by Stella Duffy
“The past tense wording ‘had’ sits easier with my everincreasing belief in serial monogamy.”
“Then ‘had’ it shall be.”
“Great. You bring the biogs, I’ll bring the wine.”
“Wow Saz, your romantic charm stuns me.”
“I try. One more thing, what sort of a doctor is he?”
“Psychiatrist. Sort of.”
“What sort?”
Molly sighed and held the phone to her other ear, “Don’t you know anything? You really should watch more daytime TV – he’s famous.”
“What for?”
“Loads of stuff – new techniques in group therapy, eliminating drug use – pretty controversial too, totally against shock therapy. Lots of things. Big research programme going on at the moment, he may even be going to take his work into the NHS – what’s left of it. I mean after all, if…”
“Don’t start on the NHS,” Saz interrupted her, “I don’t have time. Just tell me about North.”
“Very big time. Famous for saving even more famous drug addicts. Written books about it.”
“Being famous?”
Molly, slightly pissed off at having her usual diatribe about the shortcomings of the NHS cut short yet again, didn’t feel like playing along.
“No. I’ve probably got some of his research findings at home if you really want to have a look.”
“The biogs will do for a start. Oh … and don’t tell your friendly librarian what you want them for.”
“You’re not the only clever one around here, Saz. I’d already decided I’d tell her I was applying for a job and I’d heard he might be on the interviewing panel. They get that all the time.”
“And I thought you were hanging on my every word.”
“I can listen and think at the same time, you know.”
“So can I… I’m thinking of your long back, of running my index finger slowly down the gentle curve of your spine, just down to that little dip where it turns into your delicious bum …”
“Enough! I’m at work, woman!”
“You started it, and anyway, I’ve decided you should consider making love to me your life’s work, slowly, delicately, with just a hint of passionate abandon …”
Saz hung up, blew an airborne kiss to Molly on the other side of the river and jumped into the shower for the second time that day. An hour later she was walking into Vogue House, dressed in her best nice young lady clothes, posing as an American TV researcher. Having successfully negotiated the terrors of reception (nineteen-year-old bimbette, head to toe in ’70’s retro-groove, thinner than strictly necessary – even in that business) she was in the library, poring through their files. Two hours later she had a looming headache and twenty-five photocopied sheets mentioning Maxwell North directly, in passing or in conjunction with his wife, and all in glowing terms such as “The handsome Dr North”, “Maxwell North and his glamorous wife”, “Lord So-and-so with his good friend Max North”.
She left with a feeling of overkill. If nothing else, Maxwell North was well-loved by the society press. He seemed to have attended at least half of all the charity balls in London in the past five years, always looking immaculately well-groomed and often with his “glamorous” wife on his arm. Caron North was small, thin, blonde and pretty in that pale way the upper-class English so often have. In photos her prettiness was overshadowed by her husband’s classic American good looks – tall, squarejawed, lots of hair and big, round, baby eyes. Saz loathed them both on sight.
That night, after a little light sex, dinner and more dessert-inspired fumbling, Saz and Molly sat semi-dressed on the balcony overlooking the heath. The late spring weather was unusually warm and Molly had insisted they take full advantage of it, dining half in the flat and half on the balcony. Saz was re-reading the fifth biography in the pile Molly had brought home for her.
“See, there’s just something odd going on here – none of these seem to tell exactly the same story.”
“It’s probably the writers Saz, just making things up because it’s easier than checking the facts. They always do that.”
“Sometimes your cynicism astounds me. Anyway, I don’t think it is laziness. This one is the very first article. Dated 1978. All the others, which were written between ’81 and ’92 say he first lived in Boston from 1966 to the early seventies, no specifics. Then he travelled for a while, came to Britain in 1973, studied more, married into her family dynasty and became the great man he is today.”
“So?”
“Well, this first one says he left Harvard in ’66, worked in Boston until 1970, travelled a bit, moved to San Francisco and then came to Britain. None of the others even mention San Francisco, yet that’s where all his work started according to you.”
“All I know is that he started the Process stuff in San Francisco. Anyway, from what I remember of his theories, one of the most important things is that the past doesn’t matter. I know that when I saw him at a lecture once and this guy asked him about the start of his work, North practically bit his head off – in a very charming way of course, you must remember, Dr North is incredibly charming – but he made a big fuss about how the past isn’t relevant and it’s not where we’ve come from but where we’re going, all the same old stuff really.”
“So maybe he was lying about the past to these journalists?”
“That’s hardly likely, it should be easy enough to check. Maybe he really doesn’t think it matters. Or whoever wrote it just got the travelling years mixed up. What does it matter where he lived? I’d be more interested in the travelling stuff anyway, if I were you. God, I wish my parents had been rich enough to let me swan off round the world for a few years and ‘find myself! Do they say where he went?”
“Travelled the States mostly, and South America, South-east Asia.”
“Draft-dodging?”
“Chronic asthma.”
“Lucky him. Come on babe, let’s go to bed, I’m not used to you having a working life – I didn’t realize it leeched into dinner as well.”
“That wasn’t enough for you?”
“That, my darling, was just an appetizer – I want the main course.”
“Eat more pasta then, there’s some left on my plate. I’m sorry, I know I’m being boring about this … I get really involved when I’m starting to find out about someone.”
“Well, come and find out more about me – it’s only been three months, I’m sure I must have some secrets you could unearth.”
“Oh, all right, seeing as you’re looking so good and so sexy and warm and soft and so very delicious …”
Saz was silenced as Molly kissed her and pulled her to her feet, the two women walked back into the bedroom, laughing as they pulled off their clothes for the third time that night, easier this time as Saz hadn’t bothered to do up the buttons on her shirt yet again. Now, in the dark of Molly’s room, away from the prying eyes of those walking beneath the balcony and away from the clatter of plates and pasta their lovemaking was fierce. Saz ran her tongue around Molly’s mouth, tasting the sweet garlic and cold wine mix, then down her neck to the line between her breasts, taste sensation turning to slight salt from the sweat they had created earlier, were recreating now. Their sex life was still full of the joys of first passion, only slightly muted by a beginner’s working knowledge of each other’s bodies. Molly had soon sussed how to make Saz come quickly and easily but was still fascinated by how else she could manage to tease and tempt her new lover into giving up the secrets of her flesh, secrets Saz didn’t yet even know she possessed, secrets she was more than happy to look for and then surrender.
After they had made love, Saz left Molly sleeping soundly and went back out to the kitchen. She made herself a cup of sweet tea and spread all the papers out on the table, opened her notebook and began to compile a chronological list of North’s life. As far as she could tell, Maxwell North had come from a very well-respected East Coast family, followed the traditional private school route to H
arvard and then worked in a medical practice in Boston from 1966, moved to England in 1973, marrying the furnishing heiress Caron McKenna in 1978 when he was an eligible thirty-five and she a mere slip of a girl at twenty-one. He was always reported in glowing terms and had pioneered several new types of therapy, dealing primarily with personality disorders and various addictions. But what all of the articles and biographies had in common was that with the exception of the one written in 1978, all stated he had come to England in 1973. None of the others however, mentioned specifically what he was doing in the years 1970 to ’73. Either he was travelling, as was reported in the 1978 article, or doing nothing worth mentioning in any of the others, and somehow, Saz just couldn’t seem to believe that. “Oh no wonderboy, anybody who does so well for the rest of his career that he rates this much attention, can’t possibly have gone quiet for almost four years. I think you probably were ‘travelling’ – and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially not for a nice wealthy boy like you – so why not tell the journalists? Even Protestant work ethic allows a couple of years off for good behaviour – unless of course what you’re not telling is that it wasn’t good behaviour at all?”
Saz yawned and looked at Molly’s old grandfather clock, surprised to see it was suddenly four in the morning.
“Bloody hell, time flies when you’re digging through someone else’s past. Fuck this, I think I’ve had enough of doctors for one night. Well, maybe not ALL doctors …”
And Saz went back to bed to wake Molly and inform her that they had a good few hours before she had to get up for her run and therefore Molly had every reason to be thankful. About fifteen minutes after she had been slowly but surely awakened, Molly expressed her gratitude with a long, shuddering yell that also disturbed her downstairs neighbour, who tossed in his sleep, muttering disparaging comments about the voracious appetites of the neighbourhood cats.
On the other side of London in South Kensington, Dr Maxwell North stretched uncomfortably in his sleep and reached out for a comforting hand, but of course his wife was not there. It was past five o’clock and Caron was upstairs in her small home studio, deciding which of the razor sharp chisels she should use to cut into the fine block of virgin ebony she had before her. She made her choice and began the slow and painstaking job of uncovering the figure she knew lay quiet beneath the dark wood.
CHAPTER 6
Max liked his new life very much – too much. Within three months of the birth of his daughter Maxwell North was less of a patriarch and more of an overlord. The whole house was run according to his demands and the residents had no choice but to go along with him, either that or leave – not that anyone wanted to leave. Max was trusted completely. All the “family” loved him, believed in him. In September of 1971 Max was only twenty-eight but he already had the status of a man twice his age.
Since giving birth to their daughter Anita had much less time to organize the running of the house and Max was now helped by two “apprentices” – Paul and Michael. Paul was in his early thirties and had first come to the house with a drinking problem. But after a week of intensive, ten-hours-a-day therapy with Max, Paul was dry – and stayed that way. The debilitating alcoholism which had held him back for the past ten years was completely gone and Paul felt he owed Max his life. He probably did. Michael had been diagnosed as manic depressive as a teenager, had spent years in and out of therapy groups and psychiatric units, most of the time on tranquillizers and punctuating his more lucid moments with various attempts at suicide. Anita had met him at a psychic fair where he was screaming at a clairvoyant to help him speak to his dead grandmother. She brought him home and moved him in. He was quickly befriended by Max and gradually gave up both his tranquillizers and bouts of furious self-loathing. He too, attributed his “cure” directly to Max’s influence. Everyone loved Max, everyone trusted Max – everyone that is, except Anita. Their easy-going relationship was becoming anything but.
“Max, it is stupid. You cannot teach these men to help you with your work – you’re a doctor, you are trained. Paul grew up on a farm and Michael’s only twenty-one and he’s never had a proper job in his life!”
“You sound like my father, Anita. You’re the one who told me that I could help people – why not them?”
“You are different. Your whole background led you to this – Michael can barely take care of himself, let alone take on the cases you want to give him.”
“I’m giving him a little responsibility at a time – I’m training him.”
“The House is not a medical school! Anyway, most of the people coming here aren’t coming with medical problems, they’re coming because they’re unhappy, they have emotional problems, they need understanding …”
“And who better to understand them than someone who has been there himself?”
“Max, he’s still there!”
“Not for long – I’m working with him.”
“This is stupid. You aren’t qualified to do any of this.”
“Since when did qualifications matter, Anita?”
“Since you started messing around with people’s minds!”
“I’ve never hurt anybody – I don’t make them come to me. They like me, they trust me. They want to put their faith in me – where’s the harm in that?”
“You’re a doctor Max, an ordinary doctor – not a guru.”
“No? They think I am. And if in the thought that I am the guru, there is the seed of that which cures them, why prevent it?”
“It’s just words, and it’s not honest.”
“What’s honesty? Paul believes I cured his addiction to alcohol. I know I didn’t. All I did was talk to him for ten hours a day, when he wasn’t yelling at me. I know he exhausted me and half the time I wanted to tell him just to pull himself together and I switched off because his interminable stories about his evil mother and wicked father bored me beyond belief, but at the end of it he believed I had helped him get straight. That’s why he’s dry now – he believes in me. Who am I to deny him that?”
“Why can’t you tell him he cured himself?”
“He wouldn’t believe it. Everybody wants a saviour. You were mine. Now I’m his.”
“But I never let you believe that I was the reason you were happier. I made sure you knew you could do it all yourself. I gave you the opportunity to grow into yourself.”
“What do you want, Anita? Thanks? OK – thank you. Can I get back to work now? I can’t pander to your jealous fears all day – I have people waiting for me.”
“I’m not jealous! I’m concerned.”
“Sounds a lot like jealousy to me. Scared, hysterical, female jealousy.”
“What?”
“You’re tired, caring for a new baby, little Jasmine is taking it out of you.”
“It’s not just that, I’m worried …”
“Listen to me, it’s perfectly normal. Your routine is disrupted – you’re not so important any more, the House can function without you. That’s OK – you don’t need to control everything. That’s why Paul and Michael are needed to help me now – to give you a break. Just enjoy the time with Jasmine. Take your own advice. Go with it. Relax.”
Max picked up their screaming baby and laughed, handing her to Anita and shutting the door behind him. Anita felt well and truly cornered – she had told Max how wonderful he was, she had encouraged him to take control, she had welcomed her pregnancy and had been happy to give up some of her other work to devote more time to Jasmine. She was stuck, trapped by her own creation.
In the next year things became even worse for Anita. Following a disagreement with Max over the handling of the group’s finances, he hardly ever spoke to her about the House any more, insisting that she left all decisionmaking to himself, Paul and Michael. She felt isolated at home and missed having her work as a distraction. To the people in her neighbourhood she was now just another young mother and since Jasmine’s birth getting around in the city was much harder, especially since Max almost
always seemed to need the car and she had to travel by public transport or walk. The public transport never seemed to go where she wanted to go, and the hills, tiring enough for a girl from the lowlands, were hell with a baby to push around. She was lonely, frustrated and bored. Max, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier. He still had Anita as his lover and as she was so lonely he could spend time with her whenever he wanted, she would always welcome a distraction from the pressures of motherhood, but now he also had comrades. An only son, with a difficult relationship with his sister, his years at boarding school had not found him close men friends and his relationship with his father had never improved, but here he was living in one house which included five other men who believed in him absolutely, to whom he was father and big brother rolled into one. Max had grown into a very attractive man – physically and emotionally he was big, a strong man that both the women and men in the House felt they could depend on, could lean on. Max enjoyed and fostered their dependence, he played with them and was fully a part of their lives while also maintaining a degree of calm and aloofness that held him apart, allowing him to be both of the group and also completely in control of it. Partly it was because, while he would listen to the House members for hours, he very rarely told anyone other than Anita of his own thoughts and preoccupations, and partly it was that he always seemed to know the right things to say – on the few occasions when he chose to speak. Max created an aura around himself of strength and silence and understanding and, if this all-knowing strength was partly an illusion created by the House members’ need to be fathered, then Max wasn’t likely to tell them he was conning them, he enjoyed being in control far too much for that. If only Anita hadn’t been so uncertain of his role, his life would have been perfect. After a lot of discussion with Paul and Michael, Max decided he would have to deal with the problem that was their relationship and Anita was asked to go through the Process.
She was startled to find that in the time she’d become a mother and had been more or less excluded from Max’s work, what had started out as an idea for talking to people as therapy, a way of gentle discussion, had become a whole technique – and what’s more everyone in the House had now done it and was certain she’d benefit from it. Michael and Paul put a concerted effort into persuading her to try it and the others in the House assured her that while she took a couple of days off to undergo the Process, they’d be more than capable of looking after Jasmine.