The Mind of Mr Soames

by Maine, Charles Eric

  For a while he stood by the door of the room, just smoking and observing. There were four men and four women shuffling around the floor in lazy, intimate movements, and the two who had passed him at the main entrance to the building were probably part of the assembly, perhaps gone off to procure more cigarettes, or drinks. Penelope was dancing, if that was the word, with a tall, swarthy young man who might have been an Egyptian or a Turk, holding him tightly, amorously, while his dusky hands stroked her back. He did not remember the crimson dress—it was probably new—and her hair, naturally blonde, had been dyed several shades lighter so that it was almost platinum. Her eyes were half closed, dreamily and languorously, a reliable indication that she had been drinking heavily.

  Nobody paid any attention to him whatever, so, presently, he walked across the room to the record player and switched it off. For a few seconds the silence was unheeded; the pseudodancing continued to the echo of the dead music, as if the dancers were in a state of compulsive hypnosis. They stopped moving almost simultaneously, as if an invisible knife had cut through puppet strings. Heads turned towards him, eyes questioned his.

  ‘My God,’ Penelope said abruptly, ‘you!’

  She abandoned her partner and came towards him until she was within striking distance. Seeing her in close-up, pretty and shapely as ever, and so familiar over the years, despite the long absence, he was conscious of a pang of sentiment, of nostalgia, for the things that might have been. But there was no sentiment in her face and her clear blue eyes were frosty.

  ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

  ‘I thought we might talk,’ he said quietly. ‘After all, there are things we ought to discuss...’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s anything we could discuss any more. You’ve got a nerve, coming here like this...’

  ‘I did telephone, but there was never any reply.’

  ‘I’ve been away, that’s why. I’ve been in hospital.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were ill.’

  She flung her head back and laughed hysterically. Her breath was laden with the sweet, pungent scent of gin. Abruptly she turned to her guests, who were watching the scene as if petrified.

  ‘Meet my husband,’ she announced defiantly. ‘He didn’t know I was ill.’ Again she burst into shrill laughter, and the sound was echoed in the form of subdued tittering among her audience.

  She turned to Conway. ‘I’m celebrating, Dave,’ she said, stumbling over the words as she always did when she was drunk. ‘You know why? I’m celebrating my first born, that’s what I’m doing. I wanted to keep it in a bottle, but they wouldn’t let me. Don’t you think that was mean of them?’

  He said nothing, but watched her through frowning eyes. ‘Have a drink, Dave, just for old times’ sake. Mike, fix Dave a drink.’

  ‘There isn’t any,’ said a red-haired youth. ‘Pete and Betty went back to their flat to get some vodka.’

  Penelope waved an arm in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘That’s all right. Dave’ll wait until they get back.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Conway said. ‘But if we could talk for a few minutes—privately.’

  She eyed him in feigned surprise, spreading out her arms. ‘What is there to talk about, Dave? I was unfaithful to you so you threw me out. I found I was going to have your baby so I brought myself an abortion. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

  ‘My baby? Or Morry’s? Or somebody else’s?’

  She slapped his face hard, then laughed again. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ he retorted, moving away from the record player. ‘I just want to say this, Penny. I propose to start divorce proceedings, and I’m going to cite Morry as corespondent,’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she stated. ‘Perfectly all right. Crucify Morry too. Why should I care?’

  ‘Unless there’s somebody else you’d prefer to name?’

  ‘Why so squeamish about Morry—or would it be unprofessional for one doctor to cite another?’

  ‘I’m thinking of his wife. He got married a few weeks ago, There’s no point in digging up past dirt.’

  She smiled amiably—too amiably. ‘That’s sweet of you, Dave—thinking of his wife, I mean. Perhaps if you’d thought of your own wife a bit more in the past we wouldn’t have got to this stage. So far as I’m concerned you can do what the hell you like, and if you chop up Morry and his wife in the process, so much the better. Now clear out, if you don’t mind. You’re interfering with the music.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way it’s to be...’

  She pushed past him to the record player and started it up. Slowly he walked across the room, through the blank eyed couples towards the door. As he reached the landing the jazz burst out anew, shaking the night air with discordant music and off-beat rhythm.

  At the front door he encountered the dark-haired girl in the red blouse and the young man in the green sweater, this time with a bottle tucked under his arm. He stood aside to let them pass.

  He drove back to the Institute in a tense, unthinking frame of mind, balancing relief against regret in a sombre mood, detached from the past and the future and living in a kind of attenuated present in which life was the unwinding of the dark grey road before the car, beyond the invisible barrier of the windscreen, but hearing all the time in the secret recesses of his mind the blare of noisy jazz from a small record player in a room with red and black curtains.

  7

  A few days later two events of considerable importance happened simultaneously. The first was a cable from Japan that Dr Takaito would be flying to England the following day and would be spending a week or two in London during which time he planned to observe the mental development of Mr Soames at first hand. He hoped that Dr Breuer would be able to provide adequate facilities and arrange accommodation at the Institute for a period, if necessary.

  The second event, far more ominous to Breuer’s way of thinking, was a telephone call from the editor of the National Daily Courier, a certain Mr Geoffrey Finch.

  ‘Am I speaking to the doctor in charge of the Osborne Psychoneural Institute?’ Mr Finch asked.

  ‘You are,’ Breuer assured him, giving his name.

  ‘You will be delighted to learn,’ Mr Finch announced, ‘that we have succeeded in tracing certain relatives of Mr Soames.’

  ‘Oh,’ Breuer remarked non-committally.

  ‘We knew, of course, that his mother had gone to Canada and had married again, though we couldn’t be absolutely certain if she was still alive. Well, she is alive, Dr Breuer, and we’ve found her. You know where she was?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Breuer said irritably, suppressing an urge to hang up immediately.

  ‘In Peru. Married to a man called Martinez, with a nineteen-year-old daughter, named Antonetta—Toni for short. A beautiful girl, Dr Breuer. Quite fabulous. What’s more, we’ve flown them back to England, and right now they’re staying at a big West End hotel.’

  ‘I’m not at all sure that was a wise step to take,’ Breuer said disapprovingly. ‘Mr Soames is still undergoing intensive psychotherapeutic treatment...’

  ‘Exactly my point, doctor. And what could be better for his mental balance than to be reunited with his family?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with his mental balance,’ Breuer said icily. ‘He is being trained and educated, and the process is not without its difficulties. In my view it would be wrong, quite wrong, to confuse him by introducing the idea of family relationships.’

  ‘But, Dr Breuer, even prisoners and mental patients are allowed visitors, and as Mr Soames is neither, I really don’t see that you have the authority to refuse admission to his mother and sister.’

  ‘In my own Institute I have authority to use my own discretion in the best interests of my patients,’ Breuer stated flatly. ‘That’s all the authority I need.’

  ‘But Mr Soames doesn’t ha
ppen to be a patient,’ Mr Finch insisted. ‘Do you realise that if Mrs Martinez felt so inclined she could remove him from the Institute tomorrow. No court would deny her custody and care and control of her own son. Not that she would wish to go so far. All she wants is to see her son and talk to him for a while...’

  ‘Look, Mr Finch,’ Breuer said sourly, ‘why don’t you be perfectly honest with me. You know very well that you don’t give a damn for Mrs Martinez or her son. The whole thing is just a newspaper stunt and you’re hoping to cash in on the human interest angle. Well, it won’t work.’

  ‘We’ve spent a great deal of money on this project,’ Mr Finch said truculently, ‘and we intend to see it through, even if it means going to law. It’s a free country, Dr Breuer. You’ve no right to hold Mr Soames in isolation from his next of kin.’

  ‘What precisely do you want?’ Breuer asked.

  ‘All we want is permission for Mrs Martinez and Toni to visit Mr Soames accompanied by a reporter and photographer. For that simple facility the Courier will be glad to donate the sum of one hundred pounds to the Institute’s funds.’

  ‘The answer is no,’ Breuer said curtly, and hung up.

  He immediately telephoned his solicitor and outlined the position to him, filling in the background of Mr Soames’s educational programme and some of the difficulties that were being encountered. ‘In particular,’ he added, ‘we’ve taken great care not to introduce the idea of sex as yet, until he has acquired a satisfactory degree of character balance. It is quite intolerable that this woman and her nineteen-year-old daughter, who is alleged to be something of a beauty, should be permitted to interfere with psychiatric policy in this way.’

  The solicitor sounded pessimistic. ‘It rather looks as if the Courier executive have already investigated the legal position,’ he said. ‘The fact is that Mr Soames has not been committed as a mental patient, and I suppose in truth he’s not a patient at all. In a way he’s in much the same position as a normal man suffering from total amnesia and undergoing rehabilitation. Legally you cannot prevent access to him by anyone possessing reasonable grounds for requiring access. You might be able to keep the reporter and photographer out, but even that is debatable. The Courier could claim that the publicity is in the public interest, and the courts would probably uphold that claim unless you could produce medical evidence to show that the presence of the Courier staff would have a harmful effect on the patient.’

  ‘What happens if I simply refuse permission and sit tight,’ Breuer asked.

  ‘The Courier can obtain an injunction to restrain you from preventing access.’

  ‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘And if I ignored the injunction?’

  ‘Dr Breuer, you can’t—unless, of course, you wish to go to prison for contempt of court.’

  ‘In that case, why can’t I obtain an injunction first to restrain the Courier from bringing that Martinez woman into the Institute?’

  ‘What possible grounds could there be for preventing a mother from seeing her son?’

  ‘The fact that Mr Soames is under sexual segregation as a matter of therapeutic policy,’ Breuer suggested.

  ‘I doubt if the judiciary would regard a mother and sister as a serious threat to any policy of sexual segregation, and I can’t help feeling that such a policy would prove rather difficult to defend in law, anyway. Have you thought what the newspapers might make of it—the Courier in particular? What with all the present controversy about homosexuality...’

  Dr Breuer groaned mentally. He could visualise the headlines only to well.

  ‘Is there no chance at all?’ he asked.

  ‘Personally, I would say no,’ the solicitor answered, ‘but I’ll think about it. There may be a loophole of some kind. Meanwhile there would seem to be no alternative but to co-operate with the Courier. After all, it may bring some good publicity for the Institute, and that’s better than hostility and criticism.’

  ‘Well, thank you anyway,’ Breuer said.

  He hung up dejectedly, and buzzed for Dr Mortimer. There ought to be a law against newspapers, he thought—a law to prevent them from exploiting human tragedy in terms of tear-jerking sensationalism. The trouble was that the public liked it that way. There was poor Mr Soames, unconscious from birth, brought back to life, as it were, by a miracle of surgical science after an interval of thirty years. And now here was his dear old mother and his beautiful young sister, brought all the way from Peru to see their beloved boy by the benevolent courtesy of the National Daily Courier. He could almost visualise the pictures printed on rough newsprint, taken by flash in the annexe—the angled sentiment, the sickly pseudo-charm, the moist eyes (even if the moisture had to be applied by means of a glycerine spray), and somewhere a bold headline caption that would be bound to declare: HAPPY REUNION.

  Dr Mortimer arrived in record time; he had sensed a certain urgency in his superior’s voice. He sat down on invitation and folded his arms attentively while Dr Breuer paced restlessly about the floor.

  ‘What is the position with Soames?’ Breuer enquired.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s continuing to be hostile,’ Mortimer said. ‘He doesn’t seem to mind being confined to his room. In fact, he resents any intrusion whatever. On a number of occasions he has thrown his food at the male nurse.’

  Dr Breuer sighed forlornly. ‘What do you suppose is behind this present attitude?’

  ‘I think it’s a simple infantile reaction. What I can’t have I don’t want. It may be only a phase.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Breuer said. ‘One would know how to deal with such an attitude in a child, but with an adult...’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I suppose the instruction programme has ceased temporarily.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Precisely what restrictive disciplinary measures have been taken?’

  ‘The ones you prescribed, Dr Breuer, No exercise in the ground, no clothes apart from standard hospital pyjamas, no games or amusements such as jigsaws, films, picture books and so on, and certain changes in diet—no sweets such as pineapple, or cakes, or anything like that. If I may say so, I disapproved of this procedure when it was first suggested.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Breuer said shortly. ‘The question of approval or disapproval doesn’t really enter into it. The fact is that Soames was becoming unmanageable by orthodox methods, and the present punishment has merely served to accelerate the process. It seems to me that he is pitting his own defiant will against authority, and in the long run he can’t win. Once the surrender takes place there will be no further trouble.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure of that,’ Mortimer said dubiously.

  ‘A far more serious situation has arisen,’ Breuer announced sombrely. ‘The National Daily Courier has succeeded in finding Soames’s mother and sister somewhere in South America, and has brought them to London. The editor telephoned me a short time ago. He is demanding that they should be allowed access to Soames, not forgetting a reporter and cameraman.’

  Mortimer put his hands to his cheeks in a slightly shocked fashion. ‘That would be most undesirable as things are at present.’

  ‘I’m afraid there seems to be no alternative. The law is on the side of the Courier, unfortunately.’

  ‘But, Dr Breuer, these woman can mean absolutely nothing to Mr Soames, any more than he can mean anything to them. I mean, after an interval of thirty years...’

  ‘That is my view too. The thing is a cheap newspaper stunt but I fear there’s nothing we can do to prevent it. I’ve discussed the matter with my solicitor, and he is unable to offer any hope at all.’

  A shrewd look glistened in Dr Mortimer’s eyes. ‘One might anticipate the event, of course,’ he said in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘I mean, there are cerebral drugs which would reduce the patient’s perception, as it were, and afterwards he would remember virtually nothing.’

  ‘That is a possibility which had occurred to me,’ Breuer admitted. ‘On the other hand it has certain disadvantages. If such dru
gs were administered in sufficient dosage to produce that effect, it would immediately be apparent to any observer that Soames was doped, to put it crudely. He would be in a trance-like unresponsive condition, although apparently still conscious. I can’t help feeling it might arouse adverse comment.’

  ‘Well, then—tranquillisers?’

  ‘Not potent enough to neutralise the basic sex reaction.’

  ‘But Mr Soames is hardly likely to realise that these women are in fact female.’

  ‘No—not in so many words. Nevertheless, there is bound to be a reaction of some kind, even if he only regards them as oddly shaped and quaintly dressed men. It complicates a psychotherapeutic programme that is already complicated enough, I am inclined to the view that we shall in fact be committed to the introduction of sex in practical terms into the educational programme. Anything else would be a false subterfuge, and might ultimately result in some kind of undesirable orientation, or even perversion.’

  Mortimer nodded glumly, but said nothing.

  ‘I thought it advisable to warn you as to what is likely to happen,’ Breuer said. ‘Under the circumstances it may even be a good thing if we temporarily abandon the present attempt to enforce discipline.’

  ‘I agree,’ Dr Mortimer murmured.

  ‘As I understand the position, Soames’s mother and sister are likely to arrive within the next two or three days—even tomorrow, for that matter. I think perhaps we should, for the time being, restore full amenities—exercise, clothing, games, food and so on. I would also recommend the use of tranquil-lising drugs, in moderation, of course. We want Mr Soames to be as pleasant and as cordial as possible.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Dr Mortimer said. ‘I do approve. But isn’t there a slight danger that he might regard a sudden restoration of privilege as unconditional surrender on the part of authority?’ Dr Breuer smiled bleakly. ‘He might, indeed, but in due course we shall have our way with him, never fear.’