Tomorrow Is Too Far (12 page)

Tillotson could have saved his breath and his eloquence because he was preaching to the converted ...

‘... We kept him for another four weeks,’ Nurse Sampson went on, ‘giving him an intensive survival course--you know, how to get on and off buses and trains, how to judge the speed and direction of traffic, reading traffic lights, that sort of thing. Finally we turned him loose on the world.’

Her teeth were dazzling as she smiled, but from her tone it was obvious that Nurse Sampson had been very sorry to see Pebbles go.

Morris joined in then. Defensively, he said, ‘We aren’t being callous about this, Joe. It’s just that the clinic gets the really bad cases, the ones who have no chance of making it in the outside world even with complicated harnesses or gadgetry. We’re very glad about Pebbles, but too busy with the failures to take a close interest. In any case, Doctor Kennedy and Mr Savage at Hart-Ewing’s promised to let us know if John ran into any trouble. They haven’t and now you tell me he hasn’t ...’

‘He has done very well,’ said Carson. He was convinced, without knowing why, that if he told Morris and the nurse just how well that was he would not be believed. He went on carefully, ‘He has been doing very well at night school and he doesn’t sweep floors any more. But the thing which intrigues me is where he came from originally. Had you any luck tracing his parents or relatives?’

‘The chances are that they didn’t want to be traced,’ said Morris. ‘That does not necessarily mean that they were heartless or callous, either. I can imagine circumstances where taking care of him properly could be too much for ordinary people. Physically he was very well cared for and there was no evidence of cruelty. But whoever was responsible for bringing him up from a baby could have been about to succumb to illness or old age, or have been about to marry or just have decided that he might do better under the care of professionals. Which he did.’

‘At first we thought he might be a simple amnesiac,’ the doctor went on, ‘but there were no signs of head injuries and it is unusual for amnesia to be so complete without massive injury to the brain. I don’t think it was intended for him to take off his clothes or cut himself on the rocks--he must have crawled away from the place where he had been left--where we would probably have found him much sooner. As I said, he had been very well fed and cared for and we didn’t want to raise a stink with the police over a case of unintentional cruelty, so we looked after him and kept quiet about it.’

‘If he wasn’t suffering from amnesia,’ said Carson, ‘what was his trouble, Doctor.’

‘Amnesia is not completely ruled out, Joe. But total loss of memory is uncommon. It is usually caused by severe brain injury or a very severe traumatic shock, but even then the loss is not total because the patient can still talk and eat and dress himself even though he may not know who he is or recognise any of his friends for a time. Unless there is physical damage to the brain, surrounding the patient with friends and familiar objects will usually bring his memory back, and there is medication available these days which aids the remembering process. We tried both forms of treatment with Pebbles, even though we could not know what he would have considered familiar surroundings or people.’

The doctor wriggled a little deeper into the warm sand, then went on. ‘In some areas he responded quickly--learning to walk, dress, open doors and so on. He could have picked these up quickly because he already had known how and the memories were coming back--familiar surroundings and activities can bring an amnesiac’s memory rushing back, sometimes. But he had forgotten how to speak. No amount of talking at him would bring that memory back, and that is the one ability which is very rarely forgotten even by so-called total amnesia cases. We had to teach him as if he was learning a new language --at no stage did he show signs of prior knowledge or familiarity with it. That is why I’m not happy about the amnesia theory.

‘There were no indications of physical damage,’ Morris concluded, ‘and a purely mental shock which would give those symptoms is something which does not bear thinking about.’

‘I suppose,’ said Carson a few minutes later, ‘that he could not have been pretending to have forgotten everything … ‘

Immediately he knew that he had said the wrong thing --it was suddenly very chilly on the hot sand. Even Jean was looking coldly at him. He went on quickly, ‘Obviously the answer is no. But quite apart from the fact that he was dumped on you like a thirty-year-old foundling, he was and is an unusual case. My mouth may be full of foot again, but there is one more question I’d like to ask and it’s this. Bearing in mind the facts that he showed no signs of physical injury or neglect, that his symptoms were not those of a normal amnesiac and that, with loving care, good tuition and proper medical attention you were able to bring him along to the point where he is now able to live a fairly normal life, is it possible that he was not born the way you found him? Could some of the drugs you used to support his therapy have been misused to leave him in that condition? Could his memory have been obliterated deliberately, or perhaps by accident as the result of an experiment which went wrong? Could he have been a volunteer who ... ‘

‘For God’s
sake ...!‘

Morris sat bolt upright, showering them with sand. He went on, ‘So instead of being left by relatives who could no longer cope with looking after him for thirty odd years you are suggesting that he is a waste product of a too-efficient brain-washing experiment left with us for possible salvage? You’ve got a too-vivid imagination, Joe, and I wish to blazes you wouldn’t put such uncomfortable thoughts into people’s minds ...!‘

Jean and he dressed and left shortly afterwards. In the car neither of them spoke as Carson drove towards the airfield. Suddenly he pulled into a lay-by, let the car coast until they were in the shade of some overhanging trees, then he braked and switched off, still without speaking.

‘You look bothered and your hands are shaking,’ she said when the silence had grown so long and deep that the insects were beginning to sound noisy. ‘Is it passion or delayed shock?’

Carson did not answer.

‘I was a bit rough on you, letting you go with them to the beach,’ she went on apologetically. ‘But there are far too many people who just don’t want to know about the clinic’s patients--if they don’t know then nobody can accuse them of not caring, I suppose. But it was bound to be a shock for you, seeing and handling really bad thalidomide and dystrophy cases. I thought you were taking it very well and I’m sorry if ... Joe, are you going to sit and sulk all day...! ‘

Carson said, ‘What did you say?’

He had heard every word but he had been feeling so angry and betrayed and disgusted that the meaning of the words had seemed to slide past him. He had also been coming to a decision which was completely at variance with everything he had ever been taught as a security man. But he badly needed help of a very specialised kind, and instinctively he knew that time was running too short for him to get it by the roundabout methods he had been using over the past weeks. Without telling Jean Marshall everything--he could withhold the names and the nature of the project--he might still be able to get the help he needed in exposing John Pebbles for what he was.

Even though the man might not know what he was himself ...

He said suddenly, ‘I’m not sulking, Jean. I was going to spend the rest of the day at the flying club, where I would have let you watch me doing good take-offs and very bad landings after which I would have plied you with booze during dinner and taken you home--yours or mine, depending on the psychological effects of the alcohol in your bloodstream ...’

Just to make sure that she knew he was joking, Carson laughed. It sounded forced even to him and his hands were shaking again. He dropped them on to his lap, surreptitiously rubbing the sweat off his palms, and went on, ‘But Pebbles will be at the club. After what I found out at the beach I don’t want to see him for a while. I--I’ve something to tell you about Pebbles, and the reason I’ve wanted to see him as much as possible.’ Instinctively he reached towards her and took her hand. It felt warm and smooth and firm, but completely unresponsive. ‘You’re a doctor, Jean, so I’m sure you will treat this as privileged information. You see, this thing has been troubling me for some time and I need expert advice ...’

He broke off because she was trying to pull her hand away. When he would not let go she said in a voice of quiet fury, ‘So you need a doctor, Joe? There are a lot of people like you around and I seem to run into all of them! Big, grown, healthy men who want round the clock medicare as well as a woman! Men so unsure of themselves that they want to hold a girl--if they want to hold a
girl
--by her professional ethics as well as love. I thought you might be different. You’re fit and you haven’t, until now, that is, started to complain about your mental problems. I thought you might be using your interest in John Pebbles and my psychiatric training as an excuse to get to know me better … ‘

‘I was, but I still need help with ... ‘

‘... But you might as well know right now,’ she went on furiously, ‘that I am not going to be anyone’s private doctor! My patients get care and attention and first-class treatment--I’m good at my job--but they get nothing else. Men who take me out because they think medical people are morally lax are bad enough. The ones who think that the only subject of conversation of interest to me is physical ailments, their physical ailments naturally, are worse. But the ones who know my background and want some cut-price psychiatry, the ones whose troubles are mental rather than physical and insist on baring the innermost, murky recesses of their souls--pretty normal, average souls if they only but knew it--these I find particularly ... disappointing.’

‘You may think me some kind of nut myself for feeling so strongly about this … ‘

Carson shook his head but did not speak. He had been arguing himself into telling her about the project and she had misunderstood to such a ridiculous extent that he did not know whether to laugh or yell at her to shut up. Instinctively he knew that both reactions would be wrong, and he cursed under his breath because he was being sidetracked again just as he thought he was getting somewhere. First the flying lessons and now Jean were diverting him from his original purpose.

‘... Had to look after two very sick relatives at night and strangers during the day,’ Jean was saying, quietly now and much more seriously. ‘My profession is a little like that of a policeman’s--I’m on call at all times. Professionally I’m very sympathetic and helpful and a much nicer person generally, and possibly you will prefer the professional me for the short time you choose to be my patient. So if there is something really serious troubling you, Joe, some particularly shameful crime you think you are guilty of ... ‘

‘I’m not guilty of any shameful crime,’ Carson broke in harshly, ‘unless you want to count high treason and counter counter-espionage! Let me get a word in edgeways, dammit! I thought, being the kind of person you are, that an appeal to your professional ethics would be better than waving the Official Secrets Act to keep you from talking out of turn. You see, there is a very secret project at Hart-Ewing’s, so important and secret that even the chief security officer is not supposed to know about it. Recently I have become convinced that its security has been penetrated. I’m not sure how, exactly, and that is why I need your advice.’

He hesitated, then went on carefully, ‘I’d prefer not to talk about it here and we can’t go to the club. Besides, it’s getting late and you must be hungry. I’m quite good with a can-opener, you know, and I wondered if we might go to my place to talk about it ...?’

‘High treason beats etchings,’ she said after a long pause. Carson chose to treat it as an acquiescence and started the car.

But she was curious enough to insist on talking about it during the trip back and, because his concentration on the traffic weakened the guard on his tongue, by the time they reached the flat she knew almost as much as he did about the project.

Some security man he was turning out to be.

The subject was shelved while he showed her his books, his tape-recorders, hi-fi, records, assorted pieces of home carpentry and, a little reluctantly, the pictures and trophies on his brag wall. Watching her anxiously he wondered whether she would show awe or complete disinterest, and which reaction would embarrass him most. Instead she looked mildly impressed and very interested--pathologically interested, she hastened to explain, because she could not fully understand the mentality of a man who seemingly got his kicks from climbing sheer rock walls while another nutcase of like mind photographed him doing it.

A little later she said that he looked funny in his fencing rig, even funnier wearing scuba gear and utterly ridiculous in karate pyjamas. She noted that there were no pictures of girls among his trophies and asked if this was because he was a gentleman or if he had simply been too busy winning medals to win girl-friends?

Carson told her that only someone who was not a gentleman would answer that question, and did that answer her question...?

In the kitchen he said madly unoriginal things about what a good wife he would make somebody, and the superficial, pseudo-domestic conversation continued until they had eaten and cleared away. Then Carson switched on the TV but turned down the sound, saying that he just wanted to catch the news when it came on in a few minutes’ time. He indicated the couch saying that it was the most comfortable thing in the room because he had not made it himself.

She sat down on the edge and Carson sat beside her. She looked at his arm lying along the back of the couch behind her and said, ‘What’s this?’

He said, ‘If you examine it closely you will see that it bends at the shoulder, elbow and wrist and that one end is fitted with five strong and highly flexible digits capable of a wide range of activities from stroking your hair to grabbing your slender, sun-burned neck and choking off your piteous cries for help. Or if you prefer to treat it professionally you may care to take its pulse.’