The Mind Readers (4 page)

‘No,' said her husband and added, not unreasonably, ‘why the hell should it?'

‘I don't know. I just thought it might.'

He sighed. ‘Who wants to sleep in a goldrush-town bar on the movies, anyway? I just want to sleep with you, preferably anywhere else. I am several sorts of heel to make you stay on this godforsaken island. But not all research stations are like this. This is only Godley's and Lord Ludor's version. You haven't married a natural whelk.'

She laughed and turned back to the glass. ‘Poor old Martin! You're not making me stay. I'm off for the whole half term week-end with my beloved Sam and the rest of my family. Why don't you play truant and come with me? Paggen Mayo can't kill you or even sack you, can he?'

He had been lying on the bed and now sat up and looked at her appraisingly, ignoring her question.

‘Whacky!' he said. ‘I'd almost forgotten you could look like that. Hell! That's a dangerous remark to make! Love you in slacks, too.'

She was beautiful, two years younger than himself, and she looked now as he had always liked to see her, in a skirt and all dolled up for the city. She was very slender and naturally graceful, with deep gold hair brushed very carefully into a long bob. Her eyes were a true grey and she was clever and looked it without any of the arrogance or aloofness or, worse still, the over-shrewdness which so often goes with brains. He loved best her gaiety and an inbred elegance, a most attractive mixture of serenity and distinction which made him feel good whenever he looked at her. She was his and he adored her and his conviction was growing that this was a darn dangerous place to keep her.

He watched her slip the chunky amber bracelets on her narrow wrists and appreciated the inspiration which had made her wear them with the short golden wool jacket of her suit. Martin was an elegant young man himself by nature. He was from New England and was tall and very neatly made with long bones, a pale skin and dark hair and eyes, but just now he was uncomfortably aware of being at a disadvantage in the abominable slacks and oiled jersey which were almost a must with Paggen Mayo's team whilst working.

He moved over to the one window. All those in the front of the hut were shuttered against the ferocious north wind which roared over the saltings, but the back ones had a ‘southern aspect' as the Ferrises took a derisive delight in reminding each other. At the moment the scene outside was a somewhat over-drawn picture of utter desolation. A thin autumn mist spread over the whole expanse of the East Coast estuary. The tide had been out for hours and the sea was no more than a bright trickle in the gutter of a clay channel. There was no sign of life whatever. Not a sail, not a shellfish gatherer. It was a scene of despair in a desolate world and was so completely dreary it made him laugh.

‘I wish Paggen would hurry if he's coming,' he said over his shoulder. ‘I did my best to stop him but he'd made up his mind. You know what he's like.'

Helena did not speak for a moment, then she said casually: ‘He thinks Professor Tabard has insulted him, doesn't he?'

‘Who told you that?' Martin was genuinely curious and rather surprised. ‘I shouldn't have put it as fiercely as that. He was peeved because Tabard pretended not to understand him the other day—perhaps he couldn't. They're very different types of mind. It was nothing, though. Who told you?'

‘His wife.'

‘Oh.'

There was a long pause until she said, ‘How long will he be? My train goes at Tudwick at eleven-fifteen and it's the last until three-thirty this afternoon so I mustn't miss it. Albert and Amanda can't get to London before lunch so I said I'd meet the children. Why does Paggen Mayo want to see us together. Do you know?'

He turned back from the window and came towards her and she rose so that he put his arms round her.

‘I don't know,' he said awkwardly, his lips close to hers. ‘He's got a sudden “thing” about security. I rather suspect that he has decided it would be safer to raise his ban on wives knowing about the work done here, than to have them speculate. It's an idea he's had some time and my bet is that he wants to come and talk about it.'

‘But he can't!' She was staring at him in horror. ‘He can't come out with all that
now,
not when I'm trying to catch a train!'

They both laughed but afterwards he stood looking at her helplessly. ‘That's an attitude which isn't going to help, is it?' he demanded. ‘Nor is it going to be a good idea to tell him that you've hardly been able to live here for eighteen months without getting a pretty clear idea of what your husband is up to. Nor that you can't see that there is anything to be very secret about. If he gets here before you go and he's in full flight, you'll just have to let him talk, I'm afraid, Sweetie.'

‘Oh Martin!'

She did not pull back from him but turned her head so that her face was held away from his own. He recognised her mood gloomily.

‘Sam will be O.K.' he said earnestly. ‘He'll have Edward with him who is twelve. They're not infants. They've got to St Peter's Gate Square on their own before.'

‘Of course they have dear, but I want to be there. Sam is going to be heartbroken when he finds you're not going to get leave and he's sure to be worked up over this libel suit. . . .'

‘Worked up? He'll be tickled to death. I thought the solicitor was proving his evidence at the Rectory? The Examiner is being sued, isn't he?'

‘Yes, but they want Sam's evidence for the defence. It's against his own form master, whom he likes. They think he may have seen the young man open the old boy's brief case and look at the exam papers. I don't know what the school thinks it's doing letting it happen at all! It's very upsetting to a small boy.'

She drew back from him and he thought how lovely she was and could not resist taking a little stab at her.

‘Who sent Sam away? Who moved Heaven and earth to get him sent to boarding school at the earliest possible moment, despite the rules of this place against kids going back and forth?'

‘I only did it because you and Paggen were experimenting with him. . . .'

‘Experimenting! For God's sake . . . !'

They were so near the old quarrel that its breath touched them and they both fell silent. Martin spoke first, miserably aware that he could only repeat a protestation made too often before.

‘We only tried him out with a couple of E.S.P. tests, none as shattering as a game of noughts and crosses. He was very good at it but because we couldn't let you string along and play too, you suddenly rushed off to London and persuaded your influential relatives to get the security rule stretched so the kid could go to school . . . thereby causing a lot of jealousy, let me tell you.'

‘I know,' she said at last. ‘I'm sorry. But I'm glad he went.'

There was another pause until she said. ‘Melisande Mayo came and told me a long rigmarole about sending her girls to finishing school in the spring. Surely they're too old for that sort of thing now? The elder must be eighteen. Is Melisande all right, Martin?'

‘All right?' He was lighting a cigarette and did not look at her. ‘I'd say she's just bored like every other woman here. She's older than we are. I wouldn't take much notice of anything she said if I were you.'

‘You're telling me! Paggen may be a genius but he must be hell to live with. Did you realise his name wasn't Paggen, by the way?'

‘Isn't it?'

‘No. He found it in the list of the first subscribers to the
Materia Medica,
and adopted it because it sounded exciting. I bet that woman wasn't christened Melisande, either! Mayo's real name is Paul, or it was when he was working in Canada in '59.'

‘So what?' Martin was irritated. ‘It's probably true. He has that kind of romantic streak. Those intensely practical people sometimes have. It makes him very human. Where did you get hold of the tale?'

Helena had the grace to look ashamed of herself. ‘I ought not to have repeated it. I promised I wouldn't. I was gossiping with the staff. . . . Trying to ingratiate myself so that I was certain to get the car to the station this morning.' She caught her breath. ‘Don't listen to me! I don't mean to be this sort of stinker.'

Her husband met her eyes and presently they both laughed, albeit a little regretfully.

‘The whole set-up is crazy and a little degrading. I hand you that,' he agreed. ‘Fred Arnold told you, I suppose? He knows most things. That's a strange guy, yet he's almost the only link this community has with normal everyday life. He'd be a good club factotum anywhere. He's a first-class barman and he manages that canteen as if it belonged to the Ritz; we're lucky to have him.'

‘I don't think we would if Lord Ludor didn't use the place to entertain visiting firemen, do you? I don't make a habit of discussing the resident boffins with him but I just had to get that car reserved for me this morning. It's fantastic being this far from a railway station without a car . . . how senior will you have to be before Paggen permits us to keep one? Oh blast! Forgive me! I don't mean to start on that one again. Truly I don't. I do know that if one person has one, everyone will want one, which isn't practical, they say—although Heaven knows why not, there's plenty of room. It just popped out. Now I'm ready. Oh, Martin, yes—I nearly forgot. Where did you put Sam's private bag?'

‘The old brown Gladstone? I haven't touched it.'

‘Then it's gone and he particularly wanted it.'

‘How can it have gone?' He got up and wandered into the only other room. Here there were more evidences of their forlorn efforts to make a home.

Each of the prefabricated dwellings which had sprung up at intervals on the driveways to the marsh island's original mansion, now the headquarters of Messrs. Godley's research station, was provided with water, electricity and gas brought across the causeway from Tudwick. This estuary-side village had grown into a small town and possessed a railway station and a few shops, but the huts, although serviced, remained strictly utilitarian with varnished matchboarded walls and the kind of linoleum which was designed to last for ever and very dreadfully did. There were a few built-in lockers and Martin was searching these when Helena came after him.

‘It's no good hunting anywhere there. I've turned out the entire place.'

‘But I saw it the other day.'

‘So did I. There was nothing in it but scribbles and cuttings and knives and the old cockyolly bird. I thought you might have thrown them out and used the bag for something . . .'

She regretted the words instantly. The face he turned to her was deeply hurt.

‘I don't know what sort of animal you think I am. I've only let the boy go to school. I haven't taken a dislike to him! Where is his bag?'

‘I can't imagine. No one comes in here, you see.'

‘But that's crazy!' Surprise neutralised his anger like a chemical and his arm slid round her as they stood looking about them. ‘The place is kept locked, isn't it? I do lock up automatically now, don't you? Whenever I go in or out.'

‘Always. That Drummond business frightened me. I wish you didn't have to use subnormal people in your experiments. . . .'

He jerked her more tightly to him. ‘Don't talk like a Sunday newspaper. ‘We do not experiment with anybody; we just try to find out who can help most!—I quote. To return to this elusive bag, I didn't steal it and nor did you, and our palatial home has been locked up like a hen-house so it can't be anywhere else but here. Change your mind and go by the later train and I'll guarantee to find it for you.'

‘Darling, I can't! I've dressed, I've crossed Fred Arnold's palm with silver and got hold of a car and I must go this morning. I want to be on Liverpool Street Station to surprise Sam. Don't you see this is just Paggen playing up again? He's succeeded in spoiling your week-end and now he wants to ruin mine. He's only trying to show that he's the big boss; he always does. Oh, why couldn't he let us all be together just this one week-end?'

‘Lay off him, will you?' Martin spoke mildly. ‘He's a brilliant guy and my chief. You can say what you like about Godley's but old Paggen is a miracle worker.'

‘You only say that because he's an electronics wizard and can construct. You're a physicist
and
a physician and fifty times as brilliant so that he has to rely on you even to communicate with his leader, but you're not an inventor.'

‘Oh shut up!' His lips found her mouth and suddenly they each felt afresh all the warmth and tenderness of their affection for each other.

‘We're all right,' he said making a question of it. ‘Aren't we?'

‘Of course we are. Listen. Is that the car?'

The tapping on the outside door was peculiar; a series of short jabs on the wood.

‘That
is
Paggen.' Martin went over, unlocked the door and let in a blast of cold air followed by the visitor.

Paggen Mayo came in slowly, holding an umbrella like a sword, on the point of which was a ball of red, yellow and blue feathers.

‘This is no way to treat a child's beloved toy,' he said with affected gravity. ‘The infant Samuel would be rightly outraged. I've just removed it from your ventilator. I saw the gleam of feathers as I came by. Are the draughts really as bad as that?'

He was in early middle age but his wild hair was already grey and his thin red face deeply scored. He wore the oiled jersey and slacks which he had made the accepted dress of his department, but dignified his appearance with a pair of heavy chrome spectacles of original and rather eccentric design and certainly highly expensive workmanship. Anyone who gave the subject thought came to the conclusion that the aim was ‘university don', but the strong element of neat-handed practical man belied that effect and the umbrella which he always carried looked like the affectation it was. At the moment he was in his ‘social' mood, an exaggerated pseudo-eighteenth century performance which he kept for ‘wives and VIPs'.