Cards of Identity (9 page)

At this point Dr Towzer, whose eyes had been glistening for some time, gave a loud shriek and fell with a crash against the back of the chair.

‘My dear,
what
a diagnosis!’ exclaimed the captain admiringly, hurrying forward and laying his fingers on the doctor’s pulse. ‘A veritable
bonfire;
I felt quite trembly myself.’ He laid his lips close to the doctor’s nearest ear and said in a strong, curt voice: ‘Now, Towzer, we have had quite enough of your stoic tantrums! You have driven us too far. We are exasperated. It is time for you to reform. A fundamental change, please! Henceforth, sir, you will kindly regurgitate those senses, those fires, that you have so disgracefully swallowed down and banked. From now on, you will remember that it is
roses,
roses,
all
the
way.
Those two poignant names, Towzer and rose, are no longer poles apart. They are linked into one –
man conjoined once more with vegetable nature. Do you understand me, sir? In place of your repugnant stoutness, breeding such evil nonentity throughout the globe, you will set the most delicate responses to the queen of flowers. Assume and love her soft petals, Towzer; brush gently across her tender sides the soft fringe of your abundant beard; touch her soft lips, and never part. Oh, Towzer, reborn Towzer, take up a new spade in behalf of the rose – that apostle of peace, that loving fire in which steeled hearts first look soft as wax and then firm afresh in the substance of naked gold! All your road now, Towzer, till life’s very end, is beds of roses – roses dewy, roses dungy, roses sprayed with draughts of health-giving soap and nicotine:

‘And where do we put him while his beard’s growing?’ asked Mrs Mallet, stepping from the bed and smoothing down her wrinkled tweed.

‘In the Paradise cottage, my dear.’

‘I hope you can make him walk. Poor darling, we came just in time. Another month and he’d have been
carried
out.’

‘I am sure he will walk anywhere, provided it’s not in the direction of the surgery … Towzer, my man, do you feel at peace?’

‘I feel that with time and proper attention he may be on his way to it,’ replied the doctor.

‘Well, we have made sure that he will get all that. We are returning him to private practice. His intruder has gone for ever. He was not us. He was only a scoundrel who pretended to be.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘Yes. He leaves us to our roses. Let us move towards those roses. Let us stand up, take three steps back and turn to the right.’

‘To the right,’ groaned the doctor, sluggishly obeying.

Beaufort came in at that moment and said: ‘I say, you
have
been quick. He looks another man already. It’s a good thing, because I’ve got Tray and Finch downstairs.’

‘Then fetch my curved briar, the psychiatric one, and velvet smoking-jacket, like a good boy,’ said the captain, pushing Dr Towzer slowly to the door. ‘I’ll take Tray first, while I’m still fresh. And for
this
man, a shiny-bottomed pair of dark blue trousers –
not
corduroys, remember – some boots, a clean jacket, a shining watch-chain and a hat, with waistcoat and stiffish collar to match – and don’t get too clever by stuffing the pockets with tarred string, Old Moore, and foul handkerchiefs – true gardeners respect Nature far too much to be slovenly in her presence. You’ll find all you want in the big chest … Now, Towzer, march! Onward to rosy peace!’

‘To posy wreath!’ cried the doctor.

‘To union with the sluggish infinite!’

‘T’union!’

‘Tray is none too easy’ said Beaufort, as the procession moved slowly down the long corridor. ‘She was relieved, though, when she
saw Towzer’s car, and remarked with a giggle: “Now I know Dr Towzer really asked for me and I’ve not been abducted!”’

‘Vulgar little tart!’ said the captain. ‘I suppose you drove like mad, as usual.’

‘Well, yes, I did rather. Finch was in the back seat, you see, and I felt she would benefit from a terrific shaking. Tray said just the right thing to her: “Oh, you’re the person who doesn’t know who she is, aren’t you?” I then left Finch with Florrie, who also opened-up on exactly the right note: “Well, Miss Chinch, or whatever you are, I’ve been waiting to hear your name, or whatever it is, all the morning.” “It’s Finch,” said Tray, “It’s Chirk,” I said. We sounded like a trio of canaries.’

‘Well, hurry up and fetch those things for me,’ said the captain, impatiently fitting the doctor’s legs to the first steps of the back stairs.

‘Give him to me, dear,’ said Mrs Mallet.

‘Never swap horses while crossing a stream.’

‘But you are getting testy.’

‘I think I know my business, don’t I?’ cried the captain.

‘He was
my
business until a moment ago, unless I dreamt it all,’ said Mrs Mallet sharply.

‘My apologies,’ said the captain suddenly, propping the doctor against the wall and giving Mrs Mallet a ceremonious bow. ‘My head is so full of ideas, there’s no room for sense. Take him by all means. And Beaufort, after you have brought me those clothes, do just glance over the ones Jellicoe arrived in and see if they wouldn’t be just the thing for Tray.’

*

She was fidgeting in the breakfast-room when the captain swept in breezily, dressed in a frogged jacket and swinging a curved pipe between his teeth like a vane. ‘And what can I do for you, Miss Tray?’ he asked briskly.

‘Pardon?’

‘I said, what brings you here, my dear young lady – on what errand, to what end, to which entity? Though it is perfectly splendid to see you.’

‘I thought you said Tray.’

‘Miss
Tray, my dear,
Miss
Tray.’

‘But then I am not the one you want?’

‘Who is to say that? To be unwanted is no fate to impose upon a charming visitor.’

‘Oh, never mind who I am, then. Where’s the doctor, please?’

‘Doctor?’

‘The
doctor –
who wanted me.’

‘What doctor wanted you, my dear?’ asked the captain gently, reflectively pulling the pipe from his mouth and squinting at the nurse over the looping stem. ‘Is something the matter with someone?’ he inquired, moving a little closer to her.

‘Dr Towzer!’ she exclaimed. ‘He summoned me. There’s his car outside.’

‘We do have a Towzer here,’ he answered, puzzled; ‘but he never hinted that he was a doctor.’

‘Then why on earth did he come?’

‘For roses, of course. He has done so for years. Are you sure we are talking of the same Towzer?’

‘No, I am not. Though I do know the doctor likes roses. I have sometimes cut him some.’

Suddenly the captain waved his pipe in the air. ‘Dear me, I am very dense this morning!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have only just realized who you are and why you are here. Tell me, now, if I may start with a personal question: are you often in the mood of feeling wanted by doctors? You don’t have to answer, of course; I ask only as a psychiatrist.’

‘I think there must be some mistake,’ she answered, turning pale when she heard his last, forbidding word. ‘I am the nurse from the surgery.’

‘Why, of course! Had you thought yourself to be some other?’

‘Certainly not. Why should I?’

‘Oh, never mind. Let’s answer that another time.’ The captain replaced his pipe, swung it through a few arcs and then asked: ‘Who brought you here, may I ask?’

‘A young man in a sports car.’

This was too much for the captain, and he quite failed to hide a knowing smile. ‘A young man in a sports car, was it?’ he asked gently. ‘Did he drive you very fast?’

‘We came up the drive at seventy-five.’

‘Dear me! What a speed for a respectable young lady to travel at! I assume you were alone in the car with this young man?’

‘No. A Mrs Chirk was in the back seat.’

‘In the
back
seat?’ repeated the captain curiously. ‘Now, I wonder what she was doing there. At least, she did not interpose herself between you and the young dare-devil at the wheel?’

‘Why should she? She was frightened to death.’

‘And you?’

‘I like going fast.’

‘Ah-hah! Well, we can’t deny that you boldly took your seat beside dashing youth and left timid age in the dickey.’

‘He opened the front door and I got in. What could be more natural?’

‘Why nothing, my dear. It is a perfectly intelligible reversal of roles. By the way, have you met this Mrs Chirk before?’

‘I’ve seen her at surgery.’

‘Oh yes. Surgery is where doctors collect, is it not? We don’t have it in psychiatry, you see. I suppose you often have quite long chats with the doctors at this so-called surgery?’

‘I’m much too busy to talk, I assure you.’

‘Indeed. And while you and the doctors are
busying
yourselves, may I ask what Mrs Chirk does?’

‘She keeps her seat, of course. Until I call her.’

‘Ah-hah. A back-seat?’

‘Any seat she can get. Like all the others, she moves gradually to the front.’

‘Dear me, how trying! Tell me, is she
always
Mrs Chirk?’

‘Sometimes she answers to Finch,’ confessed the nurse, blushing.

‘And you resist that, do you? You balk at Finch?’

‘Well, records are records, aren’t they? What’s Chirk can’t be Finch.’

‘That’s a point, of course. Excuse me, but may I ask what was your mother’s name?’

‘The same as mine, doctor.’

‘Why, yes, no doubt. But it meant something different, did it not? I mean, when you think of your mother’s name you don’t automatically feel: “That’s me too”.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘In other words, despite the surface likeness, your name is not the same as your mother’s?’

‘I suppose it isn’t, yet I had never seen the question that way.’

‘Well, it’s not too late. Tell me, did this name of your mother’s in any way resemble Finch? Was it Lynch or Tench for instance?’

‘Not at all. She was a Mrs Hamilton.’

‘And her maiden name?’

‘Theobald.’

‘In short, a complete disguise.’

‘I don’t quite understand.’

‘It’s quite simple, really. Say, for instance – just say – you identified your mother with Mrs Finch. Naturally, you would not wish to do so too openly, would you? We none of us like guilt-feelings, do we? So we put mama at three removes, so to speak; we start her as Theobald, transform her into Hamilton, mask her as Chirk, and finally make everything absolutely safe by thinking of her as interchangeable only with Finch. In my profession, we describe that as “fantasy of the nominal exit”. On the other hand, of course, if your mother’s name had been Lynch, Tench, or even Hawk or Sparrow, the identification with Finch would have been equally clear. That is what is so satisfying about the psychological method; we get you disguised, we get you plain. Your mother is dead, I presume? Was her departure a happy release?’

‘In a way, yes. But I loved her very much.’

‘Don’t we all, my dear? Nevertheless, we like them to keep in the back seat, do we not?’

The nurse gave a wan smile.

‘I see you are an intelligent girl, Miss Tray, and know how to put two and two together. I hope we all do nowadays, because life seems to have lost all its threes. Well, we have gone a long way in this short chat – or rather,
you
have gone a long way: I have merely followed where you led. That is what I like about your case – the fact that you were moving so rapidly in the right direction long before you met me. It was you, not me, who relegated Mrs Grundy to the boot, thus taking the first, decisive step to independence, creativeness, fulfilment of suppressed desires and other things we consider desirable today. And yet, I believe I can help you a few stages further. After all, we don’t want this interfering old lady in our lives, do we? If we are
chummy with a doctor or out for a spin with a gay blade, we
would
prefer, I think, not to have her even in the dickey. Let me make a suggestion, Miss Tray. This is a friendly, quiet house. Mrs Finch works here. If you stayed here, too, you would see her every day. This might suggest that you would be getting the opposite of what you want – to expel her from your life forever. But the contrary is true: it always is in the higher reaches. Escapist tactics would be impossible. It might be painful at first, but one day we would wake up and discover that she has ceased to matter.’

‘But what about my job, doctor?’

‘Dr Burke assures me that the last thing the surgery wants is to lose your services. Let me read what he says,’ and the captain took a paper from his pocket. ‘“Our one aim in sending her to
you
,” he writes, “is to make her full talents available to us.” That’s quite clear, isn’t it? He goes on: “Her stream of unconsciousness is swift and fed by many a promising tributary: it is only the guilty boulders and insanitary blockages of decayed repression-tissue that prevent it coursing in full flood toward … etc. etc.” He seems to think that you are also anxious and worried.’

‘Well, think of the state of the world, doctor.’

‘Of course, Miss Tray. But we know, don’t we, that many an atom bomb is merely a Mrs Finch? Think of her as a piece of film, wedged deep in the unconscious. We cannot eject her, so we place behind her the powerful light of guilty evasiveness, which projects her upon the screen of the outer world, distorted into the likeness of a bomb. Thus we rid ourselves of an internal mother, by transforming her into an external explosive.’

‘Then the atom bomb does not exist?’

‘Some of my colleagues say that it doesn’t: they lump it in with all the other internal problems, like road-accidents, industrial injuries, cancer, death, and so on. Personally, I’m a middle-of-the-road sort of man: I believe that machinery, and motor-cars in particular, are intrinsically dangerous. I even claim that they have the power of moving quite often in a direction opposite to the one demanded by their victim’s neurosis. But be good enough not to repeat my remark in the presence of any of my colleagues: any rehabilitation of the external world injures them far more than could the heaviest motor-lorry.’