Edna's Death Cafe by Angelena Boden

Author:Angelena Boden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2018-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lionel’s furtive trip to Oxford had left him feeling empty. It hadn’t given him the closure he’d hoped for. His daughter wasn’t there. He’d wanted Ruth to go with him but the minute he’d suggested the idea she’d pounced on him like a ravenous lion. As the last train pulled into Hope station, an hour late on account of an incident on the line, his stomach began its impression of a cement mixer.

‘Poor bugger,’ said the man opposite him, screwing up a paper bag and wiping paint-stained hands down trousers. ‘Must have topped himself. That’s two this month.’ His breath puffed out alcohol fumes.

Lionel stood on the deserted platform, blowing on his hands. He needed to be alone with his conscience for a while before squaring up to the inevitable interrogation. With an old credit card, he scraped a thin veil of frost from the windscreen of his car before heading towards the headland via a rutted farm track. Stubby trees, dotted in between huge boulders of granite, were back-lit by a bluish light.

With only a scratchy blanket to keep out the chill, Lionel closed his eyes for a few moments to allow memories of Deborah to flutter around like tiny feathers. He longed for sleep to iron out his weariness.

Love survived death, so said the poem Edna had read out at the close of the last meeting. ‘Absent, but not gone.’ He unbuttoned what it meant for him as a bereaved father. His feeling of failure to protect her had coloured his grieving process as guilt dogged his days. A new mask was fixed every day, one that didn’t quite fit, to assure the world he was doing fine. He’d tried to distract himself with projects – birds, reading, helping Ruth, but his ability to concentrate was weakened by a tide of emotion that he dreaded and welcomed in equal measure. Edna had told him that he looked for punishment to deal with the guilt, which is why he tolerated Ruth’s hurtful behaviour. No matter how many times someone assured him it wasn’t his fault, his brain couldn’t or wouldn’t process the truth.

Pandemonium hit him as he pulled up outside his home, a couple of hours later. The street that ran in front of the café and down past the line of shops to Peak Cavern shone with clusters of torch lights along with the glowing butts of the occasional cigarette.

Lionel approached them, trying to catch the eye of someone he knew.

‘What’s all this about, Nige? Something happened?’

‘Where the bloody hell have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you.’

Nigel ground his roll-up under his heel before shouting out for Edna.

‘He’s turned up, finally.’

Edna rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and grunted, ‘About time.’ The fire in the Sanctuary had long burnt to ash, cooling the air to a crisp. She shivered in her thin cardigan, joining the search party on the pavement. It was thanks to Mavis Street breaking the news that Ruth had been seen running out of the house, the devil biting the backs of her slippers.

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