Hindsight (4 page)

‘True, but the fear would remain.’

‘Hey, when it comes to facing my fears now, Ben, I’m a gymnast! I’ll leap straight at it, but in
his
case … Please, no. It’s not fear. It’s prudent planning. He could ruin everything.’

‘Prudent planning.’ Ben chuckled and gunned the engine. ‘Congratulations, Mira. You finally nailed the right attitude. Of course, I knew you would. So I rang ahead a few days ago from the hospital and arranged to have him locked away with loud music.’

‘How can you be sure that would work? We have no idea how far ahead he can hear. If you believe some of the other patients, he predicted my initial transfer to Serenity almost a month before I knew of it myself.’

‘Not accurately. The further away in time, the more confusing it is for him to hear any whispering from the one true future among the cacophony of all the alternatives. With accuracy, it’s only two days — three days, max — and he’s been locked away for twice that.’

Mira shook her head, unable to believe it. ‘If he’s been locked up all week, who smashed all my sunnies?’

‘Anyone who’s jealous of your special treatment. You’re the only patient who’s ever had a chance at leaving permanently, and certainly the only one who’s had all their privileges restored without any need for additional medication.’

‘So you’re sure he can’t possibly interfere?’

‘Or listen in. Relax,’ he added as he skidded backwards from the kerb. He turned the car sharply and accelerated for the bridge. ‘By the time I’m done as your guardian, you’ll be a new woman — confident enough to cope with anything. Even
him
.’

F
reddie hugged himself inside his straitjacket, enjoying its warmth.

The batteries in his headphones were dying, though, killing his music. Now jackhammers drilled inside his head — voices, whispers, screaming. White noise. Echoing.

Every sound permeated from every tomorrow, rippling back to him through time like raindrops on a pond, ever dissipating as ripples do, until the weakest whispers broke the soft end of the sound barrier. Light and sound. Sound and light. All waves of one sort or another; ever forcing him to listen forward in time while forcing his nemesis, Mira Chambers, to look back.

He bumped his bald head against the padded wall, a human ball, having strived for ten days to stay deaf to it all.

‘Dysfunctions of his inner ear should guarantee it,’ he’d been told — by six decades of specialists. ‘Basilar membranes in the human ear just don’t shake this way.’ As far as the medical world was concerned, he was deaf, and the torment of hearing voices anyway had pushed him over the edge. But she knew differently now; Matron Madonna Sanchez. His spike-haired angel. Forewarned is forearmed, she would say, and she’d know. Together, they’d walked this path before — history repeating itself and yet ever changing in small ways.

Instinctively, he glanced up and saw his young angel watching him again through the full moon of his observation window; neon pink tips in her dark hair, bright as stars. The white light behind her in the hall was her halo, but he couldn’t bear to look at her; porcelain pale.

My Beauty,
he sobbed.
I am your beast
,
yet in our saga, there dwells within me no prince.

She stroked the glass moon with her petite hand — curled by the childhood foe of polio, long defeated, as if to remind him that he wasn’t alone in his zoo of mime artists. He knew she would also reassure him, if he could only turn his head long enough to read those precious plump lips, that as matron of Serenity, she would leave no rock unturned in pursuit of a little peace for him. Even a heartbeat of true silence would be bliss. Yet already the pain of failure had etched his sweet cherub with tears that had seared even deeper into him. All Mira’s fault, if not his.

He shook his head, knowing it was mostly because of him that his angel suffered at the sight of him; his fault that she knew the truth of what he was and what would happen to her soon if she failed to heed his warnings about Mira. The burden of his foreknowledge weighed so heavily upon him now that he could no longer stand on his own feet. He had to do something.

He pounded his bald head into the corner, trying not to hear the screams which still echoed back to him from tomorrow’s tenants — until time slid by enough that he noticed his own sobbing become ominously absent from the racket.

Glancing to the glass moon, he saw his precious matron there yet again, just as he feared. She was trying to smile, but her sweet mouth was already trembling. Fear made her lips so hard to read, but he’d listened to the echoes of this moment for so long, there was no need. He saw her eyes discover the damp stain on his pants and knew that she knew it too.

The day had finally come to confront his nemesis.

The foyer of the administration building smelled the same as it had every morning for the last fortnight; fresh paint, lavender air freshener and lemon floor polish. Through her violet sunshades Mira could see everything as it had been ten days ago, bustling with ghostly visitors for the inaugural Serenity Festival. At the far end of the hall, she watched a large tour group of businesslike men and women, all wearing matching blindfolds as they fumbled to find the stairs to the dungeon, where a black-cane luncheon awaited them later in the day — serving up the experience of being blind and dining in utter darkness while also lightening their wallets for the worthy cause of funding more improvements and renovations.

The other memories that went with that day made her shiver.

‘Mind if I swap glasses again?’ she whispered, leaning closer to Ben. ‘I’d rather not see a replay of the day you got hurt, if that’s okay.’

‘Sure,’ he said, taking hers in return. ‘I don’t need them inside anyway.’

Closing her eyes long enough to complete the swap, she opened again to his muddier shade of violet. All signs of the festival disappeared, corridors emptied and the grounds and gardens through the waiting room window looked deceptively more serene. Inside the building was less bright so it didn’t hurt quite as much to process the faster light. With binoculars, she might even be able to watch the teenaged boys on the far side of the bridge more comfortably.

Mira glanced to the vacant desk at reception instead; at the clock and desk calendar, and saw that the date was now only eight days old instead of ten. ‘Hey, it’s lunchtime,’ she said cheekily. ‘Time to leave for that café?’

‘Nice try,’ Ben replied. ‘It’s barely 7am. But if you’re hungry we could drop into the dining hall?’

She shook her head. At reception, a chime sounded and Mira heard an electronic voice that called her by name and advised her to go through to the matron’s office. Ben followed her down the long hall. His hand touched her back, electrifying her nerves as he ushered her around an invisible obstacle.

‘Sorry, old photocopier,’ he explained. ‘It’s been put out with a note for disposal.’

Mira noted its position, before realising that was her old way of thinking, taking note of any potential way to hide or escape the place.

Deeper in the hall, the smell of fresh paint grew stronger. Ghostly doors were open down each wall, allowing Mira to see into each of the offices, mostly filled with cubicles for social workers, psychologists and other resource staff — except for one labelled
Matron Madonna Sanchez
. Her ghostly door appeared to be closed, but a breeze betrayed the truth: that the real door was now open.

Mira reached to test with her hands first and check the truth, then closed her eyes and ducked through the ghostly, yet solid-looking timber.

Inside the large office, the matron’s ghost sat at her desk with her ample chest straining at the top button of her tailored nurse’s uniform, her softly spiked hair nodding in time with her movements and her hands waving about expressively as she mouthed silent lessons in sign language to the nearest of two empty visitors’ chairs. Her left arm hadn’t developed fully due to childhood polio, so it was common for visitors to mistake her as one of the clients until they heard her speak or noticed her nametag, but the smaller arm also lent a distinctive slant to her hand signals.

Disability or not, she looked crazy giving sign language lessons to nobody, in contrast to the many university degrees on her wall, which proclaimed her high qualifications in business management and humanistic psychology. Mira also knew the daily lessons were intended for her — to help her understand more of the ghostly conversations going on around her. Not just between deaf clients and staff generally, but any that involved one old male client in particular. The student’s chair was only empty because her own ghost was elsewhere. She didn’t have any glasses that allowed her to see the lessons in real time. They’d be too painful for her to see in such fast light anyway. She’d also learned as much as she needed to know through observation of other clients. However Mira had played along to keep up the appearance that she was progressing and through trial and error she’d discovered that the matron’s own personal sunnies allowed Mira to see backwards about three-and-a-half days. So to see the morning lessons in order, she needed to be in the matron’s office with them every night at 7pm. Now Ben’s glasses allowed her to see a repeat of an earlier lesson, so she didn’t bother paying any further attention.

‘You’re early,’ said a familiar female voice from behind them in the hallway.

In reflex, Mira turned, but the updated matron remained invisible as her disembodied voice followed them in, and closed the heavy old door. Mira heard the lock click, then the matron’s distinctive heels clacked across the woollen rug and parquetry floor; one sole made of plastic, the other of rubber and four inches taller to help compensate for the underdevelopment of her right leg. Yet having one leg four inches shorter than the other never seemed to affect the matron’s agility. She strode past Mira with the musicality of a woman with confidence, and closed her drapes as well as her window. The invisible versions were already closed so nobody outside could watch or listen in on the crazy-looking language lessons.

‘Take a seat,’ Sanchez said, then slumped noisily into her own chair — into the lap of her yester-ghost, who carried on giving the lessons, oblivious.

Mira glanced at the nearest visitor’s chair where X marked the spot for it on the floor; one large conspicuous cross made from sticking-tape to mark the precise positions where the chair and wheels needed to be in order for Mira to walk in and sit with the same confidence as any sighted residents. She felt for it anyway before taking her seat, then startled as the ghost of Freddie Leopard burst in through the ghostly door with two wardsmen who were struggling to catch him and truss him up in a straitjacket. Freddie’s wig was gone, exposing his bald head, and his ears were scratched, torn and bleeding.

Your secrets scream at me!
Mira read from his lips.
You can’t hide them from me!

Clenching her eyes shut, Mira whipped off Ben’s glasses. ‘I was wrong,’ she said, offering them back to him. ‘Mine aren’t so bad after all.’

Again, he obliged, and again she found the matron’s ghost repeating an old lesson; this time the introduction as she explained how Freddie Leopard could hear conversations echoing for days or weeks before they happened. However, nobody knew the tunnels and shortcuts through Serenity as well as Freddie, and he was cagey, so the matron’s plan had proven a dangerous dance that Mira much preferred to avoid as best as she could manage.

‘A good thing I prepared yesterday,’ Sanchez said to the tune of some rustling papers, ‘and lucky I kept our friend in “Cloud Nine” all this time.’

‘The rubber room?’ Ben asked. ‘But surely music in his own unit would have sufficed, unless he’s found another way out already?’

A deaf man who takes comfort in music,
Mira thought. For a long time she’d felt acutely sorry for him, and she had to admit that the similarity of his condition to hers did make her feel less alone in the world. The sight of his pitiful ghost was also enough to remind her how close to insanity she’d slipped herself before she’d met Ben. But any sympathy she’d ever held for Freddie had evaporated the day his maniacal prophecies failed to warn her exactly what would happen to Ben if she shared her ‘visions’ with military police. He’d fore-heard all the other details well enough for at least a day and still allowed her to travel far enough down that path to suit his own purposes. All he ever really cared about was the safety of his beloved Matron Maddy.

‘Freddie tried to tear off his ears again,’ Sanchez said. ‘I couldn’t lock him anywhere else, but on the upside, he was already out of earshot before you called me last week, Ben. There’s no way he could have fore-heard this particular conversation.’

Mira chewed on her lip. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. He burst in here eight days ago shouting about our secrets.’

‘Mira, we have no secrets,’ Sanchez said loudly and clearly. ‘Poor Freddie only misunderstood an earlier echo from a conversation somewhere else in the grounds.’ Then she leaned over her desk, grabbed Mira’s hands and splayed her small, cool fingers against Mira’s, thumb for thumb and finger for finger, to tap a silent message using the simplest form of finger Braille.
If it’s about leaving here please speak with your hands.

Mira curled her fingers away into fists in her lap. She’d cooperate in any plan that helped her get out and regain her independence, but she couldn’t help the feeling they were still treating her too much like a patient. ‘I’m not an idiot. You can’t keep him in a rubber room forever.’

‘I won’t need to,’ Sanchez whispered. ‘We just need to reassure him that we’re both living here, safely, just as I’ve explained to him. That way he should hear enough whispers to support a few alternative futures that all sound like this. So you can relax,’ she added, raising her voice to normal. ‘Freddie knows you’ve changed your mind to live here voluntarily, even if you’re successful in challenging your status as a ward of the state.’

Leather creaked as Ben shifted his weight in the chair beside her. ‘How did you manage to convince him, precisely, when he’s so paranoid?’

‘I’m not sure I have yet. That’s precisely the problem. You both deserve a fresh start, so that’s what we need to work towards.’

‘Freddie has friends,’ Mira reminded them. ‘More like minions. He has eyes and ears everywhere — and let’s not forget who his brother is. I won’t be safe anywhere from that colonel, so long as Freddie’s willing to betray me or Ben to him! For all we know, Freddie’s taught his brother a few tricks about escaping a cell. He could come for me again no matter where I am.’