'I know, that means man-plus-woman, doesn't it? Well, if you think I'm not properly a woman or something you're wrong. All my men, all the men I've ever had anything to do with, were always complaining about the very opposite. I couldn't do a thing without them all saying it was just like a woman. Bloody woman. Pull yourself together and stop acting like a bloody woman. And there was nothing wrong with my shape according to them. Whenever they weren't angry with me they were always going on about my shape, all of them. And my face. If you think I've got a face like a man all I can say is you've seen some pretty queer men.'
'Oh, I have, Mrs. Casement, I have.' Dr. Best seemed delighted. 'Some very queer men indeed. Including a number who were unaware of their condition until I pointed it out to them. Why, only yesterday I was talking to a young fellow under treatment here for alcoholism, an Army officer from the camp. Well educated, highly intelligent, you'd have said quite worldly and sophisticated. And yet when I suggested what was patently obvious, that he was drinking himself to death in order to conceal from himself his unconscious homosexual tendencies, he told me with evident sincerity that the idea had never crossed his mind. He meant his conscious mind, of course. In his case there was the fact that his appearance and demeanor and so on were those of a normal male, which in his uninstructed way he seemed to take as some sort of evidence of his basic heterosexuality. I lost no time in exposing the fallaciousness of that view.
'Yes yes yes,' the doctor went on with momentary petulance, perhaps repressing a negative reaction from the depths of his unconscious, 'the world is full of male counterparts of yourself, Mrs. Casement. Undoubtedly the men you attract are of this type. The self-hatred engendered by their hidden recognition of this is what leads them to react so aggressively to your own aggressions. It's hardly surprising that the outcome should be unfortunate on both sides. Such men would do well to recognize their homosexual psyche and set about coming to terms with it, as I told our young friend.'
Dr. Best gave a bright nod by way of conclusion and reached for a vase of wallflowers, the scent of which he inhaled with a clear nasal whistle.
Catharine said, 'You're advising me to start sleeping with women, are you?'
'My dear Mrs. Casement, men in my position never advise anything, any more than we condemn anything. All we try to do is explain. And the explanation I offer you is that all your difficulties spring from an unconscious preference for your own sex. In other words, you are a lesbian.'
He put so much into this last sentence that Catharine tried quite hard to respond with appropriate indignation or concern. But perhaps she had taken too much to heart his repeated warnings against giving him the kind of answer she thought would please him. Anyhow, the best she could do was to ask in an interested tone, 'Do you really think so?'
The doctor put the flowers down firmly but quietly. More thoroughly than before, he searched his mouth with his tongue. 'You seem unaware of the seriousness of your position. You became a patient in a lunatic asylum because you went mad, I've never gone in for sentimental euphemisms about mental hospitals and psychologically disturbed and the rest of it and I'm not going to start on your account. One of the marks of your condition is a fear of insight, understandable enough in view of what that insight would entail. But what I find far less… explicable is your obstinacy. An individual personality defect. You are of your own free will resisting that recognition of the truth, that shock which alone will enable you to undergo what's known as a psychic shift and reveal the true nature of your disorder. Very evidently, nothing I can do here will bring that about. Very well then. We'll see how you get on in a rather less cozy and warm and safe environment. I've feather-bedded you against reality for too long.'
He reached for a pad of pink paper and began writing on it, his head swaying like a violinist's.
'What are you going to do with me?'
When he had finished writing, the doctor said, 'I'm putting you out on probation, Mrs. Casement. For twenty-eight days in the first instance. You leave this asylum next Wednesday. That will give you time to make arrangements.'
He had, at last, succeeded in disconcerting her. Without any effort on her part, a sense of what it was like outside came upon her: railway stations, drinks, shopping, laughter, traffic, telephones, men. Catharine hugged her hands between her knees. 'Where shall I live? What am I going to do?'
'Your room at Lady Hazell's establishment is ready for you any time you care to go there. She was most definite on that point. I gather you're not in any financial difficulties. So you should manage perfectly well.'
Dr. Best prodded a bell-push on his desk, smiled distantly and went on, 'You'll be back where you started from. The results of this little experiment should be interesting. To both of us.'
'We'll give it to you in the arm today, Maxie, as a special concession,' said the nurse. 'Seeing as how there are gentlemen present.'
'We'd better be getting along,' said Ayscue.
'This is the main event of the afternoon,' said Hunter, unbuttoning his pajama jacket. 'It would be insensitive of you to go now.' He swallowed quickly twice and licked his lips.
Churchill, about to follow Ayscue's lead, noticed this. He fancied too that a couple of paler patches had appeared on Hunter's pale face. 'It'll do us good to watch-might make us go a bit steadier with the pink gins tonight. What are you getting?'
'Little multi-vitamin shot,' answered the nurse, a muscular man in his thirties with one of the smallest noses Churchill had ever seen. 'All our thirsty friends start missing out on their carrots and liver after a bit. This will make our Maxie a healthy boy as well as a good boy.'
The nurse had placed a round metal tray at the foot of the bed. He took from it a small glass phial with a narrow neck which he nipped with a pincer-like instrument. Next he carefully filled a syringe with the dark amber-colored liquid in the phial and then picked up an antiseptic pad.
'Is this all he gets?' asked Churchill, meaning only to break the silence as the man worked.
'Oh no, soldier.' The nurse began swabbing a patch of skin on the inside of Hunter's upper arm. 'There's the little blue sausages that make Maxie go bye-byes, and the weeny round orange jokers that cheer him up when he's feeling sad. Right. Now just relax, will you? Relaxie, Maxie. Good…'
