DESMOND Chapter Six
Chapter Six
1958
It had happened after their session.
Doctor Alan sits at his desk, cast deep in thought. He keeps glancing at the phone on his desk. Can't help himself, really. The phone is right there, waiting for him, and every second that he delays picking it up…
Just after the session, he was standing at the elevator with Mrs Roberts and her husband, accompanying their exit like he always did. Being a good doctor. He remembers Desmond in his chair, staring out the window with his head cocked to one side like a curious dog. Hard to believe the kind of dog he used to be, but that was the story, anyways…
Anyways. Standing there with them, waiting for the elevator, not much by way of small talk. She didn't like him, Alan could tell; small wonder really. And for some reason the techniques for rapport that he had learned over his career… Well, he just hasn't tried using them on her. He had told himself it was for professional distance, but now he can be honest with himself, sitting here at his desk, staring at his phone as it sits unused, staring at him accusingly.
He's been protecting her. Because the truth is, he doesn't want her to like him. Doesn't want her to open up, not really. Of course, the hypnosis, well... That was a requirement, after all. He was under orders. Just following orders.
At the elevator: the three of them standing together, not talking, Desmond staring and maybe drooling a little. Then Mrs Roberts had leaned towards Alan and spoken to him a hushed whisper.
"Doctor... how well do you know your receptionist?"
He had turned to look across the room at Marie sitting at her desk, her back to the group as she spoke on the phone. When he turned back to Mrs Roberts her eyes were slightly wide with a sort of conspiratorial anticipation.
"Marie? Well, she’s been here for about a year, but then I know her parents, so…"
Wendy nodded her head impatiently, peering over Alan's shoulder at Marie.
"Mm hm. Mm hm. So did you see it?"
"See what, Mrs Roberts?"
Wendy's eyes had darted back to Alan, narrowing slightly. "The top button of her blouse. I distinctly remember, when we arrived, her blouse was fully buttoned up, and now it’s open by at least the top button."
Alan looked back at Marie. She had hung up the phone and was now typing out one of the forms, working away, oblivious to the eyes watching her.
"I see…" This wasn't much of a surprise to him, really. All things considered.
Wendy held up a cautionary hand. "Hey look, I understand it maybe gets a little stuffy in here…"
Alan turned back to Wendy, waiting.
"But I think you will agree with me," she went on. "that a certain level of decorum is required when running an organization of this nature."
Alan placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Of course you’re right, Mrs Roberts. I’ll make sure that Marie understands the standards that are expected of her."
And then Wendy had smiled at him, her expression a mixture of fear and guilt. He knew that she was now going to equivocate in some way, and sure enough she didn't disappoint.
"I don’t want her to get in any trouble, mind you…"
"Oh no, of course not. Not to worry Mrs Roberts; I’ll be sure to handle things appropriately."
So then he had started to move her towards the waiting elevator. Not much of a surprise at all. He had known that she was labouring under a sort of possessiveness of her husband that bordered on obsession, going back to the beginnings of their marriage. It was based on a number of things - his genius and charisma, his philandering, as well as an idealized version of him that the current circumstances had done nothing to dampen. That her sexual jealousy had continued beyond his basic capacities was to be expected, really.
Of course the Doctor wasn't going to talk to Marie about any of this. He wasn't even going to discreetly check her blouse. He knew her parents, for God's sake.
And just then, while making small talk and helping Mrs Roberts into the open doors of the elevator, he had looked down at Desmond and noticed something.
He saw Desmond's index finger rising from the armrest where his was resting. Desmond's index finger rose up deliberately and slowly, hovering over the armrest. Then the finger dropped down onto the armrest with an audible snap.
Across the room, at her desk, Marie had suddenly coughed at the same time as the finger dropped. She had typed on for a few seconds, but slowing down, tap, tap… tap. Then Marie had sat in her chair and just stared at the page before her. No reaction.
Wendy pulled Desmond into the elevator, drawing the Doctor's attention back to her. She smiled warmly back at him.
"Appropriate. Yes. That’s precisely what I was hoping you would say."
He doesn't remember what, if anything, he had said back to Mrs Roberts at that moment. The elevator doors had closed on her smiling face, and when Alan turned back to Marie, she had pulled the paper from her typewriter. He had walked briskly back to his office and while passing her, out of the corner of his eye he had spotted Marie folding up the paper… and putting it into her purse.
And so now Alan sits at his desk and stares at his phone and of course he knows what he must do. He knows and knows but really the question is how to do it, what to say…
He thinks of Maria's parents, Lawrence and Patricia Jantzen. Over ten years he and Sarah had been friends with the Jantzens and their only daughter, Maria. The quiet girl with the shy smile and glasses and kind eyes, sad eyes… Maria had babysat their own kids, gone to the same school that both he and Sarah had, years earlier. He remembers the day he had hired Maria, the phone call he received from Lawrence, how grateful Lawrence had been. Grateful, and proud. If Alan had known at the time where his practice would lead him, to this new special client and everything that came with him…
He has to get it over with. He doesn't have to be specific. No one will ask.
But what had she written on the paper? This one nagging question eats away at Alan. In his mind's eye he can see the paper in her typewriter, can see the keys of the typewriter hurtling forward and smashing against the paper, pulling back and leaving the mark of black ink still drying on the page, forming the letters and the words - what? What were the words?
And why had he not confronted her about it? Stealing office property - in this line of work a piece of paper could have any variety of sensitive information on it. But he had done nothing. He had sat here at his desk and then when she came to his door and asked him if there was anything else he needed from her, he had said no. And then she had said goodnight and he had replied, yes, goodnight Maria, and then she left with the piece of paper still in her purse and what had she typed on it, what were the words?
He clamps his hand down onto the receiver, lifts it slowly up to his ear. The receiver is cold as it hums it's tone into his ear. With his other hand Doctor Alan reaches down to the rotary dialler on the phone and places his finger into a specific number hole, and turns the dial around slowly until it has reached the apex of its' rotation. Then he slips his finger out and watches the dial spin back, clicking as it goes, back to it's original position. The receiver begins to warm against the side of his face.
Doctor Alan repeats this process four more times - five numbers in all. Five times watching the dial spin and tick like a gaming device of some kind, a gamble of lives: Marie's life, the Robert's lives, his own... The dial completes it's final spin. Now he waits as the receiver sends a dull pulsing tone quite unlike anything he's ever heard from any other phone, because of course only this phone can make the connection represented by these five secret numbers. After a few seconds there is a loud click that makes the Doctor jump a little, and then a voice, thin and metallic and vaguely feminine, speaks into his ear, prompting him, from the other end of the line.
The Doctor has to clear his throat before replying. "Um, Saturn twelve oh eight six."
Silence from the other end. James sits back in his chair and tries to keep his breathing steady. Just try to focus-
Another, lower voice comes on the line. The voice speaks softly but with a calm, forceful manner, like a tide coming in. Alan tips his chair forward, setting his elbows on the desk as he listens.
"Well," the Doctor says, trying not to stammer, "um, I guess a level three probability. I’m not really certain if uh, probability even applies just yet. It’s really just-
The voice responds. Alan anxiously twirls the cord of his phone around a finger.
"Yes... Yes. Okay. I’ll file a report to you by the end of the day."
A dial tone abruptly sounds at the other end. Alan looks at the receiver. The cord unwinds slowly from his finger. He replaces the receiver in the phone’s cradle. He looks around the office, feeling very small behind his desk.
Gradually the light dies as the day slips to an end, but the Doctor doesn't even notice this, until he can barely see the phone in front of him.
1956
“Do you know why I married you?”
Desmond is still chiseling away as he asks her the question, so it takes Wendy a moment to respond, looking up from the geraniums that she's been tending to with determined concentration. The back yard is cool and still in the early Autumn morning. Desmond sits at the edge of the deck, crouched before a large stone disk that is held in a wooden brace. He makes one more mark in the stone, then lowers his hammer and chisel and looks over at her.
She watches him a bit warily. Things have gotten somewhat better in recent months, but then the fact that she'd gotten used to measuring his mood in months was reason enough for apprehension. Truth is, she's been wondering this same question herself, for quite some time now. Why did he marry her?
She decides not to answer him. If he wants to play this game, let him provide the answer. And now he is smiling at her, as though approving her silent response.
Still smiling, he looks down at the stone disc, runs a smoothing hand over it's surface. “Well, I think that the main reason I married you is because you make so few demands upon me.” He looks up at her now. “And I know that it's rare to find someone who understands what I'm trying to do – that I need time to myself, and the space to do what I need to do...”
Wendy watches Desmond, as he pauses with his hand still on the stone disc. What was he saying here? Was he trying to apologize?
“But just because I need to do things, does that mean that I'm meant to have no one to share my life with? I've always known that for many people, having a calling has amounted to a life of solitude, a life spent alone...” Now he looks up at her, the smile gone, replaced by an expression that almost shocks her. His eyes are large and quivering with pure frank openness, a look of total vulnerability and exposure. “And I just want to you to know that I realize that with you, I am luckier than I could ever had expected. And that I appreciate our patience with me, for putting up with me... I know that you're more than I deserve.”
It's so heartfelt, so sincere, that she wants to respond in some sort of affirmative. But all she can think is: So, no apology, then. Gratitude, instead. And something in that makes her feel a piercing rage that runs up the back of her spine to form a sudden clamp like a pair of jaws around her skull and she has to look down herself, to avoid screaming at him. She looks down at her geraniums and begins to dig with her hand trowel in the soil. She has to do things, as well. The garden needs tending to, and that is something she does. Oh and then there's the little matter of her job? Her job at the Research Centre? The one that she's been supporting the both of them with, ever since his little misadventure with that... girl at the the university. But she supposes that since all of this mysterious funding has arrived, then that doesn't really matter anymore now, does it? For a while she had been surprised he'd even let her keep her job after the money was no longer needed, but now she realizes that it was perfect for him. It kept her out of his hair, so he had let her keep her job. And she certainly isn't going to be... grateful to him for that, either. No sir, Mister Lonely Man.
A shadow falls across the lawn beside her. She looks up and sees him standing next to her, his hand outstretched. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
And, as always, she does as he asks. She drops her trowel in the soil, she takes his hand and rises to her feet, dusts herself off as he leads her across the lawn and through the back door and into the house. Towards the bedroom? Everything's just fine now, time to make up?
But no. To the basement, instead. His entrance to the basement, after he had walled off the laundry room with it's own flight of stairs and she'd quickly realized that she was to use those stairs to do the laundry. And that's just what she'd done.
And now Desmond has released her hand and is stepping though the door to reach out and flip on a switch. She hears the familiar hum from a bank of arc sodium lights turning on, and for not the first time she wonders just what it is he's got down there, anyways. Only this time, it looks like she's about to find out. He reaches out to her, and she steps forward, only instead of taking her hand he gently takes hold of her shoulder and guides her forward, in front of him and facing the stairs. A small shiver of worry runs through her. She looks back at Desmond and he smiles reassuringly.
Slowly, carefully, Wendy makes her way down the stairs, her husband's hand on her shoulder, leading her down into the basement. As they approach the bottom of the stairs she can see that this area has been sectioned off into a hallway with walls of chain link fence. They reach the basement floor. She can see through the fence, several shapes hidden beneath sheets. The lights flicker and hum as they make their way to the end of the hallway, to a gate that is shut before them.
“Go ahead,” Desmond breathes into her ear, “Open it.”
She examines the gate. There is no ordinary latch, rather some sort of mechanism that seamlessly connects the gate to the wall. Then she notices a hand shaped mold depressed into the part of the mechanism that fits over the wall. A palm reader, she thinks, remembering a time back in high school, when she had gone with some friends to a Psychic Palm Reader while on a school trip, sneaking away from their group in downtown Montreal. In a cramped and darkened basement room beneath the front steps of a brownstone building, on a snow covered side lane off of St Catherine's street, with her friends crowded into the room behind her, Wendy had submitted her palms to be read by a tiny wrinkled woman in a tattered red shawl. The woman had gripped both of her hands and said to her, You shall go on a long journey. Longer than any you could ever imagine.
She presses her hand into the molded form of the palm reader. On a small display a line of red lights blink on in succession. Then a Green light flashes a chime, and the gate opens smoothly before her. She steps back, feeling just a little shocked. Again she looks back at Desmond, who only smiles and extends a hand forward, inviting her into the room.
Cautiously, Wendy steps into the room. Looking around, the first thing she notices is how clean everything is. The floor between the covered shapes is spotless, the far plaster walls shine a perfect white under the lights, even the fence gleams like polished steel. As Wendy moves further into the space, Desmond brushes past her and approaches the first of the covered shapes that fill the room. He sweeps the sheets off of the first shapes and moves along, uncovering more as he makes his way.
Wendy's jaw drops in amazement. She had been expecting to see banks of monitors, rolls of recording tape, switches, levers, but this... The door had been just a warmup, she realizes.
It's like something out of a space movie. She sees equipment that is so streamlined, so sleek, that she wonders if it had been made by human hands. And there are no buttons or levers, just screens with various patterned lights on them. Wendy's eyes widen. Were these computers?
A warm burst of delight rises in Wendy's breast, chased immediately after by a second sensation, a descending sort of pressure of foreboding. She looks around the room, eyes searching. She can see no tape rolls, and no... no punchcards! How was that possible? She wonders if this is some sort of crazy joke, if maybe the pressure had finally gotten to Desmond and he has spent Armstrong's money on a bunch of stage props. She watches him at the end of the room, uncovering the last of the objects – what appears to be some kind of dual transformer with a platform in it's centre. He turns back to her with a wide and delirious grin, spreading his arms wide. She can't help but to smile back at him.and she hopes that her smile looks sincere, that it's hiding the uncertainty that she is feeling about him right now.
“So? What do you think?” Desmond asks, stepping back towards her. She looks around the room, trying to take it all in. When she looks back at him he's standing in front of her, still grinning from ear to ear.
“It's... it's amazing.” She stammers, trying to maintain her composure, “How – I've never seen anything like this before. What is all this?”
“Oh just a few things that I picked up from our backers. But check this out...” He takes her arm and leads her over to a table with one of the banks of screens. Before the screen there is a keyboard, slightly curved and with buttons that appear to be perfectly flat. “Have a seat.”
She sits down in a chair that extends from the entire unit like a curving branch. The seat takes her weight with a responsiveness that is almost unreal. She looks around at the device before her. Desmond points at a green star pattern in the top right corner of the screen. “That's the ON button.”
Wendy laughs a little incredulously, but then as she looks up at Desmond she can see that he is serious, waiting patiently for her, leaning over her shoulder with his hand on the back of her chair. Turning back to the screen, she hesitates, her hand in the air, and then reaches forward and lightly presses her finger against the green star. A low chime rings out and the monitor in front of her lights up. A blue screen radiates into view, with several boxes of symbols and type.
“So I know this is a step forward for you,”Desmond says, “But if you examine the features you can see that it is designed to teach you how to use it.”
She can see that, after all. And after another brief pause, Wendy's hands descend onto the keyboard and she finds herself moving through the boxes, intuitively typing in the commands necessary to unlock the structure of this supercomputer before her, and that is all it takes for her to become lost into this new world that he has shown her, that's all it takes for her to be a part of this dream, once and for all.
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