The Mariner

Still the Mariner did not move. “I’ve been thinking a lot about time. And about memories. You told me that the past doesn’t exist anywhere outside my own head. All that exists is the now.”

“Yes, that would be the logical way of viewing it.”

“But I don’t think that’s true. I think time is like Reverend McConnell’s story box. Our lives are the viewing piece, moving across time and only showing us one moment after another. But as we pass, those moments continue, locked in place. We can’t return to them, but they’re there, trapped in that singular point going over and over again. That’s what the Neptune showed me; the past exists beyond memories, it’s just they’re the only way we can reach out to them.”

Incredulity had twisted Tetrazzini’s face into a goblin mask. “So?”

“I don’t deserve to forget. If I put the terrible things I’ve done behind me, I’m betraying those women whom I’ve hurt. Whom I’m still hurting. And if I abandon or change the memory of what my mother did, then I’m leaving that boy alone, trapped forever in the dark. For he is still there. He always will be.”

“You’re sentencing yourself to a life of misery out of a sense of duty to things only you remember. That woman you killed doesn’t remember a thing. She’s dead.”

“Not in the past she’s not. She’s there, and she’s in pain.”

Tetrazzini threw his hands into the air as if he was dealing with a complete idiot. “So you don’t want to get better, is that it? You don’t want to be cured?”

“Like you were?”

Tetrazzini’s eyes widened in shock. He gaped like a fish, some type of snapper, for his face glowed red.

“I spoke to Grace. I thought she was your patient, but she’s not. She’s your treatment.”

Silence followed, the doctor flustered. Finally he pointed at the Mariner as if he were the one accused, his finger trembling with his voice. “You don’t understand, you don’t understand what it’s like!”

“Yes I do. I’m a monster too.”

“No! Addiction makes a monster, and I’m not an addict. A junkie with no fix robs houses, a junkie with a whole stash keeps to himself. I used to be one, oh yes, I used to be unable to control myself. Whenever I saw—” Words stuck in his throat, unable to vocalise his love for young flesh. “I wouldn’t be able to help myself, my mind would go there, that dark place you and I know so well. It was fine in the old-world with laws and rules; there you would be called ‘kiddie-fiddler’ or ‘pervert’, but without evidence you were fine to live your life, to do what you do. Not this place. Here there are no rules, and mistakes lead to lynches.”

He staggered to the Mariner, face distorted by his plea, hands out and clasping. “But my drug cured me! I found Grace, kept her with me and used her to suck my addiction dry.” His eyes desperately searched the Mariner’s face for some sign of acceptance. “Think of the amount of children I’ve saved from my old-self by doing this.”

“All except Grace.”

“A small price to pay!” he snapped. “Sure, I fuck her now and then, a quick dose of beta-blockers just to keep everything in check and make sure the addiction never reasserts, but in return I cure people. I take monsters and turn them into lives. Real human lives!”

The Mariner’s face was like a rock and his words an avalanche. “Addiction doesn’t make us a monster. It’s a very human trait. It’s what we do, that makes the monster.”

Tetrazzini didn’t respond, glowering in the gloom.

“I’m leaving. I don’t want a cure, to my victims that would be a further betrayal. If I suffer, if I carry this with me every day until the end, then just maybe my sin will be in part repaid.”

“You think you can control it, but you’ll give in. Sooner or later you will. Except when you do, you’ll be without me. You’ll be too weak to resist, and so you’ll go on hurting women over and over again. See if you don’t!”

“No. If I suffer enough, perhaps they won’t have to.”

“Fine, fuck off! Do you think we need you? You think I give a shit? I’ll be right here, doing what I’ve always done.”

The Mariner nodded and finally showed an expression on his face. A distant and hollow smile. And just as that smile had chilled the last few beats of Absinth’s heart, it chilled Tetrazzini’s too, despite the temperature in the room rising with every second.

“That’s right. I’m leaving and you’re staying.” He pointed his trusty Mauser at Tetrazzini’s left knee. “I dropped in on Donna before I came to you, and gave her all the flammable spirits in your storage. As I figure it, she’s probably got one burning left before she’s cured. I think a lot will be cured after that.”