‘Ah,’ Brock nodded. ‘That’s Mr Bromley’s department, isn’t it? I haven’t met him yet.’
‘Come, come, Martha,’ Sidney protested half-heartedly. ‘Ben Bromley has his part to play. Place like this needs to be run efficiently, just like any other business.’
‘Well,’ Martha said, changing the subject as if his remarks weren’t worth the effort of contradiction, ‘we’d better get in now if we want good seats.’
‘Get in?’ Brock asked.
‘To the Director’s fireside talk. He holds them three or four times a week after dinner. You must go, of course.’
He followed them out of the dining room and across the hallway to another large public room, set out as a sitting room with armchairs and sofas arranged around a blazing fire, and a variety of bentwood chairs behind them making up seating for fifty or more. A more intimate atmosphere than the dining room was created by a lower level of lighting from a few table-lamps around the perimeter of the room. Martha and Sidney made straight for a sofa in front of the fire, but Brock felt he’d had enough of their company for the time being and excused himself. When he returned five minutes later, all the comfortable seats at the front in the glow of the firelight had been taken, so he sat in a chair in a corner at the back. He watched the remaining patients filing in, a few of them young but mainly middle-aged or elderly.
The buzz of conversation died away at the sound of Beamish-Newell’s voice outside in the hall, and then he entered, his dark suit conspicuous among the assorted dressing gowns of his audience. He made his way to the fireplace and stood to one side of it. The light from a low table-lamp shone up into his face, and he looked slowly round the room before speaking.
‘Tonight,’ he said, ‘I shall talk about what we mean by the idea of balance in diet.’ He paused, letting the warmth of his voice soak into them like the heat from the fire.
After five minutes Brock found his attention wandering. The content of what was being said seemed amateurish science, and the voice was mildly soporific. He looked around the room, examining the attentive faces, trying to decide which were the sheep and which the goats.
After a while he forced his attention back to the figure by the fireplace. The Director was saying something about grains and pulses, and as Brock tried to pick up the line of argument again, the talk came to an end. For a moment there was silence as Beamish-Newell’s dark eyes travelled around the room from one rapt face to another.
‘I expect you have some questions.’
No one moved at first, and then a woman towards the back put up her hand. The gesture seemed tentative, but the voice was loud and firm. ‘Yes, I do understand about that as a theory, doctor. But the fact is, I’ve been following this diet for ten days and I feel worse now than I did when I arrived.’
An excited murmur rippled across the chintz chairs. Beamish-Newell showed no reaction.
‘I mean, I felt all right before. Now I feel … well, not right at all. I seem to have no energy. Quite often I feel nauseous.’
Several heads were nodding surreptitious encouragement. ‘Yes, yes,’ their eyes said, ‘that’s how it is with us too. Tell him!’ Still the Director said nothing, and the murmur stilled into an expectant hush which became tenser as the silence persisted.
Then he spoke. ‘That’s good,’ he said, slowly and firmly, and their eyes widened in surprise. ‘That’s exactly how it should be.’ His gaze was locked on her. ‘Did you drink tea, Jennifer?’ he challenged her gently, an iron cadence in his velvet voice. She nodded.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes, I…’
‘How many cups a day? Five, eight, ten? … And meat? … Processed food with a hundred preservatives, colourings, additives? For years you have been filling your body with poisons, Jennifer. It has become a toxic vessel. Your body is addicted to poisons,’ he accused softly, and the other patients focused on her as if her arms were covered in needle marks. ‘And you are surprised that after ten days it is still suffering from the shock of withdrawal. It must suffer. If it didn’t suffer, you would be getting nowhere.’
Then he turned his gaze away from her and his face filled with immense warmth and charm. ‘Champagne for my sham friends,’ he said, ‘real pain for my real friends.’ And a wave of relief and laughter followed his smile around the room.
As soon as Beamish-Newell left, some of the patients started to shuffle out of the room, while others stayed chatting in small groups. Brock made his way across the entrance-hall to the reception desk, now closed for the night. On the noticeboard beside it he found the list of current patients which he had spotted earlier when he checked in. Looking round to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he unpinned the list, folded it up and put it in the pocket of his dressing gown.
The pay-phone in a converted cupboard down the corridor was unoccupied, and he went inside and dialled. Kathy’s voice sounded wonderfully normal. ‘How is it, Brock?’
‘Dreadful,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how much of this I can take.’
‘But you’ve only just got there.’ She sounded a good deal less than sympathetic.
‘Do you know what they’ve just given me for dinner? A glass of water! Oh, it had a slice of lemon in it, too.’
She laughed. ‘Well, it’ll do you good. Anyway, I haven’t had time for anything to eat all day.’
‘Yes, but that’s your choice.’ He found himself extremely irritated by her lack of sympathy. ‘Look,’ he snapped, ‘get out that list of who was here last October and I’ll read you the names of who’s here now.’
‘I’ve got it.’
He began to read through the names. At the end of it they had found only three which appeared on both lists: Martha Price and Sidney Blumendale, plus a Grace Carrington.
‘And Martha Price was on the list that Beamish-Newell gave me of patients who had particularly asked for Petrou,’ Kathy added.
‘Right, I’ve met her. There’s a Jennifer someone …’ Brock scanned his list. ‘It must be this one, Jennifer Martin, who stood up to Beamish-Newell this evening. Are you sure she wasn’t here then?’
‘Sorry, no, she wasn’t. What do you think of him, Brock?’ Kathy’s voice was serious.
‘I don’t know, Kathy. He’s quite a performer. I imagine he could be a bastard if he didn’t get his own way. Did anyone say anything to you about sheep and goats when you were here?’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. I’d better go.’
‘See you Thursday?’
‘If I survive that long.’
As he slammed down the receiver he realized he was still annoyed with her, and he recollected his earlier irritation with Martha Price. He thought of Beamish-Newell’s sermon and wondered if the poisons were already preparing to leave his toxic vessel.
12
Whether they were or not, he slept remarkably well, having resisted the temptation of the bottle of Teacher’s in his suitcase. Next morning he made sure he was one of the first in the dining room for breakfast, and went down the line of trays on the long table, identifying the one marked for Grace Carrington. He sat himself beside the tall windows and gazed out over the gardens while he waited to see who took up the tray. He was directly on the central axis of the original house, an imaginary line which was acknowledged a couple of hundred yards away by an obelisk, a ghostly needle floating on the undisturbed white surface of the ground. On each side the snow-laden shrubs and hedges shone in the early morning sunlight, which glittered on the icicles suspended from the upper branches of trees and for a few moments flashed in reflection from the glass doors hidden among the dark foliage on the hillock over to the left.