by J. F. Penn
Blake stood, placing his hand on the table to steady himself as his head spun, the pub fading in and out of focus. The group of regulars looked at him, their stares hostile, hands wrapped tightly around their pint glasses. Blake nodded at them as he walked towards the door, pulling it open with one hand as he fumbled for Jamie's number on his phone.
Outside, the air was crisp and chill. The heavy rain had morphed into that peculiarly British drizzle that barely seemed there but still soaked anyone standing in it. The tarmac was shining purple with oil marks from the car park, light from the street lamps turning the dark pools into rainbows. Blake turned towards the back of the pub and headed for a doorway with some shelter. As he heard the first rings on Jamie's phone, the door opened behind him. The two men from the bar came out, looked around and spotted Blake in the doorway. The man with grey eyes smiled, taking out a cigarette and lighting it as the other man walked wide, blocking Blake's exit to the car park.
The drunken haze couldn't hide the implied threat and Blake's heart thumped hard against his chest as the men advanced. He felt a trickle of sweat inch down his spine and cursed the amount of tequila he had drunk. His awareness was dulled, his mind heavy, his limbs sluggish. Jamie's line went to voicemail and Blake hung up, focusing on the men in front of him.
"Can I help you with anything?" he asked. "I'm just waiting for a friend."
The grey-eyed man took a long drag on his cigarette.
"I don't think anyone's coming for you." He indicated the other man. "Except us, of course. And we're friends, really, we are. You just have to get in the car with us."
Blake looked around him, checking for anything he could use as a weapon. "I think you must have the wrong person. I don't know you."
"Oh, but we know you, Blake Daniel." The grey-eyed man took another drag and dropped his cigarette to the wet ground, grinding it into a puddle. Blake's eyes flitted to the other man, who moved like a boxer – light on his feet but with surely a hell of a punch. Blake wasn't much of a fighter, but the beatings his father and the Elders dealt in his childhood had cured any fear of physical hurt.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The grey-eyed man pulled a box from a pocket inside his jacket.
"You have a remarkable gift, and we want to help you understand it. But if you're not going to come willingly, then it's our – qualified – medical opinion that your mental health issues are putting yourself and others at risk." The other man advanced, arms stretched wide, his eyes inviting Blake to move, to resist. He clearly relished the chance to inflict pain and Blake's heart rate spiked as he saw the grey-eyed man pull a syringe from the case. "For those who may inquire, we had to sedate you in order to prevent further injury to yourself and others in the vicinity. You had to be detained under the Mental Health Act, and, of course, you will have the right to appeal."
Move! Blake's mind screamed at him, but his body was leaden, his responses dulled. He just needed to get to the car park, where someone might see him and help, or at least he might be picked up on security cameras. The men took one more step towards him. Blake ducked low and charged the gap between them.
The thump of an elbow in his back knocked him to the ground. A boot slammed into his side and Blake curled on one side, arms thrown up to protect his head as the blows thudded into his body. His phone went skidding beneath a skip in the alleyway.
"Enough." The grey-eyed man called a halt to the beating. Blake coughed and retched, gasping for air as he fought the spasms in his stomach. The stocky man grabbed his arm and flipped him over onto his back. For a brief moment, Blake felt the rain on his face as a blessing, melting away the reality of where he lay. Grey eyes came into focus in front of his face, and the man grinned as he pushed the syringe into Blake's neck. As his breathing slowed, Blake felt resignation settle within him, like a warm stone anchoring him to the earth. What could they do to him that he hadn't already faced in his visions? He shut his eyes and let the rain soak through him into the hard ground beneath.
Chapter 15
Jamie put down the phone. She'd just missed Blake's call and he hadn't answered when she called back. Her finger hovered over redial, and then she shook her head, smiling a little. He was probably out somewhere in a noisy bar and couldn't hear the ring. With a stab of loneliness, she turned to the bookshelf where the terracotta urn sat in pride of place. She gently cupped it with her hand, the coolness on her palm reminding her that this was just a dead object. It might contain the physical remains of her daughter, but in itself, it was nothing. So why couldn't she just scatter the ashes in the bluebell woods that Polly had loved so much? Or throw them to the wind over the ocean? Why keep them here, grey dust and ashes that in no way represented the girl she had lost.
Jamie bent her forehead to the urn and knew she was still tethered to the memories. If she scattered these final grains of what had once been life, then she was utterly alone in the world. She thought of the bottle of sleeping pills in the bathroom, the oblivion that would take her away from this constant ache in her chest. Jamie breathed out, a long exhalation. The only way to deal with grief was to work. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a large glass of pinot noir, taking it back to the sofa. Pulling out her cigarettes, she lit one and the long drag coupled with the wine gave her the tiny boost she needed. She opened Lyssa's diary and began to read.
They say it's chemistry in my brain that makes me this way. That some invisible chain of neurons has become polluted. The blackness sits in my head like a cancerous growth. In the past, they could have dug it out of my skull, lobotomized me and turned me into a loon, destroying the bad along with the rest of me.
Now, they pass electricity through my brain and try to buzz it out. With anesthetic, of course, as if that negates the barbarity. I imagine it fracturing into pieces, tiny shards of its disease spreading through the rest of my body. They say ECT is like a reset button, that I'm just a computer that needs a control-alt-delete reboot. They know best. Don't they?
But what if this blackness is just a part of me, not separate. What if it is bound into every atom of my body, making up who I am? When they try to rip it from me, or sedate it, or electroshock it away, the rest of me curls into a desperate ball, because they're destroying all of me. I am every color on the spectrum and black is necessary to highlight the bright yellow, and iridescent green, to enable brilliant turquoise to shine. Without black, there is no contrast, and without contrast, life is monochrome.
Jamie laid the diary aside. It was strange, but the overwhelming sense in Lyssa's words was life, a vibrant passion for living and creativity and an intelligent consideration of what life really was. The woman had been a dynamo, whirling through existence, and then she had crashed, ending it all. Jamie looked up at the terracotta urn. Polly had told her to dance, to continue to live, so tonight she would dance in remembrance of her daughter, and for Lyssa. Crushing the end of her cigarette into the ashtray, Jamie packed a bag quickly with her tango clothes and went out into the night.
***
Within thirty minutes, Jamie was at the milonga. She changed into her silver dress, the one Polly had loved her to wear. She slipped on tall heels, feeling her leg muscles elongate, the accentuation of her form. She pulled the clasp from her hair, letting the black cascade brush at her nape, as ghostly fingers of sensation ran down her spine. It was time to embrace this side of herself again, and in the dance, she could forget the complexities of the case.
The dim light in the room caressed the bodies of those who moved to the tanda, the grace of couples who clasped each other, some for one dance only and others for a lifetime. Jamie found divinity in the movement of human form as the bandoneón told of heartbreak and loss, the end of what was once perfect, but only for a heartbeat. Tango sublimated the dark soul through a repetitious beat, a singing in the blood that compelled the body to dance as if it no longer belonged to the brain. The noise in Jamie's head only subsided here, in the arms of a partner who cared only how their
bodies moved together in the moment.
She caught Sebastian's eye across the room, her sometime dancing partner sensing her need. Between songs, he came to her and she stepped into his close embrace, no words necessary between them, only the challenge and acceptance of eye contact. There should be smoke here, Jamie thought, its haze casting a pall on the crowd who danced together as if the end of the world would come with the sun tomorrow. Tonight, the dancers would live as if for the final time, like the story of the rose and the nightingale, whose song was sweetest as the thorn pierced its dying breast.
Limbs were heavy until the music picked up, and the dance an automatic response to the call of the milonga. A primal beat, a need that must be fulfilled, an unbidden compulsion. The sound of the violin filled the room, strains of music that turned the mind from earthly pain into heavenly suffering. Surely the angels dance tango alongside pitiful humanity, and in doing so, transform their grief to something holy.
In the thrill of the dance, Jamie wrapped her leg around Sebastian's muscular one, her ocho a perfection of touch and release, a sensual play on the level of desire. She felt the twitch of something deep within her, a need to be touched, a need to be taken. A glimmer of it had surfaced when she had seen Blake this morning and now she recognized its significance. It was a flicker of life, when the body became music, a vessel for something beautiful that drove out the darkness within.
Tango chose me. The words came to Jamie unbidden. Tango threw its lovers together, letting them burn the flame for a pinch in time and then allowing them to slip away, burned and spent. The time in the dance was the only thing that mattered, and Jamie was already burned. Her thoughts returned to the morgue, deep underground, populated by dead babies, the remains of grotesque experimentation. That night in the Hellfire Caves, she had burned a part of herself away as Polly's body went to the god of flame in the caves. She still woke in the night with the taste of smoke in her mouth, but here she could let it all go. The color of tango was holy saffron that draped the pyres of the dead, of brilliant flame that burned the body until it was gone and darkest midnight blue, of the sky after the soul has returned to the stars.
Jamie felt Sebastian's arm around her waist and her body slid onto his, slid around it, flowing as she let herself go into the music, her ocho perfection. The tango connection was fleeting, the full length of the body during the dance and then the release. When the connection was broken, both must walk away, for what is perfect within the dance could only be something less if taken any further. Jamie held to this truth as the music came to an end. She walked away without looking back as Sebastian moved on to his next partner, a part of her left in the echo of his embrace.
Chapter 16
The Canon Chancellor, Reverend Dr Martin Gillingham, began the slow walk around the cathedral, his ritual before leaving late each night. In the bustle of the busy daily life of St Paul's, it was too easy to forget why they all labored here. This is the house of God, and here shall He be glorified, Martin thought, looking up into the vast vaulted ceiling above him.
Of course, there were days when his faith wavered, as for any man, but today Martin felt a welling of the spirit, a divine refreshment that washed over him. He surveyed the holy domain, checking the corners behind the monuments, making sure the cathedral would be ready for another day.
"Thank you, Lord," he whispered, a smile on his face at how fortunate he was to work here, at the heart of Christian faith in London. He always walked this final round after most had gone home, and in the peace and quiet he could reconcile his mission with the fact that no one waited for him at his meager flat. His whole life was here, and perhaps his shade would walk this round after death, an imprint of faithful devotion. To die as a martyr for God was indeed a glorious way to enter Heaven triumphant, but Martin was content with a quiet life of service and solitude.
He passed one of the cathedral's most beloved paintings, William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World. A cloaked Jesus stood in a verdant wood at night, surrounded by an abundance of branches, leaves and fruit. His face was peaceful and his eyes stared out of the canvas, inviting the watcher into his world. In his left hand, Jesus held a lantern which cast the warmth of candlelight onto his face and clothes, highlighting the ruddy colors. In a cathedral that valued all faiths, the lantern reflected its diversity with cutouts in the shape of the Star of David for Judaism and a crescent moon for Islam. Martin loved the painting, seeing in it the invitation of Jesus to join him on the Christian journey for another day.
He walked down the stone stairs to the crypt, looking up at the three death's-head skulls that marked the entrance. For dust you are, and to dust you will return, he thought and sighed. Every day takes us closer to the grave and every day we must live for the glory of God. At the bottom of the stairs, Martin turned right towards the tomb of Lord Horatio Nelson, walking across the intricate mosaic of anchors, sea monsters and scalloped patterns. A huge black marble tomb dominated the chamber, topped by Nelson's Viscount coronet. The sarcophagus had originally been made for Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor during the reign of Henry VIII, but when he had fallen from favor, it had been kept for someone more worthy. Nelson was surely deserving of such high honor, Martin thought, running his finger gently along the dark stone, yet the military man would likely have scorned the marble as too grand for a soldier. Martin was glad that underneath the monument, Nelson's earthly remains lay in a coffin made from the timber of one of the French ships he had defeated in battle.
Some thought that the obsession with honoring war was too dominant at St Paul's, but Martin understood that England could not stand without the courage of those who gave their lives in combat. This church would be nothing without military might, and Nelson's naval prowess was just one facet of glorifying God. After all, the Bible was filled with divine vengeance against those who would oppress, and this was a fitting memorial to one who brought victory for the glory of God and country.
A sharp clang sounded through the crypt, and Martin started, his hand grasping the smooth marble of the tomb. He stood still for a moment, listening, but there was no further noise. Perhaps it was one of the cleaners or security staff? The cathedral was never truly empty, but he knew the customary route of the support team and usually avoided them, moving into the spaces they vacated. After years of routine, the noise was unusual, and Martin felt a bristling under his skin, a rightful devotion for his church. Nothing must be out of place in the Lord's house.
He walked through the arches towards the Chapel of St Faith. It had once been a parish church attached to the old cathedral, and was now the official Chapel of the Order of the British Empire, where those awarded an OBE could be married or baptized. Martin's footsteps were soft on the gigantic flagstones, engraved in memory of those who had fought and died for Great Britain, the sleeping dead. The lamps were still glowing, surrounded by flames etched in metal, and the light caught the memorial of Florence Nightingale as he passed. Some had protested the inclusion of women in this chapel of war memory, but Martin found the nurse's calm face a blessing as she leaned over a dying man to give him water.
The noise came again.
Now that he was closer, Martin could tell that it came from the side chapel where the Holy Sacrament was kept. It was a sacred place, locked up tight, as no one was allowed there after the Host had been blessed in readiness for the service. Martin's heart beat faster. There was definitely something wrong here. This was not routine; this was not as it should be. He crept forward slowly. It was probably nothing, surely a mistake, but he had to be sure.
The wooden door to the side chapel was open a crack, and Martin peered through the space. He saw a man bent over the Communion wine, a hooded top obscuring his face. He seemed to be injecting something into one of the bottles. Martin frowned and pushed open the door, his righteous anger and concern overcoming any fear.
"What are you doing?" he said, stepping into the chapel. "This is a sacred place. Get away from those bottles."
> The man slowly put down the syringe and held his hands up as he turned around, his face still in shadow. He said nothing, just stared, his head on one side as if considering the situation.
"It's OK," Martin said, taking another step towards the man, thinking of the security team. Their rounds down here weren't for another twenty minutes. "Let's go upstairs and I'm sure we can sort all this out." He held out open palms, a gesture of acceptance and welcome he had perfected after years of greeting parishioners.
The man moved suddenly, grabbing one of the Communion wine bottles by the neck and using it as a club. Before Martin truly saw it, the blow exploded on his jawbone. He reeled back, clutching his face, momentarily stunned. He hadn't been hit since he was a boy. Through the pain was a strange kind of relief that his physical body could still feel. But then the man raised the bottle again.
Martin stumbled backwards into the crypt, calling for help even as he knew that the thick walls would shield his cries from those above. The man came after him, arm raised, the bottle glinting in the light.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "but this must be done. You shouldn't have come down here, but now you will serve as another example."
Martin couldn't keep his eyes from the weapon. In his haste to escape, he tripped over one of the flagstones, falling to the floor. The harsh stone stung his hands, as the words of the dead rubbed at his flesh.
"Please," he begged, his voice slurred. "I can get you whatever you need. It doesn't have to be this way."