TouchStone for ever (The Story of Us Trilogy)

by Sydney Jamesson

  She’s not intimidated by the harshness of his tone or even the way his jaw is flexing as he concentrates on the flow of traffic. Nothing he can say or do can hurt her now.

  “I stumbled across some old photographs and there we were the three of us at Bright Hill. We spent days together when she came and then, when she left, it was just the two of us. We were like two peas in a pod: Saffi and Elise. You fought all my battles and read to me. You even hid me in your bed until they came for me.” Roughly, she wipes a tear from her eye, “She was only a visitor Ayden; we were residents. We only had each other.”

  Ayden’s eyes dart from left to right but he says nothing.

  “It just struck me as odd. How you managed to find her but you never came looking for me.” She feigns nonchalance but Ayden picks up on the hurt in her voice.

  “I did try to find you. Once I got my shit together and started making some decent money, I paid a private investigator to look for you, but it was a waste of time. You’d married and changed your name, moved around and there was no trace of you once they took you away.”

  Her head falls. “They took me away to another residential care home.”

  He speaks quietly. “I asked everyone, but no one knew - and if they did, they wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t know what happened to you.”

  “How could you?” She pushes back her hair from her face. “I waited and waited for you but you never came, and the years just came and went. I did what I had to do to get by.”

  “I realise that.”

  She raises her head like a cobra about to strike. “No you don’t realise anything. They still abused me. Those two bastards from Bright Hill used to come and visit. One would hold me down and the other would hurt me. Month after month they raped me, Ayden.”

  He reaches out a hand and places it on her arm. “I’m sorry, Elise.” He punches in the button on the radio, hoping a ballad will sooth her. Buddy Holly sings True Love Ways.

  He’s wrong.

  Her bottom lip begins to quiver. “I loved you, Ayden. I still love you and I found out today you never loved me. You only loved her. She was your princess then and she’s that now. She has her prince and I have …” She begins to sob.

  He’s searching for the right words. ”Look, I did love you, Elise, but not the same way. I loved you like a … brother.”

  “A brother! But you fucked me,” she roars, her face contorting into an unrecognisable snarl.

  Ayden shakes his head. “No I didn’t, Elise.”

  She will have none of it. “Yes you did, Ayden!”

  He keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “When you were in the basement, that one time, I couldn’t do it. That was Jake.” He turns to face her. “I’m sorry.”

  Open mouthed she falls backwards into her seat and begins sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. “No! You’re lying! It was you!”

  He can’t find the words and simply shakes his head.

  “Then everything has been a lie. My whole fucking, miserable life has been based on a lie.” She reaches for her bag and takes out the knife. “Turn around and go back to the hospital.”

  Startled by her irrational behaviour, Ayden swerves the car. “Put the knife down, Elise,” he whispers showing the upmost restraint.

  She takes hold of it with two trembling hands and puts it against his left side. “I mean it, Ayden. There’s someone I want you to introduce me to.”

  He feels the sharp edge of the blade against his left side. In response, his eyes flash in her direction. “I’m not going back to the hospital. I’m not letting you get within ten feet of Beth. I’m taking you home.” He accelerates and moves into the outside lane of the motorway.

  Elise rocks back into her seat and yells, “I mean it, Ayden. Turn around.”

  “No fucking way!” He tugs at his seat belt, ensuring it’s securely fastened. “Put your seatbelt on and put the knife away. You’ll hurt yourself.” He glances over to her as fresh tears begin to swamp her eyes. “Now stop this craziness and let’s get you home.”

  For some reason that single word, home, seems to strike a discordant note with her; she plays with the knife, running her finger along the blade, passing it from one hand to the other, deciding what to do next. She lets the knife fall but, rather than follow his instructions, she lunges at him with bare hands.

  Ayden leans back. “What the fuck!” Thinking she’s trying to claw at his face he raises his arm defensively, but she has other ideas.

  “I won’t let you go back to her,” she screams, taking hold of the steering wheel with both hands and pulling it towards her.

  Ayden calls out at the top of his voice. “What are you doing, you crazy bitch? You’ll kill us both!”

  He holds her off with one hand and fights to right the car, but the metal fencing on the central reservation is on his right side and other vehicles on his left. There is nowhere to go.

  Single-handedly he tries to straighten the wheel but over-compensates. The car hits the barrier and a crunching sound signals the folding of metal and the shattering of a headlight. By way of a rebound, the car veers off to the left and spins as if on polished ice, throwing them both backwards in their seats. He slams on the brakes and they jolt forward. The screeching sound of burning tyres is deafening but Elise is too unhinged to hear it. Her screams ring out, not out of a fear of dying but of living without him.

  “Elise, Elise!” Ayden shrieks as the car slows to a grinding halt but, before he can regain his bearings and take control, an enormous four wheel drive vehicle ploughs into the side of the car on the passenger’s side, sending them careening off the motorway, flipping over twice before coming to rest in a deep ditch.

  Two spinning rear wheels and one flickering brake light appear out of shroud of dust. All that can be heard is the sound of screeching brakes coming from passing cars and a ghostly rendition of True Love Ways. Two passengers are motionless: one slumped in their seat and the other spread eagle out across the bonnet.

  4

  Feeling more like myself than I have for days, I skirt the room with my eyes. It’s more like a hotel suite really: teak wardrobes and easy chairs, a dressing table and a view. Who could ask for a better place to rest and recuperate?

  Thankfully, the cannula was removed from my hand last night. I even accepted a sleeping tablet, knowing I would simply lie here tossing and turning until breakfast; left alone to torment myself with self-deprecating thoughts and numbing fear. Instead I slept.

  As the November sun edges its way between the blinds, I’m reminded of the days I have missed, lying here apart from the world outside my window. So much has happened: most of it memorable for all the wrong reasons. Ayden and I have to start over; pick up the pieces and re-shape them like hot dough; then watch them rise and transform into something wholesome and good.

  One day at a time …

  When the door opens and Nurse Lorna enters, I’m relieved to have my reflections halted by the prospect of hot food. I’m hungry. I settle for toast and cereal with a cup of tea, which goes some way towards grounding me. It’s a taste of home.

  No sooner have I eaten than my first visitor of the day arrives. Charlie appears around the door carrying a bunch of my favourite flowers. The fragrance from the freesias fills the room with memories of summer and I’m taken back to happier times. She knows what I like. Yet, she’s gazing out of the window, onto what I have no idea, playing with the buckle on her suit skirt, biding her time.

  “It’s only 9.30 a.m., Char, I expected you later.”

  “Yeah, I was going to come this afternoon but I got a call from Jake and thought I should drop by.” She’s shrugging her shoulders, intentionally lengthening her sentences, unwilling to meet my eyes.

  “And …”

  “He told me what happened last night.” Now she’s biting her lip. That’s never a good sign.

  “What about last night? Do you mean with Ayden and his accident?”

  She’s nodding her head.

&nbs
p; “And are you going to tell me? Or should I get the nurse to inject you with something; a truth serum, perhaps.”

  She sniggers. “No, I’ll tell you. You’ll find out soon enough anyway.” She sits down on my bed with a heavy thump. “First, let me say I’m so sorry Beth, about the baby and, you know …” Through pursed lips she tries to smile. “Keep your chin up.”

  “I will. So, tell me …”

  “About last night … Ayden was driving, but he wasn’t alone in the car.” She gives me time to take in the implications of her words.

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No. Someone called Elise was in the car with him.”

  Elise! I just knew that bitch would crawl out of the woodwork again.

  “And is she in this hospital too?” I enquire, brusquely.

  She’s shaking her head, slowly.

  “Stop with the head shaking, Charlie and just tell me. Where is she?”

  “What do you care? She’s in the morgue.” She scrutinises my face for a reaction.

  Her news hits me like a shockwave, making me shudder. “What! Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Jake said she was dead at the scene. Ayden was unconscious so they cut him free of the wreckage and air-ambulanced him to the nearest hospital. When he was stable, he was brought here. They said it was a miracle he wasn’t killed outright with the force of the collision.” She takes my hand. “He must have had a guardian angel watching over him, Beth.”

  Instinctively, I wrap my hands around my cheeks and cover my eyes. “Thank God for that. Did Jake say what she was doing in the car?”

  “Who?”

  “Elise!”

  “No. Anyone would think you knew her,” she huffs. “They looked through her bag and got her name off her bank cards. They asked Jake if he could identify the body, and he said yes. He must have known her too.”

  Oh he knew her all right …

  “I can’t believe it. It’s just too shocking to get my head around. Thanks for telling me.” I reach out to her and we hug, allowing any remedial healing to diffuse through our clothes.

  She strokes my hair and pulls away. “So who was she, anyway?”

  “A friend of Ayden’s,” I lie.

  “Friggin’ hell. He’ll be cut up about her being killed, especially as he was driving.”

  I nod silently, lost in a myriad of thoughts.

  She tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Anyway, that’s all I know. I suppose you’ll be taking another trip to see Ayden later, so I’ll let you get some rest. I’ve got an 11 o’clock meeting I have to prep.”

  “I understand. I’m going to be up and about. I can’t lie around here all day.” I smile affectionately. “I’m going to wake him with a kiss.”

  She nods and fashions a sympathetic look that has no need of words. “You know what? Nothing would surprise me right now. Just don’t push yourself too hard, that’s all.” She offers a farewell hug and scoots off; bag in one hand, phone in the other.

  “I’ll take it easy. Bye.”

  She leaves my scented room quietly and, once again, I’m left alone to devise some kind of plan, having been rocked to the core by her news.

  Elise is dead!

  I have to get out of this bed and on my feet. Ayden will need nursing once he’s discharged. I press the call button and my friendly nurse appears.

  “I want to get out of bed and walk across the room,” I state, throwing back the covers.

  “Oh! Slow down there, Elizabeth, you’ll need to practise standing before you can walk. You’ll feel a little dizzy at first. Let’s take it very slowly, shall we?”

  I swivel around to my right side and edge my feet off the bed in search of terra firma. Lorna slides a pair of slippers onto my feet and I gradually lift myself up and off the mattress, swaying with the after-effects of sedatives and anaesthetics. Breathing deeply I take a single step, feeling the weight of my own body pressing down upon me like a sack of rocks. But…gradually, I regain my balance, my coordination returns and, between deep breaths, I take lengthening strides. I turn when the door opens and the shock of seeing an apparition causes me to wobble and tumble into the arms of Nurse Lorna.

  Ayden comes to my rescue and lifts me off my feet. With the broadest of smiles, I rest my head on his chest and wrap my arms around his neck, in no hurry to be put to bed.

  “What were you thinking …” he chides, finding it difficult to conceal a smile.

  I caress his face with my hand, stopping short when I feel the ragged line of fine sutures an inch in length across his right cheekbone. “I was thinking of you.”

  He’s shaking his head and lowering me onto my bed. “I might have known. Let’s get you back to bed before you fall and hurt yourself.” He glances over to Lorna who seems rather taken with my delectable husband - and so she might. He’s a vision in charcoal grey. He turns to her and presents one of his hard to resist smiles. “Would you excuse us?” As she leaves he continues to fuss with my covers.

  I try to meet his elusive gaze. “Ayden! Leave the covers and look at me.” I take hold of his hand firmly.

  Reluctantly he lifts his head until it’s level with mine. Fixing him with a magnetic stare, I see how those blue, green hues have mingled into a kind of speckled pallet of cerulean light. Even with apologetic eyes he’s beautiful.

  “I’m sorry for behaving so irrationally yesterday and causing you to crash.” I feel my lips beginning to quiver. “I didn’t mean what I said. I need you. I want you here with me, forever. Nothing will change that.” I rest my cheek in his upturned palm.

  “You didn’t cause me to crash. Elise was in the car with me. She became incensed and grabbed the steering wheel. We veered off the road and ended up in a ditch because of her psychotic sense of injustice. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “But if I hadn’t sent you away, you wouldn’t have been driving the car. And …”

  “… And nothing. I would simply have driven around for a while and returned, unscathed.”

  “You say that but …”

  “No. I say that because it’s true. We both needed time to process what we’d learned. It was distressing but we’re both stronger for it and we’ll get through this together.”

  Through happy tears I am nodding. “I can’t believe that Elsie is dead, Ayden. You must feel terrible.”

  He clears his throat and blows out a gust of air. “I feel for her but I’m not grieving; for the girl I knew perhaps, but not for the woman she had become. She was damaged, through no fault of her own. Yet she chose to take the path she did and to behave as she did of her own free will.”

  “She did. But any loss of life is tragic in its own way. She’s been so badly treated. She didn’t learn how to love.”

  “That’s a very charitable way of describing her failings.”

  “No it’s not, Ayden. It’s the truth.”

  He’s nodding and swept away, lost in his thoughts.

  “Are you thinking about your childhood, your time at Bright Hill, your marbles?”

  He shakes his head and smiles softly.

  “Maybe you should leave them with her when you attend her funeral.”

  He’s startled by my assumption that he would even consider making an appearance. “Why would I attend her funeral?”

  “Because you loved her, once.”

  “Be that as it may …”

  “You have to go.”

  He gives me a reproving look. “I don’t have to do anything of the sort.”

  “You’re right, you don’t. But at least think about it.”

  He pats my knees beneath the blanket. “I will.”

  I grasp at his hands. “I came to visit you last night when you were concussed. I was so worried about you. Do you feel okay? ”

  “I’ll be fine.” He offers a reassuring smile. “I heard you but I couldn’t respond. I came around in the early hours and paid you a visit but you were sleeping.”

  “You did!”

  He
nods. “But enough about me, how are you feeling? Ready to come home?”

  I’m nodding my head and the bed is shaking.

  He’s laughing at my overly animated response. “It feels good to be here, with you.”

  “That’s because it’s where you belong,” I state smartly.

  He offers a tight-lipped smile. “Yes. It is.”

  Nurse Lorna makes her presence felt with a cough. “Excuse me Mr. Stone, but I would like to take Elizabeth’s blood pressure and temperature now.”

  He pulls a disgruntled face and takes a backwards step. “Go right ahead. She’s all yours for the next ten minutes.”

  I watch him head off into the bathroom; the door is ajar and I make a point of observing him. I’m tracing the line of his broad shoulders and muscular back; the way he fills his jeans front and rear. No wonder my heart rate is a little high, suddenly. He winks at me and it skips a beat. Oh, how I’ve missed this husband of mine.

  Lorna inflates the cuff at the top of my left arm and catches me looking. She leans in to whisper. “He came here last night in the early hours and stayed for half an hour, just watching you sleep.”

  “He told me.” I smile and continue my visual inspection, a little unsettled by the fact he is looking at himself in the mirror. There’s nothing strange about that, except for the intensity of his look and the time elapsing; it smacks of narcissism. Perhaps it has something to do with the cut to his cheekbone and the likelihood of a scar. But that wouldn’t have bothered him before. He’s not a vain man; he has simply been blessed with good looks and a generous helping of charm. Yet, I look at him now and I wonder …

  For a minute longer he practises his movie star smile and turns this way and that, playing with his fringe …

  “There, all done. Everything is perfectly normal, Elizabeth but, if you take my advice, you’ll try and calm yourself down and resist any … urges for the next couple of days.” She tips her head in Ayden’s direction and smiles shrewdly.

  All I can do is smile innocently in response to her observation. She’s right of course. I still have to recuperate from my stomach operation. That’s just one of my battle scars I have yet to inspect.