‘No, no!’ Gregor protested, attempting to rise.
The dentist was powerfully built. He placed a restraining hand on Gregor’s chest. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It’s futile to struggle, Mr Cruikshank.’
‘But my name’s not Cruikshank!’ cried Gregor. ‘It’s Meiklejohn. You’ve got the wrong man.’
The dentist began to laugh. ‘So sorry,’ he said. ‘My little joke. I overheard Maureen earlier. You’re quite right, you’re just in for a check-up.’
Although Gregor felt that the dentist had been somewhat less than professional, he allowed himself to subside in the chair again. He stared hard, trying to locate the dentist’s face in the filing cabinet of his memory.
‘Still,’ said the dentist, ‘you never know what we might find. It might just be my lucky day, eh?’
Gregor’s jaw swung open automatically at the approach of the dentist’s hand, which held a sharp and shining implement. The hand began to poke and scrape around his mouth with it.
‘Hmm,’ said the dentist. It was an indeterminate noise. It might mean good news. Or bad.
‘It would be terrible, wouldn’t it,’ said the dentist, ‘if I really had thought you were Mr Cruikshank and taken all your teeth out. A case of mistaken dentistry, that would be. Ha ha! Mistaken dentistry, I like that!’
‘Uh ihuh hui’hang,’ Gregor began. The dentist obligingly removed the implement. ‘But Mr Cruikshank,’ Gregor repeated, ‘would presumably object to not having all his teeth out.’ It was a weak argument. They both knew it.
‘Wash your mouth out, please,’ said the dentist. ‘He might, but by then it would be too late for you, wouldn’t it? But you’re right, he might object – if he existed. He doesn’t. Ha ha! No, not at all. Just a figment of my imagination. And of Maureen’s, of course. Open.’
It was another five minutes before the dentist declared himself satisfied with the state of Gregor’s incisors, grinders and molars. During that time they discussed, with the dentist for obvious reasons having the better part of the conversation, the nature of power and control in human relationships.
‘I was reading something the other day,’ the dentist said, ‘in one of our professional journals, about a series of psychological experiments that were conducted in America back in the 1960s. People were persuaded to subject other people to progressively louder and longer bursts of, what’s that stuff you hear on the television? Canned laughter, that’s the stuff. Always makes me think of Popeye and spinach. Anyway, this canned laughter was delivered through a specially designed television monitor on which these people were watching a totally inane sitcom. Situation comedy,’ the dentist explained helpfully. ‘They’d been told that the experiment was about measuring the effects of peer group pressure on stupid viewers, but in fact, according to this article I was reading, the idea was to see how far people would go in inflicting mindless television on others if they were told that they would not be held responsible if anything went wrong. Hold still now. Do you wish to spit?’
‘Hhn,’ Gregor said.
‘Well, anyway, first, an individual, who was designated the “teacher”, helped to settle the “learner” into an armchair in front of the television monitor. Then the “teacher” went into an adjoining room, separated from the “learner” by a screen, and a pre-recorded sitcom was played on the monitor. Nothing much wrong here,’ the dentist said, moving on to Gregor’s lower teeth. ‘Each supposedly funny line or piece of slapstick was accompanied by canned laughter. Regardless of the reaction of the “learner”, the “teacher” would increase the level of canned laughter by some electronic gadget. And here’s the fascinating bit. Invariably, the “learner”, even if not amused by the show to begin with, “learned” to join in the laughter issuing from the television. With each successively less funny joke the laughter became more prolonged and riotous, and the “learner” too laughed harder, though without, apparently, knowing why. What do you make of that, eh?’
‘Uh-ay-ing,’ Gregor said.
‘Yes, isn’t it? Although the “learner” couldn’t be seen by the “teacher”, he or she could be heard all right, oh yes, giving first a grunt or perhaps a momentary giggle, then chortling, chuckling and eventually howling with desperate shrieks of hilarity. Yes, howling! Oh, I forgot, there was a “controller” present, who assured the “teacher” that they took total responsibility for the experiment. Most of those taken on as “teachers” carried out their instructions fully, although not without considerable stress. Mental anguish, even. The “controller”, of course, remained completely calm and dispassionate. That’s what controllers do. Sometimes, the “controller” would insist that the canned laughter level be increased, even though no joke had been made. In fact, there was no obvious relation between the funniness of the sitcom and the application of the canned laughter. Personally I don’t find much of what’s on television at all funny, but this was a long time ago. Anyway, the only real connection, because the whole thing was a set-up, was between the “teacher” operating the laughter mechanism and the “controller” – the one following the instructions of the other. Some people were so obedient that they administered enough canned laughter to cause their “learner” to collapse on the floor. Sometimes the “learner” had a, you know, accident. There were one or two heart attacks, even some temporary brain damage. So the article said. Not that one should believe everything one reads in dental journals. The “teachers” would continue to operate the lever even while clutching their heads and saying, “Oh God, please, let’s stop it, can’t we stop it?”’
The dentist had become quite animated, in fact he was almost shouting, and Gregor was relieved when he finally removed his instruments and stood back.
‘It’s amazing,’ the dentist said, ‘what some people will allow themselves to be put through. They’ll trust some smiling person in authority before their own instincts. How do they know this person has any qualifications or expertise? Of course they weren’t really administering canned laughter, it was all faked, and the “learners” were acting. At least, that’s what we’re told. Do you floss?’
‘No,’ said Gregor. ‘It hurts.’
‘Of course it hurts. It’s a virtuous activity. But it stops all those little bits of meat and things getting stuck between your teeth.’
‘I’m a vegetarian,’ said Gregor, even though this wasn’t true.
‘Little bits of broccoli, then,’ the dentist said testily. ‘Or lettuce or bean sprouts or whatever it is you people eat. Canned spinach.’ He pushed a button. The chair jerked upright and Gregor got to his feet. ‘Off you go then,’ the dentist said.
Maureen the receptionist charged Gregor ten pounds for having healthy teeth, and asked if he would like a card sent to him in six months, to remind him to make another appointment. Gregor said he would think about it. As he staggered out onto the street he could hear her cheerful voice addressing another man in the waiting room. ‘Mr Hitchcock?’ He covered his ears with his hands and hurried away.
In a café across the street he ran his tongue carefully round his teeth, checking for anything unusual. He didn’t altogether trust the dentist, who he feared might have left some equipment in his mouth.
He had not seen the waitress before. She was lovely. The tables were full of women discussing Coronation Street and a new game show on BBC Nine called Whose Genitals?, which Gregor made a mental note to watch the following week. He observed the lovely waitress moving among the women, serving them cups of coffee, scones, sandwiches and pots of tea. From the feet up, which was the order in which he inspected her, she had on clumpy-heeled shoes, black tights, a short black skirt and a red shirt. A wee black apron too. Her skin was pale and unblemished but she had a stud in her nose. Glittering silver fish were attached by hooks to her ears. Her brown hair was cut in a bob and when she moved the overhead light was reflected in its sheen.
She came over to his table, and he asked for a coffee and a rock cake. She wrote this down on her pad. At least, she wrote
something down on her pad, he couldn’t see what. I hate my job, or check out the guy at table 5, or a witty little haiku about bungee-jumping, it might be anything.
‘I see you’ve caught a couple of nice salmon,’ he said. ‘Or are they trout?’
She looked at him blankly until he flicked his own ear lobes. Then she laughed for about half a second.
‘Do you ever,’ he asked, ‘do you ever get the feeling that you’re not really in the real world, you’re in a kind of bubble, and everybody else is just play-acting around you? Do you ever feel like that?’
She did not reply, but gave him a nervous smile and hurried off, scribbling on her pad. Probably lunatic at table 5, phone police. No, she wouldn’t do that. She would recognise his loneliness, his feelings of inadequacy, his sense that life was not quite what it seemed. Not at all what it seemed, in fact. She looked like the understanding type. Mind you, you couldn’t tell these days. He’d heard of women – lovely, kind women just like her – who took off their wedding rings and went to Ibiza for a week to get as much sex with total strangers as they possibly could while their husbands were away on the oil rigs. That’s what they did, the little minxes. Oh, he hoped so, he hoped so. He was going straight to the travel agent as soon as he’d had his coffee.
She brought him what he’d ordered and a piece of paper folded over, smiled uncertainly again and went back to the kitchen. He carefully unfolded the paper. On it was written, 1c, 1ck.
He scalded his mouth drinking the coffee too fast and when he bit into the cake there was an unpleasant crunching sensation. He removed a small stone chip from his mouth, and a splinter of tooth. He decided not to eat the rest of the cake.
He waited till the coffee had cooled down, took a large mouthful and swilled it round his teeth, then spat it back into the cup. Two ladies at the next table stopped talking, then quickly started again.
He went up to the cash register and the waitress came and took the paper from him. ‘Liclick,’ he said. It sounded obscene. The waitress looked at him in horror. ‘Liclick,’ he repeated. ‘It’s what it says on the bill, look. Table 5.’
‘Those are ones,’ she said, ‘not Ls. One coffee, one cake.’
‘I didn’t eat much of the cake,’ he said. ‘And I put most of the coffee back. But don’t worry, I’m not going to make a fuss.’
She grabbed the ten-pound note he proffered and gave him his change.
‘Do you know if there’s a good dentist near here?’ he asked.
She looked as if she was about to scream for help, then she half-turned and pointed across the street.
‘There’s a dentist over there,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know if he’s any good.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said. ‘But thanks anyway.’
When he got home he looked in the bathroom mirror for a long time, trying to watch himself age. He wondered if women found him as frightening as he found them. He had not, of course, gone to the travel agent. Nor had he gone for a haircut, which he sometimes did when he felt a need to have his head massaged by a nice young woman. They usually asked if he was on holiday, just because he was a man getting his hair cut on a weekday afternoon. He usually said yes, he was, he worked on the oil rigs and was on shore leave. It was easier than telling the truth, which was that he hated his place of employment and often invented reasons not to be there. He worked in a department of local government which processed small but vital bits of information about road and footpath repairs, and this, he had noticed over the years, seemed to happen whether he was at his desk or not.
He and his wife Jane watched five hours of television that night, which was about average for them. Exactly average, in fact. Six till eleven, oven-ready meals on laps, then Jane went for her bath. Among the programmes they watched were two soap operas, a wildlife documentary, a repeat of a 1970s sitcom, a game show and a fly-on-the-wall programme about some people who were locked up in a house for nine weeks while the rest of the country observed them on television and through their computers. You could see them picking their noses, having baths, lying in the garden, cooking their tea, reading comics and arguing. Every week somebody got voted out of the house by the viewers. The last person left would win enough money to get plastic surgery so they wouldn’t be recognised by anyone ever again.
Gregor Meiklejohn quite fancied getting plastic surgery. He would quite like to change his name, occupation, appearance, maybe even his sex, and start all over again. He would like to be a virtual news presenter or a game show contestant, or just a person in a game show audience. Anybody but Gregor Meiklejohn. That was why he did the lottery every week. So did Jane. They did their own numbers and if either of them won the jackpot they would share the winnings, split down the middle, half and half. After that they’d be on their own. First stop Ibiza for him. They’d agreed this verbally but Gregor wondered if they ought to write it down as a binding contract. He didn’t altogether trust Jane, especially when she went away on holiday with her sister, as she sometimes did.
He thought, when did life stop being real? Was it when he and Jane stopped going to the pub? Or having conversations? Or sex? Was it at the last general election, and if so would there be a chance to vote for something different at the next one? Not that he knew anything about politics. Or economics, for that matter, or science, or art, or culture, any of that highbrow stuff. Or religion. When did everybody stop believing in God and start believing in the six balls with numbers on them? And when did they stop believing in the six balls? Plus the bonus ball. And what about humanity and trust – when did that all come to an end? And people not knowing who they were? And, Gregor thought, have I always been this lonely?
Oh dear. Now he was feeling sorry for himself. Jane had gone to bed and he would wait till she was asleep before he crept in beside her. He’d have no one to talk to. Not that he talked to Jane anymore. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He did not floss. He stood in front of the mirror, trying to watch himself age. He couldn’t remember if he looked the same as he had earlier. He tried to fix the image of himself in his head so that he could compare it with what he would see in the mirror in the morning. Hopeless. He ran his tongue round his teeth and found a rough bit which hadn’t been there when he got up. The rock cake incident. He would have to make a dental appointment. Great. If he phoned early and said it was an emergency they might fit him in the same day. Then he could take the afternoon off work. If he did that he could get his hair cut too.
Old Mortality
‘Are you cold?’ Alec asked. ‘You mustn’t get a chill.’
‘I’m all right,’ Liz said. ‘It was just a shiver. You know, one of those shivers? Just standing here in front of this … this bloody great stone. Your family.’
‘They’re not as bad as all that,’ he said.
‘It scares me, though,’ she said, ‘and that’s the truth. I mean, when I think about everything. What we’re going to do. And then here’s this thing that represents generations of your family and there’s nothing on it. Absolutely nothing.’
‘Well, I hope you weren’t expecting some big message,’ he said. ‘You’re right, there is nothing. It’s a lovely place, that’s all. No mystery, no revelation. I just wanted to show it to you.’
‘But there are people here,’ she said. ‘Can’t you feel them?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just a graveyard, sweetheart.’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ she said. She reached for his hand. ‘There has to be.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘this is it. A field full of bones. This is where everybody ends up.’
She shivered again, although there was still warmth in the air. ‘I think we’re being watched,’ she said.
‘What?’ He glanced round. ‘Who by?’
‘I don’t know. I just feel it.’
He tried not to laugh. When Liz came out with things like this, which she’d been doing a lot lately, it made him uneasy. It was amusing, but he felt it could get out of hand a
nd then it wouldn’t be funny at all. But also it made him feel manly, sensible, down-to-earth. It sent a wave of love rushing through him. He would have been embarrassed, though, if anyone else had heard her.
They had been visiting his parents for the weekend. They didn’t go very often: work and other commitments left them with little time or energy to make the journey north, and there was also the fact that Liz felt intimidated by Alec’s mother. But there’d been a particular reason for making this trip: to tell them about the baby they were expecting. They weren’t married, and Liz had anticipated a fuss, an argument about ‘doing the right thing’. In fact, all had gone well. Alec’s mother had seemed genuinely pleased about becoming a grandmother. Liz felt that perhaps a turning point in the relationship had been reached.
Then on the way back south Alec had turned off the main road in order to introduce Liz to his ancestors. He’d never taken her there before. The place was a ruined church with an ancient burial ground, right on the edge of the firth. To get to it you left the dual carriageway and followed a single-track road down to the water. There were fine old trees, beech and ash, and a big house, with three cars in the drive, that had presumably once been the manse. Through an iron kissing-gate was the roofless church, surrounded by old gravestones and tablets set at odd angles like wreckage bobbing in a green sea. The kirk’s west gable-end rose to a small belfry which would once have housed a single monotonous summoning bell. A sign at the boarded up door warned of the danger of falling masonry.
The gravestones were thick with moss, their inscriptions faded and often indecipherable. There was the usual assortment of symbols found in old Scottish kirkyards: urns, skulls, bones, shrouds. Towards the water was a section filled with more recent stones, polished ones from the fifties and sixties that seemed out of place, as if they had been transferred from another cemetery. Between the boundary dyke and the sea a few sheep were grazing a strip of rough pasture. It was early evening in October. The grass was thick and springy, and there was birdsong among the stones and in the great trees shading the parking area. It was, Alec thought, all very peaceful.
Republics of the Mind Page 18