28 Day Matured
by Gemma-Marie Everest
As she sat on a busy Northern line tube, wedged a little too cosily between two businessmen in grey suits, clutching her pink weekend bag, she thought about how this time last year she had concluded that all men were Beasts. After countless attempts at finding her fairy-tale romance she drew her conclusion after the fifth potential suitor clawed desperately at her blouse buttons within the first fortnight. She never gave an invitation or indication that the goods came included in the deal so soon. She wouldn’t even consider a hot fumble until at least the second month. Even now, sitting on a tube that smelt of sweat and coffee and clearly dressed to meet a suitor at her stop, she looked up to find preying eyes examining her like the last pieces of rump in the butchers. She pulled her bag closer to obstruct the view and frowned. Men were disgusting and heartless; Beasts.
But she felt that Dominic was different. He understood her. A true gentleman, he hadn’t even tried to hold her hand or kiss her until she offered. Even now, nearly a month along, he’d barely make a pass, just a feather-light holding of hands over the restaurant table after dinner.
She was lost in thought as the tinned voice announced her stop; ‘Ar-nos Gro-ve’. She sped up the left-side of the escalators, her bag slung over her shoulder bouncing into bodies as she ascended speedily but careful to avoid breaking a sweat or getting clammy and strode out into the cold night air looking around for him.
The inky-black hair came bobbing in slow motion through the pack of bodies streaming out of the station. The crowd parted ways and his cashmere skin and lithe body strode through to meet her. Every one of his entrances did funny things to her. Her knees gave the familiar tremble that still took her by surprise and her stomach gave a quick flutter.
She was still recovering in the taxi. It was like waking from a light sleep. It was another ten seconds before she realised that they were already nearly there. ‘There’ being Dominic’s plush apartment on the top floor of a large refurbished Victorian mansion. Sure enough they turned a corner and through the grimy windscreen she could see the towering dark building, surrounded with pristinely trimmed spinach-green hedges.
The taxi slowed to a stop on the kerb outside the building and Dominic opened his door and swept around the back of the cab to open hers. He offered his hand to take the pink bag and as she stepped out he handed the driver a note from his trouser pocket and breathed ‘keep the change’ in his velvety baritone voice. Her knees trembled again.
He pushed open the wrought-iron gate and held it back for her to walk through. She made her way up the path, making sure to accentuate each step so he could watch her calves, her hips, her bottom flex and sway. She was sure she could feel his dark chocolate eyes on her. This man made her unsure of how long she could keep up all her rules and time-limits for close and intimate contact. As she stopped at the door she made sure to brush his hand with her fingertips as he reached for the lock. As their skin met she felt something like an electric charge or a static shock. She snatched her hand back and looked up into his eyes that had suddenly widened, looking into hers so deeply. Her heart thumped hard and her breath snatched in her throat. ‘Open the door’ she thought.
This was the first time that she had seen his apartment. She had felt uneasy about agreeing when he invited her as it was still too soon, but the evening’s proceedings were already changing her mind very quickly. His apartment was beautiful. Black marble floors like a dark lake and grey, satin-like walls. A huge black fireplace with a wide mirror in an elaborate swirling gold frame hanging above it sat centrally in front of a striking white leather sofa that curved in a ‘C’ shape in the middle of his ballroom-like lounge. Every piece of furniture was dramatic and exquisite. Like him.
Dominic took her bag to the bedroom as he invited her to make herself comfortable in the lounge. She settled herself on the sofa, removing her coat and folding it across her lap as she looked around the room. She was staring inquisitively at the details on the mirror when Dominic returned and started lighting a fire in the cavernous fireplace. She watched the muscles in his arms and back tense as he reached to throw logs into the growing flames and she felt her stomach flutter violently.
‘Tonight’s menu is a 28 Day Matured fillet steak in red wine and balsamic vinegar with asparagus, accompanied by a 26-year old bottle of Rioja’. Every word oozed from his mouth and she almost started salivating just listening to his deep voice rumble in his chest. He indicated the doors to the bathroom and the bedroom and suggested she run a bath and change into something more comfortable whilst he started on dinner in the kitchen. Her skin prickled and a long tingle spread through her core.
She headed to where Dominic implied the bathroom was along the long corridor from the front door. She passed his bedroom and briefly looked in the door which sat ajar and noticed deep red walls and the same glossy black marble floor throughout the apartment. Blood-red walls. She felt her face flush the same colour and hurried along to the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind her and although she knew Dominic was busy in the kitchen she still turned the brass lock and leant against the door taking a few deep breaths. Her own blood felt hot and was pumping hard beneath her skin. She felt a tingle surge through her core again and shut her eyes to try to stop images of Dominic slowly leading her into his bedroom. ‘Calm down. Just calm yourself down’ she murmured to herself as she turned the taps on the large, white, oval tub in the middle of the room, the water gushing out and soon filling the room with steam. Ornate bottles filled with sweet smelling liquids were arranged in size and then colour order behind the sink. She opened and sniffed a few and took a pink coloured bottle to the bath and slowly poured some of the liquid in. ‘Rose and vanilla’ she thought as she inhaled the aroma as it filled the room. The liquid had turned the water into a tub of thick bubbles and as she slid into the bath her skin instantly turned as soft as petals. The soap was not as pleasing as the bath liquid.
It was a new bar, sitting in a black ceramic dish in between the taps and was a grey-green-black colour. It was the only soap in the bathroom; all the intricate bottles on the counter were just liquids and foams for the bath water. Her nose began twitching as soon as she started to lather the bar. It was a strong pungent smell, medicinal almost, as if it really was simply designed to clean. It began to be overpowering and the stench was so strong it stayed in the back of her throat, making her gag and feel queasy. As she began to rub the lather into her skin she felt a strange cold-then-hot sensation, like a strong disinfectant. The strange sensation and the overpowering smell didn’t cease and her head began to feel light with the scent. Once she was clean she didn’t hesitate to get out of the water and drain the tub. She watched the suds from the soap swirl around in the water as she dried herself with a fluffy white towel from a chrome rail on the wall.
Her skin felt brand new. Not soft, in fact the opposite. Her skin felt too dry as if all the years of her daily exfoliate-cleanse-moisturise routine had just been reversed entirely and every last trace of moisture had been sucked out of her pores. It felt tight, like the skin on a drum, pulled taught across the drum-skeleton. The horrible soap smell was still on her skin. It made her smell like she was in hospital, as if she was a patient ready to be operated on. She wrapped the towel around her, rubbing it into her skin a little, hoping to get rid of the smell, and unlocked the door and headed for Dominic’s bedroom.
Her pink bag was sat on the end of his bed. She unzipped it and began lifting the couple of items of clothing she had packed. Her face flushed the same colour of the walls again as she lifted what she had intended to sleep in out of her bag. ‘Pyjamas! Bloody cotton pyjamas?!’ she frantically rummaged in her bag, which was nearly empty anyway, to check whether she had packed something, anything slightly braver, more daring then her safe, modest white cotton pyjama bottoms and vest. She really had been strict about her rules and time-restraints in regards to close-contact encounters. So strict that she even overlooked at how hard it would be to persevere under the effect of Dominic’s dark looks and seductive allure. And she packs cotton pyjamas?! Thank goodness that she had thought to pack matching underwear. Midnight-blue silk, things were looking better. She put them on under a grey cashmere jumper she had intended to wear the next morning and the black pencil skirt she had worn earlier. She carefully put on a pair of black stockings under her skirt and the pair of black stilettos she had also worn already that night and headed back to the lounge.
Dominic was still in the kitchen as a door on the opposite wall from the kitchen caught her attention. Dominic hadn’t pointed that one out to her. She went over to it and tried the handle. Locked. ‘Must be a cupboard’ she thought. She stood and surveyed it a little longer wondering what would be behind the door. Curiosity always did get the better of her. But Dominic’s voice calling from the kitchen didn’t let her explore it any longer.
He had set white rectangular dishes at either end of a thick glass table. The food on it looked fantastic, like art rather than dinner. He had arranged the asparagus to crown the round piece of fillet and the sauce obediently sat in the middle. She sat down on the seat he pulled out for her and took the linen napkin from the crystal wine glass and smoothed it over her lap. Dominic poured some wine into her glass and looked down into her eyes. She was thankful for being sat as the tremble in her knees would’ve sent her to the floor.
Once he was sat and finished pouring himself a glass he raised it toward her and declared, in an almost purr, ‘to us’. She had to slowly guide the glass to her lips in fear of spilling it and pushed her lips over her teeth to avoid them chattering against the crystal. Dinner went quickly, to her delight. She was nervous but excited for what was, predictably, going to happen next. ‘That was delicious’ she said, thanking him for cooking and inviting her to his home. ‘The pleasure was all mine’, he gave a smile that raised the corner of his mouth into a wicked, seductive grin. If she wasn’t sat she would have swooned right then and there.
‘Would you like to finish this bottle on the balcony?’ he was already standing and pulling out her chair. She hadn’t realised there was a balcony, what with all the extravagant décor and furniture inside. And of course, all the other distractions she was battling with. Dominic led her to the tall glass doors at the end of the kitchen that opened onto a decked balcony over-looking a green lawn that was now highlighted with the light from a full moon hiding behind clouds over-head. They sat on a couple of metal chairs and clinked their glasses. They were close to one-another but not touching, still close enough for her to feel an energy, a current between them. They sipped their wine in silence for a while. ‘It’s a beautiful night’ she said, looking over at him. Dominic actually purred, looking deeply satisfied as he let his head fall back and become lighted by moon-light. Stomach fluttered, knees trembled, tingle through her core. She clutched at her knee, she bit her lip and tried not to make a sound. Too late. Dominic was looking at her. His lips rose into that devilish grin and she couldn’t help but let a little moan-like gasp escape her lips. ‘I think I’d like to freshen up, shall we take this inside?’
He left her trembling on the sofa as he headed to the bathroom after dimming the lights and lighting candles through the apartment. She took numerous deep breaths but found that she continued to quiver regardless. She now tingled all over, her skin felt electric. The skin that was too clean, too sterilised after that bath. She removed her shoes and placed them neatly beside the sofa and smoothed her skirt and flicked her hair away from her face. ‘Should I go to the bedroom? Does he want me to go to the bedroom?’ she didn’t know what to do, what she was supposed to do. She knew what she wanted to do. So she hastily finished her glass of wine, and Dominic’s too, and took a deep breath and headed to the bedroom.
Dominic had dimmed the lights and lit some candles in there too. Now she knew that he did want her to go to the bedroom. She sat on the end of the bed contemplating whether she was too over-dressed for this occasion. She fumbled, half taking her jumper off and then half putting it back on again. She sat with it on one shoulder for a second and realised that she would have to take the skirt off too. ‘Just do it’ she murmured to herself, taking a deep breath and pulling the rest of the jumper away from her body and standing to shimmy out of the skirt. The door on the bathroom clicked and she hastily sat back on the end of the bed, leaning back slightly with one leg crossed over the other. It was another minute or so before the door to the bedroom began to open. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted her to go to his bedroom, perhaps he went to the lounge and saw she had moved and is now coming in to ask her to leave. She stood up and began grabbing at her clothes and pulling them on.
She was just about to open her mouth and begin apologising when she heard a low purr and she stopped in her tracks. Maybe she was wrong. She stayed with her back to him, hoping for him to come up behind her and kiss her neck or stroke her hair back or hold her at the waist. His purring got closer and her excitement returned. She felt that same impatient surge race through her body and her skin erupted in goose-bumps. She couldn’t help but let a moan escape her lips and she couldn’t wait any longer. Dominic was perfect, she wanted him, she needed him. He wasn’t like other men. He understood her. She spun around, not being able to hold back any longer and screamed.
She screamed again. She backed away and hit the wall. She ran through the door, back into the lounge. ‘Dominic?’ she shouted for him. ‘Dominic!!’ It wasn’t Dominic that had been behind her. When she turned she came face to face with a real beast, with a long snarling snout and covered in coarse black fur standing on end, huge brown eyes staring right at her. It towered over her on its hind legs and now stalked forward, thick drool dripping from its sharp teeth. ‘Dominic, help!’ she screamed again. There was nowhere for her to run. She backed into the far wall of the lounge and began whimpering. The creature slowly prowled toward her, she was prey and she had been trapped. As it closed in on her she looked it in the eyes between hysterical sobs and choked. Those were Dominic’s eyes. His exact chocolate-brown eyes. ‘Dominic?’ she cried, half sobbing, half still desperately calling out for him. The beast’s mouth turned up into Dominic’s wicked grin. She let-out one final scream before she was cut off by the beast’s jaws closing in on her throat and silencing her.
Blood oozing from her limp body the creature began to drag her through the lounge between its teeth. When it reached the door that she had found locked earlier the beast was now a naked Dominic removing her neck from his mouth and unlocking the door with a key from a vase next to the door. He carried her body into the room which lit up with bright white lights. A solid wooden table, like a butcher’s, stood in the middle of the room. Dominic began to pull sharp, lethal-looking instruments from drawers as he set her down onto the table, her thin pale hand sliding off the side. He set to work like a professional butcher and began to put cuts of meat into plastic wrappers. When he had finished he opened his drawer again and began to label the packages. He did not put her name, he simply put the date and below it in smaller writing ’28-Day Matured’.
Madison Hart laid her head into the snow, her long hair nestling into the fresh flakes. It was freezing conditions but she didn’t feel it, despite still only wearing last night’s cocktail dress under a thin jacket. She looked up into the sky, into the gentle stream of snowflakes floating down to melt into her dewy skin. The sky was a grey-blue, like a frosty ink and the stars were fading into a wintery sunrise. She drew in a steady breath, not in reaction to the cold but for courage, acceptance, to ready herself. Her light body pressed into the bed of snow as if a feather mattress, engulfing a baby’s frame into a peaceful slumber; she hoped for a similar effect. She hoped for her courage to hold her still upon the snow. She hoped it would pass quickly. She hoped for her parents to feel no anguish. She let her numb fingers stroke the snow beside her as she listened to the sounds of an early December morning. A couple of birds sang out and snow danced through the trees like an iced whisper. She sighed out. Her sorrow, pain, apology, regret laced through the slow exhale that was quickly swept up into the potentially perfect morning. The air was still but chilled and the steady breaths she drew exhaled into steady icy clouds. There was an atmosphere of content tranquillity, and for the first time in a long while Madison Hart was at peace.
It was a strange night. A lively wind had picked up from nowhere and rushed through the trees, shaking their branches noisily like bells peeling into the night. The air was oddly warm despite the energetic wind and the stars were abnormally bright, beaming down onto the village’s dusty track path. The sky was a deep midnight blue and the stars sat twinkling like little crystals upon a velvet bed around a bright full moon sitting large and high in the sky. The trees shaking and the wind somersaulting past the old stone walls and the village sign made it sound like the night air was alive with some strange music.
Out of the darkness of the track to the village came the sound of slow hooves and big wooden wheels revolving behind. Into the moon-light a big arched caravan, painted with bright pearly colours was being pulled by a large dusty brown shire-horse. As the caravan approached the village sign the horse slowed to a halt and a figure emerged, leaning forward from the shadow of the front of the caravan. The figure was hooded and read the sign. A slim hand decorated with coloured jewelled rings reached out and gently pulled the reigns prompting the horse to continue on down the path to the village.
by Gemma-Marie Everest
1. Throw the diet out of the window! Gaining a few pounds and embracing our natural bodies means that men run to the hills as if Godzilla’s just hit town.
2. Being funnier than a guy will KILL HIM. Having more wit and more charm is like an auto-deflate button for a guy’s ego. So brush up on your punch-lines and impressions to really press that button.
3. At any fancy-dress opportunity (Halloween, birthdays, new-year’s-eve) choose funny over sexy. Nowadays it seems that the only accepted fancy dress for women is Sexy-this and Sexy-that. Don’t conform! Go for the funniest home-made costume with endless fake blood, glitter and face/body paint!
4. Long hair is favoured over short hair in a man’s world (probably so because short equals ‘boy ‘). So go for that drastic chop and get the in-season Elven crop you’ve wanted to try since for-ever!
5. Nothing turns a guy off more than a woman being more successful than him. Get a degree, run a business, get promoted, do something successful and brilliant that will make him shrink back with his tail between his legs.
6. Be more cultured. Guys like their ladies a little ‘fluffy’. It’s cute, it makes them feel important to tell their little lady about literature and philosophy. Turn around and tell him that you think Oscar Wilde is a literary genius and why and watch him go from big-head to pea-brain.
Saturday 18th September
· Number of polite nods instead of asking other ‘yummy mummies’ to repeat themselves: 4 (Jackie x1, Dianne x1 and Bryony x2)
· Number of washing loads this week: 3 (due to the increasingly bad weather that sends home my children soaked and covered in mud and the dog needing a daily towel-down)
· Current Measurements: 38, 31, 40 (3 inches to go to get back into that LBD for Jack’s Xmas Work Do)
· How many days to go: 86 Days, 85 Nights.
12pm. One bottle of wine turned into four when either miscommunication or a pre-calculated plan meant that Jackie, Dianne and Bryony brought round a bottle each. Think I deserve it after a hectic week of continual washing and taxi duties due to the faithful English weather. Weeks like these, having to take a fully-grown golden Labrador out in the rain and puddles and returning with the monster from the lagoon smelling like old, wet socks one of the boys has left to mature in a corner in their room, makes you so proud to be British. Not.
Boys are back from football at 1pm so better take the empty bottles on the kitchen island counter out to the recycling bin before they start telling their teachers at school that their mother is a raging alcoholic.
5pm. Boys returned from football with their father, surprise, surprise, absolutely covered in mud as if they’d been to a spa. I wonder if your average Surrey mud does the same job as the fancy Turkish mud baths that Dianne swears by? Even if it would leave the boys stepping out from the bathroom with skin like glowing cashmere it wouldn’t mean I’ll forgive the little monsters for giving me another load of washing to do(note: washing load count now up to 4).
Thank the heavens that my boys want take-away pizza for dinner (after occasional gentle encouragement from yours truly). I was not in the mood to put my Nigella chef hat on after washing and drying the boys’ kits and the dog’s towels for the fourth time this week.
Pizza turns up and Jack deals with the soaking delivery boy at the door. I think he knew that I’d probably have chased the poor lad back out into the rain to his moped if he had dripped a single drop on my finally spotless floor.
The lovely warm cheese-tomato-bread smell made me forget my diet instantly. Oops. Felt so guilty as soon as I sunk my teeth down. However, it didn’t stop me tucking into a second piece. (Note: 38, 33, 41?)
8.30pm. My mother rings interrupting me re-reading Jayne Eyre whilst acting as enthusiastic spectator to the boys playing a tennis game on the console in the lounge. Could still hear them jumping and swinging their controls at the television as I moved into the kitchen. ‘Cathie, sweetie, do you remember what I told you last time we spoke?’’ My mother will always start every phone call, without fail, with this question. She’s rehearsed it to perfection, I’m sure of it. I still can’t figure out whether she says it to make me feel guilty and panic about how long the last time was, or whether she does it to test whether I was listening or not. Most of the time I hadn’t been. ‘’Yes’’ (I can rehearse too mother!) ‘’Oh good, well that writer chap’s talk is next Wednesday so I’ll come around at 6, ok? How are the boys?’’.
On this occasion I did know exactly what she had said. She’s been trying to encourage me (when I say ‘encourage’ I actually mean physically force me) to get back into my writing since I ceased to pick it back up again after Nathan was born. She has spent a decade ‘subtly’ leaving writing-class leaflets around the house and casually ‘lending’ me books that she never takes back from the once nearly empty bookshelf that is now full of her recommended reads.
She doesn’t give me a chance to say that I remember and I will happily attend at my own free will, instead she starts her speech on ‘Waste of a reputable University English degree… Insult to your father and I… Such a shame…’ I let her babble on for a bit, trying not to laugh into the phone piece at just how high her voice is getting before I tell her ‘yes mother, I will see you then’ and getting the pleasure of pressing that little red ‘end call’ button and imagining the confused, dazed look on her face.
They were the kind of parents who took helium balloons from McDonalds for their child’s birthday party in an entirely different restaurant.
For a moment I believed him.
For a moment I believed in God.
For a moment I had belief in Man-Kind.
There was no trouble for Mieko to leave the Academy at noon to visit the Temple and she made her way leisurely through the streets, past the river that had only recently shed its own winter coat. Mieko strolled through the City feeling the warm spring sunshine through her light robe. She suddenly had the thought that this may be the last time that she would be walking so freely through those streets and the last time that she would be wearing the delicate, silk robes that the Academy provided her.
It was only a short walk to the Temple but Mieko had taken in as much as she could during the brief journey of the City that had been her home for the last four years. Mieko savoured the Capital’s scenery; the now fully-bloomed cherry blossoms, so colourful amongst the buildings and cobbled streets, discarded the occasional petals to dance gracefully on the warm breeze and the river flowed smoothly under little, arced, wooden bridges and around the buildings and lush, grassy banks either side of it, looking like a long, snaking Sapphire twinkling under the bright sunshine. As she neared the Temple Mieko took in the vista of the grand, gilded building with a tall, spired roof that looked like a golden tear of a God resting atop a large, arced doorway that held great, thick wooden doors that stood open to the verdant lawns and long, shingle paths surrounded by colossal cherry blossoms and bamboo trees. A pond with fine, green lily pads sat to the left of the temple near a cluster of bamboo trees that reflected the spring sunshine as sharply as a mirror. Small birds warbled melodiously high among the trees providing an unspoiled soundtrack to match the tranquil scene.
Mieko spotted Hiro just inside the huge doors and he walked out to meet her. He was holding a small item that he had wrapped in brown paper carefully in his hand. Mieko noticed how he cupped his whole hand around it to not let eyes gaze down to it and try to construe what he had wrapped discreetly and protectively in the brown paper. They headed over to the pond that Mieko had just admired.
‘One ‘Godly Slumber’. Sorry, that’s just a name I made up for it. I would say someday it could make me very successful but it is a bit of illegitimate domestically-made medicine that I had made up myself…’ he always rambled when he was nervous and especially before he had to talk about something serious.
Mieko knew what he was trying to say; that he had essentially crafted an illegal formula in his master’s surgery under an apprentice’s license. And especially since he had formed something that would induce the patient into a very deep unconsciousness rather than a remedy for a number of illnesses, if he had been discovered then it would be certain that not only would he never receive his full license to practice and administer medicine, but he would be severely punished by his master, his father and the authorities. Mieko was extremely grateful for his risk.
‘It is a small vial. I had to calculate how much potion you would have to take for how many hours unconsciousness. The quantity that you have to drink in this vial will send you to sleep for no more than twelve hours. It also produces a few symptoms to suggest that you are poorly and not just asleep so the Doctor will be even more influenced to keep you over night. We will need to keep strict time from the moment that you take the potion to ensure that when you awaken you are not surrounded by Doctors and Nurses and it is during the night so we can leave undetected and get you away as easily as possible. I would suggest drinking the contents of the vial around ten a.m. so you will wake at approximately ten p.m. when only one or two Nurses will be on duty and we can easily get you out of the back entrance and away’.
Mieko took a moment to take all of it in. (‘Take at ten a.m. go to sleep, wake at ten p.m. escape the City Hospital and the Capital’) Mieko hadn’t thought of what she planned to do after she had left the hospital. Where was she going to go? Hiro seemed to guess what she was thinking about.
‘I assumed that you might be going home?’ Hiro didn’t know whether his assumption had been correct by the sudden light in Mieko’s eyes.
She hadn’t thought about going home. Home was such a different world now. But she was so glad that he had assumed that home was where she was heading. She thought about the looks on her parent’s faces when she headed up the dirt path to their house and they were reunited again. She smiled as she thought of returning to her happy, little village life and living working in the community, not having to worry about Mrs Yagoda or accumulating outlandish debts. She thought that perhaps she could become one of the two teachers at the school, but to be a proficient teacher she would’ve had to have studied for a good few more years in the City and perhaps earned a Degree. Mieko was certainly not going to return to the City again after she had abruptly left it. Although she didn’t know exactly what she was going to do as work in her little village she wasn’t discouraged from returning home.
‘And I also assumed that you wouldn’t have any money in the Academy?’ Hiro was correct in this. How much more had Mieko overlooked?
‘No, I don’t have a single penny’ Mieko admitted feeling slightly foolish for not having thought about how she would get out of the Capital with no money and no possessions to sell.
‘I thought about that and I have saved some money from what I have to help you on your way. It’s only about enough to get you out of the City and into the Countryside by train and some food until you make it back to your Village but I thought that it would be better than trying to get home with nothing’ Hiro had a little embarrassed blush on his cheeks. Mieko was so grateful for how much he used his brain. He really did think of everything, whereas Mieko was so busy being both worried and excited that she missed out all these important details.
‘Thank you so much Hiro. That is incredibly kind of you’ Mieko didn’t want to embarrass him further. He gave a little shrug that she took meant ‘it was nothing’.
‘And clothing’ he said suddenly. ‘I thought that even if you had bought plainer robes with you, you would’ve surely grown out of them by now. I thought that if you were to wear some of my clothing then it would help disguise you a little. If you were to be boarding a train in the middle of the night in your Artiste robes then people will be sure to approach you and question what you are doing, whereas if you wore some of my simpler trousers and a tunic and a straw hat you may look more like a working boy returning to the Countryside rather than a run-away apprentice Artiste’ once again Hiro raised another important detail.
‘Thank you Hiro, really. You’ve done so much for me and I am incredibly grateful. I will forever be in your debt. You are a true friend’ Mieko gave him an appreciative smile and felt that strange lump begin to rise in her throat. She gave a quick cough.
Hiro held out his hand with the brown-paper-wrapped vial in and offered it to Mieko. She took it gently and turned the shape over in her hand carefully before tucking it between her sash and robe to keep it safe and hidden.
They went inside the Temple and prayed for a while. Mieko lit herself a candle, asking the Gods to keep her safe during her journey back home.
As they set off back to the Academy and Physician Kogo’s Practice they finalised what day and when Mieko will take her potion and what would happen to her once she falls unconscious.
‘I assume that Physician Kogo will be called to come round to the Academy and check you over, then he will get me to ring through to the City Hospital where an ambulance will come from and take you there where a Doctor will examine your condition and be baffled and then decide to keep you in overnight and ring through to the Surgery and the Academy to say so. So I will then gather some clothing and food and the money for you and meet you out the back entrance of the hospital. I will get questioned if I try to enter the hospital at ten o’clock at night so you will have to find the back entrance alone. I assume you will be on the emergency ward which is on the ground floor so all you have to do is walk along the ground floor to the back of the hospital and find the back entrance. I will meet you there and you can change clothing before I escort you to the train station for you to catch the late train into the Countryside where you will begin your journey to your true Destiny’.
It seemed too easy the way that Hiro explained it. What would the Doctors think in the morning when they see her bed empty and no sign of her in the whole of the hospital? She raised this concern with Hiro.
‘Ah! A very good point. If you disappear overnight then the Academy will be informed straight away and you will be searched for. Ok, what you need to do before you leave to meet me at the back of the hospital is to find your medical chart, which should be hanging at the foot of your bed and to put at the right-hand corner, it must be the right-hand corner, in large, capital letters ‘TRANSFERRED’. Doctors usually do this when a patient on their ward has been transferred to another within the hospital or even a different hospital altogether. That should work, or at least make a lengthy delay whilst they try to trace where you were transferred to’.
