Capcir Spring Page 7

  Mary left the hospital feeling numb. She still had a husband in the flesh, in the same body but in the mind and in the spirit she had just been in the presence of a stranger. The familiar features, once so dear were now inhabited by a stranger. And it was a stranger she did not care for. James was no longer James and if he ever returned to be the James she knew before would she ever be able to trust or believe him, again?

  Mary had tried four more times to see James and each time the reaction had been worse. In the end the doctor asked her not to visit, as it was both distressing for her and it took them a week to calm James down afterwards. She took legal advice and was granted a divorce. It was not an easy decision as part of her felt she did not want to give up on him. She had clung onto the remote chance that he might get better but eventually saw it as highly improbable. On the other hand she was certain from her first visit that she could never trust him again. Indeed trust of any man was something that she still working on.

  Time had passed but these events were like yesterday in the long sleepless hours of the night. And as so often had happened the memories flew back and forward through her mind and she relived them time and again, not knowing if she were asleep or awake. But she must have slept a little for she was conscious of actually waking at the sound of traffic in the morning.

  *****

  Mary was not the only one finding it difficult to sleep that night. John lay awake on his bed looking at the rough pine boarding on the sloping ceiling and thinking about the legend of the man and the two women he loved. Poor man. Was he happy. Did he enjoy the seduction or the experience of being seduced. Did he plan it or did it just creep up on him? Was it the case that one moment he was with her in a perfectly innocent encounter and the next they were lovers? Did he enjoy it while it lasted or was even the momentary enjoyment he experienced tinged and spoiled by a brooding and ever present sense of guilt.

  Katherine kept coming to mind. Katherine with her short bobbed hair and her bubbly giggle that he thought he was the only one to hear. Katherine with her history of problems with her family and her earnest desire to do things better for herself. To make a break from her past and escape from all that had ever been done to her. Her strong sense of what was right and wrong, though somewhat out of line with the ethics of the world, that emerged from a spark of inner goodness untainted by the procrastination of ethics classes. Katherine only sixteen years old yet she knew so much suffering. She had the body of a mature woman in the mind of in many respects a young child. Katherine whose trust he had betrayed. Katherine was the one who had been his victim. Or was it as they had argued that he was her victim. Had she really, as the others had told him afterwards, lured him into a compromising position in order to control and have power over him. Did he seduce or was he seduced? Was she a whore? No not Katherine. Not dear, sweet, tragic Katherine.

  The memories he always tried to keep suppressed surfaced. The long hours he had spent in his rooms and in the counselling suite with Katherine alone. It had been such a mistake but he was a professional. He had been at the centre for five years and knew all the warning signs. The process had happened so slowly that he had failed to realise how she was playing with him. She was so clever. She looked at him so appealingly with her large hazel eyes and his resolves always became much weaker in her presence. Did she bewitch him, cast him under her spell. It was a glorious and joyous spell to be under if that was the case. A spell he entered willingly and eagerly with his eyes wide open.

  Their conversations had ranged over the whole world, and over all her life. There was not one corner she was not prepared to discuss and he had listened. Was he transgressing the role of counsellor even then as he indulged his enjoyment of the way she had of explaining things rather than being more strict with her. She had seen so much of the world, much more than he ever would even though her was nearly thirty years her senior. She was intelligent and had a sense of humour. She didn't take herself or life too seriously but then that is what he had thought and how wrong he had been.

  It all came to a head and then she was gone. Gone for ever. Poor sad Katherine. The others told him that she had always been unstable and they said he was not to blame for her death but he knew and they didn't the depth of complete understanding that had grown between them. He could see nothing to do but resign and put himself in the hands of Derek. He needed help and he needed it from those who understood the problems of his vocation rather than fellow professionals.

  It had all been such a sad mistake but it had been a lovely mistake while it lasted. His pleasure was still there in the remembering of it. Derek had realised that of course. He had seen that all the remorse was only self-pity and Derek had been just in meeting out the divine retribution on the part of the almighty. Derek had seen through his penance that he was still too full of remorse and grief to feel any guilt about what had happened. Guilt? Perhaps Katherine had taught him what destructive force guilt could be. How you must escape from it and not let it gnaw its teeth into you. Guilty, no he knew in his heart of hearts that he didn't feel in the slightest bit guilty about his relationship. He felt slightly guilty because he wasn't overcome with guilt. He did feel guilt and he went over and over in his mind the events of the last hours of her life to see if he could have done anything differently. He was fairly certain that in some way he bore a share of responsibility and blame for what had ultimately occurred but he was was not plagued with deep guilt about Katherine. Katherine and guilt just didn't go together.

  Was he meant to return to a life of celibacy. It seemed too early to tell. He still enjoyed those memories which those who counselled him told him were evil but which he thought of as something precious. Why did it all go so tragically wrong though? Why?

  John too must have slept. His dreams disturbed only by angelic visions of Katherine who was as he remembered her but at times she would grow long blond hair and it was not Katherine at all but Mary. The new woman that he had just met. He woke in the morning. Was his subconscious really mixing all his female fantasies into one. Perhaps he shouldn't see her again. But there again she had really fainted last night and he would have to see if she was all right.

  He hadn't really changed at all he thought in a moment of rare self-honesty. He had used such arguments with himself to justify the continuation his professional relationship with Katherine long after he had seen warning signs that would have made a wiser man consider withdrawal.

  Not for the first time a couplet from T S Eliot came to mind:

  `Sometimes these cogitations still amaze

  the troubled midnight and the noons repose'

  What would a wise man do in his shoes? He didn't know and he had no way of knowing. What he did know was that he was in his shoes. All he could do would be to muddle through life now as he had always muddled through in the past.

  “God help me.” he said to the empty bedroom. “God help me.”

  4

  When Mary woke the sun was already high in the sky, streaming with real warmth in its rays into the room. It was almost half past nine. She did not want to get up. The night was one she did not want to think about, so she did as she did with so many thoughts lately, she put it to the back of her mind. Too much good food, indigestion, she rationalised to herself as she lie on the pillow watching the reflection of some bright object dancing on the ceiling above her head and thinking that maybe she should make a move. Her head felt slightly fragile, it wasn't a hangover. She had only had three glasses of wine at the most. It was much more likely to be over tiredness. That would also account for the dull heavy ache in her calves.

  With an effort she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Perhaps it was the suddenness of the movement for as she went to rise, she felt a slight dizziness and all at once she remembered passing out the night before. She hadn't blacked out before. Why last night? Had it just been the sight of the figure with the carving knife against the curtain or was she ill in some way. Were all these dreams just a product of an ov
er active mind? She spent all day trying to get her imagination to be creative: to interpret these dry historical records and survey plans by imagining something of the life of the folk of long ago. Perhaps her mind didn't know it was supposed to stop this process after she went to sleep at night. Perhaps she was having a breakdown. How well she knew that such things seemed to happen without prior warning! Had the sun got to her? Were there really spirits in some other world that could come alive in people's dreams? And what about Andre knowing the content of one of my dreams? That was really creepy. Supposing she had passed out while she was at the ruin and there hadn't been anyone to help her? Perhaps she hadn't really come to terms with the James episode of her life as she pretended. There could be some deep psychological damage that was only just now coming to the surface when all the more obvious scars had healed so well. Suppose she had passed out when she had been alone in the flat? Perhaps it was all because she wasn't getting enough sleep and was overtired. She had driven quickly down to the south of France from the north of England and started her busy schedule of work straight away. She hadn't allowed time for a day off as a tourist in her schedule. Her reasoning was that as she was being sponsored on the trip to work she couldn't justify the expense. She certainly didn't have spare money of her own to throw around on self-indulgences like holidays. Or was she too hard on herself and driving herself too hard. Frightened of what she would find if she stopped and was still?

  She concluded this self-examination by recognising it would be a good idea to visit the doctor anyway. She had her E111 and although she knew the French social security system with all its forms was a nightmare she knew that she would be able to get the money back eventually.

  The plaque outside the office announced Docteur Alain D'Abelard, Medcin and gave the times of the surgery. His rooms were on the ground floor of an apartment block on the main shopping street of the village, an apartment block not unlike where she herself was staying.

  The heavy double doors led into a small and slightly overheated reception area that was deserted. A line of steel-framed plastic chairs lined the wall and a well-thumbed pile of magazines was on the table. Perhaps doctor's waiting rooms were the same all over the world. She did what thousands before her had done: sat down and started to flick idly through the glossy pages.

  She didn't have to wait long. There was soon a bustle from a back room and a young woman, perhaps her own age came through to the desk behind the reception counter. She was raven-haired and carried the permanent tan of the mountains on her face and bare arms. Mary, like all women could not have failed to notice the athletic Amazonian physique barely concealed by her tee shirt. After a few moments flicking through her papers she looked up smiled a ship-launching smile and apologised to Mary that the doctor would be a few minutes if she wouldn't just mind waiting.

  As promised a few moments later a woman with two small children came out from behind the counter, one child crying in his mothers arms and the other looking pale and weary and whining in a pathetic tone, understandable in any language.

  The doctor followed her out and welcomed Mary to his premises. He was in his early forties with a shiny balding head surrounded by a mass of dark curled hair. He had a professional manner that was warm and welcoming but also reassuring at the same time.

  In his consulting room the first thing that Mary noticed were the pair of skis and rucksack standing by the door as if waiting for action. He caught her gaze and said,

  "My practice is the closest to the ski slopes so all through the ski season I am on call in case of accidents and I have to be ready to go at a moments notice. Fortunately there have been no fatalities for a couple of years now. We build safety into the design of the pistes so that we segregate as far as possible the novices from the fast dare devils. Unless of course there is a really wide and safe piste with plenty of passing space."

  "Can you really design safety in this way?"

  "But of course. There are some who would want to increase the ski able area here and there are certainly places where new pistes could be opened up but they would all be narrow and fast and would have to be used by mixed grades so would make accidents more likely. But to talk about one of the passions of my life is not why you are here. Please sit down. You are paying the bill so you set our agenda."

  "I want you to check me over," she began. "I passed out last night and I'm not the sort of person given to fainting so it concerned me. I have been working in the hills. I am an historian and I have been looking at ruins in this area and I don't want to pass out in the hills when there is no one around."

  "For how long were you unconscious?"

  "Only a few seconds I believe. I collapsed on the floor of my apartment after giving a dinner for some friends. The friend who was with me had no sooner reached my side than I came to and saw him. I have never passed out before."

  "Were you drinking excessively"

  "Not at all. I only had three glasses of wine"

  "Do you feel tired?"

  "No. I was not conscious of being tired at all. I know other times in my life when I have felt much more exhausted. I admit I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I had a bit of a shock. My friend stood in the light and I thought he was brandishing a knife. It was just a trick of the light I think. But it brought back a very painful memory. Could that have caused my to pass out?"

  "If you were associating some very vivid memory with your friends movement then that could have so startled you but unlikely to make you pass out. Why are you not sleeping?"

  "I go to bed and I fall asleep quite normally but then I have bad dreams. They are strange. Sometimes the historical characters that I have been researching come to life and haunt me. Sometimes there are people from the present day mixed up with these historical scenes. And it can be very frightening. I often find I wake after a particularly vivid dream and can't get back to sleep."

  "Would you describe yourself as an anxious, nervous or highly strung sort of person?"

  "No far from it. I am ambitious and have targets set for me to achieve in my life but in the day to day I like to think I am fairly relaxed."

  "Have you ever been prescribed any drugs for depression or sleeplessness?"

  "No"

  "Are you unduly anxious about anything at the moment?"

  "I don't think so. There are certain matters on my mind I suppose but nothing new that I haven't been living with for a number of years now. I can handle them."

  "Then I had better examine you."

  The doctor made a thorough examination of pulse rate, breathing, and blood pressure. With her shirt removed for the blood pressure strap to be wrapped around her arm the long jagged scar became visible.

  "That was a nasty cut" the doctor whistled "Was this the reason that you were unduly alarmed when you saw your friend pick up the knife?"

  "Yes. It brought back to me in an extremely vivid way the some years ago when I was attacked with a knife.." She paused. She didn't want to say more.

  "Right." the doctor sounded emphatic as if suddenly he had made up his mind. "I can find nothing physically wrong with you. Your heartbeat, breathing and blood pressure are all normal. You really are in fine shape. But emotionally I would guess that you are still rather delicate after some unpleasant events in the past. You have only mentioned in passing about a knife attack. Such trauma can leave emotional scars for a long while. Your passing out could be linked to these but it is likely also to be linked to you being generally worn down through many disturbed nights without enough sleep because of these unpleasant dreams. This in turn is of course linked to your emotional delicateness. And of course over-work doesn’t help. I suggest you take things easy and I will prescribe something to help you sleep. It is a very light sedative and mild antidepressant so no need to worry about being made very drowsy."

  She smiled as she buttoned up her shirt. There was nothing-serious wrong. Nothing that she didn't know about anyway. He had returned to his desk and was making out a prescripti
on and his bill. He handed it to her and she gave him the cash and he signed the form for her to reclaim through her E111. It seemed strange to one brought up on the National Health Service to be handing over banknotes to a doctor and receiving change from a cash drawer in his desk. He stood up and walked round until he was standing very close beside her. He took hold of her hand.

  "You are a very attractive young woman so you must be careful. There are all sorts of wild beasts in mountainous country such as this waiting to prey on you. If there is anything else I can do to help you please let me know."

  And he showed her to the door, still holding her hand.

  "My secretary will tell you which forms you need for the pharmacy."

  He made a little bow and let go of her hand. "Remember please come and see me again if there is anything else I can do for you. You will always know where to find me"

  And she was alone in front of the young dark receptionist at her desk. Had he just made a pass at her or was he just the French equivalent of the bedside manner. He was certainly attractive and he knew it. She wandered what his relationship with the receptionist was and then thought about his comment on skiing and wondered what the other passions in his life might be. Perhaps he was like that with all his patients. Mary didn't like it though. One moment warning her about her delicate emotional state and the next holding her hand and warning her about wild beasts in the woods. She felt glad for once to be a cold blooded Anglo Saxon and she laughed inwardly at the excesses of the Latin male.