Others (16 page)

17

Only snatches of those dreams came back to me (I was to remember them in their entirety eventually) during the long return trip to Perfect Rest, and because they presented themselves as short jumbled images, they made no sense to me at all.

When the spectre of the dark Adonis, the deity of good looks, appeared in my mind’s eye I almost steered my car into the side of an overtaking XJS. The sharp and repeated tooting of the other driver’s horn quickly brought me to my senses, and as I pulled back over into the proper lane, I waved an apology, while he held up a middle finger for my delectation. I slowed down to a speed that was accommodating to introspection.

You see, now I recognized this tuxedoed charmer and I began to understand the reason for those recurring visions and last night’s dreams a little (at least, this was how daylight logic aspired to provide me with a rationale). With my knowledge of old movies I should have identified him before, because he was a famous matinee idol of the late Thirties and early Forties, a screen star famous the world over for his gay (in the
old
sense) repartee and rugged prowess, a celluloid adventurer who could play swashbuckler or sophisticate, hero or roguish charmer, priest or gunman. He was everything I yearned to be - tall, athletic, debonair, and devishly and devastatingly handsome - and this was where the first gleaning submitted itself for consideration. The images of him that I saw in mirrors were not
reflections
but were
projections,
mere, yet deep, wishful-thinking on my part, a fantasy stoked by drugs present but mainly past (as you know, I no longer did the hard stuff), those chemical residuals still floating around in my system -
and in my psyche.
For me, flashbacks had become drawbacks and I was becoming haunted by them.

I thought my illusions had ended with childhood, but now I realized they were only repressed. I still wanted to be something other than I was, and who could blame me for that? So when I looked into mirrors these days, I sometimes saw, aided by those chemical imbalances, that which I desired to be rather than what really was. The other hallucinations? Perhaps they were nothing more than psychological manifestations of my own tortured soul (and by now you’ll know just how tortured my soul was).

And yet… and yet there was still one thing that bothered me: I could not remember this old-time film star’s name. Every time I thought I had it, it eluded me. Every time it was on the tip of my tongue, it tripped off again. And I was supposed to be good at that sort of thing.

The XJS I’d almost side-whacked earlier was stuck in a long line of held-up traffic in the fast lane and I gave him a friendly toot and wave as I sailed by; he glared back, but there was no swivel-finger in evidence this time. I did notice, however, that a fantastic-looking blonde babe occupied the passenger seat and I wondered how obnoxious pigs like him managed to pull women like her. The shiny bright Jag provided my jealousy with an easy and probably quite erroneous answer, but it led my thoughts to Constance Bell. I realized I had become foolishly besotted with her and it was one of the reasons I was so eager to visit Perfect Rest again: I was fairly sure a meeting with the home’s proprietor would not advance the search for Shelly’s absent child one bit further, but the chance to meet Constance once more was too good to miss.

Why would I fall for her so rapidly and so easily? The answer to this one was also easy - only this time there was nothing false about the judgement. You see, Constance Bell was like me: we both bore afflictions that made us unattractive to the majority of normal society (unfortunate, but it was an unpalatable truth that no amount of politically correct well-meaning propaganda would change). And because she was like me - except, of course, for her beautiful face and hands - she might just be attainable. Sad? Pathetic? You really wouldn’t know.

The weather had been overcast since early morning and when I turned off the motorway, heading for Windsor, the heavens opened and it began to pour with rain. I switched on the Ford’s sidelights and grumbled to myself about the usual changeable patterns of the English summer. By the time I turned into the rutted lane that would lead me to the Thames riverbank and Perfect Rest, the rain had ceased and the sun was making its first proper appearance of the day.

The car splashed through puddles and its suspension did little to prevent my body being jolted as it progressed through dips and over bumps, giving me further pause to wonder at the home’s difficult location. Maybe death’s waiting-room was meant to be isolated from worldly distractions. Even the jets passing overhead every few minutes scarcely intruded upon the calm. I took the bends in the lane carefully, occasionally taking time to peep through the gaps in the hedgerows on either side. I caught glimpses of flat grasslands where no animals seemed to graze, untidy clumps of woodland beyond. Here and there I spotted single houses, these almost as remote as the rest home itself. The square top of a pump station in the far distance, a church spire even further away. But I passed no other vehicle, nor any walkers, on this lonely track that purported to be a lane. I knew from the map book that the area was abundant with water reservoirs, some small, others as huge as lakes and even used by sailing clubs and water-skiers; there were also sewage works and sludge beds in the vicinity, as well as the remains of ancient monasteries and nunneries. Across the broad river was the very meadow in which the Magna Carta was allegedly signed. So it was a strange landscape, so close to the city itself and Heathrow airport, yet almost a hinterland whose pocket villages and hamlets appeared all the more forsaken because of the emptiness of the regions between them.

Not long after I’d passed the old abandoned house I’d noticed on my previous journey down the lane, with its boarded windows and overgrown frontage, I saw the rooftops and chimneys, then the gates of the home up ahead. I slowed the car almost to walking pace so that I could study my surrounds in more detail than before. If not for the sign declaring what lay beyond the gates and high walls, with high trees and foliage both before and behind the walls adding to the screening, a person this close (I was almost at the entrance now) might never guess that such an expansive dwelling lay just out of sight. The place was obviously visible from the other side of the Thames, the river itself providing a broad natural boundary. Through the bars of the iron gates I could see the tree-shadowed secondary drive, this much narrower than the one leading to the front of the house, and I assumed it was used by tradesmen and for deliveries, a route to the side or rear of the big building. It looked neglected and unfriendly, prohibited to the casual visitor.

I used the intercom on one of the stone pillars to announce my arrival and the gates duly swung open. I drove through and as soon as I rounded a gentle bend and cleared the trees, the great house that was Perfect Rest spread across my windscreen, quickly filling my view although I approached slowly, looming over me when I finally brought the car to a halt.

Out of habit I set the engine’s isolation switch before climbing out of the car and making my way up the wheelchair ramp’s slight incline. Maybe it was due to the long drive I’d just had, but if anything, my limbs and body were even more stiff than the previous day, the beating I’d taken on Brighton beach continuing to take its toll. I pushed through the vestibule doors and immediately saw Constance Bell standing by the reception desk as if waiting just for me.

There was a nervousness to her smile as I walked towards her, and I wondered why; then I realized I was nervous as well. Okay, don’t misinterpret things here, I warned myself. The reason for her jitters was probably different from mine: maybe she just didn’t like private investigators.

‘Mr Dismas,’ she greeted, using her elbow-crutches with practised ease as she moved forward.

‘I’m a little early,’ I apologized.

We shook hands, a mere touching of fingers, and I relished her softness. She stared at my face and I wanted her to examine my soul.

That looks as if it’s still very painful.’ She indicated the bruised swelling on my cheek.

‘Uh? Oh, it’s not so bad now.’

‘It must have been
some
door you walked into.’

I managed a sheepish grin and that did hurt.

‘Let me show you to the visitors’ room. Dr Wisbeech won’t be long.’ She broke away, moving back to the reception desk and pointing to the book on its shelf. ‘If you’ll just sign in.’

I followed the house rule, feeling like a schoolboy because of the height of the desk front. Hazel, the receptionist, barely gave me a glance before Constance led me towards the broad staircase leading to the upper floors, but we passed it by, heading towards the rear of the building. Along the way I studied yet more paintings on white walls, their style becoming increasingly bizarre the further we went.

Constance stopped at a large oak door on our left and paused with her hand on the doorknob. ‘If you’ll wait inside I’ll let Dr Wisbeech know you’re here.’ She opened the door and stepped aside to allow me through.

‘Miss Bell…’ I began to say.

‘Yes?’ She looked at me expectantly.

‘I… I just wanted you to know I’m grateful.’ And that I think you’re the loveliest creature I’ve ever met, I wanted to add.

‘Grateful for what?’ She gave a little, perplexed shake of her head.

‘Uh, for getting Dr Wisbeech to see me.’

‘But I didn’t. I merely told him of your interest in Hilde-garde and he decided he’d like to meet you himself.’

‘Really? He didn’t say why?’

‘I can only assume he didn’t want you to feel we were being uncooperative.’

I suppose I was disappointed that she hadn’t engineered the meeting herself as a means of getting to see me again. Within the space of a few minutes I was left feeling like a schoolboy again, one who had a crush on the prettiest girl in the class and so mistakenly imagined motivations that were favourable to me. What a chump, I chided myself and the only excuse I allowed was that I was sure a
frisson
of excitement, pleasure - of
knowing? -
had passed between us at our first meeting. I couldn’t believe it had all been in my own imagination.

‘Mr Dismas?’ She was still waiting for me to enter the room and as I went by her, she said: ‘I hope we can. Help you, I mean.’

My spirits rose at that perfect smile and the warmth that emanated from it. Despite the faraway sadness that seemed perpetually to haunt her eyes - a sadness I understood only too well - I could
feel
there was a kind of union between us, that she could see beyond my physical shackles and she knew that I could see beyond hers. She closed the door and I listened to the sound of her irregular footsteps as they faded down the hallway.

I stood there for several long moments, gazing at the door, thinking only of this woman who had suddenly entered my life. Don’t expect too much, Dismas, I told myself. Don’t expect too much and then you won’t be disappointed. I had looked for and found no wedding ring on her finger, no rings of any kind, in fact; but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in a long-term relationship. With wonderful features like hers I would not have been surprised to learn she was romantically attached to some super-hunk, a tall, handsome guy with chiselled features and a kind disposition, all the things I didn’t have. Oh Jesus, if that were true, I didn’t stand a chance; no matter how much I might kid myself otherwise, I could never compete. My natural if cynical pragmatism brought me back to the real world and with an inward sigh, I studied the room around me.

Apart from two incongruities, it was strictly functional: two hard-looking couches, colour grey, a wooden coffee table between them, this one without magazines for visitors to browse through; an unhealthy palm planted in a terracotta pot in one corner and a tall hat and coat stand in another. The two incongruities? On one plain white wall was a large copy of Hieronymus Bosch’s
The Garden of Earthly Delights,
the centre panel only and easily recognizable to me because one of Brighton’s seedier private members’ clubs I had cause to frequent (strictly in the line of business, you understand) had the same print behind its bar. The picture depicted a wild sexual orgy in a detailed landscape, bizarre beasts involved with distorted humans, its theme lust as the reason for mankind’s downfall. I had to admit it was a fascinating piece of art and I might have taken time to study it more closely had I not taken an interest in the room’s other inappropriate feature.

The horizontal mirror was on the wall opposite the door and it seemed too long for a room of this moderate size. It was black-framed and actually set into the wall itself, and if its purpose was to give visitors the opportunity to tidy themselves up before greeting whoever they had come to see, to me it seemed extravagant both in cost and dimensions. My natural suspicion was aroused.

Watching my own shambling reflection, I walked towards the glass and when I was only two feet away, I stopped. From my inside jacket pocket I drew out the pencil I always carried for rough sketches or diagrams, or for whenever my pen ran out of ink, and pointed it at the mirror. The lead tip touched the glass.

Now with normal mirrors there was always a double reflection, the stronger image at least an eighth of an inch away from the real pencil tip. This was because an ordinary mirror is always silvered at the back. In this case, the lead tips, original and reflection, actually touched, indicating that the glass was front-silvered. Which meant that this was a two-way mirror, the kind used for surveillance or voyeurism.

There had to be a darkened room next door, where someone could covertly observe the waiting visitors. Now why the hell would an old people’s nursing home need such a set-up?

I moved away, wondering if someone was watching me from the other side at that very moment. Taking a seat and offering a profile to the mirror, I stared at the Hieronymus Bosch before me, relieved that I hadn’t taken a closer interest in its nude figures before and now further wondering if this was not one of the reasons for its placement, the hidden observer watching the visitor’s reaction to the picture. It might be just one of the ways a potential resident was judged suitable or otherwise, some kind of psychological test for the applicant. Maybe they were even questioned about the painting’s subject matter afterwards, responses deemed unhealthy a negative consideration. Or perhaps it was a pre-interview test prospective staff unknowingly went through. Oh, come on! I was fantasizing. No establishment - particularly one of this nature - would use such a pointless procedure. But then, why the mirror? As I pondered, I heard the door open.