All this had been said in a tone that showed a sense of injury but none of the bitterness noticeable on the bus. Poor devil, thought Jake, a complete stranger throws her a kind word and she calms down immediately—these bloody doctors are all the same. Not that he had stopped looking for the hospital, of which at the moment there was no sign.
"Are you disturbed?" went on the lunatic.
He grasped at once that to her there could be no other reason for coming this way than her own. "No, just, er, tension."
"I been disturbed for .... a long time. Ever since my mum died but they say it's nothing to do with that. Do you think it's to do with that?"
"I don't know. It must have something to do with it, I'd have thought."
"You're the first one as ever said I been given a raw deal." She turned her head towards him and smiled, showing a wide variety of teeth. "That was real nice, that was. Real nice."
"Oh I think most other people would have done the same," he said, trying not to gabble it, to stay calm, to work out what to do if she pounced on him.
"I get very lonely. I'd like someone to come and see me. After I've had my tea, that's when I wouldn't mind someone, that sort of time. They don't, though, not them, no fear, they got better things to do, the lot of them. Dead selfish, the lot of them. Six weeks it's been since Harry come, and as for that June...."
Just then there was a sign of the hospital in the form of a hospital sign, and the monologue on selfishness kept up satisfactorily while the two approached Reception—All Patients, stopping only at the swing doors. Inside, Jake's companion, swinging her arms in her awful way, went straight on without a word or a look while he made for the desk. A girl in a grey uniform standing behind it called over his shoulder,
"Excuse me dear, are you sure you know where to go?"
The words were delivered with unimpeachable gentleness but it was as if—no, to hell with as if: the madwoman had heard something different. She stopped dead and sent towards the desk a look of great fear and hatred. In that moment Jake recognised that, with the sole exception of the three words he had spoken on the bus, she had heard nothing of what he had said to her; he also withdrew what he had been thinking a couple of minutes earlier about bloody doctors.
"Who are you going to see, dear?"
"Holmes. Dr Holmes."
"Good, he'll be waiting for you." The girl blew out her cheeks as she turned to Jake. "I'm new—they told me everyone was supposed to report here. Sorry—can I help you?"
"I was told to ask for Professor Trefusis." He squared his jaw, took darting glances round the hall and tapped his rolled newspaper against the palm of his hand, trying to look like the vital, dynamic, thrusting head of a giant transcontinental sex consortium. "I'm Dr Richardson."
"Oh yes, doctor, room 35, third floor."
In the lift, he asked himself what the hell he was doing there. Then he realised he hadn't noticed anything at all about what the girl at the desk had looked like except for her grey uniform, and told himself what.
8—Informal Basis
"Mr Richardson? Do come in. I'm Professor Trefusis."
After the Rosenberg business no mere Yap Islander or Kalahari Bushman going under that name would have disconcerted Jake in the least, but a woman did rather, especially one that even he in his reduced state could see was very attractive, in her middle thirties probably, with thick blonde hair parted at the side, blue eyes and a figure that would not have thrown 'Zoom' into abject disgrace. Her manner was quiet and friendly. In succession she introduced him to Dr Thatch, a boyish-looking boy with mnemonically helpful abundant long hair, Dr something he missed, another boy but still distinguishable from his colleague by being nearly bald, Miss Newman, a lumpish, gloomy girl of about twenty(?), and Mr something he couldn't believe was a name, which didn't matter much because the man it referred to, tall and of dignified bearing, stood out at once from everyone else in the room by being black; he was said to be a citizen of Ghana and present only as an observer. Oh, so everyone else was going to twiddle with him, hey?
"And Dr Rosenberg of course you know."
Seen by Jake for the first time in the company of others, the Irishman looked unexpectedly less small than on his own; he could have been as much as five foot, even perhaps an inch or two more. He shook hands and gave a cheerful smile.
"The purpose of this preliminary encounter," said Professor Trefusis in the tones of a lecturer, but of an outstandingly good lecturer, one interested in the subject, "is to establish amicable relations on an informal basis. We find the quickest way of doing this is for me to quote a few personal details relating to each member of the team. Now we know about you, Mr Richardson, that your first name is Jaques or Jake, that you're sixty years old, you're married, you're employed at Oxford University and you have a house in Orris Park. My first name is Rowena, I'm thirty-six years old, married to a photographer, we have two children in their teens and we live just up the road from here in Tooting. Dr Thatch is called Bill..."
Jake stopped listening then. He meant to switch on again to hear the bald doctor's name but forgot to. This part was easy enough; what was to come? What 'sort' of thing? Before he could ask, Rowena Trefusis (Daphne du Maurier? No, more like Barbara Cartland) got there on her own.
"...people you're going to work with in a relaxed atmosphere. The work itself is quite straightforward. We hook you into an electric circuit—the current passed is minute, so even if everything went wrong at once you'd be in no danger even of discomfort—and then we present you with a series of sexual stimuli and measure your responses to them. It's an essentially simple process and the procedure is totally informal."
"That's good," said Jake, thinking it was something to be spared a totally formal procedure of measuring his responses.
"We try to use dress as a way of promoting informality. No white coats here, you'll have noticed."
He just about had; now that he looked further he saw that the boys were wearing zipped-up jackets of imitation leather and trousers of some stuff like oakum or jute, Miss Newman the same sort of trousers and a light pullover with a Union Jack on it and the head of the team a smartly cut suit in what might have been highbrow mackintosh material. The African of course was turned out like a Japanese businessman. Jake made some approving noises.
"Well, I think we might as well—"
"Just one moment if I may, Professor Trefusis." Rosenberg's manner had turned grave. "You're sure, Mr Richardson, you've no objection to exposing your genitals in public?"
If you ask me that again, my little man, Jake thought to himself, I'll expose yours right here and now and your weeny bum for good measure. He said, "Quite sure."
"Very well, so let's be getting along to the theatre."
"The what?" Images of operating tables and surgical masks rose in Jake's mind. "Isn't that going to be rather..."
All of them except Miss Newman laughed. Professor Trefusis stopped them almost at once and looked self-reproachful.
"I'm sorry, Mr Richardson, we've made that mistake before.
Have no fear—you won't have to face any spotlights or rolls of drums. Dr Rosenberg meant the lecture theatre."