by C D Major
Bernie’s humming grew louder but Donna didn’t seem to be interested in her.
‘What shall we make them do?’ she said, her voice playful, her eyes not leaving Edith’s face. ‘Martha, ideas?’
Martha twitched behind them. Edith imagined her pushing her limp blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Ooh.’ She drew out the noise. ‘I can’t decide.’
Donna rolled her eyes, stood up abruptly. ‘Some help.’ She turned. ‘Shirley?’
Shirley cleared her throat. An interminable wait; Edith could feel the tension stretching. Perhaps Donna would direct her anger at them? You never knew how it would go. Martha hadn’t always followed Donna around, not in the beginning.
Then Shirley spoke. ‘Give us their pudding at lunch.’
Donna’s left eye twitched again. ‘Trust you to ask for fucking food. Anyway it’s hours off lunch. I mean now, something now.’ She was getting impatient and that never ended well. Patricia had made her angry, impatient like that: not listening to her, calling her Fred and shouting at her.
‘Fine, I’ll come up with something on my ow—’
‘Kiss.’
The word came from Martha.
‘You what?’ Donna blew at her fringe so the dark hair lifted.
‘They should kiss.’ Martha’s voice was as thin as she was, the only substantial thing about her a prominent nose covered in freckles. ‘Kiss,’ she repeated, puckering her own lips and blowing a kiss at Edith.
Donna’s eye flickered. ‘Kiss,’ she repeated.
Edith felt her heart pound in her chest. Bernie was staring ahead, absolutely still, as though if she stayed like that she could wish herself away from that bed, that room. Her mouth clamped tight, the humming stopped.
‘Hear that, princess,’ Donna said. ‘Martha wants to see you two kissing.’ She wrapped her arms around herself as she said it, puckering her lips and moving her body. Then she was laughing, bright, loud, leaning down. ‘Come on then, show us how it’s done.’
Martha whistled again, long and low.
Edith’s mind had sped up and she wondered what she could do to make it all go away. She felt all three of them encircling Bernie and her. Donna was down at her level again, her eyes shut, her mouth open, her tongue going back and forward. Smack, smack. Edith could feel them all too close, Bernie frozen, Joyce still asleep; no one else coming.
Edith reached out a hand and tapped Bernie on the leg, knowing they just needed to get it over with, that they just needed to do it quickly so all of it would stop.
Bernie didn’t move; she had started humming again out loud, as if she couldn’t hear anything but the music in her own head.
‘Come on,’ Edith said, her voice urgent.
‘Oh, she’s keen,’ Donna was calling in a loud voice, as if there were twenty other people watching in the room.
‘She wants it,’ Martha added quickly, a high laugh.
‘Bernie.’ Edith tapped again.
Donna shifted her weight from one foot to another. Edith knew this was taking too long already. She didn’t want her to lose her temper. She didn’t want it to be like when it was Patricia.
‘Bernie, please.’ Her voice was pleading, and she jumped as Misty streaked out from beneath the bed.
Bernie darted her eyes towards her, humming, still humming.
‘What is she playing? Fucking background music? Shut up,’ Donna shouted at her.
The words were sudden, so loud in the space that for a moment Bernie was completely silent. Then the humming was louder, more insistent and Edith knew she wouldn’t be able to stop now, had seen her like this before and knew she was somewhere else.
‘Bernie.’ Edith tapped her leg again; she had to try. She could feel Donna’s breathing thicken.
It was hopeless. Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. The beats were filling the air around them and Edith knew this wasn’t going how Donna wanted.
‘Shut up, shut up, sh—’ Her voice was getting higher and louder and Edith could feel her own pulse in her head. Reaching across to Bernie quickly she grabbed her face in two hands, leaned forward and kissed her. Lips dry as the kiss clashed, Bernie’s face unmoving beneath Edith’s palms, just pressed together. Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. Edith kept her mouth on hers for a long time. Hoping this would do.
‘Your tongue.’ Donna said it quietly, right next to her ear, and Edith closed her eyes and felt her tongue push against Bernie’s closed mouth, skin, lips, wet.
‘Tongues,’ Martha repeated delightedly; another whistle.
Bernie started rocking, head shaking, still humming, and Edith let go of her face, felt warmth creep up and through her.
‘I did it,’ Edith said. ‘I did it.’
They didn’t laugh or jeer; Shirley looked at Donna to see what would happen next.
‘I did what you wanted,’ Edith explained, not understanding why they weren’t laughing, why it wasn’t over. She could feel Shirley and Martha behind her holding their breath and she didn’t dare look, didn’t dare stop looking at Donna.
Then there was a call from behind them all, footsteps, and Deputy Matron was back in the doorway, holding a glass of water, her voice sharp. ‘Ladies?’
Martha and Shirley shuffled along, into the central aisle between the rows of beds: shuffle, shuffle, yes Deputy Matron, no Deputy Matron.
‘Haven’t you got jobs to be getting on with?’
‘Yes, Deputy Matron,’ called Donna, her face twisting into a smile that couldn’t reach her eyes. Her left eye twitched as she stared down at Edith.
‘Well, then . . .’
Donna stayed where she was.
‘Do I have to call Matron?’
That got Donna moving. No one wanted Matron in here.
‘No, I was just getting a cardigan, Deputy Matron.’ Said in a voice dipped in sugar.
She stepped back and Edith felt all her breath leave her in that moment. Bernie was still beside her, humming more quietly now, softer.
Deputy Matron carried the water across to Joyce’s bed.
Donna looked down at her with a sneer, a glance at Bernie who was still rocking, still humming. ‘Fucking nutcase.’ And then she brought her lips together in a kiss. ‘You fucking loved it. And soon, princess . . .’ She leaned right down to Edith’s ear, her breath onions and ash. ‘Soon we can kiss in your room.’
A flash of silver in the pocket of her housedress. Her eye flicking: open, shut.
Edith felt her stomach lurch, stood up quickly, squeezed past them, bile in her throat. Left Bernie alone on the bed. Bernie still humming whatever was in her head.
Chapter 10
NOW
Declan was standing, hat held in his hands, head bowed. All around him doctors, nurses, attendants, kitchen staff, gardeners and patients were silent. A sea fog lay heavy on the water in the distance, the light mist a sheen on his face. The chaplain’s voice, soft and melodic, ebbed and flowed amongst the crowd, some words snatched away on a breeze. A prayer to one of the women, now spinning up and away above them.
There had been clamouring for an occasion to mark the event, a memorial to those who died in the fire, and they had congregated that morning in front of the main building – the gable roof and the top of the enormous clock tower lost in the mist, the charred view of Ward Five hidden around the corner, out of sight. He’d had to walk past it to get here and a strong breeze still threw up flakes of ash, like fallen leaves: an intermittent reminder.
There were no burials today, but they stood in a semicircle around a single wreath. The fire devoured so much that night that there were still remains to be identified; not everyone would be found. Some families wanted their relatives to be brought back home, what remained of them. Others hadn’t come forward and those women would be buried, Declan didn’t even know where, once the investigation was complete. Declan wondered if some had died without a soul realising they had gone.
He looked across the way, at Nurse Shaw, tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she muttered an ‘Amen�
��; at Matron, a far-off look in her eye, her stiff, high-necked black dress so unlike her usual attire. Amongst the rows of patients deemed safe to attend, he saw Martha, even more gaunt, staring into the distance, out over the sea as if she couldn’t hear the words. Her hair fell down around her shoulders, lifeless and unwashed. He couldn’t read her expression but for a moment it seemed she was simply bored.
He scanned the row: faces he didn’t recognise, some he did. Charlotte, the new patient who hadn’t been here that night, whose family had committed her due to melancholic episodes. She had her eyes closed, fervently muttering the responses. Then next to her he noticed curly hair, arms wrapped around her body, the buttons of her coat done up wrong. With a jolt he realised Edith was looking straight across at him, unblinking, her face caught in a mask of misery. Then, as he met her gaze, a tiny lift at the side of her mouth, an acknowledgement, before she bowed her head like the rest. He found himself doing the same, feeling a heat creep up his neck.
He looked sideways at Doctor Malone who was surreptitiously checking a pocket watch, stuffing it back into his pocket as the chaplain called for a hymn.
Mouths wide, their voices were disjointed and out of tune but the swell of sound made his heart lift a fraction. He sang, trying to raise his own voice, trying to give them all hope.
The chaplain ended with a list of names read out in a slow and careful voice. Declan listened to each one, so many, whispering a goodbye in his head at the name Bernadette. He felt his head swivel back to Edith, an ache as he watched her mouth words, her eyes squeezed shut.
He was distracted then by another name. He had seen Shirley Rowe only a few weeks before, a sad woman who had a compulsion to eat, she explained, to fill the hole inside her. He had seen Doctor Malone about an earlier diagnosis, ‘hysteria’, which didn’t seem adequate.
‘She got herself in trouble,’ Doctor Malone had explained, ‘and there was going to be a baby.’
‘Going to be?’ Declan ventured, knowing in part what was to come.
‘Parents were respectable and couldn’t be having that scandal. She had an operation – not here, I might add – but it affected her’ – he tapped the side of his head – ‘up here.’
‘I can only imagine. That sort of operation would be terribly traumatic.’
‘Well yes, yes, I’m sure,’ Doctor Malone had said, clearly wanting to wrap up their impromptu conversation. ‘But that was just the start of things. She began to eat.’
‘I see.’ Declan thought back to the woman in his consulting room, stooped and sluggish, slowly lowering herself into the chair, wincing as she moved, her calves covered in bandages.
‘Not just food, you understand,’ Doctor Malone said. ‘Everything. Her parents told us she’d been slim, but when we saw her, well, she was enormous, eating paper, clothing. She tried to eat her bedding once; Deputy Matron had to stop her eating the straw from the mattress. An extraordinary woman; quite, quite mad. She became incredibly aggressive when we were forced to restrain her.’
Now as he stood there, listening to her name read out loud, he felt a desperate sadness for a life that had been blighted by tragedy. He would never be able to help her now. He closed his eyes, concerned he was going to be overwhelmed by the emotion, feeling the tears building in the back of his throat. He was relieved when a silence greeted the end of the list.
Seeing Edith at the memorial stirred Declan into action. He returned to his office, removing the piece of paper, the notes he’d made on seeing her file, from his desk drawer. Her most recent round of EST had been administered only a couple of nights before the fire. He searched the words for something he could use to appeal to Doctor Malone.
Declan thought then of the small note clipped to the file, a reminder he was running out of time to help. How long would they observe her before scheduling the leucotomy? With the investigation meaning Doctor Malone was often tied up with the superintendent, it seemed some things had been put on hold; what time did she have?
He must find a way to help. His eyes lit upon the new course of drugs, the amount she was now given. Thinking back to the lectures at his university, he frowned. Pushing the paper to one side he stood, took a breath and moved out of his office, his shoes click-clacking with purpose down the corridor towards Doctor Malone’s. This was it. He had read the recent studies, he was coming to things with fresh eyes. He needed to make himself heard.
It was empty, but Declan didn’t want to give up now. He headed towards the treatment rooms. The moment he pulled on the door he heard the cries. He had read the studies. Electric shock therapy had its place: inducing a seizure could temporarily calm a violent patient, and regular sessions helped those with severe depression over a course of months. Still, he flinched as a shout wrenched the air; then he saw Doctor Malone heading towards him, a frown on his face, throwing instructions over a shoulder to a nurse trotting to catch up.
The senior doctor stopped in front of him, gave an impatient click of his tongue as he waited for Declan to speak. ‘What is it, Doctor Harris?’ he asked, as Declan mouthed soundlessly in front of him.
‘I was looking for you,’ Declan said after a beat, his earlier bravado leaking away.
‘In here, in here.’ The doctor ushered him in with an impatient flick of his hand.
‘Oh, I . . .’ Declan lingered for a moment in the open doorway to the small room beyond. Someone was in there; he could see two bare feet sticking up towards the ceiling.
‘Come on, man, I can’t stand around all day.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Declan lurched forward.
The smell of bleach couldn’t disguise the powerful stench of urine as he stepped inside. The man was quivering on the table. His wrists were strapped down with thick leather cuffs, a bruise on his right side, pale skin looking starker against the white sheet beneath him. He craned his neck up as they entered the room, eyes rolling, sweat beading on his hairline. Something inside Declan turned over, the academic studies suddenly in the room with him, all the talk of curing now in action, lying in front of him, shaking and whimpering.
‘Doctor Harris, why don’t you assist me. Nurse Ritchie, we’ll take it from here,’ Doctor Malone told her as he took the towel she was holding and passed it to Declan.
‘I can’t stay long,’ he said, forced to take the towel from Nurse Ritchie as she left. ‘I just wanted to ask . . .’
Doctor Malone wasn’t listening. Declan couldn’t drag his eyes from the table, watching as Doctor Malone wiped something on the two electrodes attached to a large grey machine set up beside the bed.
‘Now, Howard, there’s no need to pack a sad every time. You know the drill,’ Doctor Malone said, reaching across and placing an electrode on the right side, the pad sticking to the skin on the man’s temple. Declan watched as Doctor Malone did the same on the left. Declan knew he would be expected to administer one of these treatments himself, but he had yet to be convinced any of his patients would benefit from it.
‘Come on, Doctor Harris, make yourself useful.’
Declan wasn’t absolutely sure what he should be doing. The pads were in place and all there was to do was set the amount of electricity to be passed between them. Doctor Malone sighed, reaching over to place a wad of cloth in the man’s mouth. Declan felt he had failed some test, meeting the patient’s eyes at the same moment Doctor Malone told him to stand back. Declan jerked as the sound from the machine shocked the air, a smell of burnt hair replacing everything else, the man on the trolley arching his back, wrists still pinned, eyes now closed.
‘Could be the last one he’ll need for a while: stops the fits,’ Doctor Malone said, writing something on a notepad as he spoke. ‘But the effects don’t always linger . . .’ He stopped writing and looked over at the patient. ‘Shame.’
Declan nodded, trying to concentrate on what Doctor Malone was saying and also trying to remember his reasons for being in that square of room.
Drugs. Edith. The amounts she had been given in rece
nt weeks. A chance to study her care with fresh eyes.
For a moment he pictured Edith lying in place of the patient in front of him.
‘I wanted to discuss Edith Garrett.’ Declan spoke quickly, hoping the doctor would be too distracted to recall their earlier conversations.
The sharp look he received in return didn’t bolster Declan’s confidence.
‘Doctor Harris, we have discussed your desire to see this patient and, as I think I have already been very clear with you on this matter, I—’
‘The drugs . . .’ Declan intervened, surprising both of them with his interjection. The doctor was left, mouth flapping, as Declan continued. ‘I was hoping to look again at the amounts? And in recent weeks I see she underwent electric shock treatment. I was wondering if perhaps it might be worth looking at a new approach if it did not have an effect?’
‘I have looked at a new approach,’ Doctor Malone said, his eyes narrowed.
Declan swallowed as he realised the meaning behind the words: the list.
‘A softer approach, perhaps. I wanted, with your permission of course . . .’
Doctor Malone grew redder and redder as Declan continued.
‘. . . the amount of drugs might be stinting the patient’s ability to feel, to process . . .’
Doctor Malone’s moustache quivered.
‘. . . I have had some success through talking therapies. I know some still wish to pursue a more aggressive approach, but . . .’
A palm went up, fingers splayed, Doctor Malone a deep red. Declan spluttered to a close as he studied the man opposite him. Doctor Malone was practically whispering over the jerking body of the patient between them, Declan straining to listen. ‘I do not take kindly to subordinates wilfully going against the things I have expressly forbidden them to do, Doctor Harris.’
He emphasised the word ‘doctor’, and Declan found himself fading in front of him.
‘If you value your position at this hospital, you will do well to be reminded that I am in charge here.’
Declan slumped.
There would clearly be no new dosage, no chance to change Edith’s course of treatment. Declan was banned from the very topic in future. He thought of that slight woman standing in the crowd of mourners and with one last gasp pushed on, ‘Doctor Malone, please understand I am not trying to go against your wishes, I just wanted to raise a few concerns . . .’