Questions, questions, questions. . .

Questions, always questions. . . There hadn't been a single stage of
his life when others hadn't felt the need to ask him stupid questions.
Now, here he was, in a police station for heaven's sake. He felt like
screaming at them and leaping up aiming for their throats, but knew
that probably was what they were waiting for. Instead, he opted for
silence. He would say nothing. He would do nothing. He would just sit
there and let them drone on. He settled further down in the
uncomfortable chair and took himself out of there. He had always been
able to imagine himself elsewhere.

The young policeman with the fair bristly hair was the first to react
to his new demeanour. He asked anxiously,

'Do you think he's all right? He hasn't had a stroke or anything has
he?'

The older man with the stolid square face sighed deeply. He was getting
tired of both his over-eager colleague and the drama queen in front of
them. This one was certainly putting on a performance now. He had just
run a red light and you would think he was a serial killer. He gave the
lad a scathing look.

'No, he's fine, just withdrawn his co-operation by the look of
it.'

He leaned across the narrow desk so that he was looking directly into
Quentin's face but he was surprised to see that there didn't seem to be
anyone at home. His pale blue eyes were open, but it was as if Quentin
had moved out and left only his body there in the hard chair in front
of them. Brusquely he suspended the interview and told his colleague to
take him to the cells and lock him up just for now. He told him he'd
better contact the duty doctor just to make sure, but he didn't really
think there was any need.

Quentin brought himself out of his reverie and stood up resignedly. He
saw the police doctor and was examined briefly. When he had been
transferred to the cell, he sat heavily on the low bed, the unyielding
mattress on a slightly raised tiled platform. He looked mournfully at
the locked cell door. The tiny room was a cheerless place: no soft
furnishings here, no cushions or pictures. The inmates might tear
curtains and bedding into strips and hang themselves; they could use
picture glass to cut their wrists. Similarly, nothing protruded from
the wall that could be used for a hook for a noose. There wasn't even a
door handle on the inside of the smooth steel door. He hadn't been put
into a 'suicide suit', for which he was grateful. His shoes were bereft
of laces, but at least they had left him his trousers and shirt. He
felt the comfortable cotton cloth, not the hard shiny untearable
material which they put the real risky ones in.

Quentin did not feel suicidal. He was furious with himself and the
world in general. Why couldn't he have answered the questions when the
police car pulled him over and later, just now in the interview room?
It would have been much easier. To calm himself he went back to his
memories.

His early childhood seemed to him to have been happy. He remembered toy
trains and soft stuffed animals lined up on a windowsill. He also
remembered his grandmother and her interminable questions. He realised
that he had stopped answering questions just about that time. It was
never-ending. 'Are you a good boy? Do you love me? What have you been
doing? Do you want to come to the park? What has Mummy been saying
about me?' Each question was followed by a curious look, head on one
side, anticipating some childish remark that could be relayed to her
buddies at the Bridge club for their amusement. He knew all this, so he
didn't answer any of her questions. She persisted.

When she fell down the long flight of stairs inside their house, and
died in hospital, he was told not to blame himself. He was only three
years old after all. It wasn't his fault if his grandmother had tripped
over all those toys piled up at the top of the stairs. She should have
been more careful. The wide pale blue innocent eyes showed only relief
that the questions would now stop. Looking back, he remembered no
sorrow that he had caused the death of his grandmother.

The sliding panel at the top of the door clanged as he was checked.
Seeing that he was still in the same position, the policemen looked
harder. Quentin looked at him steadily and he withdrew quickly. He went
back to his memories.

It was more difficult refusing to answer questions in school. He
compromised. Factual questions he would answer briefly and correctly,
for example, what is seven times six? He was a bright child. His
teachers were slightly put out when he wouldn't join in the 'show and
tell' sessions. They usually enjoyed the artless confessions of the
children about their family life. Quentin wouldn't tell even when asked
directly 'What did you have for breakfast? Do have grandparents? Where
did you go for your holidays?' Dead silence with maybe a lift of the
eyebrows, which actually embarrassed them. They felt unsure then about
asking such personal questions, and they stopped.

Only one teacher persisted. She was called his guidance teacher, and
Quentin privately thought that she was the one who needed guidance. He
still persistently refused to answer intimate questions. If a question
was factual and could be answered in one or two words he answered. If
it was in any way about his private feelings or thoughts, he either
stayed silent, or gave a fictitious answer. He made the answers so
obviously fictitious that they could almost be called satire. He
remembered enjoying this exercise.

After sorting out which career path he would follow (the diplomatic
corps) and his long term ambition (Ambassador for space travellers),
there was only the question of actual subjects and motivation. He chose
subjects that he thought might be generally useful; Chemistry,
Woodwork, Metalwork, Biology, History, Metalwork and Cookery. The
teacher, old eyes quivering with interest, only remarked 'An odd
mixture' and went on asking him why, and strangely, was he happy at
home. He was tempted to say no, his parents abused him, but reckoned
that this would bring even more questions by official busybodies, so he
said nothing. Unfortunately, she persisted. What do you think your
parents would like you to do?' (Brain surgeon or stand-up comic) and
again 'What problems do you have? How do you see yourself coping with
life after school? (With relief. . .)

Of course, it was an accident that this particular teacher had run
across in front of a bus when he called her in an agonised voice from
across the road.
At the funeral it was remarked that she had always put her pupils first
and must have been suffering from stress to make such an elementary
road safety error. Quentin received counselling for being the
(apparently) unwitting cause of the accident.

His parents were told that Miss Smith had written on his report that
she was worried that he had a personality defect. His mother laughed
rather nervously. 'He's always been a strange boy but there's nothing
wrong with him. It's just the way that he looks at you with those pale
eyes.'

When they got home, she started asking questions. 'What did you say to
her? Are you unhappy? Surely you would tell us if something was
wrong?'

Quentin, sitting in his police cell, gave a snort as he remembered.
Yes, right. . . As if he would have told them what was wrong. And it
didn't stop there. He was questioned minutely about everything he did,
everyone he spoke to, what they said, what he said. He didn't answer.
He did have a few friends, but made sure they were the types who didn't
want to know about him and required only that he never asked anything
about them. His father's questions were more searching. They always
finished with '. . .and what did you feel about that?' He said nothing
at all, and eventually they stopped asking, although all the while
looking at him for clues in his body language.

He still felt guilty about what had happened next, but reasoned that
they wanted the best for him and the best was to be left alone, in
literal as well as behavioural terms. The car crash that killed them
happened many miles away. There was talk at the time about a major
steering defect, but there was no proof that this had caused the
accident. The car was almost unrecognisable but they had found an empty
champagne bottle and various picnic remains in the wreckage. It didn't
seem worth sending all this to the lab, as it was obvious that drink
had caused the crash, so the sleeping pill addition to the salmon
quiche he had made for them went unnoticed.

He had been nineteen years old and reflected that his life had taken a
swingeing upturn at this point. With his own home and money, he was in
a great position to be independent.

Of course, many women saw his carefree life as their opportunity, and
attractive women wishing to share the spoils positively plagued him.
These liaisons usually went well for the first couple of dates, when
the women were willing to talk about themselves, but then inevitably
came the fateful evening. 'That's enough about me, now tell me about
yourself, Quentin, right from the start. You must have been a beautiful
little boy with those lovely pale blue eyes. Bet you had a doting
family. Tell me about being small. What do you remember?'

He thought, as always ' You don't want to know . . .'and didn't see
them again.

It was the tenacious ones he had problems with. He brushed them off,
but they thought, looking round at his property, that it was worth it
to try again.

The first really persistent one met with a fatal accident only six
months later, an electrical fault in her car had caused signal failure
at a busy roundabout. The garage was blamed as the car had just had a
service. The second one had met a violent death that very afternoon.
She had been in what he called 'private detective mode' when he was in
a more relaxed mood. In spite of his obvious displeasure, she had
continued asking questions. The last one had really thrown him and he
had reacted viciously. He'd happened to have a knife in his hand as he
was about to cut a tomato for the salad he was preparing and he lashed
out with it. He was surprised at his own reaction. He'd always been one
for planning and coolly arranging the scene so that blame in no way
glanced in his direction. Now he had lost control and killed her. There
was no way that he could disguise that as an accident.

He'd gone out in his car to think it out and see if he could recover
any semblance of credibility from his outburst. The traffic had been
quite impenetrable and he'd become impatient at a crossing. Trying to
catch the lights he'd speeded across the road just as the amber turned
to red. He was elated thinking he'd made it when a police siren alerted
him to the fact that he hadn't. He'd been breathalysed and
(predictably) refused to answer any questions so had been taken into
the police station. He expected to be released immediately, and was
annoyed when this did not happen. It appeared that the police doctor
had alerted them to the fact that he had a smear of dried blood in his
hair and some more underneath his fingernails. He couldn't believe how
stupid he had been. Just because he was asked a question that most men
would have been proud of. It was 'Will you marry me?'

Quentin made sure that he was in solitary for most of his sentence. He
was almost happy, quite content really. The cell was supposed to keep
society safe from him. Well, it kept him safe from society. If too many
people tried to 're-integrate' him or 'socialise' him, he just threw a
tantrum or attacked someone and was soon in solitary again. He had been
proved sane, just didn't fit in. He quite enjoyed the therapy sessions
an enlightened prison management had decided would help. He went
through a lot of therapists.