The Amnesiac

by Sam Taylor

  ‘No, I don’t have any questions.’

  Dr Lanark smiled and sighed. ‘Amnesire.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Amnesire. It’s a word I coined myself. It means the desire to forget, or - as in your present case - the desire not to remember. Strange, isn’t it, that no word already existed for such a strong and common emotion. Most people, I believe, are amnesirous. We forget because we wish to; because we need to. For the majority of people, the majority of the time, the process of forgetting is automatic. We do it every day and don’t give it a second thought. It is as natural, and as necessary, as urinating, excreting and exhaling. And imagine if you didn’t do those things! For certain people, at certain times, however, this process stops working. Something happens: something so large, so dark, so unforgettable, that their view of the present and the future is obscured. Instead of looking at the world through a window, they find themselves looking at a mirror - a fairground mirror if you like: distorting, enlarging, turning the mundane monstrous - so that they cannot see around or ahead at all, but always and only behind. We set up T.R.A., Dr Lewis and myself, because we wanted to help those poor, tormented souls. We wished to facilitate forgetting in those who had lost the instinct.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ James yawned, ‘but what has all this got to do with me?’

  ‘You were our first customer,’ said Dr Lewis.

  ‘First patient,’ Dr Lanark corrected.

  ‘When you came to us you were suicidal, so in a sense we saved your life. Not that you’ve ever shown any gratitude . . .’

  ‘To be fair, Dr Lewis, he didn’t actually remember.’

  ‘Well, he remembers now, doesn’t he?’

  Dr Lanark looked at James curiously. ‘Do you?’

  James nodded. ‘It’s coming back . . .’ Panic rose in his chest even as he spoke. ‘I don’t want it to come back.’

  Dr Lewis rolled her eyes. ‘As Dr Lanark has already made clear, this is no longer something over which you have any choice. Really, it’s your own fault for going with the inhibitors in the first place. We told you erasure would be safer . . .’

  ‘My dear, let’s not go over all this again,’ said Dr Lanark, giving his colleague a reassuring squeeze on the thigh. ‘The point is, Mr Purdew, that in the next few weeks or days or perhaps even in the next few hours, you are going to be overwhelmed by memory. You are like a man stranded on a beach; a man who, because of exhaustion or injury, cannot climb the few yards to safety, and who is now simply lying there, waiting for the tide to return. And it is drawing close, believe me. Soon, very soon, the waves will break over you, crash down on you; they will pull your inert body out to sea, where it will sink, down, down, down into black water, endlessly deep . . .’

  ‘Stop!’ James gasped. ‘I get the idea. So what can I do?’

  ‘You must prepare yourself.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘First you must find a dark and silent place in which you can be alone. You will need to concentrate fully, so it has to be somewhere secret; somewhere with no telephone or radio or television.’

  James thought of the cellar he had glimpsed from the cupboard under the stairs, and nodded. ‘I think I know a place like that.’

  ‘Good. You will need a notebook and some pens, and enough food and drink to last you a week, possibly longer.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘When you are settled and calm and you’ve had a chance to empty your mind, you should open the black box. It is vitally important that you do this before the memories return. You must understand that the memories, when they return, will feel like chaos - like sad, dark chaos - and without some basic narrative structure into which you can fit them, they will almost certainly sweep you away. That, I am afraid, is the price you pay for the long-term inhibition of memories. It’s like building a dam: one little crack, the tiniest leak, and the entire structure is in danger of collapse.’

  ‘As you were warned at the time of your treatment,’ added Dr Lewis.

  All this talk of water was making James thirsty. He took a drink from the glass of brandy. The warm buzz calmed him down. He tried to think logically. ‘The black box. You mean I should read my diaries?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Then what am I supposed to . . .’

  But Dr Lanark wasn’t listening any more; he was looking at his watch. Dr Lewis had already put on her coat and was standing impatiently by the door. ‘You must excuse us, Mr Purdew, ’ said Dr Lanark. ‘We have an important meeting with our patron in a few minutes.’

  ‘Your patron? Who’s that?’

  ‘Our patron, Mr Purdew. Not only mine and Dr Lewis’s, but yours as well.’

  ‘Uh . . . I have a patron?’

  ‘Indeed. Whose house did you imagine you had been living in for most of the past year?’

  James started. ‘The man in the black coat? He’s behind all this?’

  The two doctors looked at James as though he was an idiot. ‘He hasn’t exactly made a secret of it,’ said Dr Lewis. ‘Really, for someone who fancies himself as a private detective, you’re not very sharp, are you?’

  ‘But who is he?’

  Dr Lanark stared at James in silence, his face unreadable in the flickering half-light.

  ‘Oh, let me guess. You can’t tell me because I don’t already know . . .’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ Dr Lanark replied. ‘It’s just that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Try me!’

  ‘He will reveal himself to you when he believes you are ready.’

  ‘Why not now?’ James shouted. ‘Let him show himself . . .’ He was angry, tired of these games, desperate to know. And yet, at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling a little relieved when Dr Lanark shook his head.

  Dr Lanark showed James to an emergency exit and, in return for a thousand pounds in cash, gave him a small silver-coloured key, which James put in his pocket. They shook hands, said goodbye. James opened the door and found himself out in the park, at the rear of the large white building. The sky was turning dark, and there were drops of rain in the air. He turned to ask Dr Lanark one last question, but the door had already closed; it was too late.

  Glancing at his watch, James discovered that it was quarter past eight. He wondered where all the time had gone. Numb with exhaustion, he began the long walk through the park to the bus stop. I stood at the window, watching him go.

  He put the black box and the black notebook and the white notebook into the rucksack, along with a couple of biros. Then he went to the kitchen and packed as much tinned food and bottled water as would fit. After that he went to the cupboard under the stairs. He bent down and opened the little door. As before he saw darkness, smelled damp ashes, felt cold air on his skin. He put his feet through first and found solid steps leading down. After taking one last breath of untainted air, James entered the cellar and closed the little door behind him.

  The darkness felt thick, and heavier than normal air; like something that, if he kept breathing it, would fill his insides, line his lungs; like something in which he might drown. A torch, he thought, that is what I need. But as far as he knew there wasn’t a torch in the house. And the shops had already closed. He could wait until tomorrow morning, of course, but what if the memories came tonight? No, it was no use: he would just have to deal with the darkness as best he could.

  He took a few deep breaths and squatted down so he could touch the step on which he stood. Cold smoothness met his fingertips. The steps were made of stone, and slippy with moisture, so he descended with extreme slowness and caution. There were nine steps - he counted them - and then he was standing on a different surface. It was noisier, less stable. James crouched down and discovered pebbles. He stood up again, and it was at this point that he noticed a chink of non-darkness in the black air that surrounded him. It wasn’t light exactly, just a point of dim orange that illuminated nothing else. It was in front of him, the distance incalculable
, and it appeared to be in the shape of a tiny circle. James’s first thought was a lit cigarette end, but it was too still, too unvarying for that. And besides, who else could be down here? James didn’t like to think about that, so - legs bent low to the ground, hands waving eagerly before him - he concentrated on finding his way around the cellar.

  He sat on a narrow bed, looking out into the almost absolute nothingness and telling himself where everything was: saying it over and over again so that soon he imagined he could see each object, each wall, each corner of the room in which he sat. For some reason, he thought of Tomas Ryal and his theory of solipsism. What if this were the true nature of the world? What if he only saw buildings and trees and other people because he had spent his life telling himself they were there? Normally such an idea would have intrigued James, but down here in the darkness it seemed too believable, too disturbing, so he put it from his mind.

  The cellar was, as far as he could tell, the same shape and size as his ground-floor bedroom, which must, he thought, lie directly above. Strangely, the bed on which he sat, though low and narrow like most of the other beds in the house, was freshly made, with ironed sheets, a plump pillow, and a heavy, feather-filled duvet. James did not give any thought to what this might mean; he was simply glad of the comfort. In any case the real source of his wonder was not the bed, but the periscope.

  That was what he called it anyway. In reality it was just a hole in the wall - a crack, he supposed, caused by the same subsidence that gave the floor of his bedroom a slight tilt - but, despite the lack of mirrors and right-angles, it performed the same function as a true periscope. He had found it by walking towards the orange circle. When he touched it he had found this gap in the concrete wall, just wide enough to fit his thumb, but not quite wide enough for two fingers. Feeling inside with his index finger, he learned that the aperture widened as it went along and that it rose upward at roughly 45 degrees. Curious, he put his eye to the opening and was amazed to see the silhouette of the chestnut tree, lit from behind by a streetlamp.

  He felt tired, but he knew time would pass very slowly down here if he simply lay in the blackness and waited to fall asleep, so he decided he ought to do something. It was then that he remembered the rucksack. He unzipped it and began removing objects - tins, packets, bottles - and arranging them on the floor by the bed. When all the food and drink had been dealt with, he was left with the black box and the notebooks. He thought of opening the black box, but it seemed too big a step to take. He did not feel ready. And what good were books in the dark?

  He had an idea. He moved the bed close to the wall and held one of the notebooks beneath the periscope: in the middle of the dark page a faint amber shape appeared, illuminating a single word. The word was Ingrid.

  When James woke up he noticed a pinprick of brightness in the gloom. He crawled to the bottom of his bed and put his eye to the opening. To his surprise, he saw a beautiful and tiny world; no more than an inch in diameter, yet as real-looking as the world he had known before. In this tiny world the light had an innocent, early-morning milkiness that painted in heartstopping detail the top of the iron gate, part of the white van, the middle section of the chestnut tree and, in fragmented glimpses through its hundreds of budding leaves, the brickwork and silvered windows of the house across the road.

  The view was so fresh, so vivid, that James considered the possibility of living in the cellar, not only for the next few days but for the rest of his life. After all, he had never felt such an intense love for the world while he’d actually been part of it. But just then he caught a stray scent from outside. A gust of wind must have blown it through the crack in the wall. Enraptured, he put his nostrils to the opening and sniffed greedily at the tunnel of cool air: earth, grass, tarmac, nectar, bacon, tea, petrol fumes . . . He felt a sudden, urgent need to be free.

  First, though, he had to open the black box - and wait for the memories to come. The idea made James anxious. He tried to imagine the pain he would feel, and then he tried to stop imagining it. This must be how women feel just before they give birth, he thought, except that what they are bringing into the world is new life, the future, whereas all I can bring is reflections of the past.

  He would open the black box later, he decided. In the meantime, it was important to keep busy. James didn’t know why he felt this, but he was convinced it was true. He did some exercises on his bed - press-ups, sit-ups, leg-raisers - counting each repetition out loud. The sound of his own voice was reassuring. When he had finished the exercises, he thought about what else he could do. He drank some water from a bottle and ate a tin of olives. He stared through the periscope. The seconds were so slow, down here. He lay on the bed, closed his eyes and listened. The silence was absolute. He could feel it regathering in the darkness around him: an immense and hungry silence, patient as hell.

  Finally, James picked up the black notebook and started reading. The words told the story of his life in Amsterdam, living with Ingrid in her apartment. A year ago; a lifetime before. As the words passed before his eyes, each one lit up in a little oval of leaked daylight, his mind filled with pictures of this abandoned past. He saw Ingrid sleeping, her face blank and innocent; he saw her naked body, with its lovely curves and hollows; he saw the street below their balcony, bright and empty at dawn; he saw a tall glass of cold beer, its crisp shadow on a chrome tabletop; he saw the surface of the canal, gleaming multicoloured in the dusk. As he saw all this, his heart contracted. How happy he had been! What a fool he was to walk away from such a life! He read on, nostalgia transforming these ordinary memories into visions of a lost paradise.

  In the words, time passed too quickly. It slipped away. He came to a sentence he had written in August, a few days after Ingrid left - ‘Is happiness nothing more than the sum of its absent opposites?’ - and realised that, unknowingly, he had asked the right question and arrived at the wrong answer. In a sense, he saw now, it was true: happiness was nothing more than the sum of its absent negatives. In order to be happy, James understood, one must have not only life, warmth, food, freedom, comfort, health, company, sleep and sanity, one must also think, every day, of the imminent, everpresent danger of losing these gifts; one must see, feel, breathe the perpetual possibility that one could be dead, cold, hungry, enslaved, in pain, ill, lonely, insomniac or mad. No wonder happiness is so rare, thought James: it is fucking hard work.

  At this point James closed the black notebook and put it down on the bed. He couldn’t bear to read on; to watch his former self decline, by degrees, to the point where he finally became his present self. He put his eye to the hole in the wall and watched dusk fall in the tiny world of the periscope. The white shell of the parked van turned a deep pink in the gloaming while the windows in the house across the road melted into golden pools, their calm surfaces occasionally rippled by the movement in wind of the branches of the chestnut tree, its new leaves shining in a thousand glorious, irrecoverable shades of gold and green. Slowly (and yet too quickly) the colours faded and the van, the tree and the house existed only as shapes in a blue mist, illuminated and silhouetted by sodium light. It was astoundingly beautiful. Breathtaking, James thought, but then the double meaning of that word made him suddenly, horribly aware of the staleness of the air in the cellar.

  He took a few deep breaths, but couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into his lungs. His head was spinning and he felt nauseous. He put his mouth to the hole and tried to suck the night air from outside. It tasted cool and good but the supply was no more than a trickle, and now fear was making him breathe even faster. He looked around him at the threatening, invisible room and saw his own death staring back. Afraid that if he lost consciousness he might never regain it, James tried to stay awake. He pinched his skin and pried apart his drooping eyelids. Each breath, each waking moment, was an act of will; a rebellion against the room’s dark embrace. Stay awake, stay alive till morning, James told himself. In the morning you will open the black box . . . and after the memories ha
ve returned, you will escape this place . . . you will breathe again the air outside . . . you will see . . .

  His thoughts dissolved into pictures. Paradise lost. The soft anaesthetic of nostalgia. His breathing grew calm. Some time in the middle of the night, his tiredness overpowered his fear. James lay back in bed and drifted slowly into sleep.

  Down, down, down he slid, into the deepest sleep he had ever known. At first in the dream he seemed to be walking through the same tunnel as before, except that now there were no eyeholes, no lights; only the darkness and the walking. Beneath his feet, the ground sloped upwards. Above his head, the damp earth ceiling grew lower and lower, until soon he had to walk with his back bent, like an old man, and soon after that he had to crawl on all fours, like a baby, and soon - though it seemed to take ages - he had to creep on his belly, like a snake. Narrower and narrower the tunnel grew, and now he could taste the damp earth in his mouth as he moved: he was eating his way through it, becoming part of the airless earth himself, disappearing into total blackness.

  Just as he felt sure that he was dying - that this was his death dream - James spotted a tiny light ahead of him. He guessed that it must be the tunnel’s end, far far away in the distance, and this possibility, however remote, filled his heart with hope. Onward he slithered, onward he crawled, onward he crouched, onward he walked, for days, weeks, months, years, the tunnel growing wider and higher all the time, but the tiny light for some reason remaining tiny. Suddenly he found himself in a dark room, with four invisible walls and an invisible bed. He reached out and touched the source of the light - the light he had imagined, hoped, believed was the end of the tunnel. It was not much wider than his index finger. It was the periscope, and this was the cellar, and James was awake.