On Loving Josiah

ON LOVING JOSIAH

For all those teachers I have ever loved.

Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About the Author
Copyright

Chapter One

THE INTERVIEW WAS NOT GOING WELL. The man, a young psychiatrist of about thirty, was cowering at a large desk littered with discarded mugs of coffee, while the woman was standing on the other side of it, railing down at him inches from his face.

‘So, you diagnose love, do you? Ten years at medical school and that’s all they can teach you, you ass!’

‘I won’t be spoken to like this,’ managed the psychiatrist, attempting to meet his adversary in the eye. ‘Eve is my patient.’

‘“My patient”!’ the woman scoffed. ‘A more accurate description, young man, would be “my prisoner” or perhaps even “my poodle”.’

‘Stop it!’ The psychiatrist stood up abruptly, eyes ablaze. ‘Mrs de Selincourt,’ he said, and took some deep breaths, ‘the next time you come here to discuss your daughter’s progress I suggest you make an appointment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to be getting on with.’

But Mrs de Selincourt wasn’t finished with him yet. ‘Work? Work? Is that what you call it? Look at the state of you! Look at the state of this room! In my day, secretaries used filing cabinets. Bins were emptied at night!’

The psychiatrist took another deep breath and said, ‘Just go, please.’

Mrs de Selincourt, stout and immaculate in tight tweed, surveyed her victim coldly. ‘Very well, Dr Fothering. I shall see you at the case conference at two.’

Dr Fothering visibly shrank. ‘The case conference? You received an invitation?’

‘I wouldn’t have driven all the way up from Harrow had I not, Dr Fothering.’

The psychiatrist winced. ‘I’m afraid,’ he began (and those two words contained the whole truth of the matter). ‘I’m afraid your daughter has specifically requested that you shouldn’t attend this afternoon.’

‘Then damn my daughter’s request!’ Mrs de Selincourt thrust her hand into her handbag and produced a letter. ‘Dr Goodman invited me. Now, could you be so kind as to direct me to his office? Please, don’t look quite so idiotic. He is, after all, the consultant directly responsible for my daughter’s welfare.’

And then Dr Fothering forgot his deep breaths, and indeed, forgot to behave like a doctor at all, but began pacing the room and muttering, ‘It’s not his case! It’s not his case!’

‘I think you’ll find that it is,’ insisted the woman, victoriously. ‘Read this.’

Dr Fothering swept the letter aside with the back of his hand, and, utterly impassioned, he cried out, ‘This has nothing to do with him! Leave him out of this! You’re right, the buck stops at me, I know Eve! And I know she has every chance of happiness. So blame me if things go wrong. But they haven’t yet, Mrs de Selincourt. I beg you, don’t jeopardize her chances now! Let her be!’

At that moment a pale girl in a pink, much-washed wincyette dressing-gown appeared in the doorway. Mrs de Selincourt’s back was turned towards her, and she waved at Dr Fothering, alternately smiling and making faces.

‘Mother! What a nice surprise!’ she said, when the joke had gone on too long and Dr Fothering’s expression had begun to betray her presence. ‘I didn’t expect you. You should have written. Oh Doctor Fothering, I blame you – why didn’t you tell me? You know how I like to dress up for an occasion.’

‘Eve’, said Dr Fothering gently. ‘I thought you wanted your mother not to be present.’ But Eve resisted his tone and looked at her mother.

Mrs de Selincourt was used to smoothing over many a diplomatic embarrassment and said, ‘I hear you’re quite well now, my dear girl. Perhaps it’s time you came home.’

‘I’ve never been better,’ said Eve.

‘But you need fresh air, I can see that.’

‘You’re quite right there. But Mummy, they must have told you, I’m going to marry a gardener. Not quite our class, I know, but quite wholesome. He’s a good, solid man. But I can’t say you’d like him because you probably wouldn’t.’

‘Darling, you’re twenty! You know nothing of life!’

‘But more than you, mother dear. They should turn Fulbright hospital into a finishing school. For the human condition is fairly dire. We spend our lives hiding from that fact, but I feel privileged to have discovered it.’

‘Dear God! Oh Eve! Oh Eve! She shouldn’t be here, you idiot, Fothering. How dare you keep her in this place? She’s saner than you are!’ And then, witness this, the last maternal feeling the woman ever felt for Eve: ‘Please, darling, come home with us, leave this place, we’ll take a holiday the three of us, anywhere you choose….’

It was the last maternal feeling Patricia de Selincourt ever felt for her daughter, but it would be just as true to say it was the first. Nor would it be fair to blame her. It was just one of those gross mismatches between parent and offspring that occur from time to time; for her elder child, George, had adored his mother, and she, him – indeed, their first seven years together, before George’s dispatch to a first-rate English prep school, had been a text-book case of excellent mothering: boundaries drawn on the one hand, observed on the other. Eve did not like boundaries, and had railed against them since her first breath. And disobedience was not only intolerable to Mrs de Selincourt, it was incomprehensible.

So when Eve was two, her mother decided she must be deaf and took her to a specialist on Harley Street.

‘Eve, look at the doctor when he’s talking to you,’ she’d commanded, but the pretty blonde moppet had continued to jump on and off a pair of scales and seemed to register nothing. But all the paraphernalia of temptation, the watches and the toy parrots, lured Eve out of herself, and the doctor had said, ‘No need to worry there, Mrs de Selincourt.’ In fact, he was wrong: a diagnosis would have been a relief.

Mother and daughter continued to drive each other to extreme versions of themselves. Mrs de Selincourt, the perfect wife to a man who needed one – always a gracious hostess to his business clients, always at the ready with a dozen ironed shirts and a peck on the cheek when he came home from work – never imagined that being a perfect mother would be any more demanding. She had happily sacrificed any vision of the modern ideal – that of self-fulfilment – to old-fashioned duty: to her husband, her family, the village church; and duty, besides, to the society whose values she respected and found true. For her, love was an almost biblical concept, interwoven with the idea of charity, not the sentimental, emotion-sodden version we have of it nowadays.

As Eve grew older, her mother became more and more intolerant of her behaviour. In short, Eve humiliated her. It was one thing to have Eve refuse point blank to go to bed when the family was alone; it was quite another when she sabotaged important dinner parties by coming downstairs at midnight to sing to the assembled guests. No one who saw her will ever forget her rendition of Life is a Cabaret at the age of ten, dressed in fuchsia pink and diamante, one of her mother’s cocktail creations, and now dragging across the floor. The trouble was, she was sufficiently good at it that people were unsure whether to congratulate her mother or commiserate with her. Mrs de Selincourt looked at her husband for some sound, silent advice; and he nodded at her and smiled as if to say, relax, it’s quite funny, it’s all right. But when Eve picked up her skirts and revealed eighty pounds’ worth of brand new silver stilettos, Mrs de Selincourt leapt up from her seat. Eve didn’t even notice her, and only saw in the newly vacant chair a convenient way of getting up onto the table. ‘Come taste the wine,’ she sang, ‘come hear the band,’ and the guests began moving aside their plates and glasses to make room for her; ‘Come blow the horn, start celebrating,’ she bellowed out, her skinny arms flailing about in the air. There followed a general cacophony, led by Sir Ralph Holland, managing director of British Aerospace, who had flown over from the Isle of Man specially for the party, and was rumoured to be on the point of large, private investment in Mr de Selincourt’s fledgling company. He had begun enthusiastically banging his wine glass with his fork, and was shouting across to him, ‘What a wonderful girl! My daughter won’t say boo to a goose.’

Not an eye, not an ear was directed towards Mrs de Selincourt, who was whispering to herself, ‘May God strike her down.’ At every dance step she watched the silver heels embedding themselves into eighteenth century mahogany. What barbarians were these to clap for her? Do decent folk turn into a hideous, belching mass as easily as this? Eve shot her a look of victory, and began lifting up the pink skirts and swaying her child’s hips. She was wearing her mother’s peach cami-knickers held up by the belt of her school tunic; and kicking her legs up high, she sang to her,

‘No use permitting some prophet of doom

To wipe ev’ry smile away,

Life is a cabaret, old chum,

Come to the cabaret.’

Her mother left the room, but no one noticed. Everyone’s eyes were on the girl. They were laughing, cheering, raising their glasses to her. Mrs de Selincourt sat at the dressing-table in her bedroom, listening to their cries of ‘encore!’

Eve’s teachers were to fare somewhat better with her; twenty other children in the class made one to one confrontations the exception rather than the rule. And anyway, Eve was not wilfully destructive; rather, she was willfully absent, refusing to commit herself to what was going on around her. After a few weeks of vainly persuading Eve to co-operate, they saw no reason why they should bother. Every year in September, as Eve moved up through the classes, there was a surge of enthusiasm to ‘crack’ her; but already by November whoever was the latest of Eve’s teachers became tired and gave up.

What infuriated them most was the fact that Eve was so fearfully bright, and couldn’t be relegated to the ‘slow’ stream and left to moulder. She made them suspicious of their ability to teach. If she wasn’t gazing into space she would watch her teachers with a terrifying alertness, not out of eagerness to learn but in an attitude of judgment and criticism. No one could claim they had ever taught Eve a thing, and yet if she ever condescended to fill in an exam script she was generally first in the class.

Finally a September did arrive, however, in Eve’s lower sixth year, when a teacher managed to strike a chord in her. His name was Gilbert Fitzpatrick and he taught her English. Gilbert had, of course, already been briefed about Eve by his colleagues; but he was new to the school and wanted to be open-minded. Perhaps the technique he used to win her was the one Eve had been craving for all these years: namely, he fell in love with her. While she sat judging him at the back of the class, his eyes met hers and softened. There was no retreat, no defence, no refuge, just a look of utter appreciation and love. And Gilbert reaped his reward.

One day Eve was lagging behind the others during the general exodus at break-time, and as she passed his desk, she brushed her mouth against his ear and whispered, ‘I love you too, Mr Fitzpatrick.’ How could we blame Gilbert for not exhibiting what the headmaster was later to call ‘some sense of adult authority and responsibility towards the young’? Because Gilbert knew, as soon as he saw Eve, that she wasn’t young at all, and most likely she had never been young in the way that so many adult idealists conceive the word. Mere bodily innocence doesn’t imply spiritual innocence. So Gilbert kissed her; and the affair began.

Gilbert invited Eve home with him after school (you did what? the headmaster was to exclaim) and recited passages from Byron’s The Bride of Abydos to her, while she lay with her head in his lap:

Such was Zuleika, (he murmured, stroking her hair)

such around her shone

The nameless charms unmarked by her alone -

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the Music breathing from her face,

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,

And oh, that eye was in itself a Soul.

‘My darling,’ responded Eve, ‘Take me.’

And quite soon, the radiant autumn light pouring in through the windows of Gilbert Fitzpatrick’s sitting-room, took on a seedy lustre while those two fucked and fucked and fucked, and their little lovenest was no longer the place ‘where the virgins are soft as the rose they twine, and all save the spirit of man is divine,’ but became, to put it frankly, a little squalid. 

They got away with it quite satisfactorily the first term, but as their dependence on each other increased it became more and more obvious to the world at large. When Mrs de Selincourt went to see the Headmaster to question the advisability of Eve taking on a second musical instrument when she seemed to be making so little progress with her first, the Headmaster asked simply, ‘What time does Eve get home?’ and went a deep red.

Gilbert Fitzpatrick was unceremoniously sacked later that day, and Eve was instructed to remain under the strict supervision of her parents for the next three weeks. Not strict enough, however: she ran away after a day, and was to spend the next year and a half with Gilbert in his cottage. Neither washed much, neither ate much; they spent days upon days in bed together until the sheets were crispy with dried semen.

In the September of 1980, in a state of high conscience, Gilbert persuaded Eve to sit the entrance exam for Cambridge. He sent her up to London to stay with a friend of his who taught English at Westminster Tutors, and paid out of his own pocket (by now her parents had disowned her) for his protégée to take her A Levels within the year. Eve felt happy and worked well, even taking up Greek and immersing herself in the tragedies of Aeschylus. But when she returned to Gilbert at the end of November, a bottle of champagne tucked away in her overnight bag to celebrate the end of her exams, he was dead. ‘I love you, Eve,’ he wrote, ‘but I’m drowning you with my own need. Be brave, but above all, be good.’ By the time she found his over-drugged body it was a week old and it smelt.

Eve’s grief quietened her. She returned to London numb and serious. She stopped reading love poetry, put aside the tragedies and took refuge in the dry-as-sawdust histories of Livy, Tacitus and Thucydides. Her family, rejoicing in the demise of the man who had robbed them of their daughter, made every effort to persuade her to come home. Mrs de Selincourt even went to London to fetch her, arguing that she was now old enough to commute to Westminster Tutors and she wasn’t looking as well fed as she might. Eve surveyed her mother with wonder, as a palaeoethnologist might a new genus of ape. Mrs de Selincourt was understandably hurt, and began saying things her husband and friends had warned her against saying: namely, that the world was better off without filthy men like Fitzpatrick inhabiting it. That didn’t go down at all well. For while Eve was sitting demurely, eyes downcast, on the sofa, her landlord (Gilbert’s friend) had put himself on guard outside the room where the ill-fated meeting took place, and now swept in to send the ‘Old Witch!’ packing.

There was one further and final sally from the de Selincourt camp: Eve’s older brother George invited her to tea. George, striding the room, hands in pockets and with the attitude of a feisty young barrister (which he was) had tried to persuade his sister to at least go home at weekends, as their parents were terribly upset, and needed her, at least as much as she, in her heart of hearts, must need them. He was quite persuaded by his own pretty speech, and within minutes of her departure was on the phone to his mother to report back that she’d ‘distinctly softened.’ It was only later, sitting among cronies in a cramped wine bar in Chelsea, that he realised Eve had stolen £40 from his wallet.

Eve only began to be herself again the following year, in her first term at Cambridge. Despite passing her entrance exam in English she soon switched to Classics, and the faculty welcomed her with open arms. Yes, I believe there were a few weeks in which she truly excelled, delighting in her subject as much as the dons delighted in her. But what is it ‘to be oneself’? For sometimes it might just be better not to be oneself, or rather, a more perfect version of oneself. Someone who listens to others and follows their suggestions, for example. But by the end of the Michaelmas term, Eve was already fancying she knew better about almost everything than anyone. She wrote a paper on the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus, which she immediately submitted to Mind, and when they didn’t publish it declared the magazine to be too ‘timorous’ for her. She began translations of the Iliad and Aeneid simultaneously, because the Penguin editions were not sufficiently passionate. She auditioned for the part of Medea in a Greek play, and despite not getting it, learnt the part anyway and would hover at the back of the theatre when the rehearsals took place, politely suggesting alternative renditions of particular speeches. When the director asked her to leave, she simply apologized and promised to be quiet, and seemed quite immune to the shouting and the threats which her mere presence provoked.

There are, quite probably, some very sensible, scientific words for Eve’s character: ‘bipolar personality’, ‘manic depressive’, perhaps, a box for her with a label on it and a shelf number. Some hope! Nothing could contain Eve. Rather, she was as noble and as carefree as the weather; she was like the wind changing mid-flight, she was the thunder rolling and the hot air rising, she was a wonder of nature and a natural disaster.

And it was this latter manifestation, I’m afraid, which set her on the road to a madhouse, the box of all boxes, to have and to hold until deemed more wonder than disaster. What happened was this.

It was May Week, 1982. A picnic in the meadows of Granchester, Eve and half a dozen friends swimming naked in the Cam, and then an argument. There had been a short item in the paper that morning about a prostitute who, on her deathbed, told her only son to give her ‘immoral earnings’ to a Christian charity; the son had dutifully done so, only to have the cheque refused.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Eve, ‘it might have been a story of redemption, yet it’s been thwarted by the bloody Christian Church.’

They all agreed with her, all except one called Bill who supposed in a rather dry, old fogeyish way that the charity might have been accused of money laundering.

‘Why did the son tell the charity where the money had come from?’ put in one of the girls.

‘Because he wanted to tell the truth,’ said Eve. ‘To share in his mother’s deathbed confession purified him, too. After all, he was probably the son of one of her clients.’

‘I’m not persuaded,’ said Bill. ‘Stories of redemption are passé. And isn’t it worth making a stand against corruption?’

So far so good. The little party was warm and well-wined, the girls still topless after their swim, Bill lying stark naked on the grass proving once and for all to his girlfriend what a free spirit he could be.

Eve rolled over on top of him, ‘Do you think I’m corrupt, Bill?’

‘Get off him, Eve,’ said the girl whose boyfriend he was. The boyfriend was having an erection.

‘If I did a sponsored fuck for charity, would the charity accept it, do you think? Would that meet with your moral approval?’

‘Get off me,’ said Bill.

‘If by making love to me, you knew you would save the lives of ten starving children in Africa, couldn’t I tempt you?’

Then she wet her forefinger with her tongue, and slowly stroked his lips with it. ‘How much would you pay me, Bill?’

There was a pause. Interestingly, the others put on their clothes before physically pushing Eve off him.

‘Challenge me,’ she said. ‘Go on, challenge me.’

‘We challenge you,’ said Bill’s girlfriend, because she wanted Eve to be treated like the whore she was.

It wasn’t difficult. It took three days and three nights; 148 lovers, paying on average £18–00 each, raised a spectacular £2664. And as she explained to Mr Frederick Upton, that fine, longstanding commissar of Christian Aid in the Cambridge district, as she thrust both cash and cheques into his hands, each and every act was one of love: for they did not choose her, but she, them, and indeed, the entire operation was conducted with the utmost propriety, and, said Eve, blowing the word into Mr Upton’s unhappy ear, ‘whispering’.

‘Whispering?’ repeated the incredulous Mr Upton.

‘Yes,’ proclaimed Eve, proudly. ‘I would whisper, “I’m making love for charity, and I would like to make love to you.” And I told them the truth, Mr Upton. Let me assure you that I’d never dream of using my body as a mere vehicle for men’s lust. I certainly don’t know what you use your body for, sir, but I use mine to express love. And when my sponsors asked me to tell them more, I would explain that the Greek root of the word ‘charity’ was love, the very highest form of love, and I was merely enjoying the lowest form of love to reach the echelons of the highest. And I would whisper in the dear boys’ ears, “Socrates himself would have understood where I was coming from. Come with me!”’

Mr Upton was trying to put a generous angle on things; the girl, perhaps, had merely missed out on a sound Christian upbringing; and he began gathering up the money which had spilled out onto the floor while he muttered, ‘Goodness me! Goodness me!’

‘I do so admire men like you!’ gushed Eve, suddenly. ‘I’ve always liked older men, all my life I have, I swear I like their constancy!’

‘Constancy?’ Mr Upton queried.

‘I suppose because I am thoroughly inconstant.’

‘Surely…’ began Mr Upton. The ‘not’ stayed put.

‘You don’t mind me asking if you’re married?’

‘Now, now, dear,’ Mr Upton managed.

‘Are you?’ Eve persisted.

‘Indeed, I’m a widower.’ Mr Upton looked distinctly uneasy, and cast a look towards his secretary’s door.

Eve kicked off her shoes and planted herself on Mr Upton’s desk, dangling her legs in front of him.

‘I’m not sure this is money we should accept. You understand, we are a Christian charity. Now, here, here,’ (quaked the poor man as he gathered up the money and put it in a plastic bag from which he’d previously shaken sandwich crumbs) ‘take it back. Thank you for your good will but you must go.’

Eve wasn’t listening to him. She picked up one of the letters on his desk and exclaimed, ‘Frederick! What a wonderful name you have! Do you mind if I call you “Frederick”? I want you to know I understand where you’re coming from. It’s a difficult decision you have to make. But Frederick, I’ve earned you over two thousand pounds for the poor and needy of the world. And if you don’t accept it what would I do with it? For my sponsors gave the money to me, no, entrusted it to me so that I should give it to you. Therefore imagine my guilt if I simply put it all in an account in my name. And look here, some of these cheques have already been made out to “Christian Aid”. Now, I insist you dispose of them, not I, for in each one I see a “Thank you” and a human life changed for the better.’

Mr Upton’s head was in overdrive; she had a point, he thought. Perhaps he should keep the cheques and she the cash… but that was inconsistent. If it had all been given in good faith, perhaps he really should keep the whole lot. For the Cambridge district branch of Christian Aid had had a lean year, his fundraising abilities questioned, and worse, his impending retirement looked forward to by several young evangelists.

‘You look worried, Frederick,’ said Eve, gently. ‘I tell you what you must do. Come lay your head here on my lap. The velvet of my skirt is so soft. Feel it, Frederick. You’ll look just like John the Baptist’s head on Salome’s pillow. My heart’s contracting at the very thought. What love she had for him, that poor woman.’

And even in the second that followed, the way was not clear for poor Mr Upton, not clear at all. For to his shock and horror a part of him yearned to lay his head on the beautiful Eve’s lap, and be stroked softly by her, for the years had treated him harshly, and even his dead wife had never looked so tenderly at him.

But his better part suddenly stood to attention.

‘Mavis’ he called, barging into her office, ‘Mavis, there’s a woman in here and she’s not welcome.’

Eve indignantly jumped off the desk and said, ‘Who’s Mavis? What’s she doing here?’

Mavis was equally indignant, but was used to defending Mr Upton from predators. She was a short, dumpy woman with a great chest like a buttress and stood between him and the velveteen spectacle before her.

‘Mr Upton, do you wish me to call the police?’

‘Not yet, Mavis. She does seem to have calmed down a little.’ Mr Upton instinctively brushed down his suit and resumed a serious air. He looked at Eve and said, ‘If you go of your own accord, and take the money with you, we can forget this ever happened.’

But Eve would have none of it. ‘How could you betray me like that, Frederick? How could you just turn me in like that? Just when I felt the stirrings… Oh, oh Frederick, just when I was beginning to love you, for what is love but the spirited and unconditional acceptance of another human being?’

‘She’s a mad woman,’ said Mavis.

‘And she’s a jealous one,’ retorted Eve. ‘I can spot a rival a mile off. She loves you, too, doesn’t she?’

(And indeed Mavis did, and had for many years, even before the death of his wife.)

‘We insist that you go! The door! Go!’ reiterated Mavis.

“‘Insist?”’ laughed Eve. ‘I’ve always thought it so funny the way people say, “I demand” and “I insist” when what they mean is, “I feel my power slipping away and I don’t like it.” And today’s your unlucky day, Mavis, today I have the power. I’m limitlessly sexy; what greater power is there? But we need privacy, don’t we, Frederick? Our kind of love doesn’t come in threes. Now, Mavis, there’s a dear, you couldn’t leave us, could you?’

‘You whore! You whore!’ whimpered Mavis. ‘And you look like one! Mr Upton, I’m calling the police!’ And the fretting, tutting Mavis left the two together.

Mr Upton, who was all heart when it came to it, found himself quite confused. He even found himself feeling faint pricklings of desire for the young girl as she took his hand in hers.

‘Eve, you must go, go now before it’s too late,’ he said, anxiously, withdrawing his hand a few seconds later than he might have.

Then Eve stood on her toes and planted a wet kiss on Mr Upton’s mouth.

‘I like you,’ she said. ‘We have about twenty minutes. Then they can carry me out.’

But Mr Upton resisted her (though not her money, as it transpired), as did the policeman, even when Eve told him she wouldn’t budge an inch unless he put handcuffs on her, and proffered him her fine wrists. The policeman’s colleagues down at the station resisted her too, despite her requests to be strip-searched; and the duty social worker resisted her, despite being a lesbian, and the duty psychiatrist resisted her, because it was his daughter’s school play that evening and he wanted to get back in time to see it. So what alternative was there than to admit her to Fulbright Hospital with the full intention of sorting it out in the morning? Only the duty psychiatrist hadn’t reckoned on Dr Fothering doing a ward round that Tuesday, and Dr Fothering couldn’t resist her. No, for Eve de Selincourt captivated Dr Fothering from the very first moment they met. Dr Fothering, you see, was a closet postmodern Freudian analyst, and had spent two years in the U.S. studying the primacy of the female orgasm under the celebrated Weichian psychiatrist, Dr. Anselm Bott.

For there was something so fluid about Eve, something so innocent, something so unscathed by the demands of living in a society, that intrigued Dr Fothering. There was one way in which she was the most mentally healthy person he had ever met; and yet another in which she was a sociopath, who needed to understand that the values of others were worth considering, even if she did not hold them herself.

‘Are you suggesting that I be duplicitous?’ the winsome Eve asked him, on his suggestion that she might be more aware of others’ sensitivities.

‘Perhaps human beings are supposed to be, to a certain extent, duplicitous. A self without others can’t exist. You need others to forge your very identity. You either beat ’em or you join ’em.’

‘I’ve always beaten them!’ said Eve with some pride. ‘But look where it’s got me. Look where integrity gets you nowadays. Now, I do so hate this sterile room. Can’t we go to a pub or something?’

‘Stick to the point, Eve!’

‘But what is the point?’ asked Eve, listlessly. ‘Isn’t the very point that there is no point?’

‘Has there ever been a point, Eve? Has there ever been a time in your life when there’s been meaning in it?’

During the eighteen months of Dr Fothering’s in-depth therapy, Eve never referred to the one decent and wonderful thing, or rather, dreadful and most terrible thing, which had ever happened to her. She never even breathed the name of Gilbert Fitzpatrick. Though this did not mean she didn’t think of him, particularly when Dr. Fothering would begin, ‘I want you to remember something that made you sad. You are not connecting to your ability to be sad.’

‘I thought your job was to make me happy.’

‘Don’t you wish to be out of here?’

‘I never made any friends at University. Everyone hated me in the end. Why would I want to go back to a place where everyone hates me? You at least don’t hate me, do you?

‘No, of course I don’t hate you.’

‘Then,’ purred Eve, ‘It’s in my interests to stay here.’

‘Have you ever wondered why people hate you?’

‘No.’

‘Not ever?’

‘It’s none of my business,’ said Eve, demurely.

Dr Fothering’s relationship with his boss proved rather more testing. Eve’s consultant, Dr Goodman, was more amused than alarmed by Eve’s early morning ritual, in which she would sneak round the wards and lay her hand on the brow of each and every patient, murmuring, ‘May you receive my love.’ (Indeed, it was Gibson Nelson’s assurances that he had received it that brought him to her attention.) Dr Goodman understood that she fascinated his young registrar, and he also understood that she was proving good fodder for Dr Fothering’s MSc dissertation; but Eve’s reluctance to leave and Dr Fothering’s reluctance to see her go were in themselves not sufficient causes to keep her as a patient in Fulbright hospital: her bed was needed for more pressing cases. This was as much the truth now as it had been six months previously, the last time Dr Fothering had invited Dr Goodman to read his files on the case, with all the trepidation and possessiveness of a young writer with his first novel.

The working title of Dr Fothering’s thesis was, The Self and Society: A Case History. To give him his credit, he was most excited by the fact of Eve’s turning on its head much of what he had held dear. Eve was a radical, a megalomaniac: not in the realm of politics, where we might begin to identify with her, but in the realm of Self. She demanded absolute power, and achieved it by behaving in exactly the way she chose when she chose. But the most enthralling and gratifying thing about Eve was that all Dr Fothering had to do was massage her eyelids, and she was in command of the maximum orgasmic tilt, the Weichian definition of supreme mental health. No wonder the beleaguered registrar found it quite impossible to discharge her.

Dr Goodman, however, was a drugs-orientated man and was by nature suspicious of therapy. He held that people qua people could be talked into and out of everything, and it was certainly not the business of a mere doctor to claim to know what his patient should be talked into or out of: rather he should seek to find a physical malfunction in that most complicated of organs, the brain, and attempt to alleviate the symptoms accordingly. Psychiatrists were not demigods, he reminded his students: and they would do well to stick to the finer points of chemistry, for it was the correct dosage of a drug, and not the mot juste, which would, in the end, cure them.

So Dr Goodman had scanned his registrar’s much-loved files on the subject of Eve right there, right in front of his nose. Eve’s description of the sexual act as ‘a beautiful integration of the self’ afforded Dr Fothering material for an entire chapter: Eve, he suggested, had achieved an extraordinary short-circuit to genital primacy, which he had spent several sessions exploring with her. He discovered that she had no envy of the penis; and even, as a child, had been quite conscious of wanting her father to make love to her, but was also aware of the time when that desire was displaced onto other objects.

‘No child can be conscious of the displacement of desire,’ said Dr Goodman.

‘You should question her yourself. I’ve never witnessed anything like it,’ insisted the registrar.

‘You know I don’t like this approach, Michael.’

‘I’ve found a supervisor in Peterborough, Graham Peterson. He’s more sympathetic to Freudian analysis.’

‘I want that in writing if you please, said Dr Goodman curtly.

‘But understand what an extraordinary case this is! It’s her very state of consciousness which sets Eve apart, she’s not shrouded her natural instincts as the rest of us do, in layer upon layer of socialization…’

‘Then why is she the patient and we, us poor socialized sods, her doctors?’

‘Don’t you see? Early Freud would have agreed with you, the sense of power her body had given her is quite remarkable, but later Freud developed the idea of the super-ego, which is akin to the conscience, and results from the introjection of parental authority. But Eve’s never done that, don’t you see? She’s never introjected her parents’ authority, and therefore can’t regulate her own moral behaviour. In a nutshell, Eve’s mother was too strict with her, and never provided the space in which Eve’s super-ego could grow, but made it superfluous by doing all the regulating on its behalf. That’s the kernel of it: there’s been little or no internalisation of parental values!’

‘You are too taken by the girl, Michael. I wish you well with your thesis. It seems well-written with enough footnotes to publish in a book on their own. But Eve shouldn’t be in this hospital. She doesn’t seem to me to be either particularly unhappy or particularly damaged. She suffers from neither visual nor auditory hallucinations; she certainly doesn’t suffer from psychosis, schizophrenia or even a mild neurosis. I’ll grant you, she borders on what some might consider a personality disorder, though the term is so vague as to be faintly irritating. She is manipulative, has a marked lack of self-criticism, and is abominably fickle. However, to compensate for such failings, she’s pretty and has a good share of social skills. I doubt she has little idea about constancy and the maintaining of a sustained sexual relationship, but I’m a doctor, Michael, I’m not a judge. The only thing I feel quite certain of is that she shouldn’t stay in this hospital. It’s the world that should be taking Eve on, not you, Michael.’

Dr Fothering had snatched his beloved files from the consultant’s desk and cried, ‘Are you saying there’s no truth in this? Are you saying I’ve been wasting my time this past year? Are you giving me no credit at all?’ And even his super-ego couldn’t prevent him from storming out and slamming the door.

This was the summer of 1983; Eve had been at Fulbright a full year, and at this time, surely, the guard and his pretty prisoner might have called a truce and gone their separate ways. But Dr Fothering’s

rage and sense of umbrage would have none of it. When another consultant, a Dr Aggs, professed an interest in the case over lunch in the cafeteria, and even read and approved of the abstract for his thesis, Dr Fothering introduced them, and an informal arrangement was set up in which Dr Aggs became Eve’s consultant, and Dr Goodman was barely aware that Eve was still in the hospital. But this new arrangement was never set up as it should have been; the literature on the case never re-filed under ‘A’, nor the case closed under ‘G’. Hence, on this particular day, the 15th March 1984, the day when Mrs de Selincourt felt both her first and last maternal feelings towards her daughter, it was towards Dr Goodman’s office that the impregnable woman strode, her invitation to her daughter’s case conference held tightly in her fist.  

Barely had Mrs de Selincourt begun her onslaught than Dr Goodman realised she had the grounds to sue both him and the hospital. Indeed, it was cases like Eve’s that were to force the closure of so many mental hospitals a few years later. For Mrs de Selincourt was right: the hospital was filthy, Eve had been ‘allowed to languish in this dire place’; she, her mother, had been kept entirely in the dark as to what was going on, and what was all this about Eve having a liaison with a gardener? And above all, how dare that man Fothering try and keep her away from the case conference that afternoon, as though its outcome didn’t concern her?  

And it’s true, if the dynamics of their meeting had been ever so slightly different, if Mrs de Selincourt had not registered, deep, deep within her psyche that Dr Goodman’s Harris tweed suit was bespoke, then her fury and her threats might have been such as to make Dr Goodman postpone his game of golf at two and actually attend the meeting in question. But this annual game of golf with a good school-friend was a fixture he was very loath to give up, and anyway, he knew the susceptibility of women such as Mrs de Selincourt to both charm and breeding, in addition to which he had a whole hour to placate her, to apologize unreservedly, to explain that Dr Fothering’s methods were not his own but psychiatry was not an area in which there was a right and a wrong, and whatever the outcome with the gardener he would personally see to it that Eve was discharged within the week, and if she chose not to return home with her, would make it a priority to find her suitable accommodation. Half way through their meeting he summoned tea and biscuits, and they sat on the lower, more comfortable chairs. Soon after, they discovered that they had both holidayed in Provence, and by the end of their jolly meeting they realised that Mr de Selincourt was a good friend of a good friend of Dr Goodman’s. Extraordinary coincidence! What a small, small world! So they said good-bye on the best of terms, with the assurance that he would personally look into any conclusions reached at the case conference. ‘And one final piece of advice,’ he said in a charmingly conspiratorial voice, as Mrs de Selincourt stood up to go, ‘Don’t talk too much. Just observe. Mark my words, to observe is to have power. And be my spy. I’d like to know what they talk about.’  

‘I’ll do that, Dr Goodman. Thank you,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll let you know just what I think.’

Hospitals are places of great drama, the fodder of every screenwriter. Mrs de Selincourt, Dr Fothering, Eve herself, are about to take their bow, as well as various others assigned to the case. Events can no longer be controlled by any of them.  

Conference room BH8: at first, semi-darkness, till a nurse releases a dust-laden blind to reveal ten low-slung orange chairs haphazardly arranged around two coffee tables. Without comment, the same nurse picks up two old coffee cups from the table and says, ‘Laura, could you rinse these out, please?

Laura is a student social worker who’s on a placement for six weeks; a pretty thing in a fashionable denim pinafore and a flowery shirt. She’s presently shadowing Alison, who walks in now, senior social worker in the Branston team. She’s thin and spiky but efficient; she looks about her for Dr Aggs, Gibson Nelson’s consultant psychiatrist, and Fothering’s ally, but he’s not arrived yet, nor has June Briggs, who is going to be Eve de Selincourt’s senior field social worker once she’s discharged. Instead, she notices Eve’s mother, or at least, an alien force, someone who ought not to be there at such sensitive proceedings. She walks up to her and introduces herself. Mrs de Selincourt is on best behaviour and nods courteously. Alison relaxes. She can stay if she’s quiet, she thinks. Dr Fothering makes a joke about the bad coffee, and suggests to Mrs de Selincourt that when asked it might prove a safer bet to choose the tea. She ignores his remarks; Dr Fothering begins to sweat.

Dr Aggs walks in: he’s fifty, tall, with a wiry nest of black hair. He’s the most powerful man in the room, and he knows it; but it’s Alison who’ll be chairing the meeting. While Laura’s counting mugs in the adjacent kitchen, Alison is counting heads. ‘Now, where is June?’ she thinks, and June pitches up, slightly breathless, right on cue. It’s not in June’s nature to be late, and she’s reeling off excuses, the roadworks in Burleigh Street, the traffic lights on Cherry Hinton Road. ‘Coffee or tea?’ Laura calls out from the kitchen door.

Dr Fothering is watching Mrs de Selincourt as though his life depends on how she answers her. ‘Tea,’ she says. ‘Two sugars.’

‘Wise choice!’ he exclaims, smiling ridiculously. But she doesn’t notice because she doesn’t look at him.

A couple more nurses arrive, including Eve’s key-worker, Janet. Eve has Janet wrapped round her little finger, because, to put it bluntly, Eve is cleverer than she is. But she’s a good sort, and will have Eve’s best interests at heart. Then Dr Fothering leaps up and introduces Mrs de Selincourt to the assembled party; everyone nods politely and Mrs de Selincourt acknowledges them. There are, by now, cups of tea and coffee in front of everyone, and some bulky files are beginning to appear: some are opened on the low tables, other propped up on knees. Alison is ready to begin. Nothing untoward so far. The chatter subsides.

‘Now’, says Alison, ‘Thank you, Dr Fothering and Dr Aggs, for your reports. Both Eve and Gibson have made substantial progress over the last few months, as I think everyone in this room would agree. I think we would also agree that they are ready to move on. As we know, their attachment to each other is a romantic one, and although as a rule we discourage such affairs of the heart as being detrimental to a patient’s recovery, in this case it does seem that Eve’s behaviour has plateaued out and Gibson’s long-standing depression is finally beginning to lift. If anyone has any objections to their both being discharged as soon as possible, please make them known now. Mrs de Selincourt, I trust Dr Fothering has kept you informed of such a development?’

‘No, he hasn’t,’ says Mrs de Selincourt, politely. ‘And I have to confess, it would have been useful to have been kept informed.’

Everyone looks rather shocked, in particular Dr Aggs. Dr Fothering stands up and apologises unreservedly.

Alison continues, trying to keep up the momentum of the proceedings. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs de Selincourt,’ she says, ‘if you would like to add your own feelings to this debate, please feel free…’

‘Thank you’, Mrs de Selincourt says, still quite calm. ‘I would like to know more about my daughter’s fiancé. How do they propose to live?’ Only Dr Fothering notices the crescendo.

Dr Aggs is embarrassed. He stands up to speak to her, but sits down again when he realises how tall he is and how low the chairs are. ‘His name is Gibson Nelson. His wife died over a year ago and twice he has attempted to take his own life. He was a gardener in one of the colleges, let me see, Corpus. An excellent record. But your daughter seems to have given him a great will to live, Mrs de Selincourt. He’s off all the pills now…’

‘Ah,’ says Mrs de Selincourt, as cool as a cucumber. ‘Excellent. He’s off his anti-depressants.’

‘Yes, yes, and you have your daughter to thank for that!’ enthuses Dr Aggs, less perceptive than he might have been.

‘Now,’ interrupts Alison, ‘what we propose, Mrs de Selincourt, is protected housing, and June here is going to be Eve’s social worker, and she’ll be responsible for Eve during her pregnancy …’

Well, she does say a little more about the house Eve will be living in, about how it’s only five years old and newly decorated. But no one is listening to her. For they are all wrapt by the face of Mrs de Selincourt, a face so taut and red and ugly, a mouth so hideous in its deformity, they are rendered speechless.

Mrs de Selincourt gets up; Dr Fothering follows suit. For a moment, everyone is on tenterhooks; she looks as though she might slap him. But she saves the slap for her daughter, who is waiting on a chair beside Gibson outside Room BH8. They are holding hands.

Mrs de Selincourt slaps her daughter with all the hope and frustration she has harboured for twenty years. ‘I am not its grandmother,’ she utters, under her breath. Gibson looks up, a good face, a kind face, and holds Eve’s hand all the tighter.

As Mrs de Selincourt drives back down to Harrow, one solitary tear escapes her. She brushes it away with the back of her hand, and puts her foot down on the accelerator.