We went to Westlea the following Sunday. Apart from Mr Pringle, who made the appointment for me to see her, I told no one. It was a grey dismal day with the hint of rain in the low mist that clung to the houses and hedgerows. In a perverse way, I was glad of this gloomy weather because it matched my feelings.
Greg arrived on the motorbike, assuring me it was now fully repaired and roadworthy. To my surprise, we buzzed along the narrow country roads at a speed I found breathtaking and also exhilarating. There was the occasional puff of black smoke from the exhaust but, on this dismal day, the smoke merely disappeared into the landscape with hardly a trace – except perhaps for the slight smell of acrid vapour that seemed to linger in the air as we sped along. Then, before I was truly prepared for it, the gates of Westlea loomed out of the drizzle.
Greg parked the bike just inside the high wall and we walked up the wide gravel drive. We couldn’t help but notice how the grounds of the hospital almost merged with the imposing but grim-looking grey stone building. The windows looked bare and lifeless, giving the building a strange featureless quality, and I was dismayed to see some of the windows were barred. It looked more like a prison than a hospital but I had to remind myself that I knew almost nothing about mental illnesses.
Even the name filled me with dread because it was something I hadn’t come across in my life. Oh, I knew the Hilltown and Overgate had their fair share of eccentric people but being sent out here was another matter – a life sentence if Mr Pringle was to be believed.
We approached the entrance with trepidation. The large hall had a geometric tiled floor in three bright colours and it seemed a cheery start to the place but, once through the inner glass door, all the initial colour was obliterated. The corridor was painted in a sludgy grey colour while the polished floor was covered in nondescript plain linoleum. It was a grey corridor in a grey building in an equally grey world.
I was grateful for Mr Pringle’s help in arranging this meeting. Although I was doing this much against his wishes, he understood I had to make this journey.
I put my hand on Greg’s arm. ‘I have to go on my own, Greg. This is something that has to be done alone.’ He looked annoyed but I went on. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’
He nodded and smiled – a smile that lit up that depressing place like a hundred candles. ‘I’ll wait beside the bike for you.’
A middle-aged nurse with a stocky figure and a jolly face took me along endless corridors. She opened each door with a key that hung from a huge bunch on her belt. She hardly spoke except to ask me to wait while she opened yet another door. Her voice, in contrast to her plump face and sturdy looking arms, was delicately soft and pleasing and it made me think that perhaps the place wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe I was seeing it on a bad day. Maybe, with the sun shining through the windows, it was a happy place of peace and meditation.
Miss Hood was in a small room at the end of a corridor. She was dressed in a simple black frock that looked much too large for her shrivelled body. She was sitting in a chair in the corner, rocking back and forth with her body. She looked terrible. I walked over to her but there was no recognition on her haggard face. Even her eyes looked blank and vacant. ‘Miss Hood, do you remember me?’
She didn’t look at me but she shouted, ‘Who are you?’
‘I worked at Whitegate Lodge with you,’ I explained slowly, as if speaking to a child. ‘Don’t you remember? With Mrs Barrie?’
I thought I saw tears in her eyes but I wasn’t sure. Then she suddenly looked at me and I recoiled from the look of intense hatred on her face.
‘Go away. I don’t like you,’ she snapped. She sounded like she did in her heyday at the house.
The nurse had remained silent but she now went over to the corner and put her hand out to stop the rocking movement. To my surprise, Miss Hood slapped her hand hard and the nurse moved back to the door.
I tried once more. ‘Do you mind the day Mrs Barrie died, Miss Hood? We had a fight. Do you mind that?’
But there was no more reaction from her. Miss Hood rocked silently in her chair and looked at the floor. The nurse motioned that I should leave.
‘You’ll not get anything out of her. Her mind’s completely gone.’
I explained how I thought I had triggered this off but the nurse laughed harshly. ‘For heaven’s sake, lassie, you didn’t cause this. This patient’s been like this for years. If it hadn’t been for her employer sheltering her under her protection, then she would have been in here long ago.’
I knew in my heart that this was the way Mrs Barrie would act. She was a lovely, kind-hearted woman and a charitable one at that, keeping this mentally ill woman in her house all these years.
‘Mr Pringle says she’ll never get better,’ I said and the nurse confirmed this.
‘She’s grown more ill over the years and, because of her problems, she has also grown more bitter. It’s very sad.’
Poor Miss Hood – what a cruel world it could be. Maybe, if she hadn’t met her Othello or had her illegitimate child taken away from her, then her life would have been happier. Then I remembered Granny – she had nothing to face adversity with but her strong character and good humour. Still, maybe Miss Hood wasn’t blessed with these sterling qualities. We would never know.
As I turned to thank the nurse, a stream of oaths came from the room. Once again, I was shocked but the nurse took it in her stride as she hurried me away. As we retreated down the corridor, I could hear Miss Hood snarling after me, ‘Young madam, young madam …’ over and over again.
The nurse said, ‘You were very lucky she didn’t harm you in that house as you seem to have become the focus of her hate. I believe Mrs Barrie had arranged with Mr Pringle to get you away that very week, she was so worried about the danger you were in.’
When we reached the staircase, the nurse said goodbye and hurried off in a different direction. An elderly woman was mopping the stairs, her large mop swishing over the lino and slapping against the banisters. As I approached, she gave me a knowing look so I stopped. ‘I’m sorry for walking over your clean floor,’ I said, thinking she was annoyed at me.
She waved my protest aside. ‘Oh, there will be plenty of folk walking over it. We do get visitors in here.’ She must have read my thoughts. ‘Oh, aye, some of the patients get visitors but some folk don’t.’ She cocked her sideways. ‘You were visiting Miss Hood were you not?’
I looked at her in surprise. How could the cleaner possibly know who I had visited?
She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Aye, it’s a great thing, my mop bucket. I have to go into places that would normally be out of bounds. I was mopping the corridor just along from Miss Hood’s room when I heard you.’
I tried to side-step the woman, desperate to be out of this dreadful place.
The cleaner, however, was in a chatty mood. ‘Did you notice she was dressed entirely in black?’
I nodded. I hadn’t made anything of it, thinking it was the regulation uniform.
‘Well, that’s the reason us cleaners call her the auld crow. She’s like a black hoodie crow and that’s her nickname in here – “black hoodie crow”.’ The small woman gazed at me, satisfaction written all over her face at her descriptive narrative.
It was then that a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and a veil stripped from my eyes. A blackbird – of course. Even before I set foot in Whitegate Lodge, Ma Ryan had warned me about being in danger from a blackbird but it was a black bird she’d meant, not a blackbird, and there was surely no bird blacker that a crow. For the first time in weeks, ever since that terrible day at Whitegate Lodge, I felt free.
I now knew with clarity that Miss Hood’s illness had nothing to do with me. Her troubles had all happened a long, long time ago – before I was even born – and this canker had eaten away the mind of the housekeeper. It had festered away day in and day out, year after year. Unfortunately, the jealous rage she’d directed towards me had been the final straw for her b
ut it wasn’t my fault. Everyone had told me this but I had been too blind to see. But now I was free.
Greg was waiting for me, a worried looking frown on his face. I ran over. ‘It’s all over, Greg – no more guilt about Miss Hood.’
He grinned and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. ‘That’s good news, Ann. Now just enjoy yourself. You’ve got your nest egg, Lily is growing up, Danny and Maddie are getting engaged and Rosie is hoping she’ll finally hook your father.’
I raised my face to his. ‘You’ve forgotten someone.’
He looked perplexed.
‘You forgot us!’ I laughed, looking at his lovely cheery face. ‘And to think Maddie had to push me into thinking you were lonely at that first meeting.’
He put on a mock miserable face. ‘Oh, I was, I was.’
I thought of my family and especially my grandparents. Never again would they want for anything – I would see to that. As for Greg and me … well, time would no doubt tell.
He grinned at me. ‘Your chariot awaits you, young damsel.’
On the far horizon, a chink appeared in the layer of grey clouds and a thin shaft of sunlight pierced the gloom.
Greg noticed it. ‘Maybe it’s going to be a good day after all.’
When I nodded happily, he took my hand. ‘Hop on the bike, Ann, and we’ll go home.’
Also by Maureen Reynolds
Voices in the Street
Teatime Tales from Dundee
The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow
Towards a Dark Horizon
McQueen’s Agency
A Private Sorrow
Indian Summer
COPYRIGHT
First published 2007
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
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This electronic edition published in 2013
ISBN: 978 1 84502 665 3 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 84502 666 0 in Mobipocket format
ISBN: 978 1 84502 141 2 in paperback format
Copyright © Maureen Reynolds 2007
The right of Maureen Reynolds to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay
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