Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  Grandma was also talking to the doctors who examined him and they were become less concerned about his mental state now and discussing the option of allowing him out on day release provided he had taken his medication before he left.

  Catherine was not so sure, she could not bear a repeat of what had happened before and had this uncontrollable terror that his madness would return and end up worse.

  She felt unable to cope with that along with dealing with the issues about Amelie and, even if it was not really fair to keep him locked up, part of her just felt relief that he was safe and out of harm’s way.

  Amelie was not doing well but rarely complained. She was constantly breathless, her lips had a faint blue tinge, the weight kept falling away steadily though she bravely tried to eat the food they offered, because she knew it pleased them.

  Her greatest delight seemed to be the car and its house, she would spend hours just looking her red car, and often asked to be lifted down to sit in it as she could no longer climb in and out of bed on her own. But, after a few minutes of sitting up in it, she would ask to be lifted back up to bed, even sitting up seemed to tire her now.

  It was funny how Lizzie and Catherine had started not to notice her daily deterioration and her ever decreasing ability to do things. It was as if it was so gradual that it passed them by, even though their minds understood and they were gripped by an urgency to find a donor.

  Amelie’ inexorable slide was only brought home to them one day when Patsy visited with them. She had not been in for four days with the work at the hotel, visiting Mathew and talking to his doctors.

  But that day, when she came in she said, out loud, on seeing Amelie, “My poor pet, you are wasting away before my eyes and your lips are getting bluer and your breath is getting shorter.

  Amelie just nodded at her, then said, “Grandma it is true, I am getter sicker each day aren’t I, but I am trying to be brave and Sophie helps me, she talks to me inside my head and says she will help me be brave, so it is not so bad, really.”

  But after that Catherine realized it was like an hour glass, where the sand was running out and soon only a handful of grains would remain and then there would be none. She felt totally panicked, they had been searching and searching for a donor and none had been found.

  But yet there must be one, she refused to admit it was not so, they only had to find this person. The terror flooded over her and now she knew she had to try harder, there must be a way forward.

  That night she dreamed of Sophie again, perhaps it was her own daughter’s talk which had brought the memory back; at the time she had felt relief that Sophie was giving her comfort but no particular surprise. It was as if Sophie had a way of turning up when needed, even if she could not solve all the world’s problems.

  But, that night, as she fell asleep, there was the Sophie from her childhood, the girl of about six or eight in a white dress, she knew it was her first communion dress.

  Sophie, with her small girl’s solemn eyes, was saying to her. “, Cathy, you need to find your true father, only he can help you.”

  Search for a Father

  Next morning Catherine woke up with a clear purpose. She started by asking her mother if she thought that Sophie was still real, even after all these years.

  Her Mum looked at her strangely. “Of course she said, but why?”

  Catherine replied, “Last night I dreamed about Sophie, she was telling me to find my true father. I don’t know why, maybe it is just my desperate mind searching for other options. It is so long since I remember Sophie, from when I was little, that I when I woke this morning I started to wonder whether it was just my imagination, so I wanted to know what to think about her, Sophie.”

  Lizzie looked at Catherine seriously, “It is funny, but of late I have found myself thinking of her too. “As you say, it may be coming from the same desperation you feel, but I know there was a real girl Sophie who lived in my bedroom almost fifty years before I did. I know she died when she was around eight years old. I know that from the time I visited her own Mum, Marie, when I saw her picture. Marie sort of told me that, not quite directly, but it was what she meant, that Sophie had died all those many years before I was born.

  “And I have no doubt Sophie talked to me before I was raped, warning me not to go with those men, even though I would not listen. I still keep Sophie’s locket in my purse, you had it for a while when you were a girl but when you went off to school I found it in your drawer and took it back because I knew you had stopped thinking about it. I think of it like a good luck charm.

  “Then of course there was that time Sophie showed you the way to the water when we were in the desert. I have no doubt we would have both died then if not for that.

  “So, even though I cannot explain how it can be that a little girl who lived half a century before me can communicate from beyond the grave, I have no doubt it is real, she is real and can talk to us all at times.

  “I also have her own mother’s promise that she would help when I needed it and she did with you that time. Perhaps that promise extends to you and Amelie too.

  “As Sophie has been coming back into my mind over the last few days, not talking to me, but in some other way making me remember her. I have told Amelie some of the stories about her from when I was little. It helps to pass the time and, when I talk of Sophie, Amelie’s eyes light up. For Amelie now Sophie is real to her too, though whether that is just because she is imagining her from my stories, or really experiencing her the way I did, I do not know. But now she is talking about her too and telling me that Sophie has become her friend.

  “I find it pleases me that she had found a person to be her friend and comfort her in this terrible time too. A couple times I have given Sophie’s locket to Amelie to hold as when she looks at the picture it seems to make her happy. I have even offered to let her have it but she told me that it was Sophie’s gift to me not her, and she does not need it to talk to Sophie.

  “But I am sure that is not why you asked, you know much of what I have told you now already. You were there in the desert too and it was to you she actually spoke on that day, to not me.

  “So why is she coming back to us all now, what is she trying to tell us about you needing to find your true father. Is it that she is saying, that man can help us, is that what you think?”

  Catherine took a deep breath, her mother had always said the rape was something in her past that she did not need to think about, all that mattered was that Catherine had been born and that fact had made her glad.

  But she knew that despite this talk it was still a painful memory for her mother, remembering the three men holding her down and doing this to her, a girl of only fifteen. But yet she had to go there. She had to ask her mother about it.

  She said, “Mum, I hate to ask. But, for the first time in my life, I need to know. Do you have any idea which of the three men who raped you that night is my father?”

  Her mother paused for a long minute before replying. It was as if her mind had suddenly conceived a new possibility, an awful option that brought hope.

  She said, “It is funny, I have never thought about it the way you just put it to me, to me you were all of their child in that act and yet none of their child. There was something incompatible in that act with fatherhood, its brutality and fatherhood could never sit together in my own mind.

  “So, all my life, until the trial day when Martin went to jail with the other two, part of me refused to have that thought, that one of them really was your biological father. Robbie was a perfect father; he loved you from when you were a tiny baby just as much as any father could. So for me, in my mind, he became your actual father, no other father was needed to create your existence in my mind.

  “But, on that day, the day when Martin was convicted, I went and sat next to Julie in the gallery. I told myself I was only there to support her, but it was more than that, I needed to see justice done with my own eyes. On that day another person was sitting ne
ar me in the gallery too, it was Martin’s wife. As the trial proceeded I kept finding her eyes were on me, casting hateful glances towards me, as if she blamed me for all that had happened. I could feel her malice and I was glad to know it hurt her.

  Sitting beside her was a small girl, perhaps two years younger than you. What struck me about her was that she seemed to be the image of you at the same age.

  “So in that day of seeing the girl I was almost sure that Martin was you father. I did not want to believe it. I would rather it had been one of the others, not that they were really better, but to me they seemed slightly less awful, more followers than the leader.

  “Dan of course was Martin’s clone, I remember the day he stood in my restaurant in Broome and gloated, both over what he had done and over what he intended to do again. His evil almost overwhelmed me, but it was just a copy of Martin’s evil, more like a pale shadow.

  “William I don’t really know, he was an equal participant but I doubt I ever spoke more than two words to him in any conversation, before or after that night. Still he was a little more aloof and it was him that finally broke ranks and gave the evidence that convicted the others. So I have felt a little more fondness for him than the others since then, not much but a little. If I could choose the father I wished from the three it would be him.

  “So I am fairly sure Martin was your father, based on seeing you in his little girl. But then, if it is Martin, that is of no help to you as he had been dead now for nearly ten years, though he does have children around your age. But then, perhaps, seeing you in his daughter could all be in my mind. It still could really be one of the others.

  I suppose we will have to try and find out.”

  Catherine said, “Yes, I do need to know, Amelie is fading so fast and there is so little time left to find a donor. It may be a futile hope but I need to know, at least to ask them to give me samples to test.

  Of course, even if we can work out from the testing who is the father, it may not help, this person may not be a match either, just the same as I and Mathew are not matches. But I still need to know.”

  Lizzie said, “Of course you must know, we both must know for Amelie’s sake. My father, when I was a little girl, used to tell me, when I really did not want to do something but the choice was even worse, that I was making a devil’s choice, this is your and my devil’s choice.

  “I will ask Julie to get me the details of them and their families, she is good at that sort of thing. Then we can arrange to meet them and make our request. We must do it quickly as there is not much time.”

  Catherine looked directly at her mother, locking her eyes into hers. “It would be good if you would get those details from Julie. But then it is only for me to contact them. You have already done your part of the devil’s choice in telling me what you know. It is now up to me to beg the man who is my father to help me, despite the evil he did to you.”

  Lizzie nodded her agreement, “Much as I hate to concede anything to these men you are right, it is more likely that they will help someone who may be their daughter than a person who helped to put them in jail.

  Martin’s wife will hate me until the day she dies, and the others probably do too.

  “But I do not envy you seeing through this devil’s choice, even though it must be done. I still cannot think of these men without the fear and loathing of that day rising up in me.”

  First Meeting

  It only took a day for Julie to come back with the details of all three men and their families.

  Martin’s wife, Marylyn and two children, a boy aged fifteen, named after his father, and a girl of thirteen named Rebecca, lived in a house in Newcastle near Nobby’s Beach. The other child, Evelyn, aged nineteen, had come to Sydney but as yet they did not have an address for her, though it was understood she was studying at New South Wales University in Kensington, and lived somewhere nearby.

  Julie had placed a call from her firm to the mother and found out she was at home over the next two days. So on the second day Catherine took the early morning train to Newcastle and took a taxi to the house, arriving about 9:30 am. She decided to arrive unannounced as she feared that Marilyn would refuse to meet her if she gave her name.

  A hard faced lady met her at the door, a lady with blond hair and once pretty features, but who had not aged well, already in her late thirties she was overweight and he skin had sun damage. But Catherine gave her a bright smile, only to be met by a suspicious and guarded look.

  Even though she doubted that this lady would have any idea of who she was there was already something unfriendly in her stare, perhaps it was the resemblance which Lizzie had said that she had to the daughter. At the front door she said she needed to discuss a private matter with the lady and asked if she could come in to do so. Clearly reluctant the lady showed her into the formal drawing room and showed her to a seat. No refreshments were offered.

  Catherine launched into an explanation of how her daughter was sick and needed a bone marrow transplant to save her life, the woman looked perplexed. Then finally she got to the point, that she thought that Martin could have been her father, she said that her mother was unsure but thought it was most likely to be him. As this came out she could see a nasty enjoyment spreading over this other woman’s face.

  What did you say your name was, who is your mother, there was no avoiding the information coming out. When she had answered the questions there was a long pause, but nothing resembling sympathy on this lady, Marylyn’s face.

  Finally she spoke, “Well you have a nerve, how dare you come here and ask for my help. Your sluttish mother, having seduced my Martin, then tried to cry rape and was a key person in destroying his business, our family reputation and then sending him to jail where he was murdered.

  “Despite all that you still have the nerve to come to me and ask for my help. Truly I hope nothing you do saves your daughter and she dies an awful and painful death like my husband did. Not that Martin is likely to be the father, I am sure Lizzie had already slept with half the boys in Balmain before she flung herself at my Martin, when he was just trying to be kind to her. Not that he ever admitted to even sleeping with your slut mother. But yet you have the gall to come and ask for my help. What is it you think I and my children ever could or would do to help you. Why did you ever come here anyway?”

  Catherine felt shocked by this woman’s viciousness, there was hatred towards her beyond anything she had imagined. Still she steeled herself, determined not to lose the opportunity if any existed.

  “On the day your husband was sent to jail my mother was sitting in the public gallery near to you. Sitting next to you was your oldest daughter. It struck my mother that your oldest daughter, who is two years younger than me, looks remarkably like me.

  “After seeing your daughter on that day my mother was almost certain that Martin was in fact my father because of the family similarity between your daughter and me. So, if that is the case, and my mother has told me she is happy to give evidence to that effect, then we would have good grounds to get a court ruling to compel your daughter to provide a sample for testing. If we were to go down that pathway of compulsion, rather than seeking cooperation, we would of course seek that all your children provided such a sample, lest it be shown that another of Martin’s children is the most suitable for a donor.

  “So whether you helped or not we would know who the father was, and we would be happy to tell the world of this fact, yet another proof of the violent behavior of your husband, confirming I am his daughter and your children are my half brothers and sisters.

  “It seems to me somehow fitting that this awful man, your husband, who harmed my mother and who may also be my own biological father, should be compelled to provide aid to a person who may be his own granddaughter, through his other children, even though he is not alive to enjoy the justice of the moment.

  “I have not decided yet whether to do so, but if I do it will come through an order of the court. You may wish to advis
e your children, who may be my half brothers and sister, of this likelihood.”

  As she spoke this she watched Marilyn carefully, wishing to gauge her reaction to help her decide.

  Marylyn looked at her with a vicious contempt but also with something that looked like fear. “You must be joking; I hope you, your daughter and especially your mother, rot in hell. There is no way I will ever help any of you or allow my children to do so. Now get out of my house before I call the police and ask them to arrest you for trespass.

  Catherine stood up and turned to leave. She knew this was hopeless, and felt that the words she had spoken were nothing but a hollow threat.

  As she stepped around the chair to leave her eyes fell on three framed pictures on the mantel piece. One was of a young teenage girl and the second of a mid teenage boy, neither looked like her. But the third was of a girl who looked not much younger than her, wearing a lovely dress, perhaps dressed for an end of school formal.

  She was so like Catherine that it almost took her breath away, the resemblance was really striking, not in all ways, but there was an indefinable look that was just her, it could have been a photo of her taken around the time she got married; it was as if this girl was really herself, as captured in her own wedding photos.

  Heedless of the mother Catherine walked over and picked the photo up, looking closely and saying. “I can see why Mum thought that Martin was my father; she is so like me, she really could be my sister.

  The woman screamed in rage, Get out, I told you to get out, how dare you compare yourself to my Martika; she is nothing like you, she is the image of her father.

  Catherine found her fear of this woman had gone and in its place she had a cold rage. “I do not know if Martin was my father, and of all the three awful men who raped my mother, and of whom your vile husband was the instigator, I hope it is not him. But, as I said, I have been told that if needed I can get a court order and force all your three children to give a sample to see who matches my daughter best. When I show the judge a picture of your daughter, alongside a photo me on the day I was married, I have no doubt he will grant an order compelling what I seek. So if I need to that is what I will do, and one way or another I will find out.”