The Other Girl

by C D Major

  Declan couldn’t stop the frown forming.

  ‘You know, well, not . . .’ She was stuttering a little over the words now.

  He knew he should probably make it better, but he was bored of others bandying the term around, remembering some of the patients: polite, amenable; they didn’t deserve it.

  ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ It was like she had read his mind, two spots of pink now deep on her cheeks.

  He lifted a hand, a heavy sigh escaping. ‘I won’t tonight. It’s been a long day and I’d be no company.’

  ‘Lots of time for your patients, none for yourself, Doctor.’ She pursed her mouth together as if to stop herself saying anything else, and gave a quick nod of her head. ‘Good evening.’

  He watched her go, thought for a moment perhaps he should follow her – an evening out of the institution, a chance to stop the constant prattle in his head; the past few days were weighing him down. She was nearing the end of the corridor; he saw her lift a hand to brush at her face, wondered at the action, but then she turned the corner and the moment to change his mind had passed.

  Chapter 34

  THEN

  The day started early, Edith delivering mail around the building. Malcolm came with her, unlocking the doors with his big bunch of keys and telling her about his wife who was having problems with her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Edith said, staring at each envelope, her eyes stinging with tiredness. She had heard voices outside her room in the night, scratching on the wood, had dragged her mattress on to the floor, pressed it up in front of the door, leant her back against it.

  ‘She had to go to hospital . . .’

  Edith handed Joyce her envelope. Did she feel comforted by the thick sheets of paper? Or did the words want to make her smack the walls harder? Did Audrey feel better after she’d received hers? Maybe whoever wrote hadn’t minded that she’d been found in the bath with her wrists open. Audrey’s eyes welled up as she took it, but sometimes you couldn’t tell if that was people being happy or sad.

  ‘. . . they say she’ll be blind by next Christmas.’

  Malcolm stopped in the corridor and she turned to him, catching the last of what he was saying.

  ‘That’s very sad,’ she said, knowing Malcolm loved his wife. He mentioned her often. She loved their garden; Malcolm once described her as green-fingered and Edith had been worried until he had explained.

  She reached out for Malcolm’s hand and held it briefly. His eyes darted down before his face relaxed. ‘If we’d ever had a daughter, Edie, I’d hope she’d be just like you.’

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Malcolm would have been a good father, she thought, but she’d had a good father, everyone had told her that; he was a holy man, and she’d still ended up here.

  She thought of Father that evening as she filed into the bathroom later, the big gable-lined window casting rectangular shadows across the wooden floorboards, the five baths in a row, opposite five other baths, chairs in between them for the nurses to sit on. She knew she should be used to it by now: the lavatories with no doors, the sideways looks from some of the attendants, someone else always there.

  She felt her insides tighten when she saw Donna sitting in one of the baths opposite, her fringe damp and sticking to her forehead, Martha stepping into the bath next to her, her back just a series of bony lumps against pale skin. Nurse Ritchie sat in the chair between them. Edith was aware of their eyes watching her as she undressed in front of them, their mutters making them laugh, the nurse too, as she covered her breasts and stepped into the tepid water, her skin breaking immediately into goosebumps.

  She sank into the water, trying to cover her body, bending over and washing herself as best she could. She remembered Father talking about sins of the flesh and it felt sinful, all of them naked in the same room.

  She had refused her bath on that first day, bitten the nurse who had held her down, tried to remove her blouse. She’d been sent for treatment, so small the leather shackles hadn’t been able to buckle tightly and her skinny arms were able to thrash and flail until Doctor Malone had sunk a needle in her arm and she didn’t remember anything else.

  She only had a few memories from that first year at Seacliff, a loop of the same: the white room, the needles, crying for her mother, the towering figure of Doctor Malone, wishing someone would hold her. She replayed the day they’d arrived together: her parents sitting either side of her on a sofa, her legs dangling from it, not able to touch the floor, as they spoke to the doctor about the things she said about her other house, her other mother, her other brother.

  One time, Mother had asked her to tell her more. She’d held Edith’s face in her hands and looked her in the eyes and asked questions. Edith knew some of the answers. Mother never asked questions in front of Father, but once Edith heard her beg him to listen to her before they went in the motorcar to Seacliff.

  Then her mother had sat on that sofa with her and Edith had felt her body shaking softly, watched a tear drip from her chin until Father stood and beckoned her to leave. Edith had got down off the sofa to follow them but the doctor had stopped her, a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t understood when he’d told her she would be staying there. She didn’t want to stay, wanted to go with her parents. She wanted to go back to their house and her bedroom where she had the window that looked out over the honey pear trees and the vegetable patch where she’d helped Mother dig out the potatoes last summer. And Mrs Periwinkle hadn’t come with her in the motorcar, so she couldn’t stay because she never left Mrs Periwinkle anywhere.

  The doctor repeated the same words and Edith started crying, frightened now, as she had never been alone without her parents and she was hoping that they would come back, appear like they used to when she was very little and Mother would pretend to be hiding and then she’d come back and say, ‘Ta da!’ and it would all be a game and she would giggle and giggle. This didn’t feel like a game, though, and a giant woman appeared in the doorway wearing a stiff, white hat and a dark-grey dress and Edith was to go with her.

  Matron was taking her to a ward, she said, and Edith wasn’t sure what a ward was. They didn’t have a ward at home. Edith wondered if her parents were at the ward already and whether the doctor had been wrong.

  They passed more rooms, so many rooms, and Matron opened door after door with different keys and every time she locked them again Edith wondered if Father and Mother would be able to remember the way.

  Matron turned a corner and then looked down at her. ‘We’re here,’ she said.

  She walked into the ward, which was a large room with rows of beds down one side, wooden floorboards and a high, barred window at the end. Matron walked down the middle, stopping in front of one of the beds. Sheets were fitted tightly across it and there was a small carpet bag at the foot of it which looked like the one that lived on the top of Mother and Father’s wardrobe at home, and when the nurse opened it Edith saw Mrs Periwinkle and that was when she cried and cried for her mother and she promised she wouldn’t talk about the other girl any more. She just wanted to go home.

  ‘Have you ever seen a fatter behind?’ Donna cackled, making her own friend flush beetroot red as Shirley stepped into the bath opposite, her veined breasts enormous, rolls of stomach hanging down, her bandaged legs now naked, pale, mottled.

  Edith looked away as she heard Nurse Ritchie’s low chuckle.

  ‘Nancy, have you ever seen this? It’s like she’s eaten three of you. There’ll be no water left.’

  Edith glanced over at Nurse Shaw on the other side of the room, sitting on a chair next to Rosa. Rosa was giggling and splashing water as if she was a child, and Nurse Shaw was staring ahead as if she was pretending not to hear Nurse Ritchie. Shirley finally lowered herself into the water; some sloshed over the edge on to the floor with a splat.

  ‘Oh, she’s beached.’

  ‘Donna,’ Martha said. Something in her voice made Edith look up again; she caught Martha’s eye, surprised by her
admonishment. They studied each other. Did Martha wish she was far away, too? Leaning over a tin bath pouring water over the small boy from the visitors’ room? The moment passed so briefly Edith thought she’d imagined it.

  Donna moved in the water, and Edith felt panic bloom: Donna didn’t like it when people spoke to her like that; Patricia had spoken to her like that. Edith tried to sink underneath the water, bunching her legs up and resting back against the smooth metal, wanting to disappear from view. The water wasn’t deep and she felt a chill on her breasts and stomach.

  ‘Not like Edith over there, who’s just skin and bones . . . nothing of her . . . pretty little Edith . . .’ Donna’s voice was loud in the echoing room.

  ‘Pretty little Edith,’ Martha sang out next to her, as if the moment between them hadn’t happened at all, as if she knew she needed to fix something. Shirley tried to join in.

  Then, without warning, Donna rose out of the water and it seemed the whole room sucked in a breath.

  Edith glanced quickly again at Nurse Shaw. Would she say something? Tell her to sit back down? Nurse Shaw didn’t meet her eye, staring hard at Rosa, still splashing.

  Donna stepped out of the bath, not bothering with a towel, everyone watching as she crossed the room, watery footprints on the floor.

  Edith pressed herself back against the cold metal as she stopped next to her, wiry pubic hair at eye level, staring down at Edith’s body.

  Her father’s voice again: sins of the flesh.

  ‘Have you ever seen a body like it?’ Donna said slowly, her eye: open, shut, droplets clinging to her skin.

  No one said a word as Donna bent down, so close Edith saw the separate strands of hair stuck to her forehead.

  As Donna’s hand reached down Edith made a noise, staring at the thin fingers now in the water, yellowed nails making the surface ripple: so close.

  ‘If only she didn’t sleep all alone in that little room of hers . . .’

  Edith kept watching the fingers.

  ‘If only one of the nurses would give me the right key . . .’

  Edith’s eyes darted across the room to where Nurse Ritchie shifted in her seat. Had she heard? Had she given Donna a key?

  Donna’s hand reached up and Edith looked down at her chest in horror as her fingers stroked her nipple.

  Edith couldn’t think; couldn’t breathe, a tremor in her hands.

  A cough from across the way. Nurse Shaw’s bright voice as if this was a normal bath time: ‘Come on, Rosa, out you get.’

  Edith still immobile.

  ‘Back to the ward,’ Nurse Ritchie called out.

  Donna stayed where she was as water drained, as the others reached for towels. Nurse Ritchie walked past the bath, looked right at Edith, said nothing. As if she couldn’t see the naked patient’s hand on her flesh.

  She was Donna’s new plaything. The nurses didn’t care, the doctors didn’t believe her and she would never be free.

  Donna squeezed her nipple, Edith gasped as she bent closer, her damp hair brushing her cheek as she whispered, ‘See you later, princess. I’m looking forward to it.’

  Chapter 35

  NOW

  He looked for Edith every day. She had been returned to her room but Declan couldn’t think of a reason to visit her there. He lingered at meal times in the dining room, pushing the food around his plate, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He fabricated reasons to drop in on the dayroom, glancing quickly at the various patients. He was late for appointments, barely present, spending his evenings in the library searching through books for stories about the impossible, children who had made fantastical claims. There was nothing.

  He lay awake in the darkness wondering how she was, twisting in his bed, trying to get comfortable. Sweaty dreams would shock him into waking: Edith unconscious, Malone performing the leucotomy, the trephine boring into her temple, a thin trickle of blood running down her cheek, spooling in her ear as he worked.

  Was it over?

  He fastened his belt another notch, pulled at his loose clothes.

  Yesterday he had paused in front of Matron, her starched uniform impossibly white, dazzling him into more mumbling. He wanted to ask her about Edith, ask how she was, but he found himself biting down the questions.

  She had looked at him, crossing her arms as he stopped her in the corridor. ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  He found himself enquiring after her health.

  ‘Very good, Doctor,’ she replied with a raised eyebrow before moving around him, her walk brisk as she moved away.

  ‘Good,’ he whispered, staying there in the corridor, only moving when an attendant started towards him pushing a male patient in a wheelchair.

  He woke to a hubbub a day later. The whole place was full of excited babble for the first time in weeks. Since the fire, Seacliff had been permeated with a gloom, like a stubborn sea fog, but this morning faces were animated and patients and staff were making plans for the day ahead.

  A pod of whales had washed up on the sands of Karitane beach, a short way away, and it had been decided that this might be a stimulating day out for some of the patients. Declan would normally have been swept along in the tide of feeling too, curious to catch a glimpse of the mammals that desperate locals were attempting to keep alive, but he found his energy sapped, his thoughts straying to the body in the bed.

  The attendants were instructed to fetch buckets; patients were told to bring waterproofs, wear boots. The sky was filled with fat, white clouds that promised to spill before the day was out. Sandwiches were cut up and flasks of water were prepared in the kitchen, the staff there muttering about the extra work, about spoiling them.

  Declan was herded along with a group of patients on to the idling bus, which took them along the winding road that clung to the coast, above the long grass and the white sand and the ocean. He stared out of the window, the vast expanse of water sitting heavy under the sky, as brooding as his own thoughts.

  He hadn’t anticipated the desperation that washed over him as they looked out over the beach. The enormous creatures were lying flat on the sand as locals moved amongst them, digging trenches around their bodies that ran back to the sea, filling them with water, throwing tin pails of water over the stranded whales. There were four: three larger ones, one smaller than the rest. You could see their bodies rise and fall as they struggled, helpless.

  He moved over the uneven sand towards them, frowning at Tom Barton who was whooping and circling them, overexcited at the sight. Others were already racing backwards and forwards to the sea clutching buckets slopping with water, throwing it over the bodies before returning to the shoreline, concentration on their faces as they worked. Martha was a little way off, pouring water into one of the trenches around the largest whale. She was dressed in a lightweight coat that swamped her. He could feel his eyes narrow. When she looked up at him, she flinched at his expression before averting her gaze.

  He scanned the beach, fooling himself into thinking he was simply taking in the scene. Surely she hadn’t been allowed out of Seacliff? Then he spotted her. He felt his body lurch and he stumbled on the sand. She was crouched next to the smallest whale: still. One hand was resting on the area above its eye, patting it softly; she was whispering, a tender expression on her face. Declan felt a pain in his chest as he saw how pale she looked, her curly hair cut shorter, patchy, her arms bonier. She wasn’t wearing her coat, had bundled it up beneath her like a makeshift cushion. Declan hoped she wouldn’t catch cold.

  There was a commotion in the corner of his eye and he turned to see Tom had managed to clamber up one of the larger whales and was being summoned down by a furious-looking Matron, whose hair was escaping her hat as she clamped a hand to it.

  ‘Doctor Harris!’ She called over to Declan to help get the man down.

  Some locals had formed a small group and were staring in disgust at the sight of the man moving along the whale’s body, out of everyone’s control.

  Declan raised a hand, waver
ing as he made his decision before heading over to Matron, still trying to keep Edith in his sights. He heard the harsh tones, the mutterings, and willed Tom down. They couldn’t make him; he sat straddling the whale, patting him as if he were a horse he were riding. Matron fetched an attendant and they both circled the man and creature, other patients frozen, their buckets empty at their side as they stared up at Tom.

  Ignoring the pleas, Tom remained there, getting up again when he was ready. He moved back along the whale, slipping as he moved down its tail. Tumbling on to the sand. Matron rushed towards him, already admonishing him as he looked up at her, grains of sand stuck to one side of his face, in his hair, all over his hands.

  Edith had gone by the time he turned back to the smaller whale, a tiny figure beyond now standing looking out over the still sea, her arms folded across her chest, her cardigan stretched across her back so Declan could make out jutting shoulder blades. He found his feet moving in her direction before he had time to think.

  Stopping halfway he noticed two people talking together on a patch of long grass that marked the edge of the sand. The smaller figure, a nurse, Nurse Shaw, was pointing in his direction, her sandy hair blowing sideways in the breeze as she spoke to the larger figure of Doctor Malone. His face, disgruntled, as he followed her finger. It stopped Declan in his tracks. What was she telling him? Why did he feel uneasy, dithering on the sand between the shore and the whales? He took a breath, all the questions he had bubbling beneath the surface. Edith so close. He wondered when his next chance would come.

  He found himself changing direction, heading back to the whales and picking up a tin pail from a nearby pile. He spent the next hour moving between the sea and the whales, splashing water over their bodies, head down, not looking at the lonely figure getting her feet wet in the sand as the tide rolled in, just working purposefully, trying to let the task block out his thoughts.

  Please don’t fade away, he prayed silently, the water dripping into the trenches beneath the whale. Please don’t give up.