by Raven Taylor
CHAPTER TWELVE
Caroline, assuming you are still reading this, I would like to thank you for staying with me so far, for listening to my complaining, my morbid, endless outpouring of tragedy. Much of what I have written so far you know already, though maybe not in such detail. But stay with me, please, for So far this has only been a tiny insight. A mere hint at something much larger. Still, in time you will come to see the full extent of this tragedy, to realise, as I did what exactly my purpose in the world was. It pains me to recall such times. Times in which euphoric happiness was the soul mate of deepest despair. When my heart could one moment be souring high as the larks in the summer sky and the next be drowning somewhere in frozen water. Ah what emotions we are cursed with. It’s a wonder so many fight to survive at all. It’s a wonder more aren't begging for the blissful embrace of death. Do you beg for death Caroline? I know I do.
Over the next few days, as my injuries from the fight healed and your black eye began to fade, I learned more and more about you. You said you were training to be a counsellor, it fitted with your caring nature. It seemed to me that your life was all about helping others. You were maybe a little too trusting and naïve though and that worried me. Still does. First of all you had stopped on a deserted road when you were alone, in the dead of night, to help a naked, wandering stranger who, if he had have been a deranged psychotic, could have done anything to you. Now you had taken in someone you barely knew. How could you go to work (which you did, on this particular evening) and not worry that I was maybe clearing out your home of anything valuable? I put it down to old fashioned trust of which there was very little in this modern day world where everyone seemed to be out for themselves and every one suspected everyone else of being out to get them. In a way it was refreshing but still, worrying at the same time.
Before leaving me that evening you showed me where everything was in the kitchen and told me to help myself to anything I needed. I assured you I would cover the cost of anything I used from the money that Ransley had left me. I used those words ’left me’ rather than saying I had just helped myself. If I’d have told you that you might have been a little less trusting.
Once I was on my own I sat in the quiet living room and looked out the window at the night and the street lights glowing along the road. I did not have any inclination to turn on the TV, it just did not seem to be a form of entertainment that appealed to me. Again this seemed unusual to me. Maybe it was not something that had been permitted in my life? Again, like my apparent dislike of swearing, this seemed in fitting with my idea that maybe I had been brought up in quite an old fashioned way. So what did that suggest? I asked myself. Could it mean that I had been brought up by a Grandparent? The strange figure in the top hat, that was odd wasn’t it? People didn’t wear top hats these days, was he maybe my Grandfather? An old Uncle? A twisted relative that had been burdened with me against his will and eventually bound me and locked me away and did who knows what to me? He could be any of those things or neither, either way he must be an important component in my past given that I was still hearing his voice speaking to me.
After debating all of this for a while I went to my room and retrieved my notebook from my bag. When I returned to the living room there was something on the coffee table. A square of paper. I frowned. It hadn’t been there when I had left, I was sure of it.
I picked it up. It was a flyer for the Black Cat Burlesque Club, Edinburgh’s premier Burlesque night. As I stared at the caricature of a pin-up with a cats tail and ears a feeling of familiarity tugged at me somewhere inside and made my stomach feel quite queasy. Someone had left this here deliberately. I was supposed to visit this place. I glanced at the date. It was this evening. I knew I had to go. Glancing at the clock I saw it was 9.00pm. The flyer said doors where 9.30, acts would start around 11.00pm followed by music into the small hours. I still had time to go.
After a swift shower and hastily throwing on some clothes which I thought might be smart enough to allow me entry I stood staring at myself in the mirror. Again I was struck be how striking I was, how unearthly and handsome. I had the feeling I could probably charm anyone into doing anything with merely a look. Is that how it was with you Caroline? Did I somehow bewitch you to serve my own needs? The thought made me a little uneasy and I turned away from the mirror. In the kitchen I left an apologetic note to you, explaining that I thought this might be important and that I would try not to be back too late. I hoped you would understand. Somehow I was sure you would.
It was not too far a walk to the Black Cat on Edinburgh's Cowgate and my feet took me there as though they remembered the route even when my mind did not.
The club was busy; well dressed people in extravagant costumes and vintage clothes sat around candlelit tables as performers entertained them with a variety of routines, mainly all themed strip-tese sets carried out by classically beautiful women. The crowd cheered and clapped the acts and heckled the host, a large man in a ring-masters outfit who carried a large black whip, and as I sat alone all of this seemed perfectly close to me, I knew beyond a doubt I had been here and this place, this atmosphere, had meant something very important to me once.
There had been three acts so far. A girl juggling fire while stripping, a man in Victorian dress telling jokes and a girl who sang 1940’s style songs also while stripping.
The singing girl was just making her exit to the applause of the pleased audience when the ringmaster took to the stage again, cracking his whip off the wooden boards and calling for order as he prepared to introduce the next act.
“And now Ladies and Gentleman, for your viewing pleasure, the girl we all know well, a regular and a real favourite here at the Black Cat, please give your warmest welcome to Missy Devine.”
He strode off to the left and the black velvet curtain behind him began to rise to reveal a back drop of a painted fairy tale forest and cardboard cut out trees. A red spot light picked out a figure standing in the centre, a girl with her back to us in a red hooded cape, red pants, red stockings and red ballet shoes. She had a basket over one graceful white arm. I knew this character, she was Little Red Riding Hood. As the music started Red Riding rose up onto the points of her toes and turned gracefully. I could not see her face, the red hood shadowed her features, and she began to dance around the cardboard forest on her toes. Her movements were graceful and beautiful, it was clear this girl had studied ballet and I wondered why it was she had not made it in this field, she was good, though maybe she didn’t meet the high standards needed to dance professionally, maybe her legs were just a little too short.
The audience heckled as they caught sight of a shadow creeping from behind the trees. The big bad wolf come to get her. But she didn’t see. She simply danced on, oblivious to the monster that was stalking her. This was so like something I had seen before…
The wolf caught hold of her cloak but she danced on unaware, twirling away from him so the delicate fabric fell away and revealed the most beautiful white skinned body I had ever seen. Angry, the wolf sniffed at the piece of stolen fabric and then tossed it to one side to continue stalking her. I was enjoying this and I looked at the girls face, no longer hidden by the hood, to see how she was reacting to finding herself now semi-naked. A smile was plastered on her face, flame red hair cascaded over her shoulders. My heart beat seemed suddenly to have doubled and it pounded in the back of my throat. I knew her. Without a doubt I knew that face, those red lips, that fiery hair. I knew every inch of that graceful body, the gentle curve of the shoulders, the slender legs, the delicate collar bone, the pale, perfect skin that seemed to radiate divinity in the glow of the stage lights. It was Lilly. And I had loved her intensely once, of that I was certain.
I gripped the table. I felt as though I might pass out at any moment. The world was spinning around me, I felt faint and dizzy. There were a thousand things in my head about her. I saw her walking down the royal mile with the wind in her hair, I saw her sleeping, I saw her laughing with her fr
iends. But if these where my memories why did I get the sense I was not actually present in her life, like I was a stranger just observing?
I tried to stand up but my legs gave way and I fell to the ground. On the stage she had finished dancing, I could hear cheers and claps that signified the end of the night. I heard someone ask if I was alright but I had trouble replying, the words were caught in my choked throat.
I must have passed out because next time I opened my eyes there where bright lights and white walls surrounding me. A concerned face was looking down into mine.
“Hey, you ok?” asked the strange hand.
“I, I, think so.”
I sat up. My head hurt. I was in a large bright area. There where people buzzing about and lots of mirrors. I was backstage, that’s where I was. The concerned stage hand was looking at me doubtfully.
“You look awfully pale, do you want a doctor?”
“No,” I assured him, “I’m fine.”
I stood up and was relieved when I did not fall back down though I did feel a little light headed.
“Well if you’re sure, I’ll show you back out…”
I began to follow the stage hand, still dazed and confused, and then I spotted her at the other side of the room. She had changed out of her stage costume and was now wearing a long black dress with black silk roses at the hips. She was chatting to a tall girl and they where both smiling and laughing. I stopped following the stage hand and began to drift towards her.
“Lilly.” I said.
In my head she turned, saw me and a smile broke out on her face. She cried my name and began to run towards me, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She asked me where I had been, told me she had been so worried, that she thought I might be dead. She threw her arms around me and I held her close, we both cried tears of happiness as our broken hearts were reunited and I told it was ok, I was home now, that everything was fine.
In reality our eyes met and for a moment she froze. I thought I was going to pass out again. Then she shook herself, I saw her actually shiver.
“Yes?” she questioned, her voice was light, polite, easy on the ear.
“Lilly, I…” but what was I supposed to say? There was not even a glimmer of recognition on her face.
“You don’t know who I am.” I said disappointedly.
“Excuse me?” she frowned suspiciously, her pretty brow furrowing and her green eyes narrowing.
“I’m sorry, never mind.”
My shoulders slumped and I turned back to see the stage hand waving me towards the door.
I left the club after that but I did not go back to the flat. I walked the short distance up Cadlemaker Row to Grey Friars Church Yard and, there, in the quiet, away from the crowds I sat down to think.
What did this mean? I knew her, I had images of her in my head yet she did not know me, how was this possible? Was I confusing her with someone else? But I had known her name!
Then an idea came to me. I got up and left the church yard. I would put my knowledge of her to the test, I wanted to see if I knew where she lived. I began to walk and sure enough some part of me seemed to be following a path even if consciously I did not know where I was headed. I drifted down the Royal Mile, past the closed tourist shops and down past the museum. I was about halfway down when I stopped. There was a small square just off the main street on the right. The buildings in the square where new but had been built in an older style in attempt to fit in with the rest of the surroundings. This was the place. I just knew it. Her flat was in this block. But It wasn’t enough just to trust myself, I had to be certain, so I crossed the street and waited in the shadows opposite the square. It could have been an entirely fruitless exercise of course, even if this was her place who could say she was coming back here tonight? Maybe she was staying with a boyfriend. I didn’t imagine for a moment someone as stunning as her could not be romantically attached to someone.
After an hour of standing in the cold I decided I was being irrational and stupid. What was I doing hanging about in the shadows waiting for a girl who didn’t even know me to return home? Perhaps this was how I knew her, it would explain why she did not recognise me, perhaps I had been a crazed stalker, following her unseen as she walked home, waiting outside of her flat, watching her dance form the back of the club. I shuddered. That wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be. I would go. What was I going to achieve by hanging around here?
Then I heard footsteps. The click of high heels on stone. I could have sworn I recognised the rhythm of that walk. It was her of course. My heart beat trebled again as I watched her approach. She was walking alone, she shouldn’t walk alone, not a pretty girl like that, hadn’t she learned after what happened the last time? But what had happened last time when that figure had restrained her in the ally? I really did not know.
She was wearing a fur coat now that came down to her knees, she looked glamorous but cosy all at the same time and I just wanted to run over and hug her. I didn’t of course. I waited in the shadows and watched her go into the square and disappear through one of the doors. I sighed heavily. All of this had been very confusing and although I learned a lot it had not really helped at all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I let myself back into the flat as quietly as possible, it was two in the morning, but you were not in bed yet, you sitting in the living room reading a book and drinking a glass of wine.
“Hello Winter,” you said when you heard me come in, “Did you have a pleasant evening?”
I went into the living room, sat down in one of the arm chairs and threw my hands up in a frustrated gesture.
“What’s wrong honey?” you asked, closing your book.
I allowed you to pour me a glass of wine and I told you about Lilly and how I was so sure I knew her yet she claimed not to know me.
“I just don’t know what to make of it all, I mean who the hell am I? Some psychotic stalker who follows girls around the town? Why would I do that?”
“Dear, I’m sure you weren’t a bad person, I know bad people, you aren’t one of them, never were.”
“Why do I feel like I love her?” I moaned, “It’s the most intense feeling I’ve ever had, if I even think of her I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Well love can do that,” you told me, “That or lust. She’s a dancer in a club. Maybe you went there a lot. People can get quite intense feelings about someone even though they may have never spoken to them, look at all the teenage girls who think they’re in love with Westlife, physical attraction can be a powerful thing.”
“It feels like more than that though,” I explained, “And why did I never go and talk to her if I felt like that?”
“Maybe you didn’t have the confidence,” you looked at me and smiled a little, “Though why not, I have no idea, I can’t imagine how any young girl could possibly say no to you.”
I pulled a disapproving face.
“You really don’t know how beautiful you are do you?” you said, “But I like that, there’s nothing worse than vanity.”
I drank from the glass of red wine. It was sweet and comforting.
“Can I make a suggestion?” you asked and I nodded, “You should go and talk to her. Don’t tell her you think you know her when clearly she doesn’t know you, she might be frightened by that and that won’t get you anywhere. It’s time you stopped spending your time completely consumed by regaining your memory, you should start to live and then maybe things will happen naturally because to be honest I think you’re trying too hard and I don’t think that will help. You should start to think about rebuilding your life even if it is from scratch.”
“But how?” I asked, “How do I get to talk to her?”
“Oh come on Winter, use your imagination,” you laughed at me, “A chance meeting, you bump into her one day, you start a conversation and you go from there. You know where she lives so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“So I watch for her leaving the house, follow her and if she, say, goe
s into a café I should go in to and, I don't know, accidentally on purpose knock over her drink so I have to buy her another?” I speculated.
“Something like that.”
“So you are condoning me stalking her then?” I laughed.
“No!” you protested. I looked at you with a raised eyebrow, “Ok, ok, maybe just a little.” you admitted.
“Thanks Caroline,” I said, “I really do appreciate all of this and when I’m back on my feet I promise I’ll find a way to repay you.”
“You don’t need to do that,” you said, “You caught me at a very lonely time in my life. I’ve never really lived alone, all my life I’ve had people to take care of. I looked after my sister when my parents worked when I was a child, I looked after my husband when he was here. This may sound strange but although I’m glad to be rid of him there are still times I miss him. It doesn’t seem natural to me to be on my own, to not have anyone need me. That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?”
“No,” I assured you, “It doesn’t.”
“My baby would have been 18 now had he survived,” you said, it sounded to me as though the wine was going to your head a little, you were growing nostalgic and melancholy, "he kicked the baby out of me, that's how I lost him."
"I'm so sorry." I was genuinely shocked.
"it's ok, it's in the past and I have you now."
It’s funny how infatuation can drown out everything else in your life. Even the fact that you don’t know who you are can fade into the background. The object of your obsessions becomes the whole reason for your being. The reason you get up in the morning. The reason you shower. The reason you eat. Everything you do, down to the smallest things suddenly seems to depend on that person. This was how I was with Lilly. I tried to bump into her over the next few days but I kept missing her and it infuriated me. Every day I paced the street where she lived hoping and praying for a glimpse of her.
