The Peace of Forgetting

It was some time before Jack realized that he had fallen out of bed and was lying on the floor. He could hear an urgent high pitched beeping through the hands he had clasped over his ears. The carpet was rough against his face and he faintly enjoyed the sensation, pressing his cheek into the thin pile, focusing on the dryness, the prickliness and the hardness that lay underneath. He was pleased to feel this prickling and pressed harder still, pushing his cheek into the imagined grit and dust. It had been so long since he’d felt anything inside that a prickling on the outside felt good. “I am a numbed shell,” he thought, pulling the description from some half forgotten thing he’d read. And now, instead of beginning to get better, less numbed, it was going to be worse than before. Before, every day began as a sweet mystery, but now he would always wake knowing everything. He would be sure exactly where he was and why he was there; why his hands shook. But the worst bit of all was knowing that he’d had her, his sweet little Doe, and he’d lost her. And he supposed it was all his fault. So now what little peace there had been in his life in not remembering anything was gone for good.
*
Jean’s hair was glowing around the edges where all those wispy bits she did her best to tame were catching the light. Jack leaned across the picnic blanket, caressing her soft cheek lightly with the back of his hand. She smiled her quiet half-smile and closed her eyes for a kiss. He leaned closer and inhaled the scent of violets and something else. Then the delicate scent-tendril swirled away again. His nostrils flared and he sniffed loudly, seeking the smell like a dog sensing a bitch on heat. Jean squirmed against him, embarrassed perhaps. He kept sniffing and found its delicate beginnings between her fabric clad breasts. He drew the scent to him through the cloth, sucking it in as fast as it would come, until it filled his head like strings of spaghetti with purple violets, bruised green stalks and… something else, something that makes him gag... He knows that smell holds the key and if only he could work out what it was he’d know everything – brrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnng….!!

Jean disappeared, stripping her perfume from his head as the alarm-clock’s insistent call pulled him out of one time and into another. He fiddled with the little lever on the back of the clock. The ringing persisted, slowly lowering in pitch as the springs inside wound down. Jack knew it would soon stop, so he put it back on the table next to the bed to die a natural death. He sat and waited, and while he waited he tried to bring back the scent of the perfume, the nice part in the middle of the dream. Did it have a name? If it did he could buy himself a little bottle, to dab on his pillow or on a corner of his handkerchief sometimes. Once he’d gone into one of those fancy shops that sold nothing but perfume and tried them out until his nose had been full of smells and his eyes began to water. It hadn’t taken long before they’d all smelled the same.

Bri-iim-iim-errrng…nk… The clock died; a new day had begun and Jack had absolutely no idea what it would bring. So he sat on his bed and waited.

At 7.05 the door opened and an efficient looking woman bowled in. She appeared to be a nurse. “Good morning Jack love,” she said cheerfully, and she helped shift him into a chair, which was good, for his whole body felt stiff and weak. She tore open the floral curtains and whisked the bed-covers up neatly. He’d never seen the room he was in before, some sort of hospital room he supposed and he didn’t much like it. Not enough room to swing a cat once the bed, drawers and bookshelf had been crammed in. He wracked his brains but he couldn’t remember any of it.
The nurse began talking about a lovely shower, like it was to be the treat of his day. He was about to ask her where he was when the nurse told him, in the sort of voice that made you realize she’d said it before: “You live at Sunnybrae Park, and have done for ten years, since your wife passed on. Today is Tuesday and that means steak ‘n’ kidney for lunch. Oh, and Isabel will visit this afternoon after lunch.” She finished this statement by transferring him to a plastic chair on wheels and loading up his lap with a bath-robe and a pair of slippers.

Three things came to him as he was wheeled down the corridor to for his lovely shower. Apparently he had been living in this hospital type place for ten whole years. It felt like the first morning of the first day. And his darling Jean was dead. “Have I had a turn? Why don’t I know all those things?” he asked, his voice quavering a little. “No dear, you’re as fit as a fiddle. Here we are then!” She removed the dressing gown and slippers, placing the former on a hook and the latter neatly on a bench near a stack of towels. Looking down he was horrified to see his todger poking its way out the front of his pyjama fly. Luckily the nurse didn’t seem to notice anything; she was too busy peeling his clothes from his body.
*
Jean was lying on their bed, her blond hair fluffing around her head most prettily. She had allowed the strap of her negligee to slip beguilingly off one shoulder. Her mouth was pouty and little dimples decorated her cheeks. One eye was nearly closed with an ugly purple swelling building up around it. She’s a wily one, that one, he thought as the little tears trickled down the inside of her nose. All those feminine ways that she knew would work with him and she played them all out like a regular card shark. He checked the straps around her wrists and ankles again. The skin on her ankles looked papery and worn so he loosened them off a little. “Right now, little Dove?” he asked her as kindly as he could but Jean wouldn’t answer. She just turned her face away from him.

Jack had finished lunch, Steak ‘n’ Kidney pie – his favourite, and had settled into his chair for a bit of shut-eye when the door opened. A woman dressed in a blue dress bellowed from the doorway: “Cuppa Jack? An’ would ya like a couple o’ bickies n’ all?” Reluctantly he pulled himself back from the dream of his and Jeans’ bedroom, and into the world where he was reclining in a comfortable armchair, dozing after lunch. He began pulling at the rugs on his lap but found it difficult to make his legs get a good grip on the floor. “No love, don’t you get up, I’ll bring it to ya, okay Jack? Here ya go darlin’ – I’ll just pop ‘em down ‘ere on yer little table for ya.” A cup of milky tea landed with a jangle beside him, with two biscuits resting in the saucer: a Scotch Finger and a teddy-bear. He liked a Scotch Finger.

Jack nibbled on his biscuit and looked around him. He wondered where he was, and how he’d got there. Something must have happened in the night. I dare say someone ‘ll come in soon and put me in the picture, he thought starting on the teddy-bear. The tea was milky and sweet, and he noticed his hand shook terribly when he lifted the cup. With a start he noticed a picture of himself and Jean in a frame on a fancy looking television set in the corner. He hadn’t seen the shot before, but there they were sitting up there like dickey-birds. In the photo he had a glass of aged malted in his hand and Jean had that look on her face. “Aah, Jeannie,” he smiled, shaking his head. She’d never liked him taking a drink.

Jean stared back at him, brave enough to meet his eye for once. And as looked at her face so soft and accusing a low rumbling noise started in his head. He turned hot all over as the noise in his head went from a rumbling into something thunderous with a regular clack, clack. The vibrations loosened the already tenuous hold of his fingers on the cup of tea, depositing both cup and tea into his lap. This happened almost unnoticed by Jack, as it was at the same time, and with a start of relief, as he realized the noise was coming from outside his window not from within his own head. “It’s okay, it’s just a train, it’s just a train,” he whispered as it thundered past, just beyond the car-park. It was a long one and Jack forced himself to watch its entire length as it passed, with only the voile curtains at his window for protection and his shirt sticking to his under-arms. Diesel fumes trickled in through the window and past the voile curtains. The smell made him gag. If there was any smell and sound in the world that he hated, that was it.

After the train had passed the world was very still. It was a few moments before his breathing calmed, and when it did he noticed a warm wetness seeping through his rug and trousers. He was at first pleased and then annoyed to find it was his cup of tea in his lap. He mopped at the damp with a few tissues from the box on the small table to his left. Damn tea is so bloody tepid m’ goulies didn’t even get a moment of excitement out of it either, he thought. His small chuckle sounded a bit croaky, a bit weak.

While he was finishing his not very effective mop-up three quiet knocks on his door revealed a fresh faced young woman who came in and took the vacant chair on the other side of his bed. She placed a white floppy hand-bag sporting a number of brassy buckles and straps haphazardly on the end of his bed. Her mouth was set in a thin line and she was more interested in what her finger-nails were doing than in looking at him. Jack stared at her while trying to unobtrusively refold the lap-rug. “Yes?” he asked abruptly. “What’s the story then?”
“It’s Isabel,” she said.
“Isabel?” asked Jack, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Isabel, I’m your daughter-in-law … Dad. I married Steve. Your son, Steve?” her voice rose insistently.
“Oh Gord, now what?” Jack put his hands to his head. What-ever next. She was no daughter-in-any-way of his. She’d got the wrong room. She wanted her head read like all the rest of them. But then this Isabel pushed her bag to one side and moved to sit on the end of the bed. She just sat there awhile, weaving her fingers and still not looking at him. Let her sit there, I’m beyond trying to work out why people keep bursting into other people’s rooms, thought Jack. Anyway, if I have to look at something it might as well be her. Jack was not beyond appreciating the appeal in a head of smooth blond hair and a tight pair of jeans.

Finally she looked at him. Gord. Her eyes, they’re as blue as Jean’s. She looked pale and a bit tired. “What is it now?” he asked in a voice with a little catch in it. Damn throat, always drying out. There was a jug of, no doubt stale, water and a glass. He motioned to it and Isabel poured him a glass. He took it shakily and managed a few mouthfuls.

“It’s about Steve. You do remember Steve don’t you?” Jack nodded; of course he did, although until that moment he hadn’t had him in his mind at all. “Fine lad, our Stephen,” said Jack. “Fine boy...” He tried to remember how old he’d be now… 8? 13?
“Yeah, well your fine lad has grown up now Dad.”
“Why call me Dad, I’m not your father am I?”
“No, you’re not my father… Look Jack, there’s no way of saying this that won’t seem brutal, so I’ll just say it. I don’t really know why I want you to know this, but I just do. Steve has been hitting me. Do you understand what that means Jack? He’s been hitting me, he’s angry all the time and he gets drunk. I mean really drunk, so he can’t remember what he did the night before drunk. That’s when he really hurts me the most, when he’s stone cold drunk. God Jack, why would he do that?…”

Tears ran down Isabel’s face and dropped off her chin into her moving, nervous fingers. Jack edged the box of tissues a little closer to her. “I – I wouldn’t have come to you, but I’m leaving him and I just thought you should know.”

“How old is he? How old is my son?” Jack started out of his chair. Isabel didn’t answer him. She pulled a tissue and dabbed at her face and under her eyes.

Then Jack, so quietly he almost whispered, told her; “I once knew someone who did that to a woman. What he did to her, well you wouldn’t treat a dog like that.” The words came out slowly, like each one had to be hand-picked. “He as good as killed her long before she really died. He took her spirit away, ‘nd she was as skittish as a new calf – scared of her own shadow. He as good as killed her years before.” His voice trailed away. Jack gathered the rug from his knee and brought it up to his chest. He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember any more, but the images were tearing through his mind, making the vibrating and the clack, clack, clack worse than ever. God, how he wanted something stronger than a cup of luke-warm tea.

“You’re talking about yourself, aren’t you? I knew it, Steve knows it too!” But I - I want to know what made her do it, what Stevie saw when he was a little kid? He wakes up from these horrible dreams… What else did you do to her, Jack?” What did you do to her so she lay in front of that train just to get some peace? Can you imagine the sound of it? The feeling of it?!” Isabel was shouting now, and there were voices in the corridor, a knocking at the door.

Jack could imagine the sound; he’d never forget the sound and even though he knew that Jean hadn’t felt it, he had felt it every time he’d heard a train and smelt that diesel smell. Every single time, he’d felt the flesh ripped from his bones and his body ground into he filth of the track. No wonder he’d had to forget it all. But no matter how hard his mind had tried to forget it, circumstances brought it back for him new and fresh every day. The sheer agony of it was brand new every day, every time that fucking train went past.

People were hustling Isabel out of the room. “This will just not do young lady… you’ll not be allowed back in here….. we’ll have to be calling the police….” At the doorway Isabel clung to the frame: “Jack!” She screamed at him to get his attention. Jack opened his eyes, hardly daring to look at her again. Her face had changed. “I’m not going to let you forget about this. Why should you have the peace of forgetting what everyone else can’t? Don’t worry, I’m leaving him, I’m not about to stay around until he kills me too!” And then she was gone, and soft cool hands stroked his hands, closed his curtains and helped him into fresh pyjamas.

The first thing he noticed was a chipped blue, metal cabinet with many drawers next to his bed. A machine was softly beep-beeping somewhere and the lights were soothingly dim. He was in a different room, a real hospital ward this time? He lay there a while, with the feeling his body had been stretched out until it was as thin and crisp as the tight, smooth sheets that enclosed him. The soft grey clouds that had padded his head for so long had also thinned and let everything back in. All the visions and memories that had been papered over were uncovered and no matter how he screwed his eyes up to stop them the things he’d done and said ten, fifteen years ago cranked up and started playing again.

There on his feet were his own white loafers covered in blood, he could feel again the pain of a broken toe, and the stumbling, secret trip to the railway line half carrying, half dragging the unbearable burden of Jean’s broken body while little Stephen, finally, lay in a fitful drug induced sleep back at the house.

“Oh my God… my God…” gasped Jack, now remembering everything that had been blocked out for all these years. He fought the tight, white sheets and managed to pull his knees up to his chest. A machine began wailing in protest.
*
Jean was beyond screaming, perhaps she’d figured that the sound of her screaming or whimpering was part of what spurred him on. She’d curled herself into a tight ball in the corner between the stove and the place the brooms and mops rested against the wall. He was having a dickens of a job to get her out. Her dress was torn, that pretty floral one she’d been so proud of. He remembered her prancing about the place with the little straw hat perched on her head. Pity she’d let herself go. Jack took another swig, and the warmth felt good in his throat. “Get out of there bitch,” he swore, using a broom handle to put a gap between her and the wall. She let out a little moan, and Jack remembered the pity he used to feel for her. “Come on Little Dove, come on out to Jackie. I’ll look after you,” he crooned in a loving voice. But Jean stayed curled in the corner, weeping silently.

“What’s wrong with Mum?” came the thin voice of Stephen from the kitchen door. “Get outa here little brat!” yelled Jack, furious. “Your Mum’s not well, she’s having a rest here in the corner – you get out!” Jean still wouldn’t come out so Jack started nudging her with his foot, just a bit at first, but then with more force. He’d get the silly cow to move. He kept kicking until she stopped crying at last and lay more loosely in the corner, her head resting against the mop handle. Jack looked around the kitchen. The colours looked different, like they were fresh out of the paint pot. But Stephen was still in the doorway, one hand twirling his hair, the other up to his mouth with his thumb inside. His pyjamas had little rabbits on them.

“I told you to get out… I told you…” moaned Jack, his throat dry. The scent of Jean’s perfume was on his hands. He could smell it, and for a moment he enjoyed the scent that always reminded him of violets and the deep green of freshly cut grass. Then he gagged, as the perfume notes became intertwined with the stench of blood and shit seeping from Jean’s prone body. He just made it to the sink in time to vomit. Then the rest of the whisky went down like water.