Various Flavors of Coffee (40 page)

Of course, she knew perfectly well no visit to a doctor’s was go-ing to change anything, but to have refused to go, in the face of Dr. Mayhews’s diagnosis, would have put her in the wrong. Mayhews might even have had her carted off to an asylum—it had been known to happen. So here she was.

“Would you tell my driver to bring the car to the door? There are so many, I am not sure which is mine.”

She looked up. The woman speaking to the doorman was someone she knew—Georgina Dorson, the wife of one of Arthur’s friends.“Hullo, Georgina,” Emily called.

The other woman turned. “Oh—Emily. I didn’t see you there.

So you are on Dr. Richards’s list, too? He’s a wonder, isn’t he?” “I wouldn’t know.This is my first consultation.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Dorson said dreamily.“It is a most exhilarating cure. I feel quite a different person after he has treated me. More alive.” “I’m glad to hear it.” She did not actually seem terribly alive, Emily thought.The other woman continued to regard her with a strange, beatific smile, as if she had been doped. Emily made a

mental note not to take any drugs Dr. Richards might prescribe. “Anyway, there is our car. And my driver. Goodness, I shall

probably sleep all the way home. I am quite exhausted. But he is a wonder, my dear. A wonder. Whatever did we do before doctors like him?” Georgina put out a hand to steady herself as she went down the steps.

“Mrs. Brewer?”

Emily turned.The speaker was a good-looking young man in a smart suit of modern cut, his hair neatly brushed and his smile broad. A silver watch chain hung like a second, bigger smile across the flat front of his waistcoat. She would have taken him for a prosperous young banker, or possibly the assistant to a Minister of State, something of that sort, rather than a doctor.“I’m Dr. Richards,” he said, shaking her gloved hand.“Will you follow me?”

He walked briskly toward the rear of the building.“In here,” he said, pushing open a door.

The consulting room contained a desk, a screen and a couple of chairs. He indicated where she should sit, then took the chair next to hers.

“Now then,” he said cheerfully,“what seems to be the trouble?” “I think I am.”

He raised his eyebrows.“Oh?”

She liked him, she realized—or rather, he was likeable, which was probably not quite the same thing.“I seem to be a disappointment to my husband.”

Dr. Richards’s smile broadened. “Well, I have read the letter of referral from Dr. Mayhews, in which he certainly suggests something of the kind.” He nodded to some papers on the desk. “For the moment, though, I am more interested in whether your husband is a disappointment to
you.
”

“What do you mean?” she said, wondering whether to admit the truth to this young man. It might still be some kind of trap; he would report to Dr. Mayhews, and Dr. Mayhews to Arthur. . . . “Arthur has my complete loyalty.”

“Naturally. But perhaps you have need to be loyal?” he inquired, fixing her with his quick fair eyes. “Loyalty—that suggests a bond of duty, Mrs. Brewer, rather than of love.”

“Love!” she said, still unsure how to respond.

“Perhaps love . . . has not turned out to be all that you hoped.” “Yes,” she said. It was ridiculous, but the urge to confide in someone was so powerful, so compelling, she felt her pulse begin

to thud.“Love has not been quite what I imagined.”

He took a stethoscope from the desk and pulled his chair even closer, his knees almost between her own.“I will just listen to your heart rate,” he said, placing the cup between her breasts. At his touch she felt the pounding in her chest increase.

“It is a little rapid,” he said, unhooking it from his ears.“Do you sleep well?”

“Not always.”

“You find yourself fretful?” “Occasionally.”

“And do you know what Dr. Mayhews believes to be the cause of this?”

“I believe he mentioned to my husband some kind of hysteria.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I see by your expression you do not agree.”

She hesitated.“May I speak in confidence?” “Of course.”

“I find it hard to believe that I am suffering from an illness when the circumstances which occasioned this difficulty are clear, namely my marriage to a man who turns out not to like me very much.”

Dr. Richards nodded.“That is an understandable reaction.” “Thank you,” she said, grateful to have found someone at last

who did not actually consider her defective.

“However,” Richards said briskly, “since we may not change the circumstances, it is the reaction we must try to alter.We are go-ing to treat you, Mrs. Brewer, and I mean that in both senses of the word.What do you know of the undulatory theory of health?”

She shook her head. She felt, obscurely, that she had revealed too much, and now she was angry with herself.

“Science has discovered that all existence is based on oscilla-tion.” The doctor laced his fingers through each other and fixed her with his cheerful gaze.“In the cells which make up animal tis-sue, it is a small variation in oscillatory velocity which produces a viper or a vertebrate, a mountain lion or a milkmaid.All nature literally pulsates with the life-force! And for woman in particular, who is the source of life, the healthy specimen is she whose blood oscillates in unison with the natural laws of being. If we induce that harmony, you will instantly feel the benefits. Every nerve will be refreshed, every fiber will tingle with reawakened powers. Rich red blood will be sent coursing through your veins.You will be invigorated, vitalized and energized. Many of my patients leave these rooms with as much buoyancy of spirits as if they had been drinking champagne.”

“Then why don’t they?” “Why don’t they what?”

“Why don’t they drink champagne? Surely it must be cheaper.” Richards frowned.“Mrs. Brewer, I do not think you appreciate what I am telling you. We are going to restore tone and vigor to

the entire system.We will reawaken your feminine energy.” “And how—precisely—do you intend to do this?”

“Rhythmotherapy. Or, to be more precise, by the operation of the percussive principle upon the afflicted tissue.The sensation is a soothing one, I assure you, but it will quickly draw out the hysteria. Behind that screen you will find a gown; if you put it on, I will show you through to the treatment room.”

She put on
the gown, a shift of thin cotton that tied down the front. In the next room was a table padded with leather on which a sheet had been spread. There was some kind of apparatus built into its base—she saw an electrical engine and several mysterious objects made of what appeared to be gutta-percha, connected to the motor by wires, like the ends of a skipping-rope. “Please,” Richards said, pointing to the table.

He turned a switch, and as she climbed up onto the couch the engine began to thrum.

Afterwards,
when it was all over, she dressed with shaking fingers, and sat slumped in his chair while he performed some tests on her reflexes and pulse.

“Your heart rate is already improved,” he observed. “I am glad to hear it.”

“And the pelvic congestion Dr. Mayhews writes of—can you feel that it has eased?”

“I certainly feel different,” she said numbly.

He glanced at her with a smile. “Almost as if you had been drinking champagne?” He turned back to his desk and began to

write up his notes.“Take a few minutes, Mrs. Brewer. Many of my patients experience a feeling of torpor after the treatment. It is perfectly normal—a sign that the hysteria has been vanquished, at least temporarily.”

“Temporarily?”

“In most cases there is no cure for the hysterochlorotic disorders. It is necessary to return periodically to repeat the treatment.”

“And how frequently would I need to do that?”

“Most of my patients find once a week is about right. I should mention that many supplement my own approach with treatments from my colleagues. In this building alone we have Dr. Farrar, who offers the ascending douche—directing a stream of pressurized water to the relevant area is a very reliable method. Then there is Dr. Hardy, who specializes in electrotherapeutics, whereby a mild faradic current is applied; Mr.Thorn, who is an expert in the administration of the Swedish Massage, and Dr. Clayton, who provides electric fustigation of the womb.We even have a proponent of the Viennese talking cure, Dr. Eisenbaum, whilst in the base-ment there is a fully functioning water spa equipped with various forms of hydraulics.”

“I see.And how does one pay for all of this?”

“By account, of course. A bill will be sent to your husband every month.”

“Is it expensive?”

He appeared surprised that she had asked. “These are costly premises, Mrs. Brewer. Then there is the equipment . . . So effective a treatment does not come cheap.”

When she had gone
he checked his watch. He still had a quarter of an hour before his next appointment.

Taking up his pen, he reread what he had already written, mak-ing a few corrections as he did so. He added:

One observes almost immediately the penetrating effects of the oscillatory apparatus. After some minutes, the body begins to shake violently, signaling the onset of the hysterical paroxysm. There is a cry; her body curves into an arc and holds this position for several seconds. One then observes some slight movements of the pelvis. Shortly after, she raises herself, lies flat again, utters cries of pleasure, laughs, makes several lubricious movements and sinks down onto the right hip. Following this, she is transformed: the quick impatient nervousness displayed before treatment is replaced by pleasantness of disposition, the frown is chased away by a smile, the characteristic suppressed fury of the hysteric is supplanted by calmness and sweet reason. Truly the discovery of the statuminating principle is one that will come to transform psychiatric medicine in the coming century.

He frowned. Only the day before he had read a paper by a man called Maiser, who had proposed that these women could be treated at home, by their own husbands, and that “what we currently call treatment is no different from what any attentive spouse does for his wife.” It was absurd, of course. Quite apart from anything else, hysterics made excellent patients: they neither recovered nor worsened, and in most cases returned for years of treatment. Picking up his pen again, he wrote:

The mechanisation of the treatment is undoubtedly key to its success. However, the anatomical skill and manual expertise of the physician, born of long practice, are what produces results.

There was a knock at the door. He put down the pen: his next patient was here.

[
sixty-five
]

r. Mayhews had been right; Arthur noticed a change

in his wife immediately. After visiting the specialist she had slept for most of the afternoon, but the following morning she had been almost like a different woman. She seemed . . . He searched for the term. Calmer, that was it. There was a quietness about her that he had not seen since their engagement.And she no longer objected when he read the newspaper at breakfast. Only her lungs seemed unimproved—she still coughed when he lit his pipe after meals, but perhaps one couldn’t have everything.

They were having breakfast together in a companionable silence later that week when he laughed out loud at something he read.

“This writer. Most amusing,” he said. “Some of the things he saw in Africa . . .”

“Would you like to read me some of it?”

“Oh, well. Probably you have to know the context.” He shook out the pages. “About the French, you know. At Teruda,” his disembodied voice said.

“Really.”

“Name of Wallis. Robert Wallis.” He put the paper down to pick up his pipe.“Are you all right, my dear? You seem pale.”

“I do feel a bit off color.And the room is quite stuffy.”

He looked at his pipe. “Would you like me to wait a few minutes before I smoke?”

“Thank you.”

“Or you could always go into the sitting room.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, getting to her feet. “Perhaps if I sit near a window I will feel better.”

“Well, be careful not to catch a chill.”

“If I do catch one, I shall be sure to release it again immediately.” He stared at her.“What?”

“I was joking, Arthur. I don’t know why. I was thinking of something else at the time.”

“Good heavens,” he said, returning to his paper.

Later, at dinner,
there was another incident. He was explaining to their guest, a visitor from France, that the Liberals were the most reforming government that the country had ever seen—that they had transformed the lives of the working classes beyond recognition—

“If you are a man, that is,” his wife interjected.“For the women, there is to be no change.”

Their visitor smiled. Arthur shot his wife an anxious glance, fearing that she was about to mount her hobby-horse.“Remember your condition, my dear,” he murmured as Annie helped their guest to some vegetables.

His wife looked at him; then, somewhat to his surprise, she nodded meekly and remained silent for the rest of the meal. It was extraordinary,Arthur thought, what a difference a medical diagnosis could make.

[
sixty-six
]

he had been wondering if the effects of Dr. Richards’s
oscillator would be different on her second visit. Perhaps the force of her reaction was due to years of pelvic congestion, as he had called it, and there would be no shattering, overwhelming release of hysteria this time. In fact the reverse turned out to be true. It took only a few minutes before she felt the palpitations building up in waves, anticipating the uncontrollable, terrifying onset of the

paroxysm.

Afterwards she once again sat in his chair, watching him write up his notes. She liked the way he wrote—quick and deft, the pen flicking upward in fast little gestures before looping down again as it formed letters and words.
Flick ... flick...
There was something hypnotic about it.

“What do you find to write about me?”

He did not look up.“Some of it is technical.”

She thought she saw a circumflex.“Is that French?”