As It Happened, page 21
Conversely, he reflected, the pen still in his hand, he could ask Simone to e-mail it (give Devonshire a shock), standing by her shoulder as the sensational message came up on the screen, pre-empting Donaldson, he hadn’t a doubt, Donaldson the self-extolled and self-extolling, the self-realised self-promoter, the precursor precursed by Maddox at last.
8
He could hear her talking as he entered. Having waited, vainly, for a taxi (the first time he’d thought of taking one to her house), he’d finally come up on the tube, descending the escalator to where he had had his ‘Demon’ experience, with scarcely a second thought, the feeling that something not negligible had taken place: a perversity, he reflected, behind which he felt peculiarly secure.
He paused before ascending the stairs, not sure whether she was on the telephone or speaking to an unusually silent client, Mrs Beaumont not in her office. Nor was the cat visible, it invariably scampering down to be let out when it heard the front door, or, if it were out, waiting on a nearby window sill to be let in.
She, however, must have heard the door, for a moment later she appeared from her consulting-room, the door of which, unusually when she was in session, had been ajar.
They both spoke at once, mutually confused, she agitated, he alarmed at the strangeness of her expression, she coming forward to be embraced, more impetuously, he realised, than he had moved towards her. ‘Have you seen Taylor?’
‘I’ve just got back.’
‘I’ve cancelled my appointments for the rest of the day,’ she drawing away, suddenly composed. ‘Come upstairs.’
He followed her up, noticing the creases in her skirt, her jacket, the fact that she was wearing flat-heeled shoes, and concluding she’d been in the house alone for some time – failing to take in the scent which, he following her, would familiarly have been flowing in his direction.
Before reaching the sitting-room she turned to the bathroom, called, ‘Make yourself some tea. I’ve had some,’ and was gone, he stepping into the kitchen, putting on the kettle, his anxiety, obviated on his journey up, vividly returning. Wave after wave rose, paroxysmally, from the region of his stomach: had she, he reflected, found, or was she prospecting finding someone else (younger, more attractive, more stirringly engaged)?
A need for air, for somewhere less confining than the minimal proportions of the kitchen, took him to the roof, stepping out, breathing deeply, slowly, retaining his breath, exhaling: the view to the south, the distant smear across the horizon, examining the intervening distance for familiar buildings, then, his agitation scarcely reduced, examining the plants, the burgeoning flowers, the declining ones, sitting down, finally, on one of the two garden chairs drawn up at the outside table.
Moments later, restless, wondering on the desirability of returning downstairs, he got up again, the adjoining roofs and chimneys, the overlooking windows, the sky itself, suddenly oppressive: from alarm to something little short of terror, as if everything he were looking at evoked an unmistakable feeling of aggression, antipathy, dislike, rage. Fear absorbed everything around him, a paroxysmal interlude once again, sourced from outside but endured in the region of his stomach, a visceral exclamation. His heart pounded. Sweat came into his eyes.
Then, still flushed, high-coloured, she came through the door, her voice calling, ‘Matt?’ a sound which calmed him. ‘Are you all right?’ holding him, he aware of her scent, the softness of her face, her voice, a look of alarm, however, reflecting his own.
‘I came up to rewrite the article,’ he said, adding, ‘Devonshire’s. I thought we might e-mail it, if you have the time,’ she drawing back, looking at his face, his arms trembling as he held her.
‘I thought you’d given it up.’
‘I had.’ He waited. ‘I thought I might refocus it. On Taylor. A perception of his perception of what he thinks he’s done. He practically requested it. I feel I have no choice. I feel,’ he paused, ‘I owe him it. That, without being aware, discrediting his painting, I left him little choice. The Courtauld, for instance, something which, with hindsight, I should have seen he could only reject. He was, above all, an activist, not a pen or a brush he must have to hand but a tool. Specifically a weapon.’
He was aware, speaking too quickly, of something monstrous in his voice and manner, a look of incredulity replacing the one of confusion on Simone’s face. ‘Focus,’ he went on, more slowly, carefully, ‘the operative word. I get the feeling he’s moved into another world, not parallel or adjacent to but divergent from our own. One he’s anxious, desperate, even vocationally inclined to report on before he disappears for good, murder the last thing left for art to do.’
He was sweating profusely, pausing, first, to wipe his eyes, then to breathe in deeply.
Released, she was sitting down, watching his expression. ‘What did he say?’ she said, indicating – he having stood up to embrace her – he sit at the table too.
‘He suggested I played a significant part in disillusioning him. That, of course, I have to take on board. It was only when I got back, however, that I realised why he’d invited me. He wanted what he had done to be understood. Something seen and expressed from an otherwise unacceptable position. Extreme taken to extreme. Who better than me? Someone who, unknowingly, had pointed him in that direction. Who’s better placed to do it? I even knew his wife.’
She waited, examining him intently, her own high colour undiminished.
‘He sees his actions, and their implications, as consistent with the circumstances in which he found himself. A moral consideration, a moral awareness. To that degree, consistent with the way things have gone and are going. He’s broken through what he sees as a definitively destructive culture into something unprecedented on the other side. My role, as a sceptic, is to report it as it happened, authenticity, on my part, assured by my scepticism, and finally, because he sees his actions as the deployment of a truth – truth to circumstance – transcending it, murder, in his case, a definitive form of self-expression, in my eyes the definitive form of malignancy.’
He was sweating profusely, leaning on the table as if manually to extend his words across it, presenting this to her in an almost physical form. He was what he was saying.
‘He wishes a great evil to be put to the service of identifying a universal good. Before it is too late. The execution of everything which we, in our day-to-day conjugations with and in the literal world, patently overlook if not deny.’
He’d been speaking, he thought, for some time, articulating something not on his own but someone else’s behalf, articulating what could, to himself as well as others, only give offence. ‘He wants his experience to become available. An artistic, not a pathological event which he is deriding as he does it. Judas’s prerogative, without which nothing can be real.’
‘All you have in common is that you attempted to kill yourself and so did he.’ Her voice was calm, her look increasingly composed. ‘You haven’t killed anyone. Nor are you likely to. Apart from the fact he was your student, you have no obligation to do anything. Certainly nothing as absurd as authenticating his dementia, a specious form of artistic licence, to say the least.’
‘Don’t you think his actions had any connection with the circumstances in which he lived, and is living now?’
‘Why not take any madman, in that case, and say he’s doing the same?’
‘Because he isn’t Taylor. With his sensibility, his intelligence, his background. He’s been through the schools. He’s studied the process. Presumably he’s even taught it. Look at your clients. Aren’t they telling you the same? Life is unliveable, yet they’re obliged to go on. Isn’t Taylor giving us the message, an unliveable existence, for the benefit, or so it now seems, of us all? Isn’t it legitimate to record it? Isn’t it real? Didn’t it happen?’
The argument, he realised, was already fading: his own agenda, so crudely expressed, was to recognise Taylor as an examplar, a self-presented one, of all that had gone wrong in the art of his time: all that had gone wrong, in short, in his time, the gratuitous displacing feeling, intellect displacing sense. She wanted him free of such morbidity, equating it, no doubt, with his illness. But then, wasn’t that ‘true’ as well?
She’d crossed her legs, her hands clasped, resting on her knee, the light in her eyes – of concern, even distress – suffused by something more elusive: a darkness, extruding, it seemed, from far inside, a malignancy almost, as if someone he didn’t recognise and who only wished him harm were gazing out from within a much loved face.
‘Why have you cancelled your appointments?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been reported to the NMC.’
‘For what?’
‘This.’ She gestured round, then, more specifically, at the two of them. ‘I’m a doctor as well as an analyst. Someone has complained.’
‘Who?’
‘The client you called Doctor Death. His real name is Norman. I’ve made, he complains, indecent proposals. To him. Allegedly, to you. Also, allegedly, to someone else. Oddly, I thought, with him, I’d been making progress. In some respects, I suppose I had. He’s acting on his own behalf, showing initiative. His chief complaint in the past has been that his life has been dominated by other people.’
‘What credence will they give it?’
‘Some time ago, a little time ago, it would have been ignored. Complaints from cranks are ten a penny. With accountability, and litigation, increasing as they are, rightly or wrongly, they’ll feel obliged to look into it.’
‘Every time I passed him he gave the same averted look. I’m surprised,’ he said, ‘you went on with him. He clearly took exception to me, and now, evidently, to both of us.’ He waited. ‘It doesn’t stop you practising.’
‘If the complaint is upheld I’d be deregistered as a doctor and my accreditation with the British Psychoanalytical Association would come to an end. I could still practise as a therapist.’ She shrugged.
‘When were you notified?’
‘I was told of a complaint some time ago. No name was given. I even saw him several times afterwards, not knowing it was him. Peculiar, in the circumstances, why he went on coming. I suppose, like a pyromaniac, he wanted to watch the blaze.’
She gazed at him for a while without speaking.
‘Tricky stuff. He not knowing if I knew. Me not knowing it was him. This morning, however, I received a letter. Registered. No e-mail or fax, you’ll be pleased to note. If they go ahead, after getting my response, I have to appear in front of the Preliminary Proceedings Committee. I’ve been talking to a lawyer recommended by a colleague. He was impressed both by them and the allegation. More business, I presume. A growing market. The Medical Council is a subdivision of the Privy Council, and not to be taken lightly. Ambition, on his part, may not be entirely to my advantage. The ultimate threat to remove me from the Register I have to take seriously as well. As for what credit they give to this complaint, I guess as much as you give, or want to give, to Taylor.’
Something jarred – ricocheted, even – inside his skull, a curious physical sensation. ‘Taylor’s separate,’ he immediately responded.
‘I wonder if he is.’ She was still watching him. ‘If you want to champion him as an artist who kills his family as a definitive form of self-expression, I’ve a feeling you’ll be leaving me, if not a lot of others, a long, long way behind.’
‘Let’s not argue about it,’ he said.
He paused, no longer sure what ‘it’ might be: a vulgar involvement in a delusional world which, he couldn’t help feeling, bordered on his own. He had known the man: he had known one of his victims: what he had done was unimaginable. Yet somehow, somewhere – its sole legacy, other than Taylor’s own death, something he was now assuming to be a formality – it had to be explained. Or, in the current fashion, he recalled (cf. Donaldson), ‘decoded’. Was this the connection Simone had made with his own involvement, a disturbance which might, quite easily, reactivate his own?
‘What happens once you’ve seen this committee?’
‘If they conclude there is a case they’ll hand it to someone called the Preliminary Screener. He or she examines it and if there is a case to be answered the Registrar invites me to an examination conducted, as the lawyer felicitously described it, by my peers. Alternatively, at this or a later stage, I could offer to resign, without a hearing, and I’d have the opportunity to reapply at an unspecified time in the future. Meanwhile I could function as, what you might term, a quack. With, presumably, a declining list of clients. The Preliminary Screener could, however, refer me back to the Preliminary Proceedings Committee and they, in turn, could refer me back to the Licensing Committee. As you can see, plenty of leeway to shuffle the pack and, for the lawyers, the wonderful opportunity for endless proceedings. I don’t, necessarily, have to have a lawyer, of course. But in the present climate anything could happen. I might, for instance, get off with a warning. I might even be commended for taking on an idiot beyond the call of duty. On the other hand, Norman could be a plausible liar. Looking back, I’m inclined to believe he is. On top of which there’s the other client, identity unknown.’ She paused, measuring his reaction. ‘It’s not uncommon, particularly in psychiatry, to get a patient, or several, complaining about the way they’ve been treated. Like art, I assume, at one level, everything goes.’
She had uncrossed her legs and, leaning forward, stretching across the table, she took one of his hands.
‘They also, of course, have you. An undoubted corroboration of my lack of judgement, of unprofessional practice, of abuse of my position.’
‘Do you want to pack it in?’ The thought came to him in the instant he expressed it, he enclosing her hand in both of his. ‘Us,’ he added, ‘not your job.’
‘I don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘What would that look like? Confirmation!’ She laughed, glancing up, an aircraft whining overhead on its ascent from Heathrow, the vibration of its engines passing through the house. ‘I’m worried about you and Taylor,’ she added. ‘Another phenomenological exercise. Art as life. It’s time you moved on. Particularly,’ she concluded, ‘from that.’
‘Art’s always close to delinquency,’ he said. ‘Also to voyeurism. There’s not much changed in that. And I can’t deny there’s a subjective element involved, because I know him, and also knew his wife. Nevertheless, he invited me, even if he does or doesn’t succeed in killing himself. Or one of the prisoners does it for him. In addition to which,’ he paused. ‘I was even more involved with his wife.’
‘How?’
‘Like we are.’ He added, ‘She was a first-year student, I was a lecturer. I knew her before she knew Taylor. He took her on the rebound.’
About to respond, she paused, then shook her head. ‘Scarcely like us,’ she said. ‘I would have thought.’
‘I’d have to go back and talk to him, in any case. There’s no guarantee,’ he said, ‘he’ll see me. The whole thing,’ he raised one hand, releasing hers, ‘could go on for ever. Even now, on reflection, he won’t know precisely why he asked me.’
He was, he realised, in the face of her problem, withdrawing. ‘Should there be a hearing is the lawyer you spoke to able to represent you?’
‘He’s drafting a letter asking for clarification. More details of Norman’s allegations. Who the second person is. Expressing my willingness to cooperate.’
‘I’ll come with you if you have to go.’
‘I’ll have to ask him whether that’s a good idea or not. They might see it as a provocation. But,’ she smiled, ‘I very much appreciate the offer. As for Taylor,’ her smile had faded, ‘I’d let it settle before you get in touch with him or Devonshire. Perhaps I should come and see him, too.’
‘That,’ he said, ‘would make it something else. It’s far too personal,’ he added, ‘at present.’
‘That’s the trouble.’ Still she retained his hand in hers. ‘Are you aware of your reaction being unusual?’
‘It’s an unusual situation,’ he said.
‘Maybe writing about it is a way of exonerating yourself,’ she said. ‘Getting rid of his accusation of your involvement in what he did.’
They sat in silence, their hands still held across the table, caught in a process, he thought, which could sweep either or both of them away.
‘You feel challenged by your situation, I feel challenged by mine,’ he finally responded. ‘I’ll support you in whatever way you like. If the worst comes to the worst we could sell our houses and move separately or jointly into something more modest. We can both of us, in one way or another, go on working. Separately or together, we can both survive.’ He waited for her response and, getting none, went on, ‘How serious is it with the Medical Council? I can hardly see our arrangement, on its own, jeopardising your career. Otherwise, all they have is the accusations of two presumably nutty clients.’
‘I’ll have to rely,’ she said, ‘on their discretion and on how well I put my case. There’ll be an inclination, in the present climate, to give the accusations a run. On the other hand, I’m confident I could give a robust response. With us, I stopped the therapy the moment there was an involvement. If every doctor was deregistered because of a relationship with a former patient or client there wouldn’t, I assume, be many of us around. After all,’ she smiled, ‘it’s a sure way of meeting a lot of interesting people. You could say that’s why some of us take it up. Not, of course, in my case. I already felt socially fulfilled. Otherwise, however, there’s an absolute discretion involved, an absolute commitment. Like you with Taylor. What he has done. The nature, the cause and the purpose of your involvement. We’ve both, in one sense, breached, if at different times, a professional ethic. On the other hand, if evil is the seat of goodness, as you suggest, what price goodness? What price evil? What price anything? Who says?’
