“Love? In the universe?”
“Yes, that truism love. Everything is the ego magnified.”
“I think I loved my wife,” said Hawkins quietly. “I think I loved my wife and my father.”
“You mean you admired him.”
“I’m not sure. I think I loved him. And my wife too. I often think of her. She would have gone with me to England even though she would have hated it. That is, if I had wanted her to. I used to invite some of my friends in to talk. She didn’t understand what we were talking about but it didn’t seem to matter to her. She was Irish. She showed me a translation of an Irish poem once. It was about a dead wife written by her husband. It went,
Half of my side you were, half of my seeing,
half of my walking you were, half of my hearing.
Only the other day I was reading of a woman who was going to have a baby and who had cancer. If she had the baby she knew that she would die. She sacrificed herself for the baby.”
The handicapped girl with the flat white face leaned over to take the plates. I hate this place, thought Ralph, I hate it. I don’t understand anything. It was as if his mind were breaking, revealing gaps here and there through clouds. Was love what Heydrich and the handicapped girl felt when they walked hand in hand through the grounds? Was love what the birds felt on their engraved courses? Curse you, he thought, all you unimaginative ones, all you who can’t put yourselves in the places of the others, all you who trample through the sacred groves with your heavy boots, curse you, my marble-faced stepfather.
He rose abruptly from the table and went into the lounge. There was a scatter of newspapers and magazines and he picked one up and, after a while, dropped it. Opposite him lying on the floor was a record player with a number of records beside it, like large black cards without purpose. There was a chess-board and a draughts-board. When the ‘psychologist’ came in he said to him,
“Would you like a game of chess?”
“I don’t play,” said the psychologist slowly.
“I’ll teach you to play.”
“Well, I’m no very clever. I dinna ken if I’m able,” said the psychologist relapsing suddenly into dialect.
“Of course you’re able. It’s quite simple.”
He laid a chess-board out on the table and arranged the pieces on it. “Now watch,” he said. “These are the pawns. And this is the king and that’s the queen. That is the rook and this is the bishop and this is the knight. The pawns can move forward one piece at a time or, on the first move, two squares. The rook can move any number of squares horizontally or vertically. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board and can move any number of squares, diagonally, horizontally or vertically. The bishop can move diagonally any number of squares. The king can only move one square at a time. The purpose of the game is to put the king in check.”
The psychologist gazed down at the board while Ralph was talking, his brow wrinkled.
“The object of the game is to gain control of the centre,” said Ralph. “Now I’ll make the first move. What are you going to do then in answer to my pawn move?”
The psychologist moved a pawn on his left flank.
“That’s not a good move,” said Ralph. “Why did I tell you it wasn’t?”
“Well, I canna … should I have moved it this way?” And he indicated the diagonal line.
“No, that’s not it. The object is to gain control of the centre. So there’s no point in moving that pawn. What do you want to do instead?”
“I dinna ken.”
“Move one of the centre pawns. That’ll free your bishop, do you see?”
Ralph on his second move brought another pawn to protect his first one.
“Do you see that?” he asked. “You can’t take that pawn while I have this one here. Pawns take diagonally.”
The psychologist moved one of his own pawns forward and tried to take Ralph’s pawn frontally.
So you’re at it, thought Ralph, you think I’m going to imagine that you’re as stupid as that. You’re trying to pretend that you’re not really a psychologist but a country bumpkin.
“No,” he said, “you can’t do that. You take diagonally. You can’t take frontally. What are you going to do now?” he asked, replacing the pawn. The psychologist moved his pawn again frontally.
“You can’t do that. I just told you,” said Ralph. “You take diagonally.”
And he replaced the board as it was at the beginning. “Look,” he said, “let’s begin again.” And he went through all the moves of all the pieces while the psychologist listened, brow wrinkled. You’re not deceiving me, thought Ralph.
But still he couldn’t teach him how to play. He moved pawns diagonally, bishops frontally, knights at random. It was almost as if he were being deliberately obtuse.
You can’t be so stupid, thought Ralph, gritting his teeth. No one can. All this is a disguise. Even an idiot could understand what I’ve told you. After a while he gave up. The psychologist was smiling at him and shaking his head.
“It’s nae use,” he said, “I’m too stupid.”
Damn you, thought Ralph. You’re watching me all the time. Chess isn’t as difficult as that.
And he stared at the psychologist. What are you really. What is going on behind your forehead? For a moment there I thought you were genuinely stupid but I know you’re not. It’s not the stupid who try to kill themselves, is it?
“Why did you take the aspirins?” he asked suddenly.
“I dinna ken. I stay with my brither-in-law and his wife. I was working very hard. Maybe that’s what it was.”
“Do you still see the rays?”
“No so bad now. They’re no so bad.”
“What do they look like?”
“Whit?”
“The rays?”
“They’re like rays. They’re bright.”
Ralph felt impatient with this man’s mind or his adopted mask. “Do they come and see you, your brother-in-law and his wife?”
“Aye. They’re very good to me.”
“That’s good. How many sheep do you have on your farm?”
“Aboot fower hundred.”
“Four hundred.”
“Ay, that’s what we dae. Sheep farming.”
“Is it hard work?”
“Depends on the season, ye ken.”
The man had an accent, rural certainly. He must be a real actor, he must have practised the authenticity of his accent for months. Oh, he was good right enough, he never put a foot wrong and yet he hadn’t learnt chess. But that would be part of the disguise. Maybe however he had overdone his stupidity.
“Can I get your books in the library?” said the psychologist seriously.
“I uppose so,” said Ralph. “If you want to. Do you read a lot?”
“No much. I listen to the wireless.”
“Do you watch tv?”
“No much. I see the rays.”
Ralph packed the pieces away in the box provided. He was beginning to get the feeling of unreality again. He suddenly got up and left the room, walking along the corridor past the office. He lay down fully clothed on his bed and tried to sleep.
That evening Ronny was moved out of the ward because he wouldn’t take his pills and he was becoming more and more obstreperous.
“I don’t care,” he said defiantly. “It’ll be a gig.”
“Why don’t you do what people tell you,” said Hugh, lighting another of his cigarettes and padding restlessly about the ward.
“I don’t want to.”
“What do you mean you don’t want to? You know this is the best ward, don’t you? I think you’re stupid.”
“I’m not stupid, old man,” said Ronny with sudden aggression.
“Well then what are you? You could have stayed here and then you could have gone home shortly.”
“I know that.”
“Why don’t you do what they tell you then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll leave you my ora
ngeade.”
“I don’t want your orangeade. You can keep your orangeade.” And Hugh turned away angrily. “I can’t make head or tail of you.”
“You haven’t got a head or a tail, old man,” said Ronny, laughing boisterously, and hardly able to stop.
“There you go again laughing. What are you laughing at?” said Hugh, angry in his turn.
“The old man hasn’t a head or a tail,” said Ronny, still hysterically laughing.
“Och, you can go then,” said Hugh, disgustedly. And he padded out of the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” said Ronny. “He can’t take a joke.”
“Well, why aren’t you taking your pills?” said Ralph.
“Because they make you impotent.”
“And why don’t you get up in the morning?”
“What’s there to get up for? All we do is sit around here all day. And we have to make our beds. I used to drive my stepfather batty. I never made my bed in the morning. He was in the navy and he didn’t like that. He used to beat me up but I never made my bed. And I used to put pin-ups on the walls of my room. He didn’t like that either.” And he giggled hysterically at the memory. “When I get out of here I’ll do him. I’m taller than him. He won’t push me around.”
“You should go and tell the charge nurse that you’ll take your pills.”
“That old bag. No, I won’t. She’s got VD.”
“What?”
“She’s got VD.” And he burst out laughing again, bending over almost double till finally he got his breath back. “I don’t like people with VD.”
“She hasn’t.”
“Of course she has. You can tell at once. Do you know they took a fellow from the next room away. I saw him on the stretcher. He was hitting the walls with his fists. They can’t keep me here, he was shouting.” And he began to laugh again. “And there’s another fellow here in a coma. Did you know that. He’s been in a coma for three weeks. This is a great place. They should bring my stepfather here.”
He looked around him. “Well I think that’s everything. Where’s the old man gone? I should like to say cheerio to him.” And he began to chant,
“Where has the old man gone
where has the old man gone
where has the old man gone,
he’s gone to take his pills.
Did you notice how he walks? He slides along the floor as if he was on wheels. He never lifts his feet, did you notice that? You’d think he was a mouse. The old man is a mouse, the old man is a mouse.”
At that moment Hugh returned from his restless peregrination and Ronny said, “We were just talking about you. You’re a mouse, you’re a mouse.”
“Aw, shut up. You should have done what I told you, you big idiot. You should have obeyed the nurses. And you should have got out of bed in the mornings, instead of lying there like a crab with diarrhoea.”
“A crab with diarrhoea? Did you hear that? Did you hear what the old man said?” And again he laughed hysterically. “I’ll miss you, old man.”
“All right then, you’ll miss me. So you should. I gave you good advice. But you’ve got wormwood in your head.”
“Look after the old man,” said Ronny to Ralph. “Make sure he gets plenty of cheese. He’s a mouse, he’s a mouse, he’s a mouse on wheels.”
And he turned away. Ralph noticed that he had left his record ‘Breakdown’ behind him and nearly shouted after him but in the end didn’t. There was a woman in a blue uniform washing the corridor outside the room. Ronny stepped right into the water, waving as he went.
The days were endlessly boring. Sometimes between meals Ralph would walk about the room, sometimes lie on his bed. Since the unsatisfactory chess session he hadn’t tried to teach the psychologist — whose name was Tom — again. He couldn’t concentrate on the newspapers, couldn’t read books, and he felt that if he stayed much longer in the institution he would really go out of his mind. After all there was no reason why he should be here, there was nothing wrong with him, he was the victim of a plot. The days passed like years. Ronny was replaced by a slightly older youth with anorexia nervosa who wouldn’t eat any food, and when he was enticed to the dining-room ran away again. He laughed in the same high giggling manner but his relationship with Hugh was not similar. Ralph thought it was like being in a barrack room, the same monotony, the same pointless endurance, the same compulsory commerce with other people.
One day he and Tom went to the canteen: this was the first time either had been out of the hospital, even though it only meant crossing perhaps a hundred yards of grass and climbing some steps. The canteen was close to the worst wards, and when Ralph entered it he saw people of a different kind from those in his own ward. They were more like the two he had seen putting the leaves in the wheelbarrow. Their faces were blank and white like turnips, their heads crew cut, and their eyes threateningly focussed.
One of them buttonholed him and said, “Do you think the Government is in hospital? Do you think Maggie Thatcher’s in hospital?”
He backed away muttering, “They could be, they could be.”
“I think they’re in hospital,” the man insisted.
I wonder why Tom brought me here, thought Ralph, for it had been Tom’s idea. He must have had a reason for it. He said he wanted sweets but maybe there was another hidden reason.
When they had crossed the ground among the autumn leaves and the cold wind, he had felt an unaccountable sadness as if he had come to the end of the world, as if he would never leave this place, as if he was slowly dying. The purest uttermost pain must be like this, this exile from the world in elegiac autumn.
Sitting at a table in the canteen a large man was trying to cram a cake into his mouth with both hands. Ralph made himself watch him, made himself almost experience, taste the soggy mess, gulp it hungrily. It seemed to him that his writing demanded this, otherwise he would be a coward. The man with the cake succeeded in transforming his whole face into a dead white colour as if he were a ghost or a snowman.
Tom bought his sweets and they left the canteen together, descending the steps.
“I live over there,” said Tom, suddenly pointing. “Do you see that farm? That’s where I live.”
“I didn’t know you lived around here,” said Ralph.
“Ay, that’s where my brither-in-law’s farm is.”
Was it true then, thought Ralph. Was it true that Tom was exactly what he said he was. Why else would he have pointed to that particular building in this particular place?
Or was that too part of the plot? Could it be?
“There between the trees you can see the sheep,” said Tom. Tom could easily have run away home, so close he was. And yet he walked docilely and obediently to the house and entered by the front door.
“Was that your wife the other day?” he asked Ralph.
“Yes.”
“Does she drive a long way?”
“About a hundred miles.”
“She comes quite often.”
“Yes.”
“I was talking to her the other day. She’s a nice lady.”
“Are you married yourself?”
“No.”
“You stay with your brother-in-law?”
“Yes.”
The last time she had come he had been vicious to her, told her not to come back. She had left weeping. If he was to suffer so much pain why should he not tell her to stay away? On the other hand when he asked her to stay away he suffered pain too. It didn’t matter what he did, he suffered pain.
“I’m going to Glasgow tomorrow,” said Tom, “to get the electric treatment.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I dinna ken. I have to go. I’m going down in an ambulance.” A trio of nurses passed hand in hand like a bevy of birds.
He had told Linda that he didn’t love her, that everything was a pretence, that love didn’t exist, that hell was other people. And yet after she had driven off in her car he had wanted to call her
back. What if this time she took him at his word, what if she never came back again? He imagined her steadily driving away from him, saying to herself, This is no good, how can I continue like this. All I get is abuse. On the other hand she was going to her true love, the Irish psychologist, and the two of them would drink wine together and make jokes about him.
“Tom,” he said, using the name for the first time as if it were a real one. “Do you know anything about a psychologist in the hospital? He speaks Irish, I mean with an Irish accent.”
“No, the one I go to doesn’t have an Irish accent. Anyway it’s a woman I go to.”
Ralph hated the Irishman with a bitter hatred, he hated his poise, his suave decorum, he thought of him as his most bitter rival. To be like him, so assured, so professional, so relaxed — but he couldn’t be. Of course Linda would prefer such a man to Ralph, it was only natural. Though intelligent, he wasn’t silent or élitist. He wondered where they had met, and how the plot had been elaborated. He must be a very good psychologist to create such a ramification of mazes.
The following morning, at the usual meeting, the lady psychologist asked the other patients for help with a young girl who had come in as a voluntary patient. She was very thin and suffering from anorexia nervosa. She had just had a baby and believed that people were spying on her and trying to take the baby away.
“You must really look after yourself for the sake of the baby,” the scientist was the first to say. “After all if something happens to you what will happen to the baby? You should stay here till you are well.”
“I won’t stay here. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t like this place.” The girl wore a short skirt and smiled provocatively.
“Where is your baby now?” said Hugh.
“My mother is looking after it. It was her who persuaded me to come in here but I can see now that she wants the baby for herself. She said they wouldn’t keep me long.”
“Well, you may not be in long,” said the scientist tapping his pipe on the side of his chair.
In the Middle of the Wood Page 19