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by J. A. Henderson

  “Subjects no good?”

  “Couple o fakers pulling a fast one, cause they figure taking our tests are a better set up than rotting away in here.”

  “Isn’t that right, though?” R.D. opened a wicker hamper and eyed the contents hungrily

  “Exactly. These guys are unstable enough, but they sure as hell aint depressed about it.”

  “What’s that?” The psychologist pointed to a file in Justin’s hand.

  “Anne-Louise spotted it inside a cabinet in the Warden’s Office.”

  “Inside a cabinet?”

  “You know how nosey your wife is.” The scientist sniggered. “The boss man wasn’t too keen, but she threw the Daler name around and had a snoop.” He held up the file. “This one kinda fits the profile, but the big cheese in there didn’t mention her.”

  As if on cue, the warden of the Northland State Centre strode out of the dark glacier of the facility and headed purposefully towards them.

  “Who is she?”

  “Clancy Elizabeth Denton.” The scientist pointed to a small figure sitting on the grass. “Apparently, that’s her over there.”

  She crouched on the emerald lawn with her back to R.D. and Justin, heels peeping out like castors, her attention focused on a bright plastic easel. The men had moved closer but were still too far off to see the quality of her work. However, if passion were art, Clancy was creating a masterpiece, for she hadn’t lifted her head in five minutes.

  Twenty yards behind the curious duo, Anne-Louise listened with growing impatience to the superintendent of Northland State Centre.

  “Clancy’s a truly gifted artist. Very ehmmm... yes, gifted.” The warden’s gritty, nasal articulation was instantly annoying - a choppy seasick voice that assaulted the nerves. He had been openly put out by Anne-Louise’s request to see the files on the other residents, but the Daler Corporation was too big a name to rebuff.

  Anne-Louise, not used to the role of stay-behind, was finding politeness increasingly difficult. The warden had a stone face decorated with eyelids like hacky sacks and smelled of wet sand. He leant over his unwilling guest like a butler instructing a serving maid.

  “Clancy Denton displays many of the almost, ahhhh... legendary qualities associated with the enfant savant... ehmmm.” He droned words as if reciting rotary club minutes. “She has a wonderful eye for detail and can draw accurate scenarios from memory, but nobody has ever heard her speak. Ehmmm... Oh, and an uncanny rapport with animals. Yes. Yes...Other patients say that animals are drawn to her.”

  “Hope that don’t include mosquitoes.” Anne-Louise tested the superintendent for any flake of humour.

  “I’m a busy man and I’ve never seen it, I must say.” The mordant caretaker sucked sweat from his top lip with a smack of discreditment. Despite his obvious exclusion by the Daler researchers, he displayed no inclination to return indoors.

  Justin noticed the man and strolled back. The superintendent smiled broadly, ready to hold court at last.

  “We’re gonna have a talk with this girl, hoss. Clancy, huh? Won’t be long.”

  To cut off any protest he turned and strode towards the earnest outline lost at the end of the lawn that seemed to be her universe. R.D. scooted after him, throwing back an apologetic smile. Together they closed the gap on their oblivious, kneeling prey.

  “Well, twist my heart-strings if we’re not heading into a Norman Rockwell painting.”

  “Definitely a touch of the ole Shirley Temple about this girl,” Justin agreed, as Clancy’s blonde curls loomed closer. The woolly head turned only when the researchers’ shadows crawled over her shoulder.

  Huge blue eyes, set frighteningly wide in a perfect porcelain face, immobilised R.D. before floating across to Justin. The duo stepped back, astonished by the scrubbed innocence and deer-in-a-headlight expression on the young woman.

  Clancy Denton was truly beautiful.

  Angelic. That was it.

  She had the face of an angel.

  Justin clasped his hands together in what seemed like nervous prayer, awed by the girl’s beatific face. Clancy scuttled round to face the men but couldn’t hold her apprehensive crouch any longer. She sat down heavily, legs sticking out like a cherub toppled from her cloud and goggled, doe-eyed, at the Armani-clad invaders towering over her.

  Justin lowered himself onto the grass, smiling gently. Clancy concentrated on her knees. R.D., knowing his place in the scenario, moved further back and knelt down as well.

  After a long pause the researcher began to talk, the way R.D. had heard his wife murmur to a skittish Palomino. Softly and persistently, the scientist’s soothing words tumbled over the bowed head. They formed a friendly rhythm, regular and tranquil as the verdant backdrop they floated into.

  “Hey, hey, young lady, huh? My name’s Justin Moore and this here’s R.D. Slaither - only I call him Scotty. Scotty’s just a nickname, cause of where he’s from, so I guess you can call him that as well and he wouldn’t mind, huh? Not a bit. Would you now Scotty?”

  “I do tend to get stereotyped,” R.D. grunted. “You probably know the feeling, Clancy.”

  The girl glanced briefly across at him then down at her splayed legs again.

  “Scotty and I come to see you. I even got dressed up for the occasion and it’s pretty hot.”

  “Tell me about it,” R.D. murmured. “Back home I’d be wearing a string vest, with a knotted hankie on my head.”

  “We just been over there, having a look at your file. Clancy Elizabeth Denton. That’s you, huh? Let’s see what I can remember. You’re twenty-one and you can paint real well. You got no family and you lost your mom and pop in a car accident. Since then you don’t ever talk. Your mind... it’s a child’s mind, so the warden says. But there’s no medical evidence why that should be the case and, anyway, he looks to be a complete idiot.”

  Glancing back to the shadow of the boxy State building, R.D. saw Anne-Louise and the superintendent moving apart. The woman strolled towards her seated husband, while the wink of a glass door spirited the stoop-shouldered warden into his dark domain. Clancy was still staring fixedly at the ground, shoulders so rigid under the light summer dress that her body seemed ready to snap. Justin looked round at his companion and shook his head in resignation.

  “She doesn’t seem to know what’s going on,” R.D. said. “We wouldn’t get her to sign a waiver.”

  The researcher turned back to the motionless girl.

  “I had a look at your records and, according to them, there aint any real damage inside your head, Clancy, not that anyone can find. Maybe you’re just traumatized but I need someone who can speak to me, even if it’s just to say yes or no to the experiments I’m trying to conduct.”

  Still no response from Clancy Denton.

  “I hope you’re not too unhappy but it doesn’t look to me that our treatment is really the right one for you. I wish I could help but I’m afraid it don’t look like I can. So, it’s que Sera Sera, huh? But I thought I’d come over and say hi anyhow.”

  Justin’s voice trailed off. He smiled again, trying to hide his disappointment.

  “Hell, you got your own world here, an now that I look at it, it’s probably better than ours, huh? With your paints and everything.” He patted the well-watered grass. “Besides, R.D.’s right, you can’t sign a release form. So, eh... it was a real pleasure to meet you, Miss Denton, and I guess I’ll just... say goodbye.”

  He reached out his hand to shake. Clancy leadenly moved her fingers until they hovered over his arm. She touched it reluctantly, as if it were a piece of dead meat, then slipped her hand quickly back to her lap. The paintbrush dripped bright goo down the other fist and stained the grass between her feet.

  Anne-Louise arrived and gave R.D. a friendly kick.

  “I made a play for Lurch back there and that did took off like a scalded lizard. You guys having fun?”

  She nodded casually at Clancy.

  “Hey, howya doin? I’m Anne-Louise.”<
br />
  Justin glowered at the intrusion, but Clancy raised her head and gave a hesitant smile.

  “She likes you!” R.D. was impressed.

  “Don’t everybody? But look at you both. This poor kid must think you’re a couple of hit men come to take her for a one-way ride in a black car.”

  The woman eyed her sharp suited escorts scornfully

  “She’s scared of y’all, you lunkheads.”

  -9-

  Justin, quietly depressed, stirred his Cherry yoghurt while R.D. and Anne-Louise tucked into potato salad, devilled eggs and fresh lemonade, stapling the checked linen tablecloth to the ground.

  “I like this.” The psychologist waved a chicken leg at milling inmates and carefully shaped bushes. “It’s pastoral. Sort of a cross between a border farm and a prison, not that I’ve ever been in either of them.”

  “Give it time, honey,” his wife chuckled.

  “I wish I could do somethin.” Justin was still moping. “She’s an unknown quantity, huh, R.D.? We might hurt her more than help her. I reckon she’s better off here.”

  Chewing passionately, the psychologist nodded his agreement.

  “I don’t think so.” Anne-Louise, munching silently until that moment, threw down her pickled Okra and sat up.

  “Oh, oh,” R.D. murmured.

  His wife took a deep breath, as if she’d been mulling a long while over opening this particular can of worms.

  “See, I’m a New Orleans rich bitch, aint I, R.D.? I wasn’t just born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I had a whole damned cutlery drawer. So I been goin to therapists ever since I was knee high to an erection.”

  She wiped sticky fingers carelessly on her Barboglio dress.

  “That girl isn’t ill. She’s in trouble.”

  Justin looked at R.D. quizzically. He shrugged, every bit as puzzled. Anne-Louise patted her husband genially on the shoulder.

  “Now, I know you’re real handsome, babe. It’s just you look like a New York bouncer in that suit. But Justin here is cute as hell... yes you are... you got a real nice face. A pleasant face. An Clancy Denton was as scared of you as she was of R.D.”

  Justin nodded, unsure of where this was going.

  “But she wasn’t afraid of me, was she?” the woman continued. “She was fine right off. So, what does that tell y’all?”

  “She’s a bad judge of character?” R.D. offered.

  “She’s terrified of men.” His wife spread her hands wide. “That’s what it looks like, anyhow.”

  “What you getting at?” A sliver of cheese halted on its way to Justin’s lips.

  “I noticed the staff here is mostly male. You should’ve seen the way some of them were ogling’ my ass. Not that I blame them for that.” Anne-Louise grinned lasciviously at R.D., who gloated back.

  “I aint joshing though, Justin. Some of these guys look like they’re fresh outta Huntsville Penitentiary an cruising for poontang. Think about it. Clancy’s one hell of a pretty girl. Almost as cute as me.”

  “And she doesn’t talk.” R.D. threaded in another strand of suspicion.

  “Uh, uh, hold on here now,” Justin took an urgent swig of milk, getting rid of a mouthful of Brie. “You talking about abuse, huh? Hey, this is the nineties, guys! It’s not Bedlam in there.”

  “My point exactly.” Anne-Louise shook her head, despairing of Justin’s naiveté. “Where else does some blue-collar lardass get to stick it to a beautiful young gal? Where else can some pasty, balding superintendent get his rocks off with a mute?”

  “She’s right,” R.D. added helpfully. “It is the nineties after all.”

  The horrified researcher stared from one to the other, milky pearls hanging, forgotten, at the corners of his mouth.

  “The men who work here are screened...” he began.

  Anne-Louise cut him off with a scornful hitch of her lips.

  “Oh, don’t even try that line, Justin Moore. Most guys in this world’ll risk anything to get in the sack with a good-looking nymphet. Aint that right, R.D.?”

  Her eyes veered round, grey sharks closing on a surprised prey. Justin flushed and R.D. gave an uncertain grin, as if the comment had been a backhanded compliment on his virility. All the same he decided to swim for it, in case this jokey slight wasn’t entirely good natured. He didn’t want to find himself the embodiment of male evil on the car ride home.

  “Aye, some of the attendants here look like Glasgow’s finest hard men,” he concurred. “I wouldn’t trust them alone with my auntie Irene; and she could turn milk sour by looking at the carton.”

  He frowned, as a genuine thought cut into his banter.

  “When you think about it Justin, the head honcho of this place didn’t exactly get his skates on to suggest Clancy Denton, did he?”

  “He’s the superintendent!”

  “He’s a man.” R.D. polished off his chicken leg. “Anne Louise is right. Men are shit. Guys like you are only nice cause geeky scientists never get the chance to meet good looking dames.”

  “Bravo,” Anne-Louise snapped angrily. “And Clancy Denton’s the perfect chance, aint she?”

  There was a prolonged hush round the makeshift conference table. Each diner considered what was being suggested, mixing a salad of rationality and emotion. No longer hungry. Trying to digest unpalatable thoughts.

  Now that she had brought the subject up, Anne-Louise glared stiffly at the tablecloth, trying not to get angry with the male race. Her husband watched her carefully, searching for something comforting to say. Justin took off his glasses and wiped perspiration from his eyes. He replaced the sweat streaked lenses.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “How much influence does the Daler Corporation have, Anne-Louise? I mean... on the level?”

  “It could probably take over a small country.”

  “I can pull strings?”

  “If you yank hard enough. You’re in charge of the project after all, even if you look like you stepped outta high school.”

  The researcher rested a slender chin on one knee, squinting across the lawn at Clancy’s distant sanctuary of canvas and paint. Taught and unreadable at first, his mouth gradually melted into a grin, head bobbing happily on the bony bend of his leg. He tilted his face into the azure sky, as if some momentous but welcome decision had been just made for him.

  “We’re taking Clancy Denton to Austin,” he announced. “We’re gonna cure her or be damned.”

  “Did you have to mention that second option?” R.D. swallowed loudly. “Besides, the warden won’t like it.”

  “The warden won’t be fucking getting it anymore.”

  -10-

  The Daler laboratories terrified Clancy. She clutched Anne-Louise’s hand while Justin led her past rows of gleaming equipment and beaming lab assistants. The researcher had tried to make the sterile surroundings as amiable as possible by sticking vases of plastic flowers on every table in the building.

  R.D. wasn’t impressed.

  “Trying to brighten this place is as pointless as putting crotchless undies on a nun. Let’s just do the initial tests and stick her somewhere nicer, quick as possible.”

  There was one part of Justin’s domain that Clancy took to straight away. The labs where test animals were kept. The scientist escorted her, wide eyed, down lines of mesh and glass tanks full of rabbits, mice and rats. She reached out on either side as they walked trying to give a little of herself to each animal, so Justin imagined. He kept up his soothing banter whenever he was with her.

  “These are our guinea pigs, and I mean that in a literal sense, so to speak. I know that some people think using animals to test things is wrong and bad. I admit, it can be cruel.”

  Clancy pressed her face against a class trying to get close to a startled rabbit.

  “But we’re not testing for shampoo or something trivial like that, huh? If this drug works, we’ll alleviate depression in all sorts of people. And it does work. Check out those rodents. All stuck in cages but
happy as Larry.”

  He gave a false laugh, suddenly uncomfortable with the thought of all the furry subjects that had been trapped and injected with the Cocktail.

  Clancy slowly looked round, a huge grin on her face, and pointed silently to the rows of hopping and shuffling mammals.

  “Yes, you like animals,” Justin said sympathetically.

  “I got a couple of rabbits you can borrow.” R.D. added. “They shit everywhere.”

  Getting Clancy to sign her life away was easier than anyone had expected. R.D. sat opposite the silent girl with Justin, Anne-Louise and Dr Holder, a psychiatrist drafted in from outside and carefully screened by Daler. Holder was to act as Clancy’s representative.

  “Her family died in a house fire when she was a teenager and she was the only survivor,” Justin explained. “She hasn’t spoken since. From the trauma most likely. It’s kinda hard to diagnose her when she refuses to say anything and it don’t look like Northfield made too much effort, anyhow.”

  “There are no other relatives?” Dr Holder asked.

  “None. Question is, is she competent to sign for herself?”

  “I’ve spoken to her at some length and got no response.” Holder admitted. “It doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t understand what we’re saying. She may just not want to talk.”

  “I’m the strong silent type myself.” R.D. began. “In fact, I-”

  Justin kicked him under the table and the psychologist shut up.

  “At this stage I can’t tell,” Holder continued, unabashed. “But it doesn’t look particularly hopeful.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper that could be heard half way round the building.

  “For all we know she’s a bit… simple.”

  “Why don’t I just ask her?” Anne-Louise leaned over and took Clancy’s hand. Justin blanched, but R.D. waved him into silence.

  “If you sign this piece of paper, baby.” She squeezed the fingers reassuringly. “Then we’re allowed to test an experimental drug on you. We think it’ll make you feel better but we can’t be sure. But if you don’t sign then we can’t keep you. You’ll have to go back to Northland, I’m afraid.”