A Cleansing of Souls Read online

  Time. Time. Time.

  That morning, Ron scoured the museums, the churches and other places of solitude. He felt momentarily at peace as he wandered from silence to silence. He had not been to a museum for years, having once made the mistake of visiting one, as an adult, in the middle of the school term. On that occasion, he had fled the undisciplined hordes with their clipboards and their packed lunches. It still made him uneasy to think about it. But right now there were things of greater import to moisten his brow.

  As each of the preceding days had passed, so had the control Ron had exercised over his life become ever more tenuous.

  So as the Big Town bells chimed in the Big Town sky, Ron had a brief lunch in a restaurant off the main street and mulled over the relative lack of success the morning had brought. He thought about ringing Diane to apologise for the curt nature of his manner when he had left. It didn’t take him long to decide against it. The wine he consumed at the corner table instilled in him some strange, alien sense of puerility. He felt for a moment as if he had been let out to play. It was a dangerous, unsettling feeling and one that, despite the encouragement of the wine, he swiftly laid to rest. It was however replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt that made him feel ill. Childishness and guilt were two states that Ron had ever kept battened down deep within him. Puerility was a strange entity whose sudden appearance had surprised him on occasion; but guilt – well that could only ever have a walk on part in Ron’s life. It could only ever be an extra, an afterthought.

  Diane had always been the perfect wife for Ron. She had ensured he had someone to return to. Hers were the arms in which he would lie, contemplating. She was the shade of grey that smoothed the edges of his black and white soul. And they would talk about the begonias often.

  Outside the restaurant within which Ron had indulged himself, a man lay on the pavement. Many people strode manfully by, convincing themselves that it was but a pile of rags. Ron emerged into the afternoon sunlight and almost stumbled over the dark, ragged mound, having to step back sharply in order to retain his balance. He was just steadying himself when he saw the fingers.

  The man was wearing a long, black coat and heavy boots. A dirty beard pulled at what little could be seen of the cracked face, and tiny insects made their busy way across the limp left palm, following each other in streams up the sleeve. This man could have been ninety years old. He could have been twenty-five.

  Ron stepped around the man and, in doing so, was gripped by a chill. Was this what death looked like? He couldn’t be sure. Somebody would call an ambulance soon or maybe the Police would come along and deal with the situation. Anyway, this was probably a drunk or one of those ‘addict’ people.

  That cold, lifeless man could have lain there for a hundred years. Nobody would have helped him. And all who passed, well they would just bear fleeting witness to the steady decay of the remnants of a man’s life. The bones would turn to dust and the beard would grow and grow until it enshrouded the whole grimy face. Through rain and snow it would have lain there, through hail and storm.

  But Ron knew instinctively that Michael would have been the exception. Michael would have knelt down beside this man from whom he himself shamefully walked. He would have taken him in his arms and softly brushed the scurrying creatures from the deep folds of the black coat. And he would have cradled him like a baby.

  The proposed visit to the area by vague royalty ensured the removal of the wretched body some days later. You see, these scenes never happen, never occur. In a flash they are gone from sight and conscience forever.

  A tall man in a perfect suit stands erect before his peers. His limbs are strong. His back is straight. He is a proud man. And so is his wife. He is well respected by all about him. He knows what is best for you and he knows what is best for me. With a majestic stride he mounts the box of my dreams and with a long finger he gestures at the crumpled heap of my future.

  “These,” he proclaims in a voice loud and brave, “These are the people one steps over when one comes out of the opera.”

  Oh, what cheers there are.

  And amidst the roars and the adulation, the crumpled heap turns to pure light and surely enters Heaven in glory.

  As Ron had been preparing to go to Big Town, Tom was waking from another dream. He had begun to sleep with some regularity the last few nights and was becoming used to his new routine. He was beginning to accept the strictures. It was all a case of focusing the mind. Forget this. Remember that. It was as if he had just been born, his first nineteen years on earth being nothing more than a prolonged labour.

  It had not occurred to him to call his parents. He had told Michael they were dead. He was in a new role now. He could be whomever he wished - except, perhaps, himself.

  But dreams were bringing him down. He had no control over their content or over the feelings with which they left him when he woke. Before going to sleep the previous night on the cold ground, he had put on his black sweatshirt; thankful for the warmth and comfort it gave him. As the summer wore on, the evenings had become cooler. And that night, as the stars and the moon looked down upon him, Tom dreamed a dream…

  …the car speeds along the road following the twists and turns as if upon a rail. The moon is high and shines upon the fields, illuminating them, igniting them, inciting them to flame. Tom is in the driver’s seat and beside him is a beautiful girl. The car is red and silver, cutting through the night like some blood-stained knife. There is rock and roll music on the radio and the girl taps her sweet feet to the beat-beat-beat…

  …a petrol station appears from out of the ground and the car cruises smoothly in. Tom fills up the tank and the girl smiles at him, all hidden wonder and enticement. “Let’s go,” she’s saying. “Let’s just leave all this behind us.” A thrill crackles in the air and dust explodes from beneath the wheels of the car…then, from above, we see the car in the middle of black field, overturned and steaming. The girl is gone. In the distance, there is a light. Tom crawls from the wreckage and weaves his way across the field on skates…

  …and the bright white light just draws him on…

  …he’s at work now, in the foyer of the insurance company. People wander around, talking in a language that he cannot comprehend. A man dressed as a butler taps him on the shoulder and Tom turns. The man pins a number to Tom’s shirt and smiles, a tooth falling from his crooked mouth as he does so, twisting to the carpet in slow motion…the lift doors open and a hundred people enter the lift. Tom looks on. Two long arms encircle his waist and fingernails dig into him. In the mirror on the wall opposite, he sees the receptionist clinging to his body. And as he watches, helpless, unable to move, the make-up and the skin fall from her face and her clothes drop to the floor, leaving just a clattering pile of dry bones…the lift pulls Tom upwards now and he is standing by his desk. His co-workers are all around him but they see him not. Tom looks up to the ceiling and sees a map of the world suspended from a thick wire. A piece of the map is missing and Tom knows instinctively that he must search for it. He puts his hand in his pocket and his fingers close around a perfect cardboard heart…

  …the lift doors open and there stands Michael. Tom feels at once reassured. He feels safe. The two men smile at one another. Tom moves out of the lift and into the next office. Michael remains in the lift and rises to a higher level…

  … now Tom is at home, at the top of the stairs. He opens the door to the bathroom and sees a hundred washbasins. A silver watch is wrapped around the hot tap. He takes it and turns it over in his palm expecting to see a name but there is no inscription…the door to his parents’ room is open and they are making love, his mother smiling from below the aching body of his father who in turn is gazing at the wooden headboard in raptures…

  …Tom opens the door to Little Norman’s room and finds himself back in the lift. On the floor is a foil star on a stick. He looks at it and a tear slips from his eye…

  …the huge walkway on which he now finds himself is c
overed in a red carpet. It forms a square all around the edge of the large room. And across the deep gap, from one side to the other, is a glass bridge. You don’t know how deep is the drop below until you fall. Michael is on the bridge now, walking to the other side. In the wall to which he is heading, there are two doors, one to the left and one to the right. As he approaches the end of the bridge, a voice booms out from above “Left! Left!” So Michael walks to the door on the left and the man dressed as a butler steps from the shadows and shoots him dead between the eyes…

  …Tom is on the glass bridge now. He feels sick. But he knows what to do. If the voice instructs him to go to the door on the left, he will choose the door on the right. If the voice tells him to go to the door on the right, he will enter the door on the left. And the voice roars “Right! Left! Right! Left!” leaving him just to stand there in terror as the glass bridge shatters beneath his feet…

  And that was when he awoke from the dream. He was cold and damp and he shivered in that alleyway until morning.

  Late in the afternoon, Ron arrived at the restaurant where he had arranged to meet Roger Peacock. Roger had been unable to cut short his working day and met with Ron just after six o’clock He had been at the table for almost ten minutes before Ron arrived. His genial nature, however, ensured that his guest and long-term associate was greeted with a due cordiality.

  “Ronald,” he said, standing, “you’re looking great.”

  “You too, Roger,” replied Ron, as they shook hands firmly and sat down.

  The two men ordered their meals and sipped red wine as they waited for the arrival of the first course.

  Roger was a lean man with a tanned face and a wiry frame. His dark hair was speckled with grey and white though his eyes still managed to achieve a boyish brightness. He had a passion for boats and the considerable ability to differentiate work from play.

  “You look like you had a good holiday, Roger,” said Ron, replenishing their swiftly drained glasses. “Where did you go?”

  “Italy. Joan and I have been nipping back and forth there for the last couple of years. Wonderful place. The Italians may have their faults, and God knows they have, but when it comes to wine, women and song, there’s none better.”

  “How is Joan? Still doing her painting? It was painting, wasn’t it?”

  Roger laughed.

  “Yes, yes, Joan and her paintings. Our house has turned into a bloody canvass warehouse. You can’t move for paintings. Don’t get me wrong, though,” he added, pausing to sip from his glass, “they really are very good.”

  Each man looked at the other furtively, fleetingly, or not at all. They did not have that beautiful feminine trait of being able to look directly into the eyes of a friend.

  Ron and Roger had met at a training course many years ago and had developed a friendship almost at once. Although different in character, and their interactions being predominantly superficial, each was still, in some way, fond of the other. They had inevitably lost contact in the previous two years since Ron had been given, and accepted, the opportunity to work from home. But through chance meetings and the odd business call, they had kept in some form of contact.

  “Those chaps at the office, Ronald,” confided Roger, leaning across the table; “they seem to be getting younger by the day. I’m thinking seriously about imposing a minimum age limit. Forget all this nonsense about the minimum wage. It’s the minimum age we need to look at! What do you think?”

  “Wouldn’t go down too well with the Unions, Roger, now would it?” replied Ron, smiling. He enjoyed Roger’s company, even if he did insist on calling him Ronald.

  The first course arrived and was quickly despatched amidst a thoughtful silence.

  In between the first course and the second, there was a distinct lull in the conversation as so often happens when two people have too much to impart. Each tries to sum up the intervening period since last they met in such a way as to imply consolidation, excitement, progress even. And each is equally unsure as to how to suitably embellish the ultimate tedium of time.

  As he sat there, finishing his food, Ron prepared himself to broach the subject of Michael. His meal had been satisfying, as had the wine. The time was right.

  “Roger,” he said finally, looking up from his empty plate, “how has Michael seemed to you lately?”

  Roger looked momentarily puzzled. “Oh, Michael, Michael Parrish?” he said, as if a photograph of Michael had just been placed before him. “To be honest with you, Ronald, I haven’t seen him for a little while. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just that, well, Roger, the situation as it stands is that his wife, Chris, is frankly, well, she’s getting rather worried about him. I just wondered whether he’d been okay at work recently. Any problems, that kind of thing?”

  Roger was fiddling with what was left of his lasagne. He really didn’t fancy it now.

  “So has he booked time off, Roger, a couple of weeks maybe? When is he due back in the office?”

  Roger continued to move his lasagne around the plate in a manner that was beginning to irritate his dining partner.

  “Roger?” repeated Ron, who was not used to being ignored.

  “I’ve been away, Ronald, on holiday. I’m not fully up to speed with things yet.”

  “How long did he book off?”

  Roger put his fork down carefully on the plate and looked up to face Ron across the table.

  “I know that he was on sick leave for at least a week before I went away and that was almost a month ago now. I assume from what you say that he’s not yet back at work, although obviously I can check that one out for you tomorrow.”

  “Sick leave?”

  “Well, yes. Sick leave. Off sick.”

  “I know what it means,” said Ron, just managing to stop short of being terse. He poured himself another glass of wine, draining the bottle.

  “Shall I order another?” asked Roger, picking up the empty bottle.

  “Not for me,” replied Ron.

  Roger ordered one anyway - for himself.

  “Look, Roger, I know none of this is your concern, but up until he went away a couple of weeks ago….”

  “A couple of weeks?”

  “Yes. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Michael was fine. There was nothing wrong with him. I mean, it’s not exactly been the weather for pneumonia has it? What I’m getting at is, from the week before you went away on holiday until the time Michael left for who knows where, there was nothing wrong with him. He was perfectly fine.”

  “Physically, maybe.”

  Ron paused to take in this last remark.

  “What do you mean ‘physically, maybe’? What are you trying to say?”

  The waiter brought over the bottle of wine, uncorked it, and poured into Roger’s glass. Ron declined the waiter’s offer and the bottle was left on Roger’s side of the table.

  Roger sipped his wine before re-joining the conversation.

  “Exactly what I say, Ron. Physically, Michael seemed fine to me too, although neither of us is a doctor are we? He wasn’t ill, well, not in that way.”

  Ron was beginning to see now where this was heading. His emotions started to take shape, forming from a mixture of confusion, fear and anger. He was on the back foot now. He was thinking already of all sorts of consequences and none of them was good.

  “Ronald,” said Roger, sensing now that he had the opportunity to take hold of the conversation, “I know you’ve known Michael for a long time and I truly admire your loyalty. It’s just one of the many things I do admire about you, your loyalty. And I myself, have always found Michael to be a pleasant, affable chap, a little off the wall at times, perhaps, but then aren’t we all in our own little way?” He paused to gulp some wine, allowing it to fortify him before continuing. “But it had been coming long before I went on holiday. He was changing, you see, becoming very quiet, so to speak. I know he’s not the most outgoing of people, but it was as if, well, as if he was on a different planet if
you know what I mean. Of course, his work was suffering, suffering badly. He’s always been something of a dreamer, I know, but this was different somehow.”

  Ron dabbed his lips with a serviette. He was calmer now, though there was still a primitive, quaking quality to his voice.

  “Roger, tell me. What reason did he give for going off sick? What was on the certificate?”

  “There was nothing on the certificate, not really, just stress or something. I could barely read it from what I remember.”

  “Was he under pressure at work?”

  “His workload was no different. If anything, it was probably lighter, what with all those bright young things around. So, no, I wouldn’t say he was under pressure at work.”

  “Didn’t you talk with him, ask him what the problem was?” asked Ron, still feeling uneasy. Was it better or worse that Michael may be ill again? He hadn’t decided yet.

  “I did. Yes, of course. The day before I went away,” replied Roger in a sombre tone.

  “What did he say?”

  Both men were quieter now, subdued. The meal was drawing to a close. Soon they would once again go their separate ways.

  “He told me some very odd things. He was very strange, so easily distracted. I suppose he didn’t look well, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, but like I said, I’m no doctor. There was some other stuff as well, but as you can imagine, this is all very strange to me. I don’t know if he’s got some sort of illness, whether it’s some elaborate joke or whether he’s gone round the twist. All I do know is that he needed time off work and he took it and ‘stress’ probably sums it all up as good as anything else. And I went to Italy, thankfully.”

  Ron was silent, completely silent. He knew he had to put the question to Roger.

  “Did he mention my name at all?” he asked, not making eye contact.

  “I’m sorry, Ron, what was that?”

  “Did he mention me at all?”

  Roger thought for a moment.