Walls of Silence

by Ruth Wade

  *

  It was only a short stroll across the squares of Bloomsbury to the Lamb and Flag in Lamb’s Conduit Street. They had come here many a time – he, Peter, and Helen – when they’d been fledgling doctors full of ideals and enough energy to want to spend their evenings stretching their minds in earnest debate. The pub was dark inside, the mahogany panelling sucking in the greenish glow from the shaded lamps. They had no difficulty finding seats and Stephen went up to the bar. Peter was wreathed in a grey-blue spicy pall of pipe smoke by the time he returned with the beer. He placed the glasses on the table and sat down.

  ‘Don’t know how you can drink mild and bitter, haven’t you any taste buds?’

  ‘I’ll have you know that my palate’s as refined as they come.’ Peter blew out a cloud of pipe smoke as if to emphasise the point. ‘Honed on fruit and hedgerow wine these days. Helen and I have amassed quite a good cellar of the stuff. Developed a taste for it in France where they manage to turn the most amazing things into alcohol. Pure alchemy. Astonishing really, seeing as we barely had enough to eat most of the time. Still, that’s all over and done with now.’ He raised his glass. ‘Good to see you again, old son. Here’s mud in your eye.’

  Stephen took a gulp of beer and felt the knot at hearing Helen’s name dissolve in his stomach.

  ‘So, what are you up to now? I didn’t expect to see you there tonight; dabbling in the black art of psychoanalysis now are you?’

  Peter unfurled his soft smile. ‘More like dipping my toe. I run a place in the country – a home from home, you might say – for veterans from the War. It’s near Lewes. Beddingham Hall.’ He snorted a laugh. ‘The men call it Bloody Hell Hole; a sense of humour’s a wonderfully healing thing. You should come down and visit sometime. A walk on the South Downs would do you the world of good – you’re looking paler, and an awful lot thinner, since I last clapped eyes on you.’

  Stephen was barely able to acknowledge the invitation. Lewes. Did the whole world have to lead back to that accursed asylum and the unexploded shell that waited for him there?

  ‘Can’t say the same for you.’ He injected as much lightness into his voice as he could. ‘I’d say you had the beginnings of middle-aged spread if I didn’t know we’re about the same age and I’m not ready to see myself as an old man quite yet.’

  Peter patted his stomach where it pushed against the edge of the table. ‘That’s what the love of a good woman does for you – and her legendary steak and kidney puddings.’ He tamped down the tobacco in his pipe with the end of his penknife. ‘Why don’t you try it? I assume you’ve not taken the plunge or she wouldn’t have let you grow that dreadful face fungus.’

  Stephen stroked his cheek. ‘I see you haven’t lost your knack for not sparing anyone’s feelings unnecessarily. But I’ll have you know that some women find a beard irresistible.’

  ‘What do you mean; blind, like Braille?’

  ‘Her name’s Maggie. She’s got the most beautiful mouth and radiant smile – and she happens to love my beard. We’re what I suppose you married types would probably call going steady.’

  ‘Bring her with you when you come and see us then; the more the merrier. Same again?’ Peter picked up both glasses and walked towards the bar without waiting for a reply.

  As Stephen watched him go, his irritation switched from the arrogant assurance of his companion back to himself. Why did he always resort to lying about the facts of his life in the hope of impressing Peter Hargreaves? He’d got into that pattern early on but there really was no need for it now: they were both doctors; both apparently successful in their chosen fields; both intelligent, reasonably handsome and personable ... but he knew why. One of them had Helen. And it wasn’t him. He had to change the subject or risk making a complete bloody idiot of himself.

  ‘Tell me more about your work,’ he said when Peter had returned. ‘Have you been doing it ever since you got your ticket home?’

  ‘Not exactly. When hostilities ceased, I moved into general medicine for a bit – one can see a little too much of man’s innards to make for restful sleep – and I thought a country practice would be just the ticket. But, needless to say, I got pretty bored treating in-growing toenails and farmer’s lung so I leapt at the chance of Beddingham Hall when they offered it to me.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The army, Ministry of Defence, government; whoever. Seems I had established some sort of reputation for myself in the clearing station at Etaples, and they wanted me to set this thing up. Sip your beer with reverence, old son, because, according to the powers that be, you’re in the company of a medical pioneer.’

  Stephen gave a mock salute with his glass; Peter’s worst fault – if it could be called that – was an overdose of humility and if he was making a self-deprecating joke then he must be engaged in some very remarkable enterprise indeed. Stephen squashed a bubble of envy; his own work could hardly be called pedestrian.

  ‘Hospitals and treatment centres already existed for amputees and those who were so seriously wounded that they needed constant medical attention.’

  Peter took his pipe from between his lips and refilled it. He didn’t resume speaking until he’d added significantly to the veil of smoke hanging just below the nicotine-yellow ceiling.

  ‘But these men needed something more specialised; a place they could call their own where they wouldn’t be persecuted with jeers or spat at – or worse.’

  ‘Who on earth would do that to someone who gave almost everything they had for their country?’

  ‘The man in the street ... the young woman with a babe in arms she wanted to protect from horror above everything else ... oh, you’d be surprised at the instinctive and elemental reaction of the human animal at times. Just wait until you come and visit and then you’ll see what I mean. They are dreadfully – and I use that word in the literal sense of arousing fear and disgust – disfigured. Predominantly facially. So much so that they can’t exist in what we laughingly label normal society. It’s funny, but there’s something about people’s faces that has the capacity to make us either intensely love or intensely hate the person behind the mask. Maybe it’s because it acts as a mirror for us to see our own selves, who we really are in the deep dark recesses of our being. That bit that we keep so closed and airtight that we sometimes barely know what form it takes ourselves.’

  Stephen shuddered. Edith Potter, again.

  ‘Isn’t it an onerous task, rehabilitating men like that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t rehabilitate them, only the greatest miracle the world has ever seen could do that by making every single one of us non-judgmental, tolerant, accepting, and guilt-free overnight ...’

  Stephen knew that the loaded pause was so that he could consider just where he was on the spectrum of sainthood. But he didn’t need it; recent events were bringing it to mind all the time.

  ‘... and we both know that’s never going to happen, so what we work on is helping the men adjust to their tragically new-found circumstances and identity.’

  His voice was thick with compassion. Not a trace of the anger Stephen knew he’d feel if he were responsible for the mental robustness of the men in Beddingham Hall. It gave him the courage to broach the subject that had been haunting him all week.

  ‘I’ve been enjoying a modicum of success myself lately. I wrote a paper that got me accepted into the British Psychological Society; all about catatonia. Broke new ground.’

  ‘Here’s to you then.’ Peter raised his glass.

  ‘Thanks. I’m very proud of my work but ...’ he reached up and pulled at his beard ‘... I seem to have got myself into a bit of a predicament. With a patient.’

  ‘You haven’t, have you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Compromised yourself – sexually, I mean.’

  Stephen’s cheeks burned. ‘Of course not! How could you think that?’

  ‘I was wondering if this thing you’ve got going is with a young student. After all, it’s not an
unheard-of occurrence; up on our pedestals not many of us get opportunities to form attachments outside our profession. I’m a case in point; no one else would have me but a fellow quack.’

  They were getting sidetracked and it wasn’t a route Stephen wanted to go down; he’d sidestepped Helen once already. He took a long swig of his beer. ‘I can’t tell you in any depth about the case – for obvious reasons – but I’m faced with a situation I’ve never encountered before and I’m in two minds what to do about it.’

  Peter laughed. ‘A most appropriate turn of phrase for a man in your line of work, if I may say so. What this is all leading up to is that you want to pick your Uncle Peter’s brains, eh? Why don’t you feel free to tell me all and I’ll do my best to dredge up some opinion or other.’

  Did he really have to make things worse? Stephen felt his vulnerability exposed enough as it was without Peter seemingly enjoying humiliating him further.

  ‘I ... I ... Why don’t you drink up and I’ll get us both another one in? We’ve got time before you have to catch a train, haven’t we?’

  Peter drained the last quarter of his glass and handed it over. ‘But let’s make this the last; I’d forgotten how swiftly you can put them away and Helen’ll have my guts for garters if I don’t have a clear head tomorrow.’

  Stephen joined the, now obviously drunk, students at the bar. He could smell the inviting oblivion of whisky. Maybe he should buy a bottle to take back to his room – sleep would elude him tonight for sure. But he resisted the temptation and wove his way back to the table, carrying the glasses above head-height to avoid any elbow knocks.

  He sat and started on his beer while Peter regarded him in silence. Stephen thought he’d make a very good psychoanalyst with his natural knack of waiting patiently until the other person’s need to talk became overwhelming. Lubricated by alcohol, and a desperate need to unburden himself, he slipped into the void.

  ‘She – this woman – was in a catatonic stupor that seemed to all intents and purposes to be profound, and permanent. I’d been treating her with hypnosis and we’d been making excellent progress until she remembered something and took refuge in deepening her alienation from the world. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. But the director of the asylum telephoned on Monday to tell me that she’s lucid again.’

  ‘That’s good news, isn’t it? Shows that you must have given her something of life to hang onto, deep down. You should mark it up as another wounded soul saved.’

  His sincerity was so palpable that Stephen had to fight not to lash out in his shame and confusion.

  ‘However, before she did – and I must say in my defence that no one else was bothering with her – I skipped a few of the landing stages in the plumbing of her mind’s depths and as a consequence she’s left with a part of her consciousness being able to recognise the shape and texture of the appalling truth it wanted to hide from itself, but with no safety net strategies of how to live with it.’

  ‘Is that what you’re worried about?’ Peter was sucking on his pipe again. ‘That you might have unwittingly pushed her into a suicide situation? But she’s in an asylum, isn’t she? They would never allow her access to the means.’

  ‘But don’t you see how that makes it worse?’ He couldn’t stop his voice from rising in pitch and volume. ‘I can’t think of anything more terrible than wanting to put yourself out of abject misery, and not be able to.’

  ‘You don’t mean that, surely? It’s in the marrow of your bones to want to preserve life; besides, what you think she may be contemplating is the most grievous of sins.’

  ‘Don’t go all Holy Joe on me now, Peter, please; I can’t argue against your religious convictions as well as everything else. The thing is ... I don’t know what to do.’

  He thought that Peter would leap in with something about his moral duty and the Hippocratic Oath, but he did the silence trick again. And it’s exactly what he’d have done. He sighed.

  ‘I know I should go and see her, but I don’t want to. I know I should continue her treatment and see if I can help her to reach some accommodation with her tragically new-found circumstances and identity, as you so succinctly put it, but I don’t know if I can.’ He felt his throat constrict. ‘I’ve never felt so inadequate in all my life.’

  ‘It would do you more good to examine just what gives you the bloody right to indulge in such childishly self-serving pity. Where are your guts, man? Not spilled in the Flanders’ trenches or shackled to the diseased mind of a defenceless woman, that’s for sure. You said she’d have stayed safely locked away from the world in the first place if it weren’t for you, and so now you have no choice but to finish what you started. Remember how we used to discuss the philosophical question: if you save someone from drowning are you responsible for that person forever? The truth is that what all of us in the medical game indulge in is playing God and, for that privilege, we must carry the accountability that goes with interfering in another’s existence. You owe her, Stephen.’

  Peter sank the rest of his beer and stood up. ‘I didn’t have you down as a quitter or a coward. This bullet’s got your name on it, old son, and you’d better not dodge it or you’ll never put yourself in the firing line again. And it would be a great shame for the profession to lose one of its brightest talents just when this crazy world needs you the most.’

  He leaned forward and rested his hand on Stephen’s shoulder. ‘Believe me I have enough faith in your abilities for the two of us. I was only pretending not to know about that paper of yours; I read it and was astonished by your insights. We’re very proud to be your friends, Helen and I. Now it’s up to you to do something you know will make you proud of yourself.’

  Stephen wanted to stand up and hug him in the hope of breathing in some of his certainty. Instead, he just allowed himself a weak smile and kept his eyes on Peter’s back as he walked across the pub and out of the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Stephen stood in Dr Johns’ doorway.

  ‘I thought you said she was out of her stupor? I was with her for a full ten minutes and she didn’t even give any sign that we’d met before.’

  ‘And good morning to you, too, Dr Maynard.’ The cigarette wedged in the corner of Victor Johns’ mouth bobbed up and down. ‘Want one?’ He held out the packet. ‘Nicotine’s the only thing keeps me going – that and endless cups of coffee. But I’m sure you’ve got your own vices to contend with. Now, you’re talking about Edith Potter I assume?’

  ‘Of course I bloody well am. Who else?’

  Stephen entered the room and slumped into the battered armchair. The days and nights of trepidation at what reception he could expect from her had led to a build up of so much adrenaline that the anticlimax of her passivity had left him punchy, but exhausted.

  ‘Sorry. It’s only that it wasn’t easy to free myself up enough to get down here and then to find that I had a wasted journey.’ Stephen was gratified to hear his voice contained just the right amount of disappointment. Of course it was relief he felt more than anything. A profound appreciation that, having been stung into this visit by Peter’s accusation of moral cowardice, he had, in the end, been let off the hook: Edith Potter remained oblivious to the terrible – and intractable – cause of her condition.

  ‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when I dig out the details.’ Dr Johns pulled a file from the middle of the pile on his desk, almost causing the whole edifice to topple over. ‘She’s come and gone a few times but I can assure you that for the best part of the summer she’s been with us for good.’

  He pulled the cigarette off his bottom lip and added the ash to a messy pile on his blotter. When he looked back at Stephen he was smiling benignly.

  ‘Contrary to what you eminent members of the British Psychological Society might think, we humble lunatic asylum directors do know a catatonic stupor when we see one – even if we are denied the resources to do anything about the condition. Only, as I said, I made an exception in her c
ase. You weren’t the only one to grasp at the opportunity to probe the mental capacities of someone with such an illustrious father and I gave up my free time to see what could be done. By the way, Dr Potter would have a bone to pick with you over the conclusions you extrapolated in your paper; undoubtedly dismissing them as a tad broad to be based on only one case.’

  ‘But she was – is – the most profound. And I did make reference to others – ’

  ‘In passing.’

  ‘Can you tell me then, if you’re so certain you know the difference between the superficial consciousness sometimes manifested by patients in a catatonic state and those levels of awareness that can only be said to be present in one who is truly sentient, why Edith Potter regarded me as a perfect stranger just now despite the fact that my identity would be lodged within her subconscious? My ability to repeatedly hypnotise her over all those months proves that fact.’

  ‘Maybe because of your beard. I nearly didn’t recognise you myself when I saw you walking through the grounds.’

  ‘Are you always this facetious?’

  ‘Not intentionally. But you must admit that you do look remarkably different. Did you speak to her?’

  ‘I said hello and asked her how she was feeling.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She mumbled something pretty indistinct, and then closed her eyes again.’

  ‘Ah, she was sleeping.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t bloody sleeping. Aren’t I getting through to you at all? Edith Potter is back wrapped in her protective catatonia.’