Chapter Forty - Stop It
Annabel is looking
through a pile of old records. She comes to an album of old
Everly Brothers songs. She snorts."What's the matter?""Problems, Problems,
Problems. Ha." She waves the record at me. Yes, I remember
the song. "It's right. Why is life full of all these
problems?"For a while I
thought Ann was just socialising, broadening her life,
branching out. But it didn't take long to realise that she
really did want a change. Her fling with Edwin was simply
that. The situation with Terry was quite different, and was
causing massive problems with Cindy.Ann had assumed
marriage meant a complete sharing of everything in life by
two people. She had two sisters and a brother. She was used
to sharing. I had been brought up with only two people in
the house, mother and myself. I was not used to sharing.I was a wanderer, a
bum. I didn't really like being tied to a house. I should
never have had children. I was a hopeless father. I couldn't
remember having a father in the house, so I had no role
model to follow.The situation was
not improved by the fact that I earned my living as a writer
and a thinker. You cant think in the middle of a bustling
household. You cant write at the living room table while one
of the kids is doing homework and asking all sorts of crazy
questions, and another is playing round your feet, and using
one shoe as a roundabout, and the wife wants something moved
so she can lay the table for supper.How many times have
I sat in my room and Annabel has been shouting at me to come
and eat my dinner before it gets cold. To hell with the
bloody dinner, I am in the middle of something important. I
am writing at a great rate. I have been struggling with this
section all week, and it is at last coming together, right
now, and I am typing fast, leaving all the scuffed keys and
gibberish in the text just so I can get everything down
before I lose it again...... and someone is screaming about
the stupid dinner. Sod the bloody dinner. Bung it in the
oven, I'll eat the stuff later. This is important, not the
dinner.I'm in the wrong
house. I'm in the wrong movie.I'm in my own room.
Most of the time Annabel is in her own room as well. She is
an artist. She is a painter. Being a painter is easier to
square with home life. The thought patterns don't get quite
so obviously disturbed by family interruptions. She had the
big problem solved. She had her own room where she could
leave canvasses, paint, and all kinds of junk wherever she
wanted, and it didn't get in anyone's way.But I got in the
way, not the children. It was my head that impinged on
everything she did. I didn't share, I barged into
everything. I invaded every area, not with things, but with
my mind, and my personality. I walked around the world with
a great fuzzy electric aura bursting out of me in all
directions. You could feel the powerhouse impinging upon
everything within shouting distance.Upstairs Annabel was
no longer safe in her room with the door shut and me in a
subdued mood in my own room. No wonder she felt content
sitting peacefully on the sofa with Terry doing a crossword.With my aura rampant
no-one was safe. My energy burst though the wall and made
the woodwork creak and tick. Suddenly Ann would shout "Stop
it Johnny, stop it!"I'm sitting at the
table reading a book. I look up, puzzled. "What d'you mean?
I'm not doing anything.""Yes you are. Stop
it.""But.....""Listen."I'm clearly doing
something without even noticing, but I'm not sure what it
is, but you can hear the result, like a clock ticking. It
sounds to be coming from above the fireplace. I try to look
into myself to see what could be going on to create this
regular noise, but fail. Instead I look steadily at the
fireplace. I am seeing in my mind's eye a scene at Fountains
Abbey. I am standing on a stone in the river. Up the bank,
against the hedge Annabel has her dress hoiked-up. She is
taking off her stockings, so she can help me set up stepping
stones across the stream. I see a glorious summer's day. It
is one of those perfect days when everything goes right from
the moment you wake up till the moment you crash
unthinkingly into sleep. Just a perfect day.I am back in that
perfect day. My body loosens. I am totally relaxed and
peaceful, and the ticking stops."You see. It is
you."I smile ruefully.At first this
strange power was fun. There was also the big advantage of
having so much energy. When problems came along I could
generally force them out of my way simply by using the
force-field. Then Annabel found it not just disturbing, but
permanently disorientating. It was as if the field was
always switched on, and people close by were being bombarded
with this energy.Then the problem
began to get to me as well. It was as if this turmoil turned
on me and began destroying me. I felt like a kettle boiling
over, as if I was literally boiling away.I kept having pains
in my eyes. They were right in the top of my head, and then
they moved to the back of the head. I used the energy to
keep calm. I was using masses of energy to stop myself from
exploding. Then the energy veered out of control. The
experience felt like a car tearing along the highway at
great speed. I was gripping a rail, staring straight ahead,
struggling to keep the car on the highway, keeping it in
control, then suddenly I lost control, and everything burst
out all over the place.A few moments later
I would find whatever had been in my head had drained away,
leaving me clutching a small tree, and kicking the trunk. My
shoe is buckled, and totally destroyed. Eventually I
collapse. A couple of hours later Annabel finds me. I have a
serious migraine, and go to bed. I am sweating profusely,
but am very calm. Annabel puts cold wet towels over my face.
The water runs round my eyes, and trickles onto the pillow.
I cannot do anything for the rest of the day.What is happening to
me?* * * * *
I am sitting in a
chair in a small room with Georgian windows in Bloomsbury.
The man sitting opposite me is very calm and speaks with a
soft Scottish accent."So why did you
think of coming to me?""I'm not exactly
ill, but I think I'm.... well, I was going to say
unbalanced, but I didn't mean to imply I was nuts. What I
meant is exactly that; I feel as if certain parts of me are
not in balance with other parts, and I thought you might be
able to help re-balance me.""How do you know you
are not in balance? What symptoms do you have?"I explain about the
massive force-field. "I seem to be in hyper-drive. I'm
not simply doing things fast. It's as if everything
starts going insanely fast, and then proceeds to get faster
and faster. Strangely I get this impression of background
noise coming with the speeding up. I also feel whirled
round, slightly giddy. I don't know if any of this is making
sense.""And does this
happen at any particular time of the day, or is it worse at
any particular time of the year perhaps?""I don't know. I
haven't thought about it.""Morning? Evening
time? Do you have trouble getting to sleep?""No, no trouble at
all, but I seem to sleep at speed as well. I know that
sounds daft. I also have a recurring dream. I suppose it's a
nightmare really. I can feel myself being sucked down in a
whirlpool into the middle of some kind of vortex. I start to
contract until I am part of whatever is spinning round like
a record. Sometimes the speed is constant, and not very
fast, and it goes on and on for ages, and I go very solid
and heavy.""And do you have
this nightmare often?""Yes, quite
regularly.""About how often?""Sometimes once a
month, sometimes every ten days, occasionally several days
running."He examined me, and
stuck needles in me; in my back, in my neck, behind my ears.
He felt various pulses, and finally asked me to make another
appointment, but he looked puzzled.I went back twice
more. Then he sat down and asked me if I could handle being
the way I was, or whether I wanted to do something about it."I want to do
something about it. I think I am not only destroying my
marriage, I am destroying myself.""How is that?""I charge like a
lunatic though my home. I shout and swear, get over-excited
at virtually everything. I attack my wife when I dont want
to. I am short tempered, and generally have to gallop about
like an express train. At the rate I'm going I shall be dead
in ten years through sheer exhaustion.""I cant cure you."
He gave me a few reasons why. I didn't really understand
what he was saying, but it came down to instructions from
the brain and he couldn't interfere with those instructions."So what do I do?""You wont get any
cure on the national health I can assure you of that. No
doctor would recognise there is anything wrong with you. You
can go to a psychiatrist. He will give you pills if he can
find precisely what is happening in the brain to cause the
problem. But you probably wont find a psychiatrist who knows
much about this sort of thing.""I've been to a
psychiatrist before. I wasn't impressed."He shrugged.
"They're working in the dark most of the time. I can give
you the name of a doctor who will examine you. I can
thoroughly recommend him, but he is expensive and he works
on the continent.This time I
shrugged. I felt rich. I would do it for Annabel and the
kids. I needed to do something. He wrote down the name and
an address, and I went home feeling that at last I had some
kind of key to cope with the next door in front of me.The next night
Annabel was crying in bed. I shook myself awake and asked
her what the matter was."I had a dream, and
you were hitting me."I hugged her tight,
and kissed her. There were tears in my eyes. "But I love you
Annabel. I don't ever want to hit you. I promise I don't
want to hit you." I was going to tell her about the man I
had written to, but I thought I would wait until he had seen
me and cured me, then I would give her a surprise. * * * * *
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