The Blind Eye (31 page)

In shelter from the wind, we stopped to sit on a fallen tree, both of us taking our time before we chose to speak, neither of us wanting to break the purity of the silence.

Are you glad you came here?

Her question made me start slightly, the rupture of the quiet and the reality of the task we are about to embark on bringing me back from my thoughts. It will be a long process (this is only the first of many stages), and whether or not my involvement will continue until the end will depend on the reaction that both Larissa and Matthew have to the remedy, after they begin taking it tomorrow. If they do exhibit symptoms, if their vibration rates closely align with that of the substance we are proving, they will be selected for further testing once we return to the city, and there will be yet another culling before those who continue go on to be given a third, and even higher, dose.

But despite the fact that it will be many months before we can even begin to see the whole picture, and even though it is impossible to know where this process will lead us or what our involvement will be, I am glad to be a part of it, and as I told Jeanie this, I was surprised to suddenly realise that I did feel considerably lighter than I had when I arrived.

And the other stuff?
Jeanie waved her hand in the direction of Port Tremaine.

I dropped a piece of shale I had been holding, letting it fall into the small pool of brown rainwater that had collected at the base of the tree, and as the surface was disturbed I became aware of the perfect reflection it had contained – my own face looking back at me and, beyond, the sharpness of the winter blue sky.

You mentioned about going out to Rudi’s
, and she shaded her eyes against the glare as she watched what appeared to be an eagle, the whoosh of its wings stirring the stillness.

I wanted to know whether he went back
. We both stood, turning towards the path that would take us out to the plains.

And did he?

I reached down to stroke Sam, picking up the stick she had dropped and holding it absentmindedly in my hands.

No one knew. Or rather, no one told me
, and I smiled as I remembered the attempts I had made to find out.

Not even Pearl, the one person who I had hoped would help, had revealed anything of any substance. As I had peered through the flyscreen, her face cut into a myriad of tiny squares, I had realised almost immediately that it was foolish to expect a direct answer; I had sensed it as she took off her glasses and rubbed them against the sleeve of her nightgown. She had looked straight at me, my gaze held by her own, as she had tried to work out a story, something, anything to keep me there with her, a rare distraction from the relentless tedium of another day.

I’ve heard he was seen, but I can’t say I ever laid eyes on him. Who saw him?
I had asked, wanting something more definite.

People round about.

Anyone I could talk to?

She had put her glasses back on.
Can’t remember their names. Seems no reason why he wouldn’t have come my way. If he was here, that is
.

So you don’t think he was here?

She had scratched at a bite, a red welt on the loose flesh around her wrist.
I don’t think I said that
, and she had sniffed to emphasise her point,
did you hear me say that?

As I relayed the conversation to Jeanie, she laughed, the fierceness of the wind carrying the sound away from us almost immediately, and it seemed, for an instant, that we were going to just slip back into the comfortable silence we had chosen on the way out here, our heads bent low against the force of the weather. But then she stopped, holding me back with the touch of her hand.

What do you think?
she asked, and I could see she was genuinely curious.

I looked out across the plains, to the high tops of the ranges that are always within sight, visible from every street of Port Tremaine, changing colour hourly, their presence a constant reminder that life will continue, even as another town dies, and I told her that I didn’t know.

I hope he went back. I would like to think he did
.

But as we made our way towards the house, I realised it really didn’t matter. In simply reaching the point of wanting to return he had come a long way, and if the next stage took more time, then so be it. And as for whether all that he had described for me had ever existed, I did not know; I would probably never know. Because when I found Rudi’s place, I saw that what had remained of the garden was now overgrown and untended, whatever bloom there had been had long since faded, and that it was simply impossible to tell whether the vision that Silas had described had ever existed. Dry husks of flowers hung limply from dead branches, paths were made impenetrable by lantana, and in the centre of it all, what was left of the shack no longer resembled a dwelling. Even the fence was in ruins. It leant like some sagging tired beast, great stretches swaying gently in the breeze, other parts still attempting to remain upright despite the weeds that gripped and tugged, pulling each strand of wire back down to the earth.

I walked around the side of that shack, because that was where Steve had told me it would be; her grave, just as he had described. The wooden cross had collapsed and the mound of earth was covered in weeds. But it was not entirely uncared for. There were flowers, the pale belladonna she had loved, the soft sheen on their petals like wax, the fine yellow veins delicate against the cream.
I reached down to touch them and I realised that they had not been laid there as I had thought. They were growing, growing out of the earth in which she had been buried, the only flower left in the garden Silas had told me about, and as I held one in my hands, I breathed in the sweetness, rich and full in the biting cold of the winter air.

I carried that flower with me, all the way across the plains, to where my car waited at the edge of the town, and I rested its tip in a water bottle, hoping it would survive the three-hour journey up to the house, hoping it would stay, miraculously, alive; an emblem of all that Silas had wanted to believe.

It is still there, in a glass next to my bed, resting on top of the scrap of paper with Greta’s address written on it. Last night I took it out of the water, the petals long since closed, the bloom discoloured, the stem dripping onto the ink, and I held it, certain for a moment, that I could still smell that sweetness. With my eyes closed, I breathed deeply, wanting to drink it in, wanting to hold it before it faded, and it was not until moments later that I realised there was, in fact, no scent.

I had been remembering.

Clarke, John Henry,
A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica
, Shobi Offset Press 1900.

Hahnemann, Samuel,
Organon of Medicine
, fifth edition.

Hering, Constantine,
The Guiding Symptoms of our Materia Medica
.

Krippner, S. and Rubin, D. (eds),
The Kirlian Aura
, Anchor, New York, 1974. Reproduced in Vithoulkas, George,
The Science of Homeopathy
.

Vithoulkas, George,
The Science of Homeopathy
, B Jain Publishers PVT Ltd, New Delhi, 1980.

Whitmont, Edward C,
Psyche and Substance: Essays on Homeopathy in the Light of Jungian Psychology
, M D North Atlantic Books Homeopathic Educational Services, Berkeley, Cal, 1980, 1991 ed, reproduced with the permission of North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, USA.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of material reproduced in this book and the publishers would welcome any further information.