The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘But where are the ruby lights? … Oh, I get it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Voice?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Dopplar effect. The lights are now green. I’m going towards them.’

  Dr Schuber, talkback: ‘Does that make any kind of sense?’

  Richardson said, ‘In physics, yes. Dopplar shift occurs when you are approaching a goal at a speed significant to the speed of light. But in schizophrenia it’s so much mumbo-jumbo.’ He persisted with the patient. ‘Neil. Find that door!’

  ‘I have. But someone’s slammed it shut!’

  Sweat was pouring off Richardson’s brow. ‘See if you can work the combination lock from the inside.’

  ‘I can’t see!’

  ‘Then feel!’

  ‘I … I’ve got it. But I can’t remember the bloody combination.’

  ‘It’ll be on the ticket.’

  ‘But the lights are off.’

  Dr Schuber, talkback: ‘Don’t tell him. He must emerge from this fantasy on his own.’

  Pulse 130 and rising. Blood pressure … Richardson couldn’t look. He’d seldom seen the column of mercury that high.

  But Neil. His lips were moving, trying phrases, searching through the alphabet. ‘It was a colour … a colour and rock, not rock, pebbles, no —’

  The nun murmured, ‘So near … and yet —’

  ‘— Greystones!’ Instantly Neil awoke. He stared up at Richardson, then at Ann Marie. He said, ‘Well? When are you going to start?’

  2

  ‘What are they doing, through there?’

  ‘Shh. You are supposed to be resting.’

  ‘That … session. It really frightened you. Didn’t it, Sister?’

  ‘Not the session.’

  ‘What did?’

  Ann Marie said, ‘They have been running those videotapes for hours. They’re still watching.’ She looked across at Neil in the semidarkness. From outside, the dirty yellow glint from a sodium lamp on a steel stanchion tinted the walls. ‘What frightens me is still with us. Filling Norton.’

  ‘Is that a crucifix on the wall? Am I in the convent?’

  ‘Yes. And it should be a sanctuary. Instead —’

  ‘Is this feeling something I brought with me when I arrived, Sister?’

  ‘No. It would be hard to explain what I’m frightened of. In the Provence there’s an old chateau. It’s called Carross. You climb up a steep hill and there’s this place. It feels to me very evil. I cannot bear to be there alone. Once I took a party of tourists up there. It was evening. The car would not start. Eventually the tourists decided to walk back to the main road. The one that goes on to Digne. I had to wait for one of them to send help.

  ‘It was like this, only very old. Norton is very new. And the things that scare me come, not from the past —’

  ‘— but from the future.’

  She nodded, lowered her voice. ‘The people here are odd. At least they behave in a very odd way. For instance, my priest, Father Stillwell. I know he’s frightened. But instead of — how would you put it? — identifying what digs at his soul, he escapes into a sort of conventional attitude. So he sticks up for all the things he should condemn — because they have the frank of authority.’

  ‘You mean he approves of what is going on in G Block?’

  ‘It has the holy seal. Why? Because it’s something he can grasp. Something tangible. Have you met Dr Schuber’s boss — Dr Braknell?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He and Father Stillwell both have the same disease and they suffer it together: they cling to what they know.’

  There came a long silence. Neil found himself studying Ann Marie’s profile against the window. He felt guilty because he desired her. But she knew it. She said eventually, ‘So now, you and I … we cling to what we know. You understand?’

  ‘Isn’t that somewhat against your vows?’

  ‘I see you do understand. And you are shocked.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t know very much about nuns.’

  ‘What does one need to know? I believe we are people who seek some sort of inner glow. If we don’t get it we feel cheated. So we confess. What use is that? The man I confess to won’t face the real cause of my discontent. So he spiritually switches off. The only person who is at all enlightened is Dr Schuber. Would it surprise you if I said that despite all her protests she really believes you?’

  ‘Yes, it would.’

  ‘Why did you say “TNA-1”? I carefully studied the drug list, earlier tonight. It just calls it TNA. So what is this number you stick on the end?’

  ‘It belongs there.’

  ‘But where does your brain belong? And tell me this: Did you choose Norton; or did Norton choose you?’

  ‘Your questions are horribly perceptive, Sister.’

  ‘My name is Ann Marie. Don’t let us pretend.’

  He looked at her for a long time. He could feel the rapid messages that were passing between them. ‘What made you lose your faith?’

  ‘I found that God could not protect me from terror.’

  ‘Terror of what?’

  ‘Neil, what is an Earthless Quake? People around here seem to take them in their stride, as if they were something they understand. But they don’t. And if you ask direct questions they lose their temper. Even Father Stillwell does. I once said — half joking — that they were the wrath of God. He was enraged.’

  ‘I imagine he would be.’

  ‘Afterwards I thought, why not? Why not the wrath of God? Something or somebody is trying to tell us something and we refuse to listen. At least we did until you came along. You will find that even Jane Schuber will be very withdrawn when she’s had time to think over what they’ll all be saying to her. What scares me most is that they might shut you up, too.’

  ‘They can’t.’

  ‘Then you are courageous.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with courage. I can’t help what I know. Ever since I formed the IoM —’

  ‘IoM?’

  ‘You look very pretty when you frown.’

  ‘I just feel very puzzled.’

  ‘IoM stands for “Institute of Metapsychology”. We made a very detailed study of paranormal episodes. A good many of the conclusions we came to I wouldn’t even dare tell you!’

  Ann Marie said flatly, ‘You are not crazy.’

  ‘We took a long hard look at the whole question of UFOs — Unidentified Flying Objects. We came to a very simple conclusion. Or rather, it seems simple —’

  ‘— once you’ve come to it.’

  ‘Exactly. What we decided was that it would always be impossible to prove what a UFO really is, because the very act of trying to prove something conflicts with why the UFO is there. You see, a flying saucer doesn’t appear in the sky at all — it only seems to. What actually happens is that an image is formed in the brain of the person who observes it. The image is meaningful enough; but it doesn’t offer itself for proof.’

  ‘But … the photographs?’

  ‘They’re sham. No one ever photographed a UFO.’

  ‘So what has this to do with Earthless Quakes?’

  ‘They are Thoughtquakes … ripples in the dimension of thought. Tomorrow I shall prove it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Simply by looking at the seismographic records at the university. If those shock waves were in any way physical they couldn’t fail to show at such close range. A seismograph can pick up an earthquake — easily — even if it’s eight thousand miles away.’

  ‘I do not see that this proof-or disproof-gets us any farther.’

  ‘Sometimes a scientist can only show what something is not. Only then can you postulate what it might be.’

  ‘I think I am not looking forward to tomorrow.’

  ‘Ann Marie. We must share this thing. Will you meet me in Exeter when I’ve finished at the university?’

  ‘I shall try.’

  *

  Dr Braknell slammed
the door of his office at Norton Complex — one he seldom used — and directed Neil curtly to a chair. Without preliminaries he snapped, ‘What may pass as research with Dr Schuber cuts no ice with me, Mr Prentice.’ Little prickles of red pocked his face with anger. ‘In my view you were pretty lucky. I watched that whole garbled proceedings on videotape. We know less about TNA than we do about God. It should never be used except in desperate cases. I gather you have been a mental patient in the past?’

  ‘I’ve been to a psychiatrist, yes.’

  ‘With what complaint?’

  ‘A neurosis.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘The doctor didn’t say, exactly.’

  Braknell got out his pad and sat with his pen poised. ‘Give me the name of the doctor.’

  ‘It was in America.’

  ‘I see. Did this American doctor say your neurosis was bordering on the schizoid?’

  ‘He didn’t say that but if you’re right that’s probably why the experiment worked.’

  ‘What worked? You experienced a succession of hallucinations and with your … neurotic background that was quite exceptionally dangerous. At one point Richardson thought you were beyond recall.’

  ‘You haven’t allowed me to describe these so-called hallucinations.’

  ‘I repeat, I’m not interested. I heard you mumbling when I watched the television recording. To be brutally frank, I am not one for pseudoscientific gibberish. I also call a spade a spade. With someone of your background abreactive therapy is not at all appropriate. If I’d known the total dose of TNA you were prescribed I would have stopped the whole silly business. So please don’t give me a lot of hogwash about “making contact”. The only thing you made contact with was the temporarily fragmented nature of your own personality. I shall do nothing to encourage a more permanent fragmentation which could result in your being an in-patient, occupying a valuable bed.’

  Neil said, ‘I admit that’s one way of looking at it.’

  ‘I assure you it’s the only way of looking at it. What is your subject, Mr Prentice?’

  ‘Metapsychology.’

  ‘Where do you practice this … metapsychology?’

  ‘At the IoM.’

  ‘Unfortunately I am not familiar with this official-sounding authority.’

  ‘The Institute of Metapsychology.’

  ‘Ah. No doubt this body has government backing?’

  ‘It is sponsored by a newspaper.’

  ‘I see. And do you have a degree in the non-existent subject of metapsychology?’

  ‘I took a degree in physics, here at Exeter, then majored at Harvard. Perhaps that makes more sense to you?’

  ‘It makes even less. If you are qualified in some recognized subject why can’t you stick to that?’

  ‘For something to be real, Dr Braknell, does it have to be recognized?’

  ‘You seem to want to invite the unreal. Of course, if you want to invite a bout of deep psychosis I suppose that’s your affair. And since you have already suffered from a schizoid condition —’

  ‘I was at no time labelled psychotic, Dr Braknell. Let’s get that straight.’

  Braknell couldn’t resist it. ‘For something to be true does it have to be labelled?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At least we agree about something. If you wish to turn yourself into a mental patient I suppose I can’t stop you. But I shall see to it that you get no assistance from Dr Schuber … And now if you’ll forgive me I have a patient to visit — someone who wants to be sane as hungrily as you appear to pursue insanity.’

  ‘How do you account for the unified behaviour of those schizophrenics, Dr Braknell? They all went to the same place at the same time for the same purpose —’

  ‘Purpose? You imagine the deranged have a sense of purpose? They are deranged because they do not have a purpose! But to answer your question: I happen to believe that Dr Schuber incited them into doing what they did. To be absolutely fair she could not possibly have realized that she did so — she is an exceptionally conscientious human being. But like all human beings she is not infallible. However, I feel confident that Dr Schuber will be the first to accept that she needs to be more … adroit, both in what she tells her patients and in whom she confides. Goodday, Mr Prentice.’

  *

  ‘You’ve seen him?’

  Dr Schuber said flatly, ‘I’ve seen him. And I’ll be quite honest with you, Mr Prentice. Dr Braknell has forbidden any more sessions with TNA, as far as you are concerned.’

  ‘And you accept his ruling?’

  ‘In this case, yes. It was evident to me yesterday that we were taking far too many risks.’

  ‘It’s my mind.’

  ‘And it’s my reputation. Dr Braknell has a great deal of influence. In his field he is eminent.’

  ‘It’s a pretty dried up sort of a field.’

  ‘All right, so you think he’s old-fashioned. That’s still no argument for endangering both your brain and my position and I have no intention of doing either.’

  ‘Aren’t you running away, somewhat?’

  ‘If you mean I don’t want to get struck off the register, you’re right.’

  ‘So you’re now withdrawing all support for my theories?’

  ‘Be fair, please! I never gave your theories support, I said I’d test them. This I did.’

  ‘But so far you’ve proved nothing either way.’

  ‘I disagree. The sort of … coma you went in did nothing to reveal any connection between the conduct of my patients and yourself.’

  ‘It hasn’t so far.’

  ‘I now believe that my patients attacked G Block purely at random — with the added possibility that they may have had vague and irrational fears about a secret establishment they knew nothing about.’

  ‘Don’t you have vague and irrational fears about what might be going on down there?’ Neil was looking out of the window. The Bowl itself was in brilliant sunshine. The impression and the mood it conveyed was totally different from that of the night before. But there was still that bungalow building — now under guard — with its secrets and its explorations into the very essence of mammal replication. ‘All right. No more experiments unless I can prove they really are relevant. But I want to talk to one of those patients who got out last night.’

  ‘I unhesitatingly forbid it and so will Dr Braknell.’

  ‘You mean you’ve no wish for one schizophrenic to talk to another schizophrenic.’

  ‘I would not allow any lay person to interfere with my patients.’

  ‘But look at where they went. They could be in very considerable danger.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From almost anything. But in particular, from radio-active isotopes. Have any of the patients you’ve so far recaptured talked about their raid on G Block?’

  ‘No.’ Dr Schuber’s taut little face seemed stretched across the bone as if an astringent had been suddenly hosed on to her skin. ‘I fail to see any deliberated connection between the science of genetics and yesterday’s raid … Tell me, during your trance state last night, did you … “discuss” with your imaginary people any connection between your confrontation with them and the study of genetics?’

  ‘No. I didn’t discuss it. On the other hand there was something about these people which might indicate a connection.’

  ‘You talk as if you think they’re real.’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘I see … What was this implied link, then?’

  ‘I’m not saying. Not yet.’

  ‘Because you don’t wish to reveal symptoms which might serve to confirm my point of view?’

  ‘I’m not certain what your point of view is. Nor do I think you are.’

  ‘Mr Prentice, whatever your definition of schizophrenia your attitude to delusion is highly schizoid. By all normal standards you are very ill.’

  ‘Dr Schuber, do you always set out to alarm people when you get the wind up? It is hardly therapeu
tic to tell me I’m a sick man, without taking any steps to cure the sickness.’

  She blushed crimson. ‘You are not my patient.’

  ‘I see! That’s what lets you off the hook. Provided you don’t have technical responsibility for me you can wade in and scare me as much as you like.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re unstable, I think you have a schizoid personality.’

  ‘And this game with words makes you feel better about it?’

  She took off her glasses angrily. ‘The very way you talk confirms my view that you are more than capable of sticking up for yourself.’

  ‘How fortunate for me.’

  ‘But you’re doing so at my expense.’

  ‘Whereas yesterday you were allowing what you say was a dangerous experiment at my expense. Make up your mind, doctor, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘I didn’t commit myself to accepting that the experiment was valid.’

  ‘But you aren’t sure. And it shows.’

  Jane got up, walked to the window, looked down. Below, the world was running as it should. People living a finite lifetime were causing mundane events to take place. Workmen, erecting the next building on the agenda to go up, were operating giant cranes, pouring concrete from mixers that groaned and clanked from heavy wear and tear; they were welding girders into place and walking acrobatically high up on the scaffolding, carrying steaming mugs of tea. Right across the other side, research students in the new wing of the university — a low, chequered building that somehow didn’t quite come off — would be listening to lectures, or not listening to lectures, according to their disposition and their activities of the previous night. Activities so different from hers of the previous night, when she had spent hours watching the videotape of the operating theatre — acutely aware that Dr Braknell was breathing down her neck from the seat just behind. Still looking down, she said, ‘What did you experience during that trance, Mr Prentice?’

  ‘The name is Neil. If we’re going to admit to having any interests in common let’s be on sensible terms … remembering, please, that I am not your patient.’

  ‘Neil, then.’

  He thought for a long time. ‘I don’t want to go off half-cocked, but is there any recognized condition which might be described as premature aging?’