Escaping Life (22 page)

“This is where
she put the shoes - your mother’s shoes, right?”  She nodded.  “In her hand
here, she was clutching the photograph, in her other hand the bus ticket and
key.  Cigarettes over here, closer to the shoes.”  He stood up, pushing himself
up with his hands against his knees.  They felt stiff and tired as if he had
just finished the bicycle leg of a triathlon.  “I don’t know if where she
placed things was important, or if it’s just the fact that it is here.  But,”
he said as he walked out of the tent, “I am convinced that coming here was
absolutely a purposeful decision.  She came here because she knew you would
know to find her here.  She believed in you, Elizabeth.  Still, after all the
time that’s passed.”  She was still nodding as she followed him out of the
tent.  “She chose this beach because she knew she would be found, and she knew
that she would later be found by you.  This guy,” he pointed up to the beach
house, located just past the flickering blue and white tape, “he comes here
every day.  Same time, seven, every morning.  She had to have known that.  I am
pretty sure your sister was seen in Chesterwood at about four the same
morning.  Unconfirmed, but it makes sense it was her.  That gave her three
hours to get here, set the scene and ........” he stopped, suddenly remembering
that he was talking to the dead woman’s sister; he had started to think of
Elizabeth as his ally, his sidekick. 

“..... And kill
herself.  It’s OK.  You can say it.  It’s the truth.”  He watched her walk
towards the shore, the early sunrise still creeping up on the east of the bay,
bathing the water in a soft blood orange haze.  She sat down on the rocks, just
inches from the water, the small pebbles and stones giving way as she sat, her
knees crunched up underneath her chin and chest.

He sat down
next to her as she threw in a series of rocks, randomly picked and launched
towards the sea with an underhand throw.  She sat with her knees up, cradled in
the crease of her elbows.  She couldn’t find the answers that she was looking
for, and coming here hadn’t helped. 
What am I supposed to do Becca? 
Elizabeth
wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs, hoping that somehow her words
would reach Rebecca, reverberating across the water until they found her residing
somewhere that she
used
to believe lay somewhere
beyond the sunrise.

“Do you come
here to the beach at all?  It’s not very far from the city.”  He shook his
head.  He hadn’t been to the beach for a long time.

“Not for a year
or so.  Never here.”

“You should.  I
go a lot, back in Haven where I live.  I sit there, either on the wall or on the
shore, like we are now.”  She picked up another stone.  “I like the beach at
night, or first thing in the morning when the tides are gentle and there is
nobody around - the peace and quiet.”  She threw in the stone, and they both
waited for the hollow splash as it displaced the water.  “I sit and do this. 
Sometimes they drop in, and if you throw them right you get a huge glugging
noise, like that one.  A huge splash that rings out to the world.  Other times
they just crash against the rocks if you don’t give them enough force,
clattering about and getting washed back up.”  She picked up a pebble, a small
pink pebble, beautiful in its individuality and shine.  She threw it in. 
“Other times you don’t hear them at all over the sound of the waves as they
crash against the shore, just the gentlest of ripples and the stone simply gets
lost.  Disappears.  You send it out and it just drops into the water.  Gone.  Without
even a sound.  No trace.  You could never find it again, even if you looked.” 
They sat gazing out to the ocean, as the early morning shore crept towards
their feet.  “It’s like people, Jack.  Sometimes they just slip away, out of
life.  You barely see them go and when you realise and look for them, it’s too
late.”

“I’m sorry
Elizabeth.  Maybe I have asked too much of you.”  She disagreed, her face
dismissive of his ideas.

“No.”  She
looked at his face.  It looked tired and drawn, like he had the weight of the
world’s problems on his mind, any moment about to buckle under the pressure.  “I’m
sorry about your family.”  He started at her, uncertain of what was just
exchanged between them.  “The photograph.  It was your family, right?  That’s
why you don’t go to the beach anymore.”  She was more intuitive than he had
imagined.  He nodded in agreement.

“They died over
a year ago now.  Feels like yesterday.”

“Do you still
look for them?”  He knew he did.  Less, but he still looked.

“How can I
stop?  I think, what if I made a mistake?  What if it wasn’t really them?”  He
picked up a stone and threw it into the ocean, far enough to splash into open
water, but too far to be heard.

“What
happened?”  For a moment he sat in silence, stunned at the question.  Nobody
had ever asked him this before.  When he met Kate, she knew what had happened. 
She knew before he did.  His colleagues had thought better of it, and the
family that he had left, his brother and sister-in-law, could never bring
themselves to bring it up.  “If you don’t mind me asking?”  He was surprised,
but he didn’t mind.  He thought about the words as he formulated them in his
mind and the way he would tell the story; the last memory before the glare of
lights, the days of darkness afterwards and the lost memory in between; the
smell as he saw their bodies charred and powdery black like coal.  Somehow,
even the fact that he was about to tell somebody else, this woman who was
virtually a stranger, released a pressure that had built up since that moment
of impact:  the life-destroying moment that he had buried deep in his mind like
a dirty and shameful secret.

“It was a car
crash.  My wife, Rose.  She was driving.  Joshua .......” he smiled as he
closed his eyes, the thought of his smiling face going back and forth as he
pushed him on his swing set, the sunshine of early summer flushing his fat three
year old cheeks burst into Jack’s mind.  “..... Joshy was three.  And perfect. 
His little hands you know, they were so chubby, and he would grip onto me
pulling me around.  I followed him everywhere.”  As she looked upon his face,
his eye muscles twitched as he relived those happy days.  She was certain that she
could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes.  “We were on the motorway. 
It was late, and he was crying.  I took off my seatbelt and leaned over to him
to try and soothe him.  She was distracted, just for a split second.  The
driver’s side of the car was completely destroyed.  They cut me out easily, because
I had taken off my belt, but,” he paused, looking down at the stones for the
courage to continue, the courage to feel those tormenting memories again, “they
couldn’t get them out.  Then it started.”  That same smell and taste of fire,
the hot choking smoke that had filled his days for months after the accident
was in his mouth again now.  It filled his nose, travelling deep into his lungs
before he coughed its imaginary presence back out.  “Took a while to get it
under control.  I was unconscious - I didn’t know what had happened for three
days.”

“I’m so sorry,”
she whispered.  She thought about the flaming wreck of Rebecca’s car, as it lay
at the bottom of the ravine.  She flicked between these real images and the
horrific pictures that her mind was creating, automatically, against her will,
of his car engulfed in a fireball with his wife and son inside.  They sat there
for a while, staring out to sea, the gulls calling out above them, the rustle
of trees behind them and the sound of the ocean as it awoke once again with
larger rumbling waves.  Only two weeks ago, she would have thought that they
had so much in common; the idea that her sister had died in a car crash
engraved so vividly into her mind.  Now, as she sat on the beach with the
stranger who had opened up next to her, she was grateful for the second
chance.  The chance to help Rebecca, even after her death. The chance to
actually say goodbye. 

“I think we
should go back to Chesterwood.”  Before he answered, she was already on her
feet.  She had had enough of this place; she didn’t want to be here anymore. 
“I’ll go back to Haven.  Think about the clues.  My father needs me too.”

“Of course. 
I’ll drive you to the bus station.  Or train, whatever you’d prefer.”  They
drove the fifteen miles across town towards the bus station almost in silence,
the uncomfortable type of silence when you feel that you may have been too open
and too sharing with a stranger and that it will push them away.  Jack felt as
if he may have crossed a line, but he still felt good about it.

As they pulled
up, she jumped out, still flicking sand out of her loose slip-on shoes.  She
ran inside the bus station to check the bus times.  Glancing up at the
flickering orange lights, thousands of them, twinkling like stars to navigate
the people gathered below, looking to find their destination, she could see it
would be another hour before her bus would leave.  She ran back out to the car,
cupping her hands over the open window pane of his truck. 

“Doesn’t leave
for an hour.  Want to grab a coffee with me?  My shout.  I think we could both
use it.”  He nodded, and pulled his truck into the nearest parking space and
they settled down for a coffee surrounded by the muffled sounds all around
them.  There were a thousand conversations swirling around, people rushing and
racing like bees darting from one summer bloom to the next, looking for the
best spot, the best pollen.  They sat on the small immovable plastic seats,
their shoulders hunched over close.  Their discussion at the beach was hanging
over them.  They looked like a married couple trying to fix their problems,
there and willing, but with a world of difficulty resting between them.  It was
Elizabeth who made the first cut, the first hammer strike to the ice.

“I guess when I
called you and told you that my sister had died in a car accident, it couldn’t
have been very easy.”  A broken smile came across his face, soft, and defeated.

“Yeah, I
guess.”  The words were coming to him, but he felt reluctant to say them, his
face giving it away with a puzzled screwed-up expression.

“What?  Just
say it, whatever you’re thinking.”  She wanted him to talk.  He looked like he
needed to speak to somebody and she knew how that felt. 

“I was thinking
that I’m happy for you.”  His words needed clarification.  He could see her
shock and guard rising.  “I mean, that you had a second chance to say goodbye.” 
Her shoulders dropped again.  He was right.  She was glad too.  She was about to
open her mouth and agree with him when she heard somebody call the name. 

“Rebecca!”
 
Surely
she was wrong, yet there it was again.  “Rebecca!”  Jack hadn’t heard it at
first, his attachment to this case the image of a dead face and the name of the
woman alive and well before him uppermost in his mind.  But it was a name
forever etched into Elizabeth’s mind, and she always listened out for it, just
in case.  As she looked up, she could see the short man walking towards her,
waving his hand as if greeting a friend.  He said it again:

“Rebecca! 
Hi!”  He was walking directly towards her.  Jack saw the expression on her face
change, the change in situation tangible in the wide-eyed look of somebody who
had seen a ghost, shock and disbelief all at once.  The short tubby man was
standing before her now, smiling and slightly out of breath.  He looked in his
late forties, and like he should go on a diet.  He gave Jack a cursory glance,
before he spoke:  “I missed you last Saturday.  How are you?  Did you go away? 
You look great!”  Elizabeth stared at the man.  Then she turned back to look at
Jack, who himself had now realised the man’s mistake.  They stared at each
other in disbelief, no need for words or questions.  They both knew what was
going on. 

Elizabeth
looked up at the red-faced man.  “You called me Rebecca.  You know her?  You
know Rebecca?”  His confusion was obvious.  He looked back at her as if she was
crazy, confused that she didn’t even know her own name.  He pleaded with her,
open arms and open mouthed. 
Surely she must know her own name?

“Of course I
know Rebecca.”  He patted her lightly on the arm, feigning attack, tutting as
he did so.  “Do you know Rebecca?”  He backed away smiling and laughing, as if
now somehow he had understood her joke.

“I’m not
Rebecca.”  She said it flatly and simply.  His face became falsely serious, his
lips pursed and pointed as if he might be about to kiss her.  “I’m her sister.” 
His humour and pretence was immediately washed away, leaving only shock that he
could be so very wrong.

“Unbelievable! 
You look identical.”  She could see the thoughts running through his mind. 
What
a surprise,
he must be thinking,
there are two of them! 
He
obviously had no idea that Rebecca was dead.   “So you came to see her instead
this weekend?” he said, with emphasis on the word ‘her’
. 
The way he
spoke implied something; it implied a history, and knowledge.  Knowledge of a
life.  Rebecca’s life.  He had her attention before.  Now, he positively
demanded it.

“Just a
minute,” Jack interrupted.  “Who are you?  How do you know Rebecca?”  He was
looking at the man hard, a fixed and official glare.  The red-faced man could
sense that somehow he had unwittingly stumbled into something more complicated
than a simple case of hello and good morning.

“I work here.” 
He pointed over to the ticket booth, the queue forming
in front of
the screen of glass covered with a
blind that read ‘Closed’.  “I see Rebecca every week.  We have coffee together
whilst she waits for her bus.  She tells me that she goes to see her sister. 
You, apparently,” pointing to Elizabeth and seemingly now slightly annoyed at
the inquisition he was receiving, when all he had really wanted to do was say
hello to a friend.  “Rarely, her father.”  Could it be true, that for all these
years she has been living a few hours away and travelling back and forth to
visit Elizabeth’s life from a distance as a casual observer, never properly involved
in the world of her living sister?  She brought her fingers up to her mouth,
trying desperately to hold her quivering bottom lip steady.  But it was useless
and before she knew it, the tears were trickling over her fingertips, running
down the channels and pooling in her lap, onto her white cotton shorts that she
had been wearing since the day before.  Instinctively, Jack reached out,
resting his hand onto her arm.  Before he knew it he was stroking her skin, and
trying to reassure her, whilst never taking his eyes off the mystified man standing
before him.