Despite the Angels (32 page)

“You believed that sort of thing, an hour ago,” she said.

“Yes. It was easier, believing something. It stopped me worrying about the possibilities all the time. I was reasonably sure I qualified for Heaven. Some people really suffer imagining hellfire. Neil, maybe. Though I don’t know if he really has much conscience this time.”

“Oh, look, it really is beautiful. And my favourite whale out in front, showing the way.” They had arrived at the house and were hovering at the level of the shelf.

“Your favourite whale? I thought your favourite was the giraffe?”

“No, it was just the one we could move. But it worked for you, didn’t it?”

Lewis threw his arms round Dawn and hugged her tight. “Yes, it did, my pet. You did well. I am donating the Ark to the children’s hospital, with a little plaque in your memory. It is there, behind the animals.”   Dawn moved over and read the brass plaque. Her eyes glistened.

“Oh, Lewis, I’m so sorry you had to go through all that all alone. I did try to stop Dorothy getting on the train, but she didn’t understand me, even though I cried like anything. Next time, we must try to get it right.”

“Do you want to try again? We haven’t been particularly good parents so far.”

“Of course. It hasn’t been your fault and I’d love to see you both together for a full life. You deserve to have a long time together, after all that’s happened. Come on now, the others are waiting.”

“There’s Trynor!” Lewis broke into a run and Trynor held out his arms.

Dorothy and Lewis were sitting on a marble bench in a sunny courtyard, vines and bougainvillea trailed over the walls above them, a hot sun beat down. They were talking intently, filling each other in on the thirty two years they had spent apart, catching up with news of those still on the earth and those in spirit. They sat close, occasionally stretching out their energies to interlink, or to remind each other of fun times they had had in their bodies.

“And what did you think of being a woman?” Lewis looked suggestively at Dorothy and she laughed.

“You forget, I have been a woman many times.”

“All right then, what did you think of being my woman?”

“Actually, being your woman was fine. Being a woman in that society was not particularly easy. Everything had to be so polite, so well behaved. It was stultifying at times. And hard work.”

“Yes, hard work – like being a peasant a hundred years earlier. I worked hard then and got no respect. Crete was easier, at least in the body.” Lewis stopped, remembering Eloise and Alessia and how it had felt in those bodies. “Rasifi was just as skilled as when she was Rosemarie, but less relaxed about it. And as Rose she was comfortable- got you through Dawn’s birth well, didn’t she?”

“Yes. Lovely having her as my mother, you usually get that honour.”

“No, never my mother. Just a mother figure.”

“Pedant!” Dorothy found some of her Danthys energy and pulsed it out towards Lewis/Alessia, who responded with a coil of energy in return. The two strands of energy met, the colours scintillated and the two energy beings that were the souls of Dorothy and Lewis twined together, rising higher, moving in and out, twisting around, chasing each other to the ground, taking it in turns to surround and be surrounded. A musical note hummed from the centre of their mixed energies and harmonics joined it, so that the note became a perfect ‘ohm’ as they melded and parted and came together again, their energies vibrating faster and faster, the pitch of the note rising and expanding so that the music filled the courtyard and spilled over, rustling the plants that were hanging on the walls. Their colours shone brightly, pulsed in circles, squares and spirals, coming and going and changing and growing brighter, so that the whole courtyard glowed, as though with an inner sun. Then slowly the glow dimmed and the music faded and the two energies settled and parted, just enough that they could sit again side by side on the bench and laugh together.

“We could never do that in Scotland!” Lewis said with a mischievous grin at Dorothy.

“Nor in Crete, be fair.”

“No, nowhere on the Earth. But the food tastes better there than the imitations we can make here.”

“Yes, I suppose there must be some compensation for taking a life,” Dorothy was wistful for a moment. “I watched you eating all those fried potatoes and envied you at times.”

“They killed me in the end,” Lewis paused and then said very firmly “so I love fried potatoes!” They laughed.

  Trynor and Jotin were watching from the doorway.

“I thought we would find you two somewhere warm and sunny. Reliving some long ago lives, were you?”

“And connecting properly again. We have been apart a long time by earth standards. Harder for Lewis than for me.”

“You were making beautiful music. We enjoyed the concert.”

Lewis was beginning to look apprehensive. He clutched at Dorothy’s hand and gripped it. When he spoke, it was very quietly.

“Have you come to tell us we have to leave again? So soon? I don’t think I can face it just yet. It was so lonely there, all on my own. Of course, I had brothers and sisters and some friends, but no one who was special. None of my soul friends were there.” He fell silent and looked at his feet.

“No,” Trynor said, sitting down beside Lewis, lengthening the bench so that they would not feel crowded. “No, it will be a while before we are ready for you to go to Earth again. That is what I have come to tell you. I am going to take a body and it will need a lot of my energy, as it is only the second I have ever had.” He sat back, looking a bit surprised at his own disclosure.

“Why do you need to do that? You are so wise already.” Lewis looked at his guide with a worried face. “If you need a life, what hope is there for all of us? We’ll be going back and back for eternity!”

“Well, I don’t exactly ‘need’ to take a life, though I will build in some learning while I am there to justify my ticket, but I really want to taste all that food you have been waving under my nose for the past two hundred years. Those patés, the cheese, the wine,”

“Oh yes,” said Lewis and Dorothy, their faces lighting up, “and the soft bread and the stews and the herbs…”

“And then the chips!” said Trynor, “You were very keen on the chips. Maybe I will take a life in Belgium, where that chip seller came from. Or maybe France. Somewhere with interesting food; I am doing research. And when I am finished, then you can have a life together again and raise Moonsong. Planidi is still grumbling about it. Her guide threatened to send her for partial remodelling if she didn’t stop worrying about earthly things, so she does try. It seems difficult for her. You all need to make a bigger effort to get rid of your fears.”

“And Dorothy, you need to learn not to let other people’s disapproval sway you so much. You need to learn to follow your inner voice more.”

“You mean you!” said Dorothy.

“Not always. You have good ideas of your own, too. Of course, when I hear you having one, I try to make it louder for you, but it doesn’t always work. You can all be very cussed sometimes.”

“So, can I hang out here with Dorothy and have some interesting classes, while we wait for you?” Lewis was holding Dorothy’s hand tightly.

“Well, you can spend a little of the time together. But you do have individual stuff to work on, too. So you won’t be in each other’s arms the whole time. You can have as long as you want now and then Jotin will supervise while I’m away.”

“Trynor, who is going to guide you while you have a body?” Lewis was curious. “Do you need a guide?”

“Yes, I’ll have someone, don’t worry.”

“I hope you’ll hear her,” said Lewis.

“Should be easier,” said Jotin to Trynor, “now that Lucy’s working. All I have to do is get David to sprain something and Bob’s your uncle!”

“Yes! Why hadn’t I realised? Could have saved all that stress over the past few years. And wondering why she wanted to do physiotherapy. Maybe she knew more than we did.”

“I doubt it. Didn’t you say it was from when she hurt her ankle at that school Sports Day?”

“Yes, you’re right. She enjoyed her visits for treatments then. Got better so soon she thought they were magic,” Trynor smiled at the memory. “Good thing, it seems, in the end. So when are you going to push him over?”

“Haha. The tennis season is on, maybe something can be arranged. Leave it with me.”

David ran to and fro across the court, fielding the ball as the two girls joined forces at the other side of the net. One and a halfles, they called it, when he played the two of them, and they loved it, declaring that as their ages added up to twenty and he was just thirty three he had an advantage and should be handicapped. This took a different form each time. Today he was playing left-handed. This was Clare’s idea, as she was left-handed herself. She and Caroline could never decide whether it was better for her to play on the left, so they could catch the wide shots, or on the right so they had ‘good coverage of the centre’ as Caroline put it. Either way, they often beat David, who ended their matches out of breath but elated. On this early summer Saturday, the sun was trying to peep from behind some heavy clouds and Herbert Park was looking a little windblown. These winds would be good for sailing, should take it up again, he thought, as he lunged to reach another ball that had just made it over the net. He forgot he was holding the racquet in his left hand and reached out with his right, of course missing the ball entirely.

“Love forty,” shouted Clare triumphantly.

“Is it? Are you counting properly?”

“Yes, Daddy, we’re winning!”

“Again. I’m no good as a left hander.”

“Not when you forget, silly!”

“I’ll try harder.”

“Or what’s the prize? Two Cokes?”

David lobbed the ball over the net and Clare took a turn at serving. The ball came over the net at speed towards David’s left and he did remember and put his racquet out, Jotin adjusted the angle of it slightly and the ball caught the frame, jolting the racquet in his hand and sending a sharp pain through his wrist.

“Ow!” David dropped the racquet and held his wrist, rubbing it. “I think I’m finished with being a lefty for today.”

“I think we win,” said Clare, “how about Cokes now?”

“Ducks first,” said Caroline, as they put away their racquets into the bag and gathered up the balls. She was a champion of ducks’ rights, declaring that the ducks could not be allowed to starve just because she had got ‘too old to feed ducks’ as her mother had said. So they crossed the road to the other part of the park and gave the ducks the bread that had been saved for them. David watched his girls, glad they were still able to behave like children, sorry that the baby years were gone and aware that all too soon the childhood years would be over too. He rubbed his wrist and wondered suddenly what it would be like at home when the girls had gone and he was alone with Kathleen. He felt a sudden chill and put it down to the wind that was still whipping across the grass. He called the girls, they waved goodbye to the ducks and ran in front of him towards the shops and the prospect of fizzy drinks.

Kathleen was lying on the couch when they got home, surrounded by travel brochures and a couple of guidebooks. David leant over and kissed her.

“Researching Portugal?” They had booked earlier in the year for a fortnight in the Algarve, a resort with good amusements for children.

“No, that’s sorted. I’m looking for something for the autumn.”

“What? We haven’t even gone on our holiday yet and you’re on to the next one? That’s ridiculous, Kathleen. We can’t afford to go away all the time. And you shouldn’t live your life from one trip to the next. Just enjoy today.” He sat down in the armchair opposite his wife, and looked at her. “Why not come and play tennis with us? We could play doubles instead of one and a halfles. It’s fun with the kids.”

“Yea,” Kathleen continued flicking through her brochure. “There’s a nice autumn break here, to the Italian lakes. We haven’t seen those.”

“We haven’t seen the Great Wall of China, doesn’t mean we have to go.” David stopped. He knew there was no point, Kathleen was tenacious, would hang onto a holiday idea forever. “Why don’t you ring Sandra and see if she’ll go with you? She might like Italy.”

Kathleen started to cry. “You’re horrible. You never want to come with me. You’re nasty when we’re away and you’re mean when we get back. And now you want me to go on my own.” The sobs grew louder.
Haliken tried to soothe Kathleen, stroking her and singing gently. Then she turned to Jotin and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to be getting anywhere with her. I’ll try and work on the Sandra idea, talk to her guide. Then if Kathleen realised her disenchantment while on holidays wasn’t because of David, maybe we could move on a bit. What d’you think?”

“Sounds a good idea.” Jotin turned to David. “Come on, out of here.”

David pushed himself up out of the chair and gasped. His wrist was sore. He wriggled it experimentally, it hurt. Kathleen paid no attention, her hands were over her face as she cried. David went out to the kitchen to see what needed to be done for dinner.