The Mariner

16. REHAB BEGINS

“HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD these dreams?” Tetrazzini asked, showing not a trace of guilt at using the cliché.

The Mariner shifted uneasily, despite sitting in an astonishingly comfortable chair. The scrutiny reminded him bitterly of sharing a cigarette with Absinth Alcott, a memory he loathed to recall.

“I don’t know. Years? I don’t have a way of keeping time.”

“Oh come now,” dismissed the doctor. “We have the only mechanism to measure time we could ever need at our disposal: the sun. Day and night. What’s to stop you noting down every time the sun sets? What you don’t know are dates, but the amount of time passing is easy to assess. You just don’t want to.”

The Mariner was puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I want to know how much time has passed?”

“I don’t know.” Dr Tetrazzini smiled and stared intently at the Mariner. Outside, the sun blessed the town with another cheerful day, as if eager to put the nastiness of the night before to distant memory. Small songbirds joined the plot, dancing amidst the trees, singing joyfully as if no horrors had occurred.

“Tell me what happens in this dream.”

The Mariner hesitated for a moment, vulnerable. “I dream I’m a boy in my parents’ bed. Only my father isn’t there, it’s just my mother, and she’s upset.”

“Why is she upset?”

“I don’t know.”

The songbirds suddenly scattered as Grace ran through the garden, hair an earthy blur passing the window. It distracted the Mariner briefly, and he blinked rapidly as he tried to keep focus.

“I think she’s disappointed with me.”

“Why?”

The Mariner shook his head, unable to answer. Tetrazzini persevered. “What happens next?”

“She wants me to be quiet, I’m breathing too noisily. So she places a pillow over my face.”

“That must be very frightening.”

“It is, I can’t breathe.”

“Do you struggle?”

“I’m afraid to. Instead I wait and hope that she realises for herself that she’s being too forceful. I hope she takes the pillow off.”

“Does she?”

“Eventually.”

The doctor’s face was solemn and serious. “Is she trying to kill you?”

“Does it matter? It’s just a dream.”

Tetrazzini leaned back in his chair and flicked through his notebook, making a theatrical gesture of checking previous notes.

“You said earlier that you can’t remember beyond a certain point in your history, a relatively recent point?” He scanned the words written before him. “You awoke upon your boat with a sense of purpose, but no knowledge of who you were and how you got there.”

“Yes.”

“My friend, is it possible that this dream is actually a memory from your life before this incident, this ‘rebirth’ upon your boat?”

“Why would the memory only come to me in dreams? Why don’t I recall anything else?”

“Trauma perhaps? Damage done to the brain from chemical abuse? We’ll get to the cause eventually, but first I want to press upon you something that I think is quite remarkable.”

Tetrazzini leaned forward and licked his lips. Suddenly the dispassionate veneer fell away to one of effusive excitement.

“I’ve met many people who’ve forgotten things. Sometimes they’re small: song lyrics, recipes, spellings, flag colours. Other times the missing segments can be vast chunks, whole areas of their past gone, totally erased! And I’ve found, through bitter experience, it’s best not to push them too hard to remember what they’ve lost. I can see from your face you know what I’m talking about.”

The Mariner did, Tetrazzini was talking about the Mindless. He nodded confirmation, but didn’t speak.

“But here I have you, a man with no memories of the world before at all. And not only are you without violence, but you’ve remembered something. A memory has come back!”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Tetrazzini shook his head, genuinely enthused by the mystery and grinning from ear to ear. “But if we can unlock the reasons for this early memory forcing a return into your mind, then perhaps we can understand where people’s memories have been disappearing to, and restore each and every one!”

Flinching, the Mariner’s face darkened, defences thrown hastily up. “I don’t want more memories!”

“My friend, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Memories are shadows, imprints of a time, a situation, a circumstance that no longer exists. We are in control of our memories, not the other way around.”

The patient’s eyes narrowed, suspicious of the concept he struggled to grasp.

“Let me give you an example. This supposed memory of yours, it bothers you, yes? But it could be that you’ve distorted it, changed it, built upon it. After all, you were just a boy. For all you know it is entirely fictional, there’s no way to verify such an occurrence.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “Do me a favour and replay the scene in your head.”

The Mariner closed his eyes and did as the doctor asked, recalling the dream.

“Now remember, this is your mind, you are in control. I want you to dress your mother in a silly rabbit suit.”

“What?”

“A big pink rabbit suit, and she’s not angry or upset: she’s giggling.”