Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy

by Janet V Forster

  ‘Hmm, let me see. Five of us who don’t get on at the best of times, floating around in a sardine can in the middle of the ocean for almost ten months. I’ll leave it to your imagination.’

  ‘Sounds glorious.’ I glanced at him for just a moment before I checked the total on the register. He hesitated, but unable to delay any longer, paid.

  ‘I’ll see you around, Deb.’

  ‘Yep, see you,’ I replied, my tone as casual as possible as I moved on to the next customer.

  I sensed him retreat and risked a glance a few moments later, just catching a glimpse of him as he exited the shop. After so many months, the emotional turmoil which gripped me was truly sad. ‘Pathetic creature!’ I mumbled to myself, as I mentally dissected every aspect of our conversation. ‘When will you just give it up?’

  I’d fretted enough about him, what was the point? My exams were all that mattered at the moment. Get through them and then escape this place. I suddenly realised that the pendant he had given me was between my fingers and that the next customer was looking nonplussed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, releasing it and moving fast to make up for my distraction.

  ‘You looked like you were someplace else,’ he said.

  ‘I guess I was,’ I admitted.

  17

  KATE

  Summer drew to a mournfully early close. Withering winds swept freezing air across the city, ripping leaves from trees and depositing them in untidy brown and orange mounds which were magnets for toddlers and despairing mothers. Pedestrians walked carefully along wet pavements, heads down against the bitter wind. It was unusually damp, nothing seemed to dry out completely. Everything was wet and muddy. Intermittently the weak autumn sun demonstrated its feeble protest, but mostly it was grey and dull.

  A gig playing piano and singing at a five star hotel bar-restaurant in the city became available. Mads knew the manager, Adrian, whom she had worked for before, but she had just signed a contract to play in a club for six months as part of a duo and so was unavailable.

  ‘I’ve never done that sort of work before Mads,’ I protested when she suggested I audition. Mind you I’d never worked before full stop.

  ‘It’s easy money, Kate. You could sight-read that sort of music with your training!’

  ‘What about the singing?’

  ‘Your singing is great,’ she said, and then clarified, ‘It’s definitely good enough for a restaurant.’

  With Mads at my side urging me on, I called Adrian and organised an audition. I’d need to play a bit of jazz, light classical, slow pop and possibly even a little country. I prayed that no one from The Conservatoire came in to listen. They hadn’t taken the Kenny Rogers appreciation class.

  I arrived at my audition with a knot in my stomach, quivering cold hands and stiff fingers, wishing I’d had the shot of port Mads had recommended beforehand. At least I looked presentable. Mads had taken on the role of personal stylist and insisted on make-up, sheers and heels. Presentable, but quite unlike myself.

  The hotel was Victorian, built in the late eighteen-hundreds and very grand. I felt immediately plain and inadequate against the stylish sophistication and charm evident in my luxurious surroundings. Chandeliers glittered magnificently as efficient, perfectly groomed staff in neat uniforms conducted their business in hushed tones on plush red carpet.

  ‘Can I help you, Madam?’ a male receptionist asked making me feel at least fifty years old.

  ‘Err, I’m here to see Adrian Vale, it’s Katherine Richardson.’ He picked up a phone and dialled an extension. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, ‘he won’t be long.’

  Just as I balanced on the edge of one of the plush armchairs he arrived, his legs first in long strides and the rest of his body playing catch-up.

  ‘Katherine, Adrian,’ he said brusquely, extending a warm hand to meet with my icy one as I stood.

  ‘Kate’s fine,’ I answered shyly. He was tall and good-looking in an anonymous, managerial sort of way. His hair was fair and clipped short and he wore a dark formal suit.

  ‘We’ll go to the Amber Room,’ he said, gesturing for me to follow and walking so briskly that I had to jog along next to him. Given that I could barely walk in my heels it was no easy feat. We entered an empty room which looked like an unused conference facility, but housed a baby grand in gleaming walnut in the corner.

  ‘It’s a beautiful piano,’ I said as I pulled out my music. He sat back in one of the many chairs in the room.

  ‘Would you like a tea or coffee or something?’ he asked, as though suddenly remembering to be hospitable.

  ‘I’m fine thanks.’ Too many images of misadventures with the tea. Tea in the piano, tea on my clothes, tea on his clothes, choking on the tea …

  I played and sang with a quavering voice, aware of every imperfection and ending hot and clammy with embarrassment.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ Adrian remarked, clearly tone-deaf. ‘When can you start?’

  ‘So you want to hire me?’ I was certain of some misunderstanding. Maybe he’d just asked, ‘when can you depart?’ and ‘excellent,’ referred to the fact that I’d finally finished.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, with a wave of the hand. ‘No point wasting time with more auditions when you’ll be fine.’

  Such great praise. ‘Okay. Great. Well, I can start whenever. You let me know and I’ll be here.’

  ‘You’ll be in Mercatura, the restaurant downstairs, Thursday to Saturday, starting next week. That’s three nights a week, seven to eleven, made up of four, forty-five minute sets and fifteen minute breaks. You can eat your dinner at the hotel buffet. Whatever you like.’ A rumble of words and then silence.

  ‘Perfect,’ I said and then more meekly, ‘… and the pay?’

  ‘Two thousand a month.’ My mouth dropped open and I quickly closed it. That seemed easy. ‘Just let us have your bank account details and a tax file number.’ What on earth was that? Dad would help.

  I bounced out of the hotel. Mercatura. I knew it only by reputation. An excellent restaurant. Very expensive.

  I acquired the necessary tax file number, a suitable accompaniment to my driver’s licence and was really starting to feel quite important. My first night arrived quickly. Huge rectangular windows framed by heavy cream and gold drapes looked out onto leafy gardens and an ornate fountain. Chandeliers hung from high ceilings above the burgundy-covered tables. I’d heard about the chef. Eccentric and talented. He had become infamous a few years previously, after a histrionic reaction to a patron’s request for tomato sauce had seen him arrested for assaulting the guest with the tomato sauce container. No charges had been brought and he had returned to his position. No-one since had dared to ask for any sort of condiment, but the restaurant was always full and he had become a necessary part of the character of the place.

  I fiddled with the microphone levels anxiously but finally, unable to procrastinate any longer, I started my first set. I started with instrumentals, but after a little positive reinforcement, which included a smattering of applause and encouraging smiles I took a deep breath and launched into my first song. I chose Vienna, it was low and easy and it went well. More applause.

  ‘The table over by the window would like to know what you’d like to drink, Kate,’ a waiter asked, startling me.

  ‘Err, I’ll have a port, please,’ I said, a tentative smile my nervous thanks to the table at the window. When it arrived I sipped it slowly. The liquid made a warm puddle in my stomach.

  Before I had finished my next song there was another glass of port lined up next to my first.

  I caught the waiter the next time he ambled past.

  ‘If I get any more offers of drinks, I’ll just have a soft drink, thanks.’

  He smiled and nodded his head in the direction of the table of businessmen in the corner. ‘They don’t want to send you soft drinks.’

  ‘Well at this rate, I’ll end up having to call a cab to get home.’ He laughed unsympathetically and move
d away.

  Although the restaurant was frequented by a number of different types, the bread and butter clientele of the hotel were businessmen who would often continue drinking at the bar or go out to clubs after their meal. They were away from home and lonely, or bored.

  With Mads’ help my image had changed dramatically, at least after dark. In the bright light of day I was almost unrecognisable. Jeans and t-shirt, no make-up, my hair caught up in a spiralling pony-tail. But at night I was transformed. Sometimes the contrast took even me by surprise, a tiny inner voice calling out, ‘Who is that?’

  A false sense of familiarity developed after an evening of snatches of conversation with patrons and drinks sent to the piano. I assumed good intentions, but I learnt that the men who waited around for me to finish my last set were not as interested in my conversation as they were in sex, a simultaneously disappointing and thrilling notion, which caused me more than a few headaches.

  My night terrors continued to worsen. To some extent my sleep was disturbed on most nights. Sometimes they were mild. I would sit up in bed with a vague memory of having shouted but sleep would overcome me quickly.

  At other times I leapt out of bed, crazed, and ran to the door where I woke confused, my heart beating erratically, my breath short, with a sense that in slumber, my death had been imminent, that violence lurked near.

  One night I gave up on sleep and called Nick in frustration while I sat in the darkness. My clocked blinked a red-eyed two a.m. at me. It was late, but he seemed to be a chronic insomniac.

  ‘Why were you asking about dreams all those months ago, when we first met?’ I asked him, ‘Remember?’

  ‘I remember a lot about when we first met, but not every word,’ he lied and I heard the clink of ice in a glass.

  I sighed. ‘I know you remember Nick. It was a weird thing to say. You must have had a reason.’

  ‘Must I?’ He was drinking, which was usually the case when I called him late. He called himself a ‘functional alcoholic’, was almost proud of it.

  ‘You asked me if I dreamed. It came out of nowhere. What did you mean?’ I stroked the quilt on my bed, remembered Nanny making it, the care and love in the details.

  ‘Why do you ask now, after all this time?’

  ‘I’m not sleeping well. I’m having crazy experiences in my sleep, nearly every night and I’m getting sick of it.’

  Time skipped a beat before he answered.

  ‘My brother, Daniel, used to have problems with nightmares and sleep-walking. We had to start locking the door to his room not that long before he died. He wanted us to. It helped him feel safer. Us too, I guess. He was worried about what he might do while he was asleep. He started seeing a therapist who was trying to help him, but ... well you know how that all turned out.’ The ice clinked again.

  I wasn’t sure how to console him, or whether he even needed consoling after so long. ‘Suicide is so hard to understand.’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounded vague.

  More silence. Spectres capered along my wall and somersaulted across the ceiling as the trees and bushes moved in the wind and lights from the odd passing car played tricks in the night. I shivered and turned on the lamp.

  ‘It sort of runs in the family,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Nightmares?’

  ‘Kind of.’ I wondered about his reluctance to explain. Maybe it was just as well. He became increasingly morose as he drank and this was obviously an emotional topic. ‘Don’t talk to anyone else for now about any of this, Kate. People don’t understand. They’ll think you’re crazy, dangerous …’

  Yep, it was definitely one of those nights. He was crazy. ‘Well no, Nick,’ I admonished, ‘I think most people will think I’m having bad dreams!’

  ‘People are quick to judge,’ he insisted.

  ‘Yes? Well maybe I’ll talk to a professional.’

  ‘We should meet soon. There’s more to tell you, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. It’s complicated.’

  I sighed heavily.

  ‘Agree Kate? Don’t tell anyone until we meet, after that it’s up to you.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow to organise something,’ I agreed reluctantly.

  ‘We can organise something now.’

  ‘You’re drinking. I can hear it in your voice.’ I didn’t mention the constant clinking which accompanied our conversation.

  ‘When am I not drinking? I’m a very functional alcoholic.’

  ‘Why do you drink when it just makes you sad?’ I asked, memories of gloomy conversations with him playing in my mind. Alcohol took him to a world of regret and loss.

  ‘When I’m drinking I can wallow.’ He sounded choked up and I felt bad for prying. ‘I’m allowed a bit of self-pity. I’m a drunk after all.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Sometimes feeling the sadness, reliving it, remembering it is the only way I can really feel alive, that I can remember what was real. The rest of the time, I push it aside, to get on with life. Work, work, work. That’s all there is now … well, until you came along anyway. I’m still getting used to that. I want to protect you Kate. You’re special.’

  ‘I don’t need protecting Nick. I’m a big girl.’ Yawning I flopped back onto the bed.

  ‘You’re still a child.’

  ‘Give me a break! Look after yourself.’ I switched off my lamp and tried to ignore the shadows.

  ‘I’m not kidding. You’ve been sheltered. You’re in the big bad world now.’

  ‘It’s not that bad. Actually, I’m enjoying it.’

  ‘There’s a lot of craziness out there … I know, I’m a little part of it.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re not kidding.’ This much was, at least, true.

  ‘Come on, let me do that much …’ he begged. I pulled Nanny’s quilt over myself. It offered warmth, but not always peace.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, placating him.

  More empty promises. I filed them away in my mind with the others made during insensible conversations, and one of my own, to stop calling him in the middle of the night.

  ‘I’m going to call you tomorrow to organise for us to catch up so that you can tell me all about this dream stuff when you’re sober.’

  ‘Night-night Katie,’ he replied sweetly.

  ‘Go to bed Nick. Please, don’t drink any more tonight.’ How easily I fell into co-dependence. I tried to shrug off the burden of responsibility weighing on my shoulders and rest, but I couldn’t avoid fretting about his welfare.

  18

  DEB AND NICK

  I expected to bump into Nick at the beach or the shops, but the days passed and I didn’t. Slowly the tension which had started to gnaw away at me after seeing him eased, and I threw myself into my studies. I would do well. I would escape Three Kings and I would forge ahead, my destiny was my own.

  Weeks passed and I joined my brother and his friends at MacArthur’s Lake for an early mid-term break. A large crowd had already gathered by the time we arrived, some playing volleyball, others swimming or reclining on the sand. It wasn’t yet noon but a few had already started drinking. Music and laughter, cars arriving and doors slamming, carried in the air.

  No-one noticed as I left them behind, wandering along the winding path at the side of the lake, and then off it into the thick undergrowth, trying to find the spot Nick and I had walked to so long ago.

  After some minutes of searching, my legs criss-crossed with thin scratches from branches and foliage, I chanced on what seemed to be an overgrown trail through the trees. Picking my way over branches and through more scratchy vegetation, hoping there were no snakes around, I belatedly wondered whether it might have been a good idea to let someone know that I was heading into the bush. I arrived at the stream, as translucent as I remembered, a liquid magnifying glass hovering over the sand. My toes squeaked in my thongs which were totally unsuitable for the terrain, and put me at imminent risk of slipping or tripping and spraining my ankle, but I had gone too far to turn back now and so I pushed forward.
/>   Up ahead I could see the brightness of the white beach, its glow like a golden angel beckoning to me through the dark shade of the foliage, embracing me in light and warmth as I clambered over rocks and slid down onto the sand, relieved at my safe arrival. I kicked off my thongs, my feet sinking into the warm soft graininess of the beach, and surveyed the cold turquoise water, not tempted by its frigid embrace. In the distance the dull rumble of humanity continued, but here it was private, insulated. I wondered how many others were enjoying secluded, secret spots around the lake, how many were lovers, how many were hiding from love.

  Under the trees it had been cool, but now cloaked in glorious warmth I basked in the sun. The water lapped nearby, gentle rhythmic whooshing. Birds fussed and called, busy wings flapped.

  I drowsed. Behind me the leaves rustled as my mind roamed. His feet landed in the sand. Sleepily I imagined that he had come, that he too had journeyed to this place on the other side of everything. I languished in my delusion.

  But then there was more. More than just imagining. Instinct’s prickle.

  I inhaled and he was there … the sweet toxic essence of him had touched the air. Fingers touched my face, stroking my temple, down my cheek bone, into the nape of my neck. Nick. How? It didn’t matter.

  ‘Deb?’ I opened my eyes and found his brilliant ones. ‘I want you. I have always wanted you.’

  ‘You have a strange way of showing it,’ I said. He gazed down at me for a long while, a flurry of indecipherable emotions twisting his expression.

  ‘God help me,’ he cried, his voice hoarse with desire. His lips fell onto mine. I was instantly weak. So weak, like I was melting into the sand, like I was his to consume. I wanted to be consumed. I clasped his neck as his body pressed along the length of mine and we came together in a tight frantic crush.

  Finally we broke apart.

  ‘I don’t want to let you go,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t then,’ I answered, my body yielding to something warm and molten.