Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

“Matt, tension can do odd things. We were living in a nightmare. I don’t hold you responsible for anything you might have said.”

“Tonight I’m arranging soft lights and music and I’m going to say it again.”

“Isn’t it — too soon? After Roy’s death, and all that went with it?”

He laughed. “Roy was just pitiful, honey. As soon as he matched muscles with that locomotive, he became as extinct as the dodo. I can hardly remember what he looked like, even though I did just get the bandages off my skull yesterday. You’re trying to ask me if Alicia is out of my system. Right?”

He looked up at her. She looked away and said in a small voice, “I guess so.”

“In the fourteen days since Roy died, I’ve dreamed about her once. Want to hear about it?”

“If you want to tell me,” she said, her lips compressed.

“In my dream I was walking at dusk in a big city. The streets were empty of cars and people. I was going to meet Alicia. But I couldn’t remember the address. I was worried because I’d forgotten the address. All the streets looked alike. There were no signs, no numbers on the houses, no one to ask.

“Suddenly I heard someone calling me. It didn’t have that hollow, echoing sound that Alicia’s voice has always had in my dreams. It sounded as though it was right in my ear. I turned around and you ran into my arms. You, not Alicia.

“You were laughing and crying at the same time. Excited. I held you close and after a bit I asked you where Alicia was. You told me that she had gone away and that she had sent you to keep her date. I asked you what Alicia had been trying to tell me. You said that it wasn’t important any longer. I looked around then and all the sidewalks were filled with people and the streets were filled with cars and all the people were bustling by, paying no attention to us.”

He stopped talking, picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers.

On the horizon a coastwise vessel left a smudge of smoke against the horizon. He looked up at Patience. Her lips were parted and she looked out at the ship.

“They say the best honeymoons are available on tramp ships in the South American trade,” he said, smiling up at her.

She moistened her lips and said, “Give me time to pack.”

It was a siren buried under the flesh. Not the up-and-down roller-coaster kind of siren, but the constant wail — the steady shattering scream.

In one part of his mind he heard the ward noises, heard the clink of a spoon in a glass and the snap as sheets were drawn drum tight. But they wouldn’t become familiar noises. Always he turned mentally away just as he was about to listen carefully and remember where he was. There was also the prick of a needle, but it was dull beside the grind of the siren. He would fade away and the siren would become a screaming woman, or a hot white light — bringing him back to the restless muttering.

On some days he could see the pain. That was when the siren was not so loud. The pain looked like the edge of a razor held close to the eye. It stretched off for miles toward a Dali horizon, each bitter blur on its edge grating like teeth on crushed glass.

Then there was a heavy bearded face close to his own. He saw it vaguely and then it was gone. He was handled, moved. He felt a sense of movement and it looked as though a long wall was slowly passing his bed. Then sharp lights and suffocation...

On one hot summer between grade school and high school he had gone with Tom and Rod out to Corey’s Creek, to the black pool. They had often dived from a high limb down into the center of the blackness. But they had never touched bottom. On this day Rod had started to ride him about his diving. And finally he had gone out onto the limb, exhaled most of the air in his lungs and dropped straight and clean into the black depths. He had gone down until his ears had throbbed, but his outstretched hands touched nothing. Then, in the deep blackness, sudden fear had sent him struggling up toward the surface. The little air in his lungs contributed no buoyancy. He had fought his way upward, seeing above him the dim light of the sunny afternoon. He had seemed to rise so slowly, fighting the involuntary sucking of his lungs by keeping his throat tightly shut. And when he thought he could fight no more, he had burst through into the bright light, his chest aching, his throat making a rasping sound as he sucked in the sweet air. The sun had felt warm on his face...

But this time when he broke through it was all different. Rod and Tom swirled back into the far past, remote and sweet. And he was on crisp sheets in a hard bed in a large white room. It seemed suddenly silent — and he realized that the siren was gone. The sharp pain had left him and it was as though the turning world had stopped on its axis. With a long spent sigh he shut his eyes and drifted off into a velvet sleep.

It was daylight again. Somehow he knew it was a new day. He turned his head weakly, feeling the pull of adhesive on the skin of his forehead. There were two other beds in the room, but they were empty. The window showed him a square of gray sky and the green tops of trees. There was no clue. He wondered, but was content to rest.

It must have been a half hour later when a nurse brought the woman in. The woman was tall, with pale hair and colorless eyes. Her face was wide and white. She chewed at her underlip as she tiptoed across the room and sank gently into a chair by the bed. He stared at her, knowing that he had looked at her ten thousand times. Her face was familiar and unfamiliar. It frightened him to look at her and feel the pull of long association combined with strangeness. He looked into her pale eyes, wondering who she was, and saw the quick tears brim up. She crouched with her forehead on the edge of his bed and he felt her soundless sobbing shake him in dull rhythm. Her hair was parted and with the clarity of weakness he could see tiny flecks of scurf along the gleaming whiteness of her skull. He remained motionless, dreading the moment when she would lift her head and he would have to find out who she was, what their relationship had been. He felt too exhausted to puzzle over it. He wanted to hold back his questions until he had rested again. Until he was so strong that the answers he might get would not bring back the siren shriek.

The man in white walked in, the nurse following respectfully a few steps behind. He ignored the woman, stopping a few feet behind her and looking down at the face on the pillow. There was an intent expression on his long heavy face, a look of curiosity in his eyes.

“How do you feel now?” he asked. It wasn’t a question of compassion. His high sharp voice was medical curiosity — like a question written in a case history.

His lips felt dry and his voice sounded rusty in his own ears as he answered, “Better.” He had tried to speak loudly, but the tone sounded as though he were speaking through a mass of cotton. He wanted to tell them all to go away — tell them to leave until he could find the strength to wonder, to question. But he couldn’t find the words.

“You will feel strange for a time. Maybe a year. Maybe two. The technical name for what was done to you is a frontal lobotomy. Used on manic-depressives in extreme cases. First time it was ever done on a sane man to relieve the internal pressure of a complex skull fracture. It will play tricks with your memory and might even effect minor changes in your personality. But don’t be frightened. It was a long chance, and we saved you. You will recover rapidly, Mr. Warlow.” The tall man leaned forward and touched the still-crouching woman on the shoulder. She looked up at him through a shine of tears. He made a small motion toward the door and she stood up obediently. They both smiled at him before they walked quietly out. His was a smile of professional pride. Hers was a smile of bravery and uncertainty. In a few moments he felt sleep drifting across him. All of the other words had faded, except his name. Warlow. He would cling to that. Yes, he would remember that. It was a stone on which to anchor the odd, shifting memories. He slept.