David Cronenberg's The Brood

by Richard Starks

  The cover of the book had shown a series of graphics, the images of rage blending one into another, as well as a full-face portrait of the author. It was a face with which Kelly was already familiar, from the numerous articles on psychoplasmics that had been published across the country.

  And, after an hour’s wait in his rented Chevrolet, it was a face that he recognized on the man now approaching the white Mercedes that was parked beside him.

  Kelly stubbed out his cigarette and climbed from his car.

  “Dr. Raglan? I’m Barton Kelly, Nola Carveth’s father.”

  Raglan turned and studied him for a moment.

  Kelly said, “I came here to see my daughter. But your receptionist wouldn’t let me in.”

  “No. She wouldn’t. You see, Nola . . .”

  “I know,” Kelly said. “She’s in isolation.”

  “That’s right. And that’s the way she must remain.”

  “Dr. Raglan,” Kelly said, “do you know that Nola’s mother has been murdered?”

  Raglan nodded. “The police called.”

  “So Nola knows?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Well, that was the reason I came. The funeral is the day after tomorrow, and Nola should be informed.”

  “Mr. Kelly, your wife’s death is a tragedy and I can only express my sympathies for you and for Nola. But I’m afraid that Nola cannot be told.”

  “What do you mean? She must be told.”

  Raglan shook his head. “It’s not in her interests.”

  “I think I should decide that, don’t you?”

  “You, Mr. Kelly? I hardly think that you are in any position to decide what is good for Nola.”

  He tried to push past, but Kelly blocked his way.

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean by that?”

  Raglan looked at him. “I mean, Mr. Kelly, that had you taken better care of your daughter twenty years ago, she probably would not now be under my care.”

  Kelly’s face dropped as if he’d been slapped. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

  Raglan shrugged.

  “Are you telling me,” Kelly said, “that I’m supposed to bury the girl’s mother without even letting her know she’s dead?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing. Nola is going through a critical phase of her therapy. She just couldn’t handle the news of her mother’s death. And seeing you, Mr. Kelly, or even just talking to you on the phone, would be one of the worst things that could happen to her.”

  “But I’m her father, for God’s sake.”

  “And I’m her doctor. And right now she needs me a lot more than she needs you.”

  “But you don’t know anything about me.”

  Raglan, about to get into his car, turned. “You’d be surprised, Mr. Kelly, I’m working through her relationship with you, analyzing it, finding out what it was really like. About the neglect, the indifference you showed towards her. She resents you, you know. Strongly.”

  “She’s never said anything like that to me.”

  “Perhaps not. But she’s reliving her early bitterness, and quite frankly, you are a long way from being her favourite person. She has a lot of anger inside her, and right now it’s directed at you.”

  “If I could just see her . . .”

  Raglan cut in. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Kelly. It’s the father you were in the past that she despises. Not the father you are now or the father you may become in the future. It’s the same with Nola’s mother. Nola relates to her as she did when she was a child. As far as she is concerned, your wife is still very much alive. I can’t disturb that now.”

  He opened the door of his car and climbed in. As Kelly took a step forward, Raglan put his Mercedes into drive and pulled out of the parking lot.

  C H A P T E R

  S E V E N

  Carveth put The Shape of Rage on the couch beside him and rubbed his eyes, kneading the corners with his knuckles. He still couldn’t shake from his mind the image of Hartog and the physiological damage the man had suffered. Carveth had witnessed the kind of physical transformation that psychoplasmics could generate—Michael Trellan had shown that clearly—but the idea that the body could actually turn against itself was totally alien. It seemed counter to nature for an organism to poison itself deliberately. Yet that was what Hartog claimed to have happened.

  Carveth had read Raglan’s book before, soon after Nola had put herself under psychoplasmic therapy. The Shape of Rage had explained Raglan’s theories at considerable length, and backed them up with specific case histories. At the time, Carveth had read the book only superficially. But now, reading it again, he had a different perspective and a definite purpose in mind.

  He found the concept of the body and mind competing with each other a difficult one to grasp. They seemed so separate that each should have been able to exist in isolation. Yet psychoplasmics was able to delve deep into the psyche where the two were inextricably entwined.

  If Carveth had any kind of mental picture of the area of the psyche that psychoplasmics explored, it was of a core region where the earliest memories of infancy were subconsciously recorded—memories, in fact, that extended even to life before birth, to the time when the foetus was still in the womb. There the cells of the body were undifferentiated. There was nothing to mark them apart, one from another; nothing to indicate that the cells of the brain were different from the cells of the body. It was possible then to imagine the mind and the body blending together.

  Of course, for most people the two did separate, and then exist in harmony. But there were always a few exceptions to be found. And since it was only by studying the oddities that it was possible to delineate the norm, Raglan, in his book, had dwelled on the exceptions.

  Carveth was aware that, in all the case studies Raglan cited, there was a strong, underlying sense of anger, and it was this anger that triggered the schism between mind and body, pitting the two against each other. And, as Raglan repeatedly showed, it was the body that was always ultimately dominant.

  Yes, Carveth thought, it was possible that the body could be made to turn on itself. If the patient’s anger were directed internally, then the body might express that anger, not just through itself, but against itself. As he well knew, psychiatrists’ offices all over the country were full of people whose mental images of themselves were less than adequate, people who were constantly attacking themselves for their own perceived weaknesses and failings. If the mind could attack itself, then why not the body? And if the body really were the dominant force, then surely it was not hard to accept that when the body expressed anger, then the effects would be that much more dramatic.

  Carveth stretched out his legs in front of him, then quickly got to his feet. Engrossed in the book, he had been unconscious of time, and he suddenly realized he was going to be late picking up Candy.

  As he drove to her school, darting in and out of the traffic, he reviewed in his mind the elements of the case he was trying to build against Raglan. The day before, he had taken a series of photographs of Candy’s back, which would show that she had been beaten. Ruth Mayer would confirm the change in Candy’s personality, and offer Candy’s drawings as further evidence. Finally, Jan Hartog was willing to swear that he had contracted cancer as a direct result of his psychoplasmic treatment.

  It wasn’t much, even Carveth had to admit. Not to help Candy. It didn’t form any pattern that could be used to construct a total picture. Instead, it was just a series of unrelated events. Something more was needed. A cornerstone around which he could place the other pieces.

  He parked opposite the school and hurried across the street. There were no parents waiting at the gate, and the main door of the school was already locked.

  Carveth went around the side of the building and found Ruth Mayer playing with Candy on the ramparts of the wooden fort that had been built at the rear of the yard.

  He watched them for a moment. Candy seemed more animated than sh
e had been in the past few days, and was running around the ramparts urging Ruth to chase her. Ruth took a few steps towards her, then suddenly lunged, sending Candy running and laughing, screaming with excitment, thinking she might get caught.

  Carveth smiled. It had been a long time since he had seen his daughter playing so happily.

  Candy caught sight of him and came running towards him. “Hi, Daddy.”

  He took her hand and led her over to her teacher. “Sorry I’m late, Miss Mayer,” he said. “And thanks for waiting with Candy.”

  Ruth smiled. “We were having fun, weren’t we Candy? And I think,” she told Carveth, “that I’ve learned a few more things that we should talk about.”

  Carveth caught her eye and nodded.

  Candy tugged at his arm. “Daddy, Miss Mayer said she was starving. Can we feed her at our place? Can we please?”

  “If she would like to come,” Carveth said. He looked at Ruth. “What do you think? I’m getting to be a functional cook, if not exactly an enthusiastic one. We could talk after Candy’s in bed.”

  Ruth hesitated a moment, then nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

  Ruth was stirring a cup of coffee in the living room when Carveth came back downstairs.

  “I hope I wasn’t too long,” he said. “I seem to be spending the day apologizing for keeping you waiting.”

  Ruth smiled. “It’s okay. Is Candy in bed?”

  “Yes. I wanted to sit with her for a while, until she went to sleep. She’s had a terrible time lately, and not just because of her experience at Somafree.” He paused. “I don’t know why I should burden you with all this, but Candy’s grandmother has been killed. She was murdered. And I think Candy may have seen something she’s not telling me about.”

  “My God, how awful.”

  “I know,” Carveth ran a hand over his face. “It’s been like that all week. And I still haven’t found any way of preventing Candy from visiting her mother at Somafree on Sunday. I’m just not making any headway.”

  “What about your appointment this afternoon? With the former patient?”

  Carveth took a seat on the couch opposite Ruth. “Well, I saw him. And he’s certainly in bad shape, the result, he says, of his psychoplasmics treatment. But it’s impossible to prove that his problem really stems from Somafree. It could have been caused by any number of other factors. Even he concedes that.”

  “Do you still want me to sign a statement about Candy?”

  “Would you?”

  Ruth nodded. “I’ve been thinking it over, this afternoon. Candy really needs some help from someone.”

  “Amen to that.” He looked at her empty cup. “More coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “How was Candy this afternoon?”

  Ruth took the coffee he offered. “That’s just it. After school, as soon as Candy realized she had me alone, she got me to play games with her. Like mother and daughter. She obviously needs mothering, and equally obviously, she isn’t getting it.”

  “I know. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve already messed up her life. And she’s still only five.”

  “You can’t really blame yourself. There’s only a certain amount that you can do on your own.”

  “That doesn’t help Candy.”

  “Your wife may recover. I mean, no matter what you might think of Raglan and his psychoplasmics, at least Nola reached out to him for professional help. That’s a good sign in itself, surely.”

  “I guess. But Nola’s been in therapy so long. Psychoplasmics is just another link in a long chain; it’s never going to end. I don’t know, it just seems that we’re going round and round in circles and never getting anywhere.” He drained his cup. “I’m sorry. There I go again, weighing you down with my troubles.”

  The phone rang beside him. “That’s all I need.”

  He reached for it and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Frank? That you? It’s Barton.”

  “Barton, where are you calling from? The hotel?”

  “No. The house.” The line crackled and Kelly’s voice faded.

  “Can you speak up,” Carveth said. “You’re sounding kind of faint.”

  “I said I’m at the house. Juliana’s house. I’ve still got my old key, so I just let myself in. It was a mistake, Frank.”

  “Are you all right, Barton?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You got a car with you?”

  “Rented one.”

  “Well, get over here then. There’s nothing you can do at the house. Leave it alone.”

  “I tried to see Nola, Frank. But they wouldn’t let me in. Wouldn’t let me see her or even talk on the phone. And that doctor of hers . . .”

  Carveth interrupted. “Doctor? What doctor? Did you see Raglan?”

  “I saw him all right. He blamed me for Nola’s troubles. Said Nola was accusing me, and resented me, and . . . I don’t know, Frank . . . Some of the things he said . . .”

  “Barton, have you been drinking?”

  “Some. But Christ, it’s all coming back to me now. Memories I thought were long since faded. All I wanted was to see Nola. That’s why I went out there.”

  “I know. But it can wait. Wait until the morning.”

  Kelly didn’t answer.

  “Barton, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, still here. I’m going back up there, Frank, to Somafree. They might expect me to come back, but they won’t expect me to come back tonight. I want to see Nola, see if I can’t straighten a few things out. Maybe I wasn’t such a hot shot father as I could have been, but I did what I did. I did my best.”

  “Now, wait a minute, Barton.”

  “I’ve waited too long as it is, Frank. Nola’s mother’s being buried on Thursday and Nola doesn’t even know she’s dead.”

  “Barton, listen to me. You don’t know what you’re doing. There are things about Nola that you don’t understand. It won’t do any good if you go up there now and make some kind of scene. You’ll just make things worse.”

  “Everyone keeps telling me I don’t understand my own daughter. I’m going, Frank. I just called to see if you wanted to come along. If you don’t—fine. I’ll go by myself.”

  “Barton, don’t do this.”

  “I’m doing it. With or without you.”

  Carveth hesitated. “All right, Barton. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be over there, okay? Wait for me.”

  “I knew I could count on you, Frank.”

  Carveth hung up and turned to face Ruth.

  “You heard?”

  She nodded.

  “That was Nola’s father. He’s in town for the funeral. Now he’s threatening to drive up to Somafree to see Nola. I have to go over there and stop him.”

  “I get the feeling,” Ruth said, “that I’m being recruited as a babysitter.”

  “It’s my final imposition on you, I promise. Candy’s asleep now. Ordinarily I might be able to leave her for twenty minutes or so, but after this week, and what she’s been through, I’d hate to have her wake up and find nobody here.”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “No more.”

  “All right.”

  “Thanks, Ruth. I really appreciate it. There’s more coffee in the kitchen, so help yourself.” He waved his hand around the room. “Television, magazines . . . make yourself at home. I’ll be back even before you know it.”

  Barton Kelly refilled his glass from the bottle of Scotch on the living room sideboard. It had been, as he’d told Carveth, a mistake to come to the house. His marriage to Juliana had ended nearly a decade ago, but even so, there were memories in this house, old ghosts that had never been laid to rest, minor things he thought he’d forgotten, but which now triggered a recollection of some of the good times he and Juliana had shared.

  As he replaced the bottle he felt a twinge of guilt. Stealing from the dead, he thought. But Juliana wouldn’t be drinking the Scotch now, and if he left i
t alone, it would only disappear into storage or maybe even turn up at a policemen’s ball somewhere.

  Someone, he knew, would have to come to the house and list the contents—the furnishings, the ornaments, the countless number of odds and ends that had been collected over the years, as well as the few valuables.

  He looked around the room. Jesus, it wasn’t much to show for a lifetime. Nothing permanent, nothing that would live on after death.

  “I’m sorry, Juliana,” he said out loud., “I’m really sorry.”

  He had been a good provider though; he couldn’t be faulted for that. Working hard at his job, evenings and weekends too, he had steadily advanced his career, and always brought home the money he earned. He’d kidded himself that he’d worked so hard for the sake of his family, that it had been his wife and daughter he’d been struggling for. But had it really? Even after the divorce he’d continued to work the same long hours, putting in the time when others went home, still seeking, still striving for success, trying to attain that level where his ambition would be satisfied.

  Well, he’d done it now. Head of a division, and first in line for a shot at the top job.

  But there’d been a price. And Juliana, and Nola too, had been the ones who had been forced to pay it. He really had neglected them, and at a time when they’d both needed him.

  As he swallowed his drink, he realized why Raglan’s words had cut him so deeply. Because they were true. ‘If you’d taken better care of your daughter, then she probably wouldn’t now be under my care.’

  If he could just talk to Nola, make her see things from his point of view. Maybe she could still be made to understand.

  He finished his Scotch and placed the glass on the sideboard. Even after eight years, everything in the house was still familiar. With the Scotch warming inside him, many of his recollections may have been lost or confused, but he knew he could find his way around the house blindfolded, if he really put his mind to it. As he looked around, he was struck by a disturbing sense of déjà vu. He knew where things were—yet didn’t. When he opened doors and cupboards he didn’t know what to expect. Yet somehow he was never surprised.