The War of Immensities (25 page)

He wondered,
always, how they pondered his `condition’. He wondered how long it
would take them to catch on to the fact that he really was sane.
After two months, there really was no sign of it.

“I think we’re
making real progress here,” the shrink said at the end of his most
recent interview.

After a month,
he was allowed visitors. Only Judy came and he refused to see her
unless she brought the kids, which she refused to do. She didn’t
want them to see their father like this. The siege was yet to be
resolved.

“But why not
accept a visit from your wife?”

“Are you
kidding? She’s the bitch who got me locked up in here.”

“Do you often
feel this anger, Brian?”

You see? No way
out.

Felicity
Campbell was waiting in Dr Blackburn’s office. Brian entered and
they both looked at him. No one said anything. No one dared.
Blackburn signed a document and handed it to Felicity who walked
out, summoning Brian to follow.

“Do you have
anything to bring with you?” was the only thing she said as they
walked the corridors toward the light of freedom at the end.

“Nar. They can
keep the toothbrush,” Brian answered.

They walked
right down the steps and out the gate where she had a taxi waiting.
Only then did she pause and look at him with sorrowful eyes. “Oh,
Brian. I’m so sorry about this.”

“Wasn’t your
fault,” Brian replied.

She was a
lovely woman, with her straw-blonde hair and bright eyes, standing
before him in the sunlight, his hero and rescuer. He had never
loved anyone as much as this since his mother when she gave him a
train set for his fifth birthday.

“Oh yes it
was,” Felicity was saying as they got in the backseat of the cab.
“I knew that our flying visit to your home must have left your poor
wife utterly bewildered by events. Imagine the impression on a
simple housewife of having someone like Harley Thyssen barge into
your house and out again without any explanation. I planned to go
and see her and explain. It was on my list of things to do before I
went back to New Zealand, but... well, there was so much on my mind
and I clean forgot. This is entirely my fault.”

“A doctor
admitting she’s wrong? That don’t happen every day.”

“It isn’t
funny, Brian. I feel so awful.”

Brian was
tempted to put a comforting arm around her, but supposed he’d
better not. “Well, don’t worry about it. It gave me a nice rest and
it wasn’t so bad. It got me away from Judy’s nagging and the kids’
fighting and all that. Just like a holiday, really.”

“Well, I’m glad
to see you’re taking it so well. Poor Judy is so terribly
distraught.”

“Might do her a
bit of good to be locked up for a while.”

“Don’t be hard
on her, Brian. She thought she was doing the right thing.”

“Well, maybe
this will teach her to have a bit of faith.”

“I’ve talked to
her now and she understands. You can go home any time you
like.”

“Not just yet.
Allow me to enjoy my freedom.”

“Not much of
that, I’m afraid. We’re ready to receive all of you at the hospital
right away. I just thought you might like to go and see Judy
first.”

“Bugger Judy.
I’m in your hands, woman. Take me and do what you want with
me.”

Felicity
Campbell shook her head and laughed. “Alfred Hospital, thanks,” she
called to the driver.

The Alfred
Hospital had a complete ward available to them on the eleventh
floor of the North Wing. From its windows it offered a perspective
of the broad park across Commercial Road and over the top of the
trees, the towers of the metropolis glimmered in the smoggy haze.
Bridging the road, they had built a helipad that allowed direct
access to the casualty ward and you could actually see the police
rescue chopper come and go from the ward—Thyssen would like that.
He would have access to the state-of-the-art equipment to be found
on the floors below and the smiling co-operativeness of the
administrators and technicians. Of course, she knew there had been
a letter from the Department of Health in Washington to its
equivalent in Canberra that smoothed out the arrangements, but she
had found the location and made the initial approach herself.

Thyssen would
be pleased, too, with the list of specialists she had arranged once
she had returned to New Zealand. Jenkinson, Tuang Giap, Mendelev,
Chomolski, Inpasit—neurologist, physiologist, psychologist,
haematologist and virologist, had all been delighted to lend their
time to the project. No one seemed at all embarrassed by Thyssen’s
outrageous predictions although they all commented on it. The
hospital had a fine array of contract technicians and nursing staff
looking for extra hours. She’d been able to arrange all that by
telephone from home in New Zealand, and still found time to do the
rounds of her neglected regular patients.

Less pleasing
was the position regarding Wendell and the children. They had
another of their breakfast conferences, since that seemed to be the
only time that they were all together these days.

“But why you?”
Wendell asked over his newspaper.

“Because I
discovered it. Look. It will only be for two weeks out of each
three months. I’ll just be over in Melbourne. There’s always been
conferences...”

She didn’t want
to admit that Thyssen believed they were on a diminishing time
scale.

“That is hardly
the point,” Wendell sighed. “Appearances suggest that that the rest
of your life is being sacrificed to this project. And if the
publicity is any guide, the man in charge must be regarded as
dubious at best.”

Harley?
Dubious? Not much doubt about that.

“It is very
important, Wendell,” she persisted. “And, from a medical point of
view, that dubious character in charge is me.”

“But you admit
yourself that you don’t know what’s going on? Your kids need you.
Your patients need you. Not to mention me. You’ve allowed a top
posting at Wellington to go through to the keeper. Really, Fee, the
implications are of one hell of a gamble.”

She knew it
was. She had wondered, all along, what drew her along this course.
Maybe the madness had infected her as well.

“It’s only
tough going now, while I’m setting it up. When we know more about
the condition, the specialists will take over and I will be phased
out.”

That was, she
knew, absolutely untrue. The various specialists would depart the
project once they had proven that their field was not relevant. But
until the cause of the symptoms was fully diagnosed, they would
always need a GP broadly experienced in all aspects of the
condition. That was why Thyssen had put her in charge of a team of
vastly senior personnel. She would be the last to go.

She had
departed from New Zealand with the domestic situation very much
unresolved. The final position had been Wendell’s threat to employ
a nanny to replace her, and her plea to him to hold on and see if
that was really necessary. She flew to Melbourne knowing her career
had taken a big stagger sideways and her status as a good mother a
gigantic step backwards. And then she collided head-on with her own
fallibility when she went to visit Judy Carrick.

Brian Carrick
was a grave error. She should have checked. That she had allowed
him to sit it out in that mental home while the situation in the
Carrick household ran completely out of control for two months was
unforgivable, even if Brian offered no objection.

She had gone to
Judy and carefully explained, but she knew she had allowed an
irrevocable rift to occur in that marriage, entirely due to her own
carelessness.

She arranged
for Judy and the kids to come and visit Brian at the Alfred, and if
the conversation was stilted and the room temperature icy, still he
assured her that he would be home in two weeks. That had to be
enough.

Then she
settled down to await the arrival of the others, wondering what
other disasters she might have caused amongst them. She sat in the
ward while the technicians and nurses breezed back and forth, their
activities calmer now as the job neared completion. It was like
having the house prepared for a party, and the unbearable hours
sitting and waiting before the first guest arrived. In those hours,
you could persuade yourself that you had offended every friend you
had and none of them would come. This time, maybe it would be
true.

But throughout
the day, they began to appear. Chrissie Rice brought with her a
young handsome priest who was at first astonished by everything he
saw but eventually wished to bless the proceedings.

“So what she
told me is all true?” the priest gasped at Felicity.

“Whatever
Chrissie told you, she did so in strictest confidence. But you may
judge for yourself the seriousness with which the matter is being
taken.”

He did, and it
floored him. He stuttered through a brief prayer and Felicity,
although a lapsed Catholic, allowed some of his blessing to splash
in her direction.

Kevin Wagner
failed to get permission to land his helicopter on the hospital pad
and was diverted to Moorabbin. It was after dark when he got back.
He brought with him a set of weights.

“The hospital
has a first rate gym,” Felicity pointed out.

“These are my
own designer type,” Wagner explained.

The surprise
was Joe Solomon, wheeled in by an over-weight woman named Clarissa
who was one of his associates and would allow him to run his
business from the hospital. She immediately grabbed the lap-top and
went looking for the nearest place to plug in the transformer.

“I must say I’m
surprised, Joe,” Felicity mused.

Joe Solomon
snorted with his customary grumpiness. “Bloody Thyssen
outmanoeuvred me.”

“As he did all
of us.”

“Oh yes,” Joe
grunted with disgust. “He handballed the whole bloody thing to me,
that’s what he did. He employed my firm to look after the project
contracts and accounts. `That way you’ll know just exactly where
the funds are coming from and who’s ripping off who,’ he said.
Bastard.”

“Good contract
though, Joe. What’s your percentage?”

“Mind your own
bloody business.”

“Still, Joe, it
is a comfort to know the man in charge is smarter than everyone
else.”

“Yeah, I guess
so. Except that also includes us.”

“Still, he
seems to have gone out of his way to secure your trust, Joe.”

“That’s what
worries me. People who say `Trust me’ are the only ones you can’t
rely on.”

Lorna Simmons
had been shopping all day—just a few things she would need for her
stay. A nightie from Country Road, fluffy slippers from Myers, a
fabulous Japanese geisha dress for a dressing gown. And a whole
reserve supply of make-up... One glance between Lorna and Kevin
Wagner informed Felicity that they should be positioned at opposite
ends of the ward.

Then Andromeda
Starlight swept in, calm and light and serene. There seemed to be
an aura of tranquillity surrounding her that made Felicity wonder
what she was on at the moment. She had decided deliberately to
avoid thinking about possible impact of withdrawal symptoms on
their test results. Felicity stayed calm, even though she could not
have known that no drugs were involved.

The ward
offered no partitioning between patients, with only curtains that
could be drawn around for privacy. She watched as they looked over
these communal arrangements and was surprised that no one saw fit
to complain. Admittedly, six beds in the ward rather than the
possible ten allowed greater intervening space than customary, and
the excess of monitoring equipment created natural barriers. But
Felicity preferred to believe Lorna’s view of the matter—that these
six strangers were remarkably comfortable in each other’s company.
Like a family? No. Few families were as harmonious as this.

Except Lorna
and Kevin who, although they weren’t speaking, were always able to
remain far enough apart that it didn’t matter.

“They had a big
bust up in Sydney,” Chrissie informed Felicity softly. “Lorna’s
been staying with me for a month.”

“Well, let’s
hope they soon get over it,” Felicity smiled.

In the evening,
they had arranged their beds and televisions and reading matter and
were waiting to be fed and settled down. Then, despite the heavy
security that had been arranged for the ward, a skinny,
dark-skinned young woman wandered in, wearing torn jeans, crumpled
shirt hanging out and a leather jacket with badges. With her spiked
hair and nose-ring, she looked like a street kid who had been
brought in by accident with the garbage bins.

“Can I help
you?” the ward nurse demanded.

The urchin
retreated and disappeared.

Conversely, the
security guards weren’t about to allow a Neanderthal like Thyssen
through and a chuckling Felicity had to go out and rescue him. He
lumbered into the ward, looking bright-eyed and well pleased.
“Great work, Fee. Terrific set-up.”

“Do you want to
have a conference and tell these people the plan?” Felicity asked,
trying to get things on a formal note.

“No way,”
Thyssen said. “You’re in charge here. I’m just an observer.”

“That’ll be the
day,” said a voice behind them.

The urchin had
returned, leaning in the doorway, licking an ice cream.

“What the fuck
are you doing here?” Thyssen demanded of her.

“Indian Ocean,
you said, Harley,” the urchin replied blithely. “Which makes this
the perfect spring-board for attack.”

“I was rather
more thinking of Cape Town,” Thyssen muttered.

“Was there any
reason why it should be the Indian Ocean, Harley?” the girl
demanded as she advanced into the room.

“Hasn’t
happened there before,” Harley murmured lamely.