(1998) Denial (13 page)

If not, in what ways are you un happy?

Do you live in a bedsit flat or house etc?

Is it your own or is it rented from the council or a private
landlord?

Who else lives at home? (please list the people)

What is your current problem (s) that you want to
solve?

What prompted you to seek help now?

Michael turned over the pages. With the exception of the first few lines, nothing else had been filled in. In his letter of referral, Sundaralingham had already mentioned that Goel was a scientist rather than a doctor of medicine.

‘Prisms.’

He looked up with a start, wondering if he had misheard his new patient. ‘Prisms?’

‘Do you have prisms in your glasses, Dr Tennent?’

Surprised by the question, he said, ‘I do, yes,’ then added, quizzically, ‘Why?’

Michael studied his patient carefully, checking for signs that the man was agitated or guarded, suspicious or distracted, but Terence Goel seemed none of these.

Making firm eye-contact with Michael, he was lounging back on the sofa, legs apart, feet squarely on the floor, arms spread out either side of him. A little
too
relaxed, perhaps, Michael wondered, as if being here in this office was boosting his confidence. That happened frequently, just the same as someone going into a doctor’s surgery and immediately feeling better.

Goel had it all going for him in the looks department, Michael thought. Handsome, impressively tall, great physique. With his gelled hair, collarless grey shirt, classy charcoal linen suit and black suede Gucci loafers, he looked almost self-consciously hip, like some technology guru togged up for a media interview.

On first impressions, he seemed genial and far more self-assured than most people who came in here. His voice had a deep, assertive punch. Boston, Michael guessed, although his knowledge of American accents was limited. The only
slight incongruity was the clipboard with an attached notepad, which Goel had brought in and now rested on the sofa beside him. He didn’t seem like a man who would carry around a clipboard. Neither did he seem like an archetypal scientist – although there was a breed of gung-ho professors that the US specialised in producing and this was clearly one of them.

‘Even without glasses, we look at a lot of things through prisms, Dr Tennent. We don’t realise that, but we do. Do you ever look at the stars?’

Michael wasn’t sure where this was going, but stayed with it. ‘Yes, sometimes.’

‘You understand why they twinkle?’

‘I don’t know the scientific explanation, no. I assume it’s to do with their distance from us.’

‘It has nothing to do with their distance from us. It has to do with moisture in the atmosphere. We can only ever look up at the stars through moisture. Each droplet distorts, makes a prism. We look at the stars in the night sky through billions and billions of prisms.’

There was a calmness in Terence Goel’s voice, as he delivered his explanation, and that gave Michael his first insight into his patient. It was an emotionless calm, an artificial one, as if the man was exerting supreme control to present himself as something other than he was.

‘Thank you,’ Michael said. ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’ Then he added, good-humouredly, ‘I’ll take a look up at the sky tonight with new eyes.’

‘How often in life do we have the illusion that we are seeing things clearly, Dr Tennent, when in reality we are not.’

‘Is this something you find is a big problem in your life?’

‘It’s a big problem for everybody.’

Michael glanced back down at the questionnaire, then looked up again, wanting to move the session forward. ‘You don’t seem to have filled in much of this questionnaire.’

‘You noticed that?’

There was such surprise in Goel’s voice that Michael couldn’t be sure whether it was genuine.

‘Yes. Were you uncomfortable with the form?’

‘No.’ Goel gave him a warm, disarming smile.

Michael continued to watch him closely, but his body language was giving up no secrets. He decided to move on. ‘Right. Terence. I’d like you to tell me a bit about why you want to see me.’

‘Is that your Volvo outside? The silver grey one?’

Michael paused for a moment before responding, not wanting to waste time on non sequiturs. ‘Yes,’ he said dismissively. ‘Can we get back to what it is you want to see me about?’