Dark Confluence (4 page)

Like a swarm of demented bees, the alarm clock buzzed incessantly. Jen sat up in bed, her body bathed in sweat and her waist long dark and silver streaked hair in its customary braid was a tangled mess. Her pulse racing and her breathing shallow, Jen sat shivering for a few minutes, trying to calm down and to ease her rapidly beating heart to a degree of normalcy.

“Is
that
what I saw?” Jen wondered aloud, vividly recalling the strange gaunt woman on the road. She shook her head dismissively, attributing the dream to the trauma of the accident. “Surely not,” she muttered, sloughing off her nightdress, and she headed into the shower, hoping that the hot water and steam would wash away the memory of that unsettling vision. Eventually, she relaxed, the residual stiffness easing from her neck and shoulders. Drying herself, she dressed in her customary cotton pants and t-shirt and then padded around the house barefoot, making a cup of tea, organising breakfast for herself, and all that time, her mind consumed by the dream image.

“Enough!” she chastised herself, “This is not getting me paid, back to work Jen, me lass.”

Her tiny back room that housed her wireless laptop and shelves of reference books also doubled up as her office. In it were stacks of paper, half dozen pens and pencils, and an antique mahogany writing bureau with an equally old leather office chair. Both pieces of furniture had belonged to her father, and after his death three years ago, she had them transported from
Edinburgh
to Australia at much expense.

Turning on her computer, she checked her emails; only two had come in during her absence. She discovered by reading though them that one was from a client who needed another manuscript proofread. The other email stated that there had been a delay at the bank with processing her payment for her last job. The funds would be transferred to her account within the next forty-eight hours.

‘Good,’ she thought, ‘Might be able to afford to fix the guttering now.’ Then she remembered the state of her car parked at the police yard and groaned aloud. Of course, she had to deal with the insurance, contact a plumber, and find a garage to see if the car could be brought back to drivable condition.

“It just never ends,” she sighed dramatically as she pressed a button to exit the mail program.

‘Yes, it will,’ whispered a quiet voice behind her.

Jen frowned and spun around in the chair, immediately twisting painful nerve endings in her neck, which made her wince. She glanced about her whilst rubbing her neck. There was no one there; she was quite alone. Jen took off her glasses, wiped them clean on her shirt, and put them back on. Still she could see no one.

Jen got up and went into the other rooms to check the radio and television, and then remembered that she had turned both of them off. Then she went outside and looked around. Her house was located at the end of a short and narrow unpaved drive off the bitumen road beyond. She listened and heard nothing but the cawing of crows in the distant eucalypts. The only traffic noise she could hear was the occasional sound of a distant car on the main road.

Shrugging to herself, she mentally reasoned the voice away, dismissing it as another side effect of her head injury. As she turned to go back inside and return to her work, she heard a car drawing near. Within a few moments, a small blue hatchback turned into her drive, and drove up to the house, dust from the road billowing in its wake. Jen stood and waited at her front door, leaning expectantly on the solid doorframe. The car pulled up, and a moment later, a young woman dressed in a light blue uniform got out with a small leather attaché case in her hand.

“Jennifer McDonald?” The young woman with the neat and short light brown hair asked.

Jen nodded.

“Clare Williams, the hospital asked me to call in on you. I’m the district nurse and I’m to do follow-up, since you were discharged from hospital yesterday.”

Jen motioned her inside and out of the glare of the morning sun.

Jen sat down and watched, as her visitor opened the attaché case, and pull out a sheaf of papers and examine them.

“Car accident, I see that the tests and scans have come back with no irregularities.” She put the papers down and scrutinised the older woman sitting opposite her. “How are you feeling Ms McDonald?”

Jen shrugged, “Some stiffness. The headache came back briefly last night before bed; however it was gone when I woke.”

The nurse nodded, “Anything else? Dizziness? Nausea?”

Jen shook her head, “A bad dream, dreamt of the accident and...” she hesitated, “I heard a voice just before, thought it was someone hanging about the house, but no one was there. I was just checking when you drove in.”

“A voice? Male or female?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Jen answered honestly. “It was so quiet that I couldn’t identify the source or the speaker.” Jen added, “Do you think the dream and the voice might have been a result of the accident trauma?”

The nurse shrugged, “It’s possible. Medical science is still learning new things about the brain, especially after a traumatic event like a car accident. I’d definitely say that the dream is the brain doing ‘housekeeping’ on your memories.” Again, she leafed through the papers. “Your file states that you have no memory of what you saw before the accident?”

Jen nodded.

“No doubt it will fully come back to you. Just give yourself time and rest and the healing will happen. As for the voices, if it happens again, then I’d advise returning to the hospital for more tests. There may be pressure on the brain now that wasn’t evident before and a CAT scan would pick that up.”

Jen nodded again, a tiny wriggling worm of worry now planted in her mind.

The nurse saw her concern and hastened to reassure her. “If you’re not experiencing any ill-effects, such as dizziness, nausea, fainting, fits, etcetera, and if the headaches have gone away, then I doubt there is real cause for worry. It may well be just your mind is recovering and it will pass naturally over time. It’s just that all head injuries must be taken seriously, and if you are concerned, then further tests will rule out any troublesome causes.”

Clare closed her attaché case and stood.

“If you feel you are well enough, I’ll go. I do have a neck brace in the car if you need it?”

Jen nodded, “My neck and shoulders are still a bit stiff. What about painkillers?” she asked.

“One or two at a time,” Clare replied, “Don’t overdo it. If you find you are relying on them, then it is time to return to the hospital. I’ll schedule you some physio in a few days.”

“At the hospital?”

“Yes,” the nurse turned towards the door. “I’ll see myself out. Keep mindful of rest. I’ll get the neck brace in case you feel you need it and I’ll leave it on the verandah for you.”

“Thanks.”

The nurse walked briskly to the door and with a soft swish of her blue uniform, was gone.

Jen moved to the window and watched as she walked to the car, took the brace from the backseat and returning, placed it on the verandah chair. Seeing Jen at the window, the nurse lifted a hand in farewell, went back to her car, climbed in, and drove off.

Jen turned, whilst absently rubbing her neck, her mind already consumed with thoughts of whether or not her insurance company would recognise an insurance claim for the accident.

*

Tyres crunched outside. Jen quickly grabbed her handbag and keys, and locked the front door. The taxi was only a few minutes late in arriving, and whilst she was without a car, she needed transport.

“Emerald Hills Cooperative Bank, please,” she told the driver, settling herself down on the padded vinyl backseat of the sedan.

He nodded and eased the car forward out of her driveway and onto the road. Jen sat back and tried not to let paranoia overcome her. It had been a few days now since the accident, and sitting in the car, she had immediate and chilling memories of the terrible screeching of brakes and the sudden painful stop. She stared out the window, trying to distract herself by gazing at the countryside - an undulating panorama of green fields, groups of trees and wheeling birds against a clear azure sky. Her eye was drawn towards a group of horsemen riding parallel, yet at a distance from the road. Pressing her nose to the window, she tried to make out details of the group, but they remained determinedly hazy, caught in mist, yet riding as if on a hunt or in a steeplechase. Suddenly, they turned as one and stopped, as if to stare at her. At that moment, the taxi drove past a dense clump of bushes, temporarily obscuring her sight. Just as the taxi cleared the brush, Jen looked back, but the riders had completely vanished. Jen frowned, trying to recollect details. However, all she could remember was how translucent they had seemed, as if they had been riding through the shimmer of a heat haze or like distant figures glimpsed upon a pristine and white sandy beach. Chewing her bottom lip, Jen felt an odd unsettling feeling in her stomach. It was as if the world was not quite as right as it had been this morning, or even as it had been earlier in the week before the accident. The little worm of worry for a short time hibernated. However now it was awake and gnawing at her again.

The taxi soon turned into town and drew up alongside the bank. The driver checked his meter and turned to her, “Twelve dollars fifty, please.”

Jen handed over fifteen dollars and waited whilst change was given, then hopped out of the taxi and brushed down her skirt and shirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. She had come to the bank in the hope of getting a small loan to buy a new car. The repairers had taken one look at her mini, decided that it simply wasn’t repairable, gave her a couple of hundred for it and then towed it away for parts. The insurance company had been sympathetic. However, bureaucracy and insurance claims moved slowly, so Jen didn’t expect to receive her insurance check for another month or two – and she needed a car now. Staring at the weathered brick building, Jen didn’t hold out much hope for a loan. Her income as a proofreader was sporadic at best and in-between jobs, she heavily relied on her investment earnings and modest royalty checks, from her two published reference books.

Shaking her head, she turned away. Briefly, she entertained the idea of buying a bicycle, and then dismissed it as the practicalities of transporting groceries from the local supermarket to her home sank in. Swinging on her heel, she crossed the main road and headed up the road where she knew the local car-hire business was.

An hour later, she was in the possession of an unassuming dark blue hatchback. The deal they made was to the general dissatisfaction of both the dealership and her. The woman behind the counter had baulked at the length of hire (it seemed the hire company preferred a fast turnover rate) and Jen had baulked at the cost. However, beggars could not be choosers and Jen handed over her debit card with great reluctance and paid for the transaction. Turning out of the dealership gate, Jen drove slowly and timidly as she grappled with not only a strange vehicle and unfamiliar controls, but also with her underlying paranoia about the accident. A few minutes later, she swung into the supermarket carpark and found a parking space off to one side and well away from the other vehicles.

Inside, Jen breathed a little easier and relaxed in the refreshing coolness of the air-conditioned complex. Of course, there was the big grocery store with its vast array of produce and goods, Jen noted a hardware store had only just opened its doors, as well as a boutique fashion outlet. Evidently, new money had moved into the area, invigorating what had been primarily a sleepy regional township. She stared at the people around her and recognised only a few faces here and there. New money indeed, seemingly most from the cities or interstates, given the big expensive cars and the interstate plates, she had noticed on her way in from the carpark. As she regarded the people milling by, her eye was caught by a sobbing little boy who was standing off to one side near the entrance to the toilets and mother’s room. Caught by his distress, Jen made a beeline to him, noting his dishevelled appearance and his tousled hair, which looked to have been dyed a rather odd shade of green. She had almost reached him, when without warning he shot her a cheeky grin, turned suddenly and walked straight into a solid brick wall, vanishing instantly.