She was still looking at him, shaking her head, the last of the ash from her cigarette finally crumbling into the brittle petals of the plastic roses on the table.
What happened to you? She leant a little closer, almost falling off her seat as she did so.
He turned back to his coffee, the bitterness of each sip settling uncomfortably into his stomach, when she spoke again.
What’s this? She was pointing at his arm, the fact that her question had remained unanswered only just having registered.
Silas told her he had got into a fight.
Yeah? She peered so closely at the scars, Silas felt the brush of her hair, the ends brittle and dry, along his skin.
With myself, he added, not sure why he was giving her this extra detail without having been asked for it.
When it came, her laugh was raspy, and as she opened her mouth, the smear of lipstick cracked at the corners of her lips leaving dry flakes of red clinging to her skin, and Silas could see that her teeth were rotten; the holes were visible, even in the darkness of that room.
No shit, she finally said, her eyes narrowing. There was a cunningness now as she sized him up. Got a few bucks you could lend us? For another coffee?
Silas gave her what he had, which wasn’t much, but clearly far more than she had expected. When he left, she was still looking at the fifty-dollar note, turning it over in her hands, before glancing back at him, quickly, furtively, uncertain as to whether he had made a mistake and would turn back and snatch it from her.
As he walked down the street at the back of the cafe, skirting the bulging garbage bags and wheelie bins filled to overflowing, he wondered at her story. He did not like to think he could have had that level of intimacy with someone and be left with no memory of the event.
Standing outside Greta’s block of flats, he looked up to the darkness of her window for a moment and then turned towards home.
He had spoken. He had never thought he would, but he had, and he was exhausted now. In an hour or so it would be morning. The few people who were still out would stumble onto the streets, their faces ashen, the brilliant colours in which they had adorned themselves fading in the coldness of the dawn, the trees shivering with the freshness of the early breeze, the first light grey and unforgiving in that brief moment before the sun began to warm the sky.
He let himself into his apartment and turned on all the lights. The piles of paper, the attempts at categorising himself, were still stacked in boxes by the front door. He could not remember how many bundles he had made. It did not matter.
It was when he was sitting in the leather armchair that had once belonged to his father that he realised his vague thoughts of returning to Port Tremaine were no longer just a possible course of action to consider. He wanted to see Rudi, he wanted to at least try to explain.
I need to face him, he told me when he saw me next, and when, once again, I failed to understand the need he had to atone for a wrong that still made no sense to me, I asked him why he felt this was necessary.
With his face turned towards the door, he just said that he needed to apologise, to say he was sorry, and he did not explain any further.
5
When Greta received her second-last payment for the work she had done, she realised she finally had enough money to go to New York.
This was what she had wanted, she told me, for as long as she could remember, but now that it could actually happen, she felt uncertain. She booked the ticket before she lost her nerve and rang her friend who had moved there some months ago, knowing she would only encourage her to go.
But I haven’t paid yet, she said.
Well, make sure you do it.
And she promised her that she would.
Each day, she thought about ringing Silas, or even visiting him. She would let him know of her decision and he would be pleased for her, he would tell her she should go, and they would look at each other, his slightly wolfish mouth twisted into an embarrassed smile as she told him that it was all right, they were aware of the worst in each other and it was all right. But days passed and she still hadn’t picked up the phone or stopped off at his apartment. She just wasn’t ready. She wanted to be, but she wasn’t.
Late one afternoon, as she was walking back from the final meeting with the academic for whom she had been working, she paused, as she always did, at the intersection leading to Silas’s street, and then turned towards his building without giving herself a moment to change her mind.
The front doors were open, as was the door to his flat. A woman in a dark grey suit, her blonde hair piled up in a French knot, stood at the entrance with a folder in one hand.
You’re here to look at the apartment? she asked, passing Greta an application form.
I’m actually here to see the owner, Greta told her.
Through the doorway, she caught a glimpse of several couples, opening cupboards, looking into rooms, the women’s heels loud on the parquetry floor, the men nodding in agreement as their partners expressed their approval at various aspects of the place.
It will be furnished? one woman asked.
That’s what I gather, the real estate agent said.
Greta had not been to Silas’s apartment since the night she had stayed with him. She had a dim recollection of the size of the place, but she was still surprised by how large it seemed, how grand the furniture was.
Obviously the clutter will be cleared, and the agent smiled as she pointed to the boxes stacked in one corner of the hall.
Has Silas gone? Greta asked her. The owner?
The woman looked across at her briefly. I believe he goes in a couple of weeks. That’s when the place becomes vacant, and she took an application form from one of the men.
I’m very interested, he told her.
Someone else pressed another form into her hand. Three women waited with forms and references ready to hand over.
We all are, one of them said, clearly irritated at the man’s assumption that first in would lead to first served.
Greta left. Outside in the cool of the evening, the street lights were coming on, flickering for a moment, spilling a white light across the pavement. She turned towards home.
She was surprised he had not told her of his decision to leave, and as she admitted to herself that she was also hurt, she knew she didn’t just want to let him know of her own imminent departure.
She remembered Silas standing at her door, ready to flee, and as he had turned to go, he had urged her once again to try to make amends with the past. She did not know he had been lying when he had told her that I wanted to talk to her, and she wanted to know what it was, exactly, that I had supposedly said when I had mentioned I would like to see her again.
I wanted to be sure, she explained, that you did want to hear from me.
Catching a glimpse of herself in a shop window, her cheeks flushed from the cold, she told herself it was time she just did it. She would ring tonight, as soon as she got upstairs.
6
The last remedies that I prescribed for Silas were Cactus Grandiflorus and Lachesis. I wished him well as I gave them to him and I urged him to contact me if he felt the slightest need.
So that’s it? he asked.
For now, and I smiled at him. But who knows? We clear up one thing and another surfaces.
He had told me that it had now been almost six weeks since he had hurt himself.
And the heart? I had asked.
Silas had placed his hand on his chest.
Still there?
He had grinned as he had told me that the pains had not completely gone. It is like it is always pulled a little too tight. But it is not nearly as bad as it was.
Anything else?
He had been about to tell me that there wasn’t, but then he had hesitated. He had said that the sensation was barely worth mentioning, that it didn’t really trouble him, he simply found it strange.
It is like a constant pins and needles, he had said. In my upper bod
y. As though there is electricity short-circuiting.
And this is new, this sensation?
It wasn’t, but it had seemed so insignificant with all that followed that Silas had never thought to mention it before. It had bothered him from when he had first arrived in Port Tremaine, and then it had gone, shortly after he had left.
This is what happens, I had told him, and I had explained about an illness returning to its source before cure.
He had been surprised when I had wanted to give him the additional remedies. What you’ve done so far is pretty miraculous, he had said, glancing over to the piece of paper on which I was writing.
It’s not a question of miracles, and we had both stood up. It’s just what I have been trained to do.
As we said goodbye in reception, I repeated my instructions to him. The Cactus Grandiflorus first, and then, if there’s no improvement, the Lachesis.
Which is? he asked.
Snake.
He did not want to look at me.
It will help, I said and I wished him well.
As he turned to the door, one hand on the knob, he stopped for a moment. I just hope I have the courage.
He was referring to his decision to return, and as I watched him leave, I, too, hoped he would find the strength he would need, although I was still unaware as to the extent of what it was that he felt he needed to confront.
7
Each time he dreamt of Constance, Silas saw her as he had made her up to be. There she was, impossibly beautiful, the glossy sheen of her hair startling against her ivory skin, her lips too red and soft, her violet eyes fringed by soot-black lashes and her head bent low and graceful, with the petals of that flower spread open in her hands.
He would wake, stunned by the vision. It was usually the early hours of the morning, the darkness tinged with enough grey to let him know he had left night behind, and he would stay completely still, not daring to move as the dream dissolved, disintegrating like ash between his fingers, aware of his desire to tear at his own flesh and the need to resist it.
He did not know how he had done what he had done. He could not comprehend what kind of a person he must have been to act as he had acted and, appalled, he would feel the poison of what he had been, and what he felt he therefore still was, seeping viscous, spreading like tar, bitter and black, from his chest, through his stomach, his limbs; all of him sinking with its weight.
He remembered when he had first decided to travel out to Port Tremaine and it was as though he was remembering another person in another life. Recalling the great flurry with which he had cloaked his departure, the impossible romantic vision of it, made him flinch because he knew the fear he had been trying to hide.
He had stayed awake the night before he made that trip, while Tess Davis had slept, drunkenly sprawled across his bed, and he had smoked joint after joint in an attempt to come down from the speed that had left his jaw tense, his mouth dry and his hands incapable of remaining steady. He had sat in front of the window, alarmed that he could not see his own reflection each time he lit another match, the flame flaring bright in the darkness, and in his paranoid out-of-it state, he had thought that perhaps he did not exist.
Am I here? he had asked Tess, shaking her awake.
She had looked at him for a brief moment and then closed her eyes again.
In the morning, when he had been convincing her to come with him, he had told her that he loved her, and he had truly believed his words. He had imagined them setting up a life together. He had told her how amazing it would be, what adventures they would have, and she had smoked a cigarette and just nodded in response, her eyes wide and dazed.
This time, the fear Silas felt was not hidden.
Standing in the street with the leaves crisp around his feet, he rang Greta’s buzzer three times. He was folding the note he had written when he saw her, tall and beautiful under the rawness of the clear blue sky, striding towards him, one hand raised in greeting, and there was both defiance and hesitation in the gesture.
They kissed awkwardly, neither of them able to fix their gaze on the other, and she asked him up.
I was going to come and see you earlier, Silas said.
She sat on the bed, on the other side of the room, and just looked at him as she rolled a cigarette, leaving him stumbling for words.
I’m sorry, he told her, about the other night.
Why? she asked.
About just going the way I did.
She licked the paper flat and lit a match, giving it one sharp flick to extinguish the flame. As she inhaled, she crossed her legs, tucking her feet in. She was agitated, it was there in the straightness of her back, the slight twitching of her leg, the sharp tap of her cigarette against the ashtray.
Why did you do it? she asked him and her voice was suddenly harder than it had been.
He thought, for one awful moment, that she was referring to all that he had told her and she saw the realisation cross his face, the sudden desire to just leave, the mistake he had made in coming to see her, all there, naked in its terror as he stood up, knocking the edge of her desk, sending her papers flying across the floor.
I’m not talking about that, she said.
He did not know what she meant.
Why did you pretend that Daniel wanted to hear from me?
He did not know what to say. He had been wanting to help, to do something good, and as he tried to explain, she could see that he, too, did not understand why he had lied in the way he had.
Did you speak to him? he asked her.
She nodded.
Was it all right?
She turned to the window and her expression was blank as she said she had made the call. Yesterday evening, and she jerked her head as though to indicate that the recent past sat only just behind her on the bed.
And? Silas asked.
We’re having a coffee. In a couple of days.
Silas watched as she got up and washed out the ashtray under the tap, talking with her back to him. I wish you hadn’t lied.
But you don’t hate me for what I did? Silas asked.
She did not answer for a moment, and her voice was hesitant when she finally spoke. I don’t like it and I don’t understand you, but I don’t hate you.
And he had to turn his back to her, he had to stare out the window across the tops of the trees trembling in the breeze as he alluded to the story he had told her, and the decision he had subsequently made.
I wondered whether you were ever going to let me know, and she explained how she had been to his flat.
I have to at least try to see him, he said. I may not do it, but I have to try.
And you’ll be gone for a while?
He told her he didn’t think so, and her eyes narrowed in disbelief.
That’s what they all say, and she attempted to laugh.
Sitting opposite her in the cafe where we met, I could see she wished she had been able to show more feeling at the time, but she had only come towards reaching a peace with all he had told her now that he was gone.
Sometimes I think that he was just deluded, that he had simply imagined he saw the snake, and she played with a sachet of sugar, rolling it in the palms of her hands, and afterwards, when she was bitten, he hated the part of him that had, for one instant, watched, fascinated, wanting to know what she was; so much so that he thought he caused it all, somehow. I mean, it would all have been so quick, how could he have stopped it?
She squinted slightly, as she looked up to the brightness of the sky.
Other times I am not so sure. He wanted to test her, and in one of those terrible moments he did the wrong thing, the completely wrong thing.
I recalled the pain that Silas had inflicted upon himself, and I looked away, not wanting to answer the question that I knew she was asking as I told her that I didn’t know where the truth lay.
She closed her eyes. We are all capable of desiring the very worst for another. She put the sugar back in the bowl. And we are
all capable of doing what we think we would never be capable of doing.
And as I remembered holding Victoria, desperately wanting the sweet wholeness of her body only hours after leaving Greta alone in that ambulance, I told the waiter that we were fine, that we didn’t want anything else, that we were about to go.
8
Silas left, I know that much. His apartment was rented out and he was gone. Walking past his door one afternoon, I glanced at the names at the entrance and saw that his had been taped over. After I had heard all that Greta had to say, I had finally understood why he had needed to return, and why he had been so anxious at the thought, and I had found myself wondering, daily, whether he had actually taken the steps he had been hoping to take, and whether he was all right.
About a month after I passed his apartment, I first heard about this proving and about six weeks after that, I made my decision to come here, taking the turn-off to Port Tremaine on my way out to this house, wanting to see it all for myself and wanting to find out whether he had returned.
Now, four weeks later, we are about to commence.
This morning Jeanie and I took Sam for a walk to the pre-Cambrian gorge about a mile from here. We did not talk for most of the way, the force of the wind was too strong to hear anything, and with our heads bent low, we made our way in silence to where the rocks lean at different angles to reveal the ages, their surfaces smooth and cold to the touch.
In shelter from the wind, we stopped to sit on a fallen tree, both of us taking our time before we chose to speak, neither of us wanting to break the purity of the silence.
Are you glad you came here?
Her question made me start slightly, the rupture of the quiet and the reality of the task we are about to embark on bringing me back from my thoughts. It will be a long process (this is only the first of many stages), and whether or not my involvement will continue until the end will depend on the reaction that both Larissa and Matthew have to the remedy, after they begin taking it tomorrow. If they do exhibit symptoms, if their vibration rates closely align with that of the substance we are proving, they will be selected for further testing once we return to the city, and there will be yet another culling before those who continue go on to be given a third, and even higher, dose.
The Blind Eye Page 17
