John Matthews - Past Imperfect

'Thank you.'

Marinella flinched slightly as Dominic touched her hand fleetingly in thanks. It wasn't the touch itself, but something she wasn't able to define until they'd parted and she watched him walk away — shoulders still slumped, or perhaps buoyed by her parting promise? But it hit her then how much Dominic was depending on her, and again the worry came that she might end up letting him down.

There was only one session left to fill in some of the remaining details of Christian Rosselot's life before her flight back to Virginia and Sebastian. But even armed with this incredible story — the quest of a man still searching for the truth in a murder from thirty years ago — with both Lambourne and Stuart Capel already railing against continued probing in the past, she feared their reaction was a foregone conclusion.

Fornier's quest had touched her deeply, but how was she even going to start to convince them?

Genoa, January 1983

Marc Jaumard looked at the brief entry in the newspaper personal column. He'd already read it twice and now read it through again, trying to measure each word, judge any hidden intent. He only had the single page with the personals, ripped out from La Provencal and sent by a friend in Marseille.

Jaumard had been with the same Genoa-based company now for over four years. Away at sea when his brother died, he hadn't even known until six weeks later when he returned to Genoa. Folded clippings in an envelope from the same friend in Marseille: 'Cafe Slaying'; ' Milieu war hots up'; 'Cafe au Sanguin'. The main report in La Provencal described his brother as a 'known milieu associate.'Quite flattering considering that he had mainly killed people for money.

And now this new clipping almost four years later. Jaumard wondered if it really was what it appeared on face value: connected somehow with his brother's death? He'd left Marseille in something of a rush: rent un-paid for three months, a bank loan on a car he'd taken with him left hanging, and his ex-wife screaming for maintenance. The advert could be just a ruse by the bank or his wife's lawyer to flush him out. Create the illusion that it was somehow connected with his brother's death, a small inheritance from blood money stashed away perhaps. Then slap an injunction on him.

A bit extreme for the bank, playing on sympathies with his long-buried brother — but he'd put nothing past his ex-wife. He wondered. He contemplated the nearby phone briefly before his eyes fell back to the advert. Dissecting sentences and then individual words, silently mouthing, trying to imagine his ex-wife across a lawyer's desk as it was worded.

Shallow breathing. Half light from the hallway spilling across Eyran's profile as he slept. Stuart Capel stood over the bed, contemplating. In some lights, at some angles, he could see Jeremy's features in Eyran's face. Remember Jeremy as he was as a child, the two of them playing together. Eyran was the last link with those memories.

Lost now, all so distant — and pushed away even further by the confusion and nightmares running riot in Eyran's mind. Still, the Eyran he remembered — the carefree smiling boy from their trip to California before the accident — was out of reach.

Seven sessions in five weeks. Had Eyran's state of mind improved? Certainly, the frequency of dreams had diminished. Two a week had been the average before the sessions, now they were at least a week or ten days apart and less violent and upsetting. Of the four dreams over those five weeks, two dreams had been with Gigio, two without.

The latest development Stuart found hardest to accept: Past life regressions? Gigio no longer an invented, protective character from the part of Eyran's psyche refusing to accept the loss of his parents — but a real life in its own right. A life that Eyran had supposedly lived in France from 1953 to 1963. Christian Rosselot. He shook his head. It was unreal, ludicrous, another turn-off along the nightmarish road they'd been led down since Jeremy's death. Yet this one had no familiar landmarks, no signposts, dragged him abruptly away from the only tangible element with Eyran's condition he'd clung to: Eyran's non-acceptance of his parents death. He could relate to that. He had felt the emotion strongly himself, had spent the last long weeks struggling to come to terms with Jeremy's death and had barely succeeded. A friendly face in his dreams taking him to see Jeremy, he imagined could be quite reassuring, soothing. Make him feel somehow that Jeremy hadn't completely gone.

But his reservations about entering Eyran into therapy had lingered until the second session when David Lambourne brought up the possible danger of a predominant character pushing Eyran over the edge into schizophrenia. Only then did he feel assured he'd made the right decision. His earlier fears were allayed.

Now with that premise thrown out of the window, Stuart's doubts were back. Before the final session with Marinella Calvan, he'd voiced his concerns to Lambourne of continued probing into Eyran's past. Lambourne had defended that because the past real character of Gigio/Christian had also experienced sudden separation from his parents, secondary influence was still significant. How even apart from that core shared experienced of loss, there were other elements linking the two lives: a period of coma in both boys, Eyran's brief death, the wheat field in Eyran's dreams which was also the last place to feature in Christian's life. By knowing more about Christian Rosselot, they would be better armed to tackle Eyran's current condition.

Stuart had only been partially swayed, and perhaps it had shown in his face because Lambourne added. 'With this one final session with Mrs Calvan, the main forays into the past will be complete. We can then assess afresh where we want future sessions to head.'

Though Stuart didn't totally agree with Calvan's views, he appreciated her courage of conviction. After the last session, she'd thanked him and Amanda for allowing her to delve into Eyran's past and explained how she hoped it might help: that it wasn't only a question of symbols, it was determining where they had stronger relevance. In which life was there stronger non-acceptance of loss and separation? Hopefully the two sessions and the notes and transcripts would provide the answers to that. Provide a stronger framework for conventional therapy to continue.

Calvan had nodded towards Lambourne at that point, but Stuart noted a slight clouding in Lambourne's eyes, as if he disagreed or previously had had words with her on the subject. But Lambourne made no comment. Just smiled tightly at Calvan's nod.

The only time Stuart had spoken with Calvan before was for twenty minutes after her first session with Eyran, when she'd provided some of her background with regressions, children and xenoglossy. She preferred cases of xenoglossy in children because of the unlikelihood of them learning the language by other means. Fluent Spanish, medieval German, Phoenician, obscure regional dialects. Hundreds of authenticated case studies and papers compiled between herself and her mentor, Dr Emmett Donaldson. Impressive stuff, incredible. Somehow too incredible to be real. Stuart hadn't voiced any doubt, but Calvan somehow sensed it, had suddenly asked him if, apart from Eyran, he knew anyone who had been in a coma. No, he hadn't. But, she pressed, he had probably heard of people who after being in a coma had afterwards suffered amnesia. Memory loss. 'Yes,' he'd answered. Calvan had succinctly pointed out that if a period of coma had the ability to wipe out memory, then a death certainly would. 'People tend not to believe in past lives simply because they themselves have no personal recall of a past life. Nothing tangible with which to relate. But that doesn't mean they haven't occurred. Most people under hypnosis do in fact recall past lives. And my colleague Dr Donaldson has had great success in sessions with young boys up to the age of seven while awake. After that, the ability to recall diminishes.'