by C F Dunn
“I’ve written to him, Nanna, but I don’t know how he’ll respond.” The hope in my voice came tinged with sadness, and she made a noise in her throat that sounded like a question. I bent close to her and she tried again, the effort obviously taxing her meagre reserves of strength.
“You want to meet him? I don’t know if that’s possible, Nanna. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. There’s so much I don’t understand.”
She grunted fiercely and I leaned down again.
“All right – yes – I love him, I know that much; don’t bully me.”
She smiled her half-smile and rubbed my hand in a short, stiff movement of reassurance and I hugged her gently back, the years dissolving in the familiar comfort of our embrace.
“Mum says you’re making such a nuisance of yourself that the hospital’s expelling you for good behaviour. She showed me the brochure of the new place; it looks lovely and you can have all your own things there. Home from home, really.”
I looked away, neither of us wanting to read the other’s expression. Nanna would never be coming home; moving her to the care home merely represented a more comfortable interlude before time or another stroke took her. I touched her hand and tried to make light of it. “At least there aren’t any stairs to climb and you’ll have lots of nurses to torment. And I’ll come and see you, so you can boss me around as well.” I was relieved to see her eyes sparkle at that. “Is there anything in particular you would like me to bring you?”
Her eyes fluttered over my face and her lips moved almost noiselessly. I bent close.
“But I can’t, Nanna, I told you – I left him… he’s in America.” A stubborn look came over Nanna’s face. Her lips moved again. I strained forward to catch the outline of her words, and then slowly straightened as I stared at her, her eyes sharp and bright. “You want to see the journal? But… but how do you know I have it? I’ve told no one. No one knows I took it.”
CHAPTER
8
The Call
The wings of a black beetle were beating against the sides of a jar.
I knew at once something must be wrong. The mobile whirred tunelessly next to me, and I woke with a jolt, my heart vibrating in time to the pulse of the phone as I reached out to answer it.
“Matthew?”
A short silence followed, filled only with the faint sound of breathing from the phone.
“Matthew?” I repeated, alarm creeping.
A woman’s voice, barely audible at the other end, did nothing to calm me.
“Emma it’s me – Elena. Did I wake you?”
I recognized her then. I glanced at my clock, my eyes straining to focus; 5.20 in the morning, so it must be night there.
“Elena! What’s wrong? Is it Matthew? What’s happened? How did you get this number? Is he all right?”
My questions poured out incoherently as I rubbed sleep from my eyes and struggled to sit upright. She sounded louder now; she must have adjusted the position of the phone.
“Emma, you gave me your number before you left. Are you OK? I hadn’t heard from you and I was worried…”
Alert and tense, I broke in through her anxious, animated chatter.
“What’s happened, Elena? It’s twenty past five in the morning here; why are you calling? What’s the matter?”
“Da, I’m sorry. Listen, I do not wish to worry you, but I thought you might want to know…” She paused, my heart rate increasing proportionately to the lengthening gap. “It’s Matthew. Matias says he hasn’t seen him for a few days and he has missed a meeting, and he never does that. Emma, Matthew has – how do you say? – not been himself since you left. He has been…” I could hear her asking a question, her hand covering the mouth of the phone, muffling her voice. I heard a murmured reply and recognized Matias’s deep tenor in the background. Her voice became clear and loud again. “Yes, Matias says that he has been morose, withdrawn – he thinks he is changed, more… angry?” I could hear her asking him again. “Yes, angry. He has never seen him like this before, Em. Emma? Did you hear me?”
I heard her, but my stomach had become a mass of black, faceless creatures scratching and clawing at each other to escape. “Emma?” She sounded concerned.
“Yes, I heard you,” I forced a reply. “Has anyone tried to contact him at home?”
“Matias has, but there was no answer. He wanted you to know, in case… well, you know, in case something happens…”
She trailed off, not sure how to finish, but she didn’t need to; I had already silently completed the thought for her. Guy’s ashen face, lying against the hospital pillow, gazed reproachfully at me, hovering unbidden from a long-suppressed memory. “Emma? Matias thought you should know,” she repeated, uncertain now.
“Yes, thanks, Elena, and thank Matias for me. I… I don’t know what to do. I didn’t think he would react… not like this.”
I felt helpless, thousands of miles away across an ocean of pain. I had spent so much time hurting for myself – for my own loss – that I didn’t imagine he might respond the same way. If truth be told, I never thought anyone could feel that strongly about me. I always believed Guy’s attempted suicide had been a sign of his weakness rather than an indication of his feelings for me. I tried to think rationally, pushing the unwelcome fears into the background for now.
“Elena, have you spoken to Matthew? Did you tell him what I said?”
“No, I haven’t seen him since you left; but Matias saw him. Do you want to speak to Matias, Emma?”
“Please.”
There was a fumbling and a flurry of Russian as Elena handed the phone to Matias. It seemed to take forever and I found I gripped the little mobile so tightly that my fingers were going numb.
“Hi, Emma, it’s Matias.”
He didn’t ask me how I fared – he didn’t need to; it was clear from the tortured pitch of my voice as I fired a succession of questions at him.
“Matias, have you spoken with Matthew? What did he say? How was he?”
“I’ve seen him a couple of times; the first time was the day after you left. I was clearing up that broken table before anyone else saw it – you remember? He came to find you. I said that you had gone back to England with your parents.”
“How was he – I mean, how did he react?”
He paused before answering.
“Difficult to say; he didn’t at first. He went very quiet, very still, then he asked if you were hurt and I said that I didn’t think so. He asked if I knew whether you were coming back and I told him that I thought you were, but…”
I interrupted again, malignant dread growing in the heart of me.
“Did you tell him what I’d said, Matias, what I’d asked Elena to tell him?”
His silence confirmed my fear.
“I’m… not sure what that was, Emma. Is there a message she was supposed to pass on?”
The writhing creatures inside me died, leaving only a cold, hollow void. Elena hadn’t seen Matthew; he didn’t know that I wouldn’t – couldn’t – leave him. Matthew must think that I wasn’t coming back – that I didn’t love him.
“Emma. Emma? Are you still there?” Matias asked.
My voice became a coarse whisper. “How… how did he seem?”
Matias took on a paternal tone. “Now look, Emma, don’t overreact; he can probably cope better than you can…”
“Matias,” I broke in insistently, “how did he seem?”
The gap which followed spoke ominously. “He was… he seemed… distressed.”
“No… why didn’t you tell me?” I moaned, barely audible.
He sounded faintly aggrieved.
“We did try, but we couldn’t get through. Elena even thought that she must have the wrong number. Was your cell fully charged?”
How long had it been like that? Had Matthew been trying to get hold of me? Did he think I was ignoring him? An agony of uncertainty joined the mass of broiling emotions.
“You… you sa
id that you’ve seen him a couple of times. When did you see him last? Was he all right then?”
“Yes, I saw him…” he stopped to calculate, “… three – no – four days ago now.” Something in his tone told me he held back.
“What, Matias? Please – tell me.”
He sighed. “I saw him in the lab, last Friday evening, I think it must have been. He’s been working all hours lately. Heck, Emma, he’s been driving us all hard lately. We’ve been working on some pretty… well… cutting-edge stuff, I suppose you’d call it. I’ve never seen him like this before, not this driven. I had some results – took them to him in the lab. He was just standing there in the dark, staring out of the window – I only saw him because of the moonlight. Anyway, I went in and he didn’t turn around, so I thought that he hadn’t heard me, though goodness only knows I make enough noise. So I called his name and then he turned, but… sweet heaven, Emma…”
Matias’s harsh, hushed voice jangled unnervingly down the phone. “His face, his eyes… I swear they burned. There was so much anger, no – more than anger – deeper than that, he looked… tormented – yes, that’s it – he looked as if he were in hell.”
I might as well have been there myself. The void inside me imploded, taking with it every ounce of the hope I had been holding on to.
“I’m sorry, Emma – you wanted to know. I haven’t seen him since. I went to his house, but there was no one there.”
“His family?” I asked, all emotion drained.
“It was dark – the house, I mean. No one answered – I think it was empty. I’ll go back again if you like, but…” It was obvious he thought it a pointless exercise. “I don’t know what else I can do, Emma – for either of you.”
“I don’t think there is anything you can do – it’s over, it’s finished,” I said with finality.
“Emma…” he sounded a warning. “Don’t do anything impulsive, will you?”
I didn’t answer him and let my hand, still clutching the mobile, fall beside me. In the distance I heard him say something rapidly to Elena and her gasped response. Shuffled noises came down the phone.
“Emma…” Elena’s voice, high pitched and alarmed. “Please, Emma – don’t be stupid.” My hand felt like a dead weight as I brought it back towards my ear.
“No, I’ve already been stupid, Elena – so, so stupid.”
“Are you coming back? You’ve got to come back! Nyet…” she hissed to Matias, and then said something else I neither understood nor cared about.
“Bye, Elena. Thanks.”
I terminated the call as if we had been having an ordinary conversation about everyday things, such as the weather and clothes and work, and switched the mobile off – once and for all.
I guessed – no, I didn’t need to guess because I knew – what had happened. I had sent the card last Monday morning and he would have opened it and seen… what? He hadn’t received the message I gave Elena before I left the States. Matias hadn’t known about it so he couldn’t pass it on, so as far as Matthew was concerned, I had left America – and him – for good. And then he received a cryptic message from me. Blast it – not a message – an accusation. He would read it as a revelation, a threat to his identity, something being flung in his face like a sordid scandal dragged up by the gutter press, but much, much worse. Scandals come and go like squalls upon the water and, as long as you don’t drown in them, they pass. But what I had uncovered – what I represented – was akin to a tornado because it came out of nowhere and threatened to tear his life apart. He would feel betrayed; I might as well have stabbed him in the heart.
Matthew – what have I done to you?
I thought the depths of wretchedness I experienced when I left America had been as much as I could bear, but this was beyond anything I had ever felt before, the anguish both physical and emotional. Amplified, extended, intensified, it racked both my body and mind without remorse. Images, words, emotions – all scrambled and incoherent – fought to gain precedence, but all I could feel through the morass was glacial sorrow seeping relentlessly, and all the time the words, “I have betrayed you”, over and over and over again.
The last little blue-and-yellow capsule he had given me gave my mind the numbing rest it craved, but it did not take away the remorseless pain on waking. When my father came to see me when I hadn’t appeared for lunch, I pleaded a touch of flu to buy more time, and he left me alone.
I curled up in a ball on my side, conscious that I had been here before. It wasn’t feasible that I should put my parents through it all over again, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hide it under the cloak of illness for long. Where I went from here would be anybody’s guess, because I hadn’t a clue. For the first time since childhood, I felt rudderless. Up until my teenage years, my parents and grandparents had always been there to steer me in the right direction – clothes, homework, school, dentist – all more or less dictated by caring adults whether I liked their choice or not. By the time I reached adolescence and a degree of independence, my obsession with history and the journal determined my course and, later, my new-found faith had given me all the rest – until now. It all seemed so pointless, so utterly futile, and I had nowhere left to go. I wrapped my arms around my head, blotting out the world, and tried to pray, but my words slipped through my thoughts and vaporized before I could give them form, and they meant nothing more than the sum of my fear.
I gave up and tried to think practically; if I couldn’t help myself, perhaps I could help him. Despite what he might think, I would never reveal Matthew’s secret to anyone else, but he didn’t know that, so my priority would be to make sure he felt secure. He might not be able to forgive me, but I would not have him live in fear of exposure. I needed to get a message to him – and quickly – either before he disappeared, or before he did anything I would regret for the rest of my life.
But how? If he wasn’t at home, he wouldn’t be at the college, so I saw no point in sending anything there, and I doubted if he left a forwarding address. I ran my liberated hands through my hair, tugging at it as if to pull some semblance of sense out of it. Email. He must have some way of being contacted – a website for his department perhaps, something he could access from anywhere, as long as he chose to look. The creaky board halfway along the landing alerted me to an imminent arrival, and gave me enough time to huddle under the duvet. I didn’t need to act forlorn.
Mum entered, carrying a small tray with a jug of squash and some digestive biscuits. A packet of paracetamol sat next to the glass. Invalid rations. She set it down on the bedside table.
“Your father said you’re not feeling well; you do look a bit… rough.” Her eyes constricted as she scanned my face and felt my forehead. “There’s a nasty cold doing the rounds; see how you feel later on,” but the look on her face suggested she had another theory. I gave her an approximation of a smile and pulled the duvet up to my chin.
“It’s nothing. I’ll stay up here until I feel better; there’s no point in spreading my germs.”
Or anything else; despair is contagious.
I waited until I could hear her footsteps no longer before going to my laptop. I found the website easily and clicked the “Contact” tab before I realized that I didn’t know what I should write. I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to say something along the lines of:
Matthew, I love you, and I’d rather have my heart torn from me and burned on a bed of coals than let anyone know your secret.
But somehow that would defeat the object in such a public forum as the department website, so in the end I simply wrote:
Dr Lynes – My apologies for the delay in contacting you. I regret to report that I have found nothing in my research that will ever be of any interest or relevance to anyone other than myself.
ED
It sounded impersonal and terse. If he read it at all, it should at least achieve its purpose. I checked it before clicking “Send”. That done, I would have to decide what to do f
or the rest of my life, now that he could no longer be the focus of it.
I tilted my chair onto its back legs and swung back and forth, chewing at my cross, the chain strung across my chin as tight as the nerves holding me together. Just about anything would do other than stay here, dragging everyone else down with me. I had my work obligations, of course – especially to my students. I did feel bad about letting them down, but I could resign from the university without too much difficulty, even given such short notice. It wouldn’t take much to persuade a doctor – or even better, a psychiatrist – that I bordered on the edge of sanity. The college wouldn’t oppose it; the dean would be too scared I’d sue for compensation. And I would have to go a long, long way away. I’d always fancied a trip to New Zealand – kiwi farming, perhaps.
I thwacked the chair back onto all four feet and shoved my hand out to tap a search into the laptop, knocking a small stack of books off the back of my desk as I did so. Blasted things! I bent sideways and rifled under my desk, trying to retrieve them. My fingers found the edge of a book; I didn’t need to look to know what I picked up. Wretched, cursed book, haunting me. I suddenly remembered that I had effectively stolen the journal and that it had to go back where it belonged, and guilt released in me a tide of invective I screamed into the book’s blank, black face, while I rocked rhythmically on the chair. “Why can’t you let me go? Let me go,” I whimpered, clutching it to my chest, my heart beating erratically against it, feeding it my life. The clock in the church tower opposite began to strike and I swayed back and forth with it. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t going anywhere – not like this. I dragged myself to my feet and, ripping his scarf from around my neck, let it fall to the floor without a second glance.
