“So Jasmine’s mum said we could give you a baby hellebore,” Steph told her, “There are lots more baby plants all round it!”
Daisy grinned, amused by the fate of the poor snowdrops. “Well, Donald will be very pleased,” she said, “he’s always liked that hellebore, beautiful snowy white, and look at those flecks…” She pointed behind them at the parent plant. “Be a few years before this one’s as good as that, but it’s good to be patient.”
Steph was trying to stifle a giggle. Daisy raised an eyebrow, and Meg nudged Steph.
“If you wait for a moment, I think I might have something in return.” Daisy turned away and stepped back into the house. Jasmine followed without a thought.
Steph nudged Meg back. “Have they got a dog…called Pluto?” She erupted into giggles.
“Shut up,” said Meg, “That would be Mickey Mouse anyway.”
Jasmine emerged a minute later and ran her hand across the back door as she climbed down the step. Her muddy fingers left a smudge, but Daisy smiled. “Donald’s got something,” she told them and called behind her, “Donald…”
There came a strange shuffling sound and a white feather flew out of the door, quickly followed by another. The two older girls looked astonished and Steph stopped giggling. “Quack…quack,” Another shuffle and a handful of feathers. “Quaaack, quaaack, quack!” And out of the door came Donald, his red face beaming and his snow-white hair greased into a quiff atop his head. “What did you expect? Donald Duck?”
Meg looked embarrassed, but Steph creased up, her guffaws bellowing across the garden. She laughed and laughed, and Donald and Daisy joined in. Jasmine smiled with that smile young children give adults when their humour soars right over their heads, and Meg smiled, when she realised no one was really annoyed at Steph.
“Oh, that was sooo funny!” Steph wiped her eyes.
“Donad duck?” said Jasmine, which caused everyone to burst out laughing again. “Is Donad a duck?” she asked.
“No sweetheart.” Daisy smiled, “He’s just pretending, and he’ll do it again in a few years when you’re a little older, just as he did for Freya!”
Donald went back inside and came out with feathers. “For me?” asked Jasmine.
“If you want one,” said Donald, “But you might prefer one of these instead.”
Jasmine nodded vigorously when he brought his other hand round from behind his back. He offered each girl a Twix, which they gratefully accepted.
“In return for the lovely plant,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ve wanted one of those for ages.”
Donald was still wearing comfy slippers as he stepped out into the yard, he moved across the patio and placed the pot with a small group of over-wintering plants, and then rubbed his hands together. “When the sun shines I’ll plant these up,” he told them, “Now for the feathers…”
The girls polished off their chocolate bars and watched with rising amusement as Donald began to chase white feathers around the backyard. Daisy collected their wrappers and Steph and Meg both bent to catch a stray feather that floated their way.
“Me help!” cried Jasmine and she bounded after another feather.
Daisy laughed as she stood in the doorway watching her husband and three little girls chasing feathers that whirled and danced around the yard. “You’ll never catch them!” she chuckled.
“Got one!” shouted Steph and punched her hand in the air to wave her white trophy. Daisy nodded and Steph presented it to her then raced off after another.
The wind played havoc, lifting the feathers and dropping them, and spinning them and spiralling them around the girls’ legs, happy with every squeal as a feather evaded the hand that grabbed at it. Hair flew about their faces and whipped up a little vortex in the centre of the patio. The delighted players converged and a rugby scrum formed as they created a barrier to keep the wind out.
Little hands snatched and they began to gather up the rogue feathers.
They’d collected most of them when the wind turned bitter and moments later the remaining white feathers were joined by huge, fat snowflakes.
The girls’ screamed with glee and the feathers were forgotten as they lifted their red faces up toward the sky.
Donald cradled an armful of feathers and took them inside then he stood by the door with his wife. “Little Freya should be among them now,” he said with a wry smile.
She nodded, both unaware of the unseen figure twirling alongside Jasmine, Meg and Steph.
Freya danced and frolicked in the snowfall, and dressed in white, decorated with a million tiny, silver snowflakes, and fur-lined, white boots, she was a sight they could not behold.
She moved as gracefully and as invisible as the wind, but she was there, dancing her heart out, face tilted trying to absorb the flakes that fell around her.
“I love snow!” shouted Steph.
“And me!” added Jasmine.
The three girls grabbed hands and began to dance in a circle. The snow began to lay and a circle of footprints emerged.
“Oh, would you look at them!” Olivia and Rachel appeared at the wall, summoned by the raucous noise, and gazed over into the yard.
“Mummy!” called Jasmine, “Look at me!”
Rachel nodded and grinned at the sight before her.
“Mummy,” Jasmine shouted again, “get Feya, it snowing!”
Rachel’s smile did not falter, but Olivia squeezed her shoulder.
Daisy and Donald shared a glance and sent a sympathetic smile across the wall.
“Mummy!” Jasmine jumped, delighted in the footprints she left, and she jumped again making her way towards the wall. “Mummy, look…feetpint.”
Olivia lifted her hands and gave a quick clap. “C’mon girls, you’re messing up the beautiful snow in the yard, come over this side and leave some fresh ‘feetprints’ over here!”
Jasmine rushed to say goodbye to her neighbours then jumped all the way to her own back door, with Steph and Meg following her little footprints.
They continued to enjoy the snow until their noses were red and cold and their fingers likewise, and then Olivia called them in to enjoy mugs of hot chocolate and biscuits.
Outside, Freya danced alone unaware of the cold, or the slush and squashed snowdrops at her feet.
Snow was just the beginning of a very cold snap, and Freya felt it on both sides of the veil.
Jake had become a different person to the one who had welcomed Freya almost a year ago, and she hadn’t helped, despite the fact that helping was exactly what she was trying to do.
Freya floated down to the oval swimming pool. A huge, plastic sheet covered the pool, and an expanse of ice covered the blue plastic. That hadn’t, however, deterred Jake’s mother, who sat silent and cross-legged on a white, plastic recliner. Freya took the spare seat and adopted the same position opposite the icy lady. Jake’s mother lifted her head and stared, sightlessly, into Freya’s eyes.
There they sat and neither moved.
The piercing wind howled around them and Freya wondered what to do.
Moments later a door opened a few metres away from them and out stepped a middle-aged man. He sucked his breath through pursed lips and shivered, stepping quickly back into the house. He emerged a minute later, this time clad in a thick coat. He flapped his arms for a moment, smacking his thighs, then shook his head, stamped his feet and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a cigarette and lighter, and stuck the cigarette between his lips. He attempted to light it, struggling in the fierce gale, and bent to protect himself from the blustery weather.
For the first time Freya saw life surge into the ghostly woman, as she unhooked her legs and slipped off the lounger. She tiptoed across the icy terrace and moved beside the man. Her dress flapped against her bare legs and her hair blew wildly, and Freya watched as Jake’s mother wrapped herself around the man.
He lit his cigarette and sucked fiercely, then held it in his fingers and blew out the smoke. The smoke was w
hipped away and he took another long drag. Her long, mousy hair coiled around his arm and stroked his face, and she moulded her body to his, longingly. Her dress wrapped itself around his leg and she hid her face in his camelhair coat. He stomped his feet to stay warm and lifted the cigarette to his mouth again. This time the wind swept around the house so violently he shook his head and stubbed out the cigarette on the brick wall. He shook his shoulders and clapped his hands, and shivered. Then he bent his head and blew into his freezing hands, turned and reached for the door handle.
The ghost, draped over his large frame, shivered and released him as he stepped back into his warm, centrally heated home, and Freya watched her crumble as he closed the door with a definite slam.
Jake’s mum remained prostrate beside the door, her dress still flapping in the storm.
Freya jumped off the plastic sun-lounger and ran to the house. She knelt beside Jake’s mother and put her arms around the woman’s shoulders.
The woman did not move, but slowly raised her face to meet Freya’s. Freya did not cry, but she felt the memory of tears sting her eyes, and she lifted her hand to touch the woman’s face. As she did Jake’s mum touched Freya’s wrist and Freya felt the impression she left there. The woman stood and stepped away from Freya, their eyes still locked together, then she turned and ran.
She moved gracefully across the ice and threw herself into the billowing wind. Freya watched as the figure spiralled into the air and disappeared.
Later, Freya took Jake’s hand and wrapped it around her wrist, pressing hard. Tears filled his eyes and he moved Freya’s hand to his face. He brushed the back of her hand across his cheek, allowing the fleeting impression to touch him, and then let go. Freya watched as he too, disappeared into the ether.
Is that her?” Freya whispered and prodded Jake.
Jake nodded. “Quiet,” he hissed.
“She’s about to die?” Freya nudged him again.
“You know she is,” he replied with a trace of reproach.
“Is this what it was like with me?”
“Will you stop asking questions? I didn’t ask loads of questions, I just watched.”
“But I haven’t done this before,” said Freya.
“Nor had I!” He frowned at her. “Now be quiet you’re ruining everything.”
Freya stared back down, suitably chastened. She had never witnessed such a scene before and an awkward sadness consumed her.
“I won’t know what to say,” she murmured.
Jake ignored her.
“How many of you watched my death?” she asked.
“Just myself and Mai,” he replied without looking at her.
“Mai?”
“Mai.”
“But she was younger than you.”
“How many times do I have to tell you age has nothing to do with it?” He shook his head. “We just watched we didn’t talk.”
Below them, a small girl lay in her mother’s arms, both propped up on pillows. Mousy hair sprouted from her head in little tufts and her father gripped her limp hand whilst trying to avoid the coiling tube that emerged from the back of it. Two older girls sat, one hugging her father and wiping silent tears away, and the other motionless beside her, her hands clasped in her lap.
Freya stopped talking as the gravity of the moment suddenly hit her.
A curly-haired nurse stared absently out of the window, a doctor beside her, rubbing the clip of his biro softly with his thumb as he waited.
A murmur came from the small girl’s pale, dry lips, but it was incomprehensible. Her mother rocked and tightened her hold on her dying daughter and made no effort to check the tears that rolled down her face.
Freya leaned forward and tumbled away from Jake. Moments later she stood in the girl’s room with only the sound of rain drumming on the windowpane behind her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t pull herself away, and couldn’t take her eyes off the small girl.
The girl’s chest barely moved and the doctor stepped closer to gently touch her pulse.
Moments later the doctor shook his head, just the tiniest of shakes, and her mother drew in a deep and painful breath. Her silent sobs found voice and her shoulders shook as she hugged her child to her bosom. Her father released his little daughter’s hand and took her siblings’ hands, one in each of his, and he held them to his heart. Her sisters allowed their tears to fall as unrestrained as the rain sliding down the window.
The clouds outside were grey and heavy, matching the grief in the room, but Freya knew it was she, and she alone, who could see primrose rays making their way across the violet sky towards them. Rays of celestial light broke through the windows and bathed the family in gold. The transcendental glory that surged through Freya was at odds with the grief surrounding her, but though she couldn’t see inside the light she knew what it beheld.
Her soul yearned to reach out to the small, devastated family, but she knew that was not her job.
The light withdrew and Freya closed her eyes. For a single instant she saw the young girl, immersed by light, move and glide from her family, and then she was gone.
Freya could not stay, she was drawn away as the light faded and found herself back beneath the willow with Jake.
Neither spoke, it seemed wrong to do so, until, some while later, Jake whispered in her ear. “Go to her.”
No explanation was necessary, Freya just allowed the thought to cross her mind and she was standing at the periphery of her garden. She looked around and before her was a landscape of soft, rolling clouds. In the centre of the clouds was a shaft of light, the same light that had shone and lifted her away from mortality, but as Freya observed, it diffused and vanished.
Freya stood at her boundary, wondering what her next move should be, when her legs decided for her and stepped onto the cloud.
It yielded to her step, but she did not fall through and she gently walked across the springy bank of cloud. She smiled as thoughts of candyfloss fluttered through her mind, and she just about managed to resist bending down to taste the huge, creamy-white mounds.
The clouds around her were bright and clean, as if they’d been washed and hung out to dry, but as she moved on they began to turn grey and foreboding. The clouds began to seethe and simmer, and Freya stepped carefully, feeling unsure of her footing. The blue sky darkened and turned violet, and spray flew up and around her as if she were walking on surf-tormented waves. The gloom spread and there beneath the stormy sky, sitting on top of a violent, purple rain cloud was Alice.
The clouds groaned and moaned, and Alice sat cross-legged, staring out across the vista with an expression as furious as the storm with which she was surrounded.
Freya stood taking in the incredulous scene, it was not one she ever imagined seeing. “Aren’t you happy?” she asked, her voice barely audible above the cacophony.
“Do I look happy?” replied Alice.
Freya didn’t want to state the obvious so she kept quiet. Instead she cast her eyes around and shook her head. Alice’s cloud wasn’t just raining; it was producing a full-blown waterfall…
“I don’t want to be here.”
“I can see that!” said Freya.
“They’ve just dumped me here,” said Alice full of antagonism as mist rose around her.
“Not really dumped…” began Freya.
“And what kind of place is this anyway?” Alice spread out her arms to take in her clouds.
“What you make it,” Freya muttered.
“I was going to beat it!” said Alice resentfully. “Mum said I could beat it! So I didn’t want to die! I was going to make it…”
“But you didn’t and here you are.” Freya felt that it wasn’t worth beating around the bush.
“But I don’t want to be!” cried Alice.
“So you’re going to sit on a cloud and make rain?”
“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Sit on a cloud and grow wings?” replied Alice with contempt.
“I wanted wings,�
�� said Freya.
Alice ignored her. She raised her hand and threw a bolt of lightning.
“So you’re just going to throw a tantrum then?” asked Freya.
“Well, aren’t you Little Miss Self-righteous? It’s okay, I’ve had the pep talk, you know.” Alice threw her a look that was as thunderous as the clamour going on beneath them in the clouds.
For a moment Freya was at a loss. She stood and watched then moved closer and sat down beside the angry little girl.
“I’m not going to be full of radiant glory…” began Alice, “just radiation glory. My body went bad, and I’ve spent a year, a whole year, fighting it. It was never going to be roses and bunny rabbits when I finally got here.”
“But you are here,” said Freya firmly, “And how you deal with it is up to you.”
“What’s it to you anyway?” asked Alice glancing sideways at Freya.
Freya shrugged. “I’m here to help you through it, to help you adjust…”
Alice harrumphed.
“We’ve all been through it, but it doesn’t have to be this hard,” Freya continued. “You don’t have to sit on stormy clouds.”
“I want to sit on stormy clouds,” Alice persisted, “If I can’t go back, and they said I can’t, I’d rather sit and sulk about it.”
Freya shrugged again. “That’s up to you, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Are you staying then?” asked Alice.
“If you want me to.”
“I haven’t been on my own for a long time.” Alice wiped away a tear, or it could have been a raindrop. “I don’t want to be on my own.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Freya reached out her hand, but Alice did nothing more than cast an annoyed look at it. Freya pulled it back. “You could have anything here, you know, you could have a real…wonderland.”
Alice’s face whipped up towards Freya. “Like I haven’t heard that one before!” she spat.
“Sorry, I’m just trying.” Freya kept her face expressionless.
Alice offered a watery smile. “Mum called me her little Alice in Wonderland.”
Beneath the Rainbow Page 8
