An Authentic Life Read online

  An Authentic Life

  Avril Osborne

  Copyright© 2010 by Avril Osborne

  Smashwords Edition

  www.avrilosborne.co.uk

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic ,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of varied products referenced in this work of fiction, which have bed used without permission. The publication of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by trademark owners.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Other Books

  Chapter 1

  As the ringing of the phone lifts her from early morning drifting, a deep weight of foreboding seems to hold her down on the bed. Who is ringing her at this hour? A glance at the clock through sleep-heavy eyes tells her that it is six-thirty. Fear grips Joanna as she checks her memory of last night. Yes, both boys were safely home by eleven and in their beds by midnight, back from a pal’s party and not too seriously the worse for wear.

  “Hello?” she whispers, hoping that the ringing has not already roused Baby Lou and the teenagers.

  “Mrs Rodgers?” an unfamiliar female voice enquires.

  “Yes. Who is it?”

  “Mrs Rodgers. This is Staff Nurse Jackson at Inverness Royal.”

  Her foreboding crystallises into alarm. Somehow she knows what is coming. But her panic does not allow her to hear all the words. The main ones, she does hear: “Stephen”. “Your husband”. “Accident”. “Can you come immediately?”

  She knows this is bad without anything being said to confirm it. Anyone would know. But she is a hospital social worker across Inverness at the Royal’s sister hospital – the City. She has heard words like these too often as she has stood with nurses carrying out their dire task of informing next of kin.

  “What ward?” she utters, expecting to be told that it is Critical Care. It is Accident and Emergency. They must still be working on him.

  She puts the phone down and moves in a kind of slow motion to get out of bed. At least, that is how it feels. In reality, she is dressed in two minutes in the clothes she had on last evening – a pair of denims and a sweatshirt. She has pulled them on over her pyjama shorts, and a bra is her only underwear. Nor does she put a comb through her short brunette hair. A brush of her teeth is her only concession to the ordinary ablutions of morning. She wants no smell of morning alcohol on her breath if she is to drive her car at this hour.

  Leaving her room as quietly as she can, she hesitates at the door of her older boy, Jeremy. She is so tempted to rouse him and to have him and his early maturity to lean on. But she knows that would not be fair. His father is in hospital and he will need all his strength for himself if it is as bad as Joanna suspects it is. It is better if she makes the journey alone to the hospital and finds out how serious it is. But she still tiptoes into Jeremy’s room and whispers into his ear that she has to go out. Will he look after his young sister? Jeremy is awake enough to grunt “yes” and to fumble to set the alarm clock to waken him at eight. He groans and then mutters, “what’s up?” but she says nothing and he falls back to sleep. After all, he has no reason to be perturbed. His mother is a social worker and there is nothing unusual in her going out on some client-related emergency. He has looked after five-year-old Lou in the past and he enjoys the responsibility.

  A moment later, she is fumbling with the air blast to her car windscreen, cursing that she did not garage the car last evening. This costs her four precious minutes on this damp October morning as she helplessly watches the car clock and listens to the heater booster roaring ineffectually at the damp inside the vehicle.

  It seems like an eternity of frustration till she is easing the motor onto the quiet of the Sunday roads and towards the Royal. Mercifully, the car park is quiet at this hour and she finds a space right away near to the Emergency entrance.

  Everything goes back to slow motion once again as she makes her way past a couple of stationary ambulances, through the automatic doors and to the desk where a receptionist is talking quietly on the phone, reassuring a relative about some young woman’s well-being. The woman will be collected, Joanna gathers, within the hour by an anxious but relieved father.

  She listens impatiently. Only her experiences of seeing so many members of the public losing their cool at moments like this stop her from pacing up and down in front of the reception desk. She tries to stand close enough to make it clear that she is waiting, far enough away to respect the work in progress. Finally, the young woman behind the desk puts the phone down and looks at Joanna.

  For a split second, Joanna thinks that she sees a look of sympathy on the woman’s face but, if it was there, it disappears in favour of one of quiet welcome as the receptionist waits for Joanna to speak.

  “Stephen Rodgers? I’m Joanna Rodgers.”

  “Yes, Mrs Rodgers,” the woman says with her pleasant, inscrutable smile. “If you would like to take a seat in the relatives’ room, I’ll ask the doctor to see you.”

  She does as she is told, resisting the urge to insist on seeing her husband right away. And, thankfully, the small, square and airless room is empty. Time seems to stand still again, though in reality it is only a few minutes before the door opens and a tall, bespectacled man of about thirty is standing in front of her. He checks that she is Mrs Rodgers, smiles quietly and closes the door behind him before sitting down opposite her. Somehow she knows what is coming. She makes it easy for him.

  “Is he still alive?” She wonders how she finds the words.

  He looks at her, holding her eye contact.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Rodgers. We did everything we could. But he died a few minu
tes ago.”

  She suspects now that Stephen was dead when the nurse rang her at home. That’s how they do things to keep the next of kin as calm as possible between home and hospital. These are her first, pointless thoughts, thoughts before the emotions of shock and grief set in. She has nothing to say; she just knows that the silence will be filled with the doctor’s account of what happened. She waits, feeling nothing. She can only stare at the white-coated young man.

  “He came in about an hour ago, just after five o’clock. Was he depressed, Mrs Rodgers?”

  It must be suicide. She knows that now. She distances herself.

  “No. No, I don’t think so. Not as far as I’m aware, anyway.” She refuses to have that on her conscience.

  “He was brought in from woodlands just outside the city. It appears that he drove his car at obvious speed straight at a tree. There was no one else involved and he was in the driving seat. The police say that a couple out for a late night walk after a visit to a nightclub found him.”

  The young doctor hesitates and looks at her, lowering his tone before he continues.

  “He had multiple injuries. We also found a cocktail of drugs beside him. I am afraid that we are all but certain that it was suicide. The post mortem will confirm this of course. I am so sorry, Mrs Rodgers.”

  She listens in silence to all this, numb as all the realities begin to filter into her consciousness and into her new reality. She can think of only one thing to say.

  “Can I see him, please?” Her tone is more a demand than a question or request.

  The doctor looks at her, his presence quiet and supportive. His gaze is steady.

  “I strongly advise against that, Mrs Rodgers.” He hesitates. “His face took the brunt of the injuries.”

  She knows that, most likely, this is a euphemistic description of the condition that Stephen’s body will be in. There. She has thought the thought for the first time. He is a body now, not a person any more. He is remains. A person is dead. That is significant, isn’t it? She should be feeling something, shouldn’t she?

  She insists.

  “I should identify him, shouldn’t I?”

  The doctor keeps his tone gentle and stretches a hand out to her arm.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Rodgers. But it is just not possible.”

  She looks at him.

  “How bad?”

  “His face was torn away by the impact. He went through the windscreen and impacted on the tree. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but his head was virtually severed.”

  It is the combination of the touch on her arm and the facts that she is absorbing. The next thing she knows, she is slumped forward, the doctor and a nurse encouraging her to keep her head low and to take steady, deep breaths. The nurse puts a glass of water into her hand. She takes it, relishing the ice cold in her mouth.

  She comes to slowly, relearning the dreadful information she has just been told. Stephen is dead and he has done this to himself. He has done this to her and to the children. Now she feels anger as the blood begins to return to her face and cheeks. The bastard.

  “Can we call someone for you, Mrs Rodgers?” The nurse is asking.

  She thinks immediately of her four closest woman friends – the Gang, as they refer to themselves. Perhaps Geraldine would come out. But she dismisses the idea. Geraldine’s husband, Anthony, died recently. She does not need this. Wendy lives close by but she is away at a conference. And the other two, Michelle and Bobby, are too far along the coast, one in Findhorn and the other in Elgin, for her to trouble them at this hour.

  “No. No, I’ll be fine. Are you sure that it was Stephen?” she asks now, a new thought forming in her mind.

  “He left a note, Mrs Rodgers. We will do the final confirmations with forensic and dental checks, but yes, the police and we are quite certain.”

  Still shocked, she asks to see the police who were at the scene. The police want to see her as well, the doctor tells her. A few minutes later the doctor escorts a police sergeant and a policewoman into the room. Suddenly it is too small and oppressive in here.

  They are gentle and reassuring with her. She volunteers at last that she and Stephen are separated. She has not seen him since last weekend when he brought the lads back from a football match in the city. Even then, she thinks now, she barely spoke to him, just acknowledged him with a grunt when he asked if he could stay and have a glass of wine with them. No he could not, she growled. She was going out. Where, he wanted to know? None of his business, she riposted, leaving the room and heading to the shower to get ready.

  She tells the police none of this. But this was her last exchange with the man she lived with for thirteen years, the man who was legally still her husband although they separated three years ago. Worst of all, she thinks now, Lou and the boys saw all that indifference in her. That will be their last memory of the whole family together in the house.

  She wants to know where the accident happened. She hesitates over the word ‘accident’. The police sergeant says it would be unwise to go there. She insists. They describe a wood track to the south of Inverness, high on the moors. She knows where it is. Once they used to wander there, early lovers and, later, pushchair-proud parents.

  She asks to see Stephen’s letter. It will go to the Procurator Fiscal and she will have sight of it in due course. She has no choice but to accept this information. There is nothing more to do. A yawning void opens in front of her.

  Chapter 2

  It is only eight-forty when she is standing outside the hospital, steadying herself before she takes the walkway that leads back to her car. The morning air is refreshingly cool. The first shock eases with the fresh air. She begins to get her head around the reality of the situation. Stephen is dead. The person around whom her life has pivoted for so long, in good times and bad, is gone. She is a widow. She is a forty-two year old widow.

  She needs to see where this all happened; where Stephen did it. She decides quickly. Daniel will not be awake before eleven. Jeremy is well able to see to Lou’s breakfast. She heads out of the city on the route south for three miles, then does an illegal U-turn, to head back north on the dual carriageway. Then she takes an exit onto a minor road that leads to the woods.

  It is unmistakable. She knows exactly which tree it will be and she is right. Making her way on foot, she sees from a hundred yards back that it is surrounded now by yellow striped police incident tape. It is the tree where they made love once. Perhaps Jeremy was conceived there – they always thought so. The car has been removed. What she sees with a sickening, fascinated horror is a gash – fresh, she thinks, like Stephen’s flesh - running up the tree for ten feet or so. The bark is ripped off the tree and the car must have had nowhere to go on impact but up the side of the oak. She approaches nervously, suddenly afraid of this place. It is no longer a tranquil spot, but one silent and haunted by a death that has only just happened. There are no early morning sounds, no birds. She is a few feet away now. Fragments of glass from the windscreen are around the base of the tree, resting on the roots that spread out from the base. She bends down, unable to stop herself from wanting a closer look. Blood spots are speckled over the glass. She reels back in horror. A piece of indistinguishable flesh is sticking out from a splinter of glass, missed by the emergency service clear-up team.

  She turns and runs as fast as her weight will allow. She gets to the car. She vomits. She vomits from the horror of what she has seen. She vomits from the knowledge that he did this to get back at her. She vomits from the terror of having to tell the boys – the boys who are her whole life. And how will she tell Lou, Lou who is only five and who loves her Dad, even if he has not lived with her these last three years?

  It takes her a while to compose herself enough to drive. She would love to call round to see her friend Geraldine. She is one of her closest friends and Joanna needs a shoulder to lean on just now. Geraldine is a psychologist and the one she would automatically turn to. But she cannot because that woul
d be unfair. She has to get through this alone.

  She sits in the car, breathing deeply, adjusting to the notion that only her inner strength will get her through the time ahead. Slowly, she calms and her head starts to clear.

  But she has to hurry now. There are the children to consider before she can think about her needs. She has to get to Jeremy, Daniel and Lou. Daniel will be coming to after a night of teenage revelry enjoyed by the two brothers and their mates. She must get to them all before either of the boys wants to take off to the sports centre or to the town to meet their pals. She must get to them to tell them something that will affect them for the rest of their lives. She has to do it well, for their sakes. She has to stay calm.

  Fifteen minutes later, she thinks she is reasonably calm as she inserts the key in the front door. Her hand is shaking though, and she feels sick at the thought of the task ahead of her. Silence awaits her in the hall. Then she hears a chair being pushed back on the tiles in the kitchen. Walking down the narrow corridor, her heart is in her mouth. She pushes open the stripped pine door, the one that Jeremy and she stripped. He is inside, looking in the fridge for milk. At seventeen, he is at that wonderful moment of changing from beautiful youth to handsome young man. He is the image of his father, with his dark curly hair and his high cheekbones. But he is warmer in his smile and manner. He smiles at her now. Daniel, only slightly shorter but stockier than his brother, is lounging on a chaise-longue that rests under the kitchen window. He is absorbed in a cartoon and would not let anyone other than these two, brother and mother, know that this is his addiction. Nearly sixteen is too old for liking cartoons. He grunts as she enters.

  “Hi. Where have you been?”

  She takes all this in at a glance. If they are worried about where she has been, they show no sign of it. She is often called out for work reasons. And they know that she would ring if she were going to be out for any length of time. They may also assume that she has been out for early morning shopping. But, no. This is the last moment she has before she has to tell them.