by Jo Bannister
Any excuse she made now would sound impossibly phony. She sighed and did as he said.
“We’re in here.” Prufrock led the way through to the little kitchen with its Welsh dresser precisely stacked with Albert roses china. Shad was hunched on a bentwood chair, his elbows on the table. From the way he looked up, Rosie thought he was about as glad to see her as she was to see him.
“Shad,” she said levelly. The gardener grunted a reply.
He wasn’t dressed for work; he was dressed as he had been the morning she saw him setting off to see his psychiatrist. “How are you getting on with Doctor Cunningham?”
His eyes flicked her face as if she’d suggested something faintly improper. “’Right.” If he’d clipped the word any shorter he’d have been left with just the vowel.
Sometimes Arthur Prufrock seemed totally oblivious to other people’s feelings. Rosie had puzzled over this, thinking it an odd failing in a man whose career had consisted of nurturing sensitive young souls towards manhood. Then she’d realised it wasn’t a blind spot but a deliberate policy. He ignored their silent pleas to be left alone when he knew that what they really needed was to talk.
So he took no notice of the set of Shad’s shoulders and his monosyllabic responses and acted as though the three of them were here for a jolly chinwag. “Shad was telling me all about it,” he said cheerily. “It sounds fascinating. Tell Rosie about the hypnotism, Shad.”
Almost against her wishes, curiosity stirred in Rosie’s breast. “Hypnotism?”
Shad shook his head, the thick curls in his eyes. “Not really.”
“Near enough,” said Prufrock encouragingly. “Go on, tell her.” But he didn’t.
With a jolt of surprise Rosie realised that he didn’t want to talk to her for exactly the same reason she didn’t want to talk to him. He was embarrassed. Had they been talking about her? But Prufrock’s brow was clear; besides which it wasn’t his style. If he’d had anything critical to say he’d have said it to her face. So someone else had said something to Shad on the subject of Rosie Holland.
“Andrew Cunningham,” she said musingly. “Should I know that name? Have we met, I wonder?” Not that she worried overmuch about telling untruths, but she was pleased with how she’d managed to give a false impression without actually lying.
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Shad rapidly, which was all the confirmation Rosie needed. There was no reason he should know one way or another, and no need for him to venture an opinion, unless Cunningham had raised the issue first.
Rosie raised an eyebrow. “It’s not that unlikely. We’re both members of the medical fraternity.”
Shad actually squirmed. “He’s not from around here.”
“Neither am I.” Then she started feeling a little guilty. So Doctor Cunningham had commented on their friendship. It wasn’t a secret, nor was Shad responsible for whatever he’d said. He’d probably been looking for a way to get the taciturn young man talking, began with the story that had made the national Press four months earlier. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe he’d made a joke about the Skipley Chronicle’s Agony Aunt which, with characteristic gravity, Shad hadn’t recognised as such. “Maybe I’m mistaken. Where is he from?”
Shad didn’t answer. Prufrock did. “North Midlands, Shad was saying. Terribly well thought-of, apparently. One of the top men at recovering lost memories.”
“Well, that’s what we want all right,” nodded Rosie; though it occurred to her to wonder who had acquainted Shad with these complimentary assessments. Perhaps Marsh had. It hardly seemed likely that the great man himself would stoop to impressing a gypsy gardener. “So what’s this about hypnosis?”
This subject pleased Shad no better than the last. His broad shoulders gave an awkward shrug. “It isn’t hypnosis. He just … talks. He turns the light down and tells me to relax, and then we talk.”
“About what happened?”
“I don’t remember what happened,” he said for the hundredth time. “Why is it so hard for everyone to believe that? Don’t you think I could have made up a better story if I wanted to? I don’t remember going to the sidings, and I don’t remember what happened there. All right? I’m not pretending, I’m not covering up, I just don’t remember.”
“Then what do you talk about?” asked Rosie mildly.
“Different stuff.” His dark eyes dropped, his manner defensive.
Like me, for instance, thought Rosie. She didn’t mind being the butt of a joke – she’d made enough in her time, many in extremely dubious taste, to recognise laughter as the uniquely human divinity – but she couldn’t think what they’d said to leave Shad feeling so guilty. Or why a psychiatrist tasked with something this important should be wasting time poking fun at someone who wasn’t involved. “What – the power of the yen in the Tiger Economies?”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. His expression triggered a pang of remorse in her. She knew it bothered him when people talked over his head like that and she still couldn’t break the habit. The problem was that he was intelligent but not well informed; as distinct from many of her acquaintances who were well informed but not terribly intelligent. This sort of thing passed as light banter around the coffee machine at the Chronicle, but Shad spent his working day around vegetables and had never learnt the art of repartee. Because he couldn’t keep up he felt stupid and never wondered if there was any point to it.
Rosie sighed, pulled out another of the kitchen chairs and sat down. “Sorry, Shad. I’ve had a bad day.”
Prufrock glanced at the clock with a raised eyebrow. “Already?”
She shrugged. “How long does it take to get sacked?”
She hadn’t meant to announce it quite so bluntly. But it was a relief to have it out in the open, not to be waiting for a suitable moment.
If she’d been looking to create an effect she could hardly have bettered the way the little room went suddenly still. Prufrock sat down abruptly and Shad sat up.
“Rosie – what have you done?” Prufrock managed at last.
She blew out her cheeks. She might tell him what she and Dan Sale had argued about, but not now, not with Shad sitting there. “I compared my editor to Adolf Hitler. I suppose it could be considered a constructive resignation.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” said Prufrock, “go back and apologise! Before he tells everyone what happened and can’t change his mind.”
“I will apologise,” Rosie promised. “I shouldn’t have said that, it wasn’t fair and I’ll tell him so. I have no problems about apologising to him: he’s a good and decent man, and I’m sorry I lost my temper. But it won’t alter the fact that we were arguing over something so fundamental that I can’t work for him any more. He won’t do things my way; I won’t do them his.”
“There’s no room for compromise?”
She shook her head. “It’s an either/or situation. There is no middle way.”
Prufrock was nodding slowly, the kind of mesmeric nodding engaged in by parcel-shelf German Shepherds. “That can happen. Sometimes there is no room for accommodation. I still think you should talk to him – explain that – when you’re calmer and not as ready to throw insults at one another.”
Of course he was right. “I will.”
“Soon.”
“Arthur, I will. Tonight, after work. I’ll catch him after everyone else has left. We might have come to a parting of the ways but it doesn’t have to be this acrimonious.”
Shad levered himself up from the table and stood for a moment, looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands. They were large and strong with dark hairs on their backs, and for once they were clean. He shoved them out of sight in his pockets. “I’d better get off. I’ve a couple of calls to make.”
Prufrock saw him out. “I’ll see you on Friday, if you have the time.” He gave the impish smile that surprised people who thought him a dry old stick. “There’ll be plenty of time to tidy up the topiary then.”
Sh
ad grinned. That was the sort of joke he understood.
Rosie was waiting when Prufrock returned to the kitchen. “Isn’t he coming tomorrow?”
“He can’t. Another appointment with his psychiatrist.”
Rosie frowned. “How often does he go?”
“Every morning,” said Prufrock. “For an hour from ten o’clock. Except sometimes it runs over, which is why he’s getting behind with his work.”
“To say one of them’s only interested in something the other’s forgotten,” said Rosie, “they’re doing an awful lot of talking.”
“That’s how it seemed to me,” confessed Prufrock. “But I’ve never had any dealings with psychiatry, I don’t know how long it takes.”
“Well, it’s not like lancing a boil,” admitted Rosie. “It does take time. I’m just surprised they’re still spending so many hours on it if they’re making no progress. I’d have thought it was time to go back to Marsh and say, you know, something may surface eventually but don’t hold your breath.”
“Apparently he thinks they’ll succeed,” said Prufrock. “He told Shad it’s there to be found if they can just find the right key.”
“I admire his confidence,” said Rosie. “Miracles performed instantly, the impossible takes a little longer?”
Prufrock nodded. “Seven days at the outside.”
“What?”
“That’s what he told Shad. At least,” Prufrock amended honestly, “that’s what Shad thinks he said. That they can expect a breakthrough inside a week if they keep at it.”
Pathologists and psychiatrists almost never cross one another’s paths. The patients of the one are too far gone to be of interest to the other. Pathologists know surgeons – usually nervous ones – and psychiatrists know physicians, and some physicians admit to knowing a surgeon or two, but that’s about as far as interdisciplinary relations go. The only contact between the mortuary and the shrinks is the lady with the tea trolley.
The inevitable consequence is that psychiatrists and pathologists don’t understand one another’s science and doubt one another’s usefulness. Rosie had never in her life referred a patient for psychiatry; equally, no one in analysis ever felt better for a trip to the morgue. So Rosie didn’t need to know anything against Doctor Andrew Cunningham to have reservations about his procedures. She was predisposed at an almost genetic level to think that psychiatry was as helpful for traumatic amnesia as decapitation.
Her brow furrowed. “You can whip somebody’s leg off in a minute and a half if you have to, but mostly psychiatry takes longer than that.”
“I don’t suppose there’s usually this sort of urgency,” said Prufrock reasonably. “Mr Marsh needs results. Doctor Cunningham has to find a way into Shad’s mind, and sooner rather than later. I imagine that’s why he needs to see him so often. An appointment once a week might achieve as much, but it would take too long to do it.”
Rosie sniffed. “I just hope Marsh is pursuing his inquiries by other means as well. Whoever killed that poor girl is safer with every day that passes, and I’m not convinced Shad can help however hard he tries. If he didn’t see anything and doesn’t know anything, it doesn’t matter how deep they delve, they won’t find an answer.”
“I suppose,” said Prufrock slowly, “they have to find whatever’s there. Until they have, they won’t know if they’re missing something. Can hypnosis help?”
Rosie shrugged. “That depends who you ask. A lot of reputable practitioners swear by it; people who undergo it mostly find it a positive experience. On the other hand, there are those who claim there’s no such thing – that it’s an illusion shared by the practitioner and the patient and you get the same results by telling the patient to pretend he’s been hypnotised. I suppose, if you get results you’re entitled to call it a success.”
Prufrock was struggling with this. “You mean … if he’s suppressing what happened, as long as he believes that hypnotism will release it he’s able to let it go?”
“Something like that. Hell, Arthur, don’t look at me like that – it’s a long time since I had to consider the mental state of my patients!”
“But doesn’t that suggest he has something to hide?”
“It suggests that maybe there’s something he doesn’t want to deal with. It can be something he feels bad about without being in any way to blame.”
“For example …?”
To Rosie it was obvious. “For example, apart from her murderer Shad was the only living soul who knew that girl was in trouble. He knew, he was there, and still he couldn’t save her. That would make anyone feel bad. But most of us would know we weren’t responsible. Shad thinks with his emotions. Maybe what happened is that when he woke up beside the girl, and she was dead, the guilt of letting it happen swamped him, and the only way he could get through was to batten it down under hatches.
“Where a psychiatrist can maybe help is by persuading him that it’s all right to lift the hatches again. That her death is the responsibility of the man who killed her, not someone who tried to save her and failed. That it’s natural to feel he could have done more, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and what matters is that he tried to help. If Cunningham can convince him of that, if it really is a psychological barrier then maybe he’ll let himself remember.”
“Then I hope it’s soon,” said Prufrock quietly. “I don’t very much like what it’s doing to him.”
Rosie frowned. She hadn’t noticed much of a difference. Of course, she’d been preoccupied too. “In what way?”
Prufrock considered. “It’s all he can think of. What Doctor Cunningham said, what Doctor Cunningham wants him to work on, what Doctor Cunningham had for his breakfast near as damn it.” He wasn’t a man who swore: for him this was strong language. “As if the man was his guru. Shad’s not like that. He’s not easily impressed by people. The last time he talked about someone like this, as if they knew the whereabouts of the Holy Grail…” He stopped abruptly. The pink cheeks blushed furiously red.
“What? Arthur?”
It was too late to wish he hadn’t started. Honesty was the only policy now. Under the little white moustache he gave a wry smile. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. He’d be deeply embarrassed if he knew. But he’s a big fan of yours, Rosie. If you ever need a getaway driver for a bank robbery, Shad’s your man. He’d never run off at the sound of sirens and leave you standing on the pavement with a sack marked Swag.”
Rosie grinned at the picture he conjured up. There were things she could imagine doing time for but bank robbery wasn’t one. Deeper than the amusement, she was surprised and touched that she’d had the same sort of effect on Shad Lucas that he’d had on her. The first day they met she’d recognised him as an extraordinary individual, as difficult, delicate and rewarding to nurture as some of his flowers. She knew what she’d gained from knowing him – not least, a part of the success she’d made of The Primrose Path. Well, up until now. She’d bullied him, used him, finally got him hurt. It was more than she’d hoped for that he reckoned to have got something out of knowing her too.
“Actually,” she said, “I’d always seen you in that role.” Prufrock shook his head firmly. “I don’t drive. I’ll have to be the look-out man.”
Rosie kept her word. At six fifteen, when she knew Dan Sale would be the last man left in the Chronicle building, she let herself in and moved quietly through the empty corridors. She was in no hurry. This had to be done, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.
As she approached his office she heard the printer attached to his computer terminal chattering inside. Rosie drew a deep breath and tapped at his door.
“Come in,” said Sale. Though he had thought himself alone in the building, he didn’t sound surprised.
Instead of marching in breezily as always, Rosie opened the door just wide enough to stick her head through. Her voice was subdued; small, even. “You’re sure?”
The editor came slowly to his feet like a stick insect unfoldi
ng behind the desk. A spread hand repeated the invitation. “Rosie,” he said patiently, “will you stop acting like a convent girl who’s been caught reading Stud and come in here and talk to me properly.”
Meekly she took the chair he indicated. It was the large, strong one he’d bought after she came to work here. “I am sorry, Dan. I said all sorts of things I shouldn’t have – and not just because you’re my boss but because they aren’t true. You aren’t any of the things I called you, and I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’m sorry, too, if I’ve let you down.”
Dan Sale smiled. People who’d known him for years had never seen him smile. They thought it was because he hadn’t a sense of humour. But it’s impossible to survive in journalism without one. It was more that Sale had the perfect face – long, lugubrious, the wrinkles deeply entrenched – for his sort of humour, which was wry and satirical rather than gut-busting. He didn’t smile much because he’d learned to keep a straight face.
This wasn’t one of those occasions. His smile was warm and understanding, two facets he kept hidden from young reporters. But Rosie wasn’t one of his young reporters.
“A newspaper,” he said, “is more like a family than most businesses. Right and wrong, wise and unwise, fair and unfair aren’t always clear, and there’s room for honest people to disagree. Sometimes it goes a bit further than polite disagreement – though I don’t remember the last time anyone called me Hitler!”
Rosie squirmed with embarrassment.
“All I’m saying is, it’s nothing to worry about. I mightn’t have been called that before, but in nearly forty years in this business I’ve been called worse. One of the things I’m paid for is having a thick skin. So don’t worry about my feelings, Rosie. Some of it I had coming: I shouldn’t have called Shad a freak, of course it upset you, you were entitled to be angry. No, I wasn’t hurt – well, only momentarily. And I’ve never felt you have, or were likely to, let me down.
“There’s only one thing you have to worry about – and I’m worrying about it too – and that’s how we’re going to proceed. Because we still have the dilemma we had first thing this morning: if Shad comes out of this badly, the Chronicle does too.”
