Read Relatively Strange Online
Authors: Marilyn Messik
*
Half kneeling, half crouching and clutching cold porcelain, the stink of disinfectant and vomit made my eyes water. I voided the contents of my stomach and carried on heaving, I needed to get rid of what I’d seen and felt and the more uncomfortable and the longer it went on, the less chance I had to think. A cool hand was suddenly firm on my forehead, I tried to shake it off, this was one of those times you really want to be alone. She went, but only temporarily. A moment later she was back, reaching over me to flush the soiled toilet and place a wet handkerchief on my head.
After a few more moments I had to accept nothing more was going to come out, however much I might want it to. I staggered to my feet and sat on the toilet. Rajitha handed me a handful of paper towels to wipe my mouth and leant back against the door, arms folded.
“What’s going on?” she said
“Going on?” my voice hurt coming out.
“I am not,” she said firmly, “An idiot. Don’t bullshit me.”
“Can we go somewhere else?” She wrinkled an elegant nose.
“Absolutely, If you’re sure you’ve finished, there’s a canteen, next floor up. I promised we wouldn’t be long though, just as soon as you felt better – this is the first time Lauretta’s told them anything. That policewoman was over the moon, dashing off to phone her boss. She wants us back a.s.a.p.” I shook my head,
“Can’t.”
“Certainly can.” She leaned down and grabbed my elbow – in spite of her waif-like build, I’d often seen her haul full sized electric typewriters from office to office – and pulled me to my feet. She took the dampened hanky from my forehead and tried to shift some of the mascara accumulated underneath my eyes. She gave my face a further swift wipe-over for good measure, tucked an errant piece of my shirt back into my skirt.
“There, you’ll do. Look I know it’s all pretty dreadful but we owe it to her.” I shook my head again,
“Raj, I’m telling you I can’t go back.”
“And I’m telling you, you can.” She plucked a piece of paper towel from her black jacket, disposed of it down the toilet.
“Now, you’re going to promise not to throw up again, I’m going to buy you a coffee and a biscuit and you’re going to tell me what exactly happened in there.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
So I did. For the first time, I told everything to someone who didn’t already know. And considering my stomach ached as if kicked by a particularly feisty mule, the attempted reinstatement of my shielding was giving me the mother and father of all headaches and I couldn’t stop shivering, I thought I managed to précis it all rather neatly. When I finally wound down she was silent for a long moment. Then she said,
“OK.”
“OK? What’s that mean, OK?”
“It means OK. If that’s what you’re telling me, I believe you. You can’t possibly have made it all up on the spot and I was in there, remember? Something weird was going on and this is as good an explanation as any.”
I was flabbergasted, I’d lived, all my life with the risk of letting my secret slip. Now, it had emerged, with more of a whimper than a bang and certainly with a less than cataclysmic reaction. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.
“Show me.” She said.
“Show you what?”
“Move something.” I slid her coffee cup to the opposite side of the table. She reached out, retrieved it and nodded.
“I’m impressed.”
“No,” I said sharply, “
I’m
impressed. Can’t believe you’re taking this in your stride.” She shrugged,
“Why shouldn’t I? More things in heaven and earth etc. How are you feeling? You don’t look good.”
“Thanks! Head’s splitting.” I said. And that was only the half of it I was icy cold, bone-deep. Around us hustled the bustle and clatter of a busy cafeteria with its mixed aromas of coffee, tinned tomato soup and fried food.
“Can you read my mind now?” she asked, she didn’t look particularly worried. I shook my head impatiently,
“Told you, I try not to do that. Specially not here, hospitals are terrible places for me. What happened with Lauretta was an accident, I’m keeping buttoned up till we’re away.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“You don’t expect me to go back? Not after what I’ve told you?”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I bloody do.” I was gripping the edge of the table and shivering so hard, it was vibrating the surface of my coffee – I’d only managed half a cup. I tried and failed to loosen my grip. “I thought you understood. I can’t risk that again. I was with her Raj, I was with her. I was seeing and feeling everything, everything that happened to her.”
“I know, you said.”
“No. You
don’t
know. You haven’t the faintest. What he put her through, what it felt like …” I stopped I could feel just-consumed coffee churning and rising. I tried again to relax my hands. I wasn’t sure whether the tightness of my grip on the table was intensifying the shakes or whether I was gripping so hard to try and halt them.
“Look,” I tried again in explanation, “I’m truly, desperately sorry for Lauretta, what happened to her was too awful for words, I feel terrible, but Raj, it happened to her, I can’t … won’t have it happen to me too. The memories, those horrible, dreadful memories – they’re her’s not mine.”
“Can you describe him – the man?”
“Yes.”
“You know what he looks like?”
“Said so, haven’t I? I saw him.”
“Then you’ve no option.”
“What’re you talking about?” My voice rose and a couple at the next table looked over at us, I lowered my tone, leaning forward,
“Lauretta – she saw him, she can tell them, give them a description.”
“But she couldn’t before.”
“Because all the stuff in her head was jumbled up by what he did to her, she was in shock I suppose – couldn’t think properly, that’s all.”
“And?”
“And what?” I snapped
“You helped her put it in order – that’s what you said.”
“So now she can carry on.”
“You can’t know that.” She drank some coffee, met my hostile glare.
“I wonder,” she mused, “How you’ll feel when you pick up a paper and see a picture of the next woman he kills? He’s killed before. Lauretta’s here, purely by chance because he was interrupted. He’ll kill again. When that happens, mightn’t you think things would have been different – if they’d caught him?”
“Rajitha, why don’t you just mind your own bloody business and stay out of mine?” She smiled equably at me.
“Fine.” She was rifling through her bag, taking out a notebook.
“What’s that for?”
“A note, the policewoman, what’s her name? I’ll say we’re sorry, we couldn’t stay.”
“You think I’m weak, right?”
“Look, I haven’t the faintest idea why you can do what you say you can. But my God, girl, you’ve got the chance to make a difference – how many of us can say that?” She raised a holding hand as I started to interrupt, “O.K. so I can’t get inside Lauretta’s head, can’t really know, but I can imagine some of what he did to her, can see what it’s doing to you but so what?
“
So what
?”
“Well, there’s no doubt you’ll have to wade through some pretty crappy stuff. But at least you’ll know.”
“
What
? What’ll I know?” I was shouting again and half-rose. The couple leaving the next table looked back, not hostile, sympathetic, they thought I’d just had bad news. Perhaps I had.
“You’ll know,” Raj remained seated, looking up at me. “It’s not really happening. Like watching a film – you’ll know it’s not really happening. If you can help Lauretta sort her head out, help her help the police, then isn’t it worth a bit of second-hand suffering?”
“Don’t you realise the risk, if people know what I can do?”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Far’s I can see there’s only risk when people are specifically on the look-out for someone like you. In there,” she jerked her head “They’re just pleased Lauretta’s remembering, they think it’s because she’s reassured by us being there. The truth wouldn’t occur to them in a million years.”
“You don’t know that and talk’s cheap.” I was bitter, she could have absolutely no idea how ill I was feeling, nor how terrified. Apart from which, a life-time of dire warnings doesn’t go into your boots. She shrugged,
“You’re right. None of my business.” I nodded, but still needed to justify myself.
“Look, try and understand, I never asked for this. I don’t want it. I just want to be as normal as the next person.” Raj snorted,
“But you’re not are you?”
“No but …”
“And you can’t change what you are.”
“No.”
“No.” she repeated, “But look, if you want to use what you’ve got to give litterbugs a fright, teach dirty old men on the tube a lesson, that’s up to you. Just one question. How did it feel when you got that kid out?”
I opened my mouth to answer but didn’t get the chance,
“You just finished telling me, it felt great. You made a real difference to someone, right?”
She rose, brushed invisible crumbs off her uncreased skirt and reached behind the chair for her jacket.
“I’ll go get our coats. I’ll leave the note for the police and another for Lauretta. Meet me in the main entrance hall, if we get a taxi quickly, we should get the 3.55.”
“And that’s it?” I asked. She shrugged.
“I just don’t want to get involved.” I said miserably. She shrugged again as she turned away.
“You already are.”
At the next table an elderly man and a girl of about ten unloaded two cups of tea, propping the empty tray carefully against the table leg. They were both crying. There’d been a death, his daughter, her mother. I thought about the decisions I’d made, things I wanted to do, things I didn’t. I thought about a small, blood-stained, leather strap wrapped in yellowing tissue paper at the bottom of my drawer.
“Raj, wait,” I said, “I’ll go back.”
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