Patrick lay awake for several hours the next morning before Shelagh stirred beside him. The joy of the previous night seemed to have prevented nightmares plaguing him as he slept, but now he was awake, now that the day he had been fearing the most had dawned, all thoughts of joy had left him. A dark cloud had entered his soul, towering menacingly as a storm cell waiting to unleash its fury. He knew he had to, he had promised himself and Shelagh that he would go, today. Yet, an inner conflict stilled brewed, his rational heart whispering yes, his erratic mind screaming no.
He could barely eat at breakfast, his stomach churned like a centrifuge. He forced down his coffee, and picked at the rolls and fruit, but each mouthful made him feel ever more nauseous. His hands shook so much they could barely hold his cup. He knew both his wife and son had noticed the state he was in, and was thankful that neither of them had asked any more pressing questions than "how did you sleep?" and "could you pass the butter?"
A single tear rolled down Patrick's nose as they drove out of Venice that morning, a tear which spoke of joyful reminiscence and of fearful foreboding. They travelled south for over an hour in complete silence, Patrick unable to say anything, Shelagh and Timothy not daring to.
Patrick pulled the car over outside what looked like a disused airfield. A twenty foot high fence, crowned with rusty razor wire, encircled a cluster of dilapidated clapperboard buildings. Long-abandoned scrap stood propped up against the tired buildings. Potholed, overgrown tarmac carpeted the whole area, contributing further to its bleak appearance. Even the brightest of Mediterranean summer days could not brighten the gloom of this place. He got out of the car and stood against the fence, his fingers encircling the wire mesh, his nose almost pressing against it, his eyes staring far into the distance. He began to cry, his whole body shook. So little of how he remembered the base remained, but enough still stood to invoke both the pain he had seen and that he himself had suffered.
"The entrance is padlocked, there's no way…" Shelagh began, but stopped when she saw Patrick's expression. His face was ghostly white, deathly white, his umber-brown eyes, chasm-like, entrances to the dark depths of his troubled mind.
The touch of two hands on his back sent violent shivers through his body. Without letting go of the fence, he glanced round to see his wife and children at his side. He felt Shelagh's hand move to his shoulder and Timothy's slide round his waist.
"What happened here?" Shelagh said consolingly, her delicate fingers caressing her husband's shoulder. Patrick could not bring himself to answer, his head rested on the wire fence, his hands turned white from gripping it, his sobbing became ever more violent. He screwed his eyes shut, hoping to dam the tears that gushed from them. Shelagh did not know how to react, what to do. She could not bear to see her husband like this and she tried desperately to hold back her own tears.
Patrick felt a small, soft hand begin to prise his fingers off the metal fence. Timothy took his father's hand and led him away from the fence. He guided him across the road and towards a wide grass verge, dotted with daisies and clover, and partially shaded by a large hedge. Shelagh and the baby followed them. After helping his father down onto the grass, Timothy sat next to him, looking back to where they came from to see how much, or as he hoped, how little, he could see of the base. Satisfied that they were far enough away, Timothy said.
"Dad, it's safe over here."
He paused when he saw his father flinch and ball his hands into fists. Timothy took out his own polka-dot handkerchief and wiped the beads of sweat off Patrick's increasingly furrowed brow, then the tears leaking from his eyes. He loosened one of his father's fists and held his tired, aged, hand between his small delicate ones.
"What happened here Dad?"
His son's delicate care had softened Patrick's mood, calmed his fears and warmed his heart. He motioned Timothy and Shelagh to come closer to him, and with one snuggled under each arm he began to speak.
"In April 1945, I was discharged from the army and admitted to Northfield Military Psychiatric Hospital. Events which happened here led to that admission. By the time I was stationed here I had been in Europe for over three years, I had survived a German attack, journeys across occupied territories, danger became something so ubiquitous that I was almost immune to it. But the death, the constant torrent of death, that was something I could never bear. Mangled bodies, shattered bones, wounds which I could not heal. And every day the same, it was incessant, every day and every night, for years. Don't try to imagine what it was like; I don't what those thoughts to cross your minds."
Shelagh and Timothy looked across Patrick's stomach at each other. Both had tears in their eyes, and they knew they were both thinking precisely what Patrick did not want them to. They could not think anything else. Patrick continued.
"One night, Frank Higginson and I were treating two men, one in his forties, the other no more than twenty. They were so badly injured that they were barely alive, in fact, they shouldn't have been alive. But alive they were. I tried to save them, patch them up, ease their pain. But then Frank said, Frank said…"
His voice trailed off. He drew his knees up to his chin and rested his elbows on them. He rocked back and forth and put his hands over his ears, as though trying to prevent Frank's words ever reaching his ears again.
"Nothing that Doctor Higginson said can hurt you now Dad," Timothy said, rubbing his father's back soothingly.
Taking a few slow, deep breaths Patrick continued.
"Frank said that we couldn't do anything for them, and that we had to make their passing as swift as possible. I protested, I knew what he meant, and the thought of carrying it out went against every fibre of my morality. Despite all I had seen, what I had done, I couldn't do that."
"What?" Timothy asked innocently.
"Shush Timothy!" Shelagh gasped. She looked at Patrick. "You don't mean?" Her eyes met his. They were like sinkholes into his troubled soul. "No!"
"He handed me a large syringe full of morphine. 'Do it,' he said, 'You're a good Doctor, and they need your help. That's what Doctor's do, they help.' I closed my eyes as I plunged the syringe into the poor man's arm. I opened my eyes in time to see the light disappearing from his. I killed one of my patients. What sort of Doctor does that?"
He took a deep breath and looked first at Shelagh and then at Timothy. His eyes searching, questioning, so desperate for an answer, but so frightened of what it would be.
"A brave one," Shelagh began quietly, "one who did his job in the most appalling of conditions, under the most extreme of pressures, and in the most unimaginable of situations. You endured hell for so long; it takes a special kind of man who could tolerate that, a man like you." She planted a kiss on his cheek as she finished.
"Brave? How?"
"You made a very difficult decision in an extreme situation. That takes more than bravery. That takes courage, strength, devotion and care, precisely the characteristics of a very good Doctor."
"Care?"
"You eased that poor man's suffering. Unconventionally, yes, but you did not just leave him in agony to die."
"But I killed him."
"Would any care you could have given him saved him?"
"No."
"Then you didn't kill him, whoever caused his injuries in the first place killed him."
"I wish I could have seen it that way, Frank said I should, but I couldn't. He was my patient, I was his Doctor. I was supposed to care for him."
Patrick took another deep breath.
"That was the beginning of the end for me. I broke down that night, I had a nightmare so violent and so vivid that I had woken up screaming and convulsing, Frank and one of the nurses had to restrain then sedate me. I was sent forty miles away to recuperate for a few weeks. I was happy there. I escaped for a while. But as soon as I appeared better, I was sent back here again. And then everything began to slide, spiralling ever downwards into that deep pit, that desperate, dark, decrepit pit that I found myself in. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, and I couldn't discuss my feelings without ending up a screaming, trembling wreck. A Psychiatrist was sent for and then I was left in solitary confinement for a week. That was the loneliest week of my life. Every time I heard footsteps along the corridor I would scream for help, but nobody came, nobody came."
He began to cry, his shoulders shook.
"They put you in solitary confinement," Shelagh gasped "how could they?"
"I suppose they didn't know what to do with me. Perhaps they were frightened of me, frightened of what I might do next. Mental illness was even less understood then than it is now."
"I suppose, but…" Shelagh could not continue.
"At the end of that week one of the nurses and the camp commander came round and informed me I had been discharged on medical grounds with immediate effect, and to get ready to be sent home. I was sent home, for failing to do my job, for being a failure."
"You were not a failure Patrick, you were unwell," Shelagh was sobbing now too, "please don't ever say that again." She burst into tears and threw her arms round him. Patrick comforted her, holding Shelagh to him helped him to draw strength, he knew holding her was something he could do. Timothy watched them intently.
"Dad you haven't failed anyone, ever. You didn't fail that man, or the army, or Mummy, or Mum, or me. And you certainly have not failed yourself. You are wonderful man, and I love you. And now you have faced your fears, you can only be a stronger and braver one. And Mum, the journey you've made, leaving your nun life behind, the way you have supported Dad, looking after him, makes you so brave too. You've helped each other through all that has happened, and whatever will happen next, you will get through it, I know you will. Now" he took out his handkerchief again and wiped away first Patrick's, then Shelagh's tears, "where was that place forty miles away where you were happy?"
Patrick got to his feet, pulled Shelagh and Timothy to theirs and hugged them as tightly as he could, planting kisses alternatively on his wife and children's heads. "Thank you, thank you, so much. What did I do to deserve you three?"
"You were you and you did what you did," Shelagh whispered "and none of us would have you any other way. I love you."
"And I do too!" Timothy piped up.
"I know you do. Right, I need to go, now."
He let go of them and ran back to the car. Shelagh and Timothy followed and climbed in after him.
"Is everything alright Patrick?" Shelagh asked.
"I think so," he said quietly. He started up the MG's engine. "Let's go and have a nice afternoon," and he smiled for the first time that day.
The car that had been so silent leaving Venice was full of chatter and laughter driving away from the base. Patrick's spirit was full of joy, relieved that, despite the pain of the morning's events, he had faced all but one of his past fears. He had one place left to go, but he knew he no longer had any secrets from his family. He had filled every gap, and although things were not yet completely smooth, he knew he was no longer hiding his past. A great weight, one which had crushed him for many years, suddenly floated away, melted into insignificance. And he was happy.
"This is where I was sent to recuperate," Patrick said, pulling into a backstreet of a small town later that afternoon, "oh, and it's still a boarding house," he added, looking up at the sign above the door of a tall whitewashed building with terracotta tiles, "shall we see if they have two rooms for the night?"
"If you want to Patrick," Shelagh replied.
"Yes, I was safe and happy here."
Two rooms were found, and then Patrick suggested that they went and had something for lunch, since it was now the middle of the afternoon.
"What's a pizz-er-ee-a?" Timothy asked as they approached a rustic-looking restaurant on the corner of two streets, its tri-coloured awnings billowing in the breeze.
"Pizzeria, Tim, and you'll soon see," Patrick grinned mischievously.
"Oh wow!" Timothy shouted fifteen minutes later, "Is that really my dinner being thrown about?"
Patrick had intentionally sat at a table where they could see into the pizzeria's kitchen. He remembered fondly watching the chefs here throw the pizza dough into the air, secretly hoping that they would drop it, or it would stick to the ceiling.
"Yes Tim, that's how they make the base so thin."
An enormous pizza and a bowl of ice cream each later the Turner's were full, content and very happy.
"It's been a long journey," Patrick said after a moment, "I know it's not been easy, but I think, it has been, necessary."
"I agree," Shelagh replied.
"I think that tomorrow, it will be time to head back."
"Oh, are we going home?" Timothy said looking crestfallen.
"Not immediately, there is one place left to go, one final piece of the jigsaw if you like."
Shelagh's wide-eyed gaze met Patrick's.
"Are you sure you want to go there?"
"I need to Shelagh, I need to rectify one last thing, I need to heal one last wound. I need to go to Northfield."