Saving Nathaniel (9 page)

She fell back in her chair, sliding her hands out from under his. 'But you're not sorry, not really...are you?' she sighed. 'You always say you are because it's easy, it's just words. I don't even think you know what it means.'

'I do. What else can I say to convince you?'

'Nothing, because you won't mean it. It'll be a waste of words.'

'So tell me what it is you
want
and I'll do it.'

She pressed her fingertips against her brow, creased with frustration. 'You just don't get it, do you? It's not about what
I
want at all, it's about
you
taking care of yourself. If anything happens to you while I'm here I'll feel responsible and spend the rest of my life blaming myself because I didn't do anything about it.'

'You're not responsible for me and if anything does happen to me, it will never be your fault.'

She folded the paper towel in half and half again, pressing down on the crease. 'Will you at least slow down a bit? Can't you take some time off and rest, just for a while?'

'I'm done…for the time being.'

'Until the next job?'

'There won't be another job like this. They only come around once in a blue moon.'

'But you wouldn't turn it down, would you?'

'No I wouldn't...I can't. But I'll be more careful I…' He almost said
'I promise'
again, but knew she would never accept it.

In the study, the telephone began to ring. He let it ring half a dozen times and she watched him as he fidgeted at the sound until he was unable to bear it any longer.

'I'll have to get that, it might be important and the machine is off.' He leapt to his feet, and almost ran from the room.

She screwed up the neatly folded piece of kitchen towel and tossed it into the trashcan. 'Don't waste your time, Megs,' she said to the empty room. 'He won't listen. Nothing will change.'

Later that day, after Megan had gone home, giving her solemn word she would return the next day, Nat took some time to go over their conversation.

She had been upset, but she was right. He hadn't felt well and wasn't sleeping. He had lost weight and was drinking far too much. He agreed he often said things he didn't mean and pledged he would try to take better care of himself. He also decided he would make the effort to be more honest with her. He felt she at least deserved the consideration.

They reached a compromise and he hoped the argument would soon be forgotten. He had upset her and it troubled him how close he had come to losing her.

However, things didn't work out quite as he planned. Despite all his good intentions, he was still unable to sleep properly. Gradually his tiredness overtook him, and he became irritated at the slightest thing.

Megan often fell into the firing line of his temper, but not wanting to resurrect their previous argument, she absorbed it like a sponge. This only served to infuriate him further.

The atmosphere between them strained, and he took to staying out or shutting himself away to avoid confronting her. The combination of his irritability, insomnia and alcohol soon began to take its toll.

Chapter 9

Nat craved some peace. A meeting with his bank manager that morning, a business lunch and a spell at the gym had left him drained. Lack of sleep over the previous few nights had not helped and now Megan had decided to vacuum the staircase. The elderly machine was overly noisy and had an uncomfortable pitch that grated on him, adding to his torment. He closed the sturdy oak door to the study, reducing the racket to a low distant drone.

Cocooned in comfortable quiet he poured himself a stiff measure of Southern Comfort and, glass in hand, settled down in the old armchair. He rooted out the remote control from down the side of the cushion and flicked on the TV. He found a football match, halfway through, no score. He left it playing in the background as he reached down to pick up a book he had casually tossed onto the floor. A folded down corner marked his place. He took a long slug from the glass and began to read.

Gradually the combination of words and alcohol made his eyelids feel heavy, his head drooped onto his chest and he fell into a doze. A tapping on the study door startled him awake.

'Go away!' He sat up sharply and rubbed his eyes. The knocking came again, but louder.

'Not now!'

The knocking became a hammering.

He hauled himself out of the chair and wrenched the door open. 'Bloody hell, woman, can't I have a minute's…..' His words died on his lips.

The hallway beyond the doorway was in complete darkness. He didn't understand why had it gone dark so quickly and why had Megan not put on the lights? He must have been asleep for hours and she had gone home. If so…who the hell was banging on the door?

'Nathaniel…'

He spun round at the sound of the voice behind him, and he staggered back into the room. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open, breath escaped with an audible squeak through a throat clenched shut with fright. Between himself and the fireplace stood an impossible vision whose very appearance made him doubt his own sanity.

Enveloped in a voluminous white garment soiled with dirt and slime and mould, a woman stood at the mantle, looking at the photograph of…herself. She turned to face him. The smile she offered had nothing to it - it was cold and soulless.

Her skin, chalk white and waxen, was at points so thin that the fine bones of her skull were visible beneath the surface. Her hair hung lank and loose over her shoulders and her eyes, sunken within heavy shadow, were deep dark holes with no spark of life, yet he was sure he saw something move in there.

'Joanna?' he breathed.

'Hello, darling,' she said in a soft husky whisper that could only have come from the lips of a lover. 'Have you missed me?'

'Jo?'

She turned back to the photograph. 'I was so pretty then, wasn't I?'

A breathy, 'Aye,' fell from his mouth.

'Do you think I was pretty, sweetheart?'

'Aye.'

'It's been a long time, Nathaniel…such a long time. How long has it been, four years? No nearly five. Goodness, how time flies when you're dead. You did know I was dead, didn't you darling? Of course you did, how could you not?'

Nat continued to stare, not believing his own eyes. He closed them tightly, but the image had already been burned onto his retina. Behind his eyelids he could still see the shadow of her. He shook his head, trying to force away both the image and the hysteria threatening to well up and overwhelm him.

I'm holding a conversation with a corpse
, he thought.
I'm obviously hallucinating. Too much drink – that's it. Too much drink and not enough sleep. It's finally driven me mad.

When he dared open his eyes again, the woman was still there. 'This…this is not real…you're dead…you're not here,' he muttered.

'Oh, Nathaniel, we're hurt.' She cocked her head to one side. 'Anyone would think you didn't want to see us?'

Us?

She took a step forward. Nat took a matching step backwards needing to preserve the space between them. 'Stay away…don't come near me…'

'That's not very nice,' she said and took another step toward him. He again matched her advance with a retreat and his legs collided with the chair. The seat knocked against the back of his knees, collapsing them. He lost his balance and sat down heavily on the seat. The blood drained from his face leaving him almost as pale as the spectre, and he broke out in a cold sweat. The chilly dampness gathered between his shoulder blades and ran down his back.

She stood over him, blocking him and looking down into his terrified face as he cowered in the chair. 'I've come to see you, darling,' she cooed. 'I've been so lonely without you.'

His heart pounded in his ears and he began to breathe in sharp shuddering gasps. She leaned down to him, putting her face close to his and his nostrils filled with a smell of something…bad - the metallic smell of old blood mixed with the antiseptic odour of a hospital, that and…something else. He couldn't identify it, and didn't want to.

'Please, leave me alone…' he whimpered.

Locked into the embrace of the chair, with Joanna in front of him, he couldn't move if he wanted to, even if fear hadn't paralysed him

'Let me touch you, Nathaniel,' she said, and put her cold, mottled hand to his cheek.

He flinched and croaked, his voice almost lost to his terror. 'No!'

She ran her bony fingers down his cheek and over his lips, her torn nails sharp against his skin. 'I want to kiss you, Nathaniel. I miss your kiss.'

He squeezed his eyes closed again and turned his face away from the approach of her blue tinged lips. She pressed an icy, dead kiss on him and he reeled from her foetid breath.

'Go away…for God's sake…go away,' he sobbed, tears stinging his eyes.

She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, 'I have something for you, Nathaniel. Look at what I've got for you.' She stood up and put her hand inside a tear in her shroud. Slowly and carefully, she withdrew it, and he could see delicately held between the fingers and thumb of her right hand, a perfectly formed miniature foot. The foot was attached to the body of a tiny baby; an immature foetus, slick with clotting blood, bluish-grey in colour and completely lifeless, the umbilical cord still attached. A small trickle of dark blood leaked from the cut end.

'This is your son, Nathaniel. Isn't he beautiful?'

He felt dizzy. The apparition began to swim before him and he thought he might faint. He prayed he would. He wanted oblivion to envelop him so he wouldn't have to see any more.

The spectre put the dead baby to her breast and held it there as if trying to feed it. Its head flopped and its face turned towards him. Its mouth stood slightly open, but its eyes were fused shut.

Nat began to shake uncontrollably. Try as he might, he could not close his eyes against the vision.

'Go away, you're not real!' he babbled in a paroxysm of panic. He could now feel his heart hammering in his chest, hard enough to convince him he was on the brink of a coronary. He pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyeballs, 'You're not real, you're not!'

Yet the vision endured, a look of heartrending sadness on her face as she cuddled the baby's corpse. 'We died, Nathaniel. Where were you when we died?' The woman's eyes filled with tears which overflowed down her cheeks. 'We needed you, Nathaniel. We were dying, and you weren't there. Where were you?'

'I can't take any more...please…go away.'

The woman put a hand to her head. 'It hurts, Nathaniel. My head hurts so much. Something inside…something's wrong…it's bursting…tearing…'

He watched mesmerised as her tears began to colour. They changed as they took on the hue of blood. They became blood. Long red streaks coursed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin, soaking into her dirty, once-white shroud. A trickle leaked from each nostril and ran down into her mouth staining her teeth and lips. Droplets oozed from her ears and hung from the lobes like bright rubies.

'Look what happened, Nathaniel. Look what you did.'

His eyes were frozen on her. 'It wasn't me…I didn't do it.'

'You wanted this baby,' she said, holding up the infant's body by its ankle. Its oversized head swung limply on its skinny neck.

'You wanted it …I did it for you...and look what it did to me! You killed us!'

'No!'

'This is your fault, Nathaniel. We're dead…and it's your fault!' Specks of bloody foam formed at the corners of her mouth and spat out as she spoke.

It was too much for Nat and his wits left him. 'I'm sorry, Joanna…please…I'm sorry…I'm sorry,' he gibbered.

'It's too late for being sorry, Nathaniel…it's far... too ...late.'

'It's not my fault…I didn't know…it's not my fault, it's not.' He clamped his hands over his face to block out the images and thought he could hear someone, somewhere, sobbing. He did not realise it was himself.

'Nat?'

'It's not my fault, it's not...'

'Nat? Open your eyes. Look at me.' He didn't want to open them; he didn't want to see any more, his wits couldn't take it. He could feel something holding onto his arm and made a half hearted effort to shake it off.

'Let go. Don't touch me!'

His arm was now being gently but firmly shaken. 'Come on, Nat, you need to wake up.' The voice didn't belong to Joanna. It was different; stronger, gentler. He took the chance and forced his eyelids apart, fully expecting to see the Joanna apparition filling his field of view. His eyes felt gritty and heavy and he had trouble focusing. He blinked hard a few times to clear his vision and saw, not the waxen-faced revulsion, but Megan's concerned face, her clear blue eyes just a few inches from his own.

'That's it. Wake up now.'

'Joanna!' He sat up quickly, knocking the empty glass off the arm of the chair to bounce harmlessly on the rug. He glanced around the room with frightened eyes.

'There's no-one here, Nat, only me. You fell asleep.' She stroked his arm. 'You were shouting out. Did you have a nightmare?'