Abide Abode (5 page)

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ABIDE ABODE

himself and have to wonder why anyone would just thinkit was
a heart attack. People don’t just fall down and die. I open the
shed door.

‘
So, she’s not dead yet?’ Snelgar rasps. Urgh! Does she ever
stop?

‘
No Elizabeth, there’s fight in her bones yet but I’ll let you
know when she pops off so you get first dibs on her out of date
prescriptions and the sex toys going to the good help’.

Snelgar murmurs, I push through. ‘I’LL BE SURE TO PASS YOUR
BEST WISHES TO SYLVIA’ and I step into the shed closing the door
behind me. This shed was once Russell’s working space, one that was
very much lovedafter they gave up their fortune and settled here.
His studynow covered by times dust. A blind covered window
overlooks the garden and the house.

I put the phone back to my ear ‘FUCK ME she’s hard work that
Snelgar, she could make even you swear.’

‘
Nothing pushes me that far.’ Anna says.

I put the phone on speaker putting it down amongst the dust
to wipe the cobwebs from my brow. The old natural glamour photo of
Sylvia on the side. ‘I’ve got the picture. You know this picture
Russell kept of her is beautiful.’

The picture feels weighted and I turn it to find a key pushed
into the back of the frame.

‘
He loved Sylvia very much.’ Anna says.

‘
Awww I need me one of those’ I say, looking for a key hole to
fit the key.

‘
You’ll find yours.’

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Amongst the furniture is a set of drawers with a tiny lock,
which I try the key in.

‘
I did, he left.’

‘
There’s always one RiRi’ ‘Yeah, a needle in a
gaystack’

I wedge the drawer and it comes open. I thought it was made
up! There it is,the bloody book that sent Russell mad, the book
that convinced him to lay down hisempire.

‘
ANNA?’

‘
Yeah?’

‘
I’ve found it, I’ve found that book.’ ‘What? THE book?
Russell’s book ???’

‘
The Triangle Walk.’

‘
You gotta be fucking kidding me.’

I pick up the book, leather bound, beautiful. ‘The Triangle
Walk’ – By Russell Mason. He wrote it? As my brain tries to makes
sense of this, I see what lies underneath its hardbound cover. I
don’t understand and open the blind for better light.

RUSSEL

I’m scared, he’s coming for me. I push into the shed,
lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating Sylvias picture.
What is this tested proven reality that I’m polarized from? To be
one with everything and now I am a threat tofriends

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to those who wish to keep their truth concealed. I must hide
the book, can I hide it here without it being noticed? I have no
other choice. I shove the book into the drawer,lock and slide the
key into Sylvia’s photo frame and give it a kiss. You are, my star,
the one who has been there and acceptedme – thank you for taking
the time to get to know me. My darling, always. Lightening glows
the lawn and that’s when I see the figure in the house. I duck and
pull the blind shut.

MARIA

I lift the blind up.

‘
Maria’ Anna calls through the speakerphone. ‘I’ve got to go,
I’m at the hospital. Are you there?’

‘
Yes Anna, I’m sorry. See you soon.’ ‘Catch you later.’
Click.

I shake my head, big brother is not watching anymore. The
cameras are on, no one is home.Silence.

Within the pages of ‘The Triangle Walk’a photo of Anna rests
as a bookmark, a photo from before Russell and Anna would have met.
Looking into the drawer reveals not one, not two but a vast
collection of Anna’s photographic image bordering on obsession. It
is obsessive, tasteful though the photos maybe. What were you doing
Russell? Sylvia looks down at me from her frame. I turn the
bookmarked photo of Anna and written on its back ‘Sacrifice breeds
new life’ is

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written.

ANNA

It’s like being inside a respirator here at the hospital,
difficult to breath, fake air, and mechanical. I’ve arrived at the
hospital, the faint smell of iodine and bleach stuffing into my
nose without invitation. I wish Evan would come to see his mother.
The first thing Sylvia will ask is where he is. I enter the door to
her private ward, afforded for by her son.

‘
Where's Evan?’ Sylvia asks ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘
Valerie, where is Evan?’

I touch my head. Since Russell’s death Sylvia has been bed
ridden, some say she couldn’t live withoutRussell. For a while she
was trying to find his book but couldn’t and now she is living in
1987 and thinks I’m her daughter Valerie.

‘
It's Anna, Sylvia, I've got to tell you something darling
Maria found Russell’s book.’

‘
What book?’

‘
The one that went missing before he died’

‘
There is no book.’ She growls, she looks panicked and starts
to move about her bed ‘I want to get up, Valerie, I need fresh
air.’

‘
Be calm Sylvia.’ I ask but it comes across beggingly. ‘I
can't do it.’

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‘
Be calm.’

Be calm, the instructions in the title, be calm. If I say
‘don’t panic’ the instruction panic is still there. Like if I said
‘don’t think of a massive penis’ you will still think of a penis.
Be Calm, that’s a better thing to say to Sylvia, be calm ahhh now
with the association in my mind of a massive erect penis, very
calming.

‘
Aww Valerie, I just wanted to see out the window.’ Pretending
to be Valerie is the only thing that calms her

down.

‘
It's okay Mum’ I say ‘everything's okay, I'll tell you.’ I
stand looking out of the window

‘
The park is gorgeous out there; it’s such a beautiful day.
Sunlight bathing the lake outside, a wee white dog's playing fetch
with a boy, the boy has thrown a stick and the little terrier is
bringing it back.’

‘
Awww’ Sylvia coos, calmingly. You’re an actress Anna, I
repeat to myself. Act!

‘
A father and son are on the lake ina paddle boat.’ I can hear
Sylvia snuggling into her bed.

‘
You’re a good girl Valerie.’

Tears are forming in my eyes, I’m happier staring out the
window even though all I’m looking onto is a wall outside. This
wall seems to symbolize a lot of my life as late. A wall that I
project my imagination on, stopping me from seeing the truth, that
we are all walls. We all wear masks, we are all actors in one big
show. Somewhere out there a fat lady must be singing.

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∆

I’m numb, I don’t remember going home. I wake up and Evan’s
not home, a message wishes me a goodnight from him and there’s a
strange message from Maria.

You. Me. Tomorrow.

∆

Maria is wide eyed staring across to me as I walk in. She’s
chosen this obscure coffee shop the other side of town. Cohida
Coffee. She looks like a newborn babe, stars in her eyes, fresh
faced, taking in the world without judgment or preconceived ideas.
It looks weird and totally creepy.

‘
It feels like its been years.’ Maria says.

She stands and opens her arms for an embrace; we hug her skin
feeling slightly warm to touch, kinesthetic, the affection makes
her glow more, she sits down again. I sit down.

‘
Is everything okay?’ I ask.

‘
Yes. Yes’ She says with jubilance. ‘Something extra ordinary
has happened, this book.’ She holds out the leather bound book with
‘The Triangle Walk’ inscribed. I’ve never seen her like this in the
15 years I’ve known her.

‘
This is no ordinary book.’ She says. ‘It spoke to
me.’

‘
Is it a self help book?’ I chuckle. But Maria doesn’t
seem

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to see the humour, very unlike her, Maria will make a joke
out of everything. Who are you are what have you done with Maria
Mauro?

A waiter comes over with appropriately inappropriate timing
and asks if we would like anything. As strange as Maria is being I
realize that I’m viewing her like a strange entity, just as she is
with her surroundings, she gazes wistfully to the waiter as if in
some kind of trance. I want to ask her if she would like to hug a
tree.

‘
Would you like anything?’ She says cocking her head to
me.

I feel dazed, ‘A coffee?’

Maria puts her hands upon mine. ‘Perhaps’ she says ‘you’d
prefer a juice.’

I feel confused. The waiter looks curiously. ‘Would you like
a juice?’

‘
Err, okay.’

I look to Maria and back to the waiter confused. ‘A juice’ I
say. The waiter looks at me, I catch his eye and we both
acknowledge the weirdness of the situation. I turn to Maria who is
smiling widely. ‘A juice, Orange.’

‘
Okayyy’ The waiter nods as if to say good luck and leaves me
alone with her. We sit in silence.

‘
Did you know the universe can be looked at like a jigsaw?’
She says, jolting me into a conversation I didn’t know I was
having. ‘It all fits together and it’s not until you have all the
pieces that you see its image, you see?’Maria’s

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eyes like moons.

‘
Do you mean like a scene of the country or a spilt tin of
beans?’

‘
Yesss.’ She says largely missing my point. ‘It’s like a multi
dimensional jigsaw!! One that breaks down the physical world to the
fabric underneath; this book contains the answers man has
forgotten. The world is in trouble Ann and we must do everything to
put it to rights. This is all so much bigger than us. You've had
that thought that something's not quite right, haven’t you? That
you are shut down. It's your blood line Anna, Russell knew! You and
the Masons blood lines are connected.’

‘
He is my husband.’ I feel that at any second she’ll lean over
the table and start shaking me.

‘
Oh yes you got married’ Maria asks as if possibly it’s a
question.

‘
You were at the wedding.’

‘
I was…’ she asks as if possibly another question. ‘It’s funny
the more you know, the more other facts become so… so
mundane.’

‘
A mundane marriage.’

‘
Haha, Anna you are so funny.’ Now it’s my time I fail to see
the funny side. ‘Marriage is so… so possible but just you know,
paper.’ She sighs and turns back to me curiously ‘Can I ask did we
work here in this very café?’

‘
No, is this a joke?’

‘
No, oh Anna, how different things can be. Read the book, it
was written by Russell after you and he met, he

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remembered, connected with memory, age old in our history,
you are connected, we all are. The old world is speaking to us, we
all just stopped listening. We've been trained to stop
acknowledging it. Religion is not benign, Science has to catch up.’
Breathe Maria, just breathe but she continues. ‘Did you know Magic
used to be spelt Magick, now it's changed, things change don’t they
and things get forgotten but they don't disappear. It's happening
to all of us but it will start with you. Follow your intuition.’
She grabs my hands and the whole of the café seems to disappear
around me. I hear a cracking noise. I look down and notice an
orange juice on the table, has the waiter come and gone
already?

‘
Read the book. Tap into it. Communicate with it.When your
body breaks and heals itself you do not ask yourself to heal, the
body knows, you know all this, you will remember, it is your
nature, all of our nature.’