MARCH HOUSE Read online

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Di said. ‘Things aren’t going to be run Iris’s way any longer. There’s going to be a real ding-dong. You should have seen her face when she came out after that session.’

  ‘I can’t say that I blame her. I don’t want everything to be upheaved.’

  ‘Come on, Ruth! Anything’s better than the way things have been lately.’

  Her days were disconnected events; as long as she wasn’t bored she did not ask what the events were leading up to. To her Dr. Laver’s advent was in the same category as an unexpected week-end abroad or an evening ride to London in a fast car; it was all experience, and all experience was good provided it didn’t go on so long it became routine.

  ‘One of the kids has chicken pox,’ she said. ‘I promised him I’d go home at lunch-time.’

  ‘Is your mother with him?’

  ‘Yes. I rang her up at eight this morning. She wasn’t very pleased. She hasn’t had chicken pox.’

  When she had gone it was quiet for a few minutes, then the telephone buzzed. It was Dr. Laver. ‘I thought you had run away. Come in and explain yourself. And bring your sandwiches and your notebook. We’re going to have a working lunch.’

  ‘Iris and Douglas will expect to join us.’

  ‘I have already dealt with that expectation. You do your job and I’ll do mine and then we’ll get along very nicely.’ He put down the receiver. There seemed to be no alternative but to join him.

  The psychiatrist’s room was on the first floor. It was a large room with a view over the garden and it had been decorated in silver grey and furnished with chairs and a small settee upholstered in pale lemon ribcord. Every effort had been made to create an atmosphere that was informal and unalarming; even the pictures had been chosen with care. In spite of this, it usually had a dull, static quality like a bad painting which was vaguely depressing. Things were different today. My first thought on entering the room was that the painstaking effort expended on choosing pictures which were not distracting would hardly seem to have been worthwhile if the psychiatrist himself was to be so gaudy. He was wearing the same striped suit and pink shirt which, perhaps combined with something left hovering in the air from the morning’s jamboree, gave to the room a feeling of unrest. It was an atmosphere in which Dr. Laver appeared to thrive. He was laying out food on the occasional table near the window: a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles, a generous portion of brie, an apple, a tray of peanuts, a bar of chocolate, and a bottle of tonic water. He arranged these items with what seemed rather obsessional care. There was a pile of disordered papers on the floor.

  ‘I had a drink problem at one time,’ he said. ‘They told me that whenever I wanted a drink I should have tonic water; now I’m addicted to the stuff.’ He tipped peanuts into his cupped hand. ‘

  I put my cheese and biscuits and two tomatoes on the occasional table. He downed his peanuts and said incredulously, ‘Is that all you have?’

  ‘I never feel hungry mid-day.’

  ‘It’s bad for you to eat so little, no wonder you are thin.’

  ‘I eat a big supper,’ I said.

  He stuffed a hunk of bread and cheese in his mouth. ‘You’ve got a nice enough little face at the moment; but in a few years you’ll be haggard.’

  ‘I take after my father.’

  ‘Does Daddy run away from dreams, too?’

  I balanced a piece of cheese carefully on a biscuit. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t in this morning; Iris wanted me to fetch a report . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid you haven’t escaped the dream world. We will be making notes of Mrs. Brodie’s dreams. Do you think you can bring yourself to do that?’

  ‘Are they important?’

  ‘You heard Mr. Brodie; he seemed to think so.’

  ‘It was your reply that I heard. Aren’t you taking a risk, treating them like that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What do you think this business is about? Anyone who comes to a psychiatrist and imagines they aren’t risking themselves is very unwise.’

  ‘But Mr. and Mrs. Brodie seemed so upset. Aren’t we supposed to be trying to reconcile them?’

  ‘Mightn’t it be wiser to put them asunder? They have been together for over twenty years without any sign of becoming reconciled to each other.’

  ‘I feel sorry for Mrs. Brodie. She’s the one who will suffer if they are torn asunder.’

  ‘I said “put asunder” and you say “torn asunder”. How interesting! Did you bring your notebook as well as those disgusting scraps you are nibbling? Now: this is dream one.

  ‘A man is coming into a house. She watches him and she knows something terrible is going to happen. Yet she cannot warn him. In the house there are two children. They are in the basement. The man must not go into the basement where the children are. One of the children is retarded. As she looks at the child, it seems to become less and less human and more like a lumpish piece of sculpture, something unfinished, embryonic. It is this crude thing which threatens the man. The man goes to the cellar door. The other child, who is not very pleasant but is still recognisably formed, tries to hold back its ill-fashioned companion; but as the man goes down the cellar steps the thing begins to jig about wildly. She knows that the thing will tear the man apart. It is so horrible that she wakes up.’

  While he was dictating this he had consumed the brie. He ate quickly and greedily, but this did not prevent him from watching every outline that I made. I wondered if he could read shorthand, or whether it was just that he must always give this impression of immense interest in what other people were doing.

  ‘In dream two, she is a child in a house with her mother and her grandmother, and a man is holding them up with a gun. She manages to escape through a skylight, but when she is outside she sees that the house is being watched by policemen and she knows she will not be able to get away without the policemen seeing her, so she goes back to the house.’

  There was silence while I finished making notes. Dr. Laver poured himself a glass of tonic water. ‘Are you sure now that it is Mrs. Brodie who will suffer if they are “torn” asunder?’

  ‘Poor Mrs. Brodie! How she must be wishing she had never come out with that dream about the children!’

  ‘An ominous dream, certainly.’

  ‘It was beastly.’

  ‘But it was Mrs. Brodie who dreamt every beastly detail of it.’

  ‘Yes, I know all about that; but I think it’s unhealthy to probe these things.’

  ‘Mrs. Brodie doesn’t come to the clinic because she is in the best of health.’ He unwrapped the chocolate, tearing impatiently at the silver paper so that he got chocolate in his nails. ‘And the other dream. What did you make of that?’

  ‘I don’t want to make anything of it. What good can it have done her to tell you these dreams?’

  ‘There are destructive forces in everyone, Ruth; even in you. Particularly in you, who are so unvaryingly quiet and reasonable. What is it you are angry about?’

  I laughed because now he was being predictable. ‘That’s a bit of psychiatric one-up-manship I’m hardly likely to fall for after three years in this place! If you want to put your opponent out of countenance ask “What do you do with your anger?” ’

  He broke off several squares of chocolate and put them in his mouth. He watched me as he ate. ‘Why did you call me your opponent? In spite of the calm reasonableness we have been noting in you, your choice of words is sometimes unexpectedly aggressive.’

  ‘You have been getting at me ever since I came into the room. I call that aggressive.’

  ‘How very well-defended you are.’

  ‘Oh no, not that!’

  ‘Yes, you are right to be scornful.’ He licked his fingers. ‘These phrases have not worn well. Yet psychology is comparatively young; there can seldom have been a language which has grown stale so quickly. That is why we have to find some other way of experiencing the truth about ourselves.’

  ‘We are back with dreams, are we?’


  ‘Not only dreams.’ I waited but he turned away and began to peel an apple. ‘You can go now. I shall have a little sleep in a minute or two.’

  I collected my papers, balanced my food container on top of them, and left the room. It was half-past one. Mrs. Wilmer was due to arrive at two-fifteen. Douglas and Iris were waiting in my room. Iris was seething and the seething was expressed in her body, clearly outlined beneath a tight-fitting black jumper and wine-red skirt: storm signals went out from the swell of breasts, the thrust of hips. Douglas had retired to the far corner. He was dressed in a charcoal-grey suit with a silver-grey polo necked sweater which seemed designed to shade into the background.

  Iris said to me, ‘I think I’ll have a talk with Dr. Laver now about one or two general matters.’

  ‘I don’t think he wants to be disturbed.’

  ‘Why not? Everyone else has been.’

  ‘He’s eating.’

  ‘Eating!’ She expected that while the psychiatrist was on the premises he would devote every minute to work. Dr. Arnold had been driven to spending long periods in the lavatory to escape from Iris.

  ‘He also said something about sleeping.’

  ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense.’

  ‘Churchill used to sleep at odd times during the day,’ I consoled her. ‘Dr. Laver will probably wake like a lion refreshed.’

  This proved not to be the case. When I went in at ten-past two to tell him that Mrs. Wilmer had arrived he was still asleep in the armchair and barely raised his head when I wakened him.

  ‘If she’s so forgetful, how does she manage to arrive five minutes early?’ he asked crossly.

  ‘She comes by taxi.’

  ‘How does she remember the taxi?’

  ‘Perhaps you can ask her that.’

  ‘I’m not going to see people who come early.’

  I assumed there was no need to reply to this and occupied myself straightening the room which had acquired a stale, crumpled appearance and smelt of cheese and pickles.

  ‘Tell her to go away,’ he said.

  ‘Do you want to fetch her, or shall I bring her to you? She won’t make it on her own.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I am not going to see this woman.’

  I went out of the room and collected Mrs. Wilmer. It was not until I had opened the door of his room, and seen him standing waiting to receive her, that I acknowledged that I had had some nasty doubts in my mind.

  ‘Does he want me or Douglas to join him later on?’ Iris asked. She was pacing the corridor, angered by what she considered to be cavalier treatment.

  ‘I expect he’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we ought to play it his way for today, Iris?’

  ‘I was hoping for your sake that we were going to have some joint sessions,’ she said to Douglas. ‘It would be such a help to you, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not if they are like this morning’s session.’ Douglas was annoyed. It was all very well for a psychiatrist to use shock tactics on a client; he did not have to pick up the pieces afterwards. Douglas was not looking forward to his next visit to Mr. and Mrs. Brodie. ‘At this rate I shall wish we had old Arnold back.’

  ‘Arnold was a nonentity,’ Iris said.

  ‘I’d rather work with a nonentity than a whizz kid,’ Douglas replied crossly.

  Iris said, ‘Oh come, we mustn’t make judgements.’

  Mrs. Wilmer left at half-past three looking as quietly disorientated as she had when she arrived. She was one of the more perplexing cases and Iris and Douglas were eager to discuss her with Dr. Laver. Iris tutted with impatience when he demanded a break for tea. ‘I think we’ll join him now,’ she said, and led the way up to his room.

  I did not enjoy being present at case conferences and when I brought in their tea I tried to excuse myself on the grounds that there was so much work to do. Dr. Laver, however, was insistent and Iris supported him. ‘We may have to implement new procedures. You must be in on this from the start, Ruth. You know how much we all depend on you.’

  I handed round the tea cups and then sat beside Dr. Laver. Douglas and Iris were doing most of the talking. This was their first opportunity to tell him about the work of the clinic and they intended to make the most of it. The point which they were both trying to put across was that the psychiatrist did his sessions and departed leaving to them the real business of supporting the clients. They, in their turn, had need of support. This had never been acknowledged by Dr. Arnold and they were concerned that Dr. Laver should be left in no doubt about it right from the start. To Douglas it was a straightforward question of needing help; to Iris, the issue was more complicated, since she would not brook too much interference but did not want to be left out of the supportive circle.

  Dr. Laver listened intently, gazing first at Douglas, then at Iris, with that strange mixture of naiveté and understanding I had noted in him before. It was like seeing an immensely knowing child watching the performance of a well-known play for the first time. One’s own reaction has been conditioned by previous productions and many reviews; but the child is able to enter totally into what is taking place on stage. The reactions are immediate, but, to the jaded viewer, seem totally inappropriate. Although Dr. Laver was entering into this so completely, he was not involved emotionally, was not necessarily sympathetic. He is my aboriginal! I thought suddenly.

  Douglas and Iris seemed unaware of all this; in fact, they were not very aware of Dr. Laver. They were preoccupied with themselves. Now they were discussing Mrs. Wilmer, ostensibly for Dr. Laver’s benefit, but in reality pursuing their never-ending attempt to stake out their own particular piece of clinical territory.

  Douglas said, ‘Mrs. Wilmer forgets because she can’t face up to life. She doesn’t want to wash the dishes, so she forgets they are there.’

  ‘There is an element of convenience, no doubt.’ Iris was dismissive. She always treated other people’s opinions as a threat to be put down without delay. ‘A method of getting her own way, perhaps. A form of aggression? All of that. Something else, though.’ She shook her head, implying deep, but incommunicable knowledge which could not possibly be shared with a social worker. ‘Difficult, very difficult.’

  There was a pause. Douglas said, ‘A poor self-image . . .’

  ‘I’m not even sure about that.’ Iris came in quickly to put down this pretension. ‘A refusal to conform to the mores of her society; a secret pride in herself . . .’

  Douglas, usually lazy, for once seemed unprepared to be out-talked. He applied himself to the problem and said, ‘She has retreated into a little room in her own skull and thrown away the key.’ Iris was intensely surprised by this rather literary statement. He said defensively, ‘Well, that’s the effect she has on me, anyway.’

  ‘In which case, what are we supposed to do?’ Dr. Laver asked. ‘We don’t know what goes on in that little world; it may be richer than anything we imagine. Are we justified in breaking in?’

  ‘Surely she is very near a state of complete breakdown.’ Iris was indulgent.

  ‘And?’ He looked at her, pulling at his beard; then he swivelled round in his chair and sat with his back to the room looking out into the garden. Iris and Douglas each studied a different part of the room. I had that panic-stricken feeling one has in a theatre when an actor dries up and players and audience are left stranded between the real and the unreal world. Someone had to say something. I said, ‘How can you say that we should abandon poor Mrs. Wilmer?’

  ‘No one is suggesting we should abandon Mrs. Wilmer, Ruth,’ Iris said reprovingly. I was not expected to speak at these meetings, except to ask when they wanted tea.

  ‘You and Douglas have been talking of nothing else for months!’

  ‘All that I have ever said was that I didn’t feel she was a suitable case for this clinic.’

  ‘And Douglas thinks he isn’t the person who should be dealing with her. And now Dr. Laver says we aren’t justified in doing anything because we don’t know what goes on
in her mind. I call that abandoning her.’

  Iris tucked in her chin and regarded me judicially.

  Douglas said, ‘It’s quite true, I don’t think I should be dealing with her. I’ve said so ever since Arnold left.’ He looked accusingly at Iris.

  ‘I have a very long waiting list.’

  ‘Social workers, alas, don’t have waiting lists.’

  Dr. Laver said, ‘I didn’t get far with Mrs. Wilmer, either.’ He swivelled back into view. The relief in the room was almost tangible; God was back in business again.

  Iris said, ‘Your first clinic! It must have been such an exhausting day for you. We’re all being terribly selfish.’ She managed to sound solicitous while conveying the message that psychiatrists could scarcely be expected to cope with the burdens which clinical psychologists shouldered daily. She walked across the room and picked up the teapot. While they drank their tea, Iris said gracefully to Douglas that she knew she should have taken Mrs. Wilmer’s case after Dr. Arnold left, and Douglas, who could be graceless said perhaps she would take it over now. Dr. Laver, who was doing a complicated abstract design on his copy of the case history, said, ‘There is one way of approaching Mrs. Wilmer’s problem which hasn’t been tried.’

  ‘Do tell us.’ Douglas spoke with quiet sarcasm.

  Dr. Laver added a flourish to his design. ‘Mrs. Wilmer can tell us herself.’

  Douglas put his cup and saucer down carefully on the floor, then took out his handkerchief and polished his glasses; Iris smiled wisely to herself. The silence was prolonged. Dr. Laver showed no inclination to enlarge on his statement but continued to embellish his design.

  Iris, aware that Douglas had no intention of taking Dr. Laver to task, asked, ‘Are we talking about dreams, again?’

  ‘No, I pursued that with Mrs. Wilmer, but she is not a good subject.’ He did a great curlicue across the top of the sheet.

  Iris said, ‘Ah.’ She and Douglas were relieved, but a trifle disappointed. This morning’s experience, viewed in the light of the afternoon session, seemed to have gained in attraction.

  Dr. Laver put his beard close to the paper, lower lip jutting out while he executed some delicate scrollwork. ‘I can see there is a certain resistance to new techniques, so I am reluctant to make a suggestion.’