The Unexpected Gift of Joseph Bridgeman (The Downstream Diaries Book 1)

by Nick Jones

  I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that my viewing is attracted by extremes. Love, happiness, pain, grief. They are all the same, like beacons in a mind of memories, and I am drawn to them like a moth, lighting up the world with its wisdom.

  I don’t really know what triggers the viewing now, but when it comes it’s like someone has stolen the remote control to my brain. And guess what? They always seem to select the worst channels, play back through a catalogue of content I wish I could forget.

  That’s what Martin meant when he asked if it was Amy. For some reason, the past is deciding that I should watch her go again, and when it does I’m strapped in for the ride. I can’t change anything of course, it’s not time-travel! So, lucky old me gets to watch her disappear over and over again.

  I turn the vinyl over.

  The Beatles’ In My Life finally brings sleep. It’s a great song.

  There are plenty of places that I remember, but that night, that pivotal moment is the beacon my mind is drawn to. I know that evening in 1992 will hurt, and I know how it ends, but I’m helpless to resist. The viewing always wins.

  9.

  The smell of roasting chestnuts and sweet candy drift over me. I hear the distant screams of kids being flung at impossible speed, the grinding power of machinery, the tinkling bells of a steam organ. I’m at the fair, and Sian Burrows (My God, she’s beautiful) has just watched me down two targets in a row. One more and I win. I’m glowing, I’m on fire! I glance down at Amy, but she isn’t there. She must have moved to get a better look, or maybe positioned herself nearer to the prize.

  “Get me the big bear, big bro!”

  ‘Where’s Amy?’ I ask the Artful Dodger.

  He looks around and drops his Cockney geezer act for the first time, ‘Shit man, she was right there.’

  ‘Amy!’ I shout, aware of the sudden blanket of eyes on me. Sian approaches, ‘She was next to you,’ she says, ‘I mean literally a few seconds ago.’ Her voice is kind but I can’t stand it.

  Amy can’t have gone missing.

  I feel as though I’m on one of the rides. Spinning faster. I try to swallow but my mouth is suddenly dry. I begin to run, staggering in the direction of the merry-go-round. I can see it. Horses and woodwork, gold and red, shimmering with bulbs. Amy said she wanted to go there next, but she wouldn’t go alone. She just wouldn’t. Something’s happened to her. An image of my parents pushes up from my deepest, most fearful subconscious. They are standing in a cold room, the police station perhaps. My father is staring at the floor, my Mother is dabbing the corner of her eyes with a white lace handkerchief.

  “Amy is missing,” I hear myself telling them as a bucket of adrenalin ices its way across my back.

  No. No. No.

  I push through crowds of people, each collision, each bump like extra mud sticking to my boots. The sounds of the fair become discordant, screeching sirens mixed with the shrill cries of terrified children. I’m terrified but my fear isn’t temporary, isn’t something that will drift away like the rides and the travellers that bring them. My fear is growing and it will remain.

  Amy. My beautiful little sister; the light of the Bridgeman family, is nowhere to be seen. I can’t feel my legs as I stagger towards the brightly lit carousel, red and gold, a million warm bulbs shine out of the darkness of the fair. The blood feels as though it’s pouring for my ankles as the horses on the merry-go-round bob and spin, flashing past, mouths pulled back in panicked looking grins. Children smile and scream, parents look on hand in hand, but there’s no Amy. Where is Amy?

  I’m covered in sweat. I call her name, but I can’t be heard. The music is getting louder, and I recognise the song – so loud it’s almost deafening now – but it doesn’t belong here, it’s from a different time.

  The Beatles sing, ‘Run For Your Life’. It’s like a warning. They sing about the end, about catching their girl with another man. There’s a screeching sound too, like a buzz saw cutting steel and as the world turns black all I can hear are those lyrics, echoing through my brain as they have done for years.

  10.

  The metallic screeching sound was my alarm, set to wake me on the hour. I started doing this a few months back, when the involuntary viewing started up again, because once I’m locked into viewing a memory, I don’t have the ability to wake - even if I want to. I’m strapped in for the duration of the torturous ride. I can only see what I saw, can only move as I did, but at least with the alarm I get an hourly reprieve no matter what.

  I forgot recently and ended up looping the same moment over and over like the stylus currently bumping its way around the inner edge of Rubber Soul, hissing and popping a steady, retro rhythm of its own. I blink tears away and exhale, a weak groan escapes me, my breath shuddering and weak. I miss Amy as much now as the day I lost her.

  They say time heals.

  What they actually mean is you start to forget. It’s a natural process I guess, a way for our minds to cope with loss. It doesn’t work for me, I get a pin sharp reminder, am dumped right back into the raw emotion anew.

  For me, time doesn’t heal, it just adds salt.

  Oh yes. It sucks to be me.

  I check the time. Just gone eleven. I’m in for a long night.

  I walk to the record player, press a button that lifts the tone arm and the needle off the record. All that’s left now is the hum of the spinning turntable and some mild tinnitus, another side-effect brought on by the lack of sleep, I suspect.

  The song, Run For Your Life, wasn’t playing that night, it just broke through the memory near the end I guess. It fitted though. I did lose her. It was one of John Lennon’s least favourite songs apparently, and one I liked up until now. It’s a shame but, I’m sorry George (he liked it), I’m with John on this one. It’s not a song I’m going to listen to again.

  I do manage to sleep some more, on and off and uneventful, just normal thoughts and dreams, the kind I relish these days. I clock up a total of two and a half hours, which is better than last night but still unsustainable.

  Try googling ‘minimum sleep requirement for a human’. It’s depressing reading, convinces me that I’m probably going to die of a heart attack if I keep on like this. The first female Prime Minister in Britain, Margaret Thatcher, famously slept for only four hours a night, but Albert Einstein needed ten. My two just isn’t going to cut it. There is one glimmer of hope in the form of regular siestas; the favourite past-time of the Spanish (and my favourite people). I guess if I end up living in the park – obligatory brown paper bag, inherent stink and matted beard – then I can power-nap all I like. All I will need is a cheap wind-up alarm clock and some strong booze and I’ll be good to go!

  The other option is an extreme form of polyphasic sleep; a 20-minute power-nap every four hours, day and night. This would still only equal two hours in total but would be spread out and therefore – I’m guessing here – less likely to end me.

  I rub my hands up and down my face as if massaging someone’s back. I’m too bloody tired to figure out the best way of being less knackered. Insomnia may be a good word, and a pretty good film, but it isn’t cool and with the forced trips down memory lane, it’s pure torture. I stand up, stretch with a loud grunt and open the heavy velvet curtains that cover the only window in my study.

  It’s dull and grey. About 5 a.m. I can hear the distant beeping of a recycling truck. It’s early for them. I wonder if it’s easier when it’s quiet, or perhaps they do it for sport, laughing as people in pyjamas drag their black boxes to the roadside, swearing under their breath.

  That reminds me - I haven’t put mine out.

  Fuck.

  11.

  Six thirty a.m. After a couple of hours of crashing around, my records are in perfect alphabetical order and my study is tidy. Martin would be impressed. I wonder if he will be here when the bailiffs come knocking for the remainder of my Mother’s assets.

  I’m rubbing my face again as if this hollow feeling, this eternal h
eadache and sickening flatness can be cured by such a simple, repeated action. I know I can’t carry on like this, am aware that I need to do something to break the downward spiral.

  Since Amy disappeared I’ve been through various episodes of involuntary watching. They generally last about six months and are as destructive now as ever. I’m two months into this one. If it goes on any longer I will probably lose my mind and then my Mother will no doubt accuse me of stealing her thunder.

  God, how did life get so messed up?

  I walk through empty rooms. This time I do turn on the lights and I sense something, a mild and distant purpose, one that reaches a crescendo as I enter the kitchen. I press all three switches and a multitude of spotlights shock the room into life. The business card is still there next to the blender. I pick it up and rotate it in my fingers, staring blankly.

  Alexia Finch, Hypnotherapist.

  I turn it over. On the back is a list, split into two columns. Column one reads: Anxiety, Stress, Insomnia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

  Yep. That’s me.

  The second column reads: Weight Loss, Tinnitus, Phobias, Sexual Problems, Procrastination. I suppose I have lost a little weight and I do have mild tinnitus but they aren’t a real concern and the only sexual problems I have are a complete lack of it. Phobias? I don’t mind spiders or heights. I hate sharks, because they eat you alive but that’s not really a phobia, that’s common bloody sense. Don’t go in the water. Surfers are idiots. Usually very cool idiots, but extremely stupid. Come to think of it, if I was a shark I would definitely go for the tanned, blonde ones first.

  I stand and stare at the card for way too long. Am I really going to do this? I wonder, and then realise I’m procrastinating, the last of column two’s suggested ailments.

  Ah, shit.

  I decide to blend a smoothie. Martin may have known this but there’s something very therapeutic about mass murdering fruit. I reach into a kitchen cabinet and watch helpless as a pint glass teeters on the edge of the shelf and then commits suicide, shattering loudly on the floor.

  ‘Bollocks!’ I scream. ‘Big fat hairy bollocks!’

  Saying it again makes me feel a little better as I brush up the million shards of glass. I just know I will still be finding deadly razor sharp slivers a month from now. I’m angry and decide I’m not going to Hypnotherapy after all. I toss the card into the bin. It’s the last thing I need.

  What I do need is a long shower, followed by some fruit death, my usual breakfast (Liv, please), and a browse at Vinny’s (not buying today, but who cares?). Not some stupid Hypno poking around in my knackered brain.

  A successful smoothie and a shower later, I fish the card out of the bin and make the call. Procrastination? Moi?

  It is explained to me that the next available appointment is at least two weeks away. Fine, I say and give the receptionist my name. Next thing I know, I’m booked in at 3 p.m. today.

  Bloody Martin. When he oils your wheels you really know about it.

  12.

  I’m crossing the road outside the expensive looking offices of Alexia Finch. The street is a quiet crescent of terraced offices. Large imposing front doors, panelled windows, white brickwork and period features. Each has an informative plaque of gold or silver; the colours, logos and typefaces of solicitors, accountants and the expensive specialists of life.

  There’s only a few minutes now until my appointment, and this is the third time I’ve crossed the road and nearly gone inside. I noticed that O.C.D. wasn’t on Finch’s magic list of ailments to be cured. Shame. I could actually do with some help there. My palms are sweaty, my mouth is dry and I’m getting flashbacks (normal ones, not viewing) of my parents dragging me to see the professionals, not the T.V. show (that was awesome), but the variety-club of shrinks and so-called profs who deduced I was either mad or possessed or both.

  I pass the office again, awkwardly glancing at the doorway and the sign. I pause, take a step and then pause again. I’m kind of stuck now, like a lamppost right in the middle of the pavement. I feel like I can’t move. Christ, I feel as though I’ve been hypnotised already!

  The large door opens and a man exits the building, skipping quickly down two steps and almost into me. He smiles, ‘Can I help you mate?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You seem lost, I asked if I can help you?’

  He’s in his early twenties, tall, good looking and happy.

  Bastard.

  I stare blankly at him. ‘No. I’m good thanks.’ I say it confidently enough but then continue to stand there awkwardly.

  He looks confused, shrugs and walks away. I look up to see a woman watching me from a first floor window. She looks directly at me and then she’s gone.

  Right. Come on.

  I break the spell, drag myself up the steps and go inside. I’m in a long hallway. To my right are wide, carpeted stairs, to my left a glass doorway with the words RECEPTION engraved in the centre. I smell vanilla and furniture polish. Through the glass I see two people seated and the receptionist walking back to her desk. She returns to her seat, spots me and gestures for me to enter. I reach for the handle and it squeaks as I open the door. Sweaty hands. Are they ever a good thing? Is there actually a reason for them? A good, solid, evolutionary advantage to having wet, oily hands?

  ‘Found us then?’ The receptionist smiles in a way that suggests she’s been watching me march up and down the street like some kind of nervous schoolboy. ‘How can I help?’

  I take a step forward, swallow hard and say, ‘My name is Joseph Bridgeman, I have an appointment.’

  I’ve been practicing those words in my head for the last hour, and they came out well, but I can feel the room and the people closing in on my ability to breathe but it’s okay, I tell myself. I’m fine. Breathe.

  ‘Please take a seat, Mr Bridgeman.’ The girl says cheerily. ‘Ms Finch is running a little late.’

  I sit, wedged between the other two.

  Running late.

  Oh, joy.

  13.

  Half an hour later, I climb the staircase to the first floor and am greeted by a smiling woman. I recognise her immediately as the one who looked down earlier as I paced the street below. Her hand is outstretched. I take it in mine and feel the difference in temperature.

  ‘Alexia Finch,’ she grips my hand tightly, ‘but, please, call me Alex. Okay?’

  I nod.

  ‘Getting nippy out there,’ she says with a mischievous grin, as though she is secretly one of Santa’s little helpers. ‘Come on in.’

  She is dressed in black trousers, cream blouse and flat shoes. Her medium blonde hair is pulled back in a pony-tail. A lack of make-up reveals the thin lines of a woman about my age. She reminds me of someone, an actress from a film, but she is a plainer version and for now I can’t place her. My knowledge of films was once a quiz master’s dream but it has waned in the last decade or so. Still, I gaze at her for a while, the name of the actress on the edge of my brain.

  I follow her into a large regency room. The ceiling is high with a decorative cornice around its edge and a glowing chandelier in the centre. It’s pleasantly warm and I smell vanilla again. There are three sash windows to my left and an oak desk, placed at an angle in the corner. On the wall are the usual certificates and also the odd painting. Calm scenes of shore-lines, sunsets and gardens. Everything is screaming calm! Even the colour of the room is calming. I suspect it has some winky-wanky name like, ‘Double Fudge Sundae’, or, ‘Buffalo Turd at Sunset’. It’s basically a warm, chocolate brown. The question of what the hell I am doing here is still banging away inside my head but, for now, I’m okay. There is a lot of space, it’s easy to breathe and for that, I am grateful.

  She walks to her desk, grabs a note-pad and pen and gestures to two chairs positioned around a small coffee table in front of the central window. The chairs are standard, ergonomic office types but there is another, in the centre of the room, that has caught my eye. This chair is lea
ther, a long couch-like thing, and clearly intended for the – soon to be asleep – patient.

  This isn’t going to work on me.

  She smiles, as if reading my mind. I’m hoping she hasn’t already put me under. ‘We might get to that one today,’ she says, ‘let’s see how we get on.’ Her voice is as smooth as the chocolate on the walls but that won’t make any difference. I am the master of insomnia, the serial killer of Melatonin.

  We sit opposite each other.

  ‘So, Mr Bridgeman,’ she begins, ‘as you are a new patient I will need to take some details from you.’

  ‘Okay.’ Whatever.

  ‘But first.’ She pauses, without taking her eyes off me. ‘Many people are quite nervous about hypnotherapy, about what might happen in the first session.’

  ‘I’m not nervous.’ I say, nervously.

  Alex nods. ‘That’s good, because you have no need to be. Everything that happens here will be because you allow it.’

  ‘So you aren’t going to put me under?’ I find myself asking.

  ‘Not at all.’ Again, she smiles. ‘In fact, there isn’t really such a thing as putting someone under hypnosis. All hypnosis is actually self-hypnosis.’

  ‘What?’ I say, a little higher than I would like. ‘So I do it?’

  ‘In a way, yes,’ she replies. ‘You see, if you don’t want to be hypnotised then it won’t happen. It’s your choice and there’s no pressure from me. We can just see how it goes.’

  It’s fair to say I kind of like her more than I expected to – and that’s a rare thing for me these days – but I doubt this is going to be worth it. She seems keen I understand the process. Therapists.