Dark Palace (24 page)

‘How do you suggest that I do that?'

She was surprised. Wasn't it his job? ‘Oh, I didn't think that you would have an instrument which measured it,' she smiled and sniffed and used the handkerchief to wipe the tearful moisture from her nose. ‘I suppose—I suppose by me telling you about the hours I work and so on. The dreadful problems we face at the League. Statistically. Perhaps.'

She felt a tiredness, a deep tiredness.

‘What brings you here this day—particularly—at this time of your life—apart from the demands of work? An incident? Something has happened to bring you here?'

‘Not Ambrose—not being lovers. That is not why I am here.'

Silence.

She found herself with nothing to say.

‘Your husband understands this? Your being lovers with Doctor Westwood—again.'

‘It was understood, I believe, before my husband and I … separated … that Ambrose was living in Geneva again. And
I wrote to my husband about Ambrose—Doctor Westwood—moving into the apartment.'

‘Still, this part of your life is somewhat, how to say it? Somewhat “nebulous”?'

‘To outsiders, perhaps, but not to those of us who are intimately involved. I believe we all understand.'

Much had been left unspoken about the arrangement.

‘Be that as it may, that is not why I am here. I was told something by a colleague at work,' she stumbled, ‘which led me—and Doctor Westwood—to think I was under strain.'

‘Tell me about the something which was told to you.'

‘It was gossip and I resented it and I wanted to rebuff it. That's why I am here.'

‘You haven't told me what it was—this that the colleague said which touched a nerve?'

‘It didn't touch a nerve so much as it annoyed me. And it brought home to me how frazzled I was.'

How very weary.

‘Everything you say to me is confidential. And we are not here to judge—only to remedy, if we can.'

‘This colleague referred to drinking, which is not what I am here for. I don't see drinking as the problem.'

To her relief, the doctor seemed to accept what she'd said and returned to her marriage. ‘You cried when we mentioned … Doctor Westwood, Ambrose … and your husband's absence—but that's not what you are here for?'

‘I suppose everything is connected,' she finally admitted. ‘One might have to say that—that everything is connected.'

She cried again.

The doctor again softened his voice. ‘That's a big leap for us to take. To allow that everything is connected, it lets loose all sorts of fears that seem unmanageable. But they are manageable. Often everything is a symptom of everything else.'

Crying into the handkerchief, head down, she nodded.

‘Never fear. We can come to an understanding with these
phantoms. Fatigue distorts yet it also serves us by allowing things to capture our attention. Things which we had tried not to see. Which we block out by everyday matters. Fatigue allows serious things to break through sometimes. The dam bursts.'

‘I suppose it does, the dam does burst.' She tried to laugh about her tears, struggled to make a joke about the dam, struggled to control her tears, but gave up. ‘I suppose, though, that specifically, I am here so that you can verify my state of mind as being, well, frazzled. Something like that.'

She tried to seal off her tears and to find control again. ‘And I would rather not let everything become tangled together, even if they are connected. I would like to deal with one thing this time. Maybe the other things at some other time.'

He didn't laugh. ‘You mention drinking, your colleagues mentioned your drinking?'

She felt herself colour. ‘That was annoying but that was, well, just that—annoying.'

She felt herself sinking into heartache, sitting there, trying to keep things from becoming tangled. ‘Very annoying. Very affronting.'

‘It cannot be very good, for your colleagues to talk about you that way?'

‘No.'

‘Do you, yourself, worry about your drinking?'

‘Not at all. Not that is, until this annoying business of them talking about it.' She found a clever formulation. ‘It is not my drinking which is the problem: it is their talking about it which is the problem.'

That was suddenly clear.

‘Why do you think they talk about it?'

Her self-defensiveness was giving her insights. ‘I suppose, because I am a woman. If I were a man they wouldn't care two hoots. Women who drink … only loose women drink. Every man can drink.'

That it was only gossip wasn't strictly true—Walters, Bartou were not gossips. Sweetser was perhaps a gossip. How much gossip was there and for how long had there been gossip?

This idea distressed her further. She saw Florence and the others talking about her, whispering about her as she went by. Did her friends also gossip about her?

‘You drink more than a woman should?'

She looked directly at him, ‘How much should a woman drink?' she said, aggressively, at last gaining some strength to resist. He didn't respond to her question.

She said, ‘It's seen as unwomanly. That's the problem.'

‘As unwomanly?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you feel unwomanly.'

‘Not at all.'

What an odd question. How would she feel if she felt unwomanly? She wondered if this connected to Ambrose. If this doctor was to see everything as connected, then perhaps unwomanly and womanly and so on were all churning about in his head? And Ambrose's womanliness was also there in this doctor's head. Oh dear. Where were they? ‘It is seen that way only in some circles. Not in sophisticated circles, not in liberal-minded circles.'

‘Is the League a sophisticated circle of liberal-minded people?'

She was shaken. ‘That's not quite how the League is at all. It is a mixture. Some are, for example, very religious.'

‘Yet you had tended to look at it as a circle of liberal-minded sophisticates?'

‘I think I had. I think I had wished it to be that way.'

She was shaken a little by having to accept that, to realise how wishful her thinking had been about the nature of the League. Her group was not the League anymore. The League was now bigger than simply her circle.

‘Does it affect your work?'

‘Drinking?' He didn't answer her query. ‘I don't consider that it does.'

‘Your colleagues do?'

She resisted admitting this. Presumably that was a conclusion that the gossip could lead to. ‘This isn't the issue. The issue is …' She'd lost track of the conversation. ‘The issue is my need for a doctor's assessment from you. Relating to strain.'

He again left her stewing in silence.

She said, ‘As far as it affecting my work, I get to the office before any of the others. I work longer than others.'

‘You feel that this is saying something to the others? This getting to work first?'

‘It says that I am serious about my work. My work is my life.'

‘Does it say anything else?'

She thought. ‘That I am dedicated to my work?' It was as if there was a correct answer which she was expected to find.

Silence. ‘Anything else?'

Why weren't her answers enough for him? She scratched around to find something else to throw to him, ‘My coming to work early is a game, I suppose—to beat the others. Also as a personal standard—that regardless of whether I may have caroused the night before I still get to work first.'

‘What does this show, what does it say?'

‘Please?'

‘It would seem to me that you are proving something by getting to work first?'

‘Proving that I am as good as the men, perhaps? Is that how you see it?'

‘I ask
you
how do
you
see it. What is it you are proving by working harder? Yes, perhaps. And more.'

‘What?'

They had both fallen off the conversation.

Silence. He wanted her to say something, whatever it was. Something did cross her mind fleetingly but she let it go. She shook her head. ‘Why can't you take me at my word?'

‘We don't take anyone at their word here, the African masks and me.'

He was almost cruel.

She glanced at the fierce eyes of the masks. She was growing tired of this conversational trickery.

She sat, determined not to play anymore.

He said, ‘Tell me, does it perhaps say this: “I may drink more than others but I work harder to make up for it?” '

She coloured. ‘I work harder because I am dedicated to my work.'

He stared at her. ‘You are not working harder because of guilt about your drinking?'

Guilt?

Why should she be guilty?

What an impertinent question.

Still, he was the doctor.

She should give him some credit perhaps. Concede something to keep his morale up. ‘Maybe. In a way. I don't think I feel guilty. They should feel guilty for gossiping.'

‘What do you have “to make up for” by getting in early?'

‘I don't follow?'

‘Going to cabarets, as you say, doesn't mean that you take time off from your work, does it? You do not lose work time?'

‘No. Maybe the occasional longish lunch.'

‘You do not then have to work longer hours as a rule, to give back time taken away from your work?'

‘I work most days and many evenings. They owe me time.'

‘So getting to work earlier than all others is not required of you? You are not repaying any hours lost? Are you then saying: I am guilty about my drinking but it is all right because I punish myself by getting to work first? So I am to be excused? Is it guilt and punishment perhaps?'

She didn't like that formulation.

She sat on it for a few seconds. ‘I don't see it that way.'

But yes, she did see it that way. Suddenly.

She did see that. She wasn't ready to say it. Yes. But it wasn't everything. Being in at the office first was perhaps part of it all too. She couldn't quite see it. But she felt it.

Was perhaps the
all of it
. She coloured again. Why had she even mentioned this getting into the office first?

‘You are thoughtful. Silent. Did I touch a nerve?'

‘No.' She felt herself closing up on him. ‘I have no reason to be guilty.'

She was not ready to say it yet.

‘You may have no reason to feel guilty but still may feel guilt. That is more galling, is it not? To feel unreasonable guilt? To be made to feel guilty?'

‘Yes. But my being here isn't about my drinking. It is about what people are saying about my drinking.'

She liked that point.

And then she found her way back: ‘I told you of my getting to work early to show that it doesn't affect my work. That is, I am not getting to work late every day because I have a sore head from drinking.'

There had been days. But they were rare. They didn't count.

She made it clear that she was losing patience with having to repeat it. ‘It's about having something of a clean bill of health from you, of the health of my mind.'

She was annoyed that he was not taking this down on a notepad. ‘You are not taking notes. Shouldn't you take notes of what I am saying?'

‘That is part of the confidentiality. You and I talk—there is no other person. There is no record. It is sacred. And if I took notes, how could I listen closely? Tell me—why then do you drink?'

The question pulled her up.

‘For the pleasure of it.'

‘What is the pleasure for you in drinking?'

‘It relaxes my nerves. It makes me jolly.'

‘Do you find that you need more alcohol than others do, to reach these relaxed states of mind?'

‘I think my crowd all drink the same.'

‘Not all people drink as your crowd do?'

‘I suppose not.'

‘And some in your line of work find they have no need for alcohol at all?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Why do you?'

‘Perhaps I am more strained in my position or because of just how I am.' She sort of shrugged. ‘The way brandy is used in medicine. Maybe I use it as a medicine.'

‘You see it as medicine?'

‘Only now—in one sense. I really see it as a pleasure. It is a quick and easy pleasure—a bit of a break from work.'

‘If you saw it as medicine then it implies an illness?'

‘
Touché
. The illness I would see myself having is only the illness of the fully led life. The pain of being alive. Every day, through my work, I witness the afflictions of the world.' She looked at him. ‘As you must.'

She contemplated the difference. ‘Though you see single people and their personal problems, while I see the problems of people in large groups. That is the difference, I suppose, between us.'

He nodded. Did his nods mean agreement? Of which part?

He seemed to ease off his interrogation. ‘If I could give you this assessment of the health of your mind? How would it be of use to you?'

She didn't know. ‘I suppose that I feel that it would be good to be assessed, clinically, and cleared of the allegation, so as to speak. For my self-confidence. I could use it to scotch the rumours.'

She couldn't now see how she could use it.

He didn't say anything.

‘Something like that,' she said. The idea now sounded hopeless.

‘As you know I treated Doctor Westwood a few years back.'

‘Yes. That is why I am here,' she said impatiently, glad to be able to be impatient with him. She saw a tricky ambiguity in what she'd said. ‘In the sense that he recommended you, as a good doctor.'

‘He's a man with personality contradictions, as you must know. I say this with his authority. He states in his letter that my knowledge of him must not be withheld from you.'