A Cleansing of Souls (18 page)

“Michael Parrish – new admission. He’s pretty settled, isolating himself for most of the day though, spending long periods in his room. He seems quite low actually. We got his old notes up. His only other admission was about thirty years ago, when he was seventeen. Apparently, he was admitted back then after he was found at home with his sister who had been dead for about four days. It turned out she’d taken an overdose. Anyway, he was in hospital for nearly a year then. Self-harmed a couple of times – that’s where the scars on his hands come from - diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. He doesn’t seem any problem. I phoned his wife today and told her he was here and that we’ll be looking to transfer him to a hospital closer to where he lives within the next few days.”

“Why is he in?” asked one of the night staff.

“Looks like he had the shit beaten out of him,” said John. “He’s a bit bizarre. No problem though. Nice bloke, actually. He won’t be here too long, I wouldn’t have thought.”

Handover finished, John went home, drank half a bottle of whisky and slept on the floor of his rented room.

So, at seventeen years of age, Michael had held his dead sister in his arms for nearly four days. During that time, he had neither cried nor moaned. He had just held her and gazed at her. And her eyes had been wide open, staring into his – innocence into innocence. He had spoken not a word to her, but she had understood him. He had touched her mind and her soul, her very being. He hadn’t noticed how she had grown cold and stiff and odorous in his arms for he had seen only the light surrounding her.

Four days of death. And from it, he had brought forth life. Things that had been strange to him up until that point, incongruous and abstract, now took on a calm clarity. Life came into focus for him during those four days. And as his mind had tried to make sense of it all, his soul
had just gloried in the freedom, reigning over consciousness and form.

And during that time, as he had held his angel to him, his body, his primitive, wretched body had betrayed him. It had inflamed him with a sexual arousal that would always come back to taunt him - her body next to his. He had fought it with his mind and overcome it with his tears. It was from that moment that he chose to follow the path of angels.

When he was found with his dead sister by the landlady, a smile had been etched across his face, a cheek little boy’s smile that would haunt that woman forever. The ambulance and the police had come to the scene and Michael, still smiling, was taken to the nearest psychiatric hospital for assessment. And all he had said to the doctor on admission was ‘I have cleansed a soul. I have cleansed a soul.’

We find Michael now lying on his bed, staring at the high ceiling of his room, thinking of Jennifer. Why had they taken her? She had come back and they had taken her
again - but no more. A life of pain and torment is drawing to a close. That is all we have here.

That is truly all we have.

When Christine was informed that Michael was safe and that he was in hospital, she cried. Relief, fear and anger all merged into one and the tears just fell. It had been five weeks of frustration and bitter moments. And now it was over. He had been found. She didn’t know whether she wanted to hug him or kill him, so swung the poles of her emotion at this time. It had been his absence that made her realise how much she really loved him.

On calming a little, she went upstairs to tell
her daughter.

Laura was lying on her bed looking at the patterns on the ceiling. Her wide eyes stared at the brightness of the light above, losing themselves in the molten glow of the bulb. When she heard the door open, she curled herself up and faced the wall, closing her eyes tight.

Christine sat down gently on the bed and leaned across to whisper into her daughter’s ear.

“Daddy’s okay. I’ve just had a phone call. He’s okay. He’s in hospital because he isn’t very well. He’s very tired.”

Laura was silent. Her heart pounded fast. daddy I need you, I need you now.

“Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to try to speak to him and maybe go up and see him. And then we can get back to how things used to be.”

Laura thought this over in her head. ‘Mummy’s going to see daddy’.

“Can I see daddy too?” she asked, her voice cracked and straining. She had barely spoken a word since he had left.

“I think it’s best if I go on my own first, just to see how he is, and then after that I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Laura thought some more.

“Who will be looking after me when you’re with daddy?”

“Uncle Ron will look after you, Laura. I haven’t asked him yet, but I’m sure he will.”

Uncle Ron. Laura sighed so deep. Seven years old. Uncle Ron. She knew there were so many different worlds. She found new ones every day. But now, right now, words didn’t interest her. Life didn’t interest her - to be so old so young. Uncle Ron.

Michael lay in his bed that night
knowing that the time was near. He was acting only on instruction now. He played no part other than that which a puppet might play. He was just waiting for the next move, the final move. The medication was easy to conceal. He hadn’t really taken any since he had been in apart from the sleeping tablet that was foisted upon him on his first night on the ward. The medication they wanted to give him would have done him no good. It would merely have served to blur the one voice that led him on his way through those last few days.

Michael thought of that photograph in his study drawer. So often he had looked at it, gazed at it as the face merged from Jennifer to Laura and back again - from beautiful child to beautiful child. He saw that photograph now. The image was there before him and he smiled to himself as the night staff shone the torch into his room to check on him. In the morning they would say he had been ‘smiling inappropriately.’ Had he heard that, he would have smiled even more.

He thought of Laura and of the last time he saw her, would ever see her. He remembered how he and Christine had been to the park that summer evening to watch an outdoor version of Othello whilst Ron looked after Laura. He remembered how when they got back home he heard Ron and Christine talking in the kitchen. They had thought he was upstairs. He could remember the very words, the whole conversation, that spark that had set him on fire.

“Do you think he knows?”

“He can’t know. There’s no way he could.”

“Ron. He’s not stupid.”

“He would have said something before now. We mustn’t let it come between us.”

“There is no ‘us’ Ron. Not any more.”

“As you wish. As you wish.”

A pause.

“Laura will always be a reminder of what we once had, Chris. Laura will always be mine.”

Silence.

And he remembered how he had gone up to Laura’s room and just sat on the floor, looking at her lying there, trying in vain to see Jennifer in her. And he had cried then, silently, cried tears of pain for his sister and for this little girl that he loved so much and whom he knew from that moment he would never see again - and those two in the kitchen talking still.

The night falls upon Big Town and Michael watches the moon. He sees it rise and sees it sink. And the sun
eases into the red of the morning sky and sets him on fire. It blazes into him, burning him, cleansing him, filling him with the fiercest heat you ever felt.

And he drops to the floor.

And he weeps.

It is a forest fire, I tell you. A forest fire……….

Sandy and Tom woke late on Monday morning. She had booked two weeks off from work and was looking forward to spending every minute of that time with Tom. She still felt sometimes though as if she barely knew him. He would sit quietly for long moments, just staring at the Beautiful Guitar or he would stand at the window gazing into the light and into the darkness. But two weeks together
would bring her closer to him.

The telephone broke the peace of the morning. Sandy reached over to answer it, brushing Tom’s chest slightly with her arm as she did so.

“Hello?” she said, and then “Dad? What is it?”

After a few moments, she told him she’d come round to the shop as soon as she could and hung up the receiver.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tom, sleepily, tuning his eyes to the day.

“It’s dad. I’ve got to go over there. I’ll see you later.”

“Hang on. I’ll come with you,” said Tom. “What’s happened anyway? What’s the problem?”

But Sandy wasn’t listening. She was trying to do her boots up and thinking frantically of what she was going to find when she got to the shop.

“Come on, Tom. We’ve got to go. Now.”

There was a sense of urgency in her voice that Tom did not question. He dutifully dressed and within minutes they were both rushing down the stone steps of the underground station.

The train was packed with commuters and the air was thick with mistrust. People squeezed into one another, their bodies touching in mute disgust as the train rocked and rolled its way across Big Town.

Once off the train, Tom and Sandy ran down the street to the shop. As they neared it, Sandy in front now, they saw a Police car parked outside in the road. Tom was some yards behind Sandy, his lungs finally avenging themselves of the burden of tar they had been forced to carry. He eventually arrived at the shop, taking in huge gulps of air, stooping over, his hands on his knees. Meanwhile, Sandy was in the process of explaining to the policeman who she and Tom were and they were then allowed to enter the shop via the gap where the glass front door had been.

The shop was a complete shambles. Tins rolled on the floor and newspapers had been torn into pieces and thrown about like so much confetti. Cereal packets had been burst open and their contents sprayed about in erratic circles. The display cabinet beneath the counter had been smashed, broken glass flashing and gleaming between sweets, stamps and packets of football stickers. The tall fridge had been pulled over and milk poured from the milk bottles like pale, creamy blood, oozing around the cans and the cartons and the debris. The top of the floor freezer containing lollies and ice creams had been shattered; slivers of glass mingling sly and unnoticed with the ice. Everything from the shelves had been swept onto the floor by clawing hands. Even the faded, knee high statuette of the little blind girl and her dog had been kicked to the ground, revealing just a few old coins and a used condom.

Tom looked around at the destruction, the noise of car engines passing by slowly outside the only sound to be heard. When he saw the broken statuette of the blind girl, he felt strangely satisfied. He had always hated those things but had never really been able to explain why. And the condom had been a surreal touch that he momentarily appreciated. That feeling of appreciation left him though when he looked around at the walls.

For on every wall there were long, straggly letters in red paint forming expressions of hatred, dripping and flowing as if the very walls themselves had bled them into existence. We have all seen those words of ignorance and cowardice and fear. We have seen them on subways, on bus shelters, in lifts, in schoolbooks, newspapers and on the gravestones of the dead.

Hatred - we grieve for you.

As Tom and Sandy looked about them, alone and separate, she in shock and he no more than curious, Sandy’s father appeared in the doorway behind the broken counter. He seemed so small and so frail and so very far away. Sandy moved slowly towards him, stepping through the chaos at her feet. She eased her way around the back of the counter and, reaching out for her father, held him to her chest. She looked down upon his head and wondered at him as he shook there in her arms. He was so very small yet larger than you, so much larger than me.

“Are you all right, dad?” she asked him.

He looked up at her, his eyes pulsing and twitching. He smiled sadly and nodded.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No,” he replied, continuing to hold his wavering smile.

He saw Tom at the front of the shop and lifted a thin arm in acknowledgement.

“Tom,” he called, so quietly that not even Sandy heard him. “You like my shop?”

Tom saw his lips move but that was all. And he could sense the tears that were about to fall from those large and soulful eyes.

“Is mum okay?” asked Sandy, though she knew deep down that her mother would always be all right. From an early age she had formed the impression that her mother would live forever.

Her father frowned. It was as if a sudden pain had taken hold of him from within.

“Your mother is upstairs. I have not wanted to disturb her. Maybe you can be able to see her. I think she would like for you to.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and moved away from the door to let her go by him and up the stairs.

Sandy found her mother sitting on the floor in the lounge. As far as she could tell, after a cursory glance, the flat itself seemed to have been undamaged. She felt her heart beat faster and she shivered a little as she imagined her mother and father up here, listening to the sounds of destruction as it happened, listening to the laughter and the anger and the destruction, wondering if it would lead up the stairs to where they lay shaking.

Her mother was murmuring words that appeared somewhat incoherent and strange to Sandy, eyes closed, arms held in peace upon her lap. A passive strength pervaded her. She was praying. And Sandy knew that her mother would have been praying not for her own safety, nor even for the safety of her husband. She would be praying for the souls of the people that had wrecked the shop, the people that had left her husband terrified that morning. She would be praying for them.

Sandy made a cup of tea. She brought it in and placed it on the floor by the peaceful figure of her mother who was in such a holy state of grace, she barely noticed the presence of her own daughter.

Downstairs in the shop, Tom had begun helping to clear things up. Sandy’s father had taken some bin bags from the storeroom and together they filled them with the soggy newspapers and the broken cartons.

The policeman left. There was nothing further to be done. They would log it. These things happen, unfortunately, Sir. These things happen.

When Sandy returned to join Tom and her father, she was subdued and thoughtful. Her father looked at her, his eyes wide and questioning.

“She’s fine,” said Sandy, meeting his gaze with the eyes of her mother.

“Tom,” she said, moving over to him now, “I’m going to stay with mum and dad tonight. I need to be with them. I’m worried about dad.”

Tom glanced at the small man who was struggling to tie up one of the full bin bags. “No problem,” he said, continuing to fill his own bag.

“I’d just be wondering how they were all the time if I was at home and they were here. It would just be for tonight.”

Tom laid the heaving bin bag to rest for a moment and spoke to her.

“You don’t have to justify it,” he said gently. “I’d be the same.”

And for a brief moment, he saw his mother and father before him and guilt assailed him with a sickening rush of vengeance. And he felt shame. Just for a moment - shame.

“Could you do me a favour, Tom? Could you just pop back to the flat and get my nightdress and a few blankets. Dad sold my bed when I moved out. Do you mind?"

“But what about all this?” he added, eyeing the still shaken interior of the shop. “Don’t you want a hand with it?”

“Tom, you go,” interjected Sandy’s father, who had moved unseen to stand beside them. “Come back when it is nice again.” He smiled as best as he was able. “You are a good man, my boy. A good man.”

Tom filled the rest of the bin bag and put it outside the front door before saying goodbye to Sandy and her father. He stepped out into the light feeling a terrible loneliness. His heart beat fast and hard and he felt a panic within him though he did not know from where it had emanated. Somewhere something out of his control was happening. It was as if things were moving again now, moving on as if the real world had caught up with him at last, followed him and tracked him down. And now it was surely ready to snare its prey.

Fate gets you in the end. Through the powers of coincidence, timing and cynicism it gets you.

When Tom arrived back at the flat, he found the door to be slightly open. He thought nothing of it at first and just went in. It was only when he opened the door to the lounge that he froze. He was just going to get a quick drink before gathering together Sandy’s things. The stereo was gone. There was just a gap where it ought to have been. He walked over to the corner of the room and stared at the four small indentations in the carpet.

             
And as he stood there, it became clear to him what had happened. An overwhelming feeling of coldness consumed him. His throat tightened and it was a struggle even to breathe. He dare not turn. His heart beat now not within his chest, but within his mind. He tried in vain to concentrate, to rise above the beat of his own heart, but that thumping sound filled the entire room now. At last, after a minute or an hour, he turned, still dizzy on his feet.

It is fear, just fear.

And then comes a moment of relaxation. So the television and video were gone as well. Ah well. He breathed slower now, regaining control of his senses. He went into each room of the flat, fear coming and going, relief following sharp upon its heels. Finally, he came back to the lounge and stood there. Nobody else was in the flat. They had been and gone. He was alone.

And then emotion indescribable struck him like a wrecking ball, crashing through the window taking him with it.

The chink of light was gone; that one unique candle of hope and aspiration that had always burned within him, that indefinable, inexplicable object of hope.

That escape route from a turgid life, the one, single element that kept him from thinking of Little Norman twenty-four hours a day. It was gone.

The Beautiful Guitar.

The Beautiful Guitar.

He tore from room to room, under the bed, in the wardrobe, behind everything, above everything, inside everything. He slammed his fist against the wall of each room as he left it with a force that shook it to its roots. He had murder within him now, a rage that propelled him like a tornado. By the time he stopped, he was exhausted.

When the crutch is removed, the body will fall.

And the body did indeed fall.

The Beautiful Guitar was still the key to his dreams. It had lain beside him in the torment of his youth and it had stayed with him on his arduous foray into adulthood. It was the receptacle of his essence, the mirror of his being and the last refuge of the child within him.

And now it was gone.

If he had found the Beautiful Guitar broken and shattered in the street outside, at least then he could have touched it, held it, kept it from weeping. But for it to just vanish like that, well that was more than he could take.

So he did what he always did, what he had always done and perhaps always will do.

He ran.

He just ran.

And he runs now out into the streets of a thousand faces. His chest aches and his mind burns as if the fire that had once burned in his heart had now risen until it could rise no more. He has to keep moving to prevent himself from thinking. He just runs and runs, wayward and relentless. And as he runs, the people about him begin to change, to develop inconsistencies and deformities. He becomes acutely conscious of their strangeness. They move in incongruous ways. Their faces are contorted, eyes so deep and black they could be lumps of coal. Their mouths are huge and wet, their teeth crunching and grating like some broken contraption of days past.