I Watson - Director's cut

He carried two glasses into the studio and found her leafing through a pile of unframed canvasses on the worktop, part of the last batch from the Far East. She was thoughtful, tight-lipped, critical. She had resisted the temptation to examine the new canvas on the easel and that amused him. The idea that unfinished work should not be seen is only valid when the technique is wanting. Second-raters in life needed secret time to botch.

He handed her a glass. “It's Merlot-Malbec, one of my favourites.” “Did Helen drink wine?”

“Mrs Harrison? Always, before a session got too involved. It unfastened her inhibitions – not that she had many – and it added a delightful tinge to her cheeks. And for me it freed up my knife… My brush strokes. Red wine, my dear, is a necessary part of the procedure.” He glanced at the paintings she'd been studying. “What do you think?”

She pulled a face.

“One or two are all right… They seem so similar. I'm not very keen on landscapes.”

“They are factory paintings.”

“You didn't paint them?”

“Good grief, woman!”

“I've hit a nerve.”

“More than one.” ers were posters of runaway children and missing women and donkeys being hanged and a jazz group that was gigging that night at The British.

There was a flagstone floor around the bar in The British where, if you were lucky, you would stub a toe. The stone gave way to red Kidderminster carpet, or that cheap alternative popular in two-star hotels and, with nothing better to do, time could be spent in joining the dots left by careless cigarettes.

There was a brass-coloured handrail around the bar. It was held firm by brass-coloured lion heads. A good idea, while waiting there, was to try and spot the subtle differences in the brass-coloured casts. There was also a brass-coloured footrest where the serious drinkers could rest a foot while checking out the various collection boxes for Age Concern, the Home of Rest for Old Horses and the Spastic Association. This was an old boozer. When its first fine ales were poured the country was a finer place. The British lion still roared. And if the charity boxes were of no interest there were always the fliers drawing-pinned to any available space: Karaoke, Quiz Night and Live Entertainment – a band called Jodie Foster’s Boyfriends. n the Eighth Army on DDT.”

“The orange squash cut out,” Albert confirmed. “The additives, youngsters can't take. E-numbers, they are. E for extinction and exit. The very least you can expect from E-numbers is hyper something. And good that’s not. The Eskimos think of. They are hyper something but with a capital H. They get their E-numbers from the fish. And the fish get them from the North Sea oil platforms. It’s from the bottles of orange squash that the oil workers throw over the side. Tonic water feed them instead.”

“And that,” the colonel cut in excitedly. “Will keep the malaria away. It's difficult bringing up kids. In today’s world even more. We didn't have drugs in our day. Apart from Woodbines. In our day the nation produced first class soldiers. They didn't go around moaning about cocktails of drugs. They got on with it. Dug in. Took what the krauts threw at them. No Common Market in those days. Nothing at all common about the krauts. They were good soldiers, let down only by a predilection for fornicating with their own mothers and eating children. We brewed up. Lived on bully beef. How old did you say Paul was?” Mr Lawrence replied, “I didn't. He's about twenty-five but acts a lot younger, as a lot of people do.”

“Difficult age," Albert said reflectively. "When I was that age it was difficult. Wanking took up most of my time.”

The colonel agreed. “In the army we used to stop the wanking with jungle juice and a standing order. And there was a chemical that they added to your tea, but I forget the name.” He nodded in agreement with himself.

“A sex destroyer,” Roger suggested.

“Exactly,” the colonel said.

“They should have tried married life, mate. Better than any chemical known to man.”

The colonel’s nod was despondent. “The thing is,” he said. “Age is the enemy. It’s not like the krauts. You can’t beat it. You can’t run at it with a bayonet and shout ‘Have that you child-molesting jerry bastard!’ It creeps up on you, more like a Nip or the taxes in a Brown budget, and you don’t see it coming.”

A stranger standing between the colonel and Rasher cut in: “With regard to Paul, it sounds a bit like schizophrenia or something similar.” Albert asked, “What about the something similar?”

“Yes, you're right. I didn't mean similar. I mean he sounds like a raving schizo.”

They were all ears. Even Rasher managed a series of blinks. The stranger, well turned out in a suit and dark coat, had a bedside manner about him and an acceptable accent from the home counties. He was probably a doctor or a double-glazing salesman.

The colonel cut in, “Don’t know about your schizophrenia but it seems to me that half the country is off with stress, the twenty-first century cop out. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned backache or even ME?”

“Ah, indeed,” the stranger said. “Myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome. Caused quite a stir a few years back with half the establishment denying its existence, much like schizophrenia some years before. Mind you, even now, much of the establishment along with many old soldiers still believe it’s a malingerer’s charter.”

They looked at the colonel who nodded his agreement. “Just like stress, then,” he said. “Just like the vaccines and the Gulf War syndrome. We never complained about DDT in the porridge. So long as they kept it away from the old undercarriage we were happy.” “Mosquitoes?” Albert asked.

“In the desert? No. It kept away the flies. The real soldiers, the professionals, didn’t mind the flies. You could always find an Arab by following the flies. And if you could find the Arab you could find the kraut. The krauts liked to fuck the Arabs. Little bits of information like that won us the war.”

The stranger shook a bewildered head and went on, “The popular press and Hollywood, Hitchcock in particular, created the misnomer of the multiple personality but that has more to do with dissociative identity disorder than schizophrenia. The split personality is very unlikely, largely unfounded. Schizophrenia was originally called dementia praecox – mental deterioration in the early life – praecox. Usually a sensitive, retiring child who starts to develop peculiar behaviour in his early twenties, hallucinations, delusions, general withdrawal from society. When it occurs in later life it generally takes the form of a persecution complex – paranoia.” The stranger swept back his greying hair. It was the narrow sideburns that worried the regulars. Beware of men with narrow sideburns and those who wore brown shoes. The regulars were, however, all ears.

“A steady mental deterioration,” Albert said gravely. “Cured can it be…cured?”

“Doubtful. In some cases drugs can help. Then there's electric shocks and cold water treatment. Then there's leucotomy. Crucifixion, as a last resort, cures it once and for all. But that has nasty side effects

– religious wars and stuff like that.”

“But the voice…?”

“Yes, there is generally a voice.”

“And violence?”

“Sudden violent outbursts, certainly. Can't have a half-decent mental disorder without violence.”

Roger, the manager, something of a movie buff, said, “When Alfred Hitchcock released his Psycho back in fifty-nine, the critics thought it was a joke on them. That at the end of the first reel he killed off his leading lady. That wasn't the done thing. Their cosy world was shattered.”