Voices

He told me he loved me. He told me he'd never leave. He'd stay with
me always. Come back to haunt me. Come back to hug me. He'd come back,
that was what he said. 'Always kept a promise.' I say through bitter
clenched teeth as I stand before his grave. 'You gonna haunt me now?' A
laugh escapes my lips. A twisted, heart-broken laugh.


At home, I turn off all the lights. It's not a fact that
ghosts like the dark, but more paranormal things happen with the lights
dimmed. I saw that on a ghost documentary once. So I sit in the big
armchair in the far corner of the room, in the near-dark of six o clock
on an October night. I can see the door, the curtains and the clock
from my chair. Yesterday the clock stopped at six. The hands were
frozen. And now it works, ticking along oblivious. I think it's
significant. You see, he left me at six. On the sixth of the month.
There's a connection there. I've read about this stuff. Connections,
coincidences, they all mean something. One night, the curtains moved.
Like something was travelling through them, they fluttered from one end
to the next. I checked for open windows. There was none. This is why I
think he's trying to make contact. So I've made it my ritual, to sit
here, before six has come and until it's gone.


Nothing else has happened other than the curtains and the
clock. It gives you time to think, though, all this sitting and waiting
in the quiet dark. Sometimes it gives you too much time, and the
thoughts get a bit crazy. But I reckon I'm allowed to be a bit crazy,
what with the love of my life being snatched away like that. I'm quite
comfortable with that - being the crazy lady who longs for her lost
love. At least I feel like I'm someone now. Before I was a nobody, a
non-personality. Now that I have this, people want to talk to me. They
give me stuff. They touch my hand when they speak, tell me to take
care. Maureen from two blocks up gave me a glass angel. She said it had
healing properties and that my grief would heal. Katy makes me pies,
she says her kids don't like her shepherd pies so I can have them, but
I know it's just an excuse. See - people making up excuses so they can
be nice to me? You don't get that when the love of your life is alive
and kicking. Even Mrs Black, who I used to argue with every time I
stepped foot in her shop, has changed her ways. She comes to my house
every Sunday, hands in left over newspapers with the barcodes cut off.
Tells me at least I can keep in touch with what's going on in the
world. Doesn't matter if I don't feel like going out the now. She tells
me stay sad as long as you need to, thinks grief is hard. I think I
need to stay sad for a very, very long time.


The nights get darker as winter gets nearer. I try to stay
awake longer, sleeping all through the day. Sleeping in for work. I
tell the doctor I'm not sleeping at nights and I'm too tired during the
day, so he gives me two kinds of pills. Ones to keep you awake and ones
to help you sleep. Only I take the uppers at night and the downers in
the morning. My work signs me off on the sick, compassionate leave,
whatever. I don't even know. I don't even care. My life revolves around
the waiting. Waiting for it to get dark. Waiting for him to show face.



'Come on then, coward.' I hiss into the handheld mirror. It's
long past six. I'm sitting in the big armchair, staring into the
mirror. I read somewhere that mirrors can attract the soul. Something
about the reflective energy. My face stares back at me, mocking my
words. 'Show yourself, coward.'


Then I see it, a shadow behind me, its reflection caught in
the mirror for just a second. I spin round. Nothing there. 'So?you want
to hide, huh?'


- I'm not hiding -, a voice says in my head. - You're just
not looking hard enough. -


I drop the mirror like it's infected. It's his voice, no
mistaking it. I scramble for the lights. With a flick of the wrist the
room is bathed in the instant yellow glow of sixty watt bulb, the first
time it's been so bright in months. I clasp a hand to my forehead
trying to dispel the instant headache. 'Shit.' I say aloud, trying to
unnerve myself. 'Scary stuff, huh.' I let out a long tumble of
laughter, then decide it's probably time for bed. I leave the light on.
Take double the limit of the sleeping pills. I don't know if I was
ready for that. What does he mean, not looking hard enough? How hard
does he want me to look? I've been looking for weeks, months, every
night. I pull the covers high over my head until I'm completely
hidden.


His voice has unnerved me. It was different - sarcastic,
irritated, bored. He had never been any of those things with me. I was
everything to him. I was his movie star. The star of his life, the star
of his movie. He used to call me that. What's changed? Before long I
can't think clearly any more, the pills kick in and I tumble down into
the great soft darkness that is sleep.


Morning brings memories of nightmares. It's hardly morning,
just gone four pm. I panic, realising I haven't left myself with enough
pills for tonight. I make a call to the doctor who sounds unconvinced
at my story of dropping all the pills outside somewhere, but eventually
agrees to prescribe me more. I have an hour to pick them up. The
urgency to get more pills takes my mind off the nightmares. I focus on
the task ahead instead.


Outside is bitter and biting. The wind is a shock to my
just-washed face, and my ears sting with the frost. You can smell it in
the air. Maureen passes me in the street and asks me how the glass
angel is. 'Do you keep it under your pillow, lass?'


'Uh, yeah.' I lie. 'It sleeps there every
night.'


'Good lass,' she smiles, her old face creasing. 'Have you
heard any from the police yet?'


I shake my head and frown as an involuntary shudder runs up
my back. What is she talking about?


'So they've no got anyone for his murder yet?' She shakes her
head along with me. 'A shame. A real shame.'


Oh, the murder. I don't like to think about it. Especially on
a day like this. I try to forget he was killed with a slit to the
throat, that the last minutes of his life were probably full of
gurgling pain and fear. And I certainly don't want to think about who
could have done it, definitely not, no way.


'Maureen?I'm sorry. I can't? really talk about?' I'm suddenly
out of breath, my words coming in short bursts. 'I?have?to
go?'


Maureen watches me as I stumble away from her - I think it's
just the pills, nothing more than that. Her gaze is fixed, as though
she is concentrating on my every move. 'I'm praying for you, lass,' she
mutters so quietly, it leaves me certain I'm not supposed to hear. I
try to shake her off by turning into a side street and making a detour
to the doctors. I keep shaking my head, shake out all the nasties that
are trying to creep to the front of my mind.


- She thinks you're crazy. - His voice is in my head again.



'She does not.' I say automatically.


- Yes she does. Crazy lady. Crazy baby. Look at you, talking
to yourself. -


I have to slow down, slow the breathing, suck the air, blow
it out. I'm going to miss the doctors. Why is he doing this? Why has he
changed so much? I try to block him out, try to ignore him, put on an
untroubled face as I enter the doctors' clean, warm building. The
receptionist routinely asks me to take a seat. She looks tired too, so
it's not just me. As I sit down the legs start shaking, like I've been
running. Have I been running? I'm not even sure.


- Look at you, waiting. Waiting for your drugs. Druggie,
junkie, pill popper. -


'Shut up!' I hiss, loud enough for heads to turn and eyes to
peer over magazines. 'I need them.' I mutter almost incoherently. I
close my eyes, block out the looks. Why must people stare? Don't they
realise what I've been through? He was the love of my life, can't they
assume I must be trauma stricken instead of mad?


The doctor calls my name, thank Christ for that. I'm up and
off like a shot, prescription written then out the door I came in, no
more gawking eyes. Only a voice that follows me like a cloud over my
head. Looming and imminent, it tells me I've started something I can't
handle.


- You brought me here, - he tells me. - You did this, you
asked me to come. Can't handle it can you, the thought of me. -



'You're different.' I say, back in the shelter of my flat,
holding the mirror once more, looking at myself, talking to his voice.
'You're not the same.'


-What's different?- he asks.


'You sound like you don't love me any more.'


He takes an eternity to answer. I bite my lip hard, my words
hanging in the air.


- What, did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think I
would never know what you did? -


Now it's my turn to be silent. My faces burns with a guilt I
buried long ago.


- I know that you slept with him, I know how long it went on
for. -


'It wasn't long?' my voice trails off in weak
defence.


- And I know that you care more about the attention my death
brings you than my actual death at all. You love it, don't you? The
weeping widow, you deserve an oscar now. You really are a star.
-


I fall into silence, a silence so huge I feel it may take me
days to break out of.


- I knew about you and him. I knew before I died, you did
know that didn't you? You did know why they'll never catch my killer?
I'm far too clever for them. Made it all look like some tragic killing.
Be wiped off their agenda very soon. I didn't leave them enough clues
you see. -


I still hold onto the mirror, hands trembling slightly. I can
see shadows behind me move, but this time I don't want to
look.


- Do you know what happens to people who take their own
lives? They stay in limbo, they never find a way to leave. - He
continues to talk in my ear, as if he's sitting right next to me. -
Looks like I'm never leaving you, baby. Just like I always said.
-


I'm crying tears now, just soft ones. But they're there, and
they're new. They're definitely new. I haven't cried since?since a long
time. Since he was alive.


- What do you do, - he asks me, - if the voices inside your
head are real? -


I shake my head, don't know.


- You can't convince them you're sane. You can't tell them
the voices are real, cos they're only real to you. So how do you cure
it? How do you make it stop? How do you get yourself better? I'll tell
you how?you don't. You're stuck with it, for life. -


He's right. He's said it all. My tears blur my vision, but
not my mind. For once, I see my future clearly, I see what I have made
for myself.


This time I'm silent, not because I want to be, but because I
can't think of anything else to say.