Synthajoy, page 8
He took my arm and rushed me down the corridor. The lab door bounced open again behind us.
“I’ve had an idea,” Tony called after us. “These video tapes I work with. I never measure the signals—simply record them. What goes into the machine comes out unchanged. The distortions cancel. I think this measurement theory of yours is a dead end.”
A dead end. Edward kept going, across Reception and down the ramp to the car park. Outside the hospital it was still as dark as night. He opened the car door and helped me in. By the courtesy light I saw he was smiling. I slid across and he climbed in beside me. Later I would learn to drive for myself. He started the engine, reversed briskly, swung out into the road.
“It’s funny,” he said, “how for years you can miss the obvious. This Tony of yours Is quite a discovery. What he said just now makes sense.”
He got me home hi seven minutes, into my uniform and back to the hospital just as six was striking. And he sent some pills along later to keep me going. What really kept me going was to know what an attentive husband I had.
There’s guilt for you. That Tony of mine…And the first guilt of all, not to have pushed Edward under a bus before it was too late. Poor Doctor along in the treatment room, pumping me full of psychopathic guilt when a simple comparison with the indigenous brain waves would tell him he was wasting his time. He goes on the trial, I suppose. Not guilty, I said. NOT GUILTY. And detectably meant it. But I shall not tell him he’s wasting his time when he moves on—if he ever does—to contrition.
Anyway, perhaps what I feel is not contrition. Perhaps it’s only shame.
I stare at the door, willing my wardress to arrive through it with my tea. She does so.
“I’m glad you’ve come, Mrs. Craig. I want to apologize for my bad behavior after treatment.”
“I’ve known a great deal worse. As I’m sure you have yourself, Mrs. Cadence.”
“And for that reason, if nothing else, I ought to know better.”
“Your position is very difficult, Mrs. Cadence. Believe me, I do understand.”
The silence beyond the still half-open door. Passages and other doors, and I can’t remember the way.
“Mrs. Craig, how will I get out of here?” Through the silence?
“It’s a decision for the Home Secretary. You know that. And he’s advised by the Committee. And the Committee is advised by Doctor.”
“You said he wasn’t pleased with the progress of the treatment.”
“Slow, he said. Too slow.”
“But that was yesterday. How about today? I know so little. What does he expect?”
“You should ask him yourself, Mrs. Cadence.”
“This guilt he’s applying, it seems to—”
“Contrition, Mrs. Cadence.”
“I tell you, guilt. Guilt.”
She’s staring at the side of my face. Why should she stare so?
“You told me the rule yourself, Mrs. Cadence. Treatment not to be discussed with patients.”
She closes the door behind her with one foot, goes to the table and puts down the tea-tray. The hand she held out to me withers, its touch dry and cold. I move unobtrusively to the mirror, wanting to see what it is about my face that made her stare. The reflection I see is a mold into which I quickly pour back my unmindful identity. The cheek she stared at is clean, reasonably unwrinlded.
It’s odd how long it takes me to remember Doctor’s slap. And then only as an outsider would, seeing die red mark linger.
“You haven’t brought me another newspaper.”
“I don’t like wasting my time. You never read yesterday’s.”
“How d’you know I never read yesterday’s?”
I pitch my voice carefully, giving nothing away. She doesn’t look at my cheek at all.
“Besides, knowing so little it was silly of me to interfere.”
“Yesterday made me too tired to want to begin it all again. There was something about the trial, wasn’t there?” “Which trial?”
“There’s only been one trial.”
“I…told you. It was silly of me to interfere.”
She speaks with such kindness. Her warmth of course is entirely professional. I wish I could get through her warmth.
“Will I ever get out of here, Mrs. Craig?”
“Usually when patients ask that question I make a comforting noise.”
“You mean I won’t.”
“I mean I don’t know. I’m told really very little.”
“When they took away UDW they took away everything.”
“You jump about, Mrs. Cadence. And I dislike cynicism more than almost anything.”
“They took away a last hope of dignity. And it’s no jump at all”
“You’ll be released, Mrs. Cadence, when you have become habituated to contrition. The terms of your sentence are quite specific.”
“You’re right to hate cynicism. I hated it at first, when I found I’d been loving it.”
An elliptical remark, conceited of me, but she fields it easily enough. Nothing will really get through to her, not ill manners, not pathos, and now not even an attack upon her sacred Dr. Cadence. She stands over the tea-tray and watches me—not looks at, watches. I’ve never seen her sitting down. And—even for the sake of Mr. Craig—the idea of her supine is unthinkable.
“The trouble with cynicism is that people enjoy it. That seems to me a sin. Pour your own tea, will you?”
As she goes out I speak to her back.
“As far as the trial is concerned I’m dead. Exhumation may uncover a lot of ugliness, but it doesn’t help the corpse. If I get out of here I want to be myself renewed, not just dusted and put back in the window.”
Her wariness is more than professional. She seems almost afraid, using the door as an escape, closing it firmly on all knowledge of me. Yet in fact she must take me with her— we are by now too involved for her to be so compartmental —just as I retain her here with me. So many things I ought to tell her, so many explanations. But blasphemy, my real reason for being here, is never capable of explanation. Inexcusableness is built in. Cods are gods, men are men; to justify blasphemy is to question this necessary order.
Besides myself now and Thea Springfield, there is another identity I can remember. There is Thea Cadence, B.C., the woman who worshiped Dr. Cadence before everyone else did. And even after. Nearer to me, she is at the same time farther, more incomprehensible. Her eyes saw more nearly the things I see, but saw them so differently.
I’d just put through an outside call, a woman who wouldn’t give her name. This must have been about a year after the Sexitape recording. The day before Pastor Mannheim. Before unplugging my line I’d caught her first question, “Is this line private?” and Edward’s reply, “My secretary never listens in to patients’ calls.” Her voice was vaguely familiar—as a psychiatrist he had patients who rang him at all hours. I returned to my typewriter; although an assistant had been engaged I still had to do some envelope addressing to help cope with the orders for Sexitape that were coming in from medical institutions all over the world. The woman’s anxiety amused me—if only she knew how little time I had for listening in. I typed half an address and then die internal phone rang.
“May I speak to Dr. Cadence, please? This is the secretary to the Management Committee.”
“I’m afraid Dr. Cadence is occupied with a patient. Can I help?”
“It concerns the meeting he attended yesterday. The Chairman is awaiting his decision.”
“I’ll mention it to him as soon as he’s free. Get him to ring you.”
“His reply will need to be in writing. But he knows all about it.”
And the man rang off.
His abruptness was strange—in the last few months relations with the Management Committee had been friendly, effusive even. I made a note, finished the address and took another envelope. The indicator buzzed as Edward finished his call. I spoke to him on the intercom.
“I’ve had a call from On High,” I said.
“Oh Lord, yes. I was forgetting.”
“They seem to want a decision of some kind from you. In writing, so the little bureaucrat said.”
“Come through, will you, Thea? I like to see you when I’m dictating. Hell—I just like to see you.”
Pleased to hear him so cheerful in spite of everything, I went through. His room hadn’t received its final restyling then, it was still basically an office, though smoother than it had been at the time of old Jacob Stech’s death, with a plastic-topped desk and a leather swivel chair. A Sensitape machine stood beside the examination couch. The desk lamp was the latest thing, variable intensity.
“These women.” He indicated the telephone. “She sees me tomorrow morning anyway. She could perfectly well have waited.”
“From what I heard of her she sounded quite calm. Not like some of them.”
“Calm? She’s always calm. She’d be better for a storm or two.”
He changed his position, making it clear that he was also changing the subject. He rarely told me even as much as this; I felt honored.
“This memo, Thea—in your very best typing please. Layout, everything as formal and official as possible.”
I sat down with pad and pencil and waited.
““To the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee. Sir’—then a capitalized heading underlined…•REF. YOUR DEMAND FOR THE RESIGNATION OF SELF.’ New paragraph. ‘After careful consideration of the arguments advanced by the Committee I have decided—’”
“Resignation?” I couldn’t help myself. Why hadn’t he told me? “They can’t be serious.”
“Deadly serious. And secretaries should be seen and not heard. ‘After careful consideration of the arguments advanced I have decided that it would be—’”
“But, Edward, you should have discussed this with me. You can’t just—”
1 have decided that it would be in the interests neither of the hospital nor of the advancement of medical science as a whole for me to tender—’ no, ’for me to presume to tender my resignation from membership of your staff.’ Have you got that?”
I nodded. He smiled at me, arranged his fingertips in a mocking gable.
““The discredit mentioned is to my mind both transitory and greatly exaggerated. I am confident that any examination of the true state of affairs—* I suppose to underline true might look insulting. A pity…‘any examination of the true state of affairs will show myself to have behaved at all times with complete propriety. I deny categorically all accusations of unprofessional conduct and would welcome an official inquiry into my financial affairs—* no, we’ve had affairs already. ‘Into my financial…’”
“Financial arrangements?”
“Arrangements will do very nicely. Just the right squalid tone. ’The Committee will understand that any resignation on my part at this stage would amount to an admission of guilt.’ Full stop. No signing off—just a space for my signature, and then all the letters and official claptrap you can think of. How many fools sit on that Committee, Thea?”
“Seven, I think.”
“Then I’ll need eight copies. One for the file, of course.”
I stood up and walked toward the door. If all he wanted was a secretary, that was all he’d get.
“Now for God’s sake don’t get on your high horse, darling. You say I should have discussed it with you. In fact there was nothing to discuss. In my mind there was never any question at all of resigning. And if there had been, it would have been my decision, my affair, nothing to bother you with.”
But I’m your wife, I thought
“Why on earth did it happen?” I said. “What’s biting them?” He was my husband.
“An article in the Lancet. Some Jeremiah carrying on about professional etiquette.”
“To do with money? I don’t understand.”
“Sexitape, Thea—it’s selling well. The suggestion is that I must be lining my own pocket”
“But that’s ridiculous.”
“Not so ridiculous. I quite easily could be. The whole system’s open to any number of fiddles. The X’s contract says that royalties must be devoted to the advancement of Sensitape. I might easily argue that Sensitape would be advanced by us having a new house or a new car or something. If I wanted money that badly there’d be no difficulty at all. In fact, between you and me, I framed the contract with that possibility in mind.”
“But your salary’s more than enough to live on. Not to mention mine. Why on earth should you want more?”
He’d never wanted money, possessions, things. He knew and I knew, so it wasn’t a question worth answering. Suddenly he looked up at me, forgetting the whole business. He looked up at me as a normal wife would pray to be looked at by her husband. Not up and down, assessing meat, but in my eyes. In my eyes, asking me, disregarding eight years, asking me.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Thea.”
“Please don’t.”
“Why not? It needn’t…imply anything.”
“But it does, Edward. You know it does.”
“We’re civilized people. We know which implications to ignore. For the sake of—”
“Will they sack you, Edward?” I had to stop him. “Now that you’ve refused to resign, will they sack you?”
“I’m sorry, Thea. You must see it as a sophisticated form of nagging. But your need to be appreciated is even more deep-seated. You’d be lost if I didn’t.”
“I asked you a question, Edward.”
Hysteria. Anger. Running to his desk, leaning over him, needing him, rejecting him. Flushed cheeks, quickened pulse, suppressed tears. Sexual despair. A year of it.
“Will they sack you, I said.”
“I doubt it.” Always the psychiatrist. Thank God he was willing to go along with me. “That’s why I’ve suggested the face-saver of an official inquiry. They know I’d fight —and they know the publicity would do them no good at all. This hospital has a reputation for progressiveness, Thea. And on the psycho-neurological side they have nobody to thank but me. Sexitape has great popular appeal. Think what the press could do with my dismissal. They’d never dare.”
The light on his desk was turned down low. Beyond this silenced room the corridors and wards were bright, endlessly demanding. His confidence was more than anybody had a right to.
“You would go on working here,” I said, “knowing how they’ve tried to get rid of you?”
“People in offices get out of touch.” So tolerant. “They get frightened. A man who has nothing but his job is always afraid of losing it.”
“And you have your vision.” Dangerously near to scorn.
“Thea—the whole future of Sensitape depends on the unique research facilities this hospital has to offer.”
And is the future of Sensitape the only thing that matters to you? I was Thea Cadence, B.C.—Before Cynicism. I didn’t ask the question for I thought I knew the answer. It would be yes.
Yes.
“So long you’ve worked here, Edward—and they still thought you’d go like a lamb. They really should have known you better.”
“See to those eight copies, will you, darling?” He pushed back his chair, the ordeal of me survived. “I’ve got one more patient to see, and then we’ll call it a day.”
“It wouldn’t make much difference, would it? If they did sack you, I mean?”
“Tony has his laboratory, God bless him. We’d manage somehow. Might have to live on your salary for a bit.”
“Wouldn’t they sack me as well?”
“Not a chance. Good nurses are rare. Even rarer than beautiful ones.” He called to me as I was going out through the door. “Thea—let’s go out somewhere tonight. It seems like years since we went out together.”
I looked at him doubtfully.
“No strings,” he said, spreading his hands in Tony’s Jewish way. “A nice evening, then separate beds. No strings at all. And no reproaches.”
The offer itself was a reproach, yet I couldn’t refuse it. While he saw his patient I finished the typing, his memo and the rest of the envelopes. Then we drove home, dressed ourselves up, went out to a night club. Waiting for him at home was a stack of results Tony wanted analyzing. And this on top of his hospital work and the business side of Sensitape. He’d get up early, analyze them in the morning. Watching himself carefully he’d cut his sleep requirements down to four hours. And still he’d have slept with me two or three times a week if I’d been willing.
He was working on that too, but so far the sedatives he had tried were useless. Either they had no effect at all, or they doped me down to the level of a warm corpse.
“Good band,” he said. “Thank God we’ve grown out of those everlasting groups.”
“I suppose they made identification easier, with the individual members, I mean.” Nobody could say I wasn’t trying. “Nowadays we’re back on the band leaders. And they tend to be older men.”
“Thea, forgive me. Forgive me if you can.”
“Forgive you?” Quaking. “What for?”
“I’ve turned you into a jargon machine. No crime could be worse. As penance I swear to recite a thousand Hail Freuds every morning before breakfast.”
I suppose he must have been trying too, but it didn’t seem like it. He seemed happy and foolish, uncomplicatedly jollying along a prickly girlfriend. He made me laugh. It was the nonsense he talked, and his distinguished air, and the beautiful way he wore his clothes.
A German woman came onto the tiny stage and sang a mordant song.
These little things would never trouble you If only they’d give you back your VDW.
I was a little drunk by now, and could laugh without bitterness.
So your cookie gets cancer and your whole world tumbles,
Cheer up, son—its the way the cookie crumbles.
As I remember it, it was a very funny song.
The German woman then did a sketch with a man in old-fashioned headphones, the flex from which led up under the front of her skirt. It was all very decadent and topical —and couldn’t have been more apt if they’d laid it on specially for Edward’s benefit. He watched attentively, leaned over to me once and spoke under cover of general laughter.
