Eglantine

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘Of course, anorexia hysterica might be a slightly different thing from anorexia nervosa,’ Mum went on. Suddenly her eyes widened. ‘You know,’ she said, turning to Ray, ‘I remember reading about the suffragettes. When they went on their hunger strikes, they were force-fed. With a tube.’

  ‘What are suffragettes?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘What’s force-fed?’ asked Bethan.

  ‘So what’s your point?’ said Ray, and Mum exclaimed, ‘The dream, Ray! Bethan’s dream!’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Maybe the poor girl had a tube stuck down her throat. So they could pour milk down it, or something.’

  ‘What’s a suffragette?’ I repeated doggedly. Mum explained that suffragettes were women who had fought for ‘universal suffrage’ – that is, for a woman’s right to vote in political elections. In England, many women had been gaoled for doing things like chaining themselves to fences and shouting in parliament. In prison, they had often refused to eat – in protest – and had been force-fed as a result.

  ‘Yuk,’ I said. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did it happen in Australia, too?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mum thought for a minute. ‘I don’t think so. I think women already had the vote in Australia, by then.’

  That pleased me. And the next day I felt even more pleased when I went to the school library, at lunchtime, and found a book on anorexia nervosa. Finding that book gave me a real sense of achievement – until I opened it up.

  Then I discovered that girls who get anorexia are often moody, sensitive to the needs of others, desperate for approval, highly intelligent, and angry with their brothers and sisters. That made me nervous. It was not only a possible description of Eglantine – it was also a possible description of me! I thought to myself, no way am I ever going to become a vegetarian. I need my meat. I don’t want to get anorexia. From now on, I’m going to demand a chocolate bar every day, and I’m never going to look at another issue of Teen. (Not that I’d be caught dead reading Teen, but you know what I’m saying.) I also resolved to be nicer to Bethan. Oh, and to stop caring what Mr Lee thought about me. So what if he had read the local newspaper? So what if he knew that I believed in ghosts? As long as he kept giving me good marks, his opinion of me wouldn’t really make any difference. (Would it?)

  Of course, I’m not in the least bit desperate for approval. I don’t care what any of the dumb kids at school think of me. I won’t let Michelle paint my fingernails, no matter how much she begs. But still . . . it made me think. It really made me think.

  I was thinking, in fact, when I happened to glance at the index of the book I was reading, and saw the words ‘anorexia hysterica’. Naturally, I went straight to the pages listed, and found out that anorexia hysterica was a term used by Victorian doctors to describe anorexia nervosa. I also found out that the condition had first been identified in 1868. Typical sufferers, I read, were from the higher walks of society, well-educated, and prone to a ‘morbid perversion of the will’. They often read too much. (Doctors at the time thought that young women shouldn’t read too much, because it damaged their health, made them overly romantic and destroyed their appetites.) Girls of a ‘nervous character’ were told not to consume tea, coffee, chocolate, spices and nuts, in case such things made them worse.

  Girls like this often wanted to be spiritual, and delicate. They wanted to be like the poet Lord Byron, who had lived on biscuits and soda water for days at a time. Sometimes they stopped eating after they’d had a ‘romantic disappointment’. Sometimes they stopped eating because everything else they did was watched, controlled and commented upon.

  The chapter called ‘Fasting Girls’ mentioned Mollie Fancher, who lived in America in the 1870s, and ate almost nothing at all. ‘Her books were her delight,’ a friend of Mollie’s said. ‘She neglected all for them.’ I read that Mollie had been force-fed with a stomach pump. Lots of girls with anorexia were fed with stomach pumps, sometimes at home, sometimes after being sent to a mental asylum. They were also given electric shocks.

  I thought about Eglantine, as I read all this. I thought about how she must have had a tube forced down her throat, and milk pumped into her stomach. According to the book, people with anorexia finally reach the stage where they can’t absorb food, because their stomachs don’t work any more. At this stage they’re always thirsty, always constipated, and always cold. Their skin is pale and dry. They get dizzy when they stand, and have to lie down a lot. They become hairy all over.

  I imagined what it must have been like for Eglantine. I imagined her lying in Bethan’s bedroom, wrapped in layers and layers of heavy clothing, being offered milk, cream, soup, eggs, fish or chicken every two hours. (This, according to the book, was the recommended diet for girls with anorexia.) I imagined her hairy arms and her pale, thin face. Had she suffered from a ‘romantic disappointment’? Had she been nursing a broken heart?

  I thought about Princess Emilie and Count Osric. I thought about the words written on the flyleaf of Idylls of the King: A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Eglantine had liked books, just as Mollie Fancher had. Perhaps she had liked them too much. Perhaps she had ‘neglected all for them’.

  I could picture Eglantine lying in her bed, cold and thirsty, with nothing to do but read. Her thin, pale fingers would have leafed through Idylls of the King, and through the story of Princess Emilie. Perhaps that story had dropped from her hands unfinished because she was too weak to read any more. I felt quite upset when I considered that possibility. I had to blow my nose very hard. Poor Eglantine. Poor, poor Eglantine. Had she really starved herself to death because some boy had disappointed her? It seemed so tragic.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mum, when I told her of my discoveries that afternoon. ‘How awful. No wonder the chi in that room is so bad.’

  ‘They probably gave her electric shocks. Why would they do that, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. But, Allie, you mustn’t fret over things like this. I really don’t want you dwelling on it. It’s morbid.’

  ‘Morbid?’

  ‘Unwholesome. Sickly.’

  ‘The Victorian doctors called anorexia a “morbid perversion of the will”.’

  ‘Well, and so it is, don’t you think? You have to have a lot of willpower to starve yourself to death.’ Mum frowned, suddenly, and cocked her head. ‘I suppose it’s not surprising that Eglantine died of anorexia,’ she went on, thoughtfully. ‘Because when you think about it, only a person with a lot of willpower would have the strength of spirit to keep on going after she died.’ With a sigh, Mum blinked, and glanced over at the draining board. ‘I don’t even have enough willpower to wash the dishes in the morning,’ she added.

  ‘Do you think it would help if we left some water in the bedroom overnight?’ I asked. ‘Do you think the ghost is just thirsty? Or hungry, maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know, Al.’ Another sigh. ‘Perhaps we’d better ask the Feng Shui master. He’s coming on Thursday night.’

  CHAPTER # ten

  The Feng Shui man was not Chinese. He was called Bryce McGarrigle. But he was quite solemn and quite old (at least, I think he was old: he was going bald, and his face was full of creases), and he was wearing a shirt with Chinese writing embroidered on the breast pocket. So I suppose that he was the next best thing to Chinese.

  He came after dinner, while we were eating Ray’s macaroons. He didn’t say much. When Mum offered him some macaroons and jasmine tea, he thanked her; he also complimented her on the kitchen’s bagua. Mostly, however, he just listened. He listened while Mum described our problems, sipping his tea, nodding sometimes, his pouchy grey eyes fixed on a point in the centre of the kitchen table.

  When Mum had finished, he said, ‘You tried offering food and drink?’

  ‘Last night,’ Mum replied. ‘But it didn’t seem to work.’

  ‘And you tried a purificati
on ritual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of what nature?’

  Mum told him. He nodded again. Then he got up and went to look at Bethan’s bedroom.

  Naturally, we all followed him. But he was so thorough that we became impatient. After studying the rooms upstairs, he circled the outside of the house, examined the plumbing, and generally spent so much time counting steps, peering over fences and measuring windows that Bethan and I finally wandered away. Bethan plonked himself down in front of the TV, while I tackled my homework.

  It was at least an hour before I heard Mum and Mr McGarrigle talking, next door, in Bethan’s bedroom.

  ‘. . . this room is in the thunder bagua of the second floor,’ Mr McGarrigle was saying, ‘but it’s also swallowing a lot of your Tai Chi unity. And that’s being aggravated by the position of the house itself.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mum. ‘How?’

  Mr McGarrigle explained that the house next door, being taller than ours and built on rising ground, was inflicting a fair degree of ‘downward energy’ on us. We could cure that, of course, with a concave mirror – and the cutting chi of the intersection opposite our house could also be reversed by the placement of a mirror, or a very shiny brass knob, on the front door.

  ‘But your real problem lies in this room,’ Mr McGarrigle continued. ‘There is far too much thunder energy in this room. To begin with, it’s facing east, which doesn’t help, though you can’t do much about that. You can oil the door hinges. You can get rid of that drum. What is it? Javanese?’

  ‘It was a present from Bethan’s father,’ said Mum, in a dazed voice.

  ‘Then put it somewhere else. No musical instruments in this room. And I suggest you fill in that fireplace – I don’t suppose you use it, do you?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’

  ‘Then fill it in. The last thing you need in this room is extra space in the thunder area of its bagua. The thunder energy in here is so aggressive, it’s swallowing your Tai Chi unity. And unity includes the balance between the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit.’

  Mr McGarrigle went on like this for quite a long time. He talked about elders, and mirrors, and negative spaces. He talked about the Three-Door Gate of Chi and the theory of the Five Transformations. Then he announced that he intended to carry out his own purification ritual, which might take several hours. He had brought the right equipment – it was in the car – but he would be grateful if Mum could drape all the sharp corners in Bethan’s room with soft fabrics.

  ‘You – you mean you’re going to do it now?’ Mum stammered.

  ‘The sooner the better. The energy in this room is very unstable.’

  Poor Mum. It was a weekday night, and she wanted to get to bed early. She wanted everyone in bed early. But Mr McGarrigle kept trudging up and down the stairs, fetching noisy things from his car and water from the kitchen, and then he began to burn something, in Bethan’s bedroom, that smelled pretty strange. I can’t describe it, exactly, but it was certainly pungent. Soon the whole upstairs landing stank of it, even though Bethan’s bedroom door was shut.

  Bethan refused to go to bed, as a result. ‘I can’t breathe up there,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Oh, Bethan, it’s not that bad,’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Do you think a bad smell is going to drive Eglantine away?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘It’s not a bad smell, Allie, it’s a purifying smell,’ said Mum, and Bethan rolled his eyes.

  ‘Just close your door and leave your window open,’ Ray advised me. But Bethan pointed out it wasn’t just the smell – it was the noise. Mr McGarrigle was chanting something in a low, rumbling voice that sounded like a plane engine. How could anyone get to sleep with a plane revving its engine in the next room?

  ‘You just want to stay up late, so you can watch Star Trek: Voyager,’ Mum said in a steely voice. ‘Don’t think you’re going to do that, Bethan.’

  And he didn’t. We were both in bed by ten o’clock, despite all Bethan’s efforts. The chanting had stopped by then, and the smell was different – a flowery, citrussy kind of smell that wasn’t too bad. Bethan dropped off immediately (as he always does). I was just beginning to fall asleep when all at once there was a terrific shriek from the next room.

  A shriek, a clang and a thump that made the floor shake.

  I was out of bed before I knew what I was doing. Out of bed, out the door and onto the landing.

  Mr McGarrigle was there, draped over the banisters.

  ‘What is it?’ I cried. ‘What happened?’

  He was gasping and groaning. As Mum and Ray pounded up the stairs, Bethan called out from the bedroom.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded thickly.

  ‘Oh – oh . . .’ said Mr McGarrigle.

  ‘Bryce? What’s wrong?’ Mum demanded. But Mr McGarrigle couldn’t talk. He kept coughing and clearing his throat.

  I stepped into Bethan’s bedroom. A kind of lamp was burning on the floor. A silver bowl had been knocked over, and water spilled. There were little heaps of things: smooth pebbles, flower petals, salt, rice.

  ‘I – I was meditating,’ Mr McGarrigle said hoarsely. ‘In a trance. I – when I reached the second plane, I -’

  ‘What?’ said Mum, as Mr McGarrigle paused.

  ‘Someone tried to choke me!’ he cried. His voice sounded quite different: high and wobbly, when it had once been low and calm. ‘I couldn’t – I couldn’t breathe!’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mum. Ray and I exchanged nervous glances.

  Eglantine’s stomach pump, obviously.

  ‘God,’ Mr McGarrigle panted. ‘God, it was appalling.’

  ‘Come downstairs,’ Mum pleaded, timidly patting his shoulder. ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘God. I’ve never – this has never happened before.’

  ‘I’m so sorry . . .’

  They stumbled downstairs together, arm in arm. Ray followed them.

  Once again, I looked around Bethan’s bedroom. It was dark and gloomy; the light was turned off, and the walls were almost completely black. The single flame dancing on the wick of Mr McGarrigle’s lamp made shadows leap and flicker.

  Everything was shrouded in sheets and towels.

  ‘Eglantine!’ I said, in a loud, angry, trembling voice. ‘Eglantine, you horrible person, go away! We don’t want you here! You’re a nasty piece of work!’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Bethan mumbled from behind me. He’d got up at last, and was standing, bleary-eyed, with his hair on end, holding up his pyjama pants.

  ‘Eglantine,’ I replied. ‘I was talking to Eglantine.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh . . . nothing. Nothing much.’ I tried to tell myself that it had only been another stomach-pump dream, after all. Just a dream. Nothing to be afraid of.

  Though it did occur to me that the stomach-pump dream might feel a lot more real if you weren’t asleep when you dreamed it.

  ‘Go back to bed, okay?’ I said hoarsely. ‘The Feng Shui man is finished.’

  I was right, too. Mr McGarrigle didn’t come back. Ray told me later that he had washed his hands of the whole business. He had left the house a changed man – not solemn and silent but nervy and babbling and shrill. He had, however, promised to find Mum a good psychic. That’s what she needed, he said – either that or she should move house.

  ‘I really think we’re going to have to,’ Mum moaned later. ‘We can’t go on like this, how can we? We can’t live here while Eglantine’s in charge.’

  ‘She won’t be for much longer,’ Ray said. ‘We’ll get rid of her, I know we will.’

  ‘But how, Ray? How?’

  He didn’t have an answer. I didn’t have an answer. I wished that I did, because it made me feel weird to see Mum so upset. In fact, I now felt more angry with Eglantine than sorry for her.

  Fortunately, Mr McGarrigle called Mum the next day with the name of a psychic, and a quest
ion about finger-cymbals. Had he left his finger-cymbals in Bethan’s bedroom? No? Oh, dear. Then he must have dropped them somewhere on the way to his car.

  We had some other calls on Friday, too.

  The first was from Richard Boyer. He rang up to report that, so far, the chemical engineer consulted about Eglantine’s writing hadn’t made much progress. He had a few ideas, but couldn’t prove any of them without something concrete to work with. Would it be all right if Richard came back and removed a small piece of Bethan’s bedroom wall? Or perhaps just took some paint samples?

  Mum replied that she would think about it and get back to him.

  The second call was from a member of the Australian Ghost Hunters Society, who said that he had read about our case on the ‘Strange Nation’ website, a site which monitored Australian media for stories about hauntings, UFO spottings, and anything else that might defy logical explanation. Our case, he explained, had been mentioned – briefly – because someone must have read our local newspaper. When asked how he had tracked down our telephone number, he replied that it hadn’t been hard, because he had our name and suburb. Now, could he ask Mum, please, exactly what the content of our ‘automatic writings’ might be?

  Mum referred him to Richard Boyer.

  The third and last call was from a television journalist. Her name was Bryony Birtles, and she was doing research for Channel Nine. She had heard about our case, and had already talked to Sylvia Klineberg. Would it be okay if she were to talk to Mum? Maybe she could come around, and have a look at Bethan’s bedroom walls? Just as a sort of research trip, to see if the story was worth pursuing.

  Mum, to my surprise, was rather cautious. She said she didn’t know. She said she would have to talk to the family. She promised that she would call back with an answer.

  Then she confessed to me that she was beginning to wonder if things were getting out of hand. She didn’t like the idea of people reading about us on the internet, and calling us out of the blue. It was unnerving.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know what to do.’