Asylum by Patrick McGrath Page A

with some alacrity. Bridie closed the door and left the three of them alone.
    “Make yourselves at home,” murmured Jack, and there was a gruffness and a detachment in him that she had never heard before.
    “Bloody business,” he said, when they were settled. “This is my fifth escape. Always hell, even if we get him fast. Edgar Stark.”
    He fell silent, frowning at his whisky, and the name of Stella’s lover hung there in the gloom as the evening died and the last of the birdsong drifted in from the garden.
    “This is difficult. I’ll come straight to the point. I haven’t told you this, Max. I saw no reason to distress you both by passing on wild rumors. But in view of this afternoon’s events I must bring this thing into the open.”
    He paused again. This “thing”—what “thing”? The way Jack pronounced the word, to Stella it was a disgusting thing, decaying, bad. Why did she need to be present for the bringing into the open of something decaying and bad?
    “What rumors?” said Max.
    The superintendent sighed. He turned to Stella. “It’s been suggested,” he began, “that your relationship with Edgar Stark went beyond what’s proper for a doctor’s wife.”
    “Where has this come from?” said Max sharply. “Why wasn’t I informed?”
    “It doesn’t matter where it came from. I don’t need to tell you how these things work. The patients talk among themselves, an attendant overhears, the attendants talk, it soon gets back to me.”
    “I’m astonished you take it seriously!”
    Stella said both she and Jack were surprised by Max’s vehemence.
    “Max. Please listen to me. Of course I am skeptical of rumor. I hear a great deal in the course of the day, little of it with any basis in reality. But this is a large institution, and people talk. Of course I give it no credence. However. I need to know why such a rumor might have arisen.”
    “Stella talked to him in the garden, but there’s nothing beyond that.”
    “Stella?”
    They both turned toward her. Max was angry, and while on the face of it his anger was in reaction to Jack’s accusing Stella of impropriety, she understood that the fact that this interview should even be necessary, plus, of course, his sickening awareness that he’d mishandled the theft of his clothes and in effect allowed Edgar to get away, all this complicated the situation, and his defense of her was not as gallant as it appeared.
    “Of course not, Jack,” she said, a tone of disbelief softening the outrage in her voice. “I chat with him sometimes when I go into the vegetable garden. Or I did. I chat to all the patients, I think it’s important.”
    “Did you see him every day? I’m sorry, Stella, I have to know where this came from.”
    A pause here. She assumed an expression of dignity in the face of insult. She was a respectable married woman whose virtue had been questioned. She allowed that expression then gradually to give way to a pained acceptance of the realities.
    “We eat a salad from the garden every day. If I see Edgar I say good morning to him, and sometimes we talk.”
    Jack allowed a small pause while he frowned and nodded and watched Stella carefully.
    “Thank you, Stella,” he said at last. “I thought it must be something like that. I do apologize. But you understand. I pity the psychiatrist’s wife, it’s a thankless task you perform. We’re the only ones who know the cost.” This was addressed to Max, who also nodded absently and frowned.
    “Let me give you another drink.”
    “No thanks, Jack,” said Max, rising, “we must go.”
    Jack didn’t apologize further. He knew it had to be done, and he’d done it. It would take a good deal to convince him that a doctor’s wife could commit any sort of impropriety with a patient. He was satisfied. This at least was what I imagine Max made of the interview.
    I was with Bridie in the drawing room when Jack joined us. I’d been there for the last hour, bringing them up to date