They are on the ward, and Sir Albert is pushing open the double doors to the corridor. His own language? Busner says, You mean. . Kikuyu? Sir Albert stops to beam contempt down at him, then answers: Good heavens, no, Dholuo — Mboya is a Luo, not a Kikuyu, which probably explains why he’s here and not in Kenya, eh? I’m not surprised your career is failing to advance beyond this institution, Busner, given your lack of interest in your colleagues. And with this parting knock-out blow, our professional association clearly being at an end, Sir Albert, for all his apparent solidity — dematerialised . . — Can I help you? she says. The woman is in her late thirties, idiosyncratically plump in places — the undersides of her arms, the top of her hips and ribcage — that imply the wearing of restrictive undergarments beneath her stretchy black top and stretchy black slacks. Self-defeating. . really. She has a handsome, hawkish face — Greek? — unloosed dark hair, and a prepossessing lack of make-up. Not what you expect from an estate agent. — I. . ah, well. . They are standing beside the large tabletop model of the hospital-turned-luxury development, and, feeling the beginnings of a swoon, Busner puts his old hand on to it to help myself . .I–I used to work here! The statement comes out as a weird exultation — he had been fully intending to stick with his imposture of being a prospective buyer for one of these Last Few Remaining Apartments, right up until it popped out of his mouth. The woman seems altogether unfazed. Really, she says, and what was it you did here — her eye tracks over his grubby clothing, rests on the crumpled and sweat-rimmed hat — did you used to work in the Upholstery Workshop, or the Occupational Therapy Unit, possibly? He laughs. — No, no, I really did work here — I was a psychiatrist. Around them in the former Friends’ Shop her own colleagues are tap-tap-tappety-tapping at their keyboards, twitch-twitch-twitchety-twitching at their computer mice, their eyes ticcing back and forth across a few fractions of inches, and in these acts alone crossing continents, journeying to alien worlds, or penetrating the psyches of others . .Shouldn’t be such a snob, he admonishes himself, after all, why’s it any different to poring over an atlas while listening to a radio — which I did plenty as a child? The woman has folded her arms to create more. . novel lumps — shouldn’t be judgemental about that either, not at my age . .and she says, I’m sorry, it’s just that we get a fair number of old patients coming back to look at the place. Busner starts to say: I’m surpri—, but then stops, realising that he isn’t surprised in the least. I suppose, he continues instead, that they are looking for some kind of. . then trails off. The woman looks at him critically and vocalises his thought: Security? Yes, I know they are, because they often tell me it was here they felt most secure — many, of course, are not at all happy, some are terribly distressed. It’s Busner’s turn to look at her critically, he can detect no irony in her tone, her expression is open. . sincere. She seems a most unaccountably therapeutic estate agent . .He smiles, and says, Am I right in thinking that you too feel a sense of security here? The woman laughs, a pleasingly rich and chocolatey chuckle, Ha-ha, well, ha, yes. . She puts out a hand, the maintenance of which, he imagines, costs her considerable effort, since each nail has been individually painted. . with crescent moons, rainbows, a dove, ten little scenes of rather mawkish. . security . .I’m Athena Dukakis, she says as they shake — and Busner searches quickly through many silver bands including one on her thumb! for the gold one on her marriage finger: mere force of habit . .Busner, he offers up, Doctor Zack Busner — I was here for a couple of years in the early seventies. Releasing his hand, Missus Dukakis turns to the model and gestures. — Well, as you see, there’ve been a lot of changes. I suppose I know the place as well as anyone — I almost grew up here: my father bought the buildings when the hospital was shut down in 1992. Busner again searches her handsome face and warm tone for any irony, any doubling or subterfuge. . a trapdoor beneath which the oubliette yawns, full of pain and despair . .He says judiciously, It must’ve been pretty strange for a young girl, I mean — it was a mental hospital. Dukakis makes things intelligible for me . .by running her crescent-moon-tipped finger along the Plexiglas lid of the model while saying, As you can see, the first thing he did was to demolish the entire second range of the hospital, leaving the first-range frontage intact — which is really the finer, original architecture, together with the spurs built off it in the 1860s. But you’re right, it was strange — she flips from realtor to reminiscent — I was in my teens, and he’d bring me up here on site visits and let me wander about. The last handful of patients had left in a hurry — their toothbrushes were still in the bathroom recesses, a few rather pitiful belongings in their bedside cabinets. The medical staff had abandoned all sorts of. . strange equipment — and there were the padded cells, of course, they pretty much freaked me out! Silently, their eyes travel over the simulacrum of the booby-hatch . .and Busner remembers the strange atmosphere of the old asylums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, how, as they were wound down, with each patient discharged a bed would be removed and not replaced, until there were only these small mattress islands in the great echoing wards — islands squatted on by hairy geriatrics Barbary apes . .It was, he thinks, akin to some process of decolonisation, with the far-flung possessions of the therapeutic empire being successively ceded, given up to the wrecker’s ball, and to. . luxury flats.
There are a number of rigid paper bags standing on the desks, plan chests and the model’s table — regal purple bags decorated with the development’s logo: the elongated dome of the former hospital and its two flanking campaniles. . fake, sucking the stench of madness into the suburban skies, what do they suck up now, potpourri, freshly ground coffee? Athena Dukakis says, We’ve got a sort of presentation-thingy on tomorrow, if you’re wondering about the bags — they’re goodie ones, give-aways, a CD-ROM with a virtual tour of the development, a scented candle, bath salts. . that sort of thing. . She falls silent, then, perking up again, says, Look, to be frank, it’s pretty quiet just now — what with the credit crunch and all that our sales aren’t exactly. . booming. Would you like me to show you round? This is said impulsively, but with a decided warmth . .As he follows her down the drive towards the roundabout with its ornamental flowerbed — which is far more refulgent than he remembers it, a blaze of pink, mauve and scarlet — Busner wonders