Primogeniture (The Firstborn)

8: Alison reveals her strength.

Alison let herself in by the communal front door at the front of the large converted manor house near Chesham, walked up the two flights of carpeted stairs and into her small single bedroom flat. The biggest attraction by far being the huge bay windows with breathtaking views over the adjoining fields set off with the tantalizing backdrop of the Chiltern Hills.

She felt tired and emotional and her first desire was to rid herself of the formal funeral clothes. Flinging off the black coat, she threw herself down on the sofa, buried her face in her hands and wept. She was not, however, the type to give into uncontrolled bursts of emotion and within minutes, by sheer act of will, had forced herself into a state of self-possessed control. 

Since leaving Felix’s lab some three months previously, she had been resolute; sad about the love she had lost and the job she had perhaps squandered, but resilient in the face of adversity. The love she had felt for Chris had not been something she could control and, even when she saw the dangers, she carried on in what in hindsight was both dangerous and reckless.

But then Alison never could resist the element of danger; the high-risk venture, the illicit love affair. It was in her DNA; that all or nothing approach to life, the fire in the belly, the constant need for excitement, like a drug addict always looking for the next hit. Ultimately, of course, the torrid affair with Chris was to put Felix in a difficult position, particularly when Pauline found out. Felix had no option but to act the way he did and remove the problem which, in this case, was her. Chris, of course, responding to an instinct for self-preservation, distanced himself from Alison pretty quickly once Pauline was onto things.

However, the subsequent clandestine phone calls between the two of them had led her to believe that he was missing her as much as she him. The Christmas Eve call had been the catalyst and had given her real belief that he was on the point of leaving Pauline just as soon as he returned from Canada. Now of course she would never know if he would actually have gone through with it and do what he had promised. However, she liked to make believe that he would.

Alison undressed, removing the funeral clothes almost surgically in a need to free her mind from that all pervading permeating essence of death that clung about her like a shroud. However, the impact of that terrible day could not be so easily extricated, as the recollection flooded back into her consciousness, an unreal and terrible nightmare from which she hoped to awaken at any moment.

Alison stepped into the shower and wallowed in the cascading torrents of warmth flowing over her head and down her body like an all-enveloping comforting cocoon. She stayed in the shower longer than usual as her mind wandered, trying to understand all that had happened over the last few months, leading to the events of today; the day that she had prayed over the charred and blackened remains of Chris, the man she loved, and Pauline, the woman everyone believed he loved. However, she knew the truth and nobody could ever take that away.

She stepped out from the shower, grabbed a large white towel and wrapped it around her body with a smaller one around her head. She then walked into her bedroom where most of the floor space was taken up by her large double bed and exercise equipment and lay down exhausted on the bed.

Opening a drawer in the bedside table she took out a packet of French cigarettes, lighting up with a Swan Vestas kept for the purpose. She didn’t smoke very often these days, knowing exactly the onslaught to the body. She could easily visualise the gradual damage to the tiny cilia; tar trapping the mucus and nurturing bacterial colonies deep within those life-giving airways. Most of her friends didn’t know she smoked and would be very surprised if they had, but on odd occasions she felt the need and thought – what the hell.

The next day Alison slept in. It was a weekday but she had no job to go to and nothing particular to get up for. The endless fruitless search for employment, job applications, pointless interviews and scathing rejections had taken their toll even on Alison’s resilient nature. She was now considering a postgraduate course in bioengineering and thinking about how she might finance herself.