by Graham Joyce
“It’s called love, Tara,” Underwood said. “It’s what they do because they love their children. As your parents loved you.”
“But do they have to give up their souls? Do they have to?”
“They have to share out their souls, yes, they do. They are none of them in the same place where you left them.”
“Except for Richie. There is still a glimmer of light in Richie. He hasn’t compromised. But he’s dying.”
“Yes. Richie. Peter told me something about that. It’s a bad lot.” Underwood got up and went to his desk. He came back proffering a tissue.
Tara took the tissue and wiped her eye. “Richie, Peter. They were the blossom. They were the blossom on the tree.”
“As were you.”
“As I still am,” she corrected fiercely.
They sat in silence for some minutes. Underwood wanted Tara to feel her anger and hostility and to let it subside before he proposed what he wanted to do. Right then she was overstimulated. So, with a neutral expression, he gazed out the window.
A cloud passed in front of the afternoon sun. The light fell. Something creaked in his study. Almost to prevent himself from drifting to sleep, Underwood spoke. “I have an idea of trying something, with your consent. One last effort to see if we can both get some more information about where you have been all these years. But only with your consent and cooperation.”
“Not going to give me electric-shock therapy, are you?”
“Good lord, no. I’m ashamed to say I was too taken with that in the old days.” His face darkened. “Why would you suggest that?”
Tara dealt him a thin smile. “Just trying to guess what cards you have up your sleeve.”
“Nothing so brutal, I promise you. These days I try to tiptoe into the unconscious mind rather than bludgeon my way in.”
“Tiptoe. Really, I’m prepared to do anything. I’m game for anything.”
Underwood got up and went his desk, picking up the heavy, oak-framed, old-style hourglass and setting it on the windowsill. With his back turned he didn’t see a flash of red as Tara touched her tongue with her finger, and even had he seen he would have thought it only a scarlet-painted fingernail. “In a moment I’m going to set this running. I want you to keep your eyes on it. I’m going to use some relaxation techniques and I’ll ask you some questions. Okay with that?”
“Yes.”
“You feel safe with me?”
“Yes.”
“Here we go, then. Just keep your eyes on the sand.”
He inverted the hourglass, and the fine grains of cinnamon-colored sand started streaming in the curve of the lower glass, billowing slightly like a skirt in a breeze, a tiny light spectrum refracting behind the rivulet of sand as it ran. Tara kept her gaze on the delicate stream, with almost a smile on her lips and a peculiar avidity in her wide-open brown eyes.
Underwood watched her watching.
“In a moment,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to think of a key word but before that I just want you to stay with the sand. There, doesn’t that feel good? By the way, you achieved this relaxation all by yourself. You’re a natural for this. But in a moment I want you to select a key word. It will be your own word and I don’t want you to tell it to me yet.
“Here you go. You can hear my voice. Here you go. That feels nice, again, you just let the tension out of your arms, I saw it go, and that’s good because it means you are happy and you feel good and you feel relaxed and you are changing. And now that your arm is relaxed, your shoulder can relax, too, and so can that tense area around your neck, it can all go. That’s good. I saw that happen, but again, you did that all by yourself.
“Those sounds outside are becoming distant. Those sounds outside are fading away. You might notice that every time you blink it’s harder and harder to keep your eyes open.
“The sand is taking you where you want to be, isn’t it? It’s all right. You can let yourself go there. You can let go of that bad time. We don’t need it, we can let that go. It feels very good to let it go, doesn’t it? Of course it does. I wonder how deeply you can fall into a trance right now.
“I wonder how deeply. I wonder. I wonder what will happen when you let go of that bad time. I wonder. I wonder what will happen.”
Tara now had her eyes closed and her head had slumped forward. Her breathing was shallow. Her arms hung heavily at her sides.
“I wonder what will happen when you let go of that bad time. I wonder.”
Tara moved her head slightly and shaped her mouth to speak. She slurred. “It is likely he will come?”
“Who will come?” Underwood said. “Likely who will come?”
Tara moved her lips, like someone who was parched. “It is likely,” she slurred again, very slowly, “he will come.”
Don’t press it, Underwood thought. Back off.
“I don’t know whether you have completely relaxed yet,” he said gently. “Let’s see if we can go further. Further.”
“Yes. Further.”
“So let’s go further.”
“Further.”
“So let’s go further.”
“Further.”
“So let’s go further.”
Then something happened that wasn’t supposed to happen. Underwood felt his own eyelids close. He battled back, opened his eyes, and looked at the slumped form of Tara, uncertain now how many times he had repeated himself. His head was in a foggy place and he could still hear his own words, echoing back at him, but in a slow unfolding wave; elongated, as if the words were elastic and stretching slowly over his tongue; and that sensation was accompanied by a darkness, a fuzzy shadow that had fallen over his study. His eyelids were drooping again. He had to fight the impossible weight of his own eyelids.
At last he forced his eyes open only to see Tara sitting erect now in her chair, her own beautiful, large brown eyes wide open and gazing back at him. She was staring at him, unblinking, but her head was cocked and she was guarded, as if uncertain of some outcome. He knew he was going under again and he couldn’t stop it. He was helpless, unable to resist, as if his own techniques of hypnotism had flashed back at him. His consciousness was eclipsing; or perhaps he felt a sooty inundation pouring over him like dim waves on the sand of a dark beach. He knew his head had slumped, impossibly weighted, and with Tara staring down at him all he could think was how utterly beautiful were her eyes; and there in the corner of her eyes the liquid sheen of them reflected the light spectrum from the hourglass. He was going under and he couldn’t stop it. His eyelids closed and he surrendered.
When he blinked himself awake he had no idea of how much time had passed. But Tara had gone from the seat next to him. In her place, gazing steadily back at him, was a man. Underwood instinctively but slowly moved his head to steal a glance at the hourglass. The sand was still running.
With great effort Underwood rolled his head again to look back at the figure in the chair. Now the man was glowering. He had a dark aspect, a tanned, weathered complexion. He was in need of a shave and his hair was a mass of dark curls worn down to his collar, a single gold earring glinting in there somewhere. He wore a white shirt without a collar, and a black waistcoat; his baggy black trousers were gathered at the knees and stuffed into riding boots. He exuded an odor of menace: male sweat and gunmetal.
Underwood felt a flush of primal fear. He felt a thrill of cold.
The man leaned forward and the leather of his chair creaked slightly under him. He opened his mouth. “I tried to tell you once before,” he said to Underwood in a quiet but angry voice. It was a voice that dragged in the throat, and the voice was out of sync with the sensuous lips. “But you wouldn’t listen to me.”
Underwood made to get up from his seat, trying to rise against a great weight. “Where is Tara?”
But the man was faster to his feet. “I tried to tell you before,” he said again, and he reached forward to Underwood with his left hand, first and second fingers splayed out wide in a V. Under
wood raised a hand up to protect himself but he was too slow: the stranger touched the psychiatrist’s eyelids with his outstretched fingers. Underwood felt a jolt, a voltage, and he sank back into his chair, paralyzed, as everything faded to black.
Moments later he came back to consciousness, and this time the frightening stranger was standing over him, holding aloft the heavy hourglass, already in the act of bringing it down on Underwood’s head. But the man was motionless, frozen in a menacing instant of tableau. The air was smoky with a smell like ozone and the light was flickering a dangerous nightfall blue.
Underwood tried to grip his chair, looking for purchase that would help him to leap from his seat, but he was powerless to move. Then came a ripping sound, like canvas tearing, and the image before him broke up into a thousand tiny fluttering points of colored light, like bugs suddenly disturbed and reflected in a beam of sunlight. The fragments of light quickly resettled back into a new image, and now Tara was standing before him, one arm aloft and gripping the assailant by the wrist. Neither Tara nor the man were looking at Underwood. Their eyes were locked on each other. It was as if they were in another place, indifferent to the presence of Underwood. There came another horrible rending sound, and this new tableau also fragmented, again into a flurry of brilliant bugs taking to the air; and again, after a moment, it settled into a new form. There was a brand-new tableau in which Tara held the man’s face in her small and elegant white hands, imploring him. The man was weeping. His tears were blue in the polar light. The hourglass, no longer a weapon, had rolled on the floor.
In a final fracturing and resettling of the tableau, Tara was bending over Underwood, her first and second fingers splayed and stroking his eyelids shut.
UNDERWOOD CAME TO AGAIN. Tara sat in the adjacent chair, gazing steadily at him, her intimidating brown eyes still unblinking. He looked for the hourglass. It had gone from the windowsill where he had set it running. He glanced down and there it was: it had fallen unbroken to the floor and had come to a stop halfway across his carpeted study.
The psychiatrist scrambled to his feet, like a man suddenly unshackled. He looked around and behind him. Of the dangerous intruder there was now no sign.
“Lost someone?” Tara said.
“Where is that man?”
Tara blinked. A long, supercilious, steady blink.
Underwood stepped over to his desk and looked behind it, as if the intruder might be hiding there. He looked again at Tara. He looked at the hourglass. Spread out on his desk were a number of papers. They were his report on Tara. Some of the psychological phrases he had used about her had been circled or ringed about with the antique pen from the desk stand. One page was blotted violently.
Underwood marched to the study door, grabbed the door handle, and yanked it open. He peered up and down the landing and corridor. Then, abandoning Tara, he closed the door behind him and hurried downstairs.
His elderly secretary was in the act of polishing her desk. She was almost bent double, aerosol spray can in one hand and a cloth in the other. “Mrs. Hargreaves, Mrs. Hargreaves, did you just see a man go out?”
She looked up. “No, Mr. Underwood.”
“You didn’t see anyone come in?”
“No. I would have told you. As you know.”
“Or go out? You saw no one go out.”
“I keep the door locked at all times, Mr. Underwood. As you well know.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Hargreaves. Indeed.”
“Is everything all right, Mr. Underwood?”
He stroked his chin and without offering a reply, turned on his heels and hurried back up the stairs to his office. When he got there, Tara was still in her seat by the window. Though she’d picked up the hourglass, and now she held it steady, provocatively, between her thighs.
Underwood stood over her, his hands on his hips, breathing hard. She met his gaze evenly. Then he found his cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply, scrutinizing her. “You counter-hypnotized me,” he said at last.
“You fool, Mr. Underwood.”
“Yes. I know you did it.”
Tara got to her feet. “It’s time for me to go.” She placed the hourglass back on his desk with a delicate click and turned to the psychiatrist, offering a handshake. Underwood looked at her hand as if it might contain a razor, or some device of evil conjuring. At last he took his cigarette from his mouth, stubbed it out in an ashtray, and shook her hand, all the time watching her carefully.
“Not easy, is it?” said Tara.
Underwood didn’t let go of her hand. “I would like to conduct some further sessions. Without charge.”
Tara shook her head. “I don’t have the time. But thanks for the offer.”
He released her hand. She was changed somehow. When he’d first been introduced to her he thought he was meeting a child. But now he saw in her a mature woman, wise in ways at which he could only guess.
“Really, Mr. Underwood. Histrionic personality disorder. They don’t like being called fairies in the same way that I don’t like being called histrionic. Or other similar words. Which reminds me,” Tara said. “Mrs. Larwood sends her regards.”
Underwood shook his head. The name meant nothing.
“Never mind. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Tara.”
He watched her walk across the study and slip out the door. He remained in the middle of his study, lighting another cigarette, smoking it down to its butt. After he’d stubbed it out in the ashtray he picked up the hourglass and looked at the handwritten notes spread across his desk. He scanned the room again, as if still suspecting someone of hiding there somewhere, behind a chair, behind the drape curtains, under his desk.
He set the hourglass back on his desk and returned downstairs in search of Mrs. Hargreaves.
“I take it that was the last session with Miss Martin,” said Mrs. Hargreaves.
“That’s right. Mrs. Hargreaves. Tell me, did we ever have a client called Mrs. Larwood?”
“That’s going back a bit, Mr. Underwood, but I do think we did. Yes.”
“Do you think you could dig her file out of the archives for me?”
“I can do that. Are we finished for the day, Mr. Underwood?”
Underwood sighed. “You know something, Mrs. Hargreaves? I do believe I might be ready to finish for good. I actually fell asleep on my client this afternoon.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hargreaves, “if you do finish, it will not be before your time. Let me see if I can find that file for you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
From the low white walls and the church’s steeple,
From our little fields under grass or grain,
I’m gone away to the fairy people
I shall not come to the town again.
You may see a girl with my face and tresses,
You may see one come to my mother’s door
Who may speak my words and may wear my dresses.
She will not be I, for I come no more.
LORD DUNSANAY
Genevieve had made lunch for the family. It was a mild chili with salad and a huge loaf of bread still warm from the oven. Josie was helping her to lay the table, when she dropped a knife on the tiled floor.
“Sowwy,” Josie said.
“That’s all right,” Genevieve said, stooping to pick it up. “It means a visitor is coming.”
“Who says?” Josie wanted to know.
“That’s what they say. If you drop a knife a man is coming; and if you drop a fork a lady visitor is coming.”
“Who says? ”
“It’s just what people say.”
“Which people? ”
“Lots of people.”
“Is it true?”
Genevieve pushed her bottom lip out. “Come on, slowpoke. Finish laying the table.”
Jack came into the kitchen. “I’m starving.” He twisted a hunk of bread off the loaf.
“Stop it!” Josie shouted. “We’re having a visitor.”
�
��What visitor?” Jack asked his mother.
“Wash your hands, will you?” Genevieve answered. “How many times do I have to tell you that? Wash your hands before dinner.”
“I have washed my hands.”
“Liar! You’ve probably been poking rats’ innards.” Jack was about to answer when the doorbell rang. “Oh, God, who the hell is that?” Genevieve said.
“It’s the visitor!” Josie shouted.
“What visitor?” Jack wanted to know.
“It’s a man!” Josie shouted, charging out of the kitchen.
“Don’t let her answer the door,” Genevieve said to Jack.
“Why not?”
“Go and answer the bloody door, will you!” Genevieve shouted. Too often it was a salesman in a suit or a hawker in a hoodie or the Jehovah’s Witnesses in black serge. She finished the job of laying out the cutlery with half an ear to the exchange at the door. After a moment she looked up and saw Richie standing in the kitchen doorway in a T-shirt and jeans.
“Richie! We’re just about to eat,” she said, swinging her pot of chili onto the table. “Shall I set another place?”
Richie didn’t answer. Genevieve took a second look at him. He was shivering and his face was ashen. He looked ill. His eyes were red-rimmed and his pupils had shrunk to tiny bullets of dismay.
“You all right, Richie?”
He shook his head.
Josie came into the kitchen, squeezed past him, and took Richie’s hand. “We knew you were coming,” Josie said.
PETER WAS IN HIS workshop, sorting horseshoes and nails into sizes and lengths. The fluorescent tube of his overhead light was flickering because of a failed starter unit. Whenever he was reminded that life was a losing battle to entropy, what with light-bulbs flickering and horseshoes and nails shuffling out of neat order the moment he turned his back, he was also reminded that humor and a cheerful disposition were the only known antidotes. It was just that he had neither humor nor cheer in good store.
