“That sounds like fun. I wish I could go there,” Josh continued, all the time wondering how he was going to explain all this to his wife.
“I’m sorry daddy, but he can never take you there because you never hear him talk. He can easily speak to me whereas he has to constantly invade your dreams with different pictures, and lately you’ve been ignoring him.” Ben shook his head with disapproval. “Daddy, how many times does he have to show you his black diary?” the little boy admonished. “So yesterday he told me to speed things up. Oops, he told me not to tell you anything in front of mummy because she would not understand.” Ben quickly looked at his mother and hid his eyes with his hands.
Josh laughed and pulled his tiny hands down, “That’s not true. You had every intention of letting your mother overhear the conversation. Did grandpa plan this little act with you?”
Ben giggled and shrugged, “I just don’t want you to leave us. Rob will be very unkind to us. Grandpa said that if mummy knew the truth, she would not let you leave and you always do whatever she says. I was too late to stop that man from hurting mummy but I’ll do what it takes to stop you from going. From now on I will change every little thing that I don’t like. Will you look for the black diary and explain things to her before you go?” Ben asked anxiously as he eagerly waited for a reassurance from his father.
This was one shocking revelation after another. His son had first seen his mother being tortured and raped and then saw his father abandoning them all. Josh could have no secrets from him. He had just been outsmarted by a little boy and a scheming dead father-in-law. He had to smile.
“I’ll do what grandpa says and I’ll find the diary. I will not go without explaining, I promise.” Josh watched his son happily dive into the sea as he deliberately splashed water all over his sister. He did not seem stressed out like he himself had been when he was his age. Ben was just worried about his father leaving, but once reassured, he reverted back to his usual happy confident self, laughing and playing with his sane sister and brother. Perhaps the mere knowledge that his father possessed the same weird genes would make him feel more normal.
“You should not encourage him to live in this fantasy world with imaginary friends,” Maria reproached her husband when Ben was out of earshot. “It’s not normal. It’s not healthy.”
“It’s not fantasy, and please do not let him hear you talk that way. You should never look shocked when he tells you these things. You will crush his confidence. You heard what he said, he is already thinking that he is a freak. The last thing he needs is his mother calling him one.”
“Well, I have to have a word with him and explain things since it is obvious that you will do nothing about it. You are his father and you should correct him if he is wrong and not fuel these absurd stories. You have to be cruel to be kind. I really think that you should back me on this. The things he said are not normal,” Maria insisted again.
“Will you stop saying that? You don’t understand, you don’t know what is normal.” He was angry now; not being normal was the root of all his childhood insecurities.
“Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that my dad is speaking to my son and husband in their dreams. Oh sorry I forgot, he doesn’t speak to you but shows you a series of pictures, he only holds detailed conversations with my son. That is really ridiculous.”
“How else could he have known about Cave Grande?”
“He might easily have read it in a book; he is reading adult books now. He must also have read something on paranormal stuff and so he thought of my father. His weird detailed description of what Freddie did to me really creeped me out. He could only have got that from some horror book. His imagination must have combined with what he overheard. Two-year-olds are not meant to be reading adult stuff. I have to restrict the books he chooses because their content might not be appropriate for his age.”
“Do you ever wonder why I seem to predict things every time? I knew that you would get yourself into trouble and hence I hired Marco. I knew about Murren and I flew there and planned everything to the last detail. I knew that my hands would be tied with a rope and that we would be imprisoned in this cellar so I took gadgets to help me counteract these problems. I even knew that you would be bleeding heavily and arranged for a medical team to commence their treatment immediately.”
“That was surely all speculation; I could easily have done that myself. I really don’t want to discuss this any further, it’s weird and creepy and the bottom line is that I don’t want my son stuffing his head with such nonsense. Please drop it. I’ll have a word with him myself. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.”
“Can you just listen to me for once in your life?” Josh raised his voice in anger and punched the sand with his fist. He saw her eyes widen with shock and he softened up, “Listen, you don’t have to believe any of this, but please never tell our son that it is not normal. Stay out of it. Let him be and I will handle it all myself.”
He got up and was about to stomp away but then he turned again. “I need to have a look at your father’s books and diaries.” He saw her frown at him as she prepared her rebuke. But he interjected swiftly and curtly. “I don’t want to hear your opinion on it. You always make things so much more difficult for me and I am the one who has to sort out the mess you create every time. I can tell you that it’s taking a lot out of me. Trust me for once. I don’t have to remind you of what happened the last time you disregarded my warnings.” He looked at her coldly as his eyes slowly travelled down to her hidden scars.
Her face twisted in agony at his reminder and her hand flew over her mutilated abdomen. She could see that he was very emotional and angry. She was frightened by his cold stare because he hardly ever lost his temper with her. She looked down and mumbled humbly, “Max has all of dad’s things in his basement. I never kept anything; it was too painful a reminder. We can go and have a look now if you like. Max won’t mind.”
Josh took a deep breath, “I’m sorry Maria, I really did not want to snap. I did tell you once that I wanted all my kids to have sane minds like yours, but you thought it brilliant that our son has this photographic memory thing. There is more to it than that. Sometimes it can be extremely painful and I want to help Ben through those painful moments. I think it is time to tell you all about my greatest secret, something I did not fully understand until quite recently. There is a reason why I did certain things that have hurt you so much, such as the surveillance camera and the contraceptive pill. Perhaps you would believe me if you read what your father wanted to say to me in his black diary.”
He picked his baby daughter up and headed straight back to her brother’s house. He handed the sleeping Sarah to Julie who was waiting for their return in the lounge, and then he went straight up to their bedroom. He leaned his head against the window, hoping that the cool glass would erase his painful throbbing headache. He was not ready for this, but he could no longer hide things from her, for his son’s sake. This was his last secret. He would explain everything to her and then wait for her decision. He watched her as she walked slowly towards the house, holding Ben’s tiny hand, her face grave. Then she looked up and their eyes met. She smiled.
She came up to their room some fifteen minutes later, holding the key to the basement. “The kids are having their dinner, let’s go and see what my dad wants you to know. You can explain it to me very slowly and I promise I will listen even though this is very confusing to me. I love Ben and I will never consciously hurt him anymore than I want to hurt you. Please forgive my comments, they were said in ignorance and fear.”
He slowly turned round to face her and nodded, “Let’s get this over and done with.”
They had no trouble locating the box full of her father’s old books and belongings. It was Maria who first spotted an old black diary. It was labelled Josh Blake. She gave it to him without a word. Josh opened it and saw that it contained entries and details of his trips to the psychiatrist as a child. An envelo
pe slipped out of the notebook. It was sealed and addressed to him. He tore it open and started reading.
My dear Josh,
If you are reading this, it means that you have rescued my daughter from an early death. I thank you profoundly for this. If on the other hand you are not Josh, then please forgive these ruminations of an insane man who thinks that he had a glimpse into his future.
Eight months ago my wife told me that she was pregnant with our second child. I was suddenly plagued by the inexplicable images of a young woman brutally raped and killed in a deserted park. However hard I tried I could never shake off that strong premonition. These images always fragmented to show me a five-year-old boy reading challenging books and secretly writing his name on them, and I knew that I had to look for a gifted five-year-old Josh Blake in the States.
I was prepared to cross the globe in search of this one boy, the key to my daughter’s survival. My wife trusted my judgement and we packed our bags and left Sicily without a second thought. It was easy finding you. You were always top of your class but you were also so sad and alone, not really fitting in, with no one to understand you. I persuaded your nanny that I might help you with finding your true potential. She recognised your impressive memory skills but did not see beyond them, no one ever does. They only see good grades and achievements but never the heartache and burden the sixth sense brings with it.
A part of me still hoped that my dreams about my daughter’s untimely death were just common fears that any father would have for one’s children, but then you experienced those same dreams and many more when you met my pregnant wife. We have discussed your dreams and we have tried to make sense out of the jumbled disjointed pieces, but I know that time was not a luxury we had at our disposal.
Our sessions have come to an end. My wife wants to move back to Europe. Perhaps if we leave the States and start a new life elsewhere, my daughter will never have to go to that park, but then I will know that she will miss out on a great and happy future with you. I know that my departure has destroyed what I tried to build these past few months, your self-esteem. But Josh, please believe this, people will love you for your honest transparent character and for nothing else, not for your wealth, fame or polished exterior. Having been neglected by your parents does not mean that you are not worth loving. You have to remember this sometime in the future when you will desperately need to hold on to it.
The theory that I have to offer is this; there are fixed paths in our future. This is destiny. The ability to sense it is present in everyone, hence the presence of unexplained premonitions like my brief glimpse into my daughter’s fate. Most would brush it aside and they would happily race down the path that was paved out by destiny. Others, like myself, will try to make sense out of the little information they have.
And then there are the select few, like yourself, who can see it clearly and in large enough chunks so as to make proper sense out of it. But that knowledge can be devastating. The good moments lose their element of surprise, that ingredient that makes them so special. And the bad ones haunt your existence preventing you from living your life to the fullest. Those are the burdens that you will have to carry.
But not all is doom and gloom. Your path will never be fixed in stone because you have the ability to tweak it if not change it, and in so doing you open different opportunities for yourself and influence those of the people around you. You can choose to ignore my plea to go to the park and my daughter will go down her own fixed path, her own destiny, and the morgue dream will materialize. On the other hand once you help my daughter in that park, your futures will become entwined and there is no going back. Anything that happens after that will be part of that new path you have created and you should not blame yourself for it. Without the bad bits there cannot be the beautiful moments that I know are so special in your life.
Changing those terrifying bits would again depend on sheer willpower but if anyone can do it, it would be you. You will have to fight destiny time and time again. I know that you can open new possibilities when everything else seems hopeless. Believe in your abilities. Leaving is never the right option; it will destroy all of you. What you think would be the safest path could be the most destructive.
And this is the purpose of this note. If opened at the right opportune moment it will help you make the right choices and not go down paths which I think were never meant to be trodden on.
But the world is your oyster and whatever you decide to do, I send my sincere wishes for your happiness.
Paulo Conti.
PS. You will never be my worst nightmare. I could not have wished for a better person to accompany my only daughter through her path in life.
Impossible Decisions
Josh stared at the letter. So the kind psychiatrist had sought out the five-year-old Josh for a reason, it had not been a mere coincidence. Apparently he had predicted his daughter’s grim fate but the most he could do was to seek out someone who could change it. And he had done what any loving father would have done, instantly give up his comfortable life in Sicily and travel across the globe in search of that one person. In a way he had managed to tweak destiny himself because Josh was positive that if the psychiatrist had not intervened and everything had been left to take its natural course, his path would never have crossed Maria’s.
For a start, the park and morgue dreams had only haunted him after he had met the doctor, and he had seen those first scenes in their raw unchanged form. The psychiatrist had desperately urged him to concentrate hard to alter the park dream and so annihilate the subsequent morgue dream. He had almost bullied him into opening alternative routes for the girl. Josh had focussed hard all night with good effect, and from that point on fresh dreams from the newly created path started to emerge. She was no longer lifeless and lying on a cold morgue table, but alive and happy, sharing her life with him. Her father wanted and approved of her new future despite all the dangers that would sprout up further along the way. He had never wanted Josh to leave his daughter even after he had saved her life in the park. He had even encouraged the deception with the oral contraceptives.
Maria was staring at him, expecting him to say something, but no words sprang to mind. How could he possibly explain all this? He gave her the letter and turned his back on her, intently looking out of the small window. He watched the waves gently breaking into white foam as they hit the coastline and he waited patiently for her to digest the contents of the letter.
“Ok,” she finally said. “It seems as though you have this sixth sense which comes part and parcel with your photographic memory.”
“And apparently your father had it too in its rudimentary form. Just like Ben, who I think is better than either one of us as he had the ability to pick out the best genes for this freak show.” He still had his back to her and he continued to study the waves crashing on the coastline.
“Hey, don’t say that. Please forgive my previous comments, I didn’t know that this could actually happen and I still don’t understand it. But at least I know that I am on the path my dad had wanted me to follow.”
“With a little bit of manipulation from me. I sometimes wonder if you would have married me at all if you hadn’t been pregnant with the twins....”
“Josh, like my father said, you have to start believing that there are people in this world who love you for who you are.” And she circled her arms around his waist and rested her head against his back. But he still did not look convinced. Constantly reassuring him often wore her down and left her feeling frustrated, so she shrugged and gave up like she often did. “Tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”
He turned round to face her, “During your father’s six-month stay in the States I started to have vivid dreams with you in them and they gave a pretty good outline of how my life would be with you in it. But I was a five-year-old boy and when your father moved away I locked everything up as if that period in my life had never existed. The first time I saw you on the escalator in that
bookshop I had this overwhelming sensation that you were that vital missing part of my life and that I would be very happy with you. But I did not know if you were someone from my past life, if I ever had one, or my future. I had not learnt to decipher my feelings. Perhaps I had suppressed them too much as a child. I had always been able to sense the future but I thought I could only achieve that because I was so observant and I had tried to dismiss any thoughts that I was even capable of such things.” He paused.
“Maria, do you remember I told you that I went to the park because I had dreamt about this man who I strongly believed to be my father? Well, I did not know at the time, but the man was actually your father who had been invading my dreams to beg me to go to that park. Of course I had not recognised him as the psychiatrist because he looked much older, and secondly, I had firmly locked up that period of my life. I waited there for two days expecting to meet him, but then you came along. I recognised you as the girl in the bookstore but I did not make the connection between the man in my dreams and you until I saw his photo in your hallway.”
“That was why you looked so shattered the day you came to my apartment, you had just realised that you had been seeing a dead man in your dreams.”
He nodded. “When the thugs shoved you into my arms that day in the park, that weird feeling of familiarity got stronger. I wanted to get to the bottom of things and I persuaded you to spend more time with me. All throughout those first two weeks I kept having dreams, all with you in them, some good, others terrifying. Sometimes I could see our children in them too. I thought that I was a complete nutter and I dismissed everything as the product of an overactive imagination. But as I got to know you I was positively sure about one thing; that I could not bear to have a future without you. I could see two options for me; one was to let you go back to Rob and I would continue with my meaningless and empty life, or I could fight to win your affection. I did feel that the second option would be dangerous for you but I still chose to fight.”
The Blake Soul Page 25
