Her mother had always scolded Julia for these day-dreams of hers and had often told her that she must bring her head down from the clouds. Julia could never really understand why. If she could reach up into the clouds through her imagination when others failed to do so what harm was there in that? Her mother always seemed to be the bearer of doom and gloom in relation to these matters. What had been the harm in fantasising about having a twin in her youth? After all, this wish had to a certain extent been fulfilled. In more than one way Sophia was her long-lost non-identical twin. She may not have been biologically connected to her, but on an emotional and spiritual level there was this tie binding them together in one single pod.
In a history book Julia had once read about fascist beliefs and the concept of strength in unity symbolised through the fasces: the bundle of sticks indicating life over death. This was the very picture of her tie to Sophia. On her own Julia was a broken person. A frail twig that could be trodden upon, thrown as part of a game to the dogs, set alight to start a fire or used by African tribesmen to clean their teeth. However, tied to Sophia the synergy created was tangible. Their union was transcendental. It was a paranormal fusion of two souls. How could something as strong as this not lead to danger? It was something too extraordinary, something so powerful that like a flame it needed to be consumed. The phoenix was about to be born and once it took flight there was nothing that could be done to reign it in. It was a giant herd of wild horses stampeding together in a wild and dangerous frenzy, so that a cloud of thick dry dust covered Julia and Sophia and their eyes watered and stung with pain. Tears ran down their eyes but no rubbing or wiping away the tears could make their vision any clearer. The haze remained because the cloud remained and all around them what had been once so clear and concrete was now a blur. Objects were indistinguishable, emotions ran riot. There was no turning back. Each road led to the same destination. A destructive free-fall resulting in an apocalyptical closure.
Sophia was Julia’s very own personal epiphany. Like her beloved James Joyce, she had finally stumbled on a revelation that was so huge that it filled up her life’s book completely and yet ironically it was just at this point when her epiphany was gyrating closer to the truth, where the Moirai was introduced. Bouncing onto the stage with a huge pair of scissors so big and heavy that they had to be dragged between them like some agricultural tool. Julia would never forget this moment in her life. As the Moirai arrived to snip at her thread of life, her thread of life grew longer, and the more they snipped at it with their gigantic scissors the longer it grew like some sort of Medusa having her hair cut.
Chapter 7
Just as Julia would never forget the day she met Sophia she would also never forget the day of Sophia’s accident. This was the day when her rose-tinted spectacles were broken and she would never be able to find another pair. It was a day or rather a night that would initiate a chain of events that would unfold rapidly, snowballing out of control. In fact, it would leave Julia breathless, like the goldfish gasping in its last moments of life. All the air would be sucked out of her lungs so that her lungs would stick together like a balloon which has been deflated.
It all happened in the run up to Christmas. To be precise it happened just two days before Christmas on a very cold and dismal winter’s day. It had been raining for most of that week and Julia had been locked indoors for most of that week. The children had just started their Christmas holidays and Julia had been looking forward to that break away from their books and their studies and exams. She would spend some quality time over Christmas with her family, after all wasn’t Christmas all about the family?
Julia had so many plans for the festive season. She would find the time to bake traditional mince-pies, a Christmas pudding and a Christmas cake soaked in brandy just like her grandma used to make. To this day the smell of brandy still evoked this image of Christmas. It was the only time in her childhood when she could recall her mother opening up the crystal decanter of brandy. Large and heavy she had always been forbidden to touch this glass shroud. Christmas and the rare occasions when she caught a severe cold were the only times when this decanter was used. Her mother being old school and adamant that a spoonful of brandy was the best thing to cure a cold, outshining any cough medicine on the market.
She would decorate the house with cheap but tasteful decorations. She would spend an entire morning with the kids just setting up the Christmas tree and arguing with them about whose turn it was to switch on the Christmas lights and whose turn it was to fix the fragile angel at the top of the tree. Yes, she had so many plans. She would use this period to spend quality time with her family. She would hang up all the drawings the children had brought home from school. The Christmas cards they received would be hung along the staircase as was their family tradition. She would go shopping for presents for Ben and the kids and of course she would also sneakily purchase the presents from Santa. She would also buy smaller gifts for her family and friends, along with something for herself as she did every Christmas. Perhaps she would purchase some lovely soft bed socks, or some expensive blend of coffee or maybe even some bath salts and scented candles.
She would also, of course, buy something really special for Sophia. Something not too expensive as she knew that she could never compete with Sophia in that league, but something that would show Sophia that she had put much thought in that purchase. Something perhaps personalised.
The previous year she had purchased a beautiful leather-bound writing book from an antiques shop and she had collated numerous photos and keepsakes of the times they had spent together. Tickets of performances they had watched together, coasters from pubs they had drunk in together, even clothes tags off clothes from shopping sprees spent together. Julia had pressed dried flowers they had collected during some of their many walks together and even included a lock from Sophia’s hair. She had picked this up from the hairdresser’s floor when she had accompanied Sophia to get her hair cut. The book contained words which had special meanings for them, poetry which they had read to each other and pictures of various art works which they had seen at various art galleries. The book was a microcosm of the life they were sharing together. It was as innocent as a child’s scrapbook yet its meaning for both women was sacred. This year she had not yet decided on the gift she would give her. She had to think of something that would stand up to last year’s gift. The closest she had got was to viewing some charm bracelets online. She could buy her a bracelet and carefully select charms which were meaningful to Sophia. She could then attempt to explain the meaning of the charms with an accompanying letter. This could work; however, she still wasn’t convinced. She needed to dedicate more time and energy into making this decision and there was still time.
She also intended to plan a surprise for Ben, a romantic dinner in his favourite restaurant or perhaps she would prepare a home-cooked meal of something really special. She could find a really fabulous recipe from the internet and cook up something classy and tasty. She even contemplated asking her mum to show her how to cook a risotto alle vongole, this was one of Ben’s favourite dishes at their local Italian restaurant. She could pair this with a lovely tagliata di manzo and some Sicilian cannoli made with a cream of soft ricotta cheese and candied cherries. She wanted to make it up to Ben, perhaps it was guilt more than love, but she realised that Ben had been extremely patient with her over these past months. Deep down he felt rejected. Sophia had managed to fill a void that only he as her husband should have been able to fill. He had resigned himself to the idea that this ‘crush’ on Sophia would pass and their relationship would resume to how it was before Sophia crudely interrupted the status quo. Julia hated Ben when he had once dared to refer to her relationship with Sophia as a crush. A crush signified a blend of raw emotions experienced by some hormonal teenager. This was not a crush. This was a form of pure and unconditional love. It was a love that transcended everything and everyone. Ben was her lifeline pulling her to safety in a savage whirlpool, but So
phia was the seductive mermaid drawing her down deep under the waters into a world where she did not belong. It was a world far too surreal for mere human beings.
However, as in so many things in life, things don’t always go to plan. Ben’s company won an important tender and this suddenly meant that he had to unexpectedly travel to Brussels before Christmas. Although the business trip would only last a few days the return flights to Bristol were fully booked. This meant that he would return home on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Julia was very disappointed as she had planned the romantic evening and the family bonding time to occur over that week, however, she knew that she should not give Ben a hard time about it. She had nothing to grumble about really. It was something that could not be avoided. It wasn’t as if he had planned to spend the week prior to Christmas away from his family. It was a rare case where work needed to take priority. She could thank her lucky stars that these occasions were not frequent. As in most other aspects of Ben’s life he was not a workaholic. Work was important to him and a means of sustaining the comfort and luxury his family had been used too, however, he was never the one who would miss his children’s concerts or prize days and he had attended many of the parent’s meetings which were held in the late evenings. Ben was clearly a devoted family man who placed his wife and children before anyone else. This realisation of course only made Julia feel even worse that she had so often chosen Sophia over her family. After all, wasn’t time spent with Sophia being stolen away from time with her family?
Her guilt over this had started to gnaw at her quite frequently in the recent weeks. Perhaps it was the looming presence of Christmas. Christmas always seemed to bring out her emotional side more. As a Catholic, she had even attempted to confess in an attempt to erase her guilt. It had taken her weeks to pluck up the courage to do so and in the end she had an occasion to do so during a trip to Bristol. She had gone there to purchase some clothes for the children. As most growing kids they outgrew their clothes very quickly. Emma had already outgrown her children’s clothes and now fitted into the smaller sizes of teenage clothes. She was tall for her age and clothes which were sized for her age always seemed to fit too short. Andrew seemed to grow in heaps and bounds. He would remain the same height for a few months and then suddenly sprout an inch or so in an incredibly short amount of time. Laura had most of her clothing covered through Emma’s hand me downs, however, Julia always made sure that for special occasions, birthdays, Christmas and parties she always wore new outfits. As the younger sibling, Julia knew how much she had hated having to wear hand me downs and so she did her best to balance out Laura’s wardrobe. It wasn’t that they couldn’t afford to purchase new clothes, money was never that tight, but Julia believed that children should be taught to care for their things, to avoid waste as this was sinful and clearly against God’s wishes.
It was during one such trip at the beginning of December whilst browsing through the many shops in Bristol that, laden with bags of shopping, she had walked past a Catholic church. At first she had only intended to drop in and offer up some prayers to the Virgin Mary. She immediately found solace in the dark cool church. Her footsteps echoed on the marble floor and the smell of incense lulled her into a feeling of serenity and peace. The contrast with the hustle and bustle going on outside was tangible. Outside was the personification of consumerism. Shoppers caught up in the rush and madness before Christmas as if in an attempt to stock up before doomsday. Inside the church was absolutely soundless. The harsh glare of the neon lighting was now replaced by the flickering candles. Julia sniffed the scent from the candles. She had always loved this scent. It reminded her of her many birthdays having blown out the candles. There was very little light in the church; the light coming from the candles and from the high stained-glass windows which depicted various biblical scenes from the New Testament. It was only after she had lit three candles, one each for her three children and knelt down to pray that Julia realised that at the far end of the church two women were lined up next to the confessional awaiting their turn for confession. It was on the spur of the moment that Julia decided to confess. She confessed about her relationship with Sophia. About how it was impinging on her marital relationship and on her family life and about how it consumed her, like it was some terrible drug she could not do without. The more she poured out her thoughts and described her actions, the more she came to realise just how deep this relationship was. It was so deep that she could no longer see anything else outside the tunnel of darkness it brought about. The priest had listened to her and advised her to follow the Bible’s teachings on marriage. He forgave her and asked her to show her repentance through the penance of three Hail Mary’s. Julia had felt better, but not completely better. Her conscience had been eased, but for how long? She knew that the tension and the guilt would begin to build up again, because contrary to the very nature of confession, Julia had no intention of breaking her friendship with Sophia. However, one thing that Julia had decided upon was that she would find a way to curb the relationship, to tame it, to get it under control. It was a wild beast that was dangerous. She would never bring herself to kill the beautiful creature, but she would learn to keep it safely on a leash. This way she would protect her family and herself. She would survive the intensity of the relationship.
Three weeks had passed since Julia’s confession and aided by the many activities associated with Christmas so far she had managed to keep her resolution. In the past few weeks she had seen less of Sophia than she normally did. This was also because the children had commenced their Christmas holidays and so meetings with Sophia were less frequent, as the children would have had to be dragged along to these meetings. There were only so many lies and stories she could make up to rope in her parents to baby-sit the children, especially during the Christmas holidays when she could not invent scholastic events which did not exist. Besides, now that Emma and Andrew were also getting older, they could no longer be relied upon to back up her stories.
In her studies of Macbeth as a child, Julia had studied about pathetic fallacy. This was pathetic fallacy at its best. She had woken up to find the windows all frosted and a thick blanket of frost on the lawn. The air outside was so cold that her fingers turned numb in the few minutes it took her to bring in the three bottles of milk from the bottom of her front garden where the milkman religiously left them at a time when she was still deep in the land of sleep. It was a perfect day to stay indoors. By the time she had had her first mug of coffee and was skimming the morning’s headlines on her phone the heavens had opened and it began to rain. Huge, heavy raindrops soaking up the front lawn, water trickling down the windows and filling up her flowerpot holders. The rain fell down noisily like a war drum beating to guide the weary soldiers on. It was a cruel, continuous rain that did not subside. Julia was relieved that Ben would be arriving home the next day. Had he arrived home today he would have had to drive from Bristol to Nailsea in this downpour. The weather, accompanied by the fact that statistically this was the period when traffic accidents peaked, brought relief to Julia that things had turned out for the best. Although, she was missing Ben in the evenings, hating eating alone while the children munched their meals in front of the telly. An exception to the rule since it was during their holidays. She hated turning over in bed and finding it cold. She missed not cuddling up to Ben, his masculine smell and his arms tight around her waist. By the time the children came down for breakfast, puddles were already forming on the lawn where the moist soil had already ceased to absorb any more water. As a child Julia had loved to go out in the rain and splash around in her wellingtons. Letting the rain fall and smelling the dampness on her hair. Now she couldn’t stand getting caught in the rain. The rain would turn her hair frizzy and the hour spent weekly in the salon to blow-dry her hair would be useless. Julia prided herself on the fact that although she was no outstanding beauty, she had an enviable figure, despite her three kids and her hair and nails were always done fashionably. Nothing too fancy just a
blow-dry and regular cut along with a French manicure. At times she would opt for a classic shade of red or an Italian pink, but more often than not she preferred the clean, bridal look that the French manicure evoked.
When she enthusiastically went over her plans for the day with the children her plans were turned down. The children were disappointed that they would spend the day indoors. Emma wanted to go to the mall to meet her friends, Andrew had planned to play football in the park and even Laura was disappointed. She wanted to go in the garden to play dragons. This was a game she had invented on cold days such as this where she would blow into everyone’s faces delighted to see the puff come out from her mouth just like a cloud-breathing dragon. However, their initial dismay quickly subsided and the children had been persuaded to enter the Christmas spirit. They had helped Julia get down the last batch of Christmas decorations from the attic. Andrew had climbed up the ladder. The first time he was allowed to on his own, while Julia and Emma had stood at the bottom of the ladder while he clumsily passed the cardboard boxes down to them from the square opening of the attic floor. Laura had found her own way of entertaining herself and after counting the slugs on the garden wall she was now drawing on the window panes with her tiny cold fingers filling up the panes with lollipop trees, strange animals with missing limbs and an abundance of flowers and smilies.
Julia left the older kids to manage the decorating while she opened her laptop to send out a few electronic cards. She checked her mail to see whether she had received anything from Ben and then opened her Facebook account. Thanks to Sophia she had now trained herself to control the time she spent on Twitter and Facebook. Whereas before she could easily have spent an hour skimming through all the posts, she now controlled the time she spent on there, preferring to focus on the human relationships she had in her life. She was tempted to call Sophia. She had sent Sophia a couple of messages yesterday but she had not received any reply. This was unlike Sophia. She had always replied to Julia’s messages quite promptly. Julia was not worried as the day before they had gone out for a drink together whilst the three children were Christmas carolling with a neighbour. They had parted in the usual manner, a light kiss on the cheek and the reassurance that both were already looking forward to their next meeting. Julia reasoned that Sophia must have been caught up with her Christmas errands. She was flying to Milan between Christmas and New Year and then just after New Year was planning to visit her family in Malta where they had now retired. She was also probably being kept busy by her latest boyfriend, or as she mischievously revealed to Julia her ‘friend with benefits’. He was a high profile Fund Manager, in his late twenties he must have been around ten years younger than Sophia. He oozed sex-appeal and fun. Julia knew it wouldn’t last; Sophia would use and discard him as she had done to countless others before him. It would take so much more for the man to win Sophia’s heart. At times Julia perceived her as an Ice Queen, her expectations so high that men were put off even before attempting the quest. The prize so alluring, yet so impossible to attain that it could only remain a fantasy.
Julia's Secret Page 4