“You could tell me about some of your adventures now,” she suggested.
He described his experiences in Iraq. When he skipped briefly over his part in the Shiite rebellion, Kirsty interrupted to tell him about the radio and newspaper reports, and found the newspaper, and showed him his picture. She described how the story had become vastly exaggerated, until the mass of students at the university believed Alan to be one of the leaders of the rebellion, and Kirsty herself was held in a kind of awe. When she mentioned that she even had television and newspaper people asking her for information about him, he shook his head incredulously. Talk of university led Alan to ask if Kirsty was still attending classes. She felt his admiration when she told him how she took David to university with her, and fed him during lectures. While she fed David, she told him of her own adventures. David fell asleep and she tucked him up in his pram. She came back to sit beside him on the settee.
“Do you want to go back to bed?” she asked. She smiled when he became aware of the way she was looking at him.
He grinned. “Haven’t you had enough?”
She looked him directly in the eyes, “No.”
They both rose, and their arms went around each other. When they made love, they heard the singing, its message just beyond their grasp. They listened and wondered. Alan slept again, while she tidied the house, singing happily to herself. She looked through his kit bag for more washing and found the dishtowel and headrope and giggled to herself, as she recognized it from the picture in the paper. In the afternoon, she snuggled into bed with him and dozed.
Claire strode quickly up the road, wondering if Kirsty and Alan would be up when she got home. She remembered the way they’d looked at each other. She would have to remind Alan to get to Edinburgh for some clothes, as he really looked dilapidated. She’d invited Alan’s parents to the wedding. They’d been grateful for her phone call last night, assuring them that Alan was all right, apart from being a bit thinner. She thought of her wedding and the arrangements that still had to be made. She really couldn’t spare Kirsty just now, well, maybe just for a little while. After all, she and Alan would have plenty of time for each other later. Kirsty of course was to be her bridesmaid, or matron of honour. She didn’t know what one called it when the woman was unmarried but was a mother, and what’s more, she told herself, she couldn’t care less, she had more important things to worry about. She would have to ask Alan to be an usher and he would have to arrange a morning suit.
She muttered. “Why do weddings have to be so complicated.”
Everything had worked out well after all though, Kirsty and Alan were obviously made for each other and had a healthy boy. She loved them both. No, she corrected herself, she loved all three of them. She wondered when she would have time to listen to Alan’s adventures. Perhaps she might hear the most important parts over tea tonight. She thought again of all the things that had to be done.
“Stop it” she scolded, reminding herself that all the important arrangements had been made already.
She’d had lists prepared for ages. The house had been spring cleaned from top to bottom two or three times already and Frank had the tickets and reservations for the honeymoon in Rome. She thought again about how well things were working out. Alan and Kirsty would have the house to themselves for two weeks, and soon even longer, as the bungalow Frank had bought on the outskirts of Dundee, was almost ready to move into. She smiled contentedly. Children would arrive, and she would leave work and become a housewife and grow old gracefully. Then grandchildren would come along, and there would be Kirsty and Alan and David to visit. She wondered again about Alan and the love inside her and how she could keep the secret for the rest of her life. She didn’t understand it. She loved Frank but there was a yearning for Alan that was like a hunger, deep inside her. She sighed. Halfway along the garden path, she stopped.
“Thanks Mum,” she murmured to the figure in her memory who tended the roses. She opened the door and entered.
She looked at her watch and wondered when she should start getting tea ready. She made herself a coffee and started to read the local paper. Sometime later, Kirsty came into the lounge still wearing her dressing gown and wheeling the pram. They gave each other a long understanding smile, and as Kirsty joined her on the settee, Claire put an arm around her shoulder.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked jokingly.
Kirsty treated her question seriously. “Yes, and we got up for a snack.”
Claire smiled again. “I wonder how you found the time, it’s nearly six o’clock Is Alan still asleep?”
Kirsty gave a huge grin. “Yes, he’s exhausted.” Claire grinned back.
They both looked up as Alan wandered into the lounge, wearing only his trousers and a partly buttoned shirt. rubbing his eyes, his hair tousled. He grinned at them both, looking refreshed after his long sleep. The grin did something to Kirsty. She felt her love boil up inside her. She rose to take both of Alan’s hands in hers, her eyes searching his face.
“Let’s go back to bed Alan,” she pleaded. Claire watched the tableau, grinning.
Alan looked at Claire, rolling his eyes. “I’ve only just got up.”
Kirsty smiled appealingly. “We’ve got nearly a whole year to catch up on.”
Alan pretended exhaustion. “But not in one day!”
Kirsty pushed herself close, wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled his head down and kissed him.
“Let’s go back to bed, please.”
She felt him becoming aroused. Teasing him, she moved slightly away and turned her back, smiling at Claire as if to say, “Wait and see!” He lifted her hair and rained kisses on the back of her neck, concentrating on the part just below her hairline where he knew she was most sensitive. Kirsty arched her neck and gave a long shuddering sigh, then turning, so she was in his arms again, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him with abandoned passion. As Claire’s grin got wider, Alan pulled Kirsty insistently towards the door. Just before she was dragged out, she looked back and gave Claire a huge joyous smile. Claire closed her mouth, shook her head and smiled after them.
Chapter 51
Alan pushed Kirsty’s hair away from her upturned face, her cheek velvety soft and hot to his touch. He bent his head. Her lips parted, and her eyelashes lowered over the huge black holes of her pupils. The singing whispered round them. Their breathing quickened. Their senses became more acute. Every sensation was magnified. They roused each other with a dreamlike slowness, touching with lips and fingertips, teasing with the tips of their tongues, each intimate touch an explosion of sensation. When they made love, so slowly, they melted into each other, their eyes locked, watching the play of each other’s emotions. At the peak of their ecstasy their eyes closed, and their lips fused. The singing swelled between them. They felt Claire’s presence, a different Claire, her arms around them both. Another singing blended in, and as if the symphony was complete it resonated between them.
They lay quiescent, while their breathing slowed, touching each other softly. Kirsty’s senses heightened. She watched their patterns begin to merge, the gold of his love reaching out to her, enveloping her. She felt that she was losing part of herself, but suppressed the instinctive urge to struggle. For she had learned, suffered and changed. She touched him with her love and at last fully opened her heart to show him the wild, free, secret core of herself, and their patterns joined and interlocked. The singing whispered round them and through them, as secret and soft as a butterfly’s wings, brushing the veils from their eyes. They watched their past lives unfold and at last understood. With eternity in their eyes, they gazed at each other, and truly knew each other, and became one.
As of course they were meant to do so, since before either of them were born.
Chapter 52
As Claire smiled dreamily into space a faint singing distracted her. She listened, enchanted and something deep inside her strained towards it and joined in, blending with the other harmonies.
Suddenly she knew so much more, as if the knowledge was inside her, and she only now had learned how to look, and the answers to her questions of the previous night were sitting up inside her, waiting to be noticed. She saw that falling in love, beautiful though it is, is only an introduction to something deeper. She understood now why older women cry at a wedding, why they feel that their dreams have been stolen
from them.
She saw how it was meant to be between a man and a woman and wept. Sadly, she recognized the fear in herself, the very adult fear of the deep emotional sharing that love made possible. She felt a wailing and tenderly comforted the child inside her crying to escape from the prison bars of adulthood. She remembered now, what it was that adults forget. With a sigh of compassion, she embraced the child … the child was herself.
Bill Munro raised his head from his typewriter and let his senses expand to follow the faint tendril of singing back to its source. He leant back in his chair, closed his eyes and experienced the song the joys and the tragedies, as past lives unfolded, like the petals of a rose opening. He watched the interchanging roles: friends; lovers; parents; children; brothers; sisters, as every aspect of human love was explored. He shared Alan and Kirsty’s joy and felt Claire’s sadness and he wished that he could console her, but she was very close to the secret.
He whispered. “All you have to do Claire is listen.” He waited, willing her on. “Listen Claire,” he whispered again “Listen to the love song.”
Claire listened, her senses straining. Then she heard the song again, like a whisper circling around her, tantalizing and yearning, lifting her out of herself. It dawned on her it was a love song. She had a vision of Kirsty and Alan rapt in each other and had an urge to put her arms around them both. Yet deep inside herself she still felt the hunger. There was a message just out of reach. She tried and tried to grasp it, but it eluded her. The singing slowly faded. She sobbed.
Bill sighed. “You were almost there Claire,” he whispered. “You felt the love song but only part of it.” He remembered when he’d first introduced Claire to Alan when he’d seen the threads connecting their patterns. He’d been sure that they were made for each other.
His eyes looked inwards, regarding her part in the lives and loves to come and a vision came to him of Claire with her eyes like stars.
“You will learn the truth soon Claire,” he murmured. “It surprised me as well.” He gave a radiant smile, then whispered as if confiding a momentous secret. “The love song doesn’t just have two main harmonies child it has three!”
Claire sighed, then rose and dried her eyes, put on her smile and started to set the table for tea.
Chapter 53
I looked up from my newspaper.
“Kathleen,” I called.
It was as if I could feel her presence, as if part of her was still in the house. I wandered from room to room, noticing small possessions that reminded me of our life together. For some reason I had a sudden overwhelming urge to rescue a box from the loft. I climbed the loft ladder and found, tucked in a corner, the box I hadn’t opened for thirty years. With a struggle I managed to get it down to the living room then with a tingling feeling of apprehension. I lifted the lid and laid the green dress that lay folded on top to one side. The bright blue stone lay on top of more clothes. I touched it with my finger, then snatched my hand away. I walked backwards and forwards trembling. At last I grasped it in one hand and lifted it. Memories overwhelmed me.
I came back to myself with the stone still tightly clenched in my fist. I remembered everything, every detail. I could almost see Jerie, smell her and feel her presence. I shook my head in bewilderment. How could I have possibly forgotten? I looked through the rest of the contents; a birth certificate; a passport; a red shoulder bag; photograph albums. At the bottom I found a bundle of letters, and four diaries. I looked through the photographs, remembering when I had taken them. Almost every, one had Jerie smiling into the camera. I started on the letters I had written so long ago then read the diaries. Most entries involved school work and homework, but if I’d been younger, some of the entries would have made me blush at the sexually explicit imaginings involving myself. I came to the last entry in the last diary and read it with shaking hands. At last I understood, and wept. How could a young girl have had such perceptiveness and wisdom? Where did she acquire the quiet bravery that let her accept the knowledge of her own early death, and not just accept it, but embrace it because she recognized her part in some greater plan? The writing was very shaky, and I sobbed at the wondrous, selfless beauty of her love.
Last excerpt from Jerie’s diary.
This is for you Bill, I know you won’t read it for a long time. I’m sorry but I have joined our patterns a little bit so that part of me will always be with you, and I have made you and Kathleen forget me, so that you will be a proper man and wife again. If you can now see the larger patterns, you will know that if you truly love one woman, you love all women. You have much work to do. Thank you so much for the last four happy years. I will always love you. Your little black girl.
Jerie Munro.
P.S. I healed Kathleen’s Pattern.
P.P.S. You will soon know my secret.
Chapter 54
“At last, at last!” I thought. I prowled around the house unable to relax. I would have to wait before approaching Kirsty. I eventually went to bed and fell asleep following psychic trails into the future.
I gave Jerie’s shoes and dresses to a charity shop but couldn’t bring myself to give away her red handbag. My memory of her small proud figure swaggering into the native market, with the bag over her shoulder was just too precious to part with.
The next day I rang Kirsty and asked if I could visit. I felt the welcome in her voice. I set off, and trembled as I rang her bell, realizing that soon my task would be over. She came to the door smiling.
“I’ve got tea and sandwiches ready,” she told me as she guided me into the lounge.
I hid my impatience as we talked. “You’ll manage to come to our wedding?” she asked.
“I would love to come,” I answered. “How is David?”
She looked puzzled. “All right, he’s sleeping now.”
“Can I see him?” She gave me a strange look, then left and returned, wheeling the pram. I glanced into the pram, examining David’s pattern.
“Look at him closely Kirsty. What do you see?”
She looked worried. “Is there something wrong?”
“No! No. Look at his pattern.”
I watched Kirsty looking out of the sides of her eyes at the baby. “I don’t see anything.”
“Concentrate and try to see behind his pattern.”
She gave a gasp. “There is something. It’s like a pattern behind his pattern but it’s dim.” Her eyes moved around, “and it’s huge.”
“Can I try something?” I asked.
Kirsty looked worried. “Will it do him harm?”
“No, I would never do that.”
She hesitated. “I trust you.”
I took the stone from my pocket. “Give him this.” I dropped it into her hand.
She gave a gasp. “I feel its power. What is it?”
It has been passed down through wise people and psychics from olden times, waiting for David to arrive. It was made for him.
“Are you sure that it won’t harm him?”
I followed David’s pattern into the future again and put my hand on Kirsty’s head to let her see. She looked dumfounded. She hesitated, then tentatively held the stone near David. His eyes opened, and he waved his open hand near the stone to try to grasp it. His fingers closed around it and he smiled. Then his hidden pattern flared, almost blinding us, and something looked out of his eyes. Something so huge and overpowering and beautiful that we almost fell to our knees.
“Oh! My God!” Kirsty cried.
The baby gurgled and let the stone go, and at once he was a normal baby again.
I promised Kirsty. “He w
ill do great things in the world. He will open people’s eyes and make them see truth.” I lifted the stone and gave it to her. “He will let you know when he wants it.”
We spent the rest of the morning talking. I told her all that she needed to know.
Chapter 55
Back in his lounge, Bill poured himself a whisky. He hadn’t let Kirsty see everything. She would have no more children, and Claire would be childless. He felt their future sadness but realized the necessity. David had to be the centre of their lives. It would need Claire, Kirsty and Alan acting as one to control him during his early years until he came into the fullness of his powers.
He sighed. He’d seen that he wouldn’t attend the weddings. He’d better see his accountant and his lawyer tomorrow to put his affairs in order. He would have to leave Kirsty and Alan a massive legacy. They would travel the world with David on their ecological work and David would drink in everything that he saw; the poverty; the cruelty; the exploitation, as well as the love; the self-sacrifice and the generosity.
Over the next two weeks he set his affairs in order. He had a last visit to Kenya and visited Jerie’s grave. He went to Kaninu’s farm but found that it and other farms had been “acquired” by a consortium that he knew was headed by a politician. He couldn’t find where Kaninu’s family had gone and despaired at the corruption. The girl’s schools he’d endowed were however still well run under the supervision of the international agency he’d had the foresight to involve and the women’s wing of the hospital was managed by competent administrators.
Elsewhere corruption was rife with the Masai being deprived of their land and other tribes being robbed of their cattle by government armed enemy tribes helped by government troops. He returned home disillusioned.
He visited David and Isobel in Edinburgh, Claire when she returned and Kirsty and Alan. They didn’t know it, but he was saying goodbye. He visited Kathleen’s grave with flowers, as he always did, on a Wednesday afternoon. Bending down to arrange the flowers in the urn, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He waited for the pain to lessen, then sat on the grass with his back resting against Kathleen’s gravestone. He thought again about the coincidences in his life and remembered a limerick from a long time ago.
Love Patterns Page 44