Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

I heard a noise like buttons rattling in a jar. Victor was holding a glass medicine bottle with the label ripped off. He shook it and shook it and the tablets clattered weakly inside. ‘I don’t know how many were in here to begin with — maybe sixty or so,’ he said, and tipped out a mound of them into his palm, ‘but this suggests our toxicology’s been off the mark.’ He picked up a tablet and examined it. ‘It’s Tofranil, no question. Looks to me like you stopped taking them. So, whatever’s been showing in your blood-work, I wouldn’t think it’s necessarily from these.’

‘Then what?’

‘You tell me.’ He brushed past me. ‘Could be the oil paints. They’re full of chemicals. Or the turps, maybe.’

‘I don’t know.’

My eyes turned back to the wall, picking up a section further down:

We have been advised to chart a horse-drawn fayton when we leave the ferry port. The best way to reach the sanatorium is from the east, via a dirt road that leads up to a spear-top fence, cordoning off the property. On the way up, we pass warning posters stapled to the trees along the slope: DIKKAT KÖPEK VAR /BEWARE OF THE DOG . But we are not worried.

The sea view from the promontory affords tuberculosis patients an abundance of fresh air and serenity, removed from the hustle and the noises of the city. Built when the disease was at its most widespread and fatal, the sanatorium was opened in 1923, a year after the founding of the Turkish Republic. Previously under the ownership of Greek authorities, the building was revamped under the aegis of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey—

It was a complete transcription of the entire article, scribbled from the ceiling to the skirting boards. On and on it went in detail:

Most of the patients are students from all over Anatolia who came to Istanbul for their education at the city’s universities. They take in the sea air in the daytime and engage in debates at night over çay and salep. Friendships boost morale amongst the patients and so do activities—

Victor was busy at the hearth. He tore something, and struck a match, and then I heard the sudden puff of an ignition.

Concerts are organized and films are projected for the residents in the day room twice a week. The sanatorium is also equipped with a rehabilitation centre, where local craftsmen such as Ardak Yilmaz (pictured right) are brought in to teach woodworking skills to patients. Although it has established a fine reputation over the years as a centre for thoracic surgery, the facility is now extremely underfunded and the chief doctor is concerned that a—

‘Come and get warm,’ Victor said. ‘It’s really getting going now.’ He was kneeling at the fireplace with both hands extended to the flames. The orange light dappled his face. He looked so entrenched in the glow of it, and I felt so cold and jittery, that I could not resist.

Kneeling beside him, I saw that he had ripped the topmost pages of another magazine and fed them to the fire. The uncomfortable dampness of my clothes began to bother me. We stayed there on our knees together for a while, saying nothing, letting our bodies gently warm through. And then I said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll get over this, Victor.’

He kept his eyes upon the flames. ‘You’ll be all right. We’ll work through it together.’

‘I’m not sure I can go back with you. Not yet. I always thought that I could live without anything as long as I had painting. Now look at me — I’d be better off in a factory, doing something useful. I think I’d be much happier that way.’

Quite unexpectedly, he placed his arm around me. ‘Elspeth,’ he said, ‘you are twenty-six years old and you are still alive. And the sun will rise tomorrow, as it always does. That’s all you have to think about for now.’ I wanted to lean my head on his shoulder, but I could not get past the pain. ‘What happened to your sling?’

‘It came off in the loch.’

‘Then I’d better make you another.’ He reached onto the bed and removed the grubby slip from the pillow. He ripped along the seam, folded a triangle, and put my arm inside it, knotting it at the back of my neck. ‘You have people who care for you. Remember that,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known Dulcie Fenton get sentimental about anyone. But she is genuinely fond of you — and not just because she has a vested interest.’

‘Well, she tries to make it seem that way, at least.’

‘No, I think it’s quite sincere. She must have called me twenty times, asking if I’d heard from you.’

‘Worried about the show, most likely.’

‘At first, maybe. She said that you’d written to her. Gave me an earful about it, actually — I told her you would be OK travelling on your own, that we shouldn’t be alarmed. But even after your show went on, she was still calling about you. I think she even phoned your mother a few times. Everyone said the same thing. Travelling . None of us knew where to look for you.’

He tore off another page of National Geographic , balled it up, and threw it on the fire. I could not tell what time it was. The mantel clock was smashed and buried outside. But it did not matter. We were drying out, slowly and steadily, and soon we would get back to the car and he would drive me all the way to Kilburn, where nobody was awaiting my return.

‘So what do we do now? Go back to having sessions once a week?’ I said. ‘Pretend this didn’t happen?’

‘If you feel that’ll help.’

‘I doubt I could afford you any more.’

‘Nobody can. After this, my fees are tripling. I’m pricing myself out of the psychiatry game entirely.’

‘That’s probably for the best,’ I said. ‘You’re a bad influence on people.’

‘Precisely. The world is better off. I’m going into show business.’ He grinned. ‘Jazz clarinet has always been my calling. There has to be a career in it for me.’

I smirked.

‘You think I’m joking. I’ve actually got—’ The bulb went off above us, and the kitchen light had blinked out, too. ‘I suppose that’s the last of the meter,’ Victor said. ‘We ought to be making tracks. Are you dry yet?’

The hospital had given me back my wretched painting clothes: a paint-smattered flannelette blouse and stiff cotton trousers. They were grimy and still damp, but I felt much warmer now. ‘Not quite,’ I said.

‘We’ll put the blowers on in the car.’

He helped me up. The flames gave off the last remaining light inside the cottage. It quavered on the floor and our moving bodies flashed and dulled it. Victor reached down for the bucket of mulched petals. Lifting it, he sniffed the liquid to make sure it was not flammable, and, when he was satisfied, he came and threw it on the flames. They spat and sizzled into blackness, and gave off the smothered scent of a dud firework. For a second, it was so dark that I could not see where Victor was standing. ‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the matches in my pocket.’ And I heard him get them out and fumble with them. But before he could strike one, the far end of the room brightened, swelling with a pale blue light. I could see Victor’s outline now before me, burnished like the moon. ‘What is that?’ he said.

He went after it, walking into the blue glow on instinct: a moth in the tow of a porch light. I trailed after him. Beyond the hallway was the storeroom that I had once cleared out with Jim. The door was shut but there was a clear blue eking out from the gaps around the frame, between the hinges. Victor looked at me, slightly fearful. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Nothing can harm you.’

‘What can’t?’

He was dithering now, so I twisted the handle and showed him inside.