Relatively Strange

by Marilyn Messik

  Miss Peacock, ringing as instructed the following day for news was told that unfortunately, Glory had come down with the nasty stomach flu that was doing the rounds. Over the following days, the illness ran its course but, Dr Dreck was sorry to report, Glory’s depression was giving cause for concern, no doubt exacerbated by the effects of the severe viral infection. He pointed out it wouldn’t be in her best interests to return home at this point. Indeed, such was her distress it might be best if Miss Peacock put off visiting for a week or so. For the Peacocks, as much as for Glory, those first couple of weeks weren’t good news. Glory, because she was suffering continuous drug-induced vomiting and Ruth and Rachael because she was in no fit condition to let them know what was going on. It would appear that even with the best laid plans, things can go askew far quicker than you’d think.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The programming of Glory had begun even as the drug induced sickness subsided. It wasn’t subtle, but as there was no reason to believe Glory was anything other than she seemed, it didn’t need to be. First, Dr Dreck established just how firm was Glory’s affection for her mentors, the Peacocks. He played heavily on the fact that it was sad, not to mention deeply damaging to the professional reputation of the two sisters, so well known in their field of expertise, that they’d abjectly failed to spot and deal with the advancing depression of their own ward. It didn’t show them in a good light, did it? Not in a good light at all.

  Glory, ostensibly sceptical at first, gradually allowed herself to be concerned and then deeply worried. What, she asked her brand new friend, would be the best way of dealing with the situation, the optimum method of getting her depression under control without compromising in any way the reputation of Ruth and Rachael to whom she owed so much?

  Dr Dreck, after some consideration, suggested the best plan might be for her to stay on for a while at Newcombe. Already her tests, he pointed out, were showing some interesting results and it was just possible she may be in a position to help him a little with his research at the very same time he was helping her come to terms with her own situation. Agreement for this arrangement sought and obtained, Glory was now back on track and with greater freedom of movement than they could have hoped for, hovering in status, somewhere between patient and assistant researcher.

  Miss Merry, under whose chilly authority, many of Glory’s tests were conducted disliked her intensely. She was the most tightly buttoned individual Glory had ever come across and not easily readable, being as possessive of her thoughts as she was of her close working relationship with the Doctor. However, it was clear that Glory’s propensity for wry one-liners, together with her exotically colourful attire disturbed and unsettled Miss Merry on some deep and complicated level, as indeed did Glory’s bearing and her air of self-possession. Other than the strength of her feelings for her employer and her dislike of almost everyone else, Miss Merry was pretty emotionless. There was not one of the children she dealt with who moved her in any way, she simply maintained a detached and keen interest in their reaction to various stimuli. She was, however, it has to be said, an excellent administrator who masterminded the running of the whole place like clockwork. At any given moment she had in her head, a complete duty roster and a total awareness of who should be doing what, where they should be doing it and when they should be finished.

  The Doctor, predictably, was in a state of bemused delight that Glory’s test results were showing such strong abilities. She was by far and away the most talented subject he’d come across in a long while and he was convinced that under his skilled tutelage she could develop significantly. He’d already seen progress – she was able now, to their mutual triumph, to move a wooden brick back and forth across the floor and roll a pen across the table without touching it. Oh yes indeed, she was coming along very nicely, one might almost say in leaps and bounds. Of course for Glory, who could without breaking sweat, have rolled not only the pen across the table but Dr Karl W. Dreck with it, there was a tremendous amount of energy expended on restraint. Meanwhile, they were feeding her a steady diet of anti-depressants which she obligingly received and carefully palmed, although she’d taken the precaution of establishing exactly what, if any, side effects she needed to simulate.

  Regular blood samples were also being taken, lots of them, she reported with disgust to Ruth and Rachael. And electroencephalographs, which meant she spent a great deal of time with wires stuck to her head while printouts of her brain waves were intently studied. On one occasion she was taken by Miss Merry to the John Radcliffe for a full brain scan, which necessitated her being fed into a claustrophobic cylinder for what seemed like ages. Dreck had ostensibly referred her, she found, when she scanned the technician who was busy scanning her, because of symptoms that might indicate a brain tumour. Whilst Glory had no fear that any such thing was really suspected, she knew he was desperate to unearth physical evidence of her ability and also knew he’d have few qualms and no real limits when it came to taking her apart to find it.

  *

  There was no doubt the range of tests devised by Dreck to pinpoint what he was after, were productive and in many cases, lastingly beneficial for children who often, until that point had never been challenged or pushed beyond what was thought to be their limitations. Dreck was a clever man and despite his oily avuncular manner which Glory loathed, had a flourishing and ever-growing practice, with parents begging for appointments and paying highly for the privilege. Unctuousness itself with parents and patients, he was singularly lacking in charm when it came to the work force and although reasonably plump pay packets compensated in part, he was not well-liked by colleagues or staff. The exception to the rule was the divine Miss M, who would have unreservedly continued to adore him had he mown her down twice daily with his car then strolled over her with spiked running shoes.

  Glory and her co-conspirators were fully aware they were on dangerous ground, dealing with a man who was at no point to be underestimated. They were also aware, his fascination with the power of the mind over the restrictions of the body was moving beyond ambition and heading fast into obsession. He was vain too. On the occasions Glory was able to go into his head, she tripped several times over the Nobel Prize for Medical Research and he was constantly consumed by concern that others would beat him to a breakthrough that should have his name written all over it.

  Whilst aware when she took on her mole role that it wouldn’t be a barrel of laughs, Glory was nevertheless working under considerable strain. She found the constant stream of children brought by anxious and in some cases near-desperate parents to be both heart-breaking and uplifting and to present enormous dilemmas. Amongst those who were treated, there were undoubtedly some with abilities beyond the norm, although in the early days she never met anyone particularly strong. She was loath to point these children out, but reasoning that the tests were designed to achieve the same ends was able, with complete accuracy to pre-inform the Doctor which children would score the highest. She was, to his growing delight, pretty infallible.

  Probably due to Dr Dreck’s excessive fear of being pipped to the post by a rival, areas of operation at Newcombe were divided into four clearly defined sections which functioned more or less autonomously and completely independently of each other with only Dreck and Merry overseeing all.

  The Consulting Suite with its stream of daily patient appointments was manned by the efficient team of Mary Moffat and Mary Bevan who controlled phones, patients, appointments and refreshments with formidable efficiency and Joyce Grenfell-like forbearance. The in-patient clinic took up the whole of the building’s second floor and was a ten-bedded facility, six bays in the main ward, four side-rooms and the nurses used different doors from the rest of the staff. In fact – other than the Matron the well-upholstered Mrs Millsop, all were temporary agency staff who changed on a regular basis.

  In the older part of the building, in what used to be the basement, were the soundproofed, two-way mirrored, specially equipped rooms where
the children were taken for their ‘tests’. And finally there was a small but impressively cutting-edge laboratory, where a number of white-coated researchers kept themselves to themselves. In fact, probably the only members of Newcombe staff who came and went between all the sections were Sid and Reg, a lugubrious father and son team. They dealt with all general handyman tasks in the building, kept the gardens pristine and meticulously cared for the rats and mice kept in serried ranks of cages and used for testing different drug combinations. Glory said, she knew she ought to mind more about what went on in that laboratory, but because of a rampant fear of anything that scuttled, didn’t even really want to think about it.

  Because of this highly effective and impenetrable ‘Chinese Wall’ system within the organisation’s management, it was only the Doctor himself, Miss Merry and now Glory who had a complete grip on the overall picture and two of the aforementioned had not the remotest idea of the amount of poking and prying being undertaken by the third.

  Whilst there had indeed been a few brow-raising rumours within the profession about experimental work and drug development carried out at Newcombe, this had been balanced by the excellent results demonstrable in some of the children for whom there had previously been scant hope of improvement. It broke your heart, said Glory, to see the joy on the face of a parent when a child, previously totally non-responsive, reacted with a smile or a squeeze of the hand. There also now arose for her, the interference issue about which Ruth and Rachael had warned her. How very tempting to just go in and do a little tweak here, a little adjustment there – and how very dangerous.

  Glory had been able to read the notes on Ben’s short stay at the clinic because Miss Merry had by chance reviewed them whilst she was in the room. His records showed daily doses of a drug listed simply as L/23 which was summarised as a vitamin and mineral compound but Glory had her doubts. At the end of Ben’s notes – a shortened lifetime sewn up in a few paragraphs – was the bleak information that death was unexpected and due to heart failure. Whether this would have happened anyway or whether the barrage of needles, wires, questions, expectations and the cryptically named L/23 made it happen sooner, was impossible to prove.

  *

  Glory may have gone in as a mole but there was no doubt she became a catalyst. Her ability it was which tipped the scales that gave Dr Dreck the idea and incentive to extend his search parameters into the general population. She was the reason I, and so many others, found ourselves heading in an Oxford direction over the next few years. Naturally, this turn of events presented Glory and the Peacock sisters with some even more contentious issues.

  To date, children passing through the clinic with any demonstrable extra sensory abilities, had already been suffering from congenital brain damage or physical disabilities and very often the tests and the drugs Dreck used to establish how much they could do, did in fact help them. However, with the new direction – and within a very short time Government approval was received, funding provided and a wide-ranging social study story established – there was going to be a stream of completely healthy youngsters available to Dreck.

  This put the whole thing on a completely different plane, practically, said Glory sourly, on a different bloody airline. How could she not stick around a bit longer to see if there was anybody she could help. These kids, should any of them prove to have the odd extra ability, were unlike the others, able to be warned, capable of making choices as to whether or not they wanted to be subjected to batteries of invasive tests and continued observation.

  Ruth and Rachael, making their regular visit to take young Glory out to tea, argued with her long and hard that now was the time to get out. They’d met up with Dr Dreck briefly in the reception area when they arrived. Time only for a quick handshake but that was enough to take in an overall and over-riding impression of feverish, obsessive excitement running out of control. He was lamentably short on ethics, medical or otherwise and quite determined to do whatever he had to, to whomever he had to, in order to fulfil ambition which was now all-consuming. Glory, whilst not disputing any of this, insisted she had no choice but to stay on a little longer.

  Dreck had, meanwhile, introduced a new drug into Glory’s daily cocktail which was still, unbeknownst to him, regularly finding its way down the toilet. Glory had been unsurprised to read from Miss Merry, who dished out the medication, that the extra white pill was L/24, presumably an evolved version of the drug given to little Ben. Things for Glory weren’t getting any simpler and she was unsure which way to play it. Was it better for her to show the drug being spectacularly successful or disastrously ineffective? She decided that successful in a moderate and perhaps not immediately verifiable way, was the safest path and accordingly over the next couple of weeks allowed herself to progress in small steps.

  At one of their sessions she made Dr D’s jacket sleeve smoulder and any irritation he might have felt at the appearance of a black-rimmed hole in the herringbone, was outweighed by excitement that this was something she appeared only able to do after a week or so on 20 mg of L/24. Then there was the discovery that now, not only could she move small wooden bricks, several at a time across the floor but, with no problem, was able to make them fly through the air to land safely one by one a short distance away. Unfortunately the first time this happened, her control apparently wasn’t all it could have been. All six bricks rained painfully down on the head of a note-taking and thereafter slightly dazed Miss Merry, and if there was any moral issue involved, it didn’t trouble Glory unduly.

  Chapter Thirty

  By the time Glory’s few weeks at the Foundation had turned unbelievably, to just under a year, wheels set in motion were inexorably gathering their own alarming momentum. A team of builders had completed a two storey extension at the rear of the original Newcombe building, facilitating a doubling in size of the in-patient facility and allowing increasing numbers of children to be processed by a growing number of staff.

  Glory – more staff member than patient now – had proved her worth, devising and participating in many of the proposed screening procedures. Her own abilities on the psi front, to Dreck’s frustrated disappointment had not progressed nearly as fast as he’d anticipated. However, there was no doubt she was invaluable in pointing out those children most likely to be of interest to the testers. The fact that she muddied the waters, sometimes picking people who turned out not to be special at all, simply meant her scores weren’t 100% perfect. 100% perfect would, she reckoned have been foolish.

  The Doctor had devised a levels system by which to grade ability. A number of kids had what might be termed informed intuition, which meant only that they consistently scored higher than average on tests. Then there were those with a very mild but inconsistent ability which seemed to spike and fall at random, totally beyond the control of the child involved. The third and rarest level was the one the Doctor hungered after and it was those children Glory was there to try and help, although putting theory into practice proved no easier for her than it was for him.

  Working on the principle of forewarned is forearmed, Glory nevertheless had to ensure that nobody knew who was doing the warning. Reaction from the individuals involved was mixed, some grateful some not. Peter Atkins was the most hostile. He was also the most powerful she’d come across in the whole time she’d been there and she felt that raw strength, even as his coach was drawing up outside the building.

  He was twelve, a tall, skinny lad with dark hair, pale thick skin and an arrogant eye. There was, about him, a contained and calculating air of menace, which immediately raised all the hairs on the back of Glory’s elegant neck. When she cautiously made contact, he assimilated her presence and intention with little or no surprise. Neither did he bother to hide the shaft of elation that shot through him at the knowledge that he was exactly what was being sought here. She didn’t like him but quickly did her best to lay out the facts. She’d decided at the beginning, in concert with the Peacocks, the only action she could or would take was
a warning, no more no less. Decisions had to be up to the individual, she couldn’t and wouldn’t play God.

  Her foray into Peter’s mind was brief and appalling. She hadn’t come across anyone quite like him before and what she saw in there, along with his unpleasantly feral musky scent, lingered long. He was the product of a father with problems of his own and a mother who really didn’t care what anyone’s problems were, as long as she could indulge uninterrupted, her insatiable appetite for anything that money – lots of it – could buy.

  Neither parent had a great deal of time for their only son and although the house was magnificent, the schooling private and the toys endless, so too was the stream of nannies then au pairs, most of whom never warmed, even slightly, to their small charge. His repertoire of amusing tricks grew as he did. The mildest involved worms at the bottom of a coffee cup, the direst a dead mouse and details you wouldn’t want to go into. Peter, easily able to read what people were thinking was in no doubt what they thought of him. He also knew where he ranked in importance in his parents’ life.

  Just over a year earlier, arriving home from school and letting himself in to make his own tea, he’d heard a noise in his parents’ room when both were supposed to be out. Quietly pushing the door ajar he was riveted by the sight of a complete stranger, tall and thickset, moving around the room. This person was fetchingly clad in pink and frilly baby-doll pyjamas, matching negligee and teeteringly-high, feathered mules. He didn’t need the stranger to turn before recognition hit, and the shock on the lipsticked, rouged and mascarad face of his father must have been mirrored on his own, even as he struggled to rationalise and make sense of what he was seeing.