Quicksand (28 page)

 

 

"On the other hand, in Llanraw the general attitude towards sexuality
is enlightened and permissive, and physical expression of affection is
taken as a matter of course."

 

 

-- I wonder what my father would think if I tried to kiss his cheek.

 

 

 

 

The day came, not long afterwards, when for the first time he checked
himself on the point of losing his temper with a refractory patient,
and the thought crossed his mind:
That's not how they'd do it in Llanraw.

 

 

His anger faded. Calmly and reasonably he sorted the difficulty out,
and when it was over he felt a warm glow of self-approbation.

 

 

He developed the habit of seeing Urchin daily after lunch, except on
Mondays when he went to help Alsop with his clinic in Blickham, and
gradually sent for her earlier and earlier until he was having to go
early for his meal if he was not to risk indigestion from gulping it down.

 

 

On a day in June which had brought a sudden blast of summer heat he
went into the staff wash-room to rinse his hands and tidy up before
eating. He was overdue for a visit to the barber, and on catching sight
of his hair in the mirror he attempted without success to make it lie
down. Comb still in hand, he glanced sideways out of the open window,
and stared at the sunlit countryside.

 

 

-- How would those hills look covered in a sea of flowers? And what
kind of flowers, exactly? Sunflowers? Taller than I am, she said. But
in so many different colours . . . I rather picture them as being like
enormous poppies, with flat gaudy petals that flap in the breeze.

 

 

The door opened. Guiltily he darted his comb to his hair again, ashamed
of being found standing idly contemplating the scenery. The newcomer
was Mirza.

 

 

"Morning, Paul," he said, letting the cold tap run fast to fill the
hand-basin. "Had any news from Iris?"

 

 

"No," Paul said, in a tone calculated to imply that he didn't much care
if he did or not. Mirza's eyes darted towards him and away again.

 

 

"Forgive me saying so," he murmured, "but you can't completely hide the
effect it's having on you. You're looking awful."

 

 

-- Bumkum. I saw myself in the mirror just now and I look okay,
considering. And what the hell business is it of Mirza's, anyway?

 

 

"I'm all right! Sorry to disappoint you. But you used to tell me often
enough that being married to Iris was bad for me -- do you expect me to
be worse off now?"

 

 

Mirza cupped a double handful of water and dipped his face. Spluttering,
he reached for a towel.

 

 

"Well, I haven't noticed you . . . ah . . . taking advantage of your
unlooked-for reversion to gay bachelor status."

 

 

"Oh, stuff it! It's all very well for you with your endless string of
casual tarts, isn't it? I'm not built the way you are. You don't wipe
away five years of marriage with -- with a swab of that towel!"

 

 

"There's no need to bite my head off," Mirza said after a pause.

 

 

"There's no need for you to come the heavy father with me either. What
started this, anyway? Have you been hearing complaints about my work
going to pot, perhaps?"

 

 

"As a matter of fact, no."

 

 

"Good. I'm getting more work done in a day, and more studying too, than
I used to manage in a week with Iris pestering me. So what did put this
idea into your head?"

 

 

"I took a look at you," Mirza said.

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"You're losing weight, you have bags under your eyes big enough for
weekend luggage, and -- well, this isn't the first time you've lost your
temper over nothing."

 

 

"Nothing!" Paul echoed, and tried to laugh. "Yes, I suppose losing one
woman would seem like 'nothing' to you. You always have half a dozen
more lined up!"

 

 

Mirza tossed the towel back on its hook and sighed. "Don't go on trying
to be bitter. It doesn't suit your temperament. All I'm asking you to do
is not to pretend you're unaffected. People take it for granted that the
bust-up of a marriage is a disaster. Why shy away from their sympathy,
when it's perfectly sincere, as if you thought they were -- what shall
I say? -- looking down on you for being upset?"

 

 

Paul didn't answer for several seconds. Eventually he shook his head.

 

 

"Do you ever find yourself envying your patients, Mirza?"

 

 

"Envying them? Heavens no!"

 

 

-- To go away from here, to float off into the empyrean at the mercy of
the wind and drift uncaring above the flowery land-sea of Llanraw . . .

 

 

"Why not? The insane have one great advantage over the sane: when things
get too much for them, they're taken in charge and looked after. The sane
have to sweat it out by themselves."

 

 

"If that's really what you think," Mirza said, "you have a damned low
opinion of your friends. What are friends for if they're not to help
you sweat out your problems?"

 

 

"Some problems are one's own personal property," Paul muttered. "'Marriage
according to the law of this country is the union of one man with one woman
to the exclusion of all others. . . .' Oh, the hell with it."

 

 

"Agreed," Mirza said promptly. He stepped to the window and peered out
with an expression of exaggerated pleasure. "It's far too fine a day
for wrangling. Hell of a view in this direction, isn't it? Makes me
almost sorry to be going back to work in a big city, with the rest of
the summer still to come."

 

 

"What?" Paul tensed in dismay. "You're not leaving Chent, are you?"

 

 

"I am indeed. You knew I'd applied for another job, didn't you?"

 

 

"Yes, but . . ."

 

 

Mirza turned and gazed at him levelly. He said at length, "I'll tell you
one reason I can never imagine myself envying the patients, Paul. They
can't arrange to leave Chent when the place becomes too much for them.
I've had my bellyful of Holy Joe, and it's touch and go whether I serve
out my notice or tell him what I really think of him and walk off.
A patient who did that would be jabbed full of drugs and maybe even
snakepitomised to get rid of the troublesome bits of his brain. Imagine
being stuck here for the rest of your life; imagine never being able to
leave but in your coffin."

 

 

He spun on his heel and marched out, leaving Paul aghast at the venom
in his tone.

 

 

-- I never realised he felt so violently about this place; he was always
so full of banter and mockery. . . . It's the way I feel, pretty near,
but I can stomach it until I've completed two years -- I think. I shall
go on trying, anyway. But it was a stupid thing to say about envying
the inmates. How must they feel! How must Urchin feel, looking back to
the free air of Llanraw! Being put in here is enough to make you crazy
whether you're crazy or not to begin with. Urchin growing prematurely
old shut up in Chent, mourning her lost and lovely home, slopping around
in dirty clothes with her hair matted and her nails black, stinking the
way the older patients stink, not talking except to answer back when
the staff address her. . . My God, what a waste, what a
waste
!

 

 

 

 

 

 

*33*

 

 

Paul had not been given to talking much at meal-times lately, but the news
of Mirza's impending departure depressed him so much that he was more
taciturn than ever. Natalie made a couple of attempts to draw him into
the conversation, which he rebuffed; after that he was aware of her eyes
and occasionally Mirza's darting his way as though to ask what was wrong.

 

 

While waiting for his dessert course, he suddenly decided he could not
stand company any longer. He pushed back his chair and strode out of
the room. There was no one on the landing outside the mess. On impulse,
instead of returning to his office, he put his ear to the door and
listened.

 

 

He heard Natalie say, "Well! Paul's in a funny mood, isn't he?"

 

 

"You could try being a bit more sympathetic," Mirza said. "After all,
the poor guy's marriage has gone on the rocks, and that's not something
you get over in a couple of days."

 

 

"Still the same trouble, hm?" Phil Kerans said with a chuckle. "I thought
something might have gone wrong with his star patient. He hasn't been so
eager to discuss her lately, I've noticed."

 

 

-- And why the hell should I? Hoping for some dirty childhood memories,
maybe, to compensate you for your Irish Catholic repressions?

 

 

Without realising it, Paul found he had jerked the door open and taken
a step inside. Everyone was staring at him in astonishment.

 

 

"Did I . . . uh . . . did I leave my cigarettes in here?" he improvised.

 

 

The excuse seemed to strike them as thin; at any rate, their eyes all
lingered on his face for longer than he liked before Mirza, who had been
sitting next to him, reported that there was no sign of any cigarettes.

 

 

"Must have left them in my office, then," Paul muttered. "Sorry."

 

 

When he shut the door again, he was sweating -- not from the heat of
the day.

 

 

-- What possessed me to do that?

 

 

Heels tapping on the stairs, he hastened away to the privacy of his office.

 

 

-- At least, in another few minutes, Urchin will come and we can talk
about Llanraw. "Something gone wrong with my star patient!" If the fat
mick only knew . . . But I've done hardly any of the work. All I can take
credit for is sneaking under her defences by accident. If she'd been less
persistent, say in learning English, if she'd let herself be overwhelmed
and lapsed into despair as I might have done in the same situation,
I'd be done for. I wouldn't have even one reason for struggling on.

 

 

On the shelf where it had remained since the day it arrived, the clock
ornamented with the skull-faced figure of Time waved him a greeting
with its scythe. Because it too had contributed to saving him when he
feared he might sink without trace in the quicksand of his troubles, he
had long ago conceived a kind of affection for it. Dust had settled on
the polished statuette; he took a tissue and wiped it before sitting down.

 

 

His cigarettes, of course, were in his pocket as they had been all along,
but for fear of someone coming out of the mess and seeing him he had
refrained from lighting one until the door was safely shut behind him.
He did so now, and the phone rang in the same moment.

 

 

"Dr Fidler? Oh, good. Hang on, I have a call for you. . . . Dr Alsop,
I've found Dr Fidler for you now -- go ahead please."

 

 

-- Not coming in today, or something?

 

 

"Good afternoon, young fellow! Look, I've had lunch early today and I
can come over to you a bit ahead of schedule -- in fact I'll be leaving
Blickham as soon as I've finished talking to you, be with you in twenty
minutes or so. But since I have the extra time in hand, it struck me that
I ought to have another look at Urchin. It must be . . . oh . . . almost
three weeks, isn't it?"

 

 

Paul's heart seemed to turn into a leaden weight.

 

 

"I think you said you were seeing her daily at the start of the
afternoon's work, correct? Well, don't have her sent up before I join
you. I want to have a word with you first."

 

 

Paul didn't reply.

 

 

"Hello? Are you there?"

 

 

"Yes, I'm still here. Sorry."

 

 

"Well . . . See you shortly, then."

 

 

Click.

 

 

Paul sat frozen, the phone still in his hand, for a minute or more after
Alsop had rung off.

 

 

-- Blast the man! What business has he got prying into my affairs? I show
him notes that tell him everything I think he ought to know. Won't he take
my word that I'm making steady progress? Doesn't he trust me?

 

 

The ash on his cigarette lengthened until a chance movement dislodged
it down his chest. He blew it away and it scattered as dust over the
papers on the desk. There seemed to be a lot of them today.

 

 

-- And if he comes here and starts questioning Urchin and she tells him
. . . I haven't found out everything about Llanraw yet. I couldn't bear
to break it off now. On the other hand, I . . .

 

 

The turmoil of his thoughts quietened. His hand was quite steady as he
reached for the phone again.

 

 

"Nurse? Who is that? Oh, Nurse Kirk! Would you be so kind as to let Urchin
come up here straight away, please? . . . Yes, I'm sorry, I know it's still
lunch-time, but there's no need for anybody to come with her -- I'm sure
she can be trusted to find her way on her own after all this time."

 

 

Waiting, he finished the cigarette and lit another. Shortly there
was Urchin's usual gentle knock at the door. He told her to come in,
settled her in the chair facing him, put her into trance -- by now,
after daily reinforcement, the induction consisted in no more than a
dozen words before she sighed and let herself go limp -- and addressed
her with the calm assurance that he was doing this in the best interests
of his patient.