The Arms of Morpheus

Chapter 15

The Alitalia flight circled above Marco Polo airport, Noel sitting cramped in the economy seat of the Boeing 737. The two-hour flight from Heathrow had been strained and uncomfortable, the in-flight coffee even worse, but it had given him some time to reflect on the events of the past 48 hours.

He had informed Raj Praheen that his test subject could be difficult to locate, let alone study in greater detail, hoping that the trail between the laboratory and his daughter would go quickly cold. She was not going to be their Cavia porcellus.

A peculiar calm had descended upon the world of Noel Maher and Amelia Jarvis in the days immediately following their daughter's test results; everything working in slow motion as though they were living underwater.

Amelia had regressed into a shadow of the fun loving, convivial woman that Noel had fallen in love with. Having informed work that she needed compassionate leave due to an unforeseen family problem, she now spent every waking hour with Blake, attending to her every need, playing with her, holding her, caressing her. Each moment priceless.

Noel, on the other hand, was a scientist; a particular breed. The maternal instincts of his fiancée were now her driving force, but his was the world of figures, statistics and hypothesis.

He had spent hours trawling the internet, looking for information on F.F.I., contacting support groups for sufferers, identifying leads that could make that vital difference. He had received some supportive e-mails, other sufferers informing him that he was in their prayers and thoughts, giving him practical advice on how to cope as the symptoms progressed. For all of their kind words he still struggled to come to terms with how incredibly unfortunate his family were to be cursed with this astonishingly rare condition.

Neither had he been able to forget the incarceration that his family had suffered on an island asylum near Venice, wrongly labelled as "mad".

As a consequence, he had researched San Servolo Asylum, discovering that it was now a museum, the Psychiatric Museum of San Servolo, dedicated to conserving both the medical history and the memory of the individuals that were confined within its walls.

It also contained meticulous inmate records.

In the absence of any other leads, he concluded that he had to go; to look at the records, note the observations of the Doctors and try to find something of value that could help where it seemed modern medicine could not.

There had to be a clue somewhere.

Booking the flight, he contacted the curator of the museum, confirming he was a relative on a personal quest. The museum had been very helpful, explaining that the information at San Servolo was plentiful. Now, as he descended through the clouds, Noel realised he had absolutely no idea what he was going to ask.

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Living in the shadow of the more popular islands of Sant Erasmo, Torcello and the famous Venice itself, San Servolo is one of over one hundred small islands that form the archipelago of the Venetian lagoon. In 1715, monks from the 'Fatebenefratelli' religious order in Milan arrived, establishing first a military hospital and then, in 1725 a mental asylum. Over the next one hundred years, the asylum saw many changes. Churches, mortuaries and a convent were built to support the growing population that, by 1845, had grown to more than 400 patients; the small island retreat becoming a place of segregation for the mentally ill.

Noel gazed through the window, watching the crystalline blue waters of the Adriatic lap quietly, ebbing and flowing beneath the bronze disc of the midday sun that shone with a vigour synonymous with an Italian summer. Overhead, a flock of yellow-legged gulls flew by, their distant calls breaking the otherwise perfect silence.