VIRAGO

Chapter 17

     I had to claw something back from my crushing disappointment; the realisation that another day had swiped by and still, I'd failed to gain access to the basement. It was clear Brahm felt dreadful for misleading me; he spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to justify why he felt it would be better if he trundled down for the swabs. I think he could sense my dissatisfaction when I stormed off to the health club, more so when I returned to find the day had completely escaped us. The next client had arrived, all possibility had evaporated.

I do not wish to cause him more discomfort than his current predicament affords but Brahm is in my debt, and it's a liability he should pay for. Actions that were unintentional; yes, reasonable, absolutely not. Whichever way I viewed our little exchange the previous day, Brahm had unequivocally let me down. The adage that it is better to have been within touching distance, than not at all is bullshit. I command these positive new parts of me to be silent; shout at them that they better not dare say it. I am getting precisely nowhere.

Then everything turns on its head, my world spins a full 360, for here he is this morning, telling me he never made it down for the swabs. His day ended in disarray; one client delayed, the next arrived for an appointment that hadn't been scheduled. Back and forth we go with irrelevancies and mundane chat, until our game of ping pong ends with a master shot; my insistence that the least he could do was allow me to help, at which point he gave up.

I couldn't believe the fight left him so soon, the lack of tenacity he displayed but there you have it. I have evolved; I recognise that it would be unfair to impose my strict levels of focus and commitment upon others and so I accept this offering, the second gift horse to trot up in as many days. I try and listen to his advisement regarding specific serial numbers with difficulty;  the background of roaring, the whoosh of blood flooding my ears drowns it all out.

In waving away his directions, I may have given the impression I had entered the annexe before; so fearful was I that he would have a change of heart, prevent me from leaving. I dare not risk any interference; this is the closest I have come to locating the truth. My fortune had changed during the double rap of my pulse, I couldn't catch up. Despite my feet moving forwards, the feeling was one of floating, a profound disconnection with my body. The feeling that I wasn't entirely real.

My search for the inconceivable consumes me, but for all intents and purposes, the pass down here today has tasked me to find a refrigeration unit. I need to focus; he would expect me back with something, yet really, how difficult could that be? It took me less than five strides to counsel myself; take the rigorous view that at this point, something was indeed substantially better than nothing. Who knows what I'll find when I get there; maybe Lars left the Coach House door ajar? The idea is crazy, but far more preposterous things have happened during my existence.

I take the stairwell; deserted and dimly lit, the echo of my feet slapping against the concrete rises up to meet me. One level down; two flights of eight steps closer and the hum of the generators intensify, particles in the atmosphere around me begin to crackle. I register the camera locking on; tracking me as I descend to the basement, adding to the chill I'm experiencing from the temperature drop. I pause; move sharply left, then right to test its reaction. It mirrors my movements exactly, the proof I needed that nothing down here goes unnoticed.Every move is recorded.

I leave the stairs and panic electrifies me when the door appears to be locked. It is in fact sealed, a vacuum requiring significantly more force than I was applying. I wrestle through into some kind of preparatory area to be confronted by glinting steel, rows of trollies neatly stacked with laboratory glassware, some of which I'm familiar with. Each trolley seems to be replicated; an array of volumetric flasks and analytical equipment.

Only one stands out; a large machine I recognise as a tissue embedding station, a place to orient tissue samples for biological examination. The temperature plummets around me; a chill settles upon my skin. I see the harbinger's metatarsal scrape across a gravestone underlining my name. This feeling, this thing filling me with what I interpreted as excitement is a disguise. The mask drops; fear is before me, I am faced with terror as white cold as the stallion's breath.

Banks of extraordinarily tall refrigerators hum to my right; I'm magnetized by the huge set of arched double doors ahead, beneath which I see the beginnings of cobbles. It requires little imagination to envisage twin horses, dark with sweat, pulling stage coaches and a highwayman into this space in a bygone era. A set of wrought iron handles adorn the doors, though I doubt these guardians are anything but ornamental. I observe the housing for retina scans sitting to the left; Lars will of course, have made this place impenetrable.

Time literally stops. My world is condensed into this moment; I'm compressed, so many memories flying at me with such pace and intensity, it's suffocating. I endure an assualt upon my senses, every fiber of my being screaming for some kind of release. For an answer. And so I ask myself if it's possible, that he's on the other side of this wall?

I'm frozen to the spot, here in this annex, this chamber to the underworld. Waiting; for divination from above, or an omen from below, for I will take either indication that this is the place. Confirmation that I have found my fortune, that I am stood in the spot marked X.

There is nothing.

At the end of all these years, the countless hours invested in obsessing, in searching and nothing speaks to me. I realise I'm not yet at the altar, but I expected to feel at least something, here in the aisle. I tread fairy steps towards the doors, barely breathing lest I miss the sign when it comes, for it must. This cannot be a dead end. I have no plans beyond this moment in my existence, I dare not contemplate the notion I could have been wrong all along.

I reach the doors; I am as close as a lover, enough to inhale the centuries imprinted into the wood, there is barely enough space between us to raise my hand. My fingers; splayed and distorted blur before me, it requires several blinks to clear the film of moisture protecting my eyes from the pain. I'm shocked by the cold, but I block it out, continue to press my palm against the wood, willing the message that I am here through to the other side of this obstacle.

The timber acts as a conductor, a source powering the images which flash through my mind. It's a montage I don't want to see. My back catalogue of failures as a human; as a daughter and a parent, hard pictographic evidence of this thing I've become. I see how I tried to be better, to rejoice less in the failure of others authored by my hand, before the struggle became too great. Or I became exhausted; it doesn't show me which way around things happened. It's purpose is to demonstrate the myriad of ways in which I am a failed human, daughter, mother.

I've mourned for so long, it's become the only definition of who I am.

I stand, as if swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I will the sorrow, try to expel it through my palm but the weight is too great and it refuses to leave me, irony that is not wasted. I'm past pain, in a place where I feel more present, alive and invested in a single moment, than ever before. Every attempt I've made to carve the badness from my soul and my skin has failed me, but up to this point there has always been hope; the prospect that there could be one more layer to the onion, one final chance to reveal something of worth below. If there is nothing here, everything becomes pointless.

I have nothing more to shed.

This is me laid bare.

Utterly insignificant.

It takes me some time to remove my hand from that door, to gather myself and when I do, I snap back into a paler version of my former self. I remember Brahms' requirement for swabs and deliver them as promised. Immediately, he notices something is very wrong.

I do something unusual; I tell him the truth, that I don't know what happens from here.