The Wisdom of Crocodiles

by Paul Hoffman

  The audience eyed her watchfully. She continued but her sense of unease at having alienated them quickly evaporated as the true iconoclast’s pleasure at smashing deeply held beliefs began to intoxicate her.

  ‘Nevertheless, there is work to be done of a revealing kind. If you program ZARDOZ to ask the question, “How long have you been . . .” whenever someone states “I am something”, then the response to, “I am unhappy” will be “How long have you been unhappy?” Sadly, if the statement is, “I am murdering my husband,” the response will be “How long have you been murdering your husband?” ’ She looked defiantly at the grim-faced audience.

  ‘The depth of the emptiness of the interior world of the computer is apparent here. We will undoubtedly find ways of eliminating such revealing solecisms, but it will not be done by making computers intelligent, merely by devising better strategies for disguising their true nature, by hiding their essential emptiness.’

  Several eminent professors began to leave.

  ‘What I hope this has demonstrated is that, despite the apparently impressive aptness of the responses of ZARDOZ to an extraordinarily complex human situation, nothing meaningful made its way into the processor, which in this instance was a child but it could have been an electronic processor. Diz Baker, a processor of flesh and blood, received a mere twenty words, and some of the elements weren’t even words. If you type in just a question mark, the computer will always reply: “What do you think?” “Is it all right to shoot the President?” “What do you think?” “Should I kill myself?” “What do you think?” There can be no doubt that there would be nothing meaningful in any exchange that flowed between Madeleine and a “real” ZARDOZ, not even the fact that here was a woman who found it difficult to talk about her problems with her angry husband John, because the program does not link these elements together. Nevertheless we witnessed an exchange that was apparently rich in understanding. I could have used a real computer but I chose a child to be the processor of what little information was fed into ZARDOZ because we can interrogate a child of ten, if we need to, about its knowledge of the world – although we know, of course, that a child could not understand the complex adult situation outlined by Madeleine. It seems that as we cannot interrogate, or know about, the understanding of the computer the vast majority of my colleagues in this field believe that it does contain some kind of intelligence or understanding simply because it produces apt responses. I find it hard to understand why this should be the case for computers and not for other machines which respond to patterns of input. No one, for some reason, seems anxious to invest similar properties in their washing machine or the door-bell of their house, yet it is necessary for me to produce an endlessly, and I should say needlessly, complicated demonstration to provide evidence for something that is, as we say in England, as plain as the nose on your face. But the paradox, the irony, of all this is that the computer, thoughtfully programmed, will usually perform well, but real counsellors can have off days, or simply be not much good or have dubious attitudes and commitments. I am already working on a more sophisticated version of ZARDOZ, which takes its name, incidentally, from the false god in John Boorman’s film of the same name. But false divinity though it may be, I strongly believe that given time, a development of this program might be of more help to the Madeleines of this world than a foolish best friend, a too-busy doctor or a mediocre psychoanalyst.’

  She looked out into the auditorium. ‘In a way it’s not difficult to see why we find it so easy to invest these extraordinary machines with qualities forever denied them, because it’s hard to see how anything can be so rich at one level, yet so barren at another. Perhaps it was this that deceived the great mathematician Alan Turing into claiming that when it was impossible to tell the difference between the responses of a computer and a human being to a series of questions, then the computer would have passed a test that proved it was in some way fundamentally the same.’

  Anne paused and looked out across the audience. ‘He was wrong.’

  BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! A scream from the horn of the car behind startled her and she was back among the gloomy drivers trapped in the terrorist-induced gridlock of the M25. The cars ahead had already moved twenty yards. Anne switched on the engine in a pointless fluster – given that the traffic would move slowly for a long time to come – and pulled away in first gear.

  ‘You mentioned your mother at the end of our last session,’ said David Hendrix, broaching what he expected to be a difficult subject. ‘You were thirteen when it happened?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Winnicott watchfully.

  ‘Were you with her when she died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you knew she was ill?’

  ‘My father told us she was sick. She was going into hospital so he couldn’t very well conceal it. But when he came to see my brother and me at boarding school, he didn’t say how sick. I didn’t go to see her as often as I could have done. I could certainly have got permission, her being in hospital – but not knowing how ill she was . . .’ he paused, ‘how seriously ill, I didn’t take advantage of that. And I never knew what she went into hospital for.’

  ‘But you did visit?’

  Winnicott seemed ready to talk now, but it was like dealing with an unpredictable animal, thought Hendrix, which instead of turning on you could simply freeze you out at any moment. It was important not to give the impression of making judgements, like avoiding making any sudden movements in front of a jumpy tiger.

  ‘Yes, several times. I remember going to see her and seeing her arms were very swollen, and afterwards mentioning it fairly casually to the matron and she said – obviously trying to reassure me – “Oh, don’t worry, that’s a good sign.” ’ He looked at Hendrix. ‘Well, of course, it was anything but a good sign.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  Winnicott considered this dispassionately, as if he were being asked for a reference.

  ‘She was . . . intelligent. I think she was quite a good organiser. Perhaps that’s where I got my abilities from. I like to think so. She was quite a forceful woman – she could lose her temper, for instance. My father was a shy man but my mother was quite sociable . . . much less inhibited as I remember and so, I suppose, you could say a better parent in the sense of being more spontaneous.’

  ‘You think it’s important to be spontaneous?’

  As soon as he said it, Hendrix realised it was a crass mistake. Winnicott stared at him.

  ‘I told you before about my doubts concerning counselling or whatever you call it. I’m still not really clear what it is, but if you want to stick me in a little box with, Example of English Middle-Class Anal Retentive stamped on the tqp then I have to tell you I don’t much care for being reduced to a caricature.’ He smiled. ‘Is that spontaneous enough for you?’ Hendrix cursed his stupidity, and shifted in his chair, signalling his defeated retreat.

  ‘Sorry. My apologies.’ But he did not give Winnicott time to withdraw. ‘How did you learn of her death?’

  ‘My father had sent me and my brother away on holiday.’

  ‘And that’s where you were when you heard?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’

  ‘When we came back my father called me and my brother into the room he used as a study, if you like, though that’s a grand way of putting it. And I remember thinking as we went in, “I wonder if Mum is dead”, you know, in the sudden way one thinks of the impossible and you know you’re never right more than one time in a million. And, of course, I was right.’

  Hendrix still looked puzzled. ‘So she died just before you returned from holiday?’

  Winnicott looked straight at him.

  ‘No. He told us about two weeks after it happened.’

  Hendrix said nothing. To make any judgement would certainly bring the session to a halt.

  Winnicott continued, ‘No doubt you think it was wrong of my father to keep us in a sta
te of such ignorance. Some of my father’s friends thought it was unforgivable.’ It was almost a dare.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Hendrix.

  Winnicott smiled. It had been a victory of sorts.

  ‘I myself don’t blame him. I think he had an extremely difficult hand to play and he wanted to keep such a dreadful piece of news from us for as long as possible.’

  ‘How did he actually tell you?’

  ‘You mean what words did he use?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a pause. ‘He said, “I won’t beat about the bush, boys, the fact is your mother’s dead and we buried her last week – there’s a glass of milk and a sticky bun for you in the kitchen.” ’

  Hendrix’s eyes widened in shock, then he realised.

  Winnicott laughed.

  ‘I’ve already apologised once,’ said Hendrix pleasantly. ‘Would you like me to do so again?’

  ‘No, it’s all right. The fact is I can’t really remember what he said. It was a blow and it’s thirty years.’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  Winnicott looked out of the window. ‘I remember my brother and I . . .’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘He was a bit less than two years younger. We went our separate ways. He went upstairs and threw himself on the bed and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I went upstairs and started reading a book . . . but not being able to concentrate. And I . . . at one point I can remember laughing. It didn’t seem like an hysterical laugh, although it may have been . . . but it was definitely laughter. And I remember my father saying later, “That was a rather callous attitude.” Not angry or anything. I’m not sure how you’d describe the tone. He would never criticise me very much. But if he did it was always in that tone. Mild. Sort of, “I’m not going to make a scene but I disapprove.” ’

  ‘What did you say when he said that – about laughing?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t callous but I could see that it perhaps looked that way. I could understand why he said it, even at the time. I don’t suppose I knew what was really going on. I may have thought I did but I couldn’t take it in, I suppose. We all have our own way of dealing with terrible things. I discovered mine when I was very young. What can you do?’

  Hendrix reluctantly brought the session to an end, feeling that Winnicott might never be so open with him again. As they parted, Winnicott nodded to a copy of The Times on a chair.

  ‘I see you do the crossword.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hendrix was already late for his next client and was anxious not to get caught in conversation. Winnicott seemed not to notice his impatience.

  ‘Have you ever heard of E13?’

  It was four p.m. and Steven Grlscz was tired. As reluctant as a narcoleptic to an early rise he picked up the phone. It was answered after three rings. ‘Dave Redman, please. It’s Steven Grlscz.’

  ‘I’ll see if he’s available.’ A pause. ‘He’s in a meeting. Can I get him to call you back?’

  Later that day Winnicott sat across from Michael McCarthy as he was attempting to explain the problems he was encountering in his submissions to the Law Commission on the reform of a 1968 Theft Act that had been written when hardly anyone had heard of credit cards. ‘I mean, it’s now possible to obtain goods fraudulently without deceiving a human being – you can order things direct from computers.’ He was having trouble opening the peel-back Cellophane on his prawn sandwiches. ‘They build these things like bloody nuclear fall-out shelters.’

  ‘Why is that a problem?’

  McCarthy looked up from his attempt to open the sandwich container. ‘Because under the present law deception has to involve deceiving a person. Deceiving a machine isn’t an offence.’

  The sandwich container suddenly disintegrated, launching the contents across the room. McCarthy sighed. Winnicott barely noticed. He was waiting for the opportunity to pursue something that had been on his mind – the right time to deliver the favour to Healey. ‘There’s a matter I wanted to ask you about. A problem someone who’s been of great help to me wanted advice about . . . a fraud. It seems to be an awkward situation.’ McCarthy looked embarrassed and Winnicott wondered if he had crossed a professional line. ‘Of course if there’s a problem . . .’

  ‘Ah, well, it depends,’ said McCarthy, looking as if he thought it most decidedly was a problem. ‘It would be best to keep it,’ he paused, ‘hypothetical until I can see whether it might. Fire away.’

  Winnicott took out the notes he had made, and after about five minutes McCarthy began to smile. ‘You don’t see that every day, I must say.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An accountant more concerned with doing the right thing than squirming about trying to get out of their responsibilities to report crime. They are absolute bastards,’ he said vehemently. ‘It’s taken them longer to come up with their new guidelines for reporting possible fraud than it took to build the Channel Tunnel.’

  Winnicott was surprised at the extreme nature of McCarthy’s loathing, sectarian in its intensity, for a group he had always seen as the model of dull respectability. ‘But from what I could gather she is in a difficult position. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s fair enough. They’ve got to be careful, but only if they want to do the right thing, and most of them are solely concerned with covering their backs and not making waves. Most of them don’t give a damn about doing what’s right and uncovering crime.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to help someone who is concerned to do the right thing?’ said Winnicott, still surprised by his irritable response.

  McCarthy looked at him. ‘We can stop being hypothetical. I know the company you’re talking about – TLC. We’ve been sniffing around them for a while. But I’m afraid it’s important you don’t say too much to your friend. I’ve got a suspicious nature. It’s possible this is a fishing exercise. After all, you don’t know it’s the accountant any more than you know it’s his wife he’s worried about. He could have made her up. TLC might realise we’re on to them and this is just a ploy to find out what we know. Can you trust this person?’

  ‘He’s a serving officer in the Met.’

  ‘But you know him well?’

  ‘Hardly at all. He’s got a good reputation, though.’

  ‘Well, with all due respect, the same can’t be said for the Met at the moment. It would be best to keep him in the dark. Tell him you’re looking into it and that the situation is complex for reasons you can’t reveal. It’s the truth after all.’

  ‘So what’s going on at this TLC?’

  McCarthy was staring at the sandwich on Winnicott’s plate. ‘Are you going to eat that?’ Winnicott gestured at him to go ahead. ‘There have been rumours about TLC going the rounds for a while. I’ve got someone working on collating it, but an old friend of mine is familiar with their kind of insurance work. I’d like to hear what he has to say first. By all means come to the meeting, if you want.’

  The intercom buzzed.

  ‘Yes, Lucy.’

  ‘You’re due to talk to the lawyers in five minutes.’

  ‘Right. Thank you.’

  ‘We’ll go into the details later,’ continued McCarthy, ‘but we’ve been testing Anne Levels’ new computer program. Remember that conference we went to in Canterbury? What’s it called? OMERTA or something.’

  ‘NEMO, isn’t it?’

  ‘Whatever. Anyway, the IT department have been running TLC’s financial transactions through it and searching for uncharacteristic variations in expected patterns. Well, to cut a long story short, its impressive increase in sales isn’t so much impressive as bloody miraculous. So either the Good Lord has been made an executive director or there’s something dodgy going on. That’s why I’ve asked Howard Cornish to come and see us when he gets back from Italy. He’s helped us out before. He might be able to look at what we’ve got and give us some idea about what they’re up to.’ McCarthy looked at Winnicott though
tfully. ‘The more I think about this accountant wanting to get advice from your policeman friend, the more fishy it looks. I think it would be best to proceed on the basis that this is an attempt to get information about what we know. I may well be wrong but that’s how we should play it for now.’

  ‘She might also be acting honestly. I have known members of the public not to be entirely frank with me,’ said Winnicott. ‘Nevertheless there are people who do tell the truth, often at considerable risk to themselves.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied McCarthy, realising that he had unwisely patronised his boss. Still, it was important to proceed carefully in this. ‘But until we know what’s going on between your policeman and his wife, I’m afraid we need to assume the worst.’

  ‘I’ve come about the advert,’ said Jane Healey, gesturing towards the door of the bookshop.

  ‘Advert?’ The man in the booth looked up. He was about fifty, short and muscular, though not in any way that spoke of the gymnasium – what her mother would have called a bruiser. His hair was white and cut short, and his expression, made it clear that doubt or uncertainty had never troubled it. ‘Oh. The book-keeping job.’

  ‘Yes. The bookkeeping job.’

  ‘Um . . . got any experience?’

  ‘I’m a qualified accountant.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. He nodded over at the piece of paper taped to the window. ‘Like it says on the tin – it’s only a bookkeeping job.’

  ‘I understand that. I haven’t practised for a long time,’ she lied. ‘I did some part-time work for local businesses because it fitted in with the children. Bookkeeping suits me fine.’

  ‘Oh. Right. So, you know all about VAT?’

  ‘I’ve kept in touch, more or less. It depends on the problem.’

  ‘Did I say I had a problem?’

  ‘Well, you’re interested in how much I know about tax. It can be tricky for a small business.’