A Very Persistent Illusion

by L. C. Tyler

  She runs through his crackpot theory, though I do of course know it quite well. We’ve had this conversation before, or at least one very much like it. Soon it will be my turn to tell her what she already knows.

  ‘A lot of other researchers were working on the same idea,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t that outlandish. He was simply the first one brave enough to run a clinical trial. And there is no good evidence that consent was not obtained.’

  ‘Do you know what your responsibilities are under your Royal Charter, Christian?’ she asks. The answer is: ‘No, nor do I give a stuff.’ But again, there is no need for me to say anything.

  ‘You have a public duty,’ she says, ‘to ensure that charlatans like George Magwitch are not allowed to continue to practise. You should carry out a full investigation of all of his research, including the faked data.’

  ‘He was investigated by others and cleared,’ I manage to say, when she is obliged to take a breath.

  ‘It was a whitewash.’

  ‘But if we investigate him and clear him, you’ll say that’s a whitewash too,’ I point out.

  ‘If you do it properly, you won’t clear him, because he is guilty,’ she says triumphantly. ‘And do you know what his evidence did to Dan Smith?’

  ‘Roughly,’ I say. At the moment, I’m frankly more concerned about what Digby Spain is going to do to me. A lot more concerned.

  ‘They sacked Dan Smith from the care home. He was prosecuted for assault – all because of George Magwitch’s trumped-up evidence,’ says Barbara.

  ‘But George Magwitch just produced a factual report about the injuries he examined,’ I say.

  ‘In a way that made it clear that it could only have been Dan Smith who committed them. Juries listen to expert witnesses, particularly plausible ones with nice accents like George Magwitch. He made up his mind that it was Dan Smith, and ignored everything else that was clearly wrong with that care home.’

  I’m not sure that’s entirely true – I seem to remember Magwitch laying into the home’s management as well. You can accuse George of bias, but nobody’s ever accused him of cowardice or half-measures. I get to point out some of this before I am interrupted.

  ‘You should call him to account and then take away his Fellowship of the Society.’

  ‘I’m not sure we can do that, Barbara.’

  ‘By-law 27 (1) b,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say. Interesting. I’ll need to check that one.

  ‘It’s not just me. We’ve got an MP involved in the case now. There will be questions asked in the House.’

  ‘Uhuh,’ I say.

  And so on and so on, for ever probably if I let her.

  I discovered a long time ago that it makes very little difference whether I take part in these conversations or not. If I say nothing, Barbara ploughs ahead regardless. If I say something she ignores it or snorts derisively. She’s a really easy person to talk to.

  I wonder what it is deep in her past that makes her do this. What triggered a desire to pursue nice doctors in this way? I have met her once. She has iron-grey hair, tied back so tightly that it must hurt. She has a sharp nose that she holds slightly elevated, in order to look down it. And in her eyes there shines the certainty of the righteous. Where have I seen that look before? Ah, yes, it was the last time I saw George Magwitch.

  After twenty minutes or so she starts to flag a little and I manage to say: ‘I’m sorry, Barbara, I have a meeting to go to.’

  ‘And I,’ she says, ‘must go and continue to fight for the rights of patients – doing your work for you.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ I say. ‘It’s really good of you.’

  But she too has hung up.

  Fatima looks round my door.

  ‘You ought to be at the Parliamentary Affairs Committee,’ she says. ‘Lucy has already gone.’

  I groan and gather my papers together. Then I plod up the stairs towards the graveyard of lost hope that men call Committee Room 2.

  8

  Neuburg, Danube Valley, November 1619

  The waiter knocked on the oak door and carefully pushed it open. In one hand he had a bowl of hot rabbit stew and a hunk of bread. In the other he had a small flask containing some of the straw-coloured local wine and as much of the dubiously coloured local river as the cook thought they could get away with.

  ‘Supper, good sir,’ he said jovially. ‘The cook has prepared this rich and nutritious mess for you with his own hands. And I have brought it to you with mine. Service charge at your discretion. Would you like it over there by the stove? It’s a bit warmer out there today, but it’s still cold enough to freeze the balls off a wooden donkey, as they say in Oberhausen.’

  ‘Put it anywhere,’ said Descartes. ‘Just leave it. I’ll eat it when I’ve finished writing this page.’

  ‘That’s the proof of God’s existence you’ve got there then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Descartes.

  ‘And therefore of mine?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Descartes.

  ‘Better not lose it then,’ said the waiter, ‘although I have thought further about the problem with your argument.’

  Descartes looked up wearily. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You say that God, being perfect, must have the property of existence?’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘So, doesn’t that also leave the way open for a nonexistent, imperfect God? Or indeed, since the property of existence is not dependent on perfection, an existent, imperfect God? In which case, aren’t you basically stuffed? Because your imperfect God might be deceiving you about the nature of existence, and the rest of reality just goes up in a puff of smoke.’

  ‘Not really—’

  ‘Once you’ve decided that the only thing you can be certain of is your own existence, then it seems to me that you are stuck on a lonely rock in a sea of uncertainty, with only a few triangles and other abstractions to keep you company.’

  ‘Just put the stew down and piss off,’ said Descartes. ‘If the roads are any better in the morning, I’m going to see if I can press on to Frankfurt.’

  ‘The river’s starting to thaw anyway,’ said the waiter, placing the flask of wine on the table.

  Back in the warm and steamy kitchen, the waiter reported to the cook that their guest was about to depart.

  ‘Just as well,’ said the cook. ‘There’s an Englishman just arrived looking for a room. We can give him that one.’

  ‘As long as it’s not another bloody philosopher,’ said the waiter. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Hobbes,’ said the cook. ‘He says he’s called Thomas Hobbes.’

  9

  Great Portland Street Station, 29 April this Year

  I have been skilfully hiding behind my copy of Metro since King’s Cross, and now allow Jon to descend to the platform before I make a sudden dash and squeeze out between the closing doors. Jon is thus at least a dozen places ahead of me in the crowd that trudges reluctantly up the stairs and towards their respective and much-loathed workplaces. Halfway up, the stairs divide and send us arbitrarily right or left. Tourists sometimes halt at this point, irritated commuters blindly piling up behind them, wondering which way leads to the exit. Both ways do. The crowd is reunited into a single stream as it reaches the top of the stairs and is momentarily checked by the automatic barriers. By some disparity in the speed of flow, my streamlet hits the barriers a few seconds ahead of the other, and I (lurking at the back of my group) find myself face to face with Jon (at the head of his).

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Good morning, Chris. I didn’t see you on the train.’

  ‘No, I didn’t see you either.’ I wonder if we are both lying. I doubt that he wants to talk to me any more than I want to talk to him. But we’ve got each other for the five-minute walk to the Society.

  ‘How’s the family?’ I ask. One day I shall manage to remember the names of his children. Owen, Charity and Helena? Yes, that’s it.

  ‘Ben’s still sick,�
� he says. ‘I think Faith looks as though she’s coming down with the same thing. Ros has had to stay, at home to look after them.’ Right, so that’s: children = Ben, Faith and A. N. Other. I wonder if I will remember long enough to make a note when I get to work. Probably not.

  We approach the pedestrian crossing. If the lights change to green just as we get there then Digby Spain will not stitch me up. They stay red for a long time.

  ‘Database User Group meeting today,’ I say, tapping my foot and watching for the red man to change to a green man.

  ‘You don’t need me for that, do you?’ asks Jon. He is not needed and has no intention of coming whatever I say, so what I say is: ‘Absolutely. It would be really good if you could get there, Jon.’

  ‘No, better not,’ he says, looking along Euston Road for any break in the traffic. ‘I need to work on the press release Ethics and Rights Committee want to put out. The draft they’ve given me is a bit of a mess.’

  ‘Do you know anything about Humph?’ I ask.

  Jon turns and looks at me, puzzled. ‘In what way?’

  ‘He looks really ill.’

  ‘He looks tired.’

  ‘He as good as told me he was dying.’

  ‘Good grief,’ says Jon. ‘Dying of what?’

  I realize I don’t know. I shrug in a way that suggests that I am regrettably sworn to secrecy.

  Jon seems genuinely upset, and I wonder vaguely why my own reaction a day or so before had merely been surprise. Humph’s a good guy, after all.

  ‘Better not say anything to anyone else,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ says Jon with a frown. ‘I won’t. But all the same . . .’

  ‘It’s not important,’ I say.

  Jon looks at me oddly. ‘Not important?’

  ‘I mean, it’s confidential,’ I say.

  ‘But . . .’ he says.

  Suddenly a gap appears in the traffic. We sprint across to the central reservation just behind a bus and just ahead of an enormous lorry that is travelling faster than either of us realized. The lorry gives us a long burst of its horn, but it is wasting its time. It can’t kill me. That’s one thing I’m absolutely certain of. Nothing can kill me. Ever.

  ‘By the way,’ says Jon, as if this close brush with death has just reminded him of another unavoidable obligation, ‘Ros and I have been meaning to invite you round to dinner. Would the Tuesday after next suit you? You could come back with me, straight from work.’

  We are paused on the central reservation, waiting for the second set of lights to change to green.

  ‘That would be good,’ I say, realizing that I have already forgotten the names of his children, possibly vital information for a credible visit to his house. Bob and Hope? No, that’s not likely. I’ll ask Lucy. She’ll know. She knows things like that.

  The lights on the other side of the central reservation cease for a moment to be red or anything else, and then become green. We stroll across and progress towards the Society in a thoughtful fashion, without further discussion of families (in which I am ill-equipped to take part) or of death (about which I know slightly more than I would wish).

  * * *

  Names are funny things. I’ve never met Digby Spain in the flesh, but his moniker conjures up this rather plump upper-class Englishman in a checked waistcoat – an Englishman beginning to go bald and slightly short of breath. His face is round and . . . well . . . more eggshell than gloss, but smooth and probably quite pink. Of course, if I should ever meet him I shall probably find that he is tall, cadaverous and has shoulder-length hair, but I doubt it. Give somebody a name like that and they grow into the part. It’s much the same as Virginia, which is, as I have said, quite a name to live up to. A name like that has to be constantly at the back of your mind. I’ve wanted the Society to carry out scientific research on the subject. You would take identical twins and name one Dominic or Justin, and the other Wayne or LeeRoy and study them as they grew up. The gratuitous cruelty of this experiment might mean that we failed to get Ethics Committee approval, but I think it would be worth a try, just to annoy Barbara Proudie. My last name is interesting in the sense that nobody here knows how to pronounce it or even spell it. It ought to be spelt Sørensen, but since I’d be the only one who would know that was pronounced any differently from Sorensen, I can’t be arsed, frankly. My first name, too, was supposed to have three distinct Danish syllables – not two slurred English ones. I think if I had insisted on Christian Sørensen (spelling and pronunciation) I would have a totally different self-image – Nordic, clean-cut, brooding. But as it is . . .

  Nicknames are something else again. Like Fat Dave, you end up with what you deserve. Virginia used to call me ‘Puppy’ at one time, and then stopped. I suppose it meant that I was cute, messy and nipped your trouser leg when you least expected it. I never came up with a pet name for her, and if I’m going to dump her, it isn’t really worth the effort now.

  * * *

  Dumping your girlfriend by email. Yes, absolutely, it’s the modern way to do it. More caring than a text message. Less traumatic than a phone call. Cheaper than a final dinner at a flash restaurant and with less danger of miscommunication.

  So:

  Dear Virginia,

  I doubt that this email will come as a surprise to you. You must have noticed how we have been growing apart lately. It’s not your fault. You need somebody more mature than I am. You need somebody who is ready to make a lifetime commitment. I on the other hand am not sure what I want or need. I am not Mr Right. I am not even Mr OK. One of the few things Dave has said that you’ll agree with (eventually) is that you deserve better than me. I am offering you the chance to find that person. Virginia, you are a wonderful woman who will one day make some lucky man a wonderful wife. I hope you can forgive me and that we can remain friends.

  With much affection, Chris

  I read it through. Yes, not bad at all. I haven’t even resorted to: ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Of course I won’t send it today. I press SAVE and then double-check that I haven’t sent it by mistake. No – it’s there, safe in my DRAFTS file until I need it.

  * * *

  ‘By email?’

  ‘It has certain advantages.’

  ‘Only over a text message, you moron,’ says Dave. ‘It has no advantages in any other sense. Would she dump you by email?’

  I consider this carefully. The answer is ‘no’, obviously. Virginia would not dump me at all.

  ‘So, you think I should just tell her?’ I ask.

  ‘I think you should marry her,’ says Dave.

  ‘Marry?’ I say. Words like this are not supposed to occur in our conversations, other than in the context of dire warnings of impending ruin. Then the light begins to dawn. ‘Has Megan brainwashed you? Or . . . oh, my God . . . has your body been taken over by alien life forms? Dave, we can still save you. Dave, are you still in there?’

  ‘You’re a sad bastard,’ says Dave, not unkindly.

  ‘OK, that’s agreed then,’ I say. ‘The email goes off tomorrow at zero nine hundred hours.’

  Dave shakes his head. ‘What is your problem, Chris?’ he asks. ‘Exactly what is your problem?’

  10

  No Time, No Date

  Although I cannot remember exactly when I ceased to believe in reality, I can remember, to the minute, when my childhood ended.

  I was in my last year at university. My brother, Niels, was still at school. I had my final exams shortly after Easter and I had decided to stay in Bristol and revise rather than go home. My parents had proposed a week’s holiday in the Lake District and, a little to my surprise, had said that if I did not want to join them, they and Niels would go anyway. Having grown up on a small flat island, my parents loved the mountains. I suppose I was surprised only because I found it difficult to imagine them doing anything at all without me. Home was such a fixed and unchanging part of my life that (even though I believed in reality in those days) I could have believed they went into suspended anim
ation as I closed the front door and did not resume their activities until I opened it again at the end of term. It is true that in the meantime a new picture might have been hung or a cup been broken, but these small adjustments only re-emphasized the larger immutability of their lives.

  The night before they set off I called them from a phone booth in the hall of residence. My mother explained that they were planning to leave very early to miss the London traffic. My father was outside checking the car and Niels was upstairs finishing packing. They gave me a number on which I could call them in Grasmere – this was in the days before mobile phones made everyone instantly obtainable. I noted the number, but I knew the place already. We had stayed there before.

  I woke the following morning before it was light and thought of them, pleased to be up early and missing the traffic, driving north as the sky brightened and became pale blue and pink – newborn colours – excited and looking forward to walking the fells that afternoon. Soon they would be stopping for breakfast, getting out of the car and smelling the fresh cold April air and smiling at each other. I wished that I had gone with them. I have wished the same thing every day since.

  If I had gone, then they might have left a few moments earlier or a few moments later. I might have told my father a joke and he might have laughed and driven a bit slower or a bit faster as a result. I might have suggested stopping earlier or later. They would certainly have been somewhere else when the Mini pulled out in front of the lorry and the lorry swerved across two lanes and then skidded sideways along all three. At that moment most places were better than the place they were in.

  After breakfast I went to the library. I saw the Warden of my hall on the way and he commiserated with me for still being there revising and I commiserated with him because he had to write a paper for a conference. I spent the morning on Shakespeare’s Sonnets (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG), had lunch at a pub and then went back to the library until it closed. As I left, I realized that my family would have already returned to their guesthouse after that first walk, and would now be changing for dinner. They would have it in the small dining room in which the four of us had eaten so many times before.