Pongo #39

Miffy

"Hypnotists? he demands. "Jesus Miffy, you scared the daylights out of me! Have you heard the news? There's been a fucking knife attack.
"Really? I ask, wide-eyed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put ghosts up you.
"It's OK, it's OK, he soothes, wrapping his arms around me. "I just ' I just thought -
"I know, and thank you. But I'm fine. Well, kind of. My voice squeaks to soprano.
"Who were these scammers? What did they say?
"Not scammers. I am vaguely offended. "Recommended by a long list of acronyms, I'll have you know, but zip good anyway. Said I'd got a knot in the tubing, so to speak.

Marty looks baffled.

"A memory lock. Something like that. Basically, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure I can't access those memories. They've been buried very deep.
"Repression? he asks. "Could it just be a protective reaction on the part of your own mind? Perhaps it's a particularly painful memory.
"Oh, I don't doubt it is, I tell him. "But no, this was very much a professional job. Someone has done this to me, and if I can find out who, perhaps I can find out how to get it back.
"That or beat the crap out of them till they relate the memory to you, he offers.
"No good. Risk of lying to protect themselves or someone else. Get the feeling this is not a business in which participants go shooting off their mouths all that frequently. I won't believe anything I haven't remembered first-hand.

He doesn't argue. We both know that a lot of the conspiracy theories in the world written off as crackpot paranoia are normal people who say what they see. Well, as normal as you can get. Just depends who else has seen these things and how much clout they wield, and that's something you very rarely see. No such mistake as being too twitchy.

"Nearly forgot. These are for you. He holds out a bunch of yellow flowers that look like ducks' faces.
"Thanks. I have absolutely no idea what to do with them, but you're lovely anyway. They're lovely.
"You're welcome, Mizz ' oh shit. I have to go. He wraps what I nickname his flasher mac around him. "I left the studio lights on. Oh crap, and our electric bill last month was a monster. If Belliner sees them shining his money away, I'll get roasted. Look, I'll be right back and then we can go get some dinner, yep?
"Sure.

As Marty is eaten by the closing door, I shiver, my new tits jigging. Something tramps on my grave ' something bigger than any goose. I almost ask him to stay, but there is no reason, and like he says, he'll back right back. Those hypnotists have spooked me, no doubt.

There were two of them ' one man with a great big handlebar moustache and one woman with a nylon headscarf, both of them wrapped in silk dressing gowns. They both treated me like a retard, but at least that way I was eased into what is a freaky and potentially dangerous experience. I mean, I could have woken up after therapy with a headache and a bone-bare flat, but you know what? They couldn't even get me under. They said relax, but I couldn't. They said to breathe. Even that was beyond me. My breaths came in short, then long bursts, as if one lung was huge and the other mouse-sized. This threw me and there was no evening them out. My pulse went crackers, my pupils probably dilated like satellite dishes, and all the while the moustache guy is saying "imagine a place where you feel completely at peace, where you can retreat to and feel completely safe and cocooned. For starters, I couldn't imagine any such place and even if I found some close approximation, chances are the walls would close in on me like some lethal duvet and I'd suffocate anyway.

Imagine a place.

When you shut your eyes, it's hard to remember what the post office you use every day looks like, what the colour of your kitchen wall is. This hypothetical bloody beach I'm supposed to be lying on is a stretch of the imagination too far, or a fleeting frame, or overrun by killer crabs.

They gave up on me. I offered to make them tea to apologise for my walled-up mind, but as they were sweating already by this point, they put up blocking hands and all but floated off in their daft silk robes. They said they'd send an invoice for their time, but they seemed so broken that hopefully they'll have forgotten. My money's not going to stretch that far anyway.

Damnit, I'm worried now. I neck a spot of brandy from the cupboard and wait for Marty to return.