Both were academics, Abraham an accountant, Rachel a chemist. There was a framed photograph now on display in the room. This was one of the few of her possessions to survive her own brutal regime of cleansing. A photograph taken on a beach somewhere in 1948 showed an incredibly beautiful Rachel, with a very sporty and darkly handsome Abraham. The couple that found each other at that hospital camp in the damp woodlands of Poland would not even recognise the healthy couple on the photograph taken on the beach at Broadstairs. When they first met they were grotesques who recognised qualities in each other, some survival instinct, similar wounds, something?
Rachel now well into her stride suggested there may be another bottle in the cupboard after this one was finished. She moved deeper into their stories, first Abraham’s tortures, much later in fact the next day, her own. She wanted me to know the truth of their lives during that terrible time. She knew I didn’t know what had tortured her Bobby, and wanted to explain why nothing could happen in a safe northern industrial town that would be half as bad as their lives in those rancid camps? And they’d survived!
“If I could tell nobody of the enormous horrors, then Bobby could hold his small story too. This is what Abraham told me.” Rachel decided to tell me everything.
“I want it outside of my community into a world where people communicate with others and don’t hold dark secrets festering in their hearts. A world of people knowing the truth might remember and not go down the same roads again.” This statement came from Rachel, and I hope that I’ve remembered all the history to pass it on.
The stories she told me during our long two days of conversations formed what I was now going to use to remind myself why people wanted to go on, people in far worse situations than me, people who didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have a choice, but I wasn’t fighting I was drifting. One way or the other, the time to make a stand was coming. Life was in the balance. I was drowsy, and of course I fell asleep.
I was transported into that wondrous dimension, so incredible. Why did I want to put a stop to all this?
This time there was no railway station… things were moving on!
Chapter 14 – Going to a better place, away from right here right now.
The river in front of me on that hot summer’s day was a slow moving sheet of dark glass reflecting the sky with its few clouds. I was shaded by the willow trees overhanging a small wooden jetty. This peaceful idyll was a hidden treasure secreted away from the busy high street by a row of Georgian buildings. One of them turned out to be a quaint pub with a beer garden. This beautiful old building had a long back garden ending at the tranquil jetty next to the river where I was fortunate enough to be sitting at peace.
I was holding a partly drunk pint of the most delicious beer I’d ever tasted in my life. It had an intoxicating aroma, beautiful taste, silky smooth, and just the alcohol level I imagined. This universe was the most delightful place. I could even feel tiny creatures walking in the grass several inches away from my hands such was the sensitive connection I had with all things in this other world. I was sitting on a step with my bare feet on a jetty overlooking a perfect summer river.
A shadow from behind alerted me to a presence. It was the shadow of a schoolgirl with a briefcase and a smile from Heaven. Jennifer had arrived. She sat next to me holding a small glass of lager which surprised me because we always build images of people in our own truth. She leaned against me in an affectionate way arousing warm sensations deep in the fibres of my being. She placed the briefcase on the jetty and released it from her grasp. She was free from this permanent attachment for the first time since I‘d encountered her. For some reason I imagined she never loosened a grip on it, also I imagined she didn’t drink.
When she released her grasp on the damn thing there was an air of the forthcoming. It was not dissimilar from a market trader setting out a stall of mysterious goods. I wondered what could possibly be in the damned thing. She leaned across and kissed me softly on the cheek. Next her lips very slowly sought mine, and then I experienced the wonderful soft sensuality of her kiss. This was starting to become much more passionate than anything before, and I was drowning in sensations. There was a noise, or was it a vibration coming from some mysterious place I couldn’t locate. I was scanning around to see what was causing the sound. Jennifer had stopped kissing me and was pointing along the jetty. This strange sensation of noise emanated from inside the battered briefcase.
“Paul, I think it’s time for your first history lesson,” Jennifer said, and smiled her brightest smile.
I didn’t like my intimate moment being spoilt by a briefcase, or whatever was making the noise inside it. She leaned across, picked it up and placed it between us. I was curious about the contents of this important object. She flicked the catch and pulled it open. What I’d expected to see were books and the paraphernalia of education, but instead the case held absolutely nothing! I couldn’t believe after all the build up it was empty. Something told me I should look further, so I stared into it for quite some time, discovering nothing. Full of puzzlement I looked up at Jennifer, a question on my lips.
“What am I supposed to see in there?”
“Look harder and you will see what could be the road to truth” Jennifer replied. All very mysterious I thought. So I looked again, this time much harder, and it remained a black empty space. No, something was different this time. I was making my first big discovery about this universe. I was not looking down into blackness. I was standing in a black auditorium. Whether it was circular or square I do not know, it wasn’t the blackness of a pit or an unlit room painted in the blackest of paints. No it was a different black with a tantalising non-description of its limits. Oddness abounded. Dark as it was, the space held a feeling of illumination. The source of this became a shock as I looked upwards.
To my astonished surprise the sky was still above me, the same sky as by the river. I was standing in the same place though obviously much smaller, or was I the same and the area around me much larger? I don’t know but I was in the briefcase. The room was probably the size of the large church and I was starting to wonder how I’d get out, or was I trapped down here? Looking up again, there above me was Jennifer smiling into the case. I was just wondering if she was several times bigger than me, or twice several times bigger than me, when a voice to my right shocked me.
“You must be Paul? You’ve come here to access memories.” All very modern I thought. Especially as I was wearing tweed, and even with mobile phones the impression of this place was of a much older society. In terms of our universe we would be somewhere in the 1950s. Access memories were from another time, a universe apart.
What stood in front of me was a pixie. I think it was a pixie, I’m not too sure about this, never having seen a pixie in my life, but this wondrous creature in front of me was definitely a pixie. She was divine with the face of a pixie. You just know these things. She wasn’t tiny which came as a definite surprise to me.
“I’m Hysandrabopel, you’re access code.”
“Can I just call you pixie? You don’t look like an access code to me,” I said.
“No, I’m not actually an access code, and I’m definitely not a pixie! I’m a real Lylybel, and I have your memories with me.”
“Memories of what, and why do I need to access them?” I asked.
“In a past life you lost your mind, all very careless, I’m here to help you find it. No more questions on with the show!”
She held out one delicate little hand holding a tubular silver cup. In her other hand she held what looked like a strange silver key. She was holding this by the working end with the loop up in the air. I was quite confused by this strange arcane paraphernalia.
“Are you saying you are holding my memories, and you do not remember them yourself?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want all your horrible memories or anybody else’s I educate about their history. No, I only have happy memories of my life as a Lylybel, and all the ancient marvellou
s traditions such as Alssnurgwodging and the like, but the like is more fun,” she said with a giggle.
“Can I call you pixie?” I asked Hysandrabopel. I couldn’t possibly remember her name or pronounce it as she’d done with a hiss and a rolled P. Also, though, she didn’t know it. She was a pixie!
“If you’re such a fool you can’t pronounce things in Lylybel speak. I suppose you’ll have to call me a silly name!” she said, frowning and smiling at the same time.
“Go on then, pixie, show me how it works,” I said, boldness bursting forwards. At least it might get me out of this black hole though there was no fear of entrapment at the time.
What followed was not what I expected. She took the key, which wasn’t a key after all, and placed it ring end first into the small silver tube she was holding. On closer inspection everything about the key, this silver vessel, was incredible in its ornate design, very arcane, and by some unknown instinct I knew it was incredibly old. It could have been as old as mankind holding all memories from day one. She removed the key from the liquid, placed it in front of her mouth, pursed her lips in the manner of a film starlet at a photo shoot, and blew very softly for about ten seconds.
Bubbles, bubbles, more bubbles were produced by this delicate breeze. They were all individual bubbles, not sticking together, just dozens of beautiful glistening colourful baubles that floated around my head like orbiting planets. None of these orbiting entities seemed to burst of their own volition. On closer inspection some of the bubbles were opaque and cloudy, others delightfully translucent, glistening, tempting the finger to probe forward, thrusting to burst.
“Pick one, pick one, pick one, go on pick one, then burst it, you’ll see, you’ll get the hang of this. It’s the most wonderful thing, easy history, very easy history. Memories especially constructed for the wilfully forgetful.”
I hadn’t burst bubbles blown in this fashion since I was a child. It all seemed rather silly, and I don’t know what it was going to achieve. I burst a big shiny one right in front of my face.
I was riding my bicycle on a country road in the sunshine, and it was 1968, June 16th, a Sunday. I was with a cycling group of eight people, one boy my age, all the others much older cyclists from the club. I knew what was going to follow the very next pedal stroke or the one after that. I realised in that instant the bubbles contained more than memories, they contained re-enactments. I was speaking to the boy next to me, Graham he was called. We were talking complete nonsense about girls, about what we would like to do to them, about what Cynthia so-and-so at school would allow you to touch. It was the conversation of teenage boys wanting to be far more sophisticated and worldly than they pretended to be, or in fact would ever become.
The strange thing about this past vision was if I was going to fall off in two miles I was going to fall off. It wasn’t a matter of changing things, it was a matter of being there 100% with no control whatsoever, like living in a video rerun of your life. You can see all the mistakes and feel all the sensation and pain. Worst of all you can do absolutely nothing about it. You are nothing more than a passenger watching life as it was when you were full of joy riding a bike in 1968. So I had to lay back in real time, enjoy the day, see how far it went, and the worrying thought was, Am I back here forever? Is my fate to relive the whole of my life from this point, again?
The ride was on a spectacular and rare beautiful English summer’s day with quiet roads, no punctures, no tiredness, just a mini epic in the history of cycling. A day when perhaps some of the older men worried about work tomorrow, about their wife’s health, about the finances, but a day on which young boys were racing along, wind in their hair, sun on their skin, a perfect day. I could feel… everything.
I remember the very day with great fondness. It was a day when we stopped on the riverbank, some of us swimming in a slow-moving river, others just lying in the sun taking in the rays and forgetting about the harder things in their lives. I experienced every second of it missing nothing. Another memory was that after we had dried off and eaten our sandwiches, we dozed in the sunshine. I’d been living this old memory for about an hour at least. I could feel the grass tickling my naked back as I laid there in the sun getting warm, and then I fell asleep.
I was woken from my sleep by a kiss on my lips. This kiss was much more applied than previous ones. I don’t mean that in a technical sense like applying paint, I just mean at that moment it seemed to have a hidden passion I’d never noticed before. I was thinking this is strange being woken on my cycle ride by a kiss. There were no girls in the cycling club. It was one of the older men playing a terrible prank on me, an embarrassing prank that would have me blushing and squirming for hours, I remember it well.
I opened my eyes on that riverbank and looked at a vision of glossy sunlit hair, the most striking thing being the vividness of the colours highlighted by the sunshine. I drew back and there was Jennifer, smiling. I think she knew the point she’d kissed me. She laughed, and smiled simply the most captivating smile I’d ever seen. I could also hear laughter from inside the briefcase. Jennifer leaned across and closed it.
“That’s how a history lessons work around here. You pick a bubble and pop it. It’s then you witness your past actions,” Jennifer said.
“How do I find the right bubbles to pop?” I asked.
“It’s easy. You just learn to find the right one among the thousands. You’ll catch on. It’s quite interesting when you find how to work the system,” she replied.
“Are you not going to tell me how to search or going to help in any way? No hints to direct me?” I responded.
“No, never!” Only two words, I was to find my own way. When she said never it meant never, or did it?
After a few minutes chatting I walked up a pub garden to fetch more beers for me, and the person who was starting to become too important, enticing me to stay in what was not my universe. I looked back at Jennifer as I marched towards the bar. To my delight she was looking over her shoulder away from the river, and directly at me. A beer garden table was between me and the pub, I fell over it. It really hurt. I was in agony having winded myself and coughing a terrible cough. This total realism thing had its beautiful moments and until that incident I didn’t realise it had any bad moments at all.
I was convinced I’d found a place where pain would never visit, and up to that point I was correct in my assumption. It bodes ill to assume too much.
I awoke in a world where pain was every day. I was coughing, and my arm hurt where I’d dragged at the tubes held by probing needles into my battered veins. I was in strange bed in a strange room in a hospital having more therapy.
It was a nightmare and I was awake… if only I could wake up from this!
Chapter 15 – Bloody red son of 1973.
My strange awakening in 1973 was becoming more than a nightmare scenario. I knew nothing but who would believe me? John Smith, for whatever his reason, failed to offer me a lift. He was keeping an eye on me, but not going to be my “bloody chauffeur” as I was informed. How could I find out what I’d been doing in the last two years and put it all together in time to save my sorry skin from these dangerous people?
I learnt little or next to nothing from my visit to Harry the Pocket’s house. I’d learned I was a sex-crazed lunatic who was having too much of a good time with a violent gangster’s wife! Sorry, he’s a “businessman”. What didn’t I know? Too much, that’s what I didn’t know! Why do they call Harry, Harry the pocket? Worst of all, what in God’s name had I done with the stuff, whatever it looked like? And the final question in a long list of unknowns I was asking myself was where in hell’s name is my other house?
I had no choice but to visit my sister Jane once again to find out if she had any clues about this other house. Jane hadn’t mentioned it when I first asked if she had keys to my place though she was incredibly busy with a rather sorry sick chinchilla. The pressure was on at the veterinarians and she may have forgotten to mention I owned another hou
se. Unlikely I know, but then I didn’t know how good or bad my relationship with Jane was. Perhaps our relationship was incredibly fragile and she was doing something to help, but as little as possible. The bunch of keys for the flat had twice the number of keys I needed, and this I surmised meant I already possessed the keys for my other place but not the location.
If you remember 1973, taxi companies were thin on the ground. Telephones were equally spread out and often vandalised. The bus service on Sunday was pathetic. I tried a telephone box it was broken, I tried another and finally got through to one of the only two taxi firms in town. All booked up, it was a Sunday! There was a scabby mini cab firm. I rang four times, no one answered.
More walking was now the necessary evil, and my beautiful shoes made my feet sore. It was something I hadn’t noticed at first. My clothes were all very well made, all cut with incredible style, and all my shoes appeared to be handmade of the finest quality. I was so stunned by my out of phase appearance in 1973 that what I was wearing other than the wrong underpants seemed of little concern. Looking round my flat I’d noticed that all my shoes were high quality with only one pair differing substantially. For some reason I owned a pair of very robust industrial looking brogues. These, though high quality, looked as if they were meant for the management visiting the factory floor. Brogues with built in steel toe caps. This in itself was a worry!
The shoes fitted like a glove, but shiny leather soles were definitely not for walking in. I had precious moments of time I didn’t want to waste, stupidly thin shoes, and too much walking to do. I did have a wallet, however, which contained a substantial amount of money, in fact more money than most people earned in a month.
Acid Bubbles Page 12