Capcir Spring (9 page)

"What would happen if he were not sedated"

"We would have to put him in a padded cell for his own protection and perhaps even use a straight jacket. He is, you must realise very seriously disturbed. Have you ever seen an animal in a zoo which is in a highly disturbed state. It rushes from side to side, throwing itself into the walls and bars of its cage, often inflicting serious injury on itself. People are capable of similar reactions when they are disturbed and unrestrained. Come."

He led the way through an enclosed walkway into an adjacent Nissan hut. Every door was unlocked before them and locked behind them. At last she was taken into a small single room. It was all white and very bright. On a bed under a white sheet lay James. He looked pale but his eyes were open and were darting rapidly around the room.

"Hello James " she begun, unsure of what to say "How are you?"

The eyes that had been wide open, staring at the white ceiling, fixed on her face and the mouth issued a growl and he pulled back his lips to bare his teeth.

"Bitch" he spat "You've put me here. Bloody bitch"

He moved as if trying to sit up and get closer to her but as Mary looked she could make out the wide straps showing through the sheet that kept him lying on the bed.

"I'd not finished with you. I only started. One day I'll get the job finished. Teach you to do this to me. I'll get my knife again. I'm sorry that it hurt you but next time I'll be quicker and you won't feel a thing. It's for your own good you know."

Mary didn't know what to say or think. She had definitely not expected a continuation of the verbal abuse from the night of the attack.

"You are ill. They will make you better here." She said softly, wondering though as the words passed her lips if she really believed that recovery was possible.

Before she had finished speaking he screamed. "I really hate you and all you stand for, and your friends and your secrecy, locking me out of part of your life. I hate everything but you are not beyond redemption. And I am the one to redeem you. I am the one to bring you the release and freedom that comes from getting rid of the bad parts. Getting rid of what holds back our relationship from truly blossoming."

"Oh James, you are ill. You don't know what you are saying. I still love you." These words that in her heart she was beginning to doubt had no calming effect. In her anticipation of the visit she had been sure that by telling James that she loved him would have had a calming effect and brought him to his senses. But there was no such reaction.

"I've never felt better in my life. I feel on top of the world. I've got rid of that shell that I had to live in and can be myself at last. And I want you to have that freedom too. Get out of that shell of hatred and worship me. For I am the one who brings salvation to you my girl. I come as the one to bring the truth and the truth will set you free."

"Most of all though I despise you. If you do not believe in me it will be better for you if you had never been born. For the devil and all his angels has a place prepared for you in the everlasting pit."

Mary turned away quickly and made for the door. She had heard about as much as she could take. The doctor at her side led her out and they walked away in silence. James' screams and abuse continued behind them from behind the white padded door. She turned to the doctor and asked through her tears,

"Would I be a fool to hope that he will go back to as he was before? That this will all be forgotten? That he will make a full recovery and I can, without a care in the world, return to share his life and bed? Would I be a bloody fool to think like that?"

After a significant pause he replied, "We always have to hope and often when we can get the balance of medication just right we can achieve a lot. But and this is the big but, if we can normalise him, he will have to remain on those drugs probably for the rest of his life. If he misses a dose one day then he may be right back here again. Though we do finally wean some people off all medical support, with cases of such severity it is difficult to say what will happen. The illness came on very suddenly by all accounts it could possibly leave suddenly too. All things are possible but the odds are not stacked in favour of the complete cure that you obviously hope for."

Mary left the hospital feeling numb. She still had a husband in the flesh, in the same body but in the mind and in the spirit she had just been in the presence of a stranger. The familiar features, once so dear were now inhabited by a stranger. And it was a stranger she did not care for. James was no longer James and if he ever returned to be the James she knew before would she ever be able to trust or believe him, again?

Mary had tried four more times to see James and each time the reaction had been worse. In the end the doctor asked her not to visit, as it was both distressing for her and it took them a week to calm James down afterwards. She took legal advice and was granted a divorce. It was not an easy decision as part of her felt she did not want to give up on him. She had clung onto the remote chance that he might get better but eventually saw it as highly improbable. On the other hand she was certain from her first visit that she could never trust him again. Indeed trust of any man was something that she still working on.

Time had passed but these events were like yesterday in the long sleepless hours of the night. And as so often had happened the memories flew back and forward through her mind and she relived them time and again, not knowing if she were asleep or awake. But she must have slept a little for she was conscious of actually waking at the sound of traffic in the morning.

*****

Mary was not the only one finding it difficult to sleep that night. John lay awake on his bed looking at the rough pine boarding on the sloping ceiling and thinking about the legend of the man and the two women he loved. Poor man. Was he happy. Did he enjoy the seduction or the experience of being seduced. Did he plan it or did it just creep up on him? Was it the case that one moment he was with her in a perfectly innocent encounter and the next they were lovers? Did he enjoy it while it lasted or was even the momentary enjoyment he experienced tinged and spoiled by a brooding and ever present sense of guilt.

Katherine kept coming to mind. Katherine with her short bobbed hair and her bubbly giggle that he thought he was the only one to hear. Katherine with her history of problems with her family and her earnest desire to do things better for herself. To make a break from her past and escape from all that had ever been done to her. Her strong sense of what was right and wrong, though somewhat out of line with the ethics of the world, that emerged from a spark of inner goodness untainted by the procrastination of ethics classes. Katherine only sixteen years old yet she knew so much suffering. She had the body of a mature woman in the mind of in many respects a young child. Katherine whose trust he had betrayed. Katherine was the one who had been his victim. Or was it as they had argued that he was her victim. Had she really, as the others had told him afterwards, lured him into a compromising position in order to control and have power over him. Did he seduce or was he seduced? Was she a whore? No not Katherine. Not dear, sweet, tragic Katherine.

The memories he always tried to keep suppressed surfaced. The long hours he had spent in his rooms and in the counselling suite with Katherine alone. It had been such a mistake but he was a professional. He had been at the centre for five years and knew all the warning signs. The process had happened so slowly that he had failed to realise how she was playing with him. She was so clever. She looked at him so appealingly with her large hazel eyes and his resolves always became much weaker in her presence. Did she bewitch him, cast him under her spell. It was a glorious and joyous spell to be under if that was the case. A spell he entered willingly and eagerly with his eyes wide open.

Their conversations had ranged over the whole world, and over all her life. There was not one corner she was not prepared to discuss and he had listened. Was he transgressing the role of counsellor even then as he indulged his enjoyment of the way she had of explaining things rather than being more strict with her. She had seen so much of the world, much more than he ever would even though her was nearly thirty years her senior. She was intelligent and had a sense of humour. She didn't take herself or life too seriously but then that is what he had thought and how wrong he had been.

It all came to a head and then she was gone. Gone for ever. Poor sad Katherine. The others told him that she had always been unstable and they said he was not to blame for her death but he knew and they didn't the depth of complete understanding that had grown between them. He could see nothing to do but resign and put himself in the hands of Derek. He needed help and he needed it from those who understood the problems of his vocation rather than fellow professionals.

It had all been such a sad mistake but it had been a lovely mistake while it lasted. His pleasure was still there in the remembering of it. Derek had realised that of course. He had seen that all the remorse was only self-pity and Derek had been just in meeting out the divine retribution on the part of the almighty. Derek had seen through his penance that he was still too full of remorse and grief to feel any guilt about what had happened. Guilt? Perhaps Katherine had taught him what destructive force guilt could be. How you must escape from it and not let it gnaw its teeth into you. Guilty, no he knew in his heart of hearts that he didn't feel in the slightest bit guilty about his relationship. He felt slightly guilty because he wasn't overcome with guilt. He did feel guilt and he went over and over in his mind the events of the last hours of her life to see if he could have done anything differently. He was fairly certain that in some way he bore a share of responsibility and blame for what had ultimately occurred but he was was not plagued with deep guilt about Katherine. Katherine and guilt just didn't go together.

Was he meant to return to a life of celibacy. It seemed too early to tell. He still enjoyed those memories which those who counselled him told him were evil but which he thought of as something precious. Why did it all go so tragically wrong though? Why?

John too must have slept. His dreams disturbed only by angelic visions of Katherine who was as he remembered her but at times she would grow long blond hair and it was not Katherine at all but Mary. The new woman that he had just met. He woke in the morning. Was his subconscious really mixing all his female fantasies into one. Perhaps he shouldn't see her again. But there again she had really fainted last night and he would have to see if she was all right.

He hadn't really changed at all he thought in a moment of rare self-honesty. He had used such arguments with himself to justify the continuation his professional relationship with Katherine long after he had seen warning signs that would have made a wiser man consider withdrawal.

Not for the first time a couplet from T S Eliot came to mind:

`Sometimes these cogitations still amaze

the troubled midnight and the noons repose'

What would a wise man do in his shoes? He didn't know and he had no way of knowing. What he did know was that he was in his shoes. All he could do would be to muddle through life now as he had always muddled through in the past.

“God help me.” he said to the empty bedroom. “God help me.”

4

When Mary woke the sun was already high in the sky, streaming with real warmth in its rays into the room. It was almost half past nine. She did not want to get up. The night was one she did not want to think about, so she did as she did with so many thoughts lately, she put it to the back of her mind. Too much good food, indigestion, she rationalised to herself as she lie on the pillow watching the reflection of some bright object dancing on the ceiling above her head and thinking that maybe she should make a move. Her head felt slightly fragile, it wasn't a hangover. She had only had three glasses of wine at the most. It was much more likely to be over tiredness. That would also account for the dull heavy ache in her calves.

With an effort she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Perhaps it was the suddenness of the movement for as she went to rise, she felt a slight dizziness and all at once she remembered passing out the night before. She hadn't blacked out before. Why last night? Had it just been the sight of the figure with the carving knife against the curtain or was she ill in some way. Were all these dreams just a product of an over active mind? She spent all day trying to get her imagination to be creative: to interpret these dry historical records and survey plans by imagining something of the life of the folk of long ago. Perhaps her mind didn't know it was supposed to stop this process after she went to sleep at night. Perhaps she was having a breakdown. How well she knew that such things seemed to happen without prior warning! Had the sun got to her? Were there really spirits in some other world that could come alive in people's dreams? And what about Andre knowing the content of one of my dreams? That was really creepy. Supposing she had passed out while she was at the ruin and there hadn't been anyone to help her? Perhaps she hadn't really come to terms with the James episode of her life as she pretended. There could be some deep psychological damage that was only just now coming to the surface when all the more obvious scars had healed so well. Suppose she had passed out when she had been alone in the flat? Perhaps it was all because she wasn't getting enough sleep and was overtired. She had driven quickly down to the south of France from the north of England and started her busy schedule of work straight away. She hadn't allowed time for a day off as a tourist in her schedule. Her reasoning was that as she was being sponsored on the trip to work she couldn't justify the expense. She certainly didn't have spare money of her own to throw around on self-indulgences like holidays. Or was she too hard on herself and driving herself too hard. Frightened of what she would find if she stopped and was still?