The Amnesiac

by Sam Taylor

  He tried to make sense of the mystery with which he had become obsessed. How could he have got it all so badly wrong? Malcolm Trewvey had nothing to do with his past at all: that much was clear now. He was merely a middle-aged scrabble fanatic who lived in a house on the other side of the road. His post had been mistakenly delivered to number 21 and James had woven an elaborate fantasy around a series of randomly chosen letters. It had been coincidence, nothing more.

  He remembered the dream he’d had, in Amsterdam; of the doctor peeling away the bandages on his leg to reveal . . . an absence, a nullity, a blank. Nothing meant anything, he realised. Everything meant nothing. All that he had believed in was illusion. All that was solid had melted into air. He had tried to discern a pattern in his life, but the only pattern was chaos. He had tried to find his way through the labyrinth, but now he had reached its centre and discovered . . . another labyrinth.

  In the afternoon he went outside for some fresh air. He walked all the way to the old town, and then began taking streets at random, looking not where he was going but at the people around him. He listened to their earnest conversations, he gazed at their worried frowns. James began to smirk, to snort. Soon he was standing alone on a pedestrianised shopping street, laughing uncontrollably at the passers-by.

  No one could see it, that was the funniest thing. The people all around him, hurrying from A to B . . . none of these people could see the labyrinth. None of them could see the huge dark fingers of chance idly building walls in their path, squashing them like ants, lifting them on to a pedestal, just briefly, for no reason at all, and then flicking them down into the maze again. No one could see the horror and hilarity of it all. They took it so seriously; they believed that it mattered, that it meant something . They went around asking each other, ‘How are you?’ ‘How’s it going?’ ‘How’s life treating you?’ And this was what they called sanity! Oh, it was just too funny. James couldn’t stop laughing.

  After some time, his laughter died away. He went to a pub nearby and drank a pint of bitter at a table on his own, watching with disgust and amusement as the others hugged and sang and laughed. It was New Year’s Eve and everyone was optimistic; they all seemed to believe that the year to come would be better than the year just gone. The fools. After a few more pints, he left the pub and walked back to Lough Street. All around him rose the sheer black walls of the labyrinth, solid and visible and undeniable. For the first time in my life, James thought, I am seeing the world as it truly is.

  As he drew close to the familiar face of 21 Lough Street, however, he felt a tiny kindling of faith inside him. True, he was lost in the labyrinth, like everyone else, and all that he did was futile, inconsequential . . . but perhaps his existence was not quite without meaning, without centre. He did, after all, have this house, and its walls, painted and as yet unpainted. He did have his work.

  That evening James walked slowly around the ground floor of the house, through every room, inspecting the perfect whiteness of the walls, ceilings, floors. By the time he went to bed he had begun to feel grateful. Whatever he had lost had been unreal in the first place. This house, at least, was real; it was solid; it could not simply melt into air, like all the rest.

  During the weeks that followed, James stuck relentlessly to his task. He did not pick up the telephone. He did not answer the front door. He read no newspapers, watched no television. He let the post pile up unopened on the doormat. Sometimes he had bad dreams and occasionally, standing on the first-floor landing, he would look up the stairs to the next storey and wonder what lay up there, but the thought never went any further than that. James did not wish to get ahead of himself.

  Apart from scraping and sanding and plastering and painting, he did almost nothing worth the trouble of remembering. The long, dull winter slowly transformed itself into a dull, wet spring, and James slowly transformed the first floor into a perfectly white replica of the ground floor.

  Then one day, as he was putting the finishing touches to the ceiling of the first-floor landing, he noticed something odd: a tiny, faint grey stain on the wall next to the staircase. At first, thinking this was just a smudge of dirt, he wiped it with a cloth. If anything, however, this only darkened and widened the stain. Irritated, he painted over it.

  An hour later, when he returned from eating lunch, he discovered that the paint had dried strangely, in a kind of crisp bulge. James touched this and, to his horror, it crumbled and peeled away - not only in the small circle he had repainted, but in a huge streak covering half the wall. And underneath the crumbled paint he found neither white primer nor white plaster,as he had expected, but a long, dark, mottled, brownish stain, with a kind of triangle on top. When James stood back and squinted at this, he had the disturbing sensation that the stain was shaped like an arrow, and that it was pointing up to the attic floor.

  He put his head in his hands. All his hard work, ruined like this. If only there was some way of erasing these stains for ever, he thought. How much happier and more free I would feel then . . .

  To distract himself, he decided to go for a walk outside. He hadn’t breathed fresh air in months, he realised; perhaps the paint fumes were going to his head and he was seeing things. Perhaps the arrow only existed in his mind. Reassured by this thought, James put on his coat and was about to open the front door when he noticed that it was blocked by the pile of letters. Down on his knees, he picked the envelopes up one by one and, studying each in turn, threw them into a plastic bin-liner. He had nearly finished when he came to a pale-blue envelope. There was something familiar about this envelope. His name was typewritten on the front, and below it his old address in Amsterdam; this had been crossed out, as had his parents’ address. The stamp was postmarked November; evidently it had taken nearly four months to reach him.

  He opened the envelope. Inside was a typewritten letter, headed TOMAS RYAL ASSOCIATES. ‘Dear client,’ it began,

  Our records show that you have yet to purchase a new supply of LWZYYY34-C, your personalized anti-allergy medication. As we explained to you during your induction session, you are of course free at any time to discontinue your medication, but to do so carries certain very severe risks which need to be discussed in person so that you can be advised on the best methods of coping with the inevitable side-effects and complications arising from the decision to end treatment. Be warned: if you do not control your allergy, it may return - and the longer you delay, the more you will suffer. Contact your local representative NOW to discuss ways of reducing your torment. Prices for a full consultation begin at £1,000. If, however, you have simply forgotten to renew your subscription, then all you have to do is . . .

  The rest of the page consisted of various payment options. James skim-read them, searching for the sender’s name, but the letter was unsigned. Then he dropped the letter to the floor and stared into space, his mouth open.

  VI

  THE BLACK BOX

  It was quarter-past ten the next morning when James entered the park. He checked his watch twice to make sure. Today, he told himself, I am not going to let time slip away from me. I am going to keep a tight grip on reality.

  It was a grey, damp day, the clouds like stains on the sky. He walked along the path towards the large white building. From the outside, he noted, it was as he remembered it: five storeys high, several hundred metres wide, very few windows. When he arrived in the lobby, James told the woman on reception that he wished to speak to Dr Lanark.

  ‘Your name please?’ she demanded.

  ‘James Purdew.’

  The receptionist nodded and pressed a few buttons on the computer keyboard, then spoke into the headset. ‘Dr Lanark, there is a James Purdew to see you in reception.’ A pause, her face blank, then: ‘Very well, Dr Lanark, I will send him down now.’

  James felt shocked by how easy all this was. Was he really going to talk to Dr Lanark? Was he really going to find out the truth? He followed the woman’s directions to a lift. He pressed the call button and the
doors opened. As before, he pressed the lowest button. When the doors opened again, he found himself in an empty white corridor, with a set of double doors at one end. He walked through the corridor, past white, unnumbered doors on either side. James was surprised: he had thought that his memories of the underground laboratory had been mere hallucinations, dreamemories, yet here everything was, just as he had remembered. As he walked, the corridor curved slightly, and James had the faint, creeping impression that the floor was sloping gently downward. When he stopped still and tried to verify this, he found he couldn’t be absolutely sure, but the further he walked, the more obviously the corridor seemed to curve and slope.

  There was no one else around, and the only sound was the low buzz of the ventilation system. James counted the double doors as he moved through them. One, two, three, four. How big is this place? James wondered fearfully as he continued. And was it his imagination, or was the lighting in the corridors growing gradually dimmer? He felt sure that when he had first emerged from the lift, the neon striplights had been burning brightly; now, however, they were barely more than nightlights.

  Finally, he heard voices further along, so he walked in that direction and stopped outside a half-open door. He knocked softly and said ‘Hello?’

  ‘Enter,’ said a man’s voice.

  James stepped into the luxurious parlour. This both comforted and disconcerted him: the former because the parlour was almost exactly as he recalled it - a generous fire burning in an open hearth; three leather armchairs positioned round a low wooden table; on the table a crystal decanter filled with amber liquid and three empty glasses - and the latter because, in his memory, the parlour had not led directly on to the corridor. He stepped into the room and saw a small man sitting in one of the chairs. The man looked up and James saw his face, which was small, pale and unremarkable. ‘Ah, Mr Purdew . . . do you remember me?’ the man asked.

  ‘Vaguely,’ James replied. ‘You’re Dr Lanark, aren’t you?’

  ‘That is a name I have used in the past, yes.’ He smiled patronisingly. ‘It is not, of course, who I am, any more than “James Purdew” is who you are. One should never put too much trust in names. But you recall my face?’

  ‘I think so. It’s difficult to say from when or where, though. I’m pretty sure you taught me in university, but I also think I’ve dreamed about you recently. There were two of you.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Dr Lanark looked amused, then studied the papers on his desk. ‘So how long is it since you stopped taking the medication?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. Several months, I suppose.’

  ‘Hmm. I imagine it’s been a difficult time.’

  The doctor’s tone was cool and matter-of-fact. James, trying to act likewise, simply nodded.

  ‘You’ve suffered hallucinations?’

  ‘Yes . . . I think so.’

  ‘Any dreamemories?’

  ‘One or two.’

  Dr Lanark nodded, and murmured as if to himself, ‘Only to be expected. So . . . do you remember what happened?’

  Up until this moment James had been regarding the interview with a sort of casual curiosity, as though it were happening to someone else; now, suddenly, he felt nervous. This was, he realised, the moment of truth. So . . . did he remember what had happened? Cold fingers tightened around his heart and he said, ‘Some of it.’

  ‘You stopped short, then? You chose not to remember?’

  ‘I suppose so . . . yes.’

  ‘You do realise that, soon, you will no longer have any choice in the matter?’

  ‘But what if I . . . ?’

  ‘It’s too late, I’m afraid. I could give you a stronger dose, of course, to try to reverse the effect, but the risks would be very high. You might end up losing more than the targeted area. And if we chose to erase now, you would probably lose the last ten years as well.’

  James thought of Ingrid, and shook his head. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘No. I quite understand. It must have come as a shock when you realised you had forgotten those years?’

  ‘Yes . . . although I felt like I knew already, in a way. It was more like it had just . . . slipped my mind.’

  ‘Really?’ Dr Lanark smiled with alarming enthusiasm and began writing furiously on one of the papers. ‘The technical boys will be delighted.’ James said nothing. When the doctor had finished writing, he looked at James with a serious expression and said, ‘You do understand, of course, that the memories were never truly lost? The medication you chose was an inhibitor, not an eraser; thus the need for it to be taken continuously. We did discuss other options when you . . . do you recall any of this yet?’

  ‘Bits and pieces,’ James admitted, looking around the office. ‘I didn’t come here, though, did I?’

  ‘No, that meeting took place in our previous premises. You’ve been back there quite recently, I believe.’ There was a sly look in the doctor’s eyes as he said this.

  A suspicion flickered in James’s mind. ‘You mean . . .’

  ‘Harrison Lettings, yes. Associates of ours. I’m glad to say that T.R.A.’s financial position has changed for the better since those days. What’s the matter, Mr Purdew? Your face appears to be turning green.’

  The doctor wasn’t joking. James was beginning to feel nauseous. It was the memories returning - scores of them coming back to life at the sound of Dr Lanark’s voice, his words, these hints of a forgotten past - but James didn’t know that then. ‘I feel unwell,’ was all he said.

  The doctor poured some armagnac into a glass and passed it to James along with a single triangular grey pill.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just something to calm you down. I’m afraid the next few days are going to be rather traumatic for you, Mr Purdew. This will help reduce the pain and the nausea.’

  James eyed the pill suspiciously, but in the end he accepted the doctor’s advice. He swallowed the pill, then took several long sips of the digéstif. Moments later his chest felt warm, his mind calm. He sighed, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the office seemed to have grown darker. There were two candles on the low table, and no other light at all except for the fire in the hearth. James had the curious feeling that time had passed without his knowing. Was it day or night? He walked over to the window, which was concealed by a Venetian blind, and pulled on the drawstring. Oddly, it seemed to move upward, and yet no window was revealed behind, only a Venetian blind. The same Venetian blind. Puzzled, he tried twisting the plastic tube to make the slats move into a horizontal position, but that didn’t work either.

  ‘You can’t see out of the window,’ a woman’s voice explained, ‘because you have never seen out of the window.’

  James turned around: it was Dr Lewis. She was sitting in an armchair next to Dr Lanark, her stockinged legs crossed provocatively. For some reason James thought of a storeroom cupboard in an Australian post office. ‘I don’t understand,’ he confessed.

  ‘Hmm. You never were one of our more gifted students,’ Dr Lewis said sarcastically.

  ‘What we are showing you is a reflection of the past,’ Dr Lanark explained. ‘In the past you never opened the blinds, never saw outside. For that reason, you cannot do so now.’

  ‘So what is out there?’

  Dr Lewis sighed impatiently. ‘Why are you so interested in the view?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ James admitted. ‘Because I can’t see it, I suppose. ’

  ‘We can’t tell you what is outside,’ said Dr Lanark, ‘for the same reason that you can’t see it yourself.’

  ‘So you can’t tell me anything I don’t already know?’

  ‘On the contrary, we can. Because what you have experienced and what you remember are not the same thing,’ Dr Lanark said. He, James could tell, was the more patient of the two. Already Dr Lewis was tutting and muttering about having her time wasted. James wondered if she were angry with him; after all, he hadn’t returned her phone calls. He sat in the chair opposite hers. She c
rossed her legs, revealing a glimpse of suspenders, and said, ‘Surely you must have some more pertinent questions you would like to ask us. We haven’t got all day, you know.’

  James didn’t respond because his mind was suddenly filled with a memory of Dr Lewis sucking his penis. It was a spectacularly vivid memory: he could feel her hair, slightly wiry, on his bare abdomen, and see her lips, pushed out and misshapen, as they slid up and down the shaft of his erection. He blinked. Dr Lewis was staring at him expectantly, her face severe, her lips held tightly together. Evidently she had just asked him a question, though he had no idea what it was. ‘Sorry,’ he began, ‘I was just . . .’ His words trailed off. She raised an eyebrow and James blushed.

  ‘Mr Purdew, your sexual fantasies are no concern of mine, but there is really no point in us being here if you are not going to be able to concentrate for more than half a second at a time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he repeated.

  ‘We are here to help you, if we can,’ said Dr Lanark. ‘Now think carefully . . . there must be some questions you would like us to answer.’

  James thought about this. The doctor was right, of course. For the past eight months his life had been little more than a series of questions without answers. He had come to H. in the first place, desperately seeking clues to the truth of his past. He had been so curious to fill the gap in his memory that he had abandoned everything: his girlfriend, his job, his friends, his future. For long weeks at a time he had thought of nothing but uncovering the secrets he guessed to be hidden in the labyrinth of his mind, of finding the key that would open the black box. And yet, recently . . . since the turn of the year or thereabouts . . . his desire to know - his hope of remembering - had come to seem a perverse, almost shameful emotion. Now, the desire, the hope, had transformed itself into something else. It had turned itself inside out, or perhaps only rotated on its axis to reveal its other, darker side. The hope, James saw now, was also fear. He did not want to know. He did not want to remember.