Final
Confessions
It was three weeks since
Sidney had discovered the awful truth. His health had deteriorated
significantly since then. Discharged from the hospital, having done all that
they could, he had been sent home to die. He knew his time was short. Could he
take this distressing revelation silently to his grave or had Edith a right to
know?
Still pondering
this dilemma, Sidney floated into sleep; the morphine had kicked in and the
pain of his terminal cancer had been wrestled into submission once more.
The flashback flared again, as he knew it would,
bolder and more vivid than ever. There was the plane spiralling out of control
over Normandy and himself, safely ejected though mortified at his arrogant
error, drifting away from it. There was crash, the huge fireball as the doomed
machine hit the ground. He tried to steer his eyes away from what he would see
next. And yes, there she was; that little girl in her drab and ragged dress
with her string of balloons, dancing gaily among the flames and rubble of her
house and her parents’ body parts.
Sidney woke with a jolt, unsure whether or not he had
cried out. She was there, stroking his brow and whispering in reassurance to
him. Edith, a little dark, a little moody on occasion but always faithful,
always loving, he could not have wished for better.
“You
were dreaming,” she whispered and for the first time ever he detected a hint of
her accent.
A sudden gust of wind rattled the window and set a
sinister black cloud across the face of the sun. The clock struck the hour and
Sidney knew it was time. He squeezed his wife’s hand feebly.
“We’ve
been married for fifty-two years,” he said, his voice rasping and wheezy.
“Fifty-three,”
she corrected with a smile.
His face stretched into a returning smile. “Forgive my
ninety-three year old brain,” he replied. “You have been a perfect wife,
companion and friend. I have never been unfaithful to you, my love but I do
have a terrible secret.”
Edith turned her face, suddenly pale with
apprehension, to the window. The rain beat hard against the pane. Sidney’s
heart sank. He had made a mistake but he could not reverse now even though he
knew she would walk away from him, silently cursing him for destroying her
early life and leaving him to face the end alone.
“Why
now Sid?” she asked, her face crumpled with pain. “Why spoil all that we have shared
with some hideous legacy?”
“Because
you have a right to know who the man you married is,” he whispered. He tried to
clear his throat and borrow some strength to continue. “And you haven’t been
entirely honest with me either.”
He could not decipher the look on her face. It was
shame; it was guilt or maybe it was neither.
“Why
didn’t you ever tell me you were French?”
The dull red flush rising on her face was visible even
in the surreal half-light of the inclement afternoon. It crept slowly up to her
white hairline, vaulting the wrinkles and folds of her seventy-nine year old
face.
“Because
I did not wish to remember. It was a long time ago. I came to England as a
young girl.”
Sidney winced as a sudden twinge of intense pain shot
through his diseased and decaying stomach but he mastered it and felt strong
enough to continue.
“Yes
Edie, you were seven,” he said. “You came to live with your aunt.”
Edith looked stunned and frightened. She had spent
many years avoiding this conversation.
“Why
have you been trying to unearth my past?” she cried, her voice rising in pitch
and volume. “I hated France! I hated my parents! My father beat me and my mother
starved me and locked me in the cellar. Did you find the psychological reports
too?”
A strange fire gleamed in her eyes; a hint of torment
and distress that he had never seen before.
“They thought me
evil and twisted for wanting my parents to die; for not showing any grief or
sorrow at their passing. They knew nothing of what I had suffered!”
Edith choked on a sob and continued.
“For years that
poor little girl sat in church praying for an accident so that she could be
free of their tyranny. She knew she only had to wish hard enough; to see it and
it would happen. Ha, in the Middle Ages they might have burned her as a witch!
But it did! That British plane! Yes, that plane came and answered her prayers.”
Sidney swallowed hard and watched his wife’s eyes
light up at the glorious memory she was reliving with obvious relish. A tranquil
smile crept across Edith’s face.
“One
day, I escaped from my prison and sneaked off to Marie-Claire’s party, a little
further down the road,” she continued dreamily. “It did not matter that I
didn’t have a nice frock or pretty ribbons in my hair, I was free. We were all
in the garden and I saw the plane spiralling out of control. Unnoticed, I
slipped under the fence, feeling nothing but excitement. I even waved to the
ejected pilot as he glided away from the fated aircraft. I prayed earnestly and
aloud, willing that plane in the direction of my house. I could think of
nothing else – and it worked Sid.”
Her voice became soft and childlike.
“It happened, just
as I’d visualised. The house was razed to the ground and my parents, probably
drunk and insensible, had been blown to pieces. Oh, you should have seen me, my
love, singing and dancing in the wreckage with my balloons. I was not afraid of
the flames, I was thankful for them. It felt like the best day of my life.”
Edith’s face became serious and adult again. Sidney
was shocked and distraught. All this time she had almost entirely hidden her
anguish but her dark moods could now be accounted for. He had given himself to
her and thought that she had been happy. It was all he had ever wanted for her.
He wondered how anyone could live with such knowledge and belief and knew that
he had failed. He selfishly wished she had kept her silence. What a thing for
him to take to the grave. His darling wife; how could she have taken the knife,
he had placed in her hands, and twisted it so brutally? Yet, she was calm and
ethereal now, smiling the smile that he had loved so well.
“You’re
a naughty man for going behind my back,” she scolded light-heartedly, winking
at him with all the charm and charisma of her youth. “But what is your terrible
secret? Is it as wicked as mine?”
“I
don’t know.” His breath rasped in his throat and he knew the final moment was
at hand. He choked and spluttered, determined to get the words out in the hope
that he could rest in peace. “But you have to know the truth even if it ruins
everything. It has eaten away at me just as your past has eaten away at you.”
Edith felt fear but forced herself to remain calm and
stoical at his side. “Then you’d better tell me before we run out of time.”
Shaking with the effort, Sidney tried to raise himself
higher in the bed. He reached for her hand, savouring its warmth.
“I was
the pilot.”
Edith’s face became like stone and she stared at him
for a moment, absorbing his words. Then she was crying, laughing and kissing
his drawn and sunken face with hysterical delight. A single sunbeam pierced the
gloom and Sidney could see that she was happy.
“I
can’t believe it! I have wanted to meet you all my life! My husband, my best
friend and my hero, the same person! How lucky am I? Je t’aime mon cher. Merci, merci!” She crooned softly, “Un millier de fois, je vous remercie.”
Sidney felt the burden of guilt slip from his
shoulders but his love for his wife became an intolerable ache. He could not
take her with him this time. “I’m so unhappy to be leaving you, my darling. I
wanted this to last forever.”
He watched Edith fumble in her pocket and pull out a
handful of what looked like bright pink sweets, which she rammed greedily
into her mouth. Sidney’s sorrow escalated. Dear Edie, she had always used
confectionary as anyone else might use tobacco or alcohol. When she reached
over for his bottle of analgesics and forced them into her mouth, Sidney
understood and sighed with contentment.
“We will go together, my love. I
cannot bear to live without you by my side,” she whispered after swilling the
pills down with great gulps of water.
As
sunlight flooded the serene bedchamber, Edith climbed into her husband’s
deathbed and lay down beside him. She kissed him once more, held his hand
watching patiently as he tried to mouth the words I love you. Holding each other close, Sidney and Edith drew their
last breaths together.
The
End
©
Diana Morrison
27/11/12
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