Nightside 07 - Hell to Pay

countryside that took my breath away. Fields and meadows stretched away before me for as far as I could see, and perhaps forever. To one side were sprawling woods with tall dark trees, and down below a stream of clear and sparkling water ran happily on its way, crossed here and there by simple old-fashioned stone bridges. A dream of old England, as it never was but should have been, happy and content under the bright blue sky of a perfect summer’s day. A soft gusting breeze brought me scents rich as perfume, of flowers and grass and growing things. Birds sang, and there was a gentle buzz of insects, and it was good, so good, just to stand in daylight again after so very long away.
    This was the great secret, never to be shared with the unworthy for fear it would be spoiled—Arcadia.
    A single pathway meandered away before me, starting at my feet. A series of square stone slabs resting on the grass, leading down the hillside. I set off, stepping carefully from slab to slab, like stepping-stones on a great green sea. The path curved around the side of the hill, then led me along a river-bank, while I watched birds swoop and soar, and butterflies drift this way and that, and smiled to see small woodland creatures scurry all around me, undisturbed by human presence. Pure white swans sailed majestically down the stream, bowing their heads to me as I passed.
    Finally I rounded a corner, and there on a river-bank before me were my father and my mother, reclining at their ease on the grassy bank, with the contents of a wicker picnic basket spread out on a checked tablecloth. My father Charles was lying stretched out, in a white suit, smiling as my mother Lilith, in a white dress, threw pieces of bread to the ducks. I made some kind of sound, and my mother looked round and smiled dazzlingly at me.
    “Oh, Charles, see who’s here! John has come to join us!”
    My father raised himself up on one elbow and looked round, and his smile widened as he saw me. “Good of you to join us, son. We’re having a picnic. There’s ham and cheese, and scotch eggs and sausage rolls, and all your favourites.”
    “Come and join us, darling,” said my mother. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
    I stumbled forward and sat down between my mother and my father. He squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring way, and my mother passed me a fresh cup of tea. I knew it would be milk and two sugars, just the way I liked it. I sat there for a while, enjoying the moment, and there was a part of me that would have liked to stay for the rest of my life. But I’ve never been any good at listening to that part of me.
    “There are so many things I meant to say to you, Dad,” I said finally. “But there wasn’t time.”
    “You have all the time in the world here,” said my father, lying on his back again and staring up into the summer sky.
    “And despite everything that happened, I would have liked to get to know you, Mother,” I said to Lilith.
    “Then stay here with us,” she said. “And we can be together, forever and ever and ever.”
    “No,” I said regretfully. “Because you’d only ever say what I wanted you to say. Because this isn’t real, and neither are you. My parents are gone, and lost to me forever. This is Arcadia, the Summerland where dreams can come true, and everyone is happy, and good things happen every day. But I have things to do, and people to meet, because that’s what I do and who I am. And besides, my Suzie will be waiting for me when I get home. She might be a psycho gun nut, but she’s my psycho gun nut. So, I have to be going now. My life might not be perfect, like this, but at least it’s real.
    “And I’ve never let down a client yet.”
    I got up and walked away, following the stepping-stone path again. I didn’t look back to see my father and my mother fade away and disappear. Perhaps because I liked to think of them there together, picnicking on a river-bank forever and a day, happy at last.

    The path led me along beside the river-bank for a while, then turned abruptly to take me up a grassy hillside towards a stretch of woodland, standing tall and proud against the sky. I could hear voices up ahead now, loud and happy and occasionally bursting into laughter. It sounded like children. When I got close enough, I could see William Griffin, lying at his ease on the grassy slope, looking out over the magnificent view, while all around him his childhood friends laughed and played and ran in the