Cards of Identity

by Nigel Dennis

  ‘Exactly that, sir. I despise the softness of modern life.’

  ‘Well, you look well enough on your philosophy, I must say. And you never feel the want of a more up-to-date establishment than this one? A gaslight in the pantry, for instance?’

  ‘Gaslight is only an illusion; it is no help to the soul, sir.’

  ‘You are a devout man?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no, sir. Although I deeply respect those…’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes; I’ve heard that one before. I must say, you seem to have chosen the worst of both worlds. Surely you should try and have either a God or a gas-fitting? To reject both seems foolhardy.’

  ‘Not according to my philosophy, sir.’

  ‘That’s true, of course. Without serious deprivation you would hardly know yourself.’

  ‘Exactly, sir. Pain is the spur.’

  ‘And do you expect no reward for all this?’

  ‘I feel that a reward would spoil everything, sir. I am bitterly ashamed of my good fortune, as it is. I have so much to make up for in my past.’

  ‘Well, you are certainly going about it the right Way. Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, sir, and thank you for your sympathy.’

  ‘Not at all. The whole fun of pain is in the sharing of it.’

  Out of earshot the President said: ‘That Jellicoe and Mrs Paradise – I suspect they are brother and sister.’

  ‘You are in wonderful form this morning, sir,’ said the captain. ‘Your guess is absolutely correct.’

  Stapleton is immensely impressed. He stares at the President as at a god.

  ‘They have exactly the same hideous ears,’ says the President.

  Stapleton groans. He had hoped for something far more profound than comparable ears. If ever he becomes a great man he will see to it that truth is given the tortuous capture it deserves.

  ‘Well, gentlemen!’ cried the President, ‘let me inspect you! I hope you are all in good heart, because we are now going to examine the gardener and gardenee.’

  He throws open the outer door. Every man hastily lights up pipe or cigarette and reaches in his pocket for his money: they pass into the lime avenue in a column of smoke to a jingling of silver. They see Towzer and Tray in a rose-bed, and the President boldly makes for them. Towzer is bent over the base of a tall rose, grubbing for suckers. Tray is forcefully syringing the same rose, leaving a foam of dripping suds on Towzer’s head.

  ‘This is the President of the Royal Medical Society,’ says the captain.

  Tray puts up her syringe and giggles.

  ‘He wants to see how Towzer is getting on,’ continues the captain.

  ‘Something has caught my eye!’ cries the President. ‘Why does every rose have a little tag tied to it?’

  ‘That’s the rose’s name, sir,’ answers Tray, giggling louder.

  ‘But why? It won’t run away, will it? It’s not a dog.’

  ‘To identify it, sir. Roses are all different colours and sorts.’

  ‘You mean, you have to know the name before you can tell the colour? Well, there are parallels in medicine, I must say. And what about that bent gentleman at your feet, my dear? What is he for?’

  ‘He’s the one you wanted to inspect, sir.’

  ‘I can’t if he keeps that crouching position. Can’t you haul him up a little?’

  Thrusting two soapy fingers into Towzer’s matted hair, she tugs his face into view. ‘Here’s a nice gentleman to talk to you,’ she says. ‘Try and be sweet and sensible, to please me.’

  His bloodshot eyes roll painfully in the sunlight. The pathetic sight is heartening to members of the club because by comparison with Towzer they are healthy giants. They reach for their notebooks and pencils; their vapid, jittery expressions become fixed in the rocky lineaments of professional men. Dr Shubunkin, who has a certain talent, makes a quick sketch of Towzer’s back-bent head – the huge yellow teeth, the dense beard, the awful furrows of the ploughed face.

  ‘Dear me!’ says the President, ‘he has been through a lot. How would you like to tell me a little of your history, my man? Don’t feel nervous; we are all doctors.’

  Tray bursts out laughing and Towzer angrily tugs his hair out of her fingers and returns to his grubbing.

  ‘You’ll never get a word out of him, sir,’ Tray says.

  ‘Why? Is he a hopeless case? Or has he an unconscious resentment of doctors?’

  ‘He is determined to go his own way, sir. He imagines everyone is trying to change him.’

  ‘When did he first get this suspicion? It is not easy to cure. We find it nowadays in patient after patient.’

  ‘He’s much better than he used to be, sir. At first, he wouldn’t even speak to me.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, he trusts me.’

  ‘Why? Are you a trained nurse?’

  Tray goes into convulsions. ‘Of course not!’ she screams. ‘I’m a Land Girl.’

  ‘Then why are you so interested?’

  ‘Because,’ says Tray tartly, blushing.

  ‘Surely you don’t ever expect him to become marriageable, do you?’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘But, my dear, he’s just like an animal. How could a pretty little frigate like you think of marriage with such a sunken wreck? I think I can guess, as a matter of fact. You believe that he is not what he appears to be. You think that deep inside there is quite another Towzer. I wonder what it’s like. Something rather soigné, d’you think?’

  Tray blushes.

  ‘I must say, if his nose were wet I’d think him a dog.’

  ‘I’m afraid I spoil him like one.’

  ‘Is he grateful?’

  ‘Not a bit. He’s a real man.’

  ‘Perhaps he knows you’re trying to change him.’

  ‘But I’m not. I only want him to be himself.’

  ‘Yes, dear, I know, but there are always two views on what that is. And is he not rather old?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’

  ‘How do you tell? By looking at his teeth? Or does he have annual rings?’

  ‘He’s only playing old, sir. He’s sharp as a young fox underneath.’

  ‘Give me an instance.’

  ‘Well, the other evening, he did his sums so well that I gave him a big kiss and showed him how pleased I was. Next morning, he came down to breakfast wearing his pants on his head.’

  ‘What did he mean? “Keep off the Grass”?’

  ‘He was afraid I’d found out who he really was. When I said, “There’s only one man in the world who would come down like that,” he whipped off the pants in a flash.’

  ‘So. Well, you’ll get him tagged yet, I don’t doubt. Does he know you belong to another sex?’

  ‘He knows I don’t belong to his, but that’s as much as he’ll admit.’

  ‘Have you tried tears on him?’

  ‘It would be water off a duck’s back, sir. He hasn’t got his guilt back yet.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I have any useful advice to give you. You seem to have the case well in hand. I only wish that we of the medical profession had more of the enterprise of you young women. You seem to understand your male cases so much better. Just one more question: do you have any idea what identity will emerge from him?’

  ‘I’ve only noticed one or two suggestive things, sir. He winces at the sound of a bell. He is never punctual. He hates to have things neatly laid out. He doesn’t mind short jobs, but if they get long or complicated he throws up his hands and walks out.’

  ‘That sounds like a plumber.’

  ‘Oh dear! I couldn’t have that. I want it more intellectual. Some sort of civil servant, I thought.’

  ‘I don’t think the symptoms are suitable.’

  ‘Then I probably imagined them.’

  ‘Yes. I am sure that if you persevere you will find ones that are more in harmony with your hopes. We often find that, in our work. Tell me quite frankly now: what do you most hope to find
he is evading? What figure do you dream is concealed in this shaggy marble?’

  ‘I would be the happiest woman in the world, sir, if he turned out to be a matinee idol, trying to escape from it all.’

  ‘Well, why not? Has he any bent suggestive of the stage? Apart from his love of flowers, of course.’

  ‘He takes readily to poetry, sir. Anything with a beat and no exact meaning excites him.’

  ‘Why not try him in a play, then? I am sure Dr Mallet would have no objection.’

  ‘None whatever,’ says the captain. ‘Like all doctors, I always regret that I am so busy with serious matters that I have no time for art.’

  ‘If I could persuade the kitchen staff to help …’ says Tray excitedly.

  ‘I’m sure there are many volumes of Shakespeare in the library,’ says the captain. ‘I assume Shakespeare would be your choice.’

  ‘So there you are, young lady,’ says the President. ‘The rest is up to you.’

  They move on and leave her quite delighted. The members, too, are impressed and happy with the interview. Each has already set the great organ of his brain to work on the case and found how neatly it may be tooled to his speciality. The President takes Stapleton’s left ear and gives it a napoleonic tweak. ‘And what did you think?’ he asks.

  ‘I thought it very sad, sir,’ says Stapleton frankly.

  ‘Sad, eh? And what was sad?’

  ‘Just the whole situation, sir. It seems so – so – irremediable.’

  The members chuckle. ‘We shall have to cheer you up,’ says the President. ‘Put your wits to work. Who do you think that man was, or is, or will prove to be?’

  ‘I suppose that’s in the lap of Tray, sir.’

  ‘Quite so. So our question really is: who is Tray?’

  ‘I think she is a nurse, sir.’

  ‘Indeed? Why?’

  ‘She wasn’t syringing that rose at all. She was washing his hair. And her duplicity was so ruthless. Although her lip had a tremulous quaver, her forearm was like iron. I felt I was back in that R.A.F. hospital.’ He shudders at the memory.

  ‘I think you are cheating, my boy. You saw the words St Thomas’s Hospital Nurses Hockey Team written on her belt.’

  ‘Now you are teasing me, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps I am. But let us assume you are right. What victim would arouse such ardour in a nurse?’

  For a moment Stapleton is puzzled; then suddenly he cries: ‘Oh, o course, now I see! How blind I am!’

  ‘Are we right, Mallet?’ asks the President.

  ‘Absolutely right. We got him at the local surgery.’

  They all give Stapleton a hearty clap, and he beams and blushes all over, quite delighted. He strides ahead of the others to enjoy his triumph alone, and when, a moment later, he relives the scene at the rose-bed, all the sadness has departed from it. It has become quite a brilliant scene, in fact, with all the roses in full bloom and himself rising high like a lily in the centre of them.

  Father Orfe walks ahead and catches Stapleton up. He puts a paternal arm on his shoulder and starts a conversation. Suddenly the same idea strikes Dr Shubunkin and Mr Jamesworth, and they, too, hurry forward and lay their arms affectionately around Stapleton’s remaining vacant spaces.

  ‘That boy will go far,’ murmurs the captain to the President, as they watch Stapleton being moved forward on eight legs.

  ‘It would seem so. May I have a word with you in private?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Club trouble?’

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it. Of course, they are always frisky when case-histories are in the air.’ He signs to Beaufort to take over the duties of host, and conducts the President to the breakfast-room.

  *

  The old fellow is out of sorts. He peers through the key hole to see if anyone is in the passage. He takes a chair between two windows. He says, ‘I’m afraid I am not myself, Mallet. The fact is, the Club has been most restless lately. Young Stapleton is not being embraced by his elders for nothing.’

  ‘Surely we expect that, sir? Every club has its factions. Every faction goes recruiting.’

  ‘Let me tell you something. Father Orfe has taken to blasphemy.’

  ‘Blasphemy! But when he is not drunk, he is the most pious of men.’

  ‘No more. I take for granted that every cistern in the Club should be blocked with a priest’s empties and that dead men should be found in rows every time his mattress is turned. Priests must have some way of showing how dependent we all are on grace. But to become an atheist as well …’

  ‘Have you discussed it with him, sir?’

  ‘A month ago I called him in and had a sharp talk. I said I had nothing against his drinking, but the atheism was quite unnecessary. I reminded him that a priest must have some religious side and that he was becoming top-heavy by taking up still another opposite.’

  ‘What was his answer?’

  ‘He accused me, in the blandest way, of being old-fashioned. He tells me proudly that in addition to drinking and blaspheming he is contemplating suicide. He insists that all this has made him vastly more redeemable than he used to be.’

  ‘One sees his point, of course.’

  ‘Does one? I didn’t. I simply summoned a Rules Committee. I thought it best to choose a chairman who was not – well – not too symphathetic to the Orfe faction, if you know….’

  ‘Quite, quite; one has to do that.’

  ‘I chose Shubunkin. He, as you well know, is our sex member: there is nothing, from a rise in the bank rate to a fishing-smack, which he cannot sexually explain. For years, he has analysed Orfe’s asceticism in language that I would rather not repeat. I was confident that for once he would make a good chairman. Indeed, frankly, I hoped that he would give Orfe such a drubbing that the two of them would become more deadly factional than ever – always so much easier for a president, you know.

  ‘Judge of my horror when Shubunkin read his committee’s report. They gave Orfe a clean slate and even commended him. Moreover, Shubunkin let fall a hint that the Orfe method might well be followed by others. Surveying the Orfe territory, Shubunkin declared that it was now a well-known fact that atheism and alcoholism were primary evidences of a Christian society. He saw no reason why suicide should not be equally desirable, as a means of emphasizing the sacred nature of human life. He concluded with a most disturbing passage. Applying the Orfe method to his own speciality, he concluded that sexual intercourse was the primary element in chastity and virginity. No, I have that wrong. It was the other way round. Chastity and virginity were forms of sexual intercourse. He hinted that he intended to follow up this fruitful line – in other words, that he was damned if he was going to let sex lag behind Christianity. The whole Club is seething with it, and I am most upset.’

  ‘Have you tackled Shubunkin, sir?’

  ‘I could hardly do so when I had myself selected him to tackle Orfe. The whole business dumbfounds me: never would I have imagined an alliance between the club ascetic and the club sexualist. We have had members who despaired of maintaining a clear-cut identity and who were helped to choose new ones more in keeping with their abilities. We have had members who dallied with the temptation to be their own opposites and were consequently more than ever true to type. But this new development is something different. It is anarchy. Imagine its being taken up by the whole club! We would all become unrecognizable.’

  ‘It is not an idea that spreads easily, sir. Most members would see it as a diminution of the chosen self.’

  ‘Alas! it will not be presented to them as that. It is Orfe’s contention that one is never more oneself than when one is not being oneself. This absurd idea has struck him like a ray of light. He is enveloped by it. What you don’t seem to understand, Mallet, is that once such an idea emerges, all the factions are bound to take it up. They simply can’t afford to be backward in an intellectual advance. If the identity is to be recognizable only by its paradoxical opposite, well then, e
very faction is going to start playing opposites. You know where that will lead. Members will begin to feel guilty. And I refuse absolutely to preside over a guilty club.’

  ‘You don’t think they are just a little bored, sir?’

  ‘But they are Tories to a man, Mallet – the more so because they think themselves pioneers. What they love about our great theory is that it is absolutely unchangeable.’

  ‘Perhaps you can joke them out of it.’

  ‘I am much too old for that. I am going to be iron-handed with them. If I joke, it will be to pain, not please. A faintly bored urbanity has been my usual means of self-expression, but I see no reason why a president should not be exceedingly sharp, canny, and unpleasant. Do you?’

  ‘I would only warn against your fighting their paradoxes with one of your own.’

  ‘I am very angry about this. After many battles, I had looked forward to a comfortable last decade in the presidential chair.’

  ‘That is a typically presidential hope, is it not, sir?’

  ‘It is. I am sure my predecessor held it strongly, poor fellow. The trouble was, he was unable to rise to the last, decisive battle. Well, I must leave you or they will think I have been talking behind their backs.’

  ‘I see there has been a change in our schedule.’

  ‘Yes. None of our foreign members this year. Only ourselves.’

  ‘That seems odd.’

  ‘The Americans have written a very vague letter saying that they are having to testify before some committee and think it wiser not to ask for passports. Apparently there is some new movement afoot over there, according to which no change in identity is permissible after a certain age. One of our members was a bar-tender at the age of twenty-three, and it appears that he must remain a twenty-three-year-old bar-tender, despite the fact that he is now fifty-four and vice-president of a shoe company…. As for the French members, they say they would rather not leave the country because they may be called upon at any moment to form a government. It sounds too ridiculous. Either I am getting old or the world is getting very odd. Why, when I first became a member of this club, each man’s identity was absolutely clear. The two clergy members were unmistakable clergymen: I never even saw them drunk. Our statistician lived only for statistics; our brigadier-general was quite uninterested in art, as was our Marxist. No one ever saw the Club economist playing the violin, or the literary critic gardening. I was the first to welcome the amusing notion of opposing tendencies and have always taken for granted that the heart should be gnawed by that which it has removed. But look at what it has all led to – this tolerance! Between you and me, Mallet, we should never have allowed Orfe to start drinking.’