Читать книгу Dead Writers in Rehab - Paul Bassett Davies - Страница 22

I feel a renewed energy and confidence today, perhaps invigorated by an encounter that took place earlier, and of which I will relate more in due course.

As to my progress, I believe I am finally beginning to understand the precepts upon which this institution, and my treatment within it, are based. As I have previously recorded in this journal, I had always believed my occasional use of laudanum to be simply the most effective remedy for the gout from which I suffered. When it was first suggested to me that I was in some way dependent upon what I considered to be a purely medicinal recourse, and unable to abstain from it if I chose, I rejected the suggestion out of hand with some asperity, and, indeed, asserted that those who made it were more in need of medical attention than myself. However, that belief has been slowly changing, in the manner, and with the result, that I have described in these pages.

This report, I trust, fulfils my obligation to make a daily record of my progress, and the emotional responses which I experience in relation to it. This, at least, is still my understanding of Dr Hatchjaw’s demand (reiterated by Dr Bassett, on the few occasions we have met, in the gentler, less imperative terms to be expected of her sex) to ‘describe my feelings’.

And now to other matters. My encounter with a mysterious newcomer today has given impetus to my efforts to penetrate a riddle that has confounded me since my arrival in this strange place. The riddle of the place itself, and my presence in it, is of a different order, and I am convinced that the key to that mystery lies in my own hands, as I have been encouraged to believe by the medical practitioners here.

However, it is of those practitioners that I now wish to speak. Hatchjaw is clearly subordinate to Dr Bassett in professional terms, and this in itself is surprising. Hatchjaw is a learned and accomplished physician. His methods differ somewhat from those of his colleague (or superior, as I must learn to think of her) in that he tends towards a more analytic approach that presupposes a mechanical basis of psychology, while Dr Bassett seems to favour a broader, more metaphysical view. However, these differences are no greater than those that you might find between any two persons of science. Many is the time that I have observed a pair of eminent London medical men, at my very bedside, at complete loggerheads over the most rudimentary matters of diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. I have been led to the view that what I may call ‘natural sympathy’ is just as important – and effective – as erudition in the treatment of sickness. I believe this secret was known to our ancestors but has now been lost within the mighty precincts of our colleges and universities.

However, the mystery I find myself unable to penetrate is not the professional but the personal relationship between Bassett and Hatchjaw. It requires no particularly keen eye to detect signs of uncommon intimacy between them – deeper than that which might be expected to develop between persons who have stood in relation to each other merely as colleagues, for no matter how long. I believe there is some secret and powerful bond between these two, under whose constraints at times they submit, and at other times rebel. Their proximity appears to please and to distress them in equal measure.

Today, I thought I might be offered a clue to the mystery. As I escorted the newcomer to the dining hall, and mentioned that he should not expect to find intoxicating liquors on the premises, he said he was familiar with places like this, and used the words: ‘I am an old hand at this game’. Immediately I seized upon this. The man is clearly familiar with this kind of institution. Furthermore, he understands ‘the game’ well – all too well, his ironic manner seemed to imply. In that case, can he shed some light upon the strange behaviour of the two doctors towards each other? I determined to seek a confidential interview with him, and to conceal my intentions from any unwelcome observation under the pretext of showing him around the grounds (for we are observed constantly, both directly and indirectly, and our most private proceedings are known to the doctors by a means which I am at a loss to explain). However, he declined my offer. Something tells me that he knows more than he is prepared to reveal at present. I must be patient and careful. He may hold the answer to the riddle of the two doctors, even if he does not know it himself.

But an even greater mystery torments me, and I sense its malign influence pervading every corner of this enigmatic institution in a miasma of unease. Dare I hope that the newcomer will also be able to illuminate this other, more sinister question which has baffled my every attempt to penetrate it? Namely, who is the mysterious figure I have glimpsed, lurking at the edge of the grounds in the dusk, as the shadows lengthen, and whose face I have never yet seen? Even now my pulse quickens at the thought that the solution to this problem may be within my grasp.