The Other Girl

by C D Major

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Declan stood, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He glanced at Edith, hoping she hadn’t listened to the senior doctor’s crass description. He was surprised to find she was watching him with lowered eyes as he put his pen away, the movement clumsy.

  The nurse quickly crossed the room and placed a cloak around Edith’s shoulders. ‘We’ll get out of the doctor’s way, won’t we, Edie. Go and have a bath.’

  Edith remained in her chair, eyes still on Declan, head tipped to the side again: the rifleman.

  ‘You’re the new doctor,’ she said.

  Declan cleared his throat.

  ‘You talk to the patients; you make them better.’

  Declan couldn’t help the slight puff of his chest. He hoped that was true; certainly he’d had some recent success. His thoughts strayed back to Bernadette, and his body drooped. How awful.

  The nurse placed an arm under Edith’s shoulders, lifted her to her feet. ‘Come on, Edie, come now.’

  ‘She told me,’ Edith was saying as the nurse moved her awkwardly to the door, Doctor Malone standing aside. ‘She told me he had made her better.’

  Declan watched her leave, a deep sadness stealing over him once more.

  ‘There was a fire,’ Declan heard her say in a matter-of-fact voice as she was led away.

  ‘I know, Edie.’

  ‘There was a big fire. Everyone was burnt.’

  The nurse didn’t respond to that.

  As the policeman spoke to Doctor Malone, Declan moved to the open doorway, watched her leave. As if Edith felt his eyes on her she turned to smile at him, lifted a hand.

  ‘I got out,’ she called back to him.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I’m glad, Edith.’

  Chapter 4

  THEN

  Three months earlier

  Edith followed Deputy Matron out of the dayroom to the toilets at the end of the hall: patients were never allowed to go alone. They walked in silence, only the sounds of their footsteps on the stone floor. There was constant prattle in Edith’s head though: comments on the dormitory, bedding, whether the black-and-white caterpillar was still there, whether it was mutton that day, where the doctors lived when they didn’t live here and would the patients go on an outing to the flicks soon? Some days felt the same, as if she had lived them all before; talking helped.

  She couldn’t talk too much to the doctors in case they said she was lying, and you couldn’t be sure the nurses wouldn’t tell them things too. It was better to say things that made them smile, give her the red pills and tell her to go back to the ward. When she was little she hadn’t known how to do that; it seemed everything she said had got her sent to the white room. And she’d been louder then too, not able to keep the things in her head inside.

  She used to talk to Patricia the most; she had been there since they were both little girls. Although sometimes Patricia had got angry, turned the same colour as her bright-red hair and shouted at Edith, calling her Fred and telling her to get lost. But other times she had let Edith rest her head in her lap and stroked her hair and told her about her family trips to their crib by the sea with the dunny on the beach and her grandmother who wore long black dresses and refused to go bathing. Edith had loved it when Patricia did that. She would close her eyes tight and imagine she was back home in her bed before she came here and Mother was moving her soft fingers gently through her curls.

  Patricia didn’t do any of that any more; she’d been moved to another ward last month after the episode with Donna. Edith had seen her once since, in the dayroom, but they’d made her stand next to the nurses’ station for getting over-stimulated, so Edith couldn’t talk to her. Edith had been safer on the ward when Patricia had been there. Now she had to be alert: always ready.

  She wasn’t completely alone; she had Bernie still, at least. Bernie was smaller, and more than four years younger than Edith. Fifteen was what Nurse Shaw told them; she could do the adding. Bernie had long, dark-brown hair the colour of the trunk of the big tree in the garden. Edith stayed with her as much as she could. It was better not to be on your own. Patricia had been on her own when it happened.

  Deputy Matron stopped outside the dank, sour-smelling room. Only one bare bulb was working, but it wasn’t quite dark enough to hide the dripping spots on the ceiling, the plaster peeling. The cleaning gang hadn’t visited with their mops today. There were watery footprints on the floor, dirty smears. Deputy Matron wavered, refusing to move inside and sit on the wooden stool against the wall, ushering Edith past her as she remained in the doorway, one hand up to her mouth. Five toilets stood in a line; none of the cubicles had doors.

  Edith stepped into one. She wanted to wipe the yellow droplets from the rim of the seat but didn’t want Deputy Matron to be angry with her for dawdling. She lowered her undergarments and sat down, a tiny gasp as her bare flesh hit the cold enamel, feeling the spots of liquid on her skin. Deputy Matron stood only a few feet away. Edith always wished there were doors.

  She heard her laugh first: sharp, distinctive. Edith’s head snapped up. Then suddenly there she was outside in the corridor walking with Martha and Nurse Ritchie: Edith could make out her dark hair cut in a wonky line below her ears, the short fringe. Edith drew her knees together, leant over, desperate to cover herself, feeling everything freeze inside her.

  Donna.

  Had she seen where Edith had headed? Was that why she was here now?

  She prayed she wouldn’t notice her in here, that she wasn’t heading to the dunnies. The footsteps got louder until she could sense someone right in front of her open cubicle. She slowly lifted her gaze. There was Donna, looking down at her, her left eye snapping open and shut, a tic; Martha, a step behind, her thin face pale as she too looked at Edith.

  ‘Well, well. Hi, princess,’ Donna uttered.

  ‘Get on, ladies,’ Deputy Matron called and Donna smirked and moved to the cubicle next door, scrawny Martha on the other side. Edith looked desperately at Deputy Matron, grateful suddenly for her nearness. What could Donna do here? Surely she was safe?

  There was a cough, a rustle. Deputy Matron and Nurse Ritchie were talking to each other in the doorway now, not looking into the room, and that was when Donna and Martha began to whisper things. Disgusting, frightening things they were going to do to Edith. Their threats floated under and over the gaps of the cubicle, swirled around her, so quiet Edith might have imagined they were only in her head.

  She couldn’t move. Their words made her want to wash herself, wash them away.

  ‘Bloody hell, Edith, take your time,’ Deputy Matron snapped.

  Edith remained where she was, waiting for the two women either side of her to flush, to leave. She couldn’t stop the trembling in her legs, couldn’t do anything but sit there exposed.

  The nurse’s eyes swivelled to her now. ‘Get up.’

  Martha pulled on the chain and left, waiting nearby. Finally another flush and Donna walked back out, not looking at Edith until she reached the doorway, fishing something out of her pocket. Whatever it was couldn’t be seen by the two nurses and Edith felt a small cry lodge inside her. It looked like a key, one of the keys the nurses kept on the big silver hoops. One of the keys that might open any door inside the ward: her door.

  Donna could get things. She got cigarettes from Franklin the attendant. Soft slippers from one of the nurses. Now she had a key. Donna grinned at her, all her uneven teeth on show as she stepped outside.

  ‘See you back on the ward, Edie,’ she called, Martha’s laughter echoing off the stone as they moved back down the corridor, Nurse Ritchie joining in as if they were all friends.

  ‘You reckon I’ve got all day, Edith?’ Deputy Matron shouted from the doorway.

  Edith hated it when the nurses raised their voices. She’d spent years trying to avoid angering them, knowing if you did the wrong thing it could be made a lot worse. Worse than loud voices. Much worse. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she repeat
ed, her undergarments bunched around cold ankles, her bladder still full. Edith stood up, pulling at her clothes.

  ‘You reckon I won’t punish you for wasting my time, I’ll . . .’ Deputy Matron was still talking as she turned and marched away, as Edith fumbled with the fastenings and raced to catch up.

  Edith followed Deputy Matron back down the corridor towards the ward, her bladder swollen and uncomfortable. Had Donna really got one of the keys? Should she tell Deputy Matron? Edith felt her throat close, the panic balloon inside her. She had been warning her since Patricia left, her last plaything, that she’d find her way to her. Was this it? Was she no longer safe?

  They were heading to the ward. She would tell Deputy Matron; she would listen to her, she wasn’t one of the nice nurses, but she was fair. It had been years since she’d been in trouble. They might listen, might not punish her.

  ‘Deputy Matron,’ Edith breathed, her steps quick.

  ‘What is it?’ Deputy Matron kept walking.

  ‘Did you see?’ Edith continued. ‘Donna, Deputy Matron, Donna,’ she stuttered, ‘she’s got a key. It’s to my room, I know it . . .’

  ‘Don’t spin a yarn, Edith. Patients don’t have keys.’ She rattled her own silver hoop as they moved past the window of the dayroom and around the corner.

  ‘I know she has, Deputy Matron.’ Edith could hear her voice rising. They were nearly back on the ward – if she could convince her, if they could search her . . . ‘Please, please I saw it, she’ll use it . . .’

  Deputy Matron stopped stock-still then, Edith almost barrelling into her.

  ‘Are you raising your voice at me?’

  ‘I . . .’ This was her last chance. She swallowed, tried to control her voice. ‘She’ll use it to get to me, please.’ The last word came out as a strangled cry and Edith stepped forward: too close.

  ‘She will do no such thing, Edith. Get back behind me.’

  Edith could see the door to the ward just ahead; she was running out of time. She could hear her own breathing, heavier.

  ‘Do I have to report you to Matron for dawdling and delusions?’ Deputy Matron’s voice was low, dangerous.

  ‘No.’ Edith just stopped herself reaching out her hands to grip her. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just, I saw . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more of what you saw. Get back behind me.’ Deputy Matron didn’t believe her; Edith could see it in the curl of her lip.

  Edith swallowed the rest of the words, nodding furiously. ‘It was nothing. I’m sorry, Deputy Matron.’

  ‘I’ve got enough to be doing today without this.’

  ‘Yes, Deputy Matron.’ Edith scuttled behind her as she marched to the end of the corridor.

  ‘Get inside. Keys? Honestly.’

  She unlocked the ward and Edith was through. She didn’t look up, didn’t stop, just raced through the dormitory, alert to dark hair, a wonky fringe. She clattered down the staircase, ignored a voice calling out her name, swept into her own room, pulled the door shut behind her, rested her back against the wood, closed her eyes.

  She could hear the noises from the floor above, the women moving in between the beds; a break before lunch. She pictured Bernie up there somewhere in the big dormitory, sharing the space with nineteen others. Edith tried to calm her breathing, her chest lifting and falling too fast. The need to piss overwhelmed her and she rushed to reach for the chamber pot under her bed, pulled at her clothes again, squatted over it.

  She looked up sharply. Had she imagined the door handle slowly turning? She placed a hand on the floor, righting herself in the squat, all her senses straining to feel something. She had always felt her room was safe, locked at night. When she had first been moved she had lain awake in the dark, not used to being alone, too scared to sleep in case a monster got her.

  Now she was older it wasn’t monsters she feared.

  Chapter 5

  NOW

  Declan held his handkerchief up to his face, but the flimsy cotton was powerless to block out the stink of it. It was horrific, the rows of lumpy sheets, the flakes of ash dancing in the breeze like a macabre snowstorm.

  Doctor Malone was striding ahead, deep in conversation with an elderly man across from Dunedin who worked in the mortuary. Declan lingered behind them both, unable to stop looking at the shapes around him, remembering these were the bodies of the women he’d heard crying out only hours before. Declan closed his eyes for a moment, his empty stomach churning.

  The wooden ward was reduced to blackened stumps, the frame barely intact; twisted remains of small tables, iron bedsteads. What had housed thirty-nine women twenty-four hours before was now nothing more than a sticky, dripping mess. The firemen and volunteers had done well to stop the fire spreading to the main building, but no one had been able to get inside quickly enough. They said the women had suffocated. The damage was so great the fire chief said it would be hard to identify where it had begun. You couldn’t even see the separate rooms in the outbuilding, make out the walls, imagine what it looked like before it became this smoking, charred wreckage. Declan thought back to Edith smudged in soot, grateful at least that she had got out. And then he thought of Bernadette, and stared at the sheets: Bernadette under one of them.

  The people moving past him were carrying buckets, towels, sheets; handkerchiefs tied around their faces. Behind them the imposing main building soared in the background: the central tower, turrets, thick stone immune from the devastation. There was a low murmur of voices, faces peering through the bars of every window at the scene.

  He couldn’t imagine the fear, what it must have been like to have been trapped inside. Had they all realised at the same moment? Did they claw pointlessly at the doors and windows that could only be opened from the outside? What pain had they felt? Declan turned his back, skin clammy, as he gulped at the air; the winding driveway, iron gates, the sea beyond. Greens, greys, blues: calm.

  Doctor Malone was alone now, his forehead wrinkled as he stood looking up at the main building of Seacliff, at the enormous stone blocks, soaring turrets and slate roof. ‘Thank God it didn’t spread,’ he said, hands on his hips. ‘This building.’

  Declan felt his hands trembling and stuffed them in his pockets. Yes, other patients had been saved, but it had been too late for so many.

  ‘I hadn’t come across the girl this morning before, the woman. What has she been diagnosed with, sir?’

  ‘Woman?’

  ‘Edith, sir, one of the patients who got out.’

  ‘Edith Garrett,’ Doctor Malone confirmed. ‘Oh, schizophrenia, been here since she was an ankle-biter.’

  ‘And Martha?’

  ‘Martha Anderson, only been with us a couple of years or so from what I remember. She’s in on an insanity charge.’

  Declan’s eyebrows lifted. They often had patients transferred from the prisons; he wondered what her crime had been. He thought back to the policeman’s exasperated shout as she’d sat there saying nothing, the chilling stare Martha had given him.

  ‘They were lucky,’ Doctor Malone continued, ‘to get out. The rest . . .’ He faded away, swallowing, his large Adam’s apple lifting up and down. It was the most emotion Declan had witnessed from the older man all day. ‘An awful business. Awful.’

  Declan nodded, hopelessness flooding him, desperate to be of assistance. Edith’s earlier words reminded him he had helped other patients. Perhaps he could help her. ‘I did a module at the university, with Professor Bates. We were looking at examples of battle fatigue, men who had suffered a great shock, and I was wondering if I might meet with the two survivors in the next few days?’

  ‘See them?’

  ‘Yes, if that would suit you, sir, I would be keen to try to help them. I imagine they might display some of the symptoms of having been through a traumatic ordeal. Certainly they both seemed affected, as you would expect.’

  He thought back to Martha: her silence boiling but contained, and Edith with her shifting expressions, her ill-timed l
aughter, her choked sobs. How could they not have been impacted by surviving such a terrible night? Perhaps this was how he could play a small part.

  ‘That probably won’t be necessary, Doctor Harris. They’re my patients, after all, and Edith has had some recent troubles. We need to manage what they say carefully – it might be delicate . . . the chief superintendent is concerned. Well, we will see . . .’

  We will see felt like a small opening. Declan fell silent, determined to raise the question again.

  ‘And the cause, Doctor, of the fire? Someone has mentioned a previous problem with the building. The foundati—’

  Declan wasn’t prepared for the sudden grip on his arm as Malone’s hand trapped his wrist.

  ‘We don’t need you to be asking questions like that. It’s bad enough the staff are . . .’ He released Declan’s wrist, suddenly aware, perhaps, of Declan’s wide eyes. ‘No need to concern yourself, Doctor,’ Malone said, voice suffused with false cheer as he moved away towards the front of the building where a motorcar swung into view, men stepping out, adjusting bowler hats, smoothing jackets.

  Declan stared after him. As he moved back through the side of the building he was grateful to leave the ruined ward behind him. The asylum was buzzing with an unsettled energy. The patients were fretful, rumours rife amongst them and the staff. Everyone had seen the smoke, of course; some had been awake to see the flames, and others had heard screaming, shouts from inside, from the trapped women. Everyone was asking what had happened, how it had happened, the narrative shifting and spreading like the fire.

  The dayroom was frantic; the staff had already had to intervene with various patients. One of the men on Ward Two had throttled another patient for laughing about something and a female hysteric had been removed in the middle of a violent outburst, when she had continued to shout ‘FIRE’ until the other patients started crying or yelling at her to stop. Perhaps Malone was just wanting to keep the peace. Yet something about the way he had gripped his arm when he’d questioned how the fire began made him wonder.