Escaping Life (38 page)
Authors: Michelle Muckley
“You were wrong
about me, Daddy.” He turned back and glanced at her, his head flicking between
the approaching cops and Elizabeth hanging over the cliff face. “You were so
wrong.” She could see Jack. He was no more than an arm’s distance away. He was
close enough to catch her, but if he came any closer, she knew that her
f
ather would take them both down the
side of the cliff before facing the consequences of the crimes he had already
committed.
“How was I
wrong?” He was talking to her, but his eyes were on Jack. Gibb was getting
closer too.
“I do have a
weakness. You should have realised. It was Rebecca.” Before he could turn to
look at her, she gripped her left wrist with her right hand and with as much
force as she could muster, she launched her hand directly at the back of his
head, the contact of her diamond engagement ring as hard as any weapon. It was
enough to unsteady Edward on his feet and with his loosened grip, he fell forwards
and she felt that she was free. In a flash she saw her
f
ather land at the edge of the cliff
only inches away from her, his body kicking up ground dust. She felt the earth
beneath her feet crumble, as she too, fell to her knees.
“Jack!” She
threw her hands forward as she felt her body slide over the edge of the cliff.
“JACK!” He launched himself towards her, his body hitting the ground, his
hands reaching out desperately for her outstretched hand. He took hold of her
wrist but his grip slipped on the same childish watch that her
f
ather had bought for her. He stretched
out his arm as far as he could and took a grip of her forearm. He had her, but
at the same time, he felt the pull of his shoulder muscles and he felt her slip
away further. “JACK! HELP ME!” He grabbed her arm tightly, ignoring the searing
pain and the sounds of rock grating against rock as she kicked her bare feet
beneath her, looking for any kind of purchase. He dragged her back, throwing
his own body weight as forcefully as he could behind him. He grabbed forwards,
snatching at the waistband of her shorts and pulled her safely back up onto the
ground, one hand gripping her, the other thrown back onto the fence. With her
face almost buried in Jack’s chest, her hair red from the clay rich mud, she saw
Gibb wrestling her
f
ather back from over the
edge of the cliff. Before he could catch his breath, Jack was back on his feet
and pinning his knee into her
f
ather’s back. Dragging him
back from the edge, they handcuffed him to the fence. Elizabeth was on her
feet and standing behind them as her
f
ather
lay half on the ground and half propped up against the vertical post of the
white fence. He looked beaten. Defeated.
“It’s over,
Daddy.” He looked up at the face that had haunted him
as Elizabeth stood over him
. He didn’t know if it was
Rebecca or Elizabeth staring back at him. “We beat you.”
The sirens had
stopped blaring and her
f
ather had been driven away
in a police car through what had resembled a sick carnival procession, with virtually
the whole of Haven lining the streets, the residents having been encouraged out
by the commotion of the racing police cars. Elizabeth sat in her garden
looking out at the same bay over which, only thirty minutes before, her life
had been suspended. Gibb was doing a fine job co-ordinating the local police,
taking photographs of the scene and collecting evidence. Jack handed her a mug
of hot tea, two sugars and plenty of milk.
“Thanks,” she
said as she smiled up at him. He sat down next to her on the step to the
kitchen. The police team had already cleaned it up. The ambulance crew had dressed
the cuts on her legs and knees too, and the cut to her lip that she’d sustained
somehow in all of the commotion as she’d slipped over the edge of the cliff.
“Your sister
was a brave woman, Elizabeth.” She sipped her tea. Too sweet, but she needed
it. It tasted like syrup to her. “She had strength, and guts.”
“I can’t
believe that she had seen him? Why would she see him?”
“It looks like
it was only once
or
twice
and just
long enough to tell him what she was going to do. She couldn’t take the lies
anymore, I think.”
“She was always
tough, but he was right. I was her weakness. She loved me so much.” She
looked down at her broken hands, skin flapping and grazed. “Is Graham on the
way?”
“Yeah. I
didn’t tell him much on the phone. I just said he needed to come home as there’d
been a development.”
“You could say
that.” She giggled as she said the words, but it was the kind of giggle that
teetered on the edge of tears. Her laughter hung on the precipice between love
and hate, good and evil. Pleasure and pain. Joy and sorrow. It was the place
she had lived for the past four years of her life, and yet she had had no
idea. For all the torment that she thought she had endured, she had in fact been
living blindly, her life shrouded in lies. Jack and Rebecca had lifted that
shroud away from her. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about the cigarettes.
It should have made sense.”
“Elizabeth, we
see life through our own eyes. The truth is only what we allow it to be. If
we don’t believe it, what is it that makes it real?” He drank a little of his
own tea. “You could never have imagined it was your
f
ather. Just like you could never have
imagined Rebecca being alive and living as she did.”
“For me.” She
looked around to Jack. She saw his big brown eyes, those that had always
looked like they had carried so much hurt, always turned down at the corners,
heavy and burdened with sorrow. Yet today, as she had slipped over that cliff
and felt the surge of the wind smack her legs against the unforgiving rock, she
had seen strength beyond imagination in his face. “Now I have to make that
worthwhile. Make it count for something.”
He knew that
she was right. The hurt and pain: they never really disappear. Instead, they
simply change form. They morph from that knotted, suffocating feeling that
sickens your stomach, which incapacitates you, which silences you and bleeds your
life away. Slowly and with time, that same force that once gripped you like a vice
can be moulded, dominated, and controlled. It can become
the
force that drives you forward like
fuel to an engine, or energy coiled up in a spring.
He knew that it would be
that same force that
would
compel
them both
to build a
new
life from the ashes of the one that
got left behind.
The
End
Thank
you for reading Escaping Life. The following pages contain a free sample of my
first novel, The Loss of Deference.
More
information can be found on my website,
www.michellemuckley.com
, or it can be purchased
directly through
amazon.com
or
amazon.co.uk
Sample
of The Loss of Deference
As he sat on the side of
the bed, placing his feet on the well trodden pile of the carpet, the cold air
scratched at his skin. Stretching his hands across the back of his neck, he
began to knead and press at the knots that he could reach, extending his head
left, and then right. His back ached recently, and this regular morning
routine was not really helping. He stood and moved towards the window.
Leaning against the cold exterior wall he brushed aside the curtain. It was
still dark outside, but for the one remaining streetlamp. The neighbours were
sleeping, no warmer he suspected than he was, and the birds had not yet risen to
wake the world with their song. The clock read five-fifteen.
In his semi-lucid
consciousness as he staggered towards the door, he could see Molly’s skin, as
soft and delicate as pink tissue paper, exposed and gauze-like with goose
pimples running up both arms. Will crouched beside her, and he thought again
of returning to his bed, jumping in and allowing the covers to wash over and
envelop him. He would hold his wife, and warm her with his love alone.
Instead, he lifted and tucked the extra blanket underneath her body and as he
did so, she turned into the sheets to cocoon herself, as if to state ownership
on the little comfort that was on offer. Placing a gentle kiss on the tip of
her nose, as if not to damage that which is so delicate, he realised that save
her finger tips, she was in fact as cold as he.
As he moved out of the
bedroom and past the doors that closed off unused rooms, Will entered the
bathroom, the floor chilling the soles of his feet as he moved from carpet to
linoleum. Turning on the lime scale-covered tap, he plugged the sink and
waited for it to fill with hot water. The steam hit his face, mixing with his
warm breath, forming small cumulus clouds of water vapour. He slid his hands
back and forth across their opposite arms, up to his shoulders and under his
t-shirt to generate some heat. He winced as the edge of his t-shirt caught the
scab on his left hand, peeling it back like a banana skin to reveal the wound
in all its glory, and now looking as fresh and bloody as the day it was sustained.
It really wasn’t healing all that well. To be honest, he was slightly
concerned that it might be becoming infected, as the edges were starting to
look a strange mix of green and yellow. Blood dripped into the sink,
contaminating his fresh bowl of water, before he re-covered the wound with the
remaining available scab. He lathered the soap onto the flannel and washed his
face, before moving onto his neck, arm pits and finally his feet. This
cleansing routine not only predated his current employment, but also suited it,
the only minor adaptation being the omission of a shave. It was more
economical to bathe later when he and Molly could share the water, even if they
no longer shared the bath. After drying himself with a towel that was probably
ready to be replaced with a fresh one, he started to warm up. He rummaged in
the bathroom cabinet. Spare soap, spare flannel. He was sure he had seen the
plasters in there yesterday.
The clothes he had stepped
out of last night lay in the same untouched heap that he had not so
strategically placed the previous evening. He would describe them as
practical, if a little worn, but serving a purpose quite nicely all the same.
Molly simply described them as dirty, and also, a little smelly. There was no
point in changing them every day, and besides, even if he did, the fresh outfit
would get just as dirty. A grimy pair of jeans, t-shirt and thick jumper was
pretty much the uniform of his colleagues. Thanks to the same rusty nail,
sticking out of the reception desk at work, which was responsible for the
currently weeping wound on his hand, his jumper was also starting to look a bit
worn – the hole in the left-hand side of it aligned very well with a similar
hole in his t-shirt. The well healed incision on his torso, he was pretty
sure, was going to leave a scar. That wound had healed so much better than the
bloody wound on his hand. Before dressing himself, he made another effort to
preserve the remaining scab and pressed it lightly back into the open wound.
On the cold and idle radiator there was a pair of thick socks, the type that
you would put under hiking boots to be sure that your toes would stay warm and
dry on an eight-mile walk. These, however, were clean and fresh, as they were
each day, courtesy of Molly.
He opened the breakfast
cupboard, but not in search of food. There was little time for breakfast; it
was already five-forty-five and if he didn’t get a move on he wouldn’t make
Check-in. He could eat at work anyway. He had been late on his first day, and
the idiot manning the Check-in desk had revelled in docking him one hour’s pay
before he had even started.
That bastard,
Will thought, remembering the
incident. Breakfast seemed to be part of the working day for many of those he
worked with, a sort of morning summit during which he and his colleagues could
allocate the day’s work. Well, that and to decide just exactly how the job’s
worth at Check-in had pissed them all off that day already. He was in fact
still in search of a plaster. The yellowish-green edge to the wound on his
hand was still visible, and it was currently looking quite pliable from its
time in the water. He knew the scab wouldn’t make it through the day, but the
search for a plaster was proving quite fruitless. Five-fifty. He would have
to leave, minus the plaster, and just hope that the wound would dry out on the
way to work.
