She smiled and got immediately to her feet. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Olivia.’
I smiled. The first time we met I swear I thought she was going to drop into a curtsey. ‘Good afternoon, Beryl.’
Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘There’s still someone in there.’ She made a face. ‘She came late so her hour has run into yours. I hope you don’t mind waiting a few minutes.’
I smiled. ‘That’s fine.’
She came around her desk. ‘Let me take your coat.’
‘I’ll keep it for a bit.’
She stopped and hovered uncertainly. ‘It is frosty out there today.’
I smiled politely.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘My sister made a fruitcake. Fancy a slice? It’s very good.’
‘Oh yes. Thank you.’
She grinned hugely. ‘And a cup of tea to go with it?’
‘That would be lovely, Beryl.’
She disappeared into the back and I stared at the framed painting on the wall that read:
Let not your past define you.
Let it refine you.
The first time I saw it I stared at it with a peculiar sense of weightlessness. I felt empty and sad. Like a ghost. The real me died some time ago. I had nothing to define or refine me. There was a curtain separating me from my memory. Sometimes the curtain looked so thin it was almost a veil. All I had to do was push the veil back a little. But then I became frightened of what lay behind the veil.
7
Marlow
I noticed that she had not left her coat at reception.
‘Would you like me to take your coat?’ I enquired.
‘No,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I can turn the heat up if you are cold.’
‘No, no,’ she said quickly, a faint flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. ‘I’m fine. Really.’ She gave me a lingering look.
‘All right. So how have you been?’ I asked politely.
‘Good. Very good.’
‘Any new memories?’
‘No, but I’d like to remember the day my mother died.’
I frowned, but I nodded. I didn’t know what lay in store that day, but I could not protect her forever. Eventually, once I found out who the white owl was and why she was so terrified of it, I planned on letting her remember everything, the good and the bad.
We went into the room next door and she made herself comfortable on the zero gravity chair while I fiddled about with the necessary buttons and switches.
‘Ready?’ I asked her.
She nodded and I smelt her perfume.
I took a seat beside her and went through the induction procedure. It was now much shorter as I had already created the pathways for her hypnotized state. When she was in a deep trance I instructed her to go to her special place again. I waited for a few seconds.
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ I said planning to take her to that day next. And for some unknown reason my gaze skimmed her body and found a hole in her tights. I stared at it. Her skin was very pale in the blue light. I found myself blinking. Then I did what I had never done before. I put my finger on her exposed skin. My breath came ragged and trembling. What the hell?
I could not believe the potency and the force of my desire for her. I was powerless in its wake. The more I denied it, the mightier it became until this. Me touching her while she was lying on my chair totally helpless. And still my finger did not lift away. Instead it moved slightly. My finger was stroking her! Her skin was like the finest, smoothest silk. For heart-stopping seconds my finger remained as if unable, or more likely unwilling, to be parted from her skin. Then I snatched it away and closed my eyes. My hands came up to my head, my fingers raking through my hair. I stayed with my fingers clawed on my scalp while my brain went ape shit on me.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Everything I knew with total certainty about myself was in the garbage can. And then an ice-cold shudder ran through me. Very slowly I turned my head to the left. An unblinking red light was watching me, its regard unnervingly steady. I was recording this. All this was being documented. I felt so ashamed and confused. I felt like a pervert. I stood up and walked to the recording machine. I stood with my finger poised. All I had to do was to press erase. I should erase it. Here was enough evidence to brand me as a sexual molester. I would never work again if this came out. If I erased it, nothing of real importance would be lost. I had not yet begun her journey. I stood there another moment.
And then I put my finger on the erase button.
I pressed record and went to my chair. I remembered my priest in my church, his eyes rheumy and wandering around the congregation: ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’