Martin Dash

by Andy Bailey

  In any event, Martin might as well have had ‘CHALLENGE’ stamped on his forehead. The runners and riders to be the first to get Martin into bed had lined up before the end of that first meeting and Susan had concluded that she was in pole position as a matter of absolute fact.

  She studied Martin round the side of her newspaper. It was lunchtime and she could see that he was ordering coffee and a sandwich. After Martin’s introduction to the team, she’d only exchanged a brief word with him as he was spending his time, initially, in the various induction sessions that new recruits were put through – HR, IT, PR. However, he’d been allocated the office next to hers, so she’d expected that they’d be acquainted soon enough.

  He was having to wait a moment while others before him were being served so this gave her the opportunity to scrutinise him, as long as she could remain undetected behind the newspaper. There were the two things that hit you again – the striking good looks but also the knowledge of his . . . condition. The whole thing struck Susan as very odd. Hearing Gerry talk through the thing, it didn’t sound right to her at all and she was sure – not least from the faces of the people she knew around her (many of them hard-bitten, naturally sceptical lawyers, after all) – that she wasn’t the only one. The possibility of a person literally having no feelings, no pleasure, no nothing, had never really occurred to her before and yet she had googled ‘anhedonia’ at home that evening and, sure enough, there it was: 'noun – psychology – lack of pleasure or the capacity to experience it.'

  Further reading disclosed that the term was first used by a French professor of psychology, Théodule-Armand Ribot, at the turn of the 20th century, to pair off with analgesia (the inability to feel physical pain, not the same thing . . . ); that there is a distinction to be made between lack of motivation or desire to engage in an activity (“motivational anhedonia”) and the level of enjoyment of the activity itself (“consummatory anhedonia”); that it can present in various forms, such as social anhedonia and sexual anhedonia; and that it can be characteristic of mental disorder like schizophrenia, which can be caused by stressful life events, whereas more recent research had raised the possibility of a genetic component, even highlighting a particular gene – the Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) gene – as a possible culprit.

  “DISC1?! – WTF ?!” thought Susan, who – when reading all of this – was enjoying the distinct experience of a visitor to a wholly alien land in a dream where all the signs are unfamiliar and perturbing. Indeed, reading this had given her a decided sense of unease and foreboding which had trailed into her sleeping dreams that night.

  However, she felt she had overcome those emotions as she now sat spying on Martin in the comforting surroundings of the coffee bar. After all, he appeared perfectly normal (just setting aside for the moment the looks thing) – ordering his sandwich, picking up the purse for the lady who dropped it in front of him and handling it to her with a smile. Yes, there – with a smile. So he can’t be that bad. But the knowledge of what he was – or, at least, what she had been told he was – somehow undermined that presentation of normality in her thoughts: 'I mean, he wouldn’t make something like that up, would he? And even if he’d made it up, that would be at least as weird, wouldn’t it?'

  So the fact is, here he stands, apparently the same as everyone else but she knows that, beneath that benign carapace, there is something that is most definitely not the same. She starts thinking of what it must be like to have no desire, to not want anything. She’d read somewhere that Buddhism teaches that desire is the root cause of mankind’s suffering – was Martin a Buddhist then? Had he achieved Nirvana? In that case she should feel happy for him or envious but, somehow, her overriding feeling was that there was something enormously sad about Martin and she felt sorry for him. After all, the Buddhists might have got it wrong . . .

  Her musings were brought to an abrupt halt when he turned to look straight at her. She nearly flipped the newspaper back across her face (which would have been shameful) but, fortunately, had the presence of mind to simply smile and beckon him over. When he’d seen her, she noticed that he flinched slightly, disconcerted, and then he’d gathered his composure, simultaneously with her, in a telepathic choreography.

  He smiled also – a charming smile – and brought over his sandwich and coffee.

  “Mr Dash, how are you?” she started the conversation.

  “Fine, thanks – and you?”

  “Yes, just keeping abreast of world affairs.”

  “. . . and fashion tips?”

  Susan, who prided herself on being always on her mettle for vigorous badinage – à la Hepburn and Grant – was momentarily caught off balance by this. But she saw that Martin was ironically appraising her modish outfit, so she smiled, "cheeky," and laughed. And Martin laughed.

  “You didn’t strike me as a typical Guardian reader,” he continued the costumery theme. “I thought they were all sandals and duffle coats.”

  This was a not unpleasant surprise for Susan but, at the same time, somewhat disconcerting, given that she had, at least subconsciously, been prepared for a conversational style that would be . . . well, stiff at least. But then she remembered what Gerry had said in conversation with her, late on yesterday: that, while Martin apparently had no real appreciation of humour, it was a sign of his innate intelligence that he had studied its anatomy and learned how to get by with banter, often taking his cue to laugh from others around him (although his timing apparently went awry sometimes – when he wasn’t concentrating closely enough – and his chortlings would kick in after too much of a delay behind the rest of the group and that was the sort of occasion that would make people look again at Martin and wonder). Which, again, was why he felt the need to apprise people of his condition, so that they’d then understand why he might sometimes appear out of synch with others.

  But was that not a self-fulfilling prophecy? thought Susan. Was it not the case that Martin having put this knowledge in people’s heads was what made them scrutinise his demeanour in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise? If they hadn’t been told that he was an actual medical freak, wouldn’t they have hardly noticed such little quirks at all and, even if they did, just put it down to one slightly odd facet of his nature, like the multitude of facets that most people had?

  Such murmurings were rumbling away at the back of Susan's mind even as she tried to put them aside for the sake of an admittedly agreeable encounter with this beautiful (there was no other word for it) young man who was sat with her, giving her his undivided attention, apparently flattering her.

  “There’s a lot you wouldn’t know about me, mate . . . you’re not the only one whose appearance is deceptive, you know.”

  'He got that one all right,' thought Susan as a shadow of grave seriousness suddenly passed over the scene. 'My god, we've jumped right in here, haven't we?' she mused. He looked momentarily . . . hurt? (but he couldn’t, could he?) and she wondered if she’d gone too far.

  “Ah . . . Gerry told you of my condition?”

  “Yes, he briefed the whole team yesterday.”

  “Good – I asked him to.”

  A silence.

  “What was the general reaction?”

  “Err . . . a little bemused, I reckon. It’s not really something that any of us had come across before, I don't think. It is a bit out of left-field, you must admit?”

  “Yes, it’s . . . err . . . not common, I agree.”

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Always.”

  “Since you were born?”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause.

  Susan looked at Martin and Martin looked at Susan. She was staring into his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse, through those ocular windows, of what was actually going on in that singular mind, and Martin stared back, knowing she was doing this, allowing her some time to let her curiosity roam. While she was doing this she was also getting a tingle of something else and she reddened slightly and Martin sa
w this too.

  “I know it’s difficult to understand and I could just keep quiet about it but, over time, experience has taught me that not telling people about it – people I work with, for example – can cause more problems.”

  “Why?”

  “Well . . . because . . . I don’t feel anything and that has consequences for how I behave and if people don’t know about that they take it to mean that I don’t like them or that I’m malevolent in some way.”

  This sounded like a rehearsed speech that he’d trotted out many times.

  “Behave how?”

  As a background to their conversation, mugs clacked and the coffee machine swooshed but they didn’t hear them. At least Susan didn’t. Martin sat perfectly still as he spoke to Susan, occasionally taking a bite out of his sandwich or sipping his coffee.

  “It’s difficult for me to describe because I’ve never felt any different, so I can only tell you what I’ve heard people say.”

  “To your face?”

  “Sometimes . . .” His eyes flicked past her and then back to her.

  “People have said that they get nothing back from me, that I don’t respond – at least in the ‘normal’ way. I mean, I can ‘turn it on’, if you like. I’ve learnt enough over the years by watching and listening so that I can engage people; I’ll question them and show interest and flatter them. But I can only do that for so long and then I run out of steam and revert to type. Whereby I don’t show any interest. Because I don’t have any. I really have no interest in what people do or think or feel and, after a while – mostly, not a long while – people usually realise this and they get to feel that I was just play-acting initially and then they’ll feel that they’ve been conned and, before you know it, they’re feeling quite hateful towards me.”

  Martin was looking straight into Susan’s eyes again.

  The inevitable question: “So you’re play-acting now? You’ve no real interest in talking to me?”

  A moment passed and then Martin smiled and laughed.

  “There, you see how quickly it can happen? You’re feeling aggrieved already. So I learn to manage my time with people.”

  He was right, she had felt a definite twinge of ill feeling towards him.

  But she pressed on: “You’re being very candid about all this.”

  “I’d say it was a decision I took but, actually, it was really forced upon me because of the way things kept turning out, as I’ve said; I found that explaining it was the only way to deal with it, really.”

  “You must have had some funny responses?”

  “To be honest, it’s not been a massive problem, most of the time. You’d be surprised how accepting people can be.”

  “Most of the time? You’ve had some who don’t believe you? Think you’re making it up?” – this just a little pointed.

  Martin look directly at Susan again.

  Not smiling this time.

  “Why would I make something like that up? Expose myself to ridicule. Cut off any hope of a relationship. Why would I do that?”

  “Don't you get angry at all? Or does your condition stop you feeling that too?”

  “I don’t feel anything.” With that he took a bite from his sandwich and a look around the interior of the place.

  Susan took this as a sign to move on and the conversation took a turn into the safer avenue of work.

  After a pause to munch some more of her sandwich and take a sip of her cappuccino, which left a wee moustache of froth on her upper lip, which she wiped off with not a little embarrassment and which was followed by her sitting purposefully back into the chair, crossing her legs and giving her hair a quick flick, she embarked on a fresh line of enquiry.

  “So what are you going to be starting on? At work.”

  “There are a few things, I think, but Gerry’s talking about the Grudge Group principally. Or, at least, in the first place.”

  Susan pulled a face, “Barry Rogers.”

  “Does he?” This childish joke response from Martin, with a big cheesy grin to boot, brought Susan up with a start. She pursed her lips and gave him a mock indulgent look but she had still missed a beat, nevertheless.

  Anyway, she expanded: “You may joke but the guy’s a complete arsehole,” she said this with some feeling but, remembering where she was, gave a slightly nervous glance around, as though to check that Barry Rogers – a valued client – wasn’t sitting behind them.

  In a (slightly) quieter tone: “He owns the group with his sister, Joan. Well, I say 'sister' . . ." Her tone darkened and, again, her eyes fluttered around; she was aware she was being indiscrete.

  Martin screwed his eyebrows together to ask the question.

  Susan shook her head, “Nothing – no, nothing” and, moving on: “They’re friends of my father; well, I say 'friends’.”

  Martin looked even more puzzled and Susan realised she was being cryptic. “You’ve not come across them?"

  “No.”

  “Oh. Because they’ve got property all over. I thought you might have.”

  “No.”

  “Well, anyway,” she was leaning in more now, anxious not to be overheard, and Martin leaned a little towards her, in turn. “They’ve clawed their way up the greasy pole together over the years. Properly ruthless, completely vulgar,” she was into her stride now, contemptuous but trying to make it appear casual.

  Martin appeared to be smiling while she was conducting the character assassinations. “So they’re sort of friends of your father?”

  Susan snorted at this, “Barry just wants what he can take from my father and Daddy puts up with him for the sake of the money.”

  “Why, what does your father do?”

  Susan looked taken aback for a moment, genuinely surprised at Martin’s ignorance. “You don’t know?”

  Martin seemed a little piqued, as it appeared that there was something he obviously should have known but didn’t. “No, I don’t.”

  “My father is the Secretary of State for Defence – Jimmy Sachs,” she announced flatly; obviously not something she was any longer proud of, if she ever had been.

  But Martin’s eyebrows involuntarily shot up. He clearly hadn’t made the connection. “Well I’ve obviously heard of Jimmy Sachs but I didn’t realise that you’re his daughter.”

  Susan scrutinised him through narrowed eyes for the dreaded sign that he was suddenly more interested in her than before. That was the sort of thing that really set her against a person and Martin caught this just in time.

  “Well, that’s interesting, of course,” looking for the words – she was still watching his reaction.

  “I mean, it must be fascinating seeing that level of politics up close.” Surely that sounded like a reasonable proposition that she couldn’t take amiss? She merely snorted half-heartedly but did, at least, relax back into her chair.

  “Fascinating? Yeah, that’s one word for it. Fucking abysmal, there’s another. My father’s ‘friends’” – at this, she popped up her fingers in the inverted commas sign – “are the vilest bunch of people you could wish to meet. They come round to the house and it’s like you’ve let a bunch of lizards in – they slither about the place.” Martin raised his eyebrows and smiled but she pressed on: “No, they do – they slither. All eyeing each other up and down, flattering you one minute and stabbing you in the back the next. It’s nauseating to watch.”

  Susan seemed to be getting genuinely angry and Martin was now looking at her quite intently. She suddenly realised that someone else was too: a couple who were at the next table had clearly stopped talking – probably when they heard the bit about Susan being Jimmy Sachs’ daughter – and now found themselves caught earwigging.

  Awkward.

  A thunderous glare from Susan prodded them into a flurry of activity, shuffling magazines on their table, grabbing their coffees, a few hurriedly marshalled words to fill the silence.

  Martin brought her back, “So the political life doesn’t attract you?”<
br />
  “You must be joking,” she spat, now a little less vehement.

  And after another short moment while her temperature lowered. “No, it doesn’t attract me. It did. When I was younger.” She caught Martin raising his eyebrows and they both smiled. “Yes, I sound like an old woman don’t I? But I mean when I was much younger, more naïve, before I’d seen what I’ve seen since.”

  Martin smiled again, “Come on, you’re hardly over the hill. I know you’re not supposed to ask a lady her age but you’re no more than . . .” slight pause (minefield territory, Susan mock-narrowed her eyes) “. . . well, 21?”

  “Piss off,” Susan laughed and rolled her spine, neck, head back into the chair. “I’m 27 . . . and a half !” She laughed again. And then Martin did too.

  Susan noticed this again and, once more, it brought her up. She considered Martin and, just now, felt the first intimation of what had happened with his former friends who had come to dislike him or, rather, his lack of sincerity.

  And she scrutinised him afresh. They had been talking away quite intently and you wouldn’t have thought there was anything between them that was different from any other young couple, feeling their way with each other, but now she was sure he’d noticed her pause.

  So what the hell was going through his mind? Did he not feel anything for her? How could anyone live such an act all the time?

  It was true, she had seen plenty in her still young years. She had been 18 when the Labour Party had come to power in 1997 with her father riding the wave and all the optimism that came with it and, in the 9 years between, she had watched his every twist and turn and the wretched humiliations along the way.