Sing me to Sleep

by Helen Moorhouse

  I am unsure how I am here. Since the house where I spent my life and my death was sold a month ago, I have been somewhere and nowhere at the same time and now I am here. It feels odd to be outdoors after so long. I grew so used to the walls of 17 Pilton Gardens that I didn’t think anywhere else existed any more, not really. It feels good too. I feel more solid, somehow, as if I am something again. As if I am somehow a person. If I concentrate very hard I can feel a tingle on my skin, the tickle of the air rushing by. It can’t last, this feeling, of course. I know that – I understand it. Because along with the sense of being again, comes a weariness with which I can barely contend. The exhaustion of every heightened emotion of twenty-four years spent watching.

  If I were alive, I would be middle-aged. How odd to feel it, yet to have no idea what it would look like. In my head, I am still twenty-seven years old – I am twenty-seven years old, but with the wisdom and pain and joy of the fifty-one years that I have existed coursing through my veins. Before now everything was unfinished but being here – finally leaving the prison of my death and being here, with them, where they all are – my family – the sense of completion becomes clearer and clearer.

  The robin gives another sharp trill in the tree as if demanding attention. She succeeds as they turn their heads to seek and find her and point her out to the child. “Look, Judith,” they say. “Look at the birdie.” But at two months old my granddaughter is only interested in the warmth of arms and the taste of sweet milk.

  My granddaughter. Judith Rose, Jennifer Mycroft. The Jennifer is for me, the Rose for my mother, and Judith, not after the woman, but after the place, Judith’s Acre. Where my daughter has thrived. Where she has been happiest.

  My beloved Bee. My darling. My beginning. My end. She’ll be back soon, I heard Ed say. Gone to the village of Watchet – “Watch iiiit!” he warns the woman in jest, in what seems to be a familiar joke – to meet her friends from school for coffee. He laughed about how once they couldn’t keep her in but since Judith’s arrival they cannot get her out. I understand that too. The love, the sheer adoration that you can feel when your child finally leaves the sanctuary of your body and you are torn between wanting her to go back where it’s safe, and the want – the need – to look at her beauty every hour God sends. To drink her in, to find looking away unbearable in case you miss something, the tiniest thing, to need to touch and smell and nuzzle and nurse. After that, there is nothing that can make you as happy again. I know that my Bee understands that now too. That she knows that this is instinct. That this is how every woman feels about her daughter. How I felt about her.

  Ed and I dreamed of this too. Of sitting side by side in the sunshine. Of grandchildren. Of love. Of contentment. If I had to die again, then this is how I would want to do it. In the arms of my family, peacefully. On a Saturday morning when the world is at rest, going about pleasurable business.

  I look at Ed. My husband. Still my husband, despite all of the changes of the years. He beams at his grandchild beatifically. How must it feel, I wonder, to hold an infant in your arms after wanting to for so long? To inhale the scent that you wish was the only air that you ever had to breathe, to feel the silk of the skin, to run your finger the length of the miniature hand and marvel as the fingers unfold like exotic petals just for a moment before they curl again. I am awash with love for him. My being is made up of love for this man, after all these years, after the betrayal. My body feels like a light – a coloured beam that suddenly changes to another shade as jealousy flashes through me – my old companion. How I want to hold that child! How I want to be the woman who sits with him at this very moment in time. Who laughs as he kicks his foot out at a pig that wanders up to him, snuffling at his feet. Who takes the child delicately from his arms as he reaches down to the animal to make an apology and is rewarded by sniffs and grunts. How I want to have lain beside him every night for all these years, to have mothered more of his children. How I want to die beside him – I am reminded suddenly of a song that my mother liked. ‘Bist Du Bei Mir’ it was called. She translated it for me once:

  “If you are with me, then I will go gladly

  unto death and to my rest.

  Ah, what a pleasant end for me,

  if your dear hands be the last I see,

  closing shut my faithful eyes to rest!”

  That. That is what I want. I burn with longing for what I have missed. Ache as I watch the woman – I should call her by name: Rowan – place my granddaughter over her shoulder, pressing their cheeks together. I can see my granddaughter’s face now as she turns her head gently into Rowan’s neck, nuzzling, hunting for food. The tiny wrinkled nose, the eyes screwed shut as she yawns, long and thoroughly, the two tiny fists under her chin, propping her head up to enable her to get a better look at me when she finally deigns to open those eyes and look. She can see me, of course. They say that babies can – I never believed it when Bee used to stare in the direction of my mother’s favourite armchair and my father used to tell me that she must be there, watching over her. Now I know it was true. Tiny Judith will never remember this moment but it is good enough for me. She has seen me. I am sure of it. And with that comes another release. I can be of no use to her, of course. Will never know her, will never hold her or talk with her. I am not the woman for the job, I know. That is Rowan’s task. She is her grandmother now.

  I think I might have grown to like Rowan if I had known her. If not like her, then admire her. Admire her resilience and her strength. Admire her kindness and patience. Admire the way in which, while she couldn’t have stayed to watch, she waited right outside the door of the Mayberry abortion clinic that day and gathered Bee in her arms the instant that she emerged, unsure as to whether or not Bee had gone through with the procedure. Admire the way she took her away for good advice and tea and dry crackers and love. I am jealous of her, yes. But I do not begrudge her what she has just because I myself can’t have it. She has had a hard life. She deserves the love of the man she has stood by and adored all of these years. She is a better woman – a better wife, I know, than I could ever have been. I am filled with a longing to embrace her, to say thank you, to say sorry. This woman who has taken the family that I broke and repaired them one by one with her love.

  I look at Ed. He turns to smile at his wife and I see him again as he was over thirty years ago when he first smiled at me. When we started our adventure together. If I had lived another life then at this very moment in time I might be enfolded in his arms, inhaling his scent, feeling the roughness of his chin against my cheek. I have been enshrouded all of these years by guilt and regret every time I have looked at him. It is only now that I watch him reclaim the child and cradle her to his chest that I can somehow cast that shroud aside and feel at last happy for him. Feel his contentment, his bliss, his complete peace.

  There is a sudden flurry of excitement as the sound of a distant engine grinds closer, climbing the hill to the house behind where we sit.

  “Mummy’s home,” they tell Judith.

  How strange that feels, to hear my baby Bee called that. Exhausted as I am, I can see her now, coming around the side of the house and my heart leaps so hard that I think it will burst from me, that I am sure that I must be alive again, reincarnated by the thrill of her presence. As I have done her whole life, I watch her. See her hair wild and ablaze in the sunlight; she wears it loose over her shoulders today, her errant curls nudged by a breeze that catches her as she stops and bends, her hands on her knees, her face alight as her father holds Baby Judith up to show her that her mother has returned.

  “Well!” gasps Bee. “Have you been a good girl?” She reaches out – that blissful second of anticipation, of empty arms that know they will soon be full. “Mummy’s home,” she says herself. There. I’ve heard her say it. That word. ‘mummy’. One last time. Not ‘mum’ or ‘mother’ but ‘mummy’. My name.

  I watch as mother and child are reunited. I follow the familiar pattern of the little kisses, the embrac
e loaded with the relief that comes when two pieces of the same thing have been rightfully fitted back together. I close my eyes and try to imagine how that might feel. To hold someone. My child. And suddenly I can. I feel warmth as if my arms were wrapped around another being. And I feel their arms around me in return. I am unsure if it is memory, or an illusion created by longing, or someone who has come to take me, but finally, I can feel again.

  And it is surrounded by this bliss that I open my eyes and look at them all one more time. Tiny, perfect Judith, good and kind Rowan, my wonderful Ed and finally Bee who is lost in her own bliss, her daughter cradled warm and safe under her chin, crooning a tune that only the child can hear. Singing her to sleep. This is all that has ever mattered, I know. All that will ever matter again. They are my family and they are together. And I am with them. This is why I have stayed awake for so long but now it’s all in place, all complete.

  I can go now.

  Now that you’re hooked, why not try

  The Dark Water Chapters one and two, also by

  Helen Moorhouse, as a taster!

  The Dark Water chapter 1

  October 29th

  Silently, the intruder slipped into the apartment and stayed a while in the hallway, listening, contemplating his next move.

  He was drawn to the living room – had been since the first time he’d come here, unnoticed and silent. He moved so stealthily that it was hard to tell if he walked or floated down the corridor. Once there, he moved the living-room door at the very end of the passage and it squeaked defiantly, causing him to pause a moment, to listen for sounds of movement from the room on his left – the one he hadn’t dared visit yet. There was only stillness. He proceeded, entering the room and beginning the familiar walk-around.

  He walked by the first window, a shadow crossing past the amber glow from the streetlight outside. Next, to the writing desk which fitted into the space between the two long sash windows. He riffled through a book open on the desk – The True History of Edinburgh’s Vaults – losing the page that had been left open. Beside it, a notepad – should he try to leave another message? The last one had been so difficult. And it had taken so much of his energy. He decided against it tonight.

  The intruder moved to the mantelpiece of the tall fireplace, grasping its edge momentarily, leaving four fingerprints behind in the dust. He then ran a forefinger along the mantel, leaving a trail, pausing at the end. At the picture. Gently, he turned the frame toward him, to see it better – the black-and-white photograph of a boy in swimming trunks – nine or ten years of age – he couldn’t remember precisely. The boy stared back at him, a familiar broad, proud grin across his face, holding a brick, of all things, under his left arm and in his right hand, thrust toward the camera, was a medal on a piece of ribbon.

  The intruder stared at it a long time, lost in the face of the beaming child, thoughts and memories rushing through his head, so many that they hurt. He turned away, unable to sustain the energy that they needed. He wanted to go, but knew that he couldn’t leave yet. He had a job to do and he was determined that tonight he was finally going to do it.

  He glanced around the rest of the room, at the belongings of the man. Empty teacups, a half-drunk bottle of Bell’s, a glass left with a sticky stain on its base where the last drains of a drink had congealed. A long black coat was slung over an armchair, the pocket pulled inside out. Dirty dishes were scattered throughout.

  The intruder moved toward the door again.

  This time, he didn’t pull it toward him to open it, or pull it behind him to close it. Instead, he stepped silently around it, despite the fact that he seemed too big, even for a small person, to negotiate the space. In a second, he stood outside the next door to the right. In yet another second, having summoned all of his energy, and as quietly as he possibly could, he stood on the other side of it, taking in his surroundings: the wardrobe and tallboy, the bedside lockers, the vast bed. And in it, the man he desperately needed to see. The one person who could maybe help him. The one person that he needed to know.

  In his sleep, Gabriel McKenzie dreamed that someone had entered his room. They hadn’t used the door – he hadn’t heard the handle turn – but they were in there with him all the same. Gradually, he found himself swimming up from deep, deep sleep, to something verging on consciousness. Half-awake, he became gradually more aware, his heart starting to beat faster, his breathing audible as he surfaced from his slumber. There was someone in his room, someone standing at the end of his bed, watching him.

  Gabriel didn’t want to, but he knew he had to. He gasped with fear and expectation, forced himself to sit upright, ready to confront who was there. He subconsciously sought words – a ‘who the hell are you?’ or ‘get out’ or ‘don’t hurt me’ – he wouldn’t know until they came out of his mouth.

  But there was no one there.

  Gabriel’s heart raced as he scanned the room, his eyes darting from right to left and back again to the end of the bed where he’d felt – no, known – that someone was watching him, but the room was empty, the only sound his own ragged breathing. Not again, he thought.

  The Dark Water Chapter 2

  October 31st

  “Come on, Martha, it’s starting!”

  Martha Armstrong glanced impatiently at the clock in her kitchen, two empty glasses in one hand and a chilled bottle of wine in the other. She had to resist shouting back to Sue in the next room, to let her know that she was on her way. She jigged a little from foot to foot and forced herself to look at the screen that Will was studying intently, his elbows resting on the granite-topped island where they both stood, staring at his laptop.

  “There!” he said, pointing at the screen. “What do you think?”

  Martha stared at the screen. It showed a large room in darkness, visible only in the green tinge of night-vision cameras. The shot was focused closely on a grand piano to the left of a marble fireplace. Suddenly, what seemed like a small, flickering ball of light rose directly up from the closed lid of the piano, hovered for a second or two and then appeared to double – a second, identical ball of light appearing to imitate exactly what the first did – before they zoomed off the screen and disappeared.

  “Orb?” asked Will, leaning on his elbows and turning toward Martha, his face intent and hopeful. Martha couldn’t help but smile and resisted the urge to lean forward and kiss him. “Moth, my sweet,” she grinned and put the glasses and the wine bottle down on the kitchen island before reaching for the computer mouse.

  Will sighed. “Are you sure?” he said, frustrated. “The Leith Street Group sent this to me, positive that there was something in this particular piece of footage.”

  Martha shook her head. “Watch,” she said, returning to the beginning of the segment of video and playing it again. “The movement is fluttery, I suppose you’d call it, exactly the same as a moth or a butterfly, and the hovering is just too similar to the movement of a flying insect to conclusively prove that it’s paranormal – you’re always saying yourself that it can only be paranormal if you can’t in any way, shape or form prove that it’s normal – and this is just too normal for me.”

  She reached again and picked up the wineglasses, intending to move away.

  “But it splits in two!” Will said, exasperated.

  Martha sighed and put the glasses down again with a clink. “Seriously, Will – you don’t even believe in orbs being the first stage of a spirit manifestation. You told me that you thought they were only ever insects or dust or reflections of passing lights or whatever – I didn’t pick my cynicism up off the side of the road.” She was growing increasingly impatient. So many conversations with Will were like this these days.

  “The footage is very grainy but, look, there’s a mirror on the mantel up above the fireplace, and my guess is that the edges are bevelled – hence our moth, or insect or whatever, fluttering about, looking for a way out, reflected in the light from the camera, suddenly doubles up, one becomes two – it
s own reflection – and then zips off about its business. The mirror is unframed, and the angle of the shot, up that close, makes it difficult to get a clear view of the scene as a whole. It’s a simple mistake to make though, especially for believers in orbs. Which you’re not, right?”

  Will knew she was correct but Martha could tell it didn’t make him happy. He so desperately wanted evidence these days to prove absolutely that there was something out there. He knew it, and she of all people knew it but proving it was the elusive dream for people like him, and hundreds of thousands of people before him. When he’d had Gabriel to bounce off, he’d been less disheartened every time something proved inconclusive but now he relied more and more on her, and his own desperation. Obviously his age didn’t help – approaching his late thirties might well have catapulted him into a mid-life crisis and a need to make a significant mark in his field before it was too late.

  For that matter, at the age of thirty-seven, perhaps she was in premature mid-life crisis too.

  “Shit,” he said simply.

  Martha tried to avoid eye contact with him and continued to stare at the laptop. She knew it was ridiculous but sometimes she felt that he almost wanted to blame her when something could be explained rationally and she was the one doing the explaining.

  Will went and picked up his waxed jacket from a nearby chair and slid his arms into it. “Shit, shit, shit!” he said, and ran a hand through his hair. “Of course it’s a moth!” He rolled his eyes upward. “It’s so stupid of me to think otherwise but you’re right – I need to get a grip and get back to using my head when it comes to these things. It’s just so frustrating sometimes . . .”