I didn’t know what to think. Half of me wanted to laugh out loud with relief that this mad woman thought she could contact the dead. But the other half was terrified. She’d stared at the postcard of the Hall of Teeth hadn’t she, when she told me in no uncertain terms to take care. And then I had collapsed just as I entered that very cavern. So was she actually psychic?
But again, I was being stupid. Maybe she was a little fey. Had the gift. Whatever you want to call it. But that didn’t mean she could talk to the dead. The dead didn’t come back. There were no such things as ghosts. I had to get a grip on myself. There was no way this woman could contact my mother.
And so I sat, arms folded, watching as she began her performance.
Picking out a bracelet from the dish, she swayed, trance-like, as she held it in her hand.
Then, eventually, she opened her eyes: “This person is connected to food in some way,” she said, looking round the audience.
A group of people on the left-hand side made noises at this. The bracelet clearly belonged to one of them.
The Spiritualist turned to them. “I’m thinking maybe something to do with a café…or a shop...”
“I’m a caterer,” one of the women said tentatively.
“Ah yes,” said the Spiritualist. “That’s right.”
And everyone began whispering to each other, as if she were some kind of mystical genius.
“I have someone here who wants to talk to you,” she continued. “I can see a name, but can’t quite make it out… I think it starts with a J…? Maybe John…?”
“Is it Josh?” said the woman eagerly. “My Josh?”
“Ah yes. That’s right.”
And then she went on to relay some bland, general message which could have applied to almost anyone, telling the woman how Josh missed her and loved her and hoped she was taking care of herself.
And everyone was taken in.
I looked around me in amazement. How could they be so blind? This was so obviously a fake. Okay, so she had guessed a few things - almost - like the connection to food. But then maybe she knew of the woman anyway. Made it her business to keep her eyes and ears open, to read the local papers, watch the local news. After all, we were in a country town not a huge, seething metropolis. And almost guessing the guy’s name? John? Only one of the most common names in the land. And the woman had seized on it, twisting it to fit her own needs: her Josh.
But these people were grieving. They’d believe anything if it meant connecting to their loved ones once again.
Like Luke. It seemed he’d do anything to get Billie back, to relive his time with her. Even using a substitute: flattering her, paying her attention, making her fall in love with him. Just to pretend that she was Billie. To believe that she’d come back to him. Just for a moment.
Thinking about him, I felt empty inside. Literally gutted. Hollow. Bereaved.
And then Dad nudged me out of my thoughts.
I looked up to see the Spiritualist standing in another trance-like state, Mum’s ring in the palm of her hand.
“This person,” she began in what seemed to be her customary way, and then stopped, a pained expression crossing her face.
She looked round the audience, searching, frantically scanning the room, stopping when she came to me.
“Oh my dear,” she said, hurrying up the aisle towards me. “Oh my dear!”
Everyone turned round to stare, alarmed by the change in proceedings. This obviously wasn’t how it usually happened.
“You have to beware,” she said. “Be careful!”
Dad grabbed my hand tightly as I began to tremble uncontrollably. Having dismissed this woman as a complete fake only seconds before, I was now terrified of what she had to say.
“I don’t think-” Dad started, but she ignored him, taking my free hand, placing the ring in it and folding her hands around mine. Then she closed her eyes as if communing with the spirits.
“She needs your help,” she said dramatically. “ ‘Help me!’ ”
“Help me…!” I could hear the desperate cry in my head, louder than I’d ever heard it before, and strangely distorted.
“She wants you to loosen it,” she said, staring intently at me. “Loosen it!”
And then she dropped my hands and stepped back unsteadily as if drained.
At this her two helpers rushed over, one leading her off through a side door while the other announced nervously that the medium was now exhausted and couldn’t channel any more spirits this evening.
The noise level in the room rose considerably at this. Several people went forward to collect their items, but many gathered round us, wondering if we knew what it was all about.
Someone brought Dad his wedding ring which he’d placed on the tray, and then he helped me to stand, arm tight round my shoulder to shield me from the others, as we made our way to the exit.
<><><>
As we entered the pub’s reception, Luke was there, pacing the floor.
“What’s the matter?” he said, looking warily at Dad. Maybe he thought I’d told my father everything. How he’d kissed me. How he’d held me. How he’d called me by his dead girlfriend’s name.
But Dad was too shaken up to notice.
“She’s had a bit of a shock,” he said, leading me towards the stairs. “I’m going to take her to her room.” He turned back to Luke standing helpless on the carpet. “Get her something hot to drink, could you? Maybe chamomile tea or something?”
<><><>
In my room, while I changed out of my wet things into my sloppy T-shirt, Dad fussed around, drawing the curtains, turning on the bedside lamp, fluffing up my pillow, smoothing my duvet. It seemed that he needed to keep busy.
But finally, once I was in bed and he had nothing more to do, he collapsed into a chair, his head in his hands. A broken man.
Not long afterwards, there was a tap on the door, and Luke came in with a chamomile tea for me, and a brandy for Dad.
“Is there anything else I can do?” he said, lingering, obviously desperate to know what was going on.
Dad just ignored him, barely even noticing that he was there; but I stared at him reproachfully. He’d done enough already, hadn’t he? Reducing me to, at most, second best. Runner up. Something less than Billie.
But the look he returned was so full of sadness - sadness at having lost me - that I found myself almost feeling sorry for him.
But then I sneered bitterly to myself: he hadn’t lost me at all, had he. He’d thrown me away. Dropped me as he reached out to catch hold of something better. Even though that something was dead and decaying, rotting away in a grave somewhere deep in the cold, damp earth.
And so I turned my back on him, my face to the wall.
<><><>
After he had gone, Dad and I stayed like that for some time - separate and silent, each of us lost in our thoughts.
I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Was it some kind of trick? A hoax? Had the Spiritualist simply researched our family tragedy and exploited it? Or did she have the skill to read minds, seeing the accident playing itself over and over in my head, and then building her act upon it? Or maybe she was able to pick up ‘vibes’ from the ring?
Or was it actually true? Had my mother really come back from the grave?
My mind was knotted with confusion.
<><><>
But eventually I heard Dad stir, picking up the glass of brandy and drinking it off. And then he leaned over the bed, trying to see if I was asleep.
“Melissa?”
I stayed still, making it easy for him to go. He probably needed another drink. Or two. Poor Dad, he didn’t deserve this. Tonight must have been awful for him. To hear the accident recounted like that by the Spiritualist, hear her voicing Mum’s plea to be saved. That was a detail he’d never heard before. Well - I couldn’t have told him, could I - it would have haunted him forever - as it did me. But now he knew...
And so I lay there in silence, liste
ning as my father quietly slipped away from me, off to deal with his emotions in his own way.
24
It was a call of nature that finally made me get up some time later, pulling on my jeans and dragging myself along to the bathroom. I felt like the walking dead. A zombie. Devoid of life. I was as low as it was possible to go.
And I felt so alone. For though my world was crumbling around me, my father seemed to have closed himself off from me emotionally, most likely preferring to drown his grief for his lost wife in another bottle. And Luke… well… Luke loved Billie.
Next to the bathroom was the connecting door to Luke’s flat. As I came to it, I leaned against it, laying my cheek on the painted wood, yearning to be with him, the way it had been. If only he hadn’t met Billie… If only he could have forgotten her…
In the bathroom, I used the loo and then stood before the mirror washing my hands, using some water to try to wash away the mascara which had smudged, running down my face with the tears and rain.
And then the déjà vu happened again: a hand reaching for the tap. I closed my eyes, praying that it be the start of a vision, begging my imagination to conjure him up, to let him come. My need to be loved was so desperate. If I couldn’t have him in reality, then at least let me have him here in my daydreams.
And then I cried out with relief, for here he was, standing behind me, his arms encircling my waist, his lips already at my shoulder. And I willingly surrendered myself to the lie, turning round to him, pressing myself against him, feeling his mouth on mine.
The experience was even more real than before: I could smell his warm, musky scent, hear the rough, sandpapery sound of his fingers against my skin; taste the raw flesh inside his lips. It was as if my mind was compensating for my having lost him in reality. Creating my own vividly realistic world where I could truly believe that he loved me. Me.
But no. It seemed my subconscious wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let me fool myself in this way any longer. Even here, in my fantasy, I wasn’t allowed to be the true object of his desire. Even here I was second best.
“Oh Billie…”
My heart cracked wide open as he moaned her name.
And so I wrenched myself away, opening my eyes, bringing the fantasy to an end.
But it didn’t stop. It continued. And there she was in the mirror. The same girl.
And so I stood, fascinated and horrified at the same time, watching in the reflection as Luke kissed his way down her throat and into the crook of her neck. And then, kneeling down, he lifted her black top, running his lips across the smooth curve of her belly, above the belt of her jeans, adoring her, worshipping her, loving her. Billie.
But while my body could feel every sweet kiss, every tender touch, the girl in the mirror seemed oblivious to it all. Her face expressionless. Passive and emotionless. Blank.
But then her lips began to move, her eyes looking straight into mine, seeming to plead with me as she mouthed the words of my mother.
“Help me...!”
A wave of panic swept over me. I had to make this stop! Closing my eyes tight, I tried to take a step back from the mirror, away from the reflection… but the fantasy still played on, Luke’s voice calming and cajoling me, his hands gripping my waist tighter to make me stay.
Opening my eyes, I looked down - and there he was kneeling before me, his lips on my stomach. But it wasn’t my stomach. Black top. Jeans. It was Billie’s. I was Billie. I gasped, and at the noise, Luke looked up at me, an ocean of love in his eyes.
But at the sight of him I began to struggle more wildly, even more desperate to end this: because the man kneeling before me wasn’t my Luke. This was a much younger man, maybe twenty or so, his face smoother, slightly slimmer.
This was Billie’s Luke.
“No!” I pulled away from him again, scrabbling to remove this stranger’s hands from my waist.
His face clouded over with hurt and confusion. “Come on, Billie…” Swearing with impatience, he grabbed roughly at my belt, pulling at it, trying to unbuckle it.
“No!” Terrified, I screwed my eyes shut, trying desperately to make it stop. Willing it to be over. But somehow I just couldn’t concentrate enough. I couldn’t shut this nightmare down.
By now I was growing frantic, almost hysterical in my blind panic to pull myself free. And so we grappled, he pulling at my belt, while I tried to wrench myself away, until suddenly, as I pulled back, the whole of my belt snaked itself free from the belt loops, and he overbalanced with the sudden lack of resistance, knocking his head against the sink.
Snarling with sudden rage, he leaped to his feet, grabbing me by the arm, and twisting it painfully behind my back, as he forced his lips clumsily on mine.
“Stop it, Billie!” he spat when I twisted my mouth away from him, locking my arm even tighter so that I whimpered with the pain. He grabbed a fistful of my hair in his free hand, pulling it tight and up high, so that he had total control over my head, pushing it back, awkwardly, against the mirror, at the same time pushing me with his body so that I was jammed hard against the sink.
“There, that’s better,” he whispered into the side of my face. I could feel his warm breath on my ear, and my body shuddered with fear and disgust. Then suddenly he bit my earlobe sharply, laughing when I cried out. “You have to do what I say, Billie. You’re mine.”
My head was at an uncomfortable angle against the mirror, but because of this, looking out of the corner of my eye, I could just see a sliver of reflection. And there she was, Billie, also caught, looking back at me out of the corner of her blue eye.
“Help me…!” Her silent cry rent the air around me.
But I was unable to move. My right arm, which was still secured behind my back, felt like it would break, my head was locked tight by Luke’s fist in my hair; and his full weight glued my body to the sink. But I had to do something.
My left arm was also behind me, stretched out against the back of the sink, straining to support some of the weight, to ease the agony of my bones against the hard porcelain. Moving it would only bring more pain. But it was the only chance I had. I lifted it, crying out as the sudden increase of pressure drove me further against the sink, so that I thought my hips would shatter, the top of my body collapsing under the increased weight, slamming back into the shelf.
With my newly freed hand, I tried to prise his hand from my hair, scratching and pulling at his fingers. But it was no good. And in retaliation, he repeatedly slammed my head back against the glass. Desperately I began scrabbling around on the shelf above the sink, trying to feel for anything to use as a weapon. And then my fingers closed around the tweezers which had been lying there for days.
I paused, terrified at the thought of what would happen if I did this: his fury seemed to know no bounds. But then I was equally terrified of what would happen if I didn’t.
With one, swift, sudden movement, I pulled my arm up and then swung it over, like a tennis serve, and down, digging the sharp points hard into his forehead. He howled, automatically letting go of my hair, stepping back, freeing me.
But it wasn’t over yet.
“Will you never learn?” he growled, his eyes piercing mine while he slowly lifted his hand, letting me know exactly what he was about to do. Then he brought it down, grunting with the force of it, hitting me hard across the face, sending me crashing to the floor.
And it was there, lying curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor, that it stopped. Though the terror and excruciating pain I was experiencing made it virtually impossible to focus on anything else, the tiny delay as Luke reached for the belt which was lying by the sink, grinning as he wound one end of it round his hand, gave me the opportunity I needed to summon up all my strength and will the dream to end.
And so I found myself back where I had begun, standing in front of the bathroom sink. Alone.
25
Slamming out of the bathroom, I charged down to the first floor, almost falling down the stairs in my haste.
Banging on Dad’s door, I yelled for him to let me in.
God knows what I intended to tell him. How I would explain the state I was in. I didn’t think that far ahead. I just needed him, badly.
But Dad wasn’t home.
I crept quickly down the next flight of stairs, peering through the banister. There he was, sitting at the bar. I watched as Luke handed him another drink - brandy or whisky - Dad picking it up and downing it in a single gulp, and immediately calling for another.
I sank down on the stairs then, exhausted and defeated.
Dad would be too drunk to offer me any kind of protection tonight. I was on my own.
<><><>
Back in my room, I locked the door, sliding the chain across and pushing a chair under the handle, making sure that everything was secure. That I was safe.
But who was I kidding? No door could keep this danger out.
But where was it coming from…?
Was I really being haunted by Billie?
A few hours ago I would have laughed at the very idea. But now…
But no. I had to get a grip. There were no such things as ghosts. Spiritualism was a con.
Tentatively, I touched my cheek, but though Luke had slapped me hard enough to knock me down, it wasn’t even sore now. I gave my shoulder an experimental shrug, but though my arm had almost been twisted from its socket, it felt fine. I examined myself in the bedroom mirror. There was no swelling. No bruising. Even my earlobe, which had been so savagely bitten, bore no marks at all.
And why not?
Why had such violence failed to leave any trace of itself on me?
Because it hadn’t actually happened, had it. Except in my head…
So were these still part of the hallucinations that Dr Henderson mentioned might happen? The climax of my psychological trauma? Or had I somehow moved beyond that stage now, going further, tipping over the edge, slipping, sliding, hurtling into full-blown madness?
Guilt Trip Page 12
