In the Middle of the Wood (16 page)

Where had he heard that before? It was on the bus in Yugoslavia sung in a tinny Yugoslavian voice in English. The man was now staring helplessly down at the bed in a world of his own, abstract, cruel. And then he began to weep soundlessly, tears pouring down his face. As he did so he turned away from Ralph. The plot had failed, the tiger hadn't struck at all in the middle of the wood. He had escaped their machinations for one more night.

The following day at about eleven o'clock in the morning the lawyer came to visit him, young, brisk, energetic, clutching a briefcase.

“How are you, Ralph?” he said. “Feeling better?”

“Yes,” said Ralph.

“Good, good. What we'll do is, I'll take your instructions and then bring you the will to sign. Okay?”

“Fine,” said Ralph, “that will be fine.”

“Okay then,” said the lawyer again. He smiled as a nurse came and drew the curtains around the bed.

“I'll outwit her,” said Ralph to himself. “I will leave her the money after all. I will do the unexpected.” He thought that this was the best thing to do, to show his contempt, his self-sacrifice. To show a supreme irony. He felt better when he had thought of this plan, it was so unexpected, it had such an odd ending. It would make her ashamed. He felt fulfilled and heroic.

“I want to leave all my possessions to my wife,” he said.

“And after that in the event of …” the lawyer paused, his pen in his hand.

“After her no one.”

“I see.”

How neat and tidy the lawyer was, how finely combed his hair, how well-shaved his cheeks, how efficient he was too. And how young.

“Well, there should be no problem about that,” said the lawyer shutting his briefcase and looking around him with the same calm self-sufficient smile. What was he smiling at?

“I'll get this drafted out and in a day or two I'll come back.” He stood up from his chair which was at the side of the bed. Then he glanced round him at the curtains and said, “Reminds me of amateur drama I used to take part in.” Then he smiled again.

Of course, thought Ralph, he has no intention of making a will for me: he thinks I'm mad.

Ralph said hesitantly, “If anything happens to me …”

“Yes,” said the lawyer quickly.

“Anything unusual. Keep your eye on the papers.”

“Of course,” said the lawyer. Was there a gleam of pity in his eyes?

“I mean,” said Ralph, “you never know. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

“Certainly, certainly.” But Ralph knew that the lawyer wasn't listening to him, he was thinking of something else. Again he felt the piercing terrible despair.

“Right then,” said the lawyer making his way through the involutions of the curtains which swelled around him like sails, like grave-clothes. He was ready to make his exit. Ralph wished to change his will again, to call him back, but the moment passed, and then he was gone, and the nurse was opening the curtains. The lawyer strode purposefully across the ward whose floor was as polished as himself. “I should phone,” thought Ralph, “I should tell Linda what I've done. I should tell her about the irony of it all.”

He rose from his bed and put on his dressing-gown and went to the bathroom. The white-faced man was there again staring into the mirror and again he went into the cubicle, locking the door in case his fellow patient attacked him. He was safe nowhere. Irony was no help in a place like this. It was lost on its residents. He glanced at the wall. More yellow strokes had been added in a crazy pattern. Fresh yellow strokes like lightning, like straws. Oh God, he was going out of his mind. Their inventions were endless, their skill in detail was phenomenal, far more brilliant than anything he had ever done. His mind felt dull beside theirs. He remembered Linda dancing on the boat, her vivid repertoire of theatre, creating dazzling props from the dullest of objects. Dancing, dancing. Of course she was masterminding this. How cruel they all were, they wouldn't leave him alone for a minute. The colours swam in front of his eyes like a kaleidoscope, as once on the bus ages ago in Pula. He rose heavily to his feet and walked back into the ward. The white-faced man had disappeared again. He tried to read the
Scotsman
that his friend had brought him but couldn't concentrate. He almost wept with rage and frustration.

As if from a great distance he heard the smart trim Nazi sister say to a nurse, “I could create a scene if I wanted to.” Then she smiled and it seemed as if she was laughing at him. He hated her because she had made him stop smoking on account of the oxygen machine. He hated when she stopped at his bed. She spoke so sarcastically to him, she relished her power so much. She was adept at her work, writing reports assiduously with a quick light hand.

“You'll soon be back at your books,” she said sarcastically to him. “Won't you?”

She didn't really know who he was, he wished he could tell her about himself, about his infinite superiority, but his mind was too dull. He wished he could dazzle her with his wit, but he could think of nothing to say. He hated her so much, she was so self-satisfied and smug. “You'll soon be out of here,” she said laughing and her tone was infinitely menacing. She was one of the ones who would have been happy in concentration camps. Her horizons were limited, she was sharp, tart, aseptic. He looked for the ring on her hand and saw none. And yet she had told him that she was married. Alert, quick, she dominated the ward in charge of the other nurses, the auxiliaries. He saw a man in a neat blue suit speaking to her. He had dark hair, a red face as of someone who lived in the open air. But he was clearly a psychologist. Bitch, thought Ralph, diamond-hearted bitch, how I hate you. You were the one who was looking across to me the other night when I was talking to Linda. It was as if you were saying to her, Everything will be all right. The plan is going fine. Nazi bitch. And you told me you were married when you aren't. Otherwise where is your ring? You even told me about your daughter who was given a bad mark in English. What are you trying to do to me? In your white dress you look so clean, so pure, so careless of humanity, its stink and vomit. You hate humanity, that's quite clear, you wouldn't be so sarcastic otherwise. You should never have been a nurse at all, you are in the wrong profession.

He was told that he had an appointment with the visiting psychologist and was wheeled along in his dressing-gown by a large orderly. For a moment he was in the fresh air, just before he was deposited outside the psychologist's room. She was waiting for him behind a desk, her eyes intent and it seemed to him cold. He was of course quite sure that she was not a psychologist at all.

“And how are we today?” she said, with what he thought a false bonhomie.

“Better,” he muttered.

“That's good,” she said, studying him, and then some papers. “That's very good.”

He sat upright, at attention before her like a small boy.

“I think we'll have to think about the next step, don't you?” She shuffled some papers like cards, letting the silence last for a long time, as if she expected him to say something. But he didn't answer. He must be quiet and watchful. Her hair was snow-white and her glasses glittered icily.

“I think it is time to transfer you,” she said.

“The mental hospital?” he said.

“The Bayview,” she said.

And he knew that the Bayview was a mental hospital. And he knew too that he would never leave it, he would be buried in it. He had seen too many programmes on television which showed how people had been falsely incarcerated for years in mental hospitals.

He stared down at the floor submissively.

“We will have to get you well, won't we?” she said.

Still he didn't speak. “It won't be long if everything goes according to plan,” she said. “Are you quite happy to go there and get well?”

“I suppose so.”

“Jolly good,” she said. “I think you should go there tomorrow. I'll inform the sister.”

“Yes,” he said limply.

She scribbled on a piece of paper, intent, chilly, glacial.

“There is one thing,” she said. “You shouldn't be making these worrying phone calls to your wife. She is under a great deal of pressure. And she loves you. Don't you believe she loves you?”

“No,” he said.

“I see. Why then should she be visiting you? She has been to see me in tears.”

“She brought it on herself,” he muttered sullenly. “And in any case what is love?”

“I beg your pardon. What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“I see.” She stared at him consideringly. He was quite sure that he was much brighter than this psychologist. For instance he had read Laing, he knew about mental illness and that it was caused by environment. And he knew that he himself wasn't mentally ill. There were too many signs which indicated that his ideas and thoughts were correct. She must have had an amusing time dressing up as a psychologist seating herself behind this desk, watching him. There were some good actresses in this so-called hospital, no doubt about that. But then women enjoyed acting, they liked dressing up, trying on new clothes, jewellery. They were like wicked children.

“If there's nothing else then,” she said in a raised questioning voice. He remained silent then got to his feet. He opened the door. Waiting there was the big man with the barrow. He sat in it, pulled the blanket over his legs, and was returned to his ward. After seeing the psychologist the ward was like home.

And to tell the truth he was frightened. What would a mental hospital be like? It would be full of violent madmen, some of whom might even attack him. If he wasn't mad now he soon would be. In his mind he had a picture of an old Victorian building with flaky walls, and pale manic toothless faces staring at him. All the inmates would be dressed in long nightgowns. Sometimes if he was lucky he might be wheeled out to the lawn which always fronted these places. And he would shiver in a cold wind, a blanket about his thin pale legs. He would need all his courage to survive. And he was quite sure that Linda wouldn't come to visit him at all: that was why the psychologist had mentioned the phone calls. She was preparing him for Linda's absence. The last move in the game had been played, now he would be abandoned. As he thought of this he began to shiver uncontrollably and clasped his body in his arms, staring up at the ceiling. He had been manoeuvred into a corner, he shouldn't have opened his mouth at that interview. He shouldn't have given that psychologist any chance of proving him mad.

The man in the next bed was clasping his head in his hands, the white-faced man was wandering about the ward from bed to bed but avoiding his. As he lay there he heard another patient being wheeled in and saw that it was the psychologist whom he had noticed earlier. He was now dressed in striped pyjamas and looked like any other patient. But only Ralph could see that he was really a psychologist set there to watch him. It could be no coincidence that he had appeared after he had seen the lady psychologist.

“Don't think I don't know who you are,” he said to himself. “I know you all right. You can't deceive me.”

This was hell nor was he out of it. These were the unfathomable glacial caves with the wind blowing through them. And instead of guards in green capes there were nurses dressed in blue and white. The tune of ‘Irene Good Night' hummed in his mind. It went back to those days when he had done his National Service. It seemed to haunt his life.

“Jump into the river and drown.” He remembered being in an army hospital with German measles and reading a book about the Middle Ages. That was his only experience of hospital previous to this. Even when he had been going down to Glasgow on that doomed train journey he had heard the tune beaten out on the wheels of the train louder and louder. And then again he had heard it in Yugoslavia, tinny, slightly wrong. He wouldn't be surprised if there was a nurse called Irene in the hospital at that very moment.

The horror he had felt when he had found his novel notes scattered in a drawer after he had left them lying neatly on top of his desk! They were all scribbled and scrawled on violently. And then he had found the telephone book torn in two. Who would have thought Linda had such strength in her? On the other hand it might have been the taxi driver who had torn it, he had the strength. The horror he had felt when objects began to change their places. Never before had
there been such horror. Apart from now, when he waited to go to the Mental Home, who did not deserve to be in one but on the contrary could see as in a chess game the moves that were being made.

He looked over to his left and saw that the psychologist had put on the headphones which were above the bed. He wouldn't be listening to music, no, on the contrary he would be receiving his instructions, he would be keeping in touch with headquarters, with the nurses. He might even be listening to Linda's voice at that very moment. True, he didn't appear to be speaking but simply listening, his round apparently calm simple face quite expressionless.

Suddenly Ralph leaned over and said to the psychologist, “What are you in here for?”

The psychologist removed his headphones and said, “It's the ray.”

“What ray?”

“It's a ray I see. It's here now.”

And all the time he smiled at Ralph with his deceptively rustic face. Of course he would invent a story, but imagine one as crude as a death ray! The psychologist too had a curiously rural accent as if he were a countryman. Of course a good actor could imitate any accent: and one would expect a psychologist to be citified, urbane. That was part of the trickery.

Suddenly he drew away from Ralph and put on his headphones again. A fat nurse was dragging the oxygen apparatus along the floor.

He wanted to phone and tell Linda what had happened, but he had already tried to phone and had got an Emergency Number, whatever that was. It was clear that in the interval of leaving the ward and walking to the phone which was in the corridor someone had made a communication and his call had been redirected. That would happen more and more: in the Mental Home he would probably not be allowed to phone at all. And Linda would not come to visit him.