by Peter James
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
He entered the front of the building and immediately got jumped on by one of his colleagues, Paul Straddley, who had a patient suffering from a fear of vomiting. He wanted Michael’s advice.
‘He has anxiety or a real vomit phobia?’ Michael asked, barely making any attempt to conceal his irritation. All he wanted right now was to get to his office, to see whether Amanda had replied to his e-mail and have some strong coffee.
Paul Straddley was a neurotic little man with a permanently anxious face and ragged hair. Dressed today in a brown polyester suit that was too short in the sleeves and legs, he looked more like a 1950s back-room boffin than an eminent psychiatrist with an impressive list of publications to his name.
‘He’s frightened to eat – he’s afraid that food might get stuck in his gullet. Everything has to be liquidised and even then he doesn’t trust it, he has to check and recheck it. He’s losing weight and I’m very concerned about him.’ Straddley looked at Michael with desperation. The man was wonky himself, Michael had always thought, probably more fucked up than most of his patients. But so were a lot of psychiatrists.
He probably was too.
We’re all barking. These poor sods come and see us, pay us a hundred pounds an hour because they think we have the answers. We stick a few pills down their throats and let them keep talking until they come up with the answers themselves. Or get bored.
Or, he thought, with a sudden sharp twist of guilt, kill themselves.
Michael began to sidestep around him. ‘Can we talk about this later, Paul?’
Straddley did a clumsy shuffle so that he was blocking Michael’s path once more. ‘Um, how much later exactly, Michael?’
‘I don’t know. I have a busy day and I’m late for my ward round.’
‘Can you do lunch? The canteen?’
Michael nodded reluctantly, although he’d been hoping to pick up a sandwich and sit quietly by the river.
Straddley released him. Michael walked across the hall and up the grand balustraded staircase. The entrance hall was a huge space, filling most of the ground floor, with columns and a high, elaborately stuccoed ceiling; it had a grandiose air that seemed aloof to the imitation wood of the reception counter and the metal and plastic chairs arranged in the waiting area.
He took a quick walk round his in-patients, checking their charts and medications and asking how they were, then collected his list of appointments from Thelma.
At ten to nine his multi-disciplinary team of two nurses, a junior doctor, a psychologist and a social worker were crammed into his office for their twice-weekly review of his patients and departed shortly after nine ten.
His first patient hadn’t arrived yet. Good.
Before he had even taken off his jacket, he sat down at his computer and logged on. Twenty-eight new e-mails, mostly from other psychiatrists and psychologists with whom he shared ideas and problems. Another confirmed details of timing for a paper he was to present at a conference in Venice in September. And there was one from his brother Bob, in Seattle, the usual chatty stuff about his wife (Lori) and kids (Bobby Junior and Brittany) and had he seen Mum and Dad recently?
There was no e-mail from Amanda Capstick.
But that was OK, it was early, he’d sent it to her office. No need to fret.
Yet.
There was no e-mail from Amanda at ten o’clock. Nor after lunch. Nor by five o’clock in the afternoon.
It had been stupid to send his.
Amanda was a tough, sensible young woman. She wasn’t going to be won over by cheap, soppy sentiments, they would just be a turn-off.
His last patient of the day was due at five fifteen. Quarter of an hour’s grace. He made a couple of notes in the file of the patient who had just left, then replaced it in the cabinet.
‘Georgia On My Mind’ was still playing over in his head. It wouldn’t quit. ‘Amanda On My Mind’.
The sweet smell of freshly mown grass was in the air. He yawned, swivelled his chair around to face his desk, then slouched forward, rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes. He let his mind sink back to last night – or earlier this morning.
She had looked stunning. A long, shiny, leopard-print jacket, silky black T-shirt, short black skirt, loose gold bracelet on her wrist. Her face was even lovelier than he had remembered and he tried to picture it again now but, oddly, could not assemble an entire clear image in his mind.
He could see her blue eyes sparkling with laughter. Her teeth white, even, but large, which made her mouth seem sensual, predatory, and he longed to kiss it. Her slender arms, the tiny crow’s feet around her eyes when she smiled, the flick of her head to toss back her hair, her scent. Calvin Klein. He’d seen the bottle in the bathroom.
How had her body language been?
She hadn’t thrown herself at him, that was for sure. But neither had she done anything distancing. She’d been neutral; kept to her space. Yet she had watched him constantly, and that was a positive sign. Her smiles had been warm and her laughter genuine and open.
But he felt he had learned little about her, at least about her love life, which was where he had been trying to pry. There was some relationship that she was uncomfortable about. And it seemed to make her uneasy when he tried to get her to talk about it.
His intercom buzzed. His next appointment was in the waiting room. A new patient.
Hastily, Michael opened the new file he had prepared, and looked at the referral letter from the man’s doctor, a GP Michael had never heard of. Dr Shyam Sundaralingham, who practised in Cheltenham, but that wasn’t unusual: there were countless doctors he didn’t know.
Dr Sundaralingham diagnosed that his patient was suffering from clinical depression and had specifically requested that Michael see him. That wasn’t unusual: a lot of people heard him on the radio or read his articles, and asked for him specifically. He would give them an initial interview, but then, to keep his workload from spilling over, he kept only those patients who particularly interested him, and normally referred the others to psychotherapists for their long-term treatment.
This new patient was thirty-eight.
His name was Dr Terence Goel.
Chapter Twenty-four
‘OK, Amanda, I think this would be helpful. I want you to describe Michael Tennent to me.’
Amanda was in the turquoise room of her therapist, and now in the airy quiet of this space, shaded by the Venetian blinds from the late-afternoon sunlight, she felt calm for the first time that day. She leaned back in the comfortable wicker armchair, closed her eyes, compiled her thoughts.
‘He – I – uh – he reminds me – a sort of – composite. Let me think of an actor, sort of outdoors but intellectual, if you know what I mean. Kind of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones or, maybe, Jeff Goldblum – he has that sort of quiet authority that Goldblum has.’
Maxine Bentham, in her usual position squatting on the floor against the sofa, nodded. ‘He was in The Fly. And in the Jurassic Park movies.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘OK, Amanda, let’s think about these roles. In The Fly he plays a crazed scientist who evolves into a human fly. In The Lost World he plays a scientist who has to deal with the monsters. Do you see any significance in this?’
‘A contradiction? Is that what you want me to say?’
‘I only want you to say what you feel.’
Amanda tapped her teeth with a fingernail. She nibbled at it, aware that she was doing so, but unable to prevent herself. She had been appalled at what a mess her nails had looked recently. ‘You think I’m seeing him partly as someone to be scared of? And partly as someone who can solve my problems? Who can slay my monster? Who can cure me of Brian?’
‘Jeff Goldblum is a curious way for you to describe him, that’s what I mean.’
‘I don’t think so, no. I’m just trying to give you a physical description. He’s tall, dark-haired, good-looking,
but in a – a kind of intellectual way. Maybe he has a little Jewish blood, just a hint.’
‘Do you think he’s a kind man?’
Amanda nodded vigorously. ‘He’s really warm. I . . .’ She hesitated, searching for the right words. ‘I feel safe with him, secure. I don’t have to pretend anything with him. I’m me with him. Me.’ She frowned. ‘Am I making any sense?’
Maxine gave her a curious, rather wistful smile. ‘Yes. Go on.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he’s a shrink, so I feel he can see through me, so there’s no point in trying to lie to him.’
‘Lie to him about what?’
Amanda scratched the back of her neck. She was suddenly finding this difficult. ‘He sent me an e-mail this morning. It was there when I got to the office. It was –’ She fell silent.
The therapist prodded gently. ‘It was what?’
‘It was really nice!’
‘What did it say?’
‘It just said, “Four hours since I saw you. I’m missing you.”’
‘Did you reply?’
‘No.’
‘OK, why not?’
Amanda tugged at her nail again with her teeth. ‘Because I –’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure how to reply.’
‘Because you are not sure if this is Jeff Goldblum the Fly or Jeff Goldblum the Monster Slayer?’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
Maxine waited for her to go on, but when she didn’t, she said, ‘You told me last time that you liked Michael Tennent, but you didn’t know whether you were attracted to him. Has that changed?’
Amanda shifted her position in her chair. ‘I haven’t been entirely honest with him. I told him that we were making a documentary about psychiatrists, and that’s only partly true. What we are actually doing is a pretty hard-hitting attack on the whole therapy culture we have in our society.’
Maxine Bentham looked surprised. ‘Does this include me?’
Amanda shook her head. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that to you.’ She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again. ‘Oh, God, this must sound terrible! It’s not about good therapists, Maxine, it’s about these people who do a three-month mail-order course, then set themselves up as hypnotherapists, or rebirthers or whatever. People go along to them and they make decisions that affect their entire lives based on what these instant therapists tell them.’
Now Maxine Bentham was starting to look distinctly uneasy. ‘Surely Dr Tennent doesn’t fit into that category? He’s a highly qualified doctor, and very eminent.’
‘Yes, he is. But therapy is a long process, right? In proper analysis you see a patient three to five times a week for years, right? But where it becomes a joke is something like when you have a radio show. Someone has a problem, they think they can just pick up the phone, call a radio show, and slam-dunk! Ten minutes of chat with Dr Michael Tennent and their life is back on track. He’s bastardising his profession. He’s lowering himself to the same status as the quacks. Here you have a brilliant man selling out to the instant-gratification culture.’
There was a long silence. ‘Amanda, you’re going to have to help me out, I’m getting a little confused here about where you’re at.’
Amanda raised her arms. ‘You’re confused? How do you reckon I feel? I think I’m falling in love with the guy!’
Chapter Twenty-five
Lawnmowers.
Michael could hear the drone of the mower’s engine, the pitch of its blades, the rumble of metal vibrating, and every now and then the clacking of a ratchet.
Lawnmowers were one of the downsides of summer. The contraption outside, an old sit-on Atco cylinder cutter with a train of gang mowers clattering along behind it, had been getting steadily closer all day and now, finally, at twenty past five it was right below Michael’s window.
Michael had a headache, which he blamed on his lack of sleep last night although his caffeine binge throughout today to stay awake was probably as much to blame.
Go home, gardener. It’s nearly half past five. Don’t you have a life outside cutting grass at the Sheen Park Hospital? Go home! Please.
He tried to concentrate on the form in front of him that was headed LIFE HISTORY QUESTIONNAIRE.
Title: Dr First name: Terence
Surname: Goel
Address: Flat 6, 97 Royal Court Walk, Cheltenham, Glos.
Tel. (Day) 01973-358066 (Evening) same
Marital status: widower
Present occupation: Communications scientist
Are you happy in your occupation?
If not, in what ways are you un happy?
Do you live in a bedsit flat or house etc?
Is it your own or is it rented from the council or a private
landlord?
Who else lives at home? (please list the people)
What is your current problem (s) that you want to
solve?
What prompted you to seek help now?
Michael turned over the pages. With the exception of the first few lines, nothing else had been filled in. In his letter of referral, Sundaralingham had already mentioned that Goel was a scientist rather than a doctor of medicine.
‘Prisms.’
He looked up with a start, wondering if he had misheard his new patient. ‘Prisms?’
‘Do you have prisms in your glasses, Dr Tennent?’
Surprised by the question, he said, ‘I do, yes,’ then added, quizzically, ‘Why?’
Michael studied his patient carefully, checking for signs that the man was agitated or guarded, suspicious or distracted, but Terence Goel seemed none of these.
Making firm eye-contact with Michael, he was lounging back on the sofa, legs apart, feet squarely on the floor, arms spread out either side of him. A little too relaxed, perhaps, Michael wondered, as if being here in this office was boosting his confidence. That happened frequently, just the same as someone going into a doctor’s surgery and immediately feeling better.
Goel had it all going for him in the looks department, Michael thought. Handsome, impressively tall, great physique. With his gelled hair, collarless grey shirt, classy charcoal linen suit and black suede Gucci loafers, he looked almost self-consciously hip, like some technology guru togged up for a media interview.
On first impressions, he seemed genial and far more self-assured than most people who came in here. His voice had a deep, assertive punch. Boston, Michael guessed, although his knowledge of American accents was limited. The only slight incongruity was the clipboard with an attached notepad, which Goel had brought in and now rested on the sofa beside him. He didn’t seem like a man who would carry around a clipboard. Neither did he seem like an archetypal scientist – although there was a breed of gung-ho professors that the US specialised in producing and this was clearly one of them.
‘Even without glasses, we look at a lot of things through prisms, Dr Tennent. We don’t realise that, but we do. Do you ever look at the stars?’
Michael wasn’t sure where this was going, but stayed with it. ‘Yes, sometimes.’
‘You understand why they twinkle?’
‘I don’t know the scientific explanation, no. I assume it’s to do with their distance from us.’
‘It has nothing to do with their distance from us. It has to do with moisture in the atmosphere. We can only ever look up at the stars through moisture. Each droplet distorts, makes a prism. We look at the stars in the night sky through billions and billions of prisms.’
There was a calmness in Terence Goel’s voice, as he delivered his explanation, and that gave Michael his first insight into his patient. It was an emotionless calm, an artificial one, as if the man was exerting supreme control to present himself as something other than he was.
‘Thank you,’ Michael said. ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’ Then he added, good-humouredly, ‘I’ll take a look up at the sky tonight with new eyes.’
‘How often in life do we have the illusion that we are seein
g things clearly, Dr Tennent, when in reality we are not.’
‘Is this something you find is a big problem in your life?’
‘It’s a big problem for everybody.’
Michael glanced back down at the questionnaire, then looked up again, wanting to move the session forward. ‘You don’t seem to have filled in much of this questionnaire.’
‘You noticed that?’
There was such surprise in Goel’s voice that Michael couldn’t be sure whether it was genuine.
‘Yes. Were you uncomfortable with the form?’
‘No.’ Goel gave him a warm, disarming smile.
Michael continued to watch him closely, but his body language was giving up no secrets. He decided to move on. ‘Right. Terence. I’d like you to tell me a bit about why you want to see me.’
‘Is that your Volvo outside? The silver grey one?’
Michael paused for a moment before responding, not wanting to waste time on non sequiturs. ‘Yes,’ he said dismissively. ‘Can we get back to what it is you want to see me about?’
‘They’re strong cars, Volvos. I was told they’re a good car to be in a crash in.’
Michael glanced fleetingly at the photograph of Katy. ‘I think it’s better not to be in a crash at all.’ His eyes met Goel’s, and suddenly, he felt himself flushing.
Did Goel know about the accident? Unlikely, although Michael had written some intensely personal pieces for several newspapers in the months following her death on bereavement. And it wasn’t uncommon for a patient to try to play mind games with him, but rarely at a first consultation.
And Dr Terence Goel, sitting on the sofa, maintained his body in a perfectly relaxed stance, knowing that Michael Tennent was watching every twitch, every blink, looking for clues, trying to find those little dotted lines marked open here that would lead him into his psyche.