Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door

‘Is that why you do this?’ Prior swept his hand down across his eyes.

Rivers smiled. ‘No, of course not, it’s just a habit. Eye-strain. Now can we —’

‘No, that’s not true. If it was eye-strain, you’d do it at random and you don’t. You do it when… when something touches a nerve. Or or… It is a way of hiding your feelings. You’ve just said it yourself, the eyes are the one part you can’t turn into wallpaper — and so you cover them up.’

Rivers found this disconcerting. He tried to go on with what he’d been going to say, and realized he’d lost the train of thought. After so many hours of probing, manipulating, speculating, provoking, teasing, Prior had finally — and almost casually — succeeded. He couldn’t ignore this; it had to be dealt with. ‘I think… if as you say it isn’t random — and I don’t know because it’s not something I’m aware of — it’s probably something to do with not wanting to see the patient. For me the patient’s expressions and gestures aren’t much use, because I have no visual memory, so I think perhaps I stop myself seeing him as a way of concentrating on what he’s saying. All right? Now perhaps we can —’

‘No visual memory at all?’

‘None at all.’

‘I don’t see how you think.’

‘Well, I suspect you’re a very visual person. Could we—’

‘Have you always been like this?’

Rivers thought, all right . He stood up and indicated to Prior that they should exchange seats. Prior looked surprised and even uneasy, but quickly recovered and sat down in Rivers’s chair with considerable aplomb. Rivers saw him look round the study, taking in his changed perspective on the room. ‘Isn’t this against the rules?’ he asked.

‘I can’t think of a single rule we’re not breaking.’

‘Can’t you?’ Prior said, smiling his delicate smile. ‘I can.’

‘I’m going to show you how boring this job is. When I was five…’

Prior shifted his position, leant forward, rested his chin on his clasped hands, and said, in meltingly empathic tones, ‘Yes? Go on.’

Rivers was not in fact breaking the rules. He intended to do no more than offer Prior an illustration from his own experience that he’d already used several times in public lectures, but he hadn’t reckoned on doing it while confronted by a caricature of himself. ‘One of the expressions of having no visual memory is that I can’t remember the interior of any building I’ve ever been in. I can’t remember this house when I’m not in it. I can’t remember Craiglockhart, though I lived there for over a year. I can’t remember St John’s, though I’ve lived there twenty years, but there is one interior I do remember and that’s a house in Brighton I lived in till I was five. I can remember part of that. The basement kitchen, the drawing-room, the dining-room, my father’s study, but I can’t remember anything at all about upstairs. And I’ve come to believe — I won’t go into the reasons — that something happened to me on the top floor that was so terrible that I simply had to forget it. And in order to ensure that I forgot I suppressed not just the one memory, but the capacity to remember things visually at all.’ Rivers paused, and waited for a response.

‘You were raped,’ Prior said. ‘Or beaten.’

Rivers’s face went stiff with shock. ‘I really don’t think I was.’

‘No, well, you wouldn’t, would you? The whole point is it’s too terrible to contemplate.’

Rivers said something he knew he’d regret, but he had to say it. ‘This was my father’s vicarage.’

‘I was raped in a vicarage once.’

It was on the tip of Rivers’s tongue to say that no doubt Prior had been ‘raped’ in any number of places, but he managed to restrain himself. ‘When I said terrible I meant to a child of that age. I was five remember. Things happen to children which are an enormous shock to the child, but which wouldn’t seem terrible or or or even particularly important to an adult.’

‘And equally things happen to children which are genuinely terrible. And would be recognized as terrible by anybody at any age.’

‘Yes, of course. How old were you?’

‘Eleven. I wasn’t meaning myself.’

‘You don’t classify that as “terrible”?’

‘No . I was receiving extra tuition.’ He gave a yelping laugh. ‘God, was I receiving extra tuition. From the parish priest, Father Mackenzie. My mother offered him a shilling a week — more than she could afford — but he said, “Don’t worry, my good woman, I have seldom seen a more promising boy.”’ He added irritably, ‘Don’t look so shocked, Rivers.’

‘I am shocked.’

‘Then you shouldn’t be. He got paid in kind, that’s all.’ Suddenly Prior leant forward and grasped Rivers’s knee, digging his fingers in round the kneecap. ‘Everything has to be paid for, doesn’t it?’ He grasped the knee harder. ‘Doesn’t it? ’

‘No.’

Prior let go. ‘This terrible-in-big-black-inverted commas thing that happened to you, what do you think it was?’

‘I don’t know. Dressing-gown on the back of a door?’

‘As bad as that? Oh, my God.’

Rivers pressed on in defiance of Prior’s smile. ‘I had a patient once who became claustrophobic as the result of being accidentally locked in a corridor with a fierce dog. Or it seemed fierce to him. In that —’

‘Oh, I see. Even the bloody dog wasn’t really fierce.’

‘In that case his parents didn’t even know it had happened.’

‘You say you were five when this… non-event didn’t happen?’

‘Yes.’

‘How old were you when you started to stammer?’

‘Fi-ive.’

Prior leant back in Rivers’s chair and smiled. ‘Big dog. ’

‘I didn’t mean to imply there was —’

‘For God’s sake . Whatever it was, you blinded yourself so you wouldn’t have to go on seeing it.’

‘I wouldn’t put it as dramatically as that.’

‘You destroyed your visual memory. You put your mind’s eye out . Is that what happened, or isn’t it?’

Rivers struggled with himself. Then said simply; ‘Yes.’

‘Do you ever think you’re on the verge of remembering?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘And what do you feel?’

‘Fear.’ He smiled. ‘Because the child’s emotions are still attached to the memory.’

‘We’re back to the dressing-gown.’

‘Yes. Yes. I’m afraid we are, because I do sincerely believe it may be as simple as that.’

‘Then one can only applaud,’ Prior said, and did. Three loud claps.

‘You know…’ Rivers hesitated and started again. ‘You must be wary of filling the gaps in your memory with… with monsters. I think we all tend to do it. As soon as we’re left with a blank, we start projecting our worst fears on to it. It’s a bit like the guide for medieval map-makers, isn’t it? Where unknown, there place monsters . But I do think you should try not to do it, because what you’re really doing is subjecting yourself to a constant stream of suggestion of of a very negative kind.’

‘All right. I’ll try not to. I’ll substitute the Rivers guide to map-making: Where unknown, there place dressing-gowns . Or just possibly, dogs . Here, have your chair back.’ Prior settled himself back into the patient’s chair, murmuring, ‘Do you know, Rivers, you’re as neurotic as I am? And that’s saying quite a lot.’

Rivers rested his chin on his hands. ‘How do you feel about that?’

‘Oh, my God, we are back to normal. You mean, “Do I feel a nasty, mean-spirited sense of triumph?” No. I’m mean-spirited enough, I’m just not stupid enough.’ Prior brooded a moment. ‘There’s one thing wrong with the Rivers guide to map-making. Suppose there really are monsters?’