The Hissing of the Silent Lonely Room (The Christy Kennedy Mysteries Book 5)

by Paul Charles

  ‘I’d have to agree with you,’ Kennedy said in genuine enthusiasm. He accepted the fact that he could still have been blind to the magic of Esther Bluewood if it hadn’t been for ann rea persistently pushing him on the journey through the American’s music.

  ‘You know her work?’ Yeats said, in obvious disbelief.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m a big fan.’

  Paul Yeats seemed pleased, proud even.

  ‘I was, too. And her work succeeds on so many different levels, take a song like “Resurrection”, for instance. That’s a great song. It works well in the pop idiom. It works well on a concert stage. It works well on the radio. It works well when other people do it. I perform it some nights and it’s an absolutely gorgeous song to sing. But beneath all of that, for Esther it was a very therapeutic song. When she was twenty-one, a couple of years before we met in fact, she tried to commit suicide. She talked to me about this a lot, she said she felt so hopeless. She felt helpless in dealing with her inner pain. It was unbearable and her medication made her feel like a monster, a monster under control. She just felt that she had to end it all and so she took a pile of pills and went down into the basement of her house and tried to hide there so that no one would find her until she was dead. Her brother eventually discovered her before the pills had a chance to work and she was taken to hospital where they saved her life, but she was placed in the psychiatric wing of the hospital.’

  It appeared as though the talking was draining Yeats. He drank his cup of tea straight down. Kennedy had never seen anyone do that before. When Yeats’ cup was refilled he did the same thing again but refused a third. He swam his fingers through his wavy hair once more and let his fine baritone voice take over again.

  ‘But she used it to her advantage. She said she felt she had died in that basement. She felt that she was reborn in the hospital. She felt that she had cast off all her old pains and chains and freed herself from them and from her mother. Shortly afterwards she moved to England – to complete the resurrection, she said. Her song “Resurrection” is all about her rebirth. That’s why most people find it such a rewarding, rejuvenating song to listen to. I still can’t believe what it does for me when I listen to it. I suppose it must be a bit of a voyeuristic kind of thing. I mean, for example, being compelled to view someone else’s pain so nakedly on display and at the same time thinking that no matter how bad I feel, no matter how great my pain is, I’m never going to feel as bad as her. But then Esther used to tell me how some suicidal people wear their psyche-ache like a trophy. Looking at other people as if to say, “Please, this is the real pain!”’

  Yeats paused, still staring at the ceiling, the smile no longer on his face. Kennedy could tell he was gagging for a cigarette, but the detective didn’t want to interrupt the flow to advise the widower that this would be fine.

  ‘I’ve this thing,’ Yeats started, seemingly unsure of what he wanted to say, ‘guilt would probably be too strong a word for it but I feel awkward, it’s perverse in a way, I know. But I can’t help feeling guilty at the disbelieving thoughts I had about her. I felt in a way that she’d never commit suicide. I’m afraid I’m one of those who feel suicide attempts are a cry for help. And when you’re in the middle of it, it’s so draining and sometimes you just get so mad that you want to burst and say, “Look we both know you’re never going to do it, so why don’t you just give us all a rest for a while?” Frightfully un-PC I know, but that’s what I was feeling. And now, now that she’s gone, now that she’s gone and killed herself, it’s like each and every thought I had on such occasions is coming back one by one to stab me. None will cause permanent damage, but perhaps the sum total of all those wounds will somehow harden me, and rob me of the sensitivity artists exist on.’

  ‘Was this a permanent state for her?’ Irvine asked, looking up from his notebook.

  ‘When I first met her, it was on the agenda all the time. But she didn’t tell me about her pain until she was sure we were in love. She’d just have very dark periods where she’d run off and say she had to be by herself. She felt that being loved by someone was her cure. She felt her father hadn’t loved her, although she later felt he might have, but just didn’t know how to tell her. Her mother blamed her for Esther’s father dying. Oh God, it’s all so weird and I suppose it’s all going to come out now. I didn’t fully understand it all to be honest, but I’m sure her therapist can give you the background. Anyway, she felt in love and loved for the first time in her life, and she told me it was healing her. The dark periods were simply, in her book, relapses. My love was her cure, she said, but it was going to take time, time for her to be completely healed.’

  ‘How was she acting in the last few days?’ Irvine again.

  ‘I thought she seemed fine,’ Yeats sighed. ‘But what do I know? A year after we married, Holmer was born and the bad times were behind her and she said she was completely healed. Her first record had been a complete success; slow at first but very much a word-of-mouth thing. She didn’t do a lot to promote it and she didn’t need to. Once the Woman’s Movement and the Pink Posse tuned in to what she was doing, the word spread like wildfire. We had money, were in love and had started a family. The following year she had a miscarriage and the dark moods returned for a time. But things got better when Jens was born. We became the perfect family. But as artists, she and I were continuously pushing our experiences; not exactly living our lives as fodder for our songs but just being aware of what was out there. Then I had a relationship with another woman.’

  ‘When was this?’ Kennedy asked, without a trace of either shock or disapproval.

  ‘Well… Look, this is awkward. You’re going to find out anyways so I’d better tell you before the “nanny from hell” does. I’m still seeing her!’ Yeats said, with a double run of fingers through his hair, throwing it first to the left then pushing it straight back where the curls mingled with their less luxuriant friends on Yeats’ crown.

  ‘Oh,’ Irvine said, unable to hide the subtext of, ‘Well, this changes everything’.

  ‘I still loved Esther. You have to know that. Ross, sorry, Rosslyn St Clair, knew that as well, it was no secret. I was convinced that Esther and I were going to grow old together. In a way I felt that she was throwing me into Ross’ arms. I don’t know why, either for me to sow the end of my wild oats or for me to realise how special the love was between Esther and me. It backfired. What can I tell you? I fell in love. Fell in love in a different way, but in a way that made it impossible for me to give up Rosslyn. So, if I’m being honest, I’d have to say that there was a chance that Esther was feeling unloved again. But then again, she was always claiming that she felt totally fulfilled caring for Holmer and Jens. Tell me, was there a note or a letter?’ Yeats found a question of his own to ask, perhaps hoping to turn the spotlight away from his confession.

  ‘Not as yet, but we did find the two journals you reported missing—’ Kennedy began.

  ‘What?’ Yeats shouted, jumping from his chair, his coolness disappearing as quickly as a kick. ‘You didn’t tell me that. Where were they? Who had them? They are my property. You are not permitted to look at them. I will have to injunct you. Look, am I under arrest or anything?’

  ‘No, sir, you are helping us with our enquiries into the death of your wife,’ Kennedy replied immediately.

  ‘So you’re not holding me here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m free to walk out of the police station?’

  ‘Well, we do still have some more questions for you.’

  ‘And I’ll gladly answer them, but not just now. I also feel I should advise you that those journals are private property and now that my wife is dead they are my property and I have to categorically advise you that under no circumstances are you allowed to look at them. You will be hearing from my solicitor immediately,’ Yeats advised Kennedy and Irvine before storming out of the office.

  ‘Well, who was that masked man?’ Irvine asked as he and his boss stared in the gen
eral direction of the vanishing aftershave.

  ‘I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t the Lone Ranger,’ Kennedy replied, still somewhat shell-shocked. ‘But it looks like those journals could contain some powerful material.’

  ‘Methinks you speak without forked tongue, kemosabe.’

  *

  Kennedy stole away to the conference room. Paul Yeats and his lawyer would not be able to gain access to the journals while the detective insisted they were vital pieces of evidence, but Kennedy didn’t want the journals sealed and unavailable until such time as a judge ruled on the matter. That could take days, possibly even weeks, and there could be vital evidence in those leather-bound journals.

  The conference room was unused. Kennedy sat underneath the glaring painting of PR Fenn, a former superintendent of the station who’d gone on to become a commander at New Scotland Yard. Kennedy felt Fenn’s presence almost as a representative of the Establishment, saying to him, ‘You may think you’re catching the quick on us but we know what you’re up to.’ Had it been a picture of the present superintendent, Castle, up on the wall, he felt sure that it would have winked at him and added, ‘Hurry up then, laddie, and make sure no one catches you.’

  One of the journals was made out like a diary. No year was given, just the day of the week and the month. Kennedy checked a few of the days against the dates in his own diary and came to the conclusion that the journal’s first entry would have been for the middle of last year and the most recent entry was made a matter of ten days ago.

  The handwriting was very neat and easy to read. Kennedy had mixed feelings about reading someone else’s private thoughts in a diary. He felt, in a way, that it was cheating her, he felt it was wrong, but at the same time he was fascinated. Everybody enjoys reading other people’s private thoughts, particularly those that have not been edited with a reader in mind. It’s like having a direct line into somebody’s head. Now, as Kennedy turned the pages, the hairs on the back of his neck were at full attention; all neat and in lines like Camden Town’s uniformed police turned out for Superintendent Castle’s inspection. He could hear Esther Bluewood’s voice in his ear. But it was her singing voice, for that was the only Esther Bluewood that Kennedy knew. This voice, as with the more confessional songs on Axis, was plaintive and haunting, and Kennedy found some of her written words even more moving than the songs. And there were some, such as the entry for October 21st last year, that Kennedy would have preferred not to have read.

  Chapter 8

  Sunday Girl

  Sunday 21st October

  I WOKE up this morning feeling bad again. I don’t know why. There were no hints of the dark clouds when I went to bed. Yeatsie and I used to have a code in the early days; if I felt the dark clouds gathering I’d tell him it was a good day for talking. I needed to talk, I needed a mood elevator. Not as a distraction but as a catalyst. Yeatsie, for all his faults, knew how to talk to me when I felt that illness. He knew I didn’t want him to say things like, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be okay tomorrow,’ or, ‘You’re only thinking like that because you’re depressed.’ He knew that he had to question my thoughts. He had to come between me and my thoughts by offering me an alternative view. And in considering that view, whether right or wrong, I, not he, sowed the seeds of doubt. I would hesitate and in my hesitation he won. Why did it take so long to find someone I would take notice of? Someone to listen to because they weren’t a doctor?

  It’s weird. In a way, it’s like writing a song at high speed, the streams-of-consciousness thing Van Morrison used brilliantly in Astral Weeks. Yeatsie worships the ground Morrison walks on, but for me, apart from Astral Weeks, which I will openly admit to using as my template for Axis, he’s much too undisciplined in his writing and his recording. He so badly needs to work with a producer, and a strong producer at that. God, I hate myself for writing that. It’s like I’ve become a critic. I suppose it’s just because I see how much Yeatsie sets Morrison up as an artist and I want more from him, want more from Yeatsie. I want him to be aware of these things but so often Yeatsie will go along with the crowd. But with Astral Weeks the Irishman hit the ground running as fast as his little legs would carry him. And maybe it’s because of the brilliance of that work that I get so frustrated with the rest of his stuff. Yeatsie, on the other hand, feels Astral Weeks is enough, more than enough.

  When you work in this way, when you are writing at high speed and you’re not allowing your inhibitions or reserve to get in the way of things, it’s like listening to a voice as you take dictation. You’re working more as a medium and letting the spirit take over. You’re listening to the voice within. It’s not yourself you want to attack. That’s not what you fall in love with.

  This process is at the expense of all else. When you’re ‘in the normal world’ you see how selfish you must look. How selfishly you treat your children, your husband, your family, but you don’t see any of that when the clouds are around you. You feel that you exist in a space and you can only be comfortable working in the space if you are part of the force and not fighting it. You don’t see it as an end, it’s really just a way to take away the hurt, which – if I’m being totally honest – comes from feeling unloved.

  But then Yeatsie says, ‘Yes, I hear you, but you have to earn love. You can’t buy it in a shop, not everyone is entitled to it by virtue of their being. People don’t consciously make a decision not to love you. The potential is there and you have to fight for it, swear for it, cry for it, long for it, sweat for it and then grab it. And when it comes, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s going to last.’ I ask him if it is so wrong to want to be loved. He replies, ‘Of course not, why do you think we write songs and release records to an unwaiting public? It’s because we all feel we’ve been deprived of love at some stage in our lives and we want to compensate for it now. And the NOW is so real for us.’ He pleads with me to accept the fact, though, that we don’t get it as a birthright, we have to work for it. He tells me that we all have these thoughts; it’s not just my monster.

  That’s the door opened and then he hit me with a list. He says okay, he accepts that the ultimate search for peace and harmony is one legitimate answer. He also wants me to consider others. Like living my life for my children. Like working for a charity and helping those more needy than myself. Like dedicating myself to writing about all of this so that it will serve as a map for others in similar turmoil who may not have the intelligence to see what is happening to them. He asks me to think for a while and then to write the above down in my order of priority. Of course, dedicating my life to my children is number one. And ‘ending it all’ is way down the list.

  Yes, it’s way down the list, but it’s never last.

  He never tries to change that, and the following day he sets both of us a list of tasks that reflects the priority of the list, and as we work on the list, letters, phone calls or whatever, I come to the realisation that the talking day has gone. My feelings of hopelessness and inferiority fade, to simmer underneath the surface until the next time. My fear now is that when they return, Yeatsie may not be with me to help me fight them. Is that why I feel so bad about him and Ross? Not because I hate her, because I don’t, I don’t even know her. I pity her for I know exactly what she’s getting and it’s not like she can take him back to the shop and exchange him for a newer model.

  No, I feel bad because we battle well together, Yeatsie and I, especially when we are on the same side.

  *

  Two hours later, Kennedy put the journal down on to the large conference table and walked around the room, hands deep in his pockets, head bent towards the floor. He returned to the journal and reread the entry for 21st October. From a quick scan of the diary, he saw that it was the only entry that dealt directly with suicide. And even then she never actually used the word. Maybe, thought Kennedy, Esther’s demons had returned and this time she’d been unable to fight them off.

  The other journal was more of a book of ideas. Some were for son
gs, others for future writings. Several times in her journal Esther Bluewood had alluded to her intention of exploring prose as a way of expressing her thoughts. In the ideas book she sometimes wrote a single word on a page, other times a development of words. Maybe a saying, or a character, or a word and a description of the word. Kennedy found it intriguing to venture, albeit uninvited, behind the scenes, as it were, and see how an artist put her work together.

  Kennedy speed-read his way through the diary journal, jotting down notes as he did so. He returned to his office and hid the journals in a secret compartment he’d found in the wall. One of Kennedy’s recent predecessors had painted over the magnificent oak-panelled wall, so Kennedy had taken a lot of time restoring the office to its former glory.

  Truth be told, he savoured the work and was in no hurry. It reminded him of the hours he used to spend with his father in his workshop up in Portrush. His dad was a carpenter, forever making something, if not for their house then for one of the neighbours’ houses. Kennedy easily recalled the scene; fresh wood shavings spilling on the ever-growing pile on the floor, the smell (pleasant) of his dad’s sweat mixed with the aroma of the wood glue that simmered gently in the corner, its container stained from repeated re-heatings and spills. He could hear the sound of his father’s plane slicing through the wood as it reduced it to invisible, but always accurate, lines, bevelled it or merely smoothed it to a surface as silky as a baby’s bottom. Well, that’s what his mother had always said on the rare occasion she joined them in their kingdom. The young Christy Kennedy had been prepared to take her word for it.