Borderliners Read Free Page A

not to look at my cards the previous night. Julia’s hawk-eyed presence played on my mind so I’d decided to leave it for another day. What I’d found in the diary needed investigation - and not of the type any police officer could carry out - but I needed time to think before I started delving into card readings and all that it entailed. As desperate as I was to check my hunch, it could wait another few hours. I shivered, despite the heating in the surgery building, which had been turned up full in anticipation of bad weather. I didn’t want to open up that can of worms again, but I was afraid I had no choice. Maybe I would read through the notebook again first. This time more slowly, so I could take in every word and consider its meaning.
    My first patient shuffled in, eyes on the floor, hair unkempt and thinning with an inch of grey showing at the roots where she hadn’t bothered to redo her normal rinse. I caught a hint of mental fragmentation, one I was beginning to notice more frequently.
    I reached for my glasses as I gestured for her to take a seat. ‘Good morning, Joan.’
    She started talking as soon as she sat down, her voice low and her eyes on the door. 'It's as if I've been thrown out of the community. I've been a member for twenty years - since the beginning - and now I've been cast out. Like a demon, the ones she told us to beware of…’ She looked around, her eyes darting this way and that until they came to a halt on a point somewhere beyond my window. ‘I don't know what to do with myself. All my friends are active members, and I was too, with the prayer group in particular. As was my late husband.’ She crossed herself twice, spindly fingers shaking as she did so.
    I was taken aback by the change in her appearance, by the lost aura around her, which made her appear at odds with the bustling, busy Joan I’d seen around before.
    ‘Nobody will speak to me anymore. I don't know what I've done. That's why I'm here, Dr Lewis. I don't know if I can cope.’
    A tremor ran through me but I watched her, calm and still.
    ‘I'm scared, Dr Lewis. I want you to help me. I don't understand what’s happening. Julia came to my house to discuss our stall at the village fair which I help with every year - you know the one Dr Lewis?’ There was a pause as she shifted in her chair.
    ‘What do you think happened, Joan?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘With the community. What happened? When did it all change?’
    ‘I think it was when I asked Julia about the Rapture.’
    ‘The Rapture?’
    ‘Yes, yes…,’ she nodded. ‘We - the Charismatic Community - believe it will happen in our lifetime.’
    She looked through the windows at the sun, already low in the sky. ‘This world of ours, Dr Lewis, its days are numbered. Our days are numbered. Or so we believe. Or so I believed, at least.’
    I waited, and as I did so, Martha grew from the lengthening dark shadows of my consulting room, her eyes bright. My hands clenched as I closed my eyes to banish her.
    ‘Dr Lewis?’
    I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, keep going Joan.’
    ‘Julia said…’ She shifted in her chair again and continued. ‘Well, now everything has changed. I had a note from Julia saying that Mary was going to take over the fair as they knew I was busy this year, but I'm not. If anything, I enjoy doing it. I'm all alone now Jim is dead and Lisa is away.’
    ‘What did Julia say?’
    ‘Oh. It doesn’t matter really. It’s just that I’ve been having doubts about the…the end times. I don’t know if I believe it. You know, the idea that only the believers will be saved.’ She paused. ‘Well, you see, it’s my daughter, too. She’s become an atheist, but she’s a good person. Heart of gold. I just can’t accept the idea that I would be saved and she wouldn’t.’
    ‘Can you explain why?’
    ‘She’s a better person than me.’
    I tried to smile my best, comforting smile. ‘Don't you think you're a good person, Joan?’
    ‘It’s