The Broken Hours

by Jacqueline Baker

  I can’t imagine the look I must have had on my face.

  I’m afraid I didn’t notice.

  Polite, she said.

  You work here, I take it?

  She raised those eyebrows even higher and sighed. I think I was just deciding.

  Difficult morning?

  Difficult night. One of those shifts. The ones you hear about in nursing training but believe will never happen to you. Not used to it yet, I guess.

  To what, may I ask?

  The nights, she said. She lifted the cigarette then, with an embarrassed pursing of the lips. Do you mind?

  Not at all.

  I don’t think there’s any rule against it, per se. But I don’t really know. There might be. I’ve been wrong about so many things. She puffed on the cigarette, exhaled. And one doesn’t like to take chances. You know, right off.

  You’re new, then?

  Day three. She tapped ash onto the lawn and ground it down with the toe of her stained shoe. They tell me it gets better.

  Do you believe them?

  No. She laughed humorlessly. I mean, this is what I signed up for. It’s just, things are so different in theory. On paper. If you know what I mean.

  Yes, I said. I think so.

  I’m what my mother calls thin-skinned, I’m afraid.

  It makes for a good many bruises.

  Let me guess, she said. You’re the new doctor.

  Hardly. I laughed. What makes you think so?

  Hmm, she said, tilting her head. You just have that look about you. Of analyzing things. You know? A good observer, I would say.

  I’ve certainly been called worse things.

  Me, too. Only a few moments ago.

  She laughed ruefully and flicked the ash from her cigarette, looking at me curiously.

  I’m visiting someone, I said, anticipating her question.

  Oh. That’s too bad. Visiting hours aren’t until after lunch, I’m afraid. Mornings are for treatments and therapy. Routine is crucial. Any minor change … She finished with a shake of her head.

  I see.

  You must be new then, too.

  You could say that.

  I’m sorry.

  For what?

  She shrugged and looked up at the building.

  I mean, it can’t be easy, either, she said. Having someone in here. That’s all.

  In there, out here. None of it is easy, it seems.

  She looked at me doubtfully, sympathetically.

  I suppose I shall have to come back then, I said. Then, on second thought, I pulled the letters from my overcoat pocket and added, Say, would you mind delivering these? I’d be awfully grateful. Just until I can make it back.

  She took the envelopes. Two letters, my. Who’s the lucky lady? Her face blanched. I’m sorry. That was stupid of me. I’m still getting used to the things you should say, the things you shouldn’t say. Every day brings a new list of mistakes.

  It must be difficult.

  It is. But I shouldn’t be complaining to you. Mistake number 201.

  Not at all, I said. Well. Good day, then.

  Wait, she said behind me, the name. I don’t even know it’s a woman you’re here to see. I just assumed. It usually is, you know. The ones who get visitors, I mean. The men, hardly anyone comes to see them.

  Seems a shame. I wonder why.

  I think they’re more frightening, the men. The women—it sounds silly—but one almost expects it, madness. I don’t know why. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? And it isn’t fair. Some are worse than others, of course. The stories I could tell. But insanity in men? It’s quite a different thing. It’s—I don’t know—bigger, somehow. So much more violent. The women, they mostly only hurt themselves.

  That stands to reason, I suppose.

  Does it? I wonder. The only thing is, she added, the thing I really can’t bear, if there are children involved—the things I’ve heard, I can’t, I honestly can’t—

  She stopped abruptly and turned away from me. Her hair had pulled loose from the bun in back and hung in lopsided strands down her neck. It was an uncomfortable moment. I wondered if I should speak, but then she turned back to me, eyes shining.

  You told me you aren’t a doctor, she said, and here I’m talking to you like you’re mine. You were about to tell me the name.

  Of course, I said. Yes. It’s Mrs…. Phillips. Or, no, Lovecraft.

  She stared back at me with that perpetual look of surprise.

  You’re not sure?

  I—

  Oh, I’m sorry. She waved a hand. There I go again. I shouldn’t pry. These things can be complicated.

  Yes.

  I understand. Well. Phillips-Lovecraft. I’m not sure I know her. I’m still getting acquainted with all the wards. But I’ll be sure she gets the letters. I’ll give them to Sister Clem. She knows everyone. Whether they like it or not.

  Clem?

  Clementine. An old sourpuss, so goes the saying. I’m a little afraid of her myself, actually, but she’s been here forever. She makes it her business to know them all. She put a hand up over her mouth. Oh, she said. I didn’t mean “them,” not the way it sounded.

  Not at all. In fact, I had been thinking much the same.

  I’ll make sure she gets the letters.

  Much obliged.

  I was about to tip my hat in what I hoped was a gallant manner, when the nurse suddenly straightened, dropping the cigarette in the grass and stomping it out with her shoe. I heard footfalls coming toward us on the gravel and I turned.

  An older gentleman in a gray woollen overcoat and spectacles stood behind me. He carried a large black leather satchel.

  Forgive me, he said. I have interrupted your pleasant conversation.

  He smiled in a friendly, easy, open way. He was a man whom people trusted, you could see that immediately. You could see he knew it, too. His silvery hair was combed back in a neat wave from his forehead, hiding, as it were, nothing.

  Excuse me, the nurse said abruptly. I’ll be sure to deliver …

  She flapped the envelopes at me without looking up and was off, stumbling up the first stair and struggling a moment at the door, pushing instead of pulling, and finally gone.

  The gentleman adjusted his gleaming spectacles.

  How are you this fine morning? he asked.

  I am quite well, I said. Pleasant fellow.

  You seem lost, the man said, tentatively, inquiringly.

  Not at all.

  Or, perhaps, at a loss.

  No indeed.

  The man looked up at the hospital and then back at me.

  Friend of our Ivy’s, are you?

  Ivy? I looked back at him blankly.

  The young lady you were speaking with.

  Ah. No. I just happened upon her, here. I gestured at the shrubbery awkwardly, then withdrew my hand.

  Mm, yes. Out lingering in the rhododendrons again, our Creeping Ivy. His smile faded. Out for a stroll, then, were you?

  Quite, I said. I tried out my own smile, felt it quiver. Sweat prickled beneath my armpits. I had never been fond of doctors. It was not an uncommon reaction.

  Are you—were you—on your way inside? He gestured at the asylum.

  Not just at the moment.

  I was aware I must look quite suspicious. I groped for something to say. What I really wanted to ask about was the lighted window I had seen every night, and the slow telegraphing that came to me sometimes across the darkened city. But how to phrase it?

  This building … , I began. But I could not ask.

  Yes?

  Do you know, perchance, when it was built? I said instead.

  Built? He pursed his lips, tilting his head up to look at the building. A trick of the light blacked out his spectacles. He shook his head. I confess I haven’t the foggiest. He looked back at me, the faintest trace of a smile, I thought, flickering around the corners of his mouth.

  Was it built as such? I stumbled on. As an asylum?

&nbs
p; I believe it was. He looked at me carefully, seeming to consider. Then he said, If you’d like to come in with me, I’m sure we can find out the particulars. Someone is bound to know. One of the sisters, perhaps. I sometimes think they came with the building, just between you and me. And I’ve been here a good while myself.

  I wouldn’t want to trouble.

  No trouble at all.

  You know, I have of it the most remarkable view, from my study window. Over by the university.

  Indeed?

  Yes, most remarkable. It looks, I said, almost as of a castle at night. Lit up, you know.

  Does it?

  Quite, I said, nodding. Then, for lack of anything else, Quite.

  We stood a moment in uncomfortable silence.

  Well, he said, and hesitated. He appeared on the brink of saying something further, then seemed to think better of it. Good day to you, then.

  I watched him mount the wide stairs and cross the verandah, his clipped footfalls resonating across the empty lawns like the shots of hunters in autumn. At the door, he paused beneath the wide white portico and glanced back at me. I repressed the urge to lift a hand. He nodded, once, his spectacles darkening over again, before stepping inside, and I turned away, relieved and trying hard to make it look as if I were not.

  I had to return, of course. I had to bring my employer some word of his mother before Jane arrived and everything, the entire sham, collapsed around me. I felt, however irrationally, that I owed it him.

  The young nurse was not there smoking in the shrubbery, though I had somehow expected she would be, as if she came with the landscape, the angel at the gate. I lingered a moment at the foot of the stairs, feeling overwhelmed, sick, at the thought of entering that building, an asylum. Finally, mustering my resolve, I swung the heavy door open and stepped inside.

  I was hit with an overwhelming odor of bleach and paste wax and distant, starchy cooking. The day had grown bright and the sunlight filtered in coldly through the many windows into the main foyer, luxurious with blue velvet armchairs and draperies of a light, airy fabric, though the hallways leading away in either direction were dark in spite of large windows at their ends, lit by dim orange lights which reflected on the gleaming floors like pumpkin lanterns. Down the passage nearest me, a man in baggy clothing moved with a bucket and mop, making wide, graceful sweeps. He looked up abruptly and stopped his motion, waiting for me to move on. I turned away, back to the bright foyer. The bitter taste of paste wax hung in the back of my throat and I swallowed hard. My palms sweated inside my overcoat pockets and I pulled them out, wiping them against my trousers. No one seemed to take any note of me. There was an air of bustle and purpose. Nurses moved, clacking across the polished floors, calling to one another. It was not what I’d expected from the outside. Still, in spite of the many windows and polished floors, there was an air of oppressiveness, of heaviness.

  If you gaze into the abyss, I thought, the abyss also gazes into you. I wondered where I’d come across such a phrase, for it was surely not of my own invention.

  I gripped the chunk of gravestone in my overcoat pocket and walked directly to the admittance desk. The nurse there frowned deeply over her typewriter and, when she looked up at my approach, frowned more deeply still. I wondered if I had the visiting hours wrong after all.

  She was older than the nurse I’d met on the steps, and thin, with dark hair pinned in tight coils around her sharp face. Her lips were rouged heavily in a cracked, unbecoming color that reminded me of old geraniums.

  Good afternoon, she said, and far from the voice I had been expecting, hers was melodious, silvery.

  Good afternoon, I said. The nurse I spoke with earlier said visiting hours—

  You were here this morning?

  Yes, only to drop some letters.

  Whom did you speak with?

  A nurse, I didn’t get her name. She’s new, I said. Three days, I believe. About so tall.

  Fat?

  Plump.

  That would be Ivy. Did she say her name was Ivy?

  She didn’t say her name at all. No, wait—I recalled the doctor—it is Ivy. Was Ivy.

  But she told you to come back later?

  She said visiting hours were this afternoon. Am I mistaken?

  And you gave her letters?

  Yes, I—

  Please wait a moment, she said, and rose from her chair, walking briskly to a windowed room just behind the reception area. Inside, two nurses and a hunched, aged sister stood flipping through a chart, and when the nurse spoke, they all three looked out at me. They seemed to be in mild disagreement over some matter, and finally the sister, a shrivelled crone of a woman, handed her clipboard to the reception nurse and came out, tapping along on an ivory cane, her black habit buckling with starch. She fixed me with a gaze so rheumy it was impossible to tell what color her eyes might once have been.

  Can I help you, she said.

  I hope so, I said mildly. As I explained to the nurse, I left some letters this morning—

  The sister plunged a hand behind the reception desk, rummaging there blindly until she came up with the envelopes.

  Are these your letters? she asked, looking hard at me. I wondered just how poor her eyesight was, how much she could see.

  Why, yes. May I ask—

  Who are these letters for?

  I noticed then that the seals on both letters had been broken. Someone had opened them, perhaps read them. I suspected it had not been my employer’s mother.

  For … Mrs. Lovecraft … , I began cautiously.

  Mrs. Lovecraft, she said. I see.

  The reception nurse had followed her back out and waited poised at her chair, watching. In the room beyond, the other two nurses stood at the window. When I looked at them, they turned quickly away.

  Is there some problem? I asked.

  Problem? You have brought letters. For Mrs. Lovecraft, you say. The sister looked sidelong at the nurse. But, as you must know, we have many patients here, don’t we, Nurse?

  Yes, we do.

  We want to be sure, of course, that anything left for the patients, flowers, or small gifts, or personal items, or letters, say—she flapped them and I had the distinct image of a white bird in her clutches, trying to escape—we would want to make quite certain they are received by the correct patient, would we not, Nurse?

  Yes, we would. Ivy said—

  That’s quite enough, the sister said to the nurse, snapping her cane against the desk. I looked down to see that the bottom corner of the desk was pocked with dents. The pink-lipped nurse retreated instantly into her former subordination. It was an impressive power this sister wielded.

  Ah, I said, remembering something Ivy had said that morning. You must be Sister Clementine?

  She looked at first surprised, and then sly, narrowing her eyes and stepping closer.

  So, she said. You do know me.

  Only by reputation.

  I tempered myself. I would, after all, not want to say anything to put the pleasant nurse from that morning, Ivy, in any jeopardy.

  And what, Sister Clementine said, do you know of my reputation?

  See here now, I said, refusing to be bullied by the woman. If there’s some confusion, some trouble, I’d appreciate if you’d out with it.

  Sister Clementine smiled slowly, revealing remarkably lovely teeth. The contrast, the impossible perfection of those teeth, somehow made her face all the more terrible.

  Is it, she said mildly, is it, this Mrs. Lovecraft …

  Yes?

  … is she a relative?

  I almost lied. I almost said yes. But at the last moment I caught myself.

  Certainly not, I said. I am no relation to Mrs. Lovecraft. I am merely delivering letters on behalf of her son.

  And yet you’ve come back, Sister Clementine said.

  Yes.

  During visiting hours. Clearly you wish to see her, do you not?

  On behalf of her son. He is my employer, and … lo
ok here, I hardly think this bears explaining to you.

  Sister Clementine turned then on the nurse, who stood looking rather terrified.

  Make yourself useful, she commanded, and the nurse was gone.

  You see, she said, watching me closely. I have some unfortunate news. For your employer.

  Has something happened?

  You might say that.

  I waited, impatiently.

  Your employer’s mother, have I got that right?

  Yes, I snapped.

  Is dead.

  She said it flatly. It was a moment before the meaning, in fact, registered. Sister Clementine seemed to be waiting for me to say something, a very particular thing.

  My god. When?

  She paused, satisfied, and showed her teeth before responding.

  Fifteen years ago.

  I could not sleep for thinking of it.

  I rose and paced the room, sat at the desk in lamplight, flipping pages without seeing them. Stretched out on my bed again and, taking up the magazine that had arrived only that morning by post, I tried to read one of the stories, “The Albino Deaths.” I read the same paragraph three times before tossing the magazine to the floor. It lay face up, its cover—a shackled woman in lingerie, crouching in fear before a red-cloaked figure with a whip (the latter, though hooded, looking also distinctively female)—seemed more absurd, more objectionable, than ever. I rose and kicked it under the bed. Then, not liking the thought of it there, got down on my hands and knees and rummaged it out again, throwing it in the trash.

  I turned out the light and undressed and stood a long time at the window looking out over the night city. Scarcely a light shone anywhere. Even the asylum, for once, was dark. The thought of it brought the taste of paste wax to my mouth, and the image of Sister Clementine’s milky eyes.

  Fifteen years ago. Fifteen years.

  I rubbed my own eyes to rid myself of the image of Sister Clementine, then pulled from the bedside table my bottle of aspirin and shook out the last two tablets—had I emptied it so soon?—into my palm. I ground them to powder between my teeth, chucked the bottle into the trash can with the magazine. I lay down on the bed. Thought of Jane. Wondered what, in fact, we would say to one another.

  The horror magazine stuck up over the lip of the trash can. “The Albino Deaths.” What rot. Life, in my experience, provides all we need of horror.