Fog Heart

by Thomas Tessier

  ‘But don’t worry, it’ll probably start to come back to me in a few days. That’s the way it goes. Do you see how I’ve already had a few inklings just since we’ve been talking now? That shows it’s on the way back.’

  ‘It’s because of me,’ Carrie said. ‘Oona, maybe I shouldn’t come up to New Haven. I should stay away.’

  ‘No, don’t say that. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen. It’s not you, love. It’s me, it’s always been me.’

  ‘Oona…’

  ‘I hear the Warden coming. Talk to you later.’

  21

  ‘Charley.’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’

  ‘You have funny knees.’

  ‘What’s so funny about them?’

  ‘They’re bumpy.’

  Nuala Browne dashed off, no doubt to tell her brother Gerry how bold she’d been. Nuala was three. Or four. Something like that. In addition to the younger pair, the Brownes had a couple of almost-teens who were out at present on an errand of mischief with the girls from the cottage down the road. Good kids.

  Charley leaned forward to check his knees; they didn’t look very funny to him. But he did feel a bit odd in Bermuda shorts. He didn’t own much in the way of beachwear, but you can’t lounge about on the Cape in cords and a sweater in the middle of July. So there he was, a self-regarded calamity in technicolour shorts, a faded Pogues T-shirt and silly flip-flops that flew off his feet every time he took a step.

  Still, Wellfleet was lovely, the cottage great, the beer and food fantastic and the company simply the best. He felt pretty good, all things considered, and even Jan seemed to be responding favourably to the change of scene. Charley had been pleased when, the night before, Malcolm and Maggie had asked them to stay on for an extra couple of days. Oh, aye.

  Some cottage. The house had more square feet of floor space than any place in which Charley had ever lived along the dusty academic trail. The Brownes rented it out for most of the summer – a smart idea, the place paid for itself. Quite nice, too. Some people caught all the breaks. Still, not to complain.

  ‘Here we go.’

  Malcolm came back out onto the deck with a fresh pitcher of draught ale. He refilled Charley’s pint glass and then topped up his own. Before taking his seat again, Malcolm tapped on the CD in the portable stereo on the picnic table, replaying If I Should Fall From Grace With The Lord. The boys from County Hell singing songs about the drinkitations.

  ‘You do Bacchus proud, Mal, I must say.’

  ‘It’s great to have some time off with you. And I think Jan’s enjoying herself. Do you?’

  Charley nodded. ‘She seems a bit more at ease. It helps to get away for a while. I was afraid she might find it tough to be around your kids, but she’s as fond of them as I am.’

  ‘Yes, she really is,’ Malcolm agreed. ‘I wondered about that as well, but she seems fine.’

  ‘She’s coming along, I think.’

  ‘Have you seen any more of the famous Oona?’

  Malcolm had waited a couple of days before asking, considerately enough, not wanting to stir up the waters and perhaps spoil their weekend. Maggie hadn’t enquired either, though Charley could see that she was anxious to know if there had been any developments. He appreciated their patience and tact. He glanced back towards the cottage for a second, and then to Malcolm.

  ‘Is Jan still in the kitchen with Maggie?’

  ‘She was, but as I was getting the beer just now she went to your bedroom to have a lie-down before dinner.’

  ‘Ah, good. Yes, well, we did visit the famous Oona the week before last,’ Charley said. ‘It was a joint session, with some other couple. I didn’t much care for them, but it sounded as if they also had a mysterious violent death somewhere in their past, so I suppose that’s why Oona brought us all together.’

  Malcolm sipped his beer. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Quite a performance, really. Oona ranted and raved, tossed and twitched and squirmed. It went on for some time. Our friend Sir Walt put in another cameo appearance, but the highlight came when Oona smashed her head down on a stone basin. She really did a number on herself. There was blood all over the place, and she knocked herself out. They took her to the emergency room.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No, really. The sister called up the next day and told me that Oona had a concussion. She was going to be out of business for a while. Still is, for all I know.’

  ‘Christ. So, nothing was actually said that—’

  ‘Related to us and Fiona?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, quite a bit, in fact,’ Charley admitted. ‘But it was not Fiona herself, and I have no idea what any of it was supposed to mean. I almost wish that some ectoplasm had come floating out of Oona’s nose or a ghostly face had appeared in the air over the table. Something like that, real or fake, but something that you could see or touch and focus on. But it all comes down to words and voices, and some of the words are fascinating and some of the voices are remarkable – but it’s not enough, it has no intrinsic meaning. The only way it can work is if you confer significance on what you hear.’

  Malcolm nodded, smiling. ‘Yes, but how does Oona find words and phrases that mean so much to people?’

  ‘It’s uncanny at times.’ Charley helped himself to more of the beer. He had no desire to go into how explicit Oona had been the last time – much too explicit for his liking. To recall the details was unbearably painful. ‘She has a touch of the mad poet about her, if you ask me.’

  ‘You know,’ Malcolm said, ‘some people think that parapsychology and the paranormal will be the next big developmental area in the field of psychiatry.’

  Charley laughed. ‘That sounds about right.’

  ‘Have you decided whether Oona is genuine or not?’

  He was stuck. Charley didn’t want to lie to his friend and say that she wasn’t, but he didn’t want to concede that she might well be – and then have to explain why. ‘I’m not sure I know either way. Part of me wants to believe, while the other part wants to run away. She often comes close to the mark, which makes her interesting. But it’s too painful.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Malcolm said sympathetically. ‘What about Jan? How does she feel about it now?’

  ‘She’s a soul in need, Mal. It says something to her about Fiona. It hurts her but she thinks that’s necessary and proper. She’s locked into it, and nothing I say makes any difference.’

  ‘Does she still think Fiona has come back for revenge?’

  ‘She hasn’t repeated that lately but, to tell you the truth, we don’t even talk about it any more. It goes nowhere.’

  ‘Ah, she’ll pull out of it, don’t worry. As time passes, and now she isn’t seeing Oona, she’ll get over it.’

  They were silent for a few moments, watching the sea as they enjoyed the music. The only trouble with moments of serenity and pleasure like this, Charley thought, is that they’re a con. The good food and drink, the wonderful company, the lovely setting, you want to think this is life. It isn’t. Life is the nasty little bugger getting ready to hammer you again. Had enough? Too bad, I’m not done with you yet. Moments like this – they’re just the sixty seconds between rounds, over too soon, and then you have to haul your sorry ass back out into the middle of the ring. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, you’re also receiving messages from the dead. You haven’t even got to the other side yet, and already you’re in trouble there as well.

  Hit me again, I’m starting to like it.

  ‘Mal, do you believe in an afterlife?’

  ‘Ah.’ Malcolm smiled and sat back in his chair. ‘That one. The brain says no, the heart says yes. But it’s easier to say no and the easy way usually turns out to be wrong.’

  ‘So, you’re a believer.’ Mild surprise.

  ‘In a way, I suppose I am,’ Malcolm said, almost sheepishly. ‘I used to feel that all that literary despair and existential angst in the face of the meaningless void was prett
y much spot-on. But it’s just as arbitrary as any other explanation. There might be a spiritual plane. Why not something more?’

  ‘Something…’

  ‘You don’t think so.’

  ‘No,’ Charley said, ‘I’ll stick to the literary void. It’s simple and tidy. Besides, I like the idea of being recycled into a clump of moss and catching drops of foggy dew every morning.’

  ‘It’s a form of drink,’ Malcolm observed, winking.

  ‘I knew there was a reason.’

  * * *

  Later, he went to wake Jan for supper. She was asleep on the bed with just a sheet pulled over her. She seemed too still and quiet – Jan was usually a bit of a noisy breather in the old sack, biology’s rebuttal to erotic romance. Charley sat down and gently patted her shoulder.

  ‘Jan … Wakey-wakey … Time for supper … They’re going to toss the lobsters in the pot any minute now…’

  She spun round suddenly to stare at him, pushing herself up on one hand. Her face was puffy with sleep, and she seemed lost. But her eyes were wide open and had the chaotic look of terror in them. She didn’t know him. He tried to take her hand in his but she pulled away from him, the fear mounting.

  ‘Hey, it’s me. It’s all right, love…’

  He must have awakened her from a dream, and not a very happy one at that. She was still caught up in it, and she made Charley think of a wild animal trapped in some confined space. He wasn’t ready for another dream-message from Fiona. Never would be.

  ‘Jan, it’s me. Relax. Wake up.’

  She exhaled sharply, and then began to breathe more normally as some of the tension left her. But she still regarded him with shock and uncertainty.

  ‘There,’ Charley said. ‘Are you all right now?’

  ‘You were dead.’

  ‘Was I? Oh dear.’ He put on a good-natured smile. ‘Well, as you can see, I’m not quite there yet.’

  ‘You fell in the sea and you were gone.’

  ‘Crikey.’ Maybe that kelpie got him. ‘It was just a dream, love, it doesn’t matter. Splash some water on your face and come along for dinner when you’re ready.’

  * * *

  ‘You’d think she was looking at a ghost.’ Charley turned on the tap and drew a pint of ale. ‘Perhaps I am a ghost, and she’s the only one who realizes it. I like that idea.’

  Malcolm smiled; Maggie didn’t.

  ‘That would explain a few things,’ Charley continued. ‘Like why I feel out of it half the time, or why the deconstructionists in the English department look right through me.’

  Malcolm laughed; Maggie didn’t.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, love,’ Charley said, as he put an arm around Maggie’s waist – very nice, too. ‘You’re thinking that dreams are sometimes prophetic. Am I right?’

  ‘It did occur to me.’ Maggie was preparing lemon and butter sauce to go with the lobsters, and she smiled at him. ‘If I were you I’d stay away from the water.’

  ‘I’ll make a point of it.’

  ‘And think about what she said,’ Maggie added.

  ‘Oh, I draw the line at that,’ Charley said. ‘Thinking just gives you headaches. Right, Mal?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

  Maggie groaned. ‘Get out of here, the two of you, you’re no help at all. And please change the music.’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to oblige the chef,’ Malcolm said.

  But Jan entered the kitchen then. She didn’t seem to notice the others. She didn’t appear to know where she was or what she was doing. She hesitated in the doorway for a moment, walked to the counter and looked around as if searching for something.

  ‘Hello, love,’ Charley said. ‘Care for a drink?’

  Jan didn’t seem to hear him. She ignored them and wandered out of the back door onto the deck, where she stood uncertainly for a few seconds, and then sat down on one of the chairs facing the sea, her hands folded in her lap.

  ‘Still waking up,’ Malcolm murmured politely.

  Maggie looked at Charley.

  He shrugged. ‘Is there a Donizetti in the house?’

  * * *

  They didn’t speak much on the drive back to New Haven. They hadn’t spoken much at all lately, so that was nothing new. It was not his fault, Charley thought. He made the effort regularly, but Jan would reply minimally and conversation tended to peter out before it ever got going.

  All the same, the long weekend on the Cape with the Brownes had been a success. Charley had enjoyed it, and, for the most part, Jan had held her own. She went shopping at the factory outlets with Maggie one day, pottered about the small towns with the rest of them on their various excursions, sat on the beach and watched the kids when they were swimming, and once even went clam-digging with them at low tide.

  But there were those moments when Jan was preoccupied, her mind elsewhere on other business. There’s nothing much you can do about that, Charley told himself. Be there if she needs you, that’s the length and width of it. For the rest, it’s up to her to find her own way out of the prolonged funk.

  It was just possible, he knew, just possible that all those terrible things he’d heard from Oona were true. That as a small child Jan had been psychologically scarred by an experience with crows or ravens. That years later she might have found the same kind of birds fluttering about Fiona’s pram and been temporarily unhinged by the sight.

  But, as far as Charley knew, crows and ravens were scavengers that didn’t attack living creatures. Certainly not human babies. Or might they? And could Jan have reacted in that way, setting a fire, hoping to die with Fiona? It was too much. He had a hard time accepting the idea that, for so many years, he might not have had a clue about what really happened that day.

  But the story had emerged from both Oona and Jan. Why would they come up with such a horrible version of things if it wasn’t essentially true? It was hardly the kind of fantasy you’d expect a medium and her client to dream up together.

  But what he thought was secondary. It was what Jan believed that really mattered. She was the one who had carried it around inside her all this time. Besides, Fiona was dead. That part of the nightmare was true, regardless of the other details. What difference did it make if the corbies had—

  Stop, damn it.

  Charley’s mind recoiled again. He simply couldn’t deal with such gruesome images in connection with his own daughter. It was unbearable, and his brain went into a spasm of avoidance whenever they floated too close to his consciousness.

  He had been partly to blame. He had accepted that ages ago, but now he seemed to understand it more thoroughly. Charley had brought his wife and daughter to that place, and left them there. He had created the scene and set the stage. He’d behaved in less than admirable fashion in town, which no doubt came across to Jan at home; Jan was no fool. So the prevailing emotional atmosphere at Ravenswood had been largely of his own making. It all added up to a fair share of the guilt. When a tragedy like that happens, the way you live your everyday life, with all its selfish assumptions and petty vices, can turn into a damning indictment.

  You live with the death because you have no choice. Just as bad was the blindness. Everything had looked fine back then. He had a young wife, a first child – with the idea that more would come – and he was at the start of a promising academic career. Well, it may have looked fine to him, but it had been an incomplete picture.

  And if only part of what Oona had revealed was true, Charley had been living blind ever since. It was humbling, and it hurt. When you devote your life to great literature, you’re supposed to understand something about the truth of human experience. But he had read much and learned little, it seemed. Do we ever get to see the whole picture for even one second?

  When they parked in the small yard behind their apartment building, Charley put his hand on Jan’s knee as she was about to get out of the car. She looked at him.

  ‘Thanks for coming to the Cape,’ he said. ‘And it was nice, wasn�
��t it? Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He leant across the seat and kissed her cheek. ‘You know I still love you, Jan. I always have.’

  ‘I know, Charley.’

  ‘I’m always here for you.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  * * *

  They were both in the kitchen, about an hour later, early in the evening, when it happened. Charley was sitting at the table, looking through the mail, while Jan was at the counter, clearing things away after their light meal of sandwiches.

  ‘Look at this,’ Charley said, happily waving a letter in the air. ‘Somebody wants to reprint that little essay I did a couple of years ago on Dunsany and Maeterlinck. Isn’t that nice?’

  Jan glanced over her shoulder at him, but said nothing. She turned back to the cold-cuts she was rewrapping in plastic bags for the refrigerator.

  ‘Of course, there’s no money in it,’ Charley continued. ‘And Maeterlinck was such a bore. Quite apart from being a plagiarist and an all-around gobshite of the first degree. Perhaps they’ll let me touch it up a bit.’

  Charley flipped through a catalogue from a book dealer. Not much of burning interest, but he would probably find something to order in due course; there was always another book.

  He lit a thin cigar. He would have to call Heather tomorrow morning. Things had been decidedly cool on that front, but there had been signs last week that she was beginning to thaw.

  At some point Charley noticed that Jan was standing still at the counter. Doing nothing. Her back was to him, her hands flat on the Formica. The platter of cold-cuts and the various plastic bags were still there. Jan was looking up, as if she had spotted a cobweb or a moth by the ceiling. She stood there like that for a minute. Two. Too long.

  ‘Jan?’

  She looked down, but again seemed to lapse into vacancy, not responding, not moving. She has got to see someone, Charley told himself. A psychologist, a counsellor, whatever, some person who was properly qualified and skilled. It probably wouldn’t be easy to persuade her, but—

  Jan reached along the counter and picked up the small knife they’d used to slice the deli pickle. She held it, and stared at it as if she’d never seen anything quite like it before.