Brian Freemantle: Dead End

‘No. Also in the file.’

‘Parents alive?’

‘My mother.’

‘What about your father?’

‘I never knew a father. Whoever he was, he left my mother unmarried when she became pregnant.’

‘You hate him for doing that, walking out on her?’

‘No.’

The psychologist used the act of stubbing out her cigarette to cover the doubtful pause. ‘I find that hard to believe. Makes her pregnant and then turns his back on his responsibility?’

‘Wasn’t that better than doing his duty and spending the rest of their lives unhappy or later going through the trauma of a divorce?’

‘They might have become happy, in time.’

‘That’s hypothetical.’

‘What about your mother? You despise her for becoming pregnant?’

‘That’s an absurd question!’ erupted Parnell, discarding the determination not to lose his temper. ‘ She didn’t abandon me. She worked her way through college, qualified as a lawyer, took me through school and college. I love her. Admire her. She’s a fantastic woman.’

‘So, you despise me for asking an absurd question?’

‘Yes,’ answered Parnell. Fuck you, he thought.

‘How would you feel about a word-association test? You know, day-night, black-white? The first word that enters your head…’ She clicked her stained fingers. ‘Quick as that.’

‘I’ve never played one before. But if you want to, let’s do it.’

‘To get it over with?’

She was very definitely goading him. ‘You’ve allocated all afternoon to me. So, we’re in no hurry, are we?’

‘Night?’ she suddenly demanded.

‘Black,’ he said at once, not caught out.

‘Sea?’

‘Boat.’

‘Woman?’

‘Mother.’

‘God?’

‘Philosophy.’

‘War?’

‘Death.’

‘Medicine?’

‘Cure.’

‘Disease?’

‘Pestilence.’

‘King?’

‘Exalted.’

‘President?’

Parnell hesitated. ‘America.’

‘Tyranny?’

‘Overthrow.’

‘Sermon?’

‘Speech.’

‘Church?’

‘House.’

‘Choir?’

‘Song.’

‘Failure?’

‘Mistake.’

Barbara Spacey sat back in her chair, a fresh cigarette adding to the room’s fug. ‘I expected you to cheat. Reply with a word you thought I’d want to hear.’

‘How do you know I didn’t?’

‘It’s my job to know. On your application and CV you put yourself down as a Protestant. But you don’t believe in God, do you?’

Parnell shifted, uncomfortable with the analysis. ‘A lot of scientists don’t.’

‘Why didn’t you say so, on your personal application?’

‘I thought Protestant would look better than agnostic or atheist. America’s a pretty religious country, isn’t it?’

‘Honest now but not then?’

‘I’ve got the job now. I didn’t have it then.’

‘Which is it?’

‘Agnostic, I suppose.’

‘You did cheat once in the test, didn’t you?’

Parnell accepted that Barbara Spacey was unsettling him more with her analysis than she had done by provocation. Perhaps one was a professional precursor of the other. ‘Yes.’

‘So what was the word you really thought of when I said “President”?’

‘Exalted.’

‘Why didn’t you say it?’

‘I had, once already.’

‘You could have used it again.’

‘Wouldn’t it have meant the same?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘I’ll remember next time.’

‘You expect there to be a next time?’

‘Something else for you to decide.’

‘You have any problem with authority?’ she said.

‘I don’t understand the question.’

‘Accepting it.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How do you feel about exercising it?’

‘I’m not sure I understand that question, either.’

‘You ever been in a position of authority before, have power over a bunch of people?’

‘No.’

‘It frighten you?’

‘I haven’t thought about it.’

‘Think about it now. You take on someone with an impressive CV but he turns out not to be so good: makes mistakes, affects your whole division. What do you do?’

‘Tell him he’s screwing up. That if he doesn’t shape up his job’s on the line.’

‘He makes an effort but it isn’t any good.’

‘I give him the mandatory warnings and then tell him he’s got to go.’

‘He’s got a kid with a permanent illness that needs the medical cover that comes with his job here. That’s why he’s screwing up. He’s distracted.’

‘It would have been on his personnel file.’

Barbara Spacey frowned, off-balanced by the reply. ‘So?’

‘I would have asked early on to look at the kid’s case notes. Tried to find out if there’d been any genetic exploration.’

‘Personal involvement like that would be against company policy.’

‘So’s smoking on the premises. If our distracted father was willing and the case notes indicated the slightest benefit from genetic exploration, I’d say we’d have a situation everyone should take advantage of…’ Parnell saw the woman was about to speak. ‘But everything would be legally consensual, with signed documents and agreements. Nothing that would lay myself or Dubette open to any legal or ethical challenges.’

The psychologist didn’t try to speak after all, seemingly thinking. Then she said: ‘You do your genetics exploration. It doesn’t help. The guy’s work doesn’t improve.’

‘Then he has to go.’

‘You think you could do that?’

‘If the department was being continually undermined, yes.’

‘And you? If you were being continually undermined?’

‘I’m going to be its director. The department’s failures and weaknesses will be my failures and weaknesses.’

Barbara Spacey finally moved her head towards the personnel file on her desk. ‘You haven’t failed much so far, have you, Richard? It’s been a pretty uninterrupted upwards climb.’

‘I’ve worked hard to make it so.’

‘So, you deserve it?’

Parnell considered his answer. ‘Yes, I think I’ve deserved it.’

The Zippo flared again. ‘We’ve used all our afternoon up.’

‘How’d I do?’

‘Interesting.’

‘That’s what scientists say when they’re confronted by something they don’t recognize or understand.’

The woman dutifully laughed. ‘As do a lot of other confused people as well. I’m intrigued by your word responses. They didn’t fit a pattern.’

‘Were they supposed to?’

Barbara Spacey shook her head, positively. ‘That’s what’s intriguing.’

‘Do I get a copy of the assessment?’

‘It’s a legal requirement.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Try to avoid being too independent,’ advised the psychologist. ‘People need people. It’s what’s called human nature.’

‘I thought it was called tribal instinct.’

‘It’s warm in the winter,’ said the woman. ‘Or when there’s more of them than you.’

Richard Parnell preferred the second secretarial applicant, a middle-aged woman named Kathy Richardson who currently worked at the George Washington Hospital, but he deferred any decision because by the following afternoon, when he met her, there were two more enquiries, one from Baltimore and the other from New York. There were also four more approaches from doctorate-qualified research assistants – one a woman – listing genetics experience. Parnell got the same pool secretary as the previous day and scheduled confirmed meetings with each, accepting as he did that, with the possibility of postponements and rearrangements, a full fortnight, if not longer, was going to be taken up with job interviews. He sent an advisory memorandum to Dwight Newton, who replied that it was essential to get the selection right the first time and that he should take as much time as he considered necessary. The final paragraph asked for three days advanced warning of the selection process.