In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  He closed the kitchen door behind him, then walked purposefully to the window. He drew the curtains. Ran his fingers down the length of the material. Arranged the folds to hang evenly, as she liked them. Closed curtains. Bolted doors. The tyranny of his wife’s neuroses.

  What kind of suffocating fog had he been walking around in? What kind of man had he become? Where and when did it go so very wrong? At what point should he have stopped it all and walked away. But how could he have? There was only her. There was only ever her.

  Henry Campbell breathed deeply as he reached for a saucer and then a can of cat food from the cupboard. He fed the cat, who purred happily as he tucked into his supper.

  Henry remembered the first time he had seen her. She was sitting at the bar in a pub near the medical school, elegant, out of place, too classy to be there. She was drinking a cocktail of some description, idly playing with the straw while the man she was with spoke words that Henry could tell bored her. She wore a red dress that clung to her body as if it were painted on. Her hair hung to one side, exposing her neck, soft and pale, not a blemish on her skin. Oh, that curve, the line of her, calling to him, begging him to touch his lips to its softness.

  Henry and his group were celebrating a birthday. There was a lot of raucous drinking, as was the case whenever they went out, but as his fellow medical students laughed and joked and played ridiculous drinking games, all he could do was watch her. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. He saw her check her watch. Saw her push the man’s hand off her leg when he had the audacity to touch her. Saw her sigh and twice look over her companion’s shoulder. There was only her. Everything else in the pub was a blur.

  He stood and excused himself from the table.

  ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, I’ve got something I need to do.’

  And then he’d walked up to her, bold as brass, and said: ‘I don’t mean to interrupt you, but there’s a woman outside who asked me to say that you need to come immediately. There’s been an emergency.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, craning her neck to see out of the window.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked her companion. ‘What emergency?’

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ Henry said to her. He smiled and bowed his head a little. ‘The emergency, I mean. You leaving now. To attend to the emergency. It’s for your own good.’

  ‘My own good?’

  ‘Yes. Consider me your rescue service. Would you like me to take you to her?’

  ‘Well, actually, my good man,’ said her companion quite genially, ‘if anybody’s going to take her, it should really be me.’

  But the girl was smiling up at Henry.

  ‘You’ll come?’ he asked and held out his hand.

  She stared at it for a moment or two and then nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  That was the beginning. The beginning of it all. That smile, the curve of her neck, the control she had over him from the first moment. Her utter power. All the sirens rolled into one. This was how it all began. What weakness within him allowed her to bewitch him?

  And now she was gone.

  He had tried to tell Bella what she needed to hear, but he couldn’t get the words out. They stuck in his throat with the bile and the shame and the guilt.

  Henry opened the drawer and looked down at the neat row of knives. He ran his fingers over their handles and then selected the carving knife. He went to the drinks cupboard and took down the bottle of single malt and a crystal tumbler. He filled the glass to the rim and then returned the bottle to the cupboard. He stroked his hand down the back of the cat, who purred and blinked slowly up at him, then he carried the glass and the knife through to his study and closed the door. He placed the knife and the glass on his desk, went over to the shelves, and reached up for his letter-writing box. He passed his fingers over the leather, aged and cracked. He opened the lid and removed a single sheet of paper and an envelope, then he replaced the box on the shelf.

  Henry sat at his desk and wrote the words he hadn’t managed to say. And when he’d finished writing, when the letter was sealed in the envelope, he opened his top drawer, took out a packet of painkillers and prised all twelve from the silver foil. Then he knocked back the handful of pills with the glass of whisky and turned off the table lamp. He waited until the pills began to take effect and then he felt around the surface of his desk for the knife.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered into the darkness. ‘Forgive me.’

  EIGHT

  My dear child,

  Firstly, I must apologise for what you have found. I am a coward. This has never been in doubt. A coward and also weak. So very weak. Even yesterday, trying to talk to you, this weakness kept me silent, and now I have no option. No choice. I cannot keep the truth quiet any longer.

  And I cannot go on.

  I have struggled with this from the start. Questions. So many questions without answers. So many whys. Because Why? is the only question that matters. I have no answer to the Why? No answer that makes any sense. Writing this now, seeing my own hand form the letters, it’s all I can hear.

  Why? Why?

  Why…

  Elaine and I are not your real parents. We didn’t adopt you and we didn’t foster you. Your real mother is a woman named Alice Tremayne. Her address is, or was, at least, 4a, Mount Sinai Road, St Ives, Cornwall. Whether or not she still lives there, I cannot say.

  I cannot answer your questions. I cannot even begin to try. But please know that Elaine loved you deeply and in her own twisted mind she believed she had your best interests at heart.

  Forgive me.

  I wish you peace,

  Henry Campbell

  NINE

  The image of Henry Campbell’s mutilated body sticks in my mind as my emotions swarm like bees.

  I push my fingers into my temples and try to process his words. It makes no sense. I cast my eyes over the newspaper article, dry and brittle, but it doesn’t help. None of it makes any sense.

  He’s lying.

  Of course he is. He has to be.

  But part of me knows he isn’t. Part of me is nodding. Agreeing. Saying, Ahhhh, this explains so much! My brain is pounding. It races from recollection to recollection. I feel faint. Debilitated. It’s all too much. Elaine’s death. The funeral. Finding Henry in that state. And now the contents of this envelope. A single sheet of writing paper and an aged newspaper cutting that – if true – change everything.

  He has to be lying.

  But why would he?

  David runs into the living room and I quickly thrust the letter into my back pocket before he sees it. His face is contorted with shock as he opens his arms and comes towards me.

  ‘My darling thing,’ he says. ‘My darling, darling thing. Christ. I should never have left you. What was I thinking?’

  When he reaches me I step backwards. I shake my head. He blurs as my eyes fill with fresh tears.

  ‘Bella,’ he whispers. ‘My darling Bella.’

  Then I turn and run. I push past him and tear out of the living room, leaving behind me the stench of Henry Campbell’s death as I take the stairs two at a time. I run down the corridor and throw open the door to my old room. I stand in the doorway and look around at the slice of time preserved, no different now than it was fourteen years ago, fourteen days ago, fourteen hours ago, yet everything is changed.

  I stare at the poster of the kitten with her big blue eyes. At the strings of coloured beads that lie in a wicker bowl on one side of the chest of drawers and the dressing-up box that contains a thousand different fantasies. The single bed with its rosy bedspread. Then the books, shelves and shelves and shelves of them, each and every one of which had at one time swallowed me whole and let me wander the safety of their magical worlds, to feel the hooves of Black Beauty pounding the grass beneath me, to creep through wardrobes into a land locked in ice, to guard rings, to fight pirates and Lilliputians and tigers.

  There are footsteps on the stairs. David’s. I don’t want to see
him. I pull the door to my bedroom closed and turn the key. I walk slowly over to the dressing table and stare at my reflection in the oval mirror.

  But I don’t see me.

  I see a woman with tired eyes and unkempt hair, with dirty tear tracks streaking her milky face like a vagrant porcelain doll.

  ‘Bella!’ says David through the door. He tries the handle then starts to bang repeatedly. ‘Open the door. Please. Let me in.’ He rattles the handle again, this time with more force. ‘Open the door!’

  I reach forward and flip the mirror on its hinges, banishing the woman with the unkempt hair to the wall. I put my fingers in my ears to muffle David’s clamouring, but then all I can hear is Henry Campbell. His voice echoes around my head. Those three words over and over. The three words I heard ten days ago that set this all in motion.

  Your mother’s dead.

  I don’t recall what else he said during that phone call. It was as if the death facts passed to me by osmosis. A heart attack. Rushed to hospital. Too late. She called my name. Dying in the ambulance, she called my name.

  ‘Bella! Bella!’

  A shiver of excitement runs down my spine. I’m a child again. I’m hiding from her. The rising panic in her voice makes me shiver with excitement.

  ‘Bella!’

  I turn and look at Tori, lift a finger to my lips. Tori nods and we both grin. My mother’s voice rises, that recognisable tinge of distress creeping in around the edges.

  ‘Bella! It’s time to come in! Don’t play games. I mean it!’

  We hold our breath and wait, squeezed into the space behind the big green drum that’s filled with rainwater and hundreds of tiny mosquito larvae, which wriggle crossly off the sides when I kick their watery incubator.

  ‘Bella!’ Her tone, the panicked shriek, tells me the game is over. If I stay hidden she’ll be angry and her anger isn’t worth the fun. I shrug, and Tori smiles then melts away into the shadows.

  I sidle out of my hiding place on my bottom.

  ‘Coming, Mummy! Don’t worry, I’m coming!’

  I take a deep breath and push the memories away. I let my hands fall from my ears and listen to David banging repeatedly. I force myself to move towards the door but my limbs feel frozen.

  Move.

  You can’t stay in here forever. Move your feet, for goodness’ sake.

  I manage to walk over to the door and reach out to unlock it, unsure whether I’ll be able to step out of my old bedroom without crumbling.

  TEN

  ‘I need to leave.’

  I need to get away from this house. This dark, locked, desolate house, with its unbearable stench of death.

  ‘Yes,’ David says.

  ‘Now.’

  His face momentarily clouds, as if he might be about to tell me off for barking at him, but then he appears to take hold of himself. I can hear the voice in his head making excuses for me, Grief. It’s the grief talking. She didn’t intend to speak to you like that.

  Miss Young is pleased when I ask her to look after the cat, but is clearly put out that I haven’t disclosed the contents of Henry Campbell’s letter. She makes a few pointed comments, a Did his letter explain things, dear? here, and an I wonder what could have been on his mind when he did it? there. She hangs expectantly in the background while David and I silently tidy a few things away, empty the bins, wash and dry the dishes. I try to sate her curiosity by saying his letter didn’t say much, simply goodbye and he was sorry. When she drops another hint, I say, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Young, I really don’t want to talk about it.’

  This isn’t a lie. I’m not ready. Perhaps when I’ve got my own head around it, made sure I know what’s truth and what’s lie, I might be in a position to watch other people try. Until then, I’m not telling a soul. Not even David. If I tell David, he’ll want to make it better. He’ll take over. He’ll involve the police and the newspapers. He’ll tell me what to do and how to feel, and alongside all of that, there’ll be the judgement on his face, the worry and the anger.

  He asked to read the letter, of course, up in my old room, before we came down to face Miss Young.

  ‘I burnt it.’

  ‘Burnt it? Already?’

  ‘Yes. Straightaway. I did it outside so the ash wouldn’t make a mess.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It didn’t explain anything. I was cross. Upset. It was a spur of the moment thing.’

  ‘That’s rather rash. Did he give any reason at all?’

  ‘No. Just that the thought of life without her was devastating. That it wasn’t worth living.’

  David had nodded as if he understood how love alone could drive a man to suicide.

  Outside on the driveway, the car packed up, I hand the cat to Miss Young and thank her for taking him.

  Miss Young lifts him out of my grasp and begins to stroke his back. The cat starts purring immediately, spooning his front paws into her ample chest.

  ‘We’ll be fine, won’t we sweetheart?’ she says in a singsong voice that grates like nails down a blackboard.

  ‘I’ll send money for cat food.’

  ‘Please don’t worry. There’s plenty to go round at ours.’ Miss Young ruffles her fingers into the cat’s scruff. ‘You won’t starve will you, lambkin?’

  The cat lifts his nose to brush against her jowl. Clearly for him any old mother will do.

  I climb into the car and buckle my seatbelt. David checks it’s fastened securely and then turns on the ignition. He is about to pull away when Miss Young bounds over, the cat half-strangled in the crook of her arm. She taps frantically on the window.

  ‘What about the roses, dear?’ she asks with genuine concern.

  Jesus Christ. Fuck the bloody roses.

  ‘They’ll be fine, Miss Young. Thank you for helping with the cat.’

  ‘It’s Suzie, dear. Do remember to call me Suzie.’

  ELEVEN

  Henry Campbell – 3rd August 1989

  Henry Campbell would have liked to have been anywhere else than where he and his wife were now. He followed her through the heaving crowds. It was hot and sticky.

  Hundreds, no, thousands of people, lined the walkways, ambling in all directions in a manner that made him want to shout. He was exhausted after yet another dreadful night’s sleep. He hadn’t slept properly in months, but last night any chance of sleep had been impossible. The hotel room was small and shabby, with paper-thin walls and noisy guests next door, and a shower that dripped like metronomic water torture. He’d tossed and turned in the narrow, lumpy bed, its sheets musty, having been folded and put away damp from the laundry. He was plagued by insistent thoughts, by worry, sadness, helplessness, forced to silence his many protestations, the things he wanted to say to her. Why couldn’t she accept their childless future and find a way to move on. Time was the only healer. Time would surely help her bear her grief.

  They trudged along wordlessly, drops in the stream of visitors united in their search for divine intervention, for a spiritual connection or an outright miracle. Elaine, of course, wanted the latter. A miracle. For faith to help where nature and science had failed her.

  He concentrated on breathing through his mouth not his nose, the stench of sweat and cologne mixed with the occasional flash of unwashed human made a cocktail of smells that caught in the back of his throat. People of all shapes and sizes, able-bodied and disabled, all races and ages, ambled or strode or hobbled. There was a mix of excitable tourists, the occasional bored child dragging weary feet, complaining of the heat or a rumbling tummy. Then there were those who were filled with the same anguish that filled his wife. You could see it in their eyes. Their desperation. The way their hope clung to them by a final thread.

  They passed a man lying on a wheeled hospital bed. It reminded him of a medical-school charity event he’d helped organise at university. Students entering in teams of two in fancy dress, one of each pair lying on a bed, the other pushing as they raced through streets lined with cheering, drunken
spectators. Back then he’d been full of potential, full of youthful vigour and sexual appetite, no idea of the bleak and hopeless future that lay ahead of him.

  He sighed. He was hungry now. His body needed food. There was a small restaurant next door to their dreadful hotel; they were bound to serve a half-decent steak. Maybe the humourless Gallic waiter could bring him a glass of rough red vin de table to go with it. Maybe two.

  Yes, he thought. Two.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re hungry. We’re not going back until we’ve seen Her.’

  ‘I don’t understand this. You’re not even Catholic.’

  She stopped walking and turned to face him, her frustration clear. ‘Henry, God is God. The assortment of religions in the world are merely versions of the same All Mighty being. If I’d been born to a Catholic family, I’d be Catholic. If I’d been born in India, I’d be Hindu. God is bigger than any mortal construction of Him. He will hear me. He will. I have Faith and He will give us our miracle.’ And then she closed her eyes and he saw her lips mutter silent words. Cursing or praying, he wasn’t sure.

  As they neared the grotto, the number of souvenir shops selling water bottles, candles, ornaments, all fashioned into a likeness of the Virgin Mary, increased. Henry had become numbed to her image, which was repeated again and again and again, her beatific tranquillity a backdrop to this place of mass conviction and agony.

  They drew to a halt as they neared the grotto. He stared upwards. The sky was pale blue, the same shade as the Virgin Mary’s dress. He tried to take Elaine’s hand, but she drew away from him, her gaze fixed on the effigy ahead, her hands clasped in prayer in front of her.

  His stomach turned over.

  He had never felt so distant from her. So impotent. They were here because he was unable to help her. There was nothing he could do. He had vowed to look after her always. As a young man, when he’d been overflowing with lust and love, when she’d lain in his arms, her soft, honeyed hair brushing his lips, her beautiful scent filling him up as he breathed her into his very soul, he’d vowed he would never let anything hurt her. It was a visceral feeling that had kicked him in the gut. That sudden and overwhelming need to look after her. But he’d had no idea of what pain lay ahead. Pain he was powerless to stop. How naïve he’d been to think he could protect her forever, but he was damned if he’d stop trying. She needed him. He was all she had in the world. Especially now.