chapter thirty‑three

"I wish I could remember the last time I ate," complained Andrew.

They were standing in front of a brick building, all they could make‑out through the mist was a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway.

"I wish I could remember why I shouldn't trust you. Come on, let's find out; you go first."

Andrew led the way up the steps, through the door and into a large reception area. The walls were covered with posters giving details of various courses and activities run by the centre. Sitting behind a small desk was a very large woman, whom Andrew would later recognize to be Janet, Olive and Ms Quin.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Mrs Thorpe and I'd like to welcome you to the Adult Education Centre," said Mrs Thorpe smiling pleasantly over the top of her double chin.

"Go on then," said Andrew letting his hunger get the better of him.

"Oh, ha ha ha," chuckled Mrs Thorpe, her staggering bosom undulating like a large jelly in an earthquake. "Very sharp. Please sit down. Now tell me, what kind of course are you interested in?"

"Memory Restoration," said Brian.

"Ah, the lilies are in bloom again, eh?" said Mrs Thorpe shaking her head in vexation. "We keep sending in people to chop them down, but of course once they get there they've forgotten why they came; sadly not many of them come back."

"So, why do you keep sending them?" asked Andrew, exasperated.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, as if the idea had never occurred to her, "it's just something we've always done, but you do have a point. I'll bear it in mind before I send the next person, but it's a pity to break such an old tradition."

"Well don't worry about it then, forget I ever mentioned it," said Andrew sarcastically.

"Oh thank you. Yes that does seem to be the best way out," Mrs Thorpe smiled; she was relieved to have found such a easy solution to her dilemma. "Now then," she said, to indicate that it was time to get down to business. "The Memory Restoration course comes under the broad heading of Personality Enhancements which is run by the faculty of Hypnotics; they also do a number of other courses including: How to postpone procrastination, How to feel slimmer without losing any weight -"

Andrew sniggered.

"How to prevent premature ejaculation without using your hands," Mrs Thorpe paused to look at Andrew, "and the course you wish to do: How to remember those things your subconscious thinks are best forgotten. Can I tempt you with any of the others?"

"No, I don't think so, thank you," said Brian.

Andrew was too annoyed to do anything more than turn red.

"We normally recommend a therapeutic course to follow any of the hypnotic studies because of the psychological trauma which usually follows. There is a wide range of these relaxation classes. Some of the more popular are: Drinking for pleasure, Ship building by numbers, and One hundred and one things to do with an electric toothbrush."

"I think we'll just take the memory one to start with then, once we've remembered what we are supposed to be doing, we'll know if we have time for anything else," said Brian.

"Yes of course, very sensible," said Mrs Thorpe nodding. "The hypnotic courses are all teach‑yourself programmes, so you can start whenever you like. Just go up to room one‑o‑one when you're ready."

Room 101 was full of small glass‑walled cubicles, most were already occupied, each contained a table and chair, Andrew entered the nearest empty one and sat down on the chair. Through the wall to his right he could see a man curled up on the floor in a foetal position sucking his thumb, on his left another man writhed around on the floor apparently having an epileptic fit. On the table was a row of pill bottles, each marked with the name of a course, and a glass of water. Andrew nervously selected the appropriate bottle and, after several minutes of struggling, removed the top. He took out one of the large white pills, placed it gingerly on his tongue, and quickly washed it down with a mouthful of water.

For a moment nothing happened and then nothing happened again, nothing continued to happen for some time until Andrew got bored with it. He stood up, opened the cubicle door and stepped into a lift, and not out into room 101 as he had expected. The door closed behind him. He waited but the lift did not move.

On the right‑hand side of the door was a column of buttons; alongside each one was a label and a small light‑bulb. The top one was lit. He ran his finger lightly down the labels and read each one: Conscious, Day‑Dream, Snooze, Drunken Stupor, R.E.M., Sub‑Conscious and Unconscious. He pushed the button marked 'Sub‑Conscious' and began straightening his hair in the mirror. The lift slowly began to descend. Seconds later there was a ping, the lift door opened, and Andrew stepped out into a poorly lit corridor.

Painted on the wall facing the lift were two arrows pointing in opposite directions. One was marked 'Autonomous Functions', Andrew followed the other which had the narrative 'Information Management'.

The corridor was very wide and stretched off dimly into the distance. At evenly-spaced intervals along each wall were tall archways. The floor was coated in a thick layer of dust; at each archway and along the centre of the corridor the dust had been disturbed to leave the impression of tyre marks. Andrew walked over to the first arch which had a sign above it saying: 'Childhood'. He stepped through the archway and entered a huge hall. It was bare except for a long row of filing cabinets which lined one wall. He tried several of the cabinets, but they were empty. He stepped back into the corridor and as he did so his bare feet brushed against something under the dust. He bent down and picked up a small scrap of paper; it said 'Mother's Birthday: 19th October'. As he walked past archways with various signs denoting different periods of his life he found other pieces of paper with messages like: 'Your umbrella is on the luggage rack', 'Linda: 937 6621', 'Richard of York gave battle in vain', 'Buy some more petrol', and 'Do up your flies'.

When Andrew finally reached the other end of the corridor he found a small yellow fork‑lift truck. Slumped over the steering‑wheel was a short, middle‑aged man wearing a grubby white coat. He was asleep.

"Hey, what's going on here?" said Andrew angrily.

The man stirred and looked up sleepily. "Who the hell are you?" he said sitting up in alarm.

"That's what I'm here to find out," growled Andrew.

The man jumped off the seat of the fork‑lift and walked over to Andrew. "You can't just stroll around here as if you own the place," he wagged his finger under Andrew's nose, "there's a lot of confidential information down here."

"Oh yeah, I don't see any; the place is empty," said Andrew, fighting the strong desire to bite off the man's wagging finger.

"Well," said the man, who had noticed Andrew's interest in his finger and hidden it behind his back, "that's because I've just put it all in there," he nodded towards a steel door which closed‑off one of the arches.

A sign above the door said:

Danger Toxic Materials.

This is a Hard Hat area.

No Entry for Unauthorized Personnel.

"Well you'd better just take it all out again."

"Look, mate, I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just walk in here and start giving orders. Now piss off, before I call Security," the man turned his back and walked back to the fork‑lift, "some of us have work to do."

"Work to do! Work to do! I've seen the standard of your work," shouted Andrew, furiously waving the wad of paper he had picked up. "Thanks to you; I've spent a fortune on sunglasses and umbrellas. It's no wonder I could never remember my poor mother's birthday, and what about this one; Linda 937 6621. Goodness knows what I missed out on there. I mean, look at this place; it's filthy."

Andrew swung his foot and kicked dust into the air, revealing another scrap of paper, it said; 'Ask about seasonal blood donation'.

"And on top of all that you don't even know who I am!" continued Andrew bitterly.

"Hold on a minute, are you trying to tell me these are your memories, that you're the boss?" said the man uncertainly.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you, I'm also trying to tell you what a terrible job you're doing."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me that, but it's the only one I could find." The man walked over to a dart‑board which hung on the wall, removed the darts and turned the board over. On the back was a heavily perforated photograph of Andrew. "Oh, yes, it is you. I'm sorry but we're supposed to be given prior notification of any official visits. And we can't be too careful these days. A couple of months back there was a big break‑in; all kinds of important stuff got nicked."

"Yes, I know that," said Andrew through gritted teeth.

"Oh, yeah I suppose you would, Chief. Sorry if the report was a bit short, but I had nothing to go on - they removed all the evidence."

"Report? I didn't get any report."

"Bloody typical, I don't know why I bother sending anything up to that lot in Admin'. They're useless, absolutely useless."

"Well never mind that; start getting all my memories back in place."

"All of them! It'll take months, Chief, bloody months. And I can't do it on my own; you'll have to get someone to help me."

"But you put it away, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I just threw it in there; it'll all have to be sorted out before I can put it back in the right places. Normally, when it goes in there," said the man nodding towards the steel door, "it never comes out."

"Just start with the important stuff and get Admin' to send you some help."

"Can't I leave the stuff from your school‑days in there? There are three bloody rooms‑full and you never use it."

"If there is so much there, how come I did so badly at my exams?"

"The stuff was coming down so fast, I just couldn't handle it. I had to let it pile up in the corridor, the place was a hell of a mess."

"Don't I know it!" Andrew walked over to the large steel door. "Come on, let's get this open."

"Hold on, Chief," said the man hastily. "We can't go in there without the protective gear."

"Why not? What's in there?"

"There's a whole pile of emotions in there, grief, anger, remorse - all the dangerous ones."

"Well you can leave those in there; I don't want to see them again."

"Thanks Chief, I hate handling those things." The man opened a locker, took out two silver overalls and two matching helmets. "Here you go, Chief, put one of these on."

The two men climbed into the shiny suits, which looked rather like those worn by firemen when coating burning aircraft in foam, or when giving television interviews.

With Andrew's help the man pulled the massive door open wide enough for them to enter.

"Jesus Christ!" gasped Andrew.

The room was the size of a large cathedral and almost completely full. Stacks of paper lined the left‑hand wall and towered up to the ceiling. At the centre of the room was a huge tangled pile of objects, artifacts of every conceivable kind balanced precariously on top of each other. Most were buried so effectively it was impossible to determine what they actually were. On the right was an enormous crowd of people, some stood chatting in small groups, others were playing cards or sleeping. High up, near the roof, coloured clouds of light darted around each other. Occasionally one would swoop fiercely down on the two men, only to bounce, harmlessly, off the silver suits and return sulkily to the swirling mass of colour above.

A billion memories fought for recognition in Andrew's mind, he tried to concentrate on one particular subject and shut out the others, his eyes fell upon a blackboard and easel, written in large white letters across the blackboard were the words; 'Andrew Smith'. Somehow the rediscovery of his name calmed him, and he no longer felt so overwhelmed.

"Are you all right, Chief?" asked the man steadying Andrew's swaying body.

"Yeah, I'm better now, I almost fainted. There's just so much here, and I'd forgotten it all. Look there's my first car and my chemistry set and my old football boots, and, and, and ... everything. Hey, is my original name here?"

"I'm afraid not, Chief. It got stolen too. Shame really; it was on a beautiful brass plaque, I used to enjoy giving it a quick polish every day."

"So you know what it was."

"Careful Chief, you're treading on dangerous ground there."

"What do you mean?" asked Andrew, quite sure that the man was speaking metaphorically but glancing nervously at the ground anyway.

"Well, aside from the Union Rules, that kind of thinking can lead you into all manner of paradoxes. I mean, Chief, if I were to admit to being able to remember things then it would be fair question to ask who was remembering things for me; the mind would start to boggle, Chief. And as you know there's nothing worse than a boggling mind. But as I said, Chief, Union Rules are very clear on this, it's my job to move things around down here, no more and no less."

"Pity," said Andrew, he was well aware that Union Rules are made of the hardest materials known to man; getting them to bend is usually prohibitively expensive.

Andrew turned his attention back to the contents of the room. "Wow, look at all those people," he waved enthusiastically at the crowd, some of whom waved back cheerfully, others made rude gestures or shook their fists.

The man walked over to one of the smaller stacks of paper and took about thirty sheets off the top of the pile, returning to Andrew he said, "you'd better read these, Chief, that's everything that happened over the last two days, I'll start shifting some of this junk back to where it belongs."

"Junk!" began Andrew, but he was distracted by something brushing against his legs. He looked down and saw a white cat rubbing itself affectionately against him, he bent down and picked it up with one hand. "What's his name?"

"Snowy."

"Boy, was I an original thinker in my youth," laughed Andrew, he placed the cat on his shoulder and began reading the notes the man had given him.

An hour later Andrew approached the man who was moving a small sailing dingy with the fork‑lift truck.

"Hey, what is this, a joke?" said Andrew indicating the notes he had just read.

"No Chief, that's just the way it happened."

Andrew shook his head in disbelief. "Listen, I've just had an idea; why don't you get all these people to help you move the memories back?"

"That's bloody brilliant, Chief. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I guess that's why you're up there, and I'm down here."

"Yeah, could be," said Andrew wondering if the man was serious. "Anyway, I'd better be getting back."

"Okay Chief, but you can't take the cat."

"Oh," said Andrew, disappointed. "Why not?"

"It's just a memory, Chief, it doesn't exist any more."

Andrew stroked the cat fondly and then placed it on the floor. "All right then I'll leave you to it, oh yeah, try and keep the place a bit cleaner in future."

"Sure thing, Chief, no problem."

Andrew turned to leave and saw Alex running from the crowd towards him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" said Alex.

"I lost my memory and had to come down to sort it out."

"Well while you're standing around reminiscing, I'm freezing my ass off at the bottom of a river!" said Alex resentfully.

"What? Oh yeah, I see what you mean. I was just on my way when you stopped me."

"Ah ... well get going then."

Minutes later Andrew stepped out of the lift and back into the glass cubicle, he closed the door, picked up the chair which had been, unaccountably, knocked over, then opened the door again, and looked out curiously. Room 101 had returned, Brian was waiting impatiently by the door.

"Where have you been all this time?"

"Good question, I had trouble convincing the storeman who I was."

"Storeman! You don't mean to tell me you've got a manual system."

"No, no, he's got a fork‑lift."

"It's not computerized?"

"Uh, no."

"Well, that explains it. It only took me five minutes, I just went down, loaded the back‑up tape, and restored the missing data."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't real anyway, was it? Wasn't it just an allegory designed to represent the hypnotic process involved in restitution of the normal powers of recall?" said Andrew wondering if what he had just said actually made any sense.

"Um, well, yeah ... could be," said Brian wondering the same thing.

They returned to the track and continued their journey through the marshes.

"Couldn't you summon up a little road‑side cafe? I'm starving," said Andrew as he trudged along behind Brian.

"You know I can't do anything like that outside the castle walls."

"Yeah, but who would know. After all we're -" Andrew was suddenly paralysed with fear, something had caught hold of the back of his jacket.

"Brian," hissed Andrew urgently.

But Brian had disappeared into the fog.

Andrew felt his jacket being tugged insistently, slowly he swivelled his head around, for a second he thought there was nothing there, but when he looked down he saw a little girl gripping the hem of his jacket. She had golden curly locks tied up in two pig‑tails with pink ribbon, her dress was a matching shade of pink and she was wearing a large pair of black Wellington boots.

"Hey, mister, are you for real?" she said in a sweet child‑like voice, altogether in keeping with her sweet child‑like appearance.

"Oh God," said Andrew in relief. "Don't do that. You scared the sh‑ life out of me."

"You were going to say a naughty word," chided the girl. "You were going to say; Shit, weren't you?"

"So what if I was?" said Andrew defensively. "You just said it yourself."

"Yeah, but I'm only a little girl, I don't know any better. You," she said, pointing an reproachful finger, "should set a good example."

"But I didn't say it," protested Andrew.

"But you were going to, and that's just as bad," she folded her arms and stood, as if, waiting for an apology.

"What do you want, little girl?" said Andrew trying to mask his irritation.

"I want to know if you really exist."

"Well, of course I do."

"I don't," said the girl proudly. "I'm a sta-, I'm a sta‑tist‑tickle error."

"What's a statistical error?"

"Me."

"Yeah, but what does it mean?"

"Oh you know!" said the girl as if Andrew was teasing her by feigning stupidity.

"Oh okay I know," said Andrew and began walking off.

"No you don't," shrilled the girl and caught hold of Andrew's arm.

Andrew stopped and turned back to the girl. "So tell me."

"You know how they have all those people asking other people all kinds of dumb questions?"

"Umm, quiz shows?" guessed Andrew.

"No, silly, they come and knock on your door and ask you who you're going to vote for, or what kind of toothpaste you use."

"Opinion polls."

"Yeah, well, you know when they put the numbers in the newspaper, they say forty‑six point two percent of people who use stripy toothpaste vote for Mr X?"

"Yes, I think I follow you."

"Well, those numbers never add up to one hundred, and they're supposed to aren't they?"

"Yes but that's just a rounding error, because it's not really forty‑six point two percent it's actually forty‑six point two five seven three, or something like that."

"Exactly," said the girl as if she had just won a crucial argument.

"So you're not a statistical error," said Andrew firmly.

"Oh yes I am, you just proved it."

"I just told you that there isn't anyone missing from the statistics."

"I am. You want to know why?"

"Yeah, go on then, tell me," said Andrew reluctantly.

"Because when those people ask me who I would vote for; I say; Plum Jam. Or something really crazy like that. And it never shows up in the numbers," the girl grinned triumphantly.

"Yeah, well, I haven't got time to stand around talking to people who don't exist," said Andrew huffily, and strode away after Brian. To Andrew's relief the girl didn't follow him.

Andrew found Brian leaning casually against a large sign.

"I have just been humiliated by a precocious brat with pig‑tails, who didn't exist," announced Andrew.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me," said Brian idly throwing an apple‑core over his shoulder.

Andrew decided that the remark was ambiguous enough to ignore, but the apple‑core was not. "Where did you get that apple?" he demanded.

"I found it," said Brian flatly.

"No you didn't, you created it," accused Andrew angrily, "uh, no I didn't mean that," he added hastily as he saw Brian's hand moving towards the sword.

"There's another one there," said Brian pointing beside Andrew's left foot.

Andrew pounced on the apple and in no time had reduced it to six pips and a stalk.

"Better now?" asked Brian patronizingly.

"A bit."

"Good let's go," said Brian and moved away from the sign.

"Umm Brian," said Andrew pointing frantically at the sign.

The sign said:

Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Eat The Apples.

Andrew had tried sticking his finger down the back of his throat, but his stomach, despite Andrew's queasiness about the sign, had been unwilling to give up the small amount of nourishment it had been given.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read," advised Brian as he walked away.

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