Everything that's in my head

Chapter 7

When Dougal tapped on Adam’s door at seven, he was met by a distant, haughty voice that he recognised as Adam’s but was different in its tone. Gone was the vagueness and irresolution; a deeper, more serious timbre had replaced it.
Dougal entered and caught his breath. Adam looked magnificent. The garments that he had given him fitted like a glove and made him seem twice as big as he was. His chest was puffed out like a proud cockerel and he stared down his nose with a Napoleonic disdain that was altogether convincing. He looked more of an emperor than a king. Dougal put his hands on his hips and was agog.

‘You look great’, he said finally, shaking his head from side to side.

‘I know’, replied Adam not looking at him directly.

‘Are you ready?’

'Yes', said Adam distantly, not for a minute taking his eyes of the full length mirror.

He turned and the two men looked at each other in silence. Gone was the levity of an hour ago. In its place was a steadfastness and determination that heralded the task before them.

As Adam emerged from his chambers, there was a loud trumpet blast from two pages waiting outside.
Adam almost jumped into Dougal’s arms as the boys blew. He quickly regained his composure and the two started their journey to the Great Room. Dougal was dressed in gaiters and had a silk number on that made him look quite foppish. The ruff around his neck was a little tight, making his head bulge slightly. But no matter, he walked grimly onwards, ignoring Adam’s sniggers.

As they approached, the pages stopped blowing and in shrill, piping voices announced Adam’s arrival.

The familiar buzzing from behind the great door came to an abrupt halt which made Adam feel that little bit uneasy.
The doors opened with a loud wooden boom and they were in, welcomed by a reverential murmuring that came from a thick knot of black, shiny beetles.

The throne he had sat on before was still there, although this time it had been tarted up a bit, with bits of tinsel and pretty, white flowers.
Dougal fastidiously dusted it down with a large white hanky, before Adam wafted him aside and sat down, looking down upon the massed ranks with an aloofness that Dougal found impressive.

In the middle of the great room, sat a man cross legged, who was covered, as Adam was, in suppurating boils from head toe. He seemed quite relaxed, picking at them, yet all the while taking in his surroundings with bemusement.

Four burly men stood behind him with arms folded and legs apart. Their faces were impassive and had no discernible emotion etched on them. They stared straight ahead, waiting for an order that would inevitably come at some time in the not too distant future.

Dougal, tugging at his ruff with one finger in an effort to allow more air in brought the proceedings to the start line by stamping his foot and calling for silence, which there already was.

The man before Adam looked up curiously and smiled a warm smile that Adam found deeply disturbing.
Dougal stood up and referred to a clutch of notes he held in his hand.

‘We are gathered here today to celebrate the coming of the one true lord and to sever that which is not pure.’

Dougal had put on his best elderly vicar’s voice, which Adam at any other time, would have found hilarious but now only made his guts turn over sharply.

‘We are gathered here today to witness a rebirth of our civilisation. So many moons ago, did we scuttle about this Earth like…..err….err’
Dougal searched for an appropriate simile and a few of the congregation grew restless. There was an awkward pause before Dougal cut his losses and carried on.

‘Well….,beetles; only for Earnest to show us the way and take us from light into darkness…..sorry……darkness into light. He stands before you, the one true lord and he is the one and true successor of this noble dynasty. He went quiet for effect and time stood still.

‘Yet, we have in our midst, an interloper!’

Dougal leapt on interloper with a savagery that was a little out of place, coming as it did so soon after he had started. A few in the congregation hissed and Dougal raised a bony finger in the direction of the man sat below him on the floor.

‘There can be only one Lord; no impostors, no pretenders, only Earnest Serius'.

The man sitting cross legged stopped smiling; not sure if he liked the way this was going. Adam felt sick and Dougal’s sonorous voice was making him feel sicker. He was going to heave and that surely would give the game away.

‘Verily, did he come into our world, brought to us by the science of Earnest. This man before you, in his righteousness on his throne, did turn his face from his world and despatch himself to ours, so that he might take up the reins of our species and make us whole.’

Adam forced a smile, raised his eyebrows a little and pointed to himself by way of explanation.

‘There can be no others’. Dougal neatly folded the notes he was reading from and moved off behind Adam, out of sight.

Adam called him back with a twitch of his wrist and whispered in Dougal’s ear.

‘What’s his name?’ , he asked, genuinely curious.

‘Trevor’, came a hissing reply.

‘Trevor?’, repeated Adam, as if not sure what to do with this piece of information.

‘Trevor’, confirmed Dougal, wanting to get away.

‘Does it have to be this way?’ asked Adam plaintively, his resolve draining away like sand in an egg timer.

‘No other’, and with that Dougal disappeared.

Adam studied Trevor carefully. The wretch met Adam’s eyes with genuine fear. He trembled slightly and said something which Adam did not understand. The man did not speak English, or if he did it was in a dialect lost on Adam.

His voice was high pitched and he made a gesture towards Adam that again made no sense. He seemed to be introducing himself and with elaborate use of his hands, explaining where he was from and how he had come here. He had large expressive eyes like those of a deer, a strong jaw and a high forehead that rose to reveal two widow’s peaks of pale white skin. He tried to stand but was unceremoniously thrown to the ground by two of the meanest guards. He looked up, this time his eyes filled with tears. They rolled down his face, over and around the boils, and along his chin. He stopped talking and shouted something at Adam which in any language must have meant, please.

Adam dithered and tried some lame platitudes, ‘My hands are tied’ and ‘nothing I can do old boy’; ‘it’s not up to me’, none of which having the slightest impact whatsoever.

A low hum started from the back of the hall and grew in volume as it rippled down the gathering until Adam’s throne itself began to vibrate. It became louder and louder, drowning out Trevor’s voice completely, so Adam could only see the poor man’s mouth moving, emitting no sound.

Suddenly, Adam bolted from his throne and onto the floor. He lifted the man’s head in his hands and stared into his eyes. It was as if he was holding his own head, staring into his own eyes. The humming grew more intense, and moved to a higher octave. The man was yelling something, Adam could not hear yet he was inches from his face. Adam could think of nothing to stay: what could he say? He just stared back at him, impotent and pathetic. Finally, when he could bear it no longer. He put his face close to that of the terrified captive and bellowed, 'one of us has to make it, I will do it for the two of us !!'. The man fumbled for something in his tunic and produced a rusty carving knife which he gave to Adam handle first. He ran his thumb along the blade and produced a thin line of blood which he then rubbed onto his finger. Adam stood transfixed while the wretch collected enough on his finger to put a blob onto Adam's forehead.
He was grabbed roughly from behind and Adam turned on his heel.
As he moved away, he could hear the rending of bone and flesh. He could just make out a high pitched scream and it was the same scream he uttered in his nightmares; trapped in that Godforsaken bathroom.

The humming stopped abruptly. Adam's ears were ringing. The silence was a tangible wall of thick, damp cement. He turned and saw that nothing of Trevor remained apart from a small patch of congealing blood.

He saw Dougal beaming from behind the throne and knew it was time to leave. With a quick dart of the eyes, he indicated to the old man that time was up and he marched to the door with a straight back and a pained look on his face. He grabbed what he presumed was his crown, from a silk cushion by the door and the two men left suddenly with little ceremony. They had barely walked 4 yards before Adam was throwing his guts up with Dougal hovering helpfully, with a glass of water. He practically covered both sides of the hallway with the entire contents of his alimentary canal before Dougal got edgy and moved him to safety.

They retreated to Dougal’s lab with neither saying much on the way. Adam played with his crown and stared wistfully out of the car window. Once they were in his room proper, he tore his robes from his body and sat in an armchair dressed only in his underpants. Dougal brought him a whiskey and the two drank silently with little in the way of conversation.

‘I have done my bit Dougal’, said Adam finally, draining the last of his scotch and looking as if he wanted another.

‘Yes’, said Dougal dreamily. ‘And very good it was too’. Dougal rose slowly from his chair and fetched the bottle for Adam. He set it down next to him on a side table and Adam helped himself to a large measure.

They both lapsed into silence again, lost in their own thoughts.

‘I have done my bit, Dougal, which means you will have to honour your side of the bargain'. Adam drained his glass and helped himself to another.

‘Yes’, Dougal said again. leaning forward on his chair and staring at the floor.

‘Dougal, you are being evasive’, Adam said presently.

‘Yes’, the old man replied. He stood up and walked to a cabinet, opened it, retrieved a dark brown pill box and handed it Adam.

‘Take one of these, once a day, after food. It will clear up your skin, you will look heaps better after a while. But some things won’t change, that much'.

‘Sorry Dougal but a deal is a deal.’ Adam said with rising indignation.

‘Don’t get on your high horse’, Dougal said wearily, and dismissed Adam’s petulance with a wave of his hand. ‘You will go back to Adam, you will be Adam again but some of Earnest will remain.

‘You said…………………….'

‘ I know what I said and it was true. You will be Adam but there is a bit if Earnest in all of us. He was in that bathroom, he was in your tears, and you carried him on your back from the day you were born until the time you died. Being him just for one day, was in many ways the fruition of a life time’s work. You should embrace him and see him as a force for good. Don’t fight him Adam, understand and learn to live with him.'
Adam took one of the pills from the bottle and washed it down with a slurp of whiskey. 'How soon will these start to work?, Adam asked, his thoughts already turning to Betty.

'Soon enough' Dougal replied and walked over to the glass tank that held the young lady. He tinkered with a few knobs;pulling one here and sliding another there .until Adam joined him at the console and hovered annoyingly at his elbow.
With an almost inaudible whirr, a blue light flicked on and filled the room with a comforting miasma that had no beginning or no end. Both men stood staring over the tank waiting for the slightest of movements from the prone body. Nothing happened.
There was a tangible rise in tension, which brought on a quiet fart from Adam. Dougal didn't seem to notice. Instead, he hunched his shoulders tighter and gazed at the object before him with increasing fascination.

After ten minutes, Adam grew restless. He shuffled from one foot to another and drummed his fingers on the the glass roof of the tank. He felt uncomfortable as this was how he had come round and it brought back unpleasant memories. It would be a long time from here on in. How would she take it? What would her reaction be?
Would she like him, in that way? It was unbearable. He drifted across the room and helped himself to another large whiskey. He was feeling distinctly woozy after the two he had had already but unwisely he had another one which made him feel faintly sick and moody.
'How soon till I look better?' He asked Dougal malevolently, with a nasty edge to his voice.
Dougal didn't respond. Instead, he called for quiet with his left hand and with the same hand, called Adam over. Adam stood up, uneasy on his feet and slouched towards the glass tank. He leant a little too heavily on the glass and Dougal pushed him a little to one side in a bid to make more room. Adam looked down at the woman. She was breathing slowly and very deeply. Her chest moved up and down, once maybe twice a minute. It was imperceptible at first, but it was movement all the same. The rush of adrenalin sobered him up no end and he at once became very aware and alert.
Her eyes fluttered, and both men could see the eyeballs move rapidly from behind the curtain of the eyelids. Then suddenly one eye sprang open. It looked around and then closed only to spring open again, this time with more determination. It stayed open and looked around the tank. Adam affected a little wave which Dougal snuffed out with a swipe of the hand. The other eye opened, as if it had been called by its partner. She looked at Adam then at Dougal and her face was a picture of utter incomprehension.
Dougal put on his avuncular, calming voice and said by way of greeting:

'You have come a very long way my dear, welcome to the land of Earnest Serius'.
He squeezed her hand gently and she smiled a drowsy smile as if she had only woken from an afternoon nap.