Beyond the Dark Waters Trilogy

by Graham West

  “Thanks. I’ve got your card somewhere.”

  I recalled that he had signed it ‘Doctor Elworth’ and included the staff at the surgery in conveying his regrets. I’d been deluged with cards—many from people I didn’t even know—and kept them all in the bottom drawer…my wife’s bottom drawer, which had become a no-go area. The feel of her underwear had awakened a screaming longing inside me that could never be satisfied. Not with her. Our most intimate moments had, in the wake of death, become sacred and beautiful.

  “It was the least I—we could do.” he said.

  A brief, uncomfortable silence followed, allowing Elworth to say his piece. “I wanted to know if I could be of any help. Are you and Jenny sleeping okay?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  It was a lie. My nights had become so restless that I awoke, tired and drained.

  “That’s a very short answer,” he remarked with a look of concern. “Sleep is very important Mr. Adams.”

  “I don’t want any pills,” I said curtly, regretting my tone immediately.

  Again, the doctor flashed a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, I’d be loathed to prescribe them. I’m not a great believer in suppressants. I often advise patients to take more exercise—long walks, a swim, even a daily jog. It doesn’t always go down so well, but…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  Jenny poked her head around the door, blushing when she saw the doctor sitting in our lounge.

  “Ah, Jenny…” There was a pause, a knowing, gentle smile. “How are you?”

  Jenny was caught in two minds. Should she cut and run, excusing herself politely? Or should she stay and squirm under the gaze of the doctor’s eyes? I felt for her. Somewhere inside, a flame still flickered.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” she said.

  Elworth stopped short of inviting her to pop into the surgery anytime she wanted. The last time she’d visited, three years earlier, he’d had to explain, in a wonderfully gentle manner, that he believed she was not really ill at all, and that there were often really poorly people waiting to be seen and he really needed to attend to them. He had left his hand resting gently on Jenny’s as he spoke softly, looking as if he were going to lean forward and kiss her at any moment.

  Of course, Elizabeth had told the doctor that her daughter was infatuated and only a stern word from him would put an end to her virtual encampment in the corner of the waiting room. Elworth had guessed and showed no sign of impatience with his thirteen-year-old stalker. But now, that girl had developed into an attractive young woman.

  They studied each other for a moment. Elworth looked uneasy. “You’ve certainly grown,” he said awkwardly.

  Jenny smiled, still unsure as to what her next move was. Elworth had been blessed, it seemed, with eternal youth, and they could almost pass for a couple. I found myself unnerved watching them as they struggled to converse.

  “I thought I’d drop by and see how you both were,” he explained, realising that Jenny had nothing to say.

  Again, Jenny smiled. “I’m okay.”

  “It’s a difficult time—for both of you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

  “We’re okay, you know. Getting by.”

  He turned to me, releasing Jenny from his attentions. “Are you getting any help?”

  “Just the lady from the Victim Support.”

  Elworth nodded. “Good. Anyone else?”

  “Josie and Lou Duxbury. They’re family friends.”

  The doctor took another sip of coffee from Elizabeth’s best china. “Good friends are important. It’s times like this when you find out who they are.”

  Jenny was still standing in the doorway, studying Elworth. “I’m just going to take a bath,” she said. “Is that okay?”

  We both nodded, and my daughter was gone.

  Soon after, the doctor left, shaking my hand and reminding me that he would always be there if we needed him. I wondered if he really had anything to offer, but I thanked him just the same. He was a professional—good at his job even though his visit had probably been nothing more than a gesture that left him breathing a sigh of relief as he climbed behind the wheel of his SUV.

  ***

  I expected that, at some time, the flood gates would open, triggered by a neighbour’s sympathy or a song on the radio, but it was neither. I remember that Saturday morning. I was making coffee and toast, and without a thought, I’d taken breakfast up to my wife on a tray, just the way I had every weekend. I stopped suddenly at our bedroom door, staring at the empty bed and wondering what the hell I was doing. I’d never see Elizabeth’s recumbent frame outlined by the bed sheet. I’d never tap her gently on the shoulder, waking her from her light, morning sleep. I’d never see her face or hear her voice. She was gone. She was gone forever.

  It was like being hit by a tidal wave and tossed helplessly in its black waters. The tray slipped from my grasp, crashing to the floor as I sank to my knees. I felt the vomit hit my throat, and I prayed for a release that didn’t come. Jenny found me sobbing, prostrate on the floor.

  “They’ve gone!” I cried, repeating the words over and over in a strangled voice that I hardly recognised as my own. Jenny knelt down beside me and pulled me into her arms. I felt her body shake. I felt her tears on my neck. The pain was unbearable. I felt so hopelessly lost and desperately alone, even with my daughter by my side. We held each other, afraid to let go, and cried until the pain subsided and the numbness returned.

  In the days that followed, I struggled to find a reason to rise each morning. The hours stretched endlessly before me like empty chasms filled with painful memories, my heart gripped by the icy steel claw of grief. Life, it seemed, had no point. We scoured the holiday sites online. Jenny wanted to go to Halkidiki. We’d spent two weeks there as a family, but I wasn’t so sure. A pilgrimage to the old haunts, eating at the restaurants we’d enjoyed together, filled me with trepidation. We ditched the whole idea. Neither of us was ready.

  On that Sunday morning, I had learned to cry, and did so frequently, cocooning myself in the bathroom and turning on the taps to drown the sound of my sobbing.

  I remember the day Jenny was born, sitting with my father in the front lounge. The old man had winked at me. “A little girl, huh?” he’d said, pulling a bottle of his finest brandy from the cupboard with an air of showmanship that reminded me of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. “I think this calls for a nip or two, don’t you think?”

  We’d sat, reminiscing, as the spring sunshine flooded the room and the old clock in the corner looked on like an old friend, listening in to my father’s words of wisdom.

  “I never cried in front of you, son,” he’d said suddenly. “It’s not that I don’t believe a man should cry. But in front of your children, you should be strong. If you have to shed a tear, it should be done in private.”

  My father had shared his homespun philosophies with grace and subtlety, and seemed unconcerned when I had questioned them. Yet, over the years, I found myself hanging onto his words. I recalled, as a child, watching him at my mother’s bedside, watching his wife as she lay recovering from a stroke, interpreting her pitiful attempts at forming basic words and turning them into sentences.

  He would smile stoically, holding her hand and talking about the plans he was making, ignoring the doctors and their grim forecasts. He had never shed a tear, and I realised, much later, how his strength had brought me through those dark days. I was just a kid, looking up to my father, drawing every day on his love and compassion. If I’d seen him break down—if I’d walked in on his grief—I’d have realised that he was just a man. The trauma would have floored me.

  ***

  Jenny took up an extra guitar lesson but I’d noticed that, rather than improving, her playing was becoming increasingly erratic. She had been desperate to master a complicated piece from Handel’s Messiah but had smashed the guitar across the television in pure frustration. I looked down at her broken instrument, lying in front of the shatt
ered screen, and I started to laugh. God only knew why.

  “I didn’t like that TV, anyway,” I said. “And that guitar’s out of tune!”

  The following day, we drove into town and bought a huge plasma screen TV. Jenny bought a new guitar. We watched a movie on our new TV the following evening, sharing a bottle of Friscati and a two-litre bottle of dry cider, crawling up the stairs to bed at two in the morning. We laughed and cried our way through the movie. The crying was something we’d got used to, but the laughter felt good.

  The following morning, Jenny and I watched breakfast TV through bleary eyes, with the sun pouring through the lounge window and flooding the room. We decided to drive out to the woods, maybe take a walk to clear our heads. If Jenny had noticed that her friends had given her a wide berth then she never mentioned it. We were too preoccupied just keeping each other alive. We were survivors; we had each other. I wasn’t going to let anyone come between us.

  Chapter Two

  The mornings were mine; they always had been. From the spring through to autumn, I’d rise with the sun, and you would find me standing in the garden with a mug of ridiculously strong coffee, breathing in the crisp, unpolluted air. While most of the population were tapping the snooze button on their alarm clocks, I was on my second mug, at peace with the world. I often wondered how many folk shared my love of the breaking day. How many of my fellow human beings had discovered the joy and peace to be found in those hours? Whatever the day held for me, I knew that I had caught its finest moment.

  I remembered that Sunday morning. I recalled the clear blue sky, and wondered if the weather might hold out until the evening. Hanna loved anything cooked on a barbecue, although Jenny was prone to inspecting my efforts with a critical eye lest I poison her with undercooked meat. I poured myself a second coffee with no premonition of what lay ahead. If God could have spoken and warned me that I had only a few hours left with my wife and child, then He had my ear. But the only sound I’d heard was the familiar song of our resident blackbird.

  It was almost a year ago: twelve months without Elizabeth and my beautiful little angel. I was reliving the day when the minister from my father’s church called. I’d invited him in and poured him a sugarless tea, but his pious tones and ecclesiastical concern left me feeling distinctly cold. With hindsight, I’m guessing my welcome might have appeared lukewarm. I found myself with my back to the man, staring out of the window, singing lines of a song I’d always loved: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Last year’s Man’.

  The Reverend Carson studied me warily over the rim of his china cup. He looked a good deal thinner than I’d remembered, and his dog collar hung around his long scrawny neck like a hula hoop on the waist of an anorexic teenager.

  “It’s a line from a Leonard Cohen song,” I told him. “I’ve always found it rather…well, interesting.”

  I hadn’t wanted an argument, but I couldn’t let the reverend go without some kind of explanation. His God had been found wanting.

  He smiled gently. “And what do you suppose this…Mr. Cohen meant?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno, really. I guess he was just drawing attention to the fact that our traditional binding of a holy book involves the death of an animal. A sacrifice. Blood and skin. Ironic, don’t you think?”

  Carson grimaced. “Well, maybe, but we don’t slaughter cows in order to bind our bibles. The skin is a by-product. We kill for food, surely.”

  He was right, I supposed. But I had become accustomed to thinking aloud.

  “Do you listen to Mr. Cohen a lot?”

  The minister’s question took me by surprise.

  “Not really. The line just popped into my head.”

  Carson grinned. “Good!” he quipped and elegantly placed his cup on the table. “Because I fear you are already growing increasingly antagonistic towards the Church…or maybe God Himself.”

  I hadn’t been prepared for a direct challenge. I’d tried, obviously, without much success, to suppress my feelings about God. “I’m not antagonistic,” I lied. “But I fail to see the Almighty in any of this.”

  “I know it’s hard,” Carson began.

  “Hard? Hard?” Something snapped inside of me. “Mr. Carson, I watched my wife and daughter get crushed by two thugs. I can hear their bones snapping. I can see the blood! It haunts me every waking moment! Hard? You don’t know the meaning of the word!”

  Carson blushed. His God had forsaken him, leaving his servant alone to do his dirty work. “I know, I know,” he said in little more than a whisper. “I can’t begin to understand how you must feel. But Elizabeth and Hanna’s deaths are not the work of God. You must believe that.”

  “So why do ministers talk about Jesus calling people home? Why Elizabeth? Why Hanna? What the hell did God want with my wife and kid when there are homes full of people just wanting to die?”

  Carson shifted awkwardly in his seat. “It’s a term we use to give folk comfort. Personally, I don’t believe God calls people. He merely receives them, just as I trust He will receive me should this disease take its toll.”

  I stared at the minister, realising suddenly that, like the dog collar, none of his clothes fitted him. He saw the look in my eyes.

  “I have cancer, Robert. Bowel cancer. Unfortunately, it has already spread to other organs, although the treatment seems to be buying me some time.” Carson smiled. “So, you see, I, too, have questions.”

  The ailing minister, on the cusp of discovering if his faith had been built on a firm foundation of truth, chatted breezily, refusing to dwell on his own fate. He told me that I had coped well, steering my daughter through a traumatic time with all the skill of a loving father. But in truth, I had failed her.

  Just two months after Elizabeth and Hanna’s death, Jenny had found me sitting cross-legged at the grave in the rain, surrounded by empty beer cans. I’d been missing all day. Jenny had managed to pull me to my feet and taken me home where I’d crashed into the chair and fallen asleep in rain-soaked coat. It was that night I’d heard her sobbing uncontrollably in her room. It was the wail of a broken heart, and my blood ran cold as I lay in the darkness of my room.

  “Dad?” I whispered. “Please help me. What would you do? What would you say to Jenny? Just tell me!”

  I listened. I listened with an intensity that made my head ache, but heard nothing. Maybe I knew the answer already. I needed to be strong; I needed to be there for my daughter. I needed to be as much a father to her as my old man had been to me. I needed to stay away from the bottle.

  I woke at six the following morning and found Jenny sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of fresh orange juice. I wanted to take her in my arms, but she was watching me from behind an invisible wall, clearly embarrassed at having discovered her father in a moment of private grief. I returned to my bed and picked up the Bob Dylan biography I’d started three weeks earlier. I managed three pages and gave up. My heart ached and my whole body felt weary. My bones were tired, and I wondered if this was how old age felt. Doctor Elworth told me that grief affects people in different ways. I had aged thirty years in just a few months.

  As for young Darren Pascoe’s father, Benjamin, he had lost his son, not to death, but to something he might have considered far worse—a life of hopelessness mixing with the dregs of society. Three months after his son’s incarceration, he took to his bed with a bottle of whisky and a handful of pills. They found him two days later.

  ***

  Josie Duxbury still called me nearly every day. Jo ran The Dog and Keys with her husband Lou. She was a born earth mother who took on life’s problems with lead-lined boxing gloves. Elizabeth and I had often spent a Saturday evening listening to Josie belt out black soul and blues at the local clubs. She was ‘the white Aretha Franklin’, according to the little balding compère who introduced her each weekend with childlike enthusiasm.

  Lou was a big guy with hands like shovels, a ruddy complexion and short, insanely white hair. He cut an imposing figure and was worth two pit b
ulls when it came to deterring potential burglars. He insisted on hugging me every time we met. It was like being mauled by a bear and then dropped, winded, on the floor.

  It was Lou, an innately passive man, who had offered to go looking for Pascoe and Taylor, and I’d never seen a man filled with such rage. “I’ll tell you sommat, Rob, if I catch those fucking bastards I’ll tear them apart, I will. I’ll rip them limb from fucking limb.”

  I knew it wasn’t idle talk. Something inside told me that if Pascoe and Taylor walked through the door of The Keys at that moment, they’d be carried out in a box. Lou’s face was almost purple with anger. I’d heard him swear twice. That was rare for the guy. He was one of life’s true gentlemen who would, even in these liberal days, warn the punters about their language frequently; towering over them at six foot plus, he rarely got an argument.

  ***

  Josie had given up the clubs and taken up psychology at St. Mary’s College. Lou had never liked the idea of his wife breathing in the smoke that drifted like a creeping fog across the stage, and when her doctor had advised her that it was affecting her vocal chords, she decided to give up the stage for a quieter life.

  I suppose that I became Josie’s patient. She was a skilled listener who would analyse every word. I’d called in for a drink to escape the emptiness of the house but discovered that I couldn’t. It was there when I woke and remained throughout each day.

  Jo placed my whisky on the table and looked at me with that stern mother-like look that she reserved for these occasions. “So, Robert Adams, how the hell are you?”

  “Lonely,” I replied. “Unbearably lonely.”

  “You have Jenny,” she reminded me.

  “I know. But it feels as if we are one. We’re lonely together—it’s hard to explain.”

  Josie smiled. “Doesn’t Jenny have any friends?”

  I shrugged. “She did, I suppose. But they seem to be giving her some space. Maybe they just don’t know what to say.”