Crooked Vows (18 page)

She is swimming, what looks like a strong, competent breast-stroke, apparently heading towards where her clothes lie on the rock. But she appears to be moving backwards, not fast, but steadily, in the opposite direction, towards the far end of the channel. He watches her for a minute or two but fails to make any sense of what he is seeing.

Standing on the ridge looking right and left along the shoreline, suddenly he sees. The breakers and the backwash are sweeping into the left-hand end of the channel. The wash is spilling over the outer reef. The band of foam moving on the surface betrays the build-up of a current, a rip, steadily deepening and strengthening, sweeping along the channel from left to right. And where then? At the far end he can make out a gap in the outer reef, with some rocks jutting through the surface, and the rip surging against them, through the gap and out through the breakers to the open sea, the ocean.

Thomas starts down the seaward slope of the dune, plunging, taking great strides, sliding awkwardly in the soft sand. At much the same time Jane seems to realise her danger. He sees her turn and try to swim across the current towards the outer reef. He sees her lunge for a handhold on the edge of the rock shelf, then losing her grip and being swept further along, grasping for other handholds, losing them, calling for help.

Thomas reaches the shoreline. Opposite him on the other side of the channel Jane has managed to get a grip on a projecting rib of rock. But the current, stronger here, is surging and swirling around her, dragging at her. She is struggling to keep her handhold against the force of it. She turns her head, sees him, calls with shrill terror in her voice.
Please, Thomas. I can't
hold on for long
.

He stands on the rock ledge, hesitating. For a few moments he feels paralysed, body and mind, a circuit of conflicting thoughts and emotions churning through him. He will swim out to her. Together they might be able to … But what if they are both swept out?

He plunges into the waist-deep water at the edge of the channel. Instantly the force of the current is dragging at him, even here, standing well clear of its full power. Could he get to her safely across the middle of the rip? And if he did, what would they do then? The outer reef gives no safety, with the heavy surf breaking over it. He tries swimming a few strokes towards her but with every stroke he loses more control to the surges pulling him away, and he is still well short of the centre of the channel where the current is strongest. Thomas looks towards the gap in the reef and the jagged rocks with foam driven over and around them by the force of the water sweeping out towards the breaking waves, and is gripped by the terrifying image of himself being swept out over those jagged rocks. He turns while he can, and swims quickly back to the safety of the edge.

Another frightening thought swoops into his consciousness like a bird of prey. He has just, up in the dunes, been guilty of a grave sin. A man who dies with a grave sin on his soul has no hope of escape from hell. Images of eternal flames and souls writhing in everlasting torment come to him from count-less books and sermons. What can he do? He backs against the rock wall of the channel for support, overcome again by agonising indecision, looking desperately around for some other way of helping her, but knowing under his desperation that there is no other way.

Suddenly she loses her grip. The surging rip takes control, pulling her towards the end of the channel. She struggles hard against the current all the way, clutching desperately at jagged rocks jutting above the water as she is swept against them. Although she manages to get a handhold on several of them for a short time, she is dragged away. Thomas hears her calling to him for help, screaming. Yet he stands rigid, in helpless horror.

He sees her swept out into the breakers beyond the gap in the outer reef. An immense wave breaks over her, and she disappears for what seems a long time. Then her head reappears in the face of another massive swell. Jane is looking towards him, floundering, struggling, one arm waving. And her voice, harsh, rising to a high pitch of terror.
Please. Help me, Thomas
. Then the last wave breaks over her, and he does not hear her voice again.

For a long time Thomas stands, immobilised, backed hard against the security of the rock wall. Every joint in his body seems to be locked in position. His mind, too, seems locked, fixed on the image of a huge wave frozen in the instant before breaking, and her head in the face of it.

Finally he climbs onto the dark rock ledge of the shore and paces one way and the other along it, scanning the churning sea beyond the reef, desperately, as if this, somehow, might bring her back into view. But she is certainly gone. And he had stood there, watching, wavering, doing nothing.

For a moment Thomas glimpses himself as if through her eyes, as she struggled in the face of that last wave breaking over her. He imagines what must have gone through her mind in that moment, crying out to him, looking toward him standing helplessly, the instant before she was overwhelmed. His throat chokes with a soundless wail struggling to emerge. 

He collapses to his knees and tries to address a plea for help to God who must surely be present in some way, watching perhaps from above the harsh blue of the sky, but realises that he doesn't know what he is praying for. Help for her, or for himself? And what sort of help? Is he pleading for her to appear miraculously, perhaps from behind him, wearing the blue-and-white skirt and white blouse now so familiar, with the stains of sweat and mud washed away? He knows such things do not happen outside the lives of the saints. Is he pleading for time to be turned back so that he can have another chance while she is still alive, while that last wave has not yet broken, to do something? But he knows with the same certainty that time always moves onward. Some opportunities to act come only once, and he did not grasp this one. Now there is nothing to be done.

Images flood his consciousness. Jane's face, surrounded by the foam of a breaking wave, her eyes wide with terror. The face glimpsed briefly in the plane window, engulfed in flames, distorted by agony. Both mouths open, screaming for deliverance. The faces swirl around in his mind, replacing each other, then merging and combining into a single blurred image of horror, projecting a single despairing wail to the heavens. Thomas's own mouth, he realises, is open too and giving vent to his own howl, beyond his control, forcing its way up and out of the depths.

He is overcome by a sensation of falling, as if his body is spinning into a vast bottomless space. He spirals further and further down into the huge emptiness, the appalling sights and sounds becoming fainter until they are finally lost in a dark silence.

*

There is a long pause. With an effort Thomas looks up. He sees Macpherson sitting back in his chair with his hands behind his head, eyes closed and face tilted up towards the ceiling. Eventually his eyes open and he faces Thomas. The younger man looks down at the floor between them, avoiding the gaze.

For a minute or two the doctor sits still, his hands flat on the desk in front of him, his eyes shifting their focus to some point above and beyond the door of the room. Thomas looks up at him in the silence, trying without success to read the older man's expression.

Finally the difficult silence ends.

‘That must have been a harrowing experience for you to go through and I imagine that reviving the memory of it now must be deeply disturbing, too. You are likely to have those images recurring quite often now that they have come to the surface. You will need to make use of the same strategies I gave you earlier, to soften their impact a little. It's not good to be overwhelmed by them. I think, from what I've gathered before, that you've been managing this problem quite well. You'll need to keep doing the same.

‘Tell me, now that you have it clear and fresh in your mind, what do you feel about it at this moment?'

Thomas considers. What does he feel? There's a peculiar sensation of emptiness. As if he is feeling nothing, in a space where he might be expected to feel something. He looks down, wondering how much of this he should reveal.

‘I don't know. I feel empty.'

‘Very well. You feel empty. That is one feeling. And it is not surprising, when these memories have been released from a space where you have shut them away for months. Now what else do you feel? Or think? What comes to your mind to say about it all? About what you did.' He pauses, considers, and adds, ‘and what you didn't do.'

Thomas hesitates, turning those last added words over in his mind. Suddenly his mind is flooded by the image of the rocky shore, the outer reef, the channel between, the swells breaking on the reef and foaming over into the channel. He sees Jane clinging to the reef, face turned towards him, one arm waving, hears her screaming to him for help. Feels his back pressed against the wall of rock.

He looks up into the older man's face, searching for a way to express the overwhelming confusion of thoughts and feelings crowding his mind, finding nothing to offer but trivial words suitable for some minor misdemeanour.

‘I feel guilty. I ought to have done something to help her.' He hears the weakness, the inadequacy in his words.

Macpherson sits back in his chair, letting a long breath out. ‘Ah, yes. You feel guilty. I would like you to explore that feeling a little, if you don't mind. I can see two different aspects of the situation, and I want us to look at them separately.

‘To begin with we'll leave you out of it, and think simply about what is happening to Jane. Try to imagine yourself in her position. You are Jane, in the water being dragged through the gap in the reef. A huge wave breaks over your head, and you're forced under. Don't talk about it; just try to feel what she would be feeling in those moments.'

Eyes closed, Thomas imagines the immense power of the breaking wave churning around and above him, the loss of any sense of where the surface is through the opaque foam, the desperation to struggle towards air, to breathe, the panic.

He opens his eyes, looking towards the doctor again

‘She must have been—it must have been terrifying for her.'

‘Very well. She would certainly have been terrified. But were you responsible for her being in that terrifying situation?'

Thomas looks at the older man, unsure where the exchange is heading. ‘No, I suppose not. Certainly not.'

Macpherson leans forward, fixing Thomas with a steady gaze. ‘Precisely so. But surely feelings of guilt are only appropriate when you are responsible for something; when you've done something that other people would have reason to blame you for. You were not to blame for her being caught in the rip and dragged into the surf, were you? Surely you can't reasonably feel guilty about an unpredictable accident such as that.'

The younger man looks down at the floor for a few moments, then meets the doctor's eyes. ‘I suppose that's right. Yes.'

‘So, let's push this a little further. Imagine Jane again, as she is dragged under the water, struggling to breathe, finally unable to get back to the surface, and drowning. You have set your feeling of guilt aside, because there is no place for it. What are you feeling now about what is happening to her?'

Thomas closes his eyes and sits back in the chair imagining her desperation, her last breath, the uncontrollable gasp that fills her lungs with water, finally the merciful fading of consciousness.

He opens his eyes again and looks across at Macpherson.

‘It's a horrible way to die, drowning. Full of terror. Beyond that, it's just so sad to think that she's gone.' His voice trembles.

The doctor sits back in his chair, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

‘It must be very upsetting to recover these memories. It looks to me as if your feeling of guilt has been focused mainly on the fact that you held back from swimming out and trying to help her. Is that so?'

Thomas looks away to the side, avoiding a response.

Macpherson continues, ‘I have the impression that your religion has provided you with a rather judgmental God who makes laws and punishes people who break them. I would like you to imagine for a moment a rather different sort of God who wants all his creatures to enjoy as much well-being as possible. Is such a God likely to blame you for holding back? As you described the incident, the young woman was in an extremely dangerous situation, verging on hopeless. She was apparently a competent swimmer, but she couldn't save herself. If you had swum out to help, the most likely outcome would have been that two young people drowned, rather than one. And the world would have been worse off for that. I read about a case very much like that only a couple of weeks ago down near Margaret River. Why would a benevolent God blame you for not doubling the tragedy? When you think about it, don't you see that what you did was probably the best option in a desperate situation. That doesn't leave much room for feeling ashamed, or guilty, does it?'

Thomas shakes his head, feeling just a little calmer.

‘You came to me in the beginning with a quite specific problem, to do with repressed memories. Now your lost memories are recovered—the crucial parts at least. I didn't expect it to be a very difficult task. It's only been, what? Three and a half months? Four?'

Thomas nods without meeting the other man's eyes. ‘About that.'

‘I take it that you will be going to your archbishop with this story now that it's been recovered. I'm not sure who else you will speak to. Of course you will need to make a statement to the police, to bring some sort of finality to their investigation. Feel free to refer them to me if they want a supporting statement about the recovery of your lost memories. The unexplained disappearance of anyone is primarily police business, not the archbishop's business. They will need a formal statement, but I am more interested in what your religious advisers have to say about the events and what you think about their advice, after a little time for reflection.'