Please Release Me

by Rhoda Baxter

  Glenda let out wail and buried her head in her hands. The poor woman was clearly in anguish. Grace took in the pallor of the girl who was currently hosting Sally. What was the process doing to her? Could Sally hurt her host?

  ‘Sally,’ said Grace, as authoritatively as she could. ‘If you haven’t got anything constructive to say, perhaps we should leave that girl alone.’

  ‘You can sod off and all,’ said Sally.

  ‘Not unless I take you with me,’ said Grace. She couldn’t leave these poor women with an angry ghost. If Sally figured out how to use the girl’s limbs there was no telling what she might do to Glenda. ‘I think you’ve made your feelings perfectly clear to your mother. Now, please leave that girl’s body alone. I’m worried that you’ll damage her. She doesn’t look good.’

  Sally said nothing. The girl’s body twitched. The eyes rolled back, leaving just the whites showing.

  ‘Sally, get out. If she dies …’

  A sort of growl left the girl and suddenly, Sally was standing over her. ‘Fine. Just make that bitch promise never to come sniffing around my husband again.’ She pointed a finger at her mother.

  Grace knelt on the floor and checked the girl’s pulse. It was slow, but clear. She patted her on the cheek. ‘Wake up. Come on.’ When the girl failed to respond, she gave her a sharp slap. The girl’s eyes flew open. She stared at Grace for a moment before focus returned.

  ‘Woo. That was some strong stuff,’ the girl murmured. ‘Cooool.’

  Grace wondered what she should do next. The girl put a hand on her chest and breathed deeply. After a minute or so, struggled into a sitting position. ‘You got any food on ya?’

  All right. If she had the munchies, she was probably going to be okay. Now to deal with the other two. Sally was still shouting and Glenda still sobbing. Grace put a hand on Glenda’s shoulder and passed on a toned down version of Sally’s message. ‘We’re going now,’ she added. ‘I won’t come back again, but Sally might.’ She stood up, ignoring Sally’s glare. ‘She can only go to places she’s been before, so you may want to move out of this room. And tell your friend the same. It may not be safe for her otherwise.’

  By the time Grace got back to her place, Sally was already there, pacing around the kitchen.

  ‘What was that all about?’ said Grace. ‘I thought you said you wanted to make things better between you and your mother.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You didn’t buy that sob story she gave you? She’s always doing that. Whenever I need to talk to her about something, she turns it round and makes it all about her.’

  Grace frowned and thought back over the conversation. ‘No. I don’t think she did that. Not until after you lost it.’ She dropped into a kitchen chair and gestured for Sally to do the same. ‘Want to me tell what’s going on? If you want me to help, you’re going to have to stop playing games with me.’

  ‘I’m not playing games.’

  Grace merely raised an eyebrow.

  Sally stopped pacing and stared at her. ‘You don’t believe me?’ For a moment she stared at Grace, then her shoulders dropped. ‘Shit.’ She sank down into a chair, making the white fabric billow out around her.

  Grace leaned forward. ‘Convince me then.’

  Sally stared down at her hands and twiddled the wedding ring. ‘What I said was true. She got more and more withdrawn from Dad. He tried to make it better. That’s why he got into debt, trying to get stuff for her to make it better. Then when he died, she crumbled and left me to deal with it. She ruined him. She would have ruined me too, if I’d stayed.’

  Grace nodded as encouragingly as she could.

  Sally was staring at her hands and seemed to be seeing something else entirely.

  ‘Sally?’

  ‘Peter’s my new start. He’s all I’ve got. I don’t want her to ruin him too.’ When Sally looked up her eyes were desperate. Grace felt a surge of pity.

  ‘I didn’t mean to lose it like that,’ said Sally. ‘All I wanted to do was tell her to stay away from Peter. But she … she just pushes my buttons like no one else can. I just snapped. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.’

  She looked so wretched that Grace felt sorry for her. ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll never go back there. When you took over that poor girl, I really thought you were going to hurt somebody.’

  ‘I couldn’t have, even if I wanted to,’ said Sally. ‘Her head was easy enough to get into, she wanted me there. But I couldn’t do much with the rest of the body. Not unless I had a chance to be in there a while and experimented a bit.’

  Scientific interest stirred. ‘What happened there anyway? ‘

  ‘I’m not sure, I stepped through her and if I lined myself up right, my eyes were where hers were and I could see what she saw. I’ve not tried to make anyone talk before. Lucky she was totally spaced out.’

  ‘Wait. You’ve tried this before?’

  Sally looked sheepish. ‘Only by mistake.’

  Grace wasn’t sure she believed that, but she thought the sentiments about Peter were genuine. Whatever her issues with her mother, Sally seemed to genuinely love her husband. No matter how much Grace wanted things to be different, Sally and Peter belonged together. She would not be the other who came between them. ‘Sally, you need to let me tell Peter about you.’

  ‘No. I don’t think it’s the right time yet.’

  ‘Why not, Sally? You love him. He doesn’t know you’re around. Why don’t you let me tell him?’

  ‘No. I can’t let him see me like this.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’ Grace refrained from pointing out that he couldn’t see her anyway.

  ‘The last time I saw him, I was warm and alive. I want him to remember that when he thinks of me. Not this… nothingness. I’m not a ghost. I’m not anything. I’m just a chilly draught that makes him shiver. I don’t know why this happened. I don’t understand any of this, Grace. I just want it to all go back to the way it was. I want my married life. It’s not fair.’ She sank into a chair and didn’t even bother correcting herself when she stopped an inch or so above the surface.

  ‘Oh Sally.’ Grace went over to her and, despite the chill, put an arm around her, carefully, so that her arm didn’t go through Sally’s back. It was cold. She closed her hand into a fist and held her arm there.

  Sally was staring into the middle distance. ‘Do you know what attracted me to Peter in the first place? It was the way he looked at me like I was the most perfect woman in the universe. No matter how grotty I felt, he’d look at me like that and I’d feel … amazing. ‘ She looked at her hands and touched the wedding band on her finger. ‘Now he can’t even see me. He looks at me now and all he sees is someone in coma. There’s hurt and sadness and desperation in his eyes. That doesn’t make me feel anything good. It’s like someone’s designed a private hell, just for me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could help you.’

  ‘You are helping,’ said Sally. She wasn’t crying, but her expression was full of pain. ‘At least you can see me to talk to me.’

  ‘I really do think you should talk to Peter. If you have any unfinished business at all, it makes sense that it should be with him.’ Her arm was starting to shake with cold. She removed it.

  Sally didn’t seem to notice that her arm was gone. She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I have plenty of unfinished business with Peter. I’m not sure I could have him talk to me without seeing me. Or thinking I was that poor woman in the bed.’

  ‘It will be weird, I guess.’ There was no doubting that. ‘Don’t you think you should at least let him know that you can hear him?’

  ‘Why? He’ll only change what he says to me and I don’t want him to. He talks to the other me so much more than he did when I was alive.’

  How could you be in love with
someone and not want to find out every last scrap of information about them? ‘But you were getting married. You must have talked lots.’ If Peter were hers … No. She couldn’t think that. Peter wasn’t hers. He was Sally’s. He belonged with her.

  ‘We tried, but we always got distracted with one thing or another.’

  Grace opened her mouth to question her, but saw the gleam in Sally’s eyes and thought better of it. It was pretty obvious what they got side-tracked doing. ‘Ye-es. Well, all I can say is that you never know what will happen until you try.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. What happens if …’ she paused and clamped her lips shut.

  ‘If?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Sally, he’s your husband. He loves you. You can’t keep avoiding him just because you like spying on him. You’ve got a chance to fix that now, tell him all the things you were too distracted to talk about.’ The minute she said it, she saw the problem. The conversation was hurtling towards one giant problem. Sally couldn’t talk to Peter directly. Grace would have to be there as a go between. Quite apart from being a great big gooseberry, she’d have to convey messages of love from Grace to Peter. That would be so very difficult. Shit. Now what.

  Sally glared at her. ‘How, Grace? How exactly can I do that? He can’t even hear me.’ She sighed. ‘He doesn’t know I exist.’

  The sadness on Sally’s face was heart rending. Grace sighed too. She knew she had to offer to help. No matter what it cost her, she always offered to help. It’s what she did. ‘I’ll tell him,’ she said. ‘You tell me and I’ll tell him.’

  Sally frowned, then her brow cleared. ‘Really? That would work. I think it will, anyway. You’re a good friend, Grace.’

  Peter got into the office early. His programmer, Steve wasn’t a morning person. He wouldn’t rock up until gone nine-thirty, so things were nice and quiet.

  Peter rubbed his eyes. The whole thing with being cold at random times meant that he woke up in the middle of the night, either too hot or too cold. He stretched his arms over his head and felt the knots in his shoulders ride up. He needed to keep his mind on the job when he was here. This was his business. He didn’t want it to slide into neglect. First he needed caffeine. He grabbed his mug and left for the little kitchen.

  The ‘kitchen’ was merely a little galley with tea making facilities, a fridge and a microwave. As he got his coffee filters out of the cupboard, Peter noticed that there were fewer there than he’d expected. Again. He sighed. What was it with people nicking other people’s coffee? It wasn’t like it was that expensive to buy your own. He really should do something about it, but it would have to wait until another time.

  As the kettle boiled he let his thoughts wander back to Grace. The smell of fresh coffee reminded him of her. He smiled. Everything seemed to remind him of her these days. The harder he tried not to think about her, the more she popped up in his mind. He should be thinking about Sally, not Grace. Peter poured boiling water into the percolator and watched the water sink, slowly. Where Sally had swept over him like a wave of light and sound, being with Grace seemed tranquil and natural. It was as though she’d always been there in his life. But he loved Sally. Didn’t he?

  Sally had lied to him. She had always maintained that both her parents were dead. Her mother had fallen ill and died soon after her father’s suicide. That’s what she’d said. Only there her mother was. Large as life. He wondered if Glenda was some sort of imposter, an aunt perhaps, who was trying to get him to give her some money. It was possible, but then why hadn’t Sally mentioned her?

  He wondered what he really knew about Sally. He thought about the nurse’s comment about the blue sheets. Since then he’d noticed that many of Sally’s things had blue flowers on them. Even the crockery she’d brought with her when she moved in. If so, why had Sally said she loved roses?

  Peter sighed and walked slowly back to his office. If only he could talk to Sally, maybe she could explain. If only he could talk to someone who would understand. His mother would always believe the worst in Sally. Despite his reluctance to admit it, he knew that neither his mother nor his sister liked Sally. He had been too swept up in new found love to let it bother him, but over the last year, with Sally needing him and his family trying to support him, he’d come to see it more and more clearly. He couldn’t talk to them about Sally. They would never give her the benefit of the doubt.

  The only person who cared enough to understand was Grace. But he couldn’t talk to her either. He had to stay away from her. What had happened with her was a mistake. And now he couldn’t stop thinking about her and feeling a little kick of yearning every time. He couldn’t fall for someone else. He was married. Besides, Grace clearly didn’t want to talk to him either. The last time he’d called, she’d wanted nothing more than to get off the phone. He supposed he didn’t blame her. If she felt half as attracted to him as he was to her, it would be torture to know that they had no future together.

  He sighed. Grace would be the only one who would understand the bone numbing tiredness that he carried around with him. What possessed him? She had become a friend and he’d let his body control him. Now he’d lost her.

  In his pocket, his phone rang. He grabbed it, straight away, in case it was the hospital phoning to say something had happened to Sally. Every time it rang there was this split second of panic before he saw the caller ID.

  It was Grace.

  Peter relaxed, briefly, before his heart picked up again. Why was Grace calling? Despite his best intentions, the thought of talking to her lifted his heart. He hoped she wasn’t wanting to meet up. He didn’t think he could handle being so near her and not being able to reach across and touch her cheek. Grace seemed so sensible. She wouldn’t put either of them in such a position of temptation. He sat up straight, ready to handle anything and said ‘Hello Grace.’

  ‘Hi Peter. I … need to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Sure. What can I do for you?’ He cringed. He sounded like he was talking to client, not to a woman he cared about. All the things he wanted to say clamoured around in his head. He had to force himself to focus so that he could hear what she said.

  ‘It’s about Sally.’

  He hadn’t been expecting that. Of all the things he and Grace had to discuss, Sally wasn’t the first topic that came to mind. ‘What about Sally?’

  ‘It’s a bit awkward. Um …’ There was a pause, when she said ‘okay’ to someone in the background. ‘Peter, if you could talk to Sally again … what would you say to her?’

  ‘Grace, what’s going on? What are you talking about? Are you at the hospice?’ He was already on his feet, grabbing for his coat. ‘Has Sally woken up?’ Why hadn’t someone from the hospice called?

  ‘No. No. Nothing like that. It’s … weirder,’ said Grace. ‘I think we’ve found a way that you can talk to Sally from … wherever she is.’

  Peter stopped moving. ‘What are you talking about? Is this some sort of new brain imaging thing?’

  ‘No. More like …’ Grace gave an annoyed sounding click of the tongue. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I can explain over the phone. Can I meet you at the hospice tonight? Say around six-thirty? In Sally’s room.’

  ‘Grace—’

  ‘Please? Can you be there?’

  Peter sat back down, his coat crumpling on the floor. ‘Sure. I’ll be there.’

  ‘Great.’ She sounded relieved. ‘See you later.’ And she was gone.

  Peter stared at the red ‘call ended’ sign on the phone. What was all that about? He spent a moment frowning at it until he realised it wasn’t going to give him any answers. Sighing, he placed it on the table and returned to his computer. There was work to do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grace chatted to the security guard while she waited for Peter. He brought
her up to date on all the latest news. All the big and small bits of news that made up the community that lived and worked in the hospice.

  Normally, Grace would have listened, but all she could think about at the moment was the mission she was here to fulfil. Sally was waiting upstairs, although Grace didn’t put it past her to pop up at any point. Sally seemed to think that Grace’s nerves were because Peter might think she was crazy. Grace knew that being thought insane was only part of it. She had expected to have more time before she saw Peter again. She was only seeing him again this soon because his wife, whom they had both betrayed, was insisting on it. The irony didn’t escape her.

  She fidgeted with the zip on her coat, worrying it with her finger. It was hard, being on her guard all the time, in case she let slip something that revealed too much to Sally. She didn’t want to help Sally with this madness about her mother, but she felt so guilty, it was hard for her to refuse Sally’s plea for help. Besides, she was starting to like having Sally around. It was a long time since she’d had company at home and it was rather nice – even if Sally was slightly over the top at times.

  The guard was talking about how Captain Windell, who used to wear highly polished army boots with his pyjamas had passed away in his sleep, when Peter arrived, looking windswept and harassed.

  ‘Hello Mr Wesley,’ said the guard, displaying his uncanny knack of remembering people.

  Peter looked surprised to be greeted by name. ‘Er … hello.’ He looked at Grace. ‘What’s going on Grace?’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew each other,’ said the guard, raising his eyebrows quizzically at Grace.

  ‘Only through the hospice,’ said Grace firmly. ‘I need to talk to Mr Wesley about Mrs Wesley.’

  The guard’s expression normalised. ‘Ah.’ He glanced at Peter with sympathy. ‘Is everything okay with her? We haven’t had a call down or anything.’ He reached for the ledger to check for calls to the emergency services.