Relatively Strange (24 page)

Apparently some of the work and his methods were a little less than orthodox – he was never much in favour of due diligence on some of the drug combinations he used. He’d also, it was rumoured, been involved in highly unsavoury stuff involving tests – experimentation? – on children from some of the most poverty stricken townships. There was no doubt, he’d produced some interesting results and, as sometimes happens, something about the work he was doing was of its time. It caught the imagination of professional colleagues over here and he became the blue-eyed boy for a while, with pieces in the paper, articles in the Lancet, comment in the BMJ and plenty of people happy to hop on his band-wagon.

His research was based on the fact that some physically or mentally disabled children can be gifted in often unlikely ways, musically, artistically or with precocious numbers skills. His ostensible aim was to establish a series of standardised tests to locate, identify and quantify these special talents. Theory was sound – once found and isolated, these talents could be nurtured. This would not only enormously enhance quality of life for the individual child but could be utilised to bring him or her on to develop everyday skills. Progress was gratifying.

He spoke of a severely brain damaged boy, unable to communicate verbally but with an uncanny ability to hear a complicated musical piece just once and then correctly reproduce it, even after a gap of several months, note for note on the piano. Another example was a five year old girl, blind, deaf and dumb from birth but given an object such as a carved statuette to handle for just a few moments, able to reproduce it completely accurately on paper.” Ruth paused, only for breath, but long enough for her sister to nip in again.

“Ruth and I knew though, immediately what it really was Dreck was looking for and locating in these children and it wasn’t just musical abilities! He was frustratingly difficult to read, occasionally you come across people like that, can’t get anything from them unless they’re in a highly emotional state. They’re not shielding deliberately, they wouldn’t know how, there’s just a natural barrier that only lets things in or out in a strangely muted way, like listening to a radio underwater. Dreck’s a prime example, although we could sense enough to know he was not good news.

At the end of the lecture he announced he’d received some serious Government funding and was establishing a base at Oxford where the project would develop, eventually offering hope to disabled children and their parents from all over the country. Similar centres in Europe and America, were already working on methods to establish new brain path patterns in such children, but he hoped, within a short time, he and Britain would be leading the field.”

“Couldn’t you have stopped him?”

“Stopped him?” Miss Peacock snapped, “We’re not Batman and Robin!” Ruth grinned,

“She’s right of course, my dear, think about it, what could we have done? For all we knew, the whole scheme could have come to nothing. We agreed we’d keep an eye on him, but other than that, there appeared to be little action we could take.”

“Things went quiet for a while, but after a year or so,” Glory had finished eating and now took over the telling, “Rachael and Ruth started to get odd whiffs of fishy goings-on at the Foundation now established in Oxford. Rumours flying around which, if you put up your hand and caught them weren’t very substantial, a whisper here, a raised eyebrow there, nothing widespread or concrete. He was still the blue-eyed boy of this area of research and most professionals, working in glass houses as they do, are pretty cautious about casting the first stone. She paused and Miss Peacock slid in, “There was a child, Ben, an eight year old I’d met at one of the respite centres. His mother asked if I’d see him privately as he seemed to respond well to me. He’d suffered hypoxia – oxygen deprivation – at birth and the resulting handicaps were pretty overwhelming. He was unable to communicate verbally, had no vision and very little motor control. His mother was a scrap of a thing, devoted to Ben, worn down with his care. I’ve no idea where she found the strength to haul him about the way she did. Her husband had left early on, couldn’t cope and I’m not sure she was sorry, meant she could concentrate on Ben without distraction. She was wracked with guilt, poor woman, blamed herself for his condition.

She swore Ben had always been able to communicate and ask her for things. The doctors were kind but reiterated, it was just her excellent care of him that enabled her to guess his needs instinctively – I think they didn’t want her to build pointless expectations. They told her he’d never develop beyond the mental age of a year to eighteen months and the best she could ever hope for was to keep him comfortable. She was right though, they were wrong, always trust a mother’s instinct. Ben did have an ability to communicate his needs but because of the scrambled connections in his brain, only on the most basic level – too hot, too cold, hungry, thirsty, tired. He was also, up to a point able, with no frame of reference and retarded mental development, to comprehend what he was reading from his mother and others. A little boy lost and locked in his own body with the damaged part of his brain blocking the way to all the rest.” She stopped and I caught just a fraction of the depth of pain she felt for this child and all the others. Ruth and Glory were silent. I plunged in, had to know,

“Couldn’t you make him better?” She turned and looked at me,

“Better?”

“Yes, cure him, make him right, isn’t that what you do?” Her hand shot out, I jumped at the unexpected contact, then she flooded my mind and I shared all too completely the terrible everyday dilemmas she and her sister faced.

Of course there were children they could help. A small blockage removed, repaired, can change a life for the better but so many others – like Ben. How far to go? How deeply to interfere? How to judge the potential damage? Even just seeing him that first time; alerting his mind by her very presence in it, to possibilities undreamt of, offering him mind to mind communication from an outside world full of communication. Unable to stop him reading in turn, how much lay beyond, out of reach. The fear, confirmed in Ben’s case that the doctors were wrong, that behind the damage lay not the mere sentient needs of an infant, easily dealt with and satisfied, but the desperation of a growing mind with until now, no hope of being able to bypass terrible physical restraints. Miss Peacock removed her hand from my arm.

“I’m sorry,” I was deeply ashamed,

“Indeed. There’s a lot for you to learn and the first lesson is to not waste time with stupid questions. I saw Ben regularly over a period of a few months and found that although the brain damage was permanent, he was developing far beyond the gloomy prognostication of his doctors. His psi abilities were only moderate but through them, his communication skills were growing. Most importantly though, he improved immeasurably in his ability to send to his mother and was able to more easily let her know what he needed. One day when I saw him, after a gap in our sessions because I’d been away, I found he’d also discovered how to manipulate objects. Nothing too startling, but enough to enable him to bring a vase of flowers closer so he could smell them or re-angle a lampshade if there was glare in his eyes. He was, despite everything, a happy little soul and I was so delighted by his progress.

His mother of course wanted more. She saw the improvement, had no doubt he could be brought on further still. She phoned me one day, full of excitement, to say she’d managed to get an appointment to have him assessed at a clinic in Oxford that was doing ground-breaking work with brain damaged children. I tried to talk her out of it, but she didn’t want to hear. All I could do was ask her to keep me informed.

Apparently at the first appointment they put Ben through a battery of tests to try and find his ‘special talents’. She wasn’t allowed to stay with him, they said he’d concentrate better without her, so she couldn’t tell me exactly what went on. She was charmed however by Dr Dreck, who confirmed she had a very special little boy. So special, the Doctor felt he’d like to work with him further and thought it worthwhile admitting him to the clinic for a few days, to allow for further, more detailed tests. There was a newly-developed drug which the Doctor was convinced could prove invaluable to Ben’s progress, but the dosage had to be carefully regulated and monitored to suit him.

She dithered a bit – she and Ben hadn’t ever spent a night apart, but the Doctor was persuasive and of course the trump card was that everyone wanted the best for Ben, so she agreed. Ben was in the clinic for five days.” Miss Peacock paused,

“And then?” I prompted,

“And then he died.” The evenness of her tone belied the starkness of the statement. “I didn’t find out until a couple of weeks after it happened. He’d been doing so well, his mother kept telling me, so very well but it was a heart attack, a weakness probably always there, just another of his many physical problems, but one tragically not identified until too late.” We were silent, reflecting on the brief life and swift death of a small boy. Ruth had quietly got up and made a fresh pot of coffee, her sister thanked her with a glance, poured herself a cup and continued.

“There was no proof of anything untoward in the treatment Ben received, nor reason to suppose he came to harm through tests conducted – other than my gut feeling. But from what we were hearing, more and more children were being referred to Newcombe. If there was something going on, we reluctantly decided, we owed it to the children involved and to ourselves to find out more. We’d no choice but to send in a mole.”

“Who?” but it was all starting to fall into place.

“And,” said Glory, “Don’t think I went willingly, they had to do a lot of talking to convince me. I knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make me any more thrilled.”

“But, dear girl,” protested Ruth, “It was only going to be for a couple of weeks.”

“Turned out a lot longer didn’t it?”

“But that,” pronounced Miss Peacock, rising to her feet, pushing back her chair decisively and brushing non-existent crumbs from her neatly pleated skirt, “Is another instalment altogether. Don’t worry,” she forestalled my protest, “We’ll fill in the gaps, but now we need to find out more about you and time’s short.” She headed briskly for a door I hadn’t noticed before, at the other side of the kitchen and Ruth, pausing only to send the breakfast dishes to the sink, followed in her wake obediently, as did Glory and I. I was peripherally aware of Glory using me to see where she was going, but there was no sense of intrusion.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

We made our way down a flight of softly lit, uncarpeted stairs which led into a sizeable, low ceilinged area which must have run under the entire ground floor of the house. Highly polished wooden parquet flooring reflected diffused overhead lights back onto mellow, glossy wood panelled walls, so the lack of natural light wasn’t really a problem. At one end of the room, around a low table were grouped a few comfortable looking leather chairs and nearby were several upright wooden chairs around another higher table. The opposite end of the room however was a far more intimidating set-up. Facing each other were two thickly, frosted-glassed, telephone-box sized booths, uncomfortably reminiscent of the one I’d done time in at Oxford. Further along the same wall was another much larger glassed booth although I could see into this one. There was a large double spooled tape recorder fixed on the far wall, alongside a tv screen. There was no sound of traffic down here and I assumed the whole room was soundproofed, it must have cost a fortune to fit out. I knew teachers’ salaries weren’t high. Nobody else round here was backward in coming forward, so I turned and asked Glory, she grinned,

“Money’s never a problem, Ruth dabbles on the Stock Exchange.”

“Oh?”

“Takes herself out regularly for a nice lunch in one of the city restaurants popular with stockbrokers. Let’s just say, she picks up more tips than the waiters.”

I was still turning this over when Miss Peacock put a hand on my shoulder and steered me towards one of the smaller glass booths. I saw Ruth had already opened the door of the other one and entering, was reaching for a set of headphones. Miss P explained what they wanted me to do. I stared at her appalled. She tutted crisply and gave me a little shove in the direction she wanted me to go. The booth’s glass door swung easily on its hinges, although it was surprisingly heavy, it must have been at least three inches thick. It swung shut again, just as silently, behind me. I settled uneasily in the high-backed, padded leather chair which was set facing the blank wall against which the booth was set. I swivelled the chair round and pushed the door open a bit to see what was going on. Glory and Miss P had seated themselves in the upright chairs at the other end of the room and the latter, catching my eye, cupped both hands over her ears impatiently. I looked around me, black leather headphones were on a hook on the wall. I put them on gingerly and at once her dulcet tones came through, tinnily amplified. I looked around again to see she was leaning forward to speak into a microphone placed on the table. She whirled her finger to indicate I should face the wall, the door swung shut again and she repeated in my ears what it was she wanted.