After the Dream

by Stan Mason

  ‘I’ve got a fourth person to play bridge with you, Samantha and Jane,’ she managed to say in a squeaky voice. ‘It’s a doctor from the hospital where I was being treated. Her name’s Valerie Marin. She’ll be the fourth.’

  ‘Don’t tire yourself, Just rest!’ cautioned Diana, deeply concerned for her friend but unable to help her. The woman was so determined not to travel abroad or be treated by any foreign doctors that it was against all logic. Anyone else would have leapt at the chance and taken the nest plane to Morocco in a desperate attempt to be cured. But not Gloria...no not Gloria.

  She left the hospice deeply upset and four days later she received a telephone call to say that her friend had passed away. Maybe it had been too late for the woman to be treated by Dr. Mahmoud but one thing was certain....it didn’t matter any more. She attended the funeral at the local crematorium with Jane and Samantha and they watched the coffin on the tracks slowly disappear behind the curtain. It was a case of ashes to ashes, dust to dust and Gloria was no more in this world. As the prayers were being said, Diana sat back in her seat with her eyes closed. It was all too awful to contemplate.

  Some time after Gloria’s body had been reduced to ashes, Jane took the urn and they drove some distance away before distributing them into a lake.

  ‘She had no family,’ related Jane simply. ‘She asked me to throw her ashes into this lake. She had an illegitimate son, you know, and he drowned while swimming here. I suppose she wants to join him.’

  ‘She was a very good friend,’ said Samantha with a sad expression on her face. ‘We’ll certainly miss her at bridge.’

  ‘I understand a Dr. Martin’s going to take her place.’ ventured Diana recalling the last conversation she had with the dead woman.

  ‘Yes...Dr. Valerie Martin,’ concurred Jane. ‘She’s arranged for us to play all future games at the hospital..’

  ‘Well,’ commented Diana, ‘at least we’re in the right place if any of us falls ill.’

  The words were found to be less than amusing on this occasion and she found herself to be the only one laughing.

  The three women and the doctor continued to play bridge at the hospital thereafter but it was never the same....the atmosphere was too clinical. Apart from that, the feeling of friendship and animosity that sometimes aroused themselves between partners who played bridge seemed to be missing. Without Gloria and her famous caustic remarks, as well as the expensive biscuits and cakes she provided, bridge evenings were never the same again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Days, weeks and months went by and Diana continued to take the tablets given to her by Dr. Mahmoud. They seemed to have no effect on her body now and she wondered whether the experiment was actually working. She had to admit that she felt extremely well so it hardly made any difference. One thing she did notice was the fact that everyone around her had aged but she still looked young and beautiful. Her face remained remarkably smooth and there were no wrinkles around her eyes or any puffing which normally affected women approaching their middle fifties. Furthermore her body was still slim and lithe with no evidence of ageing at all. One night she went to bed falling asleep shortly afterwards At last she began to dream! She could see herself drifting in a mist but then the images began to become more tangible. Although she lay flat on her bed she believed that she was laying face down with her body stretched out at full length....her eyes staring downwards. She was flying high up above, soaring like a bird free on the wing, experiencing a sensation of exhilaration which surged through her as she hurtled across the open sky. She could feel the clouds, caress the wind, glide, float and move closer to Heaven. Below the ground remained hazy but she could see tall mountains all around, with their craggy slopes and chasms occasionally interrupted by numerous cluster of trees and bushes. At first she traversed on invisible cross-currents, progressing forward steadily, then she yawed and swerved high above the terrain enjoying every moment of her flight. Her body felt as light as air and she could manoeuvre in any direction at will. This was an experience she would never forget; the last area of opportunity denied to mankind....to fly by himself. Since time immemorial, it had been possible for homo sapiens to walk, run, climb and swim but never to be able to fly without the use of a machine. Yet it could be achieved in dreams...it could happen beyond reality. During the dream, she felt as light as a feather, cruising above the clouds without tiresome or troublesome trivialities. Suddenly she saw someone else flying towards her. It was a man but she could not readily recognise his face. Someone else had achieved the art of flight by his own power. The man flew nearer but she was unable to determine whether it was Greg or Ahmed. The dream she was having appeared to allow her to make the choice. Greg or Ahmed? Then, without warning, her body seemed to become much heavier and she began to fall from her great height rather fast....very fast...much too fast....and the adrenalin began to flow through her body waking her up from her deep slumber. When she opened her eyes, she realised that she was drenched with perspiration almost as though she had actually been flying every minute of the dream. It had given her no clues to the way she felt in real life. However later that day, she picked up a book of crosswords and started to solve the puzzles. She was dwelling on the idea given to her by the therapist, Vivien Williams on word association. If she could find words within the confines of the book of crosswords that triggered images in her mind she would be well on the way to recovery. However, after trying the experiment for two days she realised that it had no effect on her. Word association might be helpful to some people but it showed no signs of doing the same for her....so she swiftly ended her relationship with the book.

  * * *

  The next time Diana visited Dr, Mahmoud he looked much better. He was bright and cheerful, and it was clear he no longer succumbed to sleep. She was delighted to see that he had recovered but she wasn’t certain how he would continue his relationship with her as doctor and patient. He was a scientist yet he acted exactly clinically like a physician but he experimented all the time on animals, transferring any cures that he found to aid the plight of human-beings. Without doubt he had cured Betty Naylor of cancer and almost certainly was successful with other patients of whatever diseases they had contracted. If he hadn’t the hospital would never have built the annex so that he could work there. On the other hand, his association with her seemed to be much closer than that of a patient. He was like a father figure towards her in a way that she was unable to explain to herself. Indubitably he was using her for his experiment as well as himself and she firmly believed that she was his sole subject with regard to ferradil-x. Nonetheless, a relationship of father and daughter was slowly beginning to emerge and she was quite happy to go along with it.

  ‘You’re looking so much better than the last time I was here,’ she said opening the conversation.

  ‘I took your advice, my dear,’ he said affectionately.’ I reduced the dose of ferradil-x tablets. A person can be too ambitious in the quest for success. You made me see the light and the reduction steadied my metabolism. For that I thank you. Sometimes a scientist can fly too close to the wind.’

  ‘What about the animals?’ she ventured expecting to hear a positive reply. ‘Are they all well?’

  The tone of his voice showed that he was somewhat disappointed and he tugged lightly at his goatee beard staring directly into her eyes.

  ‘There’s good news and bad news,’ he responded slowly watching her chin drop slightly for the adverse information. ‘The bad news is that a hamster died recently but that’s only one part of it.’

  She appeared unnerved by the revelation. ‘Oh my God”’ she uttered miserably. ‘Don’t tell me it’s been all for nothing!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ he remonstrated waving his hands wildly in front of him. ‘The good news is that although the hamster died there’s another important matter to consider. Hamsters usually live for only two years. This one lived unti
l he was twelve. That’s six times the normal lease of life for a hamster. If you work out the equation to its end and say that the life of an average human-being is seventy-five years....multiplying that by six means that a person might live to the age of four hundred-and-fifty years. I am so pleased by the result that I can hardly contain myself. Can you envisage being over four hundred years old. It blows the mind.’

  ‘It works that way on animals maybe,’ she cut in smartly, ‘but you’ve yet to be certain it works on human beings.’

  ‘If it does work, I shall be around for a long time with laurels resting on my head. I don’t know how it will affect the population of the world because it will grow and grow. Maybe Malthus’s theory that there will be insufficient food to feed everyone if the population grows to enormous proportions. But that’s not my problem.’ He paused to bring his mind back to the current day. ‘Tell me, do you have any regrets about your involvement in the experiment?’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘Not at all. I can’t say it’s been great fun but it’s had little effect on me except for the side-effects which disappeared a long time ago. I must say I still look as young as I did when we started. How about you?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘For me it’s part of my life. As your Oscar Wilde wrote: “We are all in the gutter but some of us look up at the stars.” I can see a whole galaxy out there.’

  She stared at him as he clenched his hands before him. ‘I know you’re dedicated to your work but I’ve been curious about you,’ she advanced boldly. ‘Do you have a family? What do you do for relaxation and fun?’

  He looked at her bleakly. ‘I have no family,’ he told her candidly. ‘I work here day and night. I have a bed in the next room and there is a door which leads to a quadrangle within the confines of the hospital. I haven’t been out of this hospital for sixteen years or more.’

  She gasped at the revelation. ‘Are you telling me you’ve been cooped up in here for sixteen years and you’ve never been outside?’

  He nodded his head unashamedly. ‘My work is all I live for. Provisions and supplies are brought into me each week. It’s all I need to keep myself alive and to treat patients. You may think it’s strange but I only want to carry on with my research.’

  ‘You’re a remarkable man, Dr. Mahmoud,’ she managed to say. ‘I think you’re remarkable.’ She thought of the workaholic syndrome suffered by her husband in England musing that it was inherent in the scientist as well.

  Dr. Mahmoud continued talking but she didn’t listen to a word that was being said. She tried to grasp the concept of a man undertaking treatment of patients and research during the day and simply going into the next room to sleep in his bed every single night. He probably only went out into the hospital quadrangle for twenty minutes occasionally. Such a person, she thought, ought to be treasured and given the highest awards possible from the authorities for such dedication. He was an institution in his own right asking for nothing more in life than to be allowed to continue his research. She felt that he ought to be honoured in the highest degree as someone willing to lay down everything of value in life to help others. There were too few people of such calibre in the world... extremely few!

  He handed her a further supply of tablets and she said her farewell and left. There was a fair amount of time before her flight back to England and it was in her mind to visit Ahmed but for some strange reason she decided not to do so. There would only be an element of embarrassment in meeting him whereby he would ask whether she was still dreaming about him. She didn’t feel that she need to keep providing and answer, neither did she want him to keep handing out flattering compliments of one sort or another especially as she didn’t feel drawn towards him. No...she allowed her head to rule her heart and return to England without seeing him this time. She hoped that he wouldn’t discover that she had visited the scientist in Agadir and had deliberately avoided seeing him but it was a chance she had to take. A strange feeling came over her as she boarded the aircraft at Agadir airport. As her conscience cut in, she realised that he was a true friend and she knew that she should have gone to visit him. However she was now on a aeroplane....it was too late for her to change her mind!

  Chapter Sixteen

  The monthly bridge game continued at the hospital with Jane, Samantha and Dr. Valerie Martin. The atmosphere was extremely clinical with the strange aroma of surgical spirit permeating the room. The four women seemed to get on quite well while the doctor proved to be an adept bridge player. Gloria’s name was mentioned occasionally but gradually her memory faded away into the past. She was dead and cremated....nothing was left! It was a sad thing for those who had departed but the people they left behind had to get on with their lives. In effect, the doctor was warmly welcomed by the others and on one occasion during the tea break she turned to Diana.

  ‘You went to Morocco recently,’ she started. ‘I hear that you go there every six months. Do you visit friends or is it simply a place you like to travel to?’

  Diana inhaled deeply willing to answer the question. Gloria had been so xenophobic that the doctor’s attitude was quite refreshing. ‘I go to see a scientist who’s treating me for loss of memory,’ she explained. ‘Yes I do have a friend there. He’s a young lawyer but there’s nothing more to it than that.’

  ‘Why do you see a scientist instead of a psychologist?’ demanded the new bridge player. ‘You’ve had this loss of memory for many years I understand. What kind of treatment does he give you?’

  ‘I take Beotag and ferradil-x tablets,’ she replied throwing caution to the winds.

  The doctor’s face turned into a frown. ‘I’ve never heard of those tablets before. Which company manufactures them?’

  ‘They’re made by Dr. Mahmoud himself.’

  There was a pause as the doctor’s frown deepened. ‘I would be very careful,’ she warned. ‘Private medical treatments could prove to have very nasty results.’

  ‘This man’s a genius,’ boasted Diana openly. ‘He cured a friend of mine who had incurable cancer. All the doctors in England gave up on her but he cured her.’

  Dr. Martin shrugged her shoulders. ‘Just be careful.’ she advised finally. ‘Some people can be cured and some cannot.’

  Six weeks later during another card evening, the four women began to chat about trivialities in the tea break when destiny struck with its mysterious force to turn Diana’s life upside down. At first, the suggestion was innocuous but no one knew the extent of how things would change for her in the long term. The doctor leaned across the table towards her to suggest an idea that she had formed in her mind.

  ‘I understand you’re a lady of leisure. You have time on your hands, don’t you?‘ began the physician seriously.

  ’My husband refused to allow me to work. He had Victorian ideas about a wife but we’ve separated so I can do what I like. You obviously have something in mind. What is it?’

  The doctor’s face took on a serious expression. ’Have you ever thought about volunteering for the Red Cross?’ she ventured. ’It’s a well-known established institution which does some excellent work.’

  Diana shook her head instantly. ’I’m afraid I know nothing about first aid or hospital treatment. I’d be pretty useless.’

  ’It’s not about first aid or hospital treatment,’ rattled the doctor blandly. ‘I’m talking about serving in one of the Red Cross shops. They sell all kinds of clothing and bric-a-brac and I’m sure you’d do very well there. As I said...it’s voluntary. You could decide to work one or two days a week or even just three hours a day. It’ll be something to fill up your days and it’ll help the Red Cross do their good work. Why not try it? You can always opt out if you don’t like it. No one will blame you.’

  After they had finished the game, Diana returned home. She thought about the doctor’s suggestion, ruling it out of mind instantly. What use would she be to the
Red Cross when she couldn’t remember her own past. She would be a milestone around their neck. Someone would look at an item and ask about its provenance and she wouldn’t be able to remember. It would be a hopeless task. However, despite her reluctance, she went to the Red Cross shop on the following day to learn how it operated. She was surprised to note the simplicity of the operation and the friendship shown ot her by the staff. Perhaps she had been too hasty to reject the idea and she started to change her mind about her original decision. Subsequently, she approached the manageress and told her of the conversation with Dr. Martin.

  ‘Dr. Martin!’ exclaimed the woman. ‘She’s on our local Red Cross board. She’s a real live wire....and she doesn’t stand for any nonsense.’

  ‘Perhaps I could work here for a few days a week,’ offered Diana readily.

  ‘Of course,’ returned the woman delightedly. ‘Welcome to the fold! I’m Jennifer. As it happens, Elsie rang this morning to say she had a migraine. If you want, you can start now.’

  Diana was ushered behind the counter and she stared around the shop staring at the goods. There was clothing and bric-a-brac everywhere. Paintings, crockery, toys, books, clothing of all kinds for men and women, and a cabinet with special items of jewellery and small statues.

  ‘Everything has a price tag on it,’ explained the woman, ‘so you have no problems there. Plastic bags are under the counter....small and large ones. All you have to do is to wrap up the items sold and take the money for them. ‘

  The operation seemed to be simply enough and shortly a customer came to the counter with a colourful teapot which Diana wrapped in flexible cellophane before placing it carefully into a plastic bag.

  ‘I’m buying this for my daughter,’ stated the customer taking the money from his pocket. ‘She’ll love this one. She collects teapots of all kinds. Has some thirty of them.’