The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  Then Esme was in the back of a car with Mrs Dalziel driving, and then they were home and Mrs Dalziel was telling her mother that Esme had had a wee bit too much to drink, made a fool of herself, and that she might feel better in the morning.

  In the morning, though, Esme did not feel better. She did not feel better at all. When her mother came in through the door and said, exactly what happened last night, young lady, Esme sat up in bed and the noise came again. She opened her mouth and she screamed, she screamed, she screamed.

  Iris lets Esme go ahead of her on the stairs and she notices how slowly she climbs, resting her weight on the banisters with every step. Maybe the outing was a bit much for her.

  As they make the last turn, Iris stops. Along the bottom of the door, she can see a line of glowing light. Someone is in her flat.

  She pushes past Esme and, hesitating for just a moment, she turns the handle. 'Hello?' she calls into her hallway. 'Is anyone there?'

  The dog brushes against her side. Iris curls her hand round his collar. She feels him stiffen. Then he raises his head and lets out a deep bark.

  Hello?' she says again, and her voice gives way in the middle of the word. A person appears in the kitchen doorway. A man.

  'Don't you keep any food in this place?' Alex says.

  She drops the dog's collar, darts towards her brother but stops just in front of him. 'You scared me,' she says, cuffing him on the arm.

  'Sorry.' He grins. 'I thought I should come, seeing as—' He stops and looks over her shoulder.

  Iris turns, she walks towards Esme. 'This is my brother,' she says.

  Esme frowns. 'You have a brother?'

  A stepbrother,' Alex says, stepping forward. 'She always forgets the "step". You must be Euphemia.'

  Iris and Esme inhale in unison: 'Esme,' they say.

  —and when she wouldn't stop—

  —it was difficult as the whole family is full of only ones. I had no cousins and the man I was marrying was an only one too so there were no sisters-in-law-to-be. I needed someone to hold my flowers, to help me with my train, even though it was a modest size, to be with me in the moments just before the ceremony. You can't get married without a bridesmaid, Mother said, you'll have to think of someone. There were a couple of friends I could have asked but it seemed so odd after—

  —and when she wouldn't stop screaming, Mother sent me out of the room and—

  —it was only a fortnight later that Duncan Lockhart came to call. Nobody had been near us. No first-footers, no telephone calls. Nothing. The house was deathly quiet without her. Hours could pass without a single sound. In an odd way, we no longer seemed like a family, just a collection of people living in different rooms. Duncan came to see my father, ostensibly, but I'd met him at the party: we'd danced together. The Dashing White Sergeant, as I recall. He'd had very dry hands. And he mentioned seeing me that time on the Meadows. I, of course, had forgotten that he was even there. On the day he came, a cold January afternoon, I'd woken up and found ice on the insides of the windows. And I'd shut my eyes again because the room was still full of her things, her clothes, her books. Mother hadn't yet got round to—

  —remember walking the floor with the baby in the middle of the night. I knew nothing about babies – you don't with your first, of course, so you fall back on your instincts. Keep moving, mine were telling me. He wouldn't eat, tiny wee thing that he was, he would beat the air with his red fists. I had to feed him with a muslin rag, soaked in milk. The fourth day he took it, sucked at it, tentative at first, then ravenous. And then we had pans of water on the stove, boiling the bottles, at all times of day, nappies hung by the fire, the air opaque with steam—

  —and when she wouldn't stop screaming, Mother called the doctor. I was told to leave the room but I listened outside, my ear against the cold brass of the keyhole. I could only hear when the doctor spoke to Esme – he seemed to speak louder when addressing her, as if she was hard of hearing or simple. He and Mother whispered to each other for several minutes and then he raised his voice and said to Esme, we are going to take you somewhere for a wee rest, how would you like that? And she, of course, in her way said she wouldn't like it at all, and then his voice went stern and he said, we are not giving you a choice so—

  —in the end, I asked a second cousin of Duncan's, a girl I'd only met twice. She was younger than me and seemed pleased. At least, my grandmother said grimly, we needn't worry that she's going to outshine the bride. I took her to Mrs Mac for the fitting. I didn't stay while she had it done, I couldn't—

  —did I tell about the blazer? I did. I think I did. Only because they asked me, straight out. And I always make a point of being as honest as I can. Did I tell about Canty Bay as well? But what difference could it have made, really? I always make a point of being as honest as I can. I was just so eaten up, at that time. I never meant her to go for ever, just for as long as it took me to—

  —so I was sent out of the room and I went, of course, but really I stayed behind the door and listened, and Mother was whispering with the doctor and I could barely hear a thing and I was worried in case my grandmother came up the stairs and caught me. Eavesdropping was very bad form, I knew that. I could barely hear, as I said, but Mother was saying something about how she was sick to her back teeth of these fits of shouting and raging. And the doctor rumbled something about hysteria and young girls, which offended me slightly as I have never behaved in such a fashion. He said the words treatment and place and learn to behave. And when I heard that I thought it sounded like a good idea, like a good plan for her because she had always been so—

  —surprised me more than anything, how much you love them. You know you are going to and then the feeling itself, when you finally see them, when you hold their tiny body, is like a balloon that just goes on filling with air. Duncan's mother insisted we hire a nurse, a fearsome creature with feeding schedules and a starched apron, and I found my days were rather empty then. I missed Robert. I would go up to see him in the nursery, but before I got to the cot, the nurse would have got there first. We're asleep, she'd say, which always made me want to say, all of us? But I never did, of course. My mother-in-law said the nurse was worth her weight in gold and that we should be careful not to lose her. I wasn't sure, then, what it was I was supposed to be doing. The cook and the housekeeper ran the house, Duncan was at the office with my father, and Robert was with his nurse. Sometimes I would wander the house in the middle of the day, thinking that perhaps I ought to—

  —dementia praecox is what they said for her. Father told me that when I asked him once. I made him write it down for me. Such pretty words, in a way, much prettier than they had any right to be. Of course no one uses them any more. I read that somewhere in an article. 'Outmoded term', is what it said. Today, the article told me, they would say 'schizophrenia', an ugly, horrible word, but a very grand one all the same, especially for something that is, after all—

  —dress she made for the bridesmaid was actually better than anything she had ever made for me. I was in Mother's dress, of course, it had been specially fitted and let out for me. Many people remarked upon it. But the bridesmaid's dress had sequins, sewn into chiffon, all over—

  —never meant her to go for ever, I never meant that at all. It was just that—

  —she fought and kicked; my father had to help the doctor and together they managed it but right at the bottom of the stairs she got her hands round the banister. She clung on and the name she kept screaming was mine. I had my hands over my ears and my grandmother put her hands over mine but I could still hear her. KITTY! KITTY! KITTY! KITTY! I find I can still hear it now. I found a shoe later: it must have come off during the struggle in the hall because it was wedged under the hatstand and I took it and I sat down and leant my head into the banisters and—

  —I watched through the banisters as my father shook his hand in the hallway. My father led the way into his study, and when he turned his back, Duncan did this gesture that later I would
learn he always did when he was nervous. He put one hand up and over his head and smoothed down the hair on the other side. It looked so odd, it made me smile. I saw him glance at the shut doors around him, at the corridor reaching back into the house, and I did think, is he looking for me? But I would never have—

  Her father doesn't speak in the car. She says his name, she says, Father, she touches his shoulder, she wipes her face, she tries to say, please. But he looks straight out of the windscreen, the doctor beside him. He doesn't speak as he gets out, as he and the doctor wedge her between them and walk her across the gravel and up the steps to a big building, high on a hill.

  Inside the doors there is a heavy silence. The floor is tiles of marble, black white black white black white. Her father and the doctor shuffle and fumble with papers. They don't remove their hats. And then a woman she has never seen before, a woman dressed as a nurse, takes her arm.

  'Father!' she shouts then. 'Father, please!' She yanks her arm away from the nurse, who lets out a small tsk noise from between her teeth. Esme sees her father stoop briefly over the drinking fountain, wipe his mouth with his handkerchief, then walk away over the chess squares of marble towards the door. 'Don't leave me here!' she cries out. 'Please! Please don't. I'll be good, I promise.'

  Before the nurse takes her arm again, before another nurse materialises to take the other, before they have to pick her up and carry her away, Esme sees her father through the glass of the doors. He descends the steps, he buttons his coat, he puts on his hat, he glances up towards the sky, as if checking for rain, and then he disappears.

  She is dragged backwards down a flight of stairs, along a corridor, a nurse on either side of her, their crooked arms linked through hers, her heels scraping along the floor. They have her in such a grip that she cannot move. The hospital appears to her as if on a reel of reversed film. They pass through some doors and she sees a high ceiling, a string of lights, rows of beds, the shapes of bodies hunched under the blankets. She hears coughs, moans, a person somewhere muttering to themselves. The nurses haul her on to a bed and they are puffing with the effort. Esme turns to look out of the window and sees bars, running up, running down.

  Oh God, she says into the fetid air. She drives a hand into her head. Oh God. The shock of it all boils over into tears again. This cannot be, it cannot be. She reaches out and rips down the curtain, she kicks over the cabinet, she shouts, there has been a mistake, this is all a mistake, please listen to me. Nurses come running with wide leather belts and strap her to the bed, then walk away shaking their heads, straightening their caps.

  She is left under the leather belts for a day and two nights. Someone comes and takes away her clothes. A woman with big silver scissors comes in the dusk and slices through her hair. This makes Esme wail and then weep, her tears sliding sideways down her face and into the pillow. She watches as the woman walks away with her hair held in one hand, like a whip.

  There is a smell of disinfectant and floor polish and the person in the bed in the corner mutters all night long. A light in the ceiling flickers and buzzes. Esme cries. She struggles against the belts, tightly buckled, she tries to wriggle her way out, she shouts, please, please help me, until her voice is hoarse. She bites a nurse who tries to give her some water.

  She finds herself haunted by the life she has left, been pulled out of. As light drains from the room at dusk, she thinks about how her grandmother will be descending the flagged steps into the kitchen to see how the dinner preparations are coming along, how her mother will be taking tea in the front parlour, counting out sugar lumps with clawed tongs, how the girls at school will be catching trams to their homes. It is inconceivable that she is not taking part in these events. How can they happen without her?

  In the blue light of the second morning, a figure appears at her bed. It is indistinct, blurred, dressed in white. Esme stares up at it. There has been a stray hair across her eyes for hours now and she can't reach up to brush it away.

  'Don't fuss and fight, girlie,' the figure whispers. Esme cannot see the face because of the shadows, because of the hair in her eye. 'You don't want to end up in Ward Four.'

  'But there's been a mistake,' Esme croaks. 'I shouldn't be here, I don't—'

  'You must be careful,' the woman says. 'Don't slide down a snake. The way you're carrying on—'

  There is the sound of feet striking the floor and the nurse who cut Esme's hair appears. 'You!' she cries. 'Get back to your bed this instant.'

  The figure flits away down the ward, vanishes.

  Iris breaks an eggshell on the side of a bowl and watches the yolk drop. Alex leans against the fridge, tossing grapes into his mouth.

  'So,' he says, and Iris feels a prickling irritation because she knows what he is about to say, 'what's been happening with you, then? Are you still seeing that guy?'

  'What guy?' she says to the ceiling.

  'You know who I mean,' Alex says affably. 'The lawyer guy.'

  Iris fits one eggshell inside another. She is so grateful to him for not saying 'the married guy' that she has a burst of honesty. 'Yes,' she says, and wipes her hands on a tea-towel.

  'Stupid,' he mutters.

  She turns on him. 'Well, what about you?'

  'What about me?'

  'Aren't you still married to someone you decided you should never have married in the first place?'

  He shrugs. 'I guess so.'

  'Stupid yourself,' she retorts.

  There is a short silence. Iris takes a fork and beats the eggs against the side of the bowl until they start to blend and froth. Alex pulls back a chair and sits at the table. 'Let's not fall out,' he says. 'You live your life, I live mine.'

  Iris grinds pepper into the eggs. 'Fine.'

  'So, what's happening with you and Mr Lawyer?'

  She shakes her head. 'I don't know.'

  'You don't know?'

  'No. I do know. I just don't want to talk about it.' She tosses her hair out of her eyes and regards her brother, sitting at the kitchen table. He looks back at her for a long moment and then they smile at each other.

  'I still don't know what you're doing here,' Iris says. 'Do you want dinner, by the way, or are you heading off?'

  'You don't know what I'm doing here?' he repeats. 'Are you crazy? Or amnesiac? I get a phone call from you yesterday, saying you're in the clutches of a lunatic, so what do I do? Do I spend the weekend lounging around at home or do I come over here to save you from the madwoman? I didn't realise that the two of you would be off gallivanting at the seaside.'

  Iris puts down the fork. 'Are you serious?' she says quietly. 'You came for me?'

  Alex uncrosses and recrosses his legs. Of course I came for you,' he says, embarrassed. 'What else would I be doing here?'

  Iris goes over to him, kneels and puts her arms round him. She feels the slightness of his torso, the smooth nap of his T-shirt. After a moment, he slings an arm round her shoulders, rocks her back and forth, and she knows they are both thinking about a time that neither of them wishes to return to. She gives him a small squeeze and smiles into his chest.

  'You cut your hair,' he says, tugging at it.

  'Yeah. You like it?'

  'No.'

  They laugh. Iris pulls away, and as she does so, Alex nods towards the spare room. 'She doesn't seem that mad,' he says.

  'You know,' Iris puts her hands on her hips, 'I'm not sure she is.'

  Alex is instantly wary. 'But she has been in a nuthouse for ... How long was it again?'

  'Doesn't necessarily mean she's mad.'

  'Er, I think it probably does.'

  'Why?'

  Hang on, hang on.' Alex holds up his hands, as if calming an animal. 'What are we talking about here?'

  'We're talking,' she is suddenly impassioned, 'about a sixteen-year-old girl locked up for nothing more than trying on some clothes, we're talking about a woman imprisoned for her whole life and now she's been given a reprieve and ... and it's up to me to try to ... I don't
know.'

  Alex stares at her for a moment, arms folded. 'Oh, God,' he says.

  'What? What do you mean, "Oh, God"?'

  'You getting on one of your things about this, aren't you?'

  'One of my things?'

  'One of your high horses.'

  'I don't know what you mean,' Iris cries. 'I think it's out of order to—'

  'She's not one of your rare vintage finds, you know.' He scratches invisible inverted commas in the air with his fingers.

  For a moment, she is speechless. Then she snatches up the bowl of eggs. 'I don't know what you mean by that,' she snaps, 'but you can go to hell.'

  'Look,' Alex says, more gently, 'just tell me—' He breaks off with a sigh. 'Just tell me you're not going to do anything stupid.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like ... I mean, you are going to put her away, aren't you, find somewhere for her? Aren't you?'

  She slams a frying-pan down on to the hob and slops oil into it.

  'Iris?' Alex says, behind her. 'Tell me you're going to find somewhere to put her.'

  She turns, pan in hand. You know, if you think about it, this flat really belongs to her.'

  Alex buries his head in his hands. 'Oh, Christ,' he says.

  Through the wall, Esme hears their voices. Or, rather, she hears the buzz, like bees in a jam-jar. The girl's voice is undulating, scaling peaks, then sliding down again, the boy's a near monotone. They might be arguing. The girl, Iris, makes it sound as if it's an argument but if it is it's very onesided.