Dead Village Page 3

  She lifted Dan’s glass and threw the red wine that was still swirling slightly, into his face, stinging his eyes as the wine ran down his cheeks and onto his white shirt and suit collar.

  “Pig,” she shrieked, before walking quickly out through the large entrance doors.

  Lynn and the children stared open mouthed, as Dan dabbed at his dripping face and eyes with a napkin. The tall waiter, who just didn’t want to get involved in this, fidgeted nervously with his bowtie, and tried to ignore them, pretending he had seen nothing.

  He had thrown a drunken abusive man out only last week. But this- this was something different, much different.

  “Goddamn crazy woman,” Dan moaned, as some of the other customers stared around open mouthed at him.

  “Oh God?” Lynn whispered, confused, as she stared at her shocked children, who in turn stared at their father.

  “Yeah, crazy as a fuc…”

  “What the hell is going on with you Dan? Huh?” Lynn interrupted.

  “Why it’s obvious, the woman’s a psycho, what the hell else can I say? I mean, you’re my wife. I don’t even know the woman. Never met her befo…“

  “Never met her before?” Lynn whispered, puzzled.

  “No, like I said, I don’t know who the hell she is, crazy bitch thoug…“

  “Oh dad,” Tom stated, and lowered his head, as he interrupted him.

  “What’s wrong with you people? You heard her, Bea-Beatrice, she called herself,” Dan stuttered, wondering why they were looking at him in this strange and funny way.

  “Who’s Beatrice?” Grace asked, calmly.

  “I don’t know, that woman, that nutcase who is claiming to be my wife.”

  “You’re wife?” Lynn said, now even more confused.

  “Look at what the crazy bitch did to me,” Dan moaned, as he rubbed hard at his purple stained shirt collar.

  “Dan,” Lynn whispered. “You threw the wine over yourself!”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” Dan asked, confused, and now almost frightened at his wife’s disclosure.

  “Dan, there was just no one there!”

  “Have you all gone crazy? What’re you talking about? You seen her,” Dan barked.

  “Oh God,” Dan muttered. “I just remembered. I know her; she’s the woman from my dreams. She’s the woman who has been coming to me at night!”

  “There was no woman Dan,” Lynn stated loudly.

  Lynn leaned across and held his face gently as tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked sadly into his eyes. “Honey, there was no one,” she whispered.

  Dan stared across to his children, as a little bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

  Tom and Grace nodded in agreement with their mother, and Dan noticed the tears that were also running down his daughter’s face. He then glanced at Tom, who looked as though someone had just stolen his X Box and complete set of War Zone video games.

  Dan buried his head in his hands and wept. Now he knew he was seriously ill.

  He had seen this illness in his loved one’s eyes.

  * * * * *

  As they left the restaurant, the flustered head waiter almost stumbled over a barstool, as he backed away from this obviously mentally ill guy, who just two minutes earlier had been having a full blooded argument with no one, before throwing his drink around himself. Dan stared angrily at him and he moved quickly away.

  This guy, Dan felt, had thought of him as some kind of freak, and he grew even more embarrassed about the situation.

  The drive back to the house was made in silence, because now they all knew that this father and husband would need to seek much better professional help. Much better help than Doctor Brooks and the hospital could give him.

  Lynn would make sure he received the best treatment money could buy though. And if this meant selling the house that they all loved, then that was just what they would have to do.

  Dan had never had a day’s illness since his appendices thing. And even when he was heavily into the boxing and his eye was severely cut during the Martinez bout, when Martinez head butted him in the tenth round, he went on about his daily life and ignored the heavy plaster that had almost forced his eyelid shut.

  Now though, this was a different situation. Because now he knew doc Brooks was right. Now he was paying the price for all his past carelessness, and now it was payback time to the body he had taken for granted for so long.

  It was obvious this was all just a hallucination at the restaurant. And he was almost sure that he was going mad.

  But he had witnessed insanity first hand. In fact, he had written a two page report on the subject for his column just two years previously. He had visited the clinic for the mentally ill, and it had almost frightened him. He had seen people there who were perfectly normal, right up to a point in their lives, until something bad had happened to them. Then it was goodbye to their cranial system.

  He had been shown a guy who was once a high rolling banker. A guy who was so confident in everything he had done in life. A life and soul of the party type guy whose financial advice kept his friends and family rich beyond their wildest dreams. But when this man’s beautiful wife and baby daughter were killed in a plane crash, his mind refused to accept it.

  Dan almost cried as he watched the man drool over his chest as he rocked back and forward in his seat.

  The guy would talk to his wife and child as though they where still there, laughing and joking with them, then turn violent when he thought someone was asking them to leave.

  ‘Guys a no hoper,’ the orderly had informed him, in a cold, ruthless sort of manner. Now money meant nothing to this sad, pathetic, sick figure seated in front of him.

  Yeah, Dan had seen these mentally ill people all right. Their minds all mangled up. He would die first though, he swore. Die from his own hand before he would end up like these sad unwanted individuals. Beyond the point of no return, he thought, and then some.

  No way was he going to sit for hours in a straight jacket banging his head off the freekin walls of his ten by eight padded cell, even if he may not know about it.

  Then to have someone spoon feed you and maybe abuse you later when no one was looking. Oh yeah, he’d heard the stories too. And if this hallucinating were to get any worse, then it was goodnight buddy, as far as Dan was concerned.

  * * * * *

  Dan put his head into his hands and sobbed at the thought of what had happened at the restaurant. ‘I’m your wife,’ the woman had said. And although Dan found this hard to contemplate, he had a memory of sorts. A memory of something.

  Suddenly his brain was coming alive with thought patterns. Wild surreal thought patterns shooting and darting back and forth like invisible bullets, ricocheting around in the deepest recesses of his mind. Nonsensical but somehow illuminating thoughts that made him tremble visibly.

  Dan was aware of how the brain can sometimes play tricks on people. The brain is a much too complex an organ, he thought.

  This though, was different. These dreams he had been having were more like memories. Real and proper memories, that stayed in place, and could be recalled up later. No; to say these were dreams he was having would be wrong. These were real events that had actually happened to him sometime, somehow. And of this he was now certain.

  A shiver ran down his spine as he concentrated hard.

  He was starting to have flashbacks of the bedraggled woman who had come to him at the restaurant. In his memory though, this woman wasn’t like this at all. She was beautiful. He could visualise her clearly now. She was standing in the sunlight smiling seductively at him. He could even remember her smell. ‘Beatrice,’ the woman at the restaurant had called herself. “I know you Beatrice,” he whispered. “I know you.”

  Memories of the pair of them together crashed through his mind.

  He had flashes about a visit to Paris, and of strolling arm in arm with her along the Champs-Elysees on that beautiful sunny day. They had walked along this most prest
igious and broadest avenue in Paris, and they had visited many shops in the area. Dan rubbed at his forehead as he gaped in amazement at the over the top prices in the luxurious shop windows.

  “Do you know what the name of this avenue means?” Beatrice had asked him at the time.

  “Yeah, it means welcome to freekin rip off city,” he had moaned.

  “Don’t be such a damn tightwad Dan, it doesn’t suit you,” she had scolded.

  “Anyway, it refers to the Elysian Fields. In Greek mythology it was known as The Blessed place,” she said smugly.

  It wasn’t like Beatrice to get one up on him, and at the time he had gazed admiringly at her and her knowledge of historical things like this.

  They had even visited the Eiffel Tower, and he had been almost sick when they walked along inside the viewing deck at the top.

  If Dan had one fear then this was it. Heights had always frightened him, ever since he had fallen from the fence at school and badly sprained his ankle. But Beatrice had persuaded him to go to the top of the tower, and it was only through sheer bravado, and the thought that she would conceive him to be a coward, that he eventually did it. She would never know the full extent of his fear that day as he tried to control his shaking hands. These were the things he was remembering, and now he was certain that Beatrice was as real as Lynn, even though it may be proved later that she only existed in his disorientated mind.

  Then another memory came to him. A memory he would rather forget.

  This memory was of a frightening occurrence that had left him a shattered man when it had happened so long ago. It was Lynn’s funeral.

  * * * * *

  Dan tossed and turned on the bed. He knew he was dreaming again. But this time it was different. Now he was no longer afraid of his dreams, because now he had accepted them.

  He was aware of Lynn shaking him, but he ignored her and refused to waken. He had to know what the hell was happening, and where this was all leading to. If he could only find the answers in his sleep, then that would be just fine by him.

  “Wake up Dan,” Lynn’s voice echoed in his head. “You’re going to be late for work, wake up!”

  Why won’t she just let me sleep? Dan thought.

  He wanted to yell at her to go away and leave him alone. But he couldn’t make a sound.

  He felt somehow paralysed, as people sometimes do in their dream world state. His mouth opened to speak, but he couldn’t string two words together.

  Lynn walked from the bedroom without looking back. She would let Dan get some more needed sleep.

  She was aware of how Alf Reynolds, Dan’s boss at the paper would react when Dan didn’t show up for work. Ballistic was the word she searched for. She was sure though, that Dan needed the extra rest, so she wouldn’t fight it. Besides, Dan was probably the best timekeeper in the place, and Reynolds, she felt, should damn well show him some loyalty and respect. Why, Dan had bent over backwards hundreds of times to please this thankless man, so now it would be Reynolds turn to reverse the role, she believed.

  She pulled the list of contact telephone numbers off the little note pad which was stuck magnetically to the fridge, and scanned for Alf Reynolds number.

  She would tell him in no uncertain terms that her husband was ill, and if he refused to listen, then she would somehow persuade Dan to leave this thankless job.

  She dialled the number and waited.

  Now though, Dan was starting to stir.

  Something bad and frightening had forced him from his dream.

  He heard another clearer voice echo inside his head, just as he opened his eyes.

  “Come back to me Dan,” the voice whispered. “Please come back.”

  “Beatrice,” he groaned, “Beatrice.”

  A searing biting pain, almost sent him reeling to the floor, and as he staggered across the room, he clutched at his head.

  This was the worst so far, he believed.

  “If they can’t find anything wrong with me at the hospital, then why is this happening?” Dan mumbled.

  He rushed to the bathroom and quickly but clumsily knocked over a bottle of Old Spice after shave and a small container of band aids.

  Then he swallowed two painkillers from a little box he had concealed away behind his shaving kit.

  The less Lynn knew about his worsening headaches the better, he felt. He leaned across the sink and sighed.

  He heard Lynn downstairs in the hallway, asking to speak to his boss, and he immediately guessed what she was doing.

  “No!” Dan shouted from the top of the stairs. I’m coming down now honey, I just overslept a little, that’s all. I just have to shave. Um-I’m going in to work today.”

  “Sorry, wrong number,” Lynn said, as Alf Reynolds answered the call.

  She slowly placed the phone back on the cradle with two fingers, as though it was contaminated, and shook her head.

  Then she shouted upstairs.

  “Why don’t you take the day off Dan? You know you could do with the rest. I mean, let someone else take care of it for a change.” When Dan didn’t answer she stormed into the living room. Sometimes she wondered why Dan was so bloody stubborn, but then she supposed this was one of the things she found appealing about him when they had first met. Maybe this was his way of fighting it though. A sort of don’t think about it and it will go away on its own accord, sort of thing. Ignore the bad, cherish the good. And maybe Dan was right, she felt. Who was she to question how anyone handles their problems?

  She picked up a photo from the table and smiled at the man she loved; as he grinned childishly back out from the frame.

  Suddenly Dan appeared beside her, briefcase in hand, and she clumsily pretended to polish the glass in the photo-frame with her sleeve.

  He had seen her look affectionately at it, but he hid the fact.

  “I’m okay, so stop worrying. Catch ya later,” he said. A quick peck on the cheek and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 3

  IRELAND

  “I’m so happy with you my love,” Francis whispered, as she buried her fingers deep into Tully’s hair.

  “Well, I feel the same way about you Fra, and I hope it lasts forever,” he answered with a smile.

  “How long has it been now?” Tully asked, pretending he didn’t remember.

  “Five years, two months, two weeks and three days,” Francis answered, and Tully was amazed at the fact she had actually counted their time together right down to the actual day.

  “And four minutes forty two seconds,” he added, laughing.

  As she approached the bed, she paused for a moment, and Tully knew she had something on her mind. He had learnt to anticipate her body language, and her mannerisms.

  “What’s up?” Tully asked.

  “I saw Madge today,” Francis informed him. “Down at the market. She was with her friend, Erin.”

  “Ignore her Fra!”

  “How could I ignore her? She was staring across at me; her face all contorted with rage. I asked who she thought she was staring at and returned her hateful looks, until her friend finally pulled her away.”

  “I’m not really interested in Madge anymore. You are all I care about now Fra,” he half lied. “Anyway, these past four years have felt more like one to me.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not?” Francis complained.

  “It is my love. I mean the time with you is going by much too quickly. In fact, at this rate we’ll be old and grey before we know it.”

  “Well, I’m aware that Madge still pines for you Tully. That is if you listen to what old Mrs Rafferty has to say about it. I hear she wants you back into her life, very badly. Are you sure you don’t still feel anything toward her anymore?”

  Tully couldn’t understand what his feelings were. All he knew was that when he thought of Madge, he went kind of funny. He didn’t like Francis going on about it though.

  “Please Fra, I don’t wish to talk about Madge at the moment. She chose it all to
be this way, not I. Anyway, it’s over, and I’m here with you now, so let’s live for the moment, all right.”

  “Okay Tully,” she whispered, as she squeezed his hand, not fully contented with his answer, but not wanting to cause an argument over it.

  As far as Tully was concerned though, Madge had run off with some womanising bingo caller and he had taken it badly at the time. But he had met Francis, and now his happiness with her was growing stronger. Now Madge supposedly wanted him back. This though was something that he could never allow to happen, even though at times he still missed and thought about her. Madge had some good points about her, he admitted, and it wasn’t all her fault that the marriage had failed. However, he wasn’t going to put her down to anyone, and that included Francis. What happened was between himself and Madge, and sometimes he disliked it when Francis would pry a little too much. Sometimes in life you could rationalise things all you like, and still not come up with the proper answers. Tully was like this when he thought of Madge. He just remained puzzled and confused regarding his feelings toward her. Now he was tired, but sleep no longer appealed to him.

  If only these damn dreams would stop, he thought. These bloody frightening dreams, where things become different somehow. Of strange wailing creatures, and murdered soldiers. Faces that he couldn’t put a name to, but recognised none the less. Images of haunted mines and possessed ministers fired through his head.

  Then there were the headaches that followed. Those pain crushing mornings when he would awaken from one nightmare into another, into a worst kind of physical nightmare.

  Francis had begged him to go see someone, but he had flatly refused. If there was one minus about Tully, it was his thick headedness, she felt. Sometimes he just would not listen to anyone.

  But that was Tully, practical and solid. Here was a man who was different to any other man she had ever known before. A born survivor, tough but gentle, confident, yet somehow lost. Francis knew that there were problems in Tully’s sub conscious, which stemmed back to his father, whom he loved and admired more than anyone. She also knew about his mother’s cruel treatment toward him after his father had run off. She couldn’t do anything about this she felt, but she believed she could make him go see a doctor or someone concerning his headaches and stuff.