Lost Girl: Julie's Story Ch. 02

With that, he got up and left, flashing me that beautiful smile of his, and then he was gone, and I was alone again. But it didn't feel bad, or wrong. David wasn't Mark, even though I'd tried to make him so in my head, and I knew I'd been doing him a huge injustice, leading him on in a pointless dance that was going nowhere. He did deserve better, and more, than I could give him, someone who'd love David as David, not the substitute Mark I'd tried to make him into.

I went back to the office, had a little bit of a weep, then blew my nose and got back into my work.

Life rolled on over the next few months, and I slipped into a kind of routine. Nia, Shelagh and I would get together on Wednesday evenings and find a good curry-house, try something different off the menu each time, and see who could eat the most fiendishly hot concoctions they could come up with. I drew the line at eating a phal, which seemed to consist solely of red chillies, Nia and Shelagh jeering at me for my cowardice. If Jamie was home, he'd come along, and that boy could eat anything, from anywhere, not a drop of sweat or a raised eyebrow at some of the lethal, eye-wateringly fiery dishes we attempted to eat. We had fun, and I was learning how to have fun again. Doreen invited me on a few of her jaunts around town with Steven, but I declined; I wasn't really up for that kind of fun again!

This became the pattern of my life. I was content to know that Mark was out there somewhere; once in a while a bouquet of purple Hyacinths, Orange Blossom and Primrose, wrapped in Maidenhair fern would appear, and my heart would leap; Mark had been here, only the thickness of a door away from me! It was almost enough...

Then, one evening, several months after I'd broken up with David, and almost three years since my Mark had been torn away from me by my crazed bitch of a mother, I was waiting for Shelagh to appear for a rendezvous at Nia's place for coffee and her mum's cooking, there was a knock at the door. Assuming it was Shelagh, I opened the door, not looking to see who it was.

"You took your time, Shel...!" I began, then looked up.

Mark.

"Hello Tink..." he began, and got no further before I slapped him so hard the whole street echoed. I'd planned and plotted how I was going to react when I finally saw him again, but my right hand overrode all that and made its own decision.

He stood there as I slapped him again, this time with my left, knocking his head around as the street echoed again.

I went to slap him again, but he intercepted my hand and held my wrist firmly, not harshly, more like he was trying to stop me hurting myself, the way we used to play-fight all those years ago.

"Tink, stop it, we need to talk, calm down!" he insisted, and I hit his chest again and again with my free hand, trying to vent over two years of pent-up longing and anger before I exploded. I was trying to say everything I'd rehearsed, and all that came out was disjointed cursing and snarling sounds as both sides of my need, my need for him, and my need to punish him, fought for dominance.

"TINK!" he shouted, cutting through my borderline hysterics, shocking me out of my haze. I stopped dead, stared at him, so pale and wan-looking, and immediately lunged for him, trying to get my arms around his waist to crush him to me, crying and gabbling as I held him again after so long wanting and needing him. His arms came back around me, holding me to him, and it was over, he was back, I had my Mark back, my lost boy had come back.

After a million years I heard his voice through the tumult in my head.

"Tink, please, we need to talk, I need you to hear some things, and I want to explain something to you, so please, baby, sit down!"

I heard the urgency in his voice, so reluctantly, I let go of him and let him lead me over to the sofa. Once I was seated, he sat opposite me and took my hands.

"First, I need to tell you how much I missed this, seeing you, hearing your voice, holding you, it's been a living hell! The only reason I was able to come to you was because of Mum."

I reared back at that, stiffening in outrage.

"Don't ever speak of that bitch again, she's dead to me, never mention her name, do you understand?" I gritted out, horrified that he'd even brought her up, after what she did to me.

"No, Tink, you don't understand. I'm here because she can't hurt you, or me, any more. She's been sent to a secure Care Home, after she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act."

Now I was intrigued.

"What's wrong with her, Mark?" I asked

Mark looked grim for a second. "She's suffering from advanced ARD, Alcohol-Related Dementia, with a whole bunch of other cognitive disorders, and possibly Korsakoff's Psychosis caused by years of chronic vitamin deficiency coupled with alcohol abuse -- apparently not content with turning her liver into a Swiss cheese with a bottle of vodka a day for twenty years, she's also managed to turn her brain into a marshmallow by drinking dinner instead of actually eating something. The upshot is, she's completely dissociated from reality, she's forgotten you, she's forgotten me, when I went to see her she thought I was dad. She got sectioned after she got arrested for kicking-off in a supermarket when the checkout people refused to let her buy vodka because she was already drunk, she was assessed, and she was placed in a secure unit in Richmond a few days ago. I came down because the police found my name in amongst her stuff, and I've been trying to get her affairs in order."

I was trying to take this all in. Mum was suffering from dementia? For how long?

"Mark, how come you're here, now? What brought you to see me?"

He suddenly looked tense, almost angry.

"Because you're safe from her now! That night, when it all kicked off, she made threats, mostly against you, and I believed her; she said that if I didn't leave you and transfer out of London, she was going to give your details to the police and have both of us charged with Incest, she was going to tell your employers that you were being charged with incest, and petition the Home Office to have you placed on the Sex-Offender's Register, and she threatened give your story to the papers and let them pillory you. Her price for not destroying you that was that I go away, break off all contact, cut all ties with you. I had to do it, otherwise she was going to take away your life, your job, destroy you in public, make you a hate figure. I had to protect you, Tink, I had to do it!"

He drew a deep breath, his face flushing.

"She kept an eye on you, you know; she knew exactly where you lived, it's only a half mile walk from her place to here, she used to come on little snooping trips, which is why I stayed away; if I'd come here and she'd seen me, it would have been curtains for you. Oh God, Tink, can you imagine, she used to come and stand outside at night and watch you? She was a fucking loony! But, she was lucid enough, vindictive enough, and malicious enough to carry out her threats if she thought I'd broken my word."

He sighed, looking drawn and exhausted.

"I knew where you were, she told me, probably to rub it in. She demanded that I be in my office or at my flat in Bristol at all times, she'd call me every day at one or the other, to check I was still in Bristol; if I had to come to London, to go to head office, I had to come and stay with her and pretend like we were a happy family, but she'd meet me off the train at Clapham Junction and walk back to the house with me, and she'd watch me like a fucking hawk. She wanted to destroy you though, and now I know why."

I was intrigued. I'd always wondered why she hated me so much, it would take a lot away to know why.

"Tell me, Mark, please, I have to know!" I begged him.

"Tink, you're not going to like it," he warned me, "It's not a pretty story."

"Please Mark!"

He began slowly, clearly not happy with what he had to tell me. "I got this in snippets, and I had to piece it all together, because she was basically raving when she spilled all this, with periods of almost normal behaviour, other than the severe memory loss. Like I said, she thought I was dad, and she started going over the whole story, apologising, begging, blaming, the whole thing. Apparently, when I was two, she had an affair with dad's brother. He broke it off, told dad, and then Mum discovered she was pregnant. She wanted to have a termination," I flinched, he was talking about aborting me, not a comfortable thing to hear, and he paused, waiting for me to settle, his eyes widening as he realised what he'd just said.

"Like I said, she wanted to...you know, what I just said, but dad went all holy-holy, right to life on her, persuaded her to keep the baby, to keep you. When she was almost eight months gone, he decided he wasn't going to raise another man's child, left her, and tried to get custody of me on the grounds that she was an unfit mother. In the meantime, my uncle, your father, managed to get himself killed in a car accident, so no loose ends there, and, as I don't know his first name, or where he died, or the date, I can't trace whether he had any family of his own, your half-siblings, if there are any, and to be honest, I didn't really try that hard; you don't need that as well. Anyway, she blamed you for destroying her marriage, even though she was the one who had the affair, and she must have started drinking soon after you were born -- I remember her being 'sick' a lot when you were a toddler. Like I said, not a pretty story; some family, huh?"

He stopped, his face red and his pale hands restlessly twining together.

"So that's the whole sordid, messed-up, fucked-up story, you and I jerked around like kiddie's balloons by that fucking woman, and the best part of this, you want to know the best part? In just a little while she won't remember any of it, none of what she did, not a fucking thing! It'll all be gone, wiped away, so she won't have a second's guilt, or have any reason to apologise for anything, her conscience completely clear. She won't pay for anything; I know, she's going to die in an institution, but she doesn't know that, she thinks she's at home, with her husband, having a perfect life. Talk about the eternal fucking sunshine of the spotless mind!"

Two big tears rolled down his cheeks as he finished, and my heart went out to him. I understood exactly what he was feeling. Our mother had nearly ruined our lives, neglected, manipulated and controlled us, torn us apart for basically no reason except to make us pay for her guilt, she didn't want or care about us, and now, there still wasn't any justice for us. Mark was right to cry, his whole life had been framed by neglect, and now the one person who should be accountable for that was beyond it, that pathetic creature in the institution was nothing to us, and we were less than nothing to her, she didn't even have enough faculties left to honestly hate us.

I sat next to him, pulling his head onto my shoulder, and at last, he was able to cry, for the childhood he'd been denied, for the care he'd never received, for the love that had been withheld. I cried along with him, once again echoing the sobs of that frightened little boy alone at night.

Eventually he was cried out, and I held him again, my Mark, back at last. I was so happy, Nia's mother had been right, there had been something keeping him away, but that was over now.

"Mark, you're staying here tonight, Ok? Baby, can you hear me?" I asked him, and he looked at me, his beautiful sad, sweet smile appearing again, like my own personal sun coming up.

"You mean that, Tink?" he grinned, and I had to grin back.

"Of course, look at you, you look all wrung out, you look like you could do with a good meal, when's the last time you had a hot meal, baby?"

He looked puzzled. "Dunno, couple of days, I guess, I've been trying to sort out her affairs, get the house off my hands, all that kind of stuff, so I've been buying sandwiches, soft drinks, that kind of thing."

I got on the phone and ordered a pizza with all the sides, and put some coffee on. As I was bustling around, he called me over and sat me down next to him.

"Julie, Tink, I need you to know that not a minute went by that I didn't think about you, want you, need to hold you, hear your voice. Being away from you was torture, and knowing that our mother could lower the boom any time she felt like it was like waiting for the axe to fall. That's what she wanted, she was an evil, vindictive woman, in my book she's earned what's happening to her. She took three years of our lives away from us, are we going to be able to get them back?"

I kissed him gently. "That's a silly question. What you should be asking is, 'what do we do now?' Let me tell you; you come back home, here, this is your home now, we take up where we left off, and life goes on."

He pulled away from me to look into my eyes for a moment, then pulled me in for a proper kiss, his lips soft and insistent against mine, memories awakening as that kiss burned into me all over again.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. "Pizza!" I grinned, but it was Shelagh, walking in and chattering, to stop dead as she saw Mark sitting on my sofa. She looked him up and down, her eyes narrowed, and as he rose to greet her, her hand came up to slap him so hard he sat down again. Shelagh has four huge older brothers, so she'd learned how to put some top-spin on a slap, and it must have rattled his teeth.

"That was for what you did, you bastard, and if you try and stand up, I will fucking knee you so hard in the balls...!" she hissed, and I had to step in front of her.

"Calm down Shel, it's ok, Nia's mum was right, Mark had good reason to keep far from me, but it's over now."

Shelagh looked at me suspiciously."What's over now?" she demanded.

"Mum was going to expose us, but now she's in a dementia ward, she's forgotten about us, so Mark and I are off the hook at last."

Shelagh looked grimly satisfied. "Your mother has Alzheimer's?" and Mark corrected her.

"No, she's got Alcoholic Dementia, and God knows what else, maybe Korsakoff's as well, who knows, all the booze finally caught up with her. She got sectioned last week, and she's been confined in a secure Care Home in Richmond. There's no more to say, she's off in a world of her own, she seems to be happy there, she has no memory of us, and I'm glad, it makes ignoring her easier."

Shel's expression hadn't changed much, she still looked angry, her eyes still narrowed.

"And you, it never occurred to you to drop Jules a line, to let her know you were OK? What stopped you picking up a fucking telephone?"

Mark looked weary, drained, his face red where the outline of her hand was clearly imprinted on his cheek.

"I couldn't take the chance on Mum finding out; she used to give me the third degree nearly every fucking day, ask me outright if I'd contacted her in any way, and she could tell, she was like a fucking mind-reader, if I tried to lie to her, that would have been...I just couldn't take the chance, not with the threats she made!"

Shelagh looked convinced at last, her face softening.

"I believe you, you always were a piss-poor liar! What was with the flowers, though, I mean, it was kind of...obscure, know what I mean?

Mark grinned his old grin.

"I'd seen this book, 'The Language of Flowers' a couple of years ago, seemed like the chick-lit book of the moment, everyone on the train was reading it, Victorian flower language was suddenly all the rage. I picked up a copy someone left on the bus and read it, and I thought it might be a good way to send Julie a message, if she was reading that book too, like everyone else on the planet, apparently. So I used it as a guide to send her messages. My colleague here in the London office used to drop them off, and if Mum was snooping around, she'd see a short African guy dropping off flowers, not me. Apparently I was too obscure, because I waited for a reply in kind, but one never came..."

Shel grinned. "Nia's mum figured it out last year, she worked out who was sending flowers, and what they were saying!"

He'd taken my hand while he was talking, and I was stroking his face absently, and Shel suddenly decided she needed to be at Nia's place post haste, so, with a big knowing grin, she left, almost knocking over the pizza boy in her haste to leave.

As we ate, I told Mark about David, what had happened, and about my adventure with Doreen, making him grin happily.

"At least you had some fun, Tink, you got to look around a little. I never had the chance. I had to be home every night to answer when that crazy bitch called, be there or have you take the consequences. Now I know what a lab-rat feels like when they make it run the maze every day for its piece of cheese. Every night at 7 o'clock, every morning at 11o'clock, she'd call, make sure I was where I was supposed to be, and for no reason other than she was a manipulative, vicious, vindictive lunatic."

"She didn't want me, she just wanted to make sure you couldn't have me. She threw you out, but she made me run around like a slot car, same speed, same track, day after fucking day. I used to go up to the Clifton Suspension Bridge on my lunch-break, look at that 300 foot drop and think 'how bad could it be? A few seconds of free-fall, then nothing, it's got to be better than this'. When I heard from the police that they'd sectioned her, I actually celebrated, I felt liberated, like I'd just been rescued, so I went to the pub for the first time in two years, and spent an evening drinking and talking to strangers instead of watching the clock, then I came home; the rest you know."

My eyes welled-up as I listened; she'd kept him on a short leash, run him around and tortured him, even driven him to thoughts of suicide...!

He'd been living in hell, with a madwoman pulling his chain every day, no wonder he looked so bad; actually, he looked fucking awful.

I huddled up close to him, with his arm around me, relishing the feel of him, trying to savour the freedom we had now, together at last. Mark played with my hair, slowly coiling it around his finger, before pulling me onto his lap and nuzzling my neck, burying his face in my shoulder as he spoke softly, almost whispering.

"Tink, I once promised you that I would take you away, go wherever you wanted, do whatever you asked, do you remember?" he asked as he lightly kissed and grazed on my neck, and I whispered that I did, that I had never forgotten.

"I meant it then and...I mean it now. Baby, you've been through enough, and I feel like I lost you somewhere, like I need to win you back, so I can make a life that only you can share. I don't want anything else. Are we ok now? Have we said enough? Tell me how I can make it right again, because I can't see anything anymore. I know I left you behind, but it wasn't my choice, I swear, and the last couple of years have been a nightmare of suspense, living on my nerves, in sheer bloody terror that she'd do something to you just out of spite, even though she kept me dancing to whatever music was playing inside her rotten little soul. I've never been so frightened, so desperate to keep you safe. Maybe one day you'll be able to forgive me for keeping you in the dark for so long, let me back in so we can start again."

He sighed. "I'm so tired of being frightened all the time; whatever happens to me now, I'd welcome it; if I died tonight, at least it would be in the knowledge that it would finally be over for me, this whole mess would be over, and I could rest."

I trembled for him as tears spilled down my cheeks, fear for my lost boy galloping around inside me, huge and almost unmanageable; dear God, he'd actually thought about killing himself! Now he was talking about dying just to get some peace, what the fuck had she done to him?