I was sitting in a hollow in some sand dunes, surrounded by the long tough leaves of the marram grass whose roots held the dunes together. I stood up to improve my field of view and the beach stretched away as far as I could see in either direction, punctuated by sand-trapping timber groynes marching into the placid waves. It was totally deserted apart from some distant figures, seemingly out walking, their dogs excitedly hurdling the groynes, faint barking breaking the silence.
I turned around and looked inland, seeing a flat landscape of pastureland dotted with black-and-white cows, not unlike the Essex coastlands I had left behind. A few farm buildings were visible in the middle distance. The sky was pale blue, dotted with cumulus clouds; a warm breeze was blowing.
Thinking started again, and memory returned.
I stood for a long time, absorbing and accepting the memories. My days in the sea had dulled the pain as if the seawater had washed through my mind, soothing and healing. I felt strangely different, rather detached, less emotional, perhaps even less human in consequence. The events of the past year seemed distant, like a half-remembered book I had once read. Only Sophie stood out clearly and I treasured the memory of her, but the agony had been replaced by a deep sadness, no longer dominating my thoughts. My mind shied away from the implications of the deaths of the men behind the sea wall, parked the incident for later consideration. As my thoughts settled I felt a new certainty about who and what I was, a calm determination. I also felt ravenously hungry!
After some thought I realised that the pattern of my life was likely to remain much the same, at least for the immediate future. I still wanted to use my power to heal the sick, and I required food. Opportunities to satisfy both needs were conveniently concentrated in hospitals.
I scanned the area, my mind sweeping like a searchlight, its sensitivity seemingly greater than before. I held in my thoughts the emotional pattern of a hospital – a large focus of weakness and helplessness, pain and hope, with a flavour unlike any other – and soon picked up the echo of a return. It was about ten kilometres away, on the other side of a small town. I began to walk, then found it more comfortable to fall into a smooth, flowing run.
The landscape unrolled beneath my feet as I headed in a straight line across the pastures, hurdling fences and wading or swimming across the ditches too wide to leap. The cows looked on in dull bovine wonder.
I ran steadily through the outskirts of the town and down its main street. It was a pretty town, cobbled streets and low brick buildings with red-tiled roofs, flats with balconies above the rows of shops and cafes. Bicycles were everywhere. People stopped and stared, briefly incredulous, their excited shouts trailing behind me like ripples after a boat. I realised that I must seem even more alien than usual – I was wearing only the swimming trunks I had pulled on in the chalet, the thick, padded scales on the soles of my bare feet making shoes as unnecessary to me as clothing.
The phones had evidently been buzzing, because as I left the town centre and approached the hospital some of the staff were already spilling out of the entrance, chattering in excitement. I slowed to a walk just as a tall and slender middle-aged woman moved through the crowd, her confident bearing reflecting a natural authority which left no doubt as to her position. I stopped in front of her and remembered how to smile.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said politely.
I felt her shift mental gears and realised that she had switched her thinking to English.
‘Good afternoon,’ she replied, then smiled wryly. ‘Your arrival is rather unexpected.’
‘But not, I hope, unwelcome.’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘Indeed not! If you have come to help, we certainly have some patients you must see.’
‘Of course. However, if I am to be of any use to you, I first need something to eat!’
After working my way through half a fruit basket and a pile of assorted nuts I felt a little more human. I learned from the hospital manger that I had landed in the Netherlands, in the province of Groningen. Then I went to earn my food.
It was a small local hospital with only a few cases which I could cure, but I found I could do this more quickly and easily than before. It was as if my skill had become refined, more accurate and precise. I no longer needed to make physical contact with the patients, but could work easily from the end of their beds. I was also able to help various others by reducing their symptoms and pain. A young woman in the maternity ward took one shocked look at me and immediately started to give birth, so I stayed to ensure that she had an intensely enjoyable experience.
By the time I had finished, the first reporters had arrived and I was told that a TV crew was on the way. I had no interest in answering the obvious questions, so I left by a back entrance and once more started running easily across the fields. I had no specific destination in mind but decided to travel west, always staying close to the shore.
My days settled into a steady but bizarre rhythm. I usually ran in the daytime, preferably across fields to avoid the chasing packs of youths and puffing reporters who tried to catch up with me. When I reached rivers I ignored bridges and swam. In the evenings, or when the crowds grew too irritating, I turned back towards the coast and continued by sea. At night I came ashore and found a quiet place to sleep outdoors for a couple of hours or so – I needed no more. When I saw that I had to pass through a large urban or industrial centre, I waited until the middle of the night.
Every day or two I located a new hospital, ate, and helped those I could. Predicting my course had evidently become a popular obsession and the large crowds gathering near likely hospitals deterred me, so I stopped for long enough to tell a delighted reporter that if people wanted me to visit a hospital they should stay away. Low-flying press helicopters were also a nuisance so another lucky reporter was deputed to tell them to keep away, or I wouldn’t stop anywhere.
From the Netherlands I passed through Belgium (with a pang of regret for their wonderful beers) and into France. I must have been covering between 150 and 200 kilometres a day, but felt that I could keep up my steady pace forever. My body became leaner and harder, tuned for endurance. I revelled in the physical pleasure of running almost as much as in the more sensual delight of swimming.
I found that my journey was becoming an end in itself, a way of existence. My planning horizon stretched no further than the next twenty-four hours and I thought only of the ground to cover.
I had only a general knowledge of the geography of the Continental coast so was never quite sure what was going to come next. My travels took me past ports and industries, rows of seaside housing, raucous resorts with amusement arcades and rides, and beaches and cliffs punctuated by vast concrete bunkers left over from the Second World War, still glowering defiantly seawards.
My mind flowed slowly, detached from the physical task of running. I found that the improvements to my memory included the ability to replay jazz music faultlessly – if I had heard it once, I could recall it. At times I returned to the mystery of my transformation following the accident, how such changes could possibly have happened. It was an exercise in frustration; each time, my thoughts went round in a circle, caught in the logical bind between the lack of any possible mechanism I could imagine for such a transformation and the manifest fact that it had happened.
I thought of the past year, about all that had happened and what I might have done differently. Somehow, through a series of small steps each entirely logical and reasonable by itself, I had become drawn into becoming an agent of the security services – an idea I would have rejected out of hand at the start, and which had resulted in Sophie’s death. I remembered the saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.