by Wendy Steele
“No!” Matt stood up. “I took you out to celebrate. Your job was safe but there were conditions. You were upset and disappeared, I told you.”
“And you didn’t think to go into the bar?”
“You!” Matt pointed an angry finger. “The ladies room isn’t in the bar!”
“You said you went outside.” Richard stood up. “Do I know you? Your face seems familiar. Have we met before?”
“Not likely! Look, I have to go, Lizzie. Call me when you get out and we’ll arrange to get together.”
Lizzie scanned the men’s faces, one angry and impatient, the other thoughtful and pensive.
“Okay.”
Matt leaned in to kiss her. She couldn’t move her head in time. His lips tasted of whisky and soot. He hurried from the ward without a backward glance.
“Do you really know him?”
Richard shrugged. “I’ve looked at a lot of mug shots in my time.”
“Matt can’t be a criminal! He’s a credit controller and sings in a band. Don’t look at me like that. He’s not endearing himself to me at the moment either.”
“Like mother, like daughter.” Richard grinned.
“Only she’s far better taste than me! I remember why we argued, me and Matt. I won’t be calling him, don’t worry.”
Richard raised both hands in surrender. “Not my business.”
“No but you’re right. We’ve only been for a few walks and a meal, that’s all and I’m glad. Rowan’s Dad was…let’s say unpredictable and our relationship somewhat volatile. I don’t need that again, ever.”
A trolley bounced into the ward, rattling cups and jugs. Lizzie drank tea with Richard.
“If you remember, where you’ve seen Matt, you will tell me.”
“Like I said, I’ve seen a lot of faces. I know you want to fill in the blanks, the parts you don’t remember but if I were you, I’d rest up and get out of here first.”
“You’re right. Do you mind if I sleep?”
“You go for it. You look a lot better than when you first woke, by the way.”
“Thanks. I haven’t dared ask for a mirror.”
“Ah, well be prepared for your face to look tired, Liz.”
“That bad?”
“You’re bound to be tired.”
Tears flowed freely and Richard gave her the tissue box. “Sorry.”
“No need.”
“I’m so shallow.”
His gentle words moved her. “No you’re not, Liz. You’ve been through a major trauma.”
He held her hand as she sobbed. “And all I can think about is whether I’ve got any hair left.”
10
Richard, Sam and Rowan collected her from hospital the following Monday afternoon. She had tried to push the discharge through for Friday but paperwork couldn’t be signed off and completed until after the weekend. Feeling better, Lizzie had spent her time with a notebook, writing down all she remembered and with a sketchbook, drawing faces. Nurses, patients and visitors were committed to paper, their profiles and eccentricities flowing through Lizzie’s pencil. She dozed through most of Saturday, between sketches, so lay awake all night, watching the minutes tick by on the clock above the door. On Sunday, Rowan pushed her from the ward and they shared tea and flapjack in the cafeteria, before Lizzie insisted on being pushed through the doors to the sunshine outside. A cool breeze chilled her skin until Rowan pushed her round the corner and the healing warmth of the sun bestowed blessings on her body.
Louise met them at the house, which was spotless and gleaming. Even her bedroom didn’t look too bad. Louise made her comfortable in bed for a sleep.
“Thanks so much for this, Lou. I know I need to decorate this room, but I did Rowan’s and the lounge…”
“Enough. Get some rest.”
“But it’s so shabby.”
Louise brushed back her ebony fringe, stuck to her face by the warm weather. “It doesn’t matter, Liz. No one’s judging you. Get some rest. The more you sleep, the better you’ll feel.”
By Saturday, with Louise’s help, Lizzie was on her feet again. She added the final items to her trug. The kettle gave up its last drop of water to her flask and she opened the back door. The front door bell rang.
“Mum! What a lovely surprise.”
Beneath the faded sun shade, they sat with a tray of tea between them.
“Cake looks lovely.”
“You obviously need it. You look like something out of Belsen. I told you being a vegetablarian would make you ill. I should have brought steak, not cake!”
“I’m always well, Mum but I was in the ICU for almost a week and unconscious for half of that, after the accident.”
Mrs McCartney lifted her nose as if a bad smell was beneath it. “Accident?”
“Yes, I slipped somehow and hit my head.”
“But you were in a bar, Elizabeth. You’d obviously been drinking. What can you expect?” She wafted away a fly before picking up her tea cup.
“I wasn’t drunk.”
Disappointment washed over Lizzie like an icy shower. Conversations with her mother were always the same, her mother accusing and Lizzie needing to defend herself about deeds she hadn’t done and words she hadn’t spoken. She’d hoped her mother would soften, maybe understand a need for compromise so the women could enjoy a happier relationship.
“Well, you would say that!”
Mrs McCartney blew an insect from her crisp white blouse, wrinkling her nose as more flies buzzed around the tea tray. Lizzie cut them cake and handed a plate to her mother. “Oh, you don’t own cake forks do you?”
“No, there’s kitchen roll for your fingers.”
They ate in silence, the sun beaming down on them and the dry grass sizzling in the heat.
“Delicious, Mum. Thanks.”
“Where’s Rowan?”
“At a friend’s house. She’s working on her art project for September.”
Mrs McCartney raised her eyebrows into her blue rinsed curls. “You’re not encouraging her to draw are you? She’s got a brain, Elizabeth! She should be studying physics and chemistry and maths.”
“Rowan’s taking art, history and biology for her options, as well as physics, chemistry and maths.”
“I could have been a doctor, you know. I was always an ‘A’ grade student…”
Mrs McCartney talked. Lizzie had heard it all before, her grand parents’ lack of funds, the inconvenience of her granddad’s ill health and her mother’s martyrdom, giving up on her first choice of career and taking a job to help support them.
“My sister, your Aunt Eleanor was useless!”
“Why did you come?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why did you come here today? I almost died in hospital, I’m sitting here with a bandage on my head like the mummy from the crypt and you’ve done nothing but reprimand me for my lifestyle choices and my parenting skills!” Wow! Did I say that? Perhaps a blow on the head’s done me good.
“Well, really! I’ve made the journey…
“In a cab.”
“I’ve made the journey, all this way, to come and visit my daughter and that’s the thanks I get!” Mrs McCartney dabbed her lips with her paper towel, scrunched it and threw it on her plate.
“Dad would’ve asked me how I was, how Rowan was, be sad he missed her and offer to make the tea.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about your father.” Mrs McCartney stood up.
“Sit down, Mum, please. I think we should.”
Mrs McCartney sat. “Your father was a fool, Elizabeth.”
“That’s not how I remember him.”
“Of course you don’t! You were so alike!”
“And that’s why we fight.”
“We do not fight! All families have disagreements.”
“But you disagree with everything I do. When I’ve needed support, all you’ve done is knock me lower.”
“You make your bed, you lie in it!”
> Lizzie gasped. “How can you say that?”
Mrs McCartney hung her head. She snapped it up and her piercing stare scared Lizzie. “I saved you from your father.”
“Leave. Go. I’ve nothing to say to you.”
“You’d turn your own mother out?”
“No, I’ll call you a cab.”
Lizzie leaned on the door jamb. The tail lights of the cab disappeared down the road as a black car drew up and Sam and Rowan climbed out. Richard waved from the car.
“Hey, Mum, was that Granny?”
Lizzie bit her lip and nodded.
“Rowan, best I don’t come in. Maybe dinner another time.”
Lizzie tried to smile. Sam’s sensitivity warmed her. He could see she was upset. “You’re welcome, Sam. Does your Dad want to stay? It’ll be a bit various.”
“Aren’t all your meals, Mum?”
She was glad they stayed for dinner. The children lifted her mood and she always felt relaxed in Richard’s company. Did she fancy him? He was fanciable, no doubt about that but he’d built a wall, a wall of protection not dissimilar to her armour. Friendship was what he offered and she welcomed it with open arms. This evening, she caught him staring at her. She’d blushed, as had he and longed to ask him what he was thinking. They left before ten with an arrangement made for a bowling evening.
The Sanctuary welcomed her. It had been her refuge most days since leaving hospital. Painting was part of her life again but not tonight.
With her old oak wand, she cast her circle and within its protective wall, she grew her forest. Ancient trunks soared into the blue, vast canopies of leaves shielding the forest floor beneath. Lizzie’s feet traced a worn track between the columns until the old wood was replaced by bright new saplings of oak, ash, birch, beech and rowan. She smelled the vibrant green of new life and abundance and walked on towards the glade.
With her red bunches tickling her shoulders and her fawn sandals scuffing up the twigs, little Lizzie rushed into the opening of trees and into the arms of her father. There was no course stubble on his chin or stinking breath on her cheek. Her father was auburn, bonny and clear skinned and his eyes shone, the emerald eyes of the fae.
“What happened to us, Dad?”
“Oh, Lizzie, I never stopped loving you.”
“You abandoned me, to her! You were always away and when you came back, you didn’t want to hug me anymore!”
“Oh, Lizzie, my little flower. I did what was best.”
“You didn’t love me anymore! You didn’t want to see my paintings!”
The beauty of the fae fell from her father and she held him as he sobbed into her shoulder. She left the Lizzie child in the forest. She was a woman now but none the wiser.
Almost a week later, Lizzie sat at Louise’s kitchen table with a plastic gown around her shoulders. The hospital had done their best but if she was going back to work, she needed her hair cut properly. Louise’s friend Jane stood ready with the scissors.
“What do you think, Janey?”
“Depends how much length you wanted to keep. Most of this is matted with blood. I can keep some at the top to cover the scar.”
Louise placed her hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “What do you think?”
Lizzie cuffed at her eyes. “Why is hair so important? I miss it not hanging over me, you know. I guess we have to cut the bad stuff out. It won’t wash.”
“It’ll grow back.” She patted Lizzie’s shoulder and nodded to Jane.
In under an hour, the thin grey face in the mirror wore a shock of red curls around her head like hennaed dandelion fluff.
Lizzie lay on her side but sleep refused to come. She had wept for the loss of her hair, grieving for the woman who had grown it as part of her armour. Naked and lonely, wrapped in a blanket, she made her way to the bottom of the garden.
Her desk was littered with sketches and pinned on a string were three faces captured in watercolour. Louise’s kindness shone from her image, her black hair highlighted with blue like a raven’s wing while Rowan’s face flickered from girl to woman, depending how you looked at it. Sam’s face shone from the paper, mischievous blue eyes ready to wink.
There were landscapes, verdant green valleys looked over by towering grey mountains and a meadow with a pond and a vibrant dragonfly in the foreground.
Abandoning her wrap and inspired by the images on her desk, Lizzie cast her circle, her favourite standing stones protecting her as she worked. She called in the elements, each welcomed and thanked for their presence and she called in the God of the Forest, Cernunnos, to take part in her ritual. All was ready within the Sanctuary. She felt the pulse of the ancient rock, blue stone, limestone and granite. She heard the energy rising and bursting from the trees she loved so much. She had force in abundance. Calling in the goddess would create the perfect balance.
Facing north, with a wooden carved owl in her hand, Lizzie called in Cerridwen.
“Cerridwen, storyteller, seeker and weaver
I call you to my aid
Blessed Mother, Goddess of inspiration and transformation
Hear my prayer.”
Cross legged on the floor in front of her rusty cauldron, Lizzie shut her eyes.
“Goddess Cerridwen, wise woman of the land
Allow me to see so I may understand.”
Lizzie opened her eyes. The water in the cauldron gleamed oily black and moved, spinning into a spiral before settling on an image of a family living room. The gas fire blazed, the retro green curtains were drawn. Her parents were arguing. Lizzie listened, the voice of Cerridwen warning her.
“My cauldron shows you what has been
Now once bidden, never unseen.”
11
Lizzie was welcomed at work as the returning conqueror. Her head of new curls was admired and her determination to get back to work, applauded. By the main office. She hadn’t taken a sip of coffee at her desk before the phone rang and she was summoned to Edward Brown’s office.
“You’re back to normal?”
“I think so. I may need to take a few more breaks away from my screen than I used to but I’ll save up my printing and copying for when my head starts to ache.”
“Or make up the time at the end of the day.”
“It won’t come to that.”
She stood bravely in a plain olive green maxi dress, tied at the waist with a matching plaited cord and with another plait twisted in her hair, asserting her intentions with all the confidence she could muster. Tom had made sure she received full pay while she was off, a kind gesture as she was still on probation, so she wanted to prove his faith in her was justified.
“Not much improvement with your clothes, Mrs Martin.”
“It’s only one colour.”
“But I can’t see your legs, woman! It’s another sack. And no heels.”
“I’ll have to learn, you see, to wear heels and because of my head injury…”
“Yes, yes, I know. You’ll get vertigo and burst a blood vessel or something. Seems to be any excuse!”
“I was only going to say that my balance hasn’t been as good since, well, the accident and I didn’t want to fall off my heels in reception while meeting a client. That wouldn’t be professional, would it?” Don’t smile. Look serious. Nearly over.
“No, no, very well but you understand this can’t go on. You’ve got six weeks to conform and sign your contract.”
“Thanks for this, Lou. I’ve done three days and I’m shattered.”
Louise sipped from her wine glass. “How’s the head?”
“Muzzy all the time, hurts a bit sometimes but as long as I don’t look at the screen all day, I think I can cope. I brought my sketch book in so if I’ve run out of printing or copying, I can draw.”
“I wish I could! Never been able to draw a straight line, me! Terry’s arty. He used to work shifts and be back by four in the afternoon. He took up pottery, got quite good at it. We’ve all the gear in a shed in the garden.”
“Trouble is, with his new job, he’s later home and then there’s the bowling.”
Lizzie nodded. “I’ve enjoyed having time to paint but now I’m back at work…”
“You paint too? You clever, kitty. What do you paint with?”
“Colour?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I used to…well, in the past…look, I’m getting back into it, okay? I’m using watercolour at the moment.”
Louise held up her hands. “Okay, okay, I only asked!”
“Sorry, sorry, my painting…I’m a bit, well, sensitive about it but honestly, it’s not only that. I saw my mother last week and I have to see her again.”
“You didn’t say.”
“I needed time to think. We argued, properly because I didn’t let her trample all over me.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Lizzie sighed. “Bad we argued because I told her to go and put her in a cab but I suppose it’s good that I stood up to her for once.”
“Of course it’s good! She needs to show you some respect!”
“The same day, Rowan came home and brought Sam and Richard stayed and I was beginning to relax when the phone rang. Rowan brought me the message. My mother informed her to tell me that she didn’t like bad feeling so if I apologised properly, she would forget the incident and everything could go back to the way it was.”
“And you obviously won’t apologise.”
“No.”
“And you’ve had all this malarkey going down while trying to get ready to get back to work? No wonder your head hurts!”
“I know but, surprisingly, I’ve coped with it well.”
“Not so surprising if you’ve been painting.”
Lizzie stared at Louise, her mouth beginning to scowl.
“I only meant Terry used to say he did his thinking with clay in his hands and he could put his feelings into it, as you do with paint. Oh, Liz.”
Louise shuffled closer on the bench seat and Lizzie cried into her shoulder. She quickly extricated herself and blew her nose.
“You know how I tick. You’re so clever, Lou.”
“Am I?”
Lizzie smiled, sniffed and rubbed her forehead.