Worse’s tuxedo trousers came with no leather belt, but Haberdash was wearing one. If it had sufficient length, Worse could loosen it and restrain Haberdash during a starboard roll by looping a foot within it while he used both hands on the door.
From time to time, Worse had been checking as best he could whether Haberdash was still breathing. Under the conditions this was almost impossible, and he had adopted an old medical device of knuckling the man’s sternum and noting the arousal response. It wasn’t improving, and at one point Worse wondered, rather incongruously given their predicament, if cruise ships carried CT scanners.
He reached over Haberdash to loosen the belt. Its wearer stirred, and Worse interrupted the task to lean forward and give him a sharp slap on the side of the face. Haberdash opened bloodshot eyes, focused on Worse. He lifted his head slightly from the deck, and brought his hands up to his face. Worse was relieved. At last, he might have the assistance of a second man to get them to safety.
The ship was starting its starboard heel, and Worse needed to grip the door handle. As he reached up with his left hand, he shouted at Haberdash.
‘Hold on to me.’
Haberdash’s idea of holding on was to grasp Worse around the throat with two icy hands, thumbs pressed on his larynx. Worse attempted to pull them off but they were fixed like the jaws of a steel vice. The ship’s lean was picking up, and Worse felt himself and Haberdash starting to slide. He knew he had only seconds of strength and consciousness in which to act, and his tactic was both desperate and definitive. He grabbed Haberdash by the hair, pulled his head up from the deck, and thrust it down as hard as his enfeebled state could manage. Haberdash released his grip.
Worse gasped for breath. He was well out of reach of the door lever and had only Haberdash to hold onto. They began to roll, locked together, over and over, accelerating down the deck as it approached a forty-five degree incline.
It was Haberdash who took the full impact against a stanchion post, cushioning Worse from injury. Freezing water poured down the deck upon them, and for several seconds Worse had nothing to grasp but the other man. At last his hand found the cold smooth steel of the upright. He locked his fingers around it, and struggled to his knees.
At that moment the ship troughed, still at full heel, stressing the hull and superstructure with forces they were never designed to withstand. Worse felt a buckle wave passing through the steel deck, followed by an explosion as the deformation ruptured a major weld close by. The steel plate beneath him began ringing, causing a strange sensation in Worse’s legs that was almost warming. Now there was a new noise, louder than the wind, of steel grinding against ragged steel.
Worse looked up to where he knew the bridge should be, but it was in total darkness. Then somewhere over the sea behind him, sheet lightning held for a few seconds. In that light the bridge windows looked black and lifeless. He began to fear that the ship was breaking up, or a weld had sprung below the waterline. He wondered whether over the whole deafening chaos he was hearing the general alarm, if there had been an order to abandon ship. He thought about Sigrid in her cabin. He wanted to see her, to help her, to get her to a lifeboat.
The stanchion Worse was holding suddenly vibrated like a tuning fork. Even though numbed with cold, he felt a sharp knock on his arm. It was a wire tensioner whipping around as the lower railing wire snapped. Haberdash, who had been wedged up against it, went half over the side. Worse had been looking down under the handrail, poised directly over the blackness of the sea. When he understood what had happened to Haberdash he instinctively reached out, managing to grab a trouser cuff.
The ship seemed to stay at maximum heel for longer than before, and Worse thought it might be cusped there in some maritime hesitation rite before capsizing.
He tried to pull Haberdash back to the deck, but lacked the strength. A moment later he felt the strain abruptly give. Haberdash, belt loosened, had slipped into the sea leaving Worse holding a pair of trousers.
The rain was still blinding, but Worse had an impression there was more light on the deck. It didn’t last, and it occurred to him that it had been the classic near-death hallucination. That thought forced his will back to survival. He pulled the soaking trousers towards him, grateful for any detritus that might be useful.
The ship slowly began to right itself. When it was nearly level, Worse tried to stand up, determined to return to the door rather than be reliant on the broken railing. If he couldn’t open it, he would lash himself to the handle using the trousers or the belt.
He found his legs were too weak to take the steps, and he fell back to the deck, rolling uncontrollably towards the door as the port heel increased, his eyes shut against the hurt of the rain. He thought he would have the strength at least to reach for the handle, and once on it, not let go until he was rescued or succumbed to the cold.
But when he stopped rolling he couldn’t feel the handle. His arm flailed, searching blindly for one small item of physical security in his terrible isolation. What he felt instead was no rain, a little warmth, and the texture of wet carpet. It took a second to realize that somehow he had rolled from the edge of the ship straight through the open door that was now slammed shut behind him.
Worse was aware of a blanket wrapped over him, and thought he could smell hot cocoa. He opened his eyes, and even in his state of confusion and exhaustion, even in extremis, he laughed.
Hovering over him was Hilario, soaking wet, and he was grinning.
By reference to the familiar physics of a pendulum, the reader will appreciate the special invidiousness of Worse’s plight. The ideal condition for his being able to open the door outwards and not simultaneously be required to restrain Haberdash was a level deck. But at the point in the ship’s roll (ignoring other degrees of freedom) when the deck was level, its angular velocity was at maximum, affording Worse the very briefest of opportunity.
20 CORE TEMPERATURE
Hilario helped Worse to the stateroom, ran a warm spa, and excused himself. Worse emptied his pockets, placing Haberdash’s possessions on a table within reach of the bath, and discarded his soaked tuxedo on the tiled floor.
He lay in the warmth for an hour, periodically restoring it with hot water, and studying the harmonic oscillation of its level with the movement of the ship. When he closed his eyes he experienced visceral flashbacks to the struggle with Haberdash, to the terrifying high-speed roll to the edge of the deck, and to the sense of impending hopelessness that he felt when he couldn’t open the door. It made him wonder about his trying to save Haberdash, why he had risked so much for the man who wanted him murdered. Humanity was a complex, contradictory thing.
Worse glanced at the items on the table. There was only one piece of information that he wanted for now, and he had saved up the gratification of learning it. He opened the soggy wallet. Inside was an Illinois driver’s licence with the name Benjamin James Mortiss. Worse looked at the date of birth and his mouth stretched a grim millimetre. The Piscean had returned to his element.
At about 6.00 am, he heard Sigrid stir. She looked into the bathroom.
‘You’re up early,’ she said.
She glanced at the wet tuxedo crumpled on the floor and entered, appearing concerned for him. The ship was still rolling uncomfortably, and she sat on the edge of the bath at Worse’s feet. She was dressed in her monogrammed bathrobe provided with the suite.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked.
Worse recounted his ordeal with Haberdash. It helped him to talk about it. He shared his reflections about human nature, about trying to save his attacker.
‘I’m not surprised in the least,’ said Sigrid. ‘After all, you have an acquaintance with Hippocratic ideals.’
‘Things change.’ Worse looked down.
‘Richard! I believe you’re navel-gazing. Essential goodness doesn’t change. And you have saved many more lives than you will ever persuade to a conclusion.’
It was a logician’s attempt at lightness
. Worse didn’t reply. Sigrid stood up.
‘You look as if you might stay in the bath all day. Do you mind if I share the facilities and have a shower?’
‘Not at all, Mrs Worse. I shall watch over you most protectively.’
Sigrid slipped out of her bathrobe. ‘I can see your core temperature is recovering.’
Worse reached for a tap to replenish the heat. After a few minutes, Sigrid asked from the shower space, ‘Did you report “Man Overboard”, or whatever is meant to happen?’
‘He wasn’t recoverable in those conditions, Sigrid. I’ll make a report to Victor. He’s the one who needs to know. I suspect the shipping line doesn’t even believe they had an illegal passenger.’
Sigrid returned to showering. When she emerged and picked up a towel, Worse spoke.
‘It seems that I continue to call him Haberdash, but it turns out he was a Mortiss.’
‘There’s trouble for you,’ said Sigrid, resting a foot on the bath’s rim, to dry her leg. Worse switched on the spa pump, covering himself with foaming suds.
At 7.00 am the captain announced that during the night the ship had turned back to run from the freak storm, which was the worst in his experience. A freighter thirty nautical miles to their north had lost dozens of cargo containers overboard. He assured passengers that the Princess Namok was perfectly seaworthy, but its stabilizers were malfunctioning and one propeller shaft had a vibration issue that meant it could not be run at full speed. They would return to Fremantle for a damage survey and repairs. He spoke about the priority of safety, apologized on behalf of the shipping line, and gave an estimated time of docking. Passengers bound for Singapore and La Ferste would be flown to their destinations. Meanwhile, for their own comfort, guests were encouraged to remain in their staterooms until the seas were calmer. The formal restaurants were closed temporarily.
‘No Ferende adventure, then,’ said Sigrid.
‘I’m over luxury cruising, anyway,’ said Worse. After a brief silence, he added, ‘We’re not running from the storm, we’re limping.’ He suspected that the ship’s damage was more serious than the company was admitting.
A minute later, the captain made another announcement, advising of a crew-only lifeboat drill scheduled later in the morning. Passengers would not be participating and were not to be concerned.
‘Which goes to suggest,’ observed Sigrid, ‘the company plans to save the crew and abandon passengers with the ship.’
Worse was studying the security vision recorded from the observation deck exit. He saw Haberdash go out, followed by himself. Then came Hilario, who left but reappeared with blankets and a bag. He fought hard to open the door, and shortly after he succeeded Worse saw himself body-rolling in at high speed. Hilario, obviously using all his strength, had managed to clear the way for Worse, braked his roll, and assisted him safely through the gap before the door shut.
They ordered breakfast. Sigrid opened the door to let Hilario bring in a dining trolley. When its wheels were locked, Worse stood up and walked over, holding out his arms for an embrace.
‘Thank you, Hilario,’ he said quietly. Sigrid saw her friend’s emotion and looked away.
Worse slept for much of the day, and went without lunch. Sigrid answered a call for any doctors on board to assist in the ship’s infirmary, given the numbers of fractures and sprains. She quite enjoyed revisiting her house job days of reading radiographs, sculpting plaster casts, folding slings, and dispensing analgesics. There was even some psychiatry required, mostly managing anxiety.
By evening, the ship was more stable, and the restaurant had reopened. It was a night of casual dress code, but many tables were unoccupied. Sigrid surmised that motion sickness as well as injury had taken its toll.
‘By the way, I did some online research on the subject of disappearing people,’ she said.
Worse looked sceptical.
‘Seriously. I thought I had read about them somewhere. They’re a special group, very rare. First reported by a Viennese physician a century ago.’
Worse raised an eyebrow.
‘Don’t imagine that they dematerialize, anything like that. They’re individuals who can be continuously present in some social situation but characteristically not noticed, even unconsciously, by other people. It’s thought to be a reactive phenomenon, an altered subjectivity and sort of social blindness induced in the group; they simply fail to register the so-called appearance person’s comings and goings.’
Sigrid was clearly intrigued by her reading, and the possibility that they may have discovered an instance in Hilario. She continued.
‘There’s a social construct theory based on the idea of projected object persistence—these are people whose existence is validated somehow only in the present. In the unconscious of others, for whatever reason, they are deprived of inferred extension into the past or future.’
‘Condemned to life in the hesitant tense,’ said Worse.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Are you saying that they are conspired against, in some way?’
‘I don’t think so. Early on, there were some interesting “Who was in the room?” studies where typically no one remembered them. They used independent subjects to eliminate collusion.’
‘Like the scissors on the tray,’ said Worse. ‘Something must be special about them; they are the phenomenon’s cause, surely. How can they affect subjectivity in those around them?’ He was reflecting on his own experience when in the presence of Hilario.
‘Yes. Well. That’s the question. They seem normal in all respects but one. In every case recently studied, the subject scored zero on measures of self-consciousness. That’s rare, you know. Most people transact self-consciousness one way or another more than they converse. Between strangers, it’s very apparent. It shows in their behaviours.’
‘Embarrassment is the currency of the agora? I’ve always thought that,’ said Worse.
‘Very amusing. You could put it that way. More its contrived minimization. Superfluous acts, redundant speech, inappropriateness, concealment, withdrawal, pretence of concentration, shifting glance. They’re the signals you attune to, and in that way you notice the person. Anyway, that’s the current theory. There’s some work out of the Compton in Cambridge. Anna Camenes has written a reappraisal of it.’
‘What about empathy, say, social skills otherwise?’ asked Worse.
‘Intact, it seems.’
Worse gave Sigrid a suspicious look. ‘I really believe you would like to capture Hilario and study him in a behavioural science lab.’
Sigrid looked around the restaurant. ‘He’s already in one, don’t you think?’
Their meals were served. Worse and Sigrid exchanged looks, both studying the waiter’s actions like keen researchers. They were interrupted again by the sommelier, whom Worse judged to be greatly endowed with self-consciousness. When he had too conspicuously taken his leave, Worse changed the subject.
‘How is the lecture writing going? It’s a plenary session, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is. I think I’m pleased with it. I’ve worked out how to introduce the ideas, using that Satroit poem about the self-portrait. It almost seems written as a metaphor of psychiatric observation.’
‘The one where in the end the artist stops painting and the poet stops writing?’ asked Worse.
‘Yes. A little bleak, I know. But I’m using it to illustrate the complexity of interacting forms of description when they are non-commensurable in some way. That will lead into the equivalent problems of interpretation across the therapeutic space; basically how meaning is lost when the subjective is verbalized.’
Worse always found these conversations with Sigrid fascinating. He had stopped eating to listen. Sigrid had stopped eating to talk.
‘Of course,’ she continued, ‘our ordinary mental world does not by nature present to us linguistically. It doesn’t come perfectly expressed in words. What we experience, and try to describe, is essentially a symptomatology,
normal or otherwise. The problem is that the psychiatric formulation of illness, our clinical notes, our referrals, our whole corpus of research, and our psychotherapy in turn, are explicitly verbal. Hence the idea of ekphrastic translation, and error.’
‘Some patients express their mental world visually, rather than verbally, don’t they? Richard Dadd, famously, for instance?’
‘Oh yes. But we still come back to Satroit’s painter. The problem hasn’t gone away.’
‘You know, the reason I remember that poem is that our English teacher at school asked us to think about whether the madness, or violence or whatever, rested with the painter or the poet.’
‘And you thought?’
‘I thought about the butterfly dreamer.’
‘I could almost have guessed that.’
‘Those were the days when ambiguity was prized. Literature teachers were attracted to the unknowable. Genuine complexity was valued. There’s a lesson for psychiatry in that, I submit.’
Sigrid smiled. ‘Very perspicacious, counsellor.’
A waiter filled their water glasses.
‘It’s interesting, Sigrid,’ said Worse. ‘I’m really pleased for you.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to your session’s deserved success.’
It seemed to close off the subject, but suddenly Worse expressed an afterthought.
‘Was he mad, actually? Satroit?’
Sigrid looked surprised.
‘No. Well, I don’t know that he was. Why do you ask?’
‘I ask that of everyone. I thought you did too.’
Sigrid realized that she should find out the answer before invoking his poetry to an audience of eminent colleagues as a metaphor, even a loose one, for the psychiatric interview. She was grateful.
‘He was reclusive, nihilistic perhaps. The artistic temperament, I suppose. I will find out more.’
‘Yes. Must minimize embarrassment in the agora of ideas,’ said Worse.
Bad to Worse Page 13