PATRICK Driscoll

                            Patrick Driscoll

     When Patrick had been out walking along the cliffs on their first visit to Cornwall  there had been a warning from an old woman dressed in black, about six ravens circling a chalet. She had said, that it was a bad omen. The woman had then vanished into the grey curling mists. He had told Sandy about his experience and they had both laughed. Patrick had been a fool to let Sandy into his life. After they were married Pat had started up in business running a fruit shop.

   Sandy had no interest in the shop. That was when she had started going to Cornwall on her own. Her body had been found upon the cliffs. Overlooking the beach at Cornwall. Why had Sandy gone there nobody knew! A chalet overlooked by caravans and noisy children. Patrick had gone there, looking for Sandy thinking that there had to be a new man on the horizon. There had been a drunken brawl with Sandy shouting “Clear off, your no good has a man? Why, don’t you Just leave me be you bloody fool.” One push and Sandy had gone over the cliffs

.

              Every year he had returned to that chalet in Cornwall. He wanted answers, why two people with charm and good looks could not make a go of their lives. Why did he still think about Sandy? Maybe the attraction had been that he could not change Sandy? She was wild a free spirit. He thought back to how he had sat up with a drug crazed Sandy. When she had climbed over the walls of her mother’s balcony in pain, asking for drugs and morphine. Patrick and her mother Sally had helped Sandy to get clean. Free from the drugs she had become addicted to while living in London. She had repaid them by selling her mother’s jewellery.

                Patrick smiled maybe the second time around life would be better. After Sandy’s death, he could not live with himself. The cars exhaust running, after he had taken the pills and whisky had been the answer. To float in the abyss of no return, hoping for a miracle, a ghost wondering the earth hoping for a release from the pain of suffering.

               Today he lay on the bed, at the chalet in Cornwall. While large black ravens made circles upon the ground surrounding the chalet. The children had long gone, the wind and rain battered the doors and rattled the windows. Inside the room had become dark with shadows on the walls. Patrick lay still on the bed. He began to shiver and shake soon things would change for the better, a smile appeared on his lips not long now, for fate to take a hand, Patrick felt positive as he closed his eyes. Thinking of the magic of Halloween the festival of ghouls, witches, and Skeletons.

While the villagers went around the houses doing trick and treat his luck would change?

           Matt felt awful he should never have drunk so much. If only James had not insisted on getting another round in before closing time. It was part and package of the job to entertain clients, as a finance director for a large company in the city. It was how the business worked buying and selling property to make a quick profit. Priscilla would never understand this, she lapped up the life style that Matt provided. The shopping, parties and a nice five bedroomed house on the river at Kingstone on Thames, plus the bonus of weekends away and the exotic holidays abroad.

   He was never one to believe in ghosts. It had all seemed so real in the dream, as if he had lived someone else’s life. Like watching a film when you want desperately for the reel to end. It was all to weird? He had seen himself has a boy growing up, then as a teenager studying at Eton. Next thing he knew Priscilla was shaking him concerned. Apparently, he had woken her up tossing and turning, shouting at some invisible fellow who was going to take his life, away from him. It was all very strange! Priscilla was all for cancelling their weekend away with Edgar and Marge. She had thought that Matt needed to see a shrink, for his nerves. Matt had insisted, that they went away for a change of scene and some sea air.

         Three months later Marg was chatting on the phone to Priscilla, “How’s Matt?

Does he accept the pregnancy?

      “Well after that seizure he doesn’t drink it’s like living with a different human being his so kind and considerate. The company were very obliging, they kept his job open, for him while he recovered.”

      “So, strange the way he fell forward just as we entered that chalet in St Ives Cornwall and went pale! I do not know how you coped with him Priscilla? “Oh, he was fine when he came out of that coma. I prefer the new Matt, now that he wants to settle down and have children. We are hoping for a boy, to name after, his dead brother Patrick.” He has come to terms with Patrick’s death all those years ago.”

  A new life a new chance of happiness, Pricilla felt safe and protected as she felt the baby kick in her stomach. They would celebrate Halloween together with pumpkin soup homemade grape wine and crusty bread. A smile came to her lips, they may see a new moon shine and the odd witch pass by on a broomstick. With Matt by her side, she would feel protected as the owl hooted and the banshees howled in the wind. Halloween a time of trick and treat. As Matts car drew up in the drive way of their cottage Priscilla touched the crucifix  around her neck. While others dressed up as skeletons and ghouls, she and Matt would celebrate Halloween together as the moon rose above the dark shadowy trees listening has an owl hooted. Oh, how lucky was she?