She’s exhausted. She wants to go back to the beginning, but she’s lost, lost. Too many people on the streets; cars and black cabs and the bright, invasive lights of huge department store windows and raucous cafes and dazzling, moving ads in bus stop shelters blind her. She turns up what seems a dusky street, somewhere to hide, but this place, Covent Garden (a place she knows yet can’t remember), is blistered with hordes of tourists and the street turns into a stifling market of vendors and noise. She’s shuffled along by the crowd. Quivering, she reaches for her mobile – but her handbag is gone, she can contact no one. Her memory has long abandoned her; her eyes swell with dread.
Grabbing a door handle, she drags herself into a pulsating darkness. Her body vibrates with the shrieking music, she can’t make out the song. A barman leers at her as he wipes a glass; he bellows but she shakes her head, understanding nothing.
A comforting sign – TOILETS – beckons from the back of the room. She stumbles in; leans on the sink and gags. Her face is far, far away, a tiny blanched speck in the black mirror. The thump thump from the bar is cacophonic, piss-stench curls her nostrils, but she’s stretched taut by panic until suddenly the room twirls and He’s talking at her again, seizing her – He only does it when her brain sparks, mutates. As usual He’s demanding something, speaking truth, only truth, but although His words are clear and sincere as birdsong, she forgets them immediately.
It’s always like this.
There’s the moment of ecstasy, complete wisdom. Then she slides to the floor as the petit mal grows – a predator overpowering her limbs and organs, her mind – into a serious seizure. Shuddering, no control, all she can grab at is His dulcet, calm, terrifying voice.
When she wakes the tiles under her cheek are stone-cold, flint-hard. Greasy.
A woman is gawping, eyes as wide as full moons, her hand over her mouth. Her nails are rubicund, ring-encrusted claws.
Are you okay?
Yes.
Jesus, I thought you were dying. Looked like you had a fit. It really freaked me out.
Sorry.
No – no. I’m sorry. What’s your name? I was just about to run and call 999 or something.
Um…Lara.
The woman awkwardly helps her up. She smells of dribbled vodka and verbena.
Lemon verbena…the fragrance of her grandmother in Sydney, or…Lara is immediately drawn back, the room fades, but she grinds her teeth and fights and his voice recedes; for now.
No more seizures, please, she begs Him.
You look – way out of it, says the woman. Maybe you should come back to the bar – I’ll get you some water.
Lara wants to learn her name, but can’t form the words. That soporific cloud, one she knows so well, dulls her mind. Already her leg muscles are spasming – tomorrow the pain will be, as usual, unforgiving.
Who are you? she eventually croaks. The music, the voices, are too loud; the room’s gloomy shadow is pummelled with strobes, monstrous sparks that expose yellow grins and flashing jewellery and the daunting eyes of the possessed. Has she lurched into hell? Where is she?
The woman’s mouth is moving but the words don’t match her lips. Lara’s spine tightens. If only her head would clear! If only memory would return, stop disappearing into the night and leaving her alone, bewildered.
Evie, the woman echoes at her. My name’s Evie. What’s wrong with you?
Evie’s raven-blue hair, the piercings in her nose, that heavy black eyeliner remind her of – what? Her tongue seems to flicker – is it forked?
I don’t know where I am, says Lara, and droops into her hands. Whiffs of beer and rancid cocktails suffocate.
Are you a tourist? says Evie.
What?
Your accent. Sounds Australian – or New Zealand, maybe.
Lara’s lungs ache. I’ve got to go, she whispers. Pushing past Evie, she knocks drinks held by other patrons and cringes at their invectives. She focuses on the Exit sign, red and raw in the tenebrous bar.
Outside the world is still a fug of sneering faces and screeching laughter. Trembling hard she walks, peering desperately for a sign, an escape. Her head has been hollowed by the grand mal.
At the corner she stiffens: before her is a luminous, vast harbour, the centre of existence for that city on the other side of the world. Dust beams flicker from boats and the restaurants in the white-crested Opera House.
Where is Westminster? Nelson’s Column and Tower Bridge? Night after night she’s begged – Him or God, she’s not sure – to return her home, from London.
But not like this.
The earth beneath her topples; she hits the asphalt and curls like a foetus. His voice – that god that speaks so clearly, loves her so dearly, yet vanishes so cold-bloodedly after each fall – overwhelms her yet again. She surrenders to the void.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
