Beneath the Watchful Ginkgoes

He put a cup down in front of me; I curled my fingers around it as if it were some holy relic.

Then he sat down across from me and sighed.

"So tell me, love. What happened? What put you back in this hole again?"

"I... I slept with her, Da. With Astrid."

"And?" he said, softly. "You've never been one to jump into bed with people, Becca. It took Lizzy forever to get you into hers. And I've seen the tenderness of your smile when you talk about this new Cailín. So... what happened? Don't try to hide the bad parts; just lay out out for me good and square so I can see what's what."

"I... dreamed Lizzy was still alive, and I woke up next to Astrid and... called her the wrong name."

"That's hardly a crime, Becca," he said, gently.

"You weren't there," I whispered. "She's... young. She's brittle, but has this huge heart, and... I broke it, Da. I broke it good and well. And... since she left she'd not looked at my messages or answered my calls. I need to say sorry but I can't, and I can't be home, and I can't be alone, and I can't go to her..."

"So you came to your Sanctuary, love. That's also not a crime. Becca, you know this will always be your home too, right? You know I'd never turn you away, no matter what. I like knowing that you will come to me when you need to. You know that, right?"

"I know," I wailed, desperately trying not to cry.

He reached out to take my hand and held it gently between his warm, rough fingers.

"Lizzy never talked to me much about any troubles between two of you. You never had real problems, or at least any that I saw. Not everyone is like that. Most people struggle every day. Her ma and I... well... it wasn't always sunshine and roses. So we talked - and fought, yes, and said vile things to one another. But we still loved one another. And the signs are there that this girl - this Astrid - loves you. I doubt anything you could have done could have made this new girl cut you away in one clean slice, Rebecca. It'll take work but there will be a path back."

"I called her my dead girlfriend's name, and told her I missed her."

"You called her by the name of your lover," he gently corrected. "By the name of the one you had loved with all of you. Do you love her? Astrid, I mean?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"Then it's no crime, is it. You felt warm, and no doubt safe for the first time in forever. The mind is a funny creature, forever running where we know not and cannot rule."

He squeezed my hand; I bit down a sob.

"I suspect you know what you've got to do. It won't be easy. Somehow you've got to get hold of her, whether that's by phone or by finding or by standing outside her door and screaming her name like a Bansidhe until she comes out," he added, with a wry smile. "Lizzy would never have wanted you to spend your life alone, Becca. My little girl would have wanted you to be happy. That was all that ever mattered to her. You were all that ever mattered to her - even at the very end."

He leaned forward, and kissed my forehead; I sat, still as stone, trying not to shatter.

"I'm a wreck, Da," I whispered, at last. "I'm no use to man or beast any more. She deserves better than me."

"No, my girl. You're bereaved - in the most brutal and inhumane way. Some people never get over it. You will. You're stronger than you think you are, sweetheart. Now - listen to me. I like this Astrid girl, Becca. I like the way that you were smiling for the first time in as long as I can remember. Don't give up. Fight for her. Show her that you want her. Life is too short and full of sadness to let even the chance of joy go past. Right. On the topic of joy - I'm going to put some bacon on because I need some, and frankly, love, so do you. You, meanwhile, are going to get your arse off that chair and go to the living room or Lizzy's room or my study, and you're going to phone this girl and not give up until she answers your calling. Got it?"

"But..."

"Don't fail me now, Becca. You never have before. You deserve someone who makes you smile like Lizzy used to - and Astrid does that for you. Come on - get. My study's best; I won't eavesdrop much."

"I love you, Da," I whimpered, my voice all weird and tight with stress and grief.

"I know you do, my girl," he said, voice going rough as well. "Even though I lost her, even in that blackness there was still some good - because I got to keep you. You're my shining beacon on the hilltop, Becca, and it kills me to see you this sad. Go and get your girl back. Be brave like I know you are."

I slid off the chair and slunk towards his study; he began to rattle pots and pans behind me, and whistle in the tuneless way that had always driven Lizzy to distraction.

I pulled the study door slightly to behind me.

I took a breath, and pulled out my phone, and dialled.

Voicemail.

I dialled again.

Voicemail again.

I sighed, and glanced up at the badly-painted ceiling.

I tried once more.

I expected to go to voicemail for a third time... but on the sixth ring someone picked up.

My heart leaped...

"Hi, Rebecca."

... and sank. I paused, sniffed, tried to go on. "Hi... um... is that..."

"Yes. It's Ursula, Rebecca. Astrid's run outside; she couldn't deal with taking your call. You need to stop. You need to leave her alone. I've never seen her like this, and I've known her since we were five. Please - hear me on this. You have to stop contacting her. You're killing her, Rebecca."

"Please. Please, just... just let me talk to her..." I gasped.

"No. I can't. Rebecca - listen to me. I like you. Really, I do. So... please, understand, I'm not doing this out of jealousy or some misguided white knight thing on her behalf. I'm doing this because I genuinely care about both of you. I know you love her. But she... Rebecca, she was absolutely besotted with you since the moment she met you. She's hurting. You hurt her."

I squeezed my eyes closed.

"Please..." I begged.

"You have to let her go. You have to. This... what happened between you... she'd broken, okay? She's broken. She needs time to heal. So do you. Let her go, Rebecca. Please. And, for God's sake, talk to someone. Talk to anyone. I don't care who. Just... stop hurting yourself, and stop, please, for Christ's sake stop hurting her. I'm going to hang up now, and I feel horrible about doing it, but someone has to be the grown up for the two of you. I'm not going to block your number on her phone, because that would be a betrayal of her trust and I'm not that much of a cunt no matter what you may think. Instead, I'm going to choose to believe that you are enough of an adult to do the right thing. Are you?"

"Yes," I whispered, after a long pause.

"For the record, I'm so, so sorry. About Elizabeth... and about this too. But I've got to put Astrid's well-being first and make sure she comes through this, because she has never cared one little bit about herself and she just won't fucking learn how to. Take care of yourself, Rebecca. Please, leave Astrid alone for now. Give her time. Now... goodbye."

"Goodbye..." I managed.

The phone clicked.

I slumped forward, gagging against the bile in my throat.

"Becca?" said Mick softly, peering in at me. "Becca, are you okay?"

"No," I moaned.

He pushed open the study door and came and knelt beside me.

"Oh, sweetheart," he said, voice full of regret.

And I slumped slowly into his arms and cried like it was the worst day of my life all over again.

He held me and comforted me as best he could, but he was just my Da and he would never - could never - be a replacement for the warmth of either of my lovers' arms.

And I would never get to feel that ever again.

XII

I walked slowly down the path between the silent silver-birch sentinels, then turned and climbed the gentle slope towards the bare, grasping Ginkgoes that framed Lizzy's place.

It had been weeks since I'd last visited her. My heart had been too broken from this new saga of uselessness for me to face my prior loss.

But part of me had known that wasn't fair to her - or to her part of me.

So I'd finally managed to drag myself down here where I intended to stand and deliver my confession before the silent black marker of my beloved's grave.

A chill wind stirred the skeletal limbs of the trees and shrubs, and a raven quorked at me from her perch astride a weathered cross. Lizzy's guardian Ginkgoes raked the sky above me with their grey branches; little piles of dirty melting snow huddled around their trunks.

I climbed slowly up the slope towards them, and as I walked I tried not to think of Astrid; of the raw, naked pain in her accusing eyes.

And the stabbing agony under my ribs as she'd turned and stumbled, sobbing, away.

I'd long-since lost the ability to distinguish between cold and despair. I reached Elizabeth's graveside and stood, staring bleakly down at the dry, bare sticks that were all that was left of my last bouquet. Then I sniffed, and dragged a sleeve of my woollen jacket over my face, hopelessly smearing what little makeup I'd bothered to don when I'd finally forced myself out of bed.

"Hey, Lizzy," I whispered. "Sorry it's been a while. Shit happened. I fucked up. I fucked up so badly. Um... so you know how I said I wasn't ever going to... want to be with anyone else? Yeah. I know. That... that aged about as well as milk. But..."

I squatted down and squinted at the cursive of her name.

"I miss you. I miss how you always gave me the best advice. I know it's silly, and... and this would never be happening if... you were still with me. And... I feel faithless for being here like this. Like I'm... confessing that I cheated on you, even though I know I didn't and that you've given me enough nudges to know that you're... okay with this. But... I hurt her, Lizzy. I hurt her so badly. I... I let her think that... that I wanted her. I mean... that sounds wrong, it's not how it is - I did want her, and I still do... but... but like everything these days it's all just... wrapped up in what-ifs and... and greyness and those little bits of you that I still carry around in me. And then... well, you can probably guess what happened. And now..."

I gasped a breath.

"I feel like the worst human ever to live," I managed. "She... I... I was her first, Lizzy. I let her give herself to me. And... and I wanted it, and I wanted her to be with me, and... and in the moment, I was happy. I forgot all this. Just for a heartbeat I was okay. But... when it was over it all came back, only worse. And now I've hurt her so badly I don't think it will ever heal. I had no right to be with her. I had no right."

Two pigeons rattled their wings in a small stand of laurel. I watched them puff up against the cold, then sighed my own breath out into the frigid air.

"So... please. Please, Lizzy. Help me. Help me solve this. Help me at least... make it so that she can move on from me. Help me give her a chance for... someone better."

I stared, squinting at the brown, dead grass under the light dusting of ice that sealed her away.

I knew what I had to do, of course. All this theatre was mere procrastination. I had to do the hard thing; I had to go and, somehow, find Astrid and grovel. Not for forgiveness, oh no, I didn't rate forgiveness. I needed to apologise to her for what I'd done, for taking her heart and smashing it when it was already so badly broken.

The thought terrified me.

"I'm not strong," I whispered. "I was never strong like you were. You were so tall, so brave, so fierce. Why? Why did you have to go? Why did you have to leave me? I needed you, Lizzy. You made me... able to cope with all this; with the world and with people. I'm... for... for a moment, I thought, I thought that maybe she might... not replace you, nobody could replace you, and... and I know she'd never even dream of trying. That's just... who she is. She's... you'd..."

I swallowed.

"I think you'd have liked her," I managed, at last. "She reminds me a lot of you. She's just... different, is all. Maybe that's why I got so fond of her, because she was enough like you not to feel foreign, but different enough that..."

"Clearly not different enough," said Astrid.

I gasped and spun, lost my footing, and cried out as I wrenched my knee. I stared up at her, too shocked to fully appreciate the pain.

Damp cold began to soak through the seat of my jeans.

"Ow," I announced, as if I'd just made some strange discovery. "Ow, that hurts," I added, as if to confirm my experimental results.

She sighed, then squatted down in front of me and reached out.

"Here," she said. "Let's get you up."

She got her arms under me and grunted as she lifted me.

"What... why... why are you here..." I somehow managed, trying to ignore the agony in my knee, flushing hot with embarrassment and shame that she'd caught me mid-confession.

"I came to talk to Elizabeth," she said, softly. "I'd been doing it for a while. Just not since... well, you know. Here. Lean against me, I'll hold you up. Sorry; I didn't mean to startle you. Sorry you fell."

Her voice was measured and flat; there was no warmth in her words, just a Samaritan's concern for a fallen fellow traveller.

I whimpered as I tried to put my weight on my knee. "Ow," I gasped. "Oh, I've fucked that one up properly."

"Uh huh. It looked like a bad fall - painful. Look - there's a bench over there; I'll help you to it."

"Thank... thank you..."

"Don't mention it."

I closed my mouth; tried to wall off my heart, but her cool dispassionate words were viscerally upsetting.

The glacial cold that cascaded down off her was so different to the warmth of her arms and side against me. I couldn't help myself; I stared up at her, at her clenched jaw, the eyes that stared resolutely forward, at the severely-constrained hair caught and trapped by her no-nonsense-ponytail.

"Astrid?" I queried, hesitantly, after she'd helped me hobble some number of paces.

"Yes?"

"Are you... okay?"

"Yep, I'm completely fine," she said, all polite briskness, not even a flicker of warmth or even acknowledgement that there was a reason for her not to be fine. "Nearly there, Rebecca. Here. I'll put my scarf down so you don't soak your bum as well. At least there's not much mud on you. Can you straighten your leg a bit? I'll help you sit."

I groaned as she helped me sit down. "Fuck," I hissed. "Oh, bollocks, that's so sore."

"Yeah, it looked really painful; it was twisted right under you. Do I need to call an ambulance for you, Rebecca?"

I stared up at her flat, disinterested expression, hating the way she was using only my full name.

"No. I'll live," I answered, softly.

"Okay. I'm going to chat to Davey. I'll walk you back to the bus stop if you're still here when I'm done."

She turned and began to walk away.

"Seriously, Astrid? You're just going to walk away from me like this? After everything? Really?"

The words burst out of me, almost without volition.

She shrugged and kept on walking.

Shame lanced through me.

"I'm sorry!" I screamed. "I'm sorry, okay! I'm... I'm sorry, Astrid!"

She paused, turned partway back to me.

"So am I," she said, only the faintest tremor audible in her voice.

And then she turned away again.

I sat, staring after her in disbelief, unable to grasp the reality that she was... she was leaving me. She was leaving me.

I forced myself to my feet, crying out, then biting down hard as I gritted my teeth against the pain.

"Astrid!" I shrieked. "Please, oh God, please, wait for me! For God's sake, please!"

She turned again, and stared at me over the fifteen limping paces that separated us as I hobbled towards her to try to catch her.

"Why?" she said. "Why should I? You made it very clear that I wasn't who you really wanted, Rebecca."

"Please!" I cried. "Please let me just explain..."

"Explain? Explain what? That I'm some weird fucking simulacrum of your dead wife? That... that you were using me to... to pretend that she was back? Fuck you, Rebecca," she gasped, shoulders shaking.

"That's... that's not it at all..." I sobbed. "Please! Please, I swear, I never did that, and... and I never meant to hurt you like that... oh fuck me, Astrid, I'm so sorry about it all!"

Her face crumbled, she turned her back on me and clutched herself.

But she didn't move; and she didn't react as I reached her and wrapped my arms around her and held myself to her. I could feel the shuddering gasps she was taking, I squeezed my eyes tightly closed and tried with all my might to take her pain away.

"You ruined everything," she whispered. "Do you know what you did to me, Becca? You were my first. My first in everything - the first girl I fell for, the first girl I loved, the first girl I made love to. And it was all a lie."

"It's not a lie," I moaned, nauseated. "Astrid, please, please... I'm a disaster, but I'm not cruel. I... it was too much. I'm not well, you know that, and I should never have put you in that position, but please. It wasn't a lie. I love you. I do. It's just... I still love her, too. And... and some things are just too hard to face. I'm broken. I don't think there's any fixing me. Not even you could do it. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you like this..."

She shuddered, then scrubbed her face dry.

"Well, you did. Can't take that back."

"So what now?" I whispered, trying to fill the terrible silence she left.

"So now? Now, I walk you back to the bus stop. I say goodbye to you, and I leave. I can't see you again, Rebecca. Not for enough time that I... that I don't start crying when I hear your voice or see your face or miss the smell of your hair and the warmth of your arms. I'm not strong enough for that as well."

"You're... leaving me."

"Yes."

So... this was my new reality; I'd done this, it was my cross to bear from here on out.

"Oh," I whispered, as what faint hope I'd had left died forever.

She took a deep breath, and then another. She donned her mask again.

"I've said what I needed to. Come. I can't talk to David like this. I'm too upset now. I'll... get you back to work, it's the least I can do, after all you've done."

"Oh," I repeated, hearing and understanding the message within the message.

We said no more. She got an arm under my shoulders, curled it around my back, and helped me limp to the cemetery gate. She got me on a bus, and rode beside me, silent as a stone angel from some Victorian's abandoned tomb. She helped me down off the bus and walked wordlessly beside me to the doors to my office building.

"Goodbye then, Rebecca," she said, softly, at last. She held her face carefully still, but she couldn't hide the dark pain within those beautiful eyes.

"Astrid, please. I love you," I sobbed, despairing.

She smiled a wistful smile and reached out to touch my cheek.

"I know you think you do. Take care of yourself, Becca. I... probably won't see you around."

And she turned and walked away.

I slumped against the plate glass, watching her slender form as she shrank into the distance.

She didn't look back.

My heart slowly annealed into cold, dead stone; I took a slow, resigned breath and bundled up those few tattered remnants of my soul away into the iron cage at the very centre of me.

The world twisted a little, became just that small bit more jagged.

I took another slow breath.

Then I sighed it out.

Work awaited. It was all I had any more.

Best I be good at it, then.

XIII

And so the long black months of Darkness rose up from the land of Shadow and spread their grasping tendrils out over my life. I woke, and rose, and showered. I went to work, and pretended to be human for a greater or lesser number of hours. Then I left work, and visited my mum, or Mick, or those friends who still somehow stuck by me, and for all of them I pretended that I was still living, still breathing - not this weird, crazed and disconnected Golem that still tottered through its allotted days.