A Heavenly Radiance
Bean Sprout
Faster! Faster damn you! Christine pumped her foot on the accelerator. It could not have been more than half an hour since she had started on her second large vodka at the dive bar on the wrong side of town, or more than five minutes since she had had her eleventh. The alcohol was still diffusing its way through her stomach and into her veins, giving her a rush she had not felt since she was made Headteacher of Waterloo Road.
She was not thinking of her son Connor as she sped through the Scottish country lanes, high on life, high on booze, the car bouncing playfully over each pothole and hillock. She didn't even care that she had forgotten to take her late afternoon rations for the diabetes she had secretly been hiding from her colleagues. Haha! This is what it is to live!
The road now wound its way down to the narrow valley where she had played so innocently as a child. She knew the roads well, and alas should have known better. The thick foliage of the Jessica trees that had once shaded her childhood innocence from the bright lights of the modern world now shadowed the road like dark sentinels. Without warning, a highland deer with its cub, itself no older than Christine's own child, ran out in front of the car spooked by the sound of Christine's wild cackling.
Bang!
Her reactions slowed by drink, she didn't even realise she had hit the cub until seconds after it had happened. Shock crept rapidly over her, and her hands slipped off the steering wheel, allowing the car to career wildly down a disused mine shaft at the side of the road that had been left uncovered by the local climbing society in an act of carelessness. Noooo!
After what seemed like a while, but was in fact not long, the car crunched to a halt; stuck between the narrow walls of the shaft. Exhausted by the heady mix of alcohol and adrenaline, the otherwise unharmed Christine slumped into a heavy sleep, her blood sugar dropping with each minute that passed. The night drew in.
Chapter Two
George Windsor tossed and turned in his king sized bed, restless from thoughts of his earlier altercations with Christine and with Carol Barry, not comforted by the luxurious bed sheets that had been bought for him by his wealthy snob of a mother, now deceased.
"Give it a rest Georgey boy," exclaimed Carol frustratedly as she lay beside him, watching the clock on the wall reach past midnight as she tried to sleep. But by now George had already slipped back into his uncomfortable slumber.
He dreamt vividly of his unhappy childhood, the weekends spent playing by himself as his mother played bridge in the grand drawing room of their Kensington pied à terre. Their maid Diana had been the only one to ever show him any kindness, talking to him endlessly of the wide world outside the heavy curtains of the flat. But even she had eventually been driven away by his mother's constant criticism. Nothing was ever good enough for dear old mummy.
Anger and regret flashed through his mind. Why did I not stand up to her? Now I will never have the chance. Just then, he found himself suddenly awake. Not awake awake, but awake to the world and his emotions within his unconscious mind. He opened his eyes and found himself not in the familiar surroundings of his bedroom, but in a drab uninsulated attic surrounded by decaying boxes with brand names of foodstuffs he didn't think existed any more; Bovril, Camp chicory syrup, etc. Have I gone back in time?
George was shocked from his confusion by the sound of shouting and doors slamming downstairs. The sounds were getting closer! A hatch in the floor swung open in front of him, and out of it emerged a beautiful young woman, beautiful and sad. A beam of sunshine shone through a crack in the roof tiles, hitting her face and illuminating the whole room. He recognised her instantly from one of the photos he kept on his mantelpiece always. It was his mother, as a teenager during the Second World War.
Chapter 3
Meanwhile in the mine shaft, Christine stirred into life. Waves of pain sloshed through her body as she ached from her head to her feet, which she could no longer feel. Her head swimming, she grasped around herself in the darkness trying to find the controls for the car. Not even the school resilience programme could have prepared her for the feeling of helplessness she now felt.
She was suddenly blinded by a burst of light. I must have caught the headlight button with my cardigan. But the car lights only illuminated the hopelessness of her situation. The dark shaft stretched out in front of her, behind she could not even see the entrance through which she had plummeted in her rear view mirror. She tried the door, but it was wedged against the wall of the mine. Bugger. She was trapped!
Slowly, as her more sober mind took hold, a thought flashed across her mind. I need to eat.
Chapter 4
"Mother?" Asked George, bewildered.
"Yes George, it's me your Mother." George was stunned into silence by the essential truth of this statement.
"I know you never thought I was the mother you deserved, that's why I decided to meet you here. This is the house I lived in from 1941 until the end of the war, after I was evacuated from London. I saw my life shatter before me as I was sent away from my parents to live with a new so-called family, who sold all my toys and used the money to buy pipe tobacco that cast a smoky haze over what should have been the best years of my life.
"I loved you before you were even born, from the moment I fell pregnant from a reckless evening with a handsome sailor who swept me off my feet in those halcyon days that followed Victory and whom I later married from shame and boredom, though I wasn't always able to show it.
Much like you and your current bit of stuff, I chose what was easy over finding my true soul mate. I know you think I dislike Carol because she is a dinner lady of low birth, but I don't want you to make the same mistake I did. Just because something is wrong it doesn't make it right. Humans work on magnetic principals, we are often attracted to our opposites, but you must look beyond that and be with the one woman who truly understands you."
There was a pause.
"Christine?"
"You must go to her. She is in danger! Look for the deer blood and you will find the one dear to you!"
As she said this, the room began to sparkle and fizz, dissolving before his eyes, evanescent in the cool night air. He shot up in bed with such a jolt that it sent an arc of pain through his joints and back, well worn from years of uncomfortable staff room sofas. "Christine."
Chapter 5
Carol Barry was awoken by a rush of air, at once steamy hot and icy cold, whooshing over her unclad shoulders as the Egyptian cotton sheets billowed next to her. She cast her frosty gaze around the darkened room searching for the cause of the disturbance. Despite the lack of light, she could see perfectly well as those accustomed to living their lives in the shadows so often can. It was George. Lifting her taut face from the pillows she rasped, "What is going on with you George? Sit down and shurrup."
George did not move. Carol recognised the blank panic in his face - she had first seen it on her husband's three years ago the night after he had committed his fist armed robbery, though she didn't know it at the time. Something is wrong, something is desperately wrong. Anger began to burn in the stove of her mind, curling her fingers like paper kindling.
"It's Christine. She is in trouble. I-I-I have to go!" He leaped out of the bed, narrowly missing a collision with an antique Chinese vase that he had narrowly saved from the skip when his first wife Princess had given away his belongings in anger. Now he was grabbing clothes from draws and throwing them on at a pace that even a teacher half his age would struggle to manage.
"Christine!?" raged Carol Barry. "How can you still be thinking of Christine, the broken down alcoholic stuck in her own head? You have me now."
George stopped, the whirlwind of activity around him falling to a heap on the floor, his shirt still untucked. "My, my mother. She came to me in a vision!" Seeing his lover's lips narrow with incredulity, he took a breath. "I am sorry. I am sorry Carol, but I don't think this can work. I don't think we can work. I have had fun, but now it is time to get off the ride and return to my own life. Leave your keys on the Davenport when you go."
With that, he was gone. Carol let her feet drop to the side of the bed, and gently raised herself to standing, still shaking, her borrowed silk nightgown shimmering in the moonlight now streaming onto the bed where George had made love to her for what she knew was the last time. She picked up a paperweight, substantial yet elegant in her perfectly manicured fingers. It's over. He was rich, and he wanted me yet I let him slip through my fingers. I should have known, Prince Charming only exists in fairy-tails.
She heard the low rumble of George's car starting on the driveway. The paperweight fell from her hand, and with it a tear. As they shattered together on the hard wooden floor, so too did the dream in which she had been living.