‘There’s nothing for her to forgive – she’s the one who did the ditching – and there’s not much to forget either. We weren’t together that long.’
‘You can store up quite a few memories in nine months, Charles.’
‘Have you been talking to her?’
Willis avoided the question. ‘Merely doing my research. It helps me to understand a patient if I know what was happening in the months before his trauma.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Acland walked to his bedside cabinet and pulled open a drawer to remove a pile of unopened envelopes with his name and address written in the same handwriting. ‘All yours,’ he said, scattering the pile across the bed before returning to the window.
‘Why don’t you want to read them?’
‘There’d be no point. I’m not planning to write back.’ He watched Willis finger one of the envelopes. ‘What’s she been telling you?’
‘I haven’t spoken to her. She sent me an email, saying she regrets ending the relationship the way she did and would like to see you.’
‘Meaning what?’ Acland asked sarcastically. ‘That she’s blissfully happy and can afford to be generous to a cast-off? Or that she hasn’t found anyone else and wants her meal ticket back?’
Again Willis hedged. ‘Is that how you think she saw you?’
‘It’s how I know she saw me. All men are meal tickets to Jen.’ He paused, inviting Willis to answer. ‘It’s not sour grapes, Doc. She has a good brain and a good body and she uses both to full advantage. I admired her for it when I liked her.’
‘And now you don’t?’
‘Put it this way, I’ve no plans to let her take me for another ride.’ He nodded to the envelopes. ‘It makes me angry that she thinks she can. I wasn’t that easy to manipulate even when we were together.’
Privately, Willis questioned the truth of that remark, suspecting the letters remained unread because Acland feared the turmoil that reawakened emotions might produce. He placed the point of his pen against a query he’d made on his notes. Nuisance calls? ‘Have you thought about phoning her to tell her you’re not interested?’
Acland shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing to say that silence won’t achieve better.’
Interesting choice of word, thought Willis. ‘You mean that ignoring her won’t achieve better?’
‘Right.’
‘But isn’t that equally manipulative? In the absence of a definite no, silence is usually taken for assent . . . or at least a continuing willingness to listen. Perhaps she thinks you’re reading her letters.’
‘That’s her problem.’
‘Maybe so, but she wouldn’t keep sending them if she knew where she stood.’ He paused. ‘Does it amuse you that she’s wasting her time?’
‘No. It’s up to her if she wants to write drivel . . . There’s no law that says I have to look at it.’
‘Do you think about revenge?’
‘All the time. I’ve a hell of a score to settle with the Iraqis who killed my crew.’
‘I meant against Jen.’
‘I know you did and it was a stupid question, Doc. I can’t even picture her face these days.’ He studied the psychiatrist’s thoughtful expression. ‘If she sent you an email, you’ll have visited her website and seen her photos. Who does she remind you of?’
‘Uma Thurman.’
Acland nodded. ‘She really works on the image – thinks it’ll get her parts – but I have a better memory of Uma Thurman in Gattaca than I do of Jen. It was her favourite movie, even though it’s ten years old now. We used to watch the DVD whenever she was bored . . . and now the only face I see if I bother to think of Jen at all is Uma’s.’ He went back to staring out of the window. ‘It’s a revenge of sorts. At least I get the last laugh.’
If what you’re saying is true, Willis thought. ‘Was Jen ever mistaken for Uma Thurman?’
‘All the time. It was the whole point of the exercise . . . to be noticed.’
‘Did that annoy you?’
‘Sometimes, when she went too far.’
‘How did she do that?’
‘Pretended to be Uma Thurman . . . talked in an American accent. She only did it with women. It gave her a real buzz to see their mouths fall open.’
‘What about men?’
Acland thumped one fist into the other and squeezed down until his knuckles turned white. ‘She played herself. Your average bloke doesn’t have the nerve to chat up a superstar. With men she got her buzz out of persuading them she wasn’t Uma Thurman. . . just a stunning, but accessible, replica.’
‘Were you jealous?’
‘I’m sure Jen’s told you I was. How long was this email? Did she say I was so possessive she didn’t have room to breathe?’
‘Were you?’
He made a noise in his throat that sounded like a laugh. ‘The opposite, Doc. I wasn’t possessive enough. Every time she went through her sad little pantomime, it bored me stiff. I didn’t sign up to be the adoring boyfriend of Uma Thurman’s stand-in.’
‘What did you sign up for, Charles?’
‘Not what I got.’ He exhaled a breath on to the pane and watched the water droplets evaporate almost immediately. ‘I fell for a fantasy.’
‘Meaning what? That you wanted Uma Thurman and the lookalike was a disappointment?’
Acland didn’t answer.
‘Was that Jen’s fault?’
‘You tell me.’ He turned round, massaging his knuckles. ‘I’m sure it’s all in her email.’
Willis gathered his papers together. ‘You don’t trust me much, do you, Charles?’
‘I don’t know, Doc. I haven’t come to a decision yet. When you’re not here, I never think about you at all . . . and when you are, I’m thinking about my answers.’
*
During March, as if prompted by the early spring that had people congregating in T-shirts in the sunshine, Willis talked about the dangers of alienation and social withdrawal. He tried various ways to spark a response from Acland, but a blunt appraisal of how isolation could lead an individual to obsess about single issues – usually people or topics that made him angry – was the only one that worked.
‘You’re making me nervous, Doc. I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me something you know I won’t enjoy.’
‘You’re right,’ said Willis. ‘I want you to socialize more.’
‘Why?’
‘You spend too much time on your own and it’s not good for you. Society hasn’t gone away while you’ve been recuperating. The pressure to interact remains . . . as do the conventions that govern behaviour . . . and both those imperatives are particularly true of the army.’
They were sitting in the psychiatrist’s office and Acland half-turned so that the light from the window struck the injured side of his face. Willis assumed the shift was deliberate, because in that profile it was impossible to believe the other side of the face was untouched. The observer saw only the slack, nerveless flesh, empty eye socket and hideous, discoloured gash that destroyed any beauty the man had ever had.
‘Do you want to talk about why you’re so reluctant to have visitors or mix with the other patients?’ he went on.
‘You mean apart from looking like a freak?’ Acland turned back so that he could watch the doctor’s reaction. ‘That’s what you’re gagging to know, isn’t it? Do I see myself as a freak?’
Willis arched an amused eyebrow. ‘Do you?’
‘Sure. The two halves of my face don’t match . . . and I don’t recognize either.’
‘Is that what keeps you in your room?’
‘No. It’s everyone else’s injuries I can’t take. There’s a squaddie on the ward who got barbecued when his petrol tank exploded. If he survives he’ll look like a tortoise – move like one, too. He knows it, I know it. There’s nothing I can say to a guy like that.’