by John Watt
The phone on the receptionist’s desk rings once, then stops, and she turns towards Thomas.
‘Dr Macpherson is ready for you now.’ She points to the door on the far side of the room.
He stands and crosses the room, very conscious of his legs. They seem to have impulses of their own, making jerky movements that are not fully under his control. He pushes the door open and steps stiffly into the next room.
A man with greying sandy hair looks up from a desk.
‘Mr Riordan. Thomas Riordan, I understand. Shut the door, if you don’t mind, and take a seat in this chair. And please excuse me for a minute or two while I finish a couple of notes.’
He goes back to jotting in a large notebook.
Thomas lowers himself cautiously into the chair. It’s a bulky, low-seated, leather-covered piece of furniture, apparently designed without regard to the shape of the human body. He hesitates between sinking back out of control and perching upright on the edge, before finally choosing to perch.
He rubs the palms of his hands together nervously, feeling acutely aware of how conspicuously his knees are jutting up and out in front of him. He tries stretching his legs out straight with his heels on the floor. Now his substantial black shoes are standing up, toes pointing to the ceiling. This feels even clumsier. He pulls his feet back. The inconvenient knees jut up again.
Macpherson continues to write, and Thomas risks a quick direct look. Sees a middle-aged face, lean, and lined around the mouth and eyes, the greying hair cut fairly short. He thinks about the voice, the little that he heard of it. Perhaps there was a touch of Scots in the accent. The desk is bare except for the notebook in which its owner is still writing. What would he be writing about? About Thomas himself? And if so, what?
A window in the wall behind the desk looks out to an unkempt garden, overgrown shrubs merging together into a tangled dark-green barrier along the fence line.
Three walls of the room are lined with shelves almost to the ceiling, crammed with books. Substantial, serious books, most of them. He turns to focus on the shelf nearest to him. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature. Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan. The names had been mentioned in lectures at the seminary. Philosophers, so-called. Sceptics, atheists, scoffers at religion. Dangerous authors. Their books are to be avoided. Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics, another of the same. He has not read these books. Neither, he thought, had the lecturer who warned the students against them.
He turns back. The older man’s eyes are on him. He’s been watched—for how long? Perhaps the note-jotting was a screen from behind which he’d been watched for most of the time.
‘Are you interested in philosophy, Mr Riordan? You have some of my favourites here. David Hume, now, a great thinker. An Edinburgh man, I believe, as I am myself, originally. Do you know his work?’ His speech is controlled, tidy, like his desk.
Thomas hesitates, uncertain how much to admit.
‘Not … not in much detail.’
‘Ah, well. A pity. But we’re not here to talk about philosophy. We should make a start. And you should start by telling me how I might be able to help you.’
Thomas has been rehearsing answers to this inevitable question for days, but now he stumbles over words, shies away from any real answer.
‘I’m not … I thought that the archbishop had probably … or perhaps the archbishop’s secretary–—’
‘Yes, yes. One of those gentlemen has been in touch. The second, if I remember rightly. And no doubt one of them will pay my fee in due course. It’s a matter of some importance to us Scotsmen.’
He smiles, a slight, wry smile. For a moment his expression is lighter, warmer.
‘But my professional business is with you. I need to hear from you. What is it that you and I are setting out to achieve? What is the knot that needs to be unravelled?’
Thomas rubs his hands together between his knees, immediately aware of what an embarrassing habit this is, and of how difficult his knees are.
‘It’s to do with my memory. I mean my memories.’
Macpherson leans back in his chair, looking at the wall somewhere above the younger man’s head. His silence calls for more.
‘I seem to have lost some of them. Of my memories. Lost a few days of my life. I have no idea what I was doing over a few days.’
‘Yes. And these few days. When were they?’
‘Only … not long ago. Less than three months. The beginning of December. It’s so …’
Thomas’s answer dries up for a moment. He looks away from the older man’s face thinking, he must be well aware of the facts. The whole State is well aware of them. The story was all over the newspapers, emerging in fragments day by day through a couple of weeks until it was overtaken by the close approach of Christmas. A small passenger plane on a regular flight between Perth and Albany on the south coast, with a pilot and eight passengers on board, failed to arrive at its destination or to be seen or heard over several small towns along its usual route. The assumption was that it had strayed disastrously off course and disappeared, possibly into the ocean.
Then a few days later a single survivor walked into Windy Harbour, a tiny cluster of fishing shacks far to the west of the proper course: a young man, twenty-three years old, a student priest on the verge of ordination, on his way to a short placement as parish assistant in Albany. He is miraculously unhurt except for sunburn and blistered feet, neither of them the sort of injury associated with plane crashes.
Searchers took another two days to locate the crash site in isolated forest country near the coast—what was left of the plane, and what was left of its other occupants.
But one was unaccounted for: a young woman. Trackers found evidence that she too had survived the crash without major injury. Footprints around the site suggested that she was walking with a limp, but without really serious difficulty. Two sets of prints led from the area to the coast a couple of miles away. There were traces of the same tracks heading west along the coast, though tracking was difficult across sandy beaches, where most marks were washed out daily by waves and tide, alternating with bare rocky headlands.
These few facts were clear and widely known. Two people had survived the crash and started on the trek to safety. And only one, the young student priest, had arrived at the cluster of fishing shacks that was the only place of human habitation along a hundred miles of wild coast. And that one survivor could say nothing about what had happened to the other. Or would say nothing; some reporting had been ambiguous, sceptical.
Macpherson’s questions and silences press Thomas to recount all of this. Then he leans forward, elbows on the desk.
‘Well, then. That is what we know. More or less. What we don’t know, because of this gap in your memories, is what happened between the crash and your arriving at Windy Harbour. And my task, as I understand it, is to help you to recover those memories, if possible. Is that your understanding of the situation?’
Thomas nods, looking away.
‘There’s one point I’d like you to clarify for me. I don’t fully understand why it is so important for you to recover the memories. No doubt I’ve done numerous things myself that I don’t remember. But I don’t consult analysts to get all my memories back. I’m probably better off for forgetting some of them.’
He smiles briefly, the same wry smile, and sits back in his chair.
Thomas, perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair, looks at the floor.
‘I’ve been studying for ordination. I was … I mean I am to be ordained a priest. Quite soon.’
‘So I gathered. A Roman Catholic priest.’
The young man considers the word Roman which is almost never used among Catholics about themselves. It’s seen as verging on an insult. After all, what other sorts of Catholics are there? Should he take offence? Was it meant to be provocative, perhaps only slightly? Probably not. He picks up the thread of his explanation.
‘The archbishop wanted things clarified … Before it would be
appropriate to, or possible to—–’
‘Things clarified. I take it he meant what happened during the period that is missing from your memory. You will not be ordained until that is established. Is this the situation?’
Thomas nods.
‘I surmised that much already. But I’m still not sure I fully understand why this is such an issue. Sending you to me—it seems a fairly extreme step with my not sharing your religious persuasion. Or any other persuasion either. In fact I don’t think there’s anyone in the state who shares both my profession and your religion. I wonder how that could be explained. But that’s beside the point. Can you help me to a better understanding of why it is so important to recover these memories?’
Thomas rubs his hands together. How to explain this adequately, to a non-Catholic? Even a professed non-believer of any sort. He can’t remember meeting anyone before who admitted to having no religion. He wonders how it is possible for anyone to make this admission so calmly. Casually. He looks at the floor under Macpherson’s desk, fumbling for the right words.
‘A Catholic priest. We are expected to be models of …’
He leaves the sentence hanging, unable to summon up an ending for it that will not create more problems. An image drifts up of Father Phelan, the rector, delivering his last homily to the final-year students at the seminary not long before the disaster. Fragments that stood out for him then come back to him now. You are to be in the world, but not of the world. We are all born sinners; it is the ordinary human condition. But a young man worthy of the priesthood must strive to rise above the ordinary human condition. And must, at least to some very slight degree, succeed in rising above it. A priest who is a known sinner brings the whole of God’s Church into disrepute. Saintliness. The struggle towards saintliness. It is the task you are called to. As I have been. No doubt none of us will achieve even a remote approach to it, but we must always strive, though always falling far short.
The rector had stood facing the group for a good half minute in silence before leaving the lectern. Scanning them, his eyes pale behind their rimless glasses. Looking for something, as it seemed to Thomas; searching their faces, and whatever feelings or desires might hide behind them. The memory of those probing eyes brings back the familiar sense of general guilt, of unworthiness, the anxiety about having his short-comings exposed. His sins.
Thomas struggles for words, stumbles through the embarrassment of trying to make at least a little of this intelligible to an outsider. The word sin inevitably finds a place in his attempt, but he wonders how it will be understood.
After several minutes Macpherson cuts in.
‘I think I am just beginning to see one side of the point a little more clearly. At least as well as I am likely to, from my perspective. Your archbishop is anxious to be sure that there is no chance of a—what should I say—an embarrassing revelation. He will not employ you if there is a danger of something coming out of this plane crash story that could damage the good name of his organisation.’
Thomas listens in silence, feeling a prickly discomfort at this way of identifying the problem. How could anyone talk so flatly about his being employed, as if a priestly vocation was on the same level as becoming a dentist or a plumber? How is it possible to think of God’s Church as just another organisation, like a business? This is alien thinking. Disturbing.
His thoughts are interrupted.
‘But that is looking at the situation only from the point of view of your archbishop, as if the main aim is to help him make a management decision. My professional focus must be on you, not on anyone else. What outcome can we expect from our consultations for you? I’m not asking you to answer, I’m just raising the question. What is the issue for you? I am strongly inclined to think that there is one. I expect it will emerge gradually. And it might, I suspect, look rather different from your archbishop’s issue.
‘Another thing. You mentioned sin a few moments ago. I must tell you that the word is not part of my vocabulary. My professional vocabulary, I mean. You need to understand my position, as I need to understand yours.’
Macpherson’s focus shifts away to the bookshelves near Thomas’s chair. He scans a shelf, his expression suddenly lighting up.
‘Yes! There it is.’ He leaps up with surprising vigour, darts across to the shelves, picks out a book, begins leafing through the pages. ‘Another of my favourites: Spinoza. A wonderful philosopher. Have you read him?’
Thomas vacillates, replying cautiously, ‘Only a little.’ Then worries: does that amount to a lie, a sin, then? Not a mortal sin. Perhaps a venial sin. Probably. Certainly.
Macpherson thrusts the open book into his hands.
‘Here it is. A marvellous passage. Just look at it.’ He points to a short section, heavily underlined. The younger man focuses, realises with surprise that the book is in Latin. ‘You read Latin, of course. I’m aware that it’s the official language of your church. How would you translate that?’
Thomas is caught off balance. He is familiar with the Latin formulae of the liturgy, but this is something else altogether. He makes a tentative beginning.
‘I have tried—–’
The older man cuts in with a spontaneity and enthusiasm that he has not shown before. ‘ Sedule. How would you put that into English? Sedulously won’t do. What about earnestly? Or conscientiously?’
Thomas goes on, secretly glad of the prompt. ‘I have tried conscientiously not to laugh, or to weep, or to lay blame, but to understand.’
‘Just so. Isn’t that wonderful? It should be the official motto of the psychoanalytic profession. And Spinoza our patron saint. If it ever became possible for a non-religious Jew to qualify as a saint. I suspect that he might not be an eligible candidate at present.’
Thomas catches a fleeting glimpse of the same slight smile.
‘We are not in the business of blaming people, you see. So no mention of sin, as I said before. No laughing at what people do, or weeping over it. Just an effort to understand how people think and act. And why. And in particular to help them understand for themselves. So …’
Macpherson reclaims the book and replaces it on the shelf, returns to his chair, sits back, silent for a moment.
‘I would expect to be able to do something about your problem. Probably. Given a little time. This immediate problem, at least.’ He leans forward, bringing the fingertips of his hands together, his elbows resting on the desk in front of him. ‘I imagine that your training has introduced you to some of the ideas of Freud, Sigmund Freud. Another non-religious Jew, as it happens.’
Thomas can’t summon up a response. Freud. Another of the dangerous thinkers they were warned against at the seminary. Sceptic. Atheist. Materialist. He looks away from the doctor’s face.
‘No? Another pity. But it doesn’t matter for our purposes. I work with the idea that there is a great deal in our minds that we’re not aware of. We have thoughts, memories, that have been pushed out of consciousness. Back around a corner, so to speak, out of sight, out of mind. It’s usually because they were shocking, or frightening. We can’t comfortably think about them. So they’re turned off. But they’re still there, somewhere. And we can get them back into consciousness, if we can find the right switch to turn them on again. That’s a way of putting it.
‘I would assume, you see, that your lost memories are like that. Something happened that was extremely upsetting, and the memories around it have been pushed into the unconscious part of your mind. But people recover repressed memories much older than yours. Years. Even decades. Yours can be recovered. Almost certainly. If it is important to you to recover them.’
Thomas, listening, suddenly becomes aware of how tense his shoulders are and how tightly his fists are clenched. He goes back over Macpherson’s last few words, wondering whether there was a trace of a suggestion that he might be hiding something deliberately.
‘It’s not that … I really can’t remember. I try, all the time. But nothing comes.’
> ‘No, no. You misunderstand. Most people do at first. I understand. You genuinely can’t remember. Repression of memories isn’t deliberate. It just happens. Remember this. No blame, no sin. These are not useful ideas.’
Macpherson sits back in his chair. ‘Well, then. How are we going to proceed?’ He is silent for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. He leans forward, his focus shifting down to Thomas’s face.
‘Tell me. When you arrived at that little fishing place … what’s it called?
‘Windy Harbour.’
‘A splendid name, isn’t it? What clothes were you wearing then? And were you carrying anything with you?’
‘What clothes? I was wearing trousers and a shirt like these. But no jacket, or collar. And no shoes. And …’ He falters, avoiding the older man’s eyes. Remembering reports of the extended search by police and others along the coast. Various items of men’s clothing found at locations east of Windy Harbour. Items of women’s clothing also. The reports didn’t specify what items of women’s clothing they were. Speculation bloomed. But nothing emerged from the search except speculation. Thomas does not want to think about what some people might have imagined. Especially non-Catholics. There is a half-minute of silence.
‘Ah, well. Apart from clothes. Were you carrying anything?’
Thomas seizes on the end of the difficult silence. ‘Yes. A haversack, a rucksack. One of those hikers’ rucksacks.’
‘And inside it? What was inside?’
‘Water bottles, some biscuits, a few nuts. That sort of thing.’
‘I see. Just what you needed for a few days’ trek along the coast. How did you come to have these things? Were they yours?’
Thomas shakes his head. ‘Not mine, no. I only know what I read in the papers. Later. And they talked to me—the police, I mean. Those things belonged to another passenger. He died in the crash. But how I came to be carrying them, I can’t remember anything about that.’
‘So. Was there anything else? Especially anything that belonged to you. Anything personal.’