The Other Side of You. Salley Vickers

always thought it remarkable that, while our bodies stand in the visible world, we ourselves are not in the world of three dimensions and our inner life has no position in space. And, equally, how little of another person’s reality is visible to us. We see their form, their features, their shifts of expression but all that constitutes their sense of self remains unseen. And yet this invisible self is what to the individual constitutes their real identity. I wondered, as I limped behind his explanations, if Hassid’s electrons were somewhat similar.

      ‘It is like a thought before one performs an action. The electron is no place and then’—he waved his elegant hand like a graceful conjuror—‘presto! Suddenly it is here, coming into existence out of seeming nothingness—but it is we’—excitedly he gestured at his chest—‘who bring it out. By what we do to it, you see, we give its state reality.’ His face glowed with intense pleasure at the arcane mystery he was initiating me into.

      It wasn’t so surprising, I reflected after one of Hassid’s ‘seminars’, that he’d been mistaken for psychotic. The reality he described had its mad element. For one thing, it seemed to place human understanding at a central place in the universe. But then, great wits are oft to madness near allied. He was an engaging boy. And I warmed to him. But I worried that my feeble scientific understanding was insufficient to aid his adjustment to the ordinary world.

      The day after Elizabeth Cruikshank had uttered those cryptic words to me I called by Maguire’s office and found her chatting to Hassid over the library trolley.

      ‘What’s going on here?’

      ‘Hassid’s helping us out.’ Making people useful was one of Maguire’s rehabilitation principles.

      ‘Sister wants me to look after the book trolley, you see, Doctor.’

      The greater part of the library collection was the dud end of the old county library supply. Other books had been donated, or left behind, by patients or their visitors. Most of these were crime novels and thrillers, there were a predictable number of romantic novels and blockbusters, some out-of-date travel books, an old restaurant guide and a few uninspiring-looking classics. Wondering who would nowadays read The Swiss Family Robinson, I picked out a tatty copy of Pride and Prejudice.

      ‘Here you are, Hassid. This is a piece of Englishness which I guarantee won’t corrupt you.’

      Hassid looked eager and remembering his tendency to bestow on any light-hearted remark of mine the status of a logical truth, I put the book back. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not doctor’s orders!’

      ‘Bet you wish it was, though, don’t you, Dr McBride?’ Maguire was aware of my partiality for Jane Austen.

      Hassid changed the subject. ‘Doctor, Lennie has asked me to go with him to the match on Saturday.’

      ‘Lennie the cleaner?’

      ‘Yes, Doctor.’

      I glanced at Maguire who nodded.

      ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll let it be known you’ll be out for the day. I hope the home team wins.’

      Hassid made off, presumably to find Lennie and deliver the news of my official blessing, and Maguire remarked that Hassid was ‘a nice kid’. ‘Nothing much wrong there that a few friends wouldn’t put right. He’s been chatting with your Mrs Cruikshank.’

      ‘They’ve something in common now. As I said, she was a librarian, too.’

      ‘Might she want to help with the books, then?’

      I thought this unlikely but I didn’t want to quash Maguire who had a knack of getting recalcitrant patients out of themselves. I could tell she was longing to know how I was doing with this particular recalcitrant. ‘She’s clever, our Mrs Cruikshank. But she keeps her cards pretty close to her chest.’

      ‘The bright ones do. What’s in that bag she carries about with her all the time?’

      ‘I don’t know. How did she get it, do you know? Was it with her when she was brought in?’

      ‘Must have been. Unless it came with her other things. That army man who found her brought some of her bits over for her. Poor fellow. He was ever so distressed.’

      ‘Did you talk to him?’ Maguire was a conduit for information.

      ‘Not really. To be honest with you, he couldn’t wait to get away.’

      ‘I’m glad Hassid’s made her into a friend.’

      ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Maguire said. ‘Like you say, she keeps herself to herself.’

      ‘Funny, Lennie taking him up.’ I wondered how our cleaner would respond to Hassid’s learned dissertations. It was possible that Lennie’s less conventional mental processes would grasp Hassid’s quantum ‘reality’ more ably than mine.

      ‘Well, you know,’ said Maguire, ‘Lennie’s an outsider too. To my way of thinking, he’ll do the boy more good than that idle lot up at the university.’

      

      Dan Buirski and I were booked to play squash that evening. He had a late clinic so I caught up with some admin for my secretary, Trish, while I waited for him to ring when he was ready.

      I enjoyed my squash evenings with Dan. The exercise, for both of us, was an antidote to the tensions of work. He was a year or two my junior, better toned and fitter than I was, and his nature was more competitive. But I could usually give him a hard game and even occasionally beat him.

      The phone rang and expecting it to be Dan I answered, ‘Ready when you are.’

      ‘Darling,’ said Olivia’s voice, ‘are you still squashing tonight?’

      Olivia rarely rang me at work unless over some domestic crisis. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Nothing’s “up”. I thought you might like me to collect you.’

      ‘That would be nice.’

      She must have detected surprise in my voice because she said, a shade defensively, ‘My French class is just round the corner.’

      Dan said Bar was out that evening so he and I had a drink while we waited for Olivia. She was flushed when she arrived and explained she’d had some difficulty parking and seemed genuinely bothered over keeping us waiting.

      ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘it gave this man a chance to buy me a consolation drink.’ I was aware my defeats at Dan’s hands might disappoint Olivia.

      ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ said Dan. ‘Olive Oyl, since you’re driving I don’t suppose you’ll want anything, will you?’

      Dan’s teasing often had an edge to it and I expected this to annoy Olivia but she appeared to be in one of her accommodating moods and invited him back to our place with the suggestion that there at least we could have a decent drink.

      While I was hunting for a corkscrew the phone rang and it was Bar. ‘Is my husband there, by any chance?’

      ‘He’s next door boozing with my wife. You’d better come over and keep me company.’

      ‘I’d love to but I’m exhausted,’ Bar said. ‘Tell him I’m home, will you, there’s a lamb. I’m going to take a drink into a hot bath.’

      Olivia and Dan were laughing when I came back into the sitting room. I was glad to see them getting on for once.

      ‘That was Barbara. She says she’s too tired to peel out again to fetch you.’

      I was going to add that I’d take Dan home myself when Olivia said, ‘I need to drop something off at the shop. I can give Dan a lift.’ She was trying hard that evening. It was nice of her to offer to go out again when I knew she must be tired.

      ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’ll run him home and drop whatever it is off for you,’