Heller's Regret

by JD Nixon

  A nurse came in later to change my dressings and ensure I swallowed my nighttime tablets. “Do you want a sleeping tablet tonight, love?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Yes, please.” It would help pass the time even more quickly.

  She smiled knowingly after I’d taken it. “Missing your sweetheart after he visited, aren’t you? I don’t blame you. He’s spectacular.” She fanned herself dramatically with her hands.

  I made some vague rejoinder, unsure I was ready to call Heller my ‘sweetheart’. Being with him earlier had renewed some of what I suspected were very strong feelings for him. Those feelings had been powerful enough to break through my mind fog in the house, but I was still waiting for my emotions to catch up with my logic. It didn’t feel to me as though we were a couple. After scrutinising my reflection in the bathroom mirror – wan, thin and miserable – I could hardly credit that someone like me had landed a boyfriend with his stature and looks. Either I was the luckiest woman in the world, or I had some impressive secret skills I had yet to remember.

  The sleeping tablet was a good idea because it knocked me out for the night. I slept solidly and restfully until the morning, not even waking when the nurses came in for the routine tests.

  When I woke I felt sharper, more alert and more positive. I told Dr Reid that when he came for his usual mid-morning visit. We ran through the same questions, his face expressionless. When he finished writing, he put his pen down firmly.

  “Tilly, you’ve made great progress and I’m very pleased. I still believe you’re being deliberately evasive about some of what took place, in particular your real reasoning behind cutting yourself. However, I’m picking up a strong feeling that’s because of some sort of embarrassment you have about this, but otherwise you’ve accepted it was an irrational act.”

  “That’s correct,” I mumbled. I could never tell anyone about my chosen way of remembering Daniel. “I know why I did it, but now I find that reasoning to be . . .” the word crazy almost slipping out, “. . . strange.” He nodded to himself in self-satisfaction at his instincts being so soundly proven.

  “That leads me to our sticking points – the existence of the boy Samuel, and the woman in the portrait in the bedroom.”

  I said nothing, deflating. He’d killed my improved mood.

  “Okay, I can sense you withdrawing at that statement of mine, so I assume we’re not ready to deal with those.”

  I could have cried. “Does this mean I’m going to be stuck in here forever?”

  “Not necessarily. We can continue to discuss those matters with you after you’re discharged in counselling sessions.”

  “I don’t need counselling.”

  “Tilly, it’s not a sign of weakness to have counselling sessions. They can be incredibly beneficial to people. There’s a great deal of scientific research backing that up. We’ve also found similar results from our own experience in running the sessions.”

  I didn’t care about the benefits of such sessions. I had no intention of talking about what had happened to me in the house with a stranger, no matter how qualified they were. My main priority was to get out of this place so I could help Samuel. I just had to be smarter about it.

  “I’m never going to get out of here.” I looked down at my hospital gown, smoothing the material over my legs.

  “As I said, I consider overcoming those two sticking points as critical to your complete recovery, but not necessarily critical to your discharge from the hospital. I believe that with every day distancing you further from the events in that house, we can resolve those two points over time. But I wouldn’t discharge you without follow-up counselling sessions, preferably with hospital staff, or maybe with your own choice of psychologist as long as I’m able to share information about you with them.”

  I peered up at him. “So there’s a possibility I could be discharged today?”

  “You’ve vastly improved since you were admitted. What I’m really concerned about at the moment though is your physical health. The IV is helping replenish vitamins, minerals and essential electrolytes, but it’s not food. It won’t help you regain the weight you’ve lost. I’m also concerned about the fairly slow healing rate of your injuries. The stronger you are, the faster you’ll heal. The wounds on your hands and wrists must be painful and awkward.”

  “Yes. I’ll try to eat something today.”

  “The food trays will continue to be brought to you. I’m leaving you on the drip for now, but I’d like to see you eating at least half of each meal today.”

  “If I start eating again, will you let me go home?”

  He stilled. “You just said ‘home’, not ‘the house’. What do you mean by home?”

  “I don’t know. Where I live with Heller and everyone else, I suppose,” I said in a small voice. “Heller talked to me yesterday about people I knew who I miss a lot. I don’t want to be away from them any longer.”

  Dr Reid smiled. “Excellent. Just another quick question from me, Tilly. Are you still able to recall precise details of Samuel and the woman in the portrait?”

  I gave his question – one he’d never asked before – due consideration. I tried, but found I had trouble remembering exactly what Samuel looked like, though I could now picture Daniel and Niq very clearly in my mind. The woman in the portrait had just become a scary, general image to me.

  “They’re not as clear as they were.”

  “Okay,” he said neutrally, writing more notes. “Tell me, did Samuel interact with Miss Grimsley at all?”

  Once more, I took a while to respond. “Mrs . . .” I shot him a glance. “. . . Miss Grimsley spoke to him and he seemed to do what she asked of him. She hugged and kissed him when she left, but in the short time I saw them together, he didn’t speak to or touch her.”

  “Okay,” he said again, that neutral tone still in his voice.

  “Do you understand why I find it so difficult to believe Samuel didn’t exist?”

  “Because you had physical contact with him and he interacted with you.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it. He was real to me.”

  “I understand that, but there’s no denying the facts of the matter. Yesterday, Mr Heller promised to take some photos of the house for my benefit. He emailed those to me last night. Tilly, there’s clear physical evidence of your presence in the house – blood and dirt in the bed you used and another bed as well.”

  “Samuel’s bedroom.”

  “Blood smeared on a painting in the bedroom you used, and books dumped on the floor. A pile of used teacups stacked up in the sink and abandoned in a few other rooms. Miss Grimsley’s makeup and clothes strewn around her room. The cover for the piano thrown on the floor, its lid left up. Huge holes in the basement dirt floor.”

  “I guess I left a real mess behind. I don’t remember noticing any of that.”

  “But there’s absolutely no physical evidence of any child living in that house.”

  “What about Samuel’s bedroom? The toys and books? I read Alice in Wonderland to him.”

  “Mr Heller found that book jammed between the bed and the wall, but it was in very poor condition. There was no cover and half the pages were missing, many of the rest torn. You couldn’t have read it.”

  “But I did,” I insisted.

  “There weren’t any other books in the room. The toy box was dilapidated, the hinges so rusted it took a lot of effort to open, as if it hadn’t been opened for decades. There weren’t any toys inside.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand.”

  “That bedroom that you say was Samuel’s was covered in dust and cobwebs. Nobody had been inside it for a very long time. There wasn’t even a light bulb in the ceiling light. Much of the house was the same, including the bedroom you used and the music room. Miss Grimsley had only been living in a small number of downstairs rooms and the rest of the rooms were rather neglected.”

  “I don’t know what to say. What you’re telling me is the opposi
te of what I saw and experienced.”

  “Which is why I think the counselling sessions will help. We need to reconcile reality with what you believe happened. You’re definitely not going home today, so I’d like you to relax and take it easy for a while, and I’ll visit again tomorrow.”

  “I’ll try.” As if I had a choice. “Bye, Dr Reid.”

  I did what he said and watched TV for the rest of the day. I found my thoughts frequently wandering, not to Samuel, but to Daniel and Niq.

  I ate as much as I could manage from the trays, surprised to find myself with a small appetite. Things were looking up for me going home, I thought happily. I took another sleeping tablet that night and again, had another good sleep.

  Dr Reid wasn’t alone when he came for his visit the next morning.

  “Heller!” I exclaimed.

  He came over to me and hugged me. I reached my arms around him and hugged him back. He kissed me on the forehead.

  “Dr Reid said I could go home today if I ate something. I had a bit from each tray brought to me yesterday and this morning.”

  “You’re definitely coming home today, Matilda,” he smiled.

  He handed me a piece of paper. I tried to read it, but it was incomprehensible to me. I shrugged and looked up at Heller, confused.

  “I don’t know what this says,” I confessed.

  “Matilda, what did you eat and drink while you were at that house?”

  “I didn’t eat anything. I guess I forgot to eat. I just drank tons of tea.”

  “How many cups of tea would you have had every day?”

  I shrugged. “Heaps.” I performed a quick calculation. “At least forty to fifty cups a day. I had a raging thirst, but geez, that’s a lot of tea, isn’t it? I’d never normally drink that much.”

  “I had quite a few things from that house analysed by an independent laboratory, my sweet. It’s an old house, so I thought maybe there was some mould or chemical responsible for what you went through. The lab emailed their analysis to me this morning. That tea has the same effect on people as a psychoactive drug.”

  “A what?”

  “You were ‘drugged’ the whole time you were there, my sweet. The more tea you drank, the more drugged you became.”

  “That particular drug, or in this case a natural version of it, causes delusions that become increasingly worse with higher doses,” explained Dr Reid. “There are few people in this world who wouldn’t be affected by that tea. It really explains everything you experienced in that house. The effects are wearing off now you haven’t had any more for a while.”

  I lay back on my pillow, looking up at them in shock. Something like that had never occurred to me. “You mean I’m not going insane? I was just drugged? But that means Mrs . . . Miss Grimsley did it on purpose. She meant for me to go mad. Why would she do that? I didn’t even know her.”

  “That’s something we’re going to find out,” said Heller in that hard voice of his that meant business.

  “She’s due out of hospital today,” Dr Reid said.

  A couple of hours later, during which a nurse disconnected me from the IV, Dr Reid returned with the discharge papers.

  “Do I still need to come in for counselling?”

  “It depends. What I want you to do is to rest for at least an entire month and eat nutritional foods. If you can’t manage big meals, have a number of small meals throughout the day. And keep yourself well-hydrated.” He turned to Heller. “Is there anyone who can change her dressings on a regular basis?”

  “Yes,” he said, probably thinking of himself. But I knew that wouldn’t happen. He would disappear on another job and it would be Daniel who’d nurse me back to health. Again.

  The doctor handed me a plastic bag with containers of penicillin and super-strength doses of various vitamins and mineral supplements. “I’ve written you prescriptions for the penicillin and supplements. I want you to keep taking them for the entire month. But if after a couple of weeks, you’re still having difficulties with those two sticking points, contact me and I’ll arrange some counselling for you.” He checked his watch. “I have to go. I have an appointment. Tilly, all the best and I hope you fully recover. It looks as though you’ll be well looked after at home.”

  “I don’t have any clothes to change in to,” I said to Heller.

  He handed me a bag. “I’ve brought some in for you.”

  I shuffled to the bathroom, feeling incredibly weak, and changed slowly into jeans, t-shirt and runners. My jeans swam on me before, but now they swamped me. Luckily Heller had thought to throw in a belt or they’d be puddling around my ankles with every step.

  Heller hunted down a wheelchair, despite my protests, and pushed me to the carpark. I finally set off for home.

  Chapter 10

  Back home, everything began to click back into place for me. The events that took place in the house seemed much less important in my own familiar surroundings. I hadn’t quite given up my beliefs about Samuel and the woman in the portrait, but I found myself not brooding about them as much as I had before.

  Dr Kincaid was less than enthusiastic to tend to me on a regular basis, complaining about me the whole time he demonstrated (again) to Daniel how to change my dressings. Over the next few weeks, he made me keep a careful record of my weight, and probably for the first (and last) time in my life, I was actually pleased to add a few kilograms to my frame.

  With little energy to spare, I spent most of the time lying in Heller’s bed watching TV, Daniel and Niq taking turns to bring me meals. And though I still wasn’t particularly hungry, they watched me closely until I’d at least made a reasonable effort to demolish the food.

  It had taken a while for me to recall all the details of my relationship with Heller, shy the first time I shared his bed. But his patience in talking about our life together reconnected the hazy strands of my memory. Rediscovering his body again was full of delights and wonderful sensations. He’d been reluctant to initiate any sexual activity between us, mindful of my frailty and uncertainty about us. In the end, driven by a sudden longing for his touch, I’d kissed his lips, pressing myself against him, my hands roaming his body.

  “Matilda,” he groaned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I said, already lost in the moment.

  He held me tightly as my pleasure grew to an almost unbearable volcanic level. My intense release left me clinging to him, panting wildly, my body slick with our joint sweat.

  Afterwards, when he’d joined me in that happy post-orgasm state of sated relaxation, I said, “That beats hospital for getting better any day.”

  He smiled. “Maybe I should have climbed into bed with you there.”

  I tickled his hard belly, but he didn’t even flinch a bit. I would have curled into a ball and begged him, with little regard for my dignity, to stop if he’d done it to me. “I don’t think I was ready for some rumpy-pumpy with you at that point.”

  “No, you didn’t even recognise me.” He was silent for a while. “That was hard to take.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s strange how that tea affected my memory.”

  “I’ve done a lot of research on it. The compound it contained overwrote your mind with the hallucinations it brought on. But when you stopped ingesting it, its effects faded and your own memories were able to resurface. I’m explaining it quite simply, but you get the general idea.”

  “I think I’ll stick to coffee from now on.”

  “There’s a synthetic version of that compound which can be added to any drink.”

  “Then I’ll stick to unopened bottles of water. I couldn’t go through something like that again, Heller. I just couldn’t.”

  “I know, my sweet. It was terribly traumatic.”

  “And you said it would be an easy job.”

  “I no longer believe there can ever be such a thing with you around.”

  “Heller?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I need to return to the Grims
ley house. It feels important to me to do that.”

  “I’m not sure that’s wise, Matilda. Not yet.”

  “I honestly believe it will help me come to terms with the things I haven’t been able to resolve in my mind. I’ll bring ten men with me if that makes you happy. It feels as though I have unfinished business in that basement and it’s going to keep bothering me if I don’t do something about it.”

  He thought about it for a long while. “Okay, if it makes you feel better. But I’m going with you and I’m bringing a couple of men with us. If you want to keep digging in the basement, they can do it for you.”

  “I don’t mind. That sounds sensible.” I smiled. “Are you afraid of haunted houses?”

  “Not afraid, but supernatural stuff is not to my taste at all. I don’t understand people’s interest in it.”

  “It would be a boring world if we were all only interested in business and making money.”

  “Maybe. But it would be a more profitable world.”

  I snuggled up to him, feathering his smooth skin with delicate kisses. “Life’s not only about profits.”

  “No?”

  “No. You have to find some space for love too.”

  “I have this big bed. There’s plenty of space for love.”

  “Heller! I was talking about love, not sex.”

  “Really? So you wouldn’t be interested in this?” His hand crept under the sheet.

  “Ooh! But we just . . .”

  “Or this?”

  “Oh, God. I couldn’t . . .”

  “Or this?”

  A moan escaped from me. “It’s not possible to . . .”

  But maybe it was. We didn’t get to sleep for a while.

  The next morning, alone as usual, I thought I’d better change into some clothes other than my pyjamas. Heller, dressed in his uniform and probably with a half-day’s work already done, returned as I stepped from the shower, reaching for my towel. He took the towel and dried me, watching me as I dressed.