The Other Girl

by C D Major

  ‘No, Doctor.’ A small lurch in her seat, his moustache twitching in response. ‘No, I haven’t seen anything. Please, Doctor, you must believe—’

  ‘Don’t become agitated.’ The words spoken with a wave of the hand.

  She snapped her mouth shut, tried desperately to keep her voice level, respectful, her eyes cast down. She wasn’t a hysteric, she wasn’t taking fright; she wasn’t anything. The voices were loud in her head and she tried to silence them as she scrabbled to concentrate.

  ‘Please, Doctor.’ She tried to force a small smile, felt her face move. ‘I was mistaken. I haven’t imagined anything. It’s all been a terrible mistake.’

  She held her breath as he paused, couldn’t help staring at the nib of the pen, the ink that could write down the words she dreaded, that hadn’t been written for years. His signature that sent her to the white room.

  ‘Please, Doctor,’ she whispered, licking her lips, feeling the sting of her pink flesh. ‘I didn’t mean to be any trouble.’

  He set his pen down. He stared at her over his strange half-glasses; he stroked at one side of the hair beneath his nostrils. He didn’t sign his name.

  Today Edith was sitting on one of the red vinyl-covered chairs in the dayroom. Normally she liked the dayroom second best after the flower garden. There were people around so it was safe and it could be calm, just the noise of the rubber soles in the corridors as nurses approached, or the quiet wheeling of the tea trolley, the slight rattle of a cup in a saucer.

  Her eyes were raw, a headache just behind them. She had spent much of the night awake, going over the day before: her visit to Doctor Malone, Nurse Shaw’s eyes not meeting hers, the pen hovering over the sheet imagining the blue ink, the trolley that would collect her.

  She was sure she’d heard someone on the stairs in the night. The rooms were all locked from the outside; it shouldn’t have been possible, they hadn’t found a key. It had been in her head, Doctor Malone had made her agree. She’d taken two more red pills. Good girl.

  The noise again.

  Maybe it was a nurse? But the hourly round had only just happened and they often didn’t come back for hours any more, not like before the war when you could almost count the exact moment they would open the door to check with their torch. She sat up on her elbows, her neck muscles tight, staring and staring at the door, imagined she saw shadowed feet in the crack at the bottom, heard a scratch. Another scratch. She hadn’t slept at all after that. Had she seen a key?

  She mustn’t let the nurses know she wasn’t sleeping well; she kept her eyes open as she sat on the chair. When she told the nurses before they made her take another pill, a small, white, round pill that made her whole body heavy, made her sleep in the winged chair in the dayroom in the day, wake with saliva on her chin and cardigan. She didn’t want that. She kept her eyes wide, looked around the room for someone to talk to.

  Bernie had a cold so she wasn’t allowed in the dayroom; she had to stay in the dormitory on the ward, an enamel bowl by her side, a cup of water next to her. She’d been sleeping when Edith had gone to see her, Misty curled up at the foot of the bed.

  There was only Joyce who slapped the walls and Julia who was always glum. Shirley was there too, sitting over in the armchair winding wool into strands before snipping them into lengths. An attendant stood next to her waiting to take the scissors back.

  Martha and Donna weren’t around, though, so Shirley didn’t seem as menacing, her legs wide apart in the chair, bandages on the ankles that merged into the feet, her rolls of flesh filling the seat so you couldn’t see the cushion under her bottom. Her chin crushed into her chest as she bent over her work. Edith liked making things with wool but wouldn’t go over to her. Instead she set up the table to play patience, the cards laid out in rows in front of her.

  She’d hoped Patricia might have been there, lining up the chairs, making sure they were straight or trying to make her play a game, calling her Fred or crying. She hadn’t been there for a while and Edith wondered if she had a cold, too. Even though her changing moods sometimes unsettled her she could make Edith laugh, imitating the nurses and doing silly dances and accents. Last month, before they made her move wards, she’d stood on one leg for half an hour because Edith told her she couldn’t. When Deputy Matron called for her to stop she’d refused, and started to hop away when one of the attendants came towards her. Edith wondered if she thought it had been worth it even after she was dragged out.

  Nurse Ritchie was on duty now; Edith could see her through the glass window into the office where they sat looking out at them. Nurse Ritchie had small, barely-there eyes and called them loonies and laughed when things weren’t funny and she was always cruel to Bernie, calling her ‘midget’ and ‘squit’. The attendant Franklin was fetching something from a cupboard in the office and Edith watched him turn and ask something, his big ugly mouth open. He reminded her of the fish she’d gutted when on a kitchen gang, all rubbery lips. She remembered sinking the tip of the knife in and slicing along, then pulling all the guts out. They were slippery and cold, like jelly. As if Franklin felt her watching he turned and caught her eye, then he gave her a wink, but it wasn’t like the winks Malcolm gave her; it made her mouth fill with a sour taste. It did something nasty to her insides.

  Sometimes at night she pictured his face and she remembered once when she had the treatment, she thought he’d been there in the room. She shouted out but then someone put their hand over her mouth and the hand smelt like cigarettes but then she’d fallen back asleep and it might have been dreams because you don’t remember really. That was the treatment when she woke and there were purple marks at the top of her legs and she’d cried out and told Nurse Ritchie it ached and ached. Nurse Ritchie called her a bloody hysteric and slapped her for insolence.

  She hadn’t been looking at the door, hadn’t seen which patients had filed in. It was only when they both passed right by her that she realised.

  She forgot which cards she was hoping for: the jack of diamonds, the ten of clubs. Or was it the jack of clubs?

  Nurse Ritchie was peering through the glass.

  There was a shift in the room but Edith was one of the last to look over at what people were staring at, too busy watching Donna and Martha stop next to Shirley. Finally Edith dragged her eyes away. At first she thought it was a new patient: a woman with lank, red hair, a slow, shuffled walk, too-pale skin. She looked familiar, though, and Edith frowned, feeling her nose wrinkling as she watched the woman glance up before returning her eyes to the floor.

  Edith’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t notice anything else: no nurses’ station, no Donna, no sounds of the heating pipes, the squeak of passers-by, the coughs and mutterings of the room. It all disappeared in that moment and it was just the girl she was following with her eyes. It was Patricia, but not Patricia.

  Patricia was always frantic, Edith couldn’t remember her ever sitting still. Even after treatment she would be exhausting to watch: reshuffling furniture, shouting out games she wanted to play, food she wanted to eat, snapping her hairband between her fingers again and again. Donna used to tell her to shut up all the time. It became a game; she’d seek her out. She’d make her get angry, slap, kick, hit, until she was dragged away. And then she was dragged away for the last time, to a different ward.

  This Patricia looked like Patricia: the same stubbed nose, blue eyes, her hair a little duller. Patricia had been radiant, though, Patricia had . . . Edith couldn’t make it out. What had happened? As if Patricia had a twin, a subdued mirror image. She was frightened to go over, to talk to this woman who wasn’t Patricia. She stayed watching, cards forgotten, as the woman edged around the wall, one palm flat against it, head still turned away.

  There were twins in one of the men’s wards; Edith hadn’t known until she’d seen them standing side by side when she’d been delivering post. She really hadn’t been able to tell them apart. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her and it frightened her to t
hink that there could be more than one of the same person. She wondered then if Patricia had a twin who had come here. She caught Martha and Shirley looking at her too, then at the wool dangling limply from Shirley’s hand; Martha brushing at her eyes, blinking and looking away. Donna, however, was staring straight at Patricia, following every footstep, her mouth a smirk. Was it triumph in her eyes? Edith couldn’t focus on the cards in front of her, all the red diamonds and hearts swimming, the faces of the kings and queens blurring in and out.

  She didn’t want to look at Patricia, to see that dead-eyed expression, knowing for certain in that moment that Patricia had had the new treatment. They called it a leucotomy and Edith had heard Doctor Malone say it was a groundbreaking cure. He was in the nurses’ station too now, watching Patricia-who-wasn’t-Patricia through the glass, a pen to his lips, a small smile on his face.

  When Donna spoke, Edith startled in her chair. ‘Poor Patricia,’ she said, leaning down over one shoulder, the foul odour of cigarettes. ‘Not so pretty any more,’ Donna whispered, one eye open, shut, a flicker.

  Edith froze, wanting to get up, move away, aware of Doctor Malone a short distance away, needing to stay absolutely still: no trouble. Patricia was edging along the wall towards the table. Martha was watching her now, her arms crossed as if protecting herself from the sight.

  ‘You told them to search my room,’ Donna said, reaching over her, her breast brushing Edith’s shoulder as she picked up one of the cards, examining it in her hands, a smile on her face as if she was saying something nice. She placed it back down in the wrong place. ‘You better be careful what they find in yours next time, princess.’

  Edith couldn’t swallow, mouth dried up, her whole body clenched. Doctor Malone was still on the other side of the glass; a glance her way. She tried to smile.

  ‘Such a shame,’ Donna said, looking across as Patricia approached them, as Patricia looked straight at them and just kept moving by.

  Chapter 20

  NOW

  Doctor Malone left a message with the staff. He had a private matter to attend to in Wellington and would be gone for a short time. Instructions were issued and Doctor Harris was to temporarily take over all cases.

  Declan swung into action the moment he heard, heading to Nurse Ritchie in the nurses’ station, her lemony expression unchanged as he arranged to meet with Edith Garrett first thing the next day.

  He fetched her notes, staying up through the night until he knew them inside and out, pillow propped against the wall, papers fanned out on the bedspread and floorboards, the bare bulb of the lamp giving off a weak glow as he squinted at the handwriting, made more detailed notes about her admission, her original diagnosis, her recent regression and prepared his first questions for her.

  She had left his office with such little hope the last time, he was determined to see what he could do for her. A niggling doubt tugged at him: the portrait of the young Edith not matching the woman he had encountered.

  She was waiting outside his office before their set time, unable to stand still, about to slip away.

  ‘Edith,’ he said, drawing himself up, feeling her eyes on him as he juggled her folder, unlocked and held open the door for her. ‘Come in, take a seat.’

  She stepped past him into the room. For a second he imagined he smelt citrus, sweetening the smell of carbolic soap from the corridor. She took a seat opposite his own, both her hands tucked underneath her legs. Closing the door he took a small breath, her eyes expectant as he sat down, coughed and adjusted the position of his chair.

  ‘Edith, I’m glad we now have a session together,’ he said, the palm of his hand resting on her folder.

  He tried to sound confident, hopeful he might glean enough information to help her, to appeal her case to the senior doctor. He was the recent graduate, he reminded himself: well versed in some of the more modern methods. If Doctor Malone could be persuaded they might work in this case, then perhaps Declan could save Edith from her fate. He opened her folder and drew out the admission notes.

  ‘I’d like to determine a couple of things in the time I have with you . . .’ He began, counting on his fingers. ‘One, that your original diagnosis is correct, and two, that you are following a sensible course of treatment.’

  Edith removed her hands from under her legs, loosening a little. ‘Do you mean,’ she said, the words coming slowly, ‘that there’s a chance I am not what they say I am?’

  ‘What do they say you are?’

  He saw her face flush. ‘A–a . . . schizophrenic.’ She stumbled on the professional term.

  ‘The struggles with the mind are not always as easy to diagnose as a broken leg. But,’ Declan added, not wanting to raise her hopes, allow her to see the doubt he had over her label, ‘let’s start at the beginning and see where we get, Edith.’

  ‘Can you make me better?’ She asked it quickly.

  It seemed so simple put like that: make her better. Could Declan make her better? What was it that made any of them this way?

  ‘Perhaps we will see improvements.’ He adjusted the sentence. ‘No, Edith, I hope we will see improvements.’ He outlined a little about the course he had undertaken at university; he could see her listening, did his best to explain. ‘Our unconscious mind can trigger behaviours; that is to say, I think the mind is a powerful thing and we can heal by discovering what is troubling us.’

  She sat taller, her face hopeful. ‘Will I stop having treatment now?’

  ‘Certainly there will be no need for electric shock therapy under my care at this time,’ Declan said, his voice firm.

  ‘And you won’t be watching me, watching if I need the operation?’ she ventured, chewing her lip.

  Declan swallowed, shuffling the notes in front of him. ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves now.’ He tried to smile, to put her at ease.

  Edith drooped a fraction.

  What more could he promise? He couldn’t be sure Doctor Malone would even listen. The thought made him more determined to seek some doubt over the diagnosis, seek evidence to support his opinions.

  ‘I know it might be bothersome, but I would like to go back and explore some of the things that meant you were first committed as a child. Would that be acceptable to you?’

  Edith nodded, tapping her teeth with two fingers.

  Declan felt his shoulders relax a little, heard his voice grow in strength. ‘Excellent. Well, there is a large gap, but I’ve read some recent notes and the original file on your admission; I believe you were five?’

  She nodded again, thumbnail in her mouth.

  ‘Can you tell me in your own words how it was that you came to be at Seacliff?’

  There was a pause as Edith worried at the nail in her mouth.

  ‘Edith?’ Declan leant forward in his chair and prompted her gently.

  Her mouth stilled, her hand dropping back to her lap.

  ‘I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing,’ she said slowly.

  Declan tipped his head to the side. ‘Edith, nothing you tell me can be wrong; if that is what you think or feel then it is right. Please feel that you can be completely honest with me.’

  She scratched at her neck, her fingers brushing her throat over and over.

  ‘Nothing will happen to you, I promise you that.’

  She lowered her hand, nodded slowly as if convincing herself. She paused, inhaled quickly, as if building to the story. ‘My parents put me here,’ she said finally. ‘They told me I was going to see the doctor, but then they left me here.’

  Declan pictured Edith, aged five, her tiny feet padding along the flagstone floor behind the grown-ups. ‘Why did they put you here?’

  Her eyes darted to his. ‘I said things that made Father unhappy.’

  ‘What things?’

  She looked down at her lap. ‘Bad things.’

  Declan coughed, wanting to push a little further but sensing he needed to tread carefully. ‘What do you remember about that time?’

  ‘
I remember meeting Matron because I had never seen anyone wearing a hat like that, not even in church, and I remember seeing the rows of beds on the ward and I remember realising I wouldn’t be going home because I saw Mrs Periwinkle in Mother’s carpet bag on one of them.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Declan stopped her with an apologetic look. ‘Who was Mrs Periwinkle?’

  Edith’s mouth lifted. ‘She was my most beloved toy: a doll. She was always with me. We would have tea parties together.’

  ‘How about before all of that? Before you came here, when you were with your parents, and Mrs Periwinkle?’ He added the last part with a smile, trying to get Edith to relax, get her comfortable so that the memories would flow more easily.

  ‘I lived with my parents.’ Edith’s voice was quiet as she began, peering at Declan as if checking she should continue.

  Declan sat back in his chair, wanting her to feel that he was really listening.

  ‘We lived in a white house with a porch with a swing seat on it and honey pear trees in the garden.’ She was looking off into the distance behind him.

  Declan nodded encouragement. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I liked the pear tree part of the garden but I didn’t want to look out on the gravestones on the other side. That was where the dead people went.’

  Declan frowned slightly at this, casting an eye down at the admission notes in front of him.

  Edith continued, lost now in her past, ‘You could hear the town clock from the house and it was loud because we were right in the centre.’

  ‘You lived in the centre of town?’ Declan turned the page, casting an eye over the first file. Edith’s descriptions of her home when she was five years old didn’t give that impression. ‘I believed the house to be by the sea?’

  Edith shook her head. ‘No. Although,’ she added, in a voice designed to please, ‘I saw a photograph of the sea once, at Mrs Boone’s house before she died. But our house was next to the church in town. Mother liked living in the town; she would take me shopping and buy me ribbons.’