44 Gilmore Street

by Shani Struthers

  Remembering the hatred she had felt towards him, how much she had wanted to hurt him, she’d need to keep that in mind about herself too.

  “Quinn you say?” Delia continued. “Is that his name?”

  “It is, Quinn O’Brien. He lived there briefly before Ben moved in. Linda, who’s on the sofa, was married to him.”

  “She’s his wife?” Delia was aghast.

  “She prefers the title of ex-wife,” Ruby replied.

  Delia leaned forward – her eyes alight. “Tell me all.”

  “I would, Delia, but I don’t know the full story myself. That’s what I’m going to find out now.”

  “Och, I’ll hurry with the tea,” Delia declared. “I don’t want to miss a word.”

  Ruby waited until Linda had drained half her glass before she started her interrogation, glad to see colour returning to the older woman’s cheeks.

  Drawing a breath, noting how sore her throat was, the windpipe severely bruised, she was about to speak when Linda stopped her.

  “I know what you want,” she said, “and I’ll tell you. Why not? I’m damned anyway, despite what you say.”

  “Linda—” Theo began but Ruby interrupted.

  “Let’s just listen.” There was no way she wanted Linda distracted.

  “Help me to sit up.”

  Ruby did as Linda asked, puffing up a cushion behind her, before taking her seat again.

  “The reason I was crying at the kitchen sink was because I’d realised I was pregnant. Not far gone I don’t think, but I was so thin I was beginning to show already. I couldn’t hide from the truth much longer. On one of the few times he could manage it, Quinn’s seed had taken root – another demon growing.”

  Ruby noted Corinna’s eyes widen at Linda’s graphic choice of words. Delia, who had re-entered the room, issued a breathy ‘oh my!’

  Linda leaned forward, clutched Ruby’s arm. From the look in her eyes, Ruby could see that she was back in hell again, fully immersed.

  “I had wanted a child so much, but not now, not his child. Can you understand that? I wanted nothing that was a part of him.”

  Ruby nodded. “I can understand. When he had his hands around my throat, I wanted to retaliate, to do what you did, to hurt him. He brought out the worst in me. I wanted to kill him too. And I would have.”

  It was Linda who seemed shocked now. She stared at Ruby and, as she did, a glimmer of understanding passed between them.

  “I believe you,” the older woman said at last.

  “Whatever you’ve done, we won’t judge you,” Ruby assured her. After the feelings that had enveloped her, she was in no position.

  Linda swallowed. “Oh, I think you will.”

  “Just tell us,” Ruby pleaded.

  “I intend to,” Linda replied.

  “As I began to gain an advantage over Quinn, a plan formed in my mind. Not only would I show him no mercy, I wouldn’t show any to the child inside of me either. How could I love something that was a part of him? Impossible! I don’t think I could ever love again. That emotion – that capability – was dead. And soon his child would be too. And I’d make him watch me kill it.

  It would hurt Quinn. I knew it would because there was a time he said he wanted children. Not before we were married, surprisingly, it was afterwards. We were upstairs in bed. He’d tried to foist himself on me again but failed. Usually he flew into a rage about this, he’d kick and punch me, he’d tell me how ugly I was, that his failure was my fault. How could anyone want to make love to someone so weak and pathetic? But this time was different. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. I thought he was working up to a rage, or that he was making me wait – sometimes the anticipation of his fists was much worse than the actual act. He was shaking, the bed was too; in anger I wondered? I waited, trembling just as violently as him. When he spoke again, his voice was thick. I realised then that the bed was shaking because he was crying, his chest rising and falling with each sob! I could hardly believe it, that this monster was capable of tears. Wondered if I was dreaming. Should I reach out and comfort him? I couldn’t! I couldn’t!

  I waited for him to speak instead.

  ‘It’ll be different if we had a child. I’ll be different.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘We can learn how to love it and it will love us back. Imagine that?’

  I had – once. There was a time when I had wanted a boy so bad; a tiny version of the man I loved. Now that thought filled me with sheer horror. He would be someone Quinn would teach the vilest of lessons to, just as he’d been taught, passing down from generation to generation nothing but a thirst for violence and subjugation. It might be that I’d fear my own child too in time; that he’d turn on me, his own mother. I’d have two of them to contend with then. No, Quinn was talking nonsense. There was no way he could love it back. He had no love inside to give, no beating heart, just a cold, hard lump of coal, which had been fed nothing but darkness. I didn’t give him any comfort, I turned on my side, away from him, expecting that to ignite his fury at least but he left me alone that night. He let me lose myself in sleep.

  But I knew then, how much it meant to him, to have a baby. And although I still didn’t want to get pregnant, at least I had a weapon. Standing in front of him I realised that what I was about to do would hurt him more than a beating and boiling water ever could. Oh, God!”

  “Linda…” Ruby urged, “don’t stop. Tell us what you did.” For a moment she doubted that Linda was going to continue, that she wouldn’t be able to find the words but she did… eventually.

  “He didn’t know I was pregnant. But I made sure to tell him as he lay on the floor, blood pooling round him. I said that a child grew within me, his child. I saw him look up, a glimmer of hope in amongst despair. He tried to lift a hand, to reach out. And then, as I used my fists to beat my own stomach, I saw that hope shrivel up and die. I was not going to have his child and he knew it. He couldn’t control me any longer, only watch as I beat myself, as I pummelled and pummelled. Despite the plea in his eyes, I walked away, started backing down the hallway, reaching the front door, still pummelling, one fist after the other, waiting for the flow of blood, which I knew would follow: a sign that what’d he’d planted in me, like him, was destroyed.”

  Like a drowning woman that had suddenly surfaced, Linda gasped out loud, her body shooting forwards before slumping again. Everyone else in the room remained still, trying to digest the latest revelation.

  Fighting to control her breathing, Linda managed to speak at last.

  “You see what I mean? I’m worse than Quinn, much worse. I killed my own baby.”

  Hardly able to conceal her shock, Ruby asked when she’d miscarried.

  “Not long afterwards, just a matter of hours. I left the house, went to the station and caught a train to London; somewhere I’d be even more anonymous. I found a public toilet, locked myself in and waited. The gush of blood was horrendous, the pain. I…” She sobbed again, brought one hand up to cover her face. “That poor baby, that poor, poor baby.”

  Only Ness remained dry-eyed. “Your baby…” she repeated but then her words trailed away.

  Linda didn’t seem to hear her. “You talk of the light, but I’ll never find it. Not after that.”

  Ness turned to look at Ruby, stared at her for a few seconds, then turned to Theo. Ruby could almost see the mechanics of her mind working furiously.

  “Ness…” Ruby enquired and then stopped. ‘Your baby.’ – She had said it as if she was searching for another meaning.

  Your baby… your baby…

  What could that meaning be?

  Your baby…

  The realisation when it came was electric.

  “Your baby was Ellie!” Ruby burst out. Her eyes trained solely on Ness, she continued, “I’m right, aren’t I? That’s what you’re thinking?”

  Ness nodded slowly as though coming to terms with it herself.

  A soul divided? No. T
hey’d been two separate souls in one body.

  It took a moment to realise Linda was speaking. “Ellie? The girl you keep talking about. The girl with my memories?”

  Theo had slumped too, but not in shock or despair, in amazement. “Of course!” she exclaimed. “That makes much more sense.”

  Corinna looked at Cash – twin expressions of bemusement on their faces. “Could someone help us make sense of it too?”

  “And me,” Delia piped up from her corner. “I’m completely baffled.”

  Samantha could only sit and shake her head. Words failed her.

  “Ruby,” Ness said, still ashen. “Would you like to explain or should I?”

  Ruby hesitated, wondered where she should start. “I’ll… erm… I can try.”

  “Would you like more tea, dear?” Delia asked gently.

  “Please. That’d be great.”

  “It’s on its way.”

  A few minutes later with a warm cup clutched between her hands, Ruby had sorted it enough in her head to tell Linda what she thought. No, not what she thought, what she knew. Her theory – as she’d called it before – could only be the truth. Extracts of what Ellie had said during her regression sessions came to mind. She didn’t have her notepad with her to cross reference facts but she could recall several well enough. How she said she didn’t know who she was, that she wasn’t herself anymore, also how trapped she’d felt when Quinn had begun attacking her in the kitchen – entombed. At one point she’d likened herself to a passenger, hitching a lift in someone else, gazing outwards. Little wonder. And tea, she never drank tea, didn’t like it, Linda had passed on that aversion too.

  She had to check one more thing.

  “You never gave your baby a name, did you, Linda?”

  “No! Of course not. The last thing I wanted to do was make it more real, not when I wanted to get rid of it.”

  Which is why Ellie had never been able to recall it. Clearing her throat, she started – from the beginning.

  “Ellie came to us because she started having dreams of another woman, dreams that turned into visions – snapshots she called them – they occurred in the daytime as well as at night and they were really vivid. She told me she was being haunted – by herself. The visions had been set off by a friend of a friend called Katharine, one with a unique psychic ability we think. She claims she can see who a person was in their past life. She held onto Ellie’s hands and… well… she saw a woman, standing at the kitchen sink, fighting back tears. She felt her despair, her fear – emotions in turmoil, emotions that were crushing her, that’s how Katharine described it. Katharine then let go of Ellie’s hands as if she’d been burnt, what she had seen seemed to unsettle her and she refused to continue. She told Ellie to leave the past alone, to keep it buried, that it was complicated.” Ruby looked hard at Linda. “But as we both know, sometimes the past won’t leave us alone.”

  “Ruby,” it was Theo, knowing what she was referring to: her own demon, “drink some tea.”

  Ruby did, grateful for the warmth of the fluid as it eased her throat.

  “These visions frightened Ellie, they were increasing in frequency as well as intensity. She said she felt threatened still, as if the danger wasn’t over. As if it had been left unfinished. We took Ellie’s case on. I was reluctant to I must admit but Ness persuaded me to give it a shot, to try and understand what was happening to her. She thought it would be good for Psychic Surveys; that it would build on our expertise. We offered her several regression sessions, undertaken by Ailsa Isaacs, who specialises in that field. Ness and I sat in on them. The life Ellie recalled, Linda, was your life, told to us by her as you’ve told us since, sometimes word for word. You know you called Quinn a ‘slug of a man’? Well, Ellie used those words too. Thinking about it now, I would say Ellie also recalled her own life in the womb but somehow her memories merged with yours. Often she couldn’t ‘see’ properly or recall her name, that sort of thing. There were also times she felt it was wrong calling Quinn her husband, yet at other times she was fine with it – a result of the confusion, I guess.” Her words coming out in something of a rush, she stopped and took a deep breath before continuing. “Your memories, your feelings, your experiences, they manifested in her mind, became a part of her psyche and subsequently her soul.”

  All the while Ruby was speaking, Ness was shaking her head, not in disagreement, in awe. “Anything is possible,” she muttered.

  “Yes,” Ruby concurred, “anything.” She was awed too. “At first, when I discovered how similar your stories were, I thought you and Ellie might be the same soul divided. But you’re not, you were two souls housed under the same roof, the bond between you so strong that Ellie shared everything with you, even memories of events that happened before she was in your womb.”

  “Before?” Linda quizzed.

  Ruby nodded. “But these memories may well have been flitting through your mind after she’d been conceived, maybe as an attempt by you to make sense of all that was happening. What we do know is that they were all significant events – the first time you met him, the first time you were intimate, when he met your parents, your wedding day. Events that are a part of your history and therefore a part of you.” Glancing at Theo, she added, “I suppose we nourish the child inside us in more ways than one.”

  “That’s right,” Theo said, smiling at Ruby. “But before we go any further, I think we have to point out that a case such as this is… unique. Certainly I’ve never come across one like it during my years. And regarding babies picking up on their mothers’ emotions, there’s enough proof out there to show that stressed mothers are at a higher risk of miscarriage and stillbirths.” She looked directly at Linda. “You were under an enormous amount of stress, you were so young, so bewildered by what had happened to you, you were just so damned shocked. There’s every possibility you were going to miscarry anyway and that what you did, your actions, were not responsible.”

  “I’m not looking to be absolved.”

  “I realise that—”

  “And it doesn’t matter,” Linda insisted. “The intent was there.”

  Theo couldn’t argue with that.

  Linda started speaking again, clearly doing her utmost to take it all in – they all were. “I understand a foetus can feel the mother’s emotion,” she said, “I get that, but to see through her eyes, to be able to access her memories…”

  “Is incredible,” Ruby answered when Linda hesitated, “but we have to remember the foetus is a vehicle for the soul and as young as the physical body might be, the spirit is ageless. What it catalogues from the moment of conception, what it stores, is quite clearly everything that impacts on it.”

  “There’s also such a thing as soul groups, Ruby,” Theo added, “and before Cash can beat me to it with one of his prized quips, I’m not talking Marvin Gaye or The Drifters here, I mean in a spiritual sense. You see, we don’t just break away from the mass individually, we break away as a group, a group we return with again and again, often in different guises, a father may be a son in the next life for example, a wife might be a daughter, which could account for why, when we meet someone, we seem to know them, because deep down we do. In simplest terms, your soul group is someone you have chosen to experience certain human experiences with in order to understand them, the good, the bad and the downright ugly, with a view to working your way through issues and finding a resolution. Taking this belief into account, Linda, Ellie and possibly Quinn, might be part of the same soul group.” Theo paused and looked around at her friends, a smile on her face. “As for us, I like to think you’re all part of my soul group and yes, Ness, that does include you, very much so.” Before Ness could comment, she added, “But, Ness, I also think you’re part of their soul group, Ellie’s, Linda’s and Quinn’s.”

  Ness frowned, was about to comment but Theo was keen to get her point across. “We all know how fond you are of Ellie, how much you identify with her. I know you empathise with Linda too and with
Quinn, because of what you’ve gone through in the past, with your own family.”

  “I don’t want to talk—”

  “I know you don’t and that will be my only mention of it but Ellie got to you more than she should, and perhaps there’s a reason for that. You knew deep down you had to help her. And in doing so help yourself.”

  “But she came to me first, not Ness,” Ruby pointed out.

  “She came to you because of Psychic Surveys,” Theo replied. “Because you’re out there, you’re on the high street, a bona fide company with a good reputation, despite what the press are trying to do to you. And through you she met Ness. The thing is, Ruby, once you open doors people will walk through them, and I’m not just talking about the doors in your mind. And what’s happened, how the two cases are connected, it’s no coincidence either. I’m in cahoots with Einstein about that. It’s the Higher Power working in mysterious ways again; the reasons for which I’m sure will become blindingly obvious to us when we’re on the other side. But for now, whilst we’re here, let’s do what we have to do – what the universe wants. This matter needs wrapping up, it’s getting old, it’s getting tired and it’s dragging on. Everyone who’s involved needs to move on, not just Quinn. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” both Ruby and Ness said.

  Linda, who was listening as intently as the rest of them, still wasn’t convinced. “All this talk, you make it sound as if something miraculous has happened when all I feel is cursed.”

  Ness refused to indulge her. “But it is a miracle, Linda. It’s good trying to emerge from bad.”

  Briefly Linda closed her eyes. Ruby felt for her, there was a lot to take in, a lot that the limits of the human mind had trouble comprehending, even a psychic’s mind. She held her hands up to being bewildered too.

  Opening her eyes, Linda’s thoughts returned to the baby. “If it was a boy though—” But there she stopped, finally willing to believe the evidence so far. “But of course it wasn’t. It was Ellie. It was a girl, my girl.” She seemed to fold in on herself. “If I’d known there could have been a chance for us I would have left her in me, taken her away from Quinn, far away. I’d have gone to another country even, brought her up by myself. I don’t know though… was I too damaged by then? A lost cause? I must have been, to do what I did.”