The Offering (21 page)

After our last session I asked myself whom I felt he was embodying so strangely, what I was ‘projecting’ – that’s the word therapists like to use, isn’t it? Though it seemed rather apt in this instance because, as I said, at that moment the room seemed to be nothing more than a shadow show or a film played on an old projector; there was something unreal, something of the replica about it. What I don’t understand – if I was projecting an idea – is the fact that my antagonist, with whom I appeared to be engaged in a struggle, was cosmic; the figure godlike.

Do I see myself subconsciously as a god? If I do it is laughable, as most of the time I feel so powerless as to render myself meaningless. But ‘project’ has another meaning too, doesn’t it? To forecast or predict. Does this suggest, then, that the weird epiphany heralds something to come? And then there is the fact that Lucas seemed to feel whatever I was feeling too …

‘Well?’

‘What?’ I say, startled by his voice.

‘What happened between this journal entry,’ he holds up the xerox, ‘and this one? Why is this page coloured in?’

‘I don’t know.’

We sit there for quite a long time, he eyeing me.

‘Let’s get you up on the couch.’

I lie down and begin to count backwards. My stomach is unsettled but I submit completely; there is no other way out. And the way out
isn’t
out, as he reminds me; it’s through. The problem is, I don’t know how far there is still to go, or how bad it will get before we reach the other side.

‘We’re going to go back to that missing day, Madeline,’ he is saying, ‘we’re going to recover what you were thinking when you drew the mouse. I’ll be with you, you don’t have to go back alone, but I can’t lead the way, you have to do that …’

The room fades, the numbers descend and I am swimming through darkness. I sink down, down, down deeper still. The light moves above me. This time it is higher than I remember it being and when I hear the voice it is blurred. The voice says: ‘Where are you, Madeline?’

It is a long time before I answer and when I do the voice doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like the girl.

‘In the barn,’ the girl says.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking.’

‘What’s the barn like, Madeline?’

‘Dark.’

‘Tell me about that.’

‘From the outside it’s all you can see.’

‘The dark is all you can see?’

‘From the inside the world is white.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The world is blind.’

A pause.

‘Are you outside the barn or inside it, Madeline?’

‘Yes.’

‘Outside or inside the barn?’

‘Inside.’

‘What can you see?’

‘At the corners, where the light falls, big weeds grow through the floor. Further away they are smaller.’

‘What else can you see?’

‘Streaks of red and brown, curved blades, big metal hoops. The light is shining through the little weeds by the door. The weeds are shaking. The sky is flying. The sky is frightened. It doesn’t recognize me.’

‘Are you … frightened, Madeline?’

‘Things happened here. You can still hear the sounds.’

‘In the barn?’

‘There are things here but no names any more.’

‘There are no words in the barn?’

I brush something away from my face.

‘What are you doing now, Madeline?’

Silence.

‘Do you like the barn, Madeline?’

‘No … You can think things here.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Sharp things. You can touch them too.’

‘What do you mean?’

Silence.

‘Tell me what else you can see, Madeline.’

‘There’s a trap.’

‘What sort of trap?’

‘A trap to catch mice in. My father takes them over the fields and lets them go.’

‘Do you touch the trap?’

‘Yes. And there is—’

‘What?’

‘Can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

A long way off someone groans.

‘You’re quite safe, Madeline. This is a safe place. Nothing is wrong here. Can you tell me what’s happening?’

‘The mouse is smaller … It is smaller than I thought.’

‘Where is the mouse?’

A groan.

‘It is brown and white. I pick up the trap and it runs round and round.’

‘What do you do with the mouse, Madeline?’

‘I take it to my mother. She is helping my father in the garden. I say I will take it down the field and let it out.’

‘You’re doing well, Madeline, this is important. Let’s keep going. Where are you now?’

‘I’m walking to the stream. Elijah is yapping at the mouse.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘The wind is blowing. It’s like water. There is rain in it.’

‘What do you feel, Madeline?’

‘The sky is a shoal of fish. I am swimming with it.’

‘But what are you feeling, Madeline?’

‘The garden is watching. I am running from it.’

‘But what do you
feel,
Madeline? Are you afraid, are you confused, are you angry?’

‘The trees are creaking. They are bending. Their tops are swaying.’

‘Don’t you feel anything at all, Madeline?’

‘Everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘I feel everything.’

A short silence.

‘Where are you now?’

‘At the stream. It has begun to rain. I can hear it in the trees. I look back but no one is following.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I tell Elijah to wait at the edge of the trees. He whines but stays where he is. I go further into the trees and kneel by the stone.’

I hear the groaning again.

‘Who is that?’

‘It’s all right, Madeline, it’s no one. What are you doing now?’

‘I have the knife.’

‘Oh yes, I see.’

I wipe my face hard. ‘I can feel the mouse in the cage.’

‘Breathe slowly, Madeline. You’re safe here. Nothing can hurt you.’

I shake my head fast. ‘The mouse is stronger than me! How can such a little thing be so strong? The mouse is angry! I have to make myself angrier. I have to make my movements hard! I must be a machine! I set my jaw, I make my hands stone. The harder it scrabbles, the harder I make myself! I wish I could drown it, but there has to be blood.’

‘Why, Madeline, why must there be blood?’

‘It’s the law.’

‘Which law is that?’

Silence.

‘What do you do next?’

‘I take off my jumper. I open the trap and take the mouse in my jumper. It is lighter than air. It struggles, and then it doesn’t. It wriggles frantically and then it is still. I am more scared than that mouse.’

‘I know you’re scared, Madeline. You’re being very brave. What do you do with the mouse?’

‘I press it onto the stone. I am pressing too tightly for it to move. I feel its heart beating. It is beating the world in and out. The whole world is beating in this mouse. The whole world is talking to me.’

There is humming in my ears, a hand on my shoulder. ‘Breathe slowly, Madeline.’

‘The mouse’s eyes bulge. It makes a high-pitched noise. It sounds as if it’s happy. The blade bites the stone with a gravelly sound. Something is running over my hand.
Get it off, get it off, get it off!
’

A scratch on my arm. ‘Is that better?’

For some time I feel nothing but intense heat. I hear nothing but thudding in my ears. The vibration is so powerful my body seems to be moving backwards and forwards. Then it fades, I become cooler and I hear the voice again.

‘There’s nothing on your hands, Madeline. They’re perfectly clean. You are being very brave, but we need to stay here a little longer, we can’t come back yet. What can you see?’

‘The head and body look like they did a minute ago. Except now one is there and one is here. I have made a space between them. This is not an animal any more. It is an object.’

I can hear wind in the trees overhead. I can smell vomit and soil.

The voice says: ‘You can come back now. I’m going to begin counting and when I reach the number one you will regain consciousness.’

The numbers descend, the dark grows thinner, a prick of light appears.

I ascend and feel the waters part.

Memory is a skating around or across, according to Emily Dickinson. If that is true, then last night I fell through. I sank. I have had an episode, the first for over a year. The whole thing took no more than fifteen minutes, but by the time it was over my clothes were clinging to me, and I could smell excrement. By that time Margaret and Steve were here but I didn’t hear them come in and wasn’t aware I was making any noise. They sedated me, bathed me and put me to bed.

Apparently I was violent, biting Steve and giving Margaret a nasty green bruise on her shin. She is in my room with me now and for the last three hours I have been slipping in and out of a treacle-ish stupor. I want to wake up because I keep dreaming, always the same dream. I am walking along the beach road. This time it is night. My clothes stick to me and my hands smell of blood. In waking moments I am nauseous and my muscles ache as if I have been beaten.

When I wake it is dark. I hear Margaret saying: ‘I’m here, Madeline.’ I want to ask her to help me sit up, but I keep falling back into a slumber. Then I am running through a land lit by moonlight that is rolling itself up behind me like a scroll, with something running beside me, making a shadow on the road, and I cannot outrun it, no matter how hard I try.

The next time I wake it is morning and I know I will be able to stay awake for at least a few hours and I will not need to be admitted to the sanatorium because I have stabilized. I can remain here in my room but will be under close surveillance for some days.

‘How d’you feel?’ Margaret says.

‘A bit better.’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’ Margaret smiles at me but her face is grey.

My tongue is sluggish with drugs, but I manage to say, ‘I’m sorry about your shin.’

‘Oh, I’ve had worse than that,’ she says. Then she looks at me apologetically. ‘I have to go now, Madeline. Sue will be taking care of you … I’ll see you Thursday. All right?’ She closes her hand around my own, though Lucas has said the nurses aren’t to touch us, and I look away so she won’t see me cry.

As I listen to the sound of the door closing and her footsteps retreating down the corridor, I try not to think about the scroll or the road or the shadow; most of all, that shadow.

It is raining at Lethem Park. We have heard the rushing all day in the horse-chestnut trees. It is like heavenly electricity, sparks from an anvil. I lie on my bed beneath the window and imagine the raindrops are darts, striking me over and over. Beyond the Platnauer Room are the sounds of the evening: a burble of voices, a wail that rises and ends abruptly, the banging of saucepans from the kitchens and hum of the hot-air vents. I hear a trolley passing through the double swing doors at the end of the corridor and the blow they deal the air as they swing to again. Behind all these things is the sound of the rain amongst the newly green trees and shady walkways, finding its way into each creased leaf, each crevice of bark, into the dark, open-mouthed soil. There is something intimate about rainfall. It is as if an invitation has been extended to experience the earth on more intimate terms, to descend into the bowels of a ship, be shown the workings. ‘Step into my parlour,’ says the rain.

The window of the Platnauer Room is open a little this evening when I visit Lucas and I can smell the rain, and with it earth and bark and leaves. I am glad, it makes me feel calmer. Nevertheless, my voice still shakes with anger.

‘It was too much,’ I say to Lucas. ‘Whatever we did or didn’t do last time.’

‘I think you did extremely well, Madeline,’ he says.

He looks at me darkly, his expression somewhere between deepest sympathy and deepest cunning, and a wave of blood sweeps along my jaw and scalp.

‘Therapy must be challenging, Madeline, or there is no point undertaking it. I want to assure you again that though what we’re doing feels extremely difficult to you, it’s just such difficult experiences that make me certain we are on the right track; when things are going smoothly it means we are stationary. What we must
not
do now is slow the pace; the way out is through. But you’re right: we need to talk about what happened yesterday; despite what you think, I am concerned. This hasn’t happened for over a year, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think our last session was what triggered it?’

‘Yes.’ My heart is beating so hard that I swallow, pulling my collar away from my neck.

‘How much of it do you remember?’

‘I remember blood, on my hands. I remember the woods and the rock.’

‘It was without doubt the most illuminating session yet.’

I close my eyes. I cannot stomach the suit today, the aftershave, the lustrous hair, this creature exuding health, wealth and impregnability.

‘What are your feelings about what we uncovered, Madeline?’

‘I don’t have any,’ I say.

‘But you had an episode.’

‘Apparently.’

‘You have described the sensation during your last episode as like being engulfed in a white cloud,’ he says; ‘at least, that is what is written in the notes here. Does it still feel like that?’

‘It feels like being wiped out,’ I say quietly.

He watches me. ‘Eliminated?’

‘No. Erased.’

‘I see …’

He doesn’t.

‘You used the same expression when you were writing eulogistically about the first few months at the farm, do you remember? I think you used the word in reference to sunlight, then later to describe how it felt when God “came” to you.’

He looks at me for a long time but, since there is nothing forthcoming, returns to his notes.

‘There is only one other picture in the journal: the dead bird. Am I to take it this was an “offering” too?’

The word sounds patronizing on his tongue: archaic, foolish.

I do not answer. I listen to the rain.

‘What happened in the months leading up to this entry?’

When I feel calm enough I open my eyes. ‘My father couldn’t find work.’