“Unless we sneak into a well-equipped hospital I think that's unlikely,” I say. “But then if that were an option an expert surgeon would be doing the operation not a novice shaman.”
Anput's nostrils flare, like she's smelling me. An ear moves hearing something I can't. “Djuha, you didn't tell me he was a freshly weaned pup.”
Djuha shrugs. “I thought it was obvious.”
“The surgery you will use back in the Living World will be very different to a hospital's techniques,” Anput says. “You will be working on his soul. It might be easier if you could bring the patient into the Other World and work directly on the problem here. Djuha and I will show you what to do and we will practice here for a few days.”
“Okay.” Something isn't right, I can't put my finger on it just yet.
“Lie down on this bed and we'll begin.”
The stone is cold, unyielding. I've felt emotions in the Otherworld, but sensation has been muted, dampened, absent even. Fear, but not thirst, or cold. Talking of fear, my Spidey-sense is tingling. I try to lift my head up from the slab, but I feel weak and my limbs heavy. Djuha and Anput stand over me. “This won't hurt much,” Anput says as she slides her hand straight into my abdomen.
(A metal lance pierces through my torso, chipping the slab below.)
I scream, but no sound comes out, as my skin caves in under her fingers before tearing eases the pressure. I feel her tickle my liver. A huge ball of heat builds just below my ribcage. It's going to burst, it feels so enlarged. But if I let it go I know it will be the end of me. My sight is dark except for bursts of blue pain, and the glow from my chest like someone has put a lightbulb in there. I hold on, like a child in a long-distance car journey needing a wee, praying it passes before I embarrass myself.
Anput pulls out her hand. A long stringy substance dangles from it with lumps of unidentifiable meat clinging on.
(– Is it there?)
“There. That wasn't too bad, was it?” Djuha says.
The lethargy is gone. I examine the wound with my hands but feel nothing there. I sit up and look down, lifting up my shirt and t-shirt. No scar, no blemish, nothing to show for my pains.
“We just need to teach you the same technique,” Anput says.
I can't speak, but it is supressed rage. Are these two my demon torturers? Or am I just transferring onto them what happened? This is all too familiar.
My legs can barely hold me, when I stand. My thoughts are flashing between now and all those endless nights of agony.
“Where are you going?” Djuha says. He sounds like he is mocking me.
I fall heavily onto my knees. I crawl out into the corridor. I feel sick. This dream body has nothing to throw up. No cathartic up-chuck.
I don't notice where I am until someone puts their arm around me and lifts me up to stand. I'm outside the temple. I mutter my thanks and will myself home.
It's cold and hard on the tunnel floor. My stomach rumbles. I sit up. I wish I could light a proper fire down here.
Why was I so trusting? Did they really think they were helping me learn something like that? Perhaps it was all some elaborate joke. I'm angry with them, and even angrier with myself. It was stupid and naïve to think anyone could help me with a brain tumour. I shouldn't have said anything to Stevie, but I can't take it back now.
I lose myself in the mechanics of preparing dinner. I don't really want to eat but my body is crying out for something hot to fill my belly that isn't someone's hand. I know I'm losing even more weight and feel bone deep tired. Ecstatic experiences are not good for you.
I have the kids tomorrow. I feel nervous about that. I used to look forward to these Saturday's but I don't know how much Kathryn has turned them against me. I don't really want to see her either.
The snow has a crisp crust I keep breaking through on my way past the Tent City. With luck no more will fall on top of it tonight.
Chapter 15
She wasn't in when I arrived, but Kathryn's back home when I drop the kids off. I want to know where she spent the night. Who she spent it with. Asking won't get me an answer though. It would be like asking Corbie where he's been. Out on the wind. None of my business.
The kids were okay. Happy to see me. I love being with them, hearing their stories, hearing them bicker. But it feels hollow only having them for a few hours and I'm not sure I hide my sadness well. Not long ago I thought I'd be moving back in, becoming a family again.
The document is waiting for me, sitting on the table. Kathryn hovers nearby, coffee in hand. I turn to her with the pen in hand. She nods before I finish asking. “Are you sure we can't work this out?”
I sign away the years. I have no assets. I no longer need to provide for the kids, or her. I can probably afford a flat, somewhere where they could stay the weekend. Would this have happened without the phone calls? Possibly. Without the bird and the Otherworld? Probably not. Without the tent and whatever it was I was trying to prove? No.
This is not a comfortable bed.
We call the kids in and tell them together. Tell them we love them and that I'll always be around. Lucas pretends he's a man and just shrugs, but won't meet my eye. Sammy runs to her room. I wait for her to come out – I don't have the right to force myself into her space. After an hour Kathryn suggests I just go like it's all my fault, like leaving will make it all right again. I say goodbye to Sammy through the door. I think I see her curtain move as I walk down the street to the bus stop.
I haven't had time to think about Stevie and Djuha and tumours and saving other people from their own fucking messes. The vibration of the bus's engine rattles my teeth.
– Hey stranger, how are you? Rachael has perfect timing.
– Some kind of blue. You?
– Sorry to hear that. Fancy splitting some kind of red?
– Sure. My place or yours?
– Your place is a bit draughty.
– Where's yours?
She sends me an address and a time.
Crunching up the path in what passes for my best, I feel self-conscious without a gift. It's like meeting Sally McTaggart's family for the first time one Friday after school. I don't really know what to do with my arms or anything.
A yellow glow spills out from the doorway. Rachael has done something with her hair. Pulled it away from her neck. I panic. This feels wrong. I'm cheating on Kathryn. Kathryn who didn't come home last night. I hope none of this is on my face. I smile, pleased to see her. She leads me into the warmth.
It is a compact, tasteful, two-up two-down. Scandinavian flat-pack furniture and one or two antiques. Decent hi-fi, shelves bowed under books. It feels comfortable, right. Fiona's house was always going to be hers. We would always have been guests. I could never have lived there.
Something smells good. Rachael hands me a glass and curls onto the sofa beside me. She is wearing a nice green dress and tights. I don't think I've seen her in anything with a skirt before.
“How've you been?” Rachael says.
“Caught between two worlds.”
“The dream within the dream?”
“More of a nightmare, really. I signed the papers. I guess I'll be free sometime early next week.”
“Congratulations.”
It doesn't seem like something to celebrate. The silence lengthens.
“It's Bolognese and linguine for dinner.”
“I wondered what smells so good.”
Rachael goes off to check the pasta. I feel awkward where before things have been easy between us. Corbie was right; a kiss isn't just a kiss. A kiss can change everything.
The food is good, but conversation is a little slower.
“How's your mum?” Rachael says.
“I haven't spoken to her.”
“She worries about you, you know.”
Have we said all there is to say to one another? I gaze into the candle flame as much as look into her eyes. Perhaps playing with the possibility was better than winning. Maybe it's just too
soon and this has been a long day.
I want to tell her about the surgery, but where do you start on something like that? You'll never guess what happened to me yesterday. Gizzard talk is not good for dessert.
I think Rachael had a different plan for this evening, but she seems relieved when I go in time to get the last train back to Glasgow and the long walk home. I get a peck on the cheek and promise to call her. Am I relieved or have I screwed up something good? I look forward to my bed and a long lie.
Chapter 16
In the early hours the dam bursts. A recurring nightmare is one thing. Violation by people you trust…I still feel her hand inside me.
There is a knot of sickness and sadness inside and something primal I have no words for and I shudder thinking about it.
I can't contain it inside me. I howl like a wounded predator. It echoes down the tunnel. Stevie mutters in his sleep.
How did I keep it together yesterday? How did I sit with my kids, with this black filth tainting me? How did I have dinner with a beautiful woman and not corrupt the evening completely? How do I get it out?
I claw at my stomach. My ragged fingernails scratch at the skin. The blackness wells up, running free down into my crotch. I let it bleed out. But I know it isn't enough. I tear more strips away until the skins breaks along the line where she plunged in. I push a hand inside and scoop out darkness. It writhes like ink in water. I pull open the gash and tear out more. I keep ripping until it runs red. My hands are slick with gore. Then the pain kicks in. Fire prickles up and down the tear in my abdomen, runs along the lacerations in my belly. What the hell have I done to myself now?
The tent is melting.
I wake up again. It wasn't a dream. There are scratches, dried scars now, all across my stomach and chest, but no central one. It prickles every time my t-shirt brushes across the lines. Last time I felt like this I was a little kid with chicken pox, covered in Calamine lotion, hot and tender where I just had to use my nails.
Tea cures all ills. Walking through snow to get water probably causes many of them in the first place.
I feel a little better. A shower would be good, if agonising. Maybe calling Rachael to apologise and explain would be a good idea. Then like Kathryn she can move on because I'm never going to have 2.4 kids and a dog and live in a semi in a nice suburb. That was never part of the plan. I just didn't know it while I invented new ways to use other people's money. That was an island in time, a brief experience so I could understand how other people's lives were.
My mind has cracked, or worse, this is all real.
And I promised the bearded snoring creature next to me that I would help him. Not using this dubious technique I seem to have been infected with.
I'm waiting for the sun to come up when Corbie flies down the air shaft and lands on the ground in front of me. “How you been doin?” he says.
“That Djuha fellow is a very shady bloke. He took me to see a woman with a jackal's head. Egyptian god style, like him. I was held down while she put her hands inside me, pulled out gristle and left some black shit inside. He just stood there, watched, practically helped her.”
“Sorry, man, I had no idea. Like I said, I thought he was a bit up himself, but that was all. Actually, I'd heard you'd been seen staggering out of the Temple.”
“That was me trying to get away from them after they…invaded me.”
“But why would they wanna do that?”
“Power. Why else does anything happen? Midori said that the spirit world was practically feudal. Little spirits need more powerful ones for patronage and protection. These guys were asserting who's boss, wanted fealty or something. Nothing's free, there's always a price, even if there's no payment.”
“Hey some people really just wanna help with no ulterior motive.”
“There are no true altruists.”
“Jeez, you really woke up cynical today.”
“Tell me, why would anyone want to be part of this? You get tortured to find out if you're chosen. If you're selected by the high and mighty spirits you're then thrown powerless into a system of grace and favour. Shamans need spirits to get things done, but why do the spirits need shamans? I just don't see how this works. Marx said you got to follow the money. The powerful spirits don't really need shamans to oppress the weaker ones, so what gives?”
“You got it all topsy turvy. The shamans are here for humanity's benefit. The spirits decide who they're gonna let in. Shamans bring back useful information, of course there's gonna be a price for that. This isn't about you. It's about what you do to improve the Living World with what you find in the spirit world.
“And I'll let you in on a secret. The spirits need the Living World; they need tribute but they also need change. Remember most everything there is an animal or a rock or a tree or some essence of something abstract. All the rest are former dead people. They've usually been dead a while too.
“It takes a long time for changes to happen there, and for a very long time there's been little connection between the two. There's been no industrial revolution there, never mind computers.
“You're a powerful person. They're scared because of what changes you can bring. Upsettin their little apple carts. I shouldn't have boasted about your meetin with Abel. Clearly Djuha felt his cock was too small and needed to find some way to win a pissin contest.”
I laugh. “If the best he can do is get a girl to beat me up then he has a very small dick indeed.”
“Exactly.”
“So I'm expected to bring about a revolution?”
“Not you personally. Just the ideas you bring with you.”
I'm probably going to regret this. “Remember I told you about the alternative Otherworld I went to?” Corbie nods. “I went back there. The Tree of Life was some kind of digital organic thing. And I went to some other place. Somewhere made of technology or information. I met aliens, spirits, I don't know what. It wasn't their digital spirit world. They had a spaceship and brought me back again.”
“You what?”
“I found talkie toaster heaven and scary appliance angels.”
“Shit. Really?” Corbie waddles up and down. “We can't tell anyone about this. Either they won't believe us or they'll try and cash in. It'll be like the Gold Rush.”
“I think these guys know how to handle themselves. They've got flying saucers. Probably ray guns too. They asked me if organics had souls like they did. We're just primitive animals to them.”
Corbie's laugh sounds like he's choking on a peanut. “Then we could be seriously fucked, Dude.”
“I showed them how to get to our Otherworld. They gave me a lift home.”
“You need to go back and first contact them properly. Get them onside. Revolution is nothin if there's gonna be an invasion.”
“It's hard to believe that someone who goes out of their way to help you is going to invade earth from a spiritual reality.”
“When did you become Neville Chamberlain?”
“Who's he?”
“Don't they teach you anythin in school. Mr 'peace in our time'. Next thing you know Poland is Blitzkrieged.”
“Ah, the guy with the moustache waving the bit of paper outside the airplane. I'm not appeasing anyone. These guys are explorers like us. We should be natural allies.”
“Like Cortez or Pizarro were explorers. Perfect example of a more advanced civilisation discovering a lesser one. That worked out well too. You sit here moanin about how everyone you meet in the Otherword tries to fuck you over. Why should these guys be any different?”
“They seem to know these other spiritual dimensions better. If there's something there that will give us an advantage they should know. You're the only one talking about revolution. The Otherworld may need to change but I'm not interested. You can all go hang so far as I'm concerned. I'll do the minimum to keep the Powers That Be off my back. I'll explore these other spaces because I'm interested.”
Corbie turns his back to me. “You know, I
don't know when you lost your balls. Maybe your wife has them in a jar or somethin. When you gonna start standin up for yourself? Are you not fuckin mad at all this?”
“I'm mad as Hell, but I'm not a revolutionary. I'm not much of a shaman. If I could I'd have this whole thing go away.”
“And what? Go back to a mortgage, livin in a semi-detached in suburbia. You know that isn't your life. It never has been. Grasp the nettle, accept the chilli. Grow a new set of balls, or a backbone or something.”
I laugh hard. “You're so full of shit yourself. Ok, sure, I know I can't go back to my old life. Doesn't mean I've not been programmed to desire that. It was in my grasp. But I don't want to join a different system of oppression either.”
It's Corbie's turn to laugh. “Well, Che, that sounds like revolutionary talk to me.”
“Fuck off.” He does have a point though. I'm all mouth and no trousers.
“Stop denyin it, man. The path to inner peace is the one of least resistance.”
“We'd meet a lot of resistance if we ran a guerrilla war in the Otherworld. Besides my inner peace is easily met by sitting on my ass doing nothing.”
“Jeez, you're hard work. You wanna be a shaman your way? Give it a go. That may be revolution enough. Go talk to Midori, she liked you. I'm sure you could come to some kind of understandin.”
I hear the insinuation and don't rise to the bait. Would a relationship with a spirit be easier than one in the Living World? I doubt there'd be a huge difference. Being a shaman would still complicate matters. I see now just how stuck in the middle this role is. I'm not part of either community. I'm a champion for both.
I leave it til later in the morning before I call Rachael. She still sounds sleepy. “Sorry for calling you so soon.”
“That's okay. I needed to get up.”
“I wanted to see if you were free this evening. I wasn't on good form last night. I wanted to leave work at the office but dragged it in with me anyway. I should have talked to you about.”
“I would, but I have work to do myself. There's a pile of marking I need to do for tomorrow. I'll speak to you later in the week.”
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