Silent Treatment

by David James

  Ben was puzzled. He knew he had seen her get up and go into the front room in the night, and he knew he had seen her sitting there hunched over.

  ‘I’ve found something Sarah, in the village,’ he said excitedly.

  Sarah didn’t respond and simply said ‘Shall we get some breakfast then?’

  He turned and started to follow her, but as he did he noticed the chess board. The pieces had all moved and it almost looked as if a new game had started without him.

  He followed her into the kitchen and between them they managed to construct some sort of breakfast.

  As they finished their rather meagre meal, they walked through to the front room and sat down.

  As they sat down Sarah turned to him and said 'So what did you want to tell me that was so important?'

  'I was wandering around across the other side of the village. Where we found the building, you know with the fence around?'

  Sarah nodded politely.

  Ben shuffled in his seat. 'Well I managed to get in. And we were right, it's more like an office than a house. Lots of desks and computing equipment and some interesting rooms.'

  Sarah sat patiently listening to him.

  'And, well, I switched on one of the computers, and, did I mention there were a bank of monitors on the wall?'

  Sarah shook her head.

  'Well, after I switched it on all the monitors lit up.'

  Ben took a deep breath and almost shouted out 'And they showed the whole village. Including this house.'

  He let this sink in for a moment and Sarah eventually said ‘What do you think it means?’

  He spoke quietly as he said 'I’m not sure. I'd really like you to see it. I think it could make more sense to you.'

  Ben was surprised at her seeming lack of surprise at what he was telling her. He was even more taken aback by her reply.

  'But I have so much to do here. I need to get everything organised in the house, get it the way I want it to look,' she said plaintively.

  Ben almost gave in, it would be so easy to just say 'Don't worry. I'll figure it out'. But he couldn’t, he somehow knew that he needed Sarah there.

  'We will be back soon and it's beautiful out there,' he said gently, trying to persuade her.

  Sarah turned her face to look out, sighed and reluctantly stood up and they both walked towards the door and went outside.

  They strolled across the village, Ben eager to arrive, Sarah getting more reluctant the closer they got to the building.

  As they passed the post office, Ben thought about showing her what had happened the night before. But thought better of it.

  Ben led her around the building and they were standing by the window.

  'Oh,' said Sarah, 'is that the entrance?'

  'I'm afraid so. I've got the hang of getting in now, so I'll help you in afterwards,' said Ben.

  He peeled back the mesh and scrambled upwards in his now accustomed way, easing himself downwards until he felt his feet on the solid desk.

  He reached back towards the window and helped Sarah through.

  Chapter Fifty Four

  As Ben finished helping Sarah in through the window, he stood with her beside him and said 'I'll show you what happens when I log on,’ and turned the machine on, ‘just keep watching the monitors,' he was trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  He typed in the password and turned round to look at the monitors.

  Nothing happened.

  The monitors remained blank.

  Sarah continued to look at the monitors as instructed.

  'Sorry,' said Ben and turned around again.

  He entered the password in again and turned around to look again.

  The monitors remained stubbornly blank. The message on the screen said that he had entered the password in incorrectly.

  His earlier enthusiasm was evaporating as he slowly and deliberately entered the password in again. He pressed the final key again, this time he didn't turn around. He didn't have to; he could see the error message.

  He knew it was the same password; he was sure of that.

  As he turned round to look at Sarah he said 'The password must have been changed.' He was instantly aware that he sounded unconvincing bordering on deluded.

  They both stood there for a few moments. Ben's embarrassment was beginning to overwhelm him.

  Sarah turned towards him and said 'Was there something else that you wanted to show me?'

  He was still exasperated by failing to boot up the monitors and now a part of him wondered if what he had seen before in the building still existed. Would he have anything to show Sarah?

  'Yes, there's things I want you to see. There are stairs just through the door.'

  He led the way and opened the door into the reception area. He was slightly relieved that it still looked as he remembered it from before.

  As he began to walk up the stairs he was half way up before he realised that Sarah wasn't following him. He looked back into the foyer and could see her standing transfixed by the board in the foyer. It was the board that Ben had seen with the departments in the building.

  'Everything okay Sarah?'

  She didn't reply.

  He walked back down the stairs and stood close to Sarah, she was still staring at the board.

  'Remind you of the institute does it?' said Ben.

  'Yes, I guess that is what it is. You’re right. Okay, what else had you to show me?'

  'Follow me,' he said and started walking up the stairs again, checking half way up that she was following this time.

  Soon they both stood on the upstairs landing.

  'Over here,' said Ben walking toward the department he had first visited yesterday.

  He stood with his hand on the door handle. Despite what had happened in the monitor room, he was confident that an entire room wouldn't have changed. He pushed the door open.

  It looked exactly the same. Even the lunches on the desks remained half eaten and the coffee in the cups half drunk. He walked through the door and Sarah followed him in and they both began to walk around the office.

  'They look like they left in a hurry,' said Ben.

  Sarah remained silent, she seemed to be taking it all in. Ben felt like a tour guide as he led her around, occasionally making comments.

  'You can see that they didn't seem to have time to finish eating.'

  Sarah nodded slightly.

  After what felt like a suitable length of time, Ben said 'Pretty normal office stuff really. But what I've got to show you next is a bit more interesting.'

  'This way,' said Ben and led them out of the room and across the corridor.

  'I hope this will be of more interest to you,' said Ben as he opened the door and led them into the room.

  'It's all a little odd isn't it?' said Ben as they surveyed the room.

  'It looks like our house,' said Sarah slowly, and she reached out and ran her hand across one of the identical tables to the ones they had.

  'It looks like they wanted to get the houses just right. So maybe they tried the designs out in here,' said Ben. 'There are some offices around, they had some stuff on the walls, but I didn't really understand it.'

  Ben led the way across the open plan office space. He was struggling to gauge Sarah's reaction. He had expected shock or at least surprise, but she seemed to just be taking it all in calmly, maybe her reaction would come later.

  He opened the door into a smaller room with a collection of half a dozen desks and walked across to the window. On the walls were charts, and standing on the floor were flip boards with various lists that made little sense to Ben.

  'Thought it might mean more to you than me Sarah,' he said hopefully.

  Ben started rummaging around in the drawers of the nearest desk. There was the usual collection of tissues, post-it notes and loose staples. He looked up at Sarah.

  'Fancy giving me a hand rummaging around? Might find something that will give us a clue about this place.'


  Sarah walked through the doorway and went to the nearest desk and began to open the draws and look inside.

  As Ben was looking around the office, his eyes alighted on a small doorway. ‘Wonder what’s through here,’ he said.

  Sarah put the papers she was holding down on the desk and followed Ben through the doorway.

  It was another office, but smaller and rather more plush than the others. Dominating the room was a large wooden desk. The desk was less plain than the other ones outside and the chair looked less like the standard issue ones elsewhere.

  'Guess this is the boss's office,' said Ben.

  Ben started looking through the drawers.

  Sarah stood at the door and wasn't moving. Her eyes were darting around the room wildly.

  'I don't think anyone will mind,' said Ben.

  Ben triumphantly emptied the drawer contents on the top of the desk.

  'This all looks a lot more official than the other stuff,' he said.

  Spreading the papers around the desk he read out 'Phase One and Phase Two, wonder what that means?'

  Any thoughts Sarah might have had of leaving the room untouched were shattered by the sound of Ben forcing a drawer open.

  Sarah glared at Ben, 'Did you have to?' she said sternly.

  'It's a locked drawer. I couldn't resist,' said Ben.

  He rummaged in the formerly locked drawer and produced what looked like a journal. ‘Well, we wouldn’t have found this if I didn’t break in,’ he said holding it aloft triumphantly.

  As he looked up he could see that Sarah was uneasy. 'Can we leave now? Please Ben, it doesn’t feel right disturbing things here,' she said pleadingly.

  Ben stopped what he was doing and with real concern said 'I'm sorry Sarah, we can get back home now if you like.' He picked up the documents and the journal and headed to the doorway.

  They retraced their steps through the building and started clambering out through the window in the monitor room. This proved much more difficult as they were burdened by the piles of documents. But they made it unscathed and walked back across the green.

  They walked in silence across the village and reached the house and Ben tumbled in the front door, depositing the documents on the nearest surface.

  Sarah at once seemed to lighten her mood.

  'Glad to be back home?' said Ben.

  There was a semblance of a smile as she said 'Always.'

  Ben laid out the documents on the table and started looking clumsily through them. Sarah sat motionless.

  After a suitable length of time Ben said 'I can't make head nor tail of them. They may as well be in a different language.' He looked up plaintively at Sarah.

  Sarah turned her head slowly to look at him.

  'Maybe there is an executive summary,' she said.

  'What's that?' said Ben.

  'Just a short summary. It's usually more simply written,' said Sarah. He wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

  Ben proceeded to rummage through the papers and said 'Bingo,' as he proudly held aloft the document. He started to read. But after a few minutes he said 'I still can't understand it. Any chance of some help?'

  Sarah took the document as Ben passed it across to her.

  She began to read it out loud, skipping over some parts that she knew Ben wouldn’t understand.

  Introduction...Project aims

  Test the impact of environmental factors and genetic factors. Can change in environmental factors overcome other factors?…..Controlled environment allowing observation of subjects under strict controls…

  Phase One...Environmental considerations...building of environment to mimic ideal...nature of ideal surroundings to be discussed and defined when other interested parties arrive...Building commenced...description of observation areas…consideration to be given to normalcy of situation...Recruitment…difficulty in approaching suitable staff...discretion…

  Sarah put down the document. Ben looked as puzzled as before.

  'Maybe if I read through all the documents I can summarise them for you.'

  Ben looked relieved. 'I'll make some tea then. I can do that at least,' he said.

  She turned over the documents and could see that there was no mention of any particular body commissioning the project. Which was in itself rather odd. If someone was commissioning the work, then they would usually want their name emblazoned on the documents. Certainly, in her experience, institutions or government departments wanted everybody to know it was them involved. Especially if they were paying for it. There were some quite technical descriptions of the approaches that they would take, which she found interesting but she wasn't sure that Ben would need to know about. One thing that caught her eye was a section entitled Security.

  Sarah spent the next hour reading through all the documents. A lot of it was dry detail, but there were some parts that made her almost gasp.

  For Ben it was agonising, and he found himself pacing round the room like an expectant father.

  Eventually, Sarah put down the last document, took a deep breath and said 'I know what the purpose of this place is.' She wondered how little she could tell Ben.

  Chapter Fifty Five

  Ben waited with baited breath as he watched Sarah fold up the last of the documents. He had waited patiently. But as he had observed Sarah reading the documents, he saw that reading it seemed to cause her distress at times. It was with a pained expression that she placed the last documents on the table.

  Sarah shuffled as if to get comfortable and picking up one of the documents, started speaking.

  'I don't know everything from this Ben, but I can give you a clue.'

  'We were right in what we had suspected when we first arrived. The houses that looked perfect. Too perfect. The village that looks like it was created from a perfect catalogue, or off a postcard. It isn't real.'

  'So it's all an illusion then?' said Ben.

  'It was meant to be real for the people who it was intended for.'

  'Why would anyone do that?' said Ben.

  'The “why” is what all these documents are about.' She waived her hand at the table full of the documents.

  'Before I get to the why, I need to get to the “who”,' she said.

  Ben looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

  'Who it is all for, then the why makes more sense,' said Sarah.

  'Okay, “who” then?'

  'Children,' said Sarah.

  Ben's expression told her that she needed to say more.

  'More specifically troubled children.'

  'I don't get it,' said Ben.

  'Actually, I'm not entirely correct there. It's for children who have the potential to become problematic.'

  'So they might have done nothing wrong at all then?' said Ben.

  'Not necessarily, they have been identified as potentially displaying...' she picked up one of the documents and found the right place, 'here we are, display significant behavioural problems that could lead to severe abnormal and antisocial behaviour at a later date.'

  Ben considered this before saying 'Sounds a little harsh to me, dragging them from their families to bring them here.'

  Sarah read through one of the documents again, 'If you saw some of the behaviour detailed in these social services reports, you might understand why. It was all done with the best intentions.'

  'Are you sure, it sounds more creepy than beneficial to me,' said Ben.

  'No. The experiment was valid!' said Sarah vehemently.

  'Maybe I can see the documents then?' said Ben.

  Sarah suddenly held the document close to her and said defensively 'It's confidential. I can't betray their details.'

  Ben was taken aback. 'They’re not your patients Sarah you know!' He had been more blunt than he had meant to be and immediately apologised 'Sorry, didn't mean it to come out like that.' But he knew the importance of the information and he knew he needed to see that document. The story could depend on it.

  'I
know they're not, but I do feel a duty of care. I know that might sound odd to you, but it's how I feel.'

  Ben admitted defeat, for now. 'What else do the documents say then?' he said.

  Sarah picked up another document, happy to move on from the previous one.

  'The intention was to create a normal family atmosphere,' she said.

  'Sort of a happy family then.'

  'That's pretty much it. In the document here it says create a perfect, stable family environment. And within that environment, observe behaviour and identify the problem areas, allowing them to be addressed and behaviour suitably modified.'

  'Hence the nice houses,' said Ben.

  Sarah nodded. 'The thinking was that they would give the children the stable environment that they had so sorely missed earlier in their lives. And that they would be able to mould their behaviour and eventually return them to society.'

  'And the restaurant and post office?' said Ben.

  'They were meant to represent normal environments. Where they could practice normal interactions.'

  'It all sounds a bit extreme,' said Ben.

  'If you had seen what had happened to these children in their natural environments you wouldn’t think it was extreme. In fact, you might say that this was the children’s last chance before a life of inevitable social dysfunction, and probably worse, would follow.'

  'So these weren't ordinary kids with ordinary problems?' said Ben.

  'Far, far from it. They had been identified as potentially problematical from an early age. All normal treatment had failed already,' said Sarah.

  Sarah continued to read 'The purpose was to guide social interaction to equip the patients with the social skills to interact in a variety of normal situations.'

  'So the houses were made to represent a normal family environment and the village as well. I can just imagine the “patients” as you called them waking up in the morning, having a happy family breakfast and popping down to the post office for a paper.'

  'Don't knock it Ben. There are plenty of children for whom that doesn't happen.'

  She picked up another document. 'There are some details in here about the family lives these children were leading. You might not be so flippant if you saw how they were living.'