THREE

      He just blocked it all out. It was as simple (or as complicated) as that. Denial – as the Americans were so fond of calling it – was Isidore’s basic coping mechanism (his ‘survival strategy’). That was how he dealt with it. And Beede (for all his cynicism) was sensible enough to just go along with the whole thing; the self-delusion, the subterfuge, the bunk, the bullshit.

      He didn’t want to push or to provoke or to challenge; because – bottom line – it was none of his damn business. And – more to the point – if he did (push, provoke, challenge etc), where would it actually lead?

       Seriously?

      What could be gained? Dory was (after all) just a man; a human being, battling – against horrendous odds – merely to function; to hold down a job; to raise a family; just to…to…

      Oh God, here it comes –

      …to be.

      He was a simple man. A good man. He had integrity and dignity. He had pride –

       A little too much, occasionally…

      Dory was a person, not some psychological experiment. He was no benighted beagle or tragic lab rat; nobody’s fool, nobody’s victim – although Beede sometimes struggled to remind himself of this fact (he still harboured those Reformist tendencies in him – that persistent urge to just roll his sleeves up and dive in – no matter how diligently he might’ve tried to repress them).

      It could certainly make things difficult (this ‘denial’): the explanations, for one thing. Dory often ‘displaced’ his confusion on to the people surrounding him. Beede had read a book by R.D. Laing (The Divided Self) and several of Freud’s case studies (Wolfman, in particular). He’d quickly picked up on all the jargon, and tended to use it – not because he liked it or trusted it – but because it was a convenient short cut, and short cuts – in working scenarios – were an issue of sheer pragmatism.

      When it came to ‘displacement’, this particular situation was a perfect example. As they slowly picked their way back along the Bad Munstereifel Road (and it was a bloody treacherous hike, let alone with a horse in tow and your trousers sagging), at an approximate interval of every three to four minutes, Dory would turn and ask Beede (with complete guilelessness) why he had a horse with him, and what he thought he was doing with it (his territorial army background and his job in security made the whole thing even more dodgy; Dory – this Dory – had a ridiculously over-developed sense of propriety).

      And whenever Beede said (as he was obliged to, because it was true), ‘You took it, Dory,’ or ‘I found you with it – I was having coffee with my son…’ etc – he could see Isidore’s mind turning over, could see him putting two and two together (making five), could see him growing increasingly guarded and suspicious, as though Beede (for his own sick reasons – whatever they may be) was intent on surreptitiously inveigling him into some atrocious form of perjury.

      Because in Isidore’s mind (when he weighed it all up) the likelihood that he had stolen a horse himself (when he both feared and hated horses, and when he was intrinsically law-abiding) seemed somehow far less plausible than the likelihood that Beede had stolen it (or found it, or whatever) and that he had just ‘blanked out’ (as he sometimes called it) and then miraculously ‘turned up’.

      I mean wasn’t that more plausible? Even from the outside?

      Over time (their working relationship – their ‘friendship’ – had lasted about twenty-two months, in total) Beede had started to modify things. He knew that this was risky (perilous, even) but he simply could not stop himself. He’d long observed in Dory a kind of helpless paranoia (a desperate vulnerability) which somehow made the truth seem so immeasurably illogical (and stupid and cruel) that it was sometimes virtually impossible not to suddenly find yourself quickly inserting a small –

       Tiny

      – neat, white lie to try and make things more bearable. He knew that Elen sometimes did the same. It was difficult not to when you cared for a person. It was only natural (call it a maternal/paternal instinct) to feel a tugging need to assuage their distress in some way; to apply some kind of remedial blotter to the leaking ink of their misery.

      So approximately ten minutes into the walk Beede had begun to modify the story (it was boredom, more than anything. Dory would keep on asking the same questions – again and again and again – until he felt satisfied by the answers; and if he wasn’t satisfied he may well turn hostile. There might be –

       God forbid

      – an ‘episode’.)

      Consequently – according to Beede – the horse had simply ‘escaped from a field’. Beede had ‘just happened across it, wandering around in the road’, so had gone off in pursuit of it, then Dory had arrived – ‘in the nick of time’ – and had helped him to subdue it.

      In this new scenario Dory was quite the hero…

      ‘Yes, I know you hate horses. Don’t you see? That’s what made the whole thing so…so admirable.’

      The only problem with this approach was that Dory wouldn’t automatically give up on all his former scraps –

       Dammit

      – and a few hours later there was always the risk that he might suddenly remember being in the play area (for example) and then get all agitated and jumpy, and the questions would start over. He was tenacious. He was suspicious.

      Things were definitely –

       Definitely

      – getting worse on that score. Elen had said so herself (and Isidore had strongly indicated as much too, in some of his rare – but precious – moments of unselfconsciousness).

      On the positive side (and there was always a positive side), he was actually ‘going under’ slightly less often than he had done previously; but when he did, he ‘fell’