The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1. Adam Thirlwell

‘I think they would have gone anyway.’

      ‘How can you say that?’ Neill clamped his lips together. He felt frustrated and impotent. He knew Morley was probably right – the three men were in terminal withdrawal, unresponsive to either insulin or electrotherapy, and a vice-tight catatonic seizure didn’t close in out of nowhere – but as always refused to admit anything without absolute proof.

      He led the way into his office and shut the door.

      ‘Sit down.’ He pulled a chair out for Morley and prowled off round the room, slamming a fist into his palm.

      ‘All right, John. What is it?’

      Morley picked up one of the test cards lying on the desk, balanced it on a corner and spun it between his fingers. Phrases swam through his mind, tentative and uncertain, like blind fish.

      ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked. ‘Reactivation of the infantile imago? A regression into the great, slumbering womb? Or to put it more simply still – just a fit of pique?’

      ‘Go on.’

      Morley shrugged. ‘Continual consciousness is more than the brain can stand. Any signal repeated often enough eventually loses its meaning. Try saying the word “sleep” fifty times. After a point the brain’s self-awareness dulls. It’s no longer able to grasp who or why it is, and it rides adrift.’

      ‘What do we do then?’

      ‘Nothing. Short of re-scoring all the way down to Lumbar 1. The central nervous system can’t stand narcotomy.’

      Neill shook his head. ‘You’re lost,’ he said curtly. ‘Juggling with generalities isn’t going to bring those men back. First, we’ve got to find out what happened to them, what they actually felt and saw.’

      Morley frowned dubiously. ‘That jungle is marked “private”. Even if you do, is a psychotic’s withdrawal drama going to make any sense?’

      ‘Of course it will. However insane it seems to us, it was real enough to them. If we know the ceiling fell in or the whole gym filled with ice-cream or turned into a maze, we’ve got something to work on.’ He sat down on the desk. ‘Do you remember that story of Chekov’s you told me about?’

      ‘“The Bet”? Yes.’

      ‘I read it last night. Curious. It’s a lot nearer what you’re really trying to say than you know.’ He gazed round the office. ‘This room in which the man is penned for ten years symbolizes the mind driven to the furthest limits of self-awareness … Something very similar happened to Avery, Gorrell and Lang. They must have reached a stage beyond which they could no longer contain the idea of their own identity. But far from being unable to grasp the idea, I’d say that they were conscious of nothing else. Like the man in the spherical mirror, who can only see a single gigantic eye staring back at him.’

      ‘So you think their withdrawal is a straightforward escape from the eye, the overwhelming ego?’

      ‘Not escape,’ Neill corrected. ‘The psychotic never escapes from anything. He’s much more sensible. He merely readjusts reality to suit himself. Quite a trick to learn, too. The room in Chekov’s story gives me an idea as to how they might have re-adjusted. Their particular equivalent of this room was the gym. I’m beginning to realize it was a mistake to put them in there – all those lights blazing down, the huge floor, high walls. They merely exaggerate the sensation of overload. In fact the gym might easily have become an external projection of their own egos.’

      Neill drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘My guess is that at this moment they’re either striding around in there the size of hundred-foot giants, or else they’ve cut it down to their own dimensions. More probably that. They’ve just pulled the gym in on themselves.’

      Morley grinned bleakly. ‘So all we’ve got to do now is pump them full of honey and apomorphine and coax them out. Suppose they refuse?’

      ‘They won’t,’ Neill said. ‘You’ll see.’

      There was a rap on the door. An intern stuck his head through.

      ‘Lang’s coming out of it, Doctor. He’s calling for you.’

      Neill bounded out.

      Morley followed him into the ward.

      Lang was lying in his cot, body motionless under the canvas sheet. His lips were parted slightly. No sound came from them but Morley, bending over next to Neill, could see his hyoid bone vibrating in spasms.

      ‘He’s very faint,’ the intern warned.

      Neill pulled up a chair and sat down next to the cot. He made a visible effort of concentration, flexing his shoulders. He bent his head close to Lang’s and listened.

      Five minutes later it came through again.

      Lang’s lips quivered. His body arched under the sheet, straining at the buckles, and then subsided.

      ‘Neill … Neill,’ he whispered. The sounds, thin and strangled, seemed to be coming from the bottom of a well. ‘Neill … Neill … Neill …’

      Neill stroked his forehead with a small, neat hand.

      ‘Yes, Bobby,’ he said gently. His voice was feather-soft, caressing. ‘I’m here, Bobby. You can come out now.’

       1957

       TRACK 12

      ‘Guess again,’ Sheringham said.

      Maxted clipped on the headphones, carefully settled them over his ears. He concentrated as the disc began to spin, trying to catch some echo of identity.

      The sound was a rapid metallic rustling, like iron filings splashing through a funnel. It ran for ten seconds, repeated itself a dozen times, then ended abruptly in a string of blips.

      ‘Well?’ Sheringham asked. ‘What is it?’

      Maxted pulled off his headphones, rubbed one of his ears. He had been listening to the records for hours and his ears felt bruised and numb.

      ‘Could be anything. An ice-cube melting?’

      Sheringham shook his head, his little beard wagging.

      Maxted shrugged. ‘A couple of galaxies colliding?’

      ‘No. Sound waves don’t travel through space. I’ll give you a clue. It’s one of those proverbial sounds.’ He seemed to be enjoying the catechism.

      Maxted lit a cigarette, threw the match onto the laboratory bench. The head melted a tiny pool of wax, froze and left a shallow black scar. He watched it pleasurably, conscious of Sheringham fidgeting beside him.

      He pumped his brains for an obscene simile. ‘What about a fly –’

      ‘Time’s up,’ Sheringham cut in. ‘A pin dropping.’ He took the 3-inch disc off the player, angled it into its sleeve.

      ‘In actual fall, that is, not impact. We used a fifty-foot shaft and eight microphones. I thought you’d get that one.’

      He reached for the last record, a 12-inch LP, but Maxted stood up before he got it to the turntable. Through the french windows he could see the patio, a table, glasses and decanter gleaming in the darkness. Sheringham and his infantile games suddenly irritated him; he felt impatient with himself for tolerating the man so long.

      ‘Let’s get some air,’ he said brusquely, shouldering past one of the amplifier rigs. ‘My ears feel like gongs.’

      ‘By all means,’ Sheringham agreed promptly. He placed the record carefully on the turntable and switched off the player. ‘I want to save this one until later anyway.’

      

      They