The Blind Eye (9 page)

The night before, as he had attempted to stretch out on his single bed, he had let his mind float, luxuriating in images of how wild and inhospitable this country was, how empty, how unaccommodating to even the most basic of human needs. With his neck against the iron bedstead and his feet hanging over the edge, he had been amazed at the change he had made in his life. He was here and he liked it. He would start on the house soon, and as his thoughts had rolled lazily across the possibilities, he had heard the huskiness of Thai’s laughter as Steve had slammed the bedroom door shut, the whole house shuddering for a moment, and the peace in which he had immersed himself had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Wanting only to sleep, he had found himself remembering one of his last conversations with his mother. They had talked as they had always talked, Silas knowing she was half listening, the alcohol blurring all he said so that his words had simply formed a pleasant cloud to be shaped as she pleased. It was only when he had been about to hang up that he had asked her, uncertain as to why the question had suddenly come to his mind, whether he had been a difficult child.

She had been silent for a moment. When she had finally spoken, her voice had been small.

I loved you
.

I know
, he had said.

It was a hard time
.

Lying on the bed out the back of Thai’s, Silas had recalled the peripatetic nature of their lives and how, through it all, his mother had never thought to leave his father. Even when she was hopelessly drunk, her misery at their homelessness palpable beneath the taut surface of her inebriated joy, there was a softness in her gaze, a visible easing in her tension whenever his father had entered the room, whenever he had looked at her with adoration in his eyes, always completely unaware of the wrongs he had committed, always choosing to believe that one day he would be vindicated, that his version of events would be believed. She had loved him. She had seen him for what he was and she had not stopped loving him.

As he had tried to sleep, Silas had felt his aloneness, and he had wanted, more than anything, the warmth of another body beside him, someone to affirm his existence in the strangeness of this place. He had closed his eyes, only to start, visibly jerking as he had felt his body falling, and there was pure panic as he had wondered why he had come here and what he had to go back to.

Now, in the morning, the dryness of the heat was harsh on his back and shoulders and the emptiness crushed him. He glanced briefly at the ruin of the house next door and
then closed his eyes. For a moment, the possibility of going over there and lying down in the midst of its collapse crossed his mind. He would clear a small space in the rubble and filth and curl up. He shook his head and swiped, yet again, at the flies, his entire body agitated by the stillness at which he had once again arrived.

Thai’s kids were stacking old tyres in a heap, forming a tower next to a pile of rubbish at the side of the house. The oldest boy, who was about nine, was ordering his younger brother to bring the next one over. Silas watched the boy sweating, every muscle in his skinny body strained as he tried to carry it to the indicated spot. He had never noticed until now that the older one didn’t talk. Each of his instructions to his brother, who was clearly the slave in this architectural feat, was mimed with a strange mixture of hand signals and urgent mouthing.

He was bitten by a dingo
, the younger one explained. A lizard flicked through the dirt and he bent down to grab it, quick and sure, the tail coming off in his hands. He held it up proudly, a worm twitching between his fingers.
Hurts him to open his mouth. It’s his jaw
, and the older brother tilted his head up to show Silas the long jagged scar that cut around the base of his chin.

Really?
Silas asked.

Really
, and they both nodded solemnly.

Silas glanced at the tyres stacked next to the piles of
garbage and, without thinking, told them he wanted to go to the garden, the one in the rubbish dump. The sudden realisation that this was what he would do filled him with an overpowering sense of relief, the strength of the sensation almost making him nauseous as he reeled back from the possibility of the fall that had been dogging him all morning.

The younger boy pointed one skinny arm towards the right of the jetty, the lizard’s tail still dangling between his fingers.
It’s that way
, and he sniffed, the snot disappearing up his nostril, only to run down again, thick and yellow, moments later.

The older one shook his head furiously and started scratching a drawing in the dirt, the chickens pecking at the edges of the marks he made.

He’s drawing you a map. He says it’s past two stone places and then there’s a tree
.

No
. The older boy stamped his feet angrily, kicking up a cloud of dust, the hens scattering and squawking.

The sudden loudness of his voice shocked Silas. Rubbing at the grit in his eyes, now mingled with a slow trickle of sweat from his forehead, he looked at the two of them.

He can talk when he wants to
, the younger one explained.
It’s just that it hurts
, and he attempted to grasp Silas’s arm as he turned to walk away.
It’s true
, he protested.

As Silas swung each leg over what remained of the gate,
as he tried to shoo the chickens back inside, he could still hear the younger boy:
Don’t you want to know how to get there? To the garden?

He just shook his head and walked on.

2

Tarentula. It was not a difficult choice for a first remedy. It had, in fact, sprung to my mind when I first saw Silas, and I had to be careful that the questions I asked did not simply guide me to the conclusion I had already formed. I had to keep an open mind, while not ignoring that immediate hunch.

This is the way it sometimes is with patients. When I first treated Larissa (one of my provers), she immediately struck me as a person who would benefit from Aurum. From the moment I saw her in the waiting room, sitting in a shaft of sunlight, I had a sense. There was something in the dullness of her eyes, the heaviness of her expression, and as she began to tell me of her depression, that she had no heart for anything, that the light had gone from her life, I knew that I had been right.

It is not always like that (rarely, actually), and I have found that it usually occurs when I have some kind of affinity with the patient. After Larissa left, I realised there was a sadness in her smile that had reminded me of my mother
and that even some of the phrases she’d used had been identical to the way in which my mother would try to describe how she felt when she had a breakdown, wanting me to understand that it was nothing I had done, her tone insistent each time she saw the doubt in my eyes.

In Silas’s case, this affinity was less tangible but perhaps closer to home. The extreme change in his life, the extent of the isolation he had now chosen disturbed me. At the end of our sessions together, I would sometimes catch myself staring out the window, my own reflection looking back at me, and I would wonder at what I had become and why.

Silas did not ask me what the remedy was when I gave it to him. He just glanced briefly at the instructions I had written out for him, seven drops, morning, noon and night for three days, and made another appointment.

The next time I saw him he wanted to know more. He was not interested in what it was he had been taking (he had read the label on the bottle), he wanted to know how it worked. That session, if I remember correctly, was also the first time he spoke of Constance.

So, how are things?
I asked, sensing his agitation from the moment he sat down.

He told me the pains were a little less acute and not as frequent.

But still there?

He nodded. He was holding the remedy in his hand, rolling it back and forth. The click of the bottle against the table was louder than he had intended as he put it down between us.

If this is what you say it is, then surely it’s poisonous?
He pointed to the label and looked directly at me.

It’s been diluted to such an extent that it has no toxic effects
.

Silas raised his eyebrows.
Then how can it work?

I picked the remedy up and then put it down again. Silas’s question did not come as a surprise. It is not uncommon for patients to ask me how it is possible, thinking that I am going to reveal a magic trick to them. As I attempt to give some form of understandable explanation, their eyes usually glaze over; it is not magic after all.

We are all trained to see the world in a particular way
, and Silas did not take his gaze from mine as I told him I needed him to think a little differently, to throw away notions he held as truths.

The more diluted a substance is
, and I held up the bottle,
the more powerful it is
.

His stare remained fixed.

And what is poison to some is antidote to others
.

He told me he had never liked riddles.

I apologised. I had not intended to be obtuse and I sat back for a moment as I tried to assess the best way in which to give him an understanding of what we were attempting
to achieve. I asked him to think of the body as a vibrating field,
more complex than you can imagine
.

I realise now that Silas would have been reminded of the words Rudi had uttered, each time he had tried to describe Constance’s vision.

Everything has an electromagnetic force, a particular frequency at which it resonates
.

Silas would have remembered the heat, the stillness of Rudi’s shack and the intensity of Rudi’s gaze.

I continued:
When you are sick, when something has affected your body – love, loss, a bacteria, heat, anything – to such an extent that the vibrational plane alters significantly, your body will react in the best way it can to restore its balance. It produces a defence mechanism, and this may manifest itself with stomach cramps, heart pains, perhaps nightmares
.

Silas was trying to understand.

In simple terms, what I want is to find a substance that resonates at the same frequency as this defence mechanism. I want to boost the strength of the body’s attempts to counter what has gone wrong. The defence mechanism vibrates with a greater force when it is stimulated by a wave of similar frequency. I am trying to help the body to heal itself
.

Silas picked up the remedy and looked at the neatly typed label.

This particular venom would produce certain symptoms in a ‘well’ person, very similar to the symptoms you suffer, because it has
the same frequency
, and I paused, hoping he had understood.
And the more diluted it is, the greater force it will have. Actually, it has been diluted so much that there is none of the original matter left. What remains is the energy. Just the energy
.

In the cool calm of the clinic, Silas picked at a loose thread on his jumper.
Have you heard of anyone actually being able to see this vibrating force?

I looked at him a little curiously.
There are photographs
.

Silas could tell I did not know what he had meant. I
know
, he said, impatiently,
but have you ever heard of anyone actually being able to see it?

I considered the question for a moment.
There are healers, aura readers. Some are genuine and some I wouldn’t trust
, and I nodded my head in the direction of the front door, to where the corridor branched out to the other rooms in the building, raising my eyebrows as I did so.

I met someone
. Silas faltered.

When?

When I was there, in that place
.

I glanced across at the computer screen, running my eyes down his notes.
Port Tremaine?

Silas nodded. He could see that I was weighing up whether to continue with the conversation or whether to direct it to a close. I was trying to assess the situation quickly, to ascertain whether we were about to delve into the roots of the matter or take a sidetrack that would only waste time for both of us.
Silas knew this, but he could not bring himself to help in making the decision. He did not know if he wanted to embark on the subject that was opening in front of us.