Between

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Sophie blushed and nodded. “Well, when talking about my parents, it is. Did you ever meet my father?”

  Romano shook his head, a tumble of black hair. “I avoided such an intrusion. When we were together, Georgia had no husband except myself.” He watched the girl, who reminded him so much of her mother, a continuity of pleasantries as she sat where Georgia had so often sat, holding her wine glass the same way, the same self-deprecating twitch to the corner of the mouth, the same blushes. “But now the sun sinks and the night’s dew rises. Will you come into the kitchen? It is time to think of dinner.”

  Sophie followed into the old kitchen, kept still richly warm by the sun retaining stone. Through the windows the long terraces dulled their day-time colours, cypress stripes turned quite black, a cobalt sky dropped its scarlets and hurried to sleep. The scudding twists of swallow clouds hushed and calmed. She called to Julian, still admiring the view from the end of the garden slopes. The short twilight had turned purple. Julian turned and trotted back indoors. Romano smiled.

  “We mustn’t outstay our welcome,” said Sophie, accepting back her refilled wine glass. “We’ve nothing much to go home for of course. I’m out of work as you know, and Julian’s got no outstanding orders. It’s tempting just to stay and stay, so you have to tell us when you’ve had enough. Be honest and tell us when to go.”

  He looked down at her. It surprised him, enjoyably, to find he considered her as his own daughter. “You are welcome to stay,” he said. “Of course, all things have their natural end. But I like to see you here, and your friend is no problem. Stay. Stay as long as you wish it.”

  They sat at the dining table, legs stretched after good food, and were watching the late news on the television when the knock on the door interrupted them. Romano looked up. “No one comes here except my brother and his family. My brother said he might come. But it is too late. He would never come at this hour.”

  “Shall I go and see?” said Julian and went out into the corridor. By the time he had opened the front door, a nose was pressed to the back windows. The moon beams were momentarily deflected. Romano raised an eyebrow and turned down the volume on the television. Sophie went to the back door.

  Someone young beneath the weight of a cavernous pack-pack bobbed upon the step. He was bent slightly forward beneath permanently stooped shoulders and the crush of blue acrylic weight. The back-pack straps hung around him like wilted flags. “I’ve been trying to get to Siena but I’m completely lost.” His breath came in bursts. “You don’t speak English do you?”

  “Well, I’m English, but you’re not,” said Sophie.

  “I’m Australian,” said the boy, accent unmistakable. “Sorry about the trespass and everything. But Siena, you know, the palio and medieval squares. Is it around here anywhere?”

  “You can tell him,” said Romano from the depths of the kitchen, “that it’s at least a four hour walk. Due west. But if he’s hoping to see the palio he needn’t walk too fast. He has about two months.”

  “I couldn’t just rest a bit here and take this pack off?” pleaded the boy. “Perhaps sit in your garden for about ten minutes. I’m bloody exhausted.”

  “He’s smelled your cooking, Romano,” said Julian, coming around to see what had happened.

  “Tell him,” said Romano, “to come in. He can rest here for an hour, if he’s alone. Pass him a glass, perhaps.”

  “Bloody good of you, thanks,” said the boy, shuddering out of his straps and buckles. “Wow! That’s better. Hang on, I’ll take these boots off. This is a bit of luck.” He took the glass, raised it and drained it.

  He was Wayne from Melbourne whose friends had left him, distracted by the flutter of seductive Italian eyelashes. His own eyes were baby blue, and once freed and unbowed by baggage, he gambolled and tripped over the uneven flag stones and shook everyone’s hands and Romano’s twice and drank several glasses of Chianti. Then he was thrilled to accept the left-overs from the evening’s mozzarella salad, and afterwards some warmed up ciabata, and then some more Chianti.

  The television news was finishing. The President of the Republic had met with the Prime Minister and there was discussion about the value of the Euro and its effect on the interest rates. For some reason not fully explained, the Prime Minister was threatening to resign. There had been a breakthrough from a medical research team in Bologna, hailed as the greatest development since the invention of spectacles in Venice some six hundred years previously. There had been a suicide bomber who’d inexplicably blown up a bus on some Greek island, with only one survivor. A small religious sect had claimed responsibility and announced that the holy war was justified in order to punish the enemy, that the bomber was a martyr not a terrorist, and that he was now in Heaven enjoying the fruits and bounteous rewards of his glorious sacrifice. Juventus had beaten Milan three nil and the weather would naturally be fine and dry all week. In fact, all month.

  The Rai’s telegiornale was in a language understood only by himself so reaching over to turn the television off, Romano said, “There are several spare rooms upstairs. It is late. Stay the night. I’ll drive you into Siena tomorrow morning. Perhaps we’d all like an outing and Siena is quite interesting.”

  Wayne said, “That’s fantastic. I will. I’m bloody tired out. This has sure been a great day.”

  “I’ll show you upstairs,” said Sophie.

  As the sun set over the Tuscan hills, Georgia was talking to her father. She had invited him to her home and they were sitting smiling at each other as they had done when alive, smile to smile, cushions at their backs, tea and biscuits on the table.

  “This is the silliest thing,” said Georgia. “Who would ever believe in Heaven with bikkies and cups of Earl Grey?”

  “You’re new,” her father said in the old fatherly voice she remembered and used to call bossy. “This is the sort of thing we all do when we first arrive. We all grow out of it.” He paused, then pursed his lips into a smile. “Actually, some people keep on with the custom for ages, but most get bored with the old stuff quite quickly.”

  “And we stop being bored – how?” said Georgia. “More interesting things to do? More exciting? Or we just become so sublime that we simply float around being peaceful and holy?”

  Her father was clearly enjoying the biscuits. “I haven’t stopped discovering yet. This Heaven business isn’t just simply a holiday. It’s all about moving on and up.”

  “You used to say that sort of thing to me about school when I was a kid.” But Georgia paused, and added. “But it’s what Norwen says too.” She pouring tea from a very attractive blue teapot. “It might not seem like work and effort, but he says in a way it is. He says we have to grow out of the illusions and become pure spirit. Climb up into all those other planes one by one – absorbing all the lessons we passed or failed in our previous lives, and turning them into sustainable spiritual growth.” Georgia drank her tea. As her mind moved to more spiritual matters, the tea seemed to grow cold. She switched back her focus. “But in the meantime, you know – this will sound so silly, but it’s just so nice to have a matching tea set. I actually never had that before. I’m not saying it matters, because of course it never really mattered then and it certainly doesn’t matter now - but I used to think about buying a new one quite often and then never did. I just always had the old green set with marigolds that I inherited from you and Mum, and most of the cups were chipped or completely broken. Lots of saucers and not many tea plates or cups. The milk jug had long gone too. There was a sugar bowl with a broken knob.”

  “Being reminded of my old kitchen china after all this time!” Said her father, leaning back in the deep chair with a newly satisfied grin. “Now that feels quite peculiar.”

  Georgia waited. “And being reminded of Mum,” she said at last when her father failed to take the hint. “Does that seem odd too?”

  He looked sharply at her over the rim of his fluted blue cup. “No, not odd. I used to think of her a lot. I decided to go and
look for her once, but I couldn’t get a link. I’m not even sure if she’s here or still down there.” He sniffed loudly although Georgia was fairly sure he couldn’t have a runny nose in heaven. “Do you care?” he demanded.

  “I think I do,” she said quickly, “and it’s really what I wanted to talk to you about. I wondered if you were still bitter?”

  “That she ran out on me and abandoned our little daughter?” Her father slumped a little and sighed. “I did, for a long time. I was always furious when I was alive. I never got over it. You were only six, for goodness sake. And she ran off with that stupid young idiot from over the road, all long black eyelashes and reckoned he was a budding poet. Just an unemployable lay-about if you ask me. Yes, I was angry for the rest of my life. But not now. You can’t stay angry over here.”

  Georgia said, “You still sound as though you are.”

  “Well, I’m not.” He took another biscuit and chewed with slow deliberation. Chocolate crumbs drifted to the carpet and vanished. “I suppose it’s hurt pride. I’m – what’s the right word? Miffed. Yes, I’m still miffed. I wanted to find Rita and ask her why, what I’d done wrong, and if she regretted it afterwards. I wondered if she’d ever tried to find you and say she was sorry. But I couldn’t trace her and that’s left me with the whole problem still stuck in my throat. Unfinished business.”

  “Norwen told me about unfinished business too,” said Georgia. “He says it stops you moving up to the next level.”

  Her father closed his eyes and kept chewing. “I suppose I have to forget I’m being lectured by my daughter,” he said finally. “I have a guide too, of course. Most of us do. So I’ve had all the lectures, but knowing something doesn’t always make it better. That leaves me stuck but I know why and I’m working on it. Were you thinking of looking for your mother, then?”

  “Yes,” Georgia said. “Norwen says she’s been over a few years. He says she died of breast cancer like me, but went straight to the fifth. I want to go down and meet her.”

  “When you find her, let me know,” said her father. “Come and tell me what’s she’s like and what she said. That’ll help me a lot. Then perhaps I can go and help her move up from the fifth. And while I’m at it, help me move up myself. I yearn for the eighth, you know. I’m almost ready. I can feel it. So I need that one last lift ---”

  “That’s what I thought too,” nodded Georgia, sitting up straighter and putting down her cup of entirely cold tea. “I’m quite excited about it. Nervous too, but mostly excited. Did you want to come with me, first time?”

  He shook his head. “You talk to her first. See if she wants to meet me.” He took another biscuit. “These are nice. Did you conjure them up yourself?”

  “No,” said Georgia. “Granny made them for me. She said they were your favourites. She says you’re still bitter. Still angry.” She refrained from mentioning that her grandmother had been quite scathing about it.

  “Well, I’m not,” her father said, putting the biscuit back on the plate with a clink. “I’m not bloody angry at all. How can you be angry over here? That’s just like my mother. Still judgemental. And you, my girl, have even less right to judge.”

  “I’m not judging.”

  “You were.”

  Georgia smiled. “I’ll let you know how it goes,” she said. “It may take a bit of time because Norwen says it’s difficult to go down two levels, especially when I’m just new myself. But I mean to try and he’ll help me. I’ll come and see you after the visit, if it’s successful. After all, I suppose I might not even find her.” She watched her father’s face take on a tired, aged frown. He had reverted to youth since arriving some years previously as an elderly man, but now he looked suddenly old again. “Here,” she said, “have another biscuit.”

  Primo stood in absolute darkness within a silence that echoed its nothingness. He had no heartbeat to reverberate into the vacuum, no panting breath and no shuffle of feet on firm ground. He stood, but was utterly unaware of what supported him.

  The hand-holds had all shrunk beneath the grasp of his fingers and so he had fallen, finally, to the end of the pit. The end, though suggesting something finite, was neither satisfying nor explanatory, for this end, indescribably, was an infinite end.

  He was aware that he was dreaming but having died and knowing himself dead, the rules of reality no longer applied. The dream might be more real than the waking. He might never wake again.

  He was deeply aware of aloneness and yet he had been travelling with the harpy. She rarely left him, but she had not come with him into the pit. Primo felt no sense of her, no telepathic call nor eagle keening.

  And beyond the ice dread of total annihilation that faced him within the infinite end, was a terrible sadness, for he could no longer remember who he was. A wasted misery engulfed the black silence. He had forgotten who he had ever been.

  Chapter Twelve

  Others had left, claimed by friends and family, disappearing into the great glitter of light that came for them. At last Father Spiro had heard his sister’s call, and rushed like a puppy into her arms, and was gone. His departure seemed to leave the remainders with a greater sense of rejection. Father Martin had called goodbye, scratched his beard, wondered if the lice had died with him and were now riding him into Heaven, and kicked sorrowfully into the haze, trudging on. His own sins, it seemed, remained around his neck as did the fleas.

  Mary, newly clasped within her husband’s embrace, looked up to see her parents watching her, arms outstretched. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I hoped – and you’ve come – and I could cry and laugh and everything together – but I can’t leave Brandon – please - not now.”

  “Oh, bring him with you my dear,” said her father. “You’ll come, won’t you Brandon? Your place is ready for you, in the same house as my daughter of course, where you’ll both want to be. First a long rest, and then your own family will be ready to greet you when you wake. Come on. Such doubts? Isn’t Heaven good enough for you?”

  “Is this Heaven then?” said Brandon, one step forward, but staring around into the drifting haze.

  “Oh no, these are the fogbanks,” said Mr. Blethal’s jovial ghost. “It’s the highway between planes. It winds between all life and death. Your party arrived rather suddenly you see, and needed to adjust your vibrations. So you took to the road before finding your proper places. Death can be such a surprise under these conditions, and takes time to settle in. Now you’re both ready for the real fun.”

  “Oh, we are indeed,” said Mary, and pulled Brandon with her.

  Brandon said, “Fun? Now that sounds like Paradise after all,” and the light took them both at once.

  The bus driver stood in a bundle of cloud and frowned, kicking his heels into the invisible dust. “My sainted mother has not returned for me. My son’s left me. The others leave - look. Me, I’m left here like a discarded jacket. No use to anyone, no excuse offered. Not even a job driving a bus.”

  “Oh stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Ethel, patting his hunched shoulder. “We’re all waiting too. You’re not the only one. Look at that poor old monk with the moth-eaten whiskers. He’s got the grumps alright. Thinks he’s been refused admittance to Paradise, and that’s a nasty humiliation for a God-fearing man.”

  “And here’s the rest of us, stuck with the reason we’re all dead in the first place,” glared her husband, eyeing the straggling bomber.

  “Time to pray again I suppose,” sighed the bus driver, “though I did enough of that when I was still alive. I would have thought that’d do me. I mean, how much praise and adoration does the Good Lord need from one poor man?”

  “We could sing,” suggested Francesco, who had been silent since the desertion of his wife and brother-in-law. “Marching to music always helps, and the sacred songs, well they might reach the right ears. I know most of the best hymns off by heart.”

  Ron nodded. “I’ve a few favourites myself. I could lead you all into ‘Onward Christian Sold
iers’. ”

  “I’d as soon a couple of rousing choruses of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,” glowered Sven.

  “It seems,” said Wilhelm, “that we are all of different denominations. I wonder what sprightly religious melodies our friendly neighbourhood terrorist could offer us.”

  “I think,” noticed Ethel, “that this mist is lifting at last.”

  The harpy roosted, her bright crest folded down against the smooth feathers at the back of her head pointing into the shadow of her folded wings. She slept now, peaceful against the shoulder of the man she had adopted as her own.

  When he had stumbled and fallen, crying like an eaglet barely fledged and tumbling from its eyrie to an unknown depth, she had taken him in her claws and flown with him up into the tree tops.

  She stood as tall as his chest, this man so much weaker than herself, and her talons were wider than his fingers, with a grip he could never match. She had grasped him before he hit the ground, catching the back of his tunic and his arm. His tunic had ripped and the points of her claws had pierced the muscle of his bicep, but he did not bleed.

  At the tallest cleft of the Redwood she had thrust him, dangling face down, held fast by the branch and its prickle of leaf. For some time she had waited, watching. She had bent her golden eyes to the man’s cheek, feeling the warmth of him and the proof of his life. She had stored her prey like this, long ago in those almost forgotten forests of her youth. The shredded remains of her kills, the tangled limbs of capuchin monkeys and sloths, had stayed wedged as she fed, one claw vice-clamped, while her beak ripped out the meat. Now she used old skills for a new purpose.

  She had no desire for food. That need had passed her by, though she had no understanding of it. Why was not of her mental vocabulary. There was no hunger in her belly and when the fierce desire to hunt came upon her, she soared the warm blue skies and dove the forest shades for her own delight and mastery, but did not seek the prey she no longer remembered. In Paradise, an empty crop was an effervescence not a weight.