D. Compton - The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe

Possibly she could reprogram Barbara, devise new criteria, new cross-associations, new wordstore links. It was a task she could probably perform long after the more usual writing skills had deserted her, long into incontinence, double vision, even muscular spasm. If she hadn’t killed herself first.

She worked the whole day on the basic parameters, savagely, channeling her anger, enjoying the reversal of Barbara’s most cherished beliefs. Peter came in and out, got on with the running of the department, asked no questions. It was, he thought, pausing in the doorway, looking at her, the least and the most he could do. She’d never tell him her trouble, simply live through it. They’d worked together for a long time, nearly three years… He could find no comfort whatsoever in this new evidence that not only homos were lonely.

He lingered on after three, unwilling to leave her solely to Barbara’s mechanical conversation. He tidied his desk, and tidied it again. He doodled approaches to the banality screening program Kate had mentioned the day before. She might be pleased, or she might resent the intrusion. At that moment she was busy with something else, busy with her rage: it hung, unexplained, in the air of her office like a dangerous vapor.

Around four o’clock an outside call came through, and he ran interference. The caller said she was a newspaper reporter. Peter was glad he had run interference.

‘Mrs Mortenhoe isn’t here,’ he said.

‘That’s strange… I’ve rung her home, and she isn’t there either.’ The reporter sounded pleased. ‘Perhaps you could tell me something about Mrs Mortenhoe’s plans.’

‘Plans?’

The question was inexcusable, probing, but he asked it. He was intrigued.

‘Her plans for the next four weeks. How long she intends to stay with Computabook. Where, and with whom, she intends to spend the terminal phases.’

Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. He cut the reporter, saying, ‘I think you have the wrong number,’ and left the line open to stop her ringing again.

He stared for a long time at the speaker from which her voice had come. It was a mat yellow plastic box, perforated on all sides with thousands of tiny round holes. It had no right to tell him what he had no right to know. It had no right to tell him what he positively should not know. Finally he got up, and walked on mortal joints across to the door of her office.

‘Katie-Mo, there was a call for you.’ He wanted to see her. ‘It was a reporter.’

‘What did he want?’

‘It was a woman. I told her you weren’t here.’

‘Bless you. Probably some woman’s page looking for a new angle on the romantic novel.’

‘Something like that.’

She looked up from her work. He felt his unforgivable knowledge branded across his forehead.

‘Why don’t you go home?’ she said, smiling, smiling. ‘It’s long past knocking-off time.’

‘I think I will.’ He was drawn to her, and repelled by her. ‘If you’re sure there’s nothing?’

‘You know me, Pete. Always the eager beaver.’

He nodded, and went. He understood her anger better than she understood it herself. He didn’t ask her what she was so busy doing, he didn’t ask her anything. One way and another he’d received answers enough.

Katherine waited a couple of minutes, went through to his office to make sure he had gone, then returned to her own office and called Dr Mason at the Medical Center. When she gave her name she was put through at once.

‘Katherine. I’m with a patient. May I call you back?’

‘No, you mayn’t. I just wanted to tell you I’m suing you for breach of professional confidence.’

‘Please, Katherine. I can’t talk now.’

‘A letter from NTV and now a call from the newspapers. What right had you to publish my totally private affairs around the nation?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘No doubt I’ll soon be getting my telegram of condolence from the Prime Minister.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘It seems to me perfectly simple.’

‘There are so many people involved, Katherine. Medical orderlies, data processers, neurograph operators. A leak is possible at so many levels.’

‘The leak came from you, Doctor. I can hear it in your voice.’

‘You’re upset, my dear. Let me call you back.’

‘I don’t need NTV in order to make money for my family. I have you. And if you call me again I shall enter a further suit for molestation.’

‘That’s a good curtain line, Katherine. But—’

She didn’t let him spoil it. And enjoyed imagining his discomfort at the other end, the embarrassed shrug he would offer his patient across the desk, and the smile, the professional smile she knew so well, with which he would instantly mend the shattered consultation. He was false, the falsest of them all. She laughed aloud, a nasty sound in the silent office, and then crisply dialed the number at the head of Vincent Ferriman’s company notepaper.

‘Mrs Mortenhoe. Katherine. How good of you to call.’

‘Not good of me at all. I just wanted to know exactly what Dr Mason has told you about me.’

‘Dr Mason ? Are you suggesting that your personal physician has—’

‘If not him, then who?’

‘I’d like to tell you, Mrs Mortenhoe. But naturally we have to protect our sources of—’

‘Dr Mason has admitted it.’

‘I’m sure he hasn’t. In this sort of case there are so many people involved, Mrs Mortenhoe. Medical orderlies, data processers, neurograph operators. A leak is possible at so many levels.’

‘At so many levels.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I seem to have heard that line before, Mr Ferriman.’

‘Obviously somebody has been getting at you. If you wish it, Katherine, we at NTV can protect you from—

‘You’ll find, dear Vincent, that I am perfectly capable of protecting myself.’

And she terminated the conversation. But it was a sour sort of triumph. The words sounded unworthy, even through her consuming anger, like the cheap, across-the-garden-fence raillery they were.

She felt beleaguered, and returned to the comfort of her book, to the dignity with which it would present the bitter truths of human nature. No, the neutral truths, the chemical truths of human nature. The need to persecute the oddball was one of these truths, a drive evolved a hundred million years ago for the stabilization of an uncertain species. Greed was another, much later, the result of power structures that depended on material possessions. Deceit was another, a sophistication that—

Almost immediately the internal telephone rang: Reception to say there was a man to see her. In fact, there were four men. From the newspapers. Reception was much excited. Katherine said she would see none of them, and would Reception make sure that they were all reminded very forcibly of the invasions of Privacy Act. Any place beyond the foyer of the Computabook building rated as a Private Area. Reception, more excited than ever, said she would do her best.

Five minutes later a man appeared, without knocking, in Katherine’s doorway.

‘Mrs Mortenhoe?’

‘I think she’s gone home. Her office is next door — sixty-nine-B. Why don’t you try in there?’

‘I should tell you, Mrs Mortenhoe, I took a peek at the block directory. I also got this from the Data Bank photo-files.’

He passed her the tape printout of a photograph offering a very passable likeness. She shied away from it.

‘Those files are for official use only,’ she said.

‘You can’t trust anybody these days.’ He flicked his cigarette lighter and burned the print to a wisp of gray ash that disintegrated slowly in the still, sunny air of the office. ‘Your word against mine, Mrs Mortenhoe.’ He sat down in front of her desk and brought out a pocket tape recorder. ‘In clear sight of all,’ he said. ‘According to the law.’