by Bowes, K T
Jayden could almost see the spirit of Death hanging around him like a curtain, telling the boy in him that he was worthless, a disappointment who would be better off dead.
The root of it - the dysfunctional relationship with his father - would undoubtedly come as something of a shock to the strong patriarch who had done his best to fulfil his role as hunter-gatherer, taken his son to soccer games and tried his hardest to link in with the boy. As was often the case, despite best efforts, the pair misfired and failed to connect. This was the result; one man oblivious and the other damaged and left open to the whispered lies of those familial demons who filled his time and thoughts.
The young man was gently dismissed with homework and some strategies for coping with the raging bull inside him, which would rise unbidden and force him to resort to tried and tested methods for dispelling its influence under pressure. Campion was floating around and Jayden sat with him in her office for a while, getting his input on the course of action with the young man. His injuries had been old and well worn, smacking of an addiction that was possibly as old as him, venting his anger like the valve on a pressure cooker. With the poising of the blade came anticipation, fear and a mingling of hope, followed by the cut and certain but temporary relief. But there was always the risk of suicide and Jayden would be failing in her duty if she didn’t seek the confidence of a colleague. It was what she had been trained to do. Campion gave her sound counsel and then their chat turned to the attitude of the formidable Reverend McLean. “I’m never certain whether the man is completely incompetent or an extremely adept manipulator,” Cam commented, unwinding his long legs from their seated position.
Jayden humphed. “Well, the jury remains in deliberation on both counts. But he can’t be allowed to carry on treating his new curate like that. It’s awful.”
With an affectionate pat on her shoulder, Cam left for the day and Jayden stayed to write up her notes. It was too hard to remember once time had elapsed and there was a tendency for one client to meld into another. It was after six when Jayden finally closed and locked her office door, drawing the buttons of her coat together over her smart suit. Outside in the foyer as her heeled boots clicked across the thin carpet, the timbre of raised voices caught her attention. Jayden halted for a moment, fighting conflicting urges. Curiosity told her to investigate, to involve herself in the reason for the argument while the wise, knowledgeable side of her screamed at her to leave, to get out and disassociate herself from the fracas. The tape in Jayden’s head which she struggled to control, yelled at her that trouble is dangerous, turning her feet for her and pointing them towards the glass exit.
On stumbling legs, Jayden overrode her survival instincts and walked slowly towards the door which connected the administration corridor to the counselling suite, recognising Ed’s placating voice interspersed with the vicar’s angry raised one. Through the glass, she spied the two men squaring up to each other in a narrow corridor, banners depicting Jesus in various parables and poses ironically dangling over their heads from bamboo canes.
The Reverend McLean was apoplectic with fury, his face puce and pulsing, the veins standing out on his neck as though something fairly major was going to burst. Ed, by comparison, looked calm and in control. While the vicar postured and lurched unsteadily on his feet, the younger man stood casually leaning against the wall with his hands insolently in his pockets. “How dare you!” the vicar was practically screaming. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Ed’s face was impassive and his expression bland as Jayden observed through the glass, but the elderly cleric was hysterical. His black shirt strained at the buttons and his white collar hung down on one side. His large rounded tummy protruded over his tight belt as he alternately lurched and feinted. He flapped at his overheated face with pudgy hands and had evidently lost control of himself. Ed’s black shirt and slacks were impeccable and his dog collar was perfectly placed. The only ‘tell’ that he was anxious was the way that he ran his right hand through his smooth dark hair and his blue eyes flashed dangerously as the vicar’s voice reached an irritating screech.
Jayden’s defence mechanism won through and turning, she quickly and silently left the building, making sure that the badly fitting door made no sound as it buried its lock in the door jamb. She wondered what had happened that had set the vicar raging so badly. His temper was a latent beast, usually content to lie dormant and be vented in overeating or bullying as the man serially avoided those things that made him feel inadequate. He would always choose the underhanded route over the confrontational, such as forcing Ed to wash out the bins rather than talking to him about what was making him angry.
Occasionally, however, he had been known to explode periodically, usually in the face of some disappointing behaviour on the part of Brian. Mysteriously too afraid of his subordinate to actually reprimand him, the vicar would roar around the church, picking over minor issues and honing in on those who were unlikely to answer back or defend themselves against his unreasonableness.
Ed had looked nonchalant and clearly had things well under control, giving the older man time for his clockwork mechanism to run aground. Jayden hurried up the high street quickly, remaining vigilant and watching for anyone showing too much interest in her passing. Again she felt the prickling feeling as though someone was watching her. Crossing Silver Street she panicked and hailed a passing taxi, finding herself at Raff’s front door in a highly emotional state.
Chapter 12
Raff was glum and upon letting Jayden into the house, took her hand and led her upstairs to the kitchen where he opened a very expensive bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. He sat in a chair next to her at the table, the wooden struts digging into their backs and put his arm possessively around her, not giving her time to remove her coat even.
The scent of aftershave and male deodorant moved comfortably under Jayden’s nose as her senses relaxed and she permitted the feeling of safety to enfold her. Raff had showered after his very physical day and his dark hair was still damp. Jayden snuggled into his armpit with the frightened tears drying in salt trails on her cheeks, controlling her staggered inhale and exhale motion to persuade her body to seek its equilibrium again.
Raff sipped his wine one-handed, periodically kissing Jayden’s damp temple, his arm firmly around her shoulders. Jayden was thankful that he asked no questions. The kitchen was still with the gentleness of a shared companionship; the Aga clicking gently in the corner as it heated water for the radiators and taps. It felt like heaven. Jayden sat up slightly, wiping her nose inelegantly across the back of her hand, but Raff kept his arm firmly around her shoulders, heavy like a dead weight. He kissed her temple again but then his face moved down alongside hers and to Jayden’s surprise he kissed her cheek, before placing his wine glass carefully on the table and with a smouldering look, kissed her gently on the lips. She pulled back slightly in confusion. Raff was a physical person, requiring the affirmation of touch as badly as his lungs required air. He did often kiss her but this was different. His eyes held a curious glint and as he reached up with his hand and pulled her head in close to his, an unfamiliar electricity arced between them and he kissed her again, longer and with more intent.
“No!” Confusion raced through Jayden like a tornado, tearing at her insides and displacing everything she thought she had known. She stood up quickly, shoving her chair back across the floor with the backs of her knees and causing it to smash loudly into the cupboard behind. Raff was left, sitting half turned in his chair, his hand still raised in the air at the point where Jayden’s face had been, that curious look still on his face. Jayden’s heart pounded, sending too much blood around her body to swish noisily past her ear drums and her face flushed red like a traffic light. She put her fingers up to her lips as though not quite believing what had just happened and then she decided to leave.
Reading her face perceptively, Raff jumped to his feet and seized Jayden’s arms, pulling them around his waist and drawing her into
him. The possessiveness had gone from his body and she was unafraid. Worse was the feeling which remained, the sensations that she had denied herself ever having, content to dwell in spinster-ship for the rest of her life. Her body betrayed her, reminding her brain that it had never signed any such agreement and that despite her traumatic and devastating first sexual encounter, it was possibly willing to venture there again.
“I’m sorry,” Raff whispered. “You just looked so vulnerable and I wanted to take care of you. I’m sorry.”
Jayden pulled away from him with an enormous, unladylike sniff and looked up into his face, concern tinged with betrayal. “But you’re gay!”
Raff made to kiss her on the forehead again and then thought better of it. He let his arms drop to his sides and went to sit back down in his chair. Jayden remained standing as he cupped his wine glass in the palm of his hand, the glittering, crystal stem dangling between his ring and baby fingers. “Peter and I are over.” Regret and misery dripped from his words. “My heart wasn’t in it and he was totally obsessive. After the other night, we had a massive argument and I called time on it. He was absolutely livid. I’m glad Ed ran off after you. I would have been humiliated if he’d heard the things Peter said to me.” Raff bit his lip and turned to face Jayden. “I’ve been thinking. We could be really good together, you and me. I mean...” he took another sip of wine and got into his stride, adding weight behind his flawed argument with each spoken thought. “If we got married, there wouldn’t have to be anything sexual, but we would both seem normal somehow in the world’s eyes. I know you’re not interested in guys, or girls, but it could work out really well. Maybe we could even have a family...by IVF,” he added as the horror crossed Jayden’s face. He stood up and crossed the room, more confident now that she hadn’t overtly rejected his proposal - or him as a person. He put both hands on either side of her face and stared deeply into her perplexed green eyes. “You are my best friend in the whole world Jay. You would want for nothing, I promise. We could make it work. Please think about it?”
His voice was pleading and slightly higher than usual. It was ludicrous and yet the thought took root in Jayden’s rational mind, the promise of company, of no more lonely evenings, no more aimless, empty weekends, the opportunity of normalcy. Her scrambling brain kept her silent, focusing on the black and white floor tiles, neatly patterned and uniform. Every day, common or garden, normal.
As the word ‘normal’ reverberated in her mind, it felt like a ping-pong ball popping off the insides of her skull and Raff’s words took a different slant suddenly. He wasn’t ‘normal,’ of course he wasn’t. He was gay! But he was lumping her in with him, tainting her with his hidden brush and saying that she was in there with him, in the socially unacceptable club of abnormal people. Surely that couldn’t be right. Hidden prejudice doused Jayden with indignation and anger so that Raff’s words, which had been intended to soothe and unite, ended up cutting and tearing at her friendship with him. “You’re homosexual! Why do you deny who you are?” Jayden’s voice was raised and incredulous.
“Me denying who I am? That’s rich! What about you? You live in constant denial of who you are!”
Jayden was stunned, looking angrily at Raff and wondering at first what he meant. Then as the dawning realisation came, pressing and thrusting into her consciousness she felt sick. Years of intensive counselling, being counselled and then turning her dreadful experience into compassion and an outworking of genuine kindness had been a complete waste of a life. Raff was right. She was in denial. She had denied herself and the beautiful flower name that her wonderful father had chosen for her. She had denied her family and especially her poor widowed mother and worst of all, she had denied her destiny. Her real self ached to be loved, to be cossetted and appreciated, desired and cherished. It cried out to her from deep in her soul, buried and forgotten, the childish girl inside who had clacked around in her aunt’s wedding shoes, holding up the too-long meringue dress to prevent her from falling over the hem. The small, slender Lily had pranced and twirled, the zipper hanging agape at the back and her brother laughing at her and pretending to be her groom, upstairs in the loft of the little Welsh house.
Jayden’s body revolted against her suppression of its true nature and it felt as though her whole being turned on her ruthlessly, exacting its revenge for almost nine years of imprisonment behind the bricks of her emotional fortress. The deep red wine pressed itself back up into her gullet and she clapped her hand over her mouth as it threatened. She was utterly undone.
Raff’s blue eyes were wide in his handsome face as he powerlessly watched his best friend become unpicked at the seams. Guilt overwhelmed him and even as he reached out with pathetic, flailing hands for her; Jayden was gone. She fell down the bottom three steps of the richly carpeted staircase, the smooth bottoms of her stockings adding a further betrayal to the list. She ran, leaving the front door open like a gaping, surprised mouth as she bolted out into the street, her boots still in her hand.
The slick cobbles were slippery and unforgiving to unshod feet and Jayden slipped again, ending up on her bottom in the middle of the wide courtyard. To her left, the tall cathedral peered spikily down on her, lights glinting out of the lower windows and peeking around the doorframe. It beckoned to her gently to come, to find solace and comfort inside and relief from the demon laughing on her shoulder, but the broken woman shied away from its invitation, already irreparable even to God.
Realising that Raff may still come after her, Jayden shoved her feet into her boots and set off running down the steep pass at a dangerous pace. It was breakneck at the best of times, but her increased forward motion, encouraged by gravity’s intention to set her back at city level made the going treacherous. Jayden concentrated on the painful bruise which signalled that internal bleeding had begun around her tailbone, blackening and creating perfect hues where she had fallen so hard. Her left elbow ached in her rough sleeve and she cupped it in her right hand. Her work clothes were wet and stained with street muck at the back, but she hurried on regardless, her handbag abandoned on Raff’s kitchen table but her spare front door key kept safely hidden on the leather thread around her neck. It nestled between her breasts and promised that its sanctuary would enfold her, allowing her to heal behind the portcullis of her front door and re-establish the image of the capable, independent-counsellor-of-other-people’s-problems, in peace.
Jayden clopped hazardously on her boot heels, finding herself in the same spot where she had ended up on her knees a few nights ago. Again the smooth rail bar came to her rescue, slamming against her hip bone and preventing her uncontrolled descent for just a second as she cruised like an out of control race car. She hit the soft wall at a furious rate, crashing into it with no chance to brace herself against the impact. One minute it was just air in front of her and the next, a solid black cushioned shape which let out an ‘ooof’ of pain as she ploughed into it.
Strong hands steadied her by her wrists, pushing her gently upright from the unfortunate body that she had smashed into. Jayden uttered a hurried apology to the man and detached herself, trying to step carefully around him despite the forward downhill pull that encouraged her feet to dance with it again. But he held onto one of her wrists and as her brain recognised his voice, her heart plummeted back into her boots and the sickness returned. “Jayd? Are you ok?”
Ed’s face peered into hers, a carbon copy of Raff’s but without the complications of his sexuality marring the image. Jayden’s eyes were wide and her pupils dilated and black, obscuring her green irises almost completely. Her nose was running and tear stains streaked her high coloured cheeks. The clip that had kept her hair under control all day, now lay smashed on the cobbles outside Raff’s house and dark curls bounced and danced on her shoulders, around her face and down her back. But worse was the desolation which oozed out of her as the curate kept hold of her delicately boned wrist.
“Row with Raff?” he asked, an edge of something indiscernible in hi
s tone and when Jayden looked away from him, unable to explain, he kept hold of her wrist and turned his body in towards her swiftly. He pulled at the rest of her arm and used his other hand to tuck her elbow under his companionably. “I’ll walk you home.”
Jayden aligned her body with his, feeling the smart of her painful elbow underneath his fingers. It was becoming almost unbearable. But concentrating on the pain outside was preferable to dealing with the ugly, spewing mass on the inside and so she allowed the bone to rub and grind and ignored the seething mass within her soul. Once outside her front door, she struggled to extract the bulky mortise key from inside her clothing, fighting one handed to haul the leather string from under the collar of her blouse. Ed helped her, his fingers strong and gentle, pushing her hand away as she wrestled to release the warm metal from the folds of her bra and to lift it sensuously from her skin.
Jayden’s heart clamoured so hard that her brain denied the physicality of anything else around them, forcing her just this once, to remain in the moment instead of bolting to some safe place in her head. It was as though her entire being had overrun her volitional mind and determined to break out once and for all. Everything that had ever been good about her rioted violently, shocking the demoniacs from their perch. Suppression, Isolation and Despair let go for a while, waiting for a moment to return quietly once the fuss was over. Depression hung around in the wings waiting for his chance too.