House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  ‘And do you still see them, Peter and his wife, are you still in touch with them?’

  Dean shook his head. ‘Not for ages, they moved to Scotland about fifteen years ago. I went up there a couple of times, but it was a long way to go. We just sort of lost touch.’

  Seeing that he had been affected by his disclosures Krista thought it best to lighten the mood. ‘So, you were saying, Hermes, not just a fashion accessory, a god too.’

  Dean laughed. ‘Hermes was the messenger for his father, Zeus. You must have heard of Zeus, he was the top banana of mythology.’

  ‘OK,’ Krista replied. ‘I am mildly interested in your fantasy world, but only mildly. So you and your Uncle Peter, tell me more about him.’

  ‘We used to watch all the movies together, I must have seen some of them a hundred times – Jason and the Argonauts, Ulysses, Clash of the Titans. Peter, my dad, Peter always saw himself as being like Neptune, probably because he was such a strong swimmer and he loved boats. I used to read up on all the stories about the gods and the warriors that would fight all the terrible demons, they were the only books I ever enjoyed reading. I wanted to be like Ulysses, a true warrior, searching the earth for treasures and destroying all the monsters.’

  Krista was amazed to see him so passionate about something. He rarely spoke at all about his early life. ‘I just wanted to be a fashion model or an air hostess when I was growing up,’ she said. ‘Sounds pretty boring now!’ Dean laughed. ‘No, I could never have been Ulysses, he was fearless, the bravest of them all. I used to sleep with the light on in my bedroom until I was in my teens.’

  ‘So who would I be in this crazy made-up world in your head?’ Krista asked.

  Dean smiled, a huge smile. ‘Persephone, without a shadow of a doubt, you would be Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, goddess of the underworld.’

  Krista grabbed the bottle of tequila nestling in Dean’s lap and took a large mouthful. Her face screwed up tightly as the undiluted alcohol hit the right spot. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘tell me more about this amazing Persephone girl. Was she really fit, like me?’

  Dean looked deep into those beautiful eyes. No point lying, he thought. ‘Fit, yes, one box ticked.’

  ‘Beautiful?’ Krista asked, hoping for a positive response.

  ‘The most beautiful creature in the universe.’

  ‘Intelligent?’

  ‘Tick.’

  ‘Sexy, you know, like everybody thought that she was just ‘sex on legs’?’

  ‘Another tick for the modest woman sitting next to me.’

  ‘And could she be, you know, a bit of a bitch at times?’

  Dean nodded. ‘Double tick, she could be a bitch most of the time.’

  ‘So, who did she get off with, this goddess? She must have had all of the men after her.’

  Dean laughed. ‘Hades, she fell in love with Hades.’

  ‘But that is like, well, that is like the devil, isn’t it?’

  ‘He was the god of the underworld. He took her away from her mother and her family, he took her to the depths of the earth and made her his bitch.’

  ‘Nasty! What happened next?’

  ‘They did a deal, Zeus and Hades. He got to keep her for four months of the year and her mother got her back for the rest of the time.’

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘Her mother was well pissed off. Every time she went off for her four months with Hades, she sent a frost and heavy snow to stop all the plants and flowers growing on earth.’

  ‘So does that make you Hades then? If I am this Persephone girl, does that make you Hades, does that make you the devil?’

  ‘Yeah I suppose it does. But I would probably send you back sooner, maybe after three or four days rather than months. I would be bored of you by then.’

  ‘Total bastard, Dean Jarvis! Total bastard! And you were doing so well until then.’

  ‘So that is why we have a winter, it is all down to Persephone’s mother, Demeter. The frost and snow that we get every year is all down to that mad bitch.’

  ‘OK, I will buy that. Tell me though, what did this Hades fella do for the other eight months of the year, when this Persephone was back with her family?’

  ‘I don’t know, probably read a lot of books and spent his time wanking.’

  ‘That is a hell of a lot of wanking,’ Krista said and started to laugh. ‘You see what I did there, hell and Hades?’

  The two of them fell laughing into each other’s arms, both feeling that they had found something very special that night. Any doubts that were in Krista’s head had now been erased. She liked this vulnerable side to Dean, she loved the fact that he was just a big kid at heart. She would be his Persephone now, she would be his exclusive goddess. Something that night told her that this was going to be more than just a fling. She hoped desperately inside that he felt the same way.

  As dawn approached, Dean and Krista lay together on the crumpled and badly grass-stained suit jacket, wrapped in a tight embrace with a small smile of satisfaction etched on their faces. The tequila bottle was empty. It had served its purpose though and was now redundant to their requirements. The sun began to rise slowly in the sky, welcoming the start of a new day, maybe bringing a new chapter to the lives of these two lovers.

  At around four forty, the last of a long series of texts was received by Dean’s mobile phone, still perched on the floor of Krista’s car. It had been sent by a midwife at St Luke’s Hospital. It revealed that at exactly 3.56 that morning, Poppy Louise Jarvis had entered this world. She weighed just four pounds and ten ounces, not uncommon for a baby born five weeks premature. She was lying comfortably in an incubator in the special baby unit at the hospital, and was, in the words of the nurse on duty that day, ‘doing just fine’.

  The newborn’s mother, Hannah Jarvis, was not faring so well. She had endured several problems during the delivery of the child and was now in the hands of specialists in the intensive care unit. If possible, could her husband make his way to the hospital as soon as possible?

  Dean Jarvis was an absent father at the birth of his daughter. Baby Poppy could not have known it at the time, but it would set a precedent for most of her life. When those bright hospital lights blinded her as she first entered this world, she may have been thankful that she had been finally released from the relative security of her mother’s womb. Maybe she had taken for granted the fact that she had been warm, nourished and protected from harm inside that hollow cavity. It is probably true to say that on numerous occasions in the years that followed, Poppy Jarvis may have wished that she had never left that safe haven at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bree arrived at the cemetery gates, dark cobwebs still clouding over the corners of her mind. It was a day of firsts for her. The first time she had driven her new car, a mid-range Mercedes. She had loved her old Audi, but after the incident she felt that she could never look at that model again. It was the first time she had come to the cemetery alone. Kayleigh had always accompanied her before, treating her as if she was an invalid or small child. And it was to be the first time that she would see Jamie’s newly laid headstone. Her mother had made a fleeting visit from Finland with Per to watch the stone be erected, but Bree had avoided meeting up with her mother by pretending that she was attending a grief recovery support meeting. In Bree’s troubled mind she wanted to put as much distance between her and her parent as she possibly could. They may be separated by a thousand miles or so of icy cold sea since her mother had moved to Finland, but they were a million miles apart in their broken relationship.

  It was early summer. The long, dark and dismal nights may have gone but those ever-present nightmares were still haunting Bree. The frost covered weeds in the grounds of the cemetery had, by now, been replaced with colourful displays of brightly coloured flowers, blossoming everywhere, making her brother’s final restin
g place seem a little less daunting. As she passed a small group of elderly people, huddled around a newly laid grave, she noticed the inscription on the adjacent headstone. The woman buried there was eighty-eight when she passed away. How fair was that? Bree thought. How fair was that for someone to live all those years when her brother had barely had a quarter of that time in this cruel world?

  Bree needed to come here today, not just to see his new headstone, but to remind him of things that he may think she has forgotten. To remind him that she still hears his strange laughter echoing around the hallway of the house and that she plays his video at least one hundred times every day. To tell him that his toothbrush still sits beside hers in the holder, they would never be separated. She did not want him to think her foolish for sleeping on his pillow, but it made her feel as if he was still with her when she went to sleep each night, and again when she woke each morning. She would never ever wash that pillowcase.

  It was over six months now since he had left her, but she felt no respite from the numb pain which lay dormant in her body. Every morning, when her eyes opened, still felt like the first morning after the accident. She did not sleep well anymore. It was strange, those reoccurring nightmares began to feel more comforting to her, as if she felt the need to be tormented.

  Bree dragged her feet along the hard ground which led her through the cemetery. A bright ray of sunshine appeared through the clouds as if it was leading her to him. As she reached the path which took her to her brother’s graveside she could see that there were two figures there – one large, one small, a child. They seemed to be studying the new stone. Bree stopped for a few seconds and watched. The small figure had her mousy coloured hair tucked up in a small ponytail. She was wearing a bright red coat, with black trim. She remembered seeing that coat before, the previous time that she had visited the cemetery. The young girl had passed her in the car park that day. Bree stood at a short distance and observed. She didn’t recognise either of them. They might simply be admiring the new gravestone, she thought. As she moved nearer, she watched as the young girl walked forward a few steps carrying a small posy of flowers. Bree was puzzled, until the large figure turned her head and she caught a glimpse of the woman’s face. It was her, it was that woman that had been at her front door, the one who drove the Shogun, it was the woman she held responsible for Jamie’s death. A searing rage tore at her insides as she stomped forward to confront her. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she roared at the large woman. ‘Get away from there now!’ The figure reacted to the full force of Bree’s harsh tongue and moved swiftly away from the graveside, grabbing the arm of the small child and pulling her with her. The little girl looked frightened, almost dropping the spread of fresh ivory lilies in her hand.

  ‘How dare you come here!’ Bree yelled, causing the large figure to move further away and bow her head in shame. The woman’s mouth opened, as if she wanted to respond, but nothing came out. Her chin began to tremble.

  Suddenly, a tiny voice came up from beneath the badly shaken woman. ‘We come here every week,’ the small child said. ‘We come here to say thank you to Jamie. We always leave some flowers for him. We bring these ones because they are pretty. My mum said he would like them.’

  ‘Your mother doesn’t know him,’ Bree said, now lowering her voice, so as not to frighten the child any further.

  The small girl looked puzzled and glanced up at the woman clutching her arm. ‘Come on,’ the woman said. ‘We need to go now, Maisie.’

  The little girl looked at the small bouquet in her hand. ‘But what about Jamie’s flowers?’

  The woman moved her hand down and placed it into the palm of the confused child. ‘No, Maisie, we need to go now, right now!’

  Looking over at the panic-stricken lady and the bemused child, Bree suddenly realised how intimidating her outburst must have been. ‘Wait!’ she said and moved closer to them. She crouched down to where the tiny girl stood and offered her a small smile. ‘Maisie?’ she said. ‘That’s a nice name.’

  The girl smiled back. ‘I was named after my nan, the one who lived near the seaside. She had lots of cats, didn’t she, Mum?’

  Bree felt her raging anger begin to subside. ‘Those are nice flowers,’ she said. ‘I am sure Jamie would love them.’

  The girl released her hand from her mother’s and offered it to Bree. ‘Would you like to help me put them in his pots?’ she asked.

  Bree nodded. ‘I would like that very much, Maisie.’

  The two of them made their way back to Jamie’s resting place, leaving the large woman, still shaking slightly, to watch on. ‘You seem very angry,’ the little girl observed. ‘Was he your boyfriend?’

  Bree shook her head. ‘No, Maisie, he was my brother, he was my twin brother.’ As the child began separating the bottoms of the stems from the lilies, it was obvious to Bree that the small girl had done this before. She decided to take a small step backwards and leave the girl to her task. As she did she caught her first sight of the new black marble stone, the beautiful engraving standing out in bold gold. Bree looked at the bottom of the headstone. ‘Loving son and brother’ – hardly a fitting description, she thought. There were a thousand more appropriate words they could have used, words, sentiments that truly described the irreplaceable soul that rested here now.

  Maisie was also reading the wording at the head of the stone. ‘It says that he is sleeping with the angels. Will he ever wake up?’ she asked. ‘Will we ever meet Jamie?’

  Bree choked on her reply. ‘No, Maisie, no we won’t see Jamie again.’

  The small child seemed so mature for someone so tiny. She only seemed to be around five or six years old but spoke like a young adult. She was a little surprised at Bree’s answer and explained why. ‘My mum says that Jamie was the bravest man ever, for what he did, you know for saving us that night, from the train. She said that he was braver than all the superheroes put together.’ Bree said nothing. She had just realised what the tiny child had said. It was her, that crying in front of the Shogun that night, this little girl had been in there with her mother.

  ‘If that is true,’ Maisie continued, ‘and he has superpowers like all the other superheroes, why can’t he make himself come back? He could help lots of other people then, just like he helped my mum and me.’

  Bree could not bring herself to answer Maisie’s question. She felt a pain rip through her insides at that moment, as the reality of that terrible night came back to haunt her for a few seconds.

  Feeling slightly unsteady on her feet, she left the girl to finish arranging the fresh flowers. She seemed to be doing such a fine job, she didn’t need any help. She walked back to where the child’s mother was standing. This time the expression on her face was one of a more compromising nature. The large woman was still lost for words and had to wait for Bree to start the conversation. ‘She was in the car, that night, Maisie was in your car?’ she asked. The woman nodded but said nothing. It was clear that the anguish and pain from that experience still lived inside her too.

  Maisie joined the two women, after neatly placing the broken stems from the lilies and the remains of the dead flowers into a convenient litter bin. As her mother produced a couple of wet wipes to clean her hands the little girl made a heartfelt observation to Bree. ‘I like Jamie’s new stone,’ she said. ‘It’s like he has a proper home now.’ The two women looked at each other but said nothing, not sure if the tiny child’s innocent comment brought any comfort to the other.

  ‘So do you have the same birthday as Jamie?’ Maisie asked.

  ‘Yes, the twenty-fourth of August,’ Bree replied.

  ‘I don’t know your name,’ the little girl said, now feeling much more comfortable in Bree’s presence.

  ‘It is Brianna, but everyone calls me Bree.’

  Maisie gave a cheeky grin. ‘My mum’s name is Caroline, it is a very old-fashioned name. I always call her ‘Mum’ t
hough. ‘Mum’ or ‘Mummy’, because, well, she is my mum, I suppose.’ Bree let out a small laugh. She could not help but be amused by the small child’s view of the world.

  Caroline finally joined in the conversation. ‘We will have to be going soon, Maisie, the centre is open now.’

  ‘Can Bree come, Mummy? Can Bree come with us?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘I am sure Bree has other things she needs to do. Maybe another time.’

  ‘Oh, please, Mummy, she might have some fun there.’

  Bree was curious. ‘What is it, Maisie, where do you go?’

  ‘Cheeky Charlies.’

  ‘What is that?’ Bree asked.

  Caroline explained. ‘It’s like a big adventure indoor playground. It is about two miles from here. We go there after we come here. I just think Maisie needs something to, well, you know, make her feel happy if coming here has made her feel sad.’

  Maisie jumped in with her own take on the place. ‘It is full of ropes and slides and thousands of plastic balls. You can’t hurt yourself, there are all these special soft mats.’

  Bree smiled. ‘It sounds like a lot of fun.’

  ‘You have to come,’ Maisie said tugging at Bree’s coat. ‘If I have been good, Mum always buys me a chocolate smoothie there.’

  ‘And if you haven’t been good?’ Bree asked.

  ‘Oh, I am always good, aren’t I, Mum?’ the little girl replied. ‘Apart from that time I broke the glass cabinet.’

  Caroline buttoned up her daughter’s coat. ‘Come on, you, let’s get going,’ she said.