The Mind of Mr Soames (7 page)

She smiled ruefully. ‘You seem to know quite a bit about babies for a man who never had one, anyway.’

‘It’s the bit that everyone knows,’ he pointed out.

‘What you’re saying in effect is that Mr Soames can’t be trained and educated in physical terms as a baby.’

‘Well, more or less. Simply because he’s not a baby. He’s a fully grown man.’

‘Then how would you go about training him?’

He sighed, sipped his beer, and shrugged. ‘That’s the trouble. I can see what’s wrong, but I can’t readily suggest a constructive alternative.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Let’s suppose he happened to be a total amnesia case—a man, due to some frightful shock, had suffered a complete blackout of every mental faculty, and had to be completely re-educated. I think one might proceed in a rather different way on certain fundamental things. At least he wouldn’t be regarded as mentally infantile. One might establish habits and behaviour patterns by exploiting the simian and human urge to imitate—to do as the rest of the herd do. He could be taught simple sanitation procedure in that way. And the same principle could be extended in other directions,’

‘But he would still need to learn his ABC and his multiplication tables in the age-old fashion.’

‘Agreed. That’s a question of academic teaching. One must differentiate between teaching and training. In teaching one has to implant new information in such a way that it will be automatically remembered as and when necessary. Training, on the other hand, is largely a question of conditioning behaviour and co-ordinating responses. It operates on a more instinctive and emotional level.’

‘Then it seems to me,’ Ann said reflectively, ‘that so far as pure teaching is concerned one can regard Mr Soames as equivalent to a child, but training may present certain difficulties because in fact he isn’t a child.’

‘Just so.’

‘But... the only fundamental point of difference is in his maturity. I mean...’

‘You mean that he is sexually mature, whereas a child isn’t.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘That was precisely the point I tried to put over to Breuer and Mortimer,’ Conway said wearily, ‘but they just couldn’t see it. They devised a scheme for replacing sex by a notion of abstract gender and surrounding Soames with male nurses for as many years as necessary. That seemed to me to be fundamentally wrong.’

‘But Dave, many adult people do in fact spend years of their lives in the company of male nurses.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘and frequently they’re insane. We have a few at the Institute. Chronic paranoiacs, or schizophrenics. Soames is neither. And don’t forget that the unfortunates who end up among male nurses have invariably at some time experienced a normal life.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said resignedly. ‘At the same time, I can’t help feeling that this is one of those cases where one can’t work purely on theoretical grounds. I think if I were in charge of the education programme I’d be inclined to proceed on a trial and error basis, and keep adjusting the methods used by experience.’

‘Reasonable enough,’ he agreed. ‘At least one must be flexible. As things are, Soames seems to be regarded as a kind of experiment rather than a human being.’

‘Well, that’s natural enough, perhaps. After thirty years it must be difficult for Dr Breuer and Dr Mortimer to regard Soames as human at all. They’re nearly twice as old as you are, Dave—and Soames himself for that matter. They probably remember the case from the very beginning...’

‘From birth.’

‘Why not? I suppose both of them were in their late twenties when Soames was born, and both qualified doctors. No doubt it was reported in detail in the papers at the time and in the medical journals. After a few decades a case tends to become a case history, sort of depersonalised and objective. You can’t really blame them if they regard Soames as something of a specimen.’

‘You may be right,’ Conway admitted reluctantly. ‘Perhaps if I were as old as Breuer I might feel the same. Mortimer, too. He’s a competent psychiatrist—a damned sight more competent than I am, when it comes to the point. Maybe he’s right and I’m wrong.’

‘Time will show.’

‘I suppose so.’ He surveyed the empty glasses with bleak eyes, but before he could ask the inevitable question she had already answered.

‘No more, thanks, darling. I think it’s time we got back.’

He nodded amiably.

She regarded him questioningly. ‘I was wondering...’

‘Well?’

‘I’ve never seen this Mr Soames. Do you suppose we could look in on him for just a few seconds?’

He pursed his lips dubiously. ‘I’m not sure. In view of the male nurse and scorched earth policy...’

‘But that hasn’t been put into effect yet.’

‘No, but in a day or two—perhaps even tomorrow.’

‘Then this might be my last chance for five years.’

He smiled and surrendered. ‘We can but try, but it will have to be on the QT. I’m in enough trouble with the executive as it is.’

They left the pub and went out to Conway’s middle-aged car parked in the forecourt.

❖

The nurse was respectful, but faintly disapproving. ‘It’s a little irregular, Dr Conway,’ she said apologetically. ‘Dr Breuer issued special instructions...’

‘I’ve spent most of the day talking to Dr Breuer and discussing the programme of treatment for Mr Soames,’ Conway said with a show of impatience. ‘Very soon he will be moved to psychiatric and we shall require EEG tests. Miss Henderson thought it might be helpful to see the patient at this stage, without disturbing him, of course.’

‘Very well, doctor.’

They went into the isolation room. Mr Soames was lying flat on his back in the bed, staring impassively at the ceiling. Quietly they walked towards him, standing about three feet away, observing him without comment. The nurse hovered uncertainly in the background.

His face, beneath the white skullcap of bandages, looked fit enough and almost intelligent, and his lips were moving in slow, regular motion, almost like a lethargic fish in a warm pool. As they stood there his eyes moved slowly, turning towards them—blank eyes, observing but not comprehending. They fixed abruptly upon something, and his dry lips quivered, then stretched into a strange smile that seemed to possess an odd gnome-like quality.

Together Conway and the girl followed the direction of his gaze until the thing that had attracted his attention became apparent. It was a gold charm bracelet dangling from Ann’s left wrist. She moved her arm, so that the tiny pendant charms twisted and glittered in the artificial light of the room. The smile of Mr Soames deepened and his hand moved, reaching out, hesitantly and uncertainly, towards the bright shining objects. His mouth opened fractionally and he uttered a faint meaningless animal sound, and then the arm dropped weakly on to the bed, but the eyes continued to focus on the animated luminance of the bracelet.

‘I think perhaps we ought to go,’ Ann said apprehensively.

Conway made a murmur of agreement. The eyes of Mr Soames followed them as they left the room.

In the wide corridor, on the way back to the staff living quarters, Ann said: ‘I’m sorry, Dave, but I can’t say I’m awfully fond of your Mr Soames. Frankly, he rather gave me the creeps.’

‘He’s harmless enough,’ Conway said reassuringly. ‘He’s reacting very much in the way one might expect—attracted by bright objects, like a baby.’

‘Yes, I know. But to see a grown man behave in that way—well, I don’t know, but I found it a little frightening. Or didn’t you think so?’

‘Not particularly. As a psychiatrist one gets accustomed to aberrations of human behaviour. Mr Soames could hardly have been less offensive.’

They left the psychoneural ward and walked across the intervening open space to the administrative block and the west wing.

‘I think perhaps Dr Breuer is right,’ she said. ‘Better to treat Soames as a baby—brainwash him, if necessary.’

Conway smiled sardonically. ‘You’re hardly giving him a chance, Ann,’ he remarked. ‘He’s thirty years of age and he’s been conscious for three days. He’s got to have time to adapt himself to his new environment.’

She took his arm and gripped it tightly. ‘That’s the funny thing, Dave. Somehow I don’t think he ever will. He’s no longer adaptable—he’s too old—and during those thirty years who knows what may have happened to his mind?’

‘Feminine intuition is synonymous with feminine fancy,’ he stated. ‘Within six months Mr Soames will be a different person entirely. Who knows—with the right kind of education and training he might well become a psychiatrist himself.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ she said despondently.

They walked on towards the domestic quarters.

It
was almost a month later when they finally moved John Soames into a small private room in Psychiatric Ward B. In physical terms he had, for all practical purposes, recovered from the operation, and already his dark hair was beginning to grow quite strongly and almost luxuriantly on his head, concealing the thin purple scar where his naked scalp had been severed and clipped back for trepanning. He looked much stronger and healthier in every respect, but this was almost certainly due to his new, carefully graduated diet of solid food. Three male nurses worked a shift system round the clock to supervise him and attend to his general requirements.

Latterly, during the past few days, in fact, his mind had seemed to emerge from its post-operative state of torpor to exhibit certain independent qualities. This was interpreted as a good sign, and it was at this point that Dr Breuer, in consultation with other members of the psychoneural staff, decided that the moment had come to transfer the patient to Psychiatric. There had, of course, been psychological supervision throughout, principally by Dr Mortimer himself, but no positive attempt had been made to begin educational psychotherapy, apart from some tentative efforts to train Mr Soames in simple fundamental procedures, which had met with little success. He showed no inclination to stand erect, let alone walk, and rejected eating utensils in favour of his fingers, regarding the spoon supplied as a toy to be admired and waved around in the air, despite very serious demonstrations on the correct use of spoon by doctors and male nurses. So far Mr Soames had not shown any great urge to imitate the actions of others. The question of sanitary habits had been deferred until he had learned to walk, when it was hoped to wean him, as it were, from the bed-pan phase. All things considered, Mr Soames’s behaviour differed very little from that of a tiny baby of equivalent age in terms of consciousness.

On the day Mr Soames took up residence in Ward B Annexe Dr Mortimer called together the four psychiatric doctors under his command to administer what Conway afterwards referred to as a ‘pep-talk’. The conference was held in the annexe itself, with Mr Soames listening, but obviously not understanding a word that was said, and probably not even wishing he could, for his attention was diverted by a large abacus propped on the bed and he was happily pinging the coloured beads along the wires, quite violently at times. The male nurse had been temporarily dismissed from the room. Apart from Dr Mortimer and Conway himself there was Dr Hoff, a young Rumanian of lean cadaverous appearance, Dr Wilson, tall, bespectacled and inclined to be vague to the point of absent-mindedness, but a competent psychiatrist for all that, and Dr Bird who, appropriately enough, possessed certain birdlike characteristics, including bright restless eyes, a habit of jerking his head from side to side when talking, and what McCabe had on one occasion irreverently referred to as an oversized parson’s nose—also he had short legs and tended to walk with a waddling motion. Of the three Conway preferred Wilson, principally, he thought, because he was unmistakably human.

Mortimer had evidently been briefed by Dr Breuer. As he spoke he referred to a folded piece of paper which he held in his hand, on which had been written a number of key words. He said:

‘Now that we have taken over responsibility for Mr Soames the second phase of his treatment begins in earnest. We have not yet reached the stage of actual education—fox that matter we are not really concerned with education as such, in its narrower sense. The question of the patient’s scholarly education, if I might put it that way, will be attended to by tutors specially appointed by the education authority. They will teach him the kind of things he would learn at school if he were a child.’

He paused, surveying his audience portentously and glancing briefly towards Mr Soames as if to provide a focal point for his thoughts.

‘The terms of reference of the Psychiatric Division are more general, but at the same time more specific,’ Mortimer went on, expounding the situation in his favourite manner of paradox. ‘Our principal task is to make of Mr Soames what, in fact, he is—an adult male. We have to condition and co-ordinate his mind so that it achieves responsible control of his body and behaviour. And, of course, we must also supplement the efforts of his tutors in so far as intellectual education is concerned.’ Pedantically self-assured, he clasped his hands behind his back and rocked to and fro on his heels. ‘I shall be personally responsible to Dr Breuer for the overall psychotherapy programme, and you, gentlemen, will be responsible to me for putting it into effect. Since the education authority, the Ministry and the world in general are keenly interested in the progress of Mr Soames, it is most important that adequate written records should be kept. Additionally, the Ministry have arranged to have visual and audio recordings made at certain phases in the treatment, so from time to time you may find the annexe invaded by technicians with cine cameras and lights and tape recorders.’

‘Don’t you think that might have a disturbing effect on the patient?’ Dr Bird asked, putting his head on one side in a characteristic manner. ‘I mean, once he begins to realise that he is the centre of such publicity...’

‘It could indeed, but it is our function to make sure that he suffers no disturbing effect of any kind from any source. In other words, Mr Soames must be taught to regard manifestations of outside interest as unremarkable.’

‘I take it that the general policy is firm conditioning from the outset,’ Conway said.