Attention to Detail

A psychopath confesses

Whenever I hear that someone I know has died, I always want to burst out laughing. This has nothing to do with my recent descent into insanity — I have shown the same reaction for the last twenty years.

Nor is it because I am particularly callous and unfeeling.

It is the combination of the solemn tone of the person breaking the news and the excruciating awkwardness of the situation which produces the desire to erupt. The sense that laughing is the least appropriate of all responses.

To be fair, I normally manage to contain my mirth, at least for long enough to mumble some shocked regrets and retreat out of earshot. My wife Pamela will swear under oath that she heard me stifle a snort when I heard that my favourite teacher from grammar school, my old Latin master, had died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight.

It is looking increasingly unlikely that she will have to testify to this effect, but as you can see I think of everything. My darling wife can be called into court, should the need arise, and will be able to support me when I explain my reaction to Patrick’s news last week.

Patrick walked into my office first thing on Monday morning, adopted the solemn tone and asked whether I had heard about Peter. I looked straight into his eyes and said no. Then he told me. Then I laughed.

For over a month now I have been practising lying directly to people while maintaining eye contact. It is a technique which I first observed when Peter used it a few months ago, at the time of our last disagreement. He looked me in the eye, while his own boss looked on, and said:

“Tom, this has nothing to do with what you did in June. Your performance is the sole item on the agenda. Believe me, Tom, we are trying to help you.”

Although half of my mind was occupied in constructing elaborate answers for the tissue of lies contained in my appraisal, the other half was struck with wondering admiration at my boss’s aptitude for deception.

The crowning glory was the pleading stress he gave to the words “Believe me”. The man was a genius and, in calm reflection after the meeting, I realised that if I were to learn nothing else from the…

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