The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  ‘What is it?’ asked the jolly red-faced man.

  Brickville picked out the ring and waved it at them, before turning back to her, smiling.

  ‘This is the signet of Lavell. The serpent on a field of gules. Your father’s ring.’

  They could all remember the device. It was said to have been carved by Lavell with a dagger on each of his dead victims. Though it had been many years ago now, it was still vividly recalled to their minds, reproduced as it had been in countless newspapers and television programmes.

  ‘You mean…’ said the red-faced man, paling, ‘she’s…?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brickville. ‘A proud house.’

  ‘You fool,’ said Felix, catching Marie as she fell to the floor.

  Dinner was a sombre affair, the pensive guests attended by visions of snakes carved in blood on young golden skin. The red-faced man’s wife could not eat and started to cry. The party broke up in disarray.

  Marie was already upstairs in bed.

  ***

  Marie’s relapse was dramatic and complete. She was confined to her bed. She did not wish to leave it. Her psychiatrist was sent for and presented an armoury of drugs and a complete change.

  ‘She seems to have no wish to survive,’ he told Felix. ‘I advise you to get her out of England. There are too many associations here. I fear we may have the beginning of schizophrenia. She could be suicidal.’

  ‘I will take her to America,’ said Felix. ‘Somewhere in the sun.’

  At first Marie would not hear of it. She felt insecure out of her bed, let alone out of her room. But slowly, over the days, Felix persuaded her.

  ‘I don’t know why you put up with me,’ she told him.

  ‘Because I care about you,’ he replied. ‘There, I’ve said it. I’m sorry I should not have done. I was so upset. That imbecile Brickville. He thought he was acting for the best. He lives in another world.’

  She looked at him wonderingly. ‘Care about me? But…’

  She had been going to say he was old enough to be her father, but she knew the word ‘father’ would catch in her throat.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m almost old enough to be your grandfather. But I happen to … like you.’

  She admired the tactful way he got round the father problem.

  ‘From the first moment you saw me?’ It was the first time she had smiled since that dreadful evening.

  ‘Precisely from that moment.’

  She thought for a little. She didn’t love Felix, she loved David. But as that was hopeless, and she had to do something with her life – at least everyone said so – she tried to smile again and used a phrase from games she used to play with the Man in the Wall all those years ago when he was being her knightly suitor.

  ‘You may live in hope.’

  Felix bowed.

  ‘Now, where would you like to live? Of course you will be chaperoned. I have an apartment in New York, a villa near Florence – it used to belong to the Medici – a house in Beverly Hills … I think this place is out for the moment…’

  ‘Florence,’ she said.

  But he shook his head regretfully. ‘Great idea. Nothing I’d like better. Tuscany in the fall. Trouble is, I’ve got some important business coming up and I need to be in the States for a month or so.’

  Where did he come from, she wondered? He didn’t seem to be American but on the other hand he didn’t seem to be English. He had the ghost of an accent.

  ‘New York, then?’ she suggested.

  ‘Fine.’ He made smoothing motions with his hands.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

  ‘We could pass through New York, stay a week or so, but really I have to be in LA, and that means Beverly Hills for us.’

  ‘You ask me where I want to go and then tell me where I’m going?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘But … wait a minute … California?’

  ‘Yes–’

  ‘I couldn’t go there … my name … no…’ She sank back and turned her face to the pillow in panic. Felix leant over and touched her. She looked up at him questioningly.

  ‘I’ve thought about that,’ he said. ‘It’s a big state. It all happened miles away and a long time ago. Anyway, I thought maybe you’d find it easier if you used my name.’

  ‘Change my name, you mean? I could be Sinclair again – my aunt’s name. That’s what I was at school. I didn’t know I was Lavell until Aunt Bertha died. But I can hardly get rid of it. It’s on my back. I cannot keep changing my name. I won’t know who I am any more.’

  She felt feverish, finding it as hard to say Lavell as it would be to say Father. Felix smiled and shook his head gently.

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all. Not at all. What I meant was, perhaps we should get married.’

  It was the last thing she had been expecting.

  ‘Married? You mean us? Married?’ she asked incredulously.

  He laughed. ‘No need to sound so shocked. Some would even be pleased.’

  She was contrite. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Of course you didn’t.’

  ‘But…’ she had to be honest, ‘I don’t love you. I like you … very much. I’m so grateful to you. But don’t you have to love someone to get married?’

  ‘That isn’t my problem,’ he said. ‘I’m in love already. But love sometimes grows, you know. Sometimes like a weed. Sometimes like a rose.’

  ‘May I think about it?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to be ungrateful. I can’t think very well at the moment. I have to imagine what Nanny would say.’

  ‘Nanny?’

  ‘She was full of good advice. I don’t know where she got it from. I never asked her about her life before she came to the castle. I never thought she’d had one.’

  ‘What would she say?’

  ‘Tuck up warm. Get the potatoes out of your ears. Least said, soonest mended.’

  ‘It all points to a “yes”, if you ask me.’

  He was right. In a curious way it did. But had Nanny ever been in love? Had she ever married, had she ever – nasty potato-y thought – slept with a man?

  ‘May I think about it?’ she said. ‘But can we stay here for some time. I like it so much here. I’m not ready to go yet. Next year perhaps?’

  She felt strangely optimistic, and wondered whether some of the pills they were giving her were happy ones.

  ‘Next year.’ He bent over and kissed her. Her mouth opened to his, not with passion. She felt in a curious way that he was sucking out her resistance, her essence. It was not unpleasant. Ivo’s little song came again to her mind.

  Three gypsies came to the castle gate,

  They sang so high, they sang so low,

  The lady sat in her chamber late,

  Her heart it melted away like snow.

  PART TWO

  The lawn seemed to have been applied with a trowel, it was so perfectly smooth and green. She looked out upon it with a sense of calm perplexity. What was she doing at this window? Whose lawn was it? How long had it been there? It presented to her a symbol of eternity. It was God’s lawn. Epochs rolled over it.

  Endless broth. And sleep, and more sleep. Where had she been? Was someone feeding her thoughts through a straw? Someone brought her a wheeled chair to fall asleep in. It had a stiff hood to keep off the sun, with adjustable knobs.

  More broth. Someone washed her.

  She fell asleep again, for how long this time she did not know but it seemed to her as not so long … and once more she was gazing at the lawn. Not a single dandelion or daisy disturbed its sleek contours. A thick green hedge marked the boundary to the right and left, and a tall wire fence, threaded with creepers, marked the forward boundary with the road.

  It was not a lawn for playing on, that was certain. Even the birds seemed to pause before laying diffident feet upon it, and quickly flying on. It was doubtful whether any worms or grubs wiggled beneath. a. Nothing was dead under the grass and nothing
was alive. She understood exactly how it felt.

  A man’s face peered at her, right in her face, attentively, and an angel in white stood at his shoulder. A bright light shone in her eyes so she knew she was in heaven.

  ‘Is she ready?’ the angel asked in an American voice.

  ‘She is ready. Just five milligrams now of Solution D each day.’

  It was a man’s voice that was familiar to her.

  She was back in the garden, and slowly, very slowly she became part of the landscape. Every day now they took her out in the wheelchair with the stiff hood, and parked on the terrace looking out on the greenness.

  The truth was of course, thought Marie as she gazed at it, the truth was that it wasn’t a real lawn at all but texture-woven stuff like artificial hair. It was a lawn transplant. It only seemed to grow. Every week the taciturn gardener came as if to cut it, but it was all illusory. The grass wouldn’t ever really take because the nuclear shelter underneath was too close to the surface. She was never actually shown the shelter, but she was convinced there was one. She sometimes wondered, though, how she would find her way down there when the nuclear war actually came and how she would get out afterwards if the exit was jammed.

  Sounds of chatter, the clink of glasses and energetic splashing told her it was a lawn for well-toned bottoms to sit upon around the pool at the back of the house, as sometimes they did, though she could not tell who their owners were. It was a lawn like a fitted carpet at an international hotel.

  She’d asked the woman about it when she came in with soup: ‘Is it a lawn or a toupée?’

  The woman looked at her and went to find the man. They told her that their name was Holdsworth, and they were like the Beckwiths in Sussex, only this was Beverly Hills. They were not rosy-cheeked and genial like the Beckwiths; they were altogether more formal as befitted the American idea of the butler. They inclined stiffly. They regretted. They followed orders. They told her that Mr Felix was away but had left instructions.

  ‘You wished to ask me about the lawn?’ said Mr Holdsworth.

  ‘Did I?’ She suddenly felt so tired again. The lawn didn’t matter any more. It was just like a thousand other lawns she had seen when she had been someone else. ‘I don’t care about the lawn,’ she said.

  ‘Ah.’ He turned to go away.

  ‘Why are there no daisies on it?’ she asked.

  He turned back expressionlessly. ‘You wish to have daisies, Miss?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Daisies can be specified.’

  ‘Please. It doesn’t matter.’

  Next day or week or month when she looked out, the lawn was covered with daisies in neatly ordered rows.

  ‘How do you like the daisies, Miss?’ asked Mr Holdsworth.

  ‘I hate the daisies.’ She wished she had never mentioned the daisies. All she wanted to do was to sleep, but when she slept she merely wanted to sleep some more.

  Felix moved in and out of the house like a shadow.

  ‘How are you, my dear. I understand you are improving. I am afraid it is a long haul.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked him. ‘You keep changing shape.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, my dear. I am here by your side.’

  ‘What is the solution?’ she asked him.

  ‘There is no solution. No easy solution. Rest and nourishment are the solutions. The building up of strength.’

  ‘You said there was a solution. Solution D.’

  ‘There is no solution D. Or A or Zee. You have been hearing voices inside your head. It can happen in cases like yours. Nothing to worry about … too much.’

  ‘Is it the final solution?’

  Where did that come from? Middleburg cocked an eyebrow. ‘We will have to see, my dear, won’t we?’

  Was it her imagination or had California altered him? He didn’t seem quite so sweet and gentle here; he was more business-like, more impatient.

  ‘Did you order the daisies?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course. Holdsworth was greatly offended. The garden is his pride and joy.’

  ‘Why am I so tired?’

  ‘You have had a breakdown.’

  ‘With a rod coming out of my head?’ A memory came back to her from schooldays when she had been talking about someone having a breakdown with a little smiling dark-haired girl. ‘Do you think it’s like a car with a rod sticking out of the engine?’ the dark-haired girl was saying…

  ‘No rods. Just strain,’ said Felix. ‘You are on medication as you know. You will be better one day.’

  ‘Why are you always going away?’

  ‘I am busy, my dear. I have much business to attend to. The Other Judas is a hard taskmaster.’

  ‘The Other Judas?’

  ‘It was originally a charitable trust named after St Jude, patron saint of the impossible. Much of our profit still goes to charity. Our brand name is TOJI, as in The Other Judas, Incorporated. It is the fourth most loved brand name in the country, if not the world. The Japanese think it is Japanese. That is the just one of our companies. Then there are TOJI Pharmaceuticals…’

  Her head swam. She was drowning in words.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said suddenly. ‘You are all I have.’

  Well, that was not entirely true. Somewhere there was a little girl, though Marie wasn’t going to talk to him about her. Where are you, my baby? What have they done with you?

  ‘Even when I am away,’ he said. ‘I am with you. The Holdsworths are my eyes and ears. They are caring people. You know that.’

  He gave her a well-tended smile. Next day the daisies had gone again. Some new bottoms came to swim. She kept looking at them. Was she supposed to recognise them? One of them looked like someone she remembered. She would find her baby in the end.

  ‘Who are these bottoms?’ Marie asked.

  ‘Here is your medicine,’ said Mrs Holdsworth.

  ‘How old am I, Mrs Holdsworth?’

  ‘I believe you are twenty-three.’

  ‘Where did I come from? How long have I been here?’

  ‘You will have to ask Mr Felix.’

  And so the days passed.

  She sometimes wondered whether she needed all the medicaments they gave her. Not that she minded. She had nothing to be lively about. Being drugged was a very good reason for saying nothing, doing nothing, feeling nothing. Being drugged was a very good way of passing the time.

  She did, however, discern with renewed attention through the foggy cloud of the months that passed, something that she had already suspected. Whereas in England Felix had been all attention and concern, in California his tender loving care had indeed become very much more of an abstraction. There was less emphasis on her wellbeing and more on security issues. An extra foot was added to the front fence and a burglar alarm was introduced that seemed to pay more attention to people breaking out than to burglars breaking in.

  Marie overheard the Holdsworths discussing this very issue.

  Felix remained on ostensibly friendly terms with her, but was Felix the same man at all? When he was at home, they did not kiss or cuddle. Although he had declared himself as good as in love with her, he had postponed any physical contact until she was well again. He discussed it with her the night after their engagement (a quiet ceremony, the exchanging of rings, witnessed – and purchased – by the Holdsworths). It would be unfair to her, he said. She was grateful to him for that. He did not seem to have any carnal feelings for her. He had smooth white hands and face; she loved him as she might an anaesthetist.

  Sometimes, looking out of her window at the back of the house, she would hear the distant sounds of people enjoying themselves; the splash of a pool, the pling of a tennis racket; laughter; music; the pop of a cork. Once or twice she had shouted out: ‘Wait for me. WAIT FOR ME!’

  There was no reply. The world was going to a party to which she had not been invited. They were playing tricks with her. Her mind was full of the memories, the bee-murmur of words. Mrs Hol
dsworth came in with a cordial.

  Marie had tiptoed out onto the landing many times, and tried one of the doors leading to the front rooms. They were always locked. One day, however, one had swung open. It gave on to a short passage which ended in another door. She was in luck again. She stepped into what seemed like a guest bedroom with windows that overlooked the front drive. Even as she watched, a small truck swept up the drive and a young man got out to unload some crates. She studied his actions as closely as if he had been performing a ballet. When he drove away, she returned to her room, pocketing the key. That night she dreamed that the young man was making love to her on the plastic grass where they were observed by Felix and the Holdsworths who kept shouting ‘Ugh! What a mess!’ at them.

  She returned often to the front room but the young man didn’t come again. One day when she was in the front room, a car drove up with a young couple in it. They got out of their car and rang the bell. It was answered by Mr Holdsworth.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ the young man said.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  ‘We are your neighbours – just moving in. Thought we’d come and introduce ourselves.’

  ‘That is most kind, sir. Unfortunately Mr Felix is not at home.’

  ‘Is there no Mrs Felix?’