Ross Armstrong - The Girls Beneath

I wanted to be able to drive.

‘For the moment, it’s best if you don’t drive. Order from on high. Probably an insurance thing, something like that.’

I know he’s lying but I appreciate his tact. He has an upright stance. He has initiative. Gumption. I like him. I give him a thumbs-up.

A crease in his face tells me he’s not sure whether this gesture is an ironic manoeuvre. Little does he know I don’t have anywhere near the outward mental processing speed required for irony yet.

He moves on and says some more things with his mouth. I take my cheat pad out of my pocket and write. You see, I can still write, as the part of my brain that turns thoughts into symbols works fine, but curiously the bit that interprets those symbols back into words? Different matter. Pun intended.

So I know I won’t be able to read this back but the act of writing it down helps me commit it to memory. I observe. The others peer at me but I block them out with ease, with my genius focus. I write:

Upright stance. Gumption. Fair and balding. Wire frame circular glasses. Highly Caucasian.

On the upper left of his jacket, where his breast would be, are some symbols. A word I think. It starts with an L.

L. E. Then one I can’t make out, then an I, and it ends with another E. The process takes a while and my straining to establish the word at this point has become a spectacle, which everyone is pretending manfully not to notice.

LE_I_E. Lee? Can I call him Lee? Leon. Lean? Levine? Levine! I’ve heard that somewhere before. Ah. Of course. Levine. So that’s Levine. I remember him. I think he’s recently been promoted.

Levine. Or Upright-Gumption-Bald-Glasses-White-Face. As I will call him. In my mind.

I turn and see another man to my right, close to my head. He holds out his hand, luckily, because that means he might whisper his name. I may have seen him before, it’s quite possible. I’ll probably remember him. Because, you see, it’s not the remembering exactly I struggle with. No, it’s not that, it’s another thing.

‘Hey. I’m Emre Bartu. Good to meet you,’ he says with a wink.

Yes. He’ll do. I keep out my cheat sheet and start to write.

Bouncy. Kind. Black hair. Deep voice. Brown face.

I realise I haven’t said anything back to him. As is certainly customary. I think I just locked eyes with him and started writing.

Multi-tasking is hard so I have to stop for a second to mutter something pleasant-sounding to him.

‘I’m Tom Mondrian. Can you stay still please? I’m looking at your head.’

He smiles and does so. He nods, his eyes flicker to the side, which indicates he’s a bit confused by all this. Then he holds his pose like he’s having his school photo taken.

A thought hits me from nowhere that someone once said he was Turkish. I don’t know where I got that from but my mind has offered it to me as useful information so it’s best to follow it up.

‘You’re a Turkey,’ I say.

‘What mate?’ he says.

‘Sorry. I mean. You’re a Turkey.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Shit. I mean. You’re a Turkey. Ahhh,’ I shout, frustrated. Damn aphasia.

The room looks up for a second and I hold up my hand to apologise. They go back to talking about their beat, what they have to do that day, that kind of thing.

‘Sorry. You’re a Turkey. Shit! You’re… Turkish?’ I bend my voice at the last minute, it had taken so long to splutter it into the world I’d forgotten that it was supposed to be a question.

‘Yes, mate. That’s right.’ We nod. Agreeing with each other.

I’m pleased with this. I run the words over in my head.

This word pattern forms what is called a Feature by Feature Recognition Strategy. I slip the note back in my pocket.

*

The physio came to me every day but I had to go and see Dr Ryans twice a week. The journey itself was a good test and I’m sure he was aware of that. We went through a series of facial recognition exercises as that was his biggest area of interest. It was discovered I had prosopagnosia – an inability to recognise faces. Which is a particularly cruel word if you also have trouble reading.

We talked through strategies and the face cheat sheet was certainly the best. By far the most disquieting side effect of my accident is the inability to recognise my own face. Typically, Ryans also had a few methods to deal with this frightening daily occurrence – the part where I wake and scream because I don’t know who the man in my mirror is.

‘It’s suggested that success can be achieved by making your own image as distinct and memorable as possible. Prosopagnosiacs often choose to grow characteristic facial hair. But what works best, in fact, is when this is coupled with headwear, perhaps a bandanna or…’ He pauses, catching me mulling this over.

‘No offence, Jeff, but as well as having all my brain disorders I’d rather not dress like Hulk Hogan.’

Amazing that despite not being able to pick out my parents faces from a line up in Dr Ryans’ tests, I can picture Hulk Hogan clear as day. But then, he does have that characteristic beard and bandanna combo we prosopagnosiacs seem to really respond to.

‘Get a cat,’ he says as I leave.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’d advise you to get a cat. For a few reasons.’

‘I don’t like cats.’

‘It will like you. But you won’t come to rely on it. Soft companionship. That’s reason one. Understood?’

‘Er…’

‘You really hate them?’

‘I’m indifferent to them.’

‘Oh, that’s different. That’s fine. Here’s reason two: It’ll anchor you, by which I mean you’ll judge time better by its presence, it will remind you how you’re progressing in relation to it and therefore will stop you getting depressed.’

‘I don’t feel depressed.’

‘Well, you could well get depressed. Reason three: The stroking is nice. You’ll just fucking like it. Trust me. Get a cat!’

I sometimes think the sudden outbursts of swearing are in my imagination, but I think he’s just like that. He’s come direct from the wayward 1960s. His hair is kind of shaggy, his formal jacket sits awkwardly on his shoulders above his loose fitting slacks, like he was dressed by his mother this morning, but even the jacket itself is finding its place on his torso pretty inappropriate and is mounting a slow escape.

I’ve often seen him hurriedly extinguishing something in a drawer as I enter the room, his desk gently smoking as our conversation begins. His pupils a little dilated and the room smelling leaf green.

‘Okay. I’ll get a cat,’ I say.

‘And you can have it as what people call an emotional support animal. There are perks of this. For example, if you go on a fucking plane you can take it with you and have it on your lap. You’re allowed almost anything if it’s for emotional support. Big dogs for instance. One chap even got a small horse on a long haul.’

‘What? In the cabin?’

‘Yes. A tiny one, but it was still a horse. Listen, trust me, in my line of work I’ve seen far fucking stranger things than that.’

I leave. I get a cat. Now I have a cat.

*

Draw a line between the middle of your forehead and the top of your left ear. Make a mark directly in the middle of that line. Then make another mark one centimetre above it. That’s where the bullet went in.

Right there.

6

‘Dee. Dah dah girl dee dah, dah dah, my head…’

‘So… Stevens and Anderson are to follow up with the girl’s family. Bartu and Mondrian, you’re giving a talk at the school.’

‘What? I want to follow up the missing girl,’ I exclaim.

A hush. ‘I want’ isn’t a word combination that often gets an outing in the debrief room.