by Graham West
“She isn’t. That’s why she won’t go.”
Josie shrugged. “I guess he couldn’t help, anyway. It’s hardly a medical problem, is it?”
“Not unless it’s some kind of brain tumour—you hear about these things, don’t you? People start having hallucinations and stuff like that.”
“And headaches, usually. Has Jenny had—”
“She hasn’t said.”
“Let’s put it this way, hun. I’d rather see her visiting a shrink than a surgeon!”
I hadn’t really considered the possibility that my daughter’s behaviour had been caused by something growing in her head, but it tripped off my tongue before I’d had a chance to stop it. The internet would have allowed me to research the tumour subject privately, but when I arrived home, I found Jenny sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching the History Channel on TV. I asked her, as nonchalantly as possible, if she had been suffering from any kind of physical pain. She shook her head and turned up the volume.
Jenny was looking for Amelia on the TV; I was sure of it. It was a documentary on ancient churches, and I was tempted to sit with her and pry. Maybe she would open up and tell me about the dreams. Maybe she would let me into her head—more likely, my interference would send her scuttling back into her bedroom.
Instead, I busied myself in the kitchen, arranging glasses and cups the way Elizabeth used to in her spare time, and hoping that my daughter would find the tools to break down the barriers she had erected.
I made two phone calls the following morning, the first one to Doctor Elworth’s surgery, where I managed to make an appointment for the following day. Reverend Francis answered my second call and sounded relieved to hear my voice.
“Mr. Adams,” he said breathlessly, as if he had picked up the phone at the end of a hundred-metre sprint. “I’m so glad you called—I’m afraid I mislaid your number. How’s Jenny?”
“She’s not said anything about the incident.”
“Have you asked?”
“No. I’m hoping she will talk to me when she’s ready.”
I wasn’t sure if the reverend would agree with my hands-off approach, but I told him everything I knew about my daughter’s state of mind. It had all started out of the blue, after she began talking about mediums. I kind of guessed that would get any self-proclaimed servant of God listening.
I was allowed to tell my story without interruption—I occasionally had to stop to check he was still on the other end of the line—and when I’d finished, the reverend cleared his throat.
“I’m not really into all this demon possession theology,” he began. “To be honest, I absolutely detest those awful so-called God channels on satellite TV, but I do believe that we can leave ourselves open to evil forces.”
“You think Jenny is possessed?” My heart began to thump.
“I’d hesitate to make such an assumption at this point…”
“My friend thinks she needs a shrink.”
Francis hesitated. “I wouldn’t discount that possibility, either. As I say, I think some of our more enthusiastic Evangelicals blame mental illness on the Devil and his minions, but I do feel this could be a spiritual thing.”
“The spirit of a dead woman?”
Again, Francis hesitated, but when he spoke, there was an authority in his tone. “Yes. If this woman actually existed.” There was a brief silence. “I think Jenny needs a lot of prayer.”
I knew better than to ask my daughter to go back to St. Jude’s. It was out of the question. But I agreed to return on my own later that week. I liked the rotund, balding minister. He was easy to talk to and, unlike Josie, didn’t seem to believe my daughter was ready for the asylum. That alone made him worth a visit.
***
Doctor Elworth greeted me warmly as I walked into his surgery. “Mr. Adams. How are you?”
He stood to shake my hand with his Superman-like grip. Pictures of his wife and baby stood in silver frames in the corner of his desk. No chance for Jenny, then.
“Take a seat,” he invited, flopping down into his leather swivel chair and tapping the keyboard. My details fired up on the screen. “How have you been keeping?”
“We seem to be surviving,” I replied, feeling that the word fine was an insult to Elizabeth and Hanna’s memory.
Elworth was staring at the screen. “So, how can I help?”
“It’s about Jenny.”
He smiled. “Ah, Jenny. She’s a credit to you.”
“Yes—thank you—she is—but…”
“She’s not coping well?”
“I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
With that, I repeated the tale I’d told the reverend the day before. Elworth listened attentively, just as the minister had done, but unlike Francis, he believed it was all down to the stress brought on by the tragedy.
“I can refer Jenny to a counsellor,” he suggested, turning to face me. “But I would have to talk to Jenny first.”
“God! No!” I blurted unintentionally.
Elworth raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“She wouldn’t come. I know she wouldn’t.”
“It would all be confidential. Someone would speak to your daughter—a phone call. Then they would assess the situation and take it from there.”
I felt my face flush. “The thing is—she doesn’t know that I’ve read her diary. I’m not supposed to know about this Amelia Root woman.”
Elworth looked concerned. “But the fact that she wandered into a church fifty miles from her home with a knife and a spray can… That might be enough.”
The doctor was right, I knew. Dismissing his advice seemed irresponsible. “Look, I’ll have a go—but I wouldn’t hold out any hope. She’ll go ape shit, I’m telling you.”
I left the surgery under a cloud and drove home with the lunchtime phone-in blasting out on the radio. I felt close to my father when those things were on—I could almost hear the old guy muttering as some idiot called with an ill-conceived argument.
When I walked through the door, Jenny was waiting for me, her face red and tear-stained.
“Where have you been?” she snapped angrily.
“Out.”
“Out? Where?”
“Just a run—you know—fresh air.”
Jenny glared. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Liar!”
The hatred in her voice startled me. “Why?” I asked meekly.
“You’ve been to see Elworth!”
I felt as if someone had just punched me in the stomach. “Well, yes.”
“What about? Me?”
“No, of course not, darling. I was getting headaches…”
“Liar!” Another tear trickled down her other cheek. “Why don’t you tell me the truth, Dad? Why?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“No! No, you’re not. You went to Doctor Elworth telling him how I was going crazy…how I walked into a church and vandalised it…how I wake up screaming in the night!” Jenny’s eyes flamed with hatred. “Well, thanks a fucking bunch, Dad! Why don’t you just throw me in a padded cell and forget about me! Then you can bring your cheap tarts home to Mum’s bed and I won’t even know! Is that what you want?”
“Tarts? Where did that come from?”
Jenny burst into tears. I moved towards her, but she backed up. I stopped.
“Jenny! That is the last thing I want. I’m scared, honey. This is just getting out of hand. I’ll do anything I can to help, but you have to let me in.”
“There’s nothing you can do. I’m going crazy,” Jenny said, stifling her tears.
“You’re not. I’m going to prove it!”
Jenny looked up. “How?”
“I’m going to find this Amelia woman!”
As soon as the words left my lips, my insides turned and my heart seemed to stop. In that moment, it seemed that the whole world gasped. Jenny had never mentioned Amelia!
I was met with a look of disbelief. “WHAT?”
I tr
ied to form a reply, but there was nothing to say. I just waited.
“You—you’ve been in my room. You’ve been in my room—through my things!” Jenny’s voice rose to a scream. “You sneaking bastard! How could you?”
Before I had time to react, Jenny was on me, her fists flailing, her ring splitting my lip, further blows raining down on my chest. I managed to grip both of her wrists and hold her as her eyes blazed, cutting through me like lasers, but I could do nothing about the stream of sputum that flew like a missile from her mouth and caught me in the eye.
In shock, I let her go and felt the sickening crack of bone as her clenched fist slammed into my nose. The pain was excruciating, and I felt myself staggering backwards. Only the doorframe stopped me from falling. Blood poured from my nose as Jenny thundered up the stairs.
“You and me—we’re over!” she screamed. “Go and fuck yourself!”
I watched, dazed by the anger. My angel had turned in into the Devil before my eyes.
Chapter Ten
Luckily, my nose had not been broken but I cancelled my visit to Tabwell, explaining to Reverend Francis that I had a more pressing appointment and would be in touch soon. I drove to the graveyard early the following day, having had no further contact with Jenny, who had not ventured from her room even to make herself a drink.
Neither of us had eaten, and the only thing that had entered my mouth was a toothbrush. That morning, I’d not even bothered to shave. My left eye was turning a rather violent shade of purple, and I couldn’t face either Lou or Josie and give them the old walked-into-a-door story. Besides, I didn’t even want to start lying to Josie.
The tranquillity of the cemetery was my only option—a place where I could walk in peace. The graveyard was, in many ways, a haven of rest to the living as well as the dead, yet as I sat behind the wheel of my car, I found myself wishing my father was sitting beside me. I had a million questions.
Jenny had never morphed into the teen from hell. She had been spared the effects of raging hormones and remained balanced and remarkably mature, and I’d been proud of her. She was thoughtful, eloquent and chose her friends well. Her closest friends—Kelly, Ellen and Laura—all had aspirations above those of their classmates. They had little time for the celebrity culture that gripped the youth of the day.
But now, she had developed a volcanic temper, hence her attempt to rearrange my features. Terrible thoughts raced through my aching head. I’d never seen such rage on my daughter’s face—a rage that left me wondering what else she was capable of. I couldn’t risk leaving my photocopies of her diary in the house and decided that they were best hidden under the mat in the boot of the car. If she only knew. I shuddered and pushed the thought from my mind as I turned into the cemetery and parked up.
The watery mid-morning sun reflected off the marble stones as I walked down the narrow tarmac paths. As always, I stopped several times to read the epitaphs—the verses of love and grief. I was so busy reading the lament to a lost love on a newly placed expensive headstone that I’d not noticed the man standing at Elizabeth’s grave.
From the back, it was difficult to tell his age; his gender was the only thing his attire revealed: a dark grey fedora, a maroon scarf and a long dark overcoat, which hung low on his calves, revealing a little of a pair of black trousers and casual black loafers.
I approached in silence, but, as if he had heard my almost inaudible footsteps, he turned when I was nearly fifty metres away. He smiled, as if he were expecting me.
“Mr. Adams?” he said as I arrived at the grave.
“Er…yes.”
He was in his late seventies, at least. Wisps of fine grey hair poked from beneath his hat, and his face was lined by age, but his eyes—and they were a quite remarkable hazel brown—were as bright as a child’s. He held out his hand and I shook it. His grip was as firm as Elworth’s.
“My name’s Sebastian Tint—unusual, but I’m stuck with it.” His expression softened. “I’m sorry to intrude,” his baritone voice was almost musical, “but I have often stopped here.” He paused and studied the epitaph for a moment. “Someday, I hoped I would meet you.”
I wondered if I should have been worried by the news this old eccentric had been visiting my wife’s and daughter’s graves, yet the man had an aura—believe me, I wasn’t into the whole aura thing normally—and a serenity that was comforting.
“You lost your child and your wife,” he continued. “Tragically, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“A car accident?”
“An accident-cum-murder,” I replied.
“Oh.”
“Two kids out joy-riding ploughed into them. Crushed against the back of an ice cream van.”
“Good Lord! I’m so sorry.” He was thinking, shaking his head. Clearly, Sebastian Tint wasn’t given to making idle talk; that was obvious even at this early stage in our acquaintance. “Are you on your own?” he asked.
“I’ve a seventeen-year-old daughter—Jenny.”
He nodded. “Good. She’ll keep you going.”
“She does,” I replied with a rueful laugh. “There’s no doubt about that.”
Tint smiled. “So, that’s it,” he said.
“Pardon?”
He looked stunned. “Oh…nothing. I was—”
“You said ‘so that’s it’—what did you mean?”
The old guy sighed. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I think aloud.”
I let it go. He was just a casual acquaintance, after all. A man I’d probably never meet again.
“I lost my wife nearly fifteen years ago,” he said, staring down at the grave. “We had no children.” He pulled out a wallet and flicked it open, revealing an old black-and-white photograph of a young woman, standing in front of a huge rock, the sea tickling her feet, her skirt hitched above her knees. “Honeymoon,” he explained. “Her name’s Joyce.”
“Did you never want children or…”
Tint laughed. “Want? In those days, it was not your decision. It either happened or it didn’t. Family planning was frowned upon.”
“So, you would have liked children?”
He nodded, and for a moment we stood in silence, both staring at the epitaph to my wife and baby girl. Tint drew breath, inhaling the morning air. I knew it was the prelude to an explanation—the reason he was here.
“Mr. Adams, could you humour a strange old man for a few minutes? If, after that time, you decide I’m a fool, then I will never trouble you again. Nor will I ever cast a shadow over the grave of your precious wife and daughter.”
I agreed and Tint waved me forward. “Shall we take a stroll?”
The old man walked without the aid of a frame or stick. He was willowy and athletic, even in his dotage, and I guessed he could still tackle a few Lakeland fells if he chose.
“I was drawn to Elizabeth and Hanna’s grave,” he said. “It is on the route to the bench I often use when I come here to reflect. But each time I passed…” He paused. “Each time, I had to stop. I sensed something.”
I remained silent, waiting.
“It’s a long story, Mr. Adams. I have a sixth sense. Me! I was a man of science who frowned on religion and ridiculed those who professed they talked with the dead.”
“You’re a medium?”
“Good Lord, no!” he gasped, as if the very word might choke him. “I don’t make a business out of it. I doubt if I could summon a dead person if I tried.”
“But you believe in the afterlife?”
“I have no choice, Mr. Adams. I do not pretend to understand the spiritual world or why I was unable to pass by your wife’s grave. But I know you need help, and I’m guessing that somewhere in this turmoil, your daughter is right there—the centre of this storm.”
I felt the blood draining from my face. A part of me wanted to walk away. I was being drawn into another world—a world which I, like the old man, didn’t understand.
“So, Mr. Adams,” Tint said softly, “tell me what’s
troubling your daughter.”
I was uncertain where to begin. “She’s stressed—grieving for her mother and sister.”
“Of course she is. But that is not why I’m here, is it?”
If I had not seen the rage on Jenny’s face the day before—if I had not felt so desperate—there was no way I would have revealed her secrets to a stranger that morning. But I felt our meeting was more than chance.
We sat on the bench Sebastian Tint had funded and dedicated to the memory of his wife, overlooking the acres of green littered with marble and stone, and I told him everything, beginning with the dreams—the nightmares—and the woman who waited for Jenny every time she passed into the unconscious world.
When I’d finished, the old man stayed silent for many moments, reflecting on the things I’d told him, before he asked, “Do you think that Jenny needs professional help, as your friend so delicately puts it?”
“I don’t know.”
Tint hummed thoughtfully. “Dreams always fascinated me. They often reveal our deepest anxieties.”
“You think this is all to do with Jenny’s grief?”
Tint smiled. “Oh, it’s not as simple as that. I believe it is easier for spiritual energies to connect with our subconscious.”
I nodded. “Which would suggest that she has somehow contacted an aggressive spirit.”
“Maybe. I know it’s difficult to overcome the natural scepticism that we harbour. But if you wish to help your daughter—and I know that you do—you have to decide whose help you will enlist. The psychotherapist’s…or mine.”
I didn’t answer.
Tint pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to me. “Think about it, Mr. Adams. This is an important decision and you must be quite sure. This is my name, address and phone number. I do not run a business—I’m not a medium—but I can help.”
I glanced down at the slip of plain white card: Sebastian Tint. 122 Heyworth Garden Lane. Patchton. There was no code, and the telephone number was so small, I could barely read it without glasses.
“If you decide to enlist my help, you can call tomorrow. I shall be in all morning.” Tint rose and turned, raising his head. “And if I do not see you again, I shall wish you well.” He smiled warmly. “Feel free to remain here. The seat is yours.”