Mis-fit, Misplaced, Miss Shelly Clover

by James Steven Clark

  Part of me, is just desperate for him to stop talking; I don’t want to hear this. I shake my head.

  ‘I was heavily involved in drugs and was pretty reckless and totally irresponsible. I was a player, Shell. I know that now. I cleaned myself up; that took a hell of a lot of effort in itself. Miriam though, continued to be a heavy drug user. She used a lot of PCP and LSD and began to lose control. I continued living with your mum and she gave birth to you and then fell pregnant with Buddy. When she found out that I’d fathered twins, she kicked me out and I went to live with Miriam. Christina – your mum and I - were definitely off the cards at this point. The truth is people get bored on this Island. There’s not much to do.’

  He strokes the bristles on his chin, pondering his next words.

  ‘Looking after two kids was hard, especially as my partner, Miriam, was becoming increasingly, well... psychotic. One day, I received a letter from your mum and I started to think about you and Buddy. I wrote back to her. Miriam started to go in and out of hospital and finally, ended up in the old mental institution. Your mum was very gracious and we kept in touch. I found it hard to cope, looking after Camille and Evelyn was difficult, especially Evelyn. I moved to a small cottage, back in Harley near where you guys were living. Your Gran lived close by and I got a bit of support with the girls from her.’

  ‘Hold on, you said Camille and Evelyn were twins, but Evelyn had dark hair and Camille was blonde… I don’t under…’

  ‘Yeah, they weren’t identical, fraternal twins I think they call it. Camille was more like me, and Evelyn was more like…Miriam.’

  He takes a breath and stares straight ahead.

  ‘I managed to get a place by the stream with some inheritance money from when my dad passed away. It had a lovely back garden. Miriam was institutionalised and had completely lost it, and so I looked after the kids. I began to see your mum again – I really wanted to see you both. I had really cleaned up my act.

  ‘Wait,’ this is all too much. I want to slow this down a bit. ‘Wait, you were mine…you are mine and Buddy’s father?’

  I thought that when I found out who my real father was, there would be something like a bond, a spark of something, but I feel only numbness.

  Mark sighs, ‘Shell, I was different then; there was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing between your mum and Miriam in the beginning. You were about three and Buddy was two when I got to see you both regularly. Your mum was very good...’

  ‘Did you love Mum?’ I hear my own tone soften as my breathing is finally beginning to slow.

  ‘Yes, I did. Having to look after two kids really made me grow up quite a bit. I wanted to be a part of your lives.’

  I watch his jaw move back and forth; stubbly and square – a hard looking man caught in a moment of honesty and sensitivity.

  I stand up. I need to move around.

  I’m on the verge of being told about an event in my life that I – indeed - no child should be reminded about. I become all panicky – all too aware that I am actually present in the place where Evelyn, and possibly Buddy, are resting. I feel fear and apprehension as he opens his mouth to speak. The hairs on my neck bristle.

  ‘I’d been in Harley for about three months when I got a call from Miriam. She screamed at me down the phone that she had found the letters that your mum had been sending me. She’d got back in to the house we’d shared in Snarlington. I got the call on the landline at our new house. I was in complete shock. I‘d seen her only five days earlier and she was still in a catatonic state, neither asleep nor awake. I found out later that she’d come out of this and attacked several doctors and somehow, managed to break out of the institution. She’d initially been classed as low-risk. Then, she’d headed back and broke into our old house which I’d left vacated. Before the police could pick her up, she had discovered my new number from a phone bill that had been sent there by mistake.’

  He kind of recoils, folds his arms protectively around himself, before looking at me fixedly.

  ‘Are you sure you want to hear this next part?’

  ‘No, I’m not sure, but I need to.’

  He blows out his cheeks and leans forwards.

  ‘She found an old suitcase, stuffed it full of her clothes and dragged it to the edge of Snarlington. No-one knows for sure what she was going to do at this point or where she was going.....she found the letters your mum had sent me. They were hidden in the inside pocket of the suitcase she’d decided to use. Then, she hitched a lift with a woman to Harley, mugged the woman’s mobile phone and called me. She was directly outside the house when she called. I don’t know, how to this day, she found my new address, unless it was on a bill along with the number or something.

  A look flashes across Mark’s face that I have never seen anyone make before. It’s like torture, bewilderment and realisation all rolled into a split-second.

  ‘The neighbours opposite had called the police, complaining of a dark-haired woman screeching down a phone, spitting repeatedly on the pavement and foaming at the mouth. I didn’t know she was directly outside the house at this point. I was scared and called the police. Less than a minute later, I heard the doorbell ring and I presumed they’d arrived. She pushed her way in and smashed me over the head with a wheel-jack she’d pinched from the woman’s car. Immediately to my right, there was a door, from the hallway into the garage, and I managed to stagger through it. My hair was quite long and I think it helped cushion enough of the blow, but my skull was still fractured...I’d put my junk into the garage and I roughly knew where it all was, so with the light off, I managed to clamber my way to the door on the far side, which led outside to a side passage. She tried to follow but kept tripping over stuff. She was crazed and even in the pitch black she was lifting and throwing things that I swear no man could lift. I made it to the other side and managed to lock the door behind me. In the daylight, I could hardly see for the blood in my eyes; I lost consciousness, but the police tell me from the trail of blood, I’d left that, I had been clambering back in your direction.’

  His voice tails off.

  ‘Your mum and I were back together....she’d gone off to do some shopping and I had you all together in the back-garden for the first time ever...’

  His voice chokes.

  ‘She got…out of the garage, went…into the kitchen and saw…you…all through the window. She picked up the largest knife...’

  He completely breaks and squeaks through broken words, ‘She stabbed...B…Buddy...she stabbed...Evelyn.’

  His head jerks back and forth.

  I can’t bear to hear this.

  I just can’t bear this.

  ‘I woke up and saw you both...trapped....I man...’ he breathes in, ‘…managed to trip her....I fell unconscious again....didn’t know.....she’d.....mur-dered....my precious angels...’

  His mouth moves, but nothing comes out. He screams silently as he re-lives the horror. It is the most disturbing look I have ever seen on any human face.

  I turn to walk away, not wanting to be near him. His face contorts like the screaming figure in the Edward Munch painting.

  I think about this word: Closure.

  Is there such a thing?

  Thoughts percolate and swim round and round within places in my head that I didn’t know existed.

  Mark sobs uncontrollably. I leave the poor sod to sob his tormented heart out.

  I let the minutes pass. I don’t know what to do. I walk slowly up and down and then stop - my mind in a haze - standing adjacent to the giant tomb, overshadowed by the Virgin Mary.

  I try and think my way back to reality, as Mary silently fulfils her daily ritual, hands clasped in prayer; guarding essences; memories of those who once mattered. I notice minor damage; chips and scratches from Camille’s de-ranged rampage. Is the little grave of my brother resting amongst the others in this stoic garden of legacies? Sadness replaces the fear I have just been feeling. It floods over and into me.

  ‘...and then she va
nished...’

  Mark has somehow managed to squeeze out a line. He’s calming.

  ‘She vanished!?’

  ‘The police didn’t find her.’

  I slowly turn my head and look in the direction of some defaced gravestones, with the blue and white police tape snaked amateurishly around them. ‘Shelly Clover’s gonna get it’ it reads on one of them. The police didn’t tell me there was more than one warning.

  The image of Miriam, revealed to me in the book last night, slams back into my head.

  ‘But, there must have been some clues as to where she went?’

  I walk back to the entrance where Mark is seated.

  ‘No. Miriam was very intelligent. It was staggering how quickly she’d recovered from....from...whatever state she was in, and found me and you girls. It was even more astonishing how quickly she got away. Remember, the police had already been called by the neighbours. The only thing she left was the case with the letters – no clues.’

  ‘But why did she kill Evelyn?’

  ‘She loved her daughters, but became very distant from them in the year leading to her breakdown. I guess, I’m saying, that she was overcome with rage and it stopped her thinking rationally. She would have killed us all, Shelly.’

  I shudder at Camille’s words from yesterday about the death threat, ‘I’m just passing the message on...’ My mind is pushing all kinds of theories forwards and backwards; Camille and Miriam. Has mother contacted daughter? Was Camille passing on a message from...Miriam?

  Cirrocumulus clouds hang ridiculously high in the blue sky above, moving slowly by like someone else’s distant memories; harsh weather is on the way. Birds chatter frantically in the trees around me.

  ‘Mark, what’s Camille got to do with all of this?’

  ‘That’s a disaster!’ he shakes his head – slow and sorrowful.

  ‘You hurt Camille didn’t you; you tried to make things right, but ended up making things worse, didn’t you?’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘Mark, we don’t have much time. Sometimes we profess to be the players, but we are the ones who are being played.’

  I quote the phrase from around the edge of the chessboard as I recall it from my dream. How true? I also have a strange and very worrying thought about Dezza.

  ‘C’mon Mark.’ I bark, ‘There’s no time left. Bad things have come to Jacobsfield.’

  ‘I dunno what you’re talking about. Look, after Miriam vanished, I had a breakdown. I couldn’t function. I was in a psychiatric hospital for over a year. I couldn’t look after Camille anymore. She was adopted by the Karringtons. I put her up for adoption, Shelly. I gave up my child. She was only three when I left. She doesn’t recognise me, nor did you. She was adopted by the Karringtons after they lost their foster daughter.’

  ‘What was Camille’s surname before she was adopted?’

  ‘Parker. Evelyn and Camille kept their mum’s maiden name until…unt…’

  Evelyn Parker. All these years I have allowed my mind to haunt itself with thoughts of my own half-sister.

  As Mark begins to lose it again, I ponder the fact that Camille and the scary Evelyn I’ve created are sisters.

  His arms still shake as he clears tear stains from his cheeks.

  ‘Last week, Christine and I decided that we should tell you both the truth. I wrote Camille a letter; I wanted to give it to her in person – I love her Shell and she doesn’t even know who I am. I decided to look back through the remaining letters your mum and I had sent each other back when I was still with Miriam. I’d hidden them in a secret place at your mum’s, but somebody had found them and read them. Turns out, Elvis had routed through them and learned about me being yours and Camille’s father. He stole half of them. I challenged him about this and he threatened to give the letters to Camille. I know he hates everybody; creed, colour – it doesn’t matter. He lost the plot completely when he couldn’t see Josie anymore, but I wasn’t sure why he was blackmailing me against Camille until I found out that he was going out with her; just think about what that meant for their relationship.’

  More head shaking. He looks absolutely spent.

  ‘Elvis was dating my daughter...he could no longer really go out with her. If being stopped from seeing his own daughter wasn’t enough, he had just found out the truth about who Camille was in relation to me. I had to make a decision quickly; I had to tell Camille about me, about everything. I sent her a letter explaining who I was and who her sister was; you as her half-sister and all the other stuff. She went nuts... She went crazy in this Churchyard. I was walking into Harley, when quite by chance I saw her here. I come to visit Evelyn’s grave from time to time, and she was, she was....she was smashing up gravestones. Elvis must have given her my old letters the same morning that mine arrived. It was too much for her. She blames me Shelly. She attacked you at school...’

  My phone goes. I wrestle it out of my pocket, quite startled at the pace of the revelations. I’m hoping that it’s Dezza. It’s not. On the screen, it reads, ‘Jacobsfield High’. It’s school calling.

  ‘Bugger!’

  ‘Hello, Shelly, this is Mrs Tyme-Read. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine Miss, sorry, I didn’t come in to school today. I forgot to call and... ’

  ‘No, Shelly, that’s fine,’ she cuts across kindly, ‘School’s closed anyway, with, well, what happened yesterday...and things. I’m just calling to ask you if you have seen Derek?’

  ‘I…I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your friend…Derek. We had his parents leave a message on the answer phone yesterday evening. We missed it with all the commotion. The police came back round to school. He never went home yesterday.’

  ‘What..? ’

  ‘Yes, he never went home, and he never came for the meeting with me yesterday afternoon, after he had been with Eren and yourself , err.....tending to Mr Washwater.’

  My mouth dries.

  ‘Shelly...are you still there? Hello…’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Shelly, I know you are going through enough right now, but do you have any idea as to where he is?’

  I swallow hard. Where the hell is he?

  ‘No...I left him messages and he never called, but then, he called me yesterday afternoon, but the phone only rang two or three times and went dead. When I called him back, it went straight to his answering machine. The police haven’t been in touch with me.’

  ‘I think that they are a bit oversubscribed and overwhelmed with Alan, your brother and everything. Do you have any idea at all, where he could be?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  There’s a pause on the other end of the line, ‘Okay, Shelly. Sorry to give you more bad news. If you hear anything, please contact me, or the police straight away. Likewise, I’ll call you if I hear anything. Hope you’re okay. Sorry to have to bother you with this.’

  ‘Okay...thanks.’

  ‘Will you be okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine miss.’

  I press the end-call sign.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Mark looks to offer support.

  ‘I’ve got to go. Go see mum, please, Mark.’

  I’m up and moving, leaving my mother’s perplexed partner sitting there dumbfounded. I don’t know where I am going, and I have to leave Mark here, but I know that my personal twister is twisting faster. I have my phone in my hand. I want to ask Mark where Buddy’s grave is so I can go and see it, but it will have to wait.

  I walk straight out of the cemetery, but I don’t know if I should turn right or left. I don’t know my next move. I take my phone and call Dezza several times – no answer. I juggle the phone round and round in my palm and feel the weight and bulk of the ‘brick’.

  The book and the other contents of my ruck-sack make my back ache the moment I hoist it over my shoulder, and it feels like my only remaining strap will give way at any second.

  I access the text from Eren and nervously call him. The phone
rings for several seconds.

  ‘Hi Shelly, thanks for calling.’

  ‘Hello, are you okay? How’s your dad doing?’

  Eren whispers.

  ‘Yeah, it’s about my dad. He’s conscious and insistent that he talks to you, but he doesn’t make any sense. All I can make out, is your name over and over..’

  ‘Wh-What?’

  ‘Thing is, he’s slurring his words and the doctors are still trying to stabilise him. They don’t know if he’ll pull through, but he keeps mentioning your name; I’m not sure I understand anything he’s saying. But he’s getting himself worked up. It’s definitely you he’s mentioning. Can I pass you over?’

  There is no clue as to what state my History teacher is in. I don’t have the time, or inclination to protest to Eren.

  I hear a loud grunting in the background and I know that it’s Alan; aware that his son is talking to me. This feels weird, I don’t know what to expect. It feels like I’m about to have a conversation with a dying man.

  ‘I’ll hold the phone up to his mouth. Okay, Shel.’

  ‘Shelleee,’ the voice rasps.

  I compose myself.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ I squeak.

  ‘Ash....tar.’

  The phone shakes in my hand. His unearthly voice scares me.

  ‘Yes,’ I try to half-encourage, half-calm him.

  ‘Ash....tar....door.’

  ‘Ashtardoor.’ I repeat, in the hope of helping myself understand.

  ‘Gooo....t....Ashtar.....door......s’

  ‘Ashtar.’ I pummel my thick head for a link.

  Go where? Where does he want me to go?

  I hear him groan in pain and frustration as he repeats the line once more.

  ‘Gooo…..Ashtarrrrss.’

  ‘Ashtar.....Ashtar. Astra! Do you mean Astra Dawson?’

  ‘Yissss…’

  I hear a hoarse, sucking sound, as he fights for breath.

  ‘Ghessedddhim....Ghessssddd....kilm-m-m....kilmmee....’

  Oh my goodness. Was that ‘Kill me?’

  ‘Dad, calm down.’ I hear Eren in the background.

  ‘Asshhkm...Ashhhk....meee.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Asshkme.....as....as-k’.

  I pause, shaking. I don’t honestly know what to say. Ghessed killed Arthur. He’s not dead…yet. Who is Ghessed? So, I blurt out,

  ‘Killed you?’

  My throat constricts in an instant. Why in the name of anything did I ask that?

  The phone explodes into life, ‘Yesssshhh.’

  I’m at an absolute loss as to how to proceed, but I know that there is only one suspect on my religious radar right now.

  ‘Who tried to kill you?’

  I rephrase quickly, he won’t be able to gurgle out, ‘Reverend Llewellyn’.

  ‘Was it the Reverend?’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Noo..oo’

  ‘Was it the Reverend Llewellyn?’ I repeat.

  Another pause - really heavy panting and gasping this time.

  ’N...o....oo.’

  My mind goes utterly blank. Surely, he’s got that wrong.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  But when I listen for a response, I hear several voices shouting: Doctors.

  I hear someone calling for assistance; I hear sporadic shouts from Eren; I hear a man shouting, ‘He’s fitting, he’s fitting.’ There’s gurgling and more calls for assistance and I can feel my eyes wandering slowly back up in the direction of those wonderfully wispy clouds, high up in the blue sky, far away and alien. So, far away...

  ‘Hello, Hello.’ I call down the mouth-piece repeatedly, I’m looking straight up at the sky wishing to diffuse every particle within me into those clouds; drifting away – far away.

  The phone goes dead.

  I drop my arm to my side. The phone hangs loose.

  I stand there.

  I’m all alone.

  Never felt more alone, more out of my depth.

  Directly in front of me is the spot where the truck nearly crushed us to death - less than ten minutes ago. It all feels so abstract; one life-changing event, right there, right there on the road, with no time to dwell on it, because here comes another…and another.

  I quickly calculate how long it would take me to jog to Boule port from here. I could catch a Ferry without any money. The kids at school do it all the time.

  I turn towards the graveyard where my own kid-brother might be buried; where my death-day message was recorded. Everything seems so detached.

  Then, the bell starts thrashing round madly inside my rucksack with such force, that I jerk uncontrollably. I’m knocked from side to side as I fight to keep my balance.

  I imagine Alan Washwater fitting and convulsing in the same way.

  As I’m jostled back and forth, I consider the hand bell’s role in this saga. Bells signal momentous occasions: Births, Weddings...Deaths.

  Alan Washwater’s?

  I move out of the churchyard onto the footpath.

  My mobile goes. I quickly bring it to my ear and accept the call without checking the number. The Bell stops dead the instant I hit ‘accept call’.

  ‘Eren?’

  ‘Hello, Shelly Clover.’

  The voice is low and nasally. The tone is dark and caustic.

  ‘You know who I am.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Please…Go Away…