drink. Take in your surroundings, Nick. Where are you? Who are you with? Try to visualize the scene in as much detail as possible.’
Friday night: the after-work crowd. They’re in a pub in Capel Street and the rounds keep appearing before the previous ones have even been drunk. He checks his phone and sees he’s got a message from Susan.
Where r u?
He texts back, tells her he’ll be home soon – but he doesn’t feel like going home. All they do lately is fight. It’s easier to stay here with the work crowd, but he knows if he stays too long it’ll be worse – that as soon as he walks in the door, the accusations will begin and that’ll be it – the whole weekend ruined.
‘You’re reaching for that drink, Nick. But when you pick it up, you realize that you don’t want it. You don’t want another drink. I want you to take that drink and pour it down the sink. As you do so, I want you to squeeze your hand into a fist and remember those good feelings, those feelings of fulfilment, those feelings of pride. You’re taking control of your life, Nick, free from the burden of addiction, from the need to blot out those painful memories with alcohol.’
Elation. He feels adrenalin course through his body. And he’s transported again. This time he’s in a house, a strange house – not the house he lives in now, or the one he’d shared with Susan. There’s a green suite and green and orange curtains. Everything is brightly coloured, gaudy. He’s different too. His hair falls to his shoulders, and he’s wearing a T-shirt with Black Sabbath across the front – but he’s about the same age as he is now. He goes into the hall. He’s got some good news and he can’t wait to tell her. He shouts up the stairs: ‘Rachel, are you home?’ Nobody answers, but he thinks he hears a noise from above. ‘Rach? Are you here?’ No answer still, but there’s a definite bump from one of the rooms upstairs. A feeling of panic rises in his chest. He looks round the room for a weapon, something to protect himself with. In the kitchen he takes a sharp knife from the drawer, and slowly climbs the stairs.
The door to his and Rachel’s bedroom is closed. It’s never closed, but maybe Rachel is in there after all. Maybe she’s sleeping. He glances into the other rooms – empty. He reaches for the handle, grabs it suddenly and pushes the door inwards. Rachel screams and pulls the bed covers up, hiding her naked body from him as though he’s a stranger. The man, buttoning up his shirt, jumps from the edge of the bed where he’s been sitting, puts his arms out instinctively for protection. Nick sees himself wield the knife. He hears Rachel scream in protest, but it’s too late. There’s blood on the man’s white shirt, on his hands and on the carpet. It’s pooling around his fallen body.
Nick squeezed both hands into fists. He tried to summon Michelle’s face, to wake from the nightmare. He heard Tessa’s voice and strained towards it like a drowning man.
‘I’m going to count from one to five and when I reach five, you’re going to wake, Nick. One, two, three …’
On the count of five Nick opened his eyes. He attempted to sit up. His skin was damp with sweat and his whole body was trembling.
‘It’s okay. You’re okay, Nick. You’re in control. Nothing can happen to you now.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ he said.
‘What do you mean? What happened?’
‘I was in this house, but it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t my place. I was different – the way I looked. I was there to see Rachel. She … she was my wife. But I don’t know her. I have no idea who she is. It was like I was someone else … like it was someone else’s life. I went upstairs, and she was with someone – a man. Jesus … it was awful.’
Tessa was quiet. ‘What happened, Nick?’
‘I had a knife. To protect myself. I heard a noise upstairs, and I thought there was an intruder. And then I saw him in the room with her, and I went crazy. There was blood, so much blood. I know it wasn’t real, but, Jesus, what was it … some kind of nightmare?’
Tessa hesitated. ‘Your appearance, Nick. You said you looked different?’
Nick nodded. ‘My hair was long. I was wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt. I’ve never worn my hair long. I don’t understand … I mean does this normally happen to people under hypnosis?’
Tessa hesitated again. ‘Not to any of my clients, no. But there is something called confabulation. It’s when the mind creates false memories, and to the individual it can seem extraordinarily real. Some people who experience this believe that they’re experiencing remnants of a previous life.’
‘A previous life?’
‘Yes, but there’s no scientific evidence to suggest there’s any truth in that theory. It’s much more likely – and certainly it’s my belief – that the mind distorts memories in the same way as it does in dreams. I hope this hasn’t put you off, Nick. It’s extremely rare that something like this should happen. And if it happens again, well maybe it’s something that needs to be dealt with: a residual fear.’
Nick nodded, but he didn’t know what to think. He could still feel the knife in his hand, hear the woman screaming.
Tessa reached for her diary on the desk. ‘Do you want to make another appointment?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps Wednesday?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll give you a call,’ he said. He took his wallet from inside his jacket and paid. Tessa didn’t mention anything about forwarding the recording; maybe she’d decided it was better if he didn’t listen back – either way, he didn’t ask.
Outside, it was still raining. Nick rushed towards the car. His hands were still shaking as he took the last cigarette from the box, lit it and let the car window down. He put the radio on to try to distract himself from what had just happened. What the hell had that been? Remnants of a previous life … he didn’t believe in any of that mumbo jumbo, and he was glad that the hypnotist didn’t either. Michelle was into all that hippy stuff, she’d be intrigued, but not him. It was a nightmare, that’s all it was … it had to be.
On the radio, Black Sabbath were playing ‘Paranoid’ – Ozzy Osbourne screaming into the night. Fingers trembling, he turned down the volume and inhaled the nicotine deep into his lungs. Then he closed his eyes and squeezed his hand into a fist. Anything to try to distract himself from the nightmare that kept replaying in his head. He thought of Michelle, and how she made him feel, let the emotions wash over him. He couldn’t talk to her, not now, not after what he’d just experienced. Instead, he took the phone from his inside pocket and sent a quick text.
Call you tomorrow. N x.
Caitlin Davis closed the door behind her with a mixture of anxiety and relief. She knew what the evening held, but getting through the day until she’d arrived at this moment had been hard. Several times during the afternoon she’d found herself drifting despite the mayhem of the office and the decisions that needed to be made as to what should appear in the next issue of New Woman, the magazine she’d founded almost six years before – the same year she’d met David.
Caitlin threw her handbag down on the bed, sat down and kicked off her shoes. In her stockinged feet she stood on the edge of the bed and removed a box from the top shelf of the wardrobe. Carefully, she climbed down, took the lid off and took out the bundle of photos that lay at the top. David. It was a year today since she’d last seen him. A year since that terrible night when she’d called their friend, Andy, frantic, to tell him he hadn’t come home.
Walking through Dublin city centre that afternoon, everything had reminded her of their time together.