Out of the Mist

by Lynne Chitty

  “I’ll pop downstairs and make some tea for us” Eliza had said slipping out of the room leaving Edith to play a game with herself of guessing where they were going. It might be fun she thought. Things were looking up.

  TWENTY FIVE

  ELIZA

  The day of the funeral had come all too soon and yet not soon enough. The wait felt torturous. Made her wonder what it must be like for prisoners on death row. As the day of their execution drew closer. Time both dragged and flew by and she just wanted it to be over with.

  Father David had come early and carried Edith down the stairs. It had been an ordeal for them both, but Eliza had finally managed to get her mother dressed in her two piece suit. It was a pale silvery blue and Eliza chose that moment to give her mother the scarf she had bought on Skye which she wrapped round her neck and which Edith kept fingering all day. The suit was a bit too big but it was respectable enough and her mother would be in the wheelchair with a blanket over her most of the time. To get through the service, Eliza, who wore an ankle length black skirt with a pale cream blouse and cream cardigan had pretended she was somewhere else. She closed her eyes and pictured the mountains of Skye and so didn’t really hear what Father David had said in his address. He had read the twenty third psalm and the coffin had come in to ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles. It had been Marcus’ favourite song for a while which Father David said was a sign of hope as St Jude was the patron Saint of lost causes. They had walked out listening to Gabriels Oboe from the film ‘The Mission.’ Her mother had sat rigid in her wheelchair. Only flinching when the curtains had closed and Marcus’ body went on its final journey. His ashes were to be interred with those of his father in the crematoriums garden of remembrance. True to her word, Lara had been there sitting discreetly at the back with the young officer who had come with Ruth to search Marcus’ room. It was pitiful and bleak and Eliza couldn’t wait to get back to the house. There would be no wake. No glasses raised, no stories shared. Thirty four years on this earth and no one would miss him.

  EDITH

  It had been a better service than Edith had hoped. The vicar had read the psalm beautifully and spoken kindly of Marcus. Treasure in earthenware jars. Fragile. Breakable. We must try not to judge too harshly. She did try and she did still love the little boy he had been. If only he had never grown up.

  She was exhausted and all her bones ached. Eliza had made an omelette for them both and they eaten in companionable silence. It would be her turn next to disappear behind the curtain and go down the schute in her coffin. She was ready. It would free Eliza up. She could sell the house and buy herself a little place. It was a shame really that she had come round after the attack. She had lived too long. The doctor had been to see her yesterday. Nice comfortable sort of man. He had been around almost as long as her. He had asked her lots of questions which she had done her best to answer. He had suggested that maybe a residential nursing home would suit her better. Lots of people around. Activities, bingo even. She liked playing bingo, Eliza would come and see her and altogether it would be for the best. Give her a bit of life back. You’ve been stuck in this room too long Edith he had said. You could have a ground floor room there, look out the window and watch the birds. Even go out in the garden yourself if you would like to. Plenty of folks around to push your wheelchair. There are too many memories in this house. You need to breathe fresh air. Give yourself a chance. You’ve got time.

  She had thought about it all night. She was just too tired though. Eliza wanted her to move she knew that. She hated the house. There had been laughter within its walls once. While they lived there though, there would never be again. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps it would be for the best.

  TWENTY SIX

  ELIZA

  Doctor Forbes had come down in a serious mood after seeing her mother. “I don’t need to tell you that she is deteriorating. Physically she is in pretty good shape all things considered. If she did more she would get stronger. Her heart is sound too. Mentally though she is much worse than when I last saw her. She is seriously depressed. She’s confused and she is beginning to show signs of paranoia and I can’t imagine that is going to improve. Marcus’ death has pushed her over the edge. Guilt, regret, anger, they are all eating away at her. She’s a strong woman and if she decides she doesn’t want to go on she will gradually allow herself to die.” “Can people do that?” Eliza had asked. “I have heard of people turning their backs to the wall but do people really make themselves die?”

  “ They can and they do.” The doctor said softly

  “I should never have moved away and left her. It was selfish selfish.”

  “ Eliza Eliza , if you hadn’t have left this house when you did, your mother would have been burying you too and that would have broken her heart. She needs a reason to go on, she needs a glimpse of something that she can grasp that will draw her out of the mire she is sinking in. Residential care is my advice and if you both agree I can write up her notes and get the mental health assessment team round to see her. Sooner rather than later I would say. When are you going home?”

  “I’ve got to go back Sunday ready for work on Monday. I’ll come back every weekend for the moment until we can get something sorted. “

  “Don’t exhaust yourself will you? You are just beginning to break through from your own despair. There’s a glint of life in your eyes now. You are sad and you are worried. You have carried too much for too long. Let it go. You can be free. Don’t throw everything away now. Your mother wouldn’t want that.” Elizas eyes filled with tears.

  “ I’ve known you a long time. All of you. What happened affected us all. We just didn’t know how to help. Seeing you so ill and not being able to even begin to touch your pain made me feel so helpless. You are stronger than you think Eliza. It is time for you to start believing that. Give me a ring when you have talked to your mother”

  He picked up his bag and let himself out.

  Eliza had gone up to her room and sat on the side of her bed. So much kindness. She sat and looked at the roses Ruth’s twins had picked for her. Words started to form in her head and she got out her notebook.

  I held the stillness as though it were a rose.

  With care, with reticence, with beauty.

  Silence welled deep within its petals

  Far beyond the sweetest music

  And I myself was held

  As though a raindrop on the tip of a leaf

  As though a child on the lap of one

  Who is the music, and the rose , and the silence.

  Most of all,

  who is the silence.

  Had she been held all these months and years? Could the memories of that night really not hurt her anymore?

  It had been a Friday, just after seven. Marcus had been to a race meeting in Taunton and done pretty well. That wasn’t why he was in high spirits though. That was because he was drunk. He had come up the stairs just as she had come out of the bathroom.

  “Been waiting for me have you?” he had slurred at her.

  “Waiting for the man of the house to come back and make a woman of you?”

  She had tried to squeeze past him and get into her room, but he blocked her way. She pushed him away with as much authority as she could muster

  “You’re drunk Marcus now please get out of my way.” She only had a thin blouse on and a wraparound and could feel the fear rising up in her. He mustn’t know she was afraid though. She had to keep calm and be strong.

  “Oh don’t be like that Eliza” he had said suddenly grabbing her hair and pulling her closer to him. She could smell the sweat and the drink and thought she was going to be sick

  “Let me go NOW`”

  “Oh come on” he had said to her “we both know you want it. Been waiting a long time haven’t you? Well todays your lucky day. “ She had tried to scream but he put his hand over her mouth and pushed her to the floor at the top of the stairs. He was a heavy man and as hard as she tried she couldn’t get him off
her. Terror began to take over but as he pulled down her undewear and undid his zip she managed to scream NO NO

  it didn’t stop him forcing himself inside her. The pain was unbearable as he slammed her head against the floor all the time pushing deeper and deeper inside her until she thought she would pass out.

  Out of nowhere their mother appeared. She had been out in the garden but heard Eliza’s scream. Grabbing a kitchen knife she had run up the stairs and tried to pull Marcus off Eliza I’ll kill you she had screamed, raising the knife above his head. Marcus had grabbed her wrist and as he had turned round to push her away they had both fallen down the stairs. The knife had gone into Edith just above her knee. The force of Marcus’ weight on top of her had pushed it through the flesh until it could travel no further. She had hit her head on the wall at the bottom and been knocked unconscious. Thinking he had killed her. Marcus had fled. He had later been picked up in a bed and breakfast in Taunton. At the trial, not staying to help his mother had been the final nail in his coffin.

  Eliza had crawled down the stairs and called an ambulance which took them both to hospital. Edith had remained unconscious for ten days and the damage the knife had done was so severe a surgeon had amputated her left leg the following day.

  Much of what followed was a blur. The police interviews. The trial. She had found a way of transporting herself outside of her skin and looked on as though at someone else. She had showered and showered and showered but she couldn’t get him out of her. His smell, everything about him infected her. She felt dirty. No filthy and there seemed nothing she could do to ever make herself clean again.

  She had turned on her body. She stopped feeding it. She cut it with a razor blade. She hated everything about it and everything about herself.She felt guilty about what had happened to her mother and equally guilty about the hateful question that kept worming its way into her brain. Had she deserved it? Was it all her fault?

  It was close to eight years now since that night. Had she really turned a corner? Was she stronger than she thought? Her mothers voice snapped her out of her trance.

  Coming Mum. Coming.

  EDITH

  “I want to talk to you about my funeral.” Edith said.

  Oh mum haven’t we had enough death can’t it wait?”.

  “I’m serious I want you to write this down.

  I’m not saying it wil be soon but it will happen one day. I don’t want you to have to worry about anything when that day comes.

  I would like psalm twenty three and psalm one hundred and twenty one. I want the reading where Jesus says let the little children come to me and music wise. All things bright and beautiful and The day thou gavest Lord has ended. Have you got that written down?”

  Yes it’s here Eliza had reassured her. Well just read it back to me so I know for sure.

  Eliza had done as she was told which pleased Edith.

  “You keep that bit of paper with you at all times do you hear?.

  If I go into one of those homes things can go missing you know. People there won’t know me. So it will be up to you to make sure it is all done right.”

  “Do you think you might give one of the residential homes a try?” her daughter had asked quietly

  “Well. I’m thinking it might be a good idea don’t you?

  I’m not committing to it mind. Just testing the waters. If I don’t like it I’m coming straight back here. “

  “You don’t have to rush anything mum. “

  “Doctor Forbes mentioned I might be able to play bingo from time to time. That’s not the only reason I’m going but it would be something to look forward to wouldn’t it.?”

  “It would. It would be fun and you never know you might win something.”

  “Exactly. Thing is Eliza. I don’t want to die on my own. I am dying I know I am. I don’t mind. I just don’t want to go on my own.”

  “Doctor Forbes said your heart was strong and could keep going for years.”

  “Oh what does he know? He’s past it. Asked me all sorts of stupid questions. His memory is worse than mine. He asked me what day it was. I mean you’d think a doctor would know wouldn’t you? Otherwise how would he know which patients he was supposed to visit.?”

  Ediths confidence suddenly evaporated. Her plan beyond her.

  “We don’t need to decide now do we? Lets sleep on it. Don’t want to be too hasty. He said there was a garden there. So there might be a lot of bees. He didn’t think about that did he eh?”

  TWENTY SEVEN

  ELIZA

  It had been hard leaving her mother to return to Gloucester. Edith had no recollection of making the decision to give the home a try but Eliza went ahead and phoned Doctor Forbes all the same. A friend of his was going to help her negotiate her way through the process of gaining probate and they would take one step at a time with Edith.

  She had gone back to work on the Monday to find a packet waiting for her.

  Miss Eliza Harris c/o Gloucester Library Gloucester GL1

  It came on Friday her boss had said. Thought about sending it on in case it was important but was worried it wouldn’t get to you before you came back. Hope that was ok. By the way he had asked how did the funeral go? As well as it could she had replied. It was kind of him to ask. Niceties were so exhausting though.

  Eliza put the packet in her bag vaguely curious but keen to get on with the work that took her mind off other things. It wasn’t until she was on her lunch break that she opened it. It was a print out of a schedule of some sort and there was a card.

  Dear Eliza

  Hope this doesn’t feel pushy or intrusive but I have printed out the From Couch to 5k timetable for you . Don’t worry at all if you have decided it’s not your thing! Sending you best wishes Pete.

  A lump formed in Elizas throat. She flicked through the pages and read

  WEEK 1

  ‘For the runs in week one you will begin with a brisk five minute walk. Then you will alternate sixty seconds of running with ninety seconds of running for a total of twenty minutes’

  She could do that couldn’t she?

  The card had a picture of two cheeky looking kittens on the front and she turned it over.

  Card sold in aid of the RSPCA

  She laughed. Really laughed and switched on the computer to access her emails.

  Dear Pete

  Thank you so much……

  ELSEWHERE

  As Eliza wrote her letter, another letter was being written this time from one of Her Majestys prisons. It was very short and very simple

  Thank you. You done good.

  The man writing it was the quiet non descript prisoner Marcus had shared a cell with for seven years. Stuart had listened to his companion whinge and whine about the injustice of his sentence and he had never said a word. A good listener he was.

  He was in for stabbing a man to death. The man who had raped his niece. He still had two more years to serve but it didn’t sadden him. He still had his pride and he still had a focus. He still too had friends on the outside. Friends he wrote to from time to time. Friends who like him thought rapists didn’t deserve to draw breath. One of these friends, who happened to owe him a favour lived in Somerset and owned a black estate car.

  SKYE

  As the two letters were being written, hundreds of miles away on the Isle of Skye a solitary seagull was tossing sea weed around searching for food. When he was full, he stretched out his wings, tilted back his head and opened his beak. A haunting call as eternal as the mountains that stood behind him echoed out of the mist.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lynne, a Deacon lives in Devon and writes for ROOTS and Quiet Spaces. She is passionate about animal welfare and a life long Spurs fan. She has had a short story, prayers and poems published, but this is her first Novella.

 

 

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