six
Contrary to Hasson’s fears and expectations, his new life in quite abruptly Tripletree became easy to bear.
One of the things which came to his rescue was a kind of variable time effect he had noticed previously when visiting a foreign country on leave. He had a theory that personal time was not measured by the clock, but by the number of fresh sensory impressions recorded by the mind. On the first day or two of a vacation, especially if the surroundings were very different to those of his daily norm, he continually experienced new sensations and those days seemed almost endless. The vacation felt as though it would go on for ever. Suddenly, however, the new environment became familiar, the number and frequency of surprise encounters with undiluted reality decreased, the mind returned to its customary complacency — and as soon as that state of consciousness was reached the remaining days of the holiday flickered by like on a speeded-up projector.
Hasson’s theory had always depressed him a little because it both explained and confirmed the existence of a phenomenon described to him by his father — the acceleration of subjective time during later life. He had always sworn to himself that he would never get into a sense-numbing, mind-deadening rut, that he would never let the months and seasons and years slip through his fingers, but all at once he found the process working to his advantage. Time began to go faster, and the demands of each day grew less.
Keeping his is promise to Oliver Pan, he began taking large spoonfuls of powdered brewer’s yeast. At first he found the bitter, tongue- substance almost impossible to swallow and had to swill it down with glasses of fruit juice. An immediate effect was that he became so bloated with internal gas production was that he had difficulty in bending over, but Oliver had told him in advance that such a symptom would be proof of how much he needed the yeast’s rich supply of B-vitamins. Placing his faith in Oliver’s advice, he persevered with the yeast, rehearsing in his mind what he could remember from the impromptu lecture on its value as a source of anti-stress vitamins, biotin, cholin, folic acid, inositol, niacin, nucleic acid, pantothenic acid, iron, phosphorus and whole protein, as well as the complete B- vitamin complex. None of the biochemical terms had much meaning for Hasson, but two days after beginning the treatment he awoke to find that the mouth ulcers — which had plagued him for months — had vanished without trace. That benefit alone, he decided, was worth anything that Oliver was going to charge him.
He also began chewing tiny fragments of the ginseng root twice a day. It was a dark reddish-brown in colour, almost as tough as high-impact plastic, and tasted vaguely of grass. Hasson failed to see what good it could do him, but after his success with the mouth ulcers he was more than willing to give all of Oliver’s recommendations a fair trial. His digestion improved, the gaseous pressure faded from his abdomen, his appetite returned, and in a short time he rediscovered a simple pleasure — that of looking forward to meals.
The food provided in the Werry household was not always to Hasson’s taste, but in the middle of his second week there Ginny Carpenter — who had maintained her attitude of casual hostility towards him — departed on unspecified family business for a stay in Vancouver. May Carpenter did most of the cooking after that, and although she had her own set of culinary shortcomings these were more than compensated for in Hasson’s view by the absence of her mother. It turned out that May had a part-time job in the office of a plant-hire company in Tripletree. She went to it four days a week, which meant that when Theo was at school Hasson had the house to himself, an arrangement which suited him perfectly.
He continued to spend as much time as possible watching television in his room, but in spite of his avowed wish to keep the shutters closed on the world he found himself thinking more and more about the real-life problems of his hosts. Al Werry, after his strange Saturday morning confessional in the downtown bar, reverted to his normal persona, going about his business with his suggestion of a swagger, looking fit and cheerful and competent, the picture of a well-adjusted career cop. He oversaw the activities of his minuscule force with a breezy carelessness which seemed not to have been affected by anything that had been said by Buck Morlacher.
Hasson was surprised to note that Morlacher — after having impinged on his life three times in rapid succession, each time looking more like a volcano on the point of eruption — had quieted down and virtually effaced himself from the scene. He wondered if Morlacher’s change of attitude was simply due to the fact that the big man had other business interests and only got around to bedevilling Werry on occasion, or if it was something to do with May Carpenter. It was difficult for Hasson to be certain, but he had a feeling that the relationship between the two had developed since the encounter he had witnessed from the bathroom, and he became intrigued with the problem of determining what sort of person actually lived behind May’s facade of primitive, uncomplicated sexuality.
According to Werry the facade was all there was. It was a judgement Hasson had thought to be unfair and insensitive, but as the days wore on he began to accept the fact that it was impossible to hold any kind of conversation with May. It began to appear to him that she was a gorgeous female android with only two modes of operation — signalling a romantic interest in the men she met, and actually indulging that interest. Hasson, perhaps by failing to make the correct responses, had confused the identification processes and caused himself to be placed in a category with which the mechanism was not programmed to deal. At times he felt guilty over thinking about another human being in such terms and decided that the failure in communications was due to his own real inadequacies, rather than those he imagined in May, but that insight — if insight it was — had no material effect on their relationship or lack of it. It appeared that she was prepared to deal with him only on her own terms and those terms were unacceptable to Hasson, partly out of consideration for Al Werry, partly because a remnant of pride would not allow him to stand in line with Buck Morlacher.
His relationship with Theo Werry became equally stagnant and unproductive, although in that case Hasson knew exactly what was wrong. The boy had all of the young male’s natural respect for strength and courage, a respect which perhaps was enhanced by his handicap, and it was easy to guess the opinion he had formed of Hasson. In addition, the generation gap had been yawning between them ever since Hasson had put forward his views about angels in general, and their shared interests in music and literature were unable to bridge it.
Hasson chose to bide his time with Theo, watching closely for the first sign of encouragement, but the boy remained aloof, spending much of his free time in his bedroom. On a number of occasions as Hasson was going along the darkened landing he saw the door to Theo’s room being limned with brief flashes of light, but he passed on his way each time, forcing himself to ignore the distress beacon, knowing that any attempt to answer it would be regarded as an intrusion. Once, well after midnight, he thought he heard a voice in the room and hesitated at the door, wondering if Theo could be having a nightmare. The sound died away almost immediately and Hasson passed on his way back to his television set, saddened by the idea that even the spurious vision of bad dreams could be cherished by a blind person.
As the new pattern of his life became a routine Hasson welcomed the dulling of his perceptions. Monotony was a mind-sapping drug to which he quickly became addicted and he drew comfort from a rapidly growing conviction that nothing of any significance would ever happen to him again, that night and day would continue to merge into the undemanding and featureless grey blur of eternity.