Lynda Plante - The Talisman

‘Give me thy hand...’

The child held up his right hand, and Edward pressed his own flat against the window, wincing with pain as the knife cut clean down his thumb. A single, bright red tear of blood dripped down the child’s hand, and Freedom knelt before him, licking at the blood... then turned and spat into the fire. The flames rose higher and the coals burned brighter...

Edward backed further and further from the brightness beyond the window, moving away from the memory, away from the sight of his father — moving away from the memory of himself as a boy, the long-forgotten memory of his initiation into the Romany clan. He didn’t want to see any more.

The song started up again and repeated, over and over:

Edward was crazy with fear. Turning to run from the room he was caught by his own image in the mirror — but it wasn’t his own face staring back at him, it was the face of his father. He screamed, ‘Get away from me! Go away!’ But still Freedom’s face remained, and then the tears flowed down his cheeks, terrible, streaming tears. Edward closed his eyes to shut out the face of his father, but it remained as clear if not clearer than the image in the mirror. The tears continued dripping down the high, carved cheeks, falling on to naked shoulders while the eyes stared wide, unblinking.

Edward’s chest heaved as the deeply buried memories surfaced, exploded, and he remembered killing his father, remembered every fragmented second...

Once more he was screaming with rage. He was seventeen years old, shouting and punching out at Freedom, screeching that he was going to Cambridge, no one would hold him back — no failure, no has-been boxer, no pitiful loser like Freedom could stop him...

Freedom began to undo the thick leather belt from his waist. Now Alex was there, little Alex weeping for them to stop, crying to them not to fight.

Edward put his arm over his face as if to block out the image that would appear next. He couldn’t bear to face his mother, but she was there, standing at the kitchen door and begging for them to stop. He could see her clearly, her white pinafore, her dark red, coiled hair. She tried to come between them, but Edward pushed her aside and she fell backwards. The dog was barking — Rex, the white bull terrier, growling and yapping, scuttling between their feet, jumping up as if even he was afraid of what was going to happen. He yelped as Freedom tripped over him and lurched against the kitchen table...

Slowly, the inevitable happened again, so slowly... Edward opening the kitchen drawer. Edward taking out the sharp knife, the big knife Evelyne used to carve their Sunday roasts. He took out the knife as his father turned to him...

Edward’s face was distorted with blind rage as he screamed, ‘Come on, you bastard! I dare you to fight me now! Come on!’

Freedom seemed to relax. He no longer attempted to take his belt to his son — instead, he smiled, and lifted his arms in a gesture of love, opening his arms wider and wider, moving closer and closer to his son, closer to the knife.

Edward tried to stop the memory, tried to stop the memory continuing... Picking up a bottle, he smashed it against the fireplace... but the smiling face of his father would not go away. He moved closer, as if to embrace his son. Edward snatched up a poker from beside the fireplace and brought it crashing down between the open arms, crashing into the face that haunted him, the face that would not let him be in peace, would not let him forget. He smashed the face in the mirror into a thousand pieces, broke his own face into myriad jagged pieces... but Freedom was still there.

Edward put his hands over his ears to cut out the sing-song voices — and suddenly there was silence. He felt his father’s arms embrace him as the knife cut upwards into his heart, opening his chest. Freedom sighed, he sighed just as he had done on the day it happened...

Edward stepped back, looking at his bloodstained hands. Splinters of glass had cut his palms to shreds and he was covered in his own blood, but his mind was so confused and disorientated that he believed it was his father’s.

Freedom was lying face down on the floor, lying where he had fallen, embedding the knife deeper into his heart. Evelyne knelt beside him, rocking him in her arms, as his blood spread like deep crimson flowers over the carpet, over her white apron... Edward’s mother cradled Freedom until his body was stiff, until they had to prise his arms away from her.

Slowly the images faded, the song stopped, the fire outside the window was gone. Edward was left with his own blood still wet, still dripping from his cuts. Now he knew what he had done, and he felt the pain opening him up within; he felt his head draw back as if the pain was so great it was splitting him into two beings. And the howl, when it came, was so loud, inhuman, it sounded like the baying of a wounded animal.

At the top of the house, Dewint heard the howl. At first he thought it was an animal, something trapped. As he listened he realized it was coming from the sitting room below.

He crept down the stairs, fearful of what he would discover. The sound was quieter now, and he listened at the door. Gradually the howling subsided and was replaced by sobbing. Concerned, yet too afraid to go and see, he sat on the stairs and waited.

Edward lay face down on the sofa, his head buried in his hands. At long last he was able to ask his father’s forgiveness for what he had done. When Dewint inched open the door, he saw the blood all over the floor, the broken mirror, and Edward’s still figure. Above the fireplace, where the mirror had hung, a red spray of blood resembled a necklace, with small blood drops like pearls. The talisman.

Creeping closer, he saw that Edward was still breathing. He hurried to the telephone.

Alex arrived at the manor within the hour. Dewint let him in and ushered him towards the drawing room. This would be the first time Alex had seen Edward since that terrible Christmas, since the realization that Evelyn was in fact Edward’s son. Any anger or hatred evaporated as soon as he saw his brother, his bloated body, his blotched, boozed-out face and his filthy clothes covered in bloodstains. Like a bum, he half sat, half lay slumped on the sofa staring vacantly at the wall. Aghast, Alex turned to Dewint.

‘Dear God, how long has he been like this?’

‘Ever since the funeral, sah, and I can’t do anything with him. I think he’s dying, sah. He’s been in this room for days.’

Alex looked down into his brother’s face, now hardly recognizable. Looking closely at him, the physical change was frightening. He must have weighed almost twenty stone, and was such a tragic figure that Alex knelt down beside him. ‘Eddie, it’s me, Alex. Can you hear me?’

Suddenly the ghost of Edward’s old self flashed across his dazed face, he gave a sad half smile. ‘Hello, old buddy. How ya doin’?’

‘A helluva lot better than you, by the look of it.’

‘You should have been at her funeral, Alex. She was very fond of you, always liked you. You should have given her that much respect, Alex. She hadn’t a bad thought in her poor mind.’

Dewint carried in a bowl of hot water and a face cloth.

‘It was eerie, sah. He sat at the kitchen table, even carved her name on it, he did. Then he went outside, stood by her tree and the phone rang to say she was gone. He seemed to know, sah, as if he’d come back to bury her... and he’s been this way since he returned from Yorkshire. I’m going to wash your face now, Mr Edward, just lean back. Shockin’ mess you got your hands in.’