by Barry Klemm
`You got any idea how far I am from an ocean right now?’
`That’s what you get for making bold predictions.’
`I’m not sure whether I want Harley to be right or wrong.’
`Harley’s always right, even when he’s wrong.’
*
Psychiatrists were a breed apart—they came from another planet. They seemed like pleasant friendly people but they were not—they were very strange. To begin with, they seemed to listen to what you said—not a common human trait in most circumstances. And, odder still, they always let you finish what you were saying without interrupting, which never happened when real humans conversed.
But he was getting used to it. The important thing, he knew from the outset, was to avoid trying to right the wrong that had brought him here. He raged no rage, put up no fight, tried to remain as docile as possible. The various shrinks talked to him and he chatted as lightly as he could, which wasn’t easy when the interlocutor didn’t reply in accordance with whatever you said. Instead, they nodded thoughtfully and asked: `Yes, and how do you feel about that, Brian?’ or, if he had already told them how he felt, said, `that’s interesting, go on’. It was really like a monologue of his entire life and he rather enjoyed being able to talk about himself. It was a pity, though, that the psychiatrists didn’t know how to talk back. Once they taught computers to talk, nothing would be quite so easy to replace.
Of course, the one thing he never mentioned was the Shastri Effect and Professor Thyssen. Had he done so, he knew there would have been no hope of proving himself sane and getting out of here.
But otherwise, he was polite and friendly to everyone and co-operated with everything. `What do you think about that, Brian?’ they would ask when one of the group had broken new ground and reduced themselves to tears or rage.
“Since I’m sane and here by mistake, I really don’t think it would be healthy for me to comment,” was the sort of answer he gave.
He told them, all the time, that there was nothing wrong with him, but he never insisted. He just made sure they were informed. No one seems madder than someone trying to convince another that they are sane.
He wondered, always, how they pondered his `condition’. He wondered how long it would take them to catch on to the fact that he really was sane. After two months, there really was no sign of it.
“I think we’re making real progress here,” the shrink said at the end of his most recent interview.
After a month, he was allowed visitors. Only Judy came and he refused to see her unless she brought the kids, which she refused to do. She didn’t want them to see their father like this. The siege was yet to be resolved.
“But why not accept a visit from your wife?”
“Are you kidding? She’s the bitch who got me locked up in here.”
“Do you often feel this anger, Brian?”
You see? No way out.
Felicity Campbell was waiting in Dr Blackburn’s office. Brian entered and they both looked at him. No one said anything. No one dared. Blackburn signed a document and handed it to Felicity who walked out, summoning Brian to follow.
“Do you have anything to bring with you?” was the only thing she said as they walked the corridors toward the light of freedom at the end.
“Nar. They can keep the toothbrush,” Brian answered.
They walked right down the steps and out the gate where she had a taxi waiting. Only then did she pause and look at him with sorrowful eyes. “Oh, Brian. I’m so sorry about this.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Brian replied.
She was a lovely woman, with her straw-blonde hair and bright eyes, standing before him in the sunlight, his hero and rescuer. He had never loved anyone as much as this since his mother when she gave him a train set for his fifth birthday.
“Oh yes it was,” Felicity was saying as they got in the backseat of the cab. “I knew that our flying visit to your home must have left your poor wife utterly bewildered by events. Imagine the impression on a simple housewife of having someone like Harley Thyssen barge into your house and out again without any explanation. I planned to go and see her and explain. It was on my list of things to do before I went back to New Zealand, but... well, there was so much on my mind and I clean forgot. This is entirely my fault.”
“A doctor admitting she’s wrong? That don’t happen every day.”
“It isn’t funny, Brian. I feel so awful.”
Brian was tempted to put a comforting arm around her, but supposed he’d better not. “Well, don’t worry about it. It gave me a nice rest and it wasn’t so bad. It got me away from Judy’s nagging and the kids’ fighting and all that. Just like a holiday, really.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you’re taking it so well. Poor Judy is so terribly distraught.”
“Might do her a bit of good to be locked up for a while.”
“Don’t be hard on her, Brian. She thought she was doing the right thing.”
“Well, maybe this will teach her to have a bit of faith.”
“I’ve talked to her now and she understands. You can go home any time you like.”
“Not just yet. Allow me to enjoy my freedom.”
“Not much of that, I’m afraid. We’re ready to receive all of you at the hospital right away. I just thought you might like to go and see Judy first.”
“Bugger Judy. I’m in your hands, woman. Take me and do what you want with me.”
Felicity Campbell shook her head and laughed. “Alfred Hospital, thanks,” she called to the driver.
*
The Alfred Hospital had a complete ward available to them on the eleventh floor of the North Wing. From its windows it offered a perspective of the broad park across Commercial Road and over the top of the trees, the towers of the metropolis glimmered in the smoggy haze. Bridging the road, they had built a helipad that allowed direct access to the casualty ward and you could actually see the police rescue chopper come and go from the ward—Thyssen would like that. He would have access to the state-of-the-art equipment to be found on the floors below and the smiling co-operativeness of the administrators and technicians. Of course, she knew there had been a letter from the Department of Health in Washington to its equivalent in Canberra that smoothed out the arrangements, but she had found the location and made the initial approach herself.
Thyssen would be pleased, too, with the list of specialists she had arranged once she had returned to New Zealand. Jenkinson, Tuang Giap, Mendelev, Chomolski, Inpasit—neurologist, physiologist, psychologist, haematologist and virologist, had all been delighted to lend their time to the project. No one seemed at all embarrassed by Thyssen’s outrageous predictions although they all commented on it. The hospital had a fine array of contract technicians and nursing staff looking for extra hours. She’d been able to arrange all that by telephone from home in New Zealand, and still found time to do the rounds of her neglected regular patients.
Less pleasing was the position regarding Wendell and the children. They had another of their breakfast conferences, since that seemed to be the only time that they were all together these days.
“But why you?” Wendell asked over his newspaper.
“Because I discovered it. Look. It will only be for two weeks out of each three months. I’ll just be over in Melbourne. There’s always been conferences...”
She didn’t want to admit that Thyssen believed they were on a diminishing time scale.
“That is hardly the point,” Wendell sighed. “Appearances suggest that that the rest of your life is being sacrificed to this project. And if the publicity is any guide, the man in charge must be regarded as dubious at best.”
Harley? Dubious? Not much doubt about that.
“It is very important, Wendell,” she persisted. “And, from a medical point of view, that dubious character in charge is me.”
“But you admit yourself that you don’t know what’s going on? Your kids need you. Your patients need you. Not to mention me. You’v
e allowed a top posting at Wellington to go through to the keeper. Really, Fee, the implications are of one hell of a gamble.”
She knew it was. She had wondered, all along, what drew her along this course. Maybe the madness had infected her as well.
“It’s only tough going now, while I’m setting it up. When we know more about the condition, the specialists will take over and I will be phased out.”
That was, she knew, absolutely untrue. The various specialists would depart the project once they had proven that their field was not relevant. But until the cause of the symptoms was fully diagnosed, they would always need a GP broadly experienced in all aspects of the condition. That was why Thyssen had put her in charge of a team of vastly senior personnel. She would be the last to go.
She had departed from New Zealand with the domestic situation very much unresolved. The final position had been Wendell’s threat to employ a nanny to replace her, and her plea to him to hold on and see if that was really necessary. She flew to Melbourne knowing her career had taken a big stagger sideways and her status as a good mother a gigantic step backwards. And then she collided head-on with her own fallibility when she went to visit Judy Carrick.
Brian Carrick was a grave error. She should have checked. That she had allowed him to sit it out in that mental home while the situation in the Carrick household ran completely out of control for two months was unforgivable, even if Brian offered no objection.
She had gone to Judy and carefully explained, but she knew she had allowed an irrevocable rift to occur in that marriage, entirely due to her own carelessness.
She arranged for Judy and the kids to come and visit Brian at the Alfred, and if the conversation was stilted and the room temperature icy, still he assured her that he would be home in two weeks. That had to be enough.
Then she settled down to await the arrival of the others, wondering what other disasters she might have caused amongst them. She sat in the ward while the technicians and nurses breezed back and forth, their activities calmer now as the job neared completion. It was like having the house prepared for a party, and the unbearable hours sitting and waiting before the first guest arrived. In those hours, you could persuade yourself that you had offended every friend you had and none of them would come. This time, maybe it would be true.
But throughout the day, they began to appear. Chrissie Rice brought with her a young handsome priest who was at first astonished by everything he saw but eventually wished to bless the proceedings.
“So what she told me is all true?” the priest gasped at Felicity.
“Whatever Chrissie told you, she did so in strictest confidence. But you may judge for yourself the seriousness with which the matter is being taken.”
He did, and it floored him. He stuttered through a brief prayer and Felicity, although a lapsed Catholic, allowed some of his blessing to splash in her direction.
Kevin Wagner failed to get permission to land his helicopter on the hospital pad and was diverted to Moorabbin. It was after dark when he got back. He brought with him a set of weights.
“The hospital has a first rate gym,” Felicity pointed out.
“These are my own designer type,” Wagner explained.
The surprise was Joe Solomon, wheeled in by an over-weight woman named Clarissa who was one of his associates and would allow him to run his business from the hospital. She immediately grabbed the lap-top and went looking for the nearest place to plug in the transformer.
“I must say I’m surprised, Joe,” Felicity mused.
Joe Solomon snorted with his customary grumpiness. “Bloody Thyssen outmanoeuvred me.”
“As he did all of us.”
“Oh yes,” Joe grunted with disgust. “He handballed the whole bloody thing to me, that’s what he did. He employed my firm to look after the project contracts and accounts. `That way you’ll know just exactly where the funds are coming from and who’s ripping off who,’ he said. Bastard.”
“Good contract though, Joe. What’s your percentage?”
“Mind your own bloody business.”
“Still, Joe, it is a comfort to know the man in charge is smarter than everyone else.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Except that also includes us.”
“Still, he seems to have gone out of his way to secure your trust, Joe.”
“That’s what worries me. People who say `Trust me’ are the only ones you can’t rely on.”
Lorna Simmons had been shopping all day—just a few things she would need for her stay. A nightie from Country Road, fluffy slippers from Myers, a fabulous Japanese geisha dress for a dressing gown. And a whole reserve supply of make-up... One glance between Lorna and Kevin Wagner informed Felicity that they should be positioned at opposite ends of the ward.
Then Andromeda Starlight swept in, calm and light and serene. There seemed to be an aura of tranquillity surrounding her that made Felicity wonder what she was on at the moment. She had decided deliberately to avoid thinking about possible impact of withdrawal symptoms on their test results. Felicity stayed calm, even though she could not have known that no drugs were involved.
The ward offered no partitioning between patients, with only curtains that could be drawn around for privacy. She watched as they looked over these communal arrangements and was surprised that no one saw fit to complain. Admittedly, six beds in the ward rather than the possible ten allowed greater intervening space than customary, and the excess of monitoring equipment created natural barriers. But Felicity preferred to believe Lorna’s view of the matter—that these six strangers were remarkably comfortable in each other’s company. Like a family? No. Few families were as harmonious as this.
Except Lorna and Kevin who, although they weren’t speaking, were always able to remain far enough apart that it didn’t matter.
“They had a big bust up in Sydney,” Chrissie informed Felicity softly. “Lorna’s been staying with me for a month.”
“Well, let’s hope they soon get over it,” Felicity smiled.
In the evening, they had arranged their beds and televisions and reading matter and were waiting to be fed and settled down. Then, despite the heavy security that had been arranged for the ward, a skinny, dark-skinned young woman wandered in, wearing torn jeans, crumpled shirt hanging out and a leather jacket with badges. With her spiked hair and nose-ring, she looked like a street kid who had been brought in by accident with the garbage bins.
“Can I help you?” the ward nurse demanded.
The urchin retreated and disappeared.
Conversely, the security guards weren’t about to allow a Neanderthal like Thyssen through and a chuckling Felicity had to go out and rescue him. He lumbered into the ward, looking bright-eyed and well pleased. “Great work, Fee. Terrific set-up.”
“Do you want to have a conference and tell these people the plan?” Felicity asked, trying to get things on a formal note.
“No way,” Thyssen said. “You’re in charge here. I’m just an observer.”
“That’ll be the day,” said a voice behind them.
The urchin had returned, leaning in the doorway, licking an ice cream.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Thyssen demanded of her.
“Indian Ocean, you said, Harley,” the urchin replied blithely. “Which makes this the perfect spring-board for attack.”
“I was rather more thinking of Cape Town,” Thyssen muttered.
“Was there any reason why it should be the Indian Ocean, Harley?” the girl demanded as she advanced into the room.
“Hasn’t happened there before,” Harley murmured lamely.
“Then you’ll be delighted to know that Glen came up with the Indian Ocean in five out of thirty-seven model runs.”
The girl stopped beside Thyssen, who put his arm around her and dragged her to open ground. “Folks, I want you to meet Jamila Shastri—the discoverer of the Shastri Effect. You won’t see much of her because she’s our volcano chaser. Always to be found where the
eruptions are hottest.”
“Why do I suddenly feel so very insecure?” Lorna Simmons said in mock horror.
“So these are the sleepers,” Jami remarked, looking them over like specimens in a bottle. “I’ve heard a lot about you guys.”
“Whereas we’ve heard nothing about you, young lady?” Joe Solomon said
“That’s because Harley always takes the credit for my work,” Jami said cutely.
“That’s because I do all the paying and take all the flack,” Thyssen defended. “Anyhow, since we’re all here, I have something to say. I’ll keep this short,” he said amid their groans. “I just want to thank you all for coming. And you ought to know that the project now officially has a name. Project Earthshaker.”
“Wow man, talk about originality,” Kevin Wagner sneered. “How many bureaucratic geniuses did it take to come up with that one?”
“Came from the US State Department, as a matter of fact,” Thyssen said. “I thought it rather appropriate myself.”
“I thought these names were supposed to obscure, rather than tell everything,” Felicity said lightly.
“Maybe they’re referring to Harley,” Jami grinned.
The next day the patients were hooked up to the monitoring equipment and the detailed observation of their physiology and mental states began. Interest focused on a set of six small monitor screens that were slaves to those placed individually beside each bed. These Felicity positioned at the nurse’s station where they could be constantly watched. The six bands of light darting with endless repetition across the screens measured the alpha waves of the patients and their names were tagged below each monitor. Their output was also constantly recorded. As such they represented the only positive external measure of the condition of the group.
“See how they are all different,” Felicity pointed out to Thyssen.
“They all look the same to me.”
“No. Observe how no two blips are the same point at the same time.”
“I suppose.”