Presence of Mind (17 page)

Before I lost my coinage, I said, ‘You say Briony could be making an unconscious attempt to be closer to Lance. I think you should know that actually she's always been closer to him than I have myself.'

‘Indeed?' The word was polite, non-committal and impersonal, and I was grateful. Max was too good a psychologist to show sympathy; I would simply have broken down. As it was, I was able to continue hesitantly.

‘It was Briony who attracted him, when we first met. She was about eighteen months old and he — he was just infatuated with her. He was quite frank about it. He had had an unhappy love affair – I don't know any of the details – and hadn't intended to marry, but he couldn't let Briony go.'

‘Are you not perhaps rather underestimating -?'

‘No.' I shook my head emphatically. It was essential for Max to have the facts right. The salvaging of my pride was a consideration I couldn't afford.

‘And you know nothing of this girl he once loved?'

‘Nothing at all. I assumed she was with him at Art School, but I don't think he ever actually said so. Max, you did say all this has been known before, the splitting, and assuming a different name, and everything?'

‘Yes, indeed. It is well documented in medical case histories.'

‘Then why did you say Briony's case was especially interesting?'

‘Well, although I had read of such cases, I had never observed one at first hand. Then, I was considerably surprised that Briony's own personality showed no abnormal restraint, which is usual when a feared, unpleasant side of the nature has been split off into a separate system. And thirdly, I am at a loss to understand how I arrived at the dormant personality. This should either have emerged spontaneously or under hypnosis, in which case it would have appeared during regression at the age at which Briony had felt the need to dissociate. Yet all the way back through her childhood she insisted she was Briony Tenby.'

‘So if there had been a split, it must have occurred even earlier?'

‘It would seem so, but psychologically speaking that is impossible. An infant consciousness would have been incapable of taking refuge in a fully adult personality.'

The idea growing in my mind was also no doubt ‘psychologically impossible.' But I was remembering the effect on Lance of Briony's abrupt transformation, especially her singing of the Burns song. I said carefully, ‘An adult personality was present before Briony's babyhood?'

He shrugged, lifting his hands in an essentially foreign gesture. I was unable to put my grotesque idea into words and retreated into another more circuitous approach. ‘Max – just suppose we find that someone called Ailsa Cameron actually existed?'

‘It is a possibility. Some paranoids, for instance, call themselves Napoleon or Hitler.'

‘But – suppose she was at art school with Lance?
Suppose she was the girl Lance once loved?

His eyes met mine in sudden, startled understanding. But he merely replied after a moment, ‘If your husband once spoke of her, it is possible –'

‘But if he
didn't
speak of her?' I persisted doggedly. ‘What then?'

‘Even so it might be feasible for a strong mind like your husband's to impinge unknowingly on an unformed one such as Briony's.'

‘Telepathy, you mean?'

‘I am just saying it is a remote possibility.'

‘But there is another one, isn't there?' I sat back, feeling my body trembling, the slippery sweat between the palms of my hands. Max made no reply, his eyes still intently on mine. ‘A possibility,' I went on, ‘which is probably no more remote and which actually fits all the facts more closely.'
I will come again, my luve
–

His eyes were still burning into mine. I moistened my lips.

‘Might it not also be – feasible – for the girl who was Ailsa Cameron to have come back to Lance as my daughter?'

He had known, of course, what I was leading up to and made no comment on the enormity of my suggestion. He said, ‘But she loved someone called Jamie. That was presumably how your husband lost her. We have no evidence that she died.'

That was true. Could I take it as a reprieve? The whole idea was so horrible, so devastating in its implications that I could hardly bear to contemplate it. Yet Roger had said it was a widely held belief.

Max said gently, ‘Ann, I am a psychiatrist. The word means “Healer of the soul.” To heal something I must obviously first believe in it, but I do not necessarily believe in its transmigration from one existence to another. However, many great men do, psychiatrists among them. In the meantime I intend to continue to treat your daughter as a victim of hysterical dissociation. On that basis, if we can regain contact with the alternating consciousness of Ailsa I shall repeat the behaviour and association tests I gave her today as Briony. Perhaps then we may judge from the extent of disparity in reactions just how wide the divergence between them is.'

‘She'll have to come here again, then?' Stupidly I had seen this visit as a once and for all solution to the problem.

‘Indeed yes. Sometimes these cases can take years to disentangle.'

‘Years!'

‘I am not suggesting, of course, that it will be so long in this case. Briony is extremely co-operative and that is a great advantage.'

I said hesitantly, ‘I might as well admit that Lance doesn't know I've brought her to see you. He was very much against the idea.'

‘I had the impression that Lance himself was under a considerable strain. I suppose there's no possibility of persuading him to submit to treatment as well?'

‘I shouldn't think so, no.' Shakily I opened my handbag and took out my powder compact to repair the ravages of the last half hour.

‘I'm afraid this afternoon has not been easy for you, Ann. It may be some consolation to know that your frankness has been very helpful to me. And now I mustn't keep you any longer. I have suggested to Briony that she keeps a diary and makes detailed notes of any experience she undergoes. Perhaps she could bring it with her every time she comes. How about Thursday afternoon at the same time? Would that be convenient? And if at any time you need to contact me urgently out of office hours, the number is Rushyford 29. Briony should be waking up now. She won't remember anything that happened under hypnosis and I feel it would be unwise to refer to it for the moment.'

‘Of course. Max

‘Yes?'

‘If – if it is possible for it to be – reincarnation, does that mean Briony never existed as herself?'

‘No, no. I tell you there are
two
distinct personalities. If she were only this Ailsa there would be no disparity.'

‘No, I suppose not.' It was all the comfort I had.

When Briony rejoined us she seemed calm and rested. ‘Well, how did I do?' she asked Max with a little smile.

‘Very well indeed. We'll soon have you sorted out.'

‘It's an odd feeling, knowing I've been speaking to you but not what I've been saying. Almost like what's happened before.'

‘But to much better effect, I assure you. I explained to your mother that regular attendance will be necessary until you're completely well again. I suggest you come back on Thursday afternoon, and don't forget to bring your diary with you.'

In the car going home, Briony said suddenly, ‘I do wish Daddy wouldn't wear those “mod” clothes.'

I dragged my mind back from Max's observations and my own fears. ‘I thought they were rather smart.'

‘They make him look so young.'

‘That might be the idea!'

‘Well, I don't like it.' Her voice was sharp.

I said casually, ‘Perhaps if you don't take any notice he'll stop bothering with them.'

‘If
I
don't? You think he wears them to please me?'

‘Possibly.' It was dangerous ground and I didn't know how to avoid it.

She said slowly, ‘He's very attractive, isn't he? All the girls at school swoon about him. What was my real father like? Was he attractive, too?'

The car swerved slightly under my twitching hands. It was many years since Briony had enquired after Michael. ‘Yes, I suppose he was. I thought so, anyway.'

‘Do I look like him?'

‘A little.'

She lapsed back into silence and I was thankful. It was after six-thirty when we finally reached home and Lance was prowling up and down the sitting-room waiting for us.

‘You were a long time,' he said accusingly.

‘Yes, I'm sorry dear. I'll tell you about it after dinner. Have you had a good day?'

His eyes were on Briony and I sensed his discomfort ‘It was all right. How was school?'

‘All right, too.'

After the meal Briony went upstairs to study and I watched her go with a guilty sense of relief. I handed Lance a cup of coffee and said lightly, ‘Darling, I have a confession to make. It wasn't Dr Burton we went to see this evening; it was Max Forrest.'

Tensely I waited for his reaction. There was a long silence, then he said flatly, ‘I can't say I'm surprised.'

‘You don't mind?'

‘It's a bit late to ask me that, isn't it?'

‘I'm sorry, Lance. I know you didn't much care for him, but he's the only psychiatrist we know and I felt the matter was urgent.'

‘So you decided to present me with a
fait accompli
.'

‘Yes.' He made me feel ashamed.

‘I'm not sure why you should imagine I'd object to anything that was for Briony's good.'

I said awkwardly, ‘You did rather over-react last time I mentioned the matter.'

‘Perhaps. But after – last night we obviously can't afford to mess around.'

‘That's what I thought.'

‘Though presumably you had already made the appointment?'

‘Yes,' I admitted, ‘as soon as we got back from Scotland.'

‘And you thought I'd try to stop you taking her? She's your daughter, after all.' For the first time his usual insistence on the lack of blood relationship between himself and Briony made some horrible kind of sense. ‘Anyway, what was the verdict?'

‘That it may well be a long job. He put her under hypnosis. I wasn't with her, of course.'

He was watching me intently. ‘Did he tell you what happened?'

‘A bit. It was all very medical and involved. I couldn't really understand. He seemed to regard this amnesia as a method of “opting out” but it puzzled him because Briony seemed so normal and happy that he couldn't see the reason for it,'

‘It all sounds rather a waste of time, then.'

‘I don't know. She seemed more relaxed afterwards.'

‘Suppose this “opted out” existence is the one she chooses?'

I stared at him. ‘It couldn't be.'

‘Why couldn't it?'

‘Well, she – she wouldn't be normal if it were.'

He said, ‘I hope to Heaven she doesn't play up while Gordon's here.'

Gordon! I'd forgotten all about him. ‘What time is he arriving?'

‘He's travelling to London on the sleeper tonight. He'll go straight to his meetings and come on here tomorrow evening. He said he'd ring me from Liverpool Street to let me know which train to meet.'

‘He'll just be here for one night?'

‘Yes, he'll travel home from London on Wednesday. When is Briony due to see Forrest again?'

‘Thursday evening, after school.'

‘He didn't suggest we should keep her at home?'

‘No. Presumably if it's to be a fairly long treatment, life has to carry on as much like normal as possible.'

‘After last week, I'll be wondering every day if she's going to come home again.'

I pushed aside all the loathsome ambiguity in my mind, assuring myself that his reaction had been that of any father faced with his daughter's illness. Yet that night, as I lay awake in the dark, the treacherous doubts returned to plague me. Did he really
want
her to get better? Or would he be happier if her alter ego was indeed the one she chose? What would happen if Ailsa Cameron, whoever she was or might have been, came to us permanently in Briony's place? Would Lance perhaps welcome her wholeheartedly, and if so would there be any room left in his life for me?

By the next morning I had, of course, thought of lots of points I wished I'd mentioned to Max. For one thing, I had completely forgotten to tell him of my conviction that the painting had some kind of hold over Briony. He himself had been disturbed by it, so perhaps he wouldn't consider the idea too far-fetched. I firmly closed my mind to the other half of that memory – his difficulty in believing that Lance had painted it.

Briony went off to school, apparently happy enough. Lance retired as usual to the studio and Stella arrived for her sitting. Life seemingly went on, over and around the trials and obstacles of our existence. I checked that Mrs Rose was airing the guestroom bed for Gordon MacIntyre and arranged a small bowl of flowers on the dressing-table to add freshness and welcome. I gave explicit instructions for the evening meal and had a word with Dick Gifford about the herb bed. And all the time, as Briony would have said, I felt that I was sleep-walking, playing a part, while my mind, untouched by all that was happening, continued in its real existence on a completely different plane.

At the end of her sitting, Stella joined me again for a cup of coffee. ‘Lance is a bit up-tight these days, isn't he?' she commented, her large, china-blue eyes innocent over the rim of her cup.

‘I'm afraid he is. He's worried about the rapidly dwindling time left to complete the quota of paintings and of course this business about Briony gave him a shock.'

‘Well, he's entitled to his artistic temperament. They say genius is next to madness. Look at Van Gogh!'