A Spot Of Bother

horns.

In the event he proved surprisingly malleable.

She put him through his paces in the car. He was to tell Dr. Barghoutian the truth. None of this nonsense about sunstroke or coming over light-headed. He was not to leave until Dr. Barghoutian had promised to do something. And he was to tell her afterward exactly what Dr. Barghoutian had said.

She reminded him that Katie’s wedding was coming up and that if he wasn’t there to give his daughter away and make a speech then he was going to have some explaining to do.

He seemed to enjoy the bullying in some perverse way and promised to do everything she asked.

They sat next to one another in the waiting room. She tried to chat. About the Indian architect who had moved in across the road. About cutting the wisteria down before it got under the roof. But he was more interested in an elderly copy of OK magazine.

When his name was called she patted him gently on the leg to wish him luck. He made his way across the room, stooping a little and keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the carpet.

She tried a bit of her P. D. James but couldn’t get into it. She’d never liked doctors’ waiting rooms. Everyone always looked so shabby. As if they hadn’t been taking enough care of themselves, which they probably hadn’t. Hospitals weren’t so bad. So long as they were clean. White paint and clean lines. People being properly ill.

She couldn’t leave George. What she felt was irrelevant. She had to think about George. She had to think about Katie. She had to think about Jamie.

Yet when she imagined not leaving him, when she imagined saying no to David, it was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel going out.

She picked up George’s OK magazine and read about the Queen Mother’s hundredth birthday.

Ten minutes later George emerged.

“Well?” she asked.

“Can we go to the car?”

They went to the car.

Dr. Barghoutian had given him a prescription for antidepressants and booked him in to see the clinical psychologist the following week. Whatever the two of them had talked about it had clearly exhausted him. She decided not to pry.

They went to the chemist’s. He didn’t want to go inside, mumbling something she couldn’t quite catch about “books on diseases,” so she went in herself and picked up some brussels and carrots from the grocer’s next door while they were doing the prescription.

He opened the bag as they were driving home and spent a great deal of time examining the bottle. Whether he was horrified or relieved she couldn’t tell. Back in the kitchen she took charge of it, watched him swallow the first pill with a glass of water, then put the remainder in the cupboard above the toaster.

He said, “Thank you,” and retreated to the bedroom.

She hung up the washing, made a coffee, filled in the check and the order form for the marquee people, then said she had to pop out to talk to the florist.

She drove over to David’s house and tried to explain how impossible the decision was. He apologized for having made the offer at such a difficult time. She told him not to apologize. He told her that nothing had changed, and that he would wait for as long as she needed.

He put his arms round her and they held one another and it was like coming home after a long and difficult journey and she realized that this was something she could never give up.

56

Jamie was drinking a cappuccino on Greek Street waiting for Ryan.

He wasn’t being entirely honorable, Ryan being Tony’s ex. He knew that. But Ryan had agreed to come, so Ryan wasn’t being entirely honorable, either.

Fuck it. What was honor anyway? The only person he knew with real integrity was Maggie and she had spent her life since college picking up nasty diseases in flyblown corners of West Africa. Didn’t even own furniture.

Besides, Tony had dumped him. If something happened with Ryan, what was wrong with that?

Fifteen minutes late.

Jamie got himself a second coffee and reopened Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained which he’d bought in one of his periodic fits of self-improvement (the exercise ball, that stupid opera CD…). At home he was reading Pet Sematary, but reading that in public was like leaving the house in your underwear.

This does not mean that the brain never uses “buffer memories” to cushion the interface between the brain’s internal processes and the asynchronous outside world. The “echoic memory” with which we preserve stimulus patterns briefly while the brain begins to process them is an obvious example (Sperling, 1960; Neisser, 1967; see also Newell, Rosenbloom, and Laird, 1989, p. 1067).

There was a review on the back from The New York Review of Books which described it as “clear and funny.”

On the other hand, he didn’t want to look like someone who was having difficulty reading Consciousness Explained. So he let his eyes drift over the pages, turning them every couple of minutes.

He thought about the new Web site and wondered whether the background music had been a mistake. He remembered last year’s trip to Edinburgh. That purr of tires on the cobbles outside the hotel. He wondered why no one used them these days. Ambulances and wheelchairs, probably. He imagined Ryan placing his hand very briefly on his thigh and saying, “I’m so glad you got in touch.”

Twenty-five minutes late. Jamie was beginning to feel obtrusive.

He gathered his belongings and bought a Telegraph from the newsagent on the corner. He bought a pint of lager in the pub over the road, then found an empty table on the pavement from which he could keep an eye on the cafe.

Three minutes later a man wearing leather trousers and a white T-shirt slid onto the bench on the other side of the table. He put a motorcycle helmet down on the table, mimed a little gun with his right hand, pointed the barrel at Jamie’s head, cocked his thumb, made a clicking noise and said, “Estate agent.”

Jamie was a little disturbed by this.

“Lowe and Carter,” said the man.

“Er, yeh,” said Jamie.

“Courier. We’re in the building across the street. Pick up stuff from your place every now and then. You’ve got a desk in the far corner by the big window.” He held out his hand to be shaken. “Mike.”

Jamie shook it. “Jamie.”

Mike picked up Consciousness Explained, which Jamie had left on the table where it could give a general impression without needing to be physically read. There was a thick Celtic band tattooed around Mike’s upper right arm. He examined the book briefly then put it down. “A masterful tapestry of deep insight.”

Jamie wondered whether the man was psychiatrically ill.

Mike laughed quietly. “Read it off the back cover.”

Jamie turned the book over to verify this.

Mike sipped his drink. “I like courtroom dramas myself.”

For a second Jamie wondered whether Mike meant he liked doing things that resulted in him going to court.

“John Grisham, that kind of stuff,” said Mike.

Jamie relaxed a little. “Having a bit of trouble with the book myself, to be honest.”