by PN Moore
HELEN OF ORPINGTON
PN Moore
Copyright PN Moore
First published 2012 by
Late Sky Press
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of the book to be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, or mechanical means, including photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-9543064-3-4
All errors are intentional…
Five things about Emma
1, Had a small brown teddy bear called Paddy, lost when she was ten on a family holiday in Scotland.
2, Made the leaving cake for the Deputy Head at the Notre Dame School - looked/tasted nice.
3, Enjoyed playing table tennis, played quite well.
4, Liked to dance
5, Didn’t like brown bread
Conker
The meeting I had planned for so long with the woman who killed my daughter ended in bloodshed. It’s funny, I didn’t and don’t consider myself a violent person, yet I feel anyone is capable of such destructive action given the right circumstances. Against my nature and perhaps common sense, I decided to trace and confront the drunk-driver a young nurse, to her homeland of America. I stood over her, watching the blood flow out of her body as she slumped on to her kitchen floor. She, looking at me as the life drained from her due to the slashes from the kitchen knife, this, the revenge for my beloved daughter Emma. Although they may not admit to it, I would deify anyone to say they would not at least consider similar measures.
How did this paragon of middle-class stoicism turn into a provincial vigilante? Simple, the light of my life had been killed, not straightaway mind you, that would have been too tidy, but left to suffer and endure incredibly painful surgery. Yet Emma was aware enough to understand that any hopes or plans she had consciously or secretly wished for, would never materialise. After Emma’s ‘accident’ there followed a long period in hospital. This cruel episode would fool us all into thinking that some hope of recovery, however small was possible. But it was not to be; it would all vanish when Emma unexpectedly died. After the death I wanted to meet this woman who had killed my daughter, to confront her, to really hurt her. Lesley Howard had stopped everything on that drunken night and I simply could not continue with my life without challenging her.
A few years back you would have seen a nondescript woman in her early fifties; sensible clothes and untamed hair walking around Waitrose hesitating over all the various items for sale. Or seen me at the weekend pottering about in the garden, as my husband mowed the lawn. The photos of me that my mother kept dusted on her sideboard, showed a smiling but slightly serious looking girl with her shinny hair, clipped over to the side surrounded with other girls of the same ilk, but not a sports team, my wheezy chest prevented that. There is another image of me wearing far too much ghastly makeup at my graduation. The rosy-cheeked girl on Conker, my childhood pony, with a 2nd rosette on the reins hinted to a life to come; traditional, safe and secure-if rather dull, but that was fine by me.
I thought I would endure the conventional old-age; join the WI, be snappy with shop-girls, ponder recipes like the women in my mothers old magazines and ‘put up’ with my husband when he came home, and if the truth be known, I wouldn’t have minded too much. All I can be sure of is that nothing is as it seems, and that you are only as strong as your secrets. Oh, and how did I end up getting a handgun for my birthday while in Texas? The answer is ‘God only knows’. But I will tell you this, not only was I pleased with it, but I held it expertly in my hand that day, recognising how beautiful, how wonderfully balanced and ergonomically faultless it was, plus it fitted in my handbag perfectly!
I did not really love Emma until she was twenty years old, far far too late. When she was a child I did sort of love her, like I sort of loved my husband, but there was no bond until six short months before her accident. Those six months were the happiest of my life and it took that gentle quiet girl to give them to me. It would be another young woman who took them away.
I know now that truth and reality are just what you want or accept them to be. During the journey from falling in love with my daughter to meeting the driver Lesley, I would lose so much; my husband; my home and my self-esteem, yet gain so much in the bargain. I found the inner beauty in Emma that took me totally by surprise; I didn’t know I could feel like that about anyone, nor allow myself such beautiful love. That love enabled me to accept and give love to a man I met in the middle of all that sadness. During that time I discovered a shadowy world I didn’t know existed, it was scary yet useful. But the main thing I would learn was the address of Lesley Howard, even though she was on the prisoner protection programme and had changed her name and address twice.
When I found out the address I was in New York, yes THE New York, the big apple crumble. Me, the middle-aged, middle-class charity-worker, wife and mother of one. Living in a suburban beige-blur of conformity and routine and pretty much resigned to my lot. Our house, waiting in a London suburb, rows and rows of thirties houses standing on tree-line streets. That may sound like I am running it down, not a bit of it. I liked it there. It was convenient for the station, but not so near that you could hear the trains travelling up and down to London every half hour. The house is quiet now, as it should be. All so very peaceful since those loud obnoxious boys next door decided to move. I found out Lesley’s address by email that I picked up from a little Internet café I had noticed by chance while walking in Greenwich Village, and there it was, made out to look like ‘Spam’. It was a shock to receive the information so soon, as I had only requested a search the day before. I saw Lesley’s address was Arizona; I wasn’t too sure how far that was, but did know it was a long way away, which suited me fine.
I carry many images of my daughter Emma around in my head; one is of her during a school sports day. I had of course been helping with the teas with the other mothers, as I am never really feel comfortable unless I am doing something useful, but still I took a break to see Emma run. This lovely leggy girl, a hair slide above her right eye running her heart out, as she looked over to me as she came third. That loving look, asking for love and approval that I didn’t reciprocate until it was nearly too late. The other image I have of Emma is of her laughing, which was such a rare thing for her, stranger still that she was laughing with me in our garage. This was not long before ‘IT’ happened; we had become close, closer than I had been with anyone in my life, including my husband and parents. Thinking of that time, both debilitates and stimulates me, depending on the circumstances of the day, it can go either way. It was an endless video loop of Emma that kept me awake night after night following the accident. I would also picture Lesley; the blond, so gentle and angelic, looking so meek and mild in that photo they always printed in the papers. She does look kind in that photo dressed in her nurses uniform, they could have used that image to raise money for cancer nurses or a children’s charity, I know, I myself used such semiotics at my work place to raise money for the needy. The beautiful shinny blond hair, pulled back away from the face. Soft pale skin, dark straight eyebrows that had never seen tweezers, but it was the eyes that struck you most. Those innocent blue pools, not the eyes of a killer like those dark poker burned holes of Myra Hindley. No, her face was like those representations of the Virgin Mary; Botticelli would have used her as a model.
That face, did it get her a light sentence? Yes I think so; two months and a period in rehab. Two months, what was that-a joke? It is a travesty, an absolute disgrace. My daughter died when I was not there, died alone, is there anything worse? She gave me so much, we became friends, but for such a
short time. Before I talk of other things, I want to tell you this; not long after my daughter had been admitted to the hospital both her hands were amputated. This is something I would not wish on any child or parent to experience. When I get to that part in this story, stay with it and be strong, Emma was.
If all this had not happened, my daughter Emma would have been enjoying her new life, travelling around her beloved America, ready to take up one of the offers of employment that had come from the States. Emma had so much potential; we never knew she had it until it was far too late. My husband Kenneth and I thought she would end up in a dreary office or perhaps even, and ironically, a nurse. We had no idea what lay inside her, and to be fair, nor did she. It was only much later that she found something inside that only she could inherently see. Unlike most people, she was able to translate her beautiful thoughts and ideas into art. When these images were framed, printed in a magazine or projected onto the side of a large building, we could only gasp.
Back then in New York, having found out Lesley’s address I was happy to know where she was, out there in the baking heat of Arizona, it pleased me that she didn’t know that I knew. I wanted to hurt her some way. I knew she was in hiding, nobody knew where she was, she thought she could disappear. I wanted her neighbours and community to know who she was, drive her out to hide again, after I had dealt with her that is.
6996 Grasshopper Drive, Foothills, North Tucson, Arizona. At least I knew now where I was going, but there in New York I would fulfil a promise to Emma to live her dream, to visit the places she would not go; visit the Art galleries in New York, the wide open spaces and big cities promised to her before her fall. This trip would be very different-I didn’t even speak American-who does?
