by Marc Scott
But who could he blame for the cancer that had started in his liver and had now eaten away most of his vital organs? The cancer that had weakened his resistance day by day and left him helpless in his ocean of self-pity. Maybe God. If no one will listen and all else fails, blame God!
As his weary eyes fought hard to stay open he began to hear sounds of small voices echoing around his head. The lights were becoming much brighter now. His vision was somewhat distorted but be began to make out the shapes of familiar faces. His stepfather, Peter, he was there, he was polishing his shoes, he must be going to work soon. His mother was there, in the corner of a long white room. She was sitting in her big chair, she was brushing her hair, she was looking straight at him, but she didn’t seem to know who he was. He wanted to cry out to her, ‘It’s me, Momma, it’s your Dean!’ She was fading away now, disappearing from those bright white walls surrounding her. He could see her shadow moving away from him. And now to the left of him he could see his old school teacher, Mr Matthews. He was at the front of the classroom. ‘Reach for the stars, Jarvis,’ he said. ‘And if you get over the trees you will have done bloody well for yourself.’ Roger Morris was there too, his best friend Roger. They were both laughing at the teacher’s funny comment. The images continued to appear at a frantic pace. He could see a young couple, they were strolling in the countryside, they were smiling, they were happy, they walked straight past him, he didn’t know why!
Dean’s body began to move around. He couldn’t feel his arms, it was as if they were tied down. The light became brighter, much brighter and was hurting his eyes. The images of days gone past continued to drift across his line of vision. Mrs Barnes, his next-door neighbour, was there now. She was with her dog. She waved at him, but he couldn’t wave back, his arms were too tired. The church bells, he could hear the ringing of the church bells. Hannah, he could hear her voice. She began to walk towards him, but then she stopped. She was wearing her wedding dress. She looked just as she had done all those years ago. He wanted to call out to her, but his mouth wouldn’t open, it seemed as if his lips were sealed together. She began to walk away. He wanted to shout out loudly, ‘Don’t go, Hannah! Don’t go! I am here,’ but the words would not leave his mouth. He was too late, she was out of view. Suddenly, he could feel something in his arms. He looked down. It was Poppy, it was Poppy, she was so small, just a tiny baby. He could smell her freshness and feel her soft skin. He touched her tiny fingers, touched her smooth face. He wanted to tell her, to tell her that he was sorry, that he was sorry for everything, but in a split second, she was gone, taken away from his grasp.
A helplessness began to overwhelm Dean now. The visions were becoming blurry as if his eyesight was deserting him. Where was Poppy? Where was Hannah? He wanted to call out to them, but his lips were so dry, his mouth would not open. And now he could hear her voice calling him, he could hear her clearly, she was there with him, Krista was back with him. A brief recollection of their first meeting, her welcoming smile, he could see the fires burning brightly in those dangerous eyes. She was calling to him, enticing him to come to her. He could see her arms stretched out towards him, luring him in, calling him closer to the shore. She was there, Krista was there, she was offering him a final chance of salvation. The jumbled thoughts in Dean’s head were mixed with cries of laughter and pain. They slowly began to fade. He suddenly felt a bright ray of light searing through his eyelids. Through a small crack in the bottom of one eye he could make out the shape of the clock on the wall. The second hand was working now and had moved onwards to twenty-five past the hour. All of a sudden, everything became very loud inside his head. The sounds were deafening. Through a tiny slit at the bottom of his eyelid, somewhere through the burning light, he could make out the kindly face of a woman. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform. He could feel the warmth of her fingers as they wrapped around his hand. He didn’t know who she was, but he felt comforted by her touch.
In the darkening corner of his mind he could still hear her. Krista was calling out to him, the tones of her voice running through his head like the most beautiful song he had ever heard. His body was moving closer and closer to the rocks. He could see them now, the sirens, their faces were so clear, she was there, she was with them, Krista, she was beckoning him towards her. His breath shortened as he gazed at the incredible beauty before him. He was going to be safe, Krista was holding out her hand. It was so close, so close, he moved forward, he tried to raise his arm, but he could not reach her.
Suddenly, without any warning, the bright lights became dim and the image of Krista disappeared. Inside his head everything became dark and then darker, his vision began to fade from grey to black. The sea was totally still, he could no longer hear the waves, there was complete silence.
The drowning man was no longer sinking, his struggle was over. He had finally drowned.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Poppy sat in the car park of St Andrew’s Hospital and smoked the last of the cigarettes she had been given by the kindly gentleman at the lake. She didn’t know what to feel. There was a kind of elation, almost as though she should celebrate the fact that her father had died. But a large part of her felt cheated that he was no longer there. The bitterness that had shrouded her mind had gone. She realised now that she had no one left to blame for any of her past actions. In truth Poppy Jarvis could well have been holding back a river of tears in those ice-cold veins of hers. Whether self-inflicted or not, her scars, both physical and mental, would have broken people much stronger than her. But Poppy did not feel like crying, there was a hollowness in her body, almost as if she felt no emotion whatsoever.
At the reception area Poppy was invited to take a seat and wait for Mrs Napier, who kept her waiting for almost an hour before introducing herself. Not that Poppy had anything else to do that day. It would give her time to make some decisions about her final port of call.
Mrs Napier, a neatly kept middle-aged woman in a smart black trouser suit, greeted Poppy with a solemn face, probably a feature she practised regularly in her mirror at home. She invited Poppy to join her in a small office at the end of a long corridor. No further words were spoken until the two women sat down opposite each other. Mrs Napier started the conversation. ‘We didn’t really know who to call,’ she said. ‘He never had any visitors in all of the time that he has been here.’ Poppy simply nodded and let her continue. ‘He had an old phone, a very old phone, it was a Nokia, I believe. We couldn’t find a charger for it, but one of the other patients got their father to bring one in.’ Poppy wasn’t really interested in her story, but nevertheless did her best to give her the impression that she was. ‘So when we went through the text messages on his phone, we realised that you must be his daughter. I have tried to reach you for the last couple of days but…’
Suddenly, Poppy decided to speak up. ‘I have been very busy, so I couldn’t get back to you,’ she said.
A sympathetic smile appeared on the face of Mrs Napier. ‘Of course, of course, I understand. I am just pleased that we managed to contact you.’
Poppy decided at that point to make her position perfectly clear. ‘We were not close, my dad and me, we were not close. I haven’t seen him for over fifteen years.’
The kindly lady nodded. ‘We sort of got that impression from the text messages. We realised that things were far from perfect between you, but you are his next of kin.’
Poppy shrugged her shoulders. ‘So, there was no one else at all?’ she asked.
‘He has been with us for several months. As I said, he never had any visitors. We did find a number for his landlord at his bedsit, but he told us that he didn’t think that he had any family.’
‘Bedsit?’ Poppy said, her first realisation that her father’s life had not exactly been a bed of roses without her.
‘Yes, I think his landlord sold off his belongings to pay for his overdue rent.’
‘What did he die from?’
Poppy asked, in an almost nonchalant manner, as though her recently deceased father had been a small family pet.
‘Liver cancer,’ Mrs Napier replied. ‘He had been in our intensive care unit since early this year. He wasn’t conscious for most of that time. He wouldn’t have really been in any pain, the morphine would have helped with that.’
Poppy felt anxious. She really wanted to get this ordeal over and done with. ‘So what happens next? I don’t have any money or anything if you are expecting me to pay for his funeral.’
‘I have no doubt that the state will have to take care of that, Poppy,’ the woman said in a reassuring manner. ‘But there are one or two things you need to do.’
‘Like what?’ Poppy asked.
‘Well,’ Mrs Napier said, reaching into a filing cabinet drawer, ‘these are his belongings. There is not much here, but we are dutybound to hand them over to his next of kin.’ The woman handed Poppy a large padded envelope and asked her to sign a preprinted document. The hospital administrator was somewhat surprised at Poppy’s lack of emotion, but it was not her place to discuss the cause of their rift. It was, however, her role to ask her the next question. ‘Would you like to say your final goodbyes?’ Poppy seemed quite stunned by her comment, but let the caring woman continue. ‘He is in our chapel of rest.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Poppy said, shaking her head. ‘As I said we were not close or anything. I don’t even really know why I came here today.’
‘It can help, closure can sometimes help,’ Mrs Napier said, a solemn look appearing on her face. ‘Whatever you felt about him, Miss Jarvis, he was still your father.’
‘I am not sure,’ Poppy replied. ‘It is sort of like, he is gone now, so it might just be best to remember him as he was.’ Poppy was tempted to add the words ‘selfish, unreliable, drunken and bastard’ but kept those thoughts to herself. There was a small silence with the two women staring at one another, both waiting for the other to speak. Finally Poppy nodded her head at the woman. ‘I think you are right, I should see him, I should say goodbye to him.’
Mrs Napier nodded back and stood to leave the room. ‘Give me a few minutes,’ she said, leaving Poppy clutching the remains of her father’s existence in her lap. ‘I will let them know you are coming down.’
Why did she say she wanted to see him? Poppy thought. She didn’t, she really didn’t want to be reminded of him ever again, he could rot in hell for all she cared. She thumbed over the outside of the padded envelope. His whole life was resting in her hands now. Not much to show for all those years, Poppy thought. She wanted to feel some emotion inside, but the bitter memories of her past years pushed up her barriers to prevent her.
Mrs Napier returned around fifteen minutes later and asked Poppy to follow her down a side corridor. The lady with the smart trouser suit and the kindly facial expressions started a meaningless conversation in a bid to make Poppy feel more at ease. ‘Did you have to come far?’ she asked.
Poppy shook her head. ‘Not really, I live in Eltham.’
Mrs Napier tried a little harder. ‘We never got to know him very well, your father, as I said, he was in and out of consciousness most of the time he was with us.’ Poppy said nothing, she would have preferred this woman to keep quiet. She didn’t feel that she needed any more information than she had already been given. Something kept telling Poppy that she should feel something inside her at this moment, an emotion, anything, love, hate, bitterness, anger, but she still felt nothing at all. Everything seemed so surreal. She was sure that she would wake up any minute and realise that none of this was happening. She felt as if she was hallucinating. It was certainly a stranger experience than the side effects of any of the substances she could remember taking in her past. Maybe, she thought, it wasn’t just this that was a dream, maybe nothing had really happened the previous day after all, maybe Cameron was OK, maybe Danny would be calling her any moment asking her why she was late for work. But as the large brown door of the chapel of rest came into view, the cold chills of reality washed over her body. Poppy suddenly felt a little unsteady on her feet, almost dropping the package containing her late father’s effects.
‘This is it,’ Mrs Napier confirmed. ‘He is in here, they have prepared him for your visit.’
Poppy nodded. She started to wonder if she would be able to recognise him. ‘Does he, does he look…’ Her question was intercepted by the kindly woman who seemed to know all the right things to say. She had probably stood in front of this door a hundred times before. ‘He looks at peace,’ she said. ‘He looks totally at peace.’ Mrs Napier could clearly see that the visitor was a little apprehensive about entering the room. ‘Take a moment or two if you are not ready,’ she said. ‘I can come in with you if you want me to.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘No. I would rather see him alone.’ She braced herself and took a deep breath. ‘I just want to get this over and done with.’
The door was opened for her and Poppy slowly made her way into the room. She noticed the smell when she first entered. It was a musky smell, like decaying flowers. She made her way to the table at the end of the narrow room where a teak coffin rested on top of a cloth-covered table. It was open. She prepared herself, first looking up at the dimmed lights and then, after a huge intake of breath, down at her father.
Her eyes moved along the inside of the casket at the still figure, a light linen cloth shrouding his stiffened body. The first thing that she noticed was his hair, it was almost completely grey. There were strong lines on his forehead and his face was a pasty shade of white, as though some makeup had been applied to his features. He seemed so thin. His cheeks had sunken inwards and his mouth seemed to be so much smaller than she had remembered. But this was him, this was her father. He seemed so weak now. Those bulging shoulders and strong arms had gone and been replaced by the fragile shell of a man. It had only been seventeen years or so since Poppy had last seen him, but it suddenly felt like a lot longer. He had become an old man before he had died, a frail, weak old man, and she hadn’t been with him to witness any of those changes.
As Poppy looked down at him, she was still trying hard to find something inside her, anything at all, but there was just nothing there. She tried telling herself that she should cry or at least pretend to cry, that’s what people do, they cry. But Poppy didn’t feel like shedding any tears, she still felt cheated. She never had the chance to tell him how much hurt and pain she had been through since he abandoned her. She never got the opportunity to see if he was truly remorseful about what he had done, whether he had spent his life regretting his decisions, whether he would have done things differently if he had the chance over again. But probably, most importantly, she never got the chance to look him in the eye and ask him what had really happened to her mother. She knew that she would never know now.
Poppy took one last long look at her father and turned to walk away, bringing an end to all that built-up anger and pain that had been churning around inside her for countless years. Yes, he had cheated her alright, she would have no one to blame now for the way her life had panned out. She could no longer feel that sour bitterness towards him, he was dead.
Around halfway back to those large brown doors, Poppy suddenly stopped. She was curious, she wanted to know what was in the envelope. Maybe there was a confession. Is it possible he would have felt a dying urge to reveal the true fate of his wife, her mother? After all, they can’t lock you up in prison when you are dead. Maybe that was it. She would respect him for that. If there was something that let her know what really happened, she might just feel the tiniest molecule of respect for him. She reached inside the envelope and pulled out the contents: a tatty wristwatch with an alligator strap, some spectacles, an old and battered Nokia mobile phone and a wallet engraved with his initials. Mrs Napier had been right, he did not have much to show for his sixty-plus years in this world.
Poppy opened the wallet, still hoping to fin
d something relating to her mother. Inside there were three £10 notes, some paperwork regarding an overdue electricity bill, a couple of torn tickets for a football match, and a flyer from a fitness centre in Oxley village. Poppy looked inside the side compartments to find three or four business cards and an out-of-date bank debit card, but no letter, no confession. Even now he was going to keep the truth from her. She suddenly noticed that behind the bank notes there was a photograph. It was folded in half. She opened the picture. It immediately brought a small smile to her face. It was a picture of a man sitting down at a wooden table, a table identical to the one she had sat at the previous day. He was holding a young girl, a pretty girl, wearing a bright blue T-shirt. She instantly recognised the man, he was lying down behind her now, resting. But he looked different in the picture, he had those big strong arms and his face was tanned, he didn’t look pale and pasty at all. His arms were wrapped around the small child. He was holding her tightly, so tightly, as if he would never let her go. She studied the picture of the young girl closely. She remembered the bright blue T-shirt, she remembered those black jeans, she even remembered the flowery trainers that the child had on her feet. But she didn’t recognise that little girl. She could see that she was smiling, a huge smile, she looked happy, so happy, she looked so innocent, so very innocent. Poppy ran her fingers over the photograph, as if she was trying to bring the people in that picture to life. She wished for a few seconds that the man lying behind her was not dead, that she could speak to him. But those thoughts did not last longer than those few seconds.