Did you really do that, Josef? Did you? Take my hand not once but twice that very first day? Was it, all of it, between us as I replay it? Or is it as I will come to fear. Remembering all of it all wrong.
Adding.
Inventing.
Dreaming?
17
The first year in Millrose Mount passed painfully slowly, Martha watching the seasons from her ward window in disbelief. The first autumn leaves. The snow. The first shoots of spring.
Her father visited every few weeks initially, but Martha refused to speak to him and he eventually appeared to give up. Doctors came and went and seemed, over time, also to lose interest in her case – distracted by specialist wards where various intensive and alarming-sounding treatments were under way. Insulin coma. Continuous baths. All sounded monstrous and, to avoid any stepping up of her ‘treatment’, Martha, for the most part, tried to keep her head down.
She had vague memories growing up of miscarriage-of-justice cases reported in the newspapers. Discussed at the dinner table. Campaigns on behalf of innocent people wrongly jailed. That was exactly what this felt like. A roaring fury inside at the unfairness of losing your liberty. But who was there to fight her corner? And what hope without someone out there to speak up for her? The more fuss she made, the more scenes she created, the more she seemed to match their diagnosis.
Just occasionally the impossibility of this no-win cycle would become too much and Martha would try for a stint on isolation – her favourite place. It was a patient called Emily who tipped her off. When a nurse forgot to count the cutlery at lunch, the trick was to take a knife and make just a small cut to the wrist. Nothing serious but just enough to cause a stir.
Isolation meant your own room. A little bit of peace and quiet for a time. A locked door with a viewing hatch at night away from the wandering male patients. But all too soon she would be back on a general ward with nothing to do. Nowhere to go.
Patients, bar those on acute admission wards, were technically given freedom to visit an array of dayrooms. The reality was a frightening hierarchy of privileges allocated randomly by staff and patient bullying which went totally unchecked. An obese male patient would sometimes follow Martha about all day, pestering her for cigarettes.
I don’t smoke. I don’t have any cigarettes.
You do. You are a liar.
Martha sometimes demanded to know exactly what medication she was being given. Why they insisted on so many sedatives, and what precisely she was supposed to be being treated for? But such protests were seen as troublemaking, resulting in withdrawal of ‘privileges’ which meant eating all her meals on the ward. Same stuffy room, all day and all night.
And then, in the second year of her stay, when Martha had drifted into a state of resigned despair, each day simply rolling into the next, a new nurse called Sarah began working at Millrose Mount. And Martha began to allow herself once more to nurture something dangerous; something which as time passed she had learned to bury.
Hope.
Sarah was in her early thirties and confided in Martha that she had worked in smaller, private units before moving, newly married, to the area. She made no secret of her shock at the way Millrose Mount was being run.
She was absolutely horrified when Martha sprang one of her cutlery tricks in a bid for a stint away from the wards, chastising her gently but firmly as she dressed the wound to her wrist.
‘You have to stop this, Martha. I know you like isolation but this is not the way to go. Trust me. In the end it will just make things worse. Go on your record and go against you.’
‘Things can’t get any worse.’
‘Trust me they can, Martha.’ Sarah bit into a roll of tape and secured the bandage at Martha’s wrist.
‘I shouldn’t even be here.’
She had kind eyes – Sarah. ‘I know that, honey. But you have to understand that they’ve heard it all before. The doctors. It’s what everyone says. That they shouldn’t be here. They just read the records. And you have to face up to the fact that you are here and so we have to find some way to make things better. To help you get better so we can make them review your case. All this just makes it worse.’
‘I’m not even ill. I swear.’
‘So why don’t you talk to me, Martha? Tell me what happened. What went wrong for you?’
‘I don’t talk about that any more. Not to anyone.’ It was true. Martha had learned to close it all down. All her early complaining about the lies over her admission had only ever made her situation worse.
‘Listen, Martha. This is important. If you carry on with the cutlery nonsense – the wrists – they will up your meds. They may even put you back on an acute ward.’
‘No they won’t. They just give me a few days in isolation, which I like.’
‘At the moment. But that might change. It’s a risky strategy.’
‘But there’s nothing to do here. Absolutely nothing. At least in isolation, I get peace and quiet.’ Martha shouted this and Sarah put her finger up to her lips, shook her head and then after a few minutes took a deep breath.
‘So how about the new women’s dayroom, Martha? The one with the sea view? No men. You could read in there. Don’t you like reading?’
Martha paused. Of course she liked reading. Once. There were a million things she had once liked, in a parallel world, and could no longer do. Not here.
‘Laura has taken charge of the new dayroom already. If I sit down she comes over and says I have taken her seat. I move. She comes over and says that my new seat is her seat. Then she follows me around like musical bloody chairs.’
‘I know Laura. She’s tricky but she’s all right. She’s just bored, the same as you are.’
‘Laura is not all right, she’s insane, Sarah. Bonkers. Also very, very big. She’s taken over the new dayroom and she scares the life out of me. If I take her on, she will hurt me.’
‘No she won’t. I know Laura, honestly. Laura is all mouth, Martha, but it’s just to cover up her own insecurities. She has no history of violence. You just have to stand up to her. If you tell her to go away, she’ll let you sit down. I’ve seen it.’
‘So why can’t you tell her to let me sit down?’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Martha. Not with Laura. Come on. I’ll show you.’
And then Sarah led her to the new dayroom, with its beautiful sea view, and stood in the doorway, making encouraging faces while Martha sat down. Sure enough, within just a couple of minutes Laura moved from her chair opposite and stood, towering over Martha. Six foot and at least fourteen stone.
‘That’s my chair.’
Martha glanced back to Sarah in the doorway, who again moved her head, to signal encouragement, mouthing – Go on. Like I told you.
Martha could feel her heart pounding. She began to imagine it. A blow. Laura lashing out at her. In the doorway, Sarah’s eyes widened as she waited. Eventually Martha took a deep breath. ‘No, it’s not, Laura. It’s not your chair – it’s my chair.’
Laura narrowed her eyes and for several more minutes just stood there, towering over her, Martha trying very hard not to wince. Not to show her fear. And then, finally, Laura tilted her head and spoke again. ‘OK then.’
And to Martha’s astonishment, Laura simply returned to her own chair and let her be.
After that Martha spent a lot of time in the new women’s dayroom, with its view onto the gardens and the sea beyond. It was nice to have somewhere a bit more pleasant and safer to sit, gazing out at the birds on the lawn and the waves in the distance. But the reading was not a success. The meds made Martha’s mind too fuzzy; she found reading quite hard.
And that’s when Sarah came up with a new idea. ‘For now it can only be allowed when I am free to supervise, Martha. Because of the needles. The rules. But I can manage an hour or so when I’m on shift to sit with you. It’s very therapeutic. You might like it.’
And she produced from a bag a set of large needles and a ball of le
mon wool.
‘Knitting, Martha. I’m going to teach you to knit.’
18
Martha remembers her parting from Josef in the same way she remembers their meeting. With absolute clarity and complete confusion.
It was a Wednesday. It was raining. She had been Josef’s lover for precisely six months and two days. And it was the housekeeper, Margaret, who found them out.
‘You’re not going to tell my father?’
The panic was very physical. A gut-wrenching terror at the reaction from her father, who, she feared, would experience as much jealousy as paternal concern. That she should be closer now to his protégé than he was.
Margaret, tears welling in her eyes, explained that her decision to overstep the normal boundaries and confront Martha was born of affection rather than interference or judgement. She had assumed far more than a housekeeper’s role since Jessica died and had picked their mutual bread-making session, to raise the matter – pummelling her anxiety into the dough as she spoke.
‘I should tell him. Your father. It’s my duty. You know I should. But – oh Martha. You’re so young. And he’s a musician. You of all people should know from your father what that means.’ She was punching the ball of dough with her knuckles.
Martha, in the ballet pumps which passed as slippers, was tapping her foot faster and faster, staring at a crack in the tiled floor.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
‘I’m just saying that if you were my daughter, I would put a stop to this. For your own sake. How long has this been going on? From the very beginning?’
Martha’s vision was now blurring as her eyes welled up uncontrollably. Tap. Tap. A sick feeling in her stomach. Growing panic so that the crack divided into two then three lines until she could not be sure which was the real one. She was most upset not at being found out, but at Margaret’s tone. Talking of this as if it were some sordid, nasty business. As if Josef were taking advantage.
When it was she who had made it all happen. Was glad to have made it all happen.
It still astonished the young Martha how easy it had been. Blissfully unaware of the secret romance growing ever more desperate between the British press officer and the Czechoslovakian security chief, no one rumbled the part this liaison had played in a sudden and unexpected change of plans. Out of the blue an extension was suggested for some members of the foreign orchestra.
A quartet was to stay on for this extended tour. Special recitals to promote the forthcoming competition. Josef was to be the star performer. To help the budget and to keep the embassy sweet, Martha’s father Charles had offered his home for two of the musicians plus their minder, and no one could have been more surprised and delighted than Martha when the embassy agreed.
Thank you, fate, thank you…
Josef arrived at their home two days later with a surprisingly small brown leather suitcase, a violinist who spoke very little English and a minder called Alexander who could not have minded less. ‘Isn’t he supposed to keep an eye on you?’ Martha teased as Alexander made the excuse of needing a walk before disappearing straight after breakfast every morning.
‘He is in love,’ Josef explained, whispering as Martha’s father remained oblivious behind his newspaper across the table. ‘And I am not, apparently, considered important enough to run off.’
Later he confided there was talk of a major international tour being planned for the Bolshoi ballet. These smaller, less important trips for neighbouring artists were being used as recces. To test security and international reaction.
‘So you’re guinea pigs?’
He frowned at that.
‘It’s an expression, Josef…’
‘You’re saying I look like a pig?’ He pretended to sound hurt. Both of them very well aware of what was happening. Martha unbearably gauche some days, like a foal tripping over its feet – ever conscious of being watched by those extraordinary ice-blue eyes as she moved about the house, pretending to be busy.
Whilst the minder couldn’t have been less attentive, infuriatingly it was Martha’s father who seemed unwilling to leave Josef any time to himself. What with rehearsals and schedules and long debates over new scores, Charles was in his absolute element with a new star guest for company. Four torturous days of watching and waiting had to be endured before Martha finally overheard her father confirm on the telephone a meeting in town to liaise with a builder over plans to replace the french doors to the garden.
I must apologise for deserting you, Josef. I could cancel if you prefer.
Please, Charles. Don’t worry. I will be fine.
And then, at last – in the conservatory, watering her mother’s beloved plants, his footsteps behind her. Her – so absurdly young. So absurdly shy. So absurd overall. Josef much too formal, admiring the plants and the view of the garden, and then suddenly speechless as she turned.
‘Would you play for me, Josef?’ She couldn’t help herself. Wanted to again see that expression on his face when he was lost in the music and she could just watch him.
He had laughed at first. No, Martha. Please. Not that. We need to talk. I want to talk to you properly… But then, when she pressed him – just for me, Josef, please – a look in his eyes of feigned exasperation, the acknowledgement that he could not, would not refuse her, and it was in that moment – the relief in her own eyes; the realisation that she had not been imagining it all.
Adding.
Inventing.
Dreaming.
He was unusually nervous, fluffing a few notes, complaining that she was too distracting, until in the end he closed his eyes and teased that he would have to pretend she was not there. Debussy. He picked the Debussy Sonata – until he was lost again in the music so that she was able to surprise him, her confidence buoyed by the music and the mood and the fear that this might be her only chance – reaching out to touch the long slope of his neck, as she had so longed to that first time at the rehearsal hall.
So that he stopped playing. Shocked. Then pleased. Then not at all surprised – his eyes smiling as he took her hand to kiss it ever so gently. They were interrupted then by the sound of the front door as Alexander returned, but it did not matter. Was decided now.
And it was she who moved things along. Not Josef, as Margaret assumed.
‘No – Martha. We mustn’t,’ he whispered the first time she crept along the hall. Tiptoed into his room – body trembling not with fear at what she was doing, but the fear she could awake now any day to find he would be gone. That memory, which makes her close her eyes, of the very first time she felt his flesh against hers. The shock of the absolute delight of it. Skin to skin.
‘He’s not a bad person, Margaret. It’s not what you think.’
‘I wash the sheets, young lady. So don’t try to tell me it’s not what I think. And it may not be my place, Martha, but you have no mother here to talk to you. Men. Well. You have to be so careful. And this will turn out badly for you, mark my words. He’s a musician. He’ll be off soon. Gone. And you’re eighteen years old.’
‘We’re in love.’
There. She’d said it.
‘Love? Oh, it’s love, is it, Martha? He’s said that, has he? That he loves you. Going to give it all up, is he? The music. Russia.’
‘Czechoslovakia.’
And now Martha’s lip was trembling and for just a moment she had wanted to slap Margaret for her sceptical face. Of course, they hadn’t had time to make proper plans yet. But there was no question that Josef felt as she did. I can’t believe this, he would say over and over at night, begging her to stay with him until morning. I love you so much, Martha. Let me talk to your father. Please, Martha. Wrapping his arms around her as she insisted it was too dangerous.
That she had to go. Let me go, Josef – fighting the urge to laugh. Teasing him and wriggling from the crook of his arms. Wishing too that she could stay but terrified of being found out.
We can’t tell my father.
And OK, so it was difficult.
Dangerous. Her father would go insane. And yes. A musician. Wrong job. Wrong country. But Josef wasn’t like her father and it was just as her mother had said. You can’t help who you love… And doesn’t love always find a way? Isn’t that what they say, Margaret? We are going to be together. We are going to find a way…
Margaret stopped then and wiped her hands on her apron before turning towards the sink with, to Martha’s surprise, tears again in her eyes.
‘I just wish your mother was here. She’d know what to do.’
‘So you’re going to tell my father?’ Martha straightened her back but Margaret did not reply, instead throwing the dough into the bowl and dabbing at her eyes with her apron as she walked away towards the pantry.
For the next two days, Martha lived on her nerves, awaiting her father and Josef’s return from an extended trip to London. Politics. Keeping the embassies sweet. When confronted she would deny everything, but it would still be dangerous. Her father would either have to believe Margaret or sack her – neither option appealing for, deep down, Martha was very fond of Margaret. But the only thing that really mattered now was finding some way to be with Josef.
Just as Charles Ellis predicted, Josef was the subject of growing admiration in musical circles and the Czechoslovakian officials seemed cautiously pleased. These London visits were more and more regular. And when the two returned finally, the taxi from the railway station sweeping up outside with the sullen and ever more love-struck minder moping in the back, Martha found it difficult to read her father’s face – to work out whether Margaret had spoken up by telephone as she had threatened. But no.
The chatter in the hallway sounded amiable enough and her father, when he appeared, looked absolutely fine. Instead, unexpectedly, it was Josef who looked ill at ease. Martha was completely thrown by this. She had been so longing to see him. To find a quiet moment to talk to him about what had happened with Margaret. Two minutes inside the house and still he remained extremely agitated, his eyes widening at her, pleading and panicking, as Charles headed for the drinks cabinet. ‘We must celebrate.’
Last Kiss Goodnight Page 9