Walls of Silence

by Ruth Wade

‘Potential husbands?’

  ‘I was thinking more about choice.’

  ‘Sometimes I’m not sure I ever had any – even when I thought I did I knew there was always someone in the background pulling the strings. You see, there was someone once. He put a stop to it of course.’

  ‘The man?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘Ah. Were you very young?’

  ‘Naïve, sheltered, unworldly perhaps but not young. I don’t think I was ever that.’

  ‘You must’ve had a very difficult childhood.’

  The airing of every psychoanalyst’s pet subject felt like a betrayal of the confidence. Helen turned and squinted at her.

  ‘You were staring, I could feel it. At this?’ She raised her hand to flutter around the scar puckering her forehead. ‘This didn’t come from something nasty in my own youth, if that’s what you’re thinking. It happened in a front-line casualty station in Flanders. It was my own fault, everyone always said that this red hair of mine would act like a beacon to draw enemy fire, and, wouldn’t you know, I was washing it outside the tent one day when a shell blew a hole in the mud the size of a double-decker bus.’

  ‘You should cover it up.’

  ‘Grow a fringe, you mean? What would be the point? I’d still know it was there and so would everyone else who’d ever seen it. And it would hardly be a good advertisement for the work we do here, would it? Some of the men ended up with us as a direct result of misguided attempts to do just that. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Tin Noses Shop?’

  Edith hadn’t. She wanted to laugh at the image it threw up in her mind but didn’t think it appropriate. She opted for silence instead.

  ‘That’s what the Tommies called it anyway, the Masks for Facial Disfigurements Department was the official title at the 3rd London General Hospital. Because that’s what they did, they made the men masks to hide behind. They could only do it for those whose relatives could supply a photograph to work from and the process was slow and painful. But it gave them hope that they would be accepted as a human being again. It restored self-respect. The masks were made from thin electroplate tinted with oil paints to match as closely as possible the remaining flesh. But however talented the artists, it never fooled anyone. And they did nothing for the psychological damage. For some of the men, the very act of wearing of a mask created an even deeper level of disturbance because they realised the main purpose of doing so was to not shock the horses. After all, they themselves knew what was underneath; they took them off every night; they knew they would never again be acceptable for what they were. The horrors they had become. There was no pretence in their own minds, and there is none here.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  ‘Because someone has to. Beddingham Hall had been requisitioned as a convalescent home in 1916, and the next year the elderly owner died leaving no heirs but having expressed a wish that the place should continue to be useful. So then the powers that be decided a home was required for returning veterans who needed the safety and security of somewhere they could be unobtrusively cared for, and lead useful lives.’

  ‘But not normal.’

  ‘No, Edith, not normal; it would be pointlessly heartbreaking for any of us to believe that would be possible. But they can pick up some of the skills and trades they had before, and learn the new ones we need to keep the place going. It’s a never-ending battle to maintain our heads above water but it’s the least we can do in view of the tremendous sacrifices these men made for this country.’

  Edith had to breathe against a tightness in her chest that was threatening to overwhelm her. Helen was leaning back in her chair again and had begun tracing her scar with her fingertip.

  ‘I suspect that the world would be a better place if all of us wore our damage proudly on the outside, but we’ll never know, will we? Life makes us who we are, Edith – deformities and all – and how we react to the cards we’re dealt is what makes us unique individuals. In the end, it is our differences that define our humanity.’

  No it wasn’t: it was humanity that defined the deformities. The insight tugged forward what had been pressing at the edge of Edith’s mind ...

  It was the spring of 1917 and she was placing the last of the files in the box to be picked up by the courier and delivered to the War Office. Her work on interpreting the patterns in the aerial photographs was monotonous but she took pride in always worrying at the anomalies. And it invariably yielded results. She was the best at her job. Everyone knew it. They regarded her as odd – a queer fish she’d overheard the Section Head call her – but respected her dogged determination to identify the ammunition dump that no one else had been able to pinpoint, or the suspiciously shaped hill that Intelligence would later confirm was an attempt to disguise the formation of a new German artillery position or a fuel supply depot.

  It had been a frustrating day and she was looking forward to getting back to her flat and putting her feet up with a book and the remains of yesterday’s stew. She was setting the seal when the man walked in. At first she’d assumed he was the courier but he wasn’t in uniform and didn’t have the frantic air that spoke of a motorbike ride through the London traffic against an immovable deadline. Her initial instinct was to telephone the soldier on the front desk to demand to know how an unauthorised civilian had been able to enter the building and to tell him to come and escort him away. But something about the distracted way the man was scanning the room stopped her from lifting the receiver. It was almost as if he didn’t know where he was or how he had got there. He looked like a hospital patient. But there was no sign of any battle wound. The more she studied him in silence, the more the signs of shell-shock jumped out at her: the trembling hands hanging limply by his sides; a tipping of his head as if he was listening to something just out of range; feet planted solidly against being bowled over by some unexpected force.

  She’d finished twisting the wire ends of the seal and was about to suggest they walk out into the street together when he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a cut-throat razor, and swept it in an arc from under one ear to the other. He stood and looked at her for the longest moment of her life before the blood started spurting. It covered her, and a patch of the wall, in seconds. A ghastly gurgling filled the room as he tried to say something. What? I’m sorry ... this could just as well have happened in any other office ... it’s nothing personal ... please tell my mother ... What? His final words on this earth were lost forever in the sob and suck of bloody air. But what could they have possibly mattered anyway? And in the chasm of time between his legs buckling and her starting to scream, she was aware of feeling nothing but a surge of pure envy.

  She prised her eyes open. Helen was standing in front of her, chafing her hands in hers.

  ‘Breathe slowly and deeply, Edith. That’s it ... come back to me ... you’re quite safe ... it’s September 1927 and we’re outside your cottage in Beddingham Hall. Take a look around you. Can you see the turret and the trees? They’re real, Edith. Listen to the rooks roosting in the copse ... if you really concentrate hard you can smell the cows in the milking parlour. Take a moment to absorb these things. When you’re ready, give me a nod and I’ll help you back inside.’

  The picture in Edith’s head faded as her surroundings came back into focus. She tried to stand, but her legs refused to hold her weight. An arm snaked around her and lifted her up again. Every step to the door felt as though it would be the one to drain her bones. She almost collapsed on the climb up the stairs but eventually she was lying on her bed with the eiderdown tucked tightly around her.

  ‘Go to sleep now. If you wake up later, you can get undressed properly but for now just close your eyes and rest. I’ll pop back in the morning as usual with your breakfast.’

  The last thing Edith saw was the figure of a flame-haired angel sitting on the end of the bed, her hands fluttering restlessly in the air around her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Stephen leaned back on t
he chair. ‘So, how do you feel, Edith?’

  ‘How do you expect me to feel?’

  ‘I don’t expect anything; it would just be helpful to know.’

  ‘Helpful to whom?’

  ‘To the both of us. If we’re going to be able to make any progress together then I need to have some idea of what’s in your head.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s nothing in my head. How could there be when I’m on release from a lunatic asylum?’

  This was promising. It showed some recognition of why she was here. Unless of course it was merely another example of the Hargreaves’ approach of treating their charges as equals; he would really have to ask them to make an exception in Edith Potter’s case, otherwise how could he tell what she remembered and what was regurgitated information?

  ‘Let me start by reassuring you that you are a long way from being clinically insane. What you’re experiencing is the problem the mind has in accepting what it is having trouble accommodating. It happens to all of us to a greater or lesser extent; in your case, because you are an intelligent woman and it has been going on for a long time, your conscious self has devised elaborate layers to cloak what lies beneath. It is my job to explore how you can get under those layers, and eventually discard them completely.’

  But now he was the one being evasive. He had been worrying all week about the most appropriate approach to take with her. After ruling out all the other options as likely to provoke an explosive reaction he might not be able to handle, he’d come to the conclusion that the one likely to yield the best results was for him to probe and unravel the symptoms of her distress without directly addressing the fundamental cause until she was ready to do so. It wasn’t skirting the issue exactly, more allowing a certain amount of mental healing to take place in order that she would be strong enough to face the truth and find a way to live with it. But by no stretch of the imagination could that ever include abandoning all of her subconscious protections; to do that probably would drive her insane. The path had to be prepared, and then trodden softly.

  ‘Do you remember how, when I hypnotised you, I told you everything I was doing every step of the way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I made a point of doing it to engage your rationality. I would like to do the same with you again but this time without the induced trance. If there’s anything you don’t understand or don’t see the point of, let me know and I’ll go through some of the underlying theories. I think it will help speed the process if you are able to do a little psychoanalysing of yourself in-between my visits.’

  ‘Do you out of a job you mean?’

  ‘Not exactly. But I’ll be more than delighted if that proves to be the case.’

  ‘They’ll have to pay me then.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘Helen and the man she chose above all others to be her husband.’

  ‘That’s rather a convoluted way of describing their relationship.’

  ‘But accurate: she told me so herself. When we were discussing the concept of regrets.’

  ‘Were you? When?’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll report back to you any content of our recent conversations deemed of relevance to my case.’

  ‘I thought you understood that the Hargreaves have kindly agreed to take care of your immediate needs but have nothing to do with your treatment. It’s me who carries the sole responsibility for that, and to which end I willingly donate my Sundays.’

  He attempted a laugh but turned it into a cough when he saw she wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I rather suspect you do so because you’ve got a guilty conscience.’

  His hand reached up to pull at his beard. ‘And why do you think I should have one of those?’ He could feel the prickle of sweat under his collar.

  ‘For locking me up in that other place.’

  ‘I didn’t send you there, Edith; you were committed at the time for your own protection. You had some sort of a fit – a fugue is the medical term for it. After that incident, you were in a state of withdrawal for months.’

  ‘Was I? How nice for me.’

  Her mind had abandoned using a catatonic stupor to act as her gatekeeper to reality but only so that it could be replaced with the tactic of extreme denial. He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase to have something to occupy him in the heavy silence. The top sheet bore the results of Edith’s word association test. If he did it with her again maybe her responses would give him some clues. Although, of course, he would be interacting with another persona: a woman unreachable except via deep hypnosis could hardly be said to have the same mental processes as the one regarding him coldly now. But it was worth a try.

  ‘Edith, in order for me to gauge the best way forward, I’d like to conduct a simple experiment with you. We’ve done it once before, in fact. There are no right answers and no question of failing. It is just an established method I use to afford me some indications as to my patients’ state of mind.’

  ‘We’re residents here.’

  ‘Yes, sorry.’

  She glanced over at the door. ‘As if a change in terminology makes any difference. Go ahead, doctor, I’m ready.’

  Could he trust her not to play games? He thought so.

  ‘After I say each word, I’ll be expecting you to respond as quickly as possible with the first thing you think of.’

  She nodded and closed her eyes as if to aid her concentration. He took that to mean she would take it seriously.

  ‘Blue.’

  ‘Van.’

  ‘House.’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘To dance.’

  She opened her eyes and looked around a little. ‘To the beat of a different drum.’

  ‘Birds.’

  ‘Wrung necks.’

  ‘Circle.’

  ‘Wholeness.’

  ‘Twin.’

  ‘Doppelganger.’

  ‘Anxiety.’

  ‘Your face.’

  He looked up and saw her smiling.

  ‘If there were any mirrors in this place I’d tell you to go and take a peek at yourself. Then tell me if I’m not right.’

  Stephen forced his muscles to relax by breathing slowly and deeply. She wasn’t being antagonistic, merely making an observation.

  ‘Okay, Edith, point made. I confess I’m somewhat apprehensive about how this session will go; we didn’t exactly get off to a flying start, did we? And you squeezing the life out of that cushion isn’t doing very much to reassure me that you’re entirely comfortable with all this.’

  ‘You disturb me no more than most, and a lot less than coming face to face with some of the horrors living here. But look, cushion down, see?’

  ‘Edith, your hands. I’ve only just noticed how red and chapped they are. Do you have a history of psoriasis?’

  ‘The only thing I have is a lot of scars that will never flake off. I’ve been cleaning up a little, that’s all. You’d be surprised how filthy I found it was once I got started. Do you think you could get them to let me have some Vim, and a little bleach – if I promise not to drink it?’

  Stephen squashed the impulse to raise an eyebrow. Instead, he wrote the request on his pad. ‘I’ll ask Peter and Helen when I drop in on them up at the Hall.’

  ‘It’s not that complicated is it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My shopping list.’

  He shrugged. ‘No, but my memory isn’t infallible at the best of times and I don’t want to let you down by forgetting.’

  ‘That’s another thing we agree on then: how frustratingly tedious it can be to everyone concerned when the mind can no longer be relied upon.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘That you’re very bad at hiding your feelings, whereas I’m very good at it.’

  ‘So you admit you have some.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you want to enlighten me?’

  ‘What, and squander my momentary
advantage?’

  Now she was playing games.

  ‘Why don’t we get back to the word association test? What comes into your head when I say lie?’

  ‘A withholding or perversion of the truth.’

  ‘Book.’

  ‘Acute absence of.’

  ‘I did bring some actually. They’re up at the Hall with Peter. I’ll ask him to give them to you.’

  ‘Very kind and thoughtful. I hope you chose them well. It will be interesting to see if by some miracle you’ve been able to come anywhere near my reading tastes. I’ll have to revise my opinion about your perceptiveness if you have.’

  ‘I did my best.’

  ‘Well, that’s all any of us can ever do, isn’t it.’

  ‘True enough. Only another four to go. Women.’

  ‘Deemed surplus to requirements.’

  ‘To die.’

  ‘A blessed relief, given the alternative.’

  ‘Which is? ...’

  ‘To endure decrepitude.’

  ‘Angry.’

  Silence.

  ‘Come on, Edith, give me your first reaction; you’ve done very well up to now.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me.’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘That’s my answer.’

  ‘Child.’

  With a burst of energy he hadn’t thought her capable of harbouring, she rose from the armchair and pushed her face to within a foot of his. It took all his willpower not to flinch.

  ‘This is a trick. A cheap, filthy, disgusting trick. You know, don’t you? You pretend not to with your around about ways and your false sincerity about wanting to help me. And you think you’re so clever trying to get Edith Potter to trip up ... but you’re not ...’

  She raised her hands, and for one sickening moment, Stephen thought she was going to fasten them around his neck.

  ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and wash. You can’t always see deceit but it leaves a tidemark all the same – inside and out.’

  She turned and stalked towards the bathroom. Stephen thought better of still being in her firing line when she returned, and let himself out of the front door. The entire encounter had given him more than enough to chew over until the next time they met.