Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1

by Sonia Paige

  Ren shook her head. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘This is all relevant, you see, to what happened.’ Anthea fished in her handbag for a scrumpled piece of tissue and blew her nose. ‘The rooms where visitors sleep are converted horse boxes, from the days before cars. When Crete was a malaria-ridden backward province under Turkish rule. The walls of the rooms are painted white, it’s rather Spartan with a stone floor, iron beds and a cylinder gas heater. It can be cold there in winter. Toilets are across the courtyard. You eat in a big common room in the main building.

  ‘On our first night we found that the meals were an uncomfortable affair. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement to denigrate as many other archaeologists as possible before dessert. We were sitting eating quiche when a PhD student asked a professor if he had found any Middle Minoan 1a pottery at his site in East Crete.

  ‘The professor smirked. “Smithson thinks there is – but that’s not necessarily anything to go by.”

  ‘Snide laughter at that. Any kind of loyalty got cut down with a knife. An American woman archaeologist with a bun tried putting in a word, “Smithson puts forward evidence for his dating scheme, doesn’t he…”, but the excavator made short shrift of her: “It depends what you think passes for evidence. Send the potatoes down, would you?”

  ‘More mirthless laughter.

  ‘Reputations got bitten on and chewed up. Wine flowed freely for the senior people, and the rest of us had to try to grab a little as the bottle, and the conversation, swept past. Morton watched in silence and I could tell from the sparkle in his eye that he found it all funny.

  ‘After two evenings of this, we decided to get a bus into Heraklion for a moussaka on our own at a restaurant. It was in that restaurant after the main course that we made a big mistake.

  ‘Morton had the bright idea of us sharing a slice of hash cake Freddie passed on to him before we left London. Morton had the cake with him in his pocket, folded in silver paper. He unwrapped it on the starched white restaurant tablecloth, and we nibbled it discreetly without anyone noticing.’

  Anthea stopped. ‘I’m assuming you’re OK with me talking about illegal substances. This is all confidential, yes?’

  Ren nodded, ‘Of course.’

  Anthea continued: ‘So, the problem with the hash cake was, we didn’t realize how strong it was. We ate it and sat looking out of the window at the stylish Cretans strolling up and down in the evening lights of the town centre, on the pedestrian precinct around the lion fountain. Then, while we were still in the restaurant, the edges of the world started to blur. As we walked through the dark to the bus stop, things were slipping and sliding around me. I wondered if I could stay upright long enough to get back to the hostel.’

  Anthea stopped and looked down at her feet. ‘Telling you this, I imagine you might be shocked.’

  Ren thought for a moment. ‘It’s not my job to be judgmental. My job is to listen to your experience. To help you process it and find a place where it can sit as comfortably as possible inside you.’

  Anthea said: ‘This experience I’m telling you does not sit comfortably inside. Nor did that hash cake.

  ‘By the time we got off the bus I felt really ill.

  ‘As we stumbled across the gravel of the hostel courtyard, I was praying we wouldn’t meet any of the other archaeologists. We didn’t. Perhaps they had turned in already. Or maybe they were over in the common room doing jigsaw puzzles and exchanging critical comments about absent friends. In the whitewashed outdoor toilet the glare from the bare bulb shocked me. I staggered back across the courtyard to our room.

  ‘By the time I got in through the door I could barely stand. The room was cold. The two iron beds stood there separate. We had planned to put them together and make it up as one double bed. That task was beyond me now. My arms were heavy, my brain wouldn’t work. Then teeth to clean. These were all insuperable obstacles. Inanimate objects seemed to be moving in unusual ways. My body was pulling me irresistibly towards the earth. My stomach felt like the bilge of some old ship in a thunderstorm.

  ‘I can’t remember if I told you that Morton’s into survival training. Lighting fires without matches, building tree houses, picking berries, finding direction by the sun, that sort of stuff. Anyway, that evening he rose to the occasion. He was moving strangely too, but he put toothpaste on a toothbrush and put it in my hand. “I can’t face putting the beds together,” he said, “Let’s just share the one.” In slow motion, I found my nightie in my rucksack. Like a child doing it step by step for the first time, I took off my clothes. Each button took time. The tiles of the stone floor were cold. My nightie was a labyrinth. I fell onto the bed and with a last effort I tugged the sheet and woollen blanket out from underneath me and pulled them on top. I had to squash up against Morton who was already there. He’s thin, but as you can see I’m not.

  ‘He said “Are you all right?”

  ‘I said “I don’t think so. Are you?”

  ‘He said “I’m going to switch the light off.” I saw a vision of white flesh staggering towards the light switch, then darkness. I felt his warmth rolling in to the bed. I clung to the mattress so as not to slide off.

  ‘He said, “Try to sleep. You’ll feel better.”

  ‘I lay and stared into the darkness at the far end of the room. My muscles felt paralyzed, but inside me a thousand wires were twisting and crackling. Ten thoughts at once but I could not give words for any of them, like parallel lives racing blindly to their culmination.

  ‘High on the far wall, on the opposite side from the door, there was a horizontal rectangle of light. It must have been coming from the outside light in the courtyard. Shining through an oblong pane of glass above the door, which was behind me. As I stared at that rectangle of light, the world seemed to crack up around it. I seemed to remove from my present situation. Drawn into another where I didn’t want to go.

  ‘I told Morton I was scared.

  ‘“Don’t be daft,” said Morton. “What of?”

  ‘I couldn’t explain..

  ‘Then the retching started.

  ‘“Try to hold it in,” Morton said.

  ‘I couldn’t. And I couldn’t move to be sick somewhere else. My eyes were getting used to the darkness. On the floor I could see a little Greek rug, one of the room’s few luxuries. It was neatly placed next to my side of the bed. “I’m going to be sick on the rug and ruin it.”

  ‘“Hold on.” I felt Morton get out of bed again. I heard his voice from the sink. “Shit. There’s no bucket.” Then I saw his shadowy shape moving round to my side of the bed. He pulled the rug away and chucked it on the chair. “Throw up on the floor. We’ll clear it up in the morning.” I remember admiring the clarity of Morton’s thinking.

  ‘The first pool of vomit showed like a dark circle on the light stone tiles. Morton held me from behind. I wasn’t sure if he was being supportive or just making sure he didn’t fall out the other side. It was a narrow bed.

  ‘When the moisture cleared out of my eyes, I looked at the rectangle of light again. I tried to hold on to it, not to slip away. When I shut my eyes I seemed to enter something like a daydream, I had a feeling there was an angry crowd shouting at me.

  ‘Morton was muttering. “Who gave this cake to Freddie? What did they put in it? It’s not that hard to make a hash cake properly.”

  ‘I said, “A poisoned chalice.” The next vomit was on its way. “I’m going to cover the floor.”

  ‘Once that one was over I started shaking. Then I could see the rectangle. Then my body relaxed a bit and I started to sink… I shut my eyes. Again I could see people. They looked somehow familiar but they weren’t of now, the clothes were different. Maybe of a long time ago. I felt as if the history under the building was seeping up into me. It had come looking for me. Gradually a fear grew. I thought these people wanted to kill me. I struggled to open my eyes.

  ‘“Morton. Are you awake?”

  ‘“I’m not sure.”

 
‘Silence.

  ‘“Morton.”

  ‘“What?’

  ‘“When I shut my eyes, I keep seeing things.”

  ‘“What kind of things?’

  ‘“Weird. Something bad is going to happen.”

  ‘Then the retching started again. Now Morton was retching too. For one farcical moment we were both hanging out on either side of the bed, retching in unison. I don’t think he actually brought anything up. He’s got a stomach like a horse. But my flood of vomit seemed endless. I was afraid it would spread across to the doorway and seep out under the door into the courtyard. And all the archaeologists would see the mess inside me which had splurged out.

  ‘Morton was still troubled about the contents of the cake: “The quantities were wrong. This is like a full scale trip.”

  ‘I was wrestling with my own terrors. Why had this happened tonight? Why here? I had a feeling that this was the place of my death. That this was where I had died. At some time, long ago. When I shut my eyes I sank into that situation with the angry crowd. There was a tomb building ahead of me. I was being driven towards it. I was going to die again. I tried to pull myself out of that situation, to hang on to consciousness.

  ‘I said, “Morton. Don’t let me fall asleep.”

  ‘“Why not?”

  ‘“If I fall asleep I’ll die.”

  ‘“What is the matter with you?”

  ‘More retching. He hung on to me from behind, but I could feel his grip loosening as he started to doze. In the quietness after the vomit my body started to let go too. I fixed my eye on the rectangle of light, but the pull back towards that other place was too strong. I was being sucked down into the past. As I lost sight of the room, that other place became clearer, sharper. I could see the hostile crowd. Jeering, lining the path towards the round stone building. Their mouths were open, but I couldn’t smell their breath. They were speaking. I couldn’t understand the words but I knew what they were saying. They no longer believed. I stood for the old faith. Rebirth. The return of the dead to help the living. They rejected it: “You believe in rebirth. Prove it. Die! Die and return.”

  ‘And I had proved it. Here I was again, returned to the very place, now. Remembering. I had been drawn here. This night. To go through it again.

  ‘I was getting closer to the tomb. I would be walled in.

  ‘I managed to make a word. I threw it like a lifeline back to the twentieth century: “Morton!”

  ‘“Mmm?”

  ‘“Please keep me awake.”

  ‘“I can’t keep myself awake.”

  ‘“Please. If I shut my eyes I’ll die.”

  ‘The crowd were waiting to swallow me up. To repeat my death. An angry sunset lit the small tomb doorway. Beside it leant the huge slab of stone to seal it tight. Other heavy stones to pile against it. No way to get out. The sounds of the crowd were like a rush of water in my ears. To die sealed in alive. To hunger, to wait, to shrivel, to draw that last rasping breath. I believe, but I am afraid. Thousands of years later, I am still afraid.

  ‘With one last effort I forced my eyelids apart. I stared at the oblong of light.

  ‘“Morton.”

  ‘There must have been something in the desperation of my voice which finally stirred him. He was cuddling me from behind as I hung out over the side of the bed. He held me tighter and started talking quietly in my ear: “Stay with me. You mustn’t die. You’ve got so much to live for. Think of Bert. You can’t leave him. He needs you. I need you.” Perhaps he was only humouring me, but it worked. He wrapped his legs round my legs to stop me going anywhere. He stroked my belly button. “Stay with me.” His breath tickled my ear. Then he kissed me on the back of my neck. Somehow that broke the connection and the other world faded. That was the turning point.’

  ‘Where was it he kissed you?’ asked Ren.

  Anthea put her hand to her neck. ‘Here. This hollow at the bottom of the skull. I think it was the only place he could reach. It seemed to connect up with something inside me.’

  Ren nodded.

  ‘Why?’ asked Anthea. ‘Is that a special place?’

  ‘Can be,’ said Ren. ‘The medulla.’

  ‘The medulla? Is that the same place Crystal talked about?’

  Ren nodded again. ‘The same. Go on when you feel ready.’

  ‘After the next round of vomiting,’ Anthea said, ‘I managed to keep my eye on the wall. Look at the window of light, don’t look through. Hold it hard in your vision. The window, not what is on the other side. I want to stay here. I want my life now.

  ‘After a while Morton said, “I think it might be all right to sleep now.” We drifted into unconsciousness, perched half on top of each other in unease and discomfort, clinging together for warmth as the early hours turned colder and the thin grey blanket hardly seemed to cover us both.

  ‘We woke like shipwreck survivors on an unfamiliar beach. Beside a sea of vomit. He ribbed me something dreadful as we cleared it all up. We found a bucket in a shed in the courtyard and it all went down the toilet without any of the other archaeologists knowing. I still had a foul taste in my mouth, but we both had a shower. The bathrooms were in another outhouse. Morton drew a cartoon of a bed with a green face poking out on either side, with the caption “Biological deposit. Knossos. 1990.”

  ‘We moved a lot slower than usual as the drug wore off. But we had to keep going with the fieldwork. Morton decided that the gear in the cake had impurities and the cooking had turned the whole thing into a lethal cocktail. That day was the day I picked up the bones. With a migraine. We were on that long trek to visit a tomb and he entertained me with a falsetto replay of “Help me! Save me, Morton, I’m going to die! They’re coming to get me!” Then he did his voice in an unnaturally deep bass like a hero in a Western: “Never fear, dear, I am here. Life is sweet. With puke at your feet.”

  ‘But eventually he tired of it and he hasn’t mentioned it since.

  ‘Me, on the other hand, it stayed with me. Long after my stomach had got back to normal. And after we finished our field work and came back to England. It didn’t fit in with my rational view of things. It had made a gash in the world. Ever since then I’ve had the sense that something bad is stalking me.

  ‘It didn’t help bringing the bones back to London.

  ‘It was not long after that the dreams started. The same thing as at Knossos. A crowd of people shouting at me and making me go into a tomb. Then I would wake up and lie there shaking. Sometimes Morton would roll over and put his arm around me. That was the only thing that could get me back to sleep. The dreams got worse a couple of months ago. There would be other dreams. Falling from a height. Always ending in my death. Morton started teasing me again. For him it’s a joke. For me I feel fate closing in.’

  Anthea looked at Ren: ‘Is there time left for you to tell me what you think about all this? All I do is talk. Do you think I’m mad?’

  ‘No, Anthea, I don’t. Your experiences may be unusual, but that doesn’t mean they’re abnormal. With drugs in particular – like in this case at Knossos – there is a… a…,’ Ren screwed up her face searching for a word, ‘a transgression, a cracking, of the normal framework of perception. It is not easy to tell whether the extraordinary things witnessed through the cracks are your own fantasies, or those of other people, or whether they come from another source further afield.’ She paused. ‘But everything will have a meaning on some level.’

  Anthea had her eyes shut and looked as though she was counting to herself. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m just trying to take that in,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to forget it.’

  Then she opened her eyes suddenly. ‘I just remembered! I found a quote I wanted to read to you.’ She plunged a hand into one of her bags and after rummaging around pulled out a slip of paper. She read from it, ‘“Speech is of time, silence is of eternity. Bees will not work except in darkness; thought will not work except in silence.”’ She looked at Ren. ‘Do you think it would help me to sort the
se things out if I were a more silent, spiritual person?’

  Ren smiled at her. ‘Anthea, I believe most of us have to go through a hell of a lot of talking before we can get to a point of silence. We’re human beings: we breathe, suffer, love, squabble and talk. It’s not by denying these human experiences, but by honouring them, that we can blossom: it’s through our humanity that we can reach the spiritual.’

  Anthea looked at her wrist and saw she wasn’t wearing a watch. She dived into a different bag and pulled out paper hankies, purse, hairbrush, chocolate wrappers, scissors, Nivea, cheque book, a wadge of overdue book slips from the library, and eventually a small clock. She looked at it, ‘Four twenty-five, I’ve still got five minutes.’ Then she remembered the clock on the table. ‘That says four thirty. My clock is slow. No wonder I always feel that time is running out.’

  Thursday 20th December 4.35 pm

  Mandy’s hovering by the window staring out at the freezing drizzle that’s been feathering down all day, hour after long hour.

  I go to join her. ‘You OK?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head slowly.

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘And Dave. He ain’t visited. That winds me up. He usually comes.’

  We stand there in silence. There is no reason to say anything and no reason to move. No reason to breathe or not to breathe. We wait. I remember a Sylvia Plath poem: ‘The hands of the clock still knock without entering.’ I stand by the window looking out, and I am still waiting for that entrance.

  Then Mandy asks: ‘What about your bloke? He ain’t visited either. The mystery man.’

  ‘He’s not a mystery man. I’ve been with him ten years.’

  ‘He ain’t visited.’

  ‘I’m not expecting to see him again.’

  ‘There you go, giving up again.’

  A key turns in the lock and a nurse in blue uniform appears with a clipboard in her hand. Through the open door we can hear voices singing Stand by Me from the cells further down the corridor.

  The nurse consults her list. ‘Jenkins. Doctor wants to see you.’