‘I guess it does, yes,’ he said. But then he paused, and thought about it. ‘No, Isobel, it doesn’t. In fact, totally the opposite. I’m sure that was Sue I saw coming out of that house, and if I’m so sure, but she’s really in Oakland, then there must be something wrong with me. Not just memory loss. Something else.’
Isobel took hold of his hands. ‘Greg, there’s nothing wrong with you that a few more months here in Trinity won’t cure. I promise you. Everything’s flush-centered here. Maybe everything’s too flush-centered, and your brain refuses to accept it. But it will, eventually. Believe me, Emilio was the same as you at first, always having doubts, always having suspicions.’
‘The late Emilio.’
Isobel nodded.
‘I don’t know,’ said Michael. ‘Maybe I ought to take the bull by the horns and go straight back up to Summit View and knock on the door.’
‘Greg, baby, you’re just making things worse for yourself.’
‘But supposing I knock on the door and it is Sue?’
‘It can’t be. It won’t be. You just talked to her on the phone in Oakland.’
Michael stood in the middle of the kitchen and covered his face with his hands. ‘I’m going crazy.’
Isobel held him close. ‘You’re not, Greg. You’re not. You’ve been through so much. You’re bound to have days when your mind plays tricks on you.’
Michael lowered his hands and looked at her. ‘What if it’s not my mind? What if there’s something else wrong with me?’
‘Like what? Doctor Hamid says you’re making wonderful progress.’
‘I don’t know, Isobel. I don’t trust anything that anybody says to me. I don’t trust anything that anybody does. Worst of all, I don’t even trust me.’
Thus.
Isobel kissed him, first the tip of his nose and then his lips. ‘Come to bed,’ she said.
In the winter.
‘It’s one-twenty in the afternoon.’
Stands the lonely tree.
‘What does that have to do with it? Come to bed.’
Nor knows what birds have vanished.
‘It’s starting to snow again. Look.’
One by one.
She gripped the front of his jeans and held him tight, her eyes narrowed in lust and amusement. ‘Come to bed,’ she said.
She led him by the hand into the bedroom and quickly took off her clothes, crossing her arms to lift her tight white sweater over her head, and reaching behind her with her triangular shoulder blades protruding to slide open the catch of her bra.
By the time Michael had taken off his sweater and unbuttoned his shirt, she had already tugged off her jeans and stepped out of her thong, and was sitting on the side of the bed pulling off her nylon socks.
They lifted the covers and climbed into bed together naked. The bedroom was filled with a pale reflected light from the snow in the back yard outside, a light that was almost eerie, as if they were making love somewhere high above the Arctic Circle, or on the moon.
Michael wrapped his arms around Isobel and held her close.
‘You’re still so cold,’ he told her. ‘I really think you should go see one of the doctors.’
‘I love you,’ she whispered, and her whisper was thunder in his ear. She took hold of his penis with her chilly fingers and started to massage him.
He kissed her cold forehead, and ran his fingers into her hair. Even her scalp was cold. He kissed her again, but then her head disappeared under the covers and he felt her icy tongue sliding all the way down his chest and his stomach, and her cold lips closing over the head of his penis.
She sucked him so hard that it was painful, and he gasped. At the same time she cupped his testicles in her hand and her hand was so cold that his scrotum shrank. Then she forced his thighs wide apart and stroked his anus with her fingertip.
Inside his head, he thought: This is all madness. I shouldn’t allow her to do this to me. But what if it’s me that’s mad? What if she isn’t really cold at all, but there’s something wrong with my nervous system, and she just feels cold? Not to anybody else, just to me.
If I can see my sister who isn’t there – who can’t be there – why isn’t it possible that all of my other senses are out of whack, including my sense of touch?
Isobel continued to suck him and lick him and gradually his penis began to grow numb, like the last time they had made love. But just when he began to think that he would have to beg her to stop, she slid her finger deep inside his anus, all the way past the knuckle. It felt like being penetrated by an icicle, and he immediately climaxed.
She gave him three long sucks, even though he could barely feel them, and then she reappeared from under the covers with a triumphant smile on her face.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that?’
He kissed her. ‘It was different, I’ll tell you that. It was like being raped by a Popsicle.’
‘That was the idea. Now – how about you return the favor?’
They made love for over another hour, until Michael began to shiver.
Isobel touched his lips with his fingertips and said, ‘Look at your lips, they’re blue. You need to get dressed and get warm and I’ll feed you a bowl of my minestrone soup.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ he told her. He hadn’t felt as cold as this since … He frowned. He had felt as cold as this once, but he couldn’t remember when, or where, or why. He thought he could hear young boys’ voices calling to each other across a frozen lake, and he thought he could hear a whistle, and a man shouting. But then the voices and the whistle and the frozen lake faded from his consciousness, and he was left lying in the rumpled bed while Isobel climbed out and picked up her clothes.
For a few moments she stood naked against the opaline light of the bedroom window, and he couldn’t help thinking what a beautiful figure she had, and how he could probably have fallen in love with her, if only things had been different. If only she hadn’t felt so cold (or seemed to him to feel so cold) and if only he hadn’t felt that the Trinity-Shasta Clinic and everybody who lived in Trinity was on the wrong side of Alice’s looking-glass, himself included.
He stayed in bed for a few minutes longer while Isobel went into the kitchen to heat up the soup. Eventually he got up and went to the window to look at the snow falling.
He was shocked to see Jemima standing outside, with her friend in the red duffel coat. Jemima was wearing the same pink windbreaker that he had seen her wearing before, and the same wooden beads in her frizzy brown hair. The two of them were standing side by side, motionless, while the thickening snowflakes clung to their hair and their shoulders. Michael couldn’t work out if their eyes were focused on him or not, but they didn’t seem to be perturbed by the fact that he was naked.
He went through to the kitchen. Isobel turned around, wide-eyed, and said, ‘Are you going to walk around like that for the rest of the day? Not that I mind, one bit!’
‘Look out there,’ he told her, pointing to the window.
Isobel looked, and then said, ‘What? It’s snowing. So what?’
‘Can’t you see them? There are two little girls out there.’
Isobel put down her soup ladle and went right up to the sink. ‘No, there aren’t.’
Michael came up and stood beside her. She was right. The back yard was empty. There were no footprints, either, not even jays’ footprints, because the snow was so fresh.
Michael shook his head. ‘I saw them out there, I swear to God. They were probably out there when we were in bed together. They must have run off.’
‘Greg, the gate is locked. There’s no way that anybody could have gotten into the yard unless they climbed right over the fence. Do you know these girls? Have you seen them before?’
‘I met them on the first day that Catherine brought me down here to meet you. One’s called Jemima but I don’t know what the other one’s name is. Jemima has kind of a nasty pink scar on her forehead, like a lightning flash.’
>
‘She’s not Harry Potter’s sister, by any chance?’
‘Isobel, get serious. I saw them. They were standing right there, by the bird bath.’
Isobel kissed him and then put her hand down between his legs and squeezed him. ‘I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t. Now hurry up and put some clothes on before I’m tempted to take you back to bed again.’
Michael went back into the bedroom and started to dress. As he did so, though, he kept staring out of the window, but the two girls didn’t reappear.
It is me. If I can see them, but Isobel can’t, it must be me. Like I saw Bill and Margaret standing outside, when Jack was here. Like I saw Sue. I’m seeing people who aren’t really there. I’m hallucinating. Either that, or there’s something devastatingly wrong with me, and nobody has the heart to tell me what it is.
He put on his wristwatch and checked the time. Two thirty-three, well past time to take his midday dose of Vinpocetine. He went along the hallway to his bedroom, which seemed chilly and abandoned now that he had started sleeping with Isobel. He took the blue-and-white carton of pills out of his left-hand desk drawer, and pressed four of them out of their foil backing.
He cupped them in his hand, and took them through to the bathroom. He filled a glass tumbler with water, and was about to swallow them when he saw his face in the mirror over the washbasin.
‘Michael,’ he said. His face looked back at him but offered no indication that he had recognized himself.
‘Gregory,’ he said. Then, again, ‘Michael.’
He juggled the four pills in his hand. He was about to take the first of them when he thought: No, if I can’t trust anybody in Trinity to tell me the truth, how can I trust them to give me the correct medication? Instead of helping me to remember, maybe these pills are to make sure that I never do.
One by one, he pushed them down the drain, and then flushed the basin with water. Let’s see what happens now, he told his reflection. If my memory doesn’t improve – well, it can hardly be worse than it is now. But if it does improve …
If he were to be honest with himself, he had no idea what the implication would be, if he did start to regain his memory. It might mean that Catherine was deliberately keeping him in a permanent state of post-traumatic amnesia, or it might mean that he was regaining his memory in any case, with or without medication.
But he was certain about one thing. He was going to leave Trinity, and he was going to leave Trinity tonight, and for good. Whether he could remember who he really was or not, he would rather face the challenge of the world outside than spend another day in this community, wondering whether or not he was mad – or worse.
They sat at the kitchen table to eat their minestrone soup, and it was good, with plenty of celery and carrots and tomatoes and cannellini beans, all mixed up with pasta. However cold Isobel felt in bed, she was a marvelous cook.
‘What are you going to do for the rest of the afternoon?’ she asked him.
‘Take my obligatory walk. Then, I don’t know. You’re off to play bridge with Bethany Thomson, aren’t you? I think I’ll just collapse on to the couch and watch one of those soaps you like so much. The Bold and the Boring, whatever it’s called.’
‘The Bold and the Beautiful,’ said Isobel. ‘Like you, my darling.’
After lunch, Michael put on his overcoat and wound his long blue scarf around his neck, and then opened the door and stepped outside. It was snowing so furiously that he was almost tempted to forget his walk and forget about leaving Trinity and go back inside, where it was warm and comfortable.
But he knew that he had to get away tonight. The snow could be even worse tomorrow, and he had the feeling that he might have already left it too late. He started to make his way down the middle of the road toward old Mrs Kroker’s house, at the bottom of the slope, next to the community center.
On the opposite side of the slope, about a half-mile away and almost invisible in the snow, he saw the distinctive red duffel-coat of Jemima’s friend, and then the pink smudge of Jemima’s windbreaker. He supposed he could have called out to them, but he didn’t want the snow flying into his mouth, and he had something much more important to do than find out how they had managed to climb into Isobel’s yard.
He had to arrange his escape.
FIFTEEN
Mrs Kroker’s house stood cater-corner to the community center. It was painted an odd maroon color, with yellow drapes which were all drawn tight, as if nobody outside should be able to look in and nobody inside should be able to look out. There was an old bronze Honda sedan parked in the driveway.
Michael climbed the steps to the front door and knocked. The knocker was tarnished brass and had the face of a snarling wolf on it. For some reason Michael remembered that people whose front doors faced east hung wolf-like knockers on them to keep away evil spirits, which always came from the east.
After more than half a minute there was no answer so he knocked again.
He heard Mrs Kroker call out, ‘Lloyd! Where are you, Lloyd? Somebody’s banging at the damn door!’
There was a pause, and then he heard Lloyd saying, ‘It’s OK, Mrs K! I’m getting it! I’m getting it!’
The door opened with a shudder and there was Lloyd in a red bandanna, wearing a red football shirt with Bakersfield Falcons printed across the chest in white. When Michael had talked to him at Isobel’s afternoon get-together, Lloyd had been sitting down, so he hadn’t realized how tall and heavily built he was – at least six-four and three hundred pounds. He was quite good looking, in a roughly sculptured way, with clear blue eyes, but his nose looked as if it had been broken more than once, and he had a livid red scar above his left eyebrow, as if he had split his head open – and not too long ago, either.
‘Hey there, Greg!’ he said. ‘What you doing out on a day like this?’
‘I was bored, that’s all,’ Michael told him. ‘Thought I might pay you a visit.’
‘Who is it, Lloyd?’ screeched Mrs Kroker, from the living room.
‘It’s only Greg,’ Lloyd called back, over his shoulder. ‘You remember Greg – we met him at Isobel’s.’
‘Greg? I don’t remember any Greg! What does he want?’
‘Just needs to chew the fat about something, Mrs K. Don’t worry. We’ll go in the kitchen.’
‘Well, don’t you dare to fetch him in here!’
‘I won’t, Mrs K, I promise!’ Lloyd winked at Michael and said, with his hand half-cupped over his mouth, ‘Still in her hair-rollers and her nightdress. I wouldn’t wish the sight of that on nobody.’
He beckoned Michael inside and shut the door behind him. Then he led the way through to the kitchen, which was fitted out Shaker-style, with wooden cupboards and worktops, and wheelback chairs.
‘How about a cup of coffee?’ asked Lloyd. ‘Or maybe a brewski if you’d rather.’
‘Sure, why not? How about a beer?’
Lloyd went to the fridge and took out two bottles of Coors. They sat down together at the kitchen table and clinked them together. ‘Here’s to swimming with knock-kneed women.’
‘I thought it was “bow-legged”,’ said Michael.
‘You have more fun when they’re knock-kneed. It’s that prying them apart. Just like opening up a clam.’
Michael said, ‘I’ll come directly to the point, Lloyd. I need your help. I don’t want to get you into any trouble, but there’s something I need to do and I can’t manage it on my own. I need somebody physically strong.’
‘Well … thanks for the compliment,’ said Lloyd, flexing his left bicep until the veins bulged out. ‘But what kind of trouble are we talking about?’
‘I’m leaving Trinity. I’m going tonight. I’m going to take Isobel’s truck and I’m getting the hell out of here and I’m not coming back.’
‘What’s the matter? You and Isobel fall out or something? I think you landed on your feet there, having Isobel to take care of. Look at me, with old Mrs K. Not exactly the screw of the century, i
s she? Well, she might have been, but which century?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to get you too deeply involved in this, but there’s something badly wrong about this place. I have no idea what it is, but some very weird things have been happening. It could be me. You know, hallucinating or something. But I need to know for sure, and the only way I can do that is to get out of here and look back at it objectively.’
Lloyd swigged his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘So why do you need me? All you have to do is get into Isobel’s truck and head for the interstate.’
‘The thing is, Lloyd, there’s somebody I want to take with me. In fact I’m not going to leave unless I can. She’s a patient up at the clinic, and at the moment they’re treating her in their intensive care wing. I want to get her out of there, but I simply don’t have the strength to carry her out on my own.’
Lloyd sat back in his chair, looking serious. ‘That’s a big ask, Greg. What happens if they catch us doing it? What would that be – patient-napping or something? I mean, they might kick me out of here, and what would I do then?’
‘I don’t know, Lloyd. Maybe it is too much to ask. Maybe I should forget the whole thing.’
‘Who is she, this patient?’
‘She’s a girl I used to know, Natasha Kerwin. I think I used to know her, anyhow. I can’t specifically remember how, or why, or where from. But I’m sure that she and I were very close, and I need to get her out of here so that I can find out who she is.’
‘Hate to say this, but that’s pretty darn vague, isn’t it? You might be abducting a perfect stranger for all you know. And even if she isn’t a perfect stranger, you say that they have her in intensive care. What if you take her out of the clinic and she croaks or something?’
Michael said, ‘I think she’s going to die regardless.’
He told Lloyd how he and Jack had sneaked into the clinic and found Natasha Kerwin’s room, and how he had overheard Doctor Hamid saying that he would ‘pull the plug’ on her.
‘The way he said it, it sounded to me like they had no more use for her, and that they were planning to take her off life-support.’
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