“Hi Maria, things aren’t so good I’m afraid, which is why I’ve not called. I’m in Cork.”
Campbell explained that his father had suffered a heart attack two weeks ago and he’d flown to Ireland to be with him. His father had died on Saturday. Campbell had been able to spend time with him, for which he was grateful, but now was bereft with grief and would need to spend time in Ireland to be with his mother and sisters. He promised to call her when he was back and assured her that their date would still happen. He told Maria that he needed something to look forward to and an evening with her would be ideal.
Maria put the phone down and felt awful because of the things she had conjured up about him in her mind over the past few weeks. Now she was sure Campbell was a good person and wanted to be there for him when he returned. Even though she hardly knew the man there was a definite connection between them. She called Samreen to tell her about Campbell. Samreen could hear sadness in Maria’s voice.
“I’m sure a night out with you will be the tonic he needs,” said Samreen reassuringly.
Maria woke Christopher to feed him. He sat in his chair slurping on mashed banana and custard whilst getting it everywhere. He looked at Maria and made her smile. He had food in his hair, up his nose and even in his eyes.
“You need a bath young man.”
Christopher clapped his hands, splatting more banana and custard everywhere.
After his bath she put him in his cot and tucked him in for the night. She cleared away the dishes, tidied the kitchen and then sat down in the lounge with the box full of paperwork she had brought home from the office.
She sighed as she began the task of prioritising what should be dealt with first. Then it started again.
“Ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh.”
“Oh no,” she said as she made her way to Christopher’s room.
She opened his door and there he was again, banging his head and then rocking from side to side.
“Ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh.”
She picked him up and cuddled him and he stopped straight away, but as soon as she put him down he was banging and rocking again.
“Ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh.”
She grabbed a thermometer from the first aid box and took his temperature. 37 degrees.
“Well you’ve got no temperature this time,” she muttered to herself.
He had shown no sign of cold or cough or anything else to make him uncomfortable. She rang her mother to check how he’d been. Claire told her that he’d been ‘fine and dandy’ all day
.
Chapter forty five
The Awareness
7.12pm
Tuesday 28th September
As Christopher was starting his latest bout of head banging and chanting, the Awareness was waking. It had been lying dormant for almost three weeks.
It was recalling what it had discovered last time it had been awake. It was focusing on the fact that it had been alive, that it had been killed and when it was alive it had been male.
More than ever it needed to be heard.
If it was to be heard, who would listen? It had no idea where it was. Was this heaven, hell or some kind of strange nirvana state? If this was heaven or hell it seemed a very lonely place.
It concentrated on its cache of memories and it started with the young woman. The young woman who was there when it died. Recalling the time she tumbled down the hill and how beautiful she was. The Awareness paused the memory and focused on her features. It admired what it saw and noticed the scar above her top lip. The Awareness let the memory play on to when they began to kiss. The kiss was one of the most intense memories it had. It was the one which heightened its emotions. It was the memory that reminded him that when he was alive he had been a man.
He needed to know more about who he once was. He was desperate to remember his family, his life and most of all his name. All he had was a selection of memories which he’d been able to store in order of how they’d happened. Memories of his childhood were at one end and the memory of dying was at the other. He needed to work through them and piece together their significance.
As he had developed over the past year his intelligence had improved. At first he was an Awareness and that was all he was. Something void of senses, emotion and intellect. Now he possessed these things and more, and was able to utilise them.
The emotion of love drove him and the emotion was strongest when he recalled time spent with the girl. Who was she? But before he could answer, he needed to focus on who he had once been.
He recalled the image of his reflection in the mirror. This was all he had to work with. He knew what he had looked like but very little else. He scrutinised the image of his reflection to see if there were any clues to his identity. The clothes he was wearing looked familiar and he knew they were significant. He looked at the peaked cap which was black with a blue band. He wore a blue shirt with short sleeves. He looked at his arms which were muscly. On top of the shirt he was wearing a black jacket which had no sleeves. There was writing across the front of the jacket. Words were something he was struggling with. His memories included lots of them, but they made no sense. He was like a four year old and needed pictures to accompany words to help him understand. The writing on the jacket was long and complicated. He knew he needed to fathom out what it meant.
Letting the memory of his reflection fade he hunted for different ones. He was searching for memories which had words. Written words and not spoken words. Working from the most recent first he scoured his cache.
One particular memory caught his attention. It was an image of a car speeding around a bend. It must have been viewed from the pavement. The car had flashing blue lights and a siren. He immediately recognised it as a police vehicle. He saw a word on the side of the car and the word looked familiar. He flipped back to the image of his reflection and back again to the car. He paused the image of the car to concentrate on what was written on it. Flipping back and forth between the two images he compared the two words. The word on the car looked similar to one of the words in the reflection, but he couldn’t work out what was different about them. They looked identical but at the same time completely opposite.
He was struggling to fathom out the difference when suddenly he understood. He found this was something that happened frequently. At first a memory would make no sense and then it would become crystal clear. The same thing had happened when he first recalled memories of speech. At first, the spoken word was difficult to understand, it was like hearing a foreign language, but once he’d found a key he could work out the meaning of the words he heard in his memories.
And now the same was happening when working out these two written words. They were one and the same. The only difference was that the word in the reflection was back to front because he was seeing its reflection while the one on the car was the right way round.
He flipped back to the memory of the car and understood that P-O-L-I-C-E must spell police. Flipping back to the memory of his reflection he worked out he was wearing a uniform with the word Police written across the front. He’d been a policeman.
He continued to trawl through memories and search for more which had images of words. Now he’d learnt one word which had proved to be such a valuable asset he was hungry to learn more. He scanned memory after memory until he had amassed enough of them to begin relearning words.
Like a child he started with basics. He recalled memories of advertisements which had a key word relating to the picture alongside. He studied a memory of a picture of a cat eating from a bowl. The wording below the image was ‘Your cat deserves the best’. As he analysed the words he was quickly able to link the word cat to the image of the animal eating from the bowl.
He did the same with other images which included key words. He recalled a memory of a dog and then a car and then a building. Quickly he was linking words to images. His ability to relearn skills was extraordinary. Once he
had grasped the basics it all came back. He was able to recall memories which included written words and then read and understand them as he’d been able when he was alive.
He recalled the image of himself in the mirror and read what was written on his jacket. Although the words were mirror image he worked out what they spelt.
Police Community Support Officer
He’d been a Community Support Officer. He admired the image of his reflection.
The memory he’d recalled was his first day as a PCSO. He had just changed into his uniform and was standing with his back to the clothes locker whilst looking at his reflection. His civvy clothes were in the locker and the grey metal door was slightly open.
He continued to take in the detail of the memory and at the same time he recalled an emotion which he’d not felt since he’d been alive. It was different to love and fear and hate, which were three he’d experienced since he’d died. This new emotion was pride. Seeing himself in the reflection of the mirror made him feel proud.
He continued to admire his reflection when something caught his attention. Behind him something was written on the locker door. Two words had been jotted down in pen on a small piece of white paper which had been slipped into a little holder on the locker door. The words were very small and hard to make out. He focused his attention on the piece of paper which was about the size of two postage stamps. He concentrated on the two words. The first one was short and the second one was longer. The small word was written above the larger word. With his attention fully focused on the small word it became clearer, but still he couldn’t decipher what it said. It wasn’t because it was a word he didn’t know, it was just far too small to read.
So, if he’d opened the locker door, there must be a memory in his cache of the door, not seen as a reflection, but as seen first-hand. His accumulation of memoires had now become huge and he’d been able to archive significant memories and recall them with ease. But he wasn’t so adept at recalling ones which were less substantial. He had an inkling that these two words were important. He sorted through his hoard of memories as quickly as he could. His attention was beginning to wane as recalling and disregarding memories was draining his energy. He was getting nowhere.
He flipped back to the memory of his reflection and slowly ran it in reverse, which was another thing he’d learnt. With all his strength he played the memory backwards and in slow motion. Slowly his reflection and the mirror were moving to the right. He changed the aspect of the image until he was recalling a memory of when he had been facing the locker door.
The door was slightly ajar. He now had a clear view of the two words on the piece of paper. He could make out the first word. It was made up of three letters and neatly written. With all his strength focused on the one small word he was struggling to remain cognisant. Suddenly, as if a light had been switched on he found renewed energy and worked hard to make sense of the small three letter word. And then it became clear.
B-E-N
The small word spelt Ben. Ben instantly meant something. It was such a small word but it was so significant. Now that he’d worked out the small word he toiled on the larger word beneath. This word was made up of six letters. Although the second word was twice as long, he found it easier to understand. The six letters were laid in front of him in the memory.
W-A-L-K-E-R
The second word spelt Walker. He put the two together. Ben Walker. He focused on them over and over. Ben Walker - Ben Walker - Ben Walker - Ben Walker - Ben Walker - Ben Walker - Ben Walker.
This was when the penny dropped. He now knew his name. Now that he could remember it he wondered how he ever could have forgotten.
Ben Walker began to fade. He felt his strength ebbing away. A feeling he was becoming used to. Luckily for Ben, he still had no concept of time, so the next time he would wake from the dormant state he would be unaware of how long he’d been inactive and would be able to carry on from where he left off.
Chapter forty six
Maria Jameson’s flat
8.45pm
Tuesday 28th September
Christopher had been head banging and chanting nonstop for over an hour and a half. This was the longest he’d ever done this without a break. It was also the most intense his head banging had been. His pillow was soaked in saliva and splattered with blood as the chanting was forcing him to dribble furiously and had caused his nose to bleed. Maria was crying. She could not get him to stop. She’d picked him up, carried him in her arms around her flat, but still he continued. Worn out, she placed him back in his cot and watched him through teary eyes feeling totally helpless. She grabbed her phone to call her mother.
She remembered what Campbell had suggested. She selected the movie app on her phone and filmed Christopher head banging, rolling from side to side and chanting “Ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh.” She filmed him for three minutes until the camera on her phone automatically stopped.
She called her mother who stopped what she was doing and made her way over to Maria’s.
Claire had never seen Christopher’s head banging as it had always happened when she wasn’t around. Ten minutes later she was at Maria’s flat.
Maria opened the door and Claire saw her tired and bloodshot eyes. What was left of her mascara had run and smudged down her cheeks. Her hair was a mess and she was distraught.
Claire hung her coat on a peg near the door and could hear Christopher chanting, even though his bedroom was at the other side of the flat.
“Is that Christopher?”
Maria nodded and threw her arms around her mother and cried onto her shoulder.
They stood together in his room. Claire had not seen or heard anything like it. Christopher was face down in his cot and banging his head so violently that his body from his waist up arched upward and crashed back down onto his mattress. Each time his head hit the pillow he let out an “ughh” which accompanied the dull thud as his head crashed down. He would briefly stop and then roll from side to side crashing into the wooden bars of the cot. After another brief pause he went back to banging his head along with his strange chanting. “Ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh ughh.”
Claire looked at her daughter and was lost for words.
Eventually Claire spoke.
“He’s fast asleep, he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”
Maria nodded, “I’ve tried to wake him, but I can’t.”
They stood in silence as he continued to crash and bang in his cot.
His banging began to slow and his chanting became quieter and after a few minutes he stopped and was sleeping normally.
Maria went to the airing cupboard in the corner of his room and took out a clean pillow. She gently lifted his head, pulled out the blood and saliva soaked pillow and replaced it with the fresh one. Tomorrow she would replace his sheets and covers, but right now she just wanted him to sleep and didn’t want to risk the chance of waking him.
They watched him without speaking and then quietly crept out of his room shutting the door behind them.
“What do you think it is?” asked Claire.
Maria shook her head as she sat on the arm of her sofa.
“I’ll take him back to the doctor, but that stupid Doctor Marsh will only say he has a cold, or a temperature or something trivial.”
“Not this time she won’t as I’ll be coming with you, that’s if you don’t mind.”
Maria looked at her mother and reached for her hand.
“I would like you to be there mum, thank you.”
“Why don’t you ask to see a different doctor?”
“Yes, I will. Dr Marsh isn’t even my regular doctor, I think it’s just bad luck I’ve seen her both times.”
Claire put her arm around Maria. “Would you like me to stay tonight?”
Maria nodded and smiled weakly. “Thank you mum.”
Claire slept on the sofa and the rest of the night was uneventful. Apart from gently snoring, Christopher made no no
ise.
Claire was the first to wake up. She made herself coffee and crept back to the lounge as quietly as possible. It was six thirty and she felt tired after an awkward night on the sofa. Ten minutes later Maria popped her head around the door and smiled at her mother. Maria’s face was smudged with mascara and her eyes were red.
“Sit down and I’ll make you coffee.”
Maria sat on the sofa and Claire went to the kitchen.
Claire returned with the coffee.
“How is he now?” asked Claire.
“He’s sound asleep. I’ve never known him go this long without waking up, he must be exhausted.”
They discussed what had happened the night before and drank their coffee.
“Listen, he’s awake,” said Maria.
They listened as Christopher was cooing and chatting to himself as if nothing had happened. Claire and Maria went into his room together and as soon as he saw them his face lit up with a washing line smile.
Maria picked him up. His little baby grow was spattered with dry blood from his nose and his face was dirty.
She carried him into the lounge, placed him in his baby walker and gave him Misty. He seemed his normal happy self. Claire couldn’t believe how normal he was compared to last night.
Maria was getting ready for her second day back at work when Claire spoke.
“You’re not going in today are you?”
Claire was nervous about looking after Christopher after what she’d seen last night.
“I’m sure he’ll be absolutely fine mum.”
Claire was concerned.
“Look, if there’re any problems call me and I’ll come home.”
Maria went to her room to get changed.
“What if you’re in a meeting or something and I can’t get you?” called her mother.
“My mobile will be on and I’ll warn people I may get a call.”
Claire sat on the settee.
“Please don’t worry mum, he’ll be fine. I’ll ring the surgery from work and let you know when the appointment is.”
The Hill - Ben’s Story (Book One).: A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book One). Page 18