by C D Major
He had time to change his mind, to return the keys. If Doctor Malone discovered what he’d done it wasn’t just his job that would be over, it would be his career.
A head of curls, a pale face, a promise made; he stepped inside.
He moved across to the large filing cabinet, relieved to find the drawers unlocked. ‘G,’ he muttered, pulling at the drawer that slid towards him revealing rows of different-coloured folders. ‘Garrett’ was thick, filled with wads of paper, some yellowed, some lined, some stamped, some formal, some written with a typewriter, by hand, newspaper clippings: a treasure trove. His heart almost burst from his chest as he hugged the bundle close, shut the drawer with a nudge of his hip.
Another noise outside; footsteps approaching, two indistinct voices. Declan could feel the hairs on his arms stand to attention.
He moved silently to stand behind the door, praying it wasn’t Malone, praying that whoever was there didn’t wonder why the door to the office was ajar. The voices grew louder and Declan felt his whole body tense. Then, a bark of laughter and the sounds were fading.
He moved as if in a trance back to the nurses’ station, returning the keys without a word to the attending nurse back in the room, his breath suspended as he placed them inside the cabinet. The nurse barely glanced up as he locked the cabinet; who would question a doctor in a white coat?
His eyes were drawn to the haphazard pile in his arms, papers sticking out at every angle. Was this where he would discover the proof he needed? His whole body buzzed in anticipation as he left the room, as he rounded the corner to his office.
Tom was waiting outside, Franklin the attendant rolling his eyes at something he’d said. Declan retraced his steps quickly, knowing he couldn’t waste time with another patient; waste time with anything else. Careful not to make a sound, he darted left, then right, into the warren of corridors and doors, the papers hot and urgent in his arms. He had to read them now.
Locking his bedroom door behind him, breathless from the circuitous route, the climb up the turret steps, he laid the pile on his bed, sitting next to it and pulling the first page towards him. His eyes scanned it, left to right, moving down, already turning to the next page, searching for something, anything he could use.
His eyes bulged as he read, turning the pages sideways to read smaller lines in the margins, corrections scratched out in ink. He felt his body jerk with every small discovery. Edith had told them so much about the supposed other girl: the house ‘Karanga’ in Oamaru, the name of her mother, her sister, the abuse at the hands of a stepbrother who had come to live with them. Declan couldn’t help but wince at the words five-year-old Edith had used when she described Primrose being hit, molested and worse. Cigarettes, sex, violence, blood: so much that surely might have made any doctor pause, ask how a small child might have known these things.
He felt the skin on his arms prickle. He scrabbled for a small notepad on his bedside table, started writing down information. The treatments she had endured made him flinch; time and again she had told them the same things, time and again they had sent her for electric shock therapy, changed her drugs, given her sedatives to calm her. Over a two-year period she had been reduced to a shadow of herself; Declan read her measurements, imagining a thin, broken young girl.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, how many appointments he’d missed. One entry leapt out at him. He stared at the words, trembling at the account, at what that boy had done to her.
Her other mother needed to know she was there, Edith had cried.
Edith had been adamant. She needed to be told. She’d be missing her.
No one had believed her.
It was so exact, Declan knew precisely what he needed to do. Impossible, and yet he remembered the feeling he had standing in that house. The same feeling that washed over him now as he read the details with his own eyes, as if back in the consulting room with the child. He had to go back there, to this place. It would be the proof he so desperately needed; it would be the way to get her out.
Chapter 38
NOW
He had barely slept. He set off early, sunlight leaking over the horizon as he took the coastal road, marvelling at the sky streaked with pink and orange and pale-blue ribbons, the wide, blue ocean on his right. Winding his way round lush green hills, sheep grazing at the side of the road, he felt an excitement bubble.
He left the truck on a road above the harbour, removing the bag he had brought, a thick handle sticking up out of it as he swung it on to his back. Even higher up, the air still smelt of seaweed; below him he could make out fishermen hauling up buckets of fish, nets opened, men skirting bollards carrying their loads, small boats bobbing up and down on the clear water, the sun reflected on its surface. Nearby a boy in shorts and braces raced after a pigeon whilst a girl in a straw hat had her shoes laced up by a laughing mother.
He moved out of sight of the harbour below, following the marks he had made on a map of the area, back up the road he’d followed before towards the house with the rusting roof: Karanga. Cutting away from the road, he took a path that led him into a nature reserve, trails leading away from him, pine needles thick underfoot. He was wearing sturdy boots and could feel sweat prickle at his neckline as he walked, sticking to worn paths, feeling a growing unease.
He strained his ears, hoping to hear the sounds of the sea, of waves crashing against rocks, but the still calm of the day meant that all he could detect was the rustle of insects in the leaves around him, the occasional cry of a bird. He rolled up the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, his arms pale, the hairs dark against his skin. He could never be mistaken for a man who worked outside.
His footsteps crunched over fallen branches, drying patches of mud. The air became more stifling as the trees grew closer together, the sky almost hidden by the thick canopy of leaves above him.
Eventually, he emerged through a thick curtain of foliage, the sound of the waves loud as he burst into the space close to the cliff edge. The wind picked up, buffeting him from all sides as he moved along a coastal path, peering below at intervals. He wasn’t confident he would know what he was looking for, but he was fortunate that the tide was out. After only a few minutes he felt his body tense as he spotted the telltale row of three boulders a little way out at sea, the tiniest sliver of sand below. The rocks he had seen on the map. He looked about him, able to make out a route down to the thin piece of beach. He felt his heart beat faster as he started to descend.
He landed heavily, feet sinking into the sand, coating his boots, droplets of wet sand spattering his trousers. He barely noticed, moving towards what he thought he might never find, staring up at the small entrance to a cave. He thought of the notes he had read and felt a genuine thrill rush through his whole body. What else had Edith been right about? He shivered, despite the sun above him.
Moving into the mouth of the cave, the stench of rotting seaweed overwhelmed him as the temperature plummeted, the shadows becoming thick as he picked his way inside. He placed his bag down and removed the shovel, wondering where to begin. The cave wasn’t big, but it reached back as if it might burrow right below the forest. The sloped rocks suspended above him made him feel as if the whole lot could come crashing down, burying him forever. He inched forwards, the air cooler still, dank with damp, light not reaching the corners. He paused next to a large rock jutting out of the shingle where the cave narrowed. He was deep inside, more than thirty feet from the entrance, and for a moment he craved the outside space, imagined running straight out of there, back out into the sunshine, clambering back up the cliffside.
Instead, he pushed the shovel into the sand and started to dig, knowing he had to start somewhere.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he dug holes in different points all along the back of the cave and in the area behind the flat rock at intermittent points. He was thirsty, his flask empty and the paltry sandwich he had brought long gone. He felt his stomach growl but wouldn’t stop, desperate for answ
ers, for proof. He was aware the sea was nearing the mouth of the cave, that he could be trapped there at high tide, and that thought made him dig faster. He could hear the waves now, rolling relentlessly in, back and forward, back and forward, the strip of sand disappearing, soon probably not visible from the cliffs above.
He finally looked up, sinking the shovel into the sand and resting on the handle, surveying his work like a farmer looking over his crops. The back of the cave was a series of large shallow holes and he was feeling his own stupidity wash over him, the logical part of him shaking its head at his foolishness. Had he convinced himself up there in his room, surrounded by the notes? Was he going mad?
The damp had seeped into his clothing, the sweat meeting in his back, his muscles aching from the exertion. He looked over his shoulder, knowing he didn’t have long left. He imagined remaining down here as the water slowly moved in, cutting off the exits, forcing him to stay as the sky darkened and night rolled in, the sharp smell of salt and seaweed around him.
He stepped into one of the holes, wanting to dig deeper for a few more minutes. He owed her that. He was her only hope. Someone had to listen to her.
He lifted the shovel and brought it back down, pushing it deeper into the sand, and frowned as it stopped on something hard. He bent down to feel what he had struck. He felt a smooth edge, bigger than another pebble or stone, and longer. He felt a roar in his ears, a tingling in his fingers as he wondered if he had done it.
He pulled the shovel out and sank it in again, next to the original spot, pitching forward as the shovel resisted. Then, gentler now, he sank it next to that spot. He licked at his dry lips, feeling everything tense as he made his way round the obstacle. Finally, as the shovel slipped easily again into the sand, he dropped to his knees, reaching his hand down and feeling for the edge with both hands. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be what it felt like. The cave was even darker.
Something became unstuck and he fell backwards, water seeping into his trousers, which he didn’t feel at all because he was staring at a long bone flecked with sand.
He scrabbled backwards, stunned. What he was seeing wasn’t possible. She had told them. She had told them all those years ago. It was true.
He stood slowly, moving across to the opening of the cave where it was lighter, turning over the bone, inspecting it before returning to gape back down into the hole as if he had conjured it from nowhere. He fell to his knees again, his hands moving along the space, faster now, feeling, digging. Impossible.
The bone was long, still fleshy in some places. He felt around, felt others, stared again at the first. His clothes were sopping with water by the time he emerged, his trousers heavy, the bone now in his bag.
The tide was high as he reached the truck above the harbour. The sun had sunk below the horizon and he knew he should get back to Seacliff, but he couldn’t leave her down there alone. It felt wrong to go. He thought of what the young Edith had said: that no one would ever find her. He imagined her lying there, the tide inching towards her now as she lay in the darkness of that cave, finally uncovered after all these years. He had never wished for a new day to begin as fervently as he wished it then.
He found a boarding house: a man in a cloth cap, his socked feet up on the counter, one toe poking out, a beer in his hand. He stared at Declan who had brushed fruitlessly at his trousers. Declan paid cash and was pointed up the stairs to a dirty single room with a narrow, lumpy bed and a small, smeared window covered in curtains so thin the moonlight still shone in.
He lay fully clothed on top of the blankets, everything still leaping and fizzing inside him. The moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds, but he lay wide awake in the darkness. What did this mean? What could he be sure of any more? He could smell cigarette smoke through the wooden floorboards, imagined the old man below him. He couldn’t sleep, slipped his damp boots back on and let himself out of the room, creeping down the stairs.
He walked, Oamaru eerily silent, the enormous limestone buildings looming on corners as he meandered seemingly without purpose. It was only after a while that he realised where he was walking: back along the road that led up the cliff, pausing at the fork that led down to the trees and the cave beyond. So much had changed since he had walked that way that morning. He couldn’t see the trees or the sea beyond, just a cloudy sky, a few stars spattered in the gaps between them, the faint lights of houses behind him, lampposts along the harbour.
He moved up the road, thin lines of orange pulsing around the edges of some upstairs windows, people still awake. An animal streaked in front of him, scuttling across the dust, kicking up tiny stones. He paused, a hand to his chest. He was jumpy, picturing his bag in the truck; he had lingered for an age, wondering what to do with the bone. It seemed wrong to leave it in the truck, but he had.
He kept walking, lights now almost gone below him as he moved to the end of the road, to the house that he had visited before.
He expected to look up to see the boarded windows faintly in the dark, the chimney lost in the inky blue sky. He stopped in front of the house, wondering what had happened there, wondering what had come before. He wondered if the girl, Primrose, had really lived there. Frowning, he squinted for a moment, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. He took a step forward, sucked in a breath as he stared at the window to the left of the door, the glow from behind the boarded-up windows, faint light squeezing between the thin cracks.
Someone was home.
Chapter 39
THEN
She never slept deeply any more. Deputy Matron had made her return her mattress, had threatened to send her to Matron if she saw it on the floor one more time. So she was back in her bed, staring at the door, imagining every footstep, cough, scrape was the moment she would come.
The nurses’ checks were erratic, the gaps between them longer; sometimes they didn’t come at all for hours. She wished the war wasn’t on, that the nurses were patrolling when they should be like they used to.
She knew, knew it was her when she heard the creak on the fifth step. A hush. Whispers. Footsteps padding, the night shifting around her. Edith held her breath, her blanket drawn up to her face, her eyes straining in the dark, the tiny sliver of moonlight through the crack of her shutters not enough to help her see the outline of her own door; the blackness only making every sound louder, repeat over and over in her head.
‘Edie, princess.’ Crooning near the gap in the door.
Edith couldn’t help let out a small whimper of panic, her knuckles clutching the material around her. No. They couldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get her here. Something in the lock; a scraping sound of metal in wood.
Someone giggled: Martha? Shirley?
‘Shh.’
‘You want to wake up the whole bloody place?’
Edith felt her body tremble. She knew she needed to get up, but she seemed incapable of moving, stuck in this position, every muscle taut.
She thought of dragging the mattress across again but what would Matron do? Send her to Doctor Malone? She couldn’t be sent to him again; he would sign his name, take her to the white room.
Silence, and then the sound of the latch, a slow movement, a whisper of a breeze.
Edith lifted her head an inch. Faint grey silhouettes in the darkness. Another giggle. They had done it. They were here in her room, about to step inside. Metal turning again. Locked in with them. Her nose felt clogged with the smell of them: cigarettes, porridge, sweat; she thought she would choke on it. She squeezed her eyes tight, hands over her face, feeling the years drop away, as if she were back in her bed in one of her nightmares. They were coming closer. The monsters were here.
Weight at the foot of her bed, a scrape and the sharp scent of a match, a glow in the dark, smoke blown between the fingers covering her face.
‘Surprise,’ said the voice.
Her eyes flew open. She scrambled backwards but there was a hand gripping her, another over her mouth.
‘Shut u
p,’ Martha hissed. Edith stared up at her, feeling her eyes roll back in panic, her lips pressed into a damp palm.
Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell; this wasn’t her imagining. What would the nurses do if they found them there? She thought then of the bathroom, Nurse Ritchie staring past her, Nurse Shaw’s eyes sliding away guiltily. She felt a tightness in her chest, a scream stuck somewhere inside. Martha removed the hand from her mouth. Had she realised she wouldn’t cry out?
‘We were so bored in the dormitory,’ Donna said, leaning back against the wall as if it were totally normal, as if for a moment they were friends in this place, telling each other stories in the dark. ‘So we thought we’d come and play a little game with our favourite pretty patient.’ She moved her head to the side and lifted the cigarette to her lips as she observed Edith. ‘Do you want to play a game?’
Martha was still standing next to the bed, not quite sure perhaps whether to sit, eyes darting to the door, something resting on the floor that Edith couldn’t make out.
‘I don’t want to be long,’ she said, her voice soft, a whisper; another look at the door.
‘Stop being such a fucking spoilsport. Now,’ Donna said, barely lowering her voice as she stubbed out her cigarette on the wall with a small hiss; Edith imagined the black spot in the morning, a reminder she hadn’t imagined it all. Donna crouched over Edith. ‘Told you she’d be excited to see us.’ Her face was delighted as she glanced at Martha.
A thin smile back.
‘So, Edie,’ Donna said, using the name Nurse Shaw had first used for her, it sounded all wrong in her mouth. ‘Now we’re here you don’t want to ruin our fun.’ She pouted, her groin pressing down on top of her.
What could she say to stop her, make her go away?
‘And for our little game to work well we need you to be a good girl and lie down, all still . . .’ Donna said, leaning forward and blocking Edith’s view completely until there was just her face, the badly-cut fringe, her thin lips. ‘Then’ – her breath on her face, stale smoke – ‘we’re going to need you to take off that nightdress.’