by Stan Mason
She continued to rummage more items, surprised at what she found, but nothing more registered in her memory. She took a number of treasures down the ladder when she left and laid them on the table in the dining room. What connection did she have with an old Bush electric radio? Was it the first one that she and her husband bought? Did they listen to it every evening? And what about the empty bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne? There had to be a special reason for it to be store in the loft so many years ago. She looked hard at a tome entitled ‘The Book Of Dreams’ recalling that she hadn’t dreamt one for a long time. One pundit talking on television had said that everyone had to dream or they would go mad. Well perhaps she was mad....perhaps she was after all. Having only half a mind was pretty much there anyway. A book of dreams! That was something to interest her over the next few days. She recalled Mohammed, the visionary in Agadir, and wondered what he would make of the contents of the book. He said he was an interpreter of dreams although he tended to dwell on the obvious. Maybe this tome would have enlightened him except that he would never have the chance.
She handled each of the items brought down with great care, struggling to recall why they had been kept. She was delighted to have remembered about the large teddy bear which belonged to her son. However she considered that she had failed in the effort, with the exception of the bear, her red dress and the shoes, because she realised she could not remember anything about all the other items.
After a while, she gave up trying to think about the past and placed the items in a corner of the room hoping to return to them another day and try again. If fortune favoured her, the memories of the reason why they had meant so much to her would come to the fore. She could only hope, that in the course of time, something would figure in her mind to retrieve some wonderful memories.
Chapter Eleven
As the months passed by, Diana contacted Gloria in the hope that the group would still want to play bridge with her again. The woman was delighted to receive the telephone call making no bones about welcoming her back to the fold. When she arrived at the apartment, the host clutched Diana’s hand firmly in friendship.
‘We really missed you,’ she told her with a smile on her face. ‘While you were away we had to put up with my neighbour for a fourth who can’t play for toffee. I’m delighted you’re back and ready to play.’
The four women sat down at the green-baize table making themselves comfortable ready to start playing. However Jane felt obliged to ask whether there had been any progress in Diana’s health.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any joy with your memory,’ she uttered, almost as though the subject was clandestine.
‘Don’t keep on at her!’ reproached Gloria sharply. ‘She’ll tell you all about it in the tea break.’
Diana smiled at them warmly. ‘Don’t concern yourself on my behalf. I’m all right in health and in spirit. Let’s play cards. That’s what we’re here for.’
‘I think you’re handling your problem very well,’ Gloria ventured shuffling the cards. But there is something I must say. My friend recently went to a therapist and she was helped tremendously.’
‘I don’t think a therapist would be of any use to me,’ retorted Diana firmly. ‘It’s a matter of time before my memory returns.’
‘You never know what a therapist might turn up,’ uttered Jane trying to help her friend.
‘Tessa Wainwright went to see one. She caught her foot on the edge of a paving stone and fell over suffering awful problems with her head for weeks,’ continued Gloria still shuffling the cards. ‘The doctor wasn’t able to cure her and sent her for a scan which showed nothing. Then she went for five sessions to this therapist and came out a new woman. There’s no arm in trying.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to look for one,’ admitted Diana, more interested in getting on with the game than chatting aimlessly about her condition.
‘That’s easy,’ joined in Samantha brightly. ‘Just go to your doctor. He’ll recommend one.’
‘I can’t see how it will help me,’ insisted Diana adamantly, becoming impatient at have to wait for the cards to be dealt. ‘Can we play now? I feel lucky this evening.’
Gloria shrugged her shoulders and dealt out the cards with a final caustic remark. ‘There’s none so deaf as those who won’t hear.’ she muttered almost under her breath although everyone at the table could hear her.
When she returned home that evening, Diana sat in the lounge sipping a dry martini thinking about the conversation with her three friends. They were right. There was no harm in seeking the help of a therapist. After all, if the first session proved to be negative she didn’t have to go again. But what did a therapist actually do? She looked up the word in the dictionary which referred her to ‘psychotherapy’ and she read the description out aloud. “Psychotherapy is the treatment of emotional and psychometric disorders based on the application of psychological knowledge, rather than exclusively on the use of drugs, surgery or other physical treatment.” She pulled a face after reading the description three times trying to absorb the meaning but it made no sense to her. Still, if there were no drugs involved, no surgery or other physical treatment she would definitely come to no harm.....but what use would it do? Nonetheless, maybe a visit to a therapist was the answer. After all, nothing would be lost.
Her local doctor was less than enthusiastic about her decision. He failed to understand how a therapist would be successful in getting her memory back. At her insistence, however, he picked up the telephone receiver and dialled a number contacting Vivien Williams who he knew was well-known in his field and made an appointment for her.
When the day arrived, she sat in the waiting room and stayed there for ten minutes before her name was called. She was shown into a room to meet the expert. He was a short tubby man with a bald head and an unusually large nose which was red at the tip, indicating that he over-enjoyed imbibing wine or spirits. His clothing was strange in that he wore a black garment which covered his ordinary clothes, similar to a priest’s cassock, with a large gold disc at his chest which hung from a slender chain around his neck. As she entered the room, his head moved forward and backward similar to a parrot in a cage and he moved in his chair as if to try to make himself look taller.
‘Mrs. Templeton.’ he began, placing his hands in front of him on the desk. ‘Please take a seat.’
‘I thought I was seeing a female therapist,’ she complained. ‘Vivian Williams.’ She sat down in an comfortable executive chair opposite the therapist.
‘Vivien’s a name used by both men and women,’ he returned with a slight smile on his fat face. ‘E for a man; A for a woman. I understand you’ve been suffering from loss of memory.’
He was not slow in cutting to the chase. No good morning...how are you...tell me a little about yourself. He went straight to the point.
‘I was attacked by a gunman who blew off part of my skull but the shock caused me to lose my memory,’ she explained briefly. She sighed becoming very tired at having to tell the same story over and over again.
He stood up and walked around the desk to stand behind her. ‘Let me have a look.’ He rummaged gently through her hair at the back of her head before moving it one way and then the other. ‘Hm,’ he muttered afterwards, ‘you have a nasty scar there. ‘ He retreated to his chair and placed his hands in front of him clenching them together this time before looking directly into her eyes. ‘As you’re no doubt aware, memories are experiences from the past. Three processes are required: registration, in which the experience is received in the mind; retention, in which a permanent memory trace or engram is preserved in the brain; and, thirdly, recall in which a particular memory is brought back into the consciousness. It’s the third one that’s causing you problems. The part of the brain which harbours the memory is the hippocampus....either of two ridges along each lateral ventrical of the brain that form par
t of the limbic system.’
Diana stared at the man as though he had just arrived from another planet speaking a strange language that she didn’t understand. It was clear that he knew his subject but how was a patient expected to translate all that gobbledegook? The man had lost the art of plain speaking and Diana wondered how his other patients felt about the situation. There was a long pause as his hand moved to the large gold disc hanging from his neck and he manipulated it slowly from side to side. ‘Have you been sleeping well lately?’ he asked innocuously in a deep tone of voice. ‘Only you appear to be tired. Very tired. Very very tired. You really want to go to sleep. You need sleep. Lots of sleep.’
Diana stared at the golden disc bleakly and then shook her head slowly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Williams,’ she said, stopping him in his tracks., ‘but you won’t be able to hypnotise me. It’s been tried before but, apparently, I have a strong resistance which seems it doesn’t work on me.’
His face was unmoved by her declaration and he stopped playing with the golden disc. ‘Very well,’ he went on undaunted. ‘Let me say that loss of memory in some cases is entirely false. The reason for it is psychosomatic whereby the brain is affected by various reason of stress or guilt causing the defect. It might be totally involuntary.’
‘I assure you that in my case the memory loss is real,’ she countered. ‘The reason I’m here today is because I’m desperate to recover it.’
He nodded slowly and moved his hands away from the desk. ‘Then let’s go to the next stage,’ he uttered confidently. ‘Most people find it easier to remember by word association. By this means, links are forged in your mind between new impressions and those you experience before. One thing reminds you of another and a chain of thought is created which lays down the new impression to be stored and reproduced when required.’
‘What are these word associations?’ asked Dian with an element of interest sparking in her mind hoping that the therapist was a genius and not a charlatan.
‘Let’s focus on your childhood,’ continued Williams. ‘Can you remember anything about it at all?’
His patient shook her head. ‘Not a thing!’
‘Focus your mind on prams, rattles, nappies, school, parents, night lights, buses...’
‘Buses?’ she interrupted rudely. ‘What association can I have with buses in terms of my childhood?’
‘The mind plays unusual tricks on memory,’ he informed her sagely. ‘One never knows what will help it to kick in. I’ll repeat them again... prams, rattles, nappies, school, parents, night lights, buses. Do any of those items trigger anything in your mind? Think hard!’ Diana thought for a moment and shook her head again. ‘How about colours? Red, green, blue, brown, violet, orange, purple, gold, silver, the monarchy.
Is this man for real, she thought to herself. How could the monarchy be included in colours? What was he trying to prove?
‘No,’ she replied, beginning to think that her visit here was a complete waste of time.
‘Clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades and forks,’ he went on unaffected by her negativity.
‘There you have me,’ returned Diana smartly. ‘I play bridge with three women every week. They were the ones who suggested I come to see you.’
‘Go back in your mind with bridge,’ he persisted, thinking he might have found a way to resolve her problem. ‘Close your eyes, go back, and think hard.’
She obeyed his command and closed her eyes tightly. Then the vision came. She was playing in three no trumps and Gloria revoked in hearts. Diana was reliving the moment again only this time the vision continued. As it played out in her mind, Gloria apologised for the error and the game continued to the next hand in which Samantha played in five diamonds. Diana opened her eyes as the vision ended and stared at the therapist. ‘I did go back to a hand played a year ago,’ she told him.
‘Excellent!’ he exclaimed jubilantly. ‘Now.....the important thing is to marry up the memory with something that occurred recently.’
‘That’s simple enough. I play cards with the people in that vision regularly.’
‘Right... let’s focus on that for the time being. One memory at a time.’ He continued his game of word association for the best part of half an hour and then suggested that Diana book a series of further appointments. ‘There is another alternative,’ he told her finally. We could always resort to electroshock treatment. I believe that could be the way forward for you. With that treatment, contacts are applied to your head and then a series of electrical charges are passed through your brain. The end result might be the restoration of your memory. It may be the best way ahead.’
She cringed at the idea and it helped her to expedite her departure. It was the catalyst that drove her away from him for ever. Electroshock treatment with electric charges through her brain....he had to be out of his mind! She regretted having gone to the man in the first place. Nothing had been gained in the session. She had experience the single vision but she didn’t need his help to do so. Nothing of any importance emerged in the time she spent with him but her head was spinning form all that he had told her. What the heck was an engram. She had never heard of it before let alone consider that she might have one. But the point that really irritated her was the fact that he tried to hypnotise her without her permission. She wasn’t sure whether he was breaking the law by doing that but clearly he had used the operation on his other patients. What kind of therapies was he not to inform his patient about it first? As far as she was concerned, Vivien Williams, with an E, was a very clever man but her problem was out of his reach. Shock treatment. She had trouble trying to expunge the thought from her mind...it was so horrific. No drugs, no surgery no physical treatment....yet he suggested electroshock treatment! She was certain never to darken the door of his surgery ever again.
Chapter Twelve
Following their session in Morocco, Laura kept closely in touch with her sister and she telephoned her late one afternoon to press her on the invitation.
‘Months have gone by since we last saw each other,’ she began in earnest.
‘I know, ‘ agreed Diana sadly. ‘Time seems to whiz by. One minute it’s one week and then the end of the next week seems to come like a tornado.’
‘When we were in Agadir I invited you to come and stay with us. Well Mac and I were talking about it last evening and he’s dying to meet you. So how about it? When are you going to come over here and stay with us? I’m not taking no for an answer.’
Diana was not surprised at the invitation but it peeved her to have to make an instant decision. She had mulled over her sister’s offer in Morocco but eventually dismissed the idea. Los Angeles was a long way off and she didn’t feel comfortable about imposing on her sister’s family even though Laura would have scoffed at any imposition.
‘Come on!’ urged her sister adamantly. ‘Give yourself a break. We have a room here waiting for you. The weather’s brilliant. Sunshine every day....except when there’s the smog from the motor cars.’ Her voice trickled into laughter.
Diana weighed up the idea in her mind. Why not? There was no reason for her to stay in England....and it would be only for a couple fo weeks anyway. It sounded ideal and, as a lady of leisure, she had the opportunity to take advantage of the offer. The die was cast! ‘Okay,’ she uttered eventually. ‘I’ll come on condition that you let me pay my own way. I don’t want you to spend your money on me.’
‘Will you just get on that plane and come here!’ savaged Laura with mock anger in her voice. ‘We already have a room for you. The food you eat will be negligible. Get on that plane, sister, and get here as fast as you can. I won’t ask you again!’
‘Very well,’ responded Diana warmly. ‘I’ll see you when the plane lands at Los Angeles airport.’
‘I’ll be there waiting for you,’ exclaimed Laura with delight at having influenced her sister. ‘Don’t let
us down. We’re all dying to meet you. I’ll check when the next flight gets into LA and ring you back with the details. The rest is up to you.’
Diana hardly had time to delay the trip because the line went dead. Clearly when Laura got an idea into her head it was difficult to shift it. Everything was happening so suddenly but that was the way destiny worked its wonder on people. Some won large sums on the lottery, others won on bingo, while others made or lost their fortune on the Stock Market. Destiny worked quickly and effectively in many mysterious ways. Going to America was a fantastic opportunity that wasn’t to be missed. She would see new sights in a welcoming country and be with the rest of her family. It was definitely destiny knocking on her door. Without hesitation and not bothering to wait for her sister to ring back, she contact the airport and booked a flight later that day for Los Angeles. Excitement began to well up inside her as she put some clothing into a suitcase and found her passport again. She was on her way to see her sister again....on her way to the United States!