The Blind Eye (23 page)

Silas had looked across at Constance but her attention was, invariably, directed elsewhere. It was shyness, that was all it was. He had said too much. He had scared her. She would have had no experience with men. He had to be more careful, more gentle. This was what he kept telling himself in an attempt to convince himself that the truth was as he would have liked it to be.

He had watched as she’d cleared the plates, amazed at the ease with which she had moved around the shack, without any apparent need to feel her way past obstacles. Sometimes the veracity of Rudi’s claims concerning her vision seemed undeniable, and as he had stood up to help her, he found himself staring at her. It was then that Rudi had doubled
over for one brief moment (
Indigestion
, he had tried to explain a few seconds later), and she had turned to him in alarm, despite the fact that he had not uttered a sound.

It is nothing
, Rudi had insisted, and she had not taken her eyes from him, seeming to assess something not visible to anyone in the room but her.

There had been no opportunity to talk to her after lunch.

We have work to do
, she had told him.

It was Rudi who had urged him to stay, and he had done so despite Constance’s apparent discomfort at the idea.

In the still heat of that one room, they had sat around the table, Constance talking and Rudi taking down her every word, his writing scrawling across the scraps of paper he used as he had recorded her responses to his questions, leaning forward eagerly, nodding in excitement as she had attempted to tell him how each aspect of her physical, emotional and mental being had responded to the remedy they were proving.

Watching them, Silas had been aware that his presence was no longer even noticed by either of them. Witnessing the intensity of their communication, he had been drawn into the strength of their belief, the importance of each detail as Rudi had probed further: what was it exactly, that slight ache in her left temple as the sun went down; the dream she’d had of flying; the aversion towards the afternoon winds that swept up from the gulf; could she describe
it further, with more detail, and she had tried over and over again.

We must be painstaking
, Rudi had once explained to him.
We must record everything, no matter how small, how unimportant, before we can even begin to see the total picture. What is this venom, that is what I am asking. What is it?

That evening as he lay in his room out the back of Thai’s, a bottle of vodka on the floor next to his bed, Silas closed his eyes and tried to see her. She had sat facing her father, still and calm, and she had given him everything he had wanted, each intimate detail, believing, as Rudi did, in the importance of what they were trying to achieve.

He has done extraordinary work
, she had told Silas once.
If you listened to him, you would know
.

But I do listen
, Silas had protested, uncomfortable in the face of her disbelief.

Before the others left, there were enough of us; people took note of our results
.

Why did you stay?
Silas had asked her and she had shrugged as though his question barely warranted an answer.

He does not keep me here
, and she had pointed to the keys in her pocket.
He is my father
, and she had shaken her head in wonder at his stupidity.

Watching the pair of them after lunch, Silas had seen the care she had given to each of her responses, until, as Rudi had come close to the end of his questions, she had pulled back.

She had known what Rudi’s request was before he had even spoken it out loud; his whole body had been bent towards her, his large hands outstretched. There was no point, she had said.
How can I?
and she had folded her hands in her lap.

It was what she saw, that was what he wanted to know; a tiny glass bottle containing the venom clutched in one hand, he had begged her to tell him.
What is it?
he had pleaded, all of him believing that if she could just paint him a picture of what it was that danced before her eyes, he would know, he would be able to see.

Knocking over the vodka, the last drops spilling across the floor of his room, Silas searched for his phone among the mess of clothes littered across the top of his bag. He tried each of the numbers that he could somehow still remember, grinning to himself at the ludicrousness of being able to hear friends’ voices disembodied on answering machines, hanging up each time the message came to an end. He even attempted to ring his mother, forgetting for a moment that she had died, wishing that he could speak to someone, anyone, and then suddenly, to her in particular, only realising that this was impossible when he heard the operator’s recorded voice tell him the call could not be connected.

The last number he tried was Sarah Lipscombe’s. She had been Rachel’s best friend, until Silas had slept with her. He was surprised when she answered, and when she asked him
what he had been doing, he did not know what to say. Sitting with his back against the rusted iron bed, he closed his eyes to the dim light of the single bulb overhead and tried to describe Constance and the garden.

She’s unbelievable
, he said, hearing the slur in his voice, and he opened his eyes briefly to the slow sickening spin of the room.
A witch — tames snakes, sees auras, heals with plants
.

He knew that his words had failed to paint Constance in the manner in which he wanted and he tried to stand, slowly pulling himself up on the chenille bedspread, only to crash to the floor with the effort.

Are you all right?
Sarah asked.

Silas laughed.

You’re drunk
, she said.

Silas didn’t deny it.

It’s bloody weird here
, he told her, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to go home, knowing that he was spinning now, untethered and out of control.

He heard her sigh.
Maybe you should call when you’re sober
.

I guess
, and Silas looked out the window at the night sky, a spread of stars too numerous to count.

I don’t know why I hoped you’d get it together while you were away
. Her tone turned to one of irritation.
Why do you waste your life?
And she was silent for a moment.
Forget it. It’s none of my business
.

As Silas let the phone fall to the ground and lay back on
the floor, the sound of Thai and Steve’s fucking carrying through the heat of the night air, it was Rudi he saw; the desperation in his eyes as Constance had told him he was asking for the impossible, a description of something he would never be able to see. She had turned to the window, her expression unreadable.

Besides
, she had muttered, her voice barely above a whisper,
it’s mine
.

And Silas had watched as she had wiped at the tears with the back of her hand.

Cure proceeds from above downward, from within outward, from the most important organs to the least important organs, and in the reverse order of appearance of symptoms.

Constantine Hering (1800–1880)

1

There is a thick white mist this morning, dense enough to obscure all vision from the small window next to my bed. I sleep on the mezzanine, and when I wake it is always the sky that greets me first, just the sky.

I lie here, knowing the others are still asleep, and as I close my eyes again, it is the track that I see, the path that Silas described for me, a spidery trail of yellow dirt pockmarked with sharp stones, weaving through the low-lying scrub that stretches between the town and Rudi’s.

Silas told me that when the idea of returning first came to him, shortly after he commenced taking Belladonna, it was that trail he saw. In the days that followed, he would picture himself, standing where the road petered out into dust, the last house on his right, the paleness of the gulf waters on his left, the thick brush, steel grey, in front of him, and through it, the track he had worn.

The trail he had made had, of course, long since gone by the time I got to Port Tremaine. Pearl attempted to explain how I would find my way out there, but it was Steve who
drew me the map, any hostility he might have felt towards Silas and those who knew him quickly overcome by a more powerful desire to talk.

His kids rode their rusted trikes over the drawing he had scratched into the dirt as soon as he finished it.

Twins
, he told me proudly, and I noticed that they were, indeed, alike.

He drew the map again, grinning as he wiped over what remained of his previous attempt.

You know there’s nothing there now?
He looked at me quizzically as I tried to explain that it didn’t matter. I just wanted to see it for myself, to picture what it had once been.

Steve also told me where Mick had gone. I had seen the closed garage, boarded up, the sign advertising repairs barely legible now, the rust corroding the black painted letters so that they bled into the yellow background.

Poor bastard
, and he ran his fingers through the thick wiry hair of one of the boys, now clinging to his jeans.
Should have told us
, he shook his head.
But you know how it is. Still waters
. He picked the other child up, taking a last swig from the stubbie in his free hand.

Shel
. His voice was loud, and I saw the woman, heavily pregnant, come to the door of the house behind us.
Get us another, would you, darl?
He held the empty bottle up, and the flyscreen slammed shut behind her.

Mick had not spoken to any of them, not until
afterwards. When Steve told me where he had gone, I thought about driving to the town on the other side of the gulf and attempting to talk to him but there really wasn’t any point. I already knew what little there was to know.

It was not until the night before Mick left that he finally revealed it all to Steve. The pair of them had sat out on the end of the jetty, chucking their empty bottles into the swollen evening tide, and he had cried.

Like a baby
, and Steve had shaken his head in wonder.
He didn’t get there until a month after it happened. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t drive. His foot was broken. When he finally made it out there, the old bloke was drunk. Said he’d buried her himself. Had no idea why Mick would care. Why Mick wanted to know
.

As I lie in my bed and remember Steve’s words, I open my eyes again to find that the mist has begun to thin into tufts of grey cottonwool pulled across the blankness of the sky. I should get up. I should not stay here, steeped in the desolation of that town. I can hear the others waking in the rooms below me and I test the chill in the air, pushing my blanket down a little. I will light the fire.

In a couple of days, the provers will commence taking the remedies and we have planned a breakfast meeting today to answer any last questions about the process.

We agreed on the meeting because there have been rumblings of concern about the lasting effects of an experience such as the one we are about to embark on. Just the other
day, Matthew asked me whether the remedy could have a long-term detrimental effect on his health. He posed the question casually, but I could see it was a serious worry.