Hidden Gods

by Anthony Masters

  Jaime was a companion of sorts and sometimes he preferred to drink with him than drink alone and glimpse the inexplicable. Hugo liked to hear Jaime talk of his Catalan home, the smalltown life of Toroella where he had grown up, the little art deco cinema, the Sunday mass, the fishing, the trek up the mountain to the hermitage of Santa Caterina.

  Hugo’s own roots were strictly English middle class: Surrey, the rugby club, university, going freelance, the paparazzi. Lucy. His life had been bright and glossy, competitive and self-congratulatory, loud and frantic – as opposed to Jaime’s deep-rooted Mediterranean assurance.

  Hugo poured out more Glenlivet and took a long swallow. He had been to Toroella, walked the quiet flagstones of the tree-lined approach to the church, watched the swallows, taken a coffee at the café in the square by the sundial on the flaking plaster wall, seen a movie in the art deco cinema, sat in the Belle Epoque bar downstairs watching the young people of the town protest about military conscription. Here he never saw visions. Toroella was such a stark contrast to his own early life. He tried to remember the person he had been then: a beer-swilling poseur, loaded with confident charm and machismo challenge; sitting in the open-topped Alvis outside the Wheatsheaf Inn with Jack Melis and Andy Graham, going out to bat and returning to the pavilion where the ‘cricket ladies’ made the sandwiches – halcyon days of hopeful travelling with no thought of a destination, safe in his middle-class enclave, a social success. But even then, particularly then, Hugo had been secretive about his home life, not wishing to have it exposed when he had been at such pains to put it behind him. Now he would like to inter the memories altogether, but that was not yet possible. He could still see his mother doing the rounds of the vodka bottles she had hidden throughout the house, getting less secretive as the long day of drinking wore on. He could still feel his father’s absences, see him in his mind’s eye caught squirming on the bed with Nancy Sage. Now they were both dead, his mother from cirrhosis, his father from cancer.

  Hugo had been an only child striving to forget a miserable childhood and to invent a new identity. Now it had worn thin again, but not thin enough for even Lucy to know how his parents had been – for he had reinvented them too. He laughed harshly as he refilled his glass. Soon he would feel nothing but the roller-coaster underneath his feet and the protective whisky inside him.

  Perhaps it was his parents who had started the madness.

  The knock was discreet and he welcomed the intrusion, for he had just seen flickering light on the shadowed wall beside him and was sure that the fragmented illusions were about to torment him again. However many times they appeared he would never become used to them. There had to be a medical reason – one that was connected to the damage he was doing to himself.

  ‘Jaime?’

  ‘Room Service. Message from Reuter’s, sir.’

  ‘Ah.’ Rather muzzily wondering why they had not faxed or phoned him, Hugo rose shakily to his feet and opened the door.

  The sallow-faced young boy dressed as a bell-hop reminded him fleetingly of the teenager staggering out of the shattered bar.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Hugo wore jeans over which his paunch bulged, an out-of-vogue grandad shirt which, with his glasses and bullish head, gave the impression of academia going flabby rather than the macho photographer. But his redeeming grace was an air of distinction, grey, intelligent eyes and the rather too carefully groomed head of long, silvery hair.

  The boy passed him a folded note. ‘Shall I wait for an answer, sir?’

  Hugo smoothed out the rumpled paper impatiently. It read: ‘If you shout out – I’ll blow you away, English cunt.’

  Hugo looked up slowly, with a sense of unreality. This happened to the victims in his camera lens. Not to him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘None of your fucking business.’

  Hugo had been in difficult situations before and his immediate reaction was to keep talking despite the spreading shock waves, but just as he was about to begin negotiating the boy said:

  ‘There’s some new guys in charge, Mr Fitzroy. They don’t like the way you work.’ The silenced automatic in his hand was steady and Hugo knew that nothing he could say was going to stop what was going to happen. Panic surged inside him and he felt the warm urine seeping down his leg.

  ‘If it’s a matter of cash –’

  ‘It’s not.’ There was something final about the look in his assailant’s eyes. He held his gun as easily and as professionally as Hugo held his camera.

  There were two slight thuds as the bullets hit him in the kneecaps, and he fell back on the bed, screaming as the hot agony flared.

  ‘Tell your friend the same will happen to him if he sticks around.’

  The pain was excruciating; Hugo writhed on the eiderdown as the boy walked towards the door. He did not look back. As Hugo lay there, he saw a woman and a man walking towards him across the deep pile carpet – except that they appeared to be walking on sand. They were hand in hand. Behind them was a pyramid with a portal open at the apex. The sun blazed down intensely. Then Hugo saw Brent, his face radiant, strong, intent, above all sane, running fast across his vision towards the couple. They embraced. His son repeated over and over again, ‘We must let them go.’

  The sky grew purple and dark clouds raced towards him, tumbling down to envelop and soothe away the searing pain. As he was lifted up, Hugo saw the three figures draw apart. The older man was himself.

  2

  Glimpses of Other Times

  London

  Despite huge doses of morphine, the agony lasted for at least two weeks. Hugo had been flown to a private clinic in Harley Street, but it might have been a butcher’s shop, he thought resentfully, for all the good it was doing him.

  For brief periods, when the drugs had just been administered, the agony was kept at bay, but the pain simply bided its time, a cunning ravening animal, content to know that it would soon be burrowing its way through him again.

  Slowly the fire in Hugo’s knees dwindled and he became ecstatic, the morphine keeping him on a continuous high. Each word he read, whether in a newspaper or a novel, was of total clarity and vital importance, but he saw no more visions, and neither could he now recall them, except fleetingly, as a dim memory. Lucy sat by his bed every day, her hand in his, cool and soothing, and gradually Hugo recovered.

  Dr Lex was small, Scottish, with an Edinburgh accent. His sleek dark hair contrasted sharply with his pallid skin, and as he explained that he was attached to the clinic but had been hired by Time Magazine Hugo was conscious of the discreet minty scent of his breath-freshener.

  ‘Do I need you?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I’m a psychiatrist, Mr Fitzroy. You’ve been hallucinating.’

  ‘I’ve been in terrible pain. I can’t remember anything – ‘

  ‘That’s why I put some of what you said on tape.’

  ‘What!’ Dr Lex stared at him and he added more quietly, ‘Why? Why did you do that?’ Hugo felt exposed. Had he been talking about the visions? They seemed light years away now.

  ‘Your editor tells me you have been under pressure for a long time. And drinking heavily.’

  Hugo said nothing. The drink was such a familiar problem that he no longer felt threatened, just slightly curious.

  ‘Before I play the tape back to you, can I ask you about your family?’

  For an appalling moment, Hugo thought that Dr Lex knew all about his parents. Then he realized that it just wasn’t possible. He must be talking about Lucy and Brent. ‘I have a wife. A son.’

  ‘A son who is mentally ill?’ asked Dr Lex.

  Hugo stared at him in silence. ‘I thought psychiatrists weren’t meant to ask questions,’ he observed eventually.

  ‘Techniques differ.’ Dr Lex’s voice was dry. ‘I’m trying to establish a reason.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Your obsession with Atlantis.’

 
Hugo gazed at him in astonishment. Could that be what he had been seeing in those disturbing fragments that had tormented him for so long?

  Dr Lex produced a cassette.

  ‘It’s my son Brent who is obsessed with mythological worlds,’ he protested.

  ‘Are you concerned about him?’

  ‘Of course.’ But in fact he had tried to put Brent out of his mind years ago – just as he had tried to obliterate his parents. He had not entirely succeeded, but if he worked hard enough Hugo could avoid thinking about them for days. And when he could not he drank. Just like his mother had before him. ‘He’s been diagnosed a schizophrenic’

  ‘And your wife? What is your relationship with her?’

  ‘We rub along.’

  Dr Lex switched on the cassette. ‘There will be seven successive renewals on planet earth. Atlantis was the fifth and the sixth has already begun with its violent climatic changes and wide-scale natural disasters. The energy is soon to arrive. We will go to the pyramid – Brent and Philippa and I.’

  Lex switched off. ‘Do you know anyone called Philippa?’

  ‘No.’ Hugo did not. His taped voice was flat, neutral, hardly recognizable as his own. It was as if he was reading words from an all too familiar text. The monotone chilled him, and he realized that he was afraid of the darkness his son had already entered. Philippa – he had not the slightest curiosity about her; she was probably only part of a delirium that he must, at all costs, avoid.

  Lex switched the cassette on again. ‘Unknown to Thoth, the Brotherhood of the Winged Disc was formed to protect the Atlanteans. But only we can enter the Chamber of Records to discover the time of the earth’s change in frequency and give them the release they have been denied.’

  Again Lex stopped the tape and leaned back in the grey plastic chair by Hugo’s bedside. He crossed his legs, smoothing out the creases in his trousers and displaying highly polished black shoes that gleamed in the patch of hard winter sunshine coming through the window.

  ‘Bad dreams,’ muttered Hugo. ‘That’s all they are.’

  ‘What is your interest in Atlantis?’

  Hugo watched the dust swirling in the beam of light that still radiantly lit Dr Lex’s shoes. ‘I don’t have one,’ he said finally.

  ‘Would you say your drinking was out of control, Mr Fitzroy?’

  ‘You think my drinking’s the reason for that babble? DTs?’

  ‘Thoth? Winged Disc? Frequencies? It’s all rather specific.’

  There was a long silence during which Hugo could just pick up the sound of a television in the open ward next door.

  ‘Do you know why you became alcohol dependent, Mr Fitzroy?’

  ‘I just got desensitized. One job after another in violent places.’ It seemed the obvious, acceptable explanation.

  Another silence was allowed to develop but Hugo made no attempt to break it.

  ‘Tell me about your son,’ asked Dr Lex eventually.

  Hugo felt relieved. By going through the motions on Brent it was as if he was taking back control. ‘As a child he was introverted – didn’t make friends easily. Got locked into fantasy and sciencefiction and stayed there. He just didn’t develop. When he was in his early twenties he started seeing visions, said he heard voices. It was a terrible shock and our GP sent him to a number of specialists. Appointment after appointment – went on for months. In the end he was diagnosed schizophrenic. He’s been in and out of St Clouds ever since, permanently obsessed with this Atlantis theme. I suppose he’s been in my subconscious more than I realized.’ Hugo could see that Dr Lex knew he was being glib and struggled to sound more convincing, but he was suddenly gripped by the feeling that he was alone in a situation he did not understand, that had nothing to do with being shot – but everything to do with the jagged interior life that he had been glimpsing. The room was now unbearably hot and he felt slightly sick, as if he had a fever. It must be the drugs, he thought, again trying to tidy the threat away.

  ‘What about the Winged Disc and the Chamber of Records? What part do they play in your son’s illness?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he forced himself to say. ‘I once glanced at some crazy journal he kept. Perhaps they were in there.’ The fear was mounting and Hugo’s stomach began to churn. He fumbled for a handkerchief.

  ‘Tell me about your wife.’ Dr Lex switched subjects again and Hugo had the impression that he had noticed his alarm.

  ‘I met her when I was photographing a tin mine. She’s a Tregellin – Cornish landowners. All very Daphne du Maurier.’ He could hear himself speaking brightly and foolishly. ‘Her parents were alive then and they lived in this old manor house called Lizards, perched up on the cliffs. Lucy was training to be a conservation officer. All this was years ago now.’

  ‘Do you spend much time at home, Mr Fitzroy?’

  ‘No. Lucy and I have drifted apart.’ Hugo paused, trying to be more objective. ‘I suppose I chose to be away. All I really cared about was fulfilling the latest assignment and setting up the next. It became very mechanical, though; wherever I end up, the carnage is the same – just the landscapes differ.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever want to go home?’ Dr Lex uncrossed his legs and aligned his shiny toecaps with a square in the lino. He was a neat man. The sun had gone and the room was cold.

  Hugo began to speak a little faster. ‘I felt trapped in Cornwall. I had to be working, keeping up, being a jump ahead. The drink was a comfort,’ he admitted, surprised to find a sense of relief in being partially honest. That was as far as he was prepared to go, though; they were getting too near his real self, the one he had been so successfully hiding from, the person who had run away and was still running, but pursued by – by what?

  ‘Have you ever thought of getting off your roller-coaster?’

  ‘What would I do?’

  ‘Be with your family while you convalesce. Do something about your way of life,’ said Dr Lex gently, but before Hugo could reply he added, ‘Spend time with your son.’

  It was late afternoon and Hugo was alone, lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to think about the future. He knew that he must see Brent and understand the mental link between them – if there was one. There must be; in some way he was sharing his son’s insanity. The idea terrified him, but for once he was determined not to push it out of his mind. He had almost erased Brent’s childhood, because he had run out on him and his guilt was enormous. It had lain deep in his subconscious, buried, a submerged monster which could only be doused by alcohol. Now the alcohol was no longer available Hugo felt the pain increasing in him every day – far sharper and much more comprehensive than the bullets that had shattered his knees.

  Hugo shut his eyes. He could only see Brent as a child – at his most vulnerable. He opened them again, but instead of the scarred ceiling saw clouds swirling and darting across the face of a hard cruel orb of a sun. Below the bed was the floor of a desert with dunes rolling towards an endless horizon. A wind was stirring the sand and there was a distant thundering that was becoming louder and louder. He seemed to be travelling, yet Hugo could still feel the bed beneath him, rock solid, as an object on the horizon gradually became clearer. Mesmerized, he stared at it, until eventually he realized it was the pyramid. Below him was a woman running over the dunes, looking up at him, her face twisted with despair and anger. ‘You’re going to be too late,’ she cried as he hurtled on, the wind rising in ferocity. He could hardly see anything now for the red haze of storming sand, until the pyramid towered above him and he could make out Brent standing in its shadow. He was holding up a book. Like the woman, his features were contorted with angry despair. Hugo did not know what to do. Then, rather like the snapping of an elastic band, the vision vanished with a sound like a gunshot.

  Lucy sat on Hugo’s bed, her lilac dress crumpled, her face lined. Now that he was looking at her properly he realized she was much thinner than when he had last seen her, and the self-protective look he was only just beginning to get
used to seemed more pronounced. Once she had said, T’m not going to let you hurt me any more.’ That had been a long time ago. Was he only just beginning to recognize a perceptible change?

  ‘I’ve seen the shrink,’ he explained.

  ‘Yes?’ There was curiosity in her voice, but it was not strong. Overall she gave the impression of a woman who had given up hope a long time ago.

  ‘He thinks I should come home.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hugo. He spoke self-consciously, as if he expected the affirmation to be welcomed, but Lucy answered pragmatically.

  ‘You have to realize I’ve got used to you not being around.’ She sounded flat rather than uncaring.

  Hugo felt a surge of self-loathing. ‘I want to try – to make something of our lives,’ he said, and immediately sensed her scepticism. He knew how hard it would be. He would have to regenerate himself, cut out the booze, face the guilt and acquire self-knowledge. The kind of psychiatric recipe he had been fending off for most of his adult life.

  Hugo lay back, exhausted. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that she didn’t want him back, that it was all too late, for their relationship at least, but he was not prepared to let the thought deter him. He couldn’t afford to.