by Graham Joyce
“You will. You will when you’ve heard what I’ve got to say.”
“Try me. I’ve heard some good ones in my time, kiddo.”
So she told him about the bluebell woods, and the man on the white horse, and the gallop through the twilight, and the return home. Underwood listened attentively without a single interruption, making notes occasionally, mostly peering at her with steely blue eyes, only occasionally drawing on his cigar, and then pursing his lips to release miraculously thin streams of blue smoke.
When she’d finished he laid down his pad and his pen and said, “That’s an impressive one.”
“You can say I’m crazy now.”
“Okay, you’re crazy. Consider it said. Now can we move on and do things my way? Right. I’ve only had two of these abduction cases in my long career, and one of those was a UFO abduction. Neither of these went on for your rather spectacular twenty years.”
“Did you believe them?”
“Who?”
“The two people who had been abducted.”
“One yes, one no. In one egregious case the individual in question was just afraid to tell his wife where he’d been for three days. In the other case, which was many years ago, I believe it was genuine. Let me complicate that remark: that is to say, Tara, that I believed that the subject believed her own story.”
“And me?”
“My instincts are that you believe your own story, yes. But just as a kind of exercise, could you let me outline a few logical possibles?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want to put a few explanations to you, just to see how you respond to an argument.”
“Is this a kind of game?”
“Maybe. But a serious game. Like chess. Will you humor me?”
Tara sighed. “Go ahead.”
Underwood held up a hand, fingers splayed, and counted his logical possibles on his fingers.
“One, if we can deal with it first, is the obvious chance that you are lying for complicated reasons of your own.
“Two is that you are a partial amnesiac. You left home a long time ago and you have—for reasons unknown—blanked out twenty years of your life.
“Three, you have received a trauma of some kind and your damaged brain is now desperately trying to construct a story for yourself to logically explain what has happened to you.
“Four, there are family or psychological reasons why the truth of what happened is so unacceptable to you that your psyche cannot accommodate it and you are passionately lying to yourself.
“Five, you are, for want of a better word, schizoid, and therefore delusional in your apprehension of time and your experiences.”
He went back to the beginning of his counting fingers, tapping away as if he had one more, looking at Tara.
“Is there a number six?”
“Yes. Number six is that events took place exactly as you described.”
“Well,” Tara said. “Thanks at least for number six.”
“There are many more scenarios, but will you continue to play with me for the moment?”
Tara shrugged.
“I want you to entertain the notion that all of these six possibles have equal value. That is, can you for the moment accept that any one of these six reasons might explain what happened? And that none of them is more or less likely than any of the others?”
Tara furrowed her brow. She thought for a moment. “Yes, I can accept that idea.”
Underwood sat back. “Your response there is rather bad news, young lady. Bad news because it indicates to me at least—though not everyone would accept the validity of my test—that you are rather sane.”
“Rather sane? And that’s bad news?”
“Yes. If you had indicated a pathological need to advance the value of your story above the others then I could have gone to work on you in a different way. But now I know I’m dealing with a rather sane person, my work is much more complicated.”
“I don’t understand you, but I like you,” Tara said.
“Don’t try to charm me. I’m like a bear in the woods, uncharmable. Now, then, I’m going to conduct a physical examination. Blood pressure and so on. You okay with that?”
“Yes,” Tara said, still smarting from his retort.
“Right, roll up your sleeve.”
He performed a basic health check on Tara. He measured her blood pressure, her weight and height, he examined her respiratory system, and he asked if he could take a blood sample for a cholesterol test. He put his hand on her belly and he looked in her ears.
“All good,” he said. “Can you go down to the lady who let you in, Mrs. Hargreaves? Can you tell her to book you in to see me after my last appointment tomorrow afternoon? And can you tell her that I want a urine test? Then wait with Mrs. Hargreaves, would you? One more thing: send your brother back in. He’ll want to know what’s going on.”
Tara went down to find Mrs. Hargreaves, and after a moment Peter reappeared.
“Come in and close the door,” Underwood said. He beckoned for Peter to sit on the sofa but chose not to sit down with him. Instead he stood over Peter with his arms folded. “Anything I tell the brother is not to be repeated to the sister, understood?”
Peter had to resist the temptation to look around the room to see if Underwood was referring to someone else. Then he said, “Sure.”
“Not at all. Nothing is discussed.”
“I hear you.”
“I wouldn’t tell you anything, but you’ll only feel cross and excluded. How old is your sister?”
“She’s thirty-six. I know she doesn’t look it, but she is. Thirty-six.”
“A question that might sound odd but I have to get it out of the way: you are absolutely certain this is your sister?”
“Absolutely.”
“It couldn’t be an impostor, someone who looks like her?”
“There’s not a chance of that.”
“Okay. I think you understand I had to ask you that. Just to get that possibility out of the way. Now, from talking to her, from listening to her thought patterns and her words and observing her body language, there is not the first hint that there is anything at all wrong with her.”
“Except that she thinks she’s been living with the fairies for twenty years.”
“Correction: she thinks she’s been living with the fairies for six months.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Huge difference. The point is, at this early stage I can’t diagnose. She’s showing no sign of initial schizophrenic or paranoid or depressive behavior. In fact, she presents as very healthy, with no outward indicators of even a mild neurosis, though I would readily admit that some patients are very good at masking their symptoms. I am absolutely opposed to medication at this point in my assessment. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“Yet she has this delusion.”
“I’ll say she does.”
“Yes, I want you to say she does. Are you religious? Do you believe in God?”
“No.”
“Me neither. I happen to think that all people who believe in God are delusional. I just don’t think it’s a bad thing. Let’s say that they are constructing a delusion in a positive and useful way, in a way that helps them in life. For the moment I want you to see what Tara is doing in the same way. She is constructing a useful delusion.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
“Would you waste your time being angry or arguing every minute of the day with someone who has chosen to believe in God? No. I want you to adopt the same behavior with Tara as you would with such a person. I want you to tell your parents to do the same thing. For the time being.”
Underwood asked Peter if he would bring her to see him again the following evening, and Peter was about to say he would when the telephone rang. Underwood walked over to his desk and picked up the phone.
“Hello, Mrs. Hargreaves. Thank you. Yes.” He listened, and he fixed Peter with his gaze
as he listened. “Very good. Thank you once again, Mrs. Hargreaves.”
He put the phone down and came back to stand over Peter. “They’re all done down there. She’s ready to go. Bring her to me again tomorrow and we’ll pop her back in the oven.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Why have I got to do it?” Jack was red in the face.
“You haven’t got to do it, but you are going to do it,” Peter said.
“Why?”
“Why bloody why? Why has everything got to be why?” Peter had a good relationship with Jack. The boy had hit the teenage years and Peter had let him assert himself here and there: kids weren’t like horseshoes, you didn’t shape them over an anvil. But he wasn’t about to surrender all discipline, and sometimes he felt he’d been too lax as a father. Genevieve had once said he’d been tougher on his daughters than he had on his son. He hoped that he hadn’t stored up trouble for later, and he thought he needed to stay on top of things now.
“She’s an old woman, living alone. She’s got no one around to look out for her.”
“If you’re so concerned about her, why don’t you do it?”
“Let’s think about that, shall we? Maybe my time is taken up with hammering iron to pull in a few quid so that you can have air rifles and computers and Xboxes and iPhones and what the hell else?”
“Fine!”
“It’s called being kind, Jack. Being kind. You just go over there, knock on the door, get a picture of her tabby, and run off a few leaflets. What’s the big deal?”
Jack’s face changed from red to puce. His eyes became narrow slits. “I said I’d do it!” he bellowed, and rocketed out of the front door; and he would have slammed the door theatrically but the swollen wood stuck in the frame, denying him that most satisfying of sound effects.
Genevieve appeared behind him. “Oh, you’re back. When you’re done with parenting that tantrum, Josie is also having a pretty big one in the living room. Something to do with who owns the TV. How did it go with the shrink?”
THE SHRINK, PETER TOLD Genevieve a short while later, had a funny way of making you feel like you were five years old. Neither Peter nor Genevieve had seen a real shrink before: not up close, anyway. But Peter was pretty certain they didn’t look much like this one, in his braided smoking jacket, puffing on a thin cigar. He was, Peter thought, like something from another era. Not twenty-first-century, anyway. Possibly not even twentieth century. He just hoped that Underwood’s techniques were more up to date.
Genevieve wanted to know if Underwood was going to blame it all on the family: things Dell and Mary did wrong. Peter shrugged and said probably, but they agreed that the fact that he hadn’t already plied Tara with medication was a good sign. Maybe.
Peter told his wife she would have a chance to meet Vivian Underwood herself the following evening. He had to get back to work, bend a few horseshoes, make some money. He had appointments to keep.
“Vivian? Isn’t that a girl’s name?” When Peter didn’t reply Genevieve said she would take Tara, and that Zoe would be under instructions to look after the children.
“Speak of the devil,” Genevieve said, as Zoe swung into the kitchen. “I need you to look after the kids tomorrow afternoon.”
Zoe looked at the ceiling. “God! Do I have to?”
“Yep,” Genevieve said with a sweet smile. “You have to.”
“WHO IS IT?”
“It’s Jack. Jack from across the road.”
Jack waited. He heard the whisper of a bolt drawn back, and then a second bolt. Then he heard the tinkling of a loosened chain. A tiny face peered back at him, elderly but elfin, and topped off with a short helmet of gleaming silver hair. A pair of blue cataracted eyes blinked.
“My dad said I should come about the cat. Your cat.”
“Have you found him?”
“No. My dad said get a photo. He said you had a photo. Of your cat. So we can do some … leaflets.”
“Oh, yes! He did! Come in!”
Jack would rather have waited outside but the old woman held the door for him so that he felt compelled to step into her narrow hallway. She closed the door and beckoned for him to follow. Jack winced.
Her living room was tidy but faded. The walls were papered with a flocked design that might have been fashionable forty years ago. Heavy velour drapes and net curtains held the outside world at bay with a mesh of fabric and dust. To Jack it seemed like the house was infused with the smell of the old lady: not a bad smell but an antique smell.
“Sit down,” she said. “While I see what I can find.”
This was exactly what Jack didn’t want. He’d hoped to stand at the door, grab a photo, and make a speedy withdrawal. But here he was, perched on the very edge of an armchair with no possibility of the smart exit.
The old lady came back with a plate, on which was a slice of dubious-looking ginger cake. She offered the plate to him.
“It’s all right,” said Jack.
“What’s all right?”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
“Oh, you go ahead. I know what boys like.” She thrust the cake at him. He had little choice but to take it. “Cake. And lemon soda. I have some lemon soda somewhere, if I can find it. I know what boys like.” And she went back to her kitchen in search of more of what boys like.
Jack looked at the cake. He wasn’t at all sure he was prepared to risk it. He wasn’t at all confident about what was in it. What if she knew? What if she knew all along what he had done to her cat? Maybe she was just pretending to be friendly. Faking it.
Mrs. Larwood returned with a glass of lemon soda, and even before she handed it to him he could see it was flat. He guessed that the bottle had been in her cupboard untouched for three or four years. And now he was going to have to eat the suspect cake and drink the flat lemon soda.
The old lady stood over him, smiling, stroking the backs of her hands, one over the other.
He bit into the ginger cake.
“I baked that,” she said.
“Cool,” said Jack. He allowed a few crumbs to fall into his mouth. He felt stupid saying “cool.” For one thing, no one said “cool” anymore. For another thing, he knew that no one of Mrs. Larwood’s generation said “cool,” either.
“Don’t forget your lemon soda,” she said.
It occurred to Jack that maybe Mrs. Larwood was a tiny bit too interested in seeing him eat the cake and drink the lemon soda. Standing over him like that. Making certain it all went down. His younger sisters talked about her as if she were a witch. Maybe she was. He wondered again what was in the cake. There was something sharp and unsavory in that cake. It wasn’t just ginger. Maybe she did know exactly what had happened with the cat and she’d been waiting for the opportunity to get him over here. Maybe the cake was poisoned in some way. Or maybe the lemon soda was not lemon soda at all: maybe it was a potion.
He lifted the lemon soda to his lips, took a miraculously tiny sip. It tasted like lemon soda: flat, but still like lemon soda. He tried to make an exaggerated swallowing motion. His Adam’s apple felt like a stone in his throat.
Mrs. Larwood smiled at him. “I’ll get that photo,” she said, turning and leaving him sitting alone in her parlor.
After a few moments she came back with a photo. Jack stood up rather quickly and took the photo from her outstretched hand. He didn’t look at it, didn’t want to look at it. “Right. I’ll do it,” he said, already inching toward the door.
“What will you do?” she wanted to know.
“Scan it. Print it out. Leaflets. On my computer.”
Mrs. Larwood pressed her hands to her face, as if she’d just experienced a hot flash. “I’ll tell you a secret.”
Jack blinked. He looked at the door.
“I’m ninety-two years of age and I have a secret.”
>
Jack nodded and felt his Adam’s apple bob again in his throat as he swallowed.
“Come with me. Come on.”
Jack didn’t want to follow, but he couldn’t see how he could resist her command. He followed her through to her back room. There, under a gate-legged table, was a large cardboard box.
“Look in there,” Mrs. Larwood said.
Jack hesitated.
“Go on!”
He reached down and lifted the lid of the cardboard box, very slowly, as if an animal—maybe a dead cat somehow resurrected, a zombie cat—might leap out of the box at him, claws extended. But there was no zombie cat. There, instead, still in its factory Styrofoam packaging, was a computer, a monitor, and a printer.
He looked back at the old woman, confused.
“Yes. I’m ninety-two. And I’m going to go on to the Internet. Yes, I am. I’m told it’s like another world.”
Her “secret” having been revealed, Jack relaxed slightly. “How long has it been in its box?”
“Six months. I’m a little bit afraid to take it out. I bought it and I don’t really know what to do with it.”
“Oh.”
“I’m waiting for someone who knows what they’re doing with these things. Is that an exciting secret?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I’d better take this photo and scan it before I’ll do it. I’ll go now.”
Jack turned and headed for the door. Mrs. Larwood followed, smiling and making clucking noises of gratitude. She told Jack what a sweet, kind boy he was for helping her in the business of finding her cat. Her cat, she assured him, was her best friend in the world.
She opened the door for him. He crossed the threshold, and against all his instincts, he heard himself say, “The computer. I can set it up for you. One day. I can set it up. If you want.”
“Oh, I’d love that! I’d love you to set it up! There was a man coming to do it for me but he didn’t come. He wanted fifty pounds to set it up. If you do it you can have the fifty pounds.”
“No,” Jack said. “No. I’ll just do it.”
Mrs. Larwood’s hands flew to her face again. “Oh, you’re so kind—you and your father, both the same! So kind!”
Jack looked at her cataracted eyes. They were swimming with gratitude and it made him feel queasy. “I have to go now.”