Relatively Strange (10 page)

“Bit over-dramatic?” inquired the voice in my head conversationally. I jerked convulsively, Iris jumped correspondingly and the glass of water someone had handed her soaked both of us.

“Oh get a grip.” The snapped, inside-my-head command, started to bring me back to what few senses I had left and clambering down from panic stricken heights to just plain shocked, I realised I, of all people, surely should be open to the unusual. It was just that I’d always listened when I chose, been the one in control, now here was someone invading my space. Iris, a towel in hand, reappeared and started mopping up, I could see she wasn’t having a good morning either.

“Sorry.” I muttered.

“Not to worry.” She said, obviously not meaning it. “What on earth made you jump like that?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” I nodded, I was determined not to so much as twitch at any further internal comment, after all it was hearing voices that landed Joan of Arc in the soup. It was so strange though, not to be feeling anything extra, and I suddenly realized that this must be what everyone else felt all the time. This was Normal. How disconcerting. How extraordinarily quiet. Iris nudged me,

“I said, how do you feel now?”

“Sorry, yes, better thank you. It must have been the coach journey – I get travel sick, but better now, honest.”

“Best get you checked out anyway, be on the safe side.” Checked out? Things definitely didn’t seem to be staying low-profile, I quaked at what my parents would say. We left the relative security of the blue curtain and I followed Iris’s broad beamed stride and damply discoloured Hush Puppies as she led the way downstairs again. Trotting a little to keep up with her, I felt clumsy and uncoordinated, bumping into the wall a couple of times and finding it oddly difficult to keep my balance.

Iris took me to an open, airy, glass-roofed extension at the back of the building where she opened the door on a brightly painted waiting room already containing several anxious looking parents with children in assorted sizes who were being kept amused with coloured building bricks and picture books. At our entrance, everyone looked up expectantly and a cheerful receptionist, working through a pile of forms and seemingly oblivious of the surrounding noise, nodded at Iris and smiled at me,

“Hello there. For the Doctor? Won’t keep you a tick. Have a seat.”

Iris continued to pat her damp skirt and shoes while we waited. I could see I’d made a firm friend there. A dough-faced baby stared at me from the safety of its mother’s lap, I smiled, but it looked away expressionlessly. A door at the end of the room opened on a thin, red-eyed woman, carrying a child, seemingly far too big and heavy for the support her arms could provide. Dr. Drek, instantly recognisable from the earlier film, came out with her, patted her encouragingly on the shoulder and stroked the child’s head briefly. In his spotless white coat, he cut a thinly elongated figure with disproportionately large hands and head. I instinctively liked him even less in person than on screen. To the couple who’d started to gather bags and child at his appearance, he smiled and gave a small apologetic bow,

“Yes indeed, you are next but may I possibly keep you just one moment longer?” Then to Iris, “Thank you. I’ll see she gets back to the others.” And to me, “This way, young lady.”

There was a mahogany desk in the middle of his consulting room and on the walls an uneasy combination of nursery rhyme illustration interspersed with diagrammatic illustrations of the brain. In one corner of the room a high, brown leather examination couch was next to a movable screen on wheels which partially concealed a couple of instrument trolleys and a small sink. Closing the door behind him, Dr Dreck leaned back against it and looked at me for just a moment longer than was comfortable.

“So.” he said, “Stella?”

“’Sright.”

“Iris tells me, there was a dizzy spell?” clipped accent and rising intonation at the end of each sentence made question out of statement. He indicated the couch, “Please.”

Perched high on the slippery leather surface, legs dangling. I felt totally at a loss. I was unable to read the situation in any way other than with inadequate eyes and ears but even so, I could sense there was more going on here than there should have been and my stomach clenched with unease. The door re-opened and a woman smoothed into the room. She was tall, nearly as tall as him and he must have been well over six foot. Thin also and tight-featured with high-bunned ash-blond hair and a white blouse, starched to stiffness and buttoned tight under her chin. He introduced her without looking round,

“My assistant, Miss Merry.” She gave no response to my polite smile which didn’t really surprise me – hers wasn’t a mouth made for warmth.

With Miss Merry gliding between couch and instrument table – I never worked out how she moved like that, she certainly had feet like everyone else, they just seemed to operate differently – Dr Dreck took my blood pressure again, my pulse, checked my eyes and ears then had a go at my knees and elbows with a small hammer. From my vantage point high on the couch, I had an unattractive view as he bent, of thinning black hair overlaying pink scalp and caught the faintest whiff of strong aftershave. He kept darting glances at me, searching my face for some kind of reaction other than the one he was getting and our gazes kept clashing in mutual bafflement. Finally, he straightened, tapping the small hammer sharply in the palm of his hand.

“Well, no obvious problems to account for the dizziness. How do you feel now?”

“Very well, thank you.” I said politely. “It was probably just the coach journey.” He nodded, not really listening and moved over to his desk with Miss Merry. I couldn’t quite see what they were looking at but I thought they were the forms Iris had been completing earlier. I could have kicked myself. Something in my stupidly glib responses to the tests had set alarm bells ringing, although that in no way accounted for the black-out still going on in my head. They talked for a while longer in undertones, of which I only caught the occasional word before he turned back to me.

“Do you think,” he asked “You could tackle just a few more of our tests?” I nodded, I didn’t think I had much choice and it would be a relief to leave his unsettling presence. “Right you are,” he lifted me down, “Off you go now.” I obediently followed the smooth-moving, inscrutable Miss Merry.

Chapter Twelve

Miss Merry wasted no time on small talk, a relief as I needed all my breath to keep up with her. It felt, one way and another that in the course of that morning I’d done a great deal of walking from one place to another. I followed her down a flight of narrow stairs which led steeply from the older part of the building. There were no windows down here and we moved down a short artificially lit corridor, at the end of which she hauled open a heavy door which swished silently closed behind us. Through a second similar door and then we were in an enormous space, one side of which was taken up with about six small glass isolation booths, the sort Hughie Green put people in to Double Their Money. On the other side of the room one whole wall had been glassed over, floor to ceiling to create a separate area in which I could see three, seated, head-phoned people talking into microphones in front of them.

Several of the booths were occupied by children, also with head-phones, facing the back wall of their booth. There must have been a lot of soundproofing because other than a low level sibilant hiss which I took to be some sort of air conditioning, you could have heard a pin – or in my case, a heart – drop. The worm of unease in my stomach, coiled and uncoiled. I really didn’t like this set up which seemed infinitely more scientific than the cosily curtained cubicles in which I’d started my day. These elimination tests were proving more uncomfortable by the minute.

Miss Merry ushered me towards a vacant booth and told me what they wanted me to do. In the oddly artificial atmosphere her voice took on a metallic quality. The door to the booth was thick and heavy, like a phone box. Sliding onto the plastic coated bench, in front of me was a shelf holding head-phones and inbuilt was a console with three rounded buttons – red, green and black. Apparently I simply had to press whichever colour I chose, every time I heard a bleeped signal. Facing the grey featureless back panel, nose stinging from the disinfectant saturated cloth with which she’d wiped the headphones before handing them to me, I could see and hear nothing until low static told me the headphones were now live. Obediently then, in response to irregular beeps I began to press the coloured buttons. My choices were truly completely random and because I was still totally extra-senseless, I had no glimpse or grasp of what was going on. What I did know was it was hot and airlessly uncomfortable in the booth and the irregularity of the beeps was surprisingly unsettling.

Nerves were cramping my stomach, I could feel my palms becoming sweaty and the headphones pressed uncomfortably tight on either side of my head so blood thumped loudly in my ears, counter-pointing the beeps. Panic was heading back in. What if I lost control? What would happen if I suddenly found myself floating off my seat in the booth? True there wasn’t room to swing a cat, but a demented Strange person like myself could just keep going up and down, up and down …

“Enough! Calm down. Don’t talk. Concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing and get a grip.”

“But … ”

“I
said
don’t talk, you can be seen. Top right hand corner, a camera,
don’t look
.” I ripped my gaze away. “When they get you out, ask for the toilet.” And the voice was gone again, leaving just beeps and disinfectant. I don’t know how long I was pressing buttons. It felt like hours. I was cramped and sweaty when Miss Merry finally opened the door and let in some blessedly fresher air and it wasn’t only because I was following instructions that I asked for the toilet. Miss Merry, receiving my request with the disdain of a being not troubled by such considerations gave directions. As I hauled open the first of the heavy doors, I glanced back. She was conferring with others in the glassed in section.

*

I was thankful, once in the toilet that the visiting voice had the social sensitivity to lay low until I felt able to chat.

“Right,” it announced, while I was washing my hands, making me jump in spite of myself.

“Time’s short. You need to know what’s going on. You make your own choices then. Clear?” As mud. I hoped she – I was pretty sure she was a she – was going to elaborate.

“Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because I say so – need to concentrate, otherwise I see what you’re seeing.” I obligingly closed my eyes, wet hands still suspended over the sink. I probably looked as if I’d opted for a nap, mid-wash, still that was as good a story as any, certainly more believable than what was really going on.

“O.K. This whole set-up is government funded. Stated aim to select and chart progress of high achieving children over a period of years. Assessing and evaluating external influences – cultural, political, financial etc.

“I know all that.” I interjected out loud.

“Shut up.”

“Right.”

“What they’re really looking for is psi factor.”

“Psi factor?”

“Like you and me.” I knew it! I knew there were more. I was facing the mirror and could see my face flush with excitement.

“Eyes – shut. And if you must talk aloud, keep it down.”

“Are there a lot?”

“Didn’t think you were unique, did you?”

“No, but …”

“Lots of people have latent ability but every now and then, genes, chance, whatever, sparks something off and you get oddities like us.”

“How did you know – about me I mean?”

“Just listen can’t you. No questions.” she may have been big on psi but not on patience. “When you started to panic earlier, you blasted the place down, could hardly miss you. You, and others like you are what this project is really all about.”

“I don’t understand.” although of course, in that instant, I did, perfectly.