The Last Night at Tremore Beach

by Mikel Santiago

  THREE

  AROUND AND AROUND. My eyes danced around and around behind my eyelids. It was such a glorious sensation, a feeling of total well-being. I could picture my eyes spinning around their sockets like two tiny planets in separate orbits. I was having a beautiful dream—but then suddenly I wasn’t.

  Someone had pulled the stopper out of the bathtub filled with warm water in which I lay. The water drained out, and I started to feel cold. My naked body emerged, uncovered. It was so cold now, so cold that I couldn’t even move my hands anymore. I tried to hug myself, but I couldn’t.

  Then a voice came out of nowhere and everywhere.

  “You’re in a hospital in Dungloe,” it said. “Can you hear me?”

  I tried to say something but my tongue lolled clumsily inside my mouth. I sounded like a drunk asking for one more drink at last call. I sighed, tired and frustrated from trying to communicate. I attempted opening my eyes, but everything was a celestial whiteness. I could feel a presence at my side, and at almost the same instant, a pin prick of pain in my left arm.

  “He’ll rest now.”

  I DREAMED about Clem dressed as a fairy at a Halloween party. She was the most beautiful of all the moms. I watched her, spellbound, as she chatted with friends. I thought to myself, “You are the luckiest man on earth,” as she went around tapping children with her magic wand, bewitching them. I was charmed, too.

  I dreamed about my college apartment in Amsterdam. Everyone in the building was a musician. We were having a party, playing and laughing and drinking mulled wine. It was Christmas.

  I dreamed about the day Beatrice was born.

  I slowly opened my eyes. The light seemed too bright at first, but it softened a little at a time until the shadows in the room became objects.

  I studied the ceiling, the fluorescent lights above me, the paint that was flaking away where it had been sloppily applied. There was a window in the room, and through it I could see a tree swaying in a gentle breeze. I could hear cars driving up a nearby street.

  I still couldn’t move my hands and realized they were tied to the bed. I struggled, but it was no use.

  “Peter, we had to restrain you last night. Do you remember anything about that? Do you know why you’re here?”

  It took me a while to find exactly where the voice was coming from, but I finally saw the figure take shape before my eyes, a little blurry, yes, but I did recognize her. It was Dr. Anita Ryan. I lifted my head to try to get up but I was held down by the restraints. I let my head fall against the pillow. The room spun in a pleasant spiral, and I didn’t have the strength to try to get up again. What did I remember? I remembered screaming and fighting against dozens of hands holding me down. I had wanted to see my children, but the hands wouldn’t let me. I thought they were all against me. I could have sworn it was the assassins, but the voices all told me that everything was okay.

  “My children,” I said, and realized my voice was hoarse, and my throat hurt like I’d spent all night yelling at a death metal concert. “Where are my children?”

  “They’re in the waiting room, and they’re perfectly fine. You’ll be able to see them very soon.”

  “Very soon? Why not right now?”

  “We want to make sure you’re well enough first. You were in shock, Peter. Do you remember anything about what happened?”

  “I . . .”

  I closed my eyes, and could see the vision so clearly in my mind. Even nightmares had a way of fading with the morning, becoming a vague recollection that evanesced in the coming hours or days. But not this one. This image was fresh and clear in my mind. This was no simple nightmare.

  “Your friends found you. You were passed out on the floor at your house. You’d driven there in the middle of the night for some reason. Do you remember why?”

  “No . . . no, I don’t remember anything.”

  The doctor’s features came into sharper focus. Her intense green eyes studied me for a moment. Then she turned her gaze toward a plastic bag that hung by my bed. I traced a thin plastic tube from the bag to my left arm, where fluid was pumping into an IV.

  “What is that?” I asked. “What are you giving me?”

  “It’s a sedative. We had to give it to you so you wouldn’t hurt yourself last night. You were very agitated.”

  “I want to see my kids.”

  “Relax, Peter, you’ll see them in a minute. Right now, you need to rest. To get better.”

  The doctor spoke to me as if I were a child, but then again, I must not have been acting like much of an adult at that moment. She made a note in some paperwork and said she’d be back in five minutes.

  I looked back up at the ceiling. At the fluorescent light. At the tree outside the window. What had happened began to dawn on me.

  Your friends found you. . . .

  SOMEONE CAME into the room. It was the doctor again, followed by a nurse and an orderly pushing a gurney.

  “We need to run a scan,” Dr. Ryan said, “and for that, we need to wheel you to another part of the hospital. Now, I know you. And I know that you’re going to remain calm when we undo the restraints. Can I count on you for that?”

  The orderly, a beefy character who easily could moonlight as a WWE wrestler, stared me down. The nurse’s expression wasn’t much better. I must have been some piece of work last night.

  “I’ll be calm,” I said. “I promise. I think I can walk.”

  The orderly smirked like I was up to something. He patted the gurney.

  “That’s okay. We’ll take you. This is more comfortable,” he said.

  As we moved through the hospital, the ceiling was a different color. Orange. The light fixtures overhead were different, too. Square. I counted at least a dozen of them as we wheeled down a long corridor. There were other people here, too. Some of them in hospital gowns, others in street clothes. They looked at me pityingly, asking why this poor devil was being wheeled down the hall on a stretcher. “He looks really young. Cancer?” “Some kind of heart condition?” “No, no . . . look at his eyes. And that long hair. Must be drugs.”

  A new room now. People spoke with one another without paying much attention to me. Back into the giant donut, the MRI scanner.

  I was in the air again, carried by people. They lay me on another table, this one narrow and cold, and fed me into the giant machine. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see anything anymore. But the noise was maddening. A mechanical clamor all around and a voice that whispered, “Now relax, Mr. Harper.”

  THE EFFECTS of the Valium were wearing off and my stomach started grumbling for food; I must have missed a few meals. When they returned me to the room, someone appeared to have been there ahead of me. A nurse came in wheeling a cart redolent of food. She parked it next to the bed and took out a tray that she laid on a moveable bedside table.

  Dr. Ryan approached the bed.

  “Peter, I don’t think it’ll be necessary to use the restraints again, but you will be under strict surveillance. Yesterday, you struck two orderlies as they were trying to treat you in the emergency room. You understand our concern?”

  “I do.”

  “The hospital administration has asked us to evaluate you for possible transfer to a psychiatric facility, but I’m aware of your personal situation. So we’re going to do everything possible to treat you here until we can figure out what’s going on with you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Dr. Ryan exchanged a few words with the nurse, and they left the room together. Five minutes later, the nurse returned with Judie. She had dark circles under her eyes. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She had a dark, wool sweater over her jeans. She looked the way you might expect someone to if they had suddenly had to jump out of bed in the middle of the night.

  “I can stay here with you, if you like,” the nurse told her.

  “I’ll be fine, thanks,” she said.

  The nurse eyed me with suspicion and looked back a
t Judie. Christ, I must have made a real name for myself last night.

  “If you need anything, just press the emergency call button. The nurse’s station is down the hall.”

  Judie nodded with a smile, and the nurse left the room, leaving the two of us.

  “I’m so sorry, Judie.”

  I didn’t know what else to say to her. She leaned in close and placed a delicate hand on my forehead.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Peter.”

  “I’m sorry I worried you. I’m sorry about all of this.”

  “It’s okay, Pete. Everything’s fine.”

  It sounded like the kind of everything’s fine you tell crazy people.

  “How are the kids?”

  “Fine . . .” She didn’t sound convinced. “They’re worried. We all are, Peter.”

  She turned the moveable table until my dinner tray was in front of me.

  “I think you should eat something.”

  “Judie, will you bring me a phone? I need to call Clem,” I said. “This has gotten out of hand. She needs to come and get the kids.”

  She needs to take them away from here, far, far away. Before . . .

  “Try to calm down, Peter. This isn’t the best time to be making big decisions.”

  “Judie, they put me in restraints. They pumped me full of Valium. How much worse can things possibly get? I don’t want them to fly back to Amsterdam alone. Wait, you! You could go with them!”

  Judie fell silent, pursed her lips.

  “They won’t be going home alone, Peter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The hospital’s social worker has already been in contact with the Dutch embassy. They’re trying to reach Clem now.”

  “Oh, God . . .”

  I knew what this meant. Social workers. Embassies. They’d already come up with a diagnosis.

  “The doctor said you don’t remember anything,” Judie said. “Is that right?”

  “No,” I said. “I lied to them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think they can help me.”

  “Keeping things to yourself isn’t going to help you, either. The other night you kept something from me, too, didn’t you? The fence was broken—just like it was in your visions. You had hit it with your car, right? Is that why you returned to the house in the middle of the night?”

  “Yes. But how did you . . . ?”

  “I was there this morning, Peter,” she said. “I went to pick up a couple things and that’s when I saw it. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I wasn’t sure it had actually happened. Plus, dammit, I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s night. When did they find me?”

  “In the early morning. Jip woke up to use the bathroom and realized you were gone. They came downstairs to wake me. I figured you couldn’t sleep and had taken a walk. But when I saw that your car was missing, I started to get really worried. I called you at home first. I thought maybe you’d forgotten something and had gone back for it. But you didn’t answer. Then I called Leo. He’s the one who found you.”

  “In the kitchen?”

  “Yeah. You were on the floor. He thought you’d had a heart attack, so he called the ambulance. Then he realized you were hallucinating. You were saying things. About dead people. You said . . .”

  “I know what I said, Judie. And I know what I saw. It was no nightmare. And it was no hallucination. It was . . . it was . . .”

  “The future?”

  The word fit perfectly in the context of that strange conversation. I’d thought it a thousand times before, inside my own head. But I never imagined how it would sound out loud.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah. That’s what I think,” I said.

  “The fence breaks and ends up exactly the way you saw it in your visions; your visions are confirmed; and you worry the rest will come true, as well. That’s your theory, right?”

  I nodded again. Judie smiled. It was the most sane response to my insanity.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t expect anyone to believe me. Besides, it’s impossible. No one can see the future. That’s why I decided not to say anything to the doctor. It’s like Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one. And the simplest explanation in my case is that I’m crazy, that I’ve had some kind of schizophrenic episode and I’m hallucinating. That’s the diagnosis, isn’t it?”

  “There’s no diagnosis, Peter. But yesterday you did react very violently when they brought you to the hospital. You busted one of the orderly’s lips, and you smacked a nurse when she tried to give you a shot. Add to that a guy with two kids who’s just gone through a divorce, and it doesn’t paint such a rosy picture. The bad news is they’re going to place the kids with a guardian until Clem arrives.”

  “What?”

  “Leo’s trying to talk to the director of social services right now. He’s trying to convince them he and Marie can take care of them until Clem gets here, but you know how things get when children are involved.”

  “No! This . . . is a mistake.”

  “I’m sorry, Peter. I’m really sorry.”

  “Can I see them? Just for a minute, please?”

  “In a little while. We have to wait for a decision from the head of social services. But they’re fine, and they want to see you.”

  “How much do they know?”

  “We told them you went to go pick up something at the house and fell down the stairs. I’m not sure they completely believe it, but I think they’ll make an effort if you don’t say anything.”

  “Of course.”

  Judie stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Judie,” I said before she reached the door. “All this stuff about my visions. Keep it between us, okay? I don’t want to make things worse. I don’t think it’ll help matters if I tell them I can see the future.”

  She nodded.

  “Oh, and one other thing. I’d rather the kids spend the night with you. If it’s possible.”

  “Count on it, Peter,” she said as she opened the door. “Now try to eat something. Your lunch is getting cold.”

  DR. RYAN returned an hour later, accompanied by another doctor, a tall, young guy with curly hair and round glasses who turned out to be the hospital’s head of psychiatry. He hadn’t been on call when I came in, but he was the one who called in an order for the IV medication (which hadn’t been Valium, at all, but antipsychotics). He’d analyzed the case, taken statements from Leo and Judie, and had even had a long conversation with Dr. Kauffman in Belfast. He said he wasn’t sure I’d be able to go home just yet.

  “Mr. Harper, trust us, everything we’re doing is for your own sake and for the sake of your children,” he said.

  Just hearing him say that made me nauseated.

  He was at least ten years younger than me, and had the look of someone with a good family name. The kind of guy who plays golf with his father-in-law and has a beautiful wife. “Am I schizophrenic?” I asked at one point.

  The doctor was quiet.

  “Schizophrenia is an evolutionary diagnosis. There are many criteria you’d have to match, over a long period, before we could arrive at that kind of diagnosis. What we do know is you’ve had an acute psychotic episode. Though, we can’t rule anything out just yet.”

  “There’ve been others,” I said. “I’ve . . . seen other things, too. By the way, call me Peter, please.”

  “Okay, Peter. Dr. Ryan filled me in on the accident you had a few weeks back. For now, given your history, let’s try to stay optimistic and assume all this has something to do with your accident. Dr. Kauffman agrees with this theory. Besides, the visual hallucinations suggest something other than schizophrenia. Either way, I’ve recommended you be admitted for the next few days until we can run some tests. I was hoping we could count on your consent.”

  “What does that mean? Is this voluntary?”

  The doctors exchanged a furtive glance. I knew I was about to h
ear bad news.

  “Mr. Harper, let’s just say it’s better if you stay voluntarily.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Then things get a lot more complicated, believe me. Right now, the priority is making sure your children are safe. And I can’t recommend your being discharged at this point. We’d have to contact the legal department, and they would assign someone to investigate the case. In the meantime, we’d have to call social services and . . .”

  “Come on, Peter,” Dr. Ryan said. “It would only be a day or two at the most. We know you don’t have any history of violence. It’s purely a formality.”

  “But my children . . .”

  The younger doctor cleared his throat.

  “The hospital’s social worker has agreed to let your friends take care of them, for the moment, at least until they locate their mother. It seems she’s on vacation.”

  “Yeah, they’re on a trip to Turkey. She’s with a man named Niels Verdonk, her new boyfriend. He’s a pretty famous architect. Maybe try locating him.”

  Dr. Ryan wrote his name down.

  “As of now, there’s no reason why your children can’t stay with your friends. Besides, Judie is a licensed psychologist and everyone who knows her vouches for her that she’s not out of her mind.”

  I laughed and the mood lightened a bit.

  “Look, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make these tests go as quickly as possible.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as tight as I could, wishing for all this to be just a terrible nightmare. Wishing that I’d never been hit by that bolt of lightning. That I’d never had those stupid visions. But when I opened them, I was met only with the reality that these two doctors were waiting for my answer.

  “Fine,” I said, at last.

  JIP AND BEATRICE came into the room the way you’d expect two children to visit someone’s deathbed. Timid, scared, their eyes wide as saucers. But the second I smiled at them and told them to give their old man a hug, they leaped on the bed like a pair of tiger cubs.

  Jip asked if I was still in pain, and I said, “a little,” but that the doctor said it’d go away soon. Beatrice, on the other hand, was quiet. I could see doubt in her eyes: If Dad fell down the stairs, then where’s the cast on his broken leg? The neck brace? Even a single bruise? But just as Judie had said, I soon managed to get her joking about something else.