The Girl from Rawblood

by Catriona Ward

  “Come on,” says Doris’s grim voice. I seize the worn curtains in fists, hold on to the frame, kick out hard. It’s some comfort that I feel my heel crunch on bone. But there’s shouting, feet pound the turf, and in a moment, there are many more hands. The curtains give from the rings with a rending sound. I writhe and scrabble for grip. I hear a sound like a dog growling, and it’s coming from me. The weight is terrible; they all hang on me like lead. My fingers cling, then slip, and I fall toward the sorry earth. My head hits it hard, and sparks fly out.

  Warm hands, cool metal. Somewhere, heavy snoring. So.

  Voices far above.

  “Do take care, Doris. It’s the biter.”

  “Proper rats in the attic, this one.”

  I am seized, delighted by how exactly right she is. I know all about the rats. Pleasure, pure and piercing, occupies all my attention for some time.

  “…weren’t there above a fortnight,” Doris is saying. “They were quite amused by all the cleaning and washing the English nurses insisted on.”

  “Dirty blighters.”

  “Oh, I know.” She’s suddenly in my ear, and I startle, though I should know better by now. The flowering, exquisite slide of the needle.

  “You’ve stuffed it up, Lottie.”

  “It’s not my blame. Stop shifting about, you.”

  “Give over. Behave yourself.”

  This to me, I think. I’m doing something to earn these rebukes; I can’t tell what. Limbs and eyes and fingers are fantastic, indistinguishable.

  I will wait. I will bide my time. I will not die here.

  The needle once more. This time, it slides true.

  “There, now. You won’t be worrying us for a while.”

  Something spreads through my veins like coral growing.

  “What was I saying?”

  “The French.”

  “They’re terrible ungrateful.”

  The voices fade into the far dark, go elsewhere.

  A new hand on my brow. Lemons. “Oh, Iris.” His voice brims with sorrow.

  I float. The pool is black; I breathe the water in.

  1916

  I’m seventeen.

  My lids part to gray light. Drifts, flurries. I am moving in spirals, in drifts of snow.

  A whoosh of rich, mossy smoke. A pipe. The click of teeth on the stem. The scent of lemons, his careful, diffident tenor, like water running over rock. The sound of a thumb quickly licked.

  I feel the pressure of his attention. Tiny sounds of coins, cloth, paper. He’s standing over me, hands thrust into pockets, tinkering beneath the cloth.

  “Hello, Martin,” I say. “The defective is awake.”

  “Ah,” he says. A hand on my eyelid, pulling it upward. Flash of white light, pink thumb. “We can do better for you,” he says. He sounds very sad. “I think we must try.” Money rattles in his fingers. A hand on my head. I hold still.

  “Dr. Goodman,” I say. “Please don’t make me sleep. No more. Please.”

  He takes my hand. “Only a little more, perhaps,” he says. “Listen.”

  I ask, “How long have I?” I try to sit. My limbs are wet string.

  “It is Monday, September the seventeenth.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s June.” I taste the air. It has mold and swallows and bonfires in it.

  His hand light on my head. Papa waves at me from the lavender garden. I cough. My throat is coarsely chopped wood.

  “Tube feeding,” he says kindly, “can be rough on one. Here.”

  The water is cold shards of iron in my throat.

  I’m not in the ward. I’m in some green place I don’t know, with metal studs binding metal walls together. A basin in the corner. Drips from somewhere.

  “I need to go outside,” I say. “Let me go to the garden.”

  He sighs. “May I speak frankly? I have tried, with you. I have instituted an intensive regime of healthful exercise, of improving pastimes, of electric therapy, of water therapy, of talking cure. In the course of these, you have injured four nurses, two with fairly serious bites. You have repeatedly attempted to enter my office and remove property. Letters, which as your behavior shows, you are not in a fit state to receive. You have attempted to leave the hospital on three separate occasions. This has resulted in you receiving”—he ticks them off on his fingers—“a punctured trachea from a pencil, serious avulsions on your fingers and shoulders from a blunt knife, and various lacerations about the neck from objects such as drinking mugs, the unscrewed leg of a bed, and the toe of a hobnail boot—and these wounds heal slowly and badly because you are malnourished through tube feeding while sedated.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I say. “I don’t recall.”

  “Precisely—this is the familiar refrain. You do not recall. You do not remember your actions, and more specifically, you say you do not remember the act that brought you here. You insist that you are wrongly incarcerated. Your behavior toward me and my staff remains violent, troubling. As I am sure you must see, it is impossible to leave you in the general population at Earlswood. I cannot allow this to continue. But I have removed all privileges, all possible sources of comforts… There is no means of reprimand now that is left untried. I have failed you. So what else is to be done?”

  The green walls are sweating. They look unsafe, like a sand castle. They will fall in softly, bury us deep.

  “I have a proposal for you, Iris. Now. You refuse to accept your crime. And in a sense, you are right not to do so. For you are at the mercy of your congenital condition, do you understand? It is not your fault. But nothing will change for you, do you see, if you do not have courage. You may stay here forever, and bite Doris’s fingers, and be sedated for much of the time, your waking life narrowed to hours a week, the dosage of the pheno increasing as your resistance to the drug increases, which will exacerbate the accompanying memory loss. You will experience nothing and recall less. Eventually, one day when they wake you, your hair will be gray, and you won’t know the old woman in the mirror.”

  I very slowly put out my desiccated tongue. I stretch it out to its dry length through dry lips. I stare at him, eyes wide. I open the shutters. Just for a moment, I let him see in. “You won’t let me go,” I say. “Just as you’ll never give me my letters.” I have long since schooled myself to believe them a fiction.

  He goes white and blank, licked pencil suspended in air. Then he nods as if I have a good point. His eyes are Persian cats. “I will not coerce or persuade. I state facts, merely. I have a high opinion of your intelligence. I will trust it now.” He places a manila folder, the color of clotted cream, on the bed by my knee. “Here are the studies—I will not insult you by suggesting you will not understand them. You will not be sedated for the next two days. You will be in isolation here. I’m afraid some of it will be unpleasant. Withdrawal, you know. At the end of that time, you will inform me whether you will return to sleep.” He pauses and stands. The coins tinkle in his pockets. “I could do it without your permission,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s the answer. I believe, I believe that you wish to be better. I wish for you to decide—which is the only way it will begin. So think.”

  Through the dark, the cold sound of his exit. Metal, bolts, shining keys. Through the thick wall, someone snoring. The walls are bending, pulsing, concave. The ceiling is low, very low. My lungs don’t seem to be working. The rats make little scuffles in the attic. Something breathes hot and gentle on the back of my neck. The scent of lemons is light in the air. Under it, the heavy stink of a big cat. I pick up the file. The words Prefrontal Leucotomy are written on it.

  Dogs are given large lesions of the occipital lobe by means of lobotomy. They become sweet and harmless even when they bit and fought before…

  • • •

  When I surface, Goodman’s in faded gray, collar sharp whit
e against his vulnerable throat as he swallows. He raises a questioning hand, waits for my permission. I nod. He lifts the gauze. Gentle fingers brush my forehead. The light, inadvertent touch of his hand on the tip of my ear. Warm skin. Lemons.

  Did it go well? I try to ask. I’m not sure what comes out, but he seems to understand.

  “Beautiful,” he says. “Perfect trephine openings, closed over nicely.”

  Relief leaks through me, a slow, good drip.

  He says, “Oh, you clever thing.” He may mean me or not. He replaces the bandage, settles it with infinite care around my shaved skull, sits back in the chair. “May I show you some pictures?” His face open, eyes soft. “Tell me what you see.”

  I look at a photograph of a cat. I say cat. I look at a photograph of a hat. I say hat. House. Bird. Gate. Flower. But sometimes, those words don’t come when I say them. Sometimes, what comes out is handle or ee or owls.

  He touches the back of my hand with a finger. “It will come, Iris,” he says. “It will.”

  We smile. Then there’s a picture of something delightful made of curls and waves, which jumps off the card into the space between us. I feel hilarity growing. One moment, it’s in me; the next, it’s out, and I’m laughing. He smiles, holds his arm out, brings the picture closer, which sends me further into happiness.

  “Hm?” he asks, and this completes it. I am collapsed.

  I ask, “What is it?” What comes out is heartburn. I try again. Meat man. The words struggle through hoots and caws of laughter.

  Dr. Goodman turns the card, looks at it. His wide gray eyes widen farther, rise to meet mine. The smile spreads sweetly across his face; he’s grinning properly like a boy with a fishing line. His laugh is unexpected, quick, low. We laugh together, almost weeping with it.

  The name comes on a wave of feeling. Rawblood. How did he come by a picture of my house? It brings me back to myself somewhat.

  “Am I better now?” I ask, and that works all right. “I can go…” Where? I’ve lost the word again. But I hold tight to a few certainties: that yesterday, I read the file, that I said yes. That he promised that after, I could.

  “Iris,” he says—a moment of confusion before I recall that’s me—“I am committed to it, Iris. We will entirely reduce your capacity and desire to harm others.”

  “You did the…thing.” The word, which tastes of tin. “So now I am better,” I say. But there’s that strange slippage of the tongue. What actually comes out of my mouth is burn it.

  “I must go,” he says with real regret. “It’s a pleasure to see you so well.” He stands, peels his thumb absently across the stack of cards. They snap, they rattle, tick tick tick.

  I put my hand to my head. He moves to stop me, but the bandage falls to the floor with a shhh. My hand explores the bare surface of my skull. So strange and soft, no hair. The stapling, the stitches, cover me, tiny railways. And the ridges of older scars that are healed.

  “There are six holes, not two,” I say. Isn’t it. Arc with sage myth is what I hear. “There should be two apertures only.” Circus time, embolism, hearty making.

  I take my time. I fix him with my eye. I scent the air for traces of the season. Nothing but carbolic and lemons. I ask, “How many times? How long, when are we?” Suffused, umbrage, arbitrary. Sibilant. His eyes shine.

  “Iris, you must have patience,” he says. “We are learning so much. You are a pioneer.”

  Something hurts, not my head. I test everything gently.

  My midriff is swaddled in dressing. Something raw under there. Incision between my hip bones. I’m not an idiot, can imagine what they took. But I stare the question anyway.

  “You will understand the necessity for that,” he says. “Your defect could only produce defective… Well.” The slow swell, the curve of his lip, is fascinating.

  I’m quick. The cards scatter with a whir. His fingers taste of lemon. There’s a spurt of salt and tin. Should have taken my teeth while you were at it. Pillowy flesh and within it the bone. Whirling, whistling, whistling voices, a cacophony. The door flung open, and things and women’s hands hold me down, and white starched shirt fronts press the breath from me, and, of course, the needle.

  The door swings shut; the bolts go home. Broad silence. His blood in my mouth. I spit onto the stiff pillow. Through a wall, someone snores, far off thunder. I explore. My trembling fingers confirm it. Wasn’t yesterday I saw that file. Not by far. How many times have I seen those cards? Will I see them again tomorrow—for the first time? Have to snap that thought off as it comes or I’ll lose it.

  How long, how long, how long?

  I was wrong. I’ll die here. I should have known. My eyes won’t make tears but dart about the room without my say-so. The world is made of slippery angles, crazy, gleaming. Actually, I am losing it; here I go.

  Iris, my father says in my ear. Burn it.

  I’m nineteen.

  TOM GILMORE

  2 january 1918

  Somewhere in france

  Iris

  sorry for the silence. Not been myself. Got back from leave a week ago. Moved again yesterday. can’t say where. the rats always seem to find us all right. No secrets safe from rats.

  Red sky this morning. Crates came with the new boots but only left feet so we’ve cut the toes off. We were doing the barbed wire last night by full moon. Two men shot. one by them and one by us in error. in the head. Not clean shots. I won’t go on about all that.

  Sorry for the jumble. all my thoughts.

  a few weeks ago I thought I saw you. We were in a town. Everyone blind drunk and looking for women. I couldn’t quite take it. Took a bottle to the fountain in the square. moonlight. Sound of water. Everything very still and muffled up in sandbags.

  Scent of lilies. Didn’t see her till she was at my shoulder. came up quiet as smoke. I jumped a mile. But it was a worse shock when I looked at her. I said sorry for gawping you look so like someone I knew. would have sworn it was you but she was different colors. Red hair. For a moment there was rot or decay in the air like something was dead nearby. but no. just lilies. Anyway I said sorry again. but she just smiled so I thought perhaps her English not very good. then she said in a very English voice, you must go to dig the grave. for some reason it was the most frightening thing anyone’s ever said. I said what do you mean but she was gone. And the smell of.

  I wasn’t right for days after. think perhaps everyone is mad now. and there’s always something dead nearby. You and I. would we know one another? Am not what I was. Expect you’re also changed.

  Anyhow then came leave. Not a moment too soon you might say. Home was awful. Farm knee-deep in dust. weeds high in the yard. In the house floorboards rotted through. Windows broken. Dead pigeon in the chimney. Well the stink. Wasn’t so bad last time I was down. Or maybe I didn’t notice. it looks a place where only sad things have happened. Is that true? But I did what I came to do.

  Your ring. Kept it with me all this while. Not in a pocket or with my things. On a string around my neck. Was afraid I’d lose it in the mud. Or it’d be stolen. There’s as much of that about as you’d expect. thought I might give it back to you one day. that won’t happen.

  Left it for you. in the cave. on the stone. The water in the walls sounds like death. That’s where it is if you want it. Do you remember? That the ones you love may never die. people used to believe that sort of thing. What a joke.

  Never thought I’d be glad to see the trenches but I am. Even very flooded, which they are. came back here to the mud, bad bread and weevils and found things were solid again. The relief. And the company. Men are easier. These buggers know how it is. you don’t start thinking.

  There’s a song that goes ’round. “we’re here because we’re here. We’re here because we’re here. We’re here because we’re here…” Just goes on like that. Always thought it maddening but not no
w. it’s the only true thing left to say.

  We were always the greatest of friends you and I. friends might sound weak I suppose. To those who don’t know. It’s not weak. Every memory and all the years.

  I send these letters to Rawblood. Old man Shakes still there I hear. Think of him old and alone in the empty rooms. Hope he stays in the stable. I was only in the house once. that day. It was Enough. That house. You don’t reply so either you’re gone or you can’t forgive or these never reach you at all.

  Hope you understand. Why I must let it all go now. this is the last time I’ll write. I can’t keep doing it.

  I should have done something. I know. You told me to run. shouldn’t have run. Shouldn’t have left you… Are you getting these? this is the last. can’t keep seeing you everywhere.

  Think am at the very end of what a person can be or stand.

  Anyhow this is good-bye.

  Yours,

  T

  MEG DANFORTH

  November 1881

  Near Grimstock, Lancashire

  Blood bonds can’t be broken altogether. More’s the pity. I feel it when Charles dies.

  In general, I try not to think of him. I have a letter on my birthday, and a letter at Christmas. That is that. I have not seen him since I was a baby. When I was but little, I wrote him pleading notes. My older brother. He did not answer, and I told myself that I must have the direction wrong somehow, or that he was on a long voyage, and when he returned home, he would read my letters, come to Bantry Farm posthaste, kill Samuel Bantry, give me cake, take me to London, give me dresses, and so on. He did not.

  Later, Mrs. Bantry told me that cock tail feathers were for summoning. So I burned them each night. Come and save me. Cocks on all the nearby farms were bare that summer. But still, he did not come, and I learned not to hope for it. It was a slow learning. Later still, I tried to see him with the Eye. Many, many times. But never did I, not once. His mind must close me out powerfully. He must bury me deep. My Eye is very strong—if I cannot see him, it means he keeps no memory or love of me in his heart.