Guilt Trip

by Maggy Farrell

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s all over now.”

  And then the darkness took me.

  <><><>

  I was later told that Luke had saved my life. Taking his turn at checking the water levels as the rain started, he was there to witness the dam break, the pressure of so much water pressing against the corrugated metal sheet finally dislodging one of the poles holding it in position. If he hadn’t been there, and if he hadn’t had the skill to mend it quickly, the water would have kept on crashing down on me, filling my mouth and nose. And, like Mum, I could have drowned.

  It was early evening, in hospital, and I was finally awake, and though battered and bruised, deemed fit enough to have visitors. Dad was sitting on the edge of the bed, filling me in on the details of the accident.

  Poor Dad. He’d witnessed the whole thing from below, his daughter literally hanging in the balance between life and death, while he was powerless to do anything at all, but watch.

  “I could have lost you, Mel!” he wept by my bedside, as he had wept once before.

  I reached out a feeble hand. “It’s okay,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and painful from all that choking, “I’m still here.”

  But Dad could not be consoled, one accident blurring into the other, so that his heart was bursting with relief for a daughter saved, and fresh grief for a wife who had died almost a year ago.

  But then there was a discreet cough from outside the curtain, and Luke came in, running his hand through his hair, apologising for interrupting us.

  “Not at all,” said Dad, hurriedly wiping his eyes and then shaking Luke’s hand warmly. “If it wasn’t for you…”

  “How are you doing?” he asked me, his expression anxious.

  “I’m okay…” I croaked, “thanks to you…” I gave him a shy smile: “My knight in shining armour.”

  Luke rolled his eyes and laughed.

  Then Dad sat back down on the side of my bed. “I’m just telling her what happened,” he explained to Luke, who hovered by my feet, listening. “Well - by the time they’d managed to winch me up you’d already been carried to a tent, stripped of your wet things and wrapped in a blanket -”

  “Stripped?” I looked past Dad at Luke, standing behind him. He widened his eyes at me in mock-horror. I giggled.

  “Yes - otherwise you might have got hypothermia,” Dad tutted at me, oblivious of Luke’s expression. “And then the air rescue people came and whisked you off here.”

  “So how long will I be in here, then?” I asked.

  “Oh, just overnight. Just so they can keep an eye on you. You should be back with us tomorrow. In fact… I’ll just…” Dad had spotted a nurse walking down the corridor and hurried off to ask her about what time he should collect me.

  Left alone, Luke and I were silent for a moment.

  I looked at him, the laughter suddenly gone, remembering him waiting anxiously for me on the gantry, the overwhelming feeling of relief I’d experienced when he’d taken me into his arms.

  Tears began to well up.

  “I’m sorry,” I sniffed, as they rolled, unchecked, down the sides of my face into my hair, “… about everything.”

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “I mean… about … you know… the drinking… and then on the walk…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, coming forward to sit next to me, clearly anxious that I didn’t distress myself.

  He reached out, taking my hand, and squeezing it in both of his. Then he lifted it to his mouth and pressed it against his lips. “That’s all in the past now. All done with. I just thank God you’re still alive.”

  20

  Skidding.

  Plunging.

  Down, into the black water.

  “Help me!” The scream rings out, a desperate cry, but whose it is I can no longer tell.

  I look up at the open window to find him. And there he is: my saviour. Luke.

  But the frame somehow changes from a car window to a gaping limestone-edged hole. Luke is looking down into it, his arm extended.

  I smile, reaching up to him. But there is something in his hand. He lifts it up to show me. A silver necklace, which divides into strands at the end. As the music starts, he pulls one of them. My arm moves. He pulls another. My leg moves. And so he begins to pull each strand in a pattern until I am whirling to the music, dancing, as drops of refreshing water rain down on me.

  21

  It was late afternoon when I finally woke up, my stomach growling with hunger.

  The night before, in hospital, thanks to all the painkillers they’d pumped into me, I’d had my first dreamless sleep in ten months. And yet I’d still felt tired the morning after. And by the time I’d been discharged and Dad had driven me back to the pub, I was yawning again.

  So, instead of feeding me lunch, Dad had insisted on marching me straight to my room, tucking me up in bed and sitting by me, reading his geology books, while I drifted off to sleep. And to dream.

  He wasn’t here now though. I checked my phone for a message, but it needed charging.

  Tutting, I shoved on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and headed off to the bathroom to use the loo and clean my teeth, too hungry to care about the inevitable déjà vu.

  Back in my room I sat in front of the mirror. My hair was a complete mess after all the water yesterday and then a day in bed. But I was too famished to waste time washing it now. I’d just put it up in a ponytail.

  Ignoring the poster when its reflection appeared, I reached to select a hair bobble. But when I turned back to the mirror, I froze.

  It was my hair. Just a flash really. A momentary image in the glass. But in that split second, it appeared to be a shade darker.

  Dark hair with thick, purple stripes.

  Shivering, I jammed my feet into my shoes and left the room as quickly as possible, not even bothering with make-up, and shoving my hair into the bobble as I ran.

  What was going on? None of it made any sense to me. But then, who’s to say the outpourings of a broken mind should make sense? Maybe, if I slipped any further into insanity, I’d start to see a kaleidoscope of unrelated images. A whole technicoloured dreamscape.

  I raced down to Dad’s room, but, pausing before his door, I swallowed, pulling myself together. I couldn’t let him see me like this: his daughter, descending into madness. Especially now that my recent accident had opened up old wounds so that they were even more raw and painful for him. So, as I knocked on his door, I pulled my face into its usual fake smile.

  But I needn’t have bothered: Dad wasn’t in his room. Maybe he’d gone downstairs for a late lunch or something. I hesitated, not really wanting to venture into the bar looking such a mess; but soon enough my hunger won out again, and I headed off to find him.

  But he wasn’t downstairs either. In fact the place was empty.

  ‘Looking for your Dad?” Luke appeared behind the bar.

  I smiled self-consciously, cursing myself for not making more of an effort with my appearance after all. But then Luke had already seen me like this when he visited me in hospital. When he’d sat at my bedside, grasping my hand and thanking God that I’d survived.

  “He went off with his camera somewhere while you were sleeping,” he shrugged. “But he said he wouldn’t be long.”

  I lingered in the doorway, unsure what to do next.

  “How are you feeling now?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I shrugged. “A bit hungry.”

  “Well then, you’ve come to the right place,” he said. “Fancy a sandwich? Honey-cured ham? Roast beef? Ploughman’s?”

  “You choose,” I smiled, relieved, moving further into the room and sitting down on a stool at the end of the bar.

  Luke picked up the remote control and put on some music to keep me company while he went off to the kitchen, and five minutes later I was tucking into a ham sandwich and a mug of tea while Luke pottered around me, shining glasses and wiping down surfaces ready for the e
arly evening customers.

  The music was mostly middle of the road hits with a few old rock songs thrown in for good measure - the type of stuff that everyone knows and no one can take offense at. I started humming along, singing the odd line.

  Then a song I really liked came on, and, seeing me singing, Luke stuck his hand out, asking me to dance. Suddenly gauche, I refused. I mean, I didn’t know how to dance. Not like that.

  “Is it the bruises?” he asked anxiously.

  “No, no - I’m fine,” I assured him.

  “So dance,” he said, holding his hand out to me again, urging me to get up.

  And so, finally, I took his hand and we danced, a nervous, clumsy, make-it-up-as-you-go-along sort of dance, like people do at weddings, where we came together and apart and then he span me round and round under his arm. Like dancing with your Dad.

  But then the music changed and a faster song came on, something more edgy with a stronger beat. Luke left go of my hand, so I returned to my seat, but actually he was just reaching for the remote control to turn the volume up. Then he stood, dramatically tall and straight, raising his eyebrow and extending his arm out slowly to me, in an exaggerated way. Giggling, I took it, at which he immediately yanked me in to him, clasping me tight, leading me in a ridiculous tango-like step down the room.

  And even though it was ludicrous and comical, it set my heart racing. We were so close. So together. As one. And even though I squealed that he would drop me, in truth I surrendered myself completely to Luke’s control, to his strong arms as they moved me, steered me, and flung me back in the customary tango manner.

  But as we continued up and down the room, the mood gradually became more serious, more intense. Staring into each other’s eyes, the laughter died away on our lips.

  And then, without warning, he began to spin me away from him, winding me back in at the last moment, sharply, like the crack of a whip, pulling me in tight, our eyes locked.

  It was exhilarating. Thrilling. Electricity coursed through my whole body.

  And so we came to the final dip, Luke tipping me backwards suddenly as the music ended, and then bringing me back up - oh so slowly - towards him, until we were standing facing each other in the silent bar with nobody but the foxes and their small glass eyes to see us.

  Time stood still. The noise from the market outside seemed to fade away. It was as if we were in our own bubble, shut off from the rest of the world.

  Very gently, he reached out and moved a stray lock of hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. And, without taking his eye from me, his hand lightly traced the curve of my face down to my chin. Studying my eyes to make sure that I was okay with this, he gently tilted my chin up ever so slightly as his lips moved towards mine.

  But then, suddenly, the bubble burst and we were standing apart, like strangers, in the middle of the floor, as a group of four or five people bustled noisily into the bar. And Luke was welcoming them in and taking their drinks orders as I stood there in a daze.

  He must have heard them coming, but I hadn’t, too lost in the moment. In the kiss. The kiss that never was. The almost kiss.

  Reluctantly, I sat back down at the bar while he poured his customers their drinks. Then he brought me a juice and himself a beer and came and stood opposite me, the bar between us. He was only a few feet away from me, a safe, respectable distance, but it might as well have been a million miles. But I guessed that was the way it had to be, in public, what with our age difference and everything.

  “I should go,” I said, unwillingly, grimacing when I spotted myself in the mirror behind him. No make-up, hair shoved into a ponytail, crumpled old T-shirt.

  “No, stay. You look pretty,” he whispered. “Cute.”

  I giggled.

  But then another customer arrived, so he had to leave me again.

  I watched him as he served the man, chatting amicably as always; and then he left through the door behind the bar. But he was soon back, with a local newspaper and a pen, which he placed on the bar in front of me.

  The crossword? He wanted to do the crossword?

  We had just shared my most romantic moment ever - almost kissing - and now he wanted to do the daily crossword?

  I looked at him, aghast, but he just smiled; so, feeling a little silly, I picked up the pen and read out the first clue.

  “Let me see…” Luke leaned over the bar towards me, his face coming teasingly close to mine. And then I realised. He didn’t want to do the puzzle at all. It was just an excuse to be near me.

  And so it continued. Now and again Luke had to go off to serve someone, but he always returned, leaning in again as if studying the clues, his face - and lips - tantalisingly close to mine. And each time, I tingled anew at his nearness, with deliciously agonising anticipation, wondering when we would get the opportunity to finish that kiss.

  But it was because of this extreme closeness, our heads almost touching, that he happened to hear me absentmindedly humming to myself.

  “Stop it!” he hissed, his expression suddenly dark with fury. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” I was totally taken aback.

  “You know…” He looked at me as if I was his enemy, taking a step backwards, away from me, so that a chasm seemed to open between us.

  “What?” I couldn’t understand why he was suddenly acting this way.

  “That song,” he snarled, just low enough not to be overheard.

  “What song?”

  “That song you were humming.”

  “What song?” I hadn’t even realised that I had been humming.

  “Why were you humming that song?”

  “What song?” I repeated.

  “Just…” He shut his eyes for a second as if to calm himself down, and then he reached over the bar and quickly squeezed my hand. “Just… don’t, okay?”

  I looked at him, tears stinging my eyes. His anger had been so sudden, erupting out of nowhere. Everything between us destroyed in an instant.

  But at my expression, his stern face dissolved into concern. “Sorry, Mel,” he whispered, shaking his head at himself. “It’s not your fault. It was just…”

  But then a customer called over to him and he went off, leaving me with no idea about what had just happened.

  “Melissa?” Dad was back, and surprised to see me up and about. He kissed me on the top of my head. “Hi, honeybee,” he said, batting my ponytail playfully and smiling at me. “You look like you did when you were twelve.”

  “Thanks, Dad!” I rolled my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong.

  “No - I mean - you look cute,” he said.

  “Anyway,” he placed his camera equipment on the bar, and signalled to Luke for a drink, “how are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “A few aches and pains - that’s all.”

  “Good,” he said, “because I need to know you’ll be alright if I go out tonight.”

  “Dad!” I couldn’t believe he was leaving me again. We were supposed to be spending time together.

  “But it’s Sunday: the Spiritualist meeting,” he said. “I have to go. Especially now...”

  “But why?”

  “Because I have to that’s all,” he said. He fiddled with a coaster on the bar in front of him. “Because I need to.”

  Poor Dad. The agony of loss was all too real to me right then, and it suddenly struck me with full force just how much he must be going through.

  I patted his hand. “You go and see her,” I said, gently. “I’ll be alright.”

  22

  By six o’clock, Dad was in his room getting ready to go out again and I was a floor above, the door carefully locked, taking a long, hot shower, easing my battered body.

  Dad had said I could go with him to the Spiritualist meeting if I wanted, then we could get some chips or something on the way back, but I’d refused. For one thing, I didn’t believe in it. All that afterlife stuff was just a load of old rubbish.
I mean, fair enough if Dad felt he had to try to contact Mum - but there was no way that he would succeed. The dead were just that: dead.

  And for another, I was desperate to see Luke again to make sure that everything was fine between us. To apologise for whatever it was I’d done to upset him. Okay, so he’d obviously got over it, as he’d given me a sorrowful smile as I’d left the bar with Dad; but I still needed to make sure. To make it all right again. Like before. Like when he’d nearly kissed me.

  And so, my mind wandered to happier places: Luke, dancing with me, twirling me round and round, winding me in and out of his arms, dipping me backwards… and pulling me slowly up towards him. And that reminded me of my most recent dream: Luke, the puppet-master, plucking the strings, controlling my arms and legs, whirling me round to the music.

  I smiled to myself: funny that I’d dreamed that before we’d ever danced.

  I slathered conditioner into my hair, humming to myself happily as I imagined how it could be that evening.

  But then I became conscious of the tune I was humming. Where’d I got that one from? It was something I’d heard recently. But where?

  I kept on humming the same few haunting bars over and over, trying to remember.

  And then I realised: it was the song in my dream. The music that I, the puppet, was dancing to. Now why had my subconscious chosen that old song? It wasn’t like it was my type of music or anything. It was just something I knew from the radio. Just something I’d picked up.

  But then it clicked into place.

  I knew what it was. Of course I did.

  It was Nirvana.

  So is that why the song had turned up in my dream? Because, after the imaginary poster and the T-shirt in the market, that band was on my mind?

  But wait… I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel and stepped out into the room, sitting down on the edge of the bath. Was that the tune I’d been humming in the bar, then? The one that had made Luke so incredibly angry?

  I’d never seen anyone that incensed before. Never. Except for one time… That time on the fells when he’d ordered me not to say her name.