EIGHT

‘Money. It has to be that. Money at the bottom of everything. Honour? Duty? Professional pride? Not likely. Old hat. Once maybe, but not now. No. Nothing like the quids to motivate a man, give him reason, aspirations beyond his station, and all that. Prestigious, though, this project. Only been going a couple of years and they’ve had a ream of publicity. One wonders why, though.’

The Major was wheeling me through the woods. It was a weekend day and there was no work allotted to the house at that time of the week. My own efforts, that is, my therapeutic programme, were also eased. No exercises in the gymnasium, no baths, only the bare bones of injection and heavy feeding. John and Anna seemed to take it in turns to go away for the weekend, and this time it was John’s turn to remain at the house. Mostly he left people to their own devices, be it staying in bed the whole two days, going out to a nearby town - which he particularly approved of - or simply idling about the house watching sport or films on the television. For his own part he was rarely inclined to leave the smoky comfort of his office. We passed on up a track, down a dark tunnel of overgrowth, the bright sun a jewel moving parallel and as witness at the other side of the deep thicket. In front of us a few tresses of cloud lay snagged on a pure blue sky. The Major seemed in good humour.

‘Problems,’ he said. They’ve got problems, I know that. Don’t suppose anyone’s bothered to tell you what goes on round here. Guinea-pigs, that’s us. That’s you and me, Peter my boy. Truth is, I think they’re going too far now, overstepping the mark to get results. I heard about what they did to you the other day. Christ, if a man doesn’t want to eat, he doesn’t want to eat. That stuff they used, illegal now, in fact always has been for humans. Used to use it on cows with some kind of lockjaw or something. Got a brother very big in the pharmaceutical business, he clued me in on that one. I knew Kaufmann, too. They gave him it. Only old Tom got the dose wrong, very nearly blew the fellow’s head off, sure to have done some permanent damage to the man. Still, he’s gone now and that won’t matter. He was a bit like you. You should have met him; maybe you’d have got on together.’

He put the brake on the wheelchair and sat on an old log. He was wearing a sort of jacket with no sleeves under which he had only a shirt, yet the cold didn’t seem to bother him. Or maybe it was me. Not used to it. He took a tin from his pocket and began rolling a cigarette.