Читать книгу Josephine Cox 3-Book Collection 1: Midnight, Blood Brothers, Songbird - Josephine Cox - Страница 15
ОглавлениеDOCTOR LENNOX WAS waiting at the clinic to greet Jack.
The GP was a handsome fellow in his early sixties and with numerous letters after his name. ‘As I explained in our little telephone chat, I’m not qualified to deal with these particular issues,’ he said, ‘but Mr Howard, on the other hand, is one of the best in his field. You’ll be in safe hands with him.’ He suddenly caught sight of the man in question. ‘Ah! Here he is now.’
A tall, bony man with sweeping eyebrows and a look of authority came striding up to Dr Lennox, and greeted him as a valued old friend. ‘Good to see you, Sam.’
Having briefly renewed his acquaintance with the older doctor, he then turned to Jack and shook him by the hand. ‘You’ll be Mr Redmond, no doubt? I’m Alan Howard.’ Taking stock of Jack, he saw a responsible, accomplished man, just as Dr Lennox had described. He also saw the shadows beneath his eyes and the tension in his features, and could tell that he was deeply troubled.
‘Dr Lennox tells me you’ve agreed to let him sit in on the session?’ The psychiatrist allowed the whisper of a smile. ‘If you’ve changed your mind, we’ll just send him away.’
Jack assured him it was fine. ‘I’ve known Dr Lennox for a few years now,’ he confirmed. ‘I would be happy to have him stay – if that’s all right with you?’
‘Of course. We don’t apply rules as such.’ Howard’s voice was unusually soft, almost mesmerising. ‘I’m here to help, and that means I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary. So, if having your trusted family doctor on hand puts you at ease, I have no objections whatsoever.’
In truth, having another person sitting in on the session was not something Howard would normally allow, but he knew Sam Lennox very well and trusted him implicitly. Also, he knew that Lennox had deep concerns regarding his patient, and wanted to see for himself how Jack reacted to this treatment.
‘I don’t mind telling you, I’m not looking forward to this,’ Jack admitted. ‘The sooner it’s over, the better.’ He could feel his hands beginning to sweat, and somewhere in the pit of his stomach a dozen rats were gnawing at him. The only thing that kept him there was fear. The fear of not knowing. The fear that if he didn’t go through with this right now, while he had the chance, he might well live to regret it later.
Howard fully understood Jack’s misgivings. After all, it was tantamount to stepping into the unknown – for everyone concerned.
After a quick word with the receptionist, Howard was ushering Jack and Lennox along the winding passageway to his consulting room, ‘Here we are. Everything’s ready.’
Jack took stock as they went inside. The room was small, with a high ceiling and pastel-coloured walls. The furniture was minimal. There was a tall, double filing cabinet in the corner, a long couch along one wall, and in the centre of the room, a small desk, displaying a lamp, and one solitary file, which Jack assumed must have his name on it. In front of the desk there were two chairs – one upright, one easy.
While the walls were soothing to the eye, the furniture was heavy in style and finished in darkest-brown leather; the same sober colour as the curtains which framed the two long Victorian windows, through which the daylight dimly filtered in.
There was a unique sense of peace about the room. It helped put Jack at ease, in spite of every nerve in his body crying out for him to run from there. To run from whatever might be revealed. Because if it was revealed, then it would actually exist – and until now he had been able to convince himself that the place he visited in his dreams was only the figment of a vivid imagination. And that hopefully, one day soon, the dreams would vanish, as though they had never been.
The soft voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘There is nothing for you to worry about,’ said Mr Howard. ‘We’ll just talk, you and me. You’ll talk and I’ll listen. You say as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. If you say stop, we’ll stop. Is that all right, Jack? Does that put your mind at rest?’
When Jack merely nodded, Howard gestured to the armchair. ‘You sit here, please, Jack.’ He then glanced at the older man. ‘The couch for you,’ he instructed light-heartedly.
The doctor made no reply. He made his way to the couch and settled down. He was content with his vantage point. From here he could follow the proced ure without being a disturbance to anyone.
A few moments later, when all were seated, Mr Howard asked Jack to tell him about himself. ‘Your background . . . where you were born, family – that sort of thing.’
For years, Jack had made every effort to shut his past out, but now he cast his mind back. ‘Well, I’m an only child,’ he started. ‘I was lonely, I remember that.’
‘Was your relationship with your father a happy one? What I mean is, did you get on better with him than with your mother?’
Jack took a moment to clarify his thoughts. ‘Sometimes, when she was in a bad mood, I was frightened of my mother. Oh, I’m not saying she beat me, because she never did. But she had such a quick temper, you see? My father was more gentle. Sometimes he took me to football matches – we supported Blackburn Rovers – and sometimes he took me fishing. He was a good man . . . a hard-working man.’
For one fleeting moment, a deep sadness threatened to overwhelm him. ‘I was sent home from school one day. At that time I was coming up to my GCSEs. My mother was hysterical, so Eileen next door had come in and was sitting with her. She told me that my father had been taken to hospital, that he was hurt bad after being trapped in a fire at the factory where he worked. She said another man had died.’
He paused before going on quietly, ‘Two days later, my father died too.’ He had not let himself think about all this in any detail for such a long time; it was painful talking about it now.
‘My mother cried a lot. She didn’t want me near her. It was as if she blamed me for what had happened. So Eileen took me in for a time. Her daughter, Libby was my best friend. After school, we went on long walks across the fields to Cherry Tree, where we would sit in the field and talk about things – Libby was a good listener. Sometimes if the weather was really hot, we’d paddle in the brook, and go home with wet feet.’
The thought of her made him smile. ‘Libby wasn’t like the other kids at school. Unlike them, she never laughed at me or called me names. But she did not like my drawings. She said they frightened her and she didn’t want me to show them to her any more.’
The psychiatrist saw the smile and asked, ‘You really liked Libby, didn’t you?’
Jack thought about that and was surprised at his own feelings. ‘Yes, I did, she was a wonderful companion. She always had time for me. Sometimes, after Eileen had gone to bed, me and Libby would sit and talk for hours when we were teenagers.’
‘And how was your mother coping with the tragic loss of your father?’
Jack’s mood darkened. ‘She was never the same after dad died. She took on extra shifts at the hotel where she worked, and she started to go out with different men. I can understand it, now I’m older – she must have been lonely. She and I barely had a conversation. I planned to go to university and worked hard at school, but Mum didn’t seem to care about my plans one way or another. She met an American bloke called John Towner or Tooner, I can’t quite recall because she only said his name once, when she introduced us. I was not all that interested. Anyway, it wasn’t too long before she went off with him. That was when the idea of university took a back seat, because I found myself out on the street and had to take responsibility for my own welfare.
‘Were there no relatives you could go to?’ asked Mr Howard.
‘No. I knew I could have had a home with Eileen and Libby, or with another neighbour Thomas Farraday, but it was too close to where I used to live with my parents. Two weeks before I finished school, our house was sold and I left Blackburn for good. I couldn’t get away quickly enough. I was worried though, about the future. I wasn’t really sure about anything, and in the end I came away in such a hurry I left without saying goodbye to anyone. I came south, found a job and gradually made something of myself.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s my life in a nutshell. Nothing special. Nothing more to tell.’
‘Oh, I think there’s a lot more to tell.’ Alan Howard had been making notes all the time Jack was speaking. Pushing them aside, he said, ‘That’s plenty of background for me to be going on with.’ He wondered whether maternal deprivation was behind Jack’s condition. Certainly his mother’s indifference to his welfare and emotional well being could have completely undermined his true state of mind. Only time and gentle questioning would reveal the truth.
‘Now, I’d like to spend a few moments looking at the dreams that trouble you. Are you all right with that?’
Jack’s heart began to race. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I can’t say how long this first session will last,’ said Howard. ‘It all depends on whether you want to go on, or whether I feel it’s time to bring it to an end, for whatever reason.’
Jack voiced his fears: ‘What if I get . . .’ Reluctant to say the word, he came to a halt.
‘Yes, Jack?’ A quiet prompting was enough.
‘What if I get . . . trapped?’ He imagined himself alone and enclosed in that terrible place.
‘I won’t let you get trapped. That’s why you’re here – to bring you out of that prison and set you free. To understand exactly what’s happening to you, because once we understand, we can deal with it, you and me – together. Now I’d like you to just relax . . . it might help to close your eyes . . .’
While Jack settled more comfortably into the chair, Alan Howard spoke softly, slowly, deliberately lulling his patient into another place; a place where he might confide his fears.
‘Jack?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you seek my help?’ Reaching across the desk, the psychiatrist switched on the recording machine.
Feeling safe in this man’s calming presence, Jack told him, ‘I have these nightmares. I’ve always had them. They frighten me.’
‘Are the nightmares always the same?’
‘Always. Sometimes in the day, I can’t get them out of my head. Other times, I make myself shut them out. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to think. I wouldn’t be able to do my work.’ He paused, a feeling of dread creeping over him like a dark, suffocating cloud. He continued in a low voice, ‘Sometimes, I think they might drive me crazy.’
‘You say you’ve had them for as long as you can remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you recall exactly when they started?’
‘No.’
‘When you were at school, did you have them then?’ He was trying to pinpoint the age at which Jack’s nightmares began.
Jack’s breathing quickened. He would never forget the awful times at school, when he was afraid of everything and everyone. Sometimes, when the other children were pointing at him and whispering behind his back, he hid in the toilets.
‘Jack?’
Jack wasn’t listening. The memories and the images were too strong. He felt himself being drawn back. There were no voices here. Only the silence, and . . . something else, something bad. He knew it was there, but he didn’t know what it was.
‘Jack, can you hear me?’ Mr Howard was aware that Jack was sinking deep into the past, but that was a good thing. Glancing at Dr Lennox, who was content just to listen and learn, he gave a little nod, as though to reassure him that everything was going well.
When Lennox acknowledged this with a discreet smile, Howard returned his full attention to Jack.
‘Are you ready to talk with me, Jack?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you tell your teachers about the dreams?’
There was a tense moment, and then Jack’s voice, firm and decisive: ‘No! I never told them anything.’ He remembered something, though. ‘Once, when we had a drawing lesson, I made a picture of my nightmare. The teacher was angry with me. She made me stand up in class, while she showed my picture to the other children. She said my picture was nonsense, that I had not been listening to her, and that I would have to stay behind and draw another picture – one that made sense. The other children teased me about that – but not Libby. She was my friend.
‘Jack?’
‘Yes?’
‘What else did your teacher say about the drawing?’
‘She said I had bad things in my head. She tore the drawing up, and the children laughed at me.’
‘So . . . the teacher asked you to draw a particular thing, and you drew your nightmare instead. Why did you do that, Jack? Were you really asking for her help, do you think?’
‘I wanted her to see, that’s all. But she called my mother in and made a big fuss.’ As he went deeper into the past, Jack’s voice became more childlike.
‘In what way did she make a fuss?’
‘She said the drawing was disturbing, and that I was disobedient.’ He gave a knowing smile. ‘I think my drawing frightened her.’
‘And what did your mother say?’
‘She said I ought to listen to the teacher in future, and not draw rubbish stuff.’
‘Did you ever draw like that again, either at school or at home?’
‘Never!’
‘So, what else did your mother say . . . about the drawing you did, and why the teacher was so very angry?’
‘When we got home, she kept asking me what the drawing was. When I said I didn’t know, she got into a rage, yelling and screaming, demanding to know what it was that I’d drawn, why I had drawn it, and if it really was like the teacher said. She demanded to know where I had seen such a place as the teacher described. She said I’d better get these bad things out of my head, or they might have to put me in a home.’
‘Did she tell your father?’
‘I think so, ’cause later on I had to see the school psychologist. But I never told him the truth.’
‘Did you ever talk to anyone else about the nightmares?’
‘Only Libby, just once. She said I should just forget about it, that it wasn’t real.’
‘Was that a hard thing to do, Jack? Keeping it to yourself?’
‘Very hard, yes.’
‘Tell me about Libby.’
‘She lived near us on Bower Street.’ Jack’s face broke into a smile. ‘She was very pretty, and she was good-natured. All the boys liked her but she wasn’t interested in them. She preferred to hang out with me. She was a tomboy. I think that’s why everyone liked her. She could play football, and run like the wind. She climbed trees and swung from the branches, like a monkey.’
He gave a small chuckle, ‘Libby was fun. She made me laugh. Sometimes, she even made me forget the bad things.’
‘But you never again spoke to her about the bad things?’
‘She didn’t want me to.’
‘And you never told anyone else?’
‘Never!’
‘Was that because you thought they wouldn’t believe you?’
‘I didn’t want the other kids to think I was weird.’
Mr Howard opened the top drawer of the desk, from where he collected a larger writing-pad.
‘You’re doing very, very well, Jack,’ he said, his voice warm and encouraging. ‘Now, just let yourself go back, to when you were inside the dream. My voice will go with you. I’ll be with you, every step of the way . . . Now, Jack, I want you to tell me how you feel . . . what you see. Describe the scene Jack.’
Jack let the other man’s voice lap over him, invasive yet hypnotic, and incredibly comforting. ‘Tell me where you are back there, Jack,’ the voice continued. ‘When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting to bring you home. But first, you need to tell me everything.’
For a long moment the silence was palpable. There, in that dim, quiet room, nothing else existed for Jack except what was happening in his mind at that moment. He felt his arms grow heavy, sensed himself going even further back in time, before his school-days, back to the source of his fear. Yet this time, he was not so afraid. This time, he had someone with him. This time, they would see. They would know what he knew.
Still in his boyish tones, he described his surroundings. ‘There’s a window, high up. I can’t reach.’ He raised an arm to indicate the window. ‘The skies are black. There’s a big, golden moon, but there’s no light. It just hangs there, like a shiny ball.’ He caught his breath in fear. ‘Oh, look! Something else is here.’ Pressing into the chair, he curled up and began to cry. ‘Go away! Leave me alone!’
‘Who else is there, Jack?’ Mr Howard was drawing feverishly, his voice was calm, authoritative but ready to call a halt if need be.
‘They’re looking at me!’ His voice shook with terror. ‘They’re looking at me!’
Like a child in pain, he called out, over and over: ‘Mummy!’ He was trapped here . . . there was no way out. ‘I want my mummy!’ The eyes had seen him. They had seen him – and now his cries heightened to hysteria.
‘Jack!’ The voice was firmer now, insistent. ‘I’m going to count from three to one, and when I reach one, you’ll be back in this room with me, safe and sound. So here we go: three . . . two . . . one. Now open your eyes.’
Jack clung onto the hand that now reached out. But the shock, the fear, was like a living thing inside him.
It took a while for Jack to realise he was back. Even when he opened his eyes and saw that he was safe, the relief was not instant. He felt heavy inside, as though someone, or something, was holding him back.
‘It’s all right, Jack.’ The same easy voice that had brought him back spoke again. ‘Take another minute now, Jack. Just relax.’
The curtains were opened to let in more light, as Jack told Mr Howard about the eyes watching him. And the awful feeling that he was in danger.
The two doctors listened intently as he explained where he had been and the things he had witnessed. ‘Same as always,’ he told them. ‘It was like before, but today I felt as if there was someone else there – someone gentle who did not wish me harm . . .’ He then fell silent, and Mr Howard wisely did not press him further.
After a while, because he thought Jack had endured enough for today, Mr Howard rang his assistant for some coffee and biscuits. A few moments later, while the other two men enjoyed the refreshments, Jack himself had no appetite. All he wanted was to get as far away from there as possible.
‘You did well, Jack.’ His GP had been fascinated by the session, although at times he felt out of his depth.
His colleague was satisfied with the way things had progressed. ‘It was an excellent beginning,’ he declared, sipping his coffee.
Drained and nervous, Jack listened to what he had to say.
Mr Howard began pacing the floor. ‘Fascinating!’ He said it twice. ‘A first session is usually a probing experiment, but this one was very graphic. Very telling.’
‘In what way?’ Jack was sceptical, yet in the strangest way, he believed Mr Howard understood.
‘You gave an amazingly vivid indication of what you were actually feeling. Now, Jack, I’m going to ask you a very important question. Think before you answer.’
Jack was instantly afraid. ‘What kind of “question”?’
‘During any of your nightmares, can you ever remember calling out for your mother?’
Jack was surprised by the question. ‘No, never!’ He was certain of it. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because today, in the midst of describing what you saw, you became extremely distressed and you called out for your mother. You began to panic and cried out for “Mummy”, just as a very young child in trouble would do. Are you sure you don’t recall ever doing that before?’
Intrigued, Jack cast his mind back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember thinking about my mother. All I ever wanted was to be out of there.’ He was struggling to understand the other man’s thinking. ‘What does it all mean, exactly? What are you getting at?’
‘I’m not saying this is the case,’ Howard cautioned, ‘but there is a distinct possibility that this time, you regressed back to when this all began. You told me beforehand that you could not be certain when it all started, but that you had suffered the nightmares for as long as you could remember.’
The psychiatrist started to pace around the small room as he outlined his thoughts. ‘It’s early days yet, and we must not get ahead of ourselves. By the same token, we also need to consider every possibility if we’re to help rid you of these distressing images. Now, let us suppose that a traumatic event really did happen to you, in your early infancy – that, as I am beginning to suspect, your nightmares are not a figment of the imagin ation, but result from an actual experience.’
‘What?! How can that be?’ Jack could not accept such a shocking idea. ‘It’s too awful! If something like that had actually happened to me, I would remember it, surely?’
‘Not if you were a small child. Not if the shock was too traumatic for you to cope with. I understand your anxiety, Jack, and as I mentioned before, I could be wrong, so now, let’s take time to clearly analyse the facts as we have them.’
Unlike Jack, he was convinced that he had hit on a shocking truth. ‘Firstly, you described the images, which appear to be consistent in every case. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘In each and every case, you’re trapped and afraid. Eyes are watching you. Someone is there – you can sense their presence. You desperately need to get out of that place, but you are physically unable to do it – am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, maybe the reason you can’t get out is because you’re too small and helpless.’
‘We don’t know that! I mean – I didn’t feel like a small child.’
‘But you were desperate to get out, and for some reason you couldn’t. All right, let’s look at it another way. Were you aware of your hands being tied? Or of being secured to anything, in any way?’
Jack had never dwelt on anything like that before, but he now concentrated his mind. ‘I’m reaching up and shifting about, so no – I don’t feel as though I’m restricted.’ Unwillingly, he felt himself drifting back. ‘But I can’t get away. I can’t get out!’
‘Jack, can you give some quiet thought to what I’m saying? I believe we can assume that at least one of the reasons why you could not get yourself out of that place, was that you were a small child. Maybe you were too little to find your way back to safety. So you did the one thing you were able to do. You cried out, calling for your mummy to help you. The fact that you were able to speak suggests you were at least two years old, maybe three.’
Jack had to admit that the explanations made sense. Yet he was deeply disturbed by these new revelations. If he had been a small child at the time, what on earth was he doing in that hellish place?
There had been someone else there – he knew that now. So who was it? Did they help him? He couldn’t remember. The idea that someone, for whatever reason might have taken him to such a terrifying place was too shocking.
‘I don’t understand!’ He clambered out of the chair. ‘No one would put a small child in such a position. I can’t believe that!’
When his confusion threatened to erupt into anger, Mr Howard spoke calmly. ‘Like I said, Jack, this is just one suggestion. Nothing can be ruled in or out at this stage. But we have to discuss every aspect as we go along. Only that way, can we uncover the truth.’
Jack took a moment to digest what had been said. ‘So, what you’re saying is, these nightmares could be happening for any number of reasons. The idea of me being a child in a real situation is just one possibility. On the other hand, they may simply be a figment of my imagination.’
‘That’s exactly right. Our understanding of dreams is very limited. They are, in the main, a condition of the subconscious. The reasons for regular nightmares such as your own are many, and what we’re doing with you now is simply delving. Searching for the source of your own particular torment. Pausing, he then continued sincerely, ‘Like it or not, we owe it to you to consider the possibility that your nightmare could stem from a real episode.’
Jack had a question: ‘If I can remember everything else, why can’t I remember calling out for my mother?’
‘Mmm.’ Mr Howard weighed his words carefully as he went on: ‘Maybe the stronger memories, such as the images, and the terror you experienced, shut out everything else. The cry for help was as natural as the images were unnatural. All these years, you retained the memories of actual images, the physical impact on your senses, such as the darkness and the watchful eyes. These were the source of your torment. Your cry for help, however, was intuitive. You felt no need to retain it within yourself.’
‘So, what happens next?’ Jack felt tired. Beaten. More than that, he was afraid of the unknown. Especially now.
In truth, he was already regretting having agreed to come here, and now all he wanted was to get away and never come back.
Molly was wrong. This had not helped. All it had done was to shatter his confidence even more.
A short time later, having said his goodbyes, Jack hurried off in the direction of the car park, while behind in the office, Mr Howard examined the drawings he’d made. And the more he studied that dark, intimidating place, the more he began to fear Jack’s sanity.
On passing a builders’ skip, Jack paused to take the new appointment card from his jacket pocket, tore it into small pieces, and threw it into the skip. ‘I won’t be needing that!’ he muttered. In spite of the doctors reassurances it was impossible for him to accept even the remotest possibility that the nightmares might not be a dream after all, but based on a real experience.
Now, because of the confusion in his mind, and the awful implications of what the psychiatrist had said, he was deeply insecure, and his fears were tenfold.
There were so many questions. If he had been haunted by a real experience as a child, then where was the place he saw in his nightmares? What was he doing there and what was it that filled him with such terror? Someone else had been there, he was sure of it now. But who could it have been?
One thing he knew for certain. He would not rest, until he found out the truth but, he would need to do it his way.
Whatever the cost.
Running across the street, Jack cut along the alley and went down towards the car park. He was both excited and nervous, because at long last he had come to a decision, one which had played on his mind for some time, but which he had set aside because of Molly.
His plan now was to face his demons. He was determined to get to the root of it all – however much he was afraid of the truth. Going to the psychiatrist had at least given him the push he needed. He was ready to go back now. As far back as the beginning.
He had to believe that the truth could never be as terrifying as the nightmares.
Molly would not like it, he knew that much. He also knew that now his mind was made up, nothing – and no one – would stop him.
