The Man Who Turned Into Himself (3 page)

At the top of the slope, sweating, clothes torn and muddied, fingernails ripped and bleeding from the final hard-won, steepening yards of the climb, I stopped and looked towards the head of the jam. I knew exactly where it was, of course. But did I know
what
it was? From where I stood I couldn't see much aside from a general confusion, people running, a crowd forming, an odd scattering of vehicles that suggested an accident. I ran towards it as fast as I could.

There were a few token grunts and protests as I shouldered my way through to see what was at the centre of it all. But by then I think I knew. I had known for a split second in the conference room when I dropped the glass and ran out. I had glimpsed the awful thing that confronted me now, but the image had been pushed to the back of my mind while I negotiated the journey here. Now there was no turning from it.

A huge refrigerated rig, much larger than the one that had almost killed me that morning, had gone out of control and jumped the central divide. It had jackknifed and turned over. The back had sprung open and deep-frozen carcasses of meat were scattered everywhere. Beneath the vehicle a small car lay crushed. It was pale green and still, though only just, recognisable as the imported 'Deux Chevaux' that Anne had wanted ever since our first trip to Europe. They had stopped making that model, and it was a while before I found a specialist dealer who supplied me with one for her thirtieth birthday.

She had been so happy, thrilled like a child, when she came downstairs and found a key on the table with a huge bow attached to it, then saw the car through the window parked outside. I had put a picnic hamper on the back seat, filled with French bread and champagne and a bottle of wine and some foie-gras and a birthday cake with her name on it. All we had to do was drive out to a spot I'd already chosen and . . .

. . . and now she lay dying, trapped, bleeding, pushed back as though recoiling in some impossible cartoon-like exaggeration of shocked outrage. Except this was no cartoon, and no exaggeration. It was simply the literal truth of what massive, unstoppable force had done to her.

I don't know whether I cried out, said anything, in any way communicated who I was, but people suddenly made way for me, let me go forward, lowering their voices, bringing a strange stillness to the scene.

A man was on one knee, struggling with what remained of the car's rear door. If I saw his face I don't remember it. All I remember is a broad back with a cheap grey suit stretched tight across it as his fleshy shoulders worked. He had a thick neck with a roll of fat above the collar. His hair was reddish-brown, short and greasy, brushed back flat on his head. And suddenly, as he turned, he had my son in his arms.

Charlie was deathly white but alive. And, I realised as he clung to me and I felt the sobs racking my body, he was unhurt.

I don't remember if I handed him to someone or if someone prized him gently from me. At moments like that there is, I think, an almost psychic understanding between people. Things are said, things are done, without reflection and with a sureness that is lacking in more normal times. Charlie was taken from me to be cared for, and he knew this was right. He didn't cry, he didn't cling, he knew what he must do.

I turned to Anne. She could move her head only slightly, barely more than an inch; but her eyes made the rest of the journey to meet mine, and she saw her own death in my anguish.

Her lips moved and I bent closer. But she wasn't trying to speak; only to give me a faint last smile, a loving goodbye, a reassurance that she knew and accepted what was happening.

The agony of not being able to hold her as she died was unbearable, but she was trapped in a vice-like coffin of steel that left me outside, a helpless onlooker. Somewhere distantly I heard a siren drawing close, then a voice saying it would be hours before they could cut her free.

Only we didn't have hours. These were our last minutes. Perhaps seconds.

I reached for her face, almost afraid to touch in case the contact brought back the physical pain which she seemed mercifully to have slipped beyond. But she gave a faint sigh, almost of pleasure, as my fingertips caressed her cheek and lips. I leaned forward to kiss her, but her eyes glazed over. Where there had been stillness there was now only the emptiness of death.

Somehow, as I slumped forward with a howl of unfathomable loss that seemed to come from somewhere so deep in my being that it was almost outside of me, my hand found hers. She must have thrown it up, instinctively trying to protect herself from the impact, and now it protruded, fingers splayed, from the appalling inch-wide gap between the dash and the seat on which she lay.

The people around us let me be, knowing that my grief must have this moment, letting the sobs shake free unhindered from my body. Then, very gently, I felt hands taking hold of me, pulling me away.

I said yes, let them, this is right. Don't spoil the dignity of her going with your own self-centred torment. Just do what must be done. Think of your son, he is alone, he needs you.

But I had reckoned without the rage, the senseless, aching 
rage that swept through me like a flame. Against my will I hunched forward, clung to what remained of her, my eyes shut tight against a truth I could not tolerate. As though in slow, slow motion my head arched back and I roared into the blackness of my inner universe: a roar of terrifying, primal, primitive defiance.

That was when I felt the movement in her hand. I didn't open my eyes at first. I knew that I was dreaming and didn't want to wake from the forlorn, illusory hope that I was wrong, that she still lived.

And then I heard her voice. 'Get me out of here before this thing rolls over. Richard, help me! Get me out of here, quick!'

I looked. Her eyes were open, locked on mine, wide and full of fear but fighting, brave. I was a sleepwalker, a passive, stunned spectator of the next few moments.

Help was everywhere. Strong men lifting, straining, carrying her to safety. She was alive! Cut, bruised, in shock, but living, standing there unaided suddenly, before me.

Somehow I swam forward through the dizzying waves of unreality that swept over me. I took her in my arms. She was solid, warm, and real. It seemed impossible, but she was alive!

It was Anne who took control now, calming me, telling me over and over that everything was all right. She stroked my face, her dark eyes pouring reassurance into mine, soothing me with gentle child-like noises of affection. I tried to speak but couldn't. She put her fingers to my lips. Don't try. It's all right. We're together. Everything is all right. We're safe.

Suddenly, almost guilty at having been so caught up in my own emotion, I remembered Charlie. I turned and called his name, expecting him to run to us, to be swept into our arms and hugged and kissed and reassured that there was nothing more to fear.

But no child ran from the surrounding group of silent onlookers. I called his name again. Blank stares, silent onlookers. I called his name again. Blank stares, silently exchanged looks of puzzlement were all that met my gaze.

I turned to Anne. 'Where is he? He was here, safe.'

'Who?'

With a chill that reached my soul I saw in her eyes the same uncertain, half-frightened incomprehension that was all around me. 'Charlie! Our son Charlie! They got him out! He wasn't hurt! I held him. Charlie!' I was screaming suddenly, turning wildly, calling for our son who had vanished into thin air.

'Richard! Richard!' Anne was holding me, trying to calm me, fighting to restrain my helpless, flailing arms. 'Don't, Richard, don't! Don't do this!'

'Where is he? I couldn't have been wrong? Where is he? Where's our son.'

'Richard! Richard!' She shook me, made me look at her, fixed my eyes with her own determined, anxious gaze. 'We have no son. I don't know what you're saying. We have no son.'

Again I felt the waves of blackness sweeping over me. I fought to keep my balance, to hang on to my sanity in the face of this absurdity. My head spun one way, then another, taking in the groups of baffled, murmuring onlookers. What were they to do? Who was this crazy man screaming for a child whom only he seemed to imagine had existed?

Then I saw the accident, the jack-knifed rig and the car trapped under it.

But the car was no longer Anne's car. In the grotesque tangle of metal, glass and leather I recognised the colour and distorted outline of my own car. It was my dark blue Mustang that had collided with the truck.

Something warm and liquid ran down my face, catching the corner of my eye. I reached up and my hand reappeared in front of me soaked in blood.

I looked down at my clothes. They were not the same clothes I had been wearing. Nor was the expensive-looking, though now torn and stained grey trouser-suit that Anne 
had on, anything that I had seen on her before. She had never owned a suit like that. And yet it was Anne looking at me with concern and fear, as though I was in some terrible trouble and she didn't know how to help me.

There was a flurry of movement in the crowd surrounding us. Two men pushed through in the uniform of paramedics, unfolding a stretcher as they came. In their eyes I saw the trained, alert professional calm of people schooled in dealing with emergencies. They were coming for me, preparing to take care of this panic-stricken, hysterical victim of . . . of what?

As the blackness finally overwhelmed me and I began falling, the last thing I felt was strong hands grabbing me before I hit the ground.

The drugs they gave me had the effect of leaving me suspended between drowsiness and oblivion for what seemed an age. Each time I surfaced a nurse checked my temperature and pulse and gave me something to drink. It must have happened half a dozen times before I felt strong enough to push myself up on one elbow and demand to know where I was. The name of the hospital meant nothing, but that was hardly surprising as I had no reason to be familiar with all the hospitals in the city.

A doctor — young, skinny, with a pursed mouth and a nose that pecked at the air as he talked — came in and gave me a cursory examination. He said I had been unconscious for thirty-six hours and would have to remain there a while yet. His manner irritated me beyond endurance. It was as though he tried to compensate for his lack of physical presence by adopting a Gestapo-like peremptoriness which brooked neither argument nor question. I cut him short, swung my feet to the floor, and announced I was leaving at once. My efforts to push him aside must have been comical, since I had barely the strength to stand. Nevertheless I put up as good a fight as I could and we wound up struggling noisily on the floor. I had a brief worm's eye view of the door bursting open and white-shod feet hurrying to his rescue. Then I felt the jab of a needle in my arm and sank, still struggling, once more into darkness.

When I woke, Anne was sitting by my bed. She looked drawn and pale and I had the impression she had been 
there for some time. I tried to sit up, but she restrained me gently with a hand on my shoulder. 'Please, darling, don't. Just relax, you'll be out of here soon — but not if you start a fight every time you wake up.'

I settled back obediently and looked at her. There must have been something accusatory in my gaze because she shifted uneasily on her chair, then went on with a hint of apology in her voice. 'I know you're in shock, but please try to stay calm and don't make trouble. For my sake, please!' I just looked at her. She leant closer and went on quickly, as though afraid we were about to be interrupted. 'We were lucky, it could have been far worse. No one was badly hurt. All you have to do is show them you're all right and they'll discharge you.'

'For God's sake,' I hissed, 'tell me what's going on. What happened to Charlie?'

'Oh, Richard . . . ' Her eyes filled with tears and she bit the corner of her lower lip.

'And why d'you keep calling me Richard? What
is
all this?'

She stifled a sob and wiped underneath her eye with the back of her fingers. 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'I didn't mean — '

She shook her head. 'It's all right.' It was then that I noticed she was wearing her hair differently, pulled straight and tied at the back. Also there was something about her clothes: they were more severe somehow, as though she was trying to be someone else. I was about to make a comment when a nurse entered and, eyeing me sternly, held open the door for a doctor — a different one this time, older, but built like a marine and with a greying crew-cut. He was perfectly pleasant, however: relaxed, slow-speaking, and with a hint of irony in his manner.

'I know you feel strongly about getting out of here . . . ' he was shining a light in my eyes, first one, then the other. 'It shouldn't take more than a day or two.'

'There is nothing wrong with me.'

'Didn't say there was, did I? How many fingers am I holding up?'

'Three.'

'Good.'

'It's not good, it's ridiculous!'

'Hey, it's a wonder you can remember which way is up after all the stuff you've had shot into you.' He picked up my chart and made a note on it.

'I didn't ask to have anything shot into me!'

'We volunteered — figured you'd appreciate it later.'

I looked over at Anne. 'I want to see Harold right now.'

Crew-cut raised an eyebrow. 'Harold?'

'His lawyer,' Anne explained.

'Ah. Sure, see anyone you want.'

'Get Harold over here,' I said with emphasis.

She looked unhappy. 'Harold's in New York on business.'

'Since when?'

'Ten days.'

I took a moment to absorb this. 'That's not possible! I haven't been here ten days.' I looked up at crew-cut. 'How long have I been here?'

'Forty-eight hours.'

I turned back to Anne. She flinched at the puzzlement and anger she must have seen in my face. 'You know Harold's not away,' I almost shouted. 'I was with him just before the accident. He told me he talked to you on the phone that morning!'

Anne was biting her lower lip again, fighting back tears. Crew-cut's gaze had been switching back and forth between us. Now he stepped in to take over.

'Mrs Hamilton, there's nothing to seriously worry about. Your husband's going to be fine.' He wanted her out of the room. She took the hint and came over to kiss me. We looked at each other a moment, then she put her arms around me and held me close. I felt a pang of guilt that I had, however indirectly, accused her of betraying me in some strange way that I didn't yet understand. I didn't want her to leave. She was my anchor in a world gone mad.

As though reading my thoughts, she pulled back a little and looked searchingly into my eyes. For a moment everything was all right. I knew this gesture. This was familiar, this was real. 'I'll be back soon,' she whispered. 'I love you.'

'I know. I love you.' I returned the squeeze she had given my hand. 'I'm okay.'

Then she was gone, quickly, not wanting to look back. Crew-cut, who had remained discreetly on one side, now regarded me with professional amiability from the foot of my bed. 'Look,' he started, 'some people get the wrong idea about this when the idea's first put to them, but I'm going to do it anyway.' I waited. 'I can't find a damn thing wrong with you physically. How would you feel about seeing a psychiatrist? We have somebody here who's quite special. I know you'd — '

'You
see the fucking psychiatrist!' The force of my response surprised me, but not apparently him. He didn't even blink.

'Like I said, most people get the wrong idea. They think seeing a psychiatrist means admitting they're crazy. That's not so.'

'I'm perfectly well aware of that,' I said testily, but keeping my voice down now. 'I'm not entirely uneducated.' I paused, then added grudgingly: 'I'm sorry I shouted.'

'That's okay. I know all this is a pain in the ass for you. We're only trying to help.'

I sighed and leaned back on my pillows. 'If it'll do any good, I'll see the shrink. All I want is to get out of here.'

***

The young woman who entered my room an hour later was alone. She was also blind. She used her white cane to find the chair by the side of my bed, sat down, and told me her name was Emma Todd. She said if it was all right with me she would call me Richard, and I was to call her Emma. I said why didn't she call me Rick, like everybody else did. She seemed to reflect on this for a moment, then said: 'Okay. Rick.'

I don't know why I was so surprised to come across a blind psychiatrist. In a way I suppose one thinks of it as a uniquely watching profession, though truly it's much more of a listening one. Certainly Emma Todd listened with an attentive stillness that was at first unnerving. But because of the freedom her blindness gave me to watch her without self-consciousness, I quickly began to feel at ease.

Although she struck me as plain, almost homely, in appearance, I realised the longer I looked at her that she had a face of considerable natural beauty. The bone structure was classical and the skin, untouched by make-up, flawless. But the short, straight brown hair did nothing to enhance it; and the dead, staring eyes, which were of a blue so pale as to be almost cataract-white, gave it a flatness which would not normally have merited a second glance. I guessed she was probably about my age but looked older. Also I suspected she had been blind since birth, as her whole posture had the awkwardness of someone unacquainted with visual grace.

Although our conversation had a casual, almost desultory quality, I remained on the alert, fully aware that she wasn't there for small talk but was making a diagnosis, noting my every phrase and careful circumlocution in search of some clue to my condition. I in my turn was trying to telegraph condition normal with every word I uttered. It was, I quickly learned, an oddly difficult, if not impossible, task. She was aware of this and her lips parted in a curiously endearing smile.

'Look,' she said, 'I know what you're doing, and you don't have to. I'm not trying to catch you out. Just talk as you would with a friend.'

'I'll try,' I said. 'You can't blame me for feeling just a little suspicious.'

She laughed, a light, unserious sound which made me like her more. 'Tell me about Charlie.'

'I'd rather not,' I said. 'Talking about Charlie seems to have got me into enough trouble already.'

'That's no reason for pretending he doesn't exist if you believe he does.'

I was silent. How could I pretend that my son didn't exist? Yet what was I supposed to say? Suddenly a sound came out of me that I didn't recognise at first. I wasn't even aware that it was coming from me. And then I realised: I was weeping.

She made no attempt to comfort me, no words of reassurance, no hand reaching for mine. She just let me go on for a while until I was quiet, then said: 'That's enough for now. You're tired. I'll come back tomorrow, you'll find it easier then.' She was halfway to the door, white stick probing the air for obstacles, before I spoke.

'Emma . . . ?'

'Yes?' She stopped, turned partially, seeking me with her ears I realised, not her eyes.

'Just tell me one thing. Am I being held here? I mean, against my will?'

Her reply had a simple directness that I was grateful for. 'Yes, in a sense. This isn't a psychiatric hospital, just a special unit in a general one. We persuaded your wife to sign you in for your own safety. But don't worry, the law doesn't allow us to keep you for more than three days without a review by an assessment panel, and I don't think they'll find grounds to hold you. You're suffering post-shock trauma. It's not unusual, although the form it's taken in your case is a little out of the ordinary. The best thing you can do is sleep. I'll see you in the morning. If you need anything, you'll find a buzzer by your bed.'

'Yes, all right, thank you.' She went out. There was a pause, then I heard someone lock the door behind her. I suddenly felt more wretched than I had ever in my life. I gazed at the window. All I could see was sky. There were no bars, but I could see the glass was thick, and there were catches to prevent it opening more than a few inches. I was overwhelmed by a combination of exhaustion, despair and the residue of whatever, as crew-cut put it, they had 'shot into' me. I fell into sleep as the only escape from the nightmare that my life had become.

***

From the light outside my window it must have been early evening when I woke. I buzzed for help in getting to the tiny bathroom that adjoined my room. At least I was being spared the humiliation of urinating into bottles and struggling on to bedpans. Afterwards they brought me something to eat — I was surprisingly hungry — and then a nurse came in pushing a cabinet on wheels from which she measured out a handful of pills into a small plastic cup. She poured me a glass of water and told me to swallow them. I debated refusing, but decided not to make trouble. I did something I must have seen a hundred times in movies but never thought would work in real life: I kept the pills in my mouth, swallowed the water, and turned away from her as though pretending to go to sleep, hiding my bulging cheeks. I heard her go out, lock the door, and realised that she had suspected nothing. I spat the pills into my hand and hid them underneath the mattress.

That little triumph gave a much-needed boost to my self-confidence. I began to feel, if only slightly, once more in control of events. Looking back, I suspect that, ironically, that was the moment when I actually began to lose what little control I still had.

Throwing off the bed covers I swung my feet to the floor and tried to stand unaided, and found that I could. The discovery flooded my whole system with an adrenalin-charged high. I felt suddenly that nothing could stop me. My one thought was to escape. Somehow my mind had convinced itself that if only I could reach the outside world I would find everything as it was, and the insanity of the recent past would be left behind in this sterile white cell.

As I thought, the window was fixed to open no more than a few inches, and even if the glass had been breakable I could not have risked the noise. However, I could see I was on the top floor of an L-shaped modern building which seemed to be near the edge of the hospital grounds. I had already noticed a trapdoor in the ceiling of the bathroom. Standing with one foot on the hand basin and the other on the lavatory flush tank, I managed with some effort to force it open and haul myself up into the darkness.

I made a discovery that night that has stayed with me ever since. I discovered how easy it is to get away with murder. Not literally, of course; I didn't kill anybody to get out of that place. But there I was one minute in my hospital-issue smock, bare feet and not a cent on me, scrambling around in the loft in search of a way down; and the next I was flagging down a cab and directing it to Long Chimneys. I was quite pleased with the way I looked — tweed jacket, grey flannels, Oxford loafers. Some doctor was going to be very upset when he got back to the locker room that night. Never mind, everything would be returned, including the money I had taken from some woman's purse that had been left for an instant just off the main reception area: I wasn't a thief.

Inevitably Long Chimneys was the first place they would look for me when my escape was discovered, but for the time being I had the advantage of surprise, and I had to talk to Anne alone. I had the cab drop me about a quarter of a mile from the house, which I approached on foot. There were lights on but no signs of unusual activity — no police cars, ambulances, men lurking in the shadows. It was still possible that my escape had not been noted, but there was no time to waste. Through the hedge (which I noticed with a perverse sense of irrelevance was more in need of a trim than I recalled) I could see that the curtains of our living room were open. I eased my way around until I could see in clearly, hoping to find Anne alone. What I did see was something that I was entirely unprepared for.

His back was to me and my first thought was that it must be Harold. Then he moved to pick up a newspaper and I realised he was no one I had ever seen. A woman came in, also a stranger. They spoke a few words, then she called off into the kitchen. Mesmerised, I moved along the wall and around the corner, and through the kitchen window saw two 
children aged about ten and twelve. They were dressed for bed and chasing noisily around the table with a large black and white English sheepdog.