The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  ‘Here we are now,’ Paulsen said, suddenly behind him. He was holding a fold of paper; the dreary morning light glinted against it. ‘Of course, he was much younger in this photo. What would he be here—forty, forty-one? Put on a little weight. Still beautiful, though. Look at those eyes.’ Paulsen showed him the grey-scale author photo on the dust jacket.

  Herbert Crest stared back with remarkably clear eyes, as white and opaque as fondant icing. He had an amiable sort of face, broad and fleshy, with cheekbones like kneecaps, and straight dark hair that draped across his forehead in an effortless side parting. His face was clean shaven, his tie loosened. There was something almost apologetic about his pose: a half-hearted smile, one eyebrow cocked, a dimple forming at the side of his nose. It was a salesman’s face, the sort you could trust without ever knowing why. ‘I think I’ll just borrow this one for now.’

  ‘Okay, son. Whatever you want. But I’m keeping the dust cover.’

  ‘I’ll bring it back soon.’

  ‘No rush. Just know this—’ Paulsen turned away, heading back to his armchair. ‘If you have to come with me on Tuesday, then so be it. But you’re sitting at your own table and buying your own bloody scones. Are we clear?’

  Oscar left the old man alone. He’d agreed to meet Iris that evening. She was in labs and rehearsals for most of the afternoon, and he had nothing better to do with the rest of his day off than to think about her, what she was doing, who she was talking to. The drizzle had stopped falling but the pavements were glazed with puddles and there was a closeness to the air—sometimes cold, sometimes warm. He walked to Jesus Green and sat on a damp bench under a beech tree, watching the grungy-looking kids in the skate park for a while, seeing the way they scratched up and down the halfpipe on skateboards and BMXs.

  That morning, he had woken with Iris’s head upon his chest. Her hair was splayed out across her face and over his shoulder, rising and fluttering with each sleepy breath. The sun had not risen yet. He had lain there for a minute or so, just watching her. He knew that he loved her, but he wouldn’t say it until he was sure she felt the same—and he didn’t know if he’d ever be certain. She had stirred, making the faintest moan, drawing the tiny face of her wristwatch close to her eyes. ‘Oh, damn,’ she’d said, ‘my parents will be up already. We’ve got to get moving.’ They’d dressed quickly in the darkness of the early morning, made the bed, and slipped quietly out of the rectory, careful not to be seen leaving together. Iris had slunk along the path like a cat burglar, around the side of the building to the organ house, and he had followed her, trying to keep silent. When she’d rapped her knuckles lightly on the door, it had edged backwards.

  No place had ever overwhelmed Oscar quite as much as that organ house. One long and spacious room took up the entire building. It was dark and solemn as a cathedral, though he could imagine how it would flood with daylight once the sun was up. At the far end, pressed right up against the wall, there was a large and brilliant organ. Its console was made of five separate keyboards, tiered like a wedding cake and curved like an amphitheatre; it was built out of cherry wood in a boxy, uncomplicated fashion, and inlayed with ivory buttons and gilded switches. Above this console, a narrow formation of metal pipes was gathered into a wooden frame, aligned in a perfect regiment, like so many cigarettes packed into a case. The rest of the room seemed inconsequential: there was a four-poster bed, a wardrobe, and two identical couches facing each other across a sheepskin rug; there was an en-suite bathroom raised up on a platform with a standing bath, a shower, and a lavatory, all hidden discreetly by a bank of concertina screens. But there was no sign of Eden or Jane, and the main house was empty come breakfast time.

  Oscar had driven back to Cambridge with Iris, wondering how he would ever be able to get used to the Bellwethers’ way of living. He’d got a bad feeling from that organ house—not the same fear that came over him whenever he passed by the old colleges, but something similar—an anxiety that came from not belonging there, from intruding on a private world.

  Now, the kids in the skate park were dispersing in front of him, trundling off in separate directions with their boards under their arms. He leaned back against the bench, opened The Girl With the God Complex, and read the preface. It engaged him more than he expected. There was something about Herbert Crest’s prose: it was plain and unfussy but wonderfully descriptive. He had that gift for making real lives seem cinematic. Oscar read chapter one, then chapter two, and before he knew it, he was halfway through the book and the evening was beginning to descend around him.

  The book was made up of a single case study, that of an American teenager whom Crest called ‘Jennifer Doe’ (her real name could not be given). She had come to Crest’s attention when his psychiatrist friend in California, Dr Isaac Leibman, called to seek a second opinion on the diagnosis he had made. Leibman painted a troubling picture of Jennifer Doe: she was a girl with ‘severe delusions of her selfhood’, a girl who refused to acknowledge the authority of her own parents, her teachers, police officers, county judges, or the correctional officers at the juvenile facility where she had been incarcerated since the age of fourteen, after drowning her five-year-old brother in a public swimming pool. Dr Leibman said that the only reason Jennifer had ever given for murdering her brother was: ‘My sisters told me to.’ But Jennifer had no sisters. When Leibman asked if she could name them, Jennifer told him: ‘Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.’ These were names from Greek mythology, the names of The Fates. In the book, Crest wrote:

  The Fates (also referred to as Moirai, the Daughters of Zeus, or The Daughters of Necessity) were important deities in Ancient Greece, responsible for deciding the path or ‘thread’ of every human life. They were three sisters: Clotho, the spinner, who made every thread on her loom; Lachesis, the measurer, who determined the length of each thread with a ruler; and Atropos, the decider, who cut the thread with her scissors. Dr Leibman had diagnosed Jennifer with Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder (more commonly referred to as a God Complex) with Borderline Personality traits, and on the basis of what he had told me I saw no reason to disagree with him. But I was also aware that the God Complex diagnosis is far from a routine conclusion in psychiatry. It is very rare for a patient to exhibit genuine symptoms of this state of mind, and seldom are therapists brave enough to apply such a verdict to a patient in their care, even those with unfettered Narcissistic Personality tendencies. Dr Leibman, I realized, was not just a colleague asking for professional validation, he was a friend reaching out to me for help.

  By the end of the book, Oscar felt he knew Herbert Crest like an old friend. He admired the kindness that was implicit in the long paragraphs of loving description, where Crest seemed to speak of Jennifer Doe affectionately, never judging her, always keeping his focus on what was rational and sensible, while allowing the fullness of Jennifer’s personality to shine through, paraphrasing her lengthy speeches and detailing her slightest behaviour. She was not just a patient, or a diagnosis, or a murderer to him, but a whole person. In the pages of the book, she was flawed, complicated, deluded, even dangerous, but she was also greatly human, and Oscar imagined it took a certain kind of mind to be able to capture a person so completely and so compassionately.

  The book got under his skin. There were aspects of Jennifer Doe’s behaviour, certain things she said, that seemed unerringly familiar. Like the part when Crest asked her to explain how she could possibly know she was a messenger for The Fates, and she replied: ‘I could tell you, but you wouldn’t be able to understand it. You’ll figure out the answers for yourself one day. Just a matter of time.’ Eden had said something very similar to Iris once—Oscar was sure of it. There was also a moment when Jennifer Doe gave Crest a ‘long, mellifluous stare’, after she’d guessed the suits of five cards in a row from his pack: ‘That’s nothing, Dr Crest,’ she had told him. ‘You wouldn’t believe what else I can do.’ Hadn’t Eden written more or less the same thing in his email a few nights ago?

&n
bsp; In chapter four, Crest explained Narcissistic Personality Disorder, outlining the diagnostic criteria he’d helped to develop for the American Psychiatric Association. With every new point in the list, Oscar felt his heart tightening:

  NPD sufferers exhibit a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

  1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

  2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited power, success, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

  3. Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

  4. Requires excessive admiration.

  5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.

  6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.

  7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

  8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

  9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

  Oscar could hardly wait to tell Iris about it at dinner. They met at an Algerian place on Mill Road, where a man sat at a flaming grill in the front window, gleefully turning kebabs. Their table was at the far end of the room, away from the smoke and the smell of burning coals. Iris took gentle sips of water as he told her about Herbert Crest’s book, and Jennifer Doe, and what he’d read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, how he thought it might be what Eden was suffering from. Her face held no expression as he talked, but occasionally she gave a quiet nod, or lifted her chin, or mm-hmm-ed in agreement. Finally, she said: ‘Oscar, this is all very sweet of you, but don’t you think I’ve already thought of it? I mean, I’ve read nearly everything there is to know about these kinds of personality disorders. But I’m not convinced that Eden has any of them in particular—not entirely convinced, anyway. He’s more complex than that.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but once you read this, you might feel differently.’ He pushed the book across the table. She didn’t pick it up, just looked down at it, as if it were some fly that had landed on the tablecloth.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she said. ‘It’ll be another dead end. Sure, my brother’s losing it, but he doesn’t believe he’s some Greek God like this Jennifer girl you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s not all it’s about, though. You should read it.’

  ‘Look, sweetheart, thanks for trying. I just don’t have time to waste on reading books I know aren’t going to help.’

  They ate in silence for a while. The waiters seated a large party at a long table near the window, and the burr of chatter rose up in the room. Smoke continued to billow from the grill, steaming the windows. Oscar grew tired of listening to them. He leaned forward and said: ‘I don’t want to go on about it, but there’s a chance I might get to meet the guy who wrote that book on Tuesday. And I thought I could try to talk to him about Eden, not mentioning any names, of course. But, you know, maybe I could get his advice.’

  ‘You can’t just go up to somebody at a book signing and ask him to psychoanalyse your friend.’

  ‘Who said anything about a book signing?’

  ‘Well, I just assumed—are you saying you know this Crest fellow?’

  ‘Not exactly. He’s more like a friend of a friend.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘Because I needed to find out if it was the same Herbert Crest. And now I know it is—’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud, this is so typical.’ Iris took three large gulps of water as if to cool herself down. ‘Don’t you see what my brother’s up to? He’s playing with you, Oscar. He’s playing with us both. He must’ve found out your connection to this Crest fellow and he’s having some fun with us.’

  ‘I don’t see how he could know anything about it.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s precisely the point. It’s how my brother gets his kicks. He likes to prove his intelligence, his power over people; he likes to astound you with things then pretend like they’re nothing, like it was barely an effort, when really—do you see what I’m talking about?’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘That’s why I know it’s more than just a simple diagnosis with him. Everything’s just one big game to my brother. He revels in the meddling. As soon as I get close to someone, he finds some way to drive a wedge between us. He’s done the same thing all my life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to hear my stupid theories on it. Let’s just eat.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She set her cutlery down, folding her hands. ‘Because, deep down, he’s frightened of losing me—that’s why. Because if I ever get married and move away, he won’t be able have power over me any more. And that’s what he needs, to feel power over everyone. It’s what sustains him.’ She sighed. ‘It’s how he does it that’s so frustrating. He manages to mess with my life so subtly that there’s no way of proving it, so when I tell my parents about it, it looks like I’m the one causing trouble, telling stories. But I’m not!’ She stared at Oscar, reaching across the table to take his hand. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should never have dragged you into this.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.’

  ‘I know you can.’ She smiled. ‘That’s why I need you with me, every step. We can’t let my brother ruin this.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  She leaned back. ‘You’re serious about me, aren’t you, Oscar? Please say that you are.’

  She asked it so straightforwardly that he was numb for a moment. He had to move his eyes away. ‘I’m more serious about you than I’ve ever been about anyone,’ he said, keeping his voice steady, and when he looked up, he found her eyes were glazed with tears. She began to dab at them with the side of her finger. ‘I can’t tell you what it means to hear that,’ she said. ‘In my family, nobody ever says that kind of thing out loud.’

  They held hands as they walked into town. The night was oddly warm and the streets were still wet with rain. They went through Parker’s Piece, straying from the footpath to take a shortcut across the grass. There was a muddy line in the turf, made by the feet of countless people who’d taken the same shortcut before them. A desire line. He’d learned the term from Dr Paulsen, who’d pointed out the worn grooves of wheelchair tracks in the Cedarbrook garden last year.

  Iris seemed to like the phrase. ‘Eden says English is unromantic, but I think he’s wrong about that. We have so many beautiful words for ordinary things.’ She took deep breaths of fresh air, peering across the open park. ‘If I had to choose my favourite word in the English language—actually, my favourite thing in the world, full stop—do you know what it’d be?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Petrichor. It’s the word for how the earth smells after rainfall.’

  He kissed her on the cheek, walking on. ‘You’re too smart for me, miss.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You’re just as clever as I am.’ He felt her tugging at the bend of his arm. ‘You could be anything you wanted to be.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Lately it feels okay being who I am.’

  She smiled and pulled him closer. ‘Well, that’s just fine with me, too.’

  When they reached the coffee house by Emmanuel College, it was closed and shuttered over, so they headed straight back to Oscar’s flat. His room was dim and damp. He threw Crest’s book onto the bed and cleared away the dishes from the floor. Iris smoked a clove by the window while he lit some candles and put Nina Simone on the stereo. They lay down beside each other on the bed, listenin
g to that deep, drawling voice, that frostbitten piano sound. Iris picked up The Girl With the God Complex and, without saying a word, she took her glasses from her pocket and began to read. He unbuttoned her blouse with one hand as she turned the pages, smoothing his fingers across her breast. They lay there together until he fell asleep. It was very late by the time he woke up again. The music had stopped but Iris was still reading in the sallow light with her blouse undone and her glasses at the tip of her nose, still cradled in the bend of his arm. ‘I like how this Crest fellow writes,’ she said. ‘You were right about him.’

  She turned back a few chapters, locating a certain paragraph and tapping her finger on it: ‘Sometimes, NPD sufferers are trapped in an endless cycle of trying to prove their abilities,’ she read aloud. ‘They may set themselves extraordinary, impossible challenges to solve or overcome, only to battle with the feelings of failure and incompetence that these self-imposed challenges create.… I’ve got to admit, it’s ringing a few too many bells.’ Finding her place again, she carried on reading, and soon she gave another hum of recognition. ‘Listen to this part: In a family like Jennifer’s, where nobody talked about their pride or love for each other, the smallest compliment would seem to her like the loudest affirmation. It’s like he’s been living in my house for years.’

  SIX

  The Rightful Order of Things

  Oscar wheeled Dr Paulsen across the car park. The Orchard was alive with midday shadows and he could see a glimmer of footprints in the dewy grass beyond the tea pavilion. Pale autumn sunlight slanted down through the apple trees and the birds were trilling in the hedges. Women sat alone under half-bare branches, sipping tea from dainty cups. Couples shared ploughman’s lunches across green patio tables. Young men lazed in deck chairs with their headphones on. ‘Just park me under that big one over there,’ Paulsen said, pointing to an apple tree that was taller and wider than the others. ‘We’re a little early. Here—’ The old man reached under the blanket on his lap, pulling out a twenty-pound note, ‘get me a scone with all the trimmings and an Assam, and whatever you want for yourself. Bring the tray over, then make yourself scarce. Understand?’