The Mind of Mr Soames (16 page)

Flash, went the camera.

A surge of extreme violence took possession of Mr Soames. A twisting heave of his body hurled Conway across the room, to crash forcibly into the dark-suited reporter. Toni and her mother screamed simultaneously. The girl, now virtually
deshabille
, was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, while Mr Soames tugged at her hair, and the male nurse was frantically contorting himself in an attempt to secure a judo lock on his patient.

It was at that moment that Dr Breuer returned, accompanied by Dr Mortimer and Dr Takaito. Conway, now on his feet again, threw himself upon Mr Soames, and suddenly the struggle was over. Soames lay still, solidly pinned down and breathing heavily.

‘His arm,’ Mortimer said curtly, producing a hypodermic syringe from a small nickel plated box, fixing a needle, and filling it from a tiny rubber-capped phial.

Quickly Conway tore open Soames’s sleeve. A detached button pinged across the room. Toni, dishevelled and half naked was sobbing in her mother’s arms.

‘Now,’ Mortimer pronounced, pluging the needle into Soames’s bare arm. The patient made one final convulsive attempt to break free, but in vain. Seconds later he subsided into unconsciousness.

Flash, went the camera.

Slowly Conway got up from the bed and went over to the photographer. The camera was a Rollerflex with a flash attachment hanging from a strap around the man’s neck, while the electronic flash generator hummed gently as it dangled from another strap at the side.

Conway held out his hand. ‘Give it to me,’ he ordered.

‘Now look here, doctor,’ said the photographer, backing away.

‘Give it to me,’ Conway repeated.

The photographer looked around at the bleak faces of Breuer, Mortimer, Takaito and the male nurse, and then at his colleague, Mr Neame, who shook his head sadly.

‘Better do as he says, Kenney,’ he murmured morosely. ‘Looks as if this stunt blew up in our faces, and we couldn’t use those pictures, anyway—not now.’

The photographer handed over the camera with ill grace. Carefully, with hands that trembled slightly, Conway opened it and removed the film, unwinding it meticulously so that every inch of it was exposed to the daylight filtering through the window. Then he returned the camera and the film to the other man.

‘Thank you,’ he said, simply.

‘I think we’d better send Miss Martinez over to Casualty for a check up.’ Breuer said. ‘She’ll need a sedative, anyway. Afterwards I’d be obliged if we could all meet in my office. There are obviously a number of things which will need clearing up.’

‘I’ll look after Miss Martinez,’ Conway said, ‘and then I’ll come straight up.’

‘Good,’ said Breuer. ‘Meanwhile, Mr Soames should sleep for about six hours. In that time we have to revise the entire educational programme on the basis of today’s unfortunate events. We have to face up to the fact that Mr Soames in certain respects, a different individual.’

Slowly they filed out of the room, Dr Breuer leading the way,

‘I’m
afraid our Mr Soames exploded like an A-bomb,’ Conway was saying. Ann Henderson, reclining on her narrow bed and smoking a cigarette, eyed him with absorbed interest.

‘It’s difficult to understand just why he reacted so positively and violently,’ he went on. ‘The girl herself acted as the trigger, of course. She could hardly have had more basic sex appeal. I suppose poor old Mr Soames found himself responding without knowing why and without realising what it was all about.’

‘At least it’s a healthy sign,’ she commented. ‘It means that in spite of his monastic environment, his instincts are uncompromisingly heterosexual.’

‘He’s always been very single-minded about what he likes and what he doesn’t like,’ Conway observed. ‘There seems little doubt that he found Toni’s nearness pleasurable in an irresistible way. It’s interesting to speculate what he would have done about it if we hadn’t intervened.’

‘He’d have learned the hard way, but he’d have learned sooner or later.’

Conway frowned. ‘I’m not so sure. Instincts are vague and generalised. As it is we shall never know, and Mr Soames himself will wake up in complete ignorance of the real reason for the chain reaction that took place.’

‘But he’s learned something.’

‘Quite. He’s learned that there are certain types of human beings who have a different shape, who look different and feel different, who are tremendously exciting in some indefinable way. I’m afraid we can’t just leave it at that.’

‘What can anyone do about it, apart from providing him with another girl for experimental purposes?’

He shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. We had a long conference in Dr Breuer’s office immediately after the event. There were some harsh exchanges between Breuer and Takaito, and I’m not at all sure that Takaito isn’t right.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Well, Takaito feels that Mr Soames ought to be released forthwith—that in keeping him here at the Institute we are destroying his chances of ever achieving a normal life. He thinks Soames should have been allowed to live a normal life from the first, with a certain degree of supervision to prevent him from coming into conflict with the law. He would learn by experience, and attend a special school in a kind of communal training scheme as a member of a class of about a dozen people, men and women mixed, of the same age group.’

He paused for a moment to light a cigarette. Ann was watching him solemnly, thoughtfully.

‘This morning Takaito made a series of unofficial tests on Mr Soames using drugs and some electrical equipment he brought with him. He estimates that Soames has an exceptionally high I.Q.-around one twenty.’

‘Then why does he learn things so slowly?’

‘That’s just the point,’ Conway emphasised. ‘He learns quickly. He has a great capacity for learning, but he stubbornly refuses to use it. He is actively rejecting the instruction that is offered to him. His alert mind is busy acquiring attitudes and prejudices instead of academic knowledge.’

‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ she murmured. ‘He is virtually a prisoner and he associates learning with the general pattern of discipline and restriction.’

‘More or less. If he were a child it would not matter. He would be amenable to authority under the threat of punishment. But as a grown man he regards authority as a simple question of physical strength. So far as he’s concerned we are no better than he is, and he can’t see why he should be forced to learn things that don’t interest him.’

‘Well then, what things
do
interest him?’

‘That’s precisely what we’ve been trying to find out,’ Conway said, with some perplexity. ‘Takaito’s view is that it’s not for us to find out, anyway. The only person who can find out what interests him is Soames himself, and until he is allowed to take a greater part in life and living he’s not likely to be interested in anything at all—apart from the lake.’

‘The lake?’ she queried.

‘Takaito believes that the lake symbolises the cold tank, and that Soames has a subconscious urge to return to its peace and security.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ she commented. ‘If Mr Soames were to develop suicidal tendencies...’

‘Unlikely. He doesn’t yet know about death in any real way, Takaito suggested that the easiest way to resolve the lake conflict in Soames’s mind would be to teach him to swim, so that water would lose its symbolism—it would become a medium of activity and exertion instead of peace and repose.’

Ann nodded thoughtfully. ‘That sounds sensible enough. Did Takaito solve the sex problem, too?’

‘Well, he thought Soames should live among a group of people in a kind of small community, and be allowed to make his instinctive sexual advances in his own way, and discover for himself that he would invariably get slapped down by the female concerned. He would slowly learn the rules of the game and find out the true meanings of love, infatuation, desire, and so on. Again, I can’t help feeling he’s fundamentally right. Of course, there would have to be some supervision and guidance until he reached the stage where he understood that violence and rape were criminal and taboo.’

‘Dr Takaito,’ she said solemnly, ‘seems to know a great deal more about human behaviour than the entire staff of the Osborne Institute.’

‘Well, he certainly knows a lot about dogs,’ Conway admitted grudgingly. ‘It could be that dogs and humans are not so very different when it comes to fundamentals.’

‘What was Dr Breuer’s reaction to all this?’

‘Sceptical and bitter, I’m afraid. He thought Takaito was criticising the Institute as a whole. But he’s agreed to call a high level conference involving the Ministry and the local education authority to reconsider policy. I think it’s worth a try. We don’t seem to have been very successful with Mr Soames so far.’

He glanced at his wristwatch and added: ‘I’d better look in on Soames to see if he’s awake, though Mortimer estimated he would be unconscious until after midnight.’

She stood up and put herself into his arms.

‘Goodnight, darling,’ she said quietly.

He kissed her lightly. ‘Goodnight, Aim.’

He left the room and went down to the ward annexe, but Mr Soames was sleeping gently under the watchful eye of the orderly.

❖

The following day the Courier featured the reunion of Mr Soames with his mother and half-sister, using only pictures of the woman and the girl, the latter principally for its pin-up qualities. The assault on Toni was presented in a new light.
So overjoyed
way
John Soames to meet his sister for the first time that he accidently tore her dress while fiercely embracing her,
the story ran. Although the report was unexpectedly restrained and not to sentimental (the editor had apparently been a little unnerved by the true behaviour of Soames in the light of Dr Breuer’s earlier disapproval and warning), there was a nasty sting in the tail.

Many people believe,
said the final paragraph,
that it is quite wrong to keep John Soames confined in a clinic as if he were a mental patient. Mrs Martinez is appealing to the Minister of Health to secure the release of her son from what amounts to false imprisonment. The Courier calls for an immediate public enquiry into the Soames case and the methods used to train and educate him
.

This triggered off a wave of telephone calls from other newspapers, requests for explanations, statements and interviews. Breuer deputed his personal assistant, Dr Bennett, to act as spokesman for the Institute and to make no comment whatever, and this kept Bennett busy for the rest of the day while Breuer hurriedly briefed the rest of his staff on the developing situation and dictated their policy towards newspaper enquiries.

Dr Takaito proved to be rebellious, however, for despite Breuer’s exhortations all the evening papers carried a statement from the Japanese surgeon which had been put out over the wire by Reuter and PA. Takaito appeared to endorse the criticisms of the Institute which had been expressed elsewhere.

The educational programme to which Mr Soames is being subjected lacks imagination, co-ordination and sympathetic understanding of the patient’s needs,
Takaito said.
Indeed, its principal fault is that it regards Mr Soames as a patient rather than a pupil
—
a patient who is so potentially dangerous that he has forcibly to be segregated from society and from the opposite sex. If this friction is continued for any length of time Mr Soames may well become potentially dangerous out of resentment and hatred for the small circle of men who are seeking to improve his mind by academic methods while restricting his body by force. The two are irreconcilable
.

Takaito came out openly in favour of an official enquiry so that, as he phrased it, ‘the education of Mr Soames should be subjected to public scrutiny and not left to the secret devices of a misguided though dedicated team of enthusiasts.’

A row flared inevitably between Breuer and Takaito. Dr Breuer’s self-restraint could be observed as a physical tension, but Takaito remained calm and self-possessed. He seated himself comfortably in one of the armchairs in Breuer’s office and glanced quickly round for the usual bottle of whisky, but on this occasion it was absent.

Breuer waved a copy of one of the evening papers at the Japanese surgeon. ‘I regret this as a gross betrayal of confidence, Dr Takaito,’ he stated, striving to keep his voice level. ‘More than that, it is quite unethical. It is pandering to newspaper sensationalism at a time when policy changes are in fact being considered—when I am making approaches to the Ministry and the education authority for a high level conference.’

‘I’m afraid I disagree with you, Dr Breuer,’ Takaito said quietly. ‘If Mr Soames were truly a patient then one would observe certain proprieties. But he is, in fact, a free citizen being held against his will without a warrant or a court order or even a medical certification. The press are using Mrs Martinez as the spearhead of an attack which will be pursued relentlessly, and there may well be a public enquiry as a result, instead of the secret conference which you have in mind. Education is public domain, Dr Breuer. Why the secrecy?’

‘For the patient’s sake there has to be secrecy, otherwise he would be the target of every inquisitive reporter in the country.’

‘What else is he now? What has your secrecy achieved?’ Breuer’s voice modulated into anger. ‘There has been no deliberate secrecy as such, Dr Takaito. We have simply observed the usual professional confidence implicit in any doctor-patient relationships.’

‘How many times must I insist that it is a great mistake to regard Mr Soames as a patient at all. He is neither ill nor mentally sick. Indeed he has an IQ which I judge to be considerably higher than yours—or mine too, for that matter. He must not be shut away as if he were an inmate of Broadmoor.’ Breuer took a deep breath and paused. ‘The theory is one thing, but the practice is another,’ he went on. ‘This has been a difficult and unique case, and we have had to feel our way along in the dark. Now, finally, when we have been able to evaluate the problems and are on the point of completely reorganising the entire educational and training programme, that Martinez woman, the press and you, Dr Takaito, attempt to sabotage all that we have achieved.’