by Alec Birri
Dan inclined the back of his bed, took the tray and lifted the lids. Bacon, sausage, steak, lamb chops, and – red sauce. He salivated. Ignoring any pain, Dan picked up some cutlery and dived in. ‘Got to hand it to you, Doc,’ he managed to get out between mouthfuls. ‘Your “throw ’em in at the deep end” method certainly worked.’
‘It’s called exposure therapy,’ Adams explained. ‘Expose a patient to the very fear that’s causing them problems and hope for the best.’
‘Hufm fu the bess?’
‘Well, it’s not an exact science, but then that’s mental illness for you. Particularly when it’s made more complicated by other issues.’
Dan swallowed what he was eating. ‘What other issues? Like the crash, you mean?’
‘Something like that.’
Dan put down his knife and fork. ‘You’re like a policeman – never off duty. What are you up to now?’
Adams poured out a beaker of water and offered it. ‘Still think I’m trying to kill you?’
Dan grasped the cup and drained the contents. ‘No, but why do I get the feeling there’s more to you than meets the eye?’
Adams leaned forward as if offering a chance to answer that. ‘Paranoia, perhaps?’
Dan leaned away. The doctor stood back again and took out his notepad and pen.
‘Mind if I ask you some questions?’
‘If you must.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Seriously?’
The doctor just poised his pen. Dan sighed. ‘Squadron Leader Daniel Stewart.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-six.’
‘What year is it?’
‘1966 – August the something.’
‘Who’s the prime minister?’
‘Harold Wilson.’
‘Who won the World Cup?’
Dan just looked at him.
‘Oh, yes – I forgot.’
‘Now there’s irony for you,’ Dan said, sarcastically.
The doctor ignored him. ‘When did you break your arm?’
‘Two weeks ago.’
‘Describe what happened.’
Dan went through the events; from when he was standing by the hospital’s barbecue, to passing out at the sight of the flames around the meat, to putting his hand into the hot coals, to slipping as he leapt back, to striking his head and breaking his arm as he fell, to lying on one side with his face in the grass, to looking at the wild flowers – and a bumble bee. Adams made some notes while Dan went back to eating and talking.
‘How did you get the bumble bee to fly past me at exactly the right time?’
‘I had it in a matchbox and released it as you fell.’
‘That was a bit lucky, wasn’t it? It could have gone anywhere.’
‘Well, when you do it every day, luck becomes less of an issue.’
Dan stopped eating. ‘You mean to say you’ve been staging that little stunt for me every day for the last two weeks?’
‘More or less – only when the sun was shining, though. Bees have a habit of going to sleep when it’s too cold.’
Dan didn’t know whether to be impressed or scared.
Adams continued. ‘Why do you think you passed out?’
‘I guess the flames around the meat must have reminded me of what happened in the crash.’ Dan glanced at his right hand and grimaced.
‘Describe something you did yesterday.’
Dan swallowed his last mouthful and placed the knife and fork together on the empty plate. He shook his head.
‘Describe something you did last week or last month.’
He shook his head again.
‘Describe what happened in the aircraft crash.’
It dawned on Dan that everything he thought he knew about the crash was actually from the accident in the hospital. He shook his head yet again.
‘Interesting.’
Adams’ reply came as no surprise to Dan whatsoever. He was worried, though. ‘What if I wake up tomorrow and I’ve forgotten the accident again – or even this conversation?’
The doctor appeared to give the question careful thought. ‘That is a possibility, but today is the first time you’ve remembered what happened a fortnight ago, and certainly the first time you’ve eaten a hearty meal, so hopefully you’ll retain it – we’ll soon find out.’
Dan tried to get his head around the idea of waking up every day for the rest of his life forgetting the day before. Adams got up from his chair and approached the bed.
‘You really ought to restart your medication, you know. You’ll find it so much easier to remember what’s been happening to you.’
Dan didn’t think he needed to. ‘If I can remember a relatively minor domestic accident without drugs, then I’ll be able to remember the crash – it’s only a matter of time.’ One of the doctor’s words struck him. ‘Restart? You said restart my medication. Have I already been on it?’
Adams nodded.
‘Then why did I stop taking it?’
The doctor produced a single red pill and placed it on the tray. ‘Restart your medication and you’ll find out.’
Dan picked up the tablet and squinted at it. ‘I don’t get you, Doc. You spend days trying to get me to remember one particular event, and yet you just stood back and watched when I couldn’t breathe earlier.’ He regarded the other man directly. ‘Trust me, that’s something I will never forget.’
Adams was unmoved. ‘Take the pill, and you won’t.’
Dan changed the subject. He looked past the doctor. ‘Where’s Lucy? Claire said she wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, so how did she get here? Who’s looking after her?’
There was a knock and a squadron colleague of Dan’s put his head around the door. ‘Tony!’ Dan greeted him like a long-lost friend, but not before checking Adams could see him too.
‘Am I interrupting?’
The doctor turned to Dan. ‘I’ll be in again first thing tomorrow morning as usual.’ He gestured towards the pill. ‘Let’s hope I don’t have to introduce myself again.’
Adams said something to Tony on the way out, which Dan couldn’t hear. Tony nodded.
Seeing someone from his unit was a welcome relief for Dan. ‘It’s great to see you, Tony.’ Tony put out a hand, but Dan moved his out of reach.
‘Sorry, Tony. Hurts too much. Have you seen my daughter?’
Tony seemed to hesitate before answering. ‘Yes, she’s in one of the wards.’ He appeared to pause again. ‘Playing with a puppy.’
Dan was relieved, but puzzled. ‘No wonder she hasn’t come back – they allow animals in this hospital?’
‘Therapy for the patients. Petting a dog or stroking a cat helps with anxiety, apparently.’
Dan disliked pets at the best of times, tending to view them as consumers of cash at one end and producers of stuff you couldn’t even put on the roses out of the other. And as for the hairs! He did feel guilty for not allowing Lucy to have a dog of her own, though – maybe Doctor Adams would let her play with a puppy in his room. That would work for both of them. His concerns returned.
‘Did you bring Lucy here?’ He noticed Tony hesitate yet again before replying.
‘Yes, Claire asked me to. I collected her from school and brought her straight here.’
Dan became agitated. ‘You collected her from school? How long have you been doing that?’
Tony picked up on the implication and tried to reassure his friend. ‘Dan, I know things are tough for you right now, but it’s been a struggle for Claire and Lucy too, so the squadron’s rallying round to help – that’s all.’
Dan calmed a little. Tony was right, of course. The military was excellent at looking after the families of service personnel and especia
lly at times like this.
‘Yes, of course. Sorry, Tony,’ he acknowledged. ‘I guess they’re right – the crash has made me paranoid as well as forgetful.’
‘Forgetful? That’s putting it mildly. You can’t remember a damn thing! Have you got that hundred quid you owe me?’
Dan smiled and began the questions he was desperate to have answers to.
‘What do you know about the crash, Tony? Has the board produced a report yet? I can’t even remember the investigation team visiting me for a statement, let alone the answers I gave.’
Tony didn’t respond, which made Dan think he was encroaching onto an area they weren’t at liberty to discuss. Maybe the flight was classified. ‘I mean, we don’t have to discuss the mission or the nature of the flight, or anything like that. Just the basics, like where it happened, was there anyone else involved, who got me out – that sort of thing. I can’t even remember the type of aircraft I was flying, for goodness sake.’
Tony pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Dan, after your progress today, I hope it won’t come as a surprise to learn you’ve been asking me those exact same questions every day since you stopped taking your medication.’
He indicated the red pill on the tray. Dan understood and nodded, before switching to a shake of the head. ‘I don’t want to take it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because presumably it was my choice to stop… so why did I?’
‘For goodness sake, Dan, you must have taken every pill and potion known to man over the last six months. What makes that one so special?’
‘Exactly,’ Dan replied, in some sort of ‘Eureka!’ moment. ‘If they want me to take it, then why not give it to me normally? I mean, I must have to take other pills, so why not just put it in with those?’ He picked up the tablet. ‘Why has Doctor Adams singled out this particular one?’
Tony sighed. ‘I have to get going – it gets pretty boring talking to a guy who keeps repeating himself, you know.’
‘Sorry, Tony. I guess I’ve been obsessing about this pill every day too?’
‘Only since you stopped taking it – you were doing really well before that.’ He turned to leave. ‘Is there anything I can get you that you’ll instantly forget having asked me for?’
Tony grinned and Dan took it as a challenge. He looked at the clock next to his bed. ‘Yes, there is. I want a clock that works – not one of these stupid digital things – one with hands on it – right there.’ He pointed to a spot on the wall at the foot of his bed.
Tony glanced at the ‘digital thing’. ‘Okay, this time tomorrow there’ll be the biggest clock you have ever seen right in front of you and I bet you don’t even notice it, let alone wonder where it came from.’
Dan shrugged in a ‘see if I care’ way, and looked out of the window to feign disinterest. His friend was about to walk out when Dan stopped him.
‘Tony, what did Doctor Adams say to you just now?’
‘Still feeling paranoid, eh?’
Dan was sheepish.
Tony smiled. ‘He said: “Try and get him to take the pill.”’
The door closed. Dan studied the pill once more and then the beaker of water.
‘God, I thought he’d never leave.’
Dan reached for the buzzer.
‘What is it about you military types? All this “stiff upper lip”, “band of brothers” and thigh-slapping nonsense – it’s enough to make you weep. Why can’t you just face up to what’s going on and accept it?’
The door opened. Dan didn’t whisper this time.
‘Sorry to bother you again, Mike, but is there someone sitting in that chair?’
Mike glanced at where Dan was pointing. ‘Would you like a sedative?’
Dan looked at his hallucination.
Brian looked back. ‘I’ll only say what I have to say in your dreams – or nightmares.’ He rubbed his hands together theatrically and deliberately cackled like a pantomime villain.
Dan refused the offer. Mike walked around the room to ensure Dan was alone. Brian stared at the male nurse as he did so.
‘Just press the button again if you change your mind.’ Mike took one last look at the empty chair and left.
‘He’s a queer. You can tell it a mile off – too well groomed for a real man, and he’s a nurse for goodness’ sake. What kind of guy chooses nursing for a career?’
Homophobia aside, Dan did think that strange but his hallucination concerned him more. ‘What do you want, Brian?’
‘Ah, now psychologically speaking, you’re actually asking, what do I want. Being as I’m all in your head, figment of your imagination, repressed feelings, and all the other Freudian malarkey you care to mention. What do you want, Dan?’
‘My hallucination to end, for a start.’
‘Oh come on, don’t be like that – make use of me. There’s a good reason why what’s left of your brain has conjured me up – it can’t fix things conventionally, so is trying a hallucination instead. Desperate times and all that. Go on – ask me a question.’
Brian was looking smug, which always annoyed Dan. ‘What caused the crash?’
Brian’s shoulders dropped. ‘Oh come on, if it was that easy, you’d have worked it out for yourself a long time ago. Your brain is damaged, Dan – whatever bridge or road led directly from that question to the answer has long since gone. What you need to do is find an alternative route.’
Dan groaned. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’ He picked up the red pill. ‘Why did I stop taking this?’
‘Sorry, Dan – same problem. The link to the answer no longer exists. You’ve got to find a back road – while you still can.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Brian appeared to change the subject.
‘Okay, how about I ask you a question? Or rather, I ask myself – or you – ask yourself a question if you know what I, er, you mean.’
Dan turned towards the window. It was getting dark. ‘Brian, just do what you have to and leave or disappear or whatever.’
‘Why do we dream? What’s the purpose of it?’
Dan was beginning to tire, but decided to humour Brian. ‘I don’t know. To give the brain a rest or something? I think I read somewhere it uses the time to reorganise itself for the following day, and it’s during this process that we dream.’
‘Exactly! The brain is basically an incredibly complex system of filing cabinets, and millions upon millions of times a day it pulls open a drawer, takes out a file, acts on whatever it says, puts it back in, and then closes the drawer again. But like most filing systems, a drawer sometimes gets stuck or won’t open, or a file gets mislaid or put in the wrong drawer, and the brain uses sleep to sort all that out for the following day. It’s the brain’s accessing of those same files during sleep that conjures up the involuntary images and experiences we call dreams.’
Dan closed his eyes.
Brian persisted. ‘Now, what do you think happens to all those filing cabinets when the brain gets damaged?’
Dan opened his eyes. ‘They all fall on Brian and I can finally get some sleep?’
‘No, they burst open and millions of files not only get lost or jumbled up, but so do all the individual pages, paragraphs, sentences, words – even the individual letters.’
Dan’s eyes were getting heavy again. ‘And I suppose you can no longer dream?’
‘Maybe, but more importantly, your brain conjures up something to help you pick everything back up again – me!’
‘And there was me thinking it was all bad news. I thought we were looking for roads?’
‘We are, only they need building from scratch – letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph, page, file, and finally, cabinet by cabinet – all the way to the answers.’
>
Dan closed his eyes again. ‘Oh good. Wake me up when you’ve done that, will you?’
‘Come on, Dan – take it seriously; let’s make a start. Look at all the billions of jumbled-up letters in your head and pick one – any one.’
‘Just go away, Brian.’
‘How about this one: “P”?’
Dan sat up with a start. ‘Passengers. There were passengers on the aircraft.’
‘You didn’t give me a chance to spell it out.’
‘Shut up, Brian.’ Dan focussed on the setting sun – the last rays of the day were about to disappear. ‘I can’t believe I missed it. It’s been staring me in the face the whole time.’
‘What has?’
Dan looked at his hands. ‘All the injuries are at the exact same stage of recovery.’
‘Well of course they are – you didn’t burn your arms one day and your legs the next.’
Dan turned to Brian. ‘You don’t understand – every patient on this ward not only has similar injuries to me, but we’re all at the exact same stage of recovery.’
‘So?’
‘Don’t you get it? That means we were all injured at the same time. I crashed a passenger aircraft and the survivors are here with me to prove it.’
Chapter Four
‘Good morning.’
He turned from the voice and groaned. ‘What time is it?’
‘Seven o’clock.’
Dan’s fingers ached as he rubbed his eyes. He looked at the clock next to his bed and groaned again. ‘Pointless looking at that thing. What are you doing in this early?’
Adams made another one of his intimidating lean-ins. ‘I take it from that, you recognise who I am?’
The pillows stopped Dan from leaning away. ‘Back off, Doc; it’s too early for another one of your game—’ He sat up, almost clouting the doctor with his forehead on the way. ‘Yes… Yes… I do.’ He thought for a second to ensure all the previous day’s events were still there. They were – including his revelation about the other patients.
Dan smiled. ‘Doctor Adams; Dan Stewart; thirty-six; 1966; Harold Wilson; England – next question!’ The smile became a cheesy grin.
