Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

‘Does Jim know I’m here?’ I said.

‘I’m sorry.’ His brow bent. ‘Jim?’

I told him that I had been in Luss for Henry Holden’s funeral, and found Jim Culvers living there in the old cottage. I told him I had stayed with him for several months. He absorbed the news without much change in his expression. ‘So do I take it that’s where you’ve been holed up since I saw you last? With Jim Culvers?’

‘Not the whole time.’

‘Where else?’

‘I don’t think I can explain it,’ I said.

‘Try.’

‘It’s hard to separate the truth from the rest of it.’

‘Well, I can work on that with you.’

‘Part of me still feels as if I’m there. I know I’m not — I know I can’t be. But it hurts to think I never was. Does that make sense?’ I could not tell where it was coming from, but a great swell of sadness came over me then. Tears hung fat in my eyelids and spilled.

Victor put the notes down. ‘Shshhh, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s going to take some time for things to level out. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.’ He offered me his handkerchief. ‘Go on. It’s clean.’

I took it and dabbed my eyes. I could not take them off the clock.

‘I’ve got something that might help you,’ he said. Standing up, he took the leather wallet from his trouser pocket and sifted through it, lowering himself down again. ‘It was in here last I looked. Gah, where is it? — all right, phew. It’s here.’ He lifted out an oblong photograph, folded up to wallet-size. Passing it to me, he said, ‘We took that last summer. At our place in Norfolk. He didn’t want to pose for it, but Mandy got her way — I’m glad she did. Not so much of a pipsqueak any more, but you just try and get that costume off him.’

In the photo, Jonathan Yail was no older than eleven. He was standing high up on a drystone wall, his arms outstretched and fists closed tight. The wind was surging through his hair. A clouded sky behind him. Sunlight on his face. He was dressed in a snug blue jersey with a sinuous cape. Across his breast, the yellow-red emblem of Superman, stitched on by hand. He had a look of purest focus. I was very glad to see his face.

‘The things I have to put up with, eh?’ Victor said. He turned the photo round in my hands, pointing at the caption he had written: Whooshing to the Broads, Aug. ’62. ‘He’s just about to start big school now. Still a bloody great pain in the neck, but I should think the world would lose all meaning if I ever lost him. I could never find a way to cope with anything like that. So whatever you think happened, just be happy that it didn’t. And keep thinking about that happiness until the rest of it gets easier.’

The friendship I had worked on with MacKinney over time, the admiration I had felt for Quickman, the baiting closeness I once shared with Pettifer: such things are not easy to release when you have nothing to replace them with. But speaking about them was not denying their existence. I could accept the truth and still be grateful for my fabrications. And I knew that Victor would not belittle them.

That afternoon in the day room — with the next infusion draining through me and another chalky therapeutic milkshake not quite finished in my cup — I felt clearer-headed but no less conflicted in my heart. ‘I understand that where I’ve been is not really where I’ve been,’ I found myself saying. It came so abruptly from the silence that Victor flinched. ‘But I can’t decide what’s worse: keeping that place to myself so nobody can share it, or letting it all out so it just disappears.’

Victor had been mostly occupying himself with paperwork, and had now started on a crossword in the newspaper. He looked up. ‘Well, you don’t have to share anything that you don’t want to. But I would think it’s always better to talk about experiences than repress them. And you know how much respect I have for your imagination.’ He did not try to write notes. ‘I’m your doctor,’ he said, ‘but I’m also your friend. I’m here to listen when you feel ready. I won’t force it out of you.’ I nearly revealed it all to him in a rush, as Jonathan had once explained to me the world of Superman. Except I could not bring myself to voice it. I felt that if I spoke the word ‘Portmantle’ I would diminish it, and I was not prepared to let it go yet.

Victor went back to his crossword. ‘Naturally, I’d like to bring you off the Tofranil,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘It might have been a huge mistake to put you on it in the first place. But you weren’t exactly sticking to the dosage.’

‘No one’s blaming you for this, Victor.’

‘I blame myself on everyone’s behalf.’

‘You did what you thought best.’

‘Perhaps that’s how I failed you — by not listening. I’ve made plenty of blunders in treating you. I’ll be reviewing all your notes when I get back, and seeing what I could’ve done better. But for now, I’m just glad you’re OK.’ He unscrewed his pen lid and sighed. ‘Fourteen down. Atavistic . Seven letters. What is that, “primeval”? Does that fit?’

‘Jim could still be there, you know,’ I said. ‘In Luss. At the cottage.’

‘Yes, the thought had occurred.’ He peered up at me. ‘But I’m not sure you’ve quite reasoned that one out in your head, Ellie. Keep resting. Let that thiamine do its job.’

‘I need to get back to that pier,’ I said. ‘I left something there. It’s important.’

He ignored me. ‘“Primeval” seems to work. Seven down: Whittles . Six letters.”’

‘Victor, I need to go back.’

‘Yes, I heard you,’ he said, filling in the blank spaces. ‘“Carves ” seems to be right, but that means I’ve got the other letters wrong.’

‘ Victor. ’

He crossed his legs, eyeing me over his lenses. ‘I really don’t think going back there will help you. It’s better you keep thinking ahead. Rest now and we’ll be driving home by tomorrow morning, all being well.’

‘It’s important to me — I need to find it.’

‘You aren’t listening now, Ellie.’

‘Please. If you come with me, you’ll understand why.’

‘Sit back and relax. We aren’t going anywhere.’

‘But I was painting again,’ I said. ‘I really was painting .’

‘You never had a problem painting, as I recall,’ he said. ‘Stopping was the issue.’

‘Well, I finished my mural.’

This loosened something in him. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Yesterday you were under a pier.’

‘Before then. Please, Victor. You have to drive me back there.’

He pulled at the grey of his sideburn. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I left it on the beach somewhere. It’s the best work I’ve ever done in my life. I can’t just leave it there.’

‘What’s it of, this finished picture?’

‘It’s abstract. You just have to see it. I can’t put it into words.’

‘Would there be ships in it at all?’

‘No, not a single one,’ I said. ‘It’s pure abstraction.’

‘And how exactly did you get it down there? If it’s half as big as the mural I saw in your studio, it’s—’

‘I cut it off the frame and rolled it up.’

‘Why?’

‘So I could carry it.’ I stared at him, pleading. ‘What does it matter, Victor? If you don’t take me there, I’ll find some other way. I’ll take the bus. I’ll walk. Isn’t it better you come with me?’

He shifted in his seat, folding his newspaper, casting it aside. ‘The ward doctor wants you here till morning. I can’t sign you out without his agreement.’