A Many Coated Man (27 page)

The Director is much concerned with appearances. He sees the outer man as pretty much a deliberate replica of
the inner one — no fat man can have his department guidelines in trim, the morality of a woman with scuffed shoes must always be open to question. Had the Director lived a hundred years before, he would have made an excellent battalion 21C. There is a confidence and zest for life in those who live it by the book.

‘Come,’ says the Director and he sits straight backed at his desk to smile at Slaven and Collett. The Director shaves twice a day and is fresh from the second this Thursday, the lower half of his large face as smooth as the hull of a racing yacht. ‘Dr Slaven,’ he says, indicating one seat with his left hand and, ‘Michael,’ he says, indicating another with his right hand. He takes in the complete arc of his office, checking that nothing is out of place, nothing more prominent in the scheme of things than it is entitled to be. For himself, having granted the interview he is quite content for it to go no further, for Slaven and Collett to occupy the requisite chairs and he able to remain with a triggered smile of condescension behind his desk. The surface has a sensual sheen and he moves his finger tips so slightly upon it. He could play a tape of murmured pleasantries perhaps and one wall could be replaced with sound proof glass so that the visitors could file past and see the tableau — Director of the Beckley-Waite Institute in interview.

The Director’s office has a view of fountain and ornamental pond and the judder bars on the drive so that everyone will have time to enjoy such scenery. A northwesterly aspect so that the Director has the sun which draws flies to the window drapes, but there’s not one with its toes turned up there — Lisa knows better than that. She has even lined the bottom of his waste paper basket with a napkin so that all rubbish can be dismissed without trace. No noises penetrate the Institute sorrowing its way through the calm of another day, but then such noises are intense rather than obtrusive.

‘I understand that the environment and treatment must seem very subdued, very quiet, after the tempo of your activities in the public sphere, Dr Slaven. Even as a spectator via the media I was often astounded at the demands that your role, your aspirations and your supporters imposed.
To speak with passion for such length, hours and hours — my goodness.’

‘Thank you. I’m very eager to know when I can resume that work, or at least my life outside.’

‘Of course,’ says the Director. Thumpety, goes a metallic green car on the judder bars. ‘Michael, would you run over things as you see them as supervisor. A basis for discussion. Be quite frank. We’re all professional people here after all.’ Collett has expected the request, in fact he and the Director have already determined the course of the interview, but he is disconcerted as he crosses his legs to begin, by the smear of dog shit that he has left on the Director’s green and gold carpet. Maybe the considerable expanse of the Director’s desk prevents a sight of it from the window side. Thumpety.

‘Complete rest has been a wonderful restorer of course,’ he says. ‘A drastic reduction in emotional stimuli and responsibility was a key part of the treatment in this case and I must say that the indicators all point to the correctness of that course which Dr Eugene and myself agreed upon. I know Aldous has found it very difficult to come to terms with the restriction on contact with family and colleagues. It seems tough, I know, very tough, but a half-hearted approach would negate the treatment regime. As it is, medication has been reduced and recent evaluations have been in the main positive. Very much so, I’d say.’ The Director smiles; he hasn’t noticed the shit on his carpet. Thumpety, thumpety. He is pleased that Collett hasn’t become too technical, for he’s forgotten most of his training — too imprecise, subjective — and made his name in administration where he can go by the book. Some sections of it indeed he has written.

‘So when can I be discharged?’ asks Slaven. He has a premonition that the Director’s preoccupation with form, with symmetry, with accountability, is more of a threat than Collett’s selfish disillusion and malaise. A man who believes in himself is the greater adversary.

‘Oh, a little in the future yet,’ says the Director. ‘In fact, too soon and our progress will be jeopardised.’

‘So what is it that makes me such a threat to myself, or others.’

‘Oh, not others, certainly,’ says the Director. He admires the afternoon sun on the polished flanks of his liquor cabinet which is never opened in office hours, but which holds some pretty good stuff and without admitting it to himself, he enjoys having this Slaven who is such a talking point, such a crass celebrity, now under his jurisdiction. ‘Despite the very real progress,’ he says, ‘we don’t consider all is entirely right as yet.’ Thumpety.

‘Socialisation for example,’ says Collett. ‘Staff agree that there’s a marked disinclination on your part to form meaningful contacts with the people around you; people you’re living with.’

‘I don’t want to live with them. I want my own life back.’ He could tell them about the Caretaker, their night talks mind to mind, if not face to face. The trust and gradual ease between them, because neither expects anything of the other except confidentiality.

‘Write down as many people as you can. Those in your wing I mean and something about them. Their occupations outside, or interests that are dear to them.’ The Director slides paper across the smooth surface of his desk and as he does so keeps a biro steady on it with his finger. ‘You see we want you to be objective about your own state of mind,’ he says.

Well, there’s Philip Mathieson and Neville Kingi, isn’t there. Neville has the habit of lifting his eyebrows up and down if he is left with no one to talk to and Philip has a dark, slightly raised lump on his lower lip, like a blood blister that has never healed. Slaven knows nothing about them. Apart from that what is there? He makes no move to use the biro and paper. Collett, who is covering the carpet stain with his foot, catches the Director’s glance of approbation that the device has succeeded so well.

‘So when I’ve become firm buddies with all around me, I can expect to be allowed to leave and forget them?’

‘We’re trying to illustrate a point of some significance in emotional rehabilitation,’ says the Director.

‘I asked Dr Collett for my case notes so that I could have them looked over by a doctor of my choice outside the Institute. He said I should ask you.’

‘You know we can’t release case notes to the person they concern, but give us the doctor’s name and I see no reason why we can’t be in touch. This is a hospital and your best interests are our motivation.’ Thumpety, thumpety. ‘On the positive side, the staff and I are very hopeful that if your present progress continues then you should be able to cope without institutional care in weeks rather than months.’

‘Yes,’ says Collett. ‘Weeks rather than months I’d say, definitely.’ The Director catches again the whiff of recent dogshit from Collett’s shoe and his eyes roam the manicured interior of his office seeking an explanation, then rest with questioning impartiality on staff member and patient. He is reminded of the nasty business of Dr Burlapp’s resignation which is yet to be dealt with.

‘Say about the time of the elections,’ says Slaven.

‘I don’t follow,’ says the Director. All by the book after all, exactly. His blunt finger nails are slightly milky, but scrupulously clean and the hands that bear them lie relaxed on the blank paper provided for the personal details of Slaven’s fellow patients. Like Ransumeen for example who is being suffocated by understandable enemies with a cellophane industrial wax cover in the alcove beneath the stairs for cheating at Ludo. Thumpety. What is that smell, thinks the Director.

‘I mean that if all goes well I should get out about the time the elections are over. An odd coincidence perhaps.’

You may be interested that the dog is a Labrador cross, with a liking for carrion. The smell of shit grows more pervasive in the Director’s office despite the pressure of Collett’s foot on the rich green and gold carpet. Thumpety.

As Slaven says to the Caretaker at night, amidst a gentle, soughing, dark wind, the interview was effectively over then, despite the continuation of a conversation without communication, of nodding heads, of stylised goodwill, of cars at the judder bars, of afternoon sun across the lily pads of banana black and yellow, of the impeccable inside of the Director’s office whiffed with dogshit — and all done precisely according to the book.

‘Surprise me,’ says the Caretaker with a chuckle. ‘Some
bigwig’s bloody got it in for you. There’s no doubt of that. Everyone must take orders from further up the line, or else the whole system breaks down I guess. Anyway, your friends have been kicking up a stink. Not just your wife and the CCP, but the medico from Christchurch.’

‘Dr Dunne.’

‘And Miles Kitson himself. You know I could have sworn that money bags was dead. There’s been marches and so on, but not enough to cause the Director’s masters to lose their nerve. It doesn’t help when some in the CCP come out and say that the message must be larger than the man.’ It’s a belief which Slaven himself holds, but he’s beginning to see it as a matter of degree. So Kellie and his colleagues are still working on his behalf, yet he imagines Miles using his considerable power while always reserving at the very centre of his support an utterly sardonic observation of all parties and views involved. ‘You still there?’ says the Caretaker.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll tell you what. You said that Dr Collett was keen for you to help out Ovens, the dentist here. Something for you to do.’

‘Yes.’

‘Say you’ll do it then. Say you’ll do it and let me work on the possibilities it offers to get you out of here. There’s a lot in common you know, between your friends and mine. Just let me work on it with no promises made. There’s one thing you see, I know my territory. Okay, I’ve no great say around here, but local knowledge has its uses too.’

Slaven’s face is pressed against the window grill so that he can hear the Caretaker’s unhurried voice through the night breeze which bears away any smoke he may be creating. For the first time in many days, Slaven enjoys a feeling that people are active on his behalf, as if he can hear slight tappings and scratchings at the walls of the Beckley-Waite.

Ovens has a modern surgery and an old-fashioned approach to dentistry. Both can be witnessed on the second floor of the Stewart Wing. Ovens has a magnificent, compact laser breach cauterising unit donated by the Friends Of The
Beckley-Waite, informally referred to by the staff as the cuckoo club, yet still persists with amalgams, polymers, and with capping instead of enamel reconstructive techniques. In appearance as opposed to professional practice he is impressively progressive; plaited fair hair, chin tucks and chrome expanders to hold his sleeves from his wrists. ‘Do you know,’ he tells Slaven on the first visit, ‘I provide the only therapy of fear that the poor buggers here experience. In all this desert of bland, distanced and professional reassurance I give them something to worry about. A cogent threat without which there’s no mental resilience, no contrast to plant their feet against and strain. My small theatre of cruelty is responsible for more cures here than all the drugs and fatuous blah that goes on. The buggers love it, Aldous my old son. In their heart of hearts they love it.’

Slaven can hear them expressing their love as he assists by the couch. Their eyes roll back in ecstasy, the tendons of their necks are ridged with pleasure and their hands quiver and clench in an abandonment of joy. Ovens denies himself painkillers for his patients’ sake. It’s an opportunity for them to grapple with life on more equal terms again. ‘The buggers love it, Aldous my old son,’ he says, ‘but don’t expect any gratitude from them. At Beckley-Waite they’re taught to cunningly disguise their affection.’ After observation, Slaven considers that they have learnt their lesson well.

Slaven goes to help two afternoons a week, usually Tuesdays and Fridays and Ovens is pleased to have him. Slaven is adept at stock-taking, preparation of amalgams and polymers, although his hands prevent him from surgery itself. Ovens comes to value his superior diagnostic opinions, particularly when they coincide with his own penchant for extraction. ‘There is a salutary rigour in the loss of part of one’s self, even a tooth, a portion of gum, blood,’ he says. ‘The buggers come to see that a prerequisite for mental health is to be reconciled to inevitable and progressive physical loss. I’ve cured heaps of them here exactly that way.’

For the first few times, Slaven is accompanied to the second floor dental surgery by a nurse, but then he’s allowed to go by himself. It’s still within the basic security perimeter.
The Caretaker has begun schooling Slaven as to the various rooms he passes on his way and now he knows each by its relationship to others and the corners of the corridors he turns. Most of the rooms have no names, though one is labled Emergency ALW, which the Caretaker says can be used to gain access to the lift well. ‘Two along on the same side. That’s the one for you, see,’ says the Caretaker from the darkness below Slaven’s window. ‘Be absolutely sure you know it, for that’s the one for you when we’re ready.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Very soon now. Don’t go fiddling with any of the doors as you pass in the meantime though. Some of them have alarm locks you see. You just make sure that you know which one’s for you when the time comes.’

Slaven has doubts of course. He’s never been able to see the Caretaker’s face, his eyes, when he’s talking and so deceit is the more possible. Maybe he’s being set up to do something outrageously stupid and so provide the Director with reason enough to keep him longer in the Beckley-Waite, or discredit him with the media. Maybe it’s the women’s sick-bay behind the door two along from the emergency ALW and he could be captured there as a sex fiend, or is it a drug store with video surveillance? All he has against such apprehensions is his faith in the character of the man from Mahakipawa. Yet that is strongly felt and Slaven knows that the more suspect life becomes, the greater is the part played by faith.