Samantha Harvey - The Wilderness

“Now Jake, tell me what this saying means: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones”'

“It means,” he stands and begins pacing the room as he analyses the words. “It means that—”

“Jake, sit down again.”

She holds the arm of his empty chair — empty as if it had never been occupied, nor could be occupied again. How will he sit there, if it is empty? It is a blind, mole-ish trust that brings him scuffling back to the seat. The fox woman smiles and gives him a moment to get comfortable.

“People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Tell me what that saying means, Jake.”

“It means, I would imagine, that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones because the stone will hit the glass and not the person they were aiming for. It might even break it. It depends on the size of the stone.” He finds himself tapping fast on his leg. “Glass can be rich.”

“Expensive.”

“Expensive.”

She pulls back the orange file, opens it, and takes some paper from it which she passes to him.

“Read the words on this page and then do as it says.”

He sees the words CLOSE YOUR EYES. He reads them over and over, untangling and understanding them, looks up at her with a smile to indicate to her that he has understood, then hands her the paper. “Thank you,” he says. “I've done as you asked.”

She makes a mark on her sheet and thanks him in return.

“So now can you tell me the three objects I asked you to remember?”

He considers this carefully. “Piston, stones — the other thing.”

“Can you remember the other thing?”

“No, not at the moment.”

“That's fine.” She writes; he knows what she is doing — writing scores. Rating him. “Now,” she says, “please repeat after me: No ifs, ands, or buts.”

He sniffs. “No ifs or buts.”

“Okay, can you tell me, Jake, are you left-or right-handed?”

“I'm left-handed,” he says promptly, confidently.

She goes back to her writing. “Good. Good,” she murmurs. When she finishes she crosses her legs and rests her arms on the desk.

“I'm thinking of taking you off the medication. How do you feel about that?”

He is surprised. “Am I improved?”

“No — not exactly. You are fine, but the tablets can only help with so much and after that there's no real need for them.”

“But I only started on them a week or so ago.”

“Not quite. You've been on them for two years.”

He sits in a long silence, conscious of his posture appearing too dejected for her, or too dry, or too shambled.

“What do the tablets do?” he asks suddenly.

She runs her hand across her upper lip and frowns. “It's complex.”

He tips his head to one side and watches her touch her fingertips to her head.

“The tablets make your brain cells work better — but eventually, Jake, there are not enough cells left, no matter how well you make them work.”

“Why aren't there enough cells?”

“Because Alzheimer's kills them. This means there aren't as many, which means there aren't enough messages going back and forth.”

He nods. She talks slowly, as if picking each word from a tall tree.

“The tablets can't stop the cells dying. There is nothing we can do to stop that — but — but they make the cells that remain work harder. The problem is, the disease overtakes the tablets after a while, and then, no matter how hard the cells work, there just aren't enough of them anymore for the tablets to make a difference.”

He circles his hand impatiently. “Tell me in the real terms.”

“Those are the real terms.”

“No, in real things. Didn't we used to talk in proper language, in mother tongues?”

His stare is that of the bully, and he knows it. The stare he used to give Helen when he wanted his way.

But his stare is returned coldly. She closes the folder and puts the lid on the pen to declare an end. “I have explained,” she says.

“Again.”

He slams his hand down on the desk and, without flinching, she finds his eyes perfectly and speaks into them.

“Very well. In your brain there is a chemical called acetyl-choline, which acts as a lubricant, if you like, that allows messages to be communicated between neurons.”

He nods. He likes the way her eyes fix on him.

“Increasing the amount of acetylcholine in the brain increases the ability for neurons to communicate. Acetylcholine is broken down by an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase. The medication you've been taking restricts that enzyme. But it only does so temporarily; after a certain point — a point I suspect you have reached — the drug loses its ability to stabilize the enzyme production.”

“How interesting and extraordinary,” he says. “It's — it's like entropy. Houses can't build themselves, that's the thing. That's the thing we're facing. Can't build themselves.” He finds he is firing the words rapidly, and that they are met with a frown. He stops. “And?”

“That's it.”

He brings his hand once more on the table. She blocks him with another of her tough looks, clears her throat, and continues. “As the levels of acetylcholine decline—”

His eyes are locked with the fox-haired woman's as her big words come out stubborn and steady; he has the sensation of going down a slide, and at the same time watching himself go down that slide. Some part of him is just the cool observer, and when the sad little thrill has finished he will collect himself and wander off for coffee. The woman, meanwhile, is still talking and he has missed something she said. He brings his hands up to his chin.

“Meanwhile the neurofibrillary tangles and the plaques worsen, and the medication can do nothing whatsoever for these. What you have is neuron loss, neurotransmitter loss, the destruction of synapses — no drug can recover what the brain erases.”

“I understand,” he says, containing her wide, hard look.

Gracious, important words between two adults. Not a single one of them remains to his memory, nor ever even found its target, but he and his fox-haired friend have engaged in the game, both knowing it is a game. They played. There is something about that, the playing, the meaningless movement of a knight here and a rook there.

“Before you go today, I'll speak to Eleanor about what we've discussed — the tablets and so on. We can ease you off them gradually.”

He nods. Though standing, and tugging at his jumper for buttons in the mistaken idea that he is wearing a coat, he does not let her escape his stare.

“Why do I have brain damage?”

“It's a disease, we don't exactly know why some people get it and others don't.”

“Did I get it in an accident — did I hit my head? Some people have brain damage from accidents with the car.”

“You don't have brain damage as such, Jake, you have Alzheimer's, and it's a disease.”

“I know that.”

Holding the door handle, she bends to pick some discarded paper from the floor. She screws it up, puts it in a — container. Takes it from one place, puts it in another without any apparent reason. Again, an emptiness as if the paper had never been there. And the next moment, seeing the emptiness, forgetting what was there — a pen? A shoelace? And interrogating the blank space, and feeling the eyes water as if trying for a lifetime of pointless tears, and then out of the door.

“Did you know, my dear,” he says, addressing his fox-haired companion, “humans are the only things that ask why. Do you think that is our curse?”

“Do you think we are cursed?” she asks.

“Yes,” he replies.