And then I saw no more – was alone again in my tunnel, alone with an infamous idea.
I reconsidered Eloise’s enviable material circumstances; even that luxury-hotel aura of Blakedene, a five-star bolthole, premium hiding place, three meals a day, movie at nine, capped by a king-size slumber … Laughter rose in my chest as the notion seemed to bloom before me.
I felt fate to be speaking, urging me to break with the given – a radical departure, depraved, even. But hadn’t I always asserted, even in the toughest male company, the part of me that is female, however deeply concealed? And it suddenly seemed to me that a conversion of this order could conceivably serve as my redemption – its irony not necessarily at my expense, if I chose freely to recant my stormy masculinity, convert from swordsman to damsel, Don Giovanni to Donna Elvira. This was a penalty, a plea-bargain, I was prepared to accept. I was resolved – somehow, I would get to Blakedene – another trek, yes, but with an ingeniously shining goal in sight. A shadow, half-glimpsed within a reverie, had proved a revelation …
I mean, such was my insanity, you understand, since hallucination had become my guiding light. Because whatever the method in it, the possession of Eloise remained a mad idea, and the maddest part of all was that I truly believed it was my own.
* * *
I escaped London before dawn. Requiring funds for my exit, after midnight I staked out an ill-lit cash-point off the Harrow Road, gripping an empty vodka bottle I’d found under a lamp post. A single female would have been ideal, but custom was sluggish, time fleeting. Finally I knew, it would have to be that man … Light-footed, as he made his transaction I stole up behind and struck him very hard, then repeatedly. I couldn’t risk his being fit to give a description. My spirits were dangerously high. It seemed to me amazing what one could carry off, alone and unnoticed and malevolent, to be without fear or care, to take what one wanted and run. I hastened to Paddington, got aboard the 0330 and rode out into Berkshire, limped the mile or so from the station into countryside, finding the wooded lanes that wound a leafy way round to Steven’s upscale asylum.
Within sight of the gatehouse I was disconcerted to find a beefy guardsman – the loyal Goran, as I would come to know him – playing sentry. I ducked off the road, beat a path into the surrounding woods, but soon lost my bearings and realised I would have to find my way to the rear of Blakedene through the outlying fields of a nearby farm. In the act of same I was nearly ‘made’ by a curious little girl playing on her own in a bean-field. I stood motionless, glowering at her from beneath my raised black hood, until she paled, turned and ran – whereupon I blundered down into the woods, emerging before the sheer face of Blakedene’s stone-wall rear, its solid wood door determinedly shut and locked. Precisely how I would invade the perimeter had never been fully clear to me – I had hoped merely for a chink in the defences somewhere, but none such was readily observable.
Then I heard the turn of an aged key, my heart jumped and I made a clumsy dash back to the shelter of the woods, hearing the door creak open behind me … Stretched on my stomach under a crop of hazel-bush, I watched a gloomy-eyed gardener shuffle a wheelbarrow backward out of Blakedene, then turn and head down the beaten track close by where I lay. I inched further into cover, watched him disappear between the trees – was silent on my belly still when he returned, barrow loaded with fallen branches. I had weighed up the urge to attack him and discounted it, conscious I had to proceed with maximum guile, leaving the minimal trace behind.
But with the door barred to me once more, as I lurked in the cool shelter I felt a powerful need of the confederate who’d lured me out here in the first place. I sensed I had to revive communications with my ‘psychic ally’. I wondered if I could summon him as he had summoned me. My mouth was parched, I was hugely enervated, mentally beside myself. It seemed imperative to clear my head.
I found a mature willow tree, its low-hanging branches a veil, the tangle of gnarly roots at its foot a natural berth. And there I sat, drew my legs crossed under me. I quieted my mind, felt myself slacken physically, breathed in and out until those breaths were guttural. Whereupon a cool peace came down. I seemed to see the world about me even through the black of my eyelids, the sense of my physical housing falling away until I was pure thought, and yet in motion, surging up and out of my shell.
Then I was in his head – his room – his eyes were mine as we sat at the foot of his bed, in the clean white splendour of his room. But I felt him alerted to me, panicked, prickling, ill at ease all over.
Don’t fear me. I am the one who walks always beside you. With that, at least, I felt his heartbeat ease. Come, outside, unlock your door, open to me …
His – my – eyes darted across to his work-desk under the window. On it sat a sculpture, a clay bust, its Grecian severity impressing me until the blankness of its eyes looked into me and I took fright. What power was I accessing here? Some measure of what She possessed? In that shocked moment I was restored to my cold seat under the willow.
Night drew in. I held my hiding place, could do no other. The wait was torture, with no notion of whether our telepathy had persuaded him. In the dark and the hush, broken only by the trills and ululations of the birds, I tried and failed to meditate my way to calm, against my growing hunger and thirst.
Then came the sound of a familiar disturbance by the Blakedene wall, the door pushed open. Impulsively I retrieved my mask from my leather bag, strapped it to my face, set my back hard upright against the tree-trunk, my hands gripped my knees. And in the gloom I watched Tregaskis sneak his way down the beaten track, stealthy, snatching glances behind him. He came through the dense overhanging foliage, until he saw me, paused, his steps tentative. Even in the dark his eyes had seemed to gleam. Now they were narrow, troubled. The gardener’s ring of keys clinked in his hand. I knew I had chosen my accomplice well. But he, clearly, had expected more than the grim sight of me. Face to face I couldn’t delve inside his head. Still, by some means he would have to be brought to heel.
‘Don’t look at me,’ I hissed, drawing out the threat. He started, visibly, did indeed – to my delight – avert his eyes.
‘Who are you?’
‘You know. There is enough between us, David.’ He looked up to hear his name, I softened my address accordingly. ‘Humani nihil a me alienum puto. In human form I, too, am a poor relation on this earth – incarnated thus. We are brothers that way.’
I had him now. There was a dawning rapture in his face.
‘Your sun is rising, David. Do as I ask, you will see your reward.’ I tossed the bracelet to the ground between us. ‘Give this to her. You know who I mean. A token. Tell her someone waits in the woods, waits for her, needs her. She will know. Lead her out here to me.’
I leaned back, held myself still as a lizard, watched him watch me – my mask between us but my nerves running as high as his. At last he nodded, stooped to retrieve the bracelet, his eyes never leaving mine. Then he was loping back in the direction of Blakedene’s walls.
The day that followed was another condemned to a long and intolerable wait. And I waited, waited, all day long – edged nearer and nearer to outright dementia. This time, though, nothing of the agonies I’d felt in MacCabe, no physical discomfort drove me. But the need in myself to be free of my physical cage felt like a terrible craving – blood throbbing in my temples, an unfulfilled ache bound up with the ravening hunger in my gut. Frustration turned to rage – whereupon, or so it seemed, I summoned a storm.
For sure my foul mood became contiguous with the sky as it changed from white to black, gale-force winds blew up and shook the very woods, chased by pelting rain. I dug into my willow shelter for the hours it took to blow over – even slept awhile, after the rains were spent. Then, with darkness, calm was restored, both in the elements and my head. Even soaked and near-starved, I believed my hour had come. And so he brought her to me.
I heard the key, the creak – glimpsed the startling white of her nightdress, he also fram
ed in the door, then pushing it to – she turning, uncertain, then stepping uneasily down the track and under the broadleaf canopy. I rose and darted behind the great trunk of a grey beech, scalpel in hand, tried to control my ragged breath. But she wandered right past my hiding place, only to pause before the willow. My bag sat there at its foot. I heard her call my name – low, stricken.
‘Robert? Where are you? Robert …’
I studied the nape of her neck, her forlorn posture – truly a lost girl. Then I surged from cover. She heard me in time to turn, but had no chance to react before I struck – the speed my poor excuse for mercy, my unwanted apology. With the same speed came the abysmal pitch-black, the sense of being ripped from my corporeal moorings, violently displaced. And with that stroke, that single bound, I was once more delivered.
* * *
Darren Carver lay outstretched, and I stood, revived, instantly alive to my diminished stature, aware I ought to have been chilled to the marrow – and yet there was heat in me. I plucked up my belongings, abandoned the unfortunate Carver to the elements, and stepped out of the woods on exquisitely unsteady feet. Tregaskis swung the door to admit me to Blakedene … But on seeing me I saw his surprise, his wariness. I leaned to his ear, whispered bona fides to him.
‘Your sun is rising, David …’
‘My’ voice now hers, just as grainy as I’d known it, nonetheless lifted from bass to contralto – that same voice that once questioned me keenly about possible scarring, the voice that urged me hotly when we were in bed, the voice that railed at me with four-lettered rage when I told her we were done. Now mine.
In the grounds of Blakedene Hall I could smell summer blooms, still fragrant, where the woods had been all autumnal dankness. This, my enchanted garden … But this settling of myself inside her was shattered as I saw Steven and his watchman marching up the lawn, combing the grass with flashlights. Swiftly I stashed my bag in a lilac bush, sat myself heavily on an iron bench, feigned uneasy sleep. Tregaskis, cottoning slowly but surely, fell at my feet. As such it was he who took most of Steven’s ire once we were ‘discovered’ – this clear resentment of Tregaskis’s status as my defender telling me all I needed to know of Steven’s suppressed cares for Eloise. Still he led us, the naughty children, back indoors by the light of his torch. I marvelled a little at the grass under my toes, the fallen vines and trees strewn about – the chaos I remained sure I had wrought. Outside my bedroom Steven cautioned me. I apologised, solemnly promised I’d sin no more. Behind my closed door the room was indeed a delight, extravagant comforts, cut flowers – even the musk-orange scent of the Narcisse Noir I bought her, detectable in the air. I lay down, hugged myself, content in this confinement.
My eyes opened, to light creeping under the curtain’s hem. I was in a strange bed, there was hair in my mouth – lying on my back I could feel my muffled heartbeat. I shielded my eyes, sat up, the covers slipped away and, looking down, it all came rushing back. With that agreeably fuzzy just-wakened feeling, I stretched my new limbs. This was a considerable novelty; and yet surprisingly familiar.
I flicked on the plasma TV by remote, half-listened to the radio news. It was World Suicide Prevention Day, Marc Jacobs was showing in New York, a strident young woman had a theory about ‘killer capitalism’. Meantime in my opulent lodging I explored Eloise’s belongings, inventoried the dresser – her Lulu Guinness vanity case, compact mirror and strewn cosmetics, pocked sheets of Nicorette gum. Throwing open her wardrobe I met a wash of familiar colour and texture.
During our affair I had tried somewhat to fashion her, draw out the gamine in her as opposed to The Girl from Ibiza-via-Goa. It hadn’t taken, as proven by this riot of sun-dresses, faded denim, cotton skirts, peasant blouses … But the pricy sous-vêtements heaped in her drawers poured down between my fingers like silver. As I dressed, I was reminded again of the truth in this life that we all put our pants on the same way – one leg at a time. I understood I was late for breakfast, and would have to write myself a sick-note.
In truth I felt younger, lighter, happier in form, the sensations all strikingly sweet. This body I knew as well as any, in minute detail, and knew to be good, having assessed much of it professionally, its small deficiencies all balanced out by strengths. Eloise was never ‘vain’, only suffering exquisite points of self-doubt. I might have worked more on her, but she didn’t care and I didn’t push it, her body the one thing in her life she was mostly untroubled by.
She had taken no great care of herself, but even now I was struck by the bloom across ‘my’ skin. The little dark-brown mole to the left of the navel seemed, as ever, an agreeable punctuation. I palpated the left breast with the pads of my fingers – this a new perspective for me, the alleged ‘expert’ – and got a newly peculiar sense of an accumulation of smaller lumps, like a good bunch of grapes on the vine, but still milk-soft in my hand. I bent this way and that, inspected the course up inner thigh, little cerulean veins vanishing into auburn and hazel. Following up round the curve of hipbone I found myself pondering her belly, its slight roundedness – only natural and yet, to this particular eye, more than usually redolent of fecundity; whereupon a strong diagnostic instinct took hold of me.
Of course I had seen inside many people, the deepest recesses of their abdomens and peritoneal cavities, the brain within the skull. I reckoned my knowledge of female anatomy peerless. But this was a new dispensation for me: I felt I had to be sure of my condition. It was time to make use of that compact mirror.
I daresay Steven was surprised by my request, possibly it stirred something in him he didn’t care to acknowledge. But he gave his blessing, no doubt thinking it commendable, not least after I suggested it was something I did for ‘self-empowerment’. And still I felt his care for Eloise, his gaze on my shoulders like a cloak.
Thus I was supplied with speculum kit, KY jelly and pocket torch. I warmed the speculum in my bathroom sink, urinated, wiped and settled myself on the bed – knees up, thighs wide, pillows under my rump and head, endeavouring to ‘relax’. With the jelly I lubricated the bills and my index and middle fingers, burrowed one finger in to locate the cervix and judge the angle for the speculum. Satisfied, I made as unguinous an entrance as was possible, then – hearing my old self (‘We always ask our patients to take a deep breath …’) – I introduced the speculum, locked its bills, framed my view, positioned my mirror, and, hands free, clicked on the flashlight.
The sense of fathoming virgin territory was profound. I concede mild surprise that my fingers could delve so deep. Palpating gently, I assessed vulva and pelvic floor muscles. My fingertips brushed cervix, and I pressed on my belly over the uterus, gauging size, next locating and sizing the ovaries. Finally, by mirror and torchlight I was able to make out the little bulb of the cervix, the external os glistening, pinkish, cyst-free – a perfect circle. I adjudged myself to be right in the middle of my menstrual cycle – thus fertile. It was an absorbing process and, if I am honest, a beautiful sight to behold – however surpassingly strange it was to now find myself physically defined like so.
* * *
I did little else with my ‘first day’ other than retrieve my bag from the back of the gardens at a suitable moment. But never again would I flout the Blakedene house routine, the 7am alarm, the 8am communal breakfast … Thereafter I trooped down like a good soldier, albeit careful to bring along for my defence something from Eloise’s rack of Gallimards and Flammarions. Genet’s Un captif amoureux made a shield for me from one stocky bespectacled man, clearly a nerd who pumped iron, and insisted each day on telling me how complete was his recovery, how I had to hook up with him for drinks ‘on the outside’ as soon as he was back in charge of emergent markets at BarCap.
In general I was no better than semi-conscious through the morning’s three-hour Cognitive Behavioural group. I preferred to admire the grounds through the open window, feel the sun on my face, exercise my new-sharpened sense of smell. The ‘art pavilion’ I adored, and there befriended po
or anorexic Sara, who made very striking colour-fields but was continually supervised post-mealtimes to ensure No Purging. I felt invigilated myself, since Art was the domain of my confederate Tregaskis, and I was wary that he display no overpowering weirdness in relation to me. Mercifully he seemed silently proud of our secret compact, went about his own business even if his eyes followed me. It was only that I felt him dogging my steps, wishing further instruction, enlightenment as to when our ‘bargain’ would be fulfilled. I warded him away with meaningful stares. I suppose he couldn’t be sure what I might do to him, had I the inclination.
I had enough in my own headspace to be contending with – had made the now-familiar encounter with all the stored sense-memory of the host body. Inhabiting Eloise’s mind brought its share of unwelcome, even disturbing discoveries, but none quite so disturbing as those wrought by the inner life of the wretched Carver. Still, I sensed how great had been her recent mental tumult, and the instinct led me to her curio-like violet-coloured diary. Just by laying fingers on it I learned a stunning amount, unhappily so. And yet this nightmare past of hers was one from which I felt I had newly awakened. I felt some share of Eloise’s peace, of knowing she was cared for. A significant part of that, I saw, was courtesy of Steven: I had to grant him his clinical success. And yet it seemed to me he had done little more than be a sympathetic ear, an undertaking that had cost him extravagantly, in time and much else. And still he seemed to want to keep me around, a few more days of ‘aftercare’. But by any account I was done there.
The Possessions of Doctor Forrest Page 31
