmare.

  “Wait – please wait, just a moment,” I said “She’ll calm down, I promise.” I turned back to Lauretta, leaned over her, obscuring view of nurse and needle.

  “He hurt me.” she said softly to me and something in her voice had changed, hysteria giving space to acknowledgment. The policewoman, alert at her other side, leaned forward too.

  “Lauretta, have you remembered something? What can you tell me?”

  “He hurt me.”

  “I know my love. That’s why we need you to tell us as much as you can. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  “The time. He asked me the time.” Lauretta was staring at but not seeing me. In her mind, and mine, was the terrible tale told by the scattered pages. Together, we found the one she was looking for, the beginning. She winced but didn’t turn away. Her eyes widened, but not at anything in the room.

  “How could I have forgotten, how silly? When I got off the train – he was there, he asked me the time. That was him. I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” WPC Linton perched precariously now on the other side of the bed had notebook and pen.

  “You saw him clearly? Are you sure this was the same man who later attacked you?” Lauretta shut her eyes for an instant, re-opened them on certainty.

  “Yes. He smelt. Same smell.” She paused as we were both swept by an over-sweet after-shave, then mintiness – toothpaste, masking cigarette smoke. “Yes, I smelt him, on the platform … he came very close and then … later. She swallowed convulsively. “Later I … I’d forgotten but I did, I recognised the smell.”

  “How old? Was he tall? Short?”

  “I think maybe 35 – 40?” Together we searched, I turned over images she’d deliberately hidden away, fed the pictures back to her. She flinched but didn’t stop.

  “Yes, late thirties, fair skinned, very smooth skin, no stubble, smooth.” She shuddered, “Hair, sandy coloured I think, long, brushed very neatly back, I noticed that, he didn’t look scruffy.”

  “Tall? How tall?

  “Don’t know, can’t … no, wait … when he stopped me, asked the time, I didn’t have to look up much, so not that tall I suppose. Thin, though, very thin, but later… so strong. I didn’t realize…”

  “Take your time, you’re doing so well Lauretta, what else can you tell me. Everything, any little thing helps.”

  We’re walking briskly through the shortcut – takes you from the side of the station to the main road, past the wooded area running round the back of the railway. Saves going through the busy forecourt where all the buses stop and local kids congregate, cuts a good five minutes off the walk home and we’ve to get Mother’s prescription before the chemist shuts, should just do it. Oh and mustn’t forget, Aspirin, used the last yesterday. No harm going this way at this time, broad daylight, lots of people around. Feet hurt, lovely shoes but oh now, they so need coming off. Thank goodness train on time for once. Lamb chops for supper with mash. Potatoes peeled before we left this morning, in cold water ready for boiling, meat seasoned on a plate in the fridge, most of the fat cut off because Mother hates fatty. Enough rhubarb crumble left for afters, with ice-cream, or maybe custard – use up yesterday’s milk.

  The sudden yank on our hair that jerks our head back is both agonising and entirely, shockingly unexpected. In that moment, our rational mind struggles to make sense – an overhanging branch? The hairpiece always so securely pinned and anchored has been ripped right away from our head. We twist round and see the almost comically astonished reflection of our own expression on the face of the man close behind, the man holding a mass of red curls in one still-upraised hand.

  He’s angry, why’s he so angry? Our hairpiece has thrown him, he’s surprised and we know, with absol
ute and complete certainty this is not someone who cares to be surprised. He’s disconcerted for the barest second. Why’re we frozen like a light-dazzled rabbit? There’s an instant when we could run, but we don’t. What’s happening is so completely unlikely that common sense insists we’ve got it all wrong, there’s been some kind of a mistake. He draws back a fist and punches, the blow connecting at the very moment we realize that sometimes, terrible things do happen to ordinary people. Our head jerks back with the force of this reality. Glasses fly off and hit the ground, someone’ll tread on them and they’re only a couple of months new. He slides an iron arm round our waist – to anyone coming up behind, we seem like a suddenly reunited couple – and slips swiftly sideways – from the path into the trees.

  We should shout, we should scream – isn’t that what they always say, make a noise, make as much noise as you can? – but our mouth is full of blood. Feet dragging, we’ve moved so far into the trees now, we can’t assess the way back to the path. We’ve lost a shoe – they were expensive, kitten-heeled suede, last year’s Russell & Bromley sale. Mother always said they’d spoil, wearing them to work, though this probably wasn’t what she had in mind. We take a breath, swallow blood that makes us gag. Another blow, to the side of the head this time. The world spins and starts to darken. He’s got a knife, like the carpet layer used, a Stanley knife? He reaches for the neck of our shirt and as the short blade slips so easily through the fabric, it bloodies a line down our chest too. We’re so bewildered and appallingly, paralysingly, fear-full and we hurt so very much. I ripped my hand from Lauretta’s grasp, my mind from hers.

  *

  Half kneeling, half crouching and clutching cold porcelain, the stink of disinfectant and vomit made my eyes water. I voided the contents of my stomach and carried on heaving, I needed to get rid of what I’d seen and felt and the more uncomfortable and the longer it went on, the less chance I had to think. A cool hand was suddenly firm on my forehead, I tried to shake it off, this was one of those times you really want to be alone. She went, but only temporarily. A moment later she was back, reaching over me to flush the soiled toilet and place a wet handkerchief on my head.

  After a few more moments I had to accept nothing more was going to come out, however much I might want it to. I staggered to my feet and sat on the toilet. Rajitha handed me a handful of paper towels to wipe my mouth and leant back against the door, arms folded.

  “What’s going on?” she said

  “Going on?” my voice hurt coming out.

  “I am not,” she said firmly, “An idiot. Don’t bullshit me.”

  “Can we go somewhere else?” She wrinkled an elegant nose.

  “Absolutely, If you’re sure you’ve finished, there’s a canteen, next floor up. I promised we wouldn’t be long though, just as soon as you felt better – this is the first time Lauretta’s told them anything. That policewoman was over the moon, dashing off to phone her boss. She wants us back a.s.a.p.” I shook my head,

  “Can’t.”

  “Certainly can.” She leaned down and grabbed my elbow – in spite of her waif-like build, I’d often seen her haul full sized electric typewriters from office to office – and pulled me to my feet. She took the dampened hanky from my forehead and tried to shift some of the mascara accumulated underneath my eyes. She gave my face a further swift wipe-over for good measure, tucked an errant piece of my shirt back into my skirt.

  “There, you’ll do. Look I know it’s all pretty dreadful but we owe it to her.” I shook my head again,

  “Raj, I’m telling you I can’t go back.”

  “And I’m telling you, you can.” She plucked a piece of paper towel from her black jacket, disposed of it down the toilet.

  “Now, you’re going to promise not to throw up again, I’m going to buy you a coffee and a biscuit and you’re going to tell me what exactly happened in there.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  So I did. For the first time, I told everything to someone who didn’t already know. And considering my stomach ached as if kicked by a particularly feisty mule, the attempted reinstatement of my shielding was giving me the mother and father of all headaches and I couldn’t stop shivering, I thought I managed to précis it all rather neatly. When I finally wound down she was silent for a long moment. Then she said,

  “OK.”

  “OK? What’s that mean, OK?”

  “It means OK. If that’s what you’re telling me, I believe you. You can’t possibly have made it all up on the spot and I was in there, remember? Something weird was going on and this is as good an explanation as any.”

  I was flabbergasted, I’d lived, all my life with the risk of letting my secret slip. Now, it had emerged, with more of a whimper than a bang and certainly with a less than cataclysmic reaction. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.

  “Show me.” She said.

  “Show you what?”

  “Move something.” I slid her coffee cup to the opposite side of the table. She reached out, retrieved it and nodded.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “No,” I said sharply, “I’m impressed. Can’t believe you’re taking this in your stride.” She shrugged,

  “Why shouldn’t I? More things in heaven and earth etc. How are you feeling? You don’t look good.”

  “Thanks! Head’s splitting.” I said. And that was only the half of it I was icy cold, bone-deep. Around us hustled the bustle and clatter of a busy cafeteria with its mixed aromas of coffee, tinned tomato soup and fried food.

  “Can you read my mind now?” she asked, she didn’t look particularly worried. I shook my head impatiently,

  “Told you, I try not to do that. Specially not here, hospitals are terrible places for me. What happened with Lauretta was an accident, I’m keeping buttoned up till we’re away.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t expect me to go back? Not after what I’ve told you?”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I bloody do.” I was gripping the edge of the table and shivering so hard, it was vibrating the surface of my coffee – I’d only managed half a cup. I tried and failed to loosen my grip. “I thought you understood. I can’t risk that again. I was with her Raj, I was with her. I was seeing and feeling everything, everything that happened to her.”

  “I know, you said.”

  “No. You don’t know. You haven’t the faintest. What he put her through, what it felt like …” I stopped I could feel just-consumed coffee churning and rising. I tried again to relax my hands. I wasn’t sure whether the tightness of my grip on the table was intensifying the shakes or whether I was gripping so hard to try and halt them.

  “Look,” I tried again in explanation, “I’m truly, desperately sorry for Lauretta, what happened to her was too awful for words, I feel terrible, but Raj, it happened to her, I can’t … won’t have it happen to me too. The memories, those horrible, dreadful memories – they’re her’s not mine.”

  “Can you describe him – the man?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what he looks like?”

  “Said so, haven’t I? I saw him.”

  “Then you’ve no option.”

  “What’re you talking about?” My voice rose and a couple at the next table looked over at us, I lowered my tone, leaning forward,

  “Lauretta – she saw him, she can tell them, give them a description.”

  “But she couldn’t before.”

  “Because all the stuff in her head was jumbled up by what he did to her, she was in shock I suppose – couldn’t think properly, that’s all.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” I snapped

  “You helped her put it in order – that’s what you said.”

  “So now she can carry on.”

  “You can’t know that.” She drank some coffee, met my hostile glare.

  “I wonder,” she mused, “How you’ll feel when you pick up a paper and see a pic
ture of the next woman he kills? He’s killed before. Lauretta’s here, purely by chance because he was interrupted. He’ll kill again. When that happens, mightn’t you think things would have been different – if they’d caught him?”

  “Rajitha, why don’t you just mind your own bloody business and stay out of mine?” She smiled equably at me.

  “Fine.” She was rifling through her bag, taking out a notebook.