A Cleansing of Souls Read online

  Sandy wept in the front of the car. She could not think. The pain in her body drew a cloud over reality, making it vague and indistinct. Her boyfriend. Tom was her boyfriend. That was good. That was what she wanted. And then she heard that laugh again. Tom’s laugh. It had lasted no more than two seconds but it rang in her head now, over and over, that laugh - that obsequious laugh of ignorance.

  She looks over now to where Tom is being carried to an ambulance. But he isn’t there at all. Not really. He is lying peaceful and serene on a huge football pitch somewhere far away, just lying there, lost in naked wonder.

  Chapter 11

  George awoke to the sound of a digging machine. He tried to drag himself back to sleep, but the low rumbling noise would not let up. During the night, the first rain had fallen for what seemed like months, breaking free from the sky and spattering the dark houses. George had stayed awake for a while just listening to it against the window, transfixed by its rhythm.

  Drinking his morning coffee, the remnants of any routine he may once have had, he stared at the linoleum and thought of his wife and of his son. The stain on the floor had taunted him in recent days and he had taken to just looking at it, praying that one morning it would transform itself into some message of hope. But it never changed, not even for a tantalising second.

  The noise outside grew before subsiding again for a brief moment, only to return again with greater ferocity. George moved to the window to see what was happening. It appeared that someone had ruptured a pipe. A stream of water was being pumped along the side of the road, gushing over the broken tarmac. A van from the Water Board pulled up and a man attached to a clipboard stepped smartly out.

  “When it rains, it pours,” said the man to nobody in particular. “When it rains, it pours.”

  George continued to watch the scene unfurl through the window. The workmen were an eclectic assembly of people, all sizes and all ages. Their clothes were befittingly besmirched and their hair was dishevelled beneath their protective hats. They wore strong boots more suited to climbing than walking and each of their faces hinted at untold hardships.

  When the men became aware of the man with the clipboard, they made no effort to acknowledge him. They merely continued talking amongst themselves in a relaxed, easy fashion, taking time every now and then to stare into space, focusing on something indiscernible far off in the distance.

  One of the men was sitting on the kerb looking at a newspaper, a curious grin scrawled upon his face as if he had only just that moment understood the punch line to a joke that had been told to him some years previously. He stopped short of laughing but clearly shook with joy.

  Another man was leaning upon a spade, his heavy forearms crossed on the handle. Determination oozed from his craggy rock face features. This was just one more road. I’ve seen worse than this. Back in sixty-seven when Tommy Halloran and me worked on that tunnel, now that was tough. Any moment now, a photographer will arrive on the scene and take a picture of this man for a book that nobody will read. Or maybe a party of schoolchildren, led by a thoroughly disconsolate teacher, will gather round and take notes on stained paper. And they will entitle their essay The Statue and The Spade.

  One of the older workmen was looking at the flowers in a front garden on the other side of the road. The early summer weather had been unkind to the blooms and the overnight rain had done little as yet to revive them. He peered at them with expert eyes, leaning over a low wall, assessing them, appreciating them. Suddenly, a net curtain was jerked upwards to reveal cold grey eyes and a manicured hand. The workman turned silently away to re-join his colleagues.

  George saw all this through his window.

  The man from the Water Board walked up and down the road, surveying the destruction, paying little heed to the men about him. He wrote something down on his clipboard, murmured to himself, and drove off again in his little white van.

  George drew back from the window. For seven years now, he had been out of work. He would have toiled sixteen hours a day to mend that road, to make it smooth and right again. He would not have needed any sort of break. He would have accepted minimal wages, or maybe even none at all. And he would have done the work of a hundred men. If he had died on that road, it would have been a graceful and a meaningful death; far removed from this ignominious death that daily stalked him. Just give me a chance. That is all I ask.

  All across the country, my country, there are people hating, despising every minute of their working day. Moan. Complain. Gossip. Deceive. Pettiness. Pettiness. He doesn’t like me, she doesn’t like me, look at him late again, fume, steam, stagger beneath the weight of your one-eyed view. Oh how indispensable I am.

  Bollocks.

  To work is a luxury greater than gold.

  George would have valued every second at work. For he knew what it was like to be without it. Familiarity with desolation and despair is the greatest incentive for dedication just as the man about to be executed has at that moment the greatest thirst for life’s waters. But only the lonely and the deprived understand this, truly understand it. The man behind the huge desk with the pen in his hand understands only the huge desk and the pen in his hand. And that is the greatest sadness of all.

  So the workmen faded away and George left for Big Town to search for his son.

  Well, Ron, so Michael is safe now. He has been found. So where does that leave you?

  We all have moments that we feel are pivotal yet, so often, all we can do is to stand back and await the outcome in fear and cold sweat. Control is beyond us yet it is our very future that is at stake. Fear is strange, Ron - it comes and goes, it nips at us and then just slips back into the shadows, only to return again for more. I hope you are afraid, Ron. You should be.

  Michael sat in a small room, an empty chair either side of him and a desk in front of him. The faded paint of the magnolia walls was cracked and peeling. A thin layer of transparent plastic covered each window. It was neither warm nor cold. It was almost like being in a void – a quiet room in the midst of perceived madness. Michael had time to think, though he knew it would do him no good. “I am yours now, father,” he whispered to himself, smiling a salt-water smile that would have broken your heart.

  A man and a woman entered the room. The man sat beside Michael on the left and the woman sat behind the desk. She arranged some papers before her, took a pen from her pocket and looked across at Michael.

  “You are Michael Parrish?” she asked, her accent strongly Germanic. She had short blonde hair and a pale, pretty face.

  Michael leaned forward in his chair and clasped both hands together before looking up at the woman with those eyes of his. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

  “I am Dr Muller. I work for Dr Chesney. This is a Psychiatric Hospital and this,” she added, nodding towards the man seated beside Michael, “this is John. He is one of the nurses on the ward.”

  Michael turned and smiled at John and nodded.

  “I am going to ask you some questions, Mr Parrish, and John will be making notes.”

  Dr Muller looked at Michael for some sign that he understood. No such sign was forthcoming, so she continued anyway.

  “So, Mr Parrish, can you tell me what has been happening with you lately? What has brought you here to us?”

  Michael paused before answering, reflecting upon the tone of the question and the delicate features of this lovely Doctor. “It was meant to happen,” he said at last. “I was waiting for them. They came. And here I am.”

  “When you say ‘they’, could you tell us who ‘they’ are?”

  “The two Policemen who brought me here. I’m afraid I don’t know their names.”

  Dr Muller sought out John with a quizzical look.

  “Came in on a 136. ASW saw him an hour ago.”

  “And he wasn’t Sectioned?”

  “No. He agreed to an informal admission apparently,” replied John, shrugging.

  Dr Muller nodded.

  “Yes, fine. So, Mr
Parrish, why were you brought here to us? Do you know?”

  “I am just playing my humble part,” replied Michael. He paused before continuing. “As are we all.”

  “Mr Parrish, if you’ll forgive me, I have not met you before. I do not know your case. Perhaps we can start with some more basic information? How do you feel in your mood?”

  “Very well thank you.”

  “Do you feel low at all, what may be termed as ‘depressed’?”

  “No, no I don’t.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Relieved, I think. Yes, relieved.”

  “Do you know where you are now?”

  “I am in hospital.”

  “Do you know which hospital?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. I’m not from this area.”

  Dr Muller looked at John before looking back at Michael.

  “John will talk to you about that when we’ve finished Mr Parrish. If you could just answer a few more questions for me? Do you sometimes see or hear things that other people can’t, visions, voices, anything like that?”

  Michael sat there serene. They had come for him. He looked into Dr Muller’s eyes and allowed his own to sparkle, dance with them for a moment.

  “Mr Parrish, have you ever heard voices, suffered from hallucinations?” repeated Dr Muller. She had been on duty for sixteen hours and now here comes this man, out of area, smiling at her as if it were she that was being questioned.

  “I hear just one voice, that of my father. I see just one vision, that of my sister. And soon I will be back with them both.”

  “Fine,” said the Doctor, writing as she listened, ready to conclude the interview now. She was getting tired. Dr Chesney could do some work for a change. “I just need to ask you, Mr Parrish, do you have any thoughts of harming yourself or anyone else?”

  Michael closed his eyes. His life had been long and hard. When he finally spoke, his voice was jaded, weary and much quieter, barely audible. Dr Muller had to lean forward in order to fully hear what he said.

  “I talk with souls. I listen to hearts. I have no body. Neither do you, nor does this fine young man beside me. We are all floating in this space people call life. It is not for us to hurt each other. We accept and we go on. That is the way to peace. Accept and go on.”

  Dr Muller and John exchanged knowing glances. He’ll be fine. No problem.

  “One last thing, Mr Parrish,” said Dr Muller, looking up. “Those marks on your face, how did they happen?”

  “They will be gone soon.”

  Dr Muller signed the assessment sheet. Michael was struck then by how young she looked. Ah, Jennifer, soon I will hold you again.

  “Mr Parrish, I would like you to stay in hospital for a few days. It seems that you have been having a difficult time recently. You need a rest. You will be seen by Dr Chesney the day after tomorrow.”

  She stood up to shake his hand. He stood up also. And that was when she noticed the wound in the centre of his palm. “What happened to your hand, Mr Parrish? Is that recent? You may need a tetanus injection for that. I shall write you up for some medication anyway.”

  “That happened a long time ago,” replied Michael, calmly. “It just bleeds when it needs to. Please don’t worry about me. I am in good hands.”

  Dr Muller left the room, acutely aware that there were only another four hours before she could lie in her lonely bed and think of nothing at all.

  So, Ron, nothing has come out yet. But it will. Don’t worry mate.

  And Laura sits in her room with her toys and her dolls and her teddy bears, just gazing at them, willing them to come to life.

  George walked through the streets of Big Town, looking for Tom. He wandered aimlessly, following no map, no plan, trusting now only to miracles. Tom could have walked right in front of his very path and George would not have seen him. It just felt right to keep walking, keep moving. His eyes scoured the ground before him as if that were the best place to start.

  And as he looked upon the ground, he saw depravity. For the first time in his life, he was brought within touching distance of victims. He saw young boys cowering beneath cardboard, their faces blotched and marked, their hair greasy, lank, and itching. There were not just three or four of them, but hundreds and hundreds. Boys and girls, though he could barely tell the difference, Tom’s age and younger, lying there, looking at the sky, feeling its distance.

  Before becoming unemployed, George had known little of the outcasts of his country. He had believed in the ethos of work. Toil is rewarded, sloth rejected. This had been his philosophy. But now he was beginning to perceive an extraneous influence, a force against which there is no answer – not hard work, not honesty, nor, perhaps, even innocence. No answer at all. And it made him quake. He walked through the children, the men, the women, young and old, and the air was filled with smells, sounds and visions, filled with an atmosphere he had never known before and would surely never forget.

  Don’t talk to me of numbers and figures.

  Show me your comfortable heart.

  Show me your comfortable soul.

  And let me sleep upon your conscience.

  George returned home just before midnight and sat at the kitchen table. He made himself a drink, took a cloth, wet it, and wiped up the coffee stain from the floor.

  Tom, I love you so much.

  I will look for you tomorrow and forever.

  There was courage within George now, as there is courage within all of us. He slept for just four hours before returning to the shattered streets of Big Town.

  Chapter 12

  Tom was discharged from the hospital ward the day after the assault in the high street. They had kept him in overnight for observations. He had been slightly concussed and had suffered bruising to his ribs and his back. Sandy had stayed with him for as long as visiting hours had permitted and she was there to meet him the next morning when it was time for him to leave.

  Sandy had spent the night alone, aching and bruised but not wanting any of her cuts seen to. She had just wanted to get home, have a bath and be taken by sleep - but Tom’s absence had burned into her. It is so easy to become accustomed to the presence of another. You are drawn in despite yourself. It is a trick of life; it is some kind of magic that controls you entirely. You see things differently. You begin to dream, compromise, justify and before you know it, that other person has become a part of you and you a part of them. But in her mind as she had tried to sleep that night, all Sandy heard was Tom’s laugh, that momentary, instinctive laugh that made her shiver every time.

  That laugh had cut her like a hefty blade, scything through her cocoon of emotions; that haven in which her love for Tom had been so secretly nurtured. Justify, compromise, and dream. She could not reconcile her view of him with the way he behaved. Her father had always taught her not to pass criticism on that which she did not understand. So she would wait until she saw him again, until he was back in her flat.

  “Do you want to lie down?” she asked him as they both sat together on the settee.

  “I’ll be all right, thank you. I feel like I’ve been lying down for a week.”

  His voice was quiet and detached, subdued in tone, strained.

  Tom had been doing some reflecting too. He had been thrown from one situation to another on some turbulent sea upon whose surface he had striven vainly to walk. He had allowed it to take him. He knew now that he was heading for the bottom, to the depths of his own ocean.

  Please teach me how to float. Give me time - time to learn. That is all I ask.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  They sat beside each other in silence. But it had to break. There was too much to be said for it to last.

  “Tom,” said Sandy, continuing to gaze at the opposite wall, “why did you laugh with them?”

  Tom breathed deeply. What could he say? He knew the question was coming. It had been on his mind from the moment he had awoken in that sharp, w
hite hospital that morning. He couldn’t even look at her.

  “What do you mean?” he murmured.

  “Those people when they said those things about me. And you laughed. Why did you laugh?”

  It is time now for you to come down from the stage, Tom. Take your bow and return to yourself, your true self. Follow your heart again. Go to your soul.

  He turned to look at her. She did not acknowledge him. As she stared forward, he allowed his eyes to imbibe of her beauty for she was indeed beautiful. He saw that now. And she was beginning to shake a little.

  “Look,” he said at last, unable to take his eyes of her, “I don’t know why I laughed. All I can think is that I was just scared and it just sort of came out. I was a fucking idiot. I know how it must have looked.” He sighed now before continuing. “Last night, I was thinking what I’ve turned into, the things that have happened to me and the things I’ve done, not just recently, for a while now. Like I said, I’m just some fucking idiot, just some fucking idiot chasing something that isn’t there and hurting good people along the way. Sandy, I’m lost, mate. Fucked. I’m sorry.”

  She turned to him now and he saw at last the tears upon her face. He felt stranded, naked and vulnerable. He was a child in a strange, strange world. So he reached for her. And she reached for him. They held one another and each accepted the tears of the other in silence.

  They stayed sitting there, entwined, for three hours. Neither spoke nor moved. The touch and the warmth of another human being can wash away pain and reconcile loss like nothing else. In that embrace, there was safety and dreams and fear and longing.

  And the moon peered through the window, gazed in solemnity at the scene, and could not tear itself away.

  Michael sat in his room, eyes deep in the past. There was no present and the future was only days away. They had given him some medication to help him sleep the night before and its effects clung to him still. He felt weary and listless. The room comprised of just a bed and a locker. The floor was grey and the walls a pale yellow. Light filtered through the single window and reflected the outline of the frame onto the tile floor, a mirror of light there before him. It was a subtle, enticing gateway out of there, out of everywhere. But it was not the one for which he was waiting.