28

Dr Livingstone Expounds

Big Lou took two cups of coffee over to the table occupied by Bruce and Dr Donald Livingstone. It was the quietest table in the coffee bar, and it was much appreciated by those who wanted a private chat. From neighbouring tables it was just possible to hear what was being said at it, but only if the rest of the coffee bar was quiet, which was rarely the case. It was a good place for lovers to meet, and exchange the sort of words – and looks – that lovers like to share. It was a good place for businessmen and financiers to sip a cup of coffee and do a bit of insider trading. It was a good place to unburden oneself of the issues which we like to offload on our long-suffering friends. It was much sought-after.

“I’ve always liked this place,” said Bruce, after Big Lou had returned to the bar. “That woman – Big Lou, as she’s called – is very popular. She just got married to a guy who goes round Highland Games tossing cabers and so on – a strongman, believe it or not.”

Dr Livingstone raised an eyebrow as he looked over towards Lou. “Interesting,” he said. “Does she mind the sobriquet…? I mean, the name – Big Lou. People are sensitive about these things.”

“No, not as far as I know. And her new husband’s called Fat Bob. I don’t think he minds either. It’s just the way things are.”

Dr Livingstone smiled. “I used to be called David at school – for obvious reasons. And once I left medical school, people used to make the same joke all the time. They’d say, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ and then crease up with laughter – as if it was the first time anybody had ever said it.”

“What was his name?” asked Bruce. “The man who found him?”

“H.M. Stanley. You know, I never bothered to find out what the H.M. stood for. I should, I suppose. He was an American journalist who was sent by his paper to find Dr Livingstone. Initials are funny things, aren’t they? Some people use them as a substitute for a first name.”

“Why do you think they do that?”

“Relative anonymity,” replied Dr Livingstone. “Or perhaps impersonality rather than anonymity. Initials are formal – first names are usually more, well, personal. Initials tell you less about a person than the full name. J.B. Stetson, for instance – he was a famous hatter – sounds more remote than John B. Stetson.”

Bruce wondered whether it might have something to do with being unhappy about one’s name. “We had a boy at school who was called P.D. Collins. That was how he signed himself on any list. He was always P.D. Collins – and nobody knew what the initials stood for. If you asked him, he would ignore the question. He’d look away or change the subject.”

“A disliked name can be a great burden in this life,” said Dr Livingstone. “Poor chap.”

“And then we found out – just before we all left school – what the initials stood for. He was Percival Desmond. People laughed a lot at that.”

Dr Livingstone winced. “The damage done,” he said. “Such damage we do to others.”

Bruce looked away. “I was one of the ones who laughed,” he said.

Dr Livingstone held him in his gaze. “I wouldn’t berate yourself too much for that,” he said. “We’ve all done things we regret – especially when we’re young.”

“I wouldn’t laugh now,” said Bruce.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

For a few moments, Bruce was silent. At length he asked, “Can we become different people?”

“Do you mean can we change? Of course we can. Part of my job in the past has been to help people to change – or at least to adapt. There are some things that are very deep-seated that we can’t do anything about, but we can change the way we deal with them. That amounts to a transformation of sorts.”

“I feel very bad about a lot of stuff,” said Bruce.

“We all do,” said Dr Livingstone. He paused. “You do know, don’t you, that I haven’t come to see you in order to treat you? It’s very important that you understand that. I’m here because I’m writing a paper for a psychiatric journal on the psychological implications of being struck by lightning. I’m trying to have a condition recognised, you see, and that’s a long process. You have to persuade the profession that there is a recognisable and consistent set of symptoms – a standard pattern, if you will.”

“So that the condition gets a name?”

“Exactly,” said Dr Livingstone. “And that’s not easy – particularly when it’s relatively rare. So far, I’ve interviewed four people who have been struck by lightning and survived. One of them reported no changes in his life after the event. He said he was exactly the same as he had been before the lightning strike – apart from losing his eyebrows. They were apparently singed. Behaviourally, there was no change in what he did. Or what he thought, for that matter – although he became much better at mathematics, incidentally.”

“And the others?”

Dr Livingstone became animated. “They were very interesting. They all reported feeling very differently about things. One changed his political opinions completely.”

“Just because he was struck by lightning?”

Dr Livingstone hesitated. “Well, that’s hard to answer definitively. You have to be sure of a causal link – you have to satisfy the post hoc, propter hoc test. People change their political views for all sorts of reasons. Growing older, for instance.”

“That makes a difference?”

Dr Livingstone laughed. “Of course it does. In many cases there’s a slow drift to a more conservative position across the lifespan. There’s a saying that addresses that. It’s not one I agree with, by the way. It’s this: ‘A person who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart; a person who’s still a socialist at forty has no head.’ I don’t think that’s true, actually, but it expresses a phenomenon that one might actually observe – the replacing of passion with caution. And I suppose that a cautious approach is more likely to be accompanied by thoughtfulness, although passionate people might argue that their passion comes from precisely that – from thinking about something that makes them feel passionately about it. I imagine that there are plenty of passionate socialists who feel that way precisely because they have contemplated and thought about the suffering of others. And that’s something that I can very much sympathise with.”

Bruce looked thoughtful. “Would this condition be called after somebody?” he asked. “Aren’t some conditions named after people who had them?”

Dr Livingstone allowed himself an almost undetectable smile. “Would you like that?” he asked.