by Alex Pheby
Sometimes at Christmas, after a lot of drink.
Which is not to say that it is pleasant to be affectless and withdrawn, but is to say that it is fine to be taken as you are. It is easier, certainly, than being expected to demonstrate that exact degree of excitement and public display of shared emotion that the people around you evidence. That is something very difficult, since you feel nothing and are a very poor actor, and no-one you know has been within miles of you for as long as you can remember. If only Ernest Hemingway could come and liberate you at the head of a convoy of Yanks, or Samuel Beckett, or better still James Joyce could rouse himself from the place he lies beneath the soil in Zurich, watching, and make his way to the west coast of France where fireworks are being set off, and instil some life into both of you, the great genius.
Or the brother, or the mother, or any of those who had taken such a lively interest in the affairs of the family when the patriarch was above the ground. Though what impetus is there now? For people who do not believe in ghosts?
It is only for you that he watches on, the others can relax in the relief of the tension of the obligation to meet the needs and desires of a mind like his – such difficult work and paid so poorly! If he palmed off the responsibility to breathe life into you even when he was breathing, why should anyone else take up the burden now he is dead? The champion, the defender, no – you should stay where you are. The immediate threat from the Nazis has been alleviated by Ernest Hemingway, and the bookshop is liberated. Why would they come now when they did not come before? When there was a real threat? When doctors ended the lives of those not worthy of life.
From then on the priesthood took over all important symbolic roles.
May you receive it, your Hemset, your god
The family take the coffin into the tomb which they have decorated with spells and images of the world within which the deceased will live for eternity.
DR W.G. MACDONALD
AROUND RUISLIP, 15TH MARCH 1951
Ruislip, on the river Pinn, was Dr W.G. Macdonald’s destination, and he drove there with an uncomfortable mixture of reticence and haste that marked a journey that was begun too late in the hope that it never had to be made at all. He waited by the telephone and watched the clock, his ear attuned to the first bell, and his eye to the progress of the hands, and there was always the possibility that it would be cancelled. Perhaps the plane would be delayed by mechanical failure. Perhaps his passengers had a change of heart and decided to remain in Paris. Perhaps the pilot had become ill and a replacement had to be found. Waiting for news of any and all of these possibilities allowed time to move past the point when it would have been prudent for him to set off, considering traffic and the possibility of minor delays, past the time when a good driver with a fair wind could have expected to arrive punctually, and into a red zone where anyone would be lucky to arrive when they had said they would arrive.
Now he looked at his wristwatch and he was already late. There were still five miles to go. At least.
He was outside Rickmansworth.
There was nothing in the trip that should have been so off-putting, and there was nothing back at the office that was so deserving of his attention. Perhaps it was just inertia. He had a general sense that not doing something was preferable to doing it, on some days – if it was raining, or overcast. The thought of ringing for another cup of tea was much more attractive than putting on his coat and walking down the stairs. Getting the car started and going to fill it with petrol, and taking the back routes to a place in order to avoid the traffic – it was all such a bore. There was a weight in it that seemed to crush his chest, especially in comparison with a cup of tea and the crossword. Perhaps a biscuit. Or simply sitting and not moving, even his head, so that his vision blurred out of reality and he was left with his own thoughts. It was not that this was pleasurable in the slightest – indeed, it often felt like sadness – but on some days, and in some weather conditions, it did rather seem appropriate. Or at least not doing it was a chore.
Laziness, really.
He was not a wonderful driver, either. Some men take great pleasure in driving, and in cars, and in the accessories available – leather gloves, flasks, caps, that kind of paraphernalia – but he was ambivalent to it at best. He had learned to drive late, and although he had been driving for decades now there was still that sense that he wasn’t properly part of the scene, that it wasn’t for him. There was the constant threat of a problem with the engine, or of a tyre to be changed, neither of which he was equipped to deal with. Journeys of any length felt like a dangerous gamble to him, where the possibility of accident, or worse, embarrassment was always hovering.
He didn’t like talking to the class of man that one had to go to in order to get cars fixed. They seemed to have the measure of him in some way; even when they were polite he could feel them thinking poorly of him. Can’t a man repair his own tyre? Doesn’t a man know how to fix a carburettor? What do we have here, then? A man who can’t… et cetera.
There was always someone directly behind him on these country roads, too. Everyone else was very keen to go faster than he was comfortable going, and this was all to do with being manly. In the hospital no one questioned him on this score – his learning and professional qualifications were more than enough for the nurses and secretaries. Good afternoon, Doctor. Yes, Doctor. They recognised his seniority; but out on the roads, in the streets, he felt small and somehow feminine.
All nonsense; he was tired and overthinking things. Why can’t a man be reluctant to take a trip without it being some psychological issue?
He was behind a tractor now. He tapped on the wheel, and the wristwatch was right there, letting him know that he was now ten minutes late.
So what? What would happen if he was twenty minutes late? An hour? Hardly the end of the world. He was on his way, he would arrive eventually, and then there would be no amount of tutting that he couldn’t apologise his way out of. After all, this was a courtesy, to collect a client from the airport – they could always have taken a taxi.
Perhaps it was her, then. Her bearing was irritating – again, that sense that he wasn’t a person worth recognising. She was very wealthy and whatever qualities he possessed, she had him there. Inherited, too, so she was used to thinking herself better than those around her, ever since she was a child, probably. He could imagine the haughty glances given to the stable hands and waiters and cooks of this girl’s childhood – she was American, so they had a Gone with the Wind quality to them, these daydreams – and he would be in a long line of recipients of her innate privilege. She was stern to look at too, the centre line of her hair very defined, like the sea Moses parted, and her mouth in a constant downward droop at the corners. How old would she be now? Old, anyway, and not the kind of woman, even when young, that one could either intimidate or charm. What does that leave for a man, in terms of social interaction? Kowtowing?
Perhaps that was it, then: he didn’t like to be less than the highest authority in the room. His feelings of wellbeing depended on that fact, and now he was loathe to put himself in positions where he had to answer to someone greater than he was.
Nonsense; he was continually in meetings with the board, all of whom outranked him.
Yes, but not in his own field.
The tractor pulled over into a layby and he went past, waving thanks to the farmer who utterly ignored him. Wasn’t waving the driverly thing to do? Surely it was…
There was the other business, of course. They had a history. There had been a time, long ago, when he had put a great deal of faith in certain treatments that had then turned out not to be as effective as he’d hoped. Not entirely ineffective, but very close. In the long term. And expensive. He had advocated the use of a treatment derived from the cells of foetal calves, as an alternative to the monkey glands which were extremely popular at the time. When it became clear that monkey glands were ineffective he should have ditched his claims for the bovine serum, but he did r
ather try to milk the situation (no pun intended). There was a gap in the market, briefly, before the field was debunked, when a shrewd man could have offloaded a great deal of expensive stock to people desperate for an alternative. Unfortunately, his product became tarred with the monkey glands brush, and it all got a little sticky (no puns intended).
Was it guilt, then?
No. More embarrassment and, again, that sense that one’s authority has been, or will be, undermined.
Still, here she had come, back for more, so clearly she had some faith in him.
Or was it coincidence? Or was her hand forced by some other consideration? Or something else?
It was all so tiring. Why had he agreed in the first place?
Batchworth, Batchworth Heath, then right before Northwood, and there was Ruislip Heath over which planes were landing and taking off.
He wasn’t an aficionado of planes either, though there were some he knew – the Vickers Viking he recognised, since the name had a pleasing alliteration, and there had been an incident that was in all the papers where a Frenchman had committed suicide by blowing himself up with a bomb in the toilet. That plane had taken off here, just like the other ones were doing now, and landed back too, with a gaping hole in the rear and one fewer living Frenchmen aboard than when it had taken off. The consensus was that, as a means of ending it all, this was a peculiarly selfish choice of method: why not blow yourself up down on the ground, where no-one else would get hurt? Or slit your wrists anywhere private? Or drown yourself in gin when you get home? He could understand that point of view, obviously, but secretly he thought there was something grand about it, something memorable. Why not make a big show of it? Perhaps this man was killing himself precisely because he had been a non-entity throughout his life, and this was the thing that would put him on the map. It was certainly memorable. Who knows, perhaps there was someone waiting down there on the tarmac in Paris who was relieved and delighted to hear the plane had turned back.
It’s an ill wind, after all.
The trouble with thinking things that distract yourself from a future event is that while it does relieve the gnawing of rats in the stomach, suddenly you are presented with that thing you have been dreading as if out of nowhere. Here she was in front of the car, waving him down: the old woman. She was with her charge, the girl he had failed to cure (now a middle-aged woman) standing in front of the entranceway to the airport building.
He had no choice but to give two cheery honks of the horn, even as he took a sigh. He didn’t recognise either of them – at least he didn’t feel a sense of recognition. In fact, was he getting muddled? Was this a different old woman altogether?
He came to a halt and applied the handbrake, put the car in neutral, and turned off the engine. Was that the right order? There was no time to think because she was up to the passenger side door, opening it.
—Where should I put the bag?
A pun occurred to him, but very briefly, and he indicated that there was room in the rear since the bag was small. It is amazing how quickly a separation of years suddenly becomes as if nothing, and having this woman bark at him brought it all back – the conflict over his methods, his fees, his attitude, his demeanour, the old woman’s meddling which had resulted in a great deal of anguish all round, and now he was not at all surprised that this meeting had met with such antipathy from him. His stomach, it appeared, had a better memory than he did, and now the old woman was indicating the bag, and that he should come round and collect it, which, of course, he did.
—Is there anything in it?
The bag was as light as an empty bag is; when he picked it up with the strength required to lift something heavier it flew comically into the air. The old woman didn’t smile.
—Don’t worry. I will provide clothing and essentials later, if you can concentrate on your job.
There were none of the politenesses that one might expect, nor much chat at all, so he took from his jacket pocket the schedule of fees and passed it to her. She took it and made a great show of searching for her reading glasses, patting herself down from head to toe and back again, before opening the clasp on her handbag and taking them out from there. When she read the list she scowled before meticulously folding it and placing it in her bag with the glasses.
—Expect me early next week, she said, though to whom she said it was unclear since her charge was already in the passenger seat and she was looking in the opposite direction.
Would that be it? At least it had the merit of being brief. Brief enough, in fact, for the exchange to be seen as a storm in a tea cup and perhaps nothing to be so affected over anyway.
He made his way over to the driver’s side door and opened it, and out billowed cigarette smoke as if he had opened the saloon door of a packed bar.
—You should stop that filthy habit. Doctor’s orders.
The more I thought about it, the more I was seduced by this idea (against my more scientific understanding that I was making connections where they did not properly exist, and ones which were so filled with supposition that they were almost worthless), and it seemed to me that a crime had been done against the laws of the people who had made this tomb. The desecrators of this place had taken upon themselves the role of Osiris, the god of the dead, and made judgement of the deceased’s actions where that is properly to be done at the ceremony of the weighing of the heart.
May your Ka be gracious to you
The coffin is lowered into the stone sarcophagus, and the canopic jars placed at the foot of it. The personal effects are brought in, along with offerings of food and wine.
STAFF OF THE INSTITUTION
NORTHAMPTON, DATE UNKNOWN
Doctor’s orders to an attendant don’t get questioned.
You do what you are told.
When an attendant is told to strip his charge, and to mummify her in sheets and towels soaked in cold water, that is what he does.
So the patient is stripped and the towels and sheets are doused in cold water. Then the patient is re-clothed, head to foot but not the mouth, in the winding cloth. We use linen wrappings from overused or stained bed sheets that are no longer fit for purpose. We use cotton towelling that is past its prime, balding in places, torn into strips and wetted. We bind from the fingertips to the elbow, and from the elbow to the shoulder, then around the neck and under the chin. We go over the forehead and around the eyes, and across the bridge of the nose. One man holds her still – not so difficult with the frail birds, but never easy – a flinging arm to the bollock can stymie the process, but this is not so much of an issue if pre-medication has been ordered. A nurse can apply it via vein, and the cotton wool ball will be kept in place by the winding cloth.
Like a baby, a patient will cease her crying when swaddled. Her arms are held tight, her legs are prevented from movement, and the room is dark. If we shush in her ear like a mother, the patient almost always calms. It is a reflex, though it doesn’t always work for mental cases with episodes of frantic behaviour; here we combine it with cold water. Cold de-saturates the nerves, drawing their heat into the liquid. It prevents over excitation.
Once our charge is restrained on a canvas stretcher or hammock, we draw a continuous bath of cold water into which the patient is lowered. They object to this, even if they are swaddled. They try to release themselves from the straps – we restrain them at the ankle, knees, elbow, wrists and across the forehead. Restrained, they are prone to drowning and hypothermia, so we keep a close eye on them.
First, the attendant notes their name and the date and time of their arrival at the top of the sheet – if there are any assistants in the process, the names of these people are similarly recorded, and if they are unable to sign their own name then their name is signed for them by a supervisor.
With a thermometer, the temperature of the water is recorded. We bring it up to the eye, but avoid placing our fingers on the bulb, which will only record the temperature of our fingers and not the water. We note the numb
er in the space provided on the sheet. The water must be neither too hot nor too cold. The addition of cold water should correct the latter, hot water the former. We never use a kettle – that runs the risk of scalding – but hot water is added every fifteen minutes. If the patient evacuates in either manner, then we begin again; the water is allowed to drain, and fresh water is provided.
We watch carefully at all times – if there is another call on our attention then we find someone else to attend her promptly. Otherwise we risk the patient drowning.
She is unable to make any movements by herself; she is so tightly bound that even if she slips a little under the water she can’t right herself and drowns. To prevent hypothermia, we check for cyanosis, excessive flushing of the cheeks, excessive blueness in the cheeks, or a loss of either colour in the cheeks. We take the pulse every time the temperature of the water is checked to ensure that there are no problems with the heart, and that the patient has not died. If the patient shows extreme reactions beyond what might be expected of them, then we drain the water, and take her on the stretcher to one side while the supervisor is called.
We note the patient’s mental state – write on the sheet if she cries, laughs, sings, goes silent, or makes any attempt to end her own life by stopping breathing. What she sings, where possible, we note, also how she sings it – in tune, atonally, with relish, or sarcastically. Hallucinations, both auditory and visual are noted, such as ‘patient proclaimed that her father was watching her (despite his being dead)’ or ‘patient listened intently to noises that were not there with a strained but ecstatic expression’.
When the supervising attendant’s shift concludes, we note when he leaves and the arrival of his successor is also noted at the same time. No shift is considered to have ended without a new shift having been begun.
If for any reason the patient is removed from the water, the reason for this removal is noted. The patient’s wishes are not sufficient reason for them to be removed from the water. The time of removal is noted on the sheet and the patient is rubbed vigorously with a good dry towel until they glow with health. This prevents them remaining cold and wet.
