Puzzle for Fiends (3 page)

“No, it’s perfectly natural. A wish-fulfilment changed into a false memory by the concussion. You wanted to get into the Navy badly, you know. Now your mind’s trying to pretend that you did. But enough of this flossy medico talk.”

He patted my shoulder. His hand was brown and warm. “Okay. Let’s get on with the story. I guess you don’t remember, but I run a small private sanatorium up in the mountains. Some people passing in another car found you. They asked for the nearest hospital and brought you up to me. A lucky coincidence—with me being something of a pal.”

“I was conscious?” I asked, listening as if it was a tale about someone else.

“You came to pretty soon after they brought you in. You were in quite bad shape. They had to operate right away on the arm and the leg. We got you in time, however, to prevent any compound fractures.”

He went on: “It was always the blow on the head that had me the most worried about you, Gordy. Your arm and leg are fine. You won’t have any pain from them. But, after we’d got the casts on and you came to from the ether, you were pretty vague, hadn’t much idea about what anything was. I kept you under sedatives. I was giving your mind a rest. After you’d come to a couple more times and still weren’t clicking, I was sure you had a temporary amnesia. I kept up the sedative treatment for two weeks. Then I thought our best bet might be to bring you home. I was hoping the familiar associations would help you.” His smile was self-deprecatory. “Seems like I was too optimistic.”

Once again the brown hand, intimate as a woman’s, caressed my shoulder. “But don’t you worry yourself about anything, Gordy, old man. You never can tell with these concussion cases. There’s no gauging the duration of the amnesia. Things will come back gradually. Maybe in a couple of days, a couple of hours even...”

“Or a couple of years? ’ I asked gloomily.

“Now, don’t let’s get depressed about it, Gordy.” Behind the silky lashes, his harem eyes were watching me. “Frankly, I’m optimistic. We’ve nothing to worry about with the arm and the leg. In fact, tomorrow I think I’ll let you play around in a wheel chair. You’ll be meeting people you know, pushing yourself around places you know. Yes, I’m optimistic all right.”

Although I knew all this was bedside manner, it soothed me. I was beginning to feel a delightful sense of passivity. Here was my mother and this friendly doctor. They were both doing all they could for me. After all, what was there to worry about? I was in a beautiful room. I was cared for. People were nice to me. I was Gordy Friend. Gordon Renton Friend the Third. Soon I would remember just what being Gordy Friend entailed and take up my old life.

I glanced around the sunswept gold and grey room. If this was any indication, being Gordy Friend was pretty painless.

I said, pleased: “I own this place?”

“Of course, Gordy. The house has been yours since your father died.”

“My father?”

“You don’t remember your father?” Dr. Croft looked amused. “It seems impossible that anyone could ever forget Gordon Renton Friend the Second.”

“He was famous?”

“Famous? In a way, yes. He’d moved here from St. Paul only a couple of years before he died. But he certainly managed to make himself felt in that time.”

“By what?”

“By his personality and... oh, well, I think you’d better let the family explain about your father.”

“But he’s dead?”

“Yes. He died about a month ago.”

“So that’s why my mother’s in mourning.”

I lay still considering these bare outlines. I tried to stir up a memory picture of Gordon Renton Friend the Second who had certainly made himself felt. Nothing came. My glow of contentment increasing I asked: “Then I suppose I’m rich?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Croft. “I’d say you were very rich—very rich indeed.”

My mother came in then. She patted Dr. Croft’s shoulder as she passed him and sat down by my bed next to the pink roses.

“Well, Doctor?”

Nate Croft shrugged the tweed shoulders. “Nothing very much yet, Mrs. Friend.”

“Darling boy. “My mother took my hand and placed it on her large lap. “Feel better?”

“At least I know now who my father was,” I said.

“I told him a little,” said Dr. Croft.

“Only a little, I hope. Poor Gordy, I’m sure he’s not strong enough yet to have to start remembering his father.”

I said: “What was wrong with him? Was he a skeleton in our closet?”

My mother laughed her rich, syrup laugh. “Good heavens, no. We, darling, were the skeletons. But don’t fuss yourself. You just lie quiet while I ask the doctor intelligent questions about what should be done with you.”

“I’ve nothing much new to say, Mrs. Friend.” Dr. Croft was glancing very discreetly at his wrist watch. “Keep on with the same treatment for the time being. As for this miserable temporary amnesia, the best therapy’s to keep him in constant contact with familiar objects. That’s how we’re going to bring him back to normal.”

My mother looked at me and then looked at the doctor and blinked. “Talking about familiar objects, shouldn’t we try Selena on him now?”

Dr. Croft shot a swift look down at the hump in the bedspread made by my cast. “I was just going to suggest it.”

“Selena,” I said. “You keep talking about Selena. Who is Selena?”

My mother still had my hand in her lap. She squeezed it.

“Darling, you really are sweet. Perhaps I even prefer you without your memory.” She pointed at the second bed. “Selena is the person who sleeps in that bed. Selena’s your wife.”

The white negligée. The feminine room. My wife.

Dr. Croft was saying: “Is she somewhere around, Mrs. Friend?”

“I think she’s in the patio with Jan.”

“Then I’ll send her up. Have to be running, I’m afraid.” Doctor Croft patted my shoulder again. “I’ll be in tomorrow and I’ll try to bring you a wheel chair. Chin up, Gordy, old boy. We’ll have you back with us before you know. So long, Mrs. Friend.”

He left. My mother rose.

“Well, darling, with Selena coming, I think I should beat a tactful retreat.” She scooped up untidy strands of hair. “If anything’s going to bring your memory back, it’ll be Selena.”

She moved towards the door and then paused.

“Really, all these flowers. I told Selena she was crazy to bring so many. This room smells like a tomb.”

She crossed to a corner table and picked up two vases. One was full of red roses. The other held a large bunch of white and blue iris.

“I’ll take these roses and the iris to Marny’s room.”

Carrying the flowers, she looked splendid as an Earth Fertility goddess of some ancient cult. I watched her admiringly as she went to the door. Then a sudden sensation of inconsolable loss swept over me and I called:

“Don’t take the iris. Leave the iris.”

She turned, staring at me through the bright flowers. “Why-ever not, Gordy, dear? They’re depressing flowers. You know you’ve never liked iris.”

“I want them,” I said with a vehemence out of all proportion. “Please leave the iris.”

“Very well, dear. Since you’re so passionate about them.”

She put the vase of iris back on the table and went out with the roses.

I lay staring at the slender blue and white flowers. The propellers had started up again in my brain. I told myself that my wife was coming. I had a wife. Her name was Selena. I tried to remember what Selena was going to look like. Nothing came. Always the image of the flowers rose up blotting out the vague image of a wife. I had no control over my thoughts. There were the propellers, and that one word reiterating itself pointlessly.

Iris… Iris… Iris.... Iris
…

After
a few moments the violence of the iris reaction subsided. But it was still there. Even when I wasn’t looking at them, I was conscious of the tall blue and white flowers on the table, and the word stuck in the back of my mind, firmly implanted as a bullet in a dead man’s chest.

I was still poor at gauging time. For an indefinite period I lay in bed and gradually the smug sensation of well-being returned. The run-of-the-mill amnesiac didn’t come back to such an ideal existence as this. I had a charming mother and a beautiful house. I was rich and they were sending my wife up to me. I had passed through that first, unphysical phase of
 
returning to consciousness. In spite of the faint ache in my head and the cramping casts, I could feel the blood running in my veins again. And the thought of my wife excited my blood.

Selena. I played with the name speculatively. It was one of those tantalizing names. Selena could be tall and slinky with cool green eyes. Selena could be prissy too, bony, spinsterish, with a tight mouth. I was caught up in a sudden unease. Things had been too good to be true so far. There had to be a hitch. What if Selena was the hitch? A bony, spinsterish wife with a tight mouth.

The suspense was almost unendurable now. To combat that cold, elbowy image, I conjured up a host of voluptuous fancies. Selena had to be a brunette, I told myself. Wasn’t there a certain type of brunette I was crazy about? What was the word? It was on the tip of my tongue.

Sultry.
That was it. Selena had to be a sultry brunette.

The door was kicked open. A young girl crossed the threshold. In one hand she carried a small cocktail shaker full of drinks. In the other she held a single empty glass. For a moment she stood there, quite still, by the door, staring at me.

I stared back, feeling wonderful. She was about twenty-two. She was wearing a dashingly cut black suit with broad shoulders and a skirt that stopped just below the knee showing long straight legs. She had one of those figures that fit under the arm. Her hair, blue-black as tar, fell glossily around her shoulders. She had a face like a chic French doll with a red painted cupid’s bow mouth and brown, uninhibited eyes.

She crossed to the bed and sat down next to the roses. My mother was an overblown rose. This girl was a cool, red bud. She still clung on to the shaker and the glass, still stared at me appraisingly. Suddenly she smiled.

“Hello, Gordy, you dreary object.”

She put the shaker and the glass down, and she moved over onto the spread close to me and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft and fragrant. Her young breasts pressed lightly against my pajamas. I brought my one good arm up and slipped it around her, bringing her closer. I went on kissing her. She squirmed away.

“Hey, Gordy. A sister’s a sister.”

“Sister?”

She shook back her hair and sat watching me broodingly. “Of course I’m your sister. Who d’you think I am? Your brother?”

I felt dejected. “The doctor said he was sending my wife up.”

“Oh, Selena.” She shrugged. “She’s off somewhere with Jan. Nate couldn’t find her.” She twisted around and poured herself a Manhattan. She held the glass by its stem, still watching me. “Mother said you’d lost your memory. Boy, you certainly have.” She laughed, a deep, rich laugh, my mother’s laugh, young. “If I had your memories, I guess I’d lose them too.”

Her skin was white and soft as my mother’s. Against it, the red mouth was fascinating. I knew it wasn’t in the book to feel about your sister the way I was feeling. I put it down to the amnesia.

“Okay, sister,” I said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Marny. “She crossed her legs, the skirt slipping back from her knees. “Really, this is quite intriguing. Let’s talk about me. What shall I give with?”

I reached out for her drink. “You could give with that cocktail.”

She pushed my hand away, shaking her head. “Uhuh.”

“Why not?”

“My dear Gordy, one of the things you’re so conveniently forgetting is that we’re making a good boy of you.”

“I’m a bad boy then?”

“Terrifically. Didn’t you know?”

“I don’t know anything. Remember? What’s wrong with me? Drink too much?”

Marny’s impervious young eyes stared. “My dear, you’ve been potted off and on since you were sixteen. You were stinking the night you had your accident. Now the word’s gone forth. No drink for Gordy. Nate says so.”

I suppose I should have been discouraged to hear that about myself, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t remember any especial interest in liquor and I didn’t have any particular desire for her drink. I’d only asked to be sociable.

I said: “Tell me more about myself. What am I except a drunk?”

“I guess the police word for you’s playboy. But to me, darling, you’re just a lush. A sweet one for those who like lushes. Selena likes lushes.”

“Selena? Oh yes, my wife.” I paused. “Do you like me?”

Marny swallowed half her drink. “I’ve always thought you were quite a louse.”

“Why?”

She grinned a sudden, spontaneous grin. “Wait till your memory comes back, dear. Then you won’t have to be told.”

Her hand moved to tug her skirt down. It made me conscious of her knees. I said:

“If you’re my sister, I wish you’d go sit somewhere else. You—you unnerve me.”

“Really, Gordy.” Marny twisted back onto the chair by the roses. “Nate says I’m to try to refresh your memory. Shall I tell your tales from your childhood?”

“Tell me anything you like.”

“Check if I strike a chord.” She paused, reflecting. “Remember the time when...? No, we’d better not go into that. Remember the Winter Ball at Miss Churchill’s dancing school in St. Paul when you spiked the fruit punch with gin and started an orgy in the men’s cloak room?”

I grinned. “What an enterprising lad I was. No. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

Marny wrinkled her nose. “How about the time when Father took us to the Aurora Clean Living League Summer Camp up in the Lakes? You bet me you could stir up an unclean thought in Mr. Heber and switched clothes with me and had him proposition you in the canoe?”

“I see what you mean about the advantages of amnesia,” I said uneasily. “No. I don’t remember a thing. What the hell is the Aurora Clean Living League?”

She put her glass down. “Gordy, you can’t have forgotten the Aurora Clean Living League. It’s the most important thing in our lives.”

“What is it?”

Marny shook her head. “Skip it. Have a few more easy moments, while you may, darling.” She leaned forward. “We’re not getting anywhere with this system. Tell me. What do you remember?”