Past Lives

Seven

Macandrew curled up into a ball on the road and held his hands to his body. He was vaguely aware of the BMW roaring off but his mind was being overwhelmed by successive waves of pain that shot up through his arms and burst like starshells inside his head. Someone, somewhere, was asking what all the noise had been about. Another demanded that an ambulance be called. Yet someone else was telling neighbours not to get involved.

No one approached him directly. This was Kansas City suburbia where the real world never came to call. Drama was the stuff of television, always held at a comfortable distance. But now, there was an injured man lying in the street, beside an empty car with its driver’s door swung open.

Macandrew managed to prop himself up a little using his elbows but the pain in his hands was so bad that he feared he might pass out. His vision was being blurred by waves of red mist. ‘Can somebody help me please,’ he croaked.

There was no response.

‘Is anyone there?’

From a distance, a man asked cautiously, ‘What’s your problem, buddy?’

‘My hands are bust, I need help.’

‘How’d that happen then?’ asked the voice.

Macandrew added despair to his agony. He took a succession of deep breaths. ‘Would you please get Dr Karen Bliss for me. She lives in apartment 32, number thirty-seven.’

‘Karen Bliss.’

‘Yes, Dr Karen Bliss. Tell her it’s John Macandrew.’

‘Macandrew,’ repeated the man without expression.

Macandrew could feel tears of frustration well up in his eyes. Just how far back on the evolutionary trail was this bozo stranded? A few base-pairs less and he’d be a palm tree and where the fuck were all the other people? Had they all gone back indoors? ‘Jesus,’ he murmured. ‘Land of the free... home of the brave...’

‘Number thirty-seven. Right?’

‘Jesus.’

Macandrew was losing strength fast. The terrible pain had sapped every ounce of energy from him and he felt unconsciousness beckon, promising him sleep and blessed release from the pain. His head lolled against the side of his car, and then he heard high heels clicking towards him.

‘God Almighty, Mac, what happened?’ asked Karen Bliss.

‘Two guys... they jumped me... jammed my hands in the car door.’

Karen made to examine his hands but the mere thought of it made him cry out.

‘Okay, Mac, Relax. I’ll drive you to the Med Centre. It’ll be quicker than calling an ambulance. I’ll just get Jeff.’

Macandrew passed out on the journey.

When he came round, Saul Klinsman was in the room. He was talking to a nurse but stopped when he saw that he was awake. ‘You’re back with us,’ he said.

The fuzzy feeling in Macandrew’s head told him that he had been given a powerful analgesic but he had no trouble remembering what had happened. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were bandaged. ‘How bad?’ he asked.

Klinsman came and sat down beside him. He said, ‘I’m not going to bullshit you, Mac; they’re a mess. For a plumber, they’d be a mess; for a mailman, they’d be a mess; for a surgeon... they could be a serious mess.’

The comment made Macandrew attempt to flex his fingers. He was rewarded by needles shooting up through his arms. He grimaced and asked, ‘A career-ending mess?’

Klinsman shrugged his shoulders. ‘Frankly, I don’t know. It’s too soon to say. Either way you’re going to need a bunch of surgery on them.’

‘Thanks for levelling with me,’ said Macandrew.

‘Did you see the bastards who did this?’

‘Sure but they were just the hired hands. We both know who was behind it.’

‘That little bastard Francini; the cops have got to nail him for this.’

‘Leave it be Saul,’ said Macandrew. ‘It would do the Med Centre nothing but harm. Francini is a powerful man. Presented as a story of good-old-boys beating up on the incompetent surgeon who ruined his wife’s life, just might make him a hero in this man’s town.’

‘But it wasn’t like that,’ protested Klinsman.

‘It’s like what the papers will make it like, Saul. Francini buys a lot of advertising space.’

‘Get some rest,’ said Klinsman. ‘We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.’

Extensive surgery to Macandrew’s hands was carried out by the end of the week. A friend and ex-colleague of Saul Klinsman — who had called him in from St Louis — carried out the work in one long session. ‘The best there is,’ was how Klinsman described Paul Gonsalves. When the operation was over and Macandrew was in recovery, Gonzales and Klinsman came to see him.

‘Paul has some good news for you,’ announced Klinsman.

Gonzales, a handsome Hispanic man in his late forties with an air of calm confidence about him and a confident smile, said, ‘The damage wasn’t as great as we feared. The operation went well.’

Macandrew closed his eyes and savoured the moment. He almost passed out when the tide of relief in him betrayed the amount of stress he’d been under. There was nothing in the world he would rather have heard but now he feared that the next word would be, “but”.

‘But... we’ll still have to wait and see,’ added Gonsalves.

‘Too soon for a bottom line?’

‘They were all clean breaks. They should knit well with no need for splints and pins. I think there’s a better than even chance of you operating again.’

Macandrew smiled. ‘I think I can safely say that you have made my day, Doctor,’

‘And now, Saul here is going to make mine,’ said Gonsalves with a smile. ‘He promised me the biggest steak in Kansas City when I’d finished.’

‘I think it should be me paying,’ said Macandrew.

‘Maybe I’ll send you the tab,’ said Klinsman. ‘Have you had any more thoughts about having Francini charged?’

Macandrew shook his head. It was a slight shake, designed to obscure whether he meant that he hadn’t had any more thoughts or whether he did not intend to pursue the matter. Klinsman took nothing from it and said, ‘You have to consider your future, Mac. If, God forbid, things don’t turn out as we all hope, a law suit might help... financially, I mean.’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ said Macandrew. ‘But I still think it might be difficult.’

‘Not as difficult as it was,’ said Klinsman.

‘How so?’

‘Carl Lessing called me an hour ago. The Mayo clinic confirmed the diagnosis of malignant tumour and that the tissue did indeed come from Jane Francini.’

Macandrew’s relief felt bitter-sweet.

As the two surgeons left, he pondered on what might have been if only Lessing had thought of the slide material earlier. He looked down at his bandaged hands and screwed his eyes tight shut. Spilt milk, Macandrew. Move on.

The weeks passed and Macandrew’s hands healed to the point where he could use them again — albeit for not too demanding purposes. He found himself growing restless. He had spent most of his time since coming out of hospital reading journals or walking or listening to music and now the attraction was beginning to wear thin. Time was hanging heavy on his hands and long periods of inactivity were beginning to play mind games with him.

At first, he had seen himself simply a surgeon on sick leave and that was all right; it was an easy role to play. None of life’s domestic parameters needed changing; everything was simply on hold. But lately, he had begun to question whether this was really so. He didn’t know for sure how complete his recovery would be so he might not actually be a surgeon any more. He might really be unemployed and pounding the streets of Kansas City like the bums he came across while he believed he was just out walking.

Once the thought had crept into his head, nothing looked quite the same any more. The Fall was over. They were into November and the weather had turned cold. The sidewalks seemed harder, the people more alien, even the smell of barbecue sauce — which was everywhere in KC — was beginning to make him feel nauseous and the thought of a long hard winter ahead was not a happy prospect.

He confided these feelings to Karen Bliss who, with her husband, had been kindness itself, having him over to dinner at least once a week and constantly checking up on him.

‘What you need is a vacation, Mac,’ she insisted. ‘You are talking garbage. Of course, you’ll operate again.’

Macandrew smiled. He liked Karen’s positive approach to life. It used to be his. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so,’ insisted Karen. ‘You are going to be as good as you ever were and even if you should turn out only to be half as good, you’ll still be good enough.’

Macandrew smiled at Karen going over the top but he appreciated it.

‘Karen’s right,’ said Jeff. ‘It’ll do you good to get away from KC for a while. The snow will be here any day and the cold isn’t going to help your hands any. Go get some sunshine.’

‘I’m beginning to think you guys are ganging up on me! Can I have some more coffee?’

Karen refilled his cup and said, ‘I don’t know if you’re still interested but I’ve been reading up on Multiple Personality Disorder.’

Macandrew felt a shiver run through him; he clattered down his cup a little too noisily in its saucer. He hoped Karen and Jeff hadn’t noticed this and put his napkin to his lips. The Francini case had been fading from his memory — or perhaps he had been successful in blotting it out — but now the mention of Multiple Personality Disorder brought it all back. Jane’s madness, her husband’s hatred, the hellish trauma of the car door incident. He had relived the nightmare a hundred times in the small hours of the morning. ‘Really?’ he said and swallowed hard.

‘It’s actually very interesting,’ continued Karen, apparently unaware of Macandrew’s unease. ‘And more than a little frightening.’

‘Why frightening?’

‘A lot of the stuff I came up with relates to criminal acts where the accused claims to have been another person at the time of the offence. This happens much more frequently than you’d imagine. In several instances, psychiatric reports commissioned by the court have actually concluded that two different people were inhabiting the same body.’

‘Something tells me that’s not going to help much with Jane Francini’s problem,’ said Macandrew.

‘No, but I’m convinced it’s all part of the same thing,’ said Karen. ‘And there’s more. I came across a report in the International Herald Tribune about a recent scandal in Israel. I made a copy of it because I felt sure you’d be interested.’ Karen looked about her, as if trying to remember where she had put it. ‘I’ll find it later,’ she said. ‘Anyway it was about a mental hospital in the Holy Land being run by the Church.’

Macandrew and Jeff exchanged glances that suggested they were at the mercy of some feminine logic that was denied to them.

‘It turned out the Church authorities didn’t know anything about it.’

‘I’m sorry but why should that be interesting?’ asked a puzzled Macandrew.

‘None of the patients’ relatives knew anything about it either. When the police stumbled on the place and started making enquiries, it transpired that the patients were actually listed on their files as missing persons. According to their relatives, all of them were perfectly sane and healthy at the time of their disappearance and none had ever suffered from any mental illness before.’

‘I’m sorry, I still don’t see what...’ said Macandrew.

‘It appears that it was something the “hospital” did to these people that damaged their minds,’ said Karen. ‘According to one guy, who managed to escape, the patients were offered money to undergo some kind of chemical hypnosis and it was this that damaged them.’

‘Bizarre.’

‘The guy responsible — a priest, would you believe — took off when the cops turned up and now the church authorities are disclaiming all knowledge of him. They say that the place isn’t a hospital at all; it’s a convent for Benedictine nuns — the Sisters of St Saviour. Now comes the really interesting bit,’ said Karen. ‘The patients were all taken to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem,’ said Karen. ‘They were rambling and incoherent when admitted but... under sedation...’ Karen paused for effect and saw that she now had Macandrew’s undivided attention. ‘Under sedation they calmed down and started to make sense. The only problem was... they weren’t the same people any more.’

‘You mean like Jane Francini and Emma?’

‘Exactly,’ said Karen. ‘What’s more, when the sedation completely wore off, they started raving again.’

‘Good God,’ said Macandrew.

‘I thought you’d be interested,’ said Karen.

‘I’d certainly like to see the article,’ said Macandrew.

‘It’s around here somewhere,’ said Karen, starting to look. ‘It’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘You said that this priest — the one running the place — made a run for it?’

‘Apparently he wasn’t really in charge,’ said Karen. ‘The convent is home to an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns who hadn’t had much contact with the outside world. When this guy turned up on their doorstep, saying that he’d been sent by the Church in Rome and carrying papers stating that the sisters were to help him in his work, they accepted it without question. According to the nuns he wasn’t alone. He had another guy, a doctor, working with him. But it gets weirder: when the pair of them took off they took one of the patients with them.’

‘Why?’

‘No one knows.’

‘Crazy,’ said Macandrew. ‘Absolutely crazy.’

Karen again insisted that the article must be somewhere around.

Macandrew glanced at his watch and saw it was late. He got to his feet and stretched his arms in the air. ‘I think I’m for home,’ he said. ‘But if you should come across it... Tell you what; I’m coming in to the Med Centre tomorrow to see Saul. If you find it, bring it with you and I’ll stop by your office.’

‘Sure thing.’

Macandrew kissed Karen lightly on the cheek and nodded to Jeff. ‘Thanks for everything, guys, I really appreciate it.’

Macandrew walked to the Med Centre in the morning despite the fact that it was bitterly cold and there was a strong wind blowing. The trees had now lost their leaves so any East coast allusions had gone for good. Kansas City was back to being Kansas City. The 39th Street bus passed a little too close to the kerb while he was waiting to cross at the junction of 39th and Rainbow and threw some dirt up into his face. He had to pause for a moment to remove some grit from his eye but, as he turned his back to the wind and brought out his handkerchief, he took comfort from the thought that, a couple of weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been able to do this. He could now use his fingers well enough to manipulate a handkerchief. His hands were getting better.

‘How are things?’ asked Saul Klinsman, getting up from his desk when Macandrew came in.

‘We’re shaking hands aren’t we?’ replied Macandrew with a smile.

Klinsman saw the joke and put his hand to his forehead. ‘I never thought,’ he confessed. ‘Does this mean we have an improvement?’

‘A big improvement,’ agreed Macandrew.

‘I’m really glad to hear that, Mac. The sooner you’re back the better.’

‘You wanted to see me?’ said Macandrew.

‘Yes I did,’ replied Klinsman. ‘I put it off for a couple of days but then I thought better of it and left a message for you with the Jacksons.’

‘Very mysterious,’ said Macandrew.

‘It’s rather delicate,’ said Klinsman.

‘What is?’

‘I have something for you. It was addressed to me but the contents are for you.’

‘What?’

Klinsman opened the top drawer of his desk and brought out an envelope. He pushed it towards Macandrew while he opened the deeper bottom drawer and brought out a bottle of good brandy.

Macandrew opened the envelope and withdrew a bundle of bank notes. ‘Good God, there must be at least...’

‘Twenty thousand dollars,’ said Klinsman.

‘But who...’

‘Anonymous,’ said Klinsman, ‘addressed to you, care of me.’

Macandrew suddenly realised who the source must be and felt a shiver run through him. ‘Francini,’ he murmured.

Klinsman nodded. ‘I think so. The Mayo Clinic’s findings must have finally convinced him you weren’t responsible for what happened to his wife.’

And now he’s saying, ‘Sorry I broke every bone in your hands. Let’s kiss and make up.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well the bastard can take his money and jam it where the sun don’t shine,’ said Macandrew bitterly.

Klinsman smiled wryly. ‘I thought you’d see it that way. I’ll see this is returned to Mr Francini.’

Macandrew shook his head and found that he had made a decision. ‘I’ve had enough, Saul,’ he said. ‘I need to get away for a bit. I’m going to take a vacation.’

‘Good idea,’ said Klinsman. ‘Where are you thinking of going?’

‘Scotland,’ said Macandrew, almost surprising himself.

‘Scotland?’ exclaimed Klinsman as if it were the last place on earth he expected to hear.

‘I’ve often thought about it in the past but never got round to doing anything about it. I never seemed to have the time but now, I’m going off to trace my roots. I want to see where the Macandrews came from. I’ve seen where my great grandfather settled in Missouri; now I’m going to take a look at the place he came from — a village in Scotland called Drumcarrick.’

Macandrew called in to Karen’s office and found her writing up case reports.

‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I’ve used at least ten ways of saying, no progress, this morning without actually saying, no progress. Does that make me some kind of literary genius?’

‘Probably makes you some kind of politician,’ replied Macandrew. He waited until she had finished writing before asking, ‘Did you find it?’

Karen reached into her desk drawer and brought out a cardboard envelope file. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘Come to think of it, you’d better have this too.’ She handed Macandrew the tape she had made of her interview with Jane Francini.

Macandrew slipped it into the envelope without comment and told her of his decision to go to Scotland. She seemed pleased although surprised he hadn’t picked somewhere sunny. ‘Well, it’ll do you good to get away, Mac. When are you thinking of going?’

‘Just as soon as I can fix a flight.’

Macandrew went directly from the Med Centre to a travel agent up in the Crown Shopping Centre and made arrangements that would see him fly from Kansas City to Chicago and then across the Atlantic into London Heathrow. From there, he would catch a domestic flight up to Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh.