Unfinished Business

Amid the thunderstorm, some unseen force had drawn her back to Mike’s side – but why was he acting so strangely?

A Chilling Tale

Joanne shivered. Clouds rolled in, blue-black as bruised flesh. Head down, she weaved through people jostling each other on their way to work, men armed with umbrellas, roller skaters hissing past, slick as a snake; while all around her the grid-locked cars hooted with rage.

Survival of the fit test, Joanne thought, slowing her pace. Yet, what was the point of battling to reach work two seconds earlier than her boss just to watch him slither into his wing-back chair without so much as a “good morning”? In fact, what was the point of reaching her destination at all? She stopped dead, colliding with a sharpsuited woman, all angles and attitude.

Now Joanne thought about it, this anger, frustration – she wasn’t sure what to call it – had been bubbling up inside her all morning, and with it the sense that she had something important to do, if only she knew what.

A place away from all the noise, that’s what she needed. Somewhere peaceful. Maybe then her subconscious would give up its secret and tell her what she needed to do.

A zig-zag of lightning flashed across the sky. Joanne counted three before the thunder growled. Without knowing the street name or where she was heading she turned left, then right, running as if the rain, the thunder and flashing shards of light were pursuing her.

As a bright blue door swung open, the smell of fresh coffee wafted towards her.

Joanne read the sign, The Azure Café, and darted inside.

The café was empty. She had the pick of tables. The one in a secluded corner looked cosy, so she made her way over and sat down as the heavens roared and the crockery trembled.

Her gran had told her that thunder was the sound of a giant’s belly groaning with hunger. His tears, falling as rain, would not cease until his hunger was satisfied. He must be starving today, Joanne thought, watching the rain criss-crossing the windowpanes as miniature gushing rivers.

The café’s menu led her on a clever trail from cappuccino to tiramisu, making it easy to believe that once you’d stepped through the azure-painted doorway, you were magically transported to Italy.

The wall clock chimed nine o’clock and Joanne giggled. She’d escaped the working day, taken a first tentative step along the right road. But her hand stifled another giggle. It seemed that she was not alone after all.

She hadn’t noticed him, sitting in the gloomy alcove opposite her, his face hidden behind the wall of his newspaper. But the flash of his gold signet ring caught her eye as his hand reached out for his coffee. He raised the cup towards his lips and his newspaper crumpled. It was then that Joanne saw his face. Such startling blue eyes, thick, dark hair, a deep line etched between his brows and that distinctive mole on his left cheek. Every detail about the man seemed so familiar, as if she’d already spent time studying him. She even knew his cologne, the way its bitter-sweet aroma lingered on her tongue.

A clap of thunder sounded overhead. Had fate brought her to this back-street café, or was it purely a coincidence meeting him again?

She coughed to attract his attention, then felt ridiculous, over-dramatic. Perhaps he wouldn’t even want to speak to her. After all, they’d met at best only once before.

The thought curled in her stomach. A one-night stand. Now she remembered. Had she drunk too much? For the evening had ended abruptly, unsatisfactorily. In fact, she couldn’t clearly remember what had happened, except for waking in the morning and finding him gone; searching for a note, a phone number, some clue.

But he’d left no trace. All she could remember about him was his name: Mike. Yet, their brief night together must have touched her deeply because the bubbling cocktail of emotions on seeing him again felt overwhelming.

Joanne stared blindly at the

Had she DRUNK TOO MUCH? The evening had ended UNSATISFACTORILY

newspaper, willing Mike to see her. He closed his paper, folded it in half, then tucked it under his arm, hurling down some coins that rolled and clattered on the table as he stood up. With his back poker-straight, he was staring straight at her. He’d seen her.

She watched his hand groping wildly for the back of the chair as the neatly folded paper tumbled to the floor.

“Hello, Mike,” Joanne said, smiling, waiting for the obvious shock of seeing her again to pass.

His mouth fell open. She nearly laughed, he looked so like a fish. Now surely he’d say something.

Instead, he snatched up his paper, strode to the door and flung it wide, glanced back once and was gone.

The door slammed shut, sharp as a slap across the face, and Joanne understood with startling clarity when her feelings of frustration had begun.

They had begun with Mike. Since their one night together she’d been wandering around in a daze, without purpose or direction.

She needed to talk to him, make him tell her what had happened between them. Perhaps then the anxiety festering in her stomach would go away.

Mike was turning down a narrow alleyway. She followed, lightfooted in spite of the pavement slick with rain. He turned left, then right, heading down a long tree-lined road.

She called out. A glance back, and then he broke into a run, heading into a park. It looked abandoned, as if all living things had fled from the deluge of rain.

Joanne hesitated, listening to the harsh clack of Mike’s footsteps ricocheting into the silence. She’d have to hurry or she’d lose him.

Wriggling and shoving he’d forced his body between the gnarled oak tree and the tangle of holly bushes, and disappeared off the main path.

Joanne had no idea where he was going. She’d lost her bearings. But a gardener emerged from the darkness, so Joanne raised her arm, shouted, “Excuse me!” thinking he might have some idea which way Mike was heading.

But the man didn’t even look up. Too busy shovelling dead leaves into his wheelbarrow.

The wind hissed. The blackening sky promised more rain. Soon the trail would turn cold and she would lose him.

Passing beneath the park’s iron

gateway embellished with gaping black cherubs, she started to run. The holly bushes looked savage, armed with barbed leaves ready to slash at her skin, but she managed to squeeze through without drawing blood.

Dark shadows cast by the trees made her shiver, so she hurried out of the wood and across some stepping-stones that forded the stream. Up ahead she could see Mike racing up a steep bank, then slithering over a wooden fence.

She followed, clambering over the fence and stumbling out onto the hard pavement beyond. After the muffled silence of the wood, the roar of traffic assaulted her ears.

Joanne caught her breath. This street looked familiar, with its neat row of Georgian houses guarded by an avenue of limes. Ah – no need to hurry. She knew where Mike was going.

Making her way up the familiar steps she entered into the tiled hallway of Number 37, Myrtle Way. The familiar hum of the lift echoed around her. She sensed Mike’s presence, felt sure that he’d taken the lift to the third floor. She turned left, taking the stairs.

Splintered memories sparked in her mind, unclear, disconnected. She’d startled Mike in the café. That’s why he’d run off. Yet he’d come to her flat, so all would be well. She’d find him standing by her front door, waiting for her. They would talk and then she’d understand what had happened between them.

The door to her flat hung wide open.

Mike CRIED OUT at that, raced to the WINDOW. They tried to RESTRAIN him

How rash of her to give Mike a spare key after a one-night stand. But had she? She couldn’t remember. Tapping her finger on the jagged edge of wood, she saw that the lock had come clean away. The door had been forced. Mike stood in the middle of the room, back turned against her, legs braced wide.

“Why did you break the door open?” she asked, puzzled.

Mike twisted round, lips prised apart in a rictus smile. He reached out, fingers clawing at the mantelpiece. Joanne tried to make sense of it all: this man clutching at cold marble, while a woman, half wrapped in Joanne’s antique Persian rug, lay on the living room floor.

As if lightning had flashed inside her head, a burning brightness illuminated the darkest corners of Joanne’s mind. She stood breathless as forgotten images shunted into view, moving together like the jagged pieces of a jigsaw.

At last, she comprehended.

Her index finger twitched. The door snapped shut behind her. In spite of the shattered mortice, the lock held tight.

Mike juddered, knees buckling, body slumping to the floor. Joanne inhaled the stench of his fear and opened her arms wide. She welcomed in the sound of his choking breaths, let them vibrate through her, an echo of the cries for mercy she’d made the night before.

As Mike crawled to the door, she straightened the Persian rug. He rattled the handle, grunting and whining, but he could do nothing to make the door open, so she took her time, smoothing out each tangled thread of the rug’s ancient fringe.

Satisfied, she lay down beside her own lifeless body. There would be no rise and fall of her chest. Racing after Mike, what she’d mistaken for breath had been little more than drifting air.

Death had claimed her. She must come to terms with that. But she would never understand why a perfect stranger had destroyed her life.

She heard the click as Mike lifted the phone. She listened to the tuneless dialling of three numbers, and his voice, rather staccato, yet coherent enough.

Like a lover he had read her mind, carried out her exact wishes without the need for harsh words.

They waited in silence together for the imminent knock at the door. When it came, the door drifted open as if touched by a finger of air.

The taller policeman had dark hair. She’d liked men with dark hair. Except he looked too young, little more than a boy, biting his lip as he scribbled notes on a pad. While the shorter one asked the questions. What happened here? Had Mike called to give himself up?

He had to repeat them because Mike didn’t answer. Distracted, he paced the room, probing, searching.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, sir!” the dark-haired policeman said.

Mike cried out at that, raced to the window. They tried to restrain him. But he broke free, searching for that seemingly alive Joanne he’d seen in the Azure Café.

Heaving cushions from the sofa, dragging the curtains from the rails, he filled the room with glittering flecks of dust as he crawled across the floor to claw at the body lying on the Persian rug.

But the Joanne he’d seen now floated above him. Iamhere, she whispered in his ear. Mike cried like a baby then. After that he admitted everything: even that he’d seen a ghost, a spirit, a haunting: a Joanne he could no longer see.

A warm glow of satisfaction filled Joanne’s spirit. She had done everything she needed to do. She’d reached her destination after all. At last the hollow ache in her belly had disappeared. No lingering doubts, no unfinished business holding her back.

All thoughts of Mike, of pain and loss, had vanished. She moved towards the radiance that beckoned, into a new completeness, which she recognised as everlasting peace.