The pub does a fine Sunday Lunch. Sunday lunch and darts at the pub was always something of a ritual back before the incident. Laura’s in her chair, tucked in the corner under the rubber plant. Her head is forward, her chin resting on her chest like she’s nodded off asleep. She sees Pete’s fingers trace circles on Maureen’s thigh beneath the table. Occasionally Maureen reaches down and grips his hard-on just to keep him going.
“Did you see Jonathon Ross last night?” says Don.
“Nah,” says Pete, “I had other things to do.” He winces as Maureen glares at him and grips him harder below.
“He had that bloke who does the stunts as a guest. You know, the hangs-upside-down-and-doesn’t-eat-and-drink-for-a-month bloke. It’s bloody marvellous how he went for a month without sustenance.”
“That’s all trickery,” says Pete. “I bet he took water through a straw in his arse or something.”
Maureen spills her beer. “That would be a good trick in itself.”
“Besides,” says Pete, “Why bother?”
Laura feels the spin of the world beneath her feet. The rumble of the planet through space dislodges dust in her head. Beyond that, she feels the grinding of the galaxy against the interstellar clouds. It’s a journey, she thinks; all of them embarked upon a journey they can’t get off. All of them locked in a rotating prison without keys.
She explores Death, flitting spirit-like and fey across the old cemetery on London Road. The headstones are old here, chipped and blackened, and strewn with moss. The dead below these slabs have long since accepted their fate. But they still cry out to Laura as she swoops by. Their mews are weak and pitiful. There’s no sleep down here, they say, no rest in the dark, damp earth. And the sodden ground tries to suck Laura down. How much easier would it be to let it do so? What’s left for her in the physical world, after all?
“It’s an endurance thing, I suppose,” says Maureen. “Man against Nature, and all that.”
“What’s bloody natural about hanging upside down for a month?” says Pete.
Maureen grins. “I don’t know; ask bats.”
Laura feels bile rise in her throat. With her head thrown forward and downward like this she’s not in the best position to deal with vomiting. She forces her eyeballs upward in their sockets trying to see across to Don, but he’s stuck in some stupid conversation. She’s not surprised; stupid conversations were always the norm where Pete and Maureen were concerned. Laura’s chest hurts, and there are lights behind her eyes. She’s all but ready to die. Except there’s one more thing she must do.
“I think it’s impressive,” says Don, “Hanging about like that for an entire month.”
Pete shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter; it’s all a trick.”
“It all looked pretty real to me,” says Don. “Jonathon Ross said the guy’s stunts were officiated over.”
“Lots of things look real to you, Don,” says Pete.
There’s a short silence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The thing is, Don,” says Pete, “is that Maureen’s moving in with me.”
Don looks on open mouthed and wide eyed. Laura slumps further forward in her chair. She’s choking and can’t breathe. There are shooting pains in her left arm. She reaches out to Don across time and space, and finds his soul amongst the chaos of the world.
“I’m with you, Don,” she says, her voice loud and clear inside Don’s head. “I’m with you now and always.”
“Well bugger me,” says Don.
Laura’s buried on Thursday. It’s raining, and Pete’s worried his suit will get wet. Maureen’s not there. She says she doesn’t do funerals, not unless it’s close. Don’s there. He stands across from Pete, his eyes hidden behind darkened glasses. The opened grave is a chasm between them, a divide that sets them a world away from each other, yet somehow joined by Laura lying between them.
“She’s better off,” says Pete. “She died back in January with the apoplexy.”
Don nods. He hesitates to speak. When he does so, his voice is thin, quiet, and unsure. “I touched her soul, you know.” Don studies Pete’s face. There’s no hint of understanding. But then, even Don can’t really fathom what truly went on with the incident. “Or, perhaps Laura found mine. It’s the same thing. We were two free spirits trying to make sense of the world when our worlds met.”
“You were having an affair?”
Don nods again. “I suppose there’s no reason to hide it now. You’ll not understand, and if you do you’ll not believe me. But our souls merged that night, and it was so intense it all but broke Laura’s body. That was the incident. It wasn’t madness that took her, or the depression, or the alcohol, or the popped veins in her head, rather she bore the brunt of our fusion and pulled away. Maybe she did so to save me, I don’t know. It’s a noble thought I like to carry with me. It’s a terrible thought I have to live with.”
Pete shakes his head slowly and turns away. What he’s thinking, he doesn’t say. Don wonders if that’s part of the reason Laura never found his soul.
Don stays by the graveside, watching as Pete ambles down the damp pathway to the waiting limousine. When he nears the cemetery gates Pete turns back.
“Hey, Don,” he calls. “You do know you’re as fucked up as she was?”
A month goes by. Don’s comfortable with Laura’s passing. Each day he was forced to look upon her in that vegetative state was a torment on him. And he’s fine with Maureen washing Pete’s shirts. The bitter days when he thinks they deserve each other are growing fewer.
But his head feels different, that’s the curious thing. Don’s lost count of the times he’s wandered trance like only to wake at one or other of Laura’s favourite haunts—the Mystical Shop on King’s Road, the Spiritual Library on Faulkner Street, the pagan stone hidden away down Duke’s Close—places they’d say only the two of them knew about, and where they’d meet secretly when for all they knew Pete was busy seeing Maureen.
Don’s at the zoo. He sits alone, staring in at the elephant being hosed and brushed by its keeper. It’s tranquil, here, a place where Don can sift through memories of Laura.
He smiles, thinking how they’d argue playfully about her passion with the mystical. Mumbo jumbo, he’d call it, and she’d wrestle him to the grass, pin down his arms and kiss his mouth. There’s more to life than meets the eye, she’d say, and Don would roll her over and wish they were naked.
In the depths of his mind, he feels Laura stir. She pushes a thought against him and Don resists at first but then welcomes it. There’s pain above his eyes. For all he knows, it could be veins popping in his head.
“Everything’s connected, Don,” says Laura. “Everything touches everything else on a fundamental level. It’s all one if we just reach out to each other.”
“I don’t understand,” says Don.
“It doesn’t matter. Take my hand. Come with me.”
Together they soar high above the zoo. The wind is in their hair, the damp air in their faces.
“Do you like elephants?” says Don.
“I do, Don, and I love lemurs.”
Laura pauses. At last she’s whole again. Their two spirits entwine.
“But most of all I love life… and you.”
Steven Pirie lives in Liverpool, UK, with his wife and son. His fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies around the world. His comic fantasy novel, Digging up Donald, published by Immanion Press in 2004 and again in 2007, has attracted excellent reviews. A new novel, Burying Brian, was published also by Immanion Press in December 2010.