As I lie in my bed and remember Steve’s words, I open my eyes again to find that the mist has begun to thin into tufts of grey cottonwool pulled across the blankness of the sky. I should get up. I should not stay here, steeped in the desolation of that town. I can hear the others waking in the rooms below me and I test the chill in the air, pushing my blanket down a little. I will light the fire.
In a couple of days, the provers will commence taking the remedies and we have planned a breakfast meeting today to answer any last questions about the process.
We agreed on the meeting because there have been rumblings of concern about the lasting effects of an experience such as the one we are about to embark on. Just the other day, Matthew asked me whether the remedy could have a long-term detrimental effect on his health. He posed the question casually, but I could see it was a serious worry.
I told him it was highly unlikely. The risk of experiencing minor suffering during the process was more possible, and I smiled as I added that this wasn’t necessarily negative. Poets, writers, musicians and artists would all testify to the benefits of suffering.
And we are really only talking about minor discomfort here.
But I didn’t want him to think that I was simply dismissing his concerns. Even if a long-term detrimental effect is unlikely, it is still a possibility, and neither he nor I (nor any of the others) should take this process lightly.
Everything that we do, everything that we experience, adds to the picture of who we are. It is retained within us. They were words I had once spoken to Silas and I repeated them to Matthew.
We were unpacking the boxes as we talked, checking the labelling on the bottles to ensure they matched up with the provers and supervisors who are here. He held one up for a moment, turning the glass in his hand, and I must admit that, for the first time, I was curious.
I wonder what it is, I said, almost to myself, and he grinned at me.
I smiled back as I told him that I am, after all, only human.
He looked at the bottle and then put it down. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
I did not know what he meant, not at first.
That whatever it is has gone, has been diluted so much that it doesn’t exist.
It still exists, I said, knowing I was being pedantic, because I did understand him.
You once told me that it is like there is just a memory.
I knew the explanation I had given him because I have given it to many of my patients. Think of the water as having a memory, I would say, of retaining all the necessary information about the substance that has been passed through it; and I would see them attempting to come to terms with the idea.
As I get up, the chill worse than I had anticipated, I think about how the power of this memory still amazes me. Each time I see it at work, I bow my head to its force, because it is far stronger than any matter, any substance, and its effects are extraordinary to witness.
2
I don’t know what made Silas lie to me when he told me that Greta wanted to talk to me. Perhaps he just felt that getting us together again would be positive, beneficial for at least one of us, perhaps even both of us.
At that stage, I did not even know that Greta had told him the story of our relationship. I must admit to an initial irritation when she confessed to having spoken to him about us. She knew he was my patient and it seemed to me to be an irresponsible act, an invasion. A few moments later I realised I was probably overreacting. I was too sensitive to a patient being privy to my personal life, too quick to infer that if I was seen as human I would not be as effective in my treatment. Probably the reverse is true. I don’t really know.
I was driving Silas home at the time he gave me her supposed message. I had found him at the bus stop after our appointment, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes fixed on the pavement. I almost didn’t disturb him, he seemed to be absorbed in thought, but then I remembered there was a transport strike called for the early evening, a fact that I knew would have escaped him.
He was careful in his conversation. This is the way it often is with patients when you see them after hours. They are wary of imposing; Silas particularly so. We talked about our weekends. He told me he had no plans and I had to admit to the same. I had been asked out to dinner by one of Victoria’s friends but I did not know if I was up to hearing news of her.
When we pulled up outside his apartment block, he said that Greta had asked him to say hello.
I knew I had failed to hide the surprise on my face, and I pretended to search for money in the loose change I kept in the ashtray.
She asked me to give you her number. To say that she’d like to catch up, and he handed me a slip of paper.
As soon as he closed the door, I let it fall to the ground, losing it in the pile of rubbish and papers that always clutters the floor of my car.
Later, Greta told me she had done no such thing.
She also said that only moments after she had told Silas what she had done when we were together, she wished she had kept silent. Silas had walked her home. Standing outside her door, she had told him it was a pathetic story and one that she would rather he forget.
It’s not so bad, and he had reached for her hand but she had pulled away. Trust me, he had said, I know.
But she had felt ashamed. Unable to look at herself in the mirror, she had wondered how he would see her now. Switching off her light and getting into bed, she had told herself it would be best if she just kept away for a while. She did not have to go to the library anymore. She could finish off her work from home, and as she had closed her eyes, she had hated the importance of the place he had assumed in her life and how difficult it was for her, still, to allow closeness without fear.
3
Why do you wear a skirt?
Lucas was sitting on the floor of Silas’s room, pushing his Matchbox car across the rotting boards, carefully negotiating the rugged terrain. It was not even nine o’clock and already the heat was unbearable. The tiny window next to Silas’s bed provided the only ventilation in a house that baked under a tin roof, and it only opened three inches.
Most mornings Silas woke with a hangover, but this was the worst. He had told Lucas to leave him alone, but he had only backed a little closer to the door, and Silas could still hear the whine of Lucas’s attempts to sound like a car, punctuated by his insistent questioning.
Are you a poof? Lucas asked, clearly uncertain as to what the word meant.
Silas rinsed his face over the sink. The water was tepid, and he could see Lucas in the mirror, still talking.
Jason reckons you are.
It was drinking alone that was the problem. He had no outside check on how much he had consumed. But the truth was, even if he had been able to find someone who would have been willing to keep him company, he would probably still have chosen to be by himself. He was going under and he knew it.
Martha reckons you must have been in some kind of funny business to come out here. She reckons you’re in hiding, and Lucas revved his car a little harder in an attempt to get it across a cracked board near the door. Steve just reckons you’re a wanker.
Silas needed Panadol. As he fumbled through his bag, knowing he would be unlikely to find anything, he glanced across at Lucas. The boy’s freckled face was upturned, his blue eyes were watery with what looked to be conjunctivitis, and he was staring straight back at Silas.
No one seems to like you much anymore.
Silas just turned and vomited once again, a dry retch that ripped at his throat, and made the pounding in his head even stronger.
Wiping his mouth, he pushed his way past Lucas and stumbled out into the burning heat of the morning, the boy’s voice thin and high as he called out a couple of times and then, realising it was useless, gave up and turned back inside.
There was no Panadol at Pearl’s, only Aspro and Bex, the cardboard boxes faded, the use-by stamps illegible. Silas picked up the least ancient-looking packet and, not being in an
y mood for conversation, waited for her to name the price.
She told him he looked like something the cat had dragged in. She was chewing a caramel as she spoke. Silas could see it rolling around inside her mouth, caught momentarily in a gap between her teeth and then loosened again by the force of her suck.
Hear Mick won’t be walking for a while, and a gob of sweet sticky spit landed on the edge of the Aspro box. Guess that leaves the playing field to you.
Silas had no idea what she meant. He counted out what he could only presume to be close to adequate payment and pushed the money towards her.
Hmph, and she crossed her arms, pressing them tight against the strain of cloth across her bosom. That’ll be another five.
Silas added a five-cent piece to the pile.
Dollars.
He was made of money and they knew it, each and every one of them. It was, in fact, the only thing he was good for, his only worth in a place like this.
Look at them, and the sharpness of his tone revealed his anger as he wiped the layer of brown dirt off the box.
Pearl just unwrapped another caramel and popped it in her mouth, her tongue tracing the flaking edges of her pink lipstick, as she deposited the money into her cashbox and then held out her hand for the expected note.
Haven’t been so sociable lately, and she peered at him through her thick glasses.
It was true, he hadn’t been visiting her as frequently.
Hear you’re up there every day of the week now. She nodded in the direction of Rudi’s. From the looks of you this morning, it hasn’t been doing you any good.
Silas ignored her comment.
Pearl just shook her head. You’re looking as bad as he does.
Silas could only presume she was talking about Rudi.
Drinks himself into a stupor on a regular basis. She sniffed in disapproval. It’ll be the death of him. Not that he’d be missed around here.
Well, she’d miss him, Silas told her, suddenly aware of how impossible Constance’s situation would be without her father.
Pearl sucked hard on her sweet. She’ll be all right. Her eyes were sharp. Seems to me she has no problems getting men to run around after her.
Out in the stillness of the morning, the heat already ferocious, Silas looked up and down the empty street and wanted only to be out of there. He hated this town. He brushed his hand across his face, disturbing the flies that gathered the instant he was still, three or four of them circling slowly, waiting only for another opportunity to alight. He tilted his head back and swallowed an aspirin, the glare from the sun blinding him for a moment, the tablet getting stuck in the back of his throat, so that he was forced to cough, a sour powdery taste remaining in his mouth as he swallowed.
It had been three days since he had seen Constance. Where is she? he had kept asking Rudi, barely able to contain his agitation now, not sure why they all still persisted in carrying out this charade of pretending it was Rudi he wanted to see. She had made him promise he would be kind to her father, and he had tried, but he could no longer sit in that shack, the closed heat thick with the rankness of Rudi’s breath and the sweat on his skin. Standing by the window, the overblown sweetness of the flowers making his head reel, he would ask Rudi if he knew when she would be back, would it be soon, his questions always remaining unanswered, barely heard in fact. He would tap his feet, fidget, scratch at his arms, knowing that all he could do was look for her, and hope that she would appear, a dream-like vision, surrounded by blooms that seemed too intense, too surreal, too luminous and brilliant.
Turning towards the end of the road, to the sandy track that would take him back out to Constance, Silas told himself it would be different this time. It had to be. He walked more quickly, oblivious to the heat, the flies and the scrub, seeing only the glittering beauty of the garden, not far now, and with both hands on the gate, he called out their names, Rudi, Constance, surprised that no one came to let him in, that Rudi was not nearby, waiting anxiously for his arrival.
He pulled himself up on the cyclone fencing, and as he swung his legs over the vicious twists of wire along the top, he did not even notice that one of them had ripped through his jeans, gouging into his flesh. He was worried now, and he called out her name again, Constance, finally catching a glimpse of her shirt, there in the distance, as he dropped to the ground.
She was alone. Silas could not believe his luck, and as he ran towards her, there by the rainwater tank just outside the shack, he was unaware that Rudi was lying inside, unable to move.
4
When Greta apologised to me, she told me that all she could say in her own defence was that she felt she had descended to a type of madness.
I look back on the way I behaved, and I do not understand it. It was like standing at the top of a muddy slope and slipping down, trying to hold on, but being unable to find anything to grasp.
She said she knew there had been no rational basis to all her fears, and she glanced across at me, her need for affirmation still there, revealed for a brief moment only, and then hidden again, far more effectively than she had ever been able to do when I used to know her.
I should have just trusted that you loved me, but once I began doubting it, I couldn’t stop.
She apologised for all the times she had searched through my belongings, for all the accusations she had made, for all the hysterical rages and threats and, finally, for believing that I was sleeping with Victoria.
That was the most unfair, and she looked out across the street.
She was silent for a moment, breathing in sharply before she spoke again.
When I did what I did, her discomfort made her fidget more anxiously with her hair, her voice cracking as she continued, I wasn’t wanting to die.
I told her it was all right, that it was all in the past, but she stopped me.
I was trying to punish you. And to keep you with me. Although how I felt the two could go together escapes me, and she attempted to smile.
I offered to pay for coffee. She would need her money in New York, I said. Please, and I made her put her purse away. We talked vaguely about catching up again before she left, both of us knowing we wouldn’t, and then we kissed each other on the cheek.
I’m glad I saw you, she said, and I lied as I said that I, too, was glad.
As I watched her walk away, I told myself there had been no point in telling her the truth, in saying that so many of her suspicions had, in fact, been correct; I had never really loved her enough, it was true. Worse still, I had slept with Victoria, kissing her for the first time only three weeks after she moved in, sleeping with her when Greta was working, both of us saying how wrong this was, how it shouldn’t go on, both of us looking guiltily at each other whenever Greta went out, both of us promising that this would be the last time, the very last time. But it went on, and on, and, most unforgivable of all, I never really thought about how it would affect Greta, what it would do to her; all I thought about was myself.
There was no denying that Greta’s behaviour had been extreme and irrational, there was no denying how difficult she was, but there had always been a core of reality to all that she had believed and that was what I had denied her, that was what I still denied her. After she left, I looked at myself in the window of the cafe and then turned away. I had chosen not to hold out that tiny seed, and say yes, it was there, that canker you always felt did exist, and I am sorry for it, I am truly sorry.
In the years that followed, I lived with Victoria, determined to make it work, to stay with her, because I was ashamed about the way in which I had behaved. Towards the end, she told me I had changed, I was not the person she had fallen in love with; I had become, and she had tried to find the words she needed, so obsessed with making up for what happened.
At first I did not understand what she meant. I thought it was my work she was referring to, and it was true I had thrown myself into healing others, leaving little time over for her.
But it was not just tha
t. She felt I had stayed with her to justify the impact our affair had had on Greta. I had stayed with her but I had also never let myself love her.
We’ve had no joy, she said, and I wanted to hug her, I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t.
I missed her when she left. I still miss her. I do not know what the truth is. It was all so clouded that I could not see anything properly, and I just let her go.
Greta rang me once before she left for New York and I did not return her call. She left her address with the receptionist, who gave it to me, and as I held the paper in my hands, I thought for a moment about just letting it fall in the bin, but then I decided against it. I suppose I thought that one day I might want to contact her. I suppose I hoped I might finally be ready to apologise.
5
Silas told me that he did not realise that Rudi was seriously ill.
I never really looked at him, he said. I never noticed anything much about him. It was always her that I was watching. Always.
Constance was filling a saucepan with rainwater from the tank at the side of the shack, and it was only when she turned towards him that he noticed how drawn her mouth was, how tired her eyes, and he stopped, anxious.
Are you all right? he asked, but she did not reply.
She just nodded towards the stairs, balancing the saucepan in her hands, as he knocked it in his rush to open the door for her.
The smell hit him as soon as he stepped inside. There was no trace of the sweetness that had often overwhelmed him. In its place was a rotten, fetid odour, the staleness of vomit still clotting the air.
He collapsed last night, and she knelt over Rudi who lay, hunched up as a child lies, face down on the mattress.
At first I just thought he was just drunk, Silas told me.
But then he realised it was something else, something worse, and he began to ask her questions without thinking, wanting to know how long Rudi had been in a fever, where he was feeling pain, trying to gather information that he did not know how to use.
The Blind Eye Page 14