A feeling very much like that of a metal bar going through her, twisting her guts as if they were being torn apart by the claws of a savage beast. Her soul broke down and the anguished sobs got stuck deep in her throat. Nothing came out of her lips but a dead guttural sound. Pure agony.

She barely had time to cover her face between her hands, too slow in her attempt to block the tears and the bombardment of visions and sensations that rolled on around her and inside her inner eye, like an old film in fast-forward motion.

Alison could not escape it.

Grief and worry about keeping secrets and hiding the truth.

Fear of being discovered.

Guilt.

The constant crash impacting his temples, from inside, like a restless creature struggling to break free through layers of tissue and the bone of her skull. The knowledge that painkillers weren't enough and clouded his mind. He could not think properly, he wasn't sleeping well.

He did not trust his own judgement anymore. The need and desire to believe – believe in Her - was so powerful and compelling…yet so hard. Now…he did not have the certainty of the truth behind what he had seen. He was scared that it was all the result of his easily influenced mind, tricks of his malfunctioning and ill brain.

The shelter and security in the cocoon of warmth that was having Jude's body next to his, with her head leant peacefully over the patch of skin over his heart.

A baby crying for the rubber teat of his milk bottle, the fascination of reliving the joy to have a tiny person gurgling in his arms, moving little fists in the air between them. The soft fluff of blond hair caressing his chin and the unique, purely innocent smell that reached his nostrils, a mixture of soap and baby lotion, soothed his pain, alleviating the pressure inside his head.

The pang of shame as he watched Barb burst into tears in front of him. Because of him. Tears of impotence because she could not help, was not allowed to do so. Tears of anger because she was thrown away again and again whenever she tried to get close enough to offer her hand. Because she had betrayed her best girl-friend's trust, her principles and even their own friendship to keep her word and obey his request of not telling anything about her tumour to Jude.

The bottomless pool of blue in Alison Mundy's eyes as they filled with frustrated tears while she fiercely tried to convince him that his dead child was there, right next to him, trying to contact him through her. The triple suffering condensed in that room, intoxicating: that enigmatic woman's, his and that of the little lost boy who was supposed to haunt them both. He knew she was being honest, that she was not lying deliberately when bringing him such a heart-breaking message… She genuinely believed in what she saw but he still couldn't decipher the mechanism which made her hoax work so well on him. The air around them was charged of sorrow and burned his lungs and clouded his thoughts, making him rant, rave and hurl awful insults at the blond woman with the tired smile like he had never believed himself capable of.

The unmistakable voice of Joshie apologizing for the fatal seconds of distraction which the little boy blamed for the car crash he had died in. His hiccuped weeping through Alison's lips ripped his scepticism apart until his oldest unhealed wounds began bleeding again. That night, the seams that had barely hold him together for five years came apart so that they could scar with time.

The almost tragic finale of the séance the year before. His panic going in crescendo, beating in his chest in synchrony with every minute he wasted crying over her unconscious figure while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. She had been freezing cold to the touch and deadly pale as her body was lying limp in his arms. The incoherent mumbling he kept whispering in her ear all through those endless seven minutes:[/i you'll be okay, I'm here with you now, be brave, hold on a bit longer, nopleasedon'ttakeheraway…

[iIn a flash she went through the months she had been asleep in a comma, unknowing of his daily visits. All the evenings he spent beside her hospital bed, silently reading the newspaper or commenting aloud the latest witty remark those mini-Roberts, like she had call them, had come up with in an essay or test. She saw herself through his eyes, lying on the bed, connected to the respirator, the rhythmic beeps of the monitors matching her heartbeat soothing his distress…

She watched him take her hand for the first time one late evening for the lack of a better goodbye. He promised to come back the next day. And the day after.

The carpet had transformed into a swamp under her feet and she was plunging deeply into that quicksand made of his memories little by little. With every shake of her body, her back slid down the wall she had been leaning on for support until she was sitting on the floor with the spiritless expression of a broken doll.

Who the hell did he think he was? Why? Why hadn't he told her? She… she would have been there. She would be. Okay. Maybe… she couldn't have done anything practical to take away a terminal tumour (she felt herself disintegrate from inside out) but she would have parked her obsessions and personal problems. She would have tried harder than ever to make things easier for him instead of reproaching him his mood swings and mistakes.

Bloody selfish bastard.

She repeated the swearwords over and over, like a mantra, beating the back of her head on the wall till it hurt, as if expulsing all the bile that was flooding her guts at that moment could get her to assimilate the betrayal.

Was it because he thought that it did not really matter to her?

That she had no concern for his safety, his health, for what happened to him?

That she wouldn't find out sooner or later?

Alison wiped away the tears that sprung to her eyes with the cuff of her flannel pyjamas and stood up, furious and thoughtless. Hysterically, she started looking for the telephone under every cushion in her living-room.

He would regret the day he was born.

She would phone his number once again. She would insist until he picked it up. Then, she would give him a piece of his mind.

Never mind if he was a dying man or not.

She could not care less if she awoke Jude from her beauty rest or if the baby howled and wailed in his cradle because of the annoying untimely ringing sound.

The world could fall down tonight but he would have to hear what she had to say. Even if that meant banging his door at two in the morning until the neighbours called the police…

One.

Two.

Third signal…

Four…

Five.

'Hello, this is Doctor Robert Bridge speaking.' Listening to his voice startled her, as it had in her other calls in the previous days. She shut her eyes tightly. 'Obviously I'm not in right now but you may leave a message after the tone and I'll attend your call gladly A.S.A.P.' He had to be home, he had to pick up the phone. Pick it up. Robert, pick up, for the love of God.

To hell with his gallant attention, she spitted with resent.

Alison tried to reach him again in the number of his boat house. She crossed her arms over her chest while she waited. There was a ringing signal but nobody answered the call. She hung up and dialled the number again, holding the receiver between ear and shoulder so that her hands were free to go through the drawers in the search of the yellow-pages listing. Again she interrupted the phone call and changed of strategy by dialling Robert's mobile and fixed phones numbers in turns. Over and over. Which was the Jude's surname? Her maiden name? Robert's? The second husband's? Alison turned the phone listing pages with feverish eagerness, too violently, tearing some of them in the process. In fact, she kept calling but had stopped paying attention to his message in the answering machine and in the voice box of his mobile, immune to the cultured inflection and smart smoothness in his voice.

For the twentieth time there came the beeping signal that announced that you could leave your message. Her impulsiveness finally won the battle over the pragmatism which advised her of the waste of breath that was leaving a message in a place where the owner probably did not live anymore. She hesitated yet swallowed her pride.

'Good morning, Robert.', she greeted in a sickly sweet singing voice, which took her the double effort of biting her tongue and appear casual. 'I guess that, even if you were at HOME, you aren't too keen on picking up phone calls at all. Oh, I'm sorry. Picking up MY phone calls. Because you are a coward…. I understand that you need and deserve time to dedicate yourself to your family, to your job. I accept that, it makes me happy for you. I just hoped a little tiny bit of deference to me. Not much, just a phone call once in a while to show or fake some concern for me and how I'm managing being all alone by myself for the first time in thirty years after freeing my mother's spirit. I could be going mad, for all you know. I'm not, thank God, but thanks for your interest and attention, Robert. Damned good psychologist that you are. Do they teach you a course on tactlessness now at University or what? 'Cause you surely passed with flying colours.' She took a deep breath but the anger did not fade away. 'I'm only lucky to be a neurotic busy-body that's always getting her knickers in a twist and worrying for the people…she cares about and considers as friends. Tell me, Robert. How are your headaches?'. Not even swallowing dissipated the vibratto in her voice. Any other way of clearing her throat failed miserably. She did nothing else to conceal her crying. 'Were you planning to tell me someday? When??!! When I saw your obituary notice in the papers by chance? When I suddenly found a plaque with your name on it in some corridor at campus after months of not knowing anything from you? Bastard… I thought, believed that – well I'm not that sure anymore – but I reckoned we were friends. After all we had gone through, after how brave you were and how you brought my sanity back to me… after your support and the way you've helped me out of the dark sucking hole which was my life before meeting you… I thought this meant something to you. That there was respect between us.', she sniffed. 'I've lost my faith now. I'm beginning to realize that I've been wrong all this time. That I was too carefree in taking for granted your friendship. I'm beneath it, am I? Was I a fool to think that you would turn to me if you ever felt the need to do so? That you could and would rely on me with something as… huge and life-threatening as this is? With everything you had seen and experienced, of knowing the real me, even the most intimate and painful of the secrets of my past… was I wrong to think that you would accept my hand? Maybe… maybe I'm not good enough, rational enough, clever enough for all-mighty Doctor Bridge to include me amongst the members of his exclusive fanclub, of her inner circle. This has made me understand something at last. My stupidity. That I'm a stupid idealist. That this was all business. After all, you said so yourself from the first day: let's keep all professional, for the sake of research and all that jazz… What was it? How did you call it then? Oh, yes. Author-subject relationship. I was simply your pet-project, the theme of a book, a source of serving your scientific curiosity. You X-rayed my soul to have material for that paper and a good example of lunacy to exhibit naked in the classroom. No attachment. No implications. No Freudian transference or counter-transference for us.' She could not breathe. Air was rarefied and the walls were coming down on her. 'Well, you should have magnified the small print in the contract, Robert. You should have…'cause… now you're dying. You're dying. Dying. And I knew nothing about it, damn you! And for that I hate you with all my heart, Robert Bridge, I hate you…".

She wanted to throw away the receiver far from her. Throw her memories of Robert to the river tied to a lead weight, so that they would sink fast and the ache deep inside her would subside much quickly. Her memories and his, and everything she had got to see and feel in the flashes of visions behind her eyelids. In that night when their faces were barely inches apart and she could feel the heat and affection radiate from him like a soothing balm, his fear for her state of mind as she drowned in her mother's madness but his strength as he reached to her and guided them both back to the present and the safety of his hands. That way she would not miss him, she would not feel the pressing need to cling to him. She would find comfort in the blessed oblivion and the eternal sunshine that was ignorance.

The earpiece was hot against her cheek but she did not hung up, as expecting to hear his real voice the next second. An apology for his mistakes, a single excuse, a confession in which he stated that the feeling was mutual and he would accompany her to the madhouse gladly.

Anything but the response got by her laboured breathing and the arpeggios sobs played on her larynx. A click suggested that the answering machine had been disconnected. Then there was a new trembling breath in the other side of the line, as weak as her own, incapable of gathering enough willpower to pretend composure.

'You…'. It was a vaguely familiar voice but not masculine in the slightest. Paralyzed by grief, bleeding but dry and rough, and it sanded the edges. Definitely that of a woman's. 'You don't hate him…'. The voice was openly crying out now, cracking and exploding like crystal right next to her.

Alison recognized her the person she was talking to. The knot in the pit of her stomach grew and pulled her down with the weight of realization. Down…down… plunging her into the deepest despair. In chaos.