‘But you can’t ignore your menopause, dean,’ Dr Bonaccord went on earnestly. ‘It’s a purely physical condition, which Strauss described rather touchingly in Psychiatry in the Modern World – “the smouldering fire of the endocrines in which from time to time certain embers flare up, emit sparks and subside into cold ashes”.’
‘I suppose those sparks might possibly be fun,’ observed the dean unhappily.
‘Life loses its savour, its freshness, its excitement, doesn’t it?’ The dean nodded. ‘Look at you – tense, anxious, forever driving yourself onward, a perfectionist, ambitious, always keen to shine above your fellows, over-conscientious, avid for responsibility, taut, tired, exhausted.’
‘Exactly.’ The dean looked gratified with this diagnosis.
‘And your sexual activity not a patch on what it was?’
‘Only on special occasions.’
‘It’s useless my telling you to relax, to go on a cruise, to take a holiday. That’s only a layman’s way of looking at the problem. With nothing to occupy your restless mind you’d get worse. Even suicidal. You need this fundamental new interest in life, that’s all.’
‘But what?’
‘There’s the rub. Only you can answer that. You know, it is precisely this situation which makes a fair number of men of your age go off with much younger women.’
‘Oh, I don’t think Josephine would allow me to do that, for one moment.’
Dr Bonaccord looked at his watch. ‘I must be going, I’m afraid. I have another appointment in a few minutes.’
The dean sat up. ‘I’ve a good deal of worry, possibly aggravating my condition at this moment. My daughter Muriel, you know. Very trying.’
‘I’m afraid tension is normal in any family. Quite understandable, when you remember that with the Oedipus situation basically the son wants to castrate the father and sleep with the mother. Daughters have the Electra complex, of course, which is the same thing the other way round.’
‘Perhaps I should take up golf?’ the dean suggested hopefully. ‘At least it would keep me fit. We doctors should look after ourselves, I suppose. We die just like our patients, from exactly the same diseases.’
Dr Bonaccord smiled. ‘A little infra dig, you feel? Yet even the nicest patients enjoy an inward glow of satisfaction, or perhaps of triumph, when they hear their doctor has predeceased them. You know, dean, human beings are really the most peculiar objects.’
15
Sir Lancelot looked at his watch. His afternoon appointment would be in a few minutes. He rose from the chair, where he had remained since Miss MacNish quit No 3. He could not face entering the kitchen, with evidence of the awful crime still unburied. He went into the hall, where he had dropped his fishing-bag, and removing two miserable trout wrapped them in a sheet from that morning’s Times. He opened the front door and stepped out. Whatever its tragedies, life still had to go on.
This occasion he was too dispirited to conceal his visiting No 1. Besides, he had the obvious excuse of bringing a neighbourly gift of fish. But when Mrs Tennant opened the door, she jumped back with a gasp.
‘I had an appointment.’ Sir Lancelot looked surprised. ‘Weren’t you expecting me?’
‘Well, it was a bit of a surpr – Yes, of course we were expecting you, Sir Lancelot. Dr Bonaccord has just got in. Would you care to go upstairs?’
‘Thank you.’ Why on earth is the young woman staring at me like that? he wondered. She looks as though I was forcing my way in to pinch the silver. But I suppose living in sin must make one somewhat anxious. Her husband might quite easily knock on the door one day with a loaded revolver. That would liven up the street a bit.
Still carrying his fish, Sir Lancelot mounted to the first-floor study. The door was open, but the psychiatrist was absent. Sir Lancelot went inside, idly inspecting a pair of Leonardo prints attached to the walls, Dr Bonaccord bounced in, pinker than ever and breathless.
‘So sorry, Lancelot. Quite frankly, I wasn’t entirely expecting you at this moment.’
‘I had arranged to appear at this particular time,’ Sir Lancelot told him bleakly.
‘Yes, but I thought you might have had second thoughts.’
‘Why should I?’
‘No, of course not… You like my Leonardos? That’s Madonna and Child with St Anne. The original is in the Louvre, I expect you can see the vulture.’
‘Vulture? What vulture?’
‘Slightly subliminal, I suppose, but discernible in the folds of the dress. Haven’t you read Freud’s book on Leonardo? About the dream Leonardo had as a baby, when a vulture put its tail in his mouth and fluttered it? That meant Leonardo was a homosexual, of course.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘The vulture’s tail cannot possibly signify anything but the penis.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Indeed, the word coda or tail is used by the Italians to mean the male organ. And the Egyptian goddess Mut, which has the head of a vulture, is equipped not only with female breasts but an erect phallus. Very significant, that.’
‘Very.’ This man’s as nutty as a vegetarian’s cutlet, thought Sir Lancelot.
‘Leonardo used to dream of flying, you know. So he invented the aeroplane.’
‘I frequently dream that I am flying myself.’
Dr Bonaccord smiled. ‘According to Freud, that means you have a longing to be capable of sexual performance.’ Sir Lancelot made a suppressed choking noise, ‘But don’t worry, a large percentage of all dreams are set in some form of transport. Just reflect a moment, and I think you’ll agree.’
‘I dream most often that I am hammering outsized nails into a block of ebony.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the psychiatrist, suddenly looking concerned.
‘I have however managed to cure myself of that cat thing.’
‘Good. I’m delighted.’
‘Or rather the condition has to some extent cured itself.’ He gave a small shudder. ‘Odd. I had the feeling again, very slightly. Pure imagination, of course. You’d understand such matters. I’m glad I’m a surgeon, cutting out things I can see. I’d be no good trying to cure shadows.’ He jumped. ‘What’s that?’ he cried in alarm. ‘A soft padding noise?’
‘I didn’t hear anything. Perhaps it’s my secretary moving about downstairs.’
Sir Lancelot wiped his face with the red and white handkerchief. ‘Possibly. You know, she looked at me extremely strangely when I arrived. There is nothing particularly noticeably odd about me, is there?’
Dr Bonaccord moved towards the study door. ‘Not in the slightest. She may have had something on her mind.’
‘H’m. Her husband’s out in Sydney, I believe?’ he went on, following this train of thought.
‘Yes.’ The psychiatrist was making for the stairs, seeming unenthusiastic about the conversation.
‘Forgive my mentioning it – I gather there’s some estrangement between them – but I believe I actually met him. At a party, when I was lecturing out there last winter.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘But why not? Sydney is not such a huge place. Jim Tennant – young, good-looking fellow, something in shipping.’
‘Gisela’s husband is elderly, decrepit, a farmer and called Arthur. Or so I gather.’
They reached the foot of the stairs before Sir Lancelot remembered his gift. ‘Here’s the brace of trout I promised you, Bonaccord. Nothing special, but they’ll make a tasty supper.’
‘How kind of you! An appropriately luxurious dish, I think, for our new cook to apply her skill to.’
‘Oh? You’ve taken on a cook, have you?’
‘Almost for therapeutic reasons. My own efforts have been playing hell with my digestion.’
‘I’d be interested to hear how you laid hands on her. As it happens, I’m in the market for one myself.’
‘I’d heard of her for some time, actually.’
‘You were very wise to grab her while you could.’
‘I’m sure I was.’
Sir Lancelot quivered. The kitchen door opened and the ample figure of Miss MacNish appeared in her smart cornflower overall.
‘Did you want me, Dr Bonaccord?’
‘If it wouldn’t disrupt your plans, perhaps we could have these fish for supper?’
‘It wouldn’t disrupt anything in the slightest, Dr Bonaccord. I am only here to do what you wish, and to make you as comfortable as possible. Would you like them done in a court bouillon? Or perhaps grilled in best butter with fresh herbs?’
‘I would leave that entirely to you, Miss MacNish.’
‘Perhaps with almonds would be more tasty? They’re not very large ones. Hardly enough to make a meal.’
‘Miss MacNish! What the devil are you up to?’
She stared at Sir Lancelot as though he were some intrusive stranger. ‘I am employed here, sir.’
‘You are to come home at once.’
‘Will that be all, Dr Bonaccord?’
‘Thank you, Miss MacNish. All for now.’
‘Bonaccord! What do you mean by poaching my cook?’
‘But I gathered the good lady was unemployed,’ the psychiatrist told him blandly. ‘I have in fact for some months had an open invitation for her to work here. But with the most admirable loyalty she has always refused me, until this afternoon.’
‘You traitor–’
‘Come, Lancelot. I know you may be upset, but after all it’s a free country with a free labour market.’
‘Shall I show the gentleman to the door, Doctor?’
‘Very well, Bonaccord. Very well. Keep her. I hope that you will enjoy the company of her flea-ridden cats.’ He glared at Miss MacNish. ‘Personally, I should prefer to have my meals cooked by your vulture-headed all-purpose Egyptian goddess. Good afternoon.’
The door slammed. Next door, the dean jumped. ‘Dear me, dear me, Bonaccord’s started it now,’ he muttered.
The psychiatrist gave a sigh. ‘I’m afraid that was a most distressing scene for you, Miss MacNish.’
‘I’m perfectly used to Sir Lancelot, Doctor. Sometimes he gets quite beside himself, over absolutely nothing at all.’
‘Really? You mean he loses control?’
‘Oh, yes. Becomes violent, too.’
‘Indeed? That’s interesting. Very interesting. Any other peculiarities?’
‘Crawling with them, Doctor. Like an old sheep with ticks.’
‘Perhaps I should have put him on tranquillizers,’ said Dr Bonaccord thoughtfully. ‘It might have been safer for the street.’
‘You don’t object to my pets, do you, Doctor?’
‘Not at all. I think a fondness for cats is very civilized – dogs after all are rather vulgar. Did you know that killing a cat in ancient Egypt was punishable by death? And to the Romans, of course, the cat was the symbol of liberty.’
‘Who’d have thought it, Doctor?’
‘I hope you’re settling in comfortably? You’ll find our top floor flat much like the one you’ve just left down the road.’
‘I’m sorry to give Mrs Tennant the inconvenience of moving out, Doctor.’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t really mind in the least. She’s overjoyed at having someone as reliable as yourself to take the household duties off her hands. And her new bedroom is really quite pleasant.’
Dr Bonaccord went upstairs to his own bedroom, which was plain white picked out in gold. On the double bed sat Gisela, legs drawn up on the white candlewick, gold-flecked bedspread, idly turning over the shiny pages of a pornographic magazine.
‘Where’d you get this, Cedric?’
‘The Swedish one, is it? People send them to me from time to time for a psychiatric opinion. Schoolmasters, vicars, those sort of persons. They’re usually pretty thumbed through.’
‘What do you think of that?’
‘Oh, it looks rather fun.’
‘But do you think they could actually be enjoying it?’
‘I don’t suppose people actually enjoy scaling mountains. But it makes an exciting change from the ordinary, which is better.’
‘It’s a wonder she doesn’t break a leg.’
Shutting the bedroom door, he sat down beside her. He turned the page. ‘Have you ever done it like that, Gissie?’
She gave a little shriek. ‘Of course not? Have you?’
‘I doubt whether many people have. They haven’t the space in a modern house, and they’d be afraid the neighbours might hear. All that these publications really illustrate are the readers’ fantasies.’ He flicked over more pages. ‘L’amour…n’est que l’échange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes. Chamfort was right about the whole business. Thank God I am above all the stupid self-delusions, self-persecutions and self-denials which others so delightedly wallow in. By the way, that stupid old buffer Sir Lancelot was asking after your husband.’
‘Oh?’
‘He claimed to have met him last winter in Sydney.’
‘That would be clever.’
‘Yes, it would.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I made some remark putting him on another trail.’
She hesitated. ‘Do you suppose he’s suspicious?’
‘Why should he be, particularly? He honestly imagined he’d met the fellow. He was mistaken, but he was rationalizing his lapse of memory.’
‘One day, you know, someone’s going to stumble on to the truth about my husband.’
‘But why?’
‘People are naturally curious.’
‘They’re also naturally lazy. They never put themselves out to discover things of little immediate importance to themselves.’
‘I only hope you’re right, Cedric.’
‘I generally am in my assessment of human nature. Because I always expect it to operate at its basest.’
She shut the magazine and slipped it in a bedside drawer. ‘But what do you imagine they think at the hospital of our being together here? Particularly now I’m not even keeping up the pretence of living in the flat.’
‘They’ll think what they’ve always thought. After all, we’re both highly attractive. A lot of people would like to find themselves in bed with either of us. Or with both of us, perhaps.’
‘Who would? Sir Lancelot?’
They laughed. ‘How do you like that next-door bedroom, Gissie?’
‘Everything pink, rounded, and soft… I’ve always thought it utterly womblike.’
‘What do you think of this one?’
‘Virginal.’
‘The white…a pleasant association of ideas.’ He ran his hand softly up her arm. ‘What about this new Scots oddbody we’ve acquired?’
‘She’ll do the cooking, which I loathed and was anyway hopeless at.’
‘Do you suppose she’ll assume we sleep together?’
‘She does already, from what I know of our neighbours.’
‘Yes, they’re a vinegary lot of gossips. But all neighbours hate each other, according to Freud. I know Jesus was inclined to an opposite view, but I’m more ready to accept a qualified opinion.’ He paused. ‘Then if she thinks we sleep together…why don’t we?’
She stared at him reproachfully. ‘Oh, Cedric…’
‘Why do you sound so hurt?’
‘I couldn’t do that. No, I couldn’t.’
‘You know I’ve wanted you to, don’t you? Often. However hard I’ve tried to keep it to myself.’
She nodded, dropping her eyes. ‘Of course I’ve noticed how you’ve looked at me sometimes, at night.’
‘My eyes filled with good healthy lust? Well, Gissie, what’s wrong with that? A sound, well-established psychological reaction at finding yourself alone with a beautiful, charming and incredibly sexy female.’
‘Please don’t go on, Cedric. Talk of anything else about us, but not that in particular.’
He put his hands on her shoulders, slowly drawing her to him. ‘You do know exactly how I feel, don’
t you? I say “exactly” advisedly. Because I know you feel the same, the precise same, towards me. That’s right, isn’t it?’
She put her head back, her eyes closed.
‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ he repeated.
She nodded almost imperceptibly. He held her tightly. They kissed, with a passion untapped in their casual embraces round the house.
‘But I won’t rape you.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘Nor even seduce you, which would be less exciting but quieter. I shan’t even mention the idea again – unless you do.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘You’re quite a little prude at heart, aren’t you?’
‘Do you have to torment me about it as well?’
‘I’m sorry. Perhaps I was a little surprised at you, after all this time. We shall go on our happy little ways, exactly as before. I can control myself. I am balanced. I see my own mind with a professional eye. I sometimes think that psychiatry really cures very few patients, but is incredibly good treatment for the psychiatrists.’
She looked at him imploringly. ‘You’re not cross with me, are you?’
‘Not a bit. I must now go and put a final note on old Sir Lancelot’s file while I remember. I seem to have cured him – I hope not too successfully. He might become hooked on cats, and go round the district stealing them. That could cause a great deal of embarrassment at the hospital.’ Dr Bonaccord paused at the bedroom door. ‘That dream of his – banging nails into ebony. I mean… phew!’
16
‘Odd,’ mused the dean. ‘Distinctly odd.’ He was staring through the front downstairs window of No 2, towards seven-thirty that evening. The door was open leading to the small inner dining-room, where he could hear his wife putting final touches to the dinner-table.
‘What’s odd?’ she called.
‘Another one. Just gone past the end of the street. Odd.’
‘Another what, dear?’
‘Pregnant woman. Do you know, until this morning I never seemed to set eyes on an expectant mother from one year’s end to the other. Now they’re suddenly all over the place. I swear I bumped into half a dozen when I stepped out to buy some books this afternoon. As for St Swithin’s, the place seems one enormous antenatal clinic. I remember, I noticed exactly the same when you were having George and Muriel. Perhaps I ought to have a word with Bonaccord about it.’
Doctor On The Brain Page 10