“Look,” she said.
“Clancy, Clancy—”
“Look at this.”
She took the letter out of the envelope and placed it in front of me. It bore the heading of a firm of solicitors in Ipswich. The letter began with condolences and mentioned the “sad death” of Clancy’s uncle, as if this were something that Clancy should already be aware of, and then went on to speak of “our late client’s special and confidential instructions.” The gist of it was that Clancy’s uncle was dead and Clancy had been left the larger part of his money and property, subject to its being held in trust till she was twenty-one. There were vague, guarded statements about the exact scope of the legacy and a reference to “outstanding settlements,” but a meeting with Clancy was sought as soon as possible.
“Well — what do you think?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Sorry about your uncle.”
We looked at each other without speaking. I didn’t know what else to say. I took Clancy’s hand in my own, half-healed, scabrous hand.
I said: “Clancy, it’s your day off tomorrow. Let’s go out. Let’s go out and get a train to somewhere in the country, and talk.”
Hotel
THE DAY THEY LET ME out of the hospital I went for a long walk round the streets. People looked very remote and sorry for themselves. I noticed there was scarcely anyone who didn’t show some sign of strain, of fear, of worry. And I seemed somehow superior to them, as if they were dwarf people and I was bigger and taller and had a better view than they. And, very occasionally, just here and there, there seemed to be other taller, clearer-sighted people who seemed capable, if they wished, of taking charge of all the others, of directing them and consoling them.
Then I went back the next day, as I’d promised, to say goodbye to Dr. Azim, who’d been called away on the day they discharged me. I said to him, “I want to tell you how much I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And I want to say how much I admire the work of you and your staff.” He smiled and looked flattered. I continued my farewell speech. “I see now,” I said, “where I went wrong. It’s all very clear. You have to be one of those who cares for others rather than one of those whom others care for. It’s simple.” Then I said, “I’ve been happy here.” And Dr. Azim beamed, and shook hands with me when I left. And I knew then that one day I must occupy some hospitable and protective role like his.
I spent over three months in the hospital, from a time shortly after my mother died. The police picked me up on the street because I was shouting things out loud and alarming passers-by. They thought I was drunk or on some sort of drug. But when they found out neither was the case they took me to see Dr. Azim and his colleagues.
It’s strange that I should have been delivered at the hospital doors by the police, because at first so much of what was called my “therapy” seemed to resemble criminal investigation. It was as though I were a suspect and the important thing, to save everyone time and trouble, was for me to make a clean breast of it. The doctors would conduct little question-games, like interrogations, and when I failed to come up with the right answer, they would sigh disappointedly, pump me full of tranquilizers and wait for the next session. I seriously wondered if at a certain stage they would resort to tougher, harsher methods.
So it was a relief to myself as well as them when I said: “The fact is, I wanted to kill my mother.”
In one sense I don’t think this changed anything. Merely saying it. But my doctors seemed pleased and started to busy themselves on my behalf; and from that day my relations with them changed. They became more friendly, they started to take me, as it were, into their confidence. And from that day too I began to admire them.
Only one thing seemed to disappoint them, and that was the way I failed to give a satisfactory answer to their further question: “Why did you want to kill her? Didn’t you love her?”
It was the second part of it that upset me. My first instinct was to be angry with them. I loved her very much. But I saw how this would trap me. So I started to tell them how when my father left us, three years ago, Mother and I had to look after each other. How, considering everything, we were happy, and I was even rather glad (though I didn’t tell them this) that Father had gone. And when I got a bit older, I started to get these feelings, hard to explain, that mother wanted to do me harm. I got scared of her and angry with her, and then as the feelings got worse I started to wish she was dead. And then she really did die. She was knocked down in the High Street, by a car which, so they told me, was hardly going at any speed. But she died. I had to go to the hospital to identify her.
Then my doctors said, “But if you were frightened of your mother, if you thought she would do you harm, why didn’t you leave her?” I didn’t answer that. When things got to this point it would be time for one of my injections.
So I never told them exactly why I wanted to kill Mother, but perhaps what I did tell them gave them plenty to be getting on with, because, as I say, our relations improved. We would often talk about my “problem” as if we were talking about some third person who was not present. I stopped having my gabbling and shouting fits, or my sessions of weeping inconsolably because of my dead mother. I was told by Dr. Azim, who had taken charge of my case, that I was making progress. And I agreed.
Once I said to Dr. Azim: “So is that what it amounts to? I’ve been put in here — people think I’m mad — because I wished to kill my mother?”
Dr. Azim smiled and gave an expression which suggested that this was taking a naive view.
“No, it’s not your wish to kill your mother that’s brought you here. It’s your guilt about that wish.”
So I said to him: “Does that mean then that the answer would be to have your wish.”
He smiled again. He had a reassuring smile.
“It’s not as simple as that. There are wishes, and there are wishes …”
Then there followed a period of five or six weeks — which I still look upon as one of the sweetest in my life — when, with my main course of therapy over, I was required only to recover slowly, like any convalescent after an illness. It was summer and I spent a lot of time sitting on the hospital lawns, observing the other patients, talking to Dr. Azim, and thinking about this business of guilt and secret wishes.
It seems to me that there can scarcely be anyone walking the earth who doesn’t carry with him some measure of guilt; and that guilt is always the sign of some forbidden happiness. Somewhere inside everybody’s guilt is joy, and somewhere within everybody’s unhappy, guilt-ridden face is happiness. Perhaps there’s no way out of this. And yet there must be someone who will try to understand our guilt and not blame it; there must be places where we can go where our secret wishes can be uttered and our forbidden dreams catered for. There must, in a word, be care.
And then I felt privileged to be where I was, and very proud to have met Dr. Azim and his colleagues; and I had the feeling that perhaps every recovering inmate experiences, of being an honoured and fortunate guest. So perhaps it was then, and before that first walk out of the hospital gates, that the ambition was sown in me that would one day make me a hotel-keeper.
But don’t think I walked out of that hospital with a worked-out plan for something which, of course, was then quite beyond my reach. My efforts matured slowly. For many years I ran a small café, bought with the money mother left me — no different from countless other cafés. I made a point of getting to know my customers, of making them feel that they could talk to me and I would listen; and some of them appreciated this, though some of them took exception and never came back.