The Sleepless (14 page)

‘You want to tell me about it?’ asked Dr Rice, sitting down on the edge of his desk. 

‘I don’t know ... I don’t know whether it has any relevance at all to Rocky Woods.’ 

‘It sure shook you up, though. You were pulling that chair around and shouting like a madman.’ 

‘I was shouting? What was I shouting?’ 

Dr Rice got up, walked across to his Bang & Olufsen recording deck, and rewound his tape-player. ‘It was unusual for you ... you were talking in several distinct voices. I have quite a number of patients who talk in three or four different voices. It’s quite a common symptom of extreme emotional trauma. Many people are so distressed by what they’ve experienced that they can only deal with it by acting it out through the eyes of others; or through their own eyes when they were children. That’s why they use a variety of voices. But you, up until now you’ve strictly been a one-voice 

guy.’ 

‘That makes me sound pretty dull and worthy, doesn’t it?’ 

Dr Rice smiled. ‘Believe me, it makes treatment a whole lot simpler. When you have a multiple-voice situation, it can take a therapist years to sort out one voice from another. I had one guy last year – white guy – whenever he was under hypnosis he always used to talk like Eddie Murphy. It turned out that he believed that somebody like Eddie Murphy would see the funny side of what he had done, whereas he himself was incapable of laughing about it.’ 

‘And what
had
he done?’ asked Michael. 

‘Oh ... doused his wife and children in gasoline and set them on fire.’ 

‘Jesus.’ 

It was then that Dr Rice located the beginning of the session on his tape. 

‘Here, listen to this.’ 

There was a moment’s hissing and then Michael recognized his own deep breathing. The breathing continued for two or three minutes, and he could hear rustling noises in the background as Dr Rice walked around his office and rearranged his papers. 

Then, without warning, he heard a strange, high voice, almost like a woman’s voice, but slightly harsher. 

‘
Have you thought about it any more
?’ 

Michael turned and stared at Dr Rice. ‘Who the hell was that?’ 

‘That was you.’ 

‘That was
me?
That didn’t sound like me at all.’ 

‘You want to hear it again?’ Dr Rice leaned over and rewound the tape a short way. The breathing returned, then the same strained, high-pitched voice. 

‘
Have you thought about it any more
?’ 

Michael said, ‘I remember that now. I thought I was back at home. Patsy was asking me whether I was going to take that insurance job or not.’ 

‘Well ... you may have thought it was Patsy,’ said Dr Rice. ‘But in actual fact it was
you.’
 

‘I don’t understand it. Why should I try to talk in Patsy’s voice?’ 

‘It’s not unusual. It’s a way of discussing the problem with yourself, that’s all. Like you’re trying to see the situation from her side as well as yours.’ 

The tape continued. Next, Michael was talking in a much closer approximation to his normal voice, except that he sounded dreamy or drugged – the way most people do when they’re under deep hypnosis. 

‘I’ve been thinking about it all night.’
 

But then his voice changed again – higher, lighter. 

‘Dad ... when you come back from Hyannis, can you fix my back brake? It keeps rubbing against the wheel.’
 

‘Jason,’ said Michael. ‘I’m trying to talk like Jason.’ 

Next, he heard the telephone warble, and Dr Rice quickly answer it.
‘Hallo’? Yes, this is he. Oh, Dr Fellowes. Yes. For sure. I’ll be meeting you later, yes. That’s quite correct. No, Dr Osman didn’t mention it. He said nothing at all.’
 

Michael said, ‘I remember some of that conversation from my trance. Not all of it. I thought it was part of what was going on.’ 

Now there was a longer pause, although Michael could distinctly hear himself breathing. To begin with, the breathing was slow and measured. But all of a sudden, it grew harsher, as if he were jogging; and then harsher still, as if he were running. He heard the squeaking of his hands on the arms of the chair, and the ripping of canvas. 

‘Come on, Michael,’
he heard a voice urging him, in a breathless whisper. 

He frowned, and leaned forward in his chair so that he could hear better. 

‘That was you, too,’ said Dr Rice. 

Michael shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound like me at all. That doesn’t even sound like me pretending to be somebody else.’ 

‘Believe me,’ said Dr Rice, ‘you were the one who was moving his lips.’ 

Panting, and gasping, and – ‘
You should join us, Michael, you should join us.’
 

‘That can’t be me,’ Michael protested. 

‘
We could ease your pain, Michael, we could give you forgetfulness. We could even grant you absolution.’
 

‘This is incredible,’ said Michael. ‘There was this guy in my trance ... this really tall guy, in a greyish kind of a coat ... This voice isn’t my voice ... this is
his
voice, I swear it. Listen to it – it doesn’t sound anything like me!’ 

Dr Rice leaned back and crossed his legs. ‘I know you find it hard to believe, but when you’re in hypnosis you’re capable of all manner of extraordinary achievements. People often demonstrate talents that normally they’re too inhibited to show off. Or maybe they never even knew they had them. They’re also capable of changing their vocal cords so that they can speak in very different voices.’ 

‘
Do you want to live like half a man for the rest of your life?’
the voice asked. 

‘No!’
Michael heard himself shout. 

‘Do you want all of your dreams and all of your ambitions to sift through your fingers like sand?’
 

‘No!’
Michael screamed; and he couldn’t believe that he had screamed like that. He hadn’t been conscious of screaming – only of struggling to keep himself away from the tall grey man in the long grey coat.
‘Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! I want to wake up! I want to wake up! I want to wake up!’
 

There was a confused, jostling, knocking noise. He heard Dr Rice saying,
‘Michael! Michael! Wake up, Michael! When I count to six I want you to open your eyes and look at me and then you will be fully awake.’
 

‘Don’t touch me!’
Michael screamed, again and again.
‘Don’t touch me!’
 

There was more jostling, and a blurting sound. Then the voice whispered, ‘
You should know me, Michael. My name is –’
But the name was blotted out by another blurting sound. 

Dr Rice switched off the tape. He looked at Michael for a long time without saying anything. Michael dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face and his neck. 

‘You say you saw a really tall guy in a greyish coat?’ 

Michael cleared his throat, and nodded. ‘He was down on the beach.’ 

‘Any particular beach?’ 

‘No, I didn’t recognize it. There was a lighthouse in the background, that’s all I remember.’ 

‘But it wasn’t any place you’d been before? Nowhere you’d carried out an insurance investigation, say? A drowning, or anything like that?’ 

Michael shook his head. ‘I’ve done drownings, but nowhere like that.’ 

‘Was there anything familiar about this guy in the greyish coat?’ 

‘Never seen him before, never.’ 

‘He said,
“You should know me, Michael.”
‘ 

‘I didn’t know him.’ 

‘But you were frightened of him, weren’t you? Why were you frightened of him?’ 

Michael folded his handkerchief into a pad and wiped the back of his neck again. ‘I don’t know. I guess it was just one of those irrational things that happen under hypnosis. You know ... like in nightmares.’ 

‘He told you his name.’ 

‘I couldn’t hear him. I don’t think I
wanted
to hear him. I put my hands over my ears.’ 

‘Why didn’t you want to hear him? Were you afraid that you might know him, after all?’ 

‘I didn’t know him, okay? He was a spooky character out of a dream, that’s all.’ 

Dr Rice made a few jottings on his pad, and then said, ‘All right. I guess that’ll do for today. It seems like this job offer may have stirred up some feelings that you’ve been keeping under wraps. It’s just possible that they could lead us in some new directions ... help us to tackle your trauma from another angle, as it were.’ 

‘What does that mean?’ 

‘I’m not sure yet. It kind of depends who this tall guy in the coat actually is, or was ... and, as you say, whether he has any relevance to Rocky Woods or not.’ 

‘Does it mean that I should take the job?’ 

Dr Rice tapped his pencil on his teeth and looked at Michael seriously. ‘Do you want to take the job?’ 

‘I don’t know. Yes and no. I’d like the money, I’d like the respect. I also feel that it might help me to get back in touch with the real world, if you know what I mean. When you spend every single day on your own, with nobody to bounce your ideas off ... well, you tend to get a little screwy.’ 

‘Those are the plus points,’ agreed Dr Rice. ‘What about the negative points?’ 

Michael turned away and stared at the picture of deck rails and ventilator pipes and masts. A ship waiting for passengers. A moment waiting to begin. 

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, so quietly that Dr Rice could scarcely hear him. 

‘What are you afraid of, more than anything else?’ 

‘Everything. Nothing. Jesus – I’m afraid that I’m going to take one look at those dead people and my brain’s going to collapse and I won’t be able to think or speak or move or do anything at all, ever again.’ 

Dr Rice said nothing for a very long time. But eventually he made another jotting on his pad, and asked, ‘What about that tall man in the greyish coat? Do you think he might represent that particular fear? What I’m saying is, do you think he might be some kind of symbolic figure? Your own trauma, in the flesh?’ 

Michael looked back at him. ‘Would that make a difference?’ 

‘It might. After all, you’ve shown me quite clearly that you’re capable of resisting him – that you’re fighting him with all the mental and physical strength at your disposal ... and then some. Visualizing your single greatest fear in the form of an actual man might be the most important step that you have taken toward your recovery since you were very first traumatized.’ 

‘So you think I ought to take the job?’ 

‘Aha! I’m sorry, Michael. No can help. Nobody can take that decision except you.’ 

Back at home, seated at his drawing-board, Michael sketched a picture of the seashore where the man had been standing, and the squat white lighthouse. With its grassy headland, its ocean-weathered cliffs and its curving sands, it could have been any bay from Pigeon Cove to Horseneck Beach. It might not even have been in Massachusetts, although he was irrationally convinced that it was. It might not even have been a real beach at all. 

On a separate sheet of paper, he tried to draw the tall grey man in the long grey coat. It was curiously difficult. Although he could remember very distinctly what impression the man had made on him; and that he was tall; and grey-haired; and narrow-nosed; he found it almost impossible to assemble all of these features in a recognizable face. He pencilled and shaded for nearly two hours, and in the end he managed to produce a vaguely similar figure, but he was very far from satisfied. 

He sat back, frowning, and looked out at the clouds crossing New Seabury beach. The sands were deserted. There were no swimmers, no walkers; nobody flying kites. A landscape waiting for something to happen. 

All the way back from Hyannis, he had known with complete certainty what he was going to do. He lifted a sheaf of papers under which his telephone had been concealing itself like a burrowing crab, and lifted the handset. He punched out the number which even hypnotherapy could never have erased from his memory, 617–999 9999. 

When the girl answered, ‘Plymouth, first and finest, how can I help you?’ he hesitated for only a moment before saying, ‘Joe Garboden please.’ 

He heard Joe’s extension ringing, and he knew then that there was no turning back. 

Five 

‘That’s him!’ barked Detective Ralph Brossard, the instant that the lanky black man appeared in the doorway and started to lope across the sidewalk. He flicked his freshly-lit cigarette out of the car window and reached for his r/t.