The Sister Read online

  "Her? You know it's a girl?"

  The Sister continued, "She can't help how she came to be, but you'll punish her for it." She rested a gloved hand on Jackie's forearm. "It would be the kindest thing, to give her a chance to be loved by someone else in the way that you cannot. It's for the best, Jackie, in your heart y'know it's the truth."

  The tiny bell over the shop door tinkled as another customer arrived.

  She helped Jackie out and down the steps.

  "Keep well, Jackie. Oh, and there's something else . . . I'll be looking out for you from now on." She touched her forefinger to her lips as if it were a secret.

  Jackie thought she recognised the man in the lobby. She pointed at him and then at Sister. With the question on her face, she did not have to speak.

  "Hello, Jackie," the man said, with a half smile, he looked different without his glasses. "Even psychiatrists need a bit of help with the future, from time to time."

  She supposed that was how he came to recommend she came here. She made her way out of the gloomy shop, back into daylight. Freed of making the decision by herself, she felt incredibly light on her feet despite the additional weight she was carrying. She held her belly in both hands. The cold light of the day only strengthened her resolve.

  She wondered what help Dr Ryan needed with the future.

  Chapter 34

  On Sunday morning, two days after her consultancy with the Sister, Jackie doubled up in pain. The baby was coming early. That evening just as darkness fell, she gave birth. It was a girl.

  In a strange way, having the child gave Jackie something she could focus on. Abortion had been out of the question; it wasn't the child's fault, but she knew she couldn't keep it. In time, she'd grow to resent it, questioning every foible and fault, believing it came from him. It was far better she allowed the child a chance at life, free and unhindered from what her father was.

  So when the time came, it was not without sorrow that she gave her up. She knew she must.

  Tears came; she wept for the part of her that was gone and pined for what might have been. It's for the best… Cursing the Sister's words and the hand that fate had dealt her, she wiped her face dry.

  Nature can be cruel and seemingly illogical at first glance. In the wild, a TV cameraman films a trio of prideless, nomadic male lions as they come across two isolated females. They attack their cubs. The lionesses fight desperately to protect their young. Once the males succeed in killing the cubs, a strange thing happens. Nature and instinct take over in an unexpected development. The females begin flirting outrageously with the males, parading with sexual swagger, back and forth, getting close, head rubbing, tails flicking across the male's flanks. The heat of a new breeding cycle begins, triggered by the savage loss of their cubs. They mate with the killers of their offspring. No bereft human female would behave in such a way with the executioner of her children.

  Instead of shying away from men, Jackie became promiscuous. It was like a tidal wave. Her pent up sexuality, driven by the need to stay in control - ran wild. No man would ever hurt her again, and as if to prove it, the risks she took were outlandish, having sex with one-night stands in toilets, cars and alleyways - Until the night she saw Harry again.

  Harry wasn't sure that it was her at first. It had to have been two years since they'd last met. Jackie was sitting on a soldier's lap, drunk, teasing him. Harry grabbed her by the hand and pulled. "C'mon, you shouldn't even be in here."

  Her eyes widened with surprise. "Harry!" she cried out - louder than she'd intended. The soldier, who up to that point had been laughing uproariously, suddenly went quiet. It seemed the soldier, a veteran of Northern Ireland tours of duty in the late eighties and lately a parade ground sergeant, had something of a reputation among the locals, because the whole bar grew silent. A few thin giggles and awkward throat clearings were the only sounds to penetrate the tense atmosphere. Pushing up out of his chair so quickly it fell back onto the floor, the soldier stood and pulled her round to one side of him. He'd invested a few drinks in her and wasn't about to give her up without a fight. A space cleared around them, tables and chairs scraping as the crowd sensing trouble, moved out of range.

  Standing right in front of Harry, he jabbed a stiff finger in his face, stopping short of his left eye. His face was contorted; the rage of a hundred conflicts fought with his hands tied, was about to be unleashed. Veins stood out at the side of his crew cut head. He growled menacingly. A parched parade ground voice tempered by instilling the fear of God into thousands of new recruits, barked out. "You! Get away from my girl!"

  "Your girl?" Harry said, with quiet dignity. "Is that right, Jackie?"

  A short sledgehammer blow collided with his jaw and rocked his head. His legs disconnected from his senses, and as they buckled, and he dropped; he thought, somewhat crazily. So you really do see stars!

  Knocked too far from consciousness to get up easily, he felt each thud of the soldier's boots, although he was mercifully detached from the pain. Distant voices reached through the swirling fog in his head; he latched onto them with the last of his awareness, pulling at the anchor they provided, helping him to recover. He heard the rain outside; he knew he was coming back. The warm rain cleared his head enough for him to hear voices protesting, outrage overcoming their fear.

  "Hey - no - soldier, don't do that!"

  "Stop him someone, that's disgusting!"

  "Is that what they teach you in the army? You should be ashamed of yourself!"

  The soldier ignored their disapproval, a hideous grin on his face as he continued urinating on the semiconscious man on the ground.

  "You wanted to take the piss out of me? There you go; there's the piss out of me! Nobody - NOBODY - takes the piss out of me and gets away with it!" The soldier roared, shaking his shaven head from side to side, eyes daring intervention from anyone in the crowd around him. He stamped one more time on Harry, who doubled up on reflex, with a grunt.

  He stood triumphant, one foot on the chest of his trophy. Jackie walked up to him.

  "Here's my girl!" he announced loudly, putting his arm out theatrically, like a protective wing for her to come under. "Come here to me, doll . . ."

  Without warning, she unleashed a kick with startling accuracy, her toe point striking with an impact of around two thousand pounds per square inch - Harry worked it out afterwards – a kick so hard she ripped his trousers through the crutch, front to back, the soldier grunted, doubling up with the pain.

  Hurriedly, she picked Harry off the floor and together they stumbled out into the night, leaving the soldier nursing his injured pride, amid fevered speculation.

  "Did you see that kick? She must have been trained to kick like that!"

  "No, it was just a lucky shot . . ."

  "Lucky? My arse!"

  They did not hear the rest. The voices faded as the neon glow of the bars dimmed. They made their way out of town, back to his house.

  Jackie swallowed him alive with the shameless things she did. Harry was smitten from that very first night.

  Afterwards, snuggled up close, safe and warm, they slept.

  The morning stole into the room through a gap in the curtains. A thin slant of light slashed through the gloom, across the foot of the bed and projected onto the wall opposite, like a sword blade. Harry had his eyes half closed; a cupped hand shielded them from its brightness; he felt her stir.

  "It's far too early to be the morning already," she mumbled, turning away from the light.

  "Where did you learn to kick like that?" he said, with an air of nonchalance.

  "Is it bothering you?" she said.

  "No. Yes, actually it is. I keep thinking about that soldier. I just wish I was the one that kicked him like that. You'll have to teach me," he said, smiling at her. "On the assumption it wasn't just a lucky kick."

  "No, you're right. It wasn't," she said, staring at the ceiling. "When I was fifteen, my mum sent me to self-defence classes."

  "Did she?"r />
  "Yes, she did." Jackie slipped deep into thought. It had been like locking the door after the horse had bolted. She couldn't see the point of it, yet after just a few sessions, she threw herself into it with an anger and gusto that surprised her instructor. "Imagine I'm going to attack you . . ." He was unprepared for the anger she put into her counter attack; he subdued her, but it was a close run thing. It wasn't about the horse at all. It was about the stable door; it was about confidence, feeling safe and secure. Her mother, in all her wisdom, knew exactly what she needed to get her life back on track again.

  His hand sought hers under the sheets; he squeezed it.

  Looking at him then, she knew she couldn't tell him about that part of her life yet. He wouldn't have been able to handle it. Honesty . . .? What would be the point? In that bar, she'd identified with Harry's defilement. In that moment, he'd become a victim of vile abuse, too. Just like her. Her arms and legs wrapped around him. "I'm never going to let you go," she said.

  He squeezed her tight. "I'm glad."

  They fell in love and never spent another night apart.

  In the future, they'd talk often about that night. Sometimes, over dinner with friends, when the drink had flowed, and they'd run out of things to talk about, one of them inevitably would say, "Come on, Jackie. Tell us about the night you met Harry again . . ."

  She’d always protest at the start, but then she’d look at Harry to see if he minded. He never did. More proud of what she had done that night than embarrassed at the indignity that he had suffered at the hands of the soldier. It had been her moment, so she retold it.

  The more she told the story, the better at the telling she became. After losing touch for over a year, she'd invited Karen and Gilda for dinner, and once they'd heard the story, they gave her a round of applause. Standing, she'd given them a little curtsy. The pride in their eyes something she'd never forget. Finally, she had stood up for herself.

  Ripped from arsehole to breakfast time. She never found out what it actually meant; she repeated it only because it'd been her trainer's favourite saying.

  She smiled to herself. He would have loved that kick.

  Chapter 35

  May 2006

  Miller sat in the garden of the five hundred-year-old farmhouse he'd rented. Bathed in the warm glow of pale sunshine, he looked out over the green barley fields; the pastoral scene suddenly enlivened by the unexpected arrival of the first Swift, followed by the appearance of many more. He was never quite sure at which point exactly the first arrivals came in any year. Was it April, or was it May? They just seemed to appear.

  When he was a child, he'd wanted to be a fighter pilot; his mind examined those childish dreams once more. The memories felt as though they belonged to someone else.

  He watched as a Swift skimmed the tips of the young barley, banking fast from left to right, flashing its soft white under-belly at the sun as it rotated on its axis - all the way round with incredible speed and agility, hurtling along, criss-crossing the field picking off insects invisible to the human eye. Miller allowed the periphery of his vision to widen. All over the field, scores of these birds performed similar manoeuvres. How did they not collide with each other?

  A smile crept over his face. All those men who aspired to fly like birds, from Icarus onwards - shackled by the human condition and later by cumbersome aircraft . . . even now, with all the technology we can muster, we'll never be able to do it like that he mused.

  The Swift continued its breath-taking display of aerial skills; he grinned broadly, as he acknowledged the bird's superior ability. Now that is an aviator.

  Lost in the dappled light and darkness, in the lanes of his memory, he realised he'd been having flashes all his life. His grandfather knew - he'd tried to explain - he had been explaining. At that time, he was too young to understand, but the old man had sown the seeds - planted the koans that would enlighten him when he was ready, and just like the Swifts arriving unnoticed - suddenly just there - all five of his senses acknowledged the arrival of another, that crept up without him noticing. A sixth sense.

  Everything started falling into place, triggering memories of the chance games he'd played with his grandfather. The guessing, at first at the turn of a card which suit it would be, and as he progressed the game becoming harder, so that finally he would identify the card before it was turned over. Miller recalled the radio receiver lessons. The tuning in and out of transmissions, and later the overseas viewings, the old man speaking with his eyes closed. "If I close my eyes and think of my home in Poland, I can see it - the new people who live there, their children. They work hard, and if I listen . . . inside my head, I hear them speak - not what they say; only sound, but I can tell from the sound if they are happy . . ."

  He reached deeper into his memory, searching for more. Each recollection triggered a new one. Do we ever forget?

  The gravelly voice was fresh in his mind. "One day in the future, you will wonder, just as I did . . . what is it for - this thing we have?" Bruce remembered listening, putting on a suitably serious expression, matching that on the old man's face as he continued talking. "I used to ask God, why choose me to live, when other men close to me die in war? And the Almighty does not say … I think it's because he knows that I would give my life freely, for my friend, for my brother . . . I don't cry out, Oh, God, let me live! I have faith, and he has too much left for me to do. That is how I survive, and I learn some tricks too . . . and I tell them to you."

  His eyes misted, and he swallowed hard at the realisation. The old man had known he wouldn't be around as Miller was growing up.

  He'd been preparing him, but for what?

  Chapter 36

  June 2006

  Miller watched the thin clouds stretching across the pale blue sky, vapourising in the growing heat of the morning sun. It was time to move on. He swung his legs down from the bed and sitting upright, collected his thoughts before moving off to shower.

  Gathering his clothes, he felt the phone vibrate through the layers he held in his hands. He put them down and sorted through, locating his mobile. Private number.

  "Who is this?" Miller said.

  "Long time, no speak. You don't recognise me do you? It's Donovan."

  "Donovan?" he said, taken aback. "You're right; it has been a long time. Is everything okay?"

  "Can we meet?"

  There had to be something wrong. Miller sensed it. "Okay, I'm guessing you want to make it soon?"

  "This afternoon," he chuckled.

  Miller checked his watch, 9:30. "Where?"

  "Amsterdam."

  The plane taxied in at Schipol airport just after 5 'o clock. With no luggage to collect, Miller cleared the terminal within thirty minutes. Kale had a car waiting to drive him to his house in Oud Zuid.

  "You know, since you rescued Olga, I have been slowly, but surely infiltrating various cults on the fringes, taking them over, stripping them of their assets, shutting them down. Doing society a favour, and making money in return. Can't be bad, eh?"

  Miller surveyed the priceless treasures in the sumptuous room. Many were religious icons.

  "Well, good on you, Donovan, it seems like a worthy cause, but what does it have to do with me?"

  "I have a little proposition for you," he said, dismissing his bodyguard with a jerk of his head. The man left.

  "I'm going to need your help to take out the last few remaining organisations. The big three. The leaders are untouchable by any conventional means . . ."

  "Donovan, it doesn't sound like something I can help you with. The last time I had anything to do with you after bringing Olga home, somebody tried to kill me - remember?"

  "Of course I do. You will come under my protection. Nothing will happen to you; I guarantee it, and you will also be well rewarded." Kale smiled. "Remember how generous I can be?"

  "Donovan, what do you mean by conventional means?"

  "The leaders that control the big three are the same people, although the f
igureheads are different. The people behind the facade employ a former assassin named Carlos, to protect them, along with a powerful psychic who forewarns them of danger ahead. "

  "What is it exactly that you want me to do?"

  "The psychic, he works for me too. He told me about you."

  "Donovan, you've lost me."

  "No, Miller, I have found you. Working as a team, we can finish what started twenty-six years ago. Oh, and the men who tried to kill you recently - they work for the top man."

  He thought about how the men had stalked him on the lecture circuit before ambushing him. There was no doubt they intended to kill him, and they were still at large. "The psychic told you about that?"

  Kale tapped his forefinger on the side of his nose. "Do we have a deal?" he said, leaning across the inlaid desk, offering a handshake.

  Miller took it.

  Chapter 37

  Rose Kennedy had given up hope of having a child long ago. The cause of her infertility was a mystery; there was no medical reason for it. She'd tried everything and failed. And yet she still entertained the notion that she would have a baby one day.

  She reached her mid-forties and resurrected a love affair with her husband, a last ditch all out effort before her body changed. John, let's just try again. What harm can it do? He was shell-shocked at first; they were engaging more than they had in their twenties. He knew most likely she'd only suffer more disappointment, but he was happy to go along with her.

  On a February morning so full of bright sunshine, the light hurt her eyes; Rose felt sick. Although she'd never had a migraine before, she knew the symptoms. She assumed she'd been stricken with an attack for the first time in her life.