Day 29 - Post #3

[ancastar.livejournal.com]

A Bodie Carol
by Ancasta
(continued)

"Very theatrical I thought," a lilting, feminine voice murmured from just to the right of where Bodie sat.  "I wonder how effective it was."

 

Scrambling from the couch, Bodie threw himself at Keller's discarded automatic, juggling the weapon when he tried to pick it up.  Swearing under his breath, it took him a second to get a firm grip on the gun.  But only a second.  When he had the automatic securely in hand, he whirled, kneeling on the floor, and faced the kitchen doorway.  Framed there was his newest unwanted visitor.  The stove light revealed only her outline.  She was small and stood relaxed with one hand, waist level, on the door jamb.

 

"Are you going to shoot me, Mr. Bodie?" she asked with what sounded like humor in her voice.  "I can assure you it's not necessary.  Your partner saw to that this morning."

 

She stepped towards him, into the lounge and closer to the television's faint glimmer.  As soon as the light hit her face, Bodie spoke her name.

 

"Maeve McDonough."

 

"That's right," she said with a smile.

 

Maeve was dressed as she had been when Bodie had last seen her:  trainers, jeans, and a gray jumper over a lavender checked shirt.  Her auburn hair hung to her shoulders in a smooth, shiny pageboy.  A sharp little chin, pert mouth and smattering of freckles gave her face a piquant beauty.  She would have grown up to be quite the heartbreaker, had she lived.

 

"What are you doing here?" Bodie asked, lowering the gun.  What was the point?  He couldn't kill a corpse.  Besides, he reminded himself, this was all a dream.

 

Wasn't it?

 

"I'm here to help you," she said. 

 

"Why?" Bodie queried, pushing to his feet and setting the gun on the coffee table.  "It's because of me you're dead."

 

"No," she said with a shake of her head.  "It's because of meself."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"I picked up the rifle, didn't I?"

 

"Why, though?" Bodie pressed, the question something that had been rattling around inside his head since the raid.  "We had the place surrounded.  Your brother, his mates and you were outnumbered.  Why didn't you surrender?  Nobody had to die."

 

He watched as a series of emotions made their presence known on her expressive face.  The one that seemed to linger longest was embarrassment.  Eyes evading his, Maeve shrugged.  "I'm sorry.  So sorry for everything.  It just…it all happened so quickly.  I wasn't thinking clearly.  All I knew was I couldn't stand by and let you take him.  Lorcan is my brother."

 

"Your brother is a nasty piece of work," Bodie retorted, some of the feelings he had kept buried deep within him now bubbling to the surface.  "He's a killer, Maeve.  He murders innocent people—mothers, children.  Last summer, he planted a bomb in the middle of a street festival packed with families.  He deserves what's coming to him."

 

"He was all I had," Maeve insisted, taking a step closer, her arms spread wide, her hazel eyes gleaming in the shadows.  "Brother, father, mother.  Everything all rolled into one.  He was my family."

 

Bodie didn't know what to say to that, how to convince a dead girl she had loved a villain.

 

They didn't cover that sort of thing in the CI5 training manual.

 

"I know what he did," she continued, dragging her sleeve across her cheek to erase a runaway tear.  "What he was.  I know all of it now that it's been revealed to me.  But you can't understand…he was kind to me, loving.  A good brother.  And I loved him back.  You should know as well as anyone, Mr. Bodie.  You can't choose who you love."

 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bodie asked, not liking the turn the conversation had taken. 

 

"Let me show you something," Maeve said by way of reply.  Crossing to the coffee table, she picked up the remote.

 

"What are you doing?" Bodie said, moving so he stood at the opposite end of the couch from Maeve.  "There's nothing on at this hour."

 

"You'd be surprised," she said, glancing at him almost shyly as she perched on the edge of the sofa. 

 

Aiming the remote at the television, she pressed a button.  The channel changed.  Onscreen was a pretty blonde woman and a small, dark-haired boy of no more than four or five, both wearing casual clothes from a generation ago.  The woman had a small Christmas wreath brooch tacked to her blouse.  Sitting side by side at a battered kitchen table, they were decorating gingerbread men.  The woman had a cup of tea at her elbow; the child, a glass of milk.  Bodie watched, curious despite himself.  They looked familiar.

 

"What is this?" he asked, his voice hushed.

 

Maeve turned to look at him.  "Do you know it?"

 

Bodie shook his head.  "I'm not sure.  I—"

 

Then the boy looked up from what he was doing, his face flushed with what appeared to be a mix of pleasure and the kitchen's trapped heat.  His chubby cheeks framed a smile missing a bottom tooth.  His eyes were very blue with quirky flyaway brows arching over them.  Bodie knew those eyes.  They stared back at him every day from the mirror.

 

He knew the boy.

 

And he knew the woman with him.

 

"Mum," he whispered with amazement.

 

"That's the way, Billy," the woman said, smiling with approval.  "Press down on the chocolate drops.  Gently now, gently.  Good boy.  Those are the eyes, you see."

 

"What about the raisins, Mum?" the child asked, his voice high and thin.

 

"Those are the buttons," she said.  "See?  They go down the center.  One after another in a row.  You want to try?"

 

The boy nodded and went to work.

 

"She's good with him, isn't she?" Maeve said quietly.  "Patient.  So pretty too."

 

"Yeah," Bodie said, his throat thick, his eyes stinging.  "She was a beauty, my mum."

 

He had forgotten that.  It had been so many years since he had seen her face.  The only picture of her he had ever owned had been lost in Africa more than a decade ago.  He hadn't remembered how terribly young she had been, how lovely.

 

"She couldn't be more than 24 or 25 there," he mused, forgetting he had company.

 

"Do you remember this then?" Maeve asked.

 

Bodie shook his head.  "No, not really.  Bits of it, maybe.  It was so long ago."

 

"This was your last Christmas together," Maeve said.

 

Bodie nodded, taking in the information.  That would make him five.  "She died the following April."

 

"Yes," Maeve agreed.  "A terrible accident."

 

"A drunk driver."

 

"How are you two getting on?" called a voice from off-screen.  "Don't you be messing up my kitchen."

 

While the words had sounded forbidding, the tone was anything but.  Bodie's mother smiled.  "You can't bake cookies without a little mess, Mum.  Come and have tea with us, and judge the damage for yourself.  The gingerbread men are still warm."

 

An older gray-haired woman stepped into view.  She looked frail, her hands blue-veined and spotted, her shoulders stooped with age, but her eyes were bright and her face kind.  She wore a flowered housedress, cable-knit cardigan and slippers.

 

"Show your gran your decorating skills, Billy," his mother said, running her hand softly over his hair.

 

"Look, Gran," his younger self said.  "These are their eyes and these are their buttons.  Mum is going to draw their hair and mouth with icing.  You can eat it all!"

 

His grandmother chuckled as she crossed to the kettle and poured herself a cup of tea.  "I daresay you can.  You two do good work.  I'm sure everything is delicious."

 

"When your mother died, your grandmother raised you," Maeve said, intruding on the scene.

 

"I was more than she was prepared to handle on her own," Bodie said, unable to tear his eyes away from the happy trio.  First Mum, now Gran too?  His memory of the older woman was sharper than that of his mother.  He had had more time with her, after all.  Still, it had been nearly 20 years since he had been in the same room with the woman.

 

Nearly 20 years since she had died.

 

"Nonsense," Maeve scoffed.  "You meant the world to her.  After your mum died, you were all she had left.  She used to tell her chums you kept her young."

 

"Shame I couldn't do the same for her ticker," Bodie said, at last looking away from the screen to meet Maeve's eyes.

 

She seemed unmoved by his stare.  Her expression was sad, but not afraid.  "Yes.  Heart attack.  It'd been coming for years.  But she'd held it off, willed it away.  For you.  She would have moved mountains for you."

 

Hearing that, Bodie turned his head, fixing his gaze stubbornly on the television, unable to withstand Maeve's gentle scrutiny.  The threesome on the telly had settled in for tea.  His mother had pulled him onto her lap.  He was biting the head off his gingerbread man, crumbs cascading down the front of him.  The two women in his life laughed at his antics.

 

"When your gran was gone, it was hard, wasn't it?  In and out of one foster home after another.  Never belonging, never really part of anything."

 

He tried so hard not to think of those years.  It wasn't that he had suffered as some in his situation did.  He had never been abused or taken advantage of.  Rather, it had been more like he had suddenly turned invisible.  No one had seemed to really see him anymore, to worry about what he was thinking, where he was going, what he had wanted. 

 

"You rebelled, didn't you?  In your way.  Staying out late.  Keeping to yourself.  Until one day you didn't come home at all."

 

Those who had taken him under their wing hadn't understood how to handle a grieving young man.  They had been so careful with him, careful not to say the wrong thing, careful not to press.  But all their care had done was drive him away, out of Liverpool, never to return.

 

He wondered what it would have been like if he had stayed.

 

He cleared his throat before he spoke.  "Why are you showing me this?"

 

"You've been alone so long," Maeve said, turning to regard him, her hands folded loosely in her lap.  "Haven't you, Mr. Bodie?  Holding at arm's length anyone who dared get too close."

 

"That's not true," Bodie argued.

 

"Isn't it?" she said, picking up the remote once more.

 

With the click of a button, the television channel changed, the cozy domestic tableau vanishing.  In its place was scene after scene from Bodie's life, quick clips, one after another, like a slideshow.

 

His mates.

 

His women.

 

His jobs.

 

Africa.

 

The Middle East

 

London.

 

In every setting, every time, Bodie saw people he had cared about in one fashion or another, some he hadn't laid eyes on in years.

 

"There are people out there willing to love you," Maeve said, "if you'd only give them the chance."

 

Bodie shook his head, still focused on the telly.  Doyle was onscreen now, smiling at him over a hand of cards, hair mussed, a day's worth of stubble darkening his jaw, devilment shining in his eyes.  "I don't have time for love."

 

"It's not about time," Maeve said, her voice lightly mocking.  "You know that.  It's about courage."

 

That dragged Bodie away from the television.  He looked at Maeve with disbelief.  "What are you on about?"

 

"You're afraid, aren't you?" she said pointedly.  "That's why you push away the ones who get too close."

 

Bodie shook his head, his face screwed up in disgust.  "That's rubbish."

 

"That's why you're alone," she insisted.

 

"I'm not alone," he argued just as fiercely.

 

"It's Christmas Eve and you're chatting up a dead girl, Mr. Bodie," Maeve said with the first bit of temper Bodie had been able to coax forth.  "Seems to me it doesn't get much more alone than that."

 

Dumbfounded by the notion, Bodie gaped at her for a moment, eyes wide.  Then his sense of the absurd kicked in, and he laughed, loudly.  Maeve stared back at him, seemingly bemused by his reaction, before giving in and laughing with him.

 

"Well, I'll say one thing," Bodie said, after their shared amusement had come to a comfortable conclusion.  "You make a hell of a lot nicer dream than my mate Keller did."

 

Maeve smiled at him.  "I'm not a dream, you know."

 

Bodie smiled back.  "Of course you are, love."

 

The television picture flickered out, displaying no test card this time, just static.

 

"That's all I have to show you," Maeve said, turning off the telly and setting the remote on the coffee table.  "My time here is at an end."

 

Bodie arched his back, stretching.  Christ, he was tired.  Weird he should feel that way while sleeping.  "Thanks for stopping by.  I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.  For the most part."

 

"You're welcome," Maeve said, pressing to her feet.

 

She turned as if to cross to the kitchen and go back the way she had come.  Bodie watched her for a step or two.  The lounge was darker than before.  She seemed insubstantial in the shadows.

 

"Maeve," he called after her, stopping her progress.

 

She turned.  He couldn't see her face.  "Yes?"

 

"I'm sorry about today.  This morning."  Bodie hesitated, unsure how to apologize, or even if he should, but wanting to just the same.  "We didn't mean for that to happen, Doyle and I."

 

Mauve nodded.  "I know.  It's all right.  I didn't want to hurt you either.  Not really.  I think I went a bit mad for a moment, you know?   Like someone else had taken over my body and I was watching from the outside."

 

"Yeah," he said.  "I know that feeling."

 

"Happy Christmas, Mr. Bodie," she said.  Her silhouette seemed to be losing shape right before Bodie's eyes, blending into the room's umbrae.  "Don't be alone.  Let yourself love."

 

"What for?" Bodie asked, in some way, wanting to hold her there.  She was good company.  "What did love ever do for you?" 

 

He couldn't see Maeve now.  She had disappeared into the blackness, but she lingered still.  He could feel her there.

 

"It gave me the world," she said, the words hushed, yet near, as if she were whispering into his ear.  "And took it from me too."

 

Bodie shivered.

 

"That's what love is," she said, her voice fading.  "It's scary sometimes.  But you have to dare.  Be brave, be brave..."

 

Bodie closed his eyes and imagined he felt a pair of soft lips brush his cheek.  "Good-bye, sweetheart."

(to be continued)

 

Comments

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've definitely got the feel of A Christmas Carol down! And I can imagine if Dickens had written it today, he might have used the television in a similar way. Very nice!

I think my favorite line is this one: "What for?" Bodie asked, in some way, wanting to hold her there. She was good company. "What did love ever do for you?"

You've nailed the whole point of the story. Terrific parallels, and not just with the Disnified versions everyone knows. Scrooge was always lonely, but with a razor-sharp sense of humour and a hell of a lot of self-possession.

Eagerly anticipating the next part!

[ancastar.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm very, very glad it's working for you. I was trying really hard not to get this too precious. But I'll admit to liking sweet Maeve. Even if she did take potshots at our fellas. ;-)