A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [99]
"Do you know, you're the first person who has said that to me? Every other one acted like I had all the feelings of a phonograph record."
"Yes, I know. I should hate having to be a policeman, having to grow all hard and impersonal to keep from being eaten up by it all. I'm sorry they were so awful to you."
"Oh, well, it wasn't that bad, I guess. The worst of it was the way they wanted every last detail, where was I standing, and where was the beggar sitting, and did the screeching sound come after she fell or as she was falling, and all the time all I could think of was the sound of—" She stood up and went for another cigarette, then pulled the harshness back up around her voice. "It's stupid, really, but I keep thinking of the time when I was nine and I saw my dog get crushed under a cart. Try telling a Scotland Yard chief inspector that." She laughed, and I knew that she would not help me, not in the way I needed her to help me, unless I could shatter that smooth surface. It would cost me a great deal to buy her cooperation, and there was no guarantee that the results would be worth the expense. I studied her glossy, smooth hair and well-cut clothes, and felt too tall and unkempt and poorly clothed, and I knew again that I had no choice. I exhaled slowly.
"May I tell you something?" My soft question brought her attention around to my face, and what she saw there brought her, wary, back to the chairs. I told her then the story I had given to only two other people in my life. It was a simple story, a terrible story, of an automobile that strayed from its side of the road and what happened when it met another automobile at the top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and what happened to the only survivor, the child who had been the cause of it: me.
It was a cruel thing to do, telling her that tale with the hideous, ever-fresh guilt lying naked in my face and voice. My coin was pain, my own pain, and with it I bought her. By the time I finished, she was, unwillingly, in my debt, and I knew that the drained starkness in her face was a reflection of my own.
"Why are you telling me this?" It was almost a whisper. "What do you want from me?"
I answered her indirectly but honestly.
"You have to remember that I was only fourteen. For several weeks, I ranged from states of near catatonia to violent fits of self-destruction. And amnesia. I could not remember the accident at all, not while I was awake, until a very good and amazingly sensitive psychiatrist took me on. Yes, you begin to see the point of it now. With her help, I learnt to get it under control, at least to the point that I could take it out and look at it. The nightmares took longer, but then I ... didn't have her help for more than a couple of months."
"Do you still have nightmares?" This was more than idle curiosity asking.
"Not of the accident, not anymore."
"How did you get rid of them?"
"Time. And, I told someone who cared. That took a long time."
"To tell?"
"To work up to the telling."
I waited while she fussed with another cigarette. Her short hair fell perfectly from the razor-sharp line down the centre of her scalp.
"What did she do to make you remember? The psychiatrist?"
"A number of different things, many of which would be inappropriate here. Are you by any chance expecting your fiancé this evening?"
My question confused her, but she answered willingly.
"Yes. He said he'd be here at six-thirty." It was five past.
"After he gets here, with your permission and his, I'd like to think about something, a little experiment. Have you ever been hypnotised?"
Her eyes grew slightly wary.
"Hypnotised? Like with a swinging watch, 'you are getting sleepy,' and that? I was at a party once where someone was doing it, making people walk through the fountain and such, but they were all pretty tipsy to begin with."
"What I'm talking about is quite different, and that's why I'd like your friend here before we make any decisions. I don't want to hypnotise you, and I certainly