The Mind of Mr Soames

by Maine, Charles Eric

  ‘It seems to me,’ Conway said, ‘that authority can only be recognised and admitted if it is backed by force. The authority of the law is only effective because of the police, the judiciary and the prisons. The authority of the parent and the schoolteacher is established by punishment, or at least the threat of punishment, for bad behaviour.’

  ‘Responsible adults recognise a higher authority than the mere threat of punishment,’ Dr Bird interposed. ‘There is an awareness of a moral code, of the rights of the individual...’

  ‘Mr Soames is not a responsible adult,’ Conway pointed out, ‘and even the responsible adult has been taught the difference between right and wrong by a slap in the right place at some time in his life.’

  ‘I think Dr Conway is right up to a point,’ Dr Breuer said. ‘Authority devolves from strength, in primitive terms. Dr Bird’s concept of a moral code is a much more subtle and sophisticated thing, certainly quite irrelevant so far as the treatment of Mr Soames is concerned. On the other hand, we cannot ethically enforce submission to authority by the use of force or violence.’

  ‘It seems a one-sided arrangement,’ Dr Bird said briskly. ‘We have to be strictly ethical, but Mr Soames doesn’t.’

  ‘There are other forms of persuasion apart from force,’ Conway emphasised. ‘For example, Mr Soames could be deprived of his daily walk in the grounds for bad behaviour, or even his food.’

  Dr Breuer frowned. ‘The psychological effect may be exactly the opposite from what we’re trying to achieve. Mr Soames is not likely to take kindly to compliance under duress, as it were. Ideally we are seeking to establish a pattern of voluntary good behaviour.’

  ‘We won’t do it while we continue to indulge him,’ Dr Wilson remarked. ‘As things are he is being presented with services of various kinds, and he simply chooses those which please him.’

  ‘Well, at least we seem to be agreed on the basic difficulties,’ Dr Breuer said. ‘Between us we should be able to devise a practical solution to the problem. Dr Mortimer, what are your views?’

  Mortimer drew his upper teeth contemplatively across his lower lip and inhaled deeply. ‘We must not overlook the fact that we have already achieved remarkable results with Mr Soames,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘In a comparatively short space of time we have drilled certain necessary habits into him, and his progress in speaking is exceptional. I believe he has a working vocabulary of about five-hundred words. Naturally his feeling for grammar and syntax is as yet undeveloped, but it is improving from day to day. I think perhaps we are making too much of this period of stubborn independence. In some respects it is probably a good thing—it may be a necessary step in the achievement of self-confidence. It could be that the patient is simply testing the limits of his newly acquired abilities.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Conway agreed, ‘but Mr Soames’s present attitude seems to imply that he will continue testing those limits indefinitely.’

  ‘I think not,’ Mortimer stated flatly. ‘I believe his education will proceed in levels. There will be apparent stalemates from time to time while he is assimilating what he has already learned, then when he is ready for more he will naturally become receptive and co-operative.’

  ‘That may be true,’ Dr Breuer conceded. ‘Conditioning usually proceeds on a step-by-step basis. The difficulty seems to be that Mr Soames is also establishing a behaviour pattern of his own which conflicts with the one we are trying to impose. I think it would be a mistake to allow this to proceed too far.’

  ‘I agree, Dr Breuer,’ Conway said. ‘I think it’s for us to take the initiative from Mr Soames. As a first step we could abandon all instruction for, say, a week, or even two weeks, and keep him confined to his room. No exercise in the grounds. We might even consider simplifying his diet to a more austere level.’

  ‘Drastic treatment for a patient who is mentally only a child,’ Mortimer commented acidly.

  ‘Not if we made it absolutely clear why it was being done. You see, he must realise sooner or later that authority has to be obeyed and that disobedience doesn’t pay. It’s no use telling him in words—he’s been told often enough already. The time has come for a demonstration.’

  ‘I don’t think it could do any harm,’ Dr Breuer said doubtfully, ‘and it might bring about a considerable change of attitude.’

  Mortimer shook his head dogmatically. ‘I’m afraid I’m opposed to it, Dr Breuer. It is not good psychotherapy—in fact, it is not psychotherapy at all.’

  ‘Sometimes an ounce of brute force is worth several tons of psychotherapy,’ Conway remarked. ‘In the long run the best kind of psychotherapy is common sense.’

  Dr Hoff, normally quiet and taciturn, said in his slow, deliberate voice: ‘Wouldn’t it be better to deliver the ultimatum first? That, I believe, is the normal way of exerting authority at all levels of society. One says that this must be done, and if it is not done then something unpleasant will happen. The subject then has a free choice. He can decide to conform, or if he wishes he may refuse to conform and suffer the unpleasant consequences of his disobedience.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Breuer said thoughtfully, ‘that seems a reasonable approach to the problem. I think perhaps we might warn Mr Soames that unless he obeys the instructions of the staff responsible for his training and welfare he will suffer certain restrictions of privilege. And we could set a time limit of, say a week.’

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ Mortimer protested. ‘We are treating this man as a prisoner rather than a patient. Consider it this way—in law we have no right to hold him whatever. He has not been certified, and indeed there are no grounds for certification at all. He could, if he knew the procedure, discharge himself from the Institute tomorrow—today, in fact.’

  ‘That would be rather dangerous, I think,’ Dr Wilson pointed out.

  ‘Dangerous, perhaps, but not illegal. Everyone from the Ministry down has tacitly overlooked the fact that we have no legal right to keep Mr Soames here if he doesn’t wish to be kept here.’

  Dr Breuer uttered a doubtful grunt. ‘I don’t think we need concern ourselves with the legal position as such. It is rather a question of responsibility, and it is our task to turn Mr Soames into a useful self-controlled citizen before granting him his freedom. I doubt if any lawyer would quibble with the essential rightness of our aims. Part of the educational process is to make the patient amenable to higher authority, and I think we might reasonably exert a certain degree of punitive discipline to that end.’

  There was a murmur of agreements among the doctors, with the exception of Mortimer, who remained silent.

  ‘I think we might begin by making it quite plain to Mr Soames that unless he obeys his tutors, male nurses and doctors, he will be confined to his room, and if he continues to be defiant, then his diet will be restricted. If that fails to have the desired effect, then we shall need to reconsider our policy.’

  ‘May we have this in writing as an official instruction?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘Yes, you may,’ Dr Breuer said. ‘I will accept personal responsibility for the proposed measures. Does that satisfy you?’

  Mortimer indicated that it did.

  ‘In that case, I think we can bring this meeting to an end. We shall hold a further meeting in a week from now to see whether the new policy has produced any change in the patient’s behaviour.’

  Slowly the doctors left the room while, in his small annexe, Mr Soames sat happily on the side of his bed, fingers jammed tightly in his ears, ignoring the appeals of his weary tutor to attend to some elementary matters of geography.

  ❖

  Mr Soames could not have been less impressed by the implied threat to his liberty. Like a child, he seemed to live entirely in the present, with no thought for the future at all. It was possible, of course, that the abstract conception of the future as such, of time to come, was not yet clearly defined in his mind.

  As a matter of policy the ultimatum was delivered by each of the doctors in turn durin
g his period of duty. It was thought that in this way any resentment the patient might feel would not be directed against any single individual. Mr Soames was quite unconcerned, however; he continued to cultivate his own brand of idle independence, attending to his tutor when it pleased him to do so, sometimes talking quietly to himself, as if lost in some grey inner world, and frequently staring fixedly through the window at the green fields and trees of the surrounding parkland.

  ‘Mr Soames,’ said Conway one afternoon, when it was becoming evident that Dr Breuer’s proposed disciplinary measures would have to be put into effect, ‘what are the things you like to do best?’

  Mr Soames stared at him blankly, his brown eyes devoid of expression. Sitting there, on a steel-tube chair near the window, he looked big and strong and amiable, wearing informal grey slacks and a white open-necked shirt. The swarthiness of his skin gave him a Latin appearance; he might have been a Sicilian peasant or a Cypriot or even a Turk. His face was impassive as nearly always, principally, Conway supposed, because he had not yet learned to connect outward expression with inner feeling; it was only when anger or amusement took possession of him that he allowed his reaction to show itself involuntarily in his features.

  ‘You like to eat food?’ Conway went on. ‘You like to walk in green field by lake? You like to wear nice clothes?’

  The patient made no reply. If anything his lips became a little sullen as if he sensed that the questions were merely a preamble to something unpleasant.

  ‘In life we have to do things we don’t like, too,’ Conway stated. ‘We have to do things which are good for us, even if we think they are not nice to do.’

  Mr Soames turned away from Conway to a small table on which were spread pieces of a simple wooden jigsaw puzzle. Tentatively he picked up one of the pieces, turning it round and round as if trying to divine its probable position in the overall picture.

  ‘You are learning to be a man like other men,’ Conway went on. ‘In order to learn you have to listen to what other men tell you, and you have to do what you are told. If you don’t, then there will be trouble. You will not have the things you like any more. Do you understand?’

  If the patient was still listening, he gave no indication of it. Already he had interlocked three pieces of the jigsaw and was toying with a fourth piece in a mood of bored concentration.

  ‘Already you have learned some useful things,’ said Conway patiently, ‘but there are many more things which you must learn, It is not enough to walk, and eat and talk. You have to learn about the world outside so that one day, when you are free to go into the world, you will be the same as other men, and you will know as much as they do.’

  Carefully Mr Soames fitted the next two pieces of the jigsaw in position. He picked up another piece, inspecting it in his characteristically unresponsive way.

  Conway exchanged glances with the male nurse who was standing a little to his rear. The orderly shook his head and said: ‘It’s no use, Dr Conway. When he gets one of these moods he just doesn’t want to know.’

  Conway stepped forward and took the jigsaw piece firmly from the patient’s hand. ‘Attend to me,’ he ordered.

  Mr Soames turned lethargically and stood up, holding out his hand.

  ‘Give it to me,’ he said, in the slow, carefully intoned voice.

  ‘You must listen to what I have to say first,’ Conway instructed, ‘then I will give it to you.’

  ‘It is mine,’ said Mr Soames. ‘Give it to me.’

  Conway pointed to the chair. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  ‘Give it to me,’ Mr Soames repeated with single-minded persistence. He reached out and gripped Conway’s hand with fingers of steel. For a few moments the two men stood face to face, Conway tensed and slightly angry, the patient calm and relaxed, but immensely stubborn, and then the male nurse intervened. He gripped Mr Soames’s arm and tried to disengage it, but Mr Soames had no intention of letting go.

  ‘Do as the doctor says,’ said the orderly.

  ‘I want my piece,’ Mr Soames pronounced. His fingers tightened on Conway’s hand. ‘I want it. Give it to me.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Conway commanded, ‘or I shall take all the pieces.’

  Defiance crystallised in the patient’s dark, expressionless eyes. He began to twist Conway’s wrist slowly and purposefully, never taking his eyes off the other man’s face. At this point the male nurse made a determined effort to separate the two men, but to no avail.

  ‘Never mind,’ Conway said quickly. ‘Remove all the pieces of the jigsaw from the table.’

  The orderly did as instructed. Mr Soames stopped twisting and turned his head. For the first time anxiety modulated the blankness of his expression.

  ‘No,’ he cried. ‘I want them. I want them.’

  ‘Sit down and you shall have them back,’ Conway said, rubbing his wrist.

  Reluctantly Mr Soames surrendered. He sat on the chair, his eyes fixed stonily on the male nurse as he scooped the fragments of the jigsaw puzzle into his hands.

  ‘That’s better,’ Conway remarked. ‘Now you can have your pieces back.’

  He handed the patient the piece he was holding and nodded to the male nurse, who dropped the remainder of the pieces on to the table. Immediately Mr Soames swept them on to his lap and covered them with his hands.

  ‘They’re mine,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Of course they’re yours,’ Conway agreed, ‘but if you don’t do as you are told, then they will be taken away from you. And other things will be taken away, too—all the things you like. You must listen to what other men say and you must learn what they teach you. You must learn how to add numbers together, and you must learn about geography and history...’

  ‘I don’t like geography and history. I don’t want to add numbers.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you like them or not. You must learn them just the same.’

  ‘I don’t want to learn them.’

  ‘In that case, no jigsaw pieces, no walk in the field every day, no clothes.’

  ‘I don’t want pieces and field and clothes.’

  To demonstrate his reversal of attitude Mr Soames suddenly flung all the jigsaw pieces at Conway and stood up truculently. ‘I don’t want them,’ he shouted. ‘Take them away.’

  Conway sighed, while the male nurse hovered nearby, ready to intervene in an instant.

  ‘Take them away,’ Mr Soames repeated, scuffing at the pieces on the floor with his foot. ‘I don’t want them.’

  ‘Pick them up and put them on the table,’ Conway ordered, summoning all his patience.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Soames uncompromisingly. ‘Take them away.’ What to do now, Conway asked himself. If he were a little boy I’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and give him a good walloping, and that’s what he needs—an adequate helping of physical chastisement to teach him right from wrong. It’s all very well for Mortimer to theorise in his bland way, but he’s never here to witness this kind of behaviour, and he rarely sees anything more than the formal words in the written reports.

  ‘Mr Soames,’ Conway said with finality, ‘I’ll give you one more chance. Pick those pieces up and put them on the table. If you don’t do as you are told then you will be locked in your room and your clothes will be taken away until you do pick them up.’

  ‘Take them away,’ said Mr Soames. ‘I don’t want them.’

  Conway walked towards the door in weary resignation, followed by the male nurse.

  ‘I think this is the point of no return,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d better check with Dr Mortimer first, but I imagine that as from today Mr Soames is going to be deprived of a number of privileges. Meanwhile, keep an eye on him. I’ll be back later.’

  He left the annexe and went in search of Mortimer.

  ❖

  Conway made two attempts to see his wife, driving into town and calling at her flat in Chelsea, but on each occasion there was no reply. It was a quiet tree-lined road of faintly shabby three-sto
rey houses, with iron railings and basement areas running like a protective moat along the frontages. Penelope’s flat was on the top floor of a grey plaster-faced house about halfway along the road. The curtains on the small window were red and black in a contemporary fashion, and the leaves of a tall green and yellow plant gleamed pallidly behind the panes.

  The third visit was made late one Saturday evening, about five weeks after he had first announced to Ann his intention of seeing Penelope. The time was almost eleven-thirty, and driving along the road he observed a light in her window behind the drawn red and black curtains. His heart seemed to tighten a little, as if in apprehension, but his taut features betrayed no sign of anxiety.

  He parked the car on the opposite side of the road, lit a cigarette, and strolled casually towards the front door. He was about to press the bell-push when the door opened spontaneously and two young people almost tumbled out—a dark haired girl in a red-check blouse and black jeans, and a young fairhaired man in a thick green sweater. They swept by, unconcernedly, not even noticing him, leaving the front door agape. Now there was the wild sound of fast jazz music in the air, probably from a distant radiogram. He hesitated for a moment, inhaling cigarette smoke, then decided to enter and go on up.

  The music grew louder as he climbed the uncarpeted wooden stairs, until he realised abruptly that the point of origin was Penelope’s flat. Mingled with the rhythmic beat were the noises of human revelry. Mechanically his feet contined to advance, step by step, carrying him inevitably upwards to the second floor. The flat door was open and a tiny wall light glimmered in a small cream-coloured vestibule. Despondently, feeling very much like an intruder, he went in.

  His first impressions were transient, chaotic. Young men and young women shuffled in bear-hug fashion across a maroon carpet in a big blue room, hazy in an acrid atmosphere of cigarette smoke and gin. Cheap furniture stood poised on spindly legs around a raw brick fireplace with a built-in electric convector heater, while around the walls of the room, etched in a shadow by bracketed lamps, stood a bookcase, a desk, a narrow table bearing potted indoor plants, a divan and a cocktail trolley. A portable record player carelessly positioned in a corner of the room blared traditional jazz from a long-play record. Cigarette stubs glowed on brass ashtrays and stemmed glasses, empty and full, sprouted like crystal mushrooms.