Lonie42

‘It’s was not difficult to pick a tree to hang myself from. Alder, Ash, Beech, Birch and Oak, all the street names of my blessed youth were a ten minute walk from the hospital walls. Most people think that it’s difficult to get out of a mental hospital. But it’s easy. You just walk out the door. The sad part is there’s usually nowhere to go and you just drift back into the care of everyday hospital madness. I’d a good strong leather belt with a brass buckle. I walked up to the Botanic Gardens. The wind and driving rain meant that there were few people about plant watching and those that were tended to keep their heads down. I passed unnoticed by and through them, like a ghost, past the grand estate of unused park benches and tarmac laid pathways. My feet followed their own path trailing through uncombed grass and a snow burst of primula as I entered the canopy of waiting trees. The virgin of the woods, the silver birch, seemed to select me as its partner, rather than the other way about. I undid my belt and looped it around my fist, but had to make a grab for my trousers that began to droop and fall. It seemed hopeless then, looking up into the canopy of thin branches, my days of shimmying and climbing trees seemed long gone. The devil whispered in my ear that there was a better tree for my belt, its branches thick and strong, just a little way along, waiting for me. But no. I was determined to do it my way. I untied my shoelaces and perched on one island shoe, and then another, as I took my trousers off. I put my shoes back on and folded my trousers against the trees base. My belt I looped loosely around my Y-fronts. I relived my youth and began to climb. I settled on a branch about fifteen feet up, with a view of the glass houses where cold watered plants were kept warm. I worked quickly, my feet snagging, and cramping in the loose toeholds of thin silver bracelets of reinforced twigs and the cold sending shocks through my trembling fingers. I made a collar for the branch with the tongue of the leather belt. The collar for my neck was a harder fit and I was worried that I’d fall and break something and be unable to finish. I expected to feel something more, some great secret to be explained to me, but there was just shivering and coldness and letting go. My head jerked back and my feet fell though the softwood, the noise scattering birds from nearby foliage, their wings flapping and beating against the air.

I regained consciousness lying in the downy damp of the trees base. My face was scratched were I’d fallen and my lips and nose were bleeding. Worse than that was the animal smell of having soiled myself. I looked up and a bright light shone in my face. For a second I wondered if I'd died. An angel with his staff planted firmly into the topsoil near my head looked down at me. His eyes were a voice and his voice was a light that travelled deep inside me and untethered me from myself.

“Seek out the ways of the Lord.” The angel put his thumb against my forehead and I was filled with such ecstasy and joy I thought I’d pass out.

“Speak only of His ways.” The angel’s fingers kissed against my lips. At once I could understand the languages of the wind and trees and birds that flew overhead.

“Deliver unto Him that which is good.” He withdrew his staff from the soil and pierced my heart with it. All around me, as I writhed on the ground, the songs of the earth and the stars and planets were being made and unmade in the glory of God.

I opened my eyes and the angel was gone.’

‘Hing on.’ Lonie leaned forward. ‘Were you unconscious when you had the dream about the angel?’

‘I know what you’re getting at.’ Father Campbell giggled. ‘I wasn’t sleeping. Neither was I unconscious. The angel was as real as you are sitting on that chair.’

‘Ah’m glad you dae,’ Lonie sounded perturbed, ‘because Ah don’t. Did the branch break when you fell, or did the belt snap. Or unravel?’

‘I don’t know. It no longer concerned me. I was reborn in the Lord and knew what I had to do.’

‘Hing on.’ Lonie scowled as he thought. ‘Whit about the leather belt, would it still be attached to the tree?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Father Campbell sat up and laughed. ‘I don’t think I need it now. Do you?’

Lonie swatted his question away. ‘How long ago was this?’

‘Oh,’ Father Campbell stood up, his legs shaky and he clutched at Lonie’s hand on the armrest. ‘More years than I care to remember.’

Lonie watched his body unfold from that of an older man. He seemed younger somehow. ‘And can you still do your Dr Doolittle and hear what animals are saying and stuff?’

‘No.’ Father Campbell shook his head, grinned and slapped Lonie lightly on the back. ‘But I can hear you making a fool of me.’ He made his way towards the door, turning back towards where Lonie was seated. ‘You coming?’

‘Ah thought you werenae well?’

‘I’m quite well and talking to you has made me even better.’

‘Whose making a fool of who now.’ Lonnie edged out of the chair to follow him along the corridor. ‘Ah could kill for a fag.’

When they got to the office Lorna and Audrey were deep in discussion. No one else was there. Audrey glanced up and spotted them first, but it was Lorna that rushed out to meet them. She grabbed Father Campbell and kissed the back of his hand, escorting him the last few steps. She helped him sit down and clucked and made as much fuss over him as a mother.

Lonie looked over at Audrey and raised an eyebrow. She looked so serious he couldn’t help grinning and breaking into laugher. He reached for his fags and found nicotine heaven.

‘I’m sorry that you’ve got to leave so soon.’ Lorna had the jaunty voice of a headmistress addressing a school assembly.

Lonie squeezed his thin frame into the plastic seat near Lorna, his back against the office window. ‘Ah didnae think you told lies.’ He blew fag smoke into the air.

‘I don’t.’ Lorna looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘Me and Audrey have become such good friends.’ Her hand dropped from the back of Father Campbell’s chair and her legs brushed against his desk as she knelt down in front of Audrey’s chair, looked her in the eyes, and squeezed her hand. ‘Haven’t we?’

Audrey squeezed Lorna’s hand back. Her head nodded in agreement. As she looked into Lorna's eyes she felt tears in her own and a welling in the back of her throat. ‘Yes, we have.’

‘Whit about me? Am Ah your little friend too?’ Lonie smiled his most winning smile.

Lorna’s hand rested on Audrey’s knee as she stood up. She looked down at Lonie, her face set like a pre-Raphaelite critic. ‘No I don’t think you are,’ she pronounced. ‘I don’t imagine you’ve got many, or any, friends.’

‘Well, that’s about right.’ Lonie waved his fag hand, the smoke swirling around him, magnanimous in defeat.

‘Yes. It probably is time you left.’ Father Campbell voice initially had a note of regret. ‘We have to form a prayer circle and you’d just be in the way.’

‘Ah promise no’ to get in the road.’ Lonie stubbed his fag out in the ashtray. ‘Ah’ll just sit here and observe.

Audrey scraped her chair back and put on her coat. Lonie thought it best to do likewise. They waited in an uneasy silence whilst Lorna went to get the keys. With Jim’s help they were soon standing outside the unit and walking towards the relative safety of the Hillman Imp and Audrey’s driving.

Lonie worked his tongue into a cavity in his teeth. It seemed to be growing feet, but it still wasn’t sore. He ignored it. ‘Whit’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing.’ Audrey reversed out of the car park.

They were soon sweeping around the general medical wards of Goldenwell Hospital and up towards Great Western Road.

‘You want to take a right here.’ Lonie sprung it on Audrey as they were coming up to the junction of the road.

Audrey’s hand jerked to put it in the lowest setting of the gear box. She tried to flip the indicator to right, instead of left and guide the car into the appropriate lane, but the gears meshed with a grinding noise and the car kangarooed over the road as if driving over bubble wrap, before cutting out. ‘Look what you made me do!’ She checked behind her in the mirrors, but there was no other traffic, before starting the engine. ‘Where are we going to?’

Lonie’s hand patted against his right knee. ‘The Botanic Gardens.’

The Hillman accelerated up and over the road, the windscreen wipers on full tilt, making a shuffling noise, the heaters blowing out hot air and making their damp clothes stick to them. Audrey’s heart accelerating in the same way until they were once more safely tucked up in the kerbside line of Great Western Road. ‘What are we going there for?’ But the words were hardly out of her mouth before she was turning into the gardens and looking for a parking spot.

Lonie got out of the car first and put the collar of his long coat up. He left the door open, his hand resting on the frame and his eyes scanning the paths and greenhouses that were before them and trying to duck down out of the rain, but failing. He bent his knee and held his foot up, as if shoeing a horse, and looked at the smooth fawn soles of his Weejuns. There was little doubt his feet would be soaking. He’d also be slipping and sliding about on the tussocks of wet grass, like a postman with a pet dog biting at his arse.

Audrey’s door opened in stages. She slid out of her car seat and emerged on the other side of the car. Her hair was getting wet, which she didn't like and it showed on her face. ‘What are you looking for?’

Lonie’s neck twisted round to get a better look at her. She’d on a long purplish wool coat that might keep the rain out. ‘Whit kinda shoes you got on?’

‘What are you talking about?’ She shook her head and ducked back into the car to get a little relief from the rain. ‘Chestnut loafers.’

Lonie slammed the car door shut. With his head pushed down by the rain he made his way to her side of the car to take a look at her shoes. ‘They might do.’

‘Might do for what?’ Audrey’s voice had an edge of spite to it that suggested she was going to turn combustible.

Lonie put his hand on his head to try and stop the relentless rain and hunched forward, ducking down into the driver’s side of the car. ‘You don’t happen to have a torch in that bag?’ He picked up her bag, which was sitting snug between the two seats and rattled it.

‘Leave that alone.’ Audrey pulled at his black coat, pulling him out of the car to face her. Rainwater ran down their hair, their forehead, dripped off their noses and chins and lay on the shoulders of their coats. ‘If you don’t tell me what you’re doing I’m leaving you here. Right now!’

‘I’m lookin’ for a belt. A belt that Father Campbell used when he tried to kill himself.’

Audrey’s two-tone eyes were watching Lonie. She flinched. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

Lonie sneered. ‘You don’t know him.’

‘And you do? He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met.’

Lonie’s feet were already wet. ‘He is a nice man.’ They didn’t have much time before it got dark. The cumuli seemed to bring the sky closer to the ground. ‘But he’s probably the biggest fruit-cake in Goldenwell and it’s our job to find the evidence.’ She blinked as if he’d hit her. ‘It’s probably about ten years since he’s been here. Birch grow about two to three feet a year. It’s a long shot, but we need to find that belt.’