more often,” Brenda was saying. “Everybody asks how you both are. Spend the night. We’ll go to the theater and have supper afterward.”
“We will, soon.”
They talked about Charlie then, and a little later Brenda went in to wash her face and have a rest before Max came home from the hospital.
I made my own departure shortly afterward, but not before Stella had told me in a fierce whisper that she could expect nothing but torment like this for the next few days, and how was she going to cope without going mad? I was sympathetic. I managed to make her laugh. She slipped her arm in mine as we walked around the side of the house to where I’d left the car at the end of the drive. “Peter,” she said.
Her tone was casual, dreamy even. “Yes, my dear?”
“When is Edgar Stark getting out?”
It wasn’t so unusual a question, but it gave me a shock. I told her it would be a long time if it had anything to do with me. “Why do you ask?” I said as we reached my car.
“No reason. He’s the one doing Max’s conservatory. Will we see you on Tuesday night?”
“Yes, you will,” I said, as I kissed her cheek.
My Edgar?
When the professional staff leave the hospital at the end of the day the place assumes a different atmosphere, rather like a town by the sea when the season is over and the tourists go home. Ilike it then. Over the years it has become my practice to return to my office in the stillness of the evening and reflect in tranquillity on the events of the day.
“Back again, Dr. Cleave,” says the attendant at the Main Gate as I collect my keys.
“Back again,” I say. With the custodial staff I have always projected a sort of patrician affability. They like it. They like structure and hierarchy. They know me well. I have been here longer than any of them.
My office had a good view of the country beyond the Wall. It was particularly lovely on summer evenings, when the last of the light brought a soft, hazy glow to the marsh, and over to the west the setting sun turned the sky all shades of red. One day some months after Edgar was admitted to the hospital I returned to my office at this quiet hour. I poured myself a drink—I keep a small stock of alcohol in my desk, under lock and key—and stood a few moments gazing out of the window. I remember it so well because it was in the course of a session with Edgar earlier in the day that he first began to reveal the full extent of his delusions, and dropped all pretense that the murder had been as impulsive as he’d first maintained.
I had been to see him during the afternoon in the dayroom of his ward in Block 3. This is a large, sunny room with a well-waxed floor and a snooker table in the middle. There were couches and armchairs upholstered in a tough dark-green vinyl, and a large table at one end where men played cards or read the newspaper. A television set had recently been installed at the other end. He was playing snooker, bent over his cue, about to take his shot, when someone whispered to him that Dr. Cleave was here. He made his shot.
“Oh yes?” he said, straightening up. He turned, grinning, toward the door.
I mouthed the word “Come.”
We had spent almost an hour in the interview room, and I had taped our conversation. He’d told me first about his promotion to the downstairs ward in Block 3. I had been instrumentalin arranging this, of course, but he needed to take the credit and have me applaud him, as a child might. This is not uncommon, the projection by the patient onto his psychiatrist of the feelings of a child toward its father. Such transference of affect can be useful, as it was in Edgar’s case, for bringing to the surface repressed material.
When he settled down I turned the machine on. At this point my understanding of his personality was not extensive. He had told me something of his reasons for killing his wife, and what I’d heard was quite fantastic. There is often a ghostly resemblance to logic in the
“We will, soon.”
They talked about Charlie then, and a little later Brenda went in to wash her face and have a rest before Max came home from the hospital.
I made my own departure shortly afterward, but not before Stella had told me in a fierce whisper that she could expect nothing but torment like this for the next few days, and how was she going to cope without going mad? I was sympathetic. I managed to make her laugh. She slipped her arm in mine as we walked around the side of the house to where I’d left the car at the end of the drive. “Peter,” she said.
Her tone was casual, dreamy even. “Yes, my dear?”
“When is Edgar Stark getting out?”
It wasn’t so unusual a question, but it gave me a shock. I told her it would be a long time if it had anything to do with me. “Why do you ask?” I said as we reached my car.
“No reason. He’s the one doing Max’s conservatory. Will we see you on Tuesday night?”
“Yes, you will,” I said, as I kissed her cheek.
My Edgar?
When the professional staff leave the hospital at the end of the day the place assumes a different atmosphere, rather like a town by the sea when the season is over and the tourists go home. Ilike it then. Over the years it has become my practice to return to my office in the stillness of the evening and reflect in tranquillity on the events of the day.
“Back again, Dr. Cleave,” says the attendant at the Main Gate as I collect my keys.
“Back again,” I say. With the custodial staff I have always projected a sort of patrician affability. They like it. They like structure and hierarchy. They know me well. I have been here longer than any of them.
My office had a good view of the country beyond the Wall. It was particularly lovely on summer evenings, when the last of the light brought a soft, hazy glow to the marsh, and over to the west the setting sun turned the sky all shades of red. One day some months after Edgar was admitted to the hospital I returned to my office at this quiet hour. I poured myself a drink—I keep a small stock of alcohol in my desk, under lock and key—and stood a few moments gazing out of the window. I remember it so well because it was in the course of a session with Edgar earlier in the day that he first began to reveal the full extent of his delusions, and dropped all pretense that the murder had been as impulsive as he’d first maintained.
I had been to see him during the afternoon in the dayroom of his ward in Block 3. This is a large, sunny room with a well-waxed floor and a snooker table in the middle. There were couches and armchairs upholstered in a tough dark-green vinyl, and a large table at one end where men played cards or read the newspaper. A television set had recently been installed at the other end. He was playing snooker, bent over his cue, about to take his shot, when someone whispered to him that Dr. Cleave was here. He made his shot.
“Oh yes?” he said, straightening up. He turned, grinning, toward the door.
I mouthed the word “Come.”
We had spent almost an hour in the interview room, and I had taped our conversation. He’d told me first about his promotion to the downstairs ward in Block 3. I had been instrumentalin arranging this, of course, but he needed to take the credit and have me applaud him, as a child might. This is not uncommon, the projection by the patient onto his psychiatrist of the feelings of a child toward its father. Such transference of affect can be useful, as it was in Edgar’s case, for bringing to the surface repressed material.
When he settled down I turned the machine on. At this point my understanding of his personality was not extensive. He had told me something of his reasons for killing his wife, and what I’d heard was quite fantastic. There is often a ghostly resemblance to logic in the
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