Endless Time

by Frances Burke

  He sighed and longed for a cigarette, but reached instead for a piece of chewing gum in his desk drawer. When the phone rang he knew it would be Phil.

  ‘How did it go?’

  Tom didn’t pretend ignorance. ‘It happened again. She was on her own for nearly fifteen minutes, and it scared me silly.’

  Phil whistled. ‘Have you read any of the literature I left with you?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘That’s a start, I suppose. I’ll come round and we’ll chew the fat a little. You know the old saying about two heads.’

  Tom had known it was coming. Did he want to talk over the outlandish suggestions, the impossible theories, the ravings of the New Age pioneers?

  ‘Okay. I’m willing to talk. But no evangelizing, Phil?’

  ‘Agreed. With you in twenty minutes.’

  *

  ‘This isn’t just a new therapeutic technique, Tom. It’s a method of opening up a whole new, incredibly rich world of the psyche. We’re now able to move away from the old interpretive emphasis. People no longer simply answer questions and let the therapist decide what the answers might mean in their particular context. This is living the answers –direct experience of trauma buried deep in the unconscious and carried forward from other lives!’

  Tom tried to be reasonable. ‘I’ve read about it, of course. I’ve even seen some of Joe Scranton’s work on film. But Phil, there’s no system to it. Where is the documented research?’

  ‘All around you, if you care to look. There’s Helen Wambach, Morris Netherton, Ian Stevenson. Hell! There’s thirty years of detailed systematic research to follow. But if your eyes are closed you’re not going to see it, are you?’

  ‘I’ve already started looking, and reading. There – see that stack of information you landed on me last night? I’m halfway through.’

  ‘You’re in good company, pal. There’ve been some big shifts in popular opinion on the subject, here as well as in the States. I know what’s eating you. Words like reincarnation and karma have occult connotations. You think of freaky gurus, oriental hocus pocus. What I’m talking is a new and powerful tool in our discipline, something I’ve seen help people who couldn’t otherwise be helped. Believe me, Tom, this is not another Californian crackpot philosophy grafted onto oddments of eastern culture. It’s a new psychology emerging.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. Calm down. Anything that sets you alight to this extent has got to be worth investigation. However, I still don’t believe my patient is regressing to a past life. She’s simply letting out unconscious inhibitions. She’s play-acting. You see examples of it in every text from Freud onwards.’

  ‘Yeah? What about that moment of confusion at the end of the tape, where Valerie is clearly re-entering her original time zone?’

  ‘That’s all it is – simple confusion, as the subconscious lets go and the ego steps back in. It’s enough to confuse anyone.’

  Phil stretched his long legs in front of him and settled into the recliner as though for a prolonged stay. ‘Do you keep any medicinal reviver about the place? I could do with it.’

  Tom reached into the cupboard and produced a half-full bottle of Haig and two tumblers. His work space was small enough for him to reach most things without moving from his worn leather chair. The patients’ recliner was just as old, but sturdy, too, and very inviting. The whole room had been kept deliberately beige and neutral, even shabby, as Valerie had pointed out, its one bright spot being the painting, which presently lay hidden in shadow.

  Phil raised his glass and saluted his friend with a grin. ‘I wasn’t pulling your leg over my own regression, Tom. I know you refused to take me seriously, but one day you’ll listen, I hope.’ He waved away Tom’s rude gesture. ‘It’s clear that your patient was re-enacting a life, whether real or imaginary, as a wise woman some centuries back. It didn’t sound particularly traumatic this time. She wasn’t afraid of that nosy priest.’

  ‘Hmmm. She did reveal interesting character facets. All this conflict with other people. Most of her conversation was assertive, not to say aggressive – much like her true personality, I’d say. Of course, she disguises it when it suits her.’

  ‘There’s trouble ahead, for sure. Very likely you’ll come to it in the next session. That first time, when she started screaming, is probably the crux of it. You know, there’s no rule that says these trips back to the past take place in sequence. Tom, I have to warn you. If this is a true regression, as I believe it is, and since you have an admittedly depressed patient undergoing past-life trauma, it could be dangerous.’

  ‘Oh?’ Tom felt uncomfortable He had lost contact with his patient on two occasions, and re-established this only at her personal whim.

  Phil sat up to make his point. ‘It’s dangerous, Tom, because you could come to the death experience.’

  ‘Come on, Phil! I’ve done some of your recommended reading on that topic, and I can tell you I’m not too impressed with all these coincidentally tallying tales of floating to the ceiling and tunnels of white light, etcetera.’

  ‘Forget that. You can take it from me, you’ll change your perspective if you ever watch a patient going through a difficult death experience. I don’t want you to be caught up in this and not be ready for it. People have suffered prolonged agony in such circumstances. In fact, once or twice a patient has had to be revived when the therapist attempted to bring him out of the hypnotic state.’

  ‘Scare tactics, Phil.’

  ‘God’s honest truth!’

  Tom still tried to sound reasonable. ‘Look here, I’m not rubbishing the technique of hypnotic regression. I’m aware that the personality has multiple layers, skins if you like, and that acting out the part of each personality is a valid method of a patient’s releasing inhibitions and coming to accept that he is many persons in one. It goes with the idea of the mass unconscious. Whether or not we really reach into past experiences of life on earth has still to be proved.’

  ‘Right. I’m not saying you have to agree with me. Just keep an open mind, and remember what I said about the experience sometimes being overwhelming for the patient. You, as therapist have a responsibility to recognize the inherent dangers, and be able to protect the patient from his own memories, or fantasies, or whatever you decide to call them. For some, the sudden exposure of a mangled nerve, a totally unsuspected nerve, is too much, too soon. Don’t go in blind.’

  ‘I won’t. Phil, I appreciate what you’re doing. I can see it really is important to you that I understand.’

  ‘So much so, I’m asking you to let me sit in on your next session, with your patient’s permission, of course. I wouldn’t dream of interfering…’

  ‘Sorry. Our talk this evening has just confirmed me in my decision. I think it’s too dangerous to go on with this form of therapy. I’m ceasing hypnosis altogether and trying another method.’

  Phil sat silent for a time. Tom had the feeling he was disappointed, not just for himself, but for Tom. At length Phil said in a deceptively quiet tone, ‘Sometimes a patient who has begun to regress will fall into the pattern the minute she hits the couch. You may not be able to prevent it.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve already applied the blocks preventing her from entering the hypnotic state without my say so. I know you mean to be helpful…’

  ‘But thanks, but no thanks. I get the picture. Well, I tried.’ Phil got up and buttoned his coat against the November night air.

  ‘No hard feelings, Phil?’

  ‘I guess not. Keep me informed, will you? Just for old friendship’s sake?’

  ‘You can count on it. Good night. My love to Carla.’

  *

  Tom locked up and went home to the doubtful companionship of Habakkuk, and his even more doubtful thoughts. Dinner and a warm bath did something to soothe his restlessness and he decided to turn in early.

  Around the time that dawn crept up on the sleeping city he began to rise from the deepest pit of unconsciousness. Hovering just below the thresho
ld of wakening, he began to dream. Darkness swirled about him and he extended his arms to clear a pathway ahead towards the light. Gradually he became aware of a grassy track and trees overhead. The soles of his sandals slid a little, and his long robe flapped around his legs. He felt hot and scratchy, and he smelled rank.

  Quite suddenly he emerged into full sunlight. The path had become a muddy village lane edged by rough stone byres with ragged thatch roofs, and a stinking kennel running by the doors. Pigs and geese wandered at will, but the scene lacked people. No faces appeared in openings as he traversed the lane. Insects buzzed about his face, a dog barked at him, but there were no children playing in the dust. Yet he felt eyes upon him. He hurried on, sandals slipping on refuse and the slimy clay edging the ditch.

  Hay fields lay beyond the village, now just stubble burning under the sun; but there was another track of sorts leading to a copse. Once in its shade he stopped to rest and take stock. He had no idea where he was or why he was dressed in this rough woolen garment with a bit of cord around his waist and… yes, a cross hanging about his neck. He held it up and studied it. Carved with the figure of a tortured Christ, it was clumsy work, and ugly, too. Tom’s flesh crawled. He’d always hated the masochistic aspects of religion, any religion. Certainly, with his Jewish upbringing, he’d never owned a crucifix of any kind, let alone worn one on his person.

  Then he noticed his hands were not his own. They were thick and gnarled, ingrained with years of grime, the nails torn rather than cut. They looked like the hands of an ancient derelict, a piece of the human flotsam usually found washed up on park benches or dossing in alleyways. He touched his cheek, and felt a day’s growth of his beard. His eyebrows seemed to have practically disappeared, as had his hair. There was just a rim of coarse growth encircling his skull. A tonsure! He was a monk, or priest of some kind.

  A dream. It’s just a dream. Tom squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. He still stood in the copse on the edge of a clearing, near another hut. This one seemed better made than the village hovels. It had a neat garden plot to the side, and pots of herbs hung from extended beams. The tiny window lacked glass, but had a covering that looked rather like thick mica to keep out weather and allow the passage of some light. The door stood open, and beside it a rustic bench was occupied by the gypsy woman.

  Tom knew he was dreaming, and knew he was building on Valerie’s regression, assuming the role of her priestly foe. But some part of him believed in the role. A part of him had taken on the mediaeval mind set, feeling a surge of superstitious fear at the sight of this woman, arrogant as no woman had a right to be.

  She wore a gown of washed-out blue cloth, belted at the hips, and her dark hair fell almost as far. Her eyes were, as he’d thought, dark and flashing. She was young, and the word ‘comely’ came to him. Yet even as he thought these things he was swept by a storm of hatred. He loathed this woman with every fiber in him, and he feared her. He wanted to wipe her out of existence.

  The last of his detachment fell away and he was that priest, trembling with primitive emotions. Now he saw her through a red haze of mist pouring into the clearing from all sides, writhing and twisting about him in the most obscene shapes, filling his throat and nostrils until he choked. She smiled, mocking him, her dark eyes glowing with an inner fire. Her long hair rose like a cloak to float about her strangely translucent body. He took a step back as she seemed to rise above the ground and glide forward, her arms outstretched to embrace him.

  With a hoarse cry, he turned and stumbled, then picked up his robe and fled.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Antony Marchmont sat in the late-afternoon gloom of his library. He had not called for candles to be lit, and the fire had been allowed to die down to embers. The snowstorm that followed the night of sleet, having raged for twenty-four hours, had blown itself out. Then another two days of steady rain came to wash away all traces of the snow, leaving the world dank, gray and covered in slush. Like his mood, he thought, with some savagery. Deep in deliberation, he took no notice of the cold. However, a part of his mind was aware of the steady downpour beyond the windows, and it depressed him further.

  What was he to do about Caroline? Why in God’s name had he ever crowned a brief flare of sexual attraction with the consummate folly of marriage? Her flamboyant beauty had lured him, as it had many others. Seeing her flirt her delightful way around a ballroom, following the curve of her mouth when she smiled that roguish smile and tilted her sapphire eyes, he’d fallen under her enchantment and, like any mooncalf, lost his head.

  He had been unfaithful to Jenny’s memory, and he had paid for it – was still paying for it.

  Perhaps he was, in part, responsible for Caro kicking over the traces. He had failed to make her happy. It was impossible, once he had seen beneath the surface tricks and posturings to her selfish core. Her beauty was a deception, masking a spiritual void which, while it might be no fault of hers, made him long to turn back time to the days of his great happiness with Jenny, his lovely, sweet, caring soul who had taken the light from his world with her when she died.

  His hand tightened on the glass he held, threatening to crush it. Pain scorched through him – familiar pain – an old enemy that had been with him for years. He thought he had beaten it down. Months of work, travel, physical activity of every sort had brought him to a state bordering on exhaustion, but he had thrashed the pain into submission. Now it rarely caught him unawares. Yet, this afternoon he had opened the door to it by letting himself think back, inevitably stirring remembrances best left in the past.

  He must decide about Caroline. This latest incident, this attempt to put a period to her own existence, was it the final proof of a mind hopelessly diseased? Was she indeed mad?

  When the doors opened behind him he turned, ready to rend whoever dared to intrude. Charles Hastings came into the room bearing a branch of candles which he set down on a side table. He then moved over to the windows and drew the heavy wine-dark drapes, shutting out the miserable prospect beyond. His pleasant face expressed both deprecation and defiance, but he performed his services with assurance. When he had mended the fire he stood silently waiting to be addressed.

  Antony sighed. ‘Charles, you know what a risk you run.’

  ‘I think not. The latitude you have always allowed me emboldens me to tread where others might not dare. To speak plainly, you may hoax your family and retainers into believing you a monster of harshness, but not your secretary. I know you too well.’

  ‘Do you, indeed?’ The weary voice held an undercurrent of amusement. ‘Take care, my friend. One day I may forget childhood oaths of brotherhood and dismiss you out of hand.’

  ‘I beg leave to doubt that, if for no other reason than the fact that you would never manage your affairs without my invaluable assistance. I am a very paragon of secretaries.’

  ‘I am aware of it. You are also insufferably puffed up in your own esteem. Take a glass of Madeira with me and sit down.’ Antony gestured to the other wing chair and waited until Charles had filled his glass and seated himself with a flip of his long-tailed coat. ‘What brings you here? Is there further news on the war front?’

  Charles shook his head. His sandy hair picked up the fire glow; his face had been thrown half in shadow, exposing his profile, thickening the long nose, sharpening the chin, adding bulk to the heavy brows. Antony looked at him with affection. That face had been a part of his youth and its owner shared with him memories that were everlasting.

  ‘I came to bear you company. You have sat too long with your thoughts.’

  Antony did not comment. He stared at the liquid in his glass.

  Charles tried again. ‘Lady Caroline has made a good recovery, I believe. The doctor called for his carriage more than an hour since, and welcome news has come downstairs.’

  ‘Charles, it will not fadge. The whole world will soon know the truth of the matter. My wife has sought to take her own life, and very nearly succeeded. I carry the burden
of this tragic happening. If she had not been so unhappy she would not have taken such a step. Good God! She is a young and beautiful woman with her whole life ahead of her! What must she have suffered? What shocking misery must I have caused her?’ He closed his lips on the words that threatened to pour out, cutting off Charles’ response with a quick gesture. ‘No, I have no desire to listen to your reassurances, well-meant though they may be. I must put aside my self-recrimination and come to a decision about my wife’s future treatment.’

  ‘She is not mad, Antony,’ said Charles gently.

  ‘Perhaps not. But in view of recent events, a certain degree of affection to the brain may be assumed.’ His voice took on a harsh note. ‘Charles, are you aware that she has actually claimed not to be herself – that she is a woman come from another period of time? And you can still say that she has full control of her faculties?’

  ‘I believe that, of late, Lady Caroline has suffered from an excessive melancholy. Her recent accident on the stairs resulted in the temporary loss of her memory and understanding. I think it possible that last night she mistakenly took too great a quantity of laudanum to help her sleep. In her stupor she opened the window wide and flung herself upon the bed, unaware that she was exposed to the elements. We have no reason to suppose that these actions were deliberately planned. You refine too much upon the matter.’ He stopped, then added, with deliberate emphasis, ‘I do not believe that your wife was bent upon self-destruction.’

  Antony bowed his head. ‘You plead an excellent case. However, I cannot risk it happening again. She must be watched.’

  ‘Certainly. She is not well, and it may be many weeks before her mind assumes its normal tone.’ He broke off as the doors opened once more and Amanda Crayle was announced. She came tripping in, all ruffles and bows and dripping with a great fringed shawl.