The Secret Wound

by Deirdre Quiery

  “How long will you need for the paperwork?”

  “No more than a couple of hours.”

  Barry scratched his head.

  “Don’t you normally like to have a swim on a Sunday?”

  Cornelia smiled at him,

  “That’s thoughtful of you to remember. Do you want to have a quick dip in the sea before lunch?”

  Barry shifted from one foot to another.

  “You know that I don’t really like the beach but why don’t I take my normal exercise and go for a walk to the Torre Picada, come back, organise the picnic for tomorrow and we can find somewhere to have lunch.”

  Cornelia frowned but only slightly and fleetingly,

  “So we meet back here at 2.00?”

  Barry smiled, “That sounds great.”

  ♥

  When Barry left the house, Cornelia didn’t bother to follow him. She knew that Angelina had been invited to lunch at 2.00 with Todd and Stephanie. That meant that Barry had three hours to walk to Angelina’s, meet with her, do whatever they did together and get back in time to have lunch with her.

  She climbed the stairs to her bedroom, opened the drawer in the bedside table and removed Amelia’s plait. She brought it downstairs, lit a candle, placed the plait and candle on the rug, took a cushion from the sofa and positioned it behind the candle, searched for granuals of frankincense and the charcoal burner, lit the charcoal with the frankincense and placed it beside the candle.

  She recognised this feeling inside. She touched Amelia’s plait. It didn’t help to cut it off yesterday. She thought that it might allow the beast within to fall asleep again but she was powerless over it. It would sleep when it wanted to sleep. Now it was stirring, pacing around within her. It had its plans for tomorrow. She would have to obey.

  After the beast killed Amelia, it had slept for many years. During those years Cornelia knew what it was like to feel safe, secure and in control of her life. When the economic crisis hit in 2008, Henry started talking about there not being enough money to retire. She felt the beast growl within her. Henry explained the need for austerity measures – cutting back – even about putting their Mallorcan home on the market.

  When the beast was fully awake, she saw with its eyes. Henry became repulsive to her. As his health deteriorated, she reasoned that he couldn’t be enjoying this gloomy situation he had created for them. The beast had a solution. She could find a younger version of Henry. He would have to have money, of course. He didn’t need to be handsome. Then the beast came up with an idea of how to relieve Henry of his suffering. She only had to administer a slightly increased dose of warfarin each day and Henry would bleed slowly away – a gentle haemorrhage which would help him be released from the pain of his mind and body. It worked. Once admitted to hospital, the tests confirmed that Henry was in the last stages of heart failure. His vital medication had destabalised and his death was imminent. It only took a few days for him to die.

  The beast then warned Cornelia that Nuala was a problem. Nuala was intuitive. Gurtha had said that Nuala was psychic. The beast told her that Nuala knew that she had murdered Henry. The beast said that Nuala would never allow Cornelia to marry Gurtha. That had always been the plan. Cornelia was born to marry Gurtha. She only had to wait for Henry to die. Of course, she needed an interim contingency plan, Barry, but that was never meant to be a permanent arrangement. The beast explained to her how simple it would be to murder Nuala. It worked.

  When Nuala opened the door, she looked suspiciously at Cornelia. Then she wrote a note for Paddy. He was sent out. That made it all the easier.

  There was resistance from Nuala to climb the stairs and leave the box of chocolates in Gurtha’s room. On the landing she seemed to know that something dangerous was going to be played out. She refused to go into Gurtha’s room and walked quickly back towards the stairs. Cornelia had to act quickly. The beast told her that Nuala could survive a fall down the stairs but there was another way which was certain death. Cornelia forced Nuala towards the bannister. Nuala fought back. She grabbed Nuala’s hair with one hand and the plait with the other. Then she placed her hands around Nuala’s neck and wrestled her, choking, to the bannister and tipped her over. After that the beast suggested that she pull up a piece of the carpet on the landing, walk downstairs and rearrange Nuala’s body at the bottom of the staircase. The beast also suggested removing Nuala’s shoe, a nice finishing touch.

  DAY 30

  MONDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER 2013

  CORNELIA WAKENED with a sense of energy buzzing through her whole body. Today would be a good day. After today she was sure that the beast would want to slumber again. It’s work would be complete. Maybe it would never awaken again. Cornelia would have everything she ever wanted. There would be no reason for the beast to have to help her.

  Barry snored beside her. She rolled over and threw her arms around him. He jumped in the bed as if startled. Cornelia laughed,

  “Did I waken you? Sorry. You sleep on. I’ll make breakfast.”

  Barry pulled the sheets up over his head.

  “Thanks. I’ll be down in thirty minutes. I haven’t properly wakened up yet.”

  She slipped on a dressing gown, opened the drawer beside the bed and removed Amelia’s plait. She glanced at Barry. He hadn’t seen. She put it in her pocket.

  Downstairs she slipped the plait into her rucksack – in a zipped pocket. She prepared breakfast. As she sat at the kitchen table, she was filled with a sense of happiness – like a bride preparing for her wedding – anticipating a whole future ahead. A future filled with love, sharing, deep conversations, growing old with the comfort of someone you love and who loves you.

  There was only a last effort which had to be made. There’s always an effort to be made for anything worthwhile.

  They packed the car with walking boots and rucksacks and Barry drove them towards Valldemosa. It was a beautiful drive – turning off the road from the Port of Soller and heading towards Deia – following the twisting road, a turquoise sea sparkling on the right. Small yachts left a white wake of rippling water behind them as they headed south. They passed the Residencia Hotel where Princess Diana used to stay, drove further along the road where Michael Douglas had his house and then could see where Bob Geldof lived. The mountains stretched up to the left ending in craggy cliffs reaching into a cloudless sky. On top was a path created by the Archduke Luis Salvador with magnificent views of the island.

  Cornelia looked at the steep mountainside leading up to the Archduke’s Way.

  “That’s another walk worth doing. The mountain is full of history. I love the way you have the mix of all the wealthy people from the past and present with the ordinary country folk. You come across ‘sifjas’ which are small charcoal ovens where men would spend night after night on the mountain ensuring that the smouldering charcoal didn’t go out. There are also ‘casas de neu’ or snowpits where they used to store the winter snow and cover it with layers of ash. You can also see ‘cacas a coll’ which are thrush nets which the local hunters used to string between the trees. There were always two worlds living here, side by side. There still are.”

  Barry concentrated on guiding the car around the hairpin bends. He observed, “I’m surprised that you haven’t been invited into the ‘high society’ circle.”

  Cornelia laughed.

  “There’s still time. I never give up.”

  They reached the car park near Valldemossa to find everyone had already arrived.

  Cornelia took charge.

  “Let’s walk to Ramon Llull’s cave first. There we can have our picnic.”

  Stephanie lifted her rucksack from the ground.

  “Sounds great. Thinking of great – that was a fantastic party at Toni’s, wasn’t it?

  Todd agreed and commented,

  “Cornelia you were the life and soul of the party – you were fantastic. What a voice. You’ve kept that talent well hidden. What do you think folks – couldn’t she be on stage?”


  Angelina spoke, “Yes there was a wonderful energy at the party and Toni was so generous. Imagine letting strangers share such an intimate family evening. Wonderful.”

  Todd chipped in, “I think, Cornelia, you could come back with me to Los Angeles and we’ll get you a singing contract no problem.”

  Cornelia smiled, walking at the front of the group who now filed down a narrow path,

  “Stop it now. You’re making me blush. Angelina, come up here beside me. You go first. I see you’re wearing proper hiking boots – perfect.”

  Angelina carefully manoeuverd herself past Barry and led the walk.

  Gurtha glanced to the right. The sky was a flowing emerald with streaks of ruby. Golden light reflected onto the waves, twisting in turquoise and yellow hues into waves which looked like molten olive branches. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his Barbour jacket and quickened his steps to match those of Barry. Todd tried to keep up, breathing deeply and breaking into a gentle run.

  The olive trees on the narrow terrace to their left were covered in light green lichen. The dead branches of old dismembered olive trees lay scattered on the tilled rich red soil. Life and death living side by side. Todd stopped, rested a hand on the grey and orange stones still hot from the unbroken attention of the sun. He felt old, his body seizing up, unable to move in the way that it once used to move. He was more like a wrinkled olive limb than green lichen – more like the stone wall with some heat in it, but unable to move, than the sparkling waves below him. He sighed with the sadness that only one who knows what old age feels like is capable of sighing - a resigned sigh - similar to despair but not quite despair. It was the sigh of one who knows the closeness of body, mind, heart and soul to stone and dead wood.

  They walked mostly in silence and reached Ramon Llull’s cave an hour later. Gurtha enthusiastically climbed inside as Cornelia and Barry laid out the picnic on a large rug just outside the cave.

  The view from the cave was magnificent – opening to a wide expanse of sea and a view of the golden disc of a sun sliding across the sky, gently dipping eventually into the horizon.

  They sat in a circle together and began to help themselves to tapas – croquetas, Russian salad, olives, patatas bravas and baby squid.

  Cornelia opened a bottle of white wine and placed a few chilled beers on the rug with sparkling water.

  Stephanie asked, “Well – who knows about Ramon Llull? That would be interesting as we’ve made a valiant effort to find his cave.”

  Gurtha raised his hand,

  “I can start. He was a fascinating character born in 1232 and died 1315. He was incredibly ahead of his time – a great philosopher and many give him credit for being the pioneer of computation theory – which is remarkable considering the century in which he lived. What I love most about his story is that he was born into a wealthy family. He was a troubadour and lived a licentious and wasteful life according to his own accounts. He had two children by Bianca Picary whom he married. Then his life changed. He had a couple of visions and decided to dedicate his life to God and became a Franciscan Tertiary. He spent the later part of his life converting Muslims to Christianity, not by violence or intellectual trickery, but through dialogue and by understanding their culture. An amazing man.”

  Cornelia asked, “I wonder what triggered his visions? If he was living what he called a ‘wasteful life’ why would he experience visions and other people don’t?”

  Everyone waited for Gurtha to answer.

  “It’s a good question. I’m not sure that I have the answer to that, to be honest. Perhaps we’re saying that all human beings are born imperfect. Many will choose to lead what Llull would call ‘wasteful’ lives all their lives. Some individuals, like Ramon Llull, St Francis of Assisi or Rumi, who all lived around the thirteenth century, seemed to have a ‘conscience’ awaken in them. This became a rudder which then guided their lives to experience deeper and deeper love.”

  Stephanie raised her hand as if she was at school, “But what is this conscience? It sounds as if it’s connected to the ‘visions’ that these individuals experienced. Cornelia’s question is still unanswered as you would need to know what it is that makes some people have an awakening of ‘conscience’ and have ‘visions’ when others don’t.”

  Gurtha laughed.

  “I didn’t expect these questions today. I feel I’m back in my lecture hall. Modern psychology would probably say that we are mostly driven by our unconscious motivations – unmet emotional needs – for power, control, security, respect, approval of others etc. but as they are unconscious we don’t accept responsibility for what we do. We look for comfort in the outer world, as Llull initially did. However, when these unconscious motivations become clear to us – you might call it having a ‘vision’ – or the experience of ‘grace’ – or seeing our ‘woundedness’ - we see ourselves as we really are, we take responsibility for what we do – and our actions change. St Francis of Assisi was another example of this. Born into a wealthy family and then giving all of this up for a life which respected not power but poverty, a love of nature and creation.”

  Stephanie looked at Todd and shook her finger at him.

  “I hope you’re listening to this Todd. I don’t see you taking any notes.”

  Everyone laughed. Todd quipped, “Don’t be looking at me for a ‘vision’. I think they take all the fun out of life.”

  Cornelia silently ate a spinach croquette and stared towards a thick layer of purple on the horizon, layered on top with orange and pink. The more Cornelia looked at it, the more it took on the appearance of a rainbow shimmering on top of a flowing silky blue sea. Then the silky blue sea flowed into the sky above and Cornelia dissolved into the rainbow. She closed her eyes. Her body was undulating with rainbow colours circling within her. The colours were painting her, wiping away the darkness within. As the colours now were her body and the darkness had completely disappeared, for the first time in her life, Cornelia felt peace and knew that she was totally loved into being. Her own existence at this moment in time was perfect. Her being was love. The experience lasted a few minutes before she opened her eyes and saw Stephanie placing oranges on the rug for desert.

  The remains of the picnic were gathered together and the rucksacks repacked. It was time to continue the walk.

  Todd asked, “Do we turn back the way we came?”

  Cornelia shook her head.

  “Not yet. We walk a little further along this path and then we will double back on a different path. It’s more interesting – you’ll see. Angelina, let’s have you at the front again. That seemed to work well. If that is easier for you?”

  Angelina smiled and nodded in agreement.

  Stephanie, Todd, Barry and Gurtha had fallen behind, engaging in conversation with Todd who was struggling to keep up.

  She watched Angelina walk cautiously ahead of her. She wore a long white Grecian dress with a corded tie and hiking boots. Angelina looked good. Not many people could pull off that combination of hiking boots with an exotic, elegant draping dress. Then, unexpectedly Angelina twisted on her right ankle, her arms shooting into the air as she tried to balance. There was a small gash in the path – caused by a rock earlier breaking loose from the surrounding dry earth. She tried to recover her balance, but instead tilted further to the right, losing her footing and, as a golden sun dipped into a turquoise sea, she slipped over the edge of the path with a loud shriek.

  Cornelia’s eyes opened wide as did her mouth. She gulped at the air like a sand shark and raised her hands to cover her face.

  Cornelia had planned to push Angelina to her death at the spot where the path twisted left. However, following the discussion over lunch and her experience of merging with the sky and sea, she had changed her mind. It had become obvious to her that killing Angelina would not give her a relationship with Gurtha which would be meaningful. She would be forcing herself into a life of continued lies which would not only ‘waste’ her life but would destroy t
hat of Gurtha. She couldn’t and wouldn’t kill Angelina.

  Cornelia screamed, “Gurtha!”

  With Gurtha and the others out of sight, she instinctively threw herself onto the path, sticking only her head over the edge and then, instinctively, reached her right arm below.

  Although Gurtha, Barry, Todd and Stephanie were not far away, the wind carried Cornelia and Angelina’s cries in the opposite direction and they were only faintly heard like the distressed bleating of a young lamb’s call to it’s mother. Hearing the sounds of distress, Barry and Gurtha began to run. Todd, holding Stephanie’s hand shouted from behind, “Slow down. Show mercy on an old man.”

  They reached Cornelia lying on the path, right arm stretched towards Angelina who, over the cliff edge, found herself hooked by the corded belt on her linen dress, grabbing with both hands at the wild strawberry bush which grew horizontally from the rock face. The branches of the strawberry bush visibly twisted and bent under her weight.

  Cornelia looked for a moment at flickers from the sun’s corona disappearing into indigo blue. Moving her eyes to the distant streaks of tangerine clouds, she wriggled closer to the edge and reached a hand towards the strawberry bush. She touched the soft orange, fluid-filled wild strawberry first and quivered with fear, before forcing herself to look into Angelina’s eyes. Angelina, panting, reached a left hand upwards to grab Cornelia’s wrist.

  It was a sudden, abrupt, unexpected movement. Cornelia closed her eyes, her cotton dress dragged over stones, being ripped apart, as she catapulted over the edge. She heard herself scream, yowling into the Universe.

  When she opened her eyes seconds later, she found herself dangling, holding onto Angelina’s left wrist. Her forehead pressed against Angelina’s legs. She felt the cold rush of air into her nostrils and a sinking feeling in her gut as her feet searched the rocky cliff for a foothold. She dug her nails deeply into Angelina’s wrist.

  Barry and Gurtha threw themselves on the ground beside Cornelia while Stephanie and Todd stood dazed. Gurtha snapped opened his rucksack, pulled out the rope and made a noose.