‘No. Look, Edgar, perhaps you should go. There’s nothing to drink here . . .’
Edgar stood up, swaying slightly, his expression threatening now. Frank stood too, suddenly afraid. Edgar walked across the dusty carpet, right up to him, then said, his breath stinking of alcohol, in Frank’s face, ‘I’ll tell you what I bloody do.’
Edgar told him: told him what his work was and, as one scientist to another, how they had managed it. The explanation made total, horrible sense. ‘So you see, we cracked it,’ he crowed, his voice full of beery satisfaction.
Frank staggered back, face full of horror. Now he realized why Edgar’s people had been reluctant to let him come to the funeral. All he had ever wanted was to be left in peace and now there would be no peace, no safety, for the rest of his life. Horrors as bad as any in science fiction had been created and Edgar had told him how. He stared at Edgar, suddenly understanding that his brother – a lonely, broken man – wanted Frank to know his power. ‘You shouldn’t have told me,’ he said in a sort of desperate whisper. ‘Dear God. Have you told anyone else?’ He grabbed at his hair, found himself shouting. ‘Jesus, the Germans mustn’t find out . . .’
Edgar frowned, the seriousness of what he had just done beginning to penetrate his fuddled brain. ‘Of course I haven’t told anyone,’ he answered sharply. ‘Calm down.’
‘You’re drunk. You’ve been drunk half the time since you came here.’ Frank reached out and grabbed his brother’s arm. ‘You must go home, you mustn’t tell anybody else. If anyone found out what you’d told me—’
‘All right!’ Edgar was looking anxious now. ‘All right. Forget I said it—’
‘Forget!’ Frank howled. ‘How – can – I – forget!’
‘For God’s sake shut up, stop shouting!’ Edgar was sweating now, his face beetroot. He stared at his brother for a long moment. Then he said quietly, as much to himself as to Frank, ‘Even if you did talk, no-one would believe you. They’d think you were mad, they probably do already – look at you, grinning little cripple—’
And then, for only the second time in his life, Frank lost control. He ran at his brother, all flailing arms and legs. Edgar was much bigger than Frank but he was very drunk and he stepped backwards, raising his arms ineffectually to try and defend himself. Frank came on, hitting him again and again, and Edgar tripped and fell over, against the window. His weight broke the rotten sash and he fell through it in a shower of glass, arms windmilling, wildly crying out as he disappeared.
Frank stared blankly at the smashed window. The October breeze blew into the room. There was a groan from the garden below. He stepped forward, hesitantly, and looked out of the window. Edgar was lying on his back on the stone flags below, clutching his right arm and writhing in pain. Frank thought, that’s it, I’ve done it, the police will come and they’ll find out everything. He screamed at the top of his voice, ‘It’ll be the end of the world!’ Rage and terror filled his whole being. He turned and, pushing the table over, ran into the kitchen and opened cupboards and pulled out plates, sending them crashing to the floor. The insane notion had come into his head that if he smashed and broke everything in sight somehow he could drive the terrible knowledge of what Edgar had told him from his head, along with all the rage that filled it. He was still running around the flat, breaking furniture, bleeding from several cuts, when the police arrived.
Dr Wilson was a small round man with a bald head, wearing a white coat over a brown three-piece suit. He sat at a big cluttered desk. The eyes behind his tortoiseshell glasses were keen but weary. As Frank entered he put down a document stamped with the government crest: shield and lion and unicorn. Frank saw the title, ‘Sterilization of the Unfit; Consultative Document’. Wilson gave a quick, tired flicker of a smile. ‘How are you today, Frank?’
‘All right.’
‘What have you been doing?’
‘Just sitting on the ward. They didn’t take us for our walk round the airing courts today, because of the rain.’
‘No,’ Dr Wilson said, smiling. ‘We’re organizing a special day out for some suitable patients in a couple of weeks. To Coventry Cathedral. The Dean has offered to take a dozen patients on a tour, with some attendants, of course. I wondered if you might like to go. It’s a beautiful medieval building. Fifteenth century, I believe. I’m looking for some – educated – patients to take. Might you be interested?’
‘No, thank you,’ Frank answered, his face twisting into its monkey grin. He wasn’t interested in churches, had never been to one – Mrs Baker hadn’t approved – and to go in his shapeless hospital clothes, part of a group of lunatics, would be shaming.
Dr Wilson considered his response, then said quietly, ‘The charge nurse on the ward says you avoid the other patients.’
‘I just like sitting on my own.’
‘Do they frighten you?’ Dr Wilson asked.
‘Sometimes. I want to go home,’ Frank said pleadingly.
Dr Wilson shook his head. ‘It does pain me, Frank, that someone of your education, your class, should end up on a public ward. You’re actually Dr Muncaster, aren’t you? A PhD?’
‘Yes.’
‘You shouldn’t really be with the pauper lunatics. Some of those poor people – they barely have minds any more. But I can’t just let you leave, Frank. You pushed your brother through a first-floor window. It’s a miracle he got off with a broken arm. To say nothing of screaming about the end of the world. Someone heard that out in the street. There’s still a police case open: causing grievous bodily harm is an imprisonable offence. Fortunately your brother didn’t want to prosecute. As it is, you’ve been certified as insane and you must stay here till you’re cured. How are you getting on with the reduced Largactil dose?’
‘All right. It makes me feel calm.’
A self-satisfied smile crossed Wilson’s face. ‘Good. This is one of the first British hospitals to use Largactil. My idea. It’s French, you know, so it’s more expensive with the import duty. But I persuaded the Board. My cousin working in the Ministry of Health gives me a certain influence.’ He gave a superior little smile.
‘It makes my mouth dry. And I feel tired.’
‘It keeps you calm. That’s the main thing, in the circumstances.’
‘I’ll never do anything like that again.’
The doctor made a steeple of his hands. They were small and surprisingly delicate. ‘The question is, why did you do it in the first place?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If we’re going to help you, you have to talk about it.’ He pursed his small mouth. ‘Do you believe the end of the world is coming? Some religious people do.’
Frank shook his head. The end could come, but religion would have nothing to do with it.
Dr Wilson persisted. ‘When you arrived you were asked what your religion was. You said your mother was a spiritualist but you didn’t believe in God.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did your mother take you to spiritualist churches?’
‘No. She had séances at her house with a woman who said she could contact the dead.’
‘Do you think she could, this woman?’
‘No,’ Frank answered flatly.
‘So you didn’t believe in any of it?’
‘No.’
‘You have no relatives apart from your brother.’
‘No.’
‘No-one’s been to visit.’
‘They never did like me in the labs. I didn’t fit in.’ Frank felt tears coming now.
‘Well, there’s a stigma, people are frightened of asylums. Even relatives usually stop coming after a time.’ The doctor shifted in his seat. ‘But if we’re to get you into the Private Villa, which I think would be more suitable for you, the board will need funds.’