by A J Waines
I returned to the seat beside him, again.
‘Let me show you.’ He rested his hand on the green file. ‘This is the “antidote”. The important file. I’ve spoken to memory experts, and a Professor Hune, in Illinois, thinks whoever did this had some kind of script – like the book you found, using very specific words and phrases guiding patients through the experience – the sounds, smells, visual images, the heat, being touched and so on.’
‘Why would anyone do this?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe it was research that went wrong.’
‘Maybe…’ I hesitated. ‘Hold on…I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I saw Professor Schneider with an EEG machine the other day.’
Leo drew back his chin. ‘I’m not sure why he would he need one…he’s a cardio specialist.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
We let it go for the time being. I knew we couldn’t spend time speculating on why this cruel procedure had been carried out, or by whom. Our priority was to work out how to reverse the effects.
‘Hune told me he’s worked with patients to encode memories in the brain by manipulating individual neurons.’
‘Really? That’s so scary.’
‘This isn’t hypnosis,’ he said, with an ironic chuckle. ‘It’s way beyond that. It’s memory implantation – it’s about neurons in the brain and the right drugs.’
‘Go on.’
‘According to experts, both false and genuine memories rely on the same brain mechanisms. Hune and another expert, Dr Clara Warner from Sidney, both used a technique known as optogenetics, which allows the fine control of individual brain cells in the hippocampus. Are you still with me?’
‘More or less.’
‘The process brings about a false association between what the patients have in their mind and what is actually happening to them.’
He went on to describe a procedure involving electrodes, transcranial magnetic stimulation and electrical scalp signatures. Most of it went straight over my head.
He tapped his notes with a pen. ‘All the experts I’ve spoken to agree this is how the process could have been implemented and if we can set it up correctly, there is a way we can reverse it.’
I swallowed with a loud gulp. ‘So, we can somehow isolate Con’s rogue memories and wipe them out?’
He put up his hand. ‘In theory. There are no guarantees and it’s complicated.’
‘You managed to find all this out?’
He nodded with resignation. ‘I have some very good friends and it’s been a useful distraction, you know, from my wife…’ He glanced over at her gentle smiling face in the photograph.
I’d almost forgotten.
I put my hand over his. ‘Thank you for doing this,’ I said earnestly. ‘I’d like to come to the funeral, if that would be okay.’
‘That would be good,’ he said simply.
He drew his finger halfway down one of the sheets. ‘This is how we could make it work.’
He took me through the stages in the process – how we’d have to get Con into a relaxed state, then administer a selective amnesia drug while Con focussed on the disturbing images in his mind with all his might.
‘The drug will act on the hippocampus in the brain and interrupt the way those particular memories were stored,’ he said.
‘And doing this to Con is going to be safe?’ I asked, gripping the edge of the desk. ‘It will only wipe out the distressing false memories?’
He frowned. ‘Well, before we get to that question, there is a problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve ordered the drug we need from America, tronocept, and it hasn’t arrived yet.’ He showed me a sheet at the front of the green file with the name of the drug, the exact dosage and the source in Seattle.
I let out a loud sigh. ‘And this is the only way the reversal will work?’
He looked at the floor and grimaced. ‘I checked with everyone I could get to speak to me. They all said the same thing. Without this exact compound at the correct dose, we could cause more harm than good. We need this particular drug.’ He sat back. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as it arrives.’
I thanked him profusely, much to his embarrassment, but nevertheless, I left downhearted. We were still stuck.
The door felt unaccountably heavy as I opened it. We’d got so far, but without the right drug all the information we’d discovered was useless.
Chapter 32
Over the next few days, Leo waited for the drug to arrive and worked on the reversal process, while I watched Con like a hawk. At least he was reasonably compliant by now and didn’t fuss about being constantly supervised. Danny took turns with me, so he was never left alone. Meanwhile Miranda went back to Linden Manor and I dropped in to St Luke’s only for essential meetings.
As promised, I went to the funeral for Leo’s wife the following week in a quiet little chapel in Holland Park. The place was packed with mourners, many standing, squeezed in at the back. I was happy to be one of them, but Leo insisted I join his pew. I felt honoured, but self-conscious, sitting alongside close family friends and relatives. We all stood for the coffin, which trailed white roses and ivy, and there was a rush of air as Helena glided past, almost brushing against my shoulder.
I didn’t recognise any of the hymns, nor it seemed did Leo, by the vacant look on his face. The vicar must have slipped in a few of his own favourites or maybe Leo knew only Swedish ones. His voice faltered, not helped by the fact that the organ was out of tune.
Leo’s daughters, Felicity and Kim, stood either side of him at first, but I couldn’t hear either of them singing. Kim held a handkerchief over her mouth the whole time, as if there were poisonous fumes in the air, and Felicity stared at the coffin as if she was trying to work out who was inside. I saw Leo reach out to hold their hands when the vicar started his eulogy, but after a cursory squeeze, they both let go at the same time.
Kim went up to do a reading and returned to sit alongside Felicity, so I was bunched up right next to Leo. I could feel the warmth of his arm radiating into mine.
Next, Helena’s sister, Elizabeth, gave a moving tribute.
‘I couldn’t get up to speak,’ Leo whispered, as we stood for the last hymn. Thin trails of tears ran down his face, splashing every so often onto his open hymn book.
‘I haven’t brought a handkerchief,’ he sniffed. ‘How stupid is that?’
I pushed a spare tissue into his hand and he squeezed my fingers before letting go.
After the hymn, there was a hiatus as all eyes drifted up to the organ loft.
‘Helena never complained,’ Leo muttered, as rustles and thuds indicated an effort by the organist to prepare the right music and pull out the correct stops before proceeding. ‘She understood that my role was to provide for them all. We wanted Kim to have her horse and Felicity to have her skiing lessons. I couldn’t possibly have furnished those luxury extras and been around for bedtime stories and egg and spoon races. Helena understood.’ He touched his lip. ‘Or I thought she did. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she complained and I didn’t hear, or wasn’t listening…’
We sat in silence as the organist stumbled through a short solo piece by Schubert. Felicity was tugging at his sleeve and I realised the vicar had asked us all to stand again and Leo and I were still sitting down.
Afterwards, I put in an appearance at the wake at Elizabeth’s house, but I felt like a gate-crasher at a stranger’s party. I was working out how to put an iced doughnut back on the buffet table, when I spotted Leo slipping out through the French windows and hurrying across the lawn like a burglar.
He’d left Felicity and Kim in the lurch.
I left soon after and within half an hour Leo rang me. ‘I’m sorry I ran off like that,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t handle the mass of people trying to…’ There was a short silence. ‘You know…people’s sympathy…I’m not very good…’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Still alive,
still breathing…’
‘It’s Kim and Felicity you should be ringing, not me.’
‘I know. I should have talked to them, not just at the wake, but all through Helena’s illness. I should have prepared them for the worst.’
‘They are more or less adults, but they still need you at a time like this.’
‘You’re right, of course. I know they’ll see it as yet another example of my ineptitude as a father – and they’re right,’ Leo sighed deeply. ‘To be honest, I’ve always been an understudy as a parent, standing in the wings, out of sight, never knowing quite what to do if I was called upon. I think my failings might have gone past the point of no return by now. But I’ll call them,’ he said, unconvincingly.
As I made my way to the hospital, I wondered why Leo felt he could talk to me on such a personal level. Was it because I’d already shown trust in him with my own confidences? Or did he feel his family had given up on him after too many perceived parental shortcomings?
I spent the rest of the day in my unit at Debbie’s request, sorting outstanding admin and trying to avoid people. I’d already had ‘the look’ from various nurses on my floor. The look that said you might not be with us for much longer.
When I got home, Danny had left a message to say Con was staying at his place that night. I have to say it came as a great relief; I needed a night off from the stress of watching Con’s every move.
I took a long bath, rang for a takeaway and watched the original version of The Hunger Games for the nth time, curled up on the sofa in my dressing gown. I crawled into bed and was fast asleep by ten o’clock.
At some unearthly hour, I woke up. I was panting and sweating. My head was filled with terrifying images: people running, darkness and screaming. It was all wrapped up within a pervasive sense of dread. I rushed to the toilet and threw up.
Clutching the bowl, I pressed my forehead against the cool porcelain. I’d had trouble sleeping since I’d started the new job, but I’d never suffered a nightmare like this one. Was it the stress of the last few weeks catching up with me?
I went into the kitchen and boiled a kettle. It was five-thirty in the morning; too early to be up and about, but I was scared to go back to bed. I desperately wanted to sleep, to have soft, floaty, reassuring dreams. I couldn’t face re-entering the gruesome world I’d just escaped from.
I lifted my hot mug and put it straight down again. I was seized by a shattering burst of horror. I’d never experienced anything like it before; it had me doubled over. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I was seeing inside my head, I felt like I was caught up in a human stampede. Blind panic, desperation, the sound of bones snapping, bodies stacking up, not being able to breathe. I sank to the floor, holding my chest, wondering if I was dying.
I focused on the items in the kitchen; solid, domestic, homely things – the table, the waste bin, the fridge. I tried to remind myself that I was safe, that nothing bad was happening. I pressed my hands into the lino – cold, firm, secure.
Then the thought struck me. No! It’s happening to ME.
I scrambled to my feet. This is just like what happened to the others. I’m affected too…
I leant over the sink and splashed cold water on to my face. What was going on? Had someone used the false memory method on me without me knowing?
I thought about it again. I’d read through sections of Leo’s notes, hadn’t I? I’d read Beaumont’s novel. Was that all it took? Had I been indoctrinated by these horrifying images, just like that?
I stared at my image in the mirror, sweat glistening like melted butter on my forehead, my flickering eyes trying to focus. No – I’m overreacting – this couldn’t possibly be the result of having just read the book. If that was the case, suicides would have escalated astronomically all around the country.
I ran to my bedroom and flung on my jeans and a sweatshirt.
By 6am I had Lian’s sticky note in my hand, with three lines of an address, and was on my way to Leo’s.
Rain was pounding against the roof and pouring down the windows of the taxi. I jumped out and stood, sodden, on the front step, pressing the bell and keeping my finger on it. Leo hurried to the door in his dressing gown.
‘You’ve got to help me,’ I said, stumbling inside.
He guided me through to the kitchen. In his sleepy state, he tried to offer me a cup of tea, but I gabbled away at him about the nightmare I’d just had, the terrible experience I’d just gone through in my kitchen.
‘They’re the same flashbacks, Leo. I’ve got something just like those false memories.’
He made me sit down. ‘Where did you go yesterday – after the funeral?’
‘I was sorting admin in my office and then I went home.’
‘Did you see anyone?’
‘No. I spoke briefly to Debbie – but to no one else, except a few people on the phone.’
‘Let me see your arms.’
I rolled up my sleeves.
‘No – it can’t have happened – you’d have needle marks,’ he said.
‘But what if it’s been transmitted to me, because I’ve heard the story time and time again, in detail? Through my patients, Con, the notes you had?’
‘No.’ He cut the air with his hands. ‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s more likely to be a case of secondary PTSD – you must have heard of that…’
‘Of course, but this is different.’
‘It’s common with carers and counsellors,’ he insisted. ‘When you deal with other people’s pain every single day, you can pick up some of their distress.’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ I snapped. I felt unaccountably hot. ‘But these feel real, like specific flashbacks, Leo.’ My throat was dry and prickled as if I’d swallowed a writhing beetle.
He cupped his hands around mine. ‘It’s not the same. It can’t be.’
I didn’t like the sound of those last three words. Or the way he narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure. After all – he wasn’t an expert.
‘We’ve got to get the reversal sorted out now, Leo. I can’t bear this.’
‘I’ll have to see if the tronocept comes through today from the States.’
‘Use it on me, first – do a trial run.’
‘No – you haven’t had the false memories implanted.’
I got to my feet, breathless, unable to sit still. ‘But I freaked out in the kitchen with the most terrifying images.’
‘Of the fire?’
I hesitated. ‘No, not exactly, but—’
‘There you are. This is acute anxiety, because of what you’ve been dealing with. An occupational hazard. It’s not the same.’ He was sticking to his guns.
I glared at him. ‘I’m still not convinced.’
When I left his cottage, the world was still only starting to wake up. Coffee shops were opening and the smell of fresh beans wafted across the pavement. Normally I would have savoured the aroma, but that morning I walked quickly past and kept my head down. In spite of Leo’s assurances, I was terrified and my mind kept creeping to the idea of suicide. Had I been having any thoughts about it lately? Was I at risk? Had it slipped on to my radar while my back was turned?
A van tooted me long and hard as I crossed the busy road without looking properly. It brought me abruptly to my senses. Just focus on the job in hand.
As I climbed the stairs to my flat, I saw two figures on the landing.
‘I’ve been calling you,’ said Con.
I pulled the phone from my bag. ‘Sorry, I must have switched it off.’
Danny raised his hand in a meek Hi and took a step back.
Con tapped his watch face. ‘It’s seven-thirty in the morning! Where the hell have you been at this hour?’ He hesitated, resting his finger on his lip. ‘Oh, I get it.’ He turned and grabbed the banister. ‘Tell me you haven’t just come from his place.’
I couldn’t think fast enough to avoid Con’s wrath. My brain was still woolly with lack of sleep. ‘It’s not what you think,
’ I said, pushing past them to put the key in the lock.
‘I came here to tell you I’d do it,’ he said. ‘That I’d see that plastic surgeon and try his dodgy little experiment, but now I don’t know what the two of you have cooked up for me.’
‘Con, listen.’
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Danny meekly, edging towards the stairs.
‘Why can’t you just admit it?’ yelled Con, pushing his screwed-up face into mine. ‘It’s been this plastic bloody surgeon all along…’
Before I could say anything, he took off down the stairs after Danny. I didn’t have the energy to chase after him. I wanted to put Con’s paranoia down to the effects of the false memories, but I knew I was kidding myself. I went inside and made a strong coffee. Ten minutes later, I rang Danny.
‘We’re on our way to the theatre,’ he said. ‘Con says he’ll spend the day with me again.’
‘Are you okay with that?’
‘He’s going to have a go at directing rehearsals. Gives me a break, to be honest – as well as keeping his mind off things.’
‘You’re amazing – thank you.’
I waited until after eight o’clock, then called Imogen, hoping she wouldn’t mind being disturbed so early. She was at the airport on her way back. She said much the same as Leo about my nightmares and the panic attack in the kitchen. She didn’t think I could have picked up any sort of mind-control by proxy.
‘How’s Con? Have you found him?’ she asked.
‘Yes – he turned up, thank God, but he’s still a liability. He’s playing ball for the time being and allowing round the clock supervision.’
‘Nightmares are perfectly normal, you know. They tend to repeat, because we wake up before the frightening emotional issues we’re grappling with have been resolved,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking that Con’s experiences might be a delayed reaction to his motorbike crash – or poor sleep, a slight fever, worry about his new film, a reaction to certain foods…he’s probably suffering one or more of those factors. You, too.’