by Leanne Owens
He brushed his hand against the grey curtains, and they rippled as though hands on the other side pushed back at him. ‘I spoke to our friends,’ he indicated the movement under his hand, ‘and they suggested it was possible to create a bridge for a mind to a previous existence. I thought of that first day when we met at Careggi. You were almost the same age. I took your hand and I took hers, and I pulled. With all my heart, I pulled you to safety so that you did not have to stay with your father during those attacks. I could not save your body from his desires, but I could hide your mind in the past, with Elli.
‘I did not look ahead far enough. I did not realise that you would spend all this life travelling back to Florence to be one with her. I regret creating that bridge. I thought it would save you, and perhaps it did at first, but you used it to walk away from this life. It should have collapsed as soon as you no longer needed to escape from your father’s abuse, but you made it stronger and you walked it too often. I could not reach you again to stop you. I am so sorry.’
He bowed his head and she tried to tell him that she was not sorry. She loved being Elli so much that it was worth it to live her life twice.
‘It was not meant to be,’ he put a hand on her shoulders and tilted her chin so that she looked up at him. ‘And I can’t destroy the bridge, but you can. You will go back and you will do three things.’
Ally tried to shake her head. She did not want to leave him. Not now. She wanted to stay here. She had to be with him.
‘You cannot be rewarded for ending your life,’ he sighed, knowing her words even though she did not speak them. ‘I was right when I told you that life was the most sacred of gifts, and you must always choose it. You failed that choice with what you have done. If you had succeeded with this attempt, you would long remain here in this grey world for not respecting the gift of life, and I would be on the other side.’ He pushed at the curtains.
Something pulled at Ally and she found herself sliding across the floor away from Lorenzo. She didn’t want to leave him. Looking around desperately, she tried to grab something, but her arms refused to move, and an unseen force dragged her another step further from him.
‘You must do three things,’ he told her across the space that was growing between them. ‘Tell your friends about your life as Elli so that they know of her. It has been my regret that I hid her so well from those who might do her harm that she disappeared from history. They should know her and remember her. Then, you must tell them about what your father did to you – it was not your fault, it was his, and you have kept the secret for so long, locked away inside your mind, that it rots there. Open that room and release the secrets, so that you can move forward with a mind cleansed of the past. Trust your friends to care for you in this, as you cared for them when they needed you.’
The distance between them grew and he raised his voice so she could hear him. ‘Thirdly, you must destroy the bridge to Elli. You know how to do that. It almost fell once before, and it was meant to fall. This time you must complete the break. You are meant to live here, in this life, with your friends. Completely in this life. Live, Ally. Choose life. Destroy the bridge that I made, and remain here with your friends. I will wait on the other side until the end of life comes for you. Do not separate us longer than necessary by ending your life. Choose life. Ally. Choose life. te amo in aeternum.’
His voice receded as the power of Peter’s blood in her veins pulled her back into life. Zo’s words came with her. Or, she told herself as she looked at her friends, the message from her brain to herself came via the figure she had created during childhood trauma.
‘The third thing,’ she struggled against the rising panic about the words she was about to utter. Her voice broke, and she clenched her hands into fists to regain control. Shoving aside the fear of what she was about to say, she began again, ‘The third thing is to undergo the full course of electroconvulsive therapy. I have something wrong with my brain, and I know that will help. The single treatment I had all those years ago nearly cut me off from Elli, so I know the full course will sever the connections. I wish to give my informed consent to undergo the ECT course here, Peter, starting as soon as possible.’
When she finished, tears were running down her cheeks. She gritted her teeth against the emotions that tumbled around her insides. Two decades ago, the man she loved had died in his villa in the Tuscan countryside, and she had continued to visit Italy, hanging on to the memories. But it wasn’t real, she told herself, it was half a millennium ago. It was her mind creating a fantasy that allowed her to survive the horror of her childhood. It was time to free her mind of the hallucination that had controlled her life.
‘We’ll talk about this tomorrow,’ said Peter quietly, slipping the medical charts back into the holder at the end of her bed. ‘You’re in a very emotional state, as is understandable after the things you told us this morning. This is not the time to make a decision like that.’
‘It is the time,’ she replied. ‘I know it is the only way I can recover.’
‘Because Zo told you?’ asked Lynette.
‘Zo, or that part of my mind that created him. I understand that I may have invented him to help me cope with what happened in childhood. I could have read the books about him, and the psychosis created false memories. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.’
Ally grabbed a handful of tissues from the box next to her bed, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and continued. ‘And it doesn’t matter. I knew love, and his love kept me alive. I don’t think it matters if he was real or imagined, the feelings are real. But I must let go. I turn sixty soon and I want to live fully in this life, not go on tearing myself in half between two worlds. I want to be with you. My friends.’
‘We’ll be here for you,’ Andrew told her earnestly. ‘You can stay with Marcus and me for as long as you want.’
‘And me!’ Sandy smiled at her, her eyes shining. ‘I have houses and apartments all over the place. We can stay in any of them. All of us. You can have one to yourself if you’d prefer. I don’t care – I just want to have you back in my life. Zo is welcome, too – don’t think I haven’t fallen a little in love with him after hearing about him.’
‘I’ll buy you a book about him,’ Ally snorted. ‘That’s about as close as you’re going to get to him.’
‘We’ll go to Florence,’ Lynette urged. ‘All of us. Like we said we would. And next year we’ll go somewhere else. Remember when we were teens and we’d spin the globe and wherever it stopped, that would be the place we’d dream of visiting? We’ll do that. We’ll drag you all around the planet with us for the next thirty years.’
‘Thirty years?’ Ally gave her a look of disbelief.
‘At least,’ Lynette shrugged. ‘Maybe longer. I’m figuring that we’ll be ready to retire by the time we’re ninety-five so that we can have five quiet years before we hit the century.’
‘Thirty years it is, then,’ Ally smiled at her and held up a hand for a fist bump.
‘You probably should rest now,’ Peter moved to the side of her bed and looked down at her, his eyes filled with the love he’d always had for her. ‘We’ll come back later. Gina gave us a dressing down for exhausting you, and perhaps she was right.’
‘Nonsense,’ Ally winked at someone over his shoulder, and he turned to see Gina standing at the door, her hands on her hips. ‘She’s just bossy. You haven’t exhausted me.’
‘No, you’re not exhausted,’ Gina drawled with sarcasm. ‘It’s perfectly normal to drop into unconsciousness for close to an hour. I’m sure we all do it.’
‘Bossy and sarcastic,’ Ally cocked an eyebrow at the female doctor who tapped a foot, waiting for everyone to leave.
‘Later,’ Sandy and Lynette promised as they left, followed by Peter and Andrew who waved goodbye while Gina glared at them.
‘No more visits today,’ Gina insisted as they left. ‘For the rest of today, she rests. No exceptions. Peter – no exceptions.’
He gave
her a subdued smile, ‘I hear you.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Gina asked in more gentle tones once she was alone with her patient.
‘Not all that well, to tell the truth,’ Ally forced a smile, ‘but I’ll live.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ECT
Kamekura Private Hospital, Queensland. May, 2019
‘I want you all to go home,’ Ally told them at breakfast the next day.
The room was empty apart from a table with two Kamekura guests in one corner. Ally noticed them stealing looks at her table. There was no doubt, Sandy caught everyone’s notice wherever she went, and they were sure to be wondering about the identity of the patient who received so much attention.
‘I am home,’ mumbled Peter through a mouthful of toast and marmalade.
‘Put some more in your mouth,’ Ally urged, giving him a crooked smile, ‘and see if you can say that again.’
‘Sure,’ he grinned at her, pushing the toast between his teeth so that it was difficult to speak clearly. ‘I am home.’
‘Say it, don’t spray it,’ frowned Sandy, picking a speck of toast from her arm which may have flown from Peter’s mouth.
‘Why do we have to go home?’ asked Andrew. ‘We can stay.’
‘No, I don’t want you to stay,’ said Ally firmly. ‘I’ve spoken to Gina about the ECT, and it involves several treatments a week for four weeks. Once it’s over, we can pick up from there. This is a journey I can make with Peter and Gina, and I’ll see you on the other side.’
‘What about Zo and Elli?’ asked Sandy.
‘If they remain,’ Ally braced herself, keeping the exterior calm while emotions clawed at her insides, ‘I expect they’ll be like characters I read about in a book or saw in a movie. The connection to believing I am Elli and feeling that I’m visiting Renaissance Florence will be gone. Hopefully.’
‘I’d like to stay with you,’ Sandy offered.
‘And I’d like you to finish that movie,’ countered Ally. ‘I think we’d all like to be at your Oscar party next year. In fact, if you don’t choose one of us to be your significant other at the Oscars, I think you’ll be in trouble.’
‘And by significant other,’ Lynette waved a finger at Sandy, ‘she means her. She wants you to pick her.’
‘I’m glad you got that memo,’ Ally grinned at her. ‘I mean me. I want to go to the Oscars with you.’
‘And you shall,’ Sandy promised. ‘Even if I’m not nominated, they still invite me. Isn’t that lovely of them?’
She seemed genuinely delighted that they invited her, as though she failed to realise that she was one of the world’s leading A list actors.
‘And you,’ Ally moved her attention to Lynette, who was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Nick, ‘once you stop making googly-eyes at that Texan, you need to think about fixing any damage I’ve done to your career by having you run from that Alternative Energies thingy in France.’
‘Flew,’ Lynette corrected. ‘I didn’t run from it, I flew from it. In a private jet. Owned by him.’
She elbowed Nick lightly and then giggled when he tickled her ribs. A unanimous eye roll from around the table greeted their playfulness.
‘And it’s a conference,’ she added. ‘I don’t think anyone calls it a thingy.’
‘I’m sure your government will forgive her,’ put in Nick, ‘considering the billion-dollar agreement Lynette has broached with my group of companies.’
‘And there’s nothing wrong with that,’ said Ally, giving them a dry look, ‘considering the two people making the agreement are carrying on like sex-crazed teenagers.’
‘We are, aren’t we?’ laughed Lynette, unabashed by the description.
‘Yes, we are,’ Nick agreed.
‘But it’s alright,’ Lynette assured Ally. ‘There will be full disclosure, and the final negotiations can be done by others on my team and Nick’s representatives. I promise I won’t damage my career by colluding with the Texan.’
‘It’s more the canoodling that might be of concern,’ said Ally. ‘But, hey – great to see you both happy.’
‘Ecstatic,’ nodded Nick.
‘Blissful,’ Lynette smiled at him.
Ally made the unappealing pet-vomit noise.
‘You know how I feel about that,’ Andrew wrinkled his nose up at her.
‘Which is why it was always so much fun to do,’ Ally teased him. ‘And what about you two? Didn’t you say you were going to go canoeing if you hadn’t dropped everything to come to Australia?’
‘We were!’ Andrew looked surprised that she remembered what he’d mentioned on his first day here. ‘Well, rafting, but close.’
‘Go and have your rafting holiday, then,’ she smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘I’ll hear all about it after I’ve got through this.’
‘Are you really sure it’s what you want?’ asked Peter.
‘Stop asking,’ she tapped him on the arm. ‘You were right to try this before. I just wasn’t ready, but, in hindsight, it would have made things better if I hadn’t run as I did. This time, I am aware of the consequences, and I want them. I am sure. And I don’t want to delay. I want this motley crew to head home so we can get started.’
‘When?’ Lynette looked at Peter. ‘When will the treatment start?’
‘Theoretically, given Ally’s stay here, her symptoms, her self-harm, and her informed consent, we could start today, but both Gina and I have recommended another day, at least, so Ally has the opportunity to change her mind.’
‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ Ally sighed. ‘I am committed.’
‘Committed,’ Sandy repeated, grinning at her. ‘A slightly distasteful pun given our location, but amusing.’
‘I thought so,’ Ally’s eyes twinkled.
‘I don’t want to say goodbye, though,’ said Sandy.
‘Don’t say goodbye, then,’ Ally shrugged. ‘We’ve finished breakfast. Leave the table, head out the door, and we’ll say that we’ll see each other soon.’
‘I could do that,’ Sandy agreed, ‘but I want to say more than that. I want to tell you that I love you, that I love all of you, and that it is wonderful having you back in my life…no,’ she narrowed her eyes at Ally who puffed her cheeks up as though she was about to repeat the imitation of the vomiting pet. ‘No dog barfing noises. I’m not being soppy, I’m being honest.’
‘I know, sorry,’ Ally apologised. ‘I’ll be serious for a minute. I want everyone to leave, but before you go, I want you to know that you are the best friends anyone could ever have. You left your lives without hesitation to come when Peter called you. You have listened to me talk about my life in the Renaissance, and accepted it even though you know it can’t be true. You haven’t looked at me as though I was sick or nutty – you just looked at me as though I was your friend. You make me proud to be your friend, and humbled at the same time. Now, I’m going to start crying again, and I’ve been doing that too much of late, so off you go. And I’ll see you all later.’
Sandy was the first to stand. She gripped the back of her chair, her knuckles white, and drew in a deep breath.
‘See you later,’ Sandy touched Ally’s cheek and turned away before her tears fell.
‘Alligator,’ whispered Ally.
Nick pushed his chair back, stood, and put an arm around Lynette when she joined him. He gave Ally his warmest smile, trying to convey his admiration of her, and his respect. She narrowed one eye in the hint of a wink at him.
‘In a while,’ Lynette nodded, as she and Nick left.
‘Crocodile,’ Ally murmured to her back.
Marcus blew her a kiss as Andrew took his hand and walked away from the table.
‘See ya, Chickadee. Out the door,’ Andrew said tightly, trying not to break down.
‘Dinosaur,’ Ally finished for him.
When Peter and Ally were alone, he fiddled with the butter knife on his plate and regarded her closely. ‘It’s alright to cry.’
‘How many tears have you seen me shed these past weeks?’ she asked, blinking back the ones that gathered in the corners of her eyes.
‘Enough to know that depression has been a big problem for you,’ he said gently. ‘Enough to know that you have been incredibly sad for too long, and that you wanted to escape from the pain of that sadness, and nearly did. Enough to know that you use your jokes and laughter to cover the sadness, but it doesn’t make it go away.’
‘Are you my friend or my psychiatrist right now?’ she looked at him suspiciously.
‘Always your friend,’ he replied. ‘That will always come first.’
‘Will the ECT make the sadness go away?’
‘It does for some. We’ll just have to see, alright?’
‘Alright,’ she smiled at him, knowing that he could see beneath the smile. ‘Thank you for being my friend, Peter. You know I’m genuinely sorry that my love never tipped over into the sort of love you wanted, but I do love you.’
He lifted one shoulder in a casual acceptance of missing out on the romantic love, ‘And I’m sorry that I didn’t know what was going on in your house when we were children.’
‘No one would have understood and, truly, there was nothing you could do that wouldn’t have resulted in something far worse. I’m alive – we’ll just take things from that point and move on from here.’
‘It was brave of you to tell us about everything. I hope it will prove to be part of your healing.’
‘So do I,’ she pulled a face at him, ‘but let’s not get too serious, eh? Let’s stop the sorries and assume that there’s a blanket apology for anything we might have done differently. I think that’s a basic component of friendship – we give each other permission to make mistakes and we don’t wait for apologies. As for the healing part, I have to say, I find it’s easier to skate across the surface of thin ice than to stand around jumping on it, so let’s not dwell there right now.’
He chuckled, ‘Agreed - let’s not jump on this spot. If you are sure you don’t want to see the others until after the treatment, I’ll go and see them and let them know they can leave whenever they wish. I’ll be back to have morning tea with you. Are you right? Or do you want me to take you somewhere?’