A Cleansing of Souls Page 16

  She had loved the way he put his arm around her waist, squeezing it every now and then with his strong hand. And she had absolutely adored it when he would meet her outside school and pick her up in his car and his suit, hair slicked back and shoes as shiny as ebony.

  The young man with whom she was in love was generous and kind. He would look after her brother too. He cared for them both in a way. And that made him even more special. But if she needed love, she knew her brother was in even greater need. They had been so close, the brother and the sister. She would look up at her brother, he being older, but she knew how he cherished her. He had once told her that she was an angel, pure and clean and untouched, soft and beautiful. And she had laughed.

  During the summer, just before her fifteenth year, Jennifer and her man grew closer together. Ah, Michael, it was so hard for you, wasn’t it? To see your angel float away from you to another, to touch humanity in so base a fashion?

  I love him, Michael.

  I love him.

  Michael leaves.

  Jennifer’s man arrives.

  They are in the woods now, walking with one another. Thatched branches mottle the air into an intricate, woven roof of nature. It is strangely warm here beneath this canopy of dry trees. The ground is hard, dusty and unforgiving.

  I have been waiting for you. Did you have a good morning at work? That’s good. When have you got to be back? An hour with you is eternity. I do love you, Ron. Yes, we can go over there if you want. Aren’t those trees beautiful? Those tiny twigs -and how old that bark is! This is an amazing place, isn’t it? Have you been here before? I’m not surprised you came back to it. It’s like a little corner of Heaven.

  Your hands feel cold. Are you cold? Do you want me to warm them for you? Of course I will. There, that’s better. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down somewhere softer? This ground is quite hard. If I’d have known we were going to rest, we could have brought that blanket from out of your car. Then now I’m sitting down, it doesn’t feel so hard after all. When you pull me into your chest like this, Ron, I feel so safe. I feel that nobody can hurt me. Especially when you wear your suit. It’s strange, but when you wear your suit, I feel so grown up.

  I can hear the birds up there. Do you think they are watching us? They sing so sweetly, don’t they? You’re very quiet, Ron. Are you feeling okay? I can hear your heartbeat when we lie down like this. I could stay here all day. If we close our eyes, I wonder if we could wish ourselves somewhere, anywhere, and just be in that place together, just the two of us forever. What would it look like, that place? Would it be fields and meadows or a desert island somewhere or a small boat adrift on a bright blue sea? I wouldn’t care where it was, I don’t think, just so long as I was with you, Ron.

  When you hold me to you and kiss me I feel weak and light. You control me with your arms and your strength. You seem so much bigger than me as I lie here on my back, looking up at you. I don’t think of the earth beneath me or the sky above me. I just look at you and you are all I really see. Angels could come flying down from Heaven. A thousand people could walk by and I would not see them. You don’t know what you do to me, Ron.

  This is like a fairy tale for me. I suppose you would be my hero. You are my hero. If I were to tell you all I thought of you, night would fall before I was even half way through. And as I look up at you, knowing that your lips will soon meet mine, I have to close my eyes, for then I can hear your breath, your heartbeat, smell you and sense you. When I close my eyes in these moments, just before you kiss me, I experience all of you with all senses other than sight. For with my eyes closed, I see you still. You don’t notice the way I stare at you sometimes when you’re not looking. I could draw you exactly; paint a picture of you from my memory tomorrow or a hundred years from now.

  And I, lying there, eyes closed, wait for you.

  I love these moments. When we are married, we can make love and I cannot wait for that time. Oh to be your wife, your lover. Just to kiss you and have you embrace me satisfies me like nothing else. For now. It satisfies me more than I could imagine, for it does not destroy my dreams. You are so strong. I love these moments. Waiting for your touch. Waiting for your kiss.

  I lie here still.

  I wait for you still.

  And I open my eyes now, unsure.

  And then I see you.

  You stand over me; looking down. Your face is strange, dark. Maybe it’s a shadow, a passing shadow. There is some sort of darkness about you. I can’t really see your eyes at the moment. And you have such lovely eyes. And I realise now, in my naïve way, as I take my eyes from your face, that you are naked.

  I hear the birds a little now. I see some of the sky too. A picture is forming around you, a picture of beauty, natural beauty as you come down to me. Your legs are astride me now. You are sitting upon my stomach. You feel heavy and I struggle for breath for a moment. You don’t seem to notice this. You don’t look right at all.

  I try to say something but your lips are on mine before I get the chance. They feel rough and hard. Not like usual. And then I realise you haven’t shaved. You always shave, Ron. And you’re moving your body around as if you are trying to escape from it - your naked body. I feel the sharpness of small stones and sticks jabbing at me through the back of my dress. You bought me this dress. It was the first thing you ever bought me, Ron. I still can’t talk. I think my lip is bleeding. My breath does not seem to be my own. You control even that.

  I think I am scared now. Things are becoming blurred. This is either going really fast or really slowly. I don’t know. Time seems to mean nothing. There are movements and none of them are mine. My eyes are closed tight. Whether I open them or close them, it makes no difference.

  You’ve ripped my dress down the front. I could not hear the tear though above this strange noise you are making. I can just feel that it is torn. You’re grunting like an animal. Your nails are scratching me. I don’t know if you mean it or not. Your hands are rough. I think the skin on my back is touching the dirt now. And I think it’s bleeding. This is hurting me now. And still I cannot make a sound. The birds are singing. I think I can hear them singing.

  My body is on the ground. You are on top of me. You put your hand down my knickers. Your fingers are inside me. I feel like I am being stabbed. I have gone numb. And then for a moment you stop, stop only to pull down my knickers.

  You are fucking me now. You are fucking me. So that’s it. You are fucking me now. Fucked by you. I am letting you do this to me.

  That is my body down there. My dress is torn. There are scratches and bruises all over me. I ache already.

  I think you are finished now. I still cannot open my eyes.

  Yes, you are finished. I cannot hear you breathing anymore.

  At last, my eyes are open. You are standing there, leaning against a tree, dressed, and smoking a cigarette. I didn’t know you smoked.

  Fourteen years old.

  Jennifer had lain in those woods, not moving. In truth, though, she was not there at all. Was she in a field, a meadow, on a raft, or washed up on a desert island? Who knows? Ron had looked at his watch, walked over to her, helped her up and led her back to his car. Intent on not being late for work, he had dropped her off at the bus stop outside his office and sauntered back in to sit behind his ever-expanding desk.

  And what of Jennifer? What had she done? Well, she had gone home, changed, checked her purse and bought three packets of headache tablets and a can of coke. She had sat in her room, the room that Ron had rented for her and Michael, just sat there and took one tablet after another, the drink breaking up the chalky taste in her mouth. It had taken her almost half an hour to swallow all the tablets and each minute of that time, she thought of the mother she barely remembered, of bright places and of when she was a small child, playing and dancing and singing and living. As each tablet sank to her stomach, so her courage grew. It had seemed so straightforward, so easy. Living is not everything, not to the person who wants to
die. Shatter me and break me. But let me kill myself.

  And Michael had come in late that evening, after meeting his friend, Ron, and going to the pictures with him. He had come in to find his angel dead on the bed. She had changed into her pyjamas and had still been ever so slightly warm when he had touched her. His little sister was dead. His angel was gone, away and free to float above in his sky and in his dreams, to sail through his veins, to dance to the beating of his heart. His angel was dead.

  Time passes. Trees grow old and seasons change. We are years on now.

  “I’ve left Michael Parrish’s old notes in the drawer for you, John,” said the ward clerk, motioning at the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. John was in the middle of another long day and his reactions were slowing. Before he could indicate his thanks to her, she had retreated from the madness back into her computer and her telephone.

  Several hours later, long after the ward clerk had gone home, John looked at the clock on the wall and willed the seconds on. The ward had settled down a little, he had drunk as much coffee as he could and his body craved a real drink. He had done all the writing he needed to do; it was just a matter now of waiting for the night staff to come in and hoping nothing else happened on the ward in which he needed to get involved. So he decided to look at the file that had arrived from the hospital that had looked after Michael at the age of seventeen.

  The file was of a light blue colour with black writing on the front indicating the name of the patient, the date of admission and the date of discharge. Michael had been there for ten months. Not bad for a seventeen year old, thought John. He looked through to try and find some information about how things had gone back then. The writing in the notes was akin to that found on some fifteenth century pamphlet, ancient, scrawled, faded and intriguing. However he looked at it, John could not decipher too much of the scrawl with any consistency. So he looked at the back of the notes for any typed letters or a summary of the admission, a discharge letter perhaps. And then he found, in rounded schoolgirl writing, the admission notes, those written by the nurse the day the patient arrived on the ward.

  John read, looked at the clock and read on. During this time, Michael slept in his side room. He slept most of the time now.

  My angel. You are asleep now, asleep in my arms. I will hold you until you awake. And you will awake. The night is upon us now. Look at those stars in the sky. Look at that moon. Yes. I will hold you until you awake. My angel.

  The night staff came in and John put Michael’s file back in the drawer. He greeted the staff wearily and began informing them of the events of the day. Michael, being the latest patient to be admitted, was the last on the list to be handed over.

  “Michael Parrish – new admission. He’s pretty settled, isolating himself for most of the day though, spending long periods in his room. He seems quite low actually. We got his old notes up. His only other admission was about thirty years ago, when he was seventeen. Apparently, he was admitted back then after he was found at home with his sister who had been dead for about four days. It turned out she’d taken an overdose. Anyway, he was in hospital for nearly a year then. Self-harmed a couple of times – that’s where the scars on his hands come from - diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. He doesn’t seem any problem. I phoned his wife today and told her he was here and that we’ll be looking to transfer him to a hospital closer to where he lives within the next few days.”

  “Why is he in?” asked one of the night staff.

  “Looks like he had the shit beaten out of him,” said John. “He’s a bit bizarre. No problem though. Nice bloke, actually. He won’t be here too long, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  Handover finished, John went home, drank half a bottle of whisky and slept on the floor of his rented room.

  So, at seventeen years of age, Michael had held his dead sister in his arms for nearly four days. During that time, he had neither cried nor moaned. He had just held her and gazed at her. And her eyes had been wide open, staring into his – innocence into innocence. He had spoken not a word to her, but she had understood him. He had touched her mind and her soul, her very being. He hadn’t noticed how she had grown cold and stiff and odorous in his arms for he had seen only the light surrounding her.

  Four days of death. And from it, he had brought forth life. Things that had been strange to him up until that point, incongruous and abstract, now took on a calm clarity. Life came into focus for him during those four days. And as his mind had tried to make sense of it all, his soul had just gloried in the freedom, reigning over consciousness and form.

  And during that time, as he had held his angel to him, his body, his primitive, wretched body had betrayed him. It had inflamed him with a sexual arousal that would always come back to taunt him - her body next to his. He had fought it with his mind and overcome it with his tears. It was from that moment that he chose to follow the path of angels.

  When he was found with his dead sister by the landlady, a smile had been etched across his face, a cheek little boy’s smile that would haunt that woman forever. The ambulance and the police had come to the scene and Michael, still smiling, was taken to the nearest psychiatric hospital for assessment. And all he had said to the doctor on admission was ‘I have cleansed a soul. I have cleansed a soul.’

  We find Michael now lying on his bed, staring at the high ceiling of his room, thinking of Jennifer. Why had they taken her? She had come back and they had taken her again - but no more. A life of pain and torment is drawing to a close. That is all we have here.

  That is truly all we have.

  When Christine was informed that Michael was safe and that he was in hospital, she cried. Relief, fear and anger all merged into one and the tears just fell. It had been five weeks of frustration and bitter moments. And now it was over. He had been found. She didn’t know whether she wanted to hug him or kill him, so swung the poles of her emotion at this time. It had been his absence that made her realise how much she really loved him.

  On calming a little, she went upstairs to tell her daughter.

  Laura was lying on her bed looking at the patterns on the ceiling. Her wide eyes stared at the brightness of the light above, losing themselves in the molten glow of the bulb. When she heard the door open, she curled herself up and faced the wall, closing her eyes tight.

  Christine sat down gently on the bed and leaned across to whisper into her daughter’s ear.

  “Daddy’s okay. I’ve just had a phone call. He’s okay. He’s in hospital because he isn’t very well. He’s very tired.”

  Laura was silent. Her heart pounded fast. daddy I need you, I need you now.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to try to speak to him and maybe go up and see him. And then we can get back to how things used to be.”

  Laura thought this over in her head. ‘Mummy’s going to see daddy’.

  “Can I see daddy too?” she asked, her voice cracked and straining. She had barely spoken a word since he had left.

  “I think it’s best if I go on my own first, just to see how he is, and then after that I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Laura thought some more.

  “Who will be looking after me when you’re with daddy?”

  “Uncle Ron will look after you, Laura. I haven’t asked him yet, but I’m sure he will.”

  Uncle Ron. Laura sighed so deep. Seven years old. Uncle Ron. She knew there were so many different worlds. She found new ones every day. But now, right now, words didn’t interest her. Life didn’t interest her - to be so old so young. Uncle Ron.

  Michael lay in his bed that night knowing that the time was near. He was acting only on instruction now. He played no part other than that which a puppet might play. He was just waiting for the next move, the final move. The medication was easy to conceal. He hadn’t really taken any since he had been in apart from the sleeping tablet that was foisted upon him on his first night on the ward. The medication they wanted to give him would have done him no good. It would
merely have served to blur the one voice that led him on his way through those last few days.

  Michael thought of that photograph in his study drawer. So often he had looked at it, gazed at it as the face merged from Jennifer to Laura and back again - from beautiful child to beautiful child. He saw that photograph now. The image was there before him and he smiled to himself as the night staff shone the torch into his room to check on him. In the morning they would say he had been ‘smiling inappropriately.’ Had he heard that, he would have smiled even more.

  He thought of Laura and of the last time he saw her, would ever see her. He remembered how he and Christine had been to the park that summer evening to watch an outdoor version of Othello whilst Ron looked after Laura. He remembered how when they got back home he heard Ron and Christine talking in the kitchen. They had thought he was upstairs. He could remember the very words, the whole conversation, that spark that had set him on fire.

  “Do you think he knows?”

  “He can’t know. There’s no way he could.”

  “Ron. He’s not stupid.”

  “He would have said something before now. We mustn’t let it come between us.”

  “There is no ‘us’ Ron. Not any more.”

  “As you wish. As you wish.”

  A pause.

  “Laura will always be a reminder of what we once had, Chris. Laura will always be mine.”

  Silence.

  And he remembered how he had gone up to Laura’s room and just sat on the floor, looking at her lying there, trying in vain to see Jennifer in her. And he had cried then, silently, cried tears of pain for his sister and for this little girl that he loved so much and whom he knew from that moment he would never see again - and those two in the kitchen talking still.

  The night falls upon Big Town and Michael watches the moon. He sees it rise and sees it sink. And the sun eases into the red of the morning sky and sets him on fire. It blazes into him, burning him, cleansing him, filling him with the fiercest heat you ever felt.