Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Seven - Part Twelve

“I went round to see my father on the night he died,” said Molly.

Jack listened patiently, conscious of the emotion that floated just beneath the surface of her eyes.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her hair dropping down to cover her face. They were sitting in a park now, not too far from where Jack was staying, deep in its centre, the darkness and trees all around them. There was a bench in a little clearing and they sat at either end of it, the length of the dark wood between them.

“You met my brother Ruben,” she said.

Jack nodded.

“Well neither one of us had seen my father except on TV for at least eight years. I don’t remember anything I ever did with him really, even as a child; except maybe something to do with the ocean. I can’t remember.” She shook her head irritably.

“Everyone knew how rich he was. I suspect you’re the only family member nowadays who has any idea how much there is. Well… it became known in the gossip columns, from some slip or bribe or something, that my father had changed his will, leaving it all to his family in England. Ruben came to me. He told me that we had to go and make peace with him before it was too late or we wouldn’t get anything. So I went with him to see my father,” she said. “I went to make up with him.”

“Because of the money?”

Slightest whimper of tears from her lips, from her hidden face. “I don’t know. No. I don’t think so. I just wanted to see him. I didn’t care about the inheritance.” She lifted her head. “I still don’t Jack; not really. I wouldn’t care if I were as poor as everyone else. If my mother’s accountant is right I probably will be very soon. But the money is important to me in a way Jack. It’s important enough that I hated you until I actually met you; not because of anything you had done but because he had chosen, however indirectly to give you his legacy; not me. I wanted him to love me. The money was just symbolic of that. It still is.” She laughed. “I would have been just as messed up if you had inherited a pressed flower in the old family Bible that I put there with him as a girl!”

Jack moved closer to her across the bench and reached for her shoulders. He put his arms around her as she crumpled very quietly against his chest. He held her close, her spirit gently pulsing within his arms as though there were no physical form there at all. Between his fingers this ethereal substance drifted up to form a kind of halo, illuminating them both. It glimmered on the rough bark of the trees. It gave light and colour to the feathers of the birds that looked down on them. He so deeply wanted to put paint to it. He wanted to capture this vision his mind’s eye was seeing: the lovers arm in arm on the bench, locked together in comfort and despair. He wanted to capture this ethereal light that only he could see in a medium that everyone would understand.

“I’m okay,” whispered Molly, close to his chest. She lifted her torso up and he gently released her. “I want to go on telling you what happened.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She put both hands on her face and held them there, then she took in a deep breath and swept them up over her head, wiping her hair clear. The tears had released her. There was a strength in her eyes now that hadn’t been there before, and a relaxation. She looked happier and more in control of what she was feeling.

Jack withdrew, conscious of her scent as it rose from the flesh revealed at her chest and from her legs. It wasn’t the scent of perfume but an aroma more pure and physical. It was the basic aroma of her skin, the tiny pheromone releases of chemical attraction. She turned to him and in the darkness he could see the gratefulness in her eyes in the faint glint of light against black.

“We went to see him, Ruben and I. I didn’t know exactly why I was there. I wanted to meet him as I was now; as an adult; to know him as he really was instead of how my mother had always portrayed it. I was so conscious that it had all been propaganda. Everything I knew of him was second-hand.”

Jack nodded. “Maybe he was evil and maybe he was good...”

“But I just wanted to see for myself. That’s it.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the bench, gazing up into the trees. “Ruben and I arrived at his house. We identified ourselves at the gate. He made us wait before he let us in without saying a word. I guess he was afraid to see us too.

“He invited us in and got drinks for us and he sat us down in that vast lounge he had with the staircase jutting out above it. We were dumbfounded. We’d expected an ogre and he was the nicest man I’ve ever met. We talked for over an hour; it was great.”

Silence for a moment then Jack asked, “So what went wrong? Why did he die?”

Molly looked away. “He got up to fetch more drinks,” she said, her voice quiet. “I sat waiting for him to come back, thinking about all the time there had been between these meetings, since the last time we had seen him, and I realised suddenly that I was absolutely livid. I felt betrayed; that all this kindness had come too late.

“Ruben looked at me across the room and leered. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He didn’t care about our father ignoring us. He saw only the money. That was when I realised... That was why I had come too; subconsciously. I was there for the cash.

“I didn’t care anymore about his actual love. I wanted the love he should have given us before and because that wasn’t possible, I wanted the money and nothing more than that. I was that evil. I was as bad as everybody thinks I am.”

Jack took her hand. It was shaking. “No you weren’t.”

“I was!” Molly got to her feet and turned to face him, spinning round fast. “You weren’t there! That was exactly what I wanted Jack! I wanted what you got! When my father came back in with that smile on his face, I started shouting at him. I accused him of all the pain he had put us through. I called him a liar and heartless. I screamed at him exactly as I’d always wanted to. Ruben grabbed my arms, trying to restrain me before it went too far. My father didn’t say anything at all. I’ve never seen anyone look like that. I’ve never known such loss.”

Molly turned away again, looking off through the trees.

“I walked out,” she said. “Ruben came with me. He didn’t know what else to do. We drove home in complete silence. Ruben went inside and I went to see my friend Gaston because I needed to talk it through. The next day I woke up and I knew I’d committed an act of betrayal myself. I understood... everything. But when I tried to make contact again that morning I found out he was dead.

“He’d gone driving on the coast road after we had left him and he had driven off the edge of that cliff and died.”

Jack was very quiet then he said, “What about your brother? Do you hate him for what he made you do?”

Molly turned back and smiled. “No. I could never hate Ruben. However bad he gets I know him too well. There’s nothing he could do that I couldn’t eventually forgive; and I know my own culpability. My father would be alive right now if I hadn’t said the things I did.”

“But how can it be your fault that he drove off the road all by himself?”

“Because I had broken his heart Jack, just like my mother did. He wouldn’t have been thinking straight, he wouldn’t have been concentrating, and that was down to me.”

Jack stood up. He put his hand on her shoulder and led her away from the bench. “Let’s get out of here. Come on.”