Oliver walked down Ramsden Road a tree lined street which had large Victorian semis and detached houses either side. In either hand he carried two very full bags for life. He looked tired but was showered, changed and clean. Oliver had risen early. He arrived at the front door of a large octagonal shaped detached house, the top floor of which formed his residence. Oliver had done enough locum work to put down a substantial deposit on the apartment in Balham.
He took out his keys, unlocked the large stained glass and blue painted wood front door and entered the hallway. As he walked to the foot of the stairs across a large tiled hallway the heaviest bag, which contained a number of wine bottles amongst other things, clipped a precarious stack of metal gardening tools. Two spades, a pair of shears, a rake and other gardening implements, clattered to the tiled floor making the loudest of noises. They fell to the floor and bounced making the noise reverberate around the converted house. Oliver muttered a curse and put down his shopping. The din lasted for just over a week, well it seemed that way Oliver thought as he tried to replace the tools. This just made more clanging noise.
“Whose there?” called an elderly voice from behind the large white door of the ground floor apartment number two.
“It’s just me Albert,” called back Oliver in a loud whisper, “sorry, knocked the tools over again.”
“Third time in the last few weeks you clumsy prat,” Albert called back.
Oliver smiled, “But this is the first time sober.”
He heard Albert laugh, “You youngsters, I’m going back to me bacon buttie.”
Oliver picked up his shopping bags once more and made his way up the stairs.
Once inside his flat and with the shopping put away Oliver sipped on a cup of tea. He too had made himself a bacon sandwich, which he ate while he fired up his PC. Brown sauce dripped down his fingers, which he licked away.
With the PC booted up Oliver clicked onto his Mozilla Firefox icon (much fewer viruses) to open the internet and started a Google search (still the best search engine).
Oliver typed in ‘Professor John Dyer’, ‘regression studies’ and pressed the search button.
Oliver sat at an old writing desk, it had his laptop PC on top, a printer, paper and pens. Strewn over the desk were exercise books, papers and on the wall, held in place by blu-tac, Oliver’s posters which had diagrams and many formulae depicted upon them.
Oliver’s study area was one of three ‘stations’ in his flats main living space. The living room was large with vaulted ceilings that followed the eves of the roof. A large window with top lights of stained glass enjoyed a view across the wide avenue where he lived. A lounge, his relaxing area, formed the main part of the room, with widescreen television, ps3 and surround sound system. Behind a chunky dining table with six chairs was a long book case full of literature covering medicine, science, fiction and various autobiographies. The room had five doors off it, down a long hallway to the lounge, a kitchen door (with no actual door just the space where the door had been opening to the kitchen), two bedroom doors, a bathroom door and the main entrance door.
Oliver searched, studied and moved his papers around to read different pieces of data and information. He made notes. He also kept a diary in a hard backed journal. Oliver was fastidious about keeping a log of his life, his thoughts, musings, hypotheses, tales of drunken debauchery, where he had been and who he had been with. He was also very private about his diaries and kept each volume, he now had six, behind his medical text books and novels by Stephen King.
He continued to study and search. One of the bedroom doors opened and Jenny gingerly stepped out. She wore soft pink, girly pyjamas.
“These are mine,” she said.
“You’re awake?” Oliver stood up and walked towards Jenny, “How are you?”
“Much, much better, thank you, how did I get my pyjamas, here?”
“Minnie and Jamie went to your place, in Brighton. We didn’t know who you were or who to phone, you had no mobile or identification. They took your keys for ‘Other World’ got your mobile and picked up some clothes, night clothes and stuff for you. We thought they’d keep you in hospital.”
“Thank you, I don’t remember putting them on.”
“Minnie changed you into them,” Oliver said with a very straight face.
“What?” Jenny asked horrified.
Oliver laughed, “I’m teasing, Mary helped you, you were so groggy. That was a large dose of diazepam.”
“It’s the only way they can ever get me back, not that they know that’s what they are doing. I have many diagnoses from epilepsy to schizophrenia, I am a classic, I suffer from differential diagnosis paralysis.”
“A medical pun, nice one, you have had a lot of attention from doctors. I’m glad you’re okay.”
Oliver stepped closer to Jenny and took her in his arms. They embrace.
Oliver whispered into her ear, “I thought I might lose you before I ever knew you.”
“It looks worse than it is,” Jenny said and she stood back from Oliver, but still held his hand.
“How long has this been happening?” Oliver asked.
“My regression ability, if you can call it that, I have had forever, all my life. The stasis, getting stuck regressing, regressing without choice, that’s the last few years,” she smiled at Oliver and stroked his arm, “so what are you doing?” she asked looking at the PC, the papers, the posters.
“I’m just searching the internet, blogs, chat rooms, paranormal places, I’ve found a few blogs, a facebook page, a twitter account, where regression is mentioned. I’m going to see if anyone has any papers or heard of that Professor I mentioned to you during the week.”
Oliver sat back down and continued on his laptop.
“I can’t remember his name,” Jenny Said.
“Dyer, Professor Robert John Dyer,” Oliver said without looking up, he had told Jenny about Dyer in the week to see if she had heard of his work, she had not, “Have you ever told the medics about your ability to regress?”
“Yes, twice and each time I attracted a psychiatric diagnosis, so I’ve stopped now and let them tell me I’m epileptic.” Jenny pulled a chair and sat down. She watched Oliver surfing various sites, she studied his desk, his papers, formulae and annotations.
“You really believe this don’t you, about regression?” she said.
“I do and have done for a good few years now. But I’d buried it, canned the ideas I had. I got into difficulty with the University, they didn’t share my views, it was a grim time to be honest,” Oliver paused, reflecting briefly, “anyway from what I know of Dyers work he may be able to offer you some help, if he is still alive that is.”
“What happened to him?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know Jenny and I’ve never been able to find out,” Oliver was busy typing while talking, clicking the mouse at regular points, “but I can try again. That’s about a dozen messages asking about Dyer and regression. He disappeared about twenty years ago, his papers have never been online. There was rumoured to be a book or at least the manuscript for a book, which collected all his work and some alleged experiments. I can’t get anyone to talk to me about it, not at UCL, nor Oxford where he was also a lecturer.”
“My cat,” Jenny suddenly yelled.
“What?” Oliver jumped at her yelp.
“I’ve not fed it since Saturday afternoon, oh my god.”
“It’s okay Minnie and Jamie fed the cat and cleaned the litter tray and arranged for it to be fed, with Grant from the flower shop next door.”
Jenny, relaxed, “Grant. Oh good, Grants lovely, the cats very special to me.”
“Obviously,” Oliver said.
Jenny yawned and stretched. Oliver looked over his shoulder suddenly realizing he was neglecting her, she had been grotesquely frozen in a form of stasis for seven hours and slept or dozed for nearly twelve.
“Are you hungry?” Oliver asked recognizing he was neglecting the basic building blo
ck of Maslow’s hierarchy.
“I am starving,” Jenny replied rubbing her slender tummy.
“What food do you like?”
“What do you have in?” she asked.
“Eggs, bacon, cereal, toast.”
“I’m vegetarian, do you have pasta?”
“At nine in the morning?” Oliver smiled, Jenny looked back impassively, “yes I do, tagliettelle, with a cheese and jalapeno sauce?”
“Ooh unusual, yes please, crusty bread?”
“Fresh this morning.” Oliver stood and headed for the kitchen.
“Mind if I go on the laptop while you cook?” Jenny asked.
“Sure, work away,” Oliver called back as he went through to the kitchen.
Jenny went onto the PC and began surfing the net.
Within twenty minutes Oliver was setting the table and putting two hot bowls of pasta, with creamy sticky cheese sauce peppered with green jalapenos, onto the table.
Jenny stood up and smelled the cheesy and mildly spicy sauce, “Mmm that smells delicious,” she said taking her seat, “Do you have any wine?”
Oliver laughed, “white or red?”
“White of course, who’d drink red this early? Anyway regression throws your body clock out.”
Oliver went and collected the wine from the fridge, unscrewed the cap and shared a glass with Jenny. He loved her left of field aura. They sat down at the table to eat together. Jenny placed a print out from her surfing by her dish.
“I still can’t quite believe I’ve met you,” said Oliver, somewhat seriously.
“Fates fickle finger seems to be pushing us together,” Jenny said.
Gesturing with an extended index finger, Jenny pushed the print out which had website addresses and e-mails on it, across to Oliver.
“What’s this?” Oliver started to read the list in front of him.
“In your rush to find out more about Dyer, to help me, which is sweet, you’ve missed one obvious area to research.” Jenny looked at Oliver to check if he would catch on.
“What areas that?” Oliver asked, puzzled as he read the list again.
“Me,” Jenny laughed, “You haven’t thought of me as a source to help, look, all these are associations, some of which I am affiliated with, all who offer regression therapy.”
“But how many actually can regress, or induce actual regression like yours?”
“Um, at a guess, I’d say, none,” Jenny took a mouthful of pasta, then speaking from the corner of her mouth continued, “but they are a community, a sub-culture, a network, they know each other, know things, they’d never respond to random requests on blogs, they are very serious about the therapy, make a living from it.”
“And they may have heard of Dyer, will have if they are serious or long standing?”
“Exactly, especially some former hippy type therapists I know. They’re in their sixties now but have been around this alternative therapy scene for decades, I’ve never told them about my gift, to them I’m just another therapist. But I’m trusted and they may know of this Professor chap.”
“I might get some responses,” Oliver offered in weak defence against Jenny’s strong line on finding Dyer.
“No, you won’t,” Jenny poked his hand with her fork, “but nice try and thank you, pasta is really good. Jalapenos, I’d never have thought of that, delicious.”
Jenny ate hungrily, sipped her wine and shared warm eye contact with Oliver. For the first time in her life she felt hopeful of learning more of her condition, which in recent months she had begun to fear might be terminal.
14.
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