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the words, I wonder.
'Only to fool other people. They must know they're lying.'
'I'm not sure it's that simple. I think the easiest people to fool are
ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling
others.'
'Oh no,' she says quite definitely. 'To be a good liar you have to have a very
good memory; to fool others you usually have to be cleverer than they.'
'You think no one ever believes their own stories?'
'Oh, maybe a few people in psychiatric hospitals do, but that's all. I think
most of the patients who claim to believe they're other people are just
playing a sort of game with the staff.'
Such certainty! I seem to recall being that sure of things, even if I can't
remember what it was I was so definite about. 'You must think doctors very
easy to fool,' I say. She smiles. Her teeth are unobjectionable.
I am aware of evaluating this young woman, of sizing her up. She is
entertaining without being entrancing, absorbing without being captivating.
Probably just as well. She nods.
'I think they can be fooled quite easily when they treat the mind like a
muscle. It doesn't seem to occur to them that their patients might be trying
to fool them deliberately.'
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I'd dispute this: Dr Joyce, for one, seems to make it a matter of professional
pride never fully to believe anything his patients tell him. 'Well,' I say, 'I
think a good doctor will usually spot the charlatan patient.
Most people lack the imagination to assume the role sufficiently well.'
Her brows crease. 'Maybe,' she says, staring past me intently, unfocused. 'I'm
just thinking of childhood, when we -'
At this point, the young man sitting on the far side of her, with his arms on
the table and his head on his arms, stirs, sits up and yawns, looking round
with bleary eyes. Abberlaine Arrol turns to him. 'Ah, awake once more,' she
says to him, a gangly fellow with close-set eyes and a long nose. 'Finally
scrape together a quorum of neurons, did we?'
'Don't be a shit, Abby,' he says after a dismissive glance at me. 'Get me some
water.'
'You may be an animal, brother dear,' she says, 'but I am not your keeper.'
He looks about the table, which is mostly covered in dirty plates and empty
glasses. Abberlaine Arrol looks at me. 'I don't suppose you know if you have
any brothers, do you?'
'Not to the best of my knowledge.'
'Hmm.' She gets up and heads for the bar. The fellow closes his eyes and leans
back in his seat, making it swing slightly. The bar is emptying. Only a few
legs can be seen poking out from beneath distant tables, witnessing where
their owners' alcoholic excursions into the long-lost days of four-limbed
locomotion have come to their stupefied conclusions. Abberlaine Arrol returns
with a pitcher of water. She is smoking a long, thin cigar. She stands in
front of the young man and pours a little over his head, puffing on the cigar.
He stumbles to the floor, cursing, and stands up shakily. She hands him the
pitcher and he drinks. She watches him with a sort of amused contempt.
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'Did you see the famous aircraft this morning, Mr Orr?' Miss Arrol asks,
watching her brother, not looking at me.
'Yes. Did you?'
She shakes her head. 'No. I was told about them, but I thought at first that
it was a joke.'
'They looked real enough to me.'
Her brother finishes the water and throws the pitcher behind him with a
theatrical gesture. It smashes on a table in the shadows. Abberlaine Arrol
shakes her head. The young man yawns.
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Tm tired. Let's go. Where's dad?'
'Gone to the club. But that was some time ago; he might be home by now.'
'Good. Come on.' He walks towards the stairs. Miss Arrol shrugs at me.
'I must go, Mr Orr.'
'That's all right.'
'Nice talking to you.'
'A mutual pleasure, then.'
She looks to where the young man is waiting, hands on hips, at the top of the
steps. 'Perhaps,' she says to me, 'we'll have the chance to continue our
conversation at a later date.'
'I hope so.'
She remains standing there for a moment; slim, slightly dishevelled, smoking
her cigar, then executes a deep, mocking bow, hand flourished, and backs away,
sticking her cigar in her mouth. A line of grey smoke curls after her.
The revellers have departed. Most of the people left in Dissy Pitton's are bar
staff; they are switching out lights, wiping tables, sweeping the floor,
lifting inebriated forms from the deck. I sit and finish my glass of wine; it
is warm and bitter, but I hate to leave an unfinished glass.
Finally, I rise and tread the narrow corridor of remaining lights to the
stairs. 'Sir!'
I turn; a broom-wielding barman is holding the wide-brimmed hat. 'Your hat,'
he says, shaking it at me just in case I thought he meant the broom. I take
the cursed thing, secure in the knowledge that had it been precious to me, had
I been looking after it and trying to make sure that I didn't lose it, it
would most assuredly have disappeared for ever.
At the door Tommy Bouch is being held against the wall by the no longer
dormant doorman and quizzed on his identity and destination. Engineer Bouch
seems unable to make any coherent noises, his face has a distinctly green hue
about it and the doorman is having difficulty supporting him.
'You know this gentleman, sir?' the doorman asks. I shake my head.
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'Never seen him before,' I say, then shove the hat between the doorman's arms.
'But he left his hat inside.'
'Oh, thank you sir,' the doorman says, he holds the hat in front of the
engineer's face so that he can see it
(or both of them, as the case may be). 'Look, sir, your hat.'
'Thanyoo,' Engineer Bouch succeeds in pronouncing, before transferring the
contents of his stomach into the crown of the headgear. Thanks to the wide
brim, of course, remarkably little splatters over the side.
I walk away feeling oddly triumphant. Perhaps that was what he wanted it for
all the time.
'Not here?'
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'Oh, golly, you know I really and honestly am sorry Mr Orr, but no, he isn't.'
'But I have -'
'An appointment, yes, I know Mr Orr. I have it here, see?'
'Well, what's the matter?'
'Urgent meeting of the Administrative Board Primary Subcommittee Vetting
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