The Blasphemer: A Novel (27 page)

‘Urm, take a seat, Dan.’

Daniel clenched his fists, bracing himself. ‘Bad as that?’

Bruce clipped a negative to a light box and said through a sigh, ‘I don’t think it’s, you know, anything we need to worry about. But there is a small shadow on your brain.’ He pointed a thick and hairy finger. ‘More a bubble on the lobe that controls perception, memory and so on. The temporal lobe. This bit here.’

Daniel touched the back of his head. At first his mouth was too dry to speak. ‘It’s a tumour, right?’

‘Not typical of a tumour. It could be a form of aneurism. Could be. But again it’s, urm, not typical of one. I would need a second opinion.’

Daniel rubbed his head again. He could feel the skin capillaries on his face cool as the blood left them. ‘Think I will sit down. Feel a bit faint.’

Daniel knew that Bruce had been trained how to break bad news. They had talked about it. As a medical student he had done
role-play sessions with students from RADA, learning how to cope if they reacted badly, how to console, how to impart information efficiently and tactfully.

‘What do
you
think it might be?’ Bruce said slowly.

‘Let’s not play that game.’

‘My guess is that it’s a blood clot from when you bumped your head. A minor haemorrhage that stopped before becoming a major one. If that’s what it is, it will probably disappear in a few weeks. You need to take things easy, that’s all. You’ve been feeling OK, haven’t you?’

‘Apart from the headaches, yeah. And the thirst.’

‘Then I don’t think it’s anything to get excited about.’

Daniel shook his head. ‘Can you give me five minutes, Bear? I feel a bit … I need five minutes on my own if that’s OK.’

‘Sure. I’ll get some coffee. Milk, no sugar, right?’

‘No, put some sugar in mine, I’m feeling a bit shaky.’

Five minutes later, when Bruce returned carrying two steaming polystyrene cups, Daniel was standing again, by the window. ‘What about the smells and the noises?’ he said. ‘They’re associated with tumour development, aren’t they?’

‘Not necessarily.’ Bruce handed a coffee over and took a sip from his own. ‘We’ll need to do some more tests.’

‘Is there a test you can do for epilepsy?’

‘You didn’t tell me you’d had a seizure.’

‘It’s more … I did see a blinding flash. That’s associated with epilepsy, isn’t it?’

‘It can be …The brain tissue behind the eyes is weak and when hit there the brain, you know, urm, bounces back and can cause an electromagnetic field …’ He trailed off and when it sounded like he had finished he added, ‘or seizure across the temporal lobes. A sensed presence, perhaps in the form of a blinding flash, can be stimulated in that way … There are some electromagnetic tests we can do. Look up at the ceiling for a moment.’ Bruce shone a small torch in his friend’s eye. ‘Nothing unusual there … although …’

‘What?’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you this but I ran what we call “a comparative” on your scan and …’

The two friends stared at one another.

‘And what?’

‘You’re going to love this, Dan …’

‘Go on.’

‘The only recorded example of a shadow pattern like this dates back to nineteen ninety-three. A monk who had a scan after complaining of headaches.’

‘A monk?’

‘Think he was a Buddhist.’

It was Daniel’s turn to sigh. He stood up and walked back towards the window. He was still rubbing his head. ‘You know that thing you wanted me to tell you about?’

Bruce took another sip from his mug and wiped milky foam from his top lip with his sleeve. ‘Go on.’

‘I had a sort of …’ Daniel searched for the right word. ‘You’re going to laugh at me.’

‘I won’t laugh at you.’

Daniel pouted. ‘OK.’ He sighed again. ‘I had a vision.’

Bruce laughed.

Daniel picked up the photograph of Kylie Minogue. ‘I was going to say “hallucination” but …’

‘
You? A vision?
’

‘Yes, me. But I was going to say …’

‘What did you see?’

‘A man. A young man. He was in front of me treading water when I was swimming for help. I was about to give up when I saw him. I was actually taking my life vest off. He smiled and signalled at me to swim towards him.’

‘You recognized him?’

‘Can’t say for sure. He looked familiar. I think I’ve seen him since. He’s a teacher at Martha’s school.’

Bruce nodded again. ‘So you
had
seen him before?’

‘Guess I must have.’ Daniel drew in his shoulders defensively. ’Well, there it is.’

‘It’s not really my, you know, area, but given your condition at the time, the bump on the head, I mean, and the heat exhaustion, I think it would have been a miracle if you hadn’t been hallucinating. Hallucinations can seem very real. What we see is driven as much by what we expect to see, or want to see, as by the actual patterns of light and colour picked up by our eyes. Brain scans have shown this. You didn’t want to die alone out there. You wanted to see another human face. This was a guy you had seen around the school, that confirms it for me. Hallucinations are nearly always of things that we have seen before. Memories. People.’

‘It
was
a hallucination, wasn’t it?’

‘Course it was.’

‘The reason I called it a vision was because of the way it made me feel. I felt …’ He searched for the right word again. ‘Exalted.’

Bruce grinned. ‘That’s why you asked about the epilepsy, wasn’t it? Frontal lobe epilepsy is associated with religious visions.’

‘You think that might be it?’

‘Could easily be. Also you were probably still traumatized from the crash. Seeing those people killed. Feeling guilty about having survived. It’s like with bereavement hallucinations. A lot of grieving people believe they have caught sight of the dead person. It makes them feel better. It’s all to do with the, urm …’

‘Frontal cortex.’

‘Exactly. Decision-making. Hallucinations relate to the, the … higher cognitive functions of the brain. I was reading about someone at Columbia who asked volunteers to differentiate between houses and faces. Signals in the frontal cortex became active whenever subjects expected to see a face, irrespective of what the actual stimulus was. They would look at a house and “see” a face. It’s called, you know …’

‘Predictive coding?’

‘Predictive coding. The brain has an expectation of what it will see, then compares this with information from the eyes. When this goes tits up, hallucinations occur. Our eyes don’t present to our brains exact photographs of the things we see. They are more like sketches and impressions chattering along the optic nerve for the
brain to interpret. That’s what optical illusions are about. The brain’s software is perfectly capable of simulating a vision in this way.’ Bruce smiled again and raised his hands. ‘What can I say? It was
definitely
a hallucination, Dan. Definitely, definitely. There is no doubt in my mind. The only thing we need to check is whether it was triggered by temporal lobe epilepsy. Has it happened since?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then stop worrying about it.’

‘What happened to him? The monk?’

‘His shadow went away eventually.’

‘Makes sense in a way. Do you know what I mean by the “God spot”?’

‘Read something about it in
Nature
once. They did an experiment in which quasi-religious epiphanies were induced under laboratory conditions. Didn’t they use nuns?’

‘Carmelite nuns. But they were also able to produce these visions in non-believers. Basically they showed that there’s a circuit of nerves in the brain which explains belief in God.’

‘There you are then. Angel, my arse.’

Daniel started guiltily. ‘I never said anything about an angel.’

‘Look, if it makes you feel exalted, enjoy it while it lasts. I normally have to prescribe pills to achieve that effect.’

‘There’s something else.’ Daniel gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I’m, sort of, priapic.’

‘Poor Morticia.’

‘Poor me. Since the crash we haven’t had sex once. Six weeks.’

‘I’m no expert but that’s not so unusual after ten years, is it? For heterosexuals, I mean.’

‘It is for us. Before the crash normality was two or three times a week.’

Bruce shook his head. ‘Poor, poor Morticia.’

‘It’s probably because of her shoulder. The other night we tried sleeping in the same bed and … I shouldn’t be telling you this …’

‘But you’re going to.’

‘We always used to have this thing where … when we lay back to back we would touch our toes together. We don’t even do that any more.’

‘You told anyone else about your … whatever it was?’

‘I nearly told one of the professors at Trinity. Wetherby. Do you know him?’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Dunno. Didn’t seem fair. He believes in all that bollocks. Probably been waiting all his life for a vision …You know, he’s a pious man. If anyone deserves to have a vision-like hallucination it’s him. He’d think it was wasted on me.’

‘I’m sure he’s a bigger man than that.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure he is. Perhaps I will tell him … Bear?’

‘Yeah?’

‘If something happens … If it is a tumour, I want you to look after Nancy and Martha.’

Bruce grinned. ‘I’ll look after Martha, but Morticia’s on her own.’

‘What is it between you two?’

‘To be honest, Dan, she terrifies me.’

‘She’s only terrifying with people she knows.’

‘And strangers.’

‘And strangers, yeah, but she’s like that because she’s vulnerable.’

‘Yeah, right. About as vulnerable as the north face of the Eiger.’

‘OK, I ask you to look after her as a friend. You’re the only man I trust with her.’

‘You can look after her yourself, Dan. Nothing is going to happen to you. Now, I need to …’ He nodded at the door. ‘And so do you. Go home. Get some rest. Ring me in the morning. And Dan …’

‘Yeah?’

‘Have a wank. Doctor’s orders.’

*

When he got home, Daniel sat in his car for a moment with the engine running. The sun glinting off the bonnet was making him squint. He slapped the steering wheel and smiled to himself.

He had his explanation.

Martha was reading a Harry Potter book in the kitchen. ‘Can I watch a DVD, Daniel?’

‘Call me Daddy. And why not carry on reading?’

‘I’ve been reading for, like, half an hour. Mum said I could watch a DVD if I did half an hour’s reading.’

‘OK. If Mummy said.’

‘She also said you had to give me my injection. Shall I go and fill it up ready?’

‘I’d better do it.’

‘I can do it. I’ve been practising doing the injecting, too. On an orange. Can I show you?’

‘OK, but don’t tell Mummy.’

Martha filled her syringe as expertly as Nancy would have done and held it up for Daniel to see it was the right amount. She pinched loose skin on her waist and slipped the needle in without hesitating. ‘See?’

‘Very good.’ Daniel ruffled her hair. ‘How are things at school?’

‘Fine.’

‘You’re happy?’

‘Sure.’ Martha shrugged. ‘I guess … Daniel?’

‘Call me Daddy.’

‘Daddy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why is Mum always crying?’

Daniel blinked. ‘When does she cry?’

‘All the time.’

Ten minutes later, as Daniel sat waiting on the sofa in the drawing room, Kevin the Dog nudged the door open with his nose, slunk across the room and exchanged a guilty glance with him before creeping up over the arm of the sofa and curling into a ball. Martha followed the dog into the room, shuffling as she tried to keep Nancy’s stilettos on her feet. She was holding one of her
mother’s handbags too and wearing one of her hats. Her face was made up. She was trying not to grin.

Daniel played along, affecting not to notice.

Martha took a DVD of
Finding Nemo
out of its sleeve, slotted it into the player and pressed ‘play’ on the remote. When nothing happened, she opened up the back of the remote and rolled the batteries around with her thumb. It worked.

As Martha watched the television screen, Daniel stole glances at her, studying the detail of her face, the pores in her freckled skin, the delicate whorl of her ear, her thick lashes, the slight tilt of her nose, the bow of her lips. She was so pale – a pale imitation of her golden-skinned mother. Even the wash-off tattoo on her arm was a mockery of the real thing. Compared to Nancy, Martha was plain and mousy. She was more like Daniel. She had his colouring. Would adolescence favour her with good looks? He put a protective arm around her and smelled her hair. She tucked herself into him – father and daughter on a big blue sofa with chocolate stains on its arm.
Finding Nemo
was her favourite film. Daniel and she had watched it often. When it came to the part where the clown fish hitches a ride on the shell of a sea turtle, Daniel said: ‘Ah.’

‘Why did you say “Ah’’?’

‘Because Daddy’s been seeing things.’

‘What things?’

Daniel did not answer. Instead he pulled his daughter towards him, in the crook of his arm. After a while, feeling bored with the film, he extracted himself and opened the metallic lid of his MacBook Air. Unable to get online, he called up the stairs. ‘Nancy? I’m not getting a signal. Have you got one on your laptop? Nancy? You there?’ He took the stairs two at a time. The door to her study was open. As he crossed the threshold, an energy-saving, movement-sensitive lightbulb came on. He picked up the empty wine glass on her davenport desk. It had a print of her lips on its rim and, when he raised it to his nose, he closed his eyes. The scent of her lipstick made him ache, in his legs, his stomach, his chest. He thought of the ‘five unobvious things’ he loved about her, the things Nancy had once asked him to list. One of them had been the way
she wore Ambre Solaire in winter. He tried to recall the others: the way she wore her watch on the wrong wrist when she had something cooking, to remind her to take the pot out when it was ready; the way she could work her whole fist into her mouth, as a party trick; the way she snored gently, almost imperceptibly, as if the sound was carrying across a foggy valley; the way she learned new languages, just for fun; and the way she tugged her sleeves down over her wrists when feeling self-conscious. What was it she had said when he listed them? Yes, he remembered now. ‘That’s six things, you moron. I asked for five.’