They sit facing each other. His long legs are stretched out and she is in a hunched position.
‘I understand how debilitating the anxiety attacks must be for you, Margaret.’
She wipes her eyes with a tissue.
‘We can stop for a few minutes, if you wish,’ he says gently.
‘No, I’m happy to continue.’ She runs a hand through her red hair cut in a short, pixie style.
He leans forward.
‘Tell me what happens in the recurring dream you mentioned.’
She takes a sip of water.
‘I enter a classroom in my old primary school and say ‘good morning’ to the other girls but they ignore me and talk amongst themselves.’
Her lower lip starts to tremble.
‘And then?’
‘The teacher, Miss Donovan, comes into the room, and greets us before sitting down at her desk and opening the register. She calls out the names alphabetically and the other girls respond when theirs come up but mine is omitted. I stand up and say ‘I’m here too, Miss” but she looks through me and tells the class that there is now a free desk and a new girl will be coming soon to sit in it. I start to shout ‘no’ and that point I wake up in a sweat.’
Margaret tightly grips the arms of her chair.
‘That’s an unsettling image,’ he says. ‘Going back to the anxiety attacks, did anything unusual happen before they started?’
‘They began after an unexpected encounter.’
She shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
Tell me about that occasion.’
Relaxing on the bench, Paul takes a sip of ice-cold lager as he watches a boat sail by. The breeze off the river ruffles his blonde hair and takes the edge off the heat.
He is conscious that a woman wearing a white linen dress and sun glasses sitting on the other side of the beer garden has been studying him but he pays her no attention.
As he finishes off his drink, he sees her approaching in the corner of his eye
‘Paul?’ she asks, as she gets close to him.
His beady black eyes study her. The voice sounds familiar but the face doesn’t register.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ She sits down on a bench opposite. ‘You haven’t changed much.’
She has a youthful air about her but the fine lines on her face make it difficult for him to judge her age.
‘It’s me, Margaret O’Donnell.’ She takes off the glasses and her bright blue eyes fasten on him.
He sits up with a start and blinks.
‘My God, it is. How are you?’
‘I’m grand. Fancy bumping into each other after all these years.’
His studies her closely with his mouth half open.
‘Don’t worry you didn’t recognise me at first. It’s twenty-five years since we last saw each other and my red hair probably threw you off the trail.’
‘Do you live in London?’ he asks.
‘Aye. I didn’t return to Belfast after arriving here. I know there are more opportunities there now for people from my community but there are painful memories for me too. London’s a grand place to live in and I don’t want to be anywhere else.’
She shrugs her shoulders.
‘You certainly haven’t lost your accent,’ he says.
‘Holy cow, I’m never going to lose that!’ She laughs. ‘Are you still married to June?’
His eyebrows rise.
‘Yes, but I’m staggered you remember her name.’
‘It was a memorable evening when you mentioned it to me.’
‘Indeed, it was.’
‘Do you have kids?’ she asks.
‘Yes, a boy and a girl who are now both in their early twenties. What about you? Do you have a family?’
‘No, I’m single. None of my relationships have lasted any length of time. Too much baggage I’m afraid.’
The noise of revellers on a passing boat catches their attention.
‘Looks like they’re enjoying themselves,’ she remarks. ‘We had some fun back then, didn’t we? Like those nights at Frankie´s disco and the craic we had with the crowd who went to the parties at Mary’s place.’
He nods his head.
‘We sure did and I was proud to tell the other squaddies you were my girl. No one else had hair like you, with those cascading curls of shiny black hair.’
‘Catch yourself on! Many of the other girls were glamorous too.’
She falls silent and looks at him pensively.
‘I remember the first time I saw you in the street in a uniform carrying a rifle. It took me a few seconds to remind myself you were my man and not just one of our occupiers. Telling me you were a soldier when we went out together was not the same thing as seeing it for real.’
He straightens up and locks eyes with her.
‘There were occasions when I regretted not suggesting that we cool things down until my tour of duty ended and then you could have followed me to England. That way, you wouldn’t have suffered like you did.’
She shakes her head from side to side.
‘Yeah, in a parallel universe. You wouldn’t have enjoyed the life you’ve had with June and your kids, if you’d done that.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Look, we all have regrets about what we did or didn’t do in the past but have to find a way of living with them and often - as is the case with you - good things happen further down the line. Remember, it was others who decided of their own free will to do what they did to me and they’re the ones who should carry the burden of guilt, not that I expect any of the bastards to feel any.’
‘Fair enough. Can I get you a drink?’
‘I never thought you would ask! A gin and tonic would go down well, so it would.’
She watches him as he gets up and leaves their table. His straight back and broad shoulders bring back images preserved in an album in her mind which has remained unopened for longer than she cares to remember.
The bar inside is busy but he’s happy to be detained in the queue for a while to be alone with his thoughts. He’s a man who normally likes to choose his words carefully when having a delicate conversation with someone but this evening he has surprised himself with what he’s blurted out.
Returning a few minutes later with the drinks, he discovers she’s gone. He looks around the garden but there’s no sign of her.
‘Did you see the lady who was sitting here leave?’ he asks the group on the adjacent table.
A girl wearing tortoise shell glasses leans over.
‘She started sobbing not long after you left. I asked her if she was alright but she suddenly got up and departed.’
He slowly sits down not sure whether to feel relieved or guilty, or a bit of both. The sun has now disappeared behind the clouds and there is a chill in the air which prompts him to reach for his jacket.
‘So what happened to you, Margaret?’ The therapist pushes his glasses up.
The colour drains from her face.
‘Paul was the handsomest boy I’d ever met and I fell in love with him. But, as a soldier, he was seen by many in my community as one of the enemy. My parents didn’t approve of our relationship but didn’t forbid me seeing him it until the day when my father took me to one side and told me what had happened to a girl on the next estate who’d got involved with a soldier.’ She wrings her hands. ‘I still remember the pained look on his face as he pleaded with me to end things, telling me he and my mother couldn’t bear the thought of me suffering.’
‘That put you in an impossible position.’
‘It was hard but I decided to call it off and told Paul the following night. He was crestfallen and I felt awful about it.’
She exhales and looks past him.
‘Then, I was walking home from college a few days later when a van pulled up beside me and a couple of big lads jumped out and grabbed me, and bundled me inside.’ She swallows hard. ‘Shortly afterwards, I was taken out of the van in a deserted warehouse and roughly tied to a chair, and two bitches cut off my locks and shaved my head.’ She touches her skull. ‘They told me to shut up when I started crying and, when they’d finished, the men freed me and threw me back in the van.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Only nineteen and my tormentors were all much older than me.” She grits her teeth. ‘The van drove for a few minutes before we disembarked on some waste land. I was tied to a lamp post and cold tar was poured over my head. Thank God it wasn’t hot as I would still have the scars to this day. Feathers were scattered over me and a sign was hung around my neck with ‘Soldier Doll’ written on it.’
She pauses to brush her blouse.
‘A crowd gathered and started jeering. The women were the worst. I kept my eyes shut but opened them when I heard my father shouting and saw him grappling with my kidnappers. They were too strong for him and pushed him to the ground. I was left there until darkness fell and the crowd dispersed, and my father freed me and took me home. That walk along the deserted streets felt the longest in my life.’
She reaches for the water jug, refills her glass and takes a drink.
‘I stayed indoors for months afterwards and didn’t have many visitors but a friend who called round one day and mentioned Paul’s regiment had returned to England soon after my ordeal. I bitterly regretted breaking up with him and decided to go over to London to try and patch things up. My parents tried to dissuade me but eventually gave in and bought me a short black wig to wear. I stayed with a cousin of mine. I had no address for Paul but remembered the name of his favourite pub in Ealing and spent several evenings there hoping he’d come in. One night he did and not surprisingly he was shocked to see me. He asked what I’d done to my hair and, when I told him what had happened, his face turned white. I said I regretted splitting up with him and hoped we could start again. However, that wish was quicky crushed. He could barely look me in the eye when he explained he’d recently got engaged to an old flame called June who he had taken up with again and so there was no way back for us. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.’
She looks down.
‘Margaret, it has taken a lot of courage to tell me what you have today. The unexpected meeting with someone associated with a past trauma appears to have triggered your anxiety attacks and I will try to help you to deal with them.’
‘I’ll come for as long for as it takes. I’ve taken time off work to sort myself out.’
‘What do you do?’
She lifts her head up and opens her eyes wide
‘I’m a fundraising manager for a charity which trains health, legal and policy professionals to work with female survivors of torture. It’s become a vocation for me.’
‘I’m glad we have some positivity to build on in our future meetings.’
He closes his notebook and takes off his glasses.
‘Absolutely. I refuse to be a prisoner of my past.’ She suddenly straightens up. ‘You can’t keep an O’Donnell down, as my old Gran used to say.’
About the author
Rob lives in Edinburgh started writing short stories during lockdown. To date, he's had several tales published by Cafe Lit and others in various anthologies. He likes to experiment with different genres and styles of writing.
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