The Virgin and the Whale

by Carl Nixon

  Elizabeth is not sure that this story will be helpful but before she can change the subject Mrs Booker has ploughed on.

  ‘That’s what my mother used to call it, a funny pete, or a peter. There were five girls in my family, and it got to the point where the neighbour’s one was more out than in. We all just used to laugh at him. In the end, though, my father threatened to chop it off with a meat cleaver if it happened again. He was a butcher and a red-headed Scot to boot so I think the fella next door believed him. Leastways, he kept it in his trousers after that.’

  ‘I’m sure in this case, though, Mr Blackwell didn’t mean to frighten you, Merry,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It just didn’t occur to him that you’d be upset.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen Mr Blackwell’s funny pete,’ says the cook thoughtfully. ‘Mind you, the last time was when he was about six.’

  ‘It’s the first one I’ve seen apart from on little boys,’ says Merry and lowers her voice. ‘Are they always that big?’

  Mrs Booker laughs. ‘Only if you’re lucky, girl.’

  Elizabeth tries to keep a straight face. ‘Speaking as a nurse, Merry, I think it’s possible for me to say that Mr Blackwell may very well be more generously endowed than some other men.’

  Merry sighs. ‘Thank the Lord for that, otherwise I’m never getting married.’

  There is a slight pause. First Mrs Booker starts laughing, and then Elizabeth. The cup in her hand shakes so much that tea sloshes into the saucer and she has to put it down. Confused, Merry looks from one woman to the other. Finally she begins to laugh as well. Soon all three are roaring, until tears roll down their faces. They laugh and laugh until it hurts.

  twenty-seven

  Over the next fortnight, it becomes Elizabeth and Lucky’s routine to walk the grounds every day, setting off from the house around mid-morning. Sometimes they make for a predetermined destination, such as the pond or the fern house. They discover a disused barn with gaps in the walls and roof and small grey mice that act more boldly than is wise.

  Although Martin still escorts them, Elizabeth believes that his presence is redundant. Any reservations she had about Lucky have vanished. She no longer fears him at all, quite the opposite. It is refreshing to be around someone who is so open in his manner, so willing to give her his full attention when she talks. As they walk, now side by side, Lucky pockets small treasures that catch his eye to line up later along the windowsill in his room: a chestnut, shiny as polished mahogany; the clean white skull of a hedgehog. Sometimes he holds out one of his finds for her to inspect. She soon discovers that he does not require her to comment on them at any length. A smile or a nod is often enough.

  Most mornings he is content simply to observe the angle of the light through a patch of mist hanging above the lawn, the turning leaves, or the flight of a pair of magpies. For her part, Elizabeth is happy to try and see the world as he does and to bookend his silence.

  Lucky still tires easily, although the trembling in his hands has subsided for the time being. By lunchtime he is normally ready to return to the house and seems relieved when he spots the tallest chimney above the tops of the pines. In the afternoons he bathes and then sleeps or simply stares at the fire. Bathing has become his favourite activity. Since the incident with Merry, Elizabeth has gone to pains to explain to him that there are certain protocols about nudity. He obviously considers these rules to be eccentric, but adheres to them nonetheless. He makes the bathwater hotter each day until Elizabeth would find it almost unbearable, yet Lucky sinks into it without pause.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it, the water is scalding.’

  ‘I like the heat to reach my bones.’

  After he has slept, never for more than an hour, Lucky often asks Elizabeth to read to him from the books in his room.

  ‘I could find some fiction in the library, a story you might enjoy.’

  He shakes his head, his hair still slightly damp. ‘I don’t care about the meaning.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why not?’

  He regards her, his face serious. ‘I just like the sound of your voice.’

  That is how she comes to read aloud from An Encyclopaedia of Geological Discovery, and the even less engaging Davin’s Guide to Archaeology.

  It is now a condition of her employment that every afternoon before she leaves the house and walks to the tram stop, Elizabeth reports to Mrs Blackwell in the library. Her employer is very pleased with the change in her husband’s demeanour, but each day without fail she asks Elizabeth if he has fished up a memory of the time before he was wounded. Every time Elizabeth is forced to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, nothing like that today.’

  Without fail Mrs Blackwell looks disappointed. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Elizabeth says.

  In the late afternoon she catches the tram back to Sydenham Street. Ever since Elizabeth accepted the job at Woodbridge, her mother has been in an excellent mood. There is nothing like a large and steady wage to put a spring in an old woman’s step. With her first pay packet, Elizabeth buys lamb, to be roasted, and ice cream for dessert.

  ‘It’s like Christmas,’ says Jack, delighted, as they all sit at the table in the kitchen.

  Elizabeth’s father laughs, ‘Aye, it is.’ He ruffles his grandson’s hair with a big hand. Even his coughing seems to have improved lately.

  Considering the traumatic events that are soon to occur, that fortnight is a rather idyllic time in Elizabeth’s life. As is always the way, though, she will not think of those autumn days like that until after they are gone.

  A Tuesday. Elizabeth and Lucky have once again come to the pond. The mornings have grown cooler and Lucky is wearing a knitted jersey with a black pea-coat buttoned over the top. Elizabeth thinks he looks like a Scandinavian whaler. She fancies his shoulders and chest have filled out, at least slightly, now that he has resumed eating Mrs Booker’s food. His cheeks no longer look so sunken.

  He squats by the pond gazing intently at the circling goldfish. His hair hangs down over the collar of his coat. She has broached the idea of cutting it, but he will not entertain the thought. For some reason that he cannot put into words, Lucky is fond of his tangled hair and beard. Elizabeth looks around but cannot see Martin Templeton. The chauffeur has grown casual in his surveillance. She suspects that he is dozing in a patch of sunlight somewhere.

  ‘We could go into the city soon, if you like. I think it might be good for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Aren’t you curious about where you live?’

  ‘I live here.’ His gesture takes in the trees, the water, the unseen house beyond.

  ‘There’s a wider world,’ says Elizabeth.

  ‘I’ve seen all I want to see of the wider world.’ He sounds bitter.

  ‘The world isn’t the war, Lucky. Anyway, the fighting is over now. The world is far bigger and more beautiful than what you’ve seen. I think you’d like our little city if you gave it a chance. It’s actually quite pretty.’ He does not respond. ‘Do you remember what it’s called?’

  He flicks her a hard look. ‘Yes. I’ve been told many times by the woman who says she’s my wife.’

  ‘Do you doubt that she really is your wife?’

  ‘I don’t even know her.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that she is not your wife.’

  ‘Then you could tell me that we have been married for ten years. That could be true as well.’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, you and I have never been married.’

  A faint smile springs up, then blooms among the dark brambles of Lucky’s beard. It is the first time Elizabeth has seen him truly smile.

  As if embarrassed, Lucky turns his gaze back to the fish. Elizabeth notices that there is something in his right hand, a strip of metal that flashes in the sunlight. It is a knife. Before she can say anything, he lunges at the water and impales the largest of the goldfish on the point of the blade. Lucky flicks the fish out
of the pond and up onto the bank. It lands on the grass close to Elizabeth’s feet, almost touching the tip of her shoe; a twitching, arching thrash of spraying water and orange skin.

  It is all so sudden, so unexpected, that Elizabeth lets out a scream. She is immediately ashamed. After all, it is just a fish.

  It is flipping and twisting down the bank towards the water. Lucky springs at it, and holding it down with one hand, pushes the blade into the top of its head, behind its eyes. The fish stiffens and its eyes bulge even wider. One more twitch and it lies still, although blood continues to pump from the crimson spring of the wound.

  Martin Templeton has heard Elizabeth’s scream. Here he comes running through the trees, shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Hey, you! Stop! Get away from her!’ He is holding one of the stout walking sticks from the elephant’s foot umbrella holder that sits in the foyer of the house.

  Lucky swivels towards the approaching man. He steps forward to meet him, the knife held in front of him. The chauffeur sees the bloody knife (but not the silver scales along the blade or the fish on the grass). Here is a wild man, a known danger, standing in front of a distressed woman, a weapon in his hand.

  ‘What have you done, you bastard?’

  ‘Martin, stop!’ says Elizabeth.

  But it is too late. Raising the heavy walking stick like a club, Martin Templeton charges. He brings the stick down hard, but Lucky steps back and sideways and the blow merely glances off his shoulder. Lucky’s eyes are hard and dark, his face a primitive mask.

  ‘Stop it! Both of you!’

  Elizabeth is suddenly certain that Lucky will kill Martin as casually as he killed the fish. In a flash of realisation, she — finally, fully — understands. Killing has been Lucky’s constant companion since the moment he awoke in that trench in France. He was born to it. War was his midwife and his mother. It was all around him, even in the hospital. Fighting, killing, death, these are everyday things to him. Men shoot and bayonet and blow each other apart with mortars and shells. They die quickly and are left to rot in no-man’s-land, or perish slowly on stretchers and hospital beds. He has heard the screams, the death rattles, the silence. Lucky has seen it all.

  Martin raises the bulbous head of the walking stick to his shoulder, then turns his body side-on like a softball player waiting for the pitch. Lucky feints in and Martin starts his swing but his opponent is too quick. He takes three steps forward so that he is inside the arc of the bat. It strikes his upper arm with no real force. Lucky plunges the knife into the driver just below his collarbone.

  Martin cries out and stumbles backwards, falls. The knife is still in Lucky’s hand as he steps in to finish off his enemy.

  ‘No!’ Elizabeth has rushed forward. She places herself between Lucky and the moaning figure on the ground. ‘Stop! Lucky. It’s over.’ For a moment she thinks he is going to stab her too. ‘Please.’ He takes a step back. And then another.

  ‘It’s over,’ Elizabeth repeats. ‘Give me the knife.’

  He looks past her to the man on the ground. ‘No.’

  He does, however, move back to the edge of the pond. Elizabeth turns to Martin and crouches. The left shoulder of his jacket is sodden with blood. ‘Let me see. Take your hand away.’

  Martin’s face is grey with shock. ‘Are you all right? Did he cut you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. He only killed a fish.’

  ‘A fish?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have screamed. I was surprised, that was all.’

  ‘He didn’t hurt you?’ His eyes are still on Lucky.

  ‘Not at all. Now let me see.’ She carefully removes his jacket, undoes the buttons on his shirt and peels the bloody material back from the shoulder. ‘That’s a deep wound but it’s missed anything major. We’ll get it cleaned up and you’ll need some stitches. Here, press your jacket down on it hard. Don’t let up on the pressure.’

  His eyes are still on Lucky. ‘I thought he’d hurt you.’

  ‘Everything’s fine. It was just a misunderstanding. Can you stand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Martin gets to his feet but sways. ‘Take your time.’ Elizabeth looks over at Lucky. ‘I need to talk to him. Wait here.’

  Lucky is standing by the edge of the pond. There is something of the chastised boy about him. Elizabeth is reminded of Jack, when he thinks he’s in the right but also knows that he is in trouble.

  ‘I’m going to take Mr Templeton back to the house. Lucky, look at me. It’s going to be all right. He thought you were hurting me. He was just trying to protect me. Do you understand?’

  Lucky nods.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll come back and get you shortly.’

  Lucky turns without a word and crouches over the fish.

  ‘He shouldn’t have a knife,’ says Martin quietly when she returns. ‘Where’d he get it?’

  ‘I don’t know. The kitchen probably.’

  ‘I should take it off him before he hurts anyone else.’

  ‘Don’t, please.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of him.’

  ‘He could have killed you.’ And not given it another moment’s thought. ‘I’ll ask him for the knife later. He’ll give it to me once he’s calmed down, but right now let’s get you back to the house.’

  ‘All right.’

  Martin grunts in pain as they set off, his bloody jacket pressed to his shoulder.

  When he is sure that he is alone, Lucky begins scaling and filleting the dead fish. The silver scales fall onto the green grass and some stick to his hands. It would be wrong to let the fish go to waste. You must gather food and eat while you can. You never know when everything will be taken away from you.

  twenty-eight

  The next morning, Merry catches Elizabeth before she goes upstairs and tells her that Mrs Blackwell and a man are waiting to see her in the conservatory. Elizabeth hears his laughter even before she enters the room, a high, slightly simpering sound. Mrs Blackwell and the stranger are drinking tea. He rises from his seat and smiles. He is younger than his voice suggested, in his early thirties. A dark tailored suit and waistcoat lend his slightly corpulent frame a veneer of sleek elegance.

  ‘This is my husband’s nurse, whom I have told you about. Mrs Whitman, this is Dr Parkinson. He is the head of the Mansfield Psychiatric Hospital.’

  Dr Parkinson’s smile exposes two rows of small white teeth. ‘Better known these days as Sunnyside.’

  They exchange greetings before Mrs Blackwell gestures towards the table and they all sit.

  ‘Tea, Mrs Whitman?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Dr Parkinson has been kind enough to accept my invitation to visit us at short notice.’

  The doctor smiles again. ‘As I said, Mrs Blackwell, it is absolutely no inconvenience at all.’

  ‘I have asked Dr Parkinson to give me his opinion of Paul’s progress.’

  Elizabeth frowns. ‘I understood that I alone was to be responsible for your husband’s care.’

  ‘In light of yesterday’s incident I thought it best to seek professional advice.’

  ‘What happened to Mr Templeton was a misunderstanding.’

  The doctor’s eyes are fixed on Elizabeth. They are a pale shade of blue and she finds his stare disconcerting. ‘Am I right in believing that Mr Blackwell stole a knife from the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that he then used the knife to butcher a goldfish?’

  ‘He did but …’

  ‘And that soon after that he stabbed Mrs Blackwell’s chauffeur?’

  ‘Martin overreacted because he thought I was in danger, when I wasn’t. Before he was stabbed, Martin struck Mr Blackwell with a stick.’

  ‘I am told that this is not the first time the patient has been angry and violent?’

  Mrs Blackwell sighs. ‘No. There have been numerous other incidents.’

  ‘I see. And can I ask you a question, Mrs Whitman?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is it t
rue, what Mrs Blackwell tells me, that sometimes you refer to Mr Blackwell by the name Lucky?’

  ‘That’s the name he was given by the other soldiers after he was wounded.’

  ‘Do you call him this in his presence?’

  She hesitates. ‘I do.’

  A raised eyebrow. ‘To his face?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The doctor shakes his head slightly. ‘The war is over. He is no longer a soldier. Why then do you call him Lucky rather than his true name, which is Paul Blackwell?’

  ‘He doesn’t believe that he is Paul Blackwell. He has no memory of his life before he was wounded.’

  Dr Parkinson allows a sceptical smile to reach one corner of his mouth. ‘Mrs Whitman, I have a very extensive history of treating patients with mental illness, not to mention a doctorate from the University of Cambridge on the subject.’

  Although you did manage to mention it, thinks Elizabeth.

  ‘There are several patients I am treating at the moment who believe themselves to be someone else. There is a woman in my care who firmly believes that she is Joan of Arc. She sits at her window and has long and quite involved conversations with God. Only a few days ago she told me quite confidently that it would not be long before she drove the English out of France.’ He chuckles. ‘Another patient, who incidentally also suffered wounds and considerable trauma during the war, believes he is the prime minister.’

  ‘Mr Blackwell is not the same as those patients.’

  ‘Please, let me finish. The woman who imagines that she is Joan of Arc is actually named Lillian Baxter. She is a bricklayer’s wife and the mother of two children who miss her greatly. As you can imagine, her family wish for nothing more than the return of their wife and mother.’

  ‘As I said, I believe that Mr Blackwell’s case is different.’

  Dr Parkinson holds up a hand. ‘It is standard practice at the hospital when treating these patients that neither I nor any of my staff is seen to support their delusions in any way. Otherwise they will persist and even grow stronger. Surely you see that, Mrs Whitman?’