“So there’s nothing you can do.”
“I can give you these.” Oliver took two cartons — one small and inscribed with Chinese characters in gold on a red background, the other large and plain — from the shelves behind him and placed them on the glass counter.
This is what it had to come down to, Hasson thought, his disillusionment complete. Doctor Dobson’s Famous Herbal Remedy And Spleen Rejuvenator. “What are they?”
“Ginseng root and ordinary brewer’s yeast in powder form.” “I see.” Hasson paused, wondering if he should buy the products just to compensate Oliver for his time, then he shook his head and moved to the door. “Look, perhaps I’ll come back an other time. I’m keeping somebody waiting.” He opened the door and began to hurry out of the store.
“Mr Haldane!” Oliver’s voice was urgent, but again there was no hint of annoyance over the loss of a sale.
Hasson looked back at him. “Yes?”
“How are your mouth ulcers today?”
“They hurt,” Hasson replied, sensing with amazement that Oliver had deliberately and clinically taken some kind of action on his behalf, had chosen words that were tied to an objective reality for no reason other than his need to hear them. “How did you know?”
“I may go in for mystery and inscrutability, after all.” Oliver gave him a wry smile. “It seems to get the best results.”
Hasson closed the door and retraced his steps to the counter. “How did you know I have mouth ulcers?”
“Old Oriental trade secret, Mr Haldane. The important thing is — would you like to get rid of them?”
“What would I have to do?” Hasson said.
Oliver handed him the two cartons he had left on the counter. “Just forget all those things I said about the unity of mind and body. This stuff, especially the yeast, will cure your mouth ulcers in a couple of days, and of you keep on taking it as directed you’ll never be troubled that way again. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“It would be. How much do I owe you?”
“Try the stuff out first, make sure it works. You can call back and pay for it any time.”
“Thanks.” Hasson gazed thoughtfully at the storekeeper for a moment. “I really would like to know how you knew about the ulcers.”
Oliver sighed, amiably exasperated. “Hospitals never learn. Even in this age, they never learn. They flood patients” bodies with broad-spectrum antibiotics and wipe out the intestinal bacteria which produce B-vitamins. A common symptom of B-vitamin deficiency is the appearance of mouth disorders, like those painful little ulcers, so what did the hospitals do? Would you believe that some of them are still painting them with potassium permanganate? It’s completely ineffective, of course. They send people out looking like they’ve been swigging the blushful Hippocrene — you know, with purple-stained mouth -hardly able to eat, hardly able to digest what they do eat. Lacking in energy. Depressed. That’s another symptom of B-vitamin deficiency, you know, and I’m getting back on to the kind of patter which nearly made you walk out of here in the first place.”
“No, I’m interested.” Hasson spent a few more minutes talking to Oliver about the relationship between diet and health, impressed and oddly comforted by his evangelistic fervour, then began to think about Al Werry waiting alone in the bar. He put his new purchases into the plastic bag on top of the TV cassettes and left the store after promising Oliver he would return early in the following week. In the bar he found Werry sitting in a comer booth with two full beer glasses and several empties on the table in front of him.
“I like drinking at lunchtime,” Werry said. “It has four times the effect.” His voice was slightly blurred and it dawned on Hasson that he had been personally responsible for emptying the half-litre glasses in a remarkably short time.
“You save money that way.” Hasson drank from the glass which Werry pushed over to him. The lager it contained did not impress him as a beer, but he was grateful for its cleansing and tingling coolness. He eyed Werry over the rim of his glass, wondering what he wanted to talk about and hoping that no marked response would be required on his part. It seemed that every conversational exchange he had made since arriving in Tripletree had added to his burden of stresses, and it was a process which could not go on indefinitely, or even for much longer.
Werry took a long drink of beer and leaned forward with a solemn expression on his face. “Rob,” he said, his voice charged with sincerity, “I really envy you.”
“Is it my money or my looks?” Hasson parried, genuinely surprised.
“I’m not kidding, Rob. I envy you because you’re a human being.”
Hasson produced a lopsided smile. “And you aren’t?”
“That’s exactly it.” Werry was speaking with the utmost conviction, like a preacher trying to make a convert. “I’m not a human being.”
Hasson, although baffled, realized with a sinking feeling that his tête-à-tête with Werry was not going to be an easy run. “Al, you’d pass for a human being any day.”
“But that’s all I do — I pass for a human being.”
“Rhetorically speaking,” Hasson said, wishing that Werry would get on with making his point in a more direct manner.
Werry shook his head. “It might be rhetoric, and it might not. Is it right to regard yourself as human if you haven’t got any human feelings? Isn’t that what the word human means -having humanity?”
“I’m sorry, Al” Hasson decided to show some impatience. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. What’s the problem?”
Werry drank more beer, his eyes remaining fixed on Hasson’s, somehow transferring a weight of responsibility to him. “You saw what happened at my place this morning. Buck came walking in like he owned the place and started leaning on me in front of my kid — and I just stood there and took it. What would you have done, Rob? What would you have done if you’d been in my shoes?”
“It’s hard to say,” Hasson replied, toying with his glass.
“All right — would you have got mad at him?”
“I daresay I would.”
“That’s it, you see. I didn’t get mad — because there’s something wrong with me. I don’t feel anything. Sometimes I hear this little voice telling me I ought to get mad in a situation like that, but it doesn’t carry any weight with me. I’m not afraid of Buck, but I don’t care enough about anything to make it worth my while to stand up to him. Not even my own boy.”
Hasson felt totally inadequate to receive such a confidence. “I don’t think any of us are qualified to analyse ourselves the way you’re trying to do, Al.”
“There’s no analysis — I’m just reporting certain facts,” Werry said doggedly. “There’s something wrong with me, something about the way I’m put together, and it affects everything I do, big or small. Tell the truth, Rob — when we met at the rail station yesterday you didn’t know me from Adam, did you?”
“I haven’t got much of a memory,” Hasson said, feeling he had lost the thread of the discussion.
“It doesn’t matter how good your memory is — the point is that you know what it’s safe to forget. You know what you can let go. But I’m so busy trying to convince people I’m one of the boys that I remember everything that happens so that I can enthuse about it afterwards and tell everybody about the great times we had, but the truth is I never have any great times. I don’t really exist, Rob.”
Hasson began to feel embarrassed. “Listen, Al, do you think this is a…
“It’s true,” Werry cut in. “I don’t really exist. I go around in my uniform most of the time, because when I’m wearing it I can convince myself I’m the city reeve. I haven’t even got a sense of humour, Rob. I don’t know what’s funny and what isn’t. All I do is remember things that other people laugh at, and then when I hear them again I laugh too, but when I hear a joke the first time I’m not even sure if it is a joke.