The Sin Eater (14 page)

‘Oh, books, films, television,' said the consultant. ‘Absorbed by the subconscious mind over the years.'

This was instantly reassuring. That's how all this has happened, thought Benedict. Even the chess piece – maybe even that photograph of the Mesmer Murderer in those old newspapers. I saw them the day of the funeral and didn't remember. He said, ‘That's interesting about the subconscious mind. It's one of the arguments put forward to disprove reincarnation, isn't it? To debunk the descriptions of what people believe are past lives dredged up under hypnosis.'

‘Yes. As for your case – when I said your alter ego seemed to know Ireland, I should have said he knows
an
Ireland. It mightn't be an accurate picture – it'll be the picture you have of it.'

‘Taken from my own mind?'

‘Yes. The human brain is remarkable. We don't understand more than a tiny part of it,' said the doctor. ‘But we do know that with DPD the mind can fashion fragments of facts – half-remembered memories and experiences – and use them to clothe the alter ego. Usually unconsciously. But make no mistake, these second selves have very distinct personalities and if you do have this condition, Benedict, you'll believe very strongly that your own alter ego exists somewhere in the world – or maybe has existed sometime in the recent past. And you'll certainly question our diagnosis, even if you don't do so openly.' He smiled. ‘But also remember that this diagnosis isn't definite yet. We're keeping a very open mind, and it's important you do the same.' He paused, then said, with slight reluctance, ‘All the same, you've certainly displayed what are called auditory hallucinations of other personalities, and that's typical of the condition.'

‘Oh God.' This was Nina. Benedict looked at her, and thought:
this might terrify you, but for me it's liberation. I feel like going off and celebrating – getting drunk from sheer relief. I feel like giving this wonderful neurologist with the crumpled face a thousand pounds in gratitude.

The crumpled-face neurologist was saying that dissociative personality disorder did not need to ruin anyone's life. ‘DPD is a condition that's controllable – within certain parameters, that is.'

‘You're telling me you couldn't get rid of . . . of this alter ego,' said Benedict, carefully. ‘But that you could probably keep the volume tuned to “low”. Have I understood that right?'

‘Yes, you have. Although it's more a matter of teaching you how to keep him tuned to a low setting,' said the doctor.

I've done that for years, thought Benedict. But if we can turn it even lower, that would be a bonus.

Nina suddenly said, ‘What about his eyes? Nell West – that's the friend who found him – said they changed colour.'

‘Yes, they did. Brown to blue. Actually, sufferers from this condition do sometimes display different physical states while in the grip of—'

‘An attack?' said Benedict, and the doctor smiled.

‘I was going to say in the grip of the alter ego,' he said. ‘But that sounds a bit macabre, doesn't it? Some EEG tests done on patients – sorry, Miss Doyle, EEG is electroencephalography – have recorded brain scans showing changes in blood-flow patterns. Changes at the moment the switch between the personalities happens. Sometimes blood sugar levels change, as well. We didn't see that with you, Benedict, but we did see the change in eye colour. It happened twice in the first twenty-four hours. It's a curious symptom and quite unusual – I've never personally seen it before, but I've talked to colleagues working in this field, and it's not unknown.'

‘But what causes this illness?' Nina's tone was challenging and slightly suspicious.

‘It doesn't necessarily need a trigger, although there's a fair body of evidence to indicate that a childhood trauma can contribute. Or even,' said the neurologist, his voice carefully expressionless, ‘some form of abuse.'

Benedict said at once, ‘I've never been abused.'

‘But there was trauma,' said the doctor. ‘Your parents died when you were young. Eight years old, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, and that was massive – the worst thing that can happen to any child. I was devastated for a very long time. Of course I was. But I thought I recovered fairly well.'

‘We all thought so,' added Nina.

‘I missed them for years,' said Benedict, speaking a bit unwillingly, because he did not like having his emotions probed so rigorously. ‘I still do sometimes. I'd have liked them to see that I managed to get to university, for instance. But the . . . the pain of loss got less as the years went along. I lived with my aunt – that was Nina's mother – and she was very kind, very loving and supportive. Always so proud if I achieved things. I truly don't think she ever made any distinction between Nina and me.'

‘She didn't,' said Nina. ‘And as far as I was concerned you were – you still are – my brother.'

‘Thanks,' said Benedict, a bit awkwardly. ‘But you see what I'm saying? It was a happy background. I had all the normal family things.'

‘How about school?'

‘I quite liked school. I wasn't bullied or anything. And I like university now. I'm reading criminology and law – criminology especially is fascinating. I've got friends, a fairly good social life – not wild partying or clubbing, but it's lively enough.'

‘Girlfriends? Or,' said the doctor, sounding a bit too casual, ‘boyfriends?'

Benedict supposed they had to tread carefully with sexuality, and he guessed the doctor was wondering if there was any conflict there. He said, ‘There's been one or two girlfriends. No one serious yet, but I live in hope.' This seemed to strike a lighter note and he felt slightly better. ‘I honestly think I've had a relatively normal life,' he said firmly.

‘If you're being honest – and I think you are – it sounds as if you
have
had a relatively normal life,' said the doctor. ‘And there's no reason why you shouldn't continue to do so.'

‘Thank you,' said Benedict.

But putting a sane and logical name to Declan's invasion of Benedict's mind did not banish Declan himself. Declan and that misty world he inhabited remained on the edges of his mind. But it's all right, Benedict thought. It's just this complicated mental imbalance.

‘The pills will help for the moment,' the neurologist had said, and at first Benedict took them obediently. But he had an uneasy feeling that something had torn down what defences he had and that Declan, no matter how unreal he might be, was finding it easier to reach him. This conviction increased over the Christmas week in Nina's flat.
You're closer to me than I like
, he said silently to Declan.

Staying with Nina was easier and more relaxing than he had expected. She did not pry as much as he had feared, although she mentioned Declan once or twice, referring to vague memories of how he was said to have been a bit of a charmer. ‘So I suppose it's not unusual you should latch on to him as an alter ego. Have you thought of talking to any of the great-aunts to find out a bit more about him?'

‘I'm not sure if it would be the right thing to do. It might sort of feed the whole thing.'

‘Oh yes, so it might,' said Nina, ‘how intelligent of you. Oh, and while I think about it, would you mind terribly if we don't join the family Christmas dinner this year, because I've got so much to do, you wouldn't believe.'

Benedict was deeply grateful for any excuse that would mean he did not have to see the family, most of whom would want to know how he was and what he had been doing and whether he was going to sell Holly Lodge. Nina was booked to provide two dinner parties and a buffet supper for people who did not want, or had not time, to cook for their guests, and Benedict was pressed into service to peel potatoes or chop parsley. It was vaguely soothing; it reminded him of how he and Nina used to make toffee when they were children, until the saucepan exploded one day, showering the walls with caramelized sugar and Aunt Lyn had been furious.

But when, on the day after Boxing Day, Nina said she had invited Nell West for a drink so she and Benedict could meet properly, Benedict was aware of a stab of panic. Nell would need to talk about Holly Lodge, and he did not want to even think about the place. But he would have to do something about the house and its contents, and Nell West had apparently found him flat out unconscious in the house, called the ambulance and probably saved his life. Benedict had sent her a note of thanks, but she was owed a bit more than a few lines scribbled from a hospital bed. So he said, in an offhand way, that he would look forward to meeting her.

‘She said something about finding a chess piece while she was there,' said Nina.

The chess piece. The black carved figure that Declan and Colm had taken from the dying Nicholas Sheehan, and that Benedict had found in the desk at Holly Lodge. The memory of how Declan and Colm crouched on the cliff face while Sheehan slowly roasted alive rose up vividly.

‘I didn't know there was a chess set in the house, did you?' Nina was saying.

‘No,' said Benedict. Then, ‘D'you mind if I shut myself in my room for an hour or so? I ought to sort out some of my holiday work for next term.'

He managed to reach his room before Declan's claws sunk all the way into his mind, and before Declan's misty, wild Irish world – the world that did not exist – pulled him down once again.

I
t was not until Declan and Colm were nineteen that their dream of leaving Kilglenn suddenly became possible.

Colm's mother died just before his twentieth birthday, and he told Declan that there was no longer anything to keep him in Kilglenn. ‘And I'll have to move out of the house anyway.'

‘Why? Isn't a man's house his own forever?'

‘Yes, but the house wasn't my ma's in the first place,' said Colm. ‘It was rented and the black-hearted landlord won't let me have it in her place. He says he had enough rent arrears from the Rourke family to last him a lifetime. But I don't care, and anyway Fintan's letting me have the shack for the time being.'

‘You can't live in the shack,' said Declan, horrified. ‘It's falling to pieces. It's a shanty house. A tumbledown hut stuck on top of an earth mound.'

‘It's either that or the hedge behind Fintan's Bar,' said Colm carelessly.

‘But you can't live there. Listen, I'll talk to my father – you could share my room and—'

‘I could not share your room, or anybody else's room. I'm not taking charity, not even from you,' said Colm angrily.

‘All right, the shack it is,' said Declan. ‘When will you move in?'

‘Tomorrow. If I'm not gone by midday the evil landlord says he'll carry me out bodily.'

‘Let's make sure you're gone before that then. Will we take a few things from the house to make the shack a bit more homelike?'

‘Yes, and we'll do it before the villainous English landlord gets his claws on anything,' said Colm.

‘You sound as if you're about to revive the old Kilderry Rebellions,' said Declan.

‘If the Wicked Earl of Kilderry can fight the British, so can I.'

Between them they made the shack as comfortable as they could, but, as Declan said to his parents that night, it was still a one-room cottage on an earth mound.

‘And damp as a river, I shouldn't wonder,' said his mother, and went off to look out a couple of blankets, because even that rascal Colm Rourke could not be allowed to freeze to death in a tumbledown hut that Fintan should have pulled down years ago. Declan's father said he would help knock a few nails into the ramshackle roof of the place to help keep out the rain.

‘Ramshackle's the word,' said Mrs Doyle. ‘That whole family was ramshackle, and the worst of the lot was Romilly Rourke, for if ever there was a Giddy Gertrude—'

‘Does Colm ever hear from her?' asked his father, because if Declan's mother once got started on the giddiness of girls they would not have their supper until midnight.

‘I don't think so.'

‘I don't hold with girls stravaiging off to London,' said Declan's mother, coming in with the blankets. ‘It's a wicked place, London. Colm won't hear from that hussy again.'

But as if in mocking irony, the very next week Colm did hear from Romilly.

‘I've had a letter,' he said, as he and Declan sat in the shack. They had whitewashed the walls and tacked up some curtains Declan's mother had donated, and Colm had said Declan was to treat the place as his own. If, for instance, there was a girl he ever wanted to bring here . . .

‘Some chance,' said Declan, grinning, but he liked the idea of having this place as a kind of second home where his parents would not know what he was up to. He and Colm knew they would not intrude on each other's privacy.

It was raining and Colm had built a fire in the tiny hearth. They were sprawled on the battered couch and there was a rag rug in front of the fire.

‘I've brought some of Fintan's whisky,' said Declan. ‘That'll keep out the cold even more than the fire, although Fintan made me swear on my immortal soul I wouldn't tell anyone he sold it to me. What with me only being nineteen and not supposed to buy alcohol.'

‘Did you tell him your immortal soul was already in pawn to the devil anyway, on account of Nick Sheehan's sins?' asked Colm.

‘I did not. Just as you didn't tell anyone you have the sin of Nick Sheehan's death on your own soul,' retorted Declan.

They looked at one another.

‘We've never talked about it, have we?' said Colm. ‘All these years, and all the good friendship, and we've never once talked about that day. Whether we ought to have done something different or whether we could have got him out. Or,' he said, very softly, ‘whether we ever confessed to any of it.'