Wake Wood

by K. A. John

  ‘Now is not the time, Arthur,’ Patrick snapped protectively.

  ‘I think now is exactly the time,’ Arthur contradicted. ‘I believe it’s important – very important that we talk about your daughter. And that we talk about her right now.’

  ‘Why?’ Patrick demanded.

  ‘Because there are things that need to be said,’ Arthur persisted.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? Other than making things even worse for us, if that’s possible.’ Patrick’s anger escalated.

  ‘Arthur, please, just leave us alone—’ Louise began.

  Arthur interrupted her. ‘Look, I can’t feel what you feel, Louise,’ he said earnestly. ‘I can’t even pretend to comprehend the depth of agony you’re both suffering, but I do have an idea of it. A sense … and—’

  Patrick cut Arthur short. ‘Enough, Arthur! We won’t listen to another word.’

  ‘It’s true. I don’t want you to leave Wake Wood, either of you,’ Arthur explained. ‘My business has never done as well as it has since you took over. But this isn’t about me or Wake Wood and what you can do for the town. It’s about you and Louise, Patrick. Well, to be perfectly plain, I simply want to help you in any way that I can.’

  ‘You can’t help us, Arthur,’ Patrick raged. ‘No one can. So stop this right now.’

  ‘Please stop, Arthur,’ Louise echoed Patrick’s despair.

  Arthur heard them and the grief in their voices. But it was their misery that prompted him to persevere with his offer. ‘Listen to me, Patrick. Please, listen to me.’

  His voice had a soft, hypnotic quality that soothed Patrick’s anger and lightened Louise’s misery.

  ‘I can bring your daughter back to life for a short time. So you can see her again, hold her and say goodbye to her properly.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous—’ Patrick began, but Arthur cut him short.

  ‘But before we even discuss it, Patrick, I want you to ask yourself if bringing Alice back would truly ease your and Louise’s anguish and heartache.’

  ‘Alice … You know her name?’ Louise stared at him.

  ‘Arthur, you’re talking absolute nonsense,’ Patrick snapped.

  ‘No, it’s not nonsense, Patrick,’ Arthur contradicted quietly. ‘And if you think bringing Alice back will help you and Louise to come to terms with the tragedy of her loss then we should go ahead and make plans.’

  Louise wavered on her feet. She placed her hand over her mouth. Patrick tightened his grip on her, holding her close, afraid that she was about to faint.

  ‘That’s not funny, Arthur,’ Patrick pronounced bitterly.

  ‘No,’ Arthur agreed, ‘it’s not. It’s serious. But it can be done. If she’s been dead for less than a year, I can bring her back. But I warn you, it will only be for three days. When that time has passed you will have to return her. Most of the people I’ve helped say that the three extra days spent with their loved ones have been worth the pain of a second separation. But, as I’ve only ever brought loved ones back for others and never for myself, I can’t help you to make that decision. You have to do it yourselves.’

  ‘It’s not possible to bring people back from the dead, Arthur,’ Patrick declared flatly. ‘When someone dies, that’s it. The end! Nothingness! They’re gone for ever, never to be seen by the living again.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, Patrick. And it is possible to bring them back for a last goodbye.’ Arthur continued to speak softly but with conviction. ‘Ask your wife if you don’t believe me. But there’s one other thing that you have to ask yourself. Would you want to bring your daughter home, if you knew in advance that you’d have to lose her all over again?’

  Hurting more than he would have believed possible, Patrick simply couldn’t take any more. ‘This is rubbish, Arthur …’

  Arthur raised his hand as if to silence him. ‘All right, Patrick. Have it your way. But I’ll ask you to do just one thing before you totally dismiss and deride my offer. Talk to Louise. She knows the truth of what I’m proposing to you.’ Arthur finally walked away and left them.

  Patrick stood holding Louise for a long time after Arthur went. They heard the engine of his car die away as he headed down the track to the road that led back to town; watched the light in the farmyard fade from light to dark grey as the shadows lengthened and rose from the ground. The owl returned and swooped low, this time catching his prey. He flew off, a wriggling mouse held fast in his beak.

  Unseen hands drew the curtains in the farmhouse before lamps were switched on. The wind rustled the treetops. Patrick thought he could hear the sound of a woman’s sobs, mingling with the wail of the night breeze, but he couldn’t be sure. Reluctant to face the grief of Peggy and Martin O’Shea, when he still hadn’t come to terms with the loss of his own daughter, he pushed Louise gently from him.

  ‘We need to go. And we need to talk. But not here, not now. When we get back to the cottage.’ He led her across the farmyard to his car, opened the passenger door and helped her inside. They drove back to the cottage in silence. He parked, opened the door, stepped outside and looked at Louise in the light from the interior lamp. She was pale, drawn, her eyes darker than he’d ever seen them before.

  He would have given everything he owned to have been able to assuage the pain mirrored in their depths.

  ‘You go on into the house and do whatever you want. I’ll make us tea.’

  She nodded agreement without looking at him and got out of the car. He locked it and followed her inside. He went straight to the kitchen, filled the kettle and switched it on.

  While he waited for the water to boil, he reflected on just how much time he had occupied by concentrating on small practical tasks since Alice’s death: making tea, preparing meals, clearing up the kitchen, cleaning the house. Things he had left to Louise and their daily when Alice had been alive because he’d wanted to spend every spare minute with his daughter, teaching her, exploring with her, playing games with her, loving her, seeing the world afresh and anew through her eyes.

  How many hours had he whiled away trying to keep busy in an attempt to distract his thoughts from Alice – and the way she’d died? How many fruitless hours? Because no matter what he did, where he went, or who he was with, he simply couldn’t forget her. Nor did he want to.

  He poured the tea, placed the cups on a tray and climbed the stairs. He was dreading a confrontation with his wife. But after the peculiar scene with Arthur, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid one.

  Did Louise really believe that Arthur had the power to bring people in general – and Alice in particular – back to life?

  The very idea was preposterous. Should he humour her? She’d been so depressed since Alice’s death, if he challenged her, would he precipitate a full-blown nervous breakdown?

  Wake Wood was supposed to have been a new beginning for them, but far from escaping from the tragedy of Alice, they’d only succeeded in bringing it with them. And after witnessing Louise’s reaction to Mick O’Shea’s horrific end, he suspected that she, like him, remembered only the manner of Alice’s dying, not the happiness their daughter had brought into their lives before her death. Or the simple joys of the days and nights the three of them had shared.

  He rested the bottom of the tray on the bannister, giving him time to compose himself before facing Louise. The door to the guest room was ajar. Patrick watched her moving around inside. She was unpacking Alice’s belongings from the black sacks and red bag that he had dumped them into, and was putting Alice’s clothes away in drawers and on hangers that she hooked on to the wardrobe rail. And in between sorting their daughter’s clothes, she was arranging Alice’s stuffed toys, dolls and books on the shelves.

  Then he realised: Louise was preparing the room for Alice’s return. She actually believed that Alice would soon be with them again! Here in the cottage; in this room, surrounded by her clothes and possessions, just as she’d been in their old home.

  He was shaking so much he had to set
the tray on the floor and lean against the doorpost for support. She didn’t turn around to face him, so he addressed her back.

  ‘Arthur said I should talk to you, Louise. Talk to you about what?’ he questioned earnestly. ‘What do you know about Wake Wood that I don’t?’

  If Louise heard him, she ignored him. She simply carried on arranging Alice’s clothes and toys.

  ‘Louise, what do you know that I don’t?’ he asked again, more urgently this time. ‘Have you seen something?’

  She wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve and he saw that she was close to tears.

  ‘I need you to tell me what you saw,’ he pleaded. ‘I have a right to know …’

  ‘You don’t believe Arthur can bring Alice back,’ she reproached.

  ‘No,’ he agreed slowly. ‘I don’t believe him. The dead are dead. The idea that they can return to life is preposterous.’

  ‘Not to me. Not after what I’ve seen and heard in Arthur’s place and in the town … and after Mary Brogan and … and D-Deirdre …’ she stammered into silence.

  ‘What’s Mary Brogan got to do with this?’

  ‘I can’t … I can’t explain, Patrick. I just can’t. Please, don’t ask me to try.’

  ‘Stop this, come on.’ He walked into the room and opened his arms to her but instead of going to him as he’d hoped she would, she backed away.

  ‘“Stop this”?’ she echoed. ‘What am I to stop, Patrick?’ She dropped the pile of Alice’s T-shirts she’d been holding on to the bed and faced him. ‘What do you think I’m doing?’

  ‘I can see what you’re doing. You’re preparing this room for Alice’s return.’

  ‘And you’re asking me to stop. You want Alice to return here with nothing prepared for her arrival. No clothes, no room …’

  ‘Please, Louise. Be straight with me. How can you possibly believe that Arthur is telling us the truth when he says that he can bring people back from the dead?’

  ‘I believe him because I saw something in Arthur’s yard last night. It was like …’ she faltered.

  ‘Like what?’ Patrick demanded when she hesitated.

  ‘It’s difficult, impossible to explain. The nearest description I can give is that it was like a birth. Only instead of a baby there was a …’

  Patrick breathed out slowly. ‘I see … A birth. And?’ he persisted.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘The birth of what?’ When she didn’t elaborate he added, ‘How can that possibly be “it”?’

  ‘I believe Arthur, Patrick. I truly believe what he said. I saw what appeared to be a birth. But not of a baby. The birth of a fully grown man.’

  Patrick crossed his arms across his chest. ‘Someone must have given birth to him. Who was it?’

  ‘Not who – what. He emerged from a casing. Like a cocoon. Arthur cracked the casing and he emerged in a gush – a flood of fluid and blood as if the casing was a disembodied womb.’

  ‘I see.’ Patrick hadn’t intended to sound sceptical, but he could hear it in his own voice. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that you believe you saw the birth of a fully grown man because you want to believe it? Because somehow you think that it will help us to get Alice back?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied honestly. ‘But it doesn’t matter if that’s what you think. I know what I saw. And I know what I believe.’

  ‘And you believe Arthur?’

  ‘Yes … I do. I believe he can do what he says. That he can bring Alice back to us.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ she murmured.

  ‘Of course,’ he mocked caustically.

  She turned her back to him.

  ‘I feel dumb and weak and desperate, Louise,’ he confessed, ‘because, like you, a part of me wants to buy into what Arthur is offering us. I want to believe him. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ she admitted.

  ‘But you don’t just want to believe Arthur’s fanciful story – you really believe that he can bring Alice back from the dead.’

  ‘I do,’ she asserted strongly.

  ‘You really believe him?’ he reiterated incredulously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want to try. You want us to go to him and ask him to try to bring Alice back to us?’ he checked.

  ‘Yes.’ She turned and faced him head-on. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I want us to do, because we won’t be able to forgive ourselves if we don’t try. Neither of us will – not ever – not for the whole of the rest of our lives. Because, just think, Patrick.’ Her eyes shone, animated by something he hadn’t seen in them since Alice’s death – hope. ‘We’ll be able to see our daughter again, talk to her, hold her, tell her how much we love her …’

  ‘And will miss her when she has to return,’ he reminded Louise cruelly, recalling Arthur’s warning.

  ‘Yes. That too,’ she agreed sadly. ‘But as Arthur said, most people he’s done this for have said that it’s been worth it just to say goodbye to their loved ones properly. We never said goodbye to her, Patrick. We never heard her last words. Didn’t tell her out that we’d think of her every day … every minute. That in losing her we lost everything. We couldn’t because by the time we reached her she’d already gone.’

  ‘I know. I was the one who reached her first.’ Patrick hated himself for reminding her. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe that Arthur could bring people back from the dead. But what he did know was that if he didn’t go along with Louise’s suggestion that they allow Arthur to try and resurrect Alice, his wife would never forgive him. And after losing Alice he couldn’t bear to lose Louise too.

  ‘All right, Louise,’ he capitulated. ‘We’ll go to Arthur and ask him to do this for us – for Alice.’ He watched as she continued to fold Alice’s clothes, making neat piles, stowing them away in the drawers and cupboards. ‘Louise—’

  ‘Yes, Patrick,’ she broke in. ‘We’re going to do this.’

  ‘We’ll do it, but I just wish that I could be sure. I wish …’

  ‘It will work, Patrick.’ She turned and looked deep into his eyes. ‘I just want her back with us. Both of us.’

  ‘But even if Arthur can do what he said he can, it isn’t going to be that simple, is it? Arthur warned us. And these people, Arthur and the others, here in Wake Wood, they’ve all been kind to us.’

  She met his gaze. ‘But if we have to lie, won’t it be worth it to get Alice back, even if it will only be for three days?’

  ‘I hope so, Louise,’ he murmured. ‘I really hope so.’

  Louise abandoned her tidying of the guest room. She set the bundles of Alice’s clothes that she hadn’t stowed away on the bed, along with the remainder of her toys and the bed linen she intended to use to make up Alice’s bed.

  ‘You telephone Arthur and invite him over tonight, Patrick. I’ll cook.’

  Reluctant to invite Arthur without any further discussion, he said, ‘Isn’t it late for dinner? We can wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘If it’s too late for dinner, tell Arthur he’s invited for supper.’ She left the room, passed Patrick and the tray he’d abandoned on the floor of the landing, and ran lightly down the stairs.

  Patrick waited until he heard her opening the freezer in the kitchen before picking up the tray. The tea had grown cold. His hands shook so much it slopped over the rims of the cups into the saucers as he carried the tray downstairs. He left it on the dining-room table and went into the hall to telephone.

  Arthur answered promptly and Patrick pictured his partner, sitting in front of a blazing fire beside the phone in his book-lined snug, a glass of single malt whisky at his elbow, cigar and book in hand.

  Arthur was as patient and soft-spoken as usual. He listened attentively while Patrick told him that Louise wanted to go ahead and accept his offer to bring Alice back.

  Arthur only answered after he was sure that Patrick had finished speaking. ‘And you’re quite sure about this, Patric
k?’ he checked.

  ‘Quite sure,’ Patrick lied. He wasn’t even sure about inviting Arthur to their cottage that night, let alone Arthur’s proposal to raise Alice from the dead. The more he thought about Arthur’s proposition, the more bizarre and logic-defying he considered it to be.

  ‘Please, tell Louise she doesn’t have to make supper for me.’

  ‘She’s already preparing it, Arthur.’

  ‘In that case, thank her and tell her I’ll be along shortly.’ Arthur hesitated. ‘And you, Patrick? How do you really feel about this?’

  ‘It’s what Louise wants,’ Patrick answered.

  ‘I was asking how you feel about this, not Louise.’

  Patrick could only repeat what he’d already said. ‘It’s what Louise wants.’

  ‘I’ll see you soon, Patrick.’

  ‘Yes, Arthur.’ Patrick was resigned. ‘We’ll see you soon.’

  Nine

  LOUISE SETTLED ON a simple menu of soup, salad and pasta followed by sorbet. While she laid the table, grated cheese, and made the soup and pasta sauce, Patrick poured himself a beer. He took it into the living room, opened the curtains and looked out of the window. The rain had abated and the sky was clear apart from a few light, wispy clouds. A thin sliver of new moon shone down, surrounded by a bevy of stars brighter than he’d ever seen them when they’d lived in the city.

  Would Alice have liked living here in this cottage in the country? Would she have settled to rural life and made friends with the young people in the town? Would he have bought a telescope so they could take up stargazing together? Would she have demanded more pets as they had more space and outbuildings to keep them in? Dogs, cats, the pony she’d been nagging for before she’d died …

  The sound of a car engine put an end to his musings. Headlights glowed, illuminating the garden of the cottage as Arthur’s car turned off the main road and swept around the curve of the drive, pulled up and parked behind their estate car.

  To Patrick’s surprise, Arthur lifted an old-fashioned leather doctor’s bag from the boot of his car. Patrick knew it didn’t contain Arthur’s veterinary instruments. Like him, Arthur owned a modern steel case filled with the latest in equipment.