by Ron Elliott
‘I said I would. It’s important.’ Iris went to him, touched his arm. He was wearing the cologne Iris had bought him last Christmas, lavender and sandalwood mixed with his own body smell.
‘You have a lot on your plate. You can sit this one out. All good. Free pass.’ He patted her on the shoulder, kissed her cheek, before turning away.
Iris said, ‘Mathew, I’m fine to go. I can catch up with June on which plays to see this summer. I’ll meet you there.’
‘Don’t.’
‘What?’
He sighed. ‘Strategically … Conservatively speaking, it’s important they see me as …’
‘Married?’
‘Well, that they see me, for a start.’ He’d taken the bait, didn’t like her flippancy, even though it was a defence against hurt. ‘It sounds childish, jealous, and it’s not. They’ll want you. They’ll want to talk to you about this high school gymnasium business. Your theories. Your contacts.’
It was time to come clean. To tell Mathew she’d been there, at the school, when it blew up. When the station officer was erased. Iris said, ‘And it should be about you.’
He searched her face for intent.
‘I mean it. Strategically, you need to be front and centre.’ Iris smiled, intending encouragement.
A car horn, taxi or friend, beeped outside, on cue.
Iris grimaced.
‘I want you to understand. It’s …’
‘Nothing personal?’
He grimaced.
Iris said, ‘I’m sorry, I do understand, Mathew. You’re right. It will probably go better without me, but I am hurt.’
He scrutinised her. He wasn’t a bad man. He came back, his hand gently clasped the back of her head and he kissed her quickly on the lips. Her right hand held his hip.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’
The cologne was called Passion. It was by Elizabeth Taylor not for her, she’d explained, when she’d given it to him.
*
Iris changed into her gym gear, pounded out twenty minutes on the running machine in the gym room while she watched the news.
The school explosion led the bulletin, and cascaded into related stories. Most of the visuals were from mobile phones, repeating portions of the explosion, recorded from a variety of angles. A news camera was behind the fire appliances. It caught the digital flash of white before the camera went blank. General interviews with the police followed. Confirming it was not a gas explosion. There were no suspects yet. Experts were asked about terrorists. Old stories about American school massacres were repackaged. The Arson Squad was not revealing details of what they’d found under the gymnasium. There was an interview with the Fire and Rescue Service commissioner, with an overlay of women, grieving. They might be firefighters’ wives, although the service usually shielded the families from the media. Rounding out the gymnasium explosion special was a civil liberties story about the confiscation of the students’ phones, the subsequent scouring of student computers and Facebook accounts for clues.
In other news, bushfires were doused. The fires had been discovered early. Iris thought the pattern fitted a fire recidivist at work. Iris missed the old tag of firebug, but conceded it lacked enough censure. Overseas, people continued to kill each other, to topple governments, rape children, blow up women shopping in markets, murder young people at concerts.
She went to the fridge for water. The salads were dark or limp. She threw them in the bin. She couldn’t face a Lean Cuisine. She pulled out a container of carbonara sauce, found frozen fettuccine. She put water on to boil.
She thought she would ring Rosemarie, although the time difference might make it too late on a weeknight, too interrupting and strained while Rosemarie sat at a pub or library raising her eyebrows at whoever she was with, while her mother made small talk.
She rang Frank’s mobile. He didn’t pick up. Moments after she rang off she could hear her own mobile ringing in her handbag.
Frank.
‘At dinner. I missed your call.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Well? Is he our man?’
‘How did he hurt his arm?’
‘The motel fire, I believe. Apparently, they were onto him pretty quickly in the divvy van and in his prison cell.’
‘How does he get matches?’
‘As far as I can tell, he picks pockets. Pending more police reports.’
‘Has he been tested for drugs, alcohol-induced psychosis?’
‘Laboratory tests are being processed. He seems sharp, focused.’
‘Yes. And non-aggressive, apart from the firelighting.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have the police examined his belongings?’
‘I’m sure they will, Iris, if they are not already. They are checking for his fingerprints, as is police procedure. You’re stalling.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know if he’s faking. He is disorganised in his thinking. He may have a psychosis or he may be faking it. He’s smart, educated – winning. Soft. Very troubled.’
‘Could he have done the school?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Hmm. All right. Anyway, a bed has come up at Fieldhaven. I’m going to have him moved to a secure room in Park Wing. I’ll put him on a neuroleptic, see if he responds, once toxicology comes back and I know if there’s anything else in his system.’
‘I’m not sure he’s schizophrenic.’
‘I can find that out, given time.’
‘Don’t drug him.’
Frank didn’t say anything.
The swimming pool light came on. The pool shimmered blue in a breeze. Iris noticed her reflection on the window: Iris holding the phone.
Frank finally said, ‘So you are going to take another crack at him?’
‘Yes.’
More silence.
‘So do you want to talk about the school yet?’
‘The flashbacks of Georgina and the fire at my old practice have returned. I’m also getting flashes of the station officer. I was looking at him when … He was trying to order the pumpers to back up when he was … vaporised. Although I closed my eyes, I see two fire appliances burning. It was on the news.’
‘How awful, Iris. Shall we meet?’
‘No.’
‘Any other symptoms of distress?’
‘Just the usual. On a scale of anxiety pain of one to ten, I’m down at a three.’
‘Ah, lower than the rest of us.’
‘Hmmm. Except the rest of you are all self-medicated.’
‘Do you need something to sleep? I think you were on Triazolam … after the fire at your practice.’
‘No. I want to work.’
‘We probably need to discuss whether that’s a good idea. Whether this is a new problem.’
‘It’s not a problem. When it was, I took time off. Now it’s not.’
‘Are you sleeping?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me, Iris. Do you blame yourself for this school fire?’
‘How could I possibly …?’
‘Exactly. Good. The first fire wasn’t your fault either.’
‘Goodnight, Frank. Don’t put him on anything.’
Chapter six
In the morning, Iris rang Mathew before she left for the practice.
‘Good morning.’
‘Morning, Mathew.’
‘I’m sorry, I should have left a message. I stayed until stumps. Came back to the office and dossed on the stretcher in the sick room.’
‘I supposed. It went well?’
‘So hard to tell. Everyone important is still my friend or so it seems.’ He paused, or was reading something at the other end. ‘Everyone asked after you.’
‘Good. Maybe next time.’
‘Yes. Okay, well, onwards and upwards, once more into the breach.’
Iris rang Mary at the practice. ‘I’ll be out at Fieldhaven this morning, Ma
ry, assessing a patient for the police.’
‘Dr Hampton is trying to get in.’
Paul Hampton was a veterinary surgeon with drinking problems, one of the first patients to come to her at the practice who was not a Dr Chew leftover. He was a difficult narcissist and one of the patients she liked least.
‘I thought I had today clear. Can you put him off?’
‘I have. He’s been trying since yesterday.’
‘Okay. Afternoon.’
*
Park Wing was a maximum-security complex within the Fieldhaven psychiatric facility. Although Fieldhaven’s remit was to assess, treat, rehabilitate and resocialise the mentally ill, most of the patients in Park Wing were referred by the courts or prison system. Its thirty beds were in high rotation. No one could park in Park for very long. It was the pointy end of mental health care where the failures were locked up after they had erupted into crisis with often catastrophic results to the patient or those nearest to them.
The only reason James had a place was because of the high priority the police placed on him as a suspect in the school bombing. Whether James was the school bomber or not, he was dangerous. His compulsive firelighting made monitoring in a safe cell vital. He needed to be isolated from other prisoners who had access to cigarette lighting items. By all accounts, he probably should not be given knives either.
Iris elected to see him in a secure interview room. He was escorted by a psych nurse into the room where Iris sat at a fixed table.
He brightened when he saw her.
‘Jodie Foster.’
‘No.’
‘It was a joke, Iris Foster. Not a mad thing.’ He grinned, slightly apologetic.
The psych nurse handcuffed him to an eyelet set in the table. He was compliant. Said, ‘Thanks, Brad.’
Brad retreated to the corner of the room, but stayed standing.
‘Yet, here you are, James.’
She indicated the room. His handcuffs.
He seemed pained, not so much at the predicament, but at her lack of tact.
Iris said, ‘Why do you think that is, James? Why do you suppose people think you are mad?’
‘I thought it was still under investigation. Dr Silverberg and you and the psychiatrists here. You’re trying to work that out, aren’t you?’
‘Do you think people are taken randomly off the streets?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s possible. An awful lot of sick people are walking the streets, mumbling on buses. It’s a conspiracy theory worth exploring. At least worth a TV series. I’ll share the writing credits with you, Iris.’
‘Can you think of nothing which might have led to your current … predicament?’
‘Ah. Yes. The fires.’
‘Yes?’
He allowed himself to remember the fires, to look at them again. His lips moved as though he were praying or searching for words. He blinked rapidly, shook his head, to finally look up at Iris, as though by surprise. ‘Maybe Earth people do this to all the Martians they find.’
‘Tell me about being a Martian, James.’
‘Tell me about being a human, Iris.’
‘Sure. I live on Earth. You might call me an Earthling. My planet has large amounts of water. We humans live on land. There are fish in the sea and birds in the air and lots of plants which produce oxygen. Humans breathe oxygen with our lungs. We have gravity. We walk on two legs. We have opposable thumbs, which means we can hold things. Important for juggling, I’d imagine.’
‘Not really. Not as important as you might think.’
‘For picking pockets?’
‘Again, not like you’d think. These two fingers are longer and together.’ He waggled his free hand. ‘That’s more misdirection.’
‘Can you see Earth from Mars?’
‘Yes. We have telescopes, antennas. We can watch your television.’
‘How convenient.’
‘Well, a poisoned chalice, surely.’
Iris smiled.
He laughed.
Iris brought herself back to task. ‘Why haven’t we seen you?’
‘We live underground, Iris.’
Iris scowled.
‘It’s bloody hot, Iris. The red planet.’
‘It’s not red.’
‘Ha. Good. No, it looks red because of the iron. It’s not very hot. It’s very cold because we are further away from the sun than you. Did you know Mars only gets forty-three per cent of the sunlight Earth gets?’
‘I didn’t know. I imagine I could google it though.’
He was disappointed in her again. Perhaps for not playing. ‘I’m sure you could.’
‘So, why do you live underground?’
‘Well, it’s cold, but mostly because the atmosphere is thinning. We get pounded by asteroids, the surface water has gone, the dust storms are pretty bad. A great place for an adventure holiday.’
Iris made notes. She suspected they could bat around Mars facts all day. Of more importance was the coherence of his fantasy buttressed by these external facts. It appeared well practised. Maybe he’d been making his way with this act for quite some time – a good gypsy trick. A bit of juggling. A tale told. A pocket picked.
‘You can put down that the surface slowly became too harsh so we gradually moved underground over centuries long ago.’
‘Before we developed telescopes or launched space probes.’
‘If you want to be Earth-centric. Such a backward people.’
Iris smiled, but didn’t lose momentum. ‘Yet you like us, don’t you?’
James blinked, slightly off balance.
‘You like talking to me.’
‘Yes, very much Iris.’ He batted his eyelashes, overdoing dainty.
‘Those girls you met in Candonin. You liked them. They liked you.’ Iris watched him carefully as she spoke. ‘They were young, attractive women by all accounts.’
‘Yes. And fun. They wanted fun. Fun is good, don’t you think, Iris Foster with the sad smile?’
‘Fun is good. What is bad?’
‘Sugar is good. I like sugar. Yum.’
‘Actually, sugar is bad for the human body. Rots the teeth. Adds the calories. White death.’
‘Refined sugar.’
‘Is fire good or bad?’
He paused but this time he didn’t let himself imagine the fire, whatever the fire was to him. Instead he grappled with her question, considered it seriously. He stared up at her, then away, still thinking on it. ‘I think fire is neither good nor bad. It has no conscience, you see. It goes where the food is, and it eats. It warms. It cooks and it devours. It does not discriminate. Like a plant, lichen – it merely spreads. It simply is, like the wind, like the sun. It’s simply a chemical reaction, of course.’
Iris stopped taking notes. She looked into James’s brown eyes. He looked back, engaging and still impenetrable – with possibly sufficient scientific knowledge to have done the things at the school.
‘We have volcanoes on Mars but no fire because there’s no fuel or oxygen.’
‘Is that why you light fires on Earth?’
‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t remember lighting fires.’
‘I don’t. I hate fire.’
‘You hate fire. Really. Why light them?’
‘I’m tired now.’
‘I have more questions.’
‘I’m tired now.’ He stood, turning to the psych nurse. ‘Can I go back to my cell? Maybe my sugar levels are low. Ha.’ He raised his shackled hand to wave goodbye. It was free. The handcuff remained chained to the desk.
‘Hey,’ said Brad, stepping forward.
‘No trouble, Brad.’ James waited for him, his hands folded in front of his stomach.
Brad touched him on the shoulder and James turned obediently towards the door.
Iris said, ‘Can I come back later?’
Brad opened the door. James was about to go through.
‘I’d like to ask you more questions about Mars.’<
br />
‘I’d like that, Iris. I like watching you try to figure me out.’
*
‘Here she is,’ said Paul Hampton rather loudly as Iris passed through the upstairs waiting room. Iris’s phone was buzzing in her handbag.
‘Give me five minutes please, Mary,’ Iris said, ‘then send him in.’
She unlocked her door, switched on the lights. The tranquil sea painting loomed.
‘Frank,’ Iris said to her mobile as she went to the filing cabinet to pull out Paul’s file.
‘I hear you had another session with our alien this morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have the police clamouring, Iris. It’s why I’m clamouring in turn.’
‘I haven’t written anything up yet, Frank. I’m going back later.’
‘Thumbnail? No something, no pack drill.’
‘I don’t think he’s schizophrenic.’
‘Not even prodromal? What if he’s making dislocated sense of early auditory and visual hallucinatory experiences?’
‘I wouldn’t put him on Seroquel quite yet.’
‘Well, it would be a way to settle him down, find out who he really is. But the Feds also want him clean.’
‘The Feds?’
‘Yes, we’re tag teaming. They went in after you this morning. I’m going in to have a chat after.’
‘The Feds?’
‘Iris, they are exploring the idea of a terrorist cell. They don’t think he could have acted alone. I’m far from convinced he’s not schizophrenic by the by, but that can wait. We’re assessing, not mending right now. Anything?’
‘His delusion is well practised, he has a clear awareness others are sceptical about it. He knows others think he’s mad saying he’s a Martian, and is quite okay about it. Even tolerant. He’s very bright – intelligent, quick, educated. He’s perceptive too, about others. Off the record, Frank …’
‘It all is.’
‘He’s normal in his social, intellectual and linguistic functions. If you imagine he’s saying “I’m from Minnesota” instead of Mars. So, if the delusion is really a delusion or identity, that identity is well integrated. If.’
‘So, as you said before, organised enough to do the school.’
‘Yes. He has a thing for fire.’
‘Well isn’t this why I came to you?’
‘More than compulsion. He thinks about fire. He personifies fire. He has a relationship with fire.’
