by Will Self
for dangerously weaponising nouns. In this case taking a lovely
natural scene and making of it a sun lounge full of screaming and
mindless Strul … Struld … Struldbr – oldies. What’s my name?
he asks the young man who sits opposite him, his skin greasy …
pimpled, his black hair hacked about on his haunted temples, and
the young man replies, Doctor Zebadius Obadius Anthraxobadus,
but we just call you Doc B for short … yes, Doc B, that’s it – you can
push Doc B, but not too far … It’s a hard life for a young woman, but it
doesn’t seem hard when I look back on it, just … beautiful … is the sort
of dialogue to be expected, being spoken by Bergman’s white-haired
and plump predecessor, after her fatal fall from the rotten old
balcony of the Inn, but before her final expiration. Bergman, who’s
already impressed the local Confucian Mandarin – a surprisingly
convincing portrayal by the ailing Robert Donat, his jaundiced
skin playing its typecast part – with her combination of piety and
obstinacy, won’t be deflected from her evangelical course, any more
than Zack’s hand would be deflected from the smooth nylon runnel
of Isobel McKechnie’s hosed thighs. Not here … and, not now! are
the sort of lines he’d expect her to come out with, as Bergman
carries on trying to pass … her Swedish accent further informing
the otherworldliness of an interwar China re-created by bussing
laundrymen from Toxteth and Limehouse to Borehamwood, and
thence to Snowdonia for the location shooting. Yes, Isobel would
fight him off in the Biggar Rialto – and Zack would persist, even as
romance blossoms between the Swedish film star impersonating an
English missionary, and Curt Jürgens, an Austrian actor mumming
it up in heavy makeup as Captain – later Colonel – Lin Nan, a
military intelligence officer, charged with readying the remote
province of Yang Cheng for the onslaught of the Japanese. His
mixed Chinese-Dutch blood accounts for his stature, his appearance
and his lowering self-hatred, My heart and my mind are
Chinese – only my blood is mixed … Each time his fingertips reached
a certain indefinable point, Isobel’s thighs would close on his
hand, and Zack would bite his tongue, willing himself not to shoot
aff … The foot-binding is curtailed, Bible stories are recited to
muleteers – Gladys ends a prison riot by putting a stop to the abusive
practices of the guards … Sounds right stirring, Doc – might gi’ ye
ideas … Might – would, very possibly, were it not that with each
scene he’d see that garden of earthly delights, Isobel McKechnie’s
body, retreating from him. The Zeroes come winging in over
Glyder Fawr and up the valley towards Capel Curig – the dying
Donat in his silk dressing gown witnesses the bombing of his set,
and Gladys and Curt lead the orphans of the Inn of the Sixth
Happiness to safety, singing a jolly rhyme from her Edmonton
childhood. It would go with them, Isobel and Zack, as they left
the Rialto and got into the Javelin – which would be parked
immediately outside, this being the way of things back then. It
would go with them to Lanark Station, the children’s Knick-knack
paddy-whack, give a dog a bone … a jaunty and nonsensical accompaniment
to his terrible frustration: Yes! Give a dog a bone – even a
Jewish dog with a furiously twingeing circumcised boner deserves
one. But no: this old man would come rolling home, his frustration
intact, and on this occasion would very likely have to bathe the
black-balled member under cold water in the cold bathroom, along
the cold corridor from his cold room at Missus Kane’s … aren’t ye
forgettin’ something, Doc? The following day he’d probably write her a
letter – which was what you did back then – apologising for being
gallus, and hoping the incorporation of dialect demonstrated quite
how serious he was about fitting in. You’re forgetting something,
Doc … forgetting what any red-blooded man who wass tha’ frustrated
might do – ye ken: she’d been leading ye on all day. Flashin’ her legs at ye
all the way up the hill – kissing ye, lettin’ ye touch her down there, it’s no
surprise if ye’d’ve lost patience and woulda –. What? Behaved like you,
Bobby, with the mental defective you met on the Perth country
lane? I don’t think so … But when ye drapped her aff at Lanark, and
she wass goin’ awn an’ awn about some play she’d seen at the Edinburgh
Festival – and how the new American President was a handsome enough
chap, but as a Papist not to be trusted – lots else besides, well … Well,
what? You could be forgiven for losin’ your temper, Doc … Forgiven for
all manner of pushing, pulling and tugging? Forgiven for tearing?
Forgiven for the stopped dandelion clock of her petticoats and her
shocked-white face? Forgiven for ruining a pair of saucy briefs from
the Pompadour range? No, if he’d’ve assaulted her like that, Zack
wouldn’t have been forgiven, ever – either by Isobel McKechnie or,
more importantly, by himself. He would’ve seen her off almost as if
nothing had happened – because that was the way of it in those
days: hot-headed marital rape followed by a frigidly polite breakfast.
He would’ve seen her off, standing on the darkened platform, his
lungs full of smoke and sick at heart – he’d have understood
he’d grievously misjudged her – or, more importantly, himself: his
was not the divine hand, outstretched to create a woman … He’d
know at last who his father was, because Maurice’s gentle reproof
would resound in his head louder than any angry patriarch’s. Sat
in the Superintendent’s Javelin for half an hour, maybe more,
smoking and banging his head on the steering wheel, he would’ve
felt an unutterable shame – the immemorial shame of his lost tribe.
Would’ve felt as well the utter uselessness of his work at State
Hospital: the pathetic little concessions he might’ve managed to
wring from the Superintendent and Doctor McClintock, what
would they amount to? Allowing the prisoner-patients to associate
for a half-hour longer a day, getting permission for them to mount a
dismal little Christmas show – a review Zack would direct himself,
called something like You, Too, and featuring topical sketches about
spy planes getting shot down over the Soviet Union, interspersed
with the patient-performers … doing little turns – Donald, where’s
your trousers … This was hardly the sort of therapy likely to reverse
the abuse Bobby and the others had suffered in the system … you’ve
no knick-knack idea, Doc … every time I absconded from Baldovan it
wass the same routine on recapture: bath filled to overflowing wi’ ice-cold
water, then a towel wrapped round yer heid, an’ they’d say, Aye, thass
what ye get for bein’ crabbit – an’ they’d put ye under for … I dunno –
minutes at a time. I thought I’d died … Driving back to Carstairs
along deserted roads, the shame would continue to build up in
> young Doctor Busner’s head – a dreadful pressure, and he’d take
this hydrocephalus to bed with him, tuck it up between Missus
Kane’s clammy sheets, after he’d covered them with the blankets
he’d removed that morning – the blankets which had never shamefully
been used … shamefully. Shamefully, they’d ask us criminal
lunatics: would ye be happy taking tea wi’ the Queen? That was before
they moved us from the Criminal Lunatic Department at Perth Gaol –
I’d absconded again, this time from Gartloch, where I was bein’ held on a
section … Gi’ me sulphanol, they did – two tablets three times a day …
crushed in wi’ water … I went gaga, Doc – completely gaga. Couldnae
walk – they’d t’lift me on to the commode. They stopped gi’ing t’me –
but others died, Doc, nae kiddin’… Sent me to a speech therapist: Say
three bags of coal, Robert … Three bags of coal … Very good, Robert,
well done … And in the morning? He’d eat his rubber egg and
his celluloid bacon while listening to The First Day of the Week on
the Home Service. It’d probably be something like The Essential
Elements in a Vital Christian Experience, a reading from the Riverside
Sermons by Harry Emerson Fosdick. He’d sip his strong tea,
and quail beneath the judgemental glare of Missus Kane, a keen
Sabbatarian, who, while she’d probably object to his going to State
Hospital on a Sunday, would certainly censure him very stiffly if she
knew about what had possibly happened in the Javelin the preceding
evening – a long, low, streamlined car, which he’d drive back to
the hospital, crouched beneath the thunderhead of his black shame:
confectionery is a crutch, alcohol is a crutch, the carnal relation is … a
crutch – why, religion itself may be abused by being used as a crutch – but
the worst crutch of all … the one that is truly an abomination in the eye
of Almighty God, is pride … which would make sexual pride doubly
anathema, Would ye no agree, Doc? After chapel most of the patients
would shuffle off to their cells, to spend the rest of the day in sedated
seclusion – but the cast of You, Too might well assemble in the
workshop for an afternoon’s scenery building and painting. Young
Doctor Busner would, no doubt, be very proud of the set for the
revue – which might well be something like the spread wings of an
advanced, high-altitude surveillance aircraft, which in turn could
require some of the more trusted inmates to do the knick-knack-nailing
– being careful not to knick-knack on their thumbs …
Which implies they’d have the use of hammers, nails and also a
saw. Sore-headed, young Doctor Busner would be, what with the
whisky he drank the afternoon before – sore-headed, and that head
also sunk now in a stygian remorse-hole: he should indeed write
that letter to Isobel – write her the sincerest and most heartfelt
apology imaginable. And, as the elements of the set were bashed
and bished into being, he’d most likely sit at the charge nurse’s table
in the corner of the room, speaking when asked for his opinion or
advice, but mostly ignoring the patients – a criminal some might say
lunatic neglect, especially given these are all dangerously insane
men. Men who’ve to fill out a chit for each tool they’re issued with
from the locked cabinet – a chit which must be signed for by Doctor
Busner in a ledger at the time, then counter-signed when the tool
is returned. Yes, he’d sit there all afternoon, probably, and, it being
the way of things then, he’d likely smoke a number of cigarettes
while composing a letter of such heartfelt eloquence Isobel would
not only be completely mollified, she’d be mortified as well and
return post-haste – arriving at Carstairs Junction the following
evening, and quite possibly going straight from Missus Kane’s to
find him in the Wee Bush, a single-storey, corrugated-iron-roofed
hostelry of humble antiquity named by Burns himself. Looking
up from his mournful pint of eighty bob to see the radiant slip of
a girl slipping in through the door, Zack might well be forgiven
for quoting the ploughman poet: Better a wee bush than nae beild
at a’… No, no – a ridiculous counterfactual: the letter would never
reach her in time. He’d sit there alone in all likelihood, trying not
to think about the vapid and sexually frustrated days stretching
ahead of him, with no leave before Christmas. It wouldn’t be until
he heard the siren rising and falling – its hand-cranked moan an
unwelcome reminder of his parents’ wartime deaths – that young
Doctor Busner would come out of his dwam and fully regain his
senses: This old man, he played nine, he played knick-knack on my …
spine. Yes, it would very likely be in the unsettling waves of the siren
that young Doctor Busner would locate the frail barque of his career
and see it foundering. Of course, nothing could ever be definitively
established – the signatures were in the ledger for the police and all
subsequent official enquirers to examine, so no one could prove he
hadn’t seen the chisel, the screwdriver and the saw that Robert
Inchin and Kevin MacDougall used to kill the charge nurse, the
warder and the motorist whose car they’d hijacked on the White-loch
Road. A grisly tale – right enough, Doc … A tale so grisly it’d
become the stuff of local legend: How the two escaped inmates had
flagged down the car, a Morris Minor driven by the Secretary of
Carnwath Golf Club, who was returning young Ethel Smith home
from an evening reception. How they’d dragged Mister Morton
out, stabbing him in a frenzy with the chisel and screwdriver – the
forensic pathologist identified no fewer that seventy-eight wounds –
before severing his head with the saw stay in the car, girly – dinna
fash yersel’, thass all ye got t’do: stay in the car … Soft tops, some
Morris Minors – and Mister Morton’s would have to be one of
those. It wass a good idea, Doc, your rumpus room, where we could
sorta … express ourselves. A good idea as well to let a mental defective
wear his ain clothes rather than the parish tweeds – makes him keener
t’be of good report. All this would crowd incoherently into young
Doctor Busner’s head – because, of course, he wouldn’t know exactly
what’d happened yet – only that the siren was rising and falling,
while Missus Kane stood in the corner of the parlour she grandly
designated her peegees’ dining room, hands on hips, and the set
expression of a woman who’d cheerfully track an escapee from State
Hospital down and sever his head with the breadknife she’d just
used to slice the malt loaf … he played knick-knack once again. The
police would strenuously and quite reasonably object to their patrolman
– who would’ve had the misfortune to’ve driven past, then,
recognising Mister Morton’s motor, turned back – being so savagely
attacked. All parties would assume MacDougall was responsible:
he’d been detained indefinitely at Her Majesty’s pleasure
for the
murder and rape of young Ayrshire girl – whereas Inchin was a
mere mental defective, caught up in the system … he put the Golf
man’s heid up in a fork of the tree, Doc – it wass a dark night, an’ she
couldnae see what’d happened, only hear the drip-drip-drip of his blood
on the soft top o’ the Morris. I didnae know who was more terrified, Doc:
her or me … so the police would probably return him to State rather
than taking him directly into custody. Which was why later that
morning young Doctor Busner would be allowed to see him …
Fentazin makes ye walk around all day wi’ your heid on one side,
Doc … when I wass at the Criminal Lunatic Department in Perth, the
warders hated it when we called them nurse. Nurse! Nurse! we’d cry –
needlin’ ’em, like, ‘til they got completely fed up – then they’d take uz
to the back end an’ gi’ uz a proper beating. Then they’d t’fill out a harsh
sheet – which is what they called their report, setting out how we’d
attacked them … The drip-drip-dripping of blood from the Golf
Club Secretary’s severed head down on to the soft top of his own
homely little Morris Minor would become the stuff of local, national
and then global legend. Twenty-two years later, attending a conference
on affective disorders in Caracas, Doctor Busner would hear
two young Venezuelan girls telling the story on a bus in Spanish!
How La hermosa niña sat there, petrified, and when the police
patrolman opened the car door, he told her on no account to look
back – but she had looked back, and she’d seen the wide-open dead
eyes of La cabeza cortada staring straight back at her. Bobby would
stare straight back at Doctor Busner, his expression utterly guileless,
and he might even have the strange boldness – born of wanting to be
of good report, which would lead him to discuss the whole matter the
way he might any other institutional trivia – the cludgie blocking
up, so-and-so getting his radio confiscated, somebody kicking off in
the kitchen, then being packed off to Medwin Ward for a few days.
Bobby, a grinning homunculus, his brown hair too thick on his
forehead – the dense pile of a rug or an animal. Bobby, too stupid to
understand that this was it: there’d be no beating with a sand shoe
or an extra jolt of emulsified paraldehyde – yet cunning enough to
