Before There Were Angels

by Sarah Mathews

  In her mind or, more precisely, in what she said, she had done everything possible to move towards her goals and I was the one standing in the way of our achieving them, resisting her justifiable wishes, frustrating her at every moment, simply for the cruelty of it.

  I suspected that deep down the things on her list were not really what she wanted, that she was still a little girl, or perhaps a teenager, confused by the world, doubtful as to her place in it, desperate to develop great friendships and to be loved and admired for who she was. Her problem was that, like a young girl or a teenager, she wanted everything on her terms. She wanted to be loved absolutely, to be admired absolutely, to have every one of her achievements recognized, and to be considered absolutely a force for good in the world, exemplary.

  She wanted to be special and to have everyone envy her specialness and strive, probably in vain, to be like her.

  But in what way was she special? There was no doubt that when Rafaella was in a good mood, she was wonderful, close to peerless. She laughed, she was playful, she challenged conventions and she was loving. Nothing seemed wrong with who she was capable of being. But she could never keep her good moods running for more than a few hours, usually in public, and not always then. She was acutely sensitive to people’s reactions to her and would start spinning out of control if she felt one person among a roomful of people was harboring critical opinions of her. She visibly disintegrated, pouring more and more energy into becoming the center of attention, to batter down her antagonist until she surrendered to the general admiration of the room for Rafaella. Except that Rafaella’s hyperdrive behavior did not draw admiration, it provoked uneasiness. Those around her would probably play along with her but they became watchful, wary, and I knew that on the way home they would be dismissive of her behind her back.

  Behind her back. That is what Rafaella hated most, people doing and saying things behind her back. If things happened in front of her, she could confront the problem and try to force a change of behavior or attitude, but when she couldn’t see what was happening or being said, everything was beyond her control, beyond her ability to address it and to put it right.

  According to my assessment, that is why she was so keen to work on her psychic abilities, so that nothing ever happened behind her back, so that everything was subject to discovery and corrective action. She started by claiming to be able to intuit negative thoughts in people that she would then want to flush out and neutralize. After a while it was no longer a question of her intuition but of her growing psychic insight. She claimed that she knew that so-and-so was plotting against her because her archangels were telling her so or because she could see straight into their souls, no longer because she was merely sensing dislike in a human way.

  Whatever I may have thought of her pretension to cosmically derived knowledge, the fact that she was sitting on the end of our bed, both here and not here, was irrefutable proof that she had mastered some techniques beyond most of our understanding, she had achieved greatness of a sort, even if her application of these techniques was almost exclusively to bolster her power over everyone around her. There again, that is what personal power usually comprises - the reliable ability to bend everyone to one’s will.

  “Now you have had a taste of what it is like to lose Belle for a day or two,” she continued, suggesting that Belle’s temporary disappearance had been part of her plan all along, co-opting the accidental to her purpose. There again, maybe it was true. Maybe she had deliberately deranged Belle, stripped her of her memory, to make a point.

  “We have already suffered enough loss,” I said. “We are still trying to cope with Zack’s death.”

  She ignored my implied plea.

  “So what are you going to do to protect Belle in the future? How are you going to stop it happening again? She is probably going mad, you know. People don’t suddenly get amnesia. It is a loss of brain function.”

  “Rafaella, you know exactly what happened two nights ago. Don’t play games.”

  Her eyes glowed. “I never play games.”

  I laughed. “Now that is the truth.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You never play just games. They are not games when you play them, they are gambits.”

  She smiled sweetly. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, answer my question because you will have to eventually. What are you going to do to protect Belle in the future, and Stevie?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” I replied. “Why are they in need of protection?”

  Rafaella’s eyes hardened. “Because they need protection from you. You are the one putting them at risk. You are careless of people, Luke, and you do nothing to make those around you feel secure. Belle is beginning to realize what you are really like. Just you wait. Belle will soon be as critical of your ways as I was. It was never about me, it was about you and your refusal to change, your refusal to accommodate people, your insistence on living in your own little world, determined to control every aspect of it. You are a control freak, Luke, and an abuser. You abuse everyone. You try to control everything. You abuse people with money, with your emotions, with your demands -“

  “What demands?”

  “Your demand to have everything the way you want it, on your terms.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Rafaella smiled knowingly and patted my leg. “You will see.”

  “Rafaella,” I demanded, “what do you want from me?”

  She smiled again. “I don’t want anything from you, Luke. Nothing at all. It is far safer that way because you have never known how to give, Luke. It is better to have no expectations of you whatsoever. But, you will see, we all have to learn. That is why we are here on earth, to learn. You have a lot to learn, Luke, and I am sure you will find out how much over the next few days. I feel sorry for you, Luke. You are so locked up in the cage of your emotions, so unfeeling, so unaware of your environment and of the needs of people around you. You are a cripple, Luke, and you needn’t be. If you were to honestly address your issues, you have it in you to be a wonderful human being. But you cannot get there until you realize at every level in your psyche that you need to change, you need to open yourself up to the world, you need to care about people. Listen to Belle, she will help you. Don’t make the mistake of rejecting her as you have rejected me. Profit from your stay in this world, Luke. Don’t die as ignorant as you were when you were born. This is my last life on this earth. I have learned everything I need to learn. I vibrate in harmony with the universe. You will probably have to spend several lives yet getting to where I am. Profit from your opportunity now. Become self-aware. Bye.”

  She waved and disappeared.

  I was exhausted as I always was after a conversation with Rafaella and almost immediately fell asleep, snuggled against Belle’s back as she snuffled gently in front of me into the darkness of the room.

  Chapter 24

  “Good morning!” Belle stretched luxuriously along the bed. “I slept like ten bears.”

  “That’s good to hear. I slept well too,” I lied.

  “I am desperate for a cup of coffee. You couldn’t go get me some coffee, could you?”

  “I’ll be right on it,” I said.

  “I think it will be the first time you have ever brought me coffee,” she added. “I’ve gotten it for you lots of times.”

  The statement totally baffled me. It was true that Belle had made me coffee more often than I had made her one since she stopped working but it was as if I never made coffee. Whatever. I ignored it.

  Belle was really appreciative of my coffee, saying it was the best coffee ever, then turned over and fell asleep.

  I had a ton of work to do and only a short time to get hold of my staff in England, given the time difference. I missed our early morning routine of getting Stevie off to school before I started working. It felt like I was getting straight out of bed and falling over a cliff. Still, Stevie would be back in a few days.

&n
bsp; I was more at ease now that I was getting back on top of the work. Everyone understood that I had had other preoccupations since Zack’s death but now I felt I was contributing fully again.

  There was still no trace of where Rafaella was living, though, and it was becoming critical to track her down and service her with the new divorce papers. OK, it wasn’t really - nothing would probably happen for a year - and maybe even then not, given that our divorce was in fact legal, there was just a want of proof that Rafaella had been appropriately involved in the proceedings. My Mexican lawyer wasn’t much help either. He assured me that all the paperwork had been duly served but he had no receipts or proofs for anything. He said such things were not required in his country and my protestations that I was not living in his country carried no weight - I had been living in his country at the time of the hearings and that is all he could have been expected to plan for. He appreciated that the US required more proof than he could provide, but the US always did. Ciao.

  Serving papers was not the only reason I wanted to know where Rafaella was living. I also wanted to know if she was in San Francisco. Granted that she could probably harass me from right across the world, I was more concerned about her walking through the door with a knife or possibly a gun. I didn’t know what astral travellers were capable of, but I knew well enough the effect of wet work and bullets.

  And then I thought back to my conversation with Martha. She had said that Rafaella had used her body to kill Dan, Jess and the kids. If she was telling the truth, why would Martha have to have died? I realized that I was under some pressure at the time but I kicked myself for not having asked a few more questions of her. Oh well, when I next saw her …

  Belle got up about lunchtime and made food. It was surprisingly healthy for Belle’s much-vaunted twelve year old culinary tastes and even included a salad.

  “Surely you are not going to eat something green, are you?” I teased her.

  “No, I’m not but I thought you might like to for a change. After all, you’re a lot older than I am and have to stay healthy if I’m not going to trade you in for a younger man.”

  That was a first. What was up with Belle? Not only had she suffered from amnesia, she seemed to have undergone a character shift, not a massive one - she was still her cheerful, positive, loving self - but sufficient of one for me to question whether she shouldn’t see a doctor in case she was suffering from concussion.

  “Oh, I’ll go see a doctor sometime,” she said, “but I’m too busy right now. I need to catch up with my friends. Since we’ve been together, I’ve been neglecting them.”

  Which was true. She hardly ever spoke to her friends or her family. I was beginning to wonder if any of these people she regularly talked about even existed.

  “OK, you do that. I’ll go back to Computers Don’t Bite for a few hours. There are some big pitches I want to check over because they could be worth a stack of money if they come through.

  Belle smiled. “That would be nice and maybe we could use the money to fix up the house a little. It needs to be re-decorated.”

  “Don’t aim any honey-dos in my direction,” I said. “I did quite enough DIY – what do you call it, ‘home improvements’? – when I was living with Rafaella. I had lists of things to do for about a year in advance.”

  “I’d like to do it,” Belle assured me. “I love painting. You can hold the ladder for me sometimes. I’m not asking you to do anything now, but after everything that’s happened, I would like to give the house a makeover, something to make it feel like we are starting all over again.”

  “Let’s get the money in first,” I said.

  “Of course we need the money first. I don’t use credit cards. I’m just letting you know, in a loving way, that I would like to make some changes around here when we are ready. So you go back to work now while I chat with some friends, okay?”

  * * *

  There was one advantage to having Stevie stay with Robert - Belle and I could make love any time we liked without worrying about the noises upsetting him. And that afternoon we had a wonderful session. We had not made love passionately for some time, given all the stress we had been going through, but it was like we were fully back again to satisfying one of the basest of all needs - sexual release - and one of the highest of all desires - the desire for intimacy. I still didn’t feel that Belle was all there - she seemed a bit distracted - but I suspected that there was some lingering amnesia.

  We were lying holding each other when I felt the urge to phone Stevie. Maybe that thought came into my head because I was thinking how Stevie being away made it easier for Belle and I to have guiltless sex.

  “I hope he is OK. What if Rafaella knows where he is? Mightn’t she do something to him there? Distance doesn’t seem to matter to her and I am sure that Robert thinks that our precautions are as idiotic as our stories.”

  “Phone him,” Belle said. “It is the only way we’ll find out how he’s doing.”

  So we did, or rather I did, as Belle didn’t want to speak to Robert.

  “Hi, Robert.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Luke.”

  “Luke from San Francisco?” At least he hadn’t said, ‘Luke who fucks my wife?’.’

  “That’s the one.”

  “You want to speak to Stevie, do you?”

  “That would be good.”

  “He’s around somewhere. I’ll call him.”

  Two minutes later, Stevie came to the phone. “Hi, Luke. What’s up?”

  “Nothing in particular. It’s just that we haven’t spoken to you in a few days and we wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “I’m fine. I get into San Francisco airport at two o’clock on Monday. I can’t wait to see you and Mom. Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  I handed the phone over to Belle who talked away to Stevie for quite a while, describing how she had seen Zack which had made all the difference in the world to her. She had been missing him so much. She didn’t mention her amnesia or having been lost in the park for two days.

  When she got off the phone, she was equally excited that Stevie was coming home. “I can’t wait to hug him to death,” she said.

  “Not quite that far, I hope,” I cautioned her. “We don’t want to do Rafaella’s job for her.”

  “Oh, enough about Rafaella,” she replied. “We don’t have to talk about her all the time, do we? It gets so depressing.”

  With that I couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter 25

  Not only was Belle behaving oddly but so was George. He had spent all the time since Zack’s death looking for him and had been alternating between drinking too much or hardly any of his formerly prized Bombay Sapphire gin. Then Stevie left, and he was searching the house for him too.

  I wasn’t sure what he had found in their place but he didn’t seem at all comfortable with it, nor suddenly with Belle.

  Old English Sheepdogs seldom growl or bark. They are probably the laziest, most inebriated and generally most spoiled animals of the dog kingdom. They don’t move much, except to indulge in their high-end cuisine, and they seldom make a noise, except when they collide with doors, furniture and walls because they cannot see. Belle had once toyed with the idea of cutting eyeholes into his face but she was warned by her vet that if she ever took George outside into the Californian sunshine without his eyes being protected by his woolen coat, he would go blind.

  However, little as he could see, George was sensing that something was seriously amiss. Certainly he was discommoded by his bowl continually shifting around the kitchen and being unexpectedly empty as often as not when he approached it, but this was something more.

  He started barking at Belle. As I say, that he should bark at all was unusual, but that he should be giving defensive barks aimed at Belle was really surprising.

  “I think George is perhaps drinking too much. His hangovers are making him irritable. We need to cut d
own on his alcohol and maybe his steak too,” Belle suggested.

  “You are going to do what?” I gasped. “Cut down on his alcohol? Cut down on his steak? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  I meant it as mild teasing but Belle took me seriously. “He is getting really spoiled. If he could manage his drinking habit, he could have all the gin he wants, but he isn’t. He is becoming increasingly bad tempered and I am not putting up with him barking at me all the time. I love George but I don’t believe in letting anyone be rude to me, and George is behaving very badly. So, George,” she squatted down to lecture him face-to-face, which I thought was quite brave of her given his recent attitude towards her, “either you learn to handle your drink or you get reduced rations - do you understand?”

  From his expression, I actually believed that George had indeed understood what Belle was telling him and wasn’t sure how to play it from now on. He went as if to bark defiantly, then cut his bark to a whimper and stood there looking at Belle, calculating his odds.

  “I’m glad we understand each other, George,” Belle said.

  George wandered off to the sitting room, a chastised and maybe wiser animal.

  “Right,” said Belle. “As you haven’t started work yet, you can wash the dishes while I cook lunch. I wish you would do them at night rather than leaving the kitchen all dirty for us to face in the morning. Do you think you could manage that?”

  I was going to have to go into alliance with George. I didn’t like this new Belle either. What was up with her? If only I could consult with George and we could come up with a joint plan of action.