The Thinktank That Leaked

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  I said, “I don’t think he was anything like as bad as you think.”

  She snapped angrily, “Is there any point at all in my going on?”

  “Why stop just because I don’t agree with all your conclusions?”

  “Because you can’t know, from what I’ve said, what was wrong with him.”

  “Okay. What was?”

  “He used to work himself up into such a froth of abuse that he had, well, sort of blackouts.”

  “A pilot with blackouts?”

  “They developed. I mean … He didn’t get them at first. But the worse they got, the more destructive he became.”

  I said, “Let’s take a raincheck on the word ‘destructive’ for a moment. The damage is a bit hard to detect. I take it he used to get headaches, along with these blackouts?”

  “He wouldn’t talk about it. I tried to get him to, but he wouldn’t. But he said he heard voices.”

  “Are you saying he was schizophrenic?”

  “No.”

  “But what you seem to be saying is that he’d got your number — despite the blackouts and things?”

  “All right, damn you! — He knew I was spoilt.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Still in Geneva, as far as I know.”

  “And still flying? — migraines and all?”

  “I certainly couldn’t stop him.”

  “Nesta, I think he did you a great deal more good than harm. Look at Mike; surely isn’t he much more obviously the victim of your father? It seems to me your pilot friend didn’t turn the dagger in the wound; he deftly removed it. It might have hurt a bit; but that’s what he did.”

  She stopped the car, staring at me. “Do you honestly think that?”

  “I’m sure of it. Naturally you hate him, he caused you pain. But you wouldn’t look as you look or act as you act if he had been destructive. He saw you as a work of art perhaps; is that such a bad thing? He wanted to scrape off the parts of the original canvas that had been overpainted, to reveal the person he knew to be underneath. You should be profoundly grateful. You certainly couldn’t have done it on your own. Could you?”

  She said, “I don’t know whether to slap your face or make love right now.”

  I said, “We can decide that in a minute. But we ought to get one thing straight. You’ll always be rich and you’ll always think rich, you won’t be able to help it. That doesn’t mean that everyone is going to agree with your deductions as a matter of course. You’re confused in how you should react because part of you still thinks it outrageous that I haven’t swallowed the whole pill as a matter of Right, your right. You’re wrong about your Swiss boyfriend; he saw something beautiful and knew how to get rid of the vulgar frame. And he managed it. Look who I’m with! — the loveliest and most erotic creature I’ve ever been able to imagine even in a pubile wet dream. And still you’re ungrateful. Why are you crying?”

  “It’s relief.”

  “At being told the truth?”

  “That’s part of it. The other part is finding someone who really doesn’t try and bow and scrape his way into my —”

  “— Nesta, don’t let’s use the Hollywood expression.”

  “Okay.”

  “And stop crying.”

  “No, why should I, I’m enjoying it.”

  “Nesta, get this. I loved you the instant I saw you. I even suspected I would when I saw you from the aeroplane, I can’t work out exactly how, there are hundreds of pretty girls at the university, most of the top thirty students can wear a pair of jeans all right, but I’m in love with you. Do you under-bloody-stand?”

  “There’s no need to sound so enraged about it!”

  “I’m only enraged In Case.”

  “In Case of what?”

  “In case you aren’t going to fall in love with me.”

  “Roger, how can anyone be such an idiot?…”

  *

  We phoned Mike from a coinbox, and asked him if he was okay for the night, and he said yes he was, and would I fly with him soon, and I said I’d fly with him tomorrow, meet me at Elstree at eleven a.m., and Nesta got onto him, and they were both laughing, because it was Mike who said he knew perfectly well Nesta wouldn’t be coming back that night.

  3

  “No, Mike. That’s not how you used to fly. Is it?”

  “If you say treat it as I would a woman, I’ll scream.”

  “Is that what your instructor told you?”

  “Incessantly.”

  “Next time you see him, Mike, explain to him that no two people treat a woman the same way, and no one woman wants to be treated the same way twice running. This is an aeroplane. It is inanimate. The controls are extensions of your own limbs and the nerves that guide them. Treat it like an aeroplane, and it will fly excellently.”

  “That sounds sensible.”

  “Let’s see a steep turn. Plenty of power on. Then ease your port wing down. Look along it, admire it, it’s beautiful. Then look ahead, keep your horizon right, watch it do a panorama as you go around, watch the angle and keep it constant, check the bubble and don’t slip at all, then feel your bottom push hard against the cushion.”

  Mike said, “These things don’t normally slip much.”

  “In a steep turn you shouldn’t slip an inch. People have been known to regret it, Mike. And think of cockpit checks, get your RPM right, and make it a real steep one … No, gradually, you don’t have to bully it, it’ll go into the turn, it’s designed to, that’s better … Good. Now get the nose up slightly, make the world go around you like a record on the hi-fi, even, level. That’s right. Now get it steeper, don’t worry, you’re flying, she’s got a grip on the air —”

  “You said ‘she’!”

  “ — Don’t talk. You can rib me later … You can go steeper than that, the aircraft is absolutely fixed into the sky, that bubble is right in the middle, you won’t get a stall or a spin because your power-setting is right and you can feel her … it … gripping the air absolutely. If any part of that airflow were to break away you’d know by instinct … See? Now look at the hayrick below. We’re going exactly around it, and if you extend your eye along the leading edge of the wing, you can draw an imaginary line down to the ground, and that line is describing a circle around the hayrick, beautiful because it is pure mathematics, like Bach. Good. Now a turn the other way …

  “Okay, Mike. The approach. You’ve done it hundreds of times. The first thing you do is to make sure there’s nothing else in the sky that could trouble you now or later on. That aircraft there. What’s it doing?”

  “Flying on a heading slightly more southerly than ours.”

  “Right. That’s what it’s doing at the moment. It may not be later on. Now call the tower.”

  Mike said, “Bravo-Delta, downwind leg. Request landing clearance, over.”

  “Bravo Delta. Cleared to land. Number One to land.”

  “Roger.”

  I said, “Now check that aircraft again. What’s it doing now?”

  “Climbing and continuing south.”

  “Good. But don’t settle for that. Anyone to port? Above us? Below us? No, don’t rock the controls when you look, and trim properly. Now get everything you need over with early. You want your two-thirds flap down early, trim early, descent angle early, throttle setting definite and don’t fiddle with it …”

  “Like that?”

  “Very much like that … Okay, you’ve completed the turn, there’s the runway, isn’t it terrific? All waiting, hungry to receive you, keep it dead steady, make the runway come up to you, don’t bother to fly down to the runway, you’ve got all your settings right, so it must … and that’s full flap, excellent, now just let your airspeed drop naturally as we go over the threshold, keeping a bit of power on, yes, that much, I’m not going to tell you when to flare out, you know, it’s related to your airspeed, isn’t it, that’s it, the angle of attack increases and just off the stall … now let her float, come on, don’t l
et those wheels touch, keep them off by three inches, forever, if necessary, hold her there, don’t touch, we’re practically crawling but you’ve still got those two inches, and down she goes, dammit we’re almost taxying, and your nosewheel’s down, and oodles of spare runway ahead that you’re never going to need again, that’s what we term a ‘greaser’ all right — and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do one of these every time, that’s called Flying … No sloppy taxying, get your drills right, never taxy one inch with flaps down, it’s a lousy habit, you fly well, I enjoyed myself, Mike, thanks for the trip.”

  Nesta met us on the apron just after we’d parked and switched off. She said to me, “If you tell me Mike was flying you’re the Liar of the Month.”

  Mike said, “I didn’t dare touch the controls.” He was shaking with delight. “Not even once.”

  I said, “Grounded for life.”

  We all had a lager on that. Then Nesta asked Mike if she could have a word in private with me.

  Mike said, “Don’t you dare discuss my hammy flying.”

  Nesta said, “So who’s so important, suddenly?”

  Mike grinned and went out into the sun on the apron.

  Nesta said, “Spender phoned me.”

  ‘For God’s sake, where?”

  “Here.”

  “But why?”

  “He wants you to go and see him immediately. In his Flying Saucer.”

  “Did you say I wasn’t in the mood?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Did he explain why?”

  “No. And he said even if you called him back he couldn’t say any more than that on the phone.”

  “Nesta, do you think I really have to go?”

  She said, “There was something … weird … about the tone of his voice.”

  “Weird. You mean it frightened you?”

  “It did. Yes.” For a moment she caught Mike’s rejuvenated expression as he gazed at some passing aircraft outside. Her face caught the sun as she crossed to the window, smiling. She turned to me. “Roger. He’ll never forget today’s flight. And you made it all happen.”

  “Would it surprise you,” I said, “if I told you I thoroughly enjoyed myself?”

  She shook her head at me in a funny way, not negating what I’d said, but expressing something else. Suddenly she stood tiptoe and kissed me on the lips, and she was off the ground, and I was holding her, and an aeroplane took off outside, and we seemed to ascend with it. She said, “You’re absolutely wild about those muck-patches on my jeans, aren’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I just know!”

  I said, “Nesta, you’re so perfect for me. Suppose you get bored of being loved so much?”

  “The answer might surprise you.”

  “Go on.”

  “When you watch me, you see all of me. When I watch you, I see all of you. There is nothing that could bore me. And another thing.”

  “What?”

  “People who bore are never afraid of doing so. You’re just a bit scared of flying. People who feel challenged by flying make good pilots.”

  “I’m flying now,” I said.

  “Yes. And you’re afraid. You think you love me too much.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about, because you’ll keep working at it.”

  “You’re being maternal.”

  “Yes. I’ve never been allowed to mother a man before.” She smiled impishly. “Of course, Freud would say I’m sort of daughter-image to you, because you like playing Big Guy.”

  “According to the book of rules,” I said, “that suggests we’ll have rows they’ll hear at the far end of the street.”

  “But won’t it be fun afterwards?”

  There was some long grass beneath the trees, about a hundred metres from the main buildings. Hardly realizing what I was doing, I was leading her by the hand toward the shelter of it.

  As we brushed our way through the long grass she said, “And what do those muck-patches on my jean bottoms remind you of?”

  “A stable girl riding bareback.”

  Our surroundings blurred away from us, so that it was space, we could have been anywhere, it felt insane because for me love had to be insane, that’s what I’d never realized before there was Nesta, you don’t know what you’re doing till after you’ve done it, you aren’t conscious of yourself but of her, your vanity wanes and gets lost in the madness, and penis-pride is as trivial as standing back and admiring your own car … You see her thighs and you watch her face as the sun probes through the small gaps in green leaves, lighting her, till you see all of her at the same time, an inexplicable wave of perception, the grass around you sweet as her breath.

  *

  The faint murmur of insects now, and a distant plane throbbing as you have done, and just fingers entwined. Minutes pass.

  She said, “Did you notice the branches of the trees? overhead?”

  I said, “How the light came through.”

  “Yes.”

  I said, “I never knew it could be … like that.”

  “You were thinking of me.”

  I asked her, “Why do people talk about good in bed? It’s not one person, is it?”

  She said, “They don’t listen for the A.”

  “Out of tune?”

  “Yes,” she said. “How can they play a duet if they’re only listening to their own cello?”

  “I’m glad you like cellos.”

  “I love them,” she said. “They blend.”

  *

  In the club she said, “I’m coming with you. To Spender’s Flying Saucer.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “I’m so glad you made it a question. I can’t bear the gruff masculine ‘Let me handle this’.”

  “No fear of that,” I said. “Spender’s beginning to scare me. I mean, what he’s doing. I shall want to touch you — make sure you’re there.”

  “In what sense are you scared?”

  “Something you said.”

  She nodded and it made her hair bob against the sun. “I remember what I said.”

  *

  We found a meter for the MG and climbed those anachronistic stairs to Spender’s hovel beyond the green baize door.

  He was taken aback on seeing Nesta. “Aren’t you … Mike’s sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “I had really intended to see Mr. Kepter alone.” To me he said limply, “Is this very tactful?”

  “Does science call for tact?”

  He treated me to one of his oblique looks. It was then that I realized what the conflict was in his appearance. In a way, the face was boyish, no lines on it, the nose slightly smaller than the average Kleenex was meant for in men, the lips fuller and less firm than the determination in the jaw implied. And yet his slack body did not correspond, I don’t mean he looked freakish, in fact I hadn’t noticed it before, many men have a middle-aged body and a baby face, it wasn’t that, I think it must have been that he couldn’t express in his body the tension he so obviously felt in his mind. And the fact that his suit didn’t fit heightened the effect.

  Now, he fussed about with chrome-framed chairs, making us comfortable, and offering coffee, and we didn’t want coffee, and he felt out of his depth. He felt challenged by Nesta, too. She was Mike’s sister; and he had treated this youth, who had flown perfectly, perhaps superbly, less than two hours ago.

  Spender addressed himself almost entirely to me. “Though you may not know this — although Miss Crabtree does, because I treated her brother down there for a time — I have a clinic in Somerset. A very pretty little place called Orscombe. The house itself is idyllic — an old thatched place, some of it dates right back to the Sixteenth Century. I built onto it at the back, rather discreetly, I like to think. Anyway, it doesn’t spoil the view of the house from the front; and the back is concealed by a well-kept garden.”

  We waited. Not having come out of the sunshine of Elstree to
listen to the contents of his brochure, both Nesta and I hoped for harder information.

  Spender cleared his throat. “We have some elaborate equipment down there” — he gestured around the Flying Saucer — “not unlike this installation, only more highly developed. But the two installations — this one, and the Orscombe one, are linked by post office line. In consequence, I can monitor from here, in some depth, the state of mind of each patient, some hundred and eighty miles away in West Somerset.”

  I thought for a moment we were supposed to clap. Instead I asked, “What staff have you, down there?”

  “The unit is affiliated with Taunton Canal Hospital. They supply staff and undertake the necessary administration. At present, Tithings has a cadre of a fully qualified assistant psychiatrist, two sisters, and two nurses. Additionally there is a computer technologist from Bristol University. He used to work in collaboration with my former assistant this end — Pottersman.”

  “Tithings being the name of the house in Orscombe?” I put in.

  “That’s right.” He glanced at Nesta. “Miss Crabtree has visited the place herself.”

  Nesta said, “It is very pretty.”

  Spender went on, “I don’t want to get too technical, but the line which links Tithings up to here is wide band-width coaxial cable; and this, of course, responds very fast and permits rapid exchange of digital information, both ways.”

  He’d finished the preliminaries and was now trying to come to the point. And although I could tell — if only from the peculiar vibes in there — that he was now extremely tense, his state of mind in no way showed in his face. So now — I thought — we had a three-part man: a brain, a face, and a body … none of which seemed to be able to achieve a unanimous response to an oddly dispersed nervous system.

  “One reason,” he said, “why I didn’t want … may I call you Nesta?”

  “Oh, please do.” — She was as impatient as I was by this time.

  “One of the reasons I didn’t particularly want Nesta here was because part of this, Kepter, concerns your former wife.”

  “She is,” I said, “definitely my former wife. Please don’t worry.”

  “Yes … Well, out of curiosity, or boredom, or some motive unknown to me, she came here some time back and wasted a certain amount of her time — and mine — expressing the nature of her personality and asking me to perform tricks with some of this sensory equipment. Dutifully I called up the usual macros needed for the study of various traits though, of course, she was not in any sense a patient. She might equally have gone to the Planetarium or a movie.