The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [107]
The changes evinced in this patient’s life are profound and, to all appearances, permanent. His family (I find myself tempted to write, “his former family”) describes Moreton as methodical, tidy, and of a scientific bent; however, as Goodman he embraces spontaneity, spends his time with drawing pencils and clay (or knives and wood, once he was permitted them), and appears ill at ease when confronted by symmetrical array: A ready chess set, for example, gives him a mental itch until he has shifted a piece into an unlikely position. He sings, as apparently he has not done since adolescence, in a light but pleasant voice. He prefers simple songs and nursery rhymes over more complex melodies or hymns.
If the Board is taken aback by the seemingly light-hearted attitude of “Robert Goodman” when he comes before it, I beg that they keep in mind his twenty-seven months of unflinching service on the Front followed by two months of heroic driving to the rescue of his fellows (“The Angel of Albert”). If I may be permitted an anthropological remark beyond the scope of this patient report, I might point out that a society often reacts to trauma by turning its collective back on responsibility and embracing the frivolous. It should be no surprise that an individual might choose the same means of self-preservation.
I recommend a medical discharge for the patient, and until such time as his family becomes available to him again, a full pension.
As a last note, I recommend that the Board be made aware of the distress that will ensue if they choose to address the patient by his birth name.
Respectfully,
W.H.R. Rivers
The file also included seventeen newspaper clippings concerning the trial of “Johnny” McAlpin in Edinburgh, during which accusations were made concerning the history and mental stability of Moreton, who had met McAlpin in a pub near Craiglockhart Hospital during April and May of 1917. No charges were filed against Moreton, and he was thanked by the judge and permitted to return to his home in Cumbria.
Chapter 53
Robert Goodman had only been to two funerals in his life. As The Other Man, no doubt he had attended any number, in calm green cemeteries or in the filth and shattering chaos of the battlefield, but that was The Other Man and he, Goodman, didn’t have to think about that.
So he was mildly curious about this one. It would not be in a small village church as the other two had been, both of them for neighbours who had reached the ends of their long lives and been ushered into the grave with as much relief as sorrow. This one would be for a man who had, he gathered, still been strong and hale, and whose sudden death had been a terrible shock for everyone who knew him.
He liked this young woman Mary Russell. If there were more like her in circulation, he might not have chosen to live quite so far out of the world. And such was his respect for her as a person, he thought that anyone she loved as much as she evidently had Mycroft Holmes might have been someone he, Robert Goodman, would have enjoyed.
So he was sympathetic, and sad for opportunities missed, but mostly he was curious. All sorts of currents swirled around the man’s death, each of them promising to wash in some interesting artefacts to the funeral.
His life had become far too simple. It had taken an aeroplane falling out of the sky to make him aware of his lapse into tedium. But now, everything had become exciting and vital and unpredictable, in ways that made him itch to contribute.
And now that he thought of it, he probably could come up with one or two ways to add his own touch to the afternoon’s obsequies.
Yes indeed; why not make the event something to remember, for all concerned? After all, who commanded that a funeral had to be funereal?
It was the least he could do for Miss Russell.
Chapter 54
Russell had been here, in this bolt-hole, Holmes could see that.
But she had brought another person with her.