Albatross

by Ross Turner

  “And now we appear to be making progress.” He commended her, his tone congratulatory.

  “Thank you…” Jen repeated, and he ruffled his huge feathers once more, casting countless droplets of water off in every direction.

  “Although…” He countered, looking at her in a strange, knowing and expectant sort of way. “We still have a long way to go.”

  Silence ensued then for a few moments, and Jen looked to be deep in thought, as if she was waging some sort of internal, moral battle with herself. Finally, sighing and rubbing her neck, she seemed to come to some sort of decision.

  “Albatross…” She eventually started, and he looked at her with keen, black eyes. “Why are you trying to help me?” She asked.

  “I’m just a small part of your imagination, remember?” The enormous bird reminded her then, flicking flurrying sand away that had settled on his humungous feet. “You’re only trying to help yourself.”

  “Help myself do what?” Jen countered immediately, and Albatross’s response came in just as quick succession.

  “Acknowledge the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “You know the answer to that question.” He reminded her. “You just need to admit that you do.”

  “But…” Jen started, before she paused for a moment.

  Her mind raced, thinking how best to phrase her next question, for it was perhaps the most pertinent of all.

  Finally, she came to a decision.

  “Don’t you get lonely?” She asked. “It must be very lonesome, flying out over the ocean for so long, all by yourself?”

  The magnificent bird tilted his head to one side again, gazing at Jen intuitively. In a roundabout way, she was asking exactly the right question.

  “Progress again, Jenny.” He praised her.

  She smiled in response, but didn’t speak, knowing there was more he needed to say.

  “Do you get lonely?” He asked her, his tone very serious as he turned the tables on her.

  Jen thought on that for a moment.

  She thought first of all, and understandably so, of Deacon. He was with her even now, as she slept, and whenever he was near her she felt safe.

  But then she thought of her older sister, Clare, whom she had seen very little of the past few days, and the pit of worry in the depths of her stomach returned.

  “I’m afraid that I would be…” She eventually replied, and the wise albatross could see that her words were incredibly honest. “If…”

  But she could not finish her sentence.

  He nodded slowly, seeing the pain and anxiety of truth in her eyes.

  “How do you do it?” She asked of him then, her voice wavering and even pleading slightly, on the edge of tears. “How do you last?”

  He needed barely a second to form the words of his reply, for they were indeed the crux that this entire conversation had been climbing towards, and the crescendo hit Jen with a wave of realisation.

  Realisation at long last that, perhaps, although she was only trying to prevent herself from suffering the pain that would undoubtedly ensue, she was living a lie.

  “I am often alone, but I am never lonely.” The great albatross spoke to her. “I am constantly wandering, but I am never lost. I am forever away, but I am always home.”

  His words sunk into Jen’s mind with the heavy weight of reality upon them, and she nodded slowly, holding back tears.

  Her albatross took two long steps forward and immediately closed the gap between them.

  He opened his vast, gloriously white wings, spreading them wider than she would even have believed possible, and cloaked Jen within them.

  She hugged his feathered body and buried her head into his shoulder, as he engulfed her entirely within his grasp, and wrapped his wings tightly around her neck.

  Breaching Barriers

  Morning ruptured the dark, early hours of the day, and as the first streaks of yellow and orange sunlight streamed in through the window in the roof, Jen and Deacon stirred gently against each other. They were still wrapped up together, as they had been all night, and both of them were content to stay so for quite a while longer, with no real reason to rush to move.

  Finally though, as the light brightened and glared upon their faces, they were roused to consciousness.

  Jen lay on her side, tucked in front of Deacon, and she clutched at his left arm beneath her while his right draped over her.

  “Good morning.” He breathed behind her, in something that seemed to be turning into a habit, and Jen liked it.

  “Good morning.” She replied, smiling at the words and rubbing her cheek gently on his arm.

  “Were you dreaming again?” Deacon asked almost immediately, running the fingers of his right hand slowly up and down Jen’s body beneath the covers.

  Jen turned onto her back and caught his gaze in the light of the morning sunrise.

  “Yes.” She answered, as even the very last tiny details of her dream came suddenly flooding back to her in vivid memories.

  He looked at her deeply for a moment, drinking in her gaze with his.

  “But not about the same thing.” He commented.

  Jen looked shocked for a moment, but then, she shouldn’t have been really, she supposed once more.

  “No, not about the same thing…” She conceded. “How did you know?”

  “Your eyes.” He replied immediately, as if the reason was obvious. “You have a different look in your eyes.”

  “My eyes?” Jen questioned. But Deacon’s didn’t say anything else at first, and he looked to be so deep in thought that his eyes glazed over slightly in concentration, though he still held her gaze firmly.

  “It’s something you’ve been keeping cooped up inside.” He began slowly. “Your dream was reminding you that it’s still there. It wasn’t the same dream as you had before, but it has a very similar meaning. They’re linked in some way. And, if I had to guess, I’d say the link is very important.”

  Amazed and astounded, tears almost stood in Jen’s eyes as she soaked up his unbelievable words.

  Feeling silly, she wiped her eyes dry, but Deacon tucked his finger softly beneath her chin and leant in to kiss her gently. She met his warm lips gratefully and revelled in his touch.

  “How do you do that?” Jen asked him, once the seal of their lips had eventually broken.

  “Do what?” He replied with a cheeky smile that told her he knew exactly what she meant.

  “That!” Jen almost squealed, feeling her stomach fill with racing butterflies and throwing her hands up in mock exasperation, laughing freely. “Break my barriers! Make me drop my guard! Every time!”

  “Why do you have a guard?” He asked her, tilting his head slightly to one side.

  “Because…” Jen faltered, not knowing exactly what to say. “Just because…” She tried again. “Everybody does!”

  “Not like you.” Deacon countered, and he wasn’t wrong either.

  “Just…I…” Jen continued to struggle, but he was so right that she had nowhere to turn.

  Deacon looked at her very seriously then, though his eyes were kind and caring as always. Jen could see he was racking his thoughts for something, and eventually, after a few more minutes, he seemed to settle on what he was after.

  “Why aren’t there any pictures of your father?” He asked pointedly, knowing that, if he was right on this particular matter, it would be better just to cut straight to the point.

  He was referring of course, as Jen knew all too well, to the distinct lack of any kind of father figure in any of the photographs throughout the entirety of Keepers Cottage. There were countless pictures of the three of them: her, her older sister, Clare, and their mother, Dyra. But she should have known that he would notice such a thing, or maybe more accurately, the lack of such a thing.

  He noticed everything.

  Admittedly, Deacon was wary to breach the subject so directly, for he knew it would be a sensitive matter. Jen’s mother had clamme
d up when he’d accidentally pushed her too far, only the morning previous.

  He knew instinctively that there were things that haunted Jen in the same way, if not evermore greatly, and he didn’t want to push her over the edge.

  However, for some reason, and much to Deacon’s pleasant surprise, without even a second thought, Jen delved miraculously into an explanation.

  Perhaps he was breaking down even bigger barriers than Jen had originally let on.

  Either way, he wasn’t complaining.

  “My father left a long time ago.” Jen explained coldly. “He walked out on us.”

  “I’m sorry.” Deacon replied softly, filling the silence Jen left in her wake.

  “Don’t be.” She retorted immediately. “I wish he’d left sooner.”

  There was furious anger in Jen’s tone that Deacon had never heard in her voice before, and it saddened him greatly.

  “He was a bit of a drunk, but he was more of an arse.” She spat venomously.

  “Oh…” Deacon mouthed, but there wasn’t chance for anything else, as Jen’s ranting fury escalated.

  “He just wanted to live his own life! He didn’t care about us! He didn’t want anything to do with us! He’s never wanted anything to do with us!!”

  Jen writhed beneath the duvet and lifted from where she rested upon Deacon in sheer irritation.

  “Why!?” She demanded, though not really of Deacon in particular. “Why didn’t he care!? Why weren’t we good enough for him!?”

  “Jen…” Deacon attempted, but her tongue lashed out once again, cutting him off sharply.

  “And then! Even on the rare occasion when he actually bothered to see us! We’d sit and wait for him for hours! Bloody hours!” Her voice rose in a lifting crescendo, spiralling out of control. “When he eventually showed! Half the time drunk!! He’d just fob us off!! EVERY BLOODY TIME!!”

  “Jen…” Deacon tried again desperately, this time managing to catch her attention and subdue her surging frustration.

  She collapsed back into his arms and shuddered frantically, taking deep, controlled breaths.

  “And every time…” She pressed on, by now needing to get what was left out of her system, for it had sat there for so long, just waiting to burst.

  Her voice was barely a whisper, and her words rasped harshly.

  “Every time, no matter how much it crushed me, I always just kept going back to him. Without fail. I always had more faith in him. I always had more love for him. Wasted. All of it. Wasted…”

  “You loved him.” Deacon breathed, and Jen knew he wasn’t wrong.

  “I did.” She admitted. “But it wasn’t my fault.”

  “No.” He agreed. “It wasn’t.”

  Jen laughed then in futility, shaking her head as another memory sprung into her overcrowded mind.

  “I still apologised though!” She told him, unable to believe even her own words.

  “Apologised?” Deacon question, confused. “What for?”

  “I have absolutely no idea!!” Jen declared, throwing her arms up again, completely at a loss with herself. “Because I thought I’d done something wrong!? Because I felt like I was to blame!? I haven’t a clue!!”

  “Well it wasn’t your fault.” Deacon assured her firmly, and she held him tightly.

  “I know that now.” She whispered. “But I didn’t back then.”

  Deacon nodded sombrely, understanding her pain perhaps better than most ever would.

  “He finally left when Clare and I were eleven.” Jen told him then. “But it had been going on for a long time…” She sighed regretfully. “Far too long…”

  “You were too young…” Deacon tried to ease her pain.

  His company was more comfort than words could ever possibly be, but he spoke them nonetheless, not one to go without trying.

  “There wasn’t anything you could do…”

  “I know…” Jen agreed, nodding sombrely, though she didn’t sound convinced.

  “Have you heard from him since?” He asked then, but even as he spoke he realised that he already knew the answer to that question.

  Jen shook her head slowly.

  “I’ve thought about it.” She admitted quietly. “About trying to get back in touch with him…”

  “But…”

  She thought for a moment, but only a moment.

  “He’s not worth it.”

  The barefaced honesty in her voice then spoke volumes more than words would ever be able to, and Deacon understood that feeling entirely, and respected Jen wholly for it.

  It was a difficult sacrifice to make.

  For as long as he could remember, all he had ever wanted was to leave his life and his family behind, and start a new chapter: begin afresh.

  It is a big decision, and indeed a saddening one, to want to leave everything you have ever known behind; to forget it, as if it have never even happened.

  The desire to be somewhere unfamiliar, with people you have never met, and to see things you have never laid eyes upon, is perhaps one of the biggest drives that a human being can ever be pulled by, and it is most certainly not something to be taken light heartedly.

  In the end, one day, desire always wins.

  Eventually someday, sooner or later, it grows to be too strong. Old so called family and friends can all be forgotten, and the world can change beneath our feet in a heartbeat.

  If you want it enough, desire always becomes reality.

  “It doesn’t matter now though…” Jen said finally.

  “Why’s that?” Deacon questioned, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  “If he doesn’t care, why should I?” Jen proposed, and quite rightly so.

  “But you do care, Jen.” Deacon countered, pointing out the obvious. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t wrong.

  “I know.” She sighed, burying her head into his shoulder.

  Deacon smiled empathetically.

  “Don’t stop caring.” He said quietly, kissing her gently on her forehead. “But don’t let it consume you. Just try to care about the people who matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re family or not. Care about the ones you love, and who love you.”

  Jen looked deeply into Deacon’s eyes, and they were filled with the honesty of painful experience.

  “Those who don’t deserve your love, those who don’t earn it, they can be left behind just as quickly as they arrived.”

  He smiled lovingly at her.

  “Your mom, your sister…” He continued. “They love you…”

  But, as he spoke, even though Jen agreed with every word that he breathed, Deacon saw something change in her eyes.

  They flickered painfully at the mention of her sister.

  The thought of Clare drove instant hurt into the very heart of Jen’s deep gaze. However, and not for the first time, Deacon couldn’t put his finger on the reason for such anguish, at the mere mention of someone who Jen loved so dearly.

  “And what about you?” Jen asked then, smiling affectionately through the agony that she was so obviously trying to hide.

  “Me?” Deacon questioned, raising his eyebrows enquiringly.

  “Am I allowed to care about you?” She asked, taking yet another giant leap of faith.

  This was becoming something of a habit, and, if she wasn’t very careful, one of these days she was going to fall.

  “Well…” He replied, smirking cheekily at her.

  “Well what…?” She asked, grinning back mischievously.

  “Well I don’t see why not…” He put forward, flashing his all-encompassing eyes upon her in all their glory. “I do love you after all.” He confessed to her, breaching perhaps the biggest barrier of all.

  Deacon kissed Jen then and breathed life and love and passion into her once again.

  “I love you too.” She whispered in return, taking a deep, shuddering breath, and the words rolled easily off her tongue as if they had been waiting there for days.

  Then she kissed him again, plac
ing her hands tenderly to the sides of his face and cupping his soft, stubbly cheeks.

  Her heart raced afresh and she knew in that moment, beyond all else, that hopefully one day, eventually, everything would be alright again.

  Hard Truths

  Deacon left that same morning to go and collect his car from where he had abandoned it, parked by the bay. Jen had work that afternoon at The Rusty Oak, and he’d said he had work to do too.

  Jen was just stepping out of the shower, wringing the worst of the water out of her hair with a towel, when a familiar voice startled her, making her nearly jump out of her skin.

  “Long time no see, Jenny.” Clare’s voice sounded from across the room, carrying an icy hint to its tone as she spoke.

  “Oh my God!” Jen gasped, snapping her head up to see her older sister standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the wall in blue jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt, her arms folded in a most dissatisfied manner.

  It took Jen a moment to compose herself.

  “You scared the life out of me Clare!” She finally managed, quieting her skipping heart.

  “Not yet.” Clare replied in a stony voice with an entirely unreadable expression, her words strange. “Not quite.”

  Jen looked at her older sister suspiciously.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “What’s wrong?” She asked instinctively, presuming whatever it was that was bothering Clare, she would tell her.

  But it seemed that was not the case.

  “You look well.” Clare commented then, eyeing her younger sister purposefully, and even somewhat menacingly.

  “Ermm, thank you…” Jen replied, smiling warily as she covered her naked body with her towel, wrapping it round herself so that Clare could not see.

  Indeed, she did look very well.

  She had been eating, she had been active; her figure was returning.

  She had been happy.

  “It wasn’t a compliment.” Clare replied harshly, and before her younger sister even had chance to consider a response, she uncrossed her arms and slipped through the doorway and out of sight, making not a sound as she left.