“He helps a lot of people. They come and go, sometimes staying just a few days. Other times they’re here so long they become a part of you. You get used to their voice, their scent. But then one day they’re cured and off they go. He never helps me though. He never lets me go.”
“Where would you go?”
She shrugged. “I used to like visiting the zoo. The animals just wander around and you can stroke them if you want. I used to take some fruit and feed them from my hands like this.” Grace held out her palm, flat and upturned. “But now no-one remembers and he says I have to stay here and help.”
The Mariner struggled to understand, so asked his question once more. “What were you addicted to?”
Grace’s sad expression suddenly turned to one of loathing, a sudden rage that almost sent the Mariner falling onto his back. “I’ve never been an addict,” she hissed, tears welling in her eyes. “And he’s not my father.”
And when Jesus Christ returns there will be forgiveness for those who repent. He will sew the world together and all shall be restored.
But for those who do not believe in forgiveness, for those who feel themselves beyond his touch, there will be darkness. Darkness and an endless sea.
22. DISCHARGED
TETRAZZINI’S OFFICE DOOR CREAKED OPEN, so softly that the doctor thought it must be a breeze for he was certain that if a person had come down the hall he’d have heard their approach. A dirty set of fingers curled around the frame.
“Is that you, my friend?” he asked, rising from his chair.
The Mariner, looking worse for wear, left arm soaked with his own blood, entered and closed the door behind. The pair stood in silence. And anticipation.
“Well?” Tetrazzini asked. “Did you do it?”
“No, I could not.”
The doctor let out a long breath, glimmers of disappointment carefully hidden behind his objective façade.
“I admire your fortitude of character, but if you want to be cured—”
“I do not.”
Tetrazzini’s mouth dropped in surprise. “You don’t?” Suddenly the gentle man transformed, voice rising within the silent room. “Then perhaps I’m wasting my time giving you bed and board? Perhaps you should go rest your head beside those beasts of yours?”
The Mariner didn’t bite the bait. Instead he barely moved, keeping his eyes fixed upon the doctor with cold intensity.
“Why do you keep track of passing days in a world where dates mean nothing?”
Tetrazzini scrunched up his face in frustration. “What are you talking about?”
“Why?”
“Because time’s important! It’s falling apart everywhere else, so why not try?”
Still the Mariner did not move. “I’ve been thinking a lot about time. And about memories. You told me that the past doesn’t exist anywhere outside my own head. All that exists is the now.”
“Yes, that would be the logical way of viewing it.”
“But I don’t think that’s true. I think time is like Reverend McConnell’s story box. Our lives are the viewing piece, moving across time and only showing us one moment after another. But as we pass, those moments continue, locked in place. We can’t return to them, but they’re there, trapped in that singular point going over and over again. That’s what the Neptune showed me; the past exists beyond memories, it’s just they’re the only way we can reach out to them.”
Incredulity had twisted Tetrazzini’s face into a goblin mask. “So?”
“I don’t deserve to forget. If I put the terrible things I’ve done behind me, I’m betraying those women whom I’ve hurt. Whom I’m still hurting. And if I abandon or change the memory of what my mother did, then I’m leaving that boy alone, trapped forever in the dark. For he is still there. He always will be.”
“You’re sentencing yourself to a life of misery out of a sense of duty to things only you remember. That woman you killed doesn’t remember a thing. She’s dead.”
“Not in the past she’s not. She’s there, and she’s in pain.”
Tetrazzini threw his hands into the air as if he was dealing with a complete idiot. “So you don’t want to get better, is that it? You don’t want to be cured?”
“Like you were?”
Tetrazzini’s eyes widened in shock. He gaped like a fish, some type of snapper, for his face glowed red.
“I spoke to Grace. I thought she was your patient, but she’s not. She’s your treatment.”
Silence followed, the doctor flustered. Finally he pointed at the Mariner as if he were the one accused, his finger trembling with his voice. “You don’t understand, you don’t understand what it’s like!”
“Yes I do. I’m a monster too.”
“No! Addiction makes a monster, and I’m not an addict. A junkie with no fix robs houses, a junkie with a whole stash keeps to himself. I used to be one, oh yes, I used to be unable to control myself. Whenever I saw—” Words stuck in his throat, unable to vocalise his love for young flesh. “I wouldn’t be able to help myself, my mind would go there, that dark place you and I know so well. It was fine in the old-world with laws and rules; there you would be called ‘kiddie-fiddler’ or ‘pervert’, but without evidence you were fine to live your life, to do what you do. Not this place. Here there are no rules, and mistakes lead to lynches.”
He staggered to the Mariner, face distorted by his plea, hands out and clasping. “But my drug cured me! I found Grace, kept her with me and used her to suck my addiction dry.” His eyes desperately searched the Mariner’s face for some sign of acceptance. “Think of the amount of children I’ve saved from my old-self by doing this.”
“All except Grace.”
“A small price to pay!” he snapped. “Sure, I fuck her now and then, a quick dose of beta-blockers just to keep everything in check and make sure the addiction never reasserts, but in return I cure people. I take monsters and turn them into lives. Real human lives!”
The Mariner’s face was like a rock and his words an avalanche. “Addiction doesn’t make us a monster. It’s a very human trait. It’s what we do, that makes the monster.”
Tetrazzini didn’t respond, glowering in the gloom.
“I’m leaving. I don’t want a cure, to my victims that would be a further betrayal. If I suffer, if I carry this with me every day until the end, then just maybe my sin will be in part repaid.”
“You think you can control it, but you’ll give in. Sooner or later you will. Except when you do, you’ll be without me. You’ll be too weak to resist, and so you’ll go on hurting women over and over again. See if you don’t!”
“No. If I suffer enough, perhaps they won’t have to.”
“Fine, fuck off! Do you think we need you? You think I give a shit? I’ll be right here, doing what I’ve always done.”
The Mariner nodded and finally showed an expression on his face. A distant and hollow smile. And just as that smile had chilled the last few beats of Absinth’s heart, it chilled Tetrazzini’s too, despite the temperature in the room rising with every second.
“That’s right. I’m leaving and you’re staying.” He pointed his trusty Mauser at Tetrazzini’s left knee. “I dropped in on Donna before I came to you, and gave her all the flammable spirits in your storage. As I figure it, she’s probably got one burning left before she’s cured. I think a lot will be cured after that.”