Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  “She’s just trying to get back at me because she got knocked back”.

  “You shouldn’t be so rude about her”, Richard says.

  “Do you always act the way you’re supposed to, Rich?” Thom snarls.

  Richard shrinks back in his chair and gives him a shocked smile. “Of course not, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’ve both come in here to judge me, haven’t you? Because you don’t agree with how I’ve been acting, because you think I wrote those horrible things in that notebook, because I haven’t acted the same as you”. Thom spits each sound. Aunty Val begins to breathe shortly beside him and he has to use all his strength to scream at his body not to attend to her.

  “We just want to know what’s going on”. Richard stands up and waves his hands around in the air, someone drowning or waving to a boat pulling away from him. Thom leans forward, rubbing his eyes into his palms.

  “I tried to tell you about his room, didn’t I?”

  “What, that it’s empty? What does that mean?” Richard stares at Thom.

  “Exactly what I said!” Thom barks back.

  “Why would his room be empty? He was living in there, Thom. The day before he died, he slept in there”. Richard is pacing the space in front of the sofa, as if he is a coach trying to decide what to tell his team at half time. Thom hates to see Richard troubled, he hates to see him pulling at his ear again like the day they first discussed Daniel and smoked together in Thom’s room. Yet, this is what they are both asking him for – discomfort, awkwardness, and revelations.

  “I don’t know, Richard. But… the drawers are empty, the ward-robe is empty, there’s not a scrap of anything in there. Believe me, I’ve looked”. Thom is jerking in his seat, so much that Aunty Val reaches over and presses down on his leg. Thom tries to regulate his breathing, in the same instance wondering why Aunty Val seems so composed.

  “How could there be nothing, Thom?” Aunty Val asks quietly.

  “You think I know? I’ve thought and thought and thought again about all this and I have no answers. If you were expecting me to help you out, I’m afraid I’ll have to let you down”.

  “Why are you being so aggressive about this?” Richard is leaning towards Thom, his hands stretched towards him, yet he doesn’t touch Thom. “Does this have something to do with Sarah?”

  “What have you got against her Rich? Leave her alone”, Thom cautions him and continues angrily, “I’ve been dealing with all this for weeks and suddenly you’re interested. Oh woe betides me, I’ve known this fact for about five minutes and I want all the fucking answers!”

  “Thom, please don’t swear”, Aunty Val says. Thom is about to say something biting when he looks into her eyes and changes his mind.

  “Who cares if he swears, Mum? Have you heard what he’s been saying?” Richard kicks the carpet. All his muscles and veins are Braille on the surface of his skin. “He says Daniel emptied his room somehow, without our knowledge! He’s been really rude about his girlfriend and he’s started hanging around with some strange woman. And when we ask him to help us understand something, he completely turns on us like a stupid dog. You have to get him to talk normally Mum, please”.

  Richard slumps into the armchair and stares at the ceiling. Perhaps he is praying and, if he is, Thom wants to tell him that God doesn’t exist. Like he told Sarah, He’s a fabrication. He’s a lifeboat that people search for in a violent sea but one that deflated itself for him after his parents died.

  “Richard, would you mind leaving us alone for a moment?” Aunty Val asks as softly as ever, seemingly oblivious to the last ten minutes. She sits next to Thom with a straight back and with her hands placed by either leg. Thom remembers, in that pose, why he respects her so much. Why has he been pushing her away?

  Richard stares at her, yet after a few seconds, he pushes himself to his feet. He gives them both a concerned frown and leaves the room with a few large strides. As he slams the door, Aunty Val swivels her body round to face Thom and makes him do the same. Thom hears the clock again and with the slam of the door, the hands instantly get down onto their knees and begin to crawl around the clock face.

  “Aunty, I’m...” She puts her hand up and Thom closes his lips immediately.

  “Thom, I want to speak”. She massages her forehead briefly. “Darling, I’m so worried about you. And I have to tell you…” Aunty Val’s lips are choking on shapes. Thom reaches up, sweeping her cheek with his fingers briefly, meeting her gaze. “I have to tell you something…” she resumes, “I’m afraid, Thom. More afraid than I’ve ever been”. Aunty Val has weighed down the life-raft and must empty the excess out before she sinks. Thom isn’t sure he wants to hold all her excess though.

  “Aunty, I don’t...”

  “I’m not finished, Thom”, she warns. Thom bows his head.

  “What I’m trying to say to you is… well, you know how important you are to me, don’t you darling?” Thom nods quietly. “Well, when your parents died, I felt so worried about you. I didn’t know if I could help you…” Thom doesn’t know why they always seem to be talking about this subject lately. Why does she want to keep returning to this? Why does she want to poke and infect the wound? He wants to tell her that their deaths are necrotic tissue that he would be happy to surgically remove.

  “You are so important to me. I love you so much darling. And I’m so proud of you, do you know? Well, I’m sure you do. I’m just saying that I’m proud of you for everything but most of all, for how you dealt with it. How you rebuilt your life and let us be your family…”

  “Aunty Val, this isn’t helping anyone”, Thom pleads; tempted to gouge his eyeballs out and stuff them in his ears.

  “Thom, please, I’ve always been so amazed by your strength. I know you can get yourself back on track”. Aunty Val grabs one of Thom’s hands between hers. It is a clamp, Thom can only dream of escaping it. All the while, he is chuckling inside his mind at her use of the word ‘track’. He is on a track that’s true, just not the one she hopes he is on.

  “What’s been worrying you? Why have you been so angry?”

  “My cousin dying isn’t enough?” Thom challenges. Aunty Val squints and looks away as though he has squirted lemon juice in her eye.

  “Of course it’s enough... But I asked you about more than that”.

  “I told you about his room Aunty Val. If you don’t believe me, check for yourself!” Thom tosses her hand back to her. She stares at it, an invisible gash leaking blood down her arm.

  “But you haven’t said why you think it happened. Was he moving out? What do you know about it, Thom?”

  “I’m trying to protect you”. Thom grinds his teeth with each vibration of his tongue. Aunty Val is putting her organs on a stick and ramming them into a fire. Why is she asking him to hurt her?

  “Sometimes you look so much like him”, Aunty Val whispers.

  “What?” Thom feels his brain splitting in two. “Don’t say that ever again”.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to look like him or be like him or remind anyone of him ever. Do you understand that?” Thom speaks the sentence slowly and she doesn’t appreciate it.

  “Fine, forget that”. She bites her lip. “But what are you hiding about Daniel? If you’re sad about losing him, we can understand. We’ve felt all the emotions too”. Aunty Val grabs him by both shoulders and holds him steady. Thom curls his hands into balls and stabs his own skin.

  “He’s the one who hid things Aunty”.

  “Is this my fault?” Aunty Val asks suddenly.

  “I’m not saying you’re a bad parent. This isn’t about you”.

  “Have I been there for you, Thom?” Aunty Val pulls him closer. Her breath makes his cheek moist.

  “Yes Aunty, yes”, he stutters, trying to regain a distance between them. “But I have to tell you something”.

  “You’re frightening me, Thom”.

  “I’m frightened too”. T
hom is shaking to emphasise his point.

  “Just tell me. You can tell me”. She is gritting her teeth. Her mouth is twitching. He is worried what he will do to her. He might as well stone her to death. This way he is instead throwing her overboard into an unsure sea that could drive her anywhere and even make her lungs so heavy she might sink.

  “He knew, Aunty Val”, Thom manages to say. Again, he has failed to articulate the whole sentence he intended. Speech has floated away from him once again.

  “What did he know?” Aunty Val shudders, her voice shrill. Thom gets the sense she already knows something, she seems too quick to panic. Yet she hasn’t given any hints before. Is he being paranoid yet again?

  “That he was going to die”, Thom surrenders.

  Her eyes instantly roll, and she collapses.

  32 Red Gifts

  I scurry through the city, a fugitive, a dirty rat trying not to get stamped on, and finally settle underneath a tree in a small green. I spend twenty minutes scanning the surrounding area for spies. I even focus on several nearby bushes and monitor them for irregular movement and stare up into the branches above, watching the sway until I feel I can trust it.

  I’m so glad I have you with me. I can’t face this alone, Mum.

  Unzipping my bag, my chest grows increasingly hollow the wider the mouth opens. I wonder what will happen when I reach inside, whether I will fall in and keep sinking. Trembling, I close my eyes and plunge my hand within. I let my fingers drift around the items, trying to feel Daniel’s presence pulsating from them. Yet there is nothing and I fear I have lost him, my pulse racing for someone else instead.

  I pluck out the red origami first and examine each one. One has been made into a swan, another a flower, another looks like a horse. There are six altogether. Someone has obviously taken time making these, each fold is precise, each structure complex. I place them in a line next to me, assembling an army.

  I take up the scarf; hold it to my nose as I did with his scarf after the push. It doesn’t smell of him. I am even more disappointed because he has faded from the original scarf too. Slowly I am losing him and I can’t weave him back into the threads. I toss the scarf aside, making sure it doesn’t mix with my original scarf that at least has some sentimental value.

  I decide to tackle the letters next. I stare at his name on the front trying to decipher the author, yet I am blank. Something is familiar in the way the capital D is slanted, aggressively sharp and with a slight dip in the top half. I know who wrote this, why can’t I place them?

  I lose patience and turn the envelope over. The seal has already been broken, the lip is cracked and tattered, the adhesive clumped together and dried. With tremors still echoing through me, I fumble with the opening until it slowly gives in. Inside I see white paper folded into three. Holding my breath, I snatch the paper from inside, the swiping sound of its exit like a guillotine rushing towards a helpless neck.

  I unfold the paper and find a letter. Looking at the first word it stops me dead: Daniel. I feel like I have been hurtled into a brick wall, not just because of what the first word is but because I finally connect the writing with the owner. Like my shadow finally catching up with me, I realise the author is me.

  Mum, mum, why is my writing on this page?

  After stalling on the first word, I eventually manage to break through the current and begin to take in the rest of the letter:

  I can’t stop thinking about you. I love the gifts you sent me, as always. I take them out when everyone is asleep and stare them. I like to imagine your hands when you were making them, how you wanted to make me smile, how you snuck them in for me without the others seeing.

  I have to hide your gifts under one of the floorboards so at night I feel like I am freeing them. I wish I could show everyone how thoughtful and loving you are. I really don’t deserve to have you giving me attention but I thrive on it, it keeps me positive every day I am in this prison.

  The doctors have been asking about you but I won’t tell them any-thing. They just want to catch us out. They don’t want me to be happy or connect with anyone, and they want to keep me in here forever.

  I will never forget when I first met you, how you kept trying to make me smile because I looked so sad. I hadn’t spoken properly to anyone in months but you managed to connect with me. I actually feel like you care for me. I haven’t felt that since my Mum and before that, the only person I thought loved me ended up hurting me in the worst way.

  I know you won’t hurt me. I can’t wait to get out of here and spend time with you in the real world, among the birds, the wind that thrashes in the trees, the coldness of the lake outside the window I can never touch.

  I particularly love the bird you made me. It gives me hope that I will escape one day. I can’t wait to see you again; I’m waiting for you here.

  There is no signature. Yet the letter needs none. This is written by me, there are no doubts. If I needed clues, I could even authenticate my identity by underlining the references to not having you around anymore and someone who I cared about hurting me ‘in the worst way’.

  You know all about it, don’t you, Mum? We can’t deny that it’s me in this letter.

  This is my handwriting. This is a letter written in a hospital. This is a letter to the man I pushed in front of a train. All the details point to me being the author yet I can’t understand this. I am submerged in water; my fingertips are burnt to numbness, my nose clogged with blood. What do these combinations of black marks really mean?

  This letter is a classic example of a yearning lover writing to her beloved. Even when I reread it several times, I have a notion it must be a prank or something that Daniel wrote to torture me. Yet the handwriting is undoubtedly mine. I can’t deny it more than I can deny my own reflection.

  I drop the letter and tear open another envelope. This letter contains much of the same musings. I toss this one down and grab the next one, shivering as I read yet more similar expressions of adoration. I almost scream when I get to the bottom where in shaky writing, I see: I think I love you Daniel.

  I screw the paper up and hurl it aside. I jump up and stamp on the origami army beside me before they can lead a mutiny against me. I start beating my fists against the tree behind me and kicking it until my toes bruise and groan in my shoes.

  How could I have written these things? I have no recollection of any of these words, their combinations, or even the thought of picking up a pen to scratch them out. It is as if I am staring at a pile of vomit confined to a page, I have no idea where to start picking it apart to make sense.

  Is it true that I cared for Daniel, Mum? And if I did know him at the hospital and had all these feelings for him, how did it result in my pushing him in front of a train? I wish you were here to help me understand this. I wish you were here to hold me and stop me shivering.

  I slump next to the tree again, my breath a rag that seems as filled with holes as my memory. Trying to refocus my heartbeat and sensing the water layer over my eyes blistering, I drag the file towards me. I figure things can’t get much worse.

  I fight off the elastic bands around the file, imagining I am a child prodding my fingers into a mousetrap. I have to succumb though. I have no choice but to continue with my journey into the darkness of my unknown past. The file opens easily and I prepare myself for a shotgun to annihilate my dizzy head.

  The first page is nothing alarming. It is my admission record to the hospital, all the standard details: age, name, gender, date of admission, current drug treatment, notes on special requirements, the reason I’d been sectioned.

  There are several dull pages of this. Then something different; some handwritten pages making notes on some of my counselling sessions with Doctor Rosey. None of this is particularly new to me either. I can’t recall the memory of actually talking to Doctor Rosey but the subjects seem familiar. The subjects are those I discussed even just before I left the hospital. The guilt over losing you, the helplessness of being taken
advantage of, the confusion over why you left me, the anger and fear of living a day-to-day life. I have no idea why they let me out of there…

  Still pondering the failures of the system, I come across another strange document. On the header it has the address of the hospital and the word ‘memo’ written in large red letters. Underneath are the words ‘Attention: Serious Issue Reported’. I continue reading. The memo describes an incident of a staff member being caught acting inappropriately with one of the patients. Apparently, the reported staff member was suspended (pending investigation), but the memo also notes that several witnesses had come forward saying the staff member and patient were definitely having an inappropriate relationship. Furthermore, the staff members had stepped up their vigilance on this particular patient, a certain patient named Alice…

  The evidence is a mountain that towers above me. The branches are waving at me. I watch them stretching higher in the sky or maybe I am sinking into the mud, or the tectonic plates of the earth have hiccupped underneath me.

  33 The Awakening

  As Thom cradles Aunty Val on the sofa, the door blasts open. Richard rushes over to Aunty Val and wrestles her out of Thom’s arms. “What have you done to her?” he asks, shaking her gently. She is already stirring but keeps her eyes closed. Richard is staring at Thom like he is holding a knife covered with blood.

  “We were just talking. She’s fine”.

  “She doesn’t look fine”, Richard screeches.

  “I didn’t hurt her, Richard”, Thom says, yet swallows heavily. Is he sure about that? He just told her about her recently deceased son knowing he was going to die? Surely that is hurting her, not physically, but nonetheless…

  “I can’t believe the way you’re acting. You’re being exactly like him before he died”. Richard is stroking Aunty Val’s hair. She is mumbling but Thom can’t understand a word.

  “What?” Thom sits on the edge of the sofa, trying to look open for negotiations.