Woman on Ward 13: A haunting gothic novel of obsession and insanity (Iris Lowe Mysteries)

by Delphine Woods

  I blushed the first time I had to bathe her. To see your mistress naked is awful. Mrs Leverton didn’t seem to care. She took off her nightdress and stood there before me, waiting for me to allow her into the tub. Then she sat upright, unmoving and silent, until I saw the brush and soap and started to wash her.

  Her skin is quite loose, the muscles completely undefined, but her hair is wonderful. It reaches to her waist and is as glossy as a chestnut. I washed it with lavender water and finally, as my hands ran from the top of her head to the tip her hair, she began to relax.

  Annie goes everywhere with her. Every morning after breakfast, we begin our walk of the grounds. There is a little mound where the earth has been piled up and laid with grass, and every day Mrs Leverton likes to climb this mound and have a moment to look about her.

  In the afternoons, she reads or writes poems or plays a tune on a flute-like instrument. She told me, when I asked her, that it is called a tin whistle. She is very good at it. She knows many different songs, but she always comes back to the same melody, as if she cannot get it out of her mind. I wonder if that is part of her affliction? I shall make a note of it in my attendant’s book, which I keep to record Mrs Leverton’s bowel movements and sleeping patterns and any changes in behaviour.

  She is quite like a normal person until night comes. She enjoys her dinner with the Basildons. Who wouldn’t? Each night, there is a magnificent amount of food like I have never seen before, even at Eastley Manor! Mrs Leverton makes polite conversation with the doctor about the weather or something just as trivial, as might any lady of her social standing if they were not deemed mentally infirm. But when she leaves the dining room and returns to her chamber, she becomes ever so sad. She weeps silently as she changes into her nightclothes, then she gets to her knees and prays for an hour.

  It is a dreadful thing to see. She lifts the mat from the floorboards so that she has no comfort for her bones, and as the minutes pass by she begins to tremble until, by the end of the hour, she is shaking so violently it almost looks like she is fitting. She is too weak to spend such a long time in one position, and I have told Mrs Thorpe about it, but she says that she has always done it and could never be broken of the habit, no matter how hard Dr Basildon Snr tried.

  After her hour of prayer, Mrs Leverton gets to her feet, her joints snapping as she does so, and slides into bed. I have to lift Annie onto the bed, for the dog is too fat and too old to jump for itself, and it curls up beside its mistress and is snoring within seconds.

  On the fourth night, Mrs Leverton whispered something to me as I was about to leave.

  ‘She likes you.’

  I was so tired that I couldn’t fathom what she meant.

  ‘Annie. She doesn’t like everyone.’

  ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for dogs,’ I said, as quietly as if I were talking to a child. And Mrs Leverton did look like a child, in that huge bed, the covers up to her chin, her pale, open face poking out above the sheets.

  ‘She’s my fourth Annie.’ She smiled so tenderly at her pet, like it was her own baby. ‘They’ve all been loyal. Dogs are the only beings one can trust, don’t you think? They keep all our secrets.’

  I said I supposed that was true.

  ‘Good night, Katy.’ It was the first time she’d said my name, and I left her room with a little ball of happiness rolling around in my stomach.

  Mrs Leverton’s room is quite close to Miss York’s station. All of the bedrooms have slats in the doors so that the night attendant can do the rounds every hour and check the patients are in their beds, alive and sleeping.

  The closest room to Miss York’s station is Rose Huxley’s, Marion’s patient. She is thirty-eight years old and one of the most difficult patients. I do feel rather sorry for Marion for having to deal with her. Marion is smaller than I am, though far more rounded than me, and she wears spectacles that do not suit the chubbiness of her face. Mrs Huxley is almost two heads taller than her, and when she gets into a rage, Marion cannot placate her alone. I have had to help hold her down twice this week already, and it always leaves Marion breathless and shaken.

  One night, as we were getting into bed, I asked Marion what was wrong with Mrs Huxley.

  ‘She’s a poor soul,’ she said.

  That’s another thing about Marion, she’s far too nice. I wouldn’t be quite so understanding with someone who had left me with so many bruises.

  ‘She suffers from mania and hallucinations.’

  I knew what hallucinations were from reading my handbook, and they struck me as one of the worst types of insanity.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘She believes she can see her children.’ Marion took off her glasses, set them on her bedside table, and rubbed her fingers down each side of her nose. ‘Her children are dead.’

  I bristled, as if there was a cold draught upon my neck.

  ‘They are such terrible hallucinations,’ Marion continued. ‘She thinks the devil is torturing them. She thinks she can smell their burning flesh.’

  ‘What do you say to her? How can you make her stop?’

  Marion sighed. She was exhausted; her puffy cheeks were a waxy, grey colour, and the skin around her eyes was almost purple. ‘I cannot say anything to help. She is so convinced of what she sees. The best thing I can do is to be normal, to show her that I cannot see anything and therefore there is nothing there.’

  Marion opened her handbook and began to read. She reads it every night, over and over again. There is nothing in that handbook that she could not recite from heart. She is going to take her examinations as soon as she can.

  I wriggled down into my bed, rubbing my feet against the sheets to warm them, and I thought of my own patient.

  Mrs Leverton is said to suffer delusions. No one had told me what those delusions are, only that they are becoming less frequent, which is a positive sign, and that, if she should talk of them, I must not indulge her fantasies. I thought it difficult to not indulge a fantasy I had no idea about, so I asked Marion if she knew.

  ‘She believes she killed someone.’

  I must admit, I had been on my guard since I discovered the nature of Mrs Leverton’s delusions. I had been watching her closely, wondering if I could recognise a killer if I saw one. I think I would be able to. After all, there must be something that sets them apart – like horns underneath their hair or sharp teeth or something – and I have concluded that Mrs Leverton certainly has nothing of that sort. She loves animals and is a mother-figure to another patient called Alice, a thirty-year-old epileptic whose brain has not developed since infancy. She even smiles at me nowadays.

  Dr Basildon is pleased with my progress. He had me into his office today to review my first week. He said that Mrs Thorpe has spoken highly of me and that Mrs Leverton is pleased with me.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. No employer has ever asked me the question before. But I am happy here, I decided in that moment. The house is beautiful, and I am making a good friend of Marion.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You should like to stay?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. You understand that we value respectability here?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Attendants must set the best of standards.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Relationships are not allowed. It does not set the moral tone we aim for.’

  I nodded, but my head felt very stiff. Suddenly, Bertie’s tongue was on mine, his hands were pressing into my thighs. I cleared my throat and pushed away those thoughts, for I did not want them to show on my face.

  Dr Basildon stood up and wandered around his desk, trailing his finger along the spines of his books, until he came before me. He smelt of soap, as if he’d just scrubbed himself clean. I stayed in my seat, and studied his shiny black shoes.

  ‘You have Thursday afternoon free. You may leave now, Miss Owen.’

  I jumped up straight awa
y and scarpered out of there, and then I wrote a note to Bertie and sent it off with all the other letters.

  5

  1956

  Iris tiptoed down the centre of the ward. Some of the patients moaned at her as she did so, but she put a finger to her lips to keep them quiet. When she reached the end, she discovered Kath’s bed was empty.

  ‘Miss Lowe, you’re here early.’ Nurse Rattan emerged from the staff room, quickly swallowing whatever she had just stuffed into her mouth. White crumbs clung to her lips.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. Thought I might as well come and make myself useful.’ She put her bag in the staff room then joined Nurse Rattan. ‘Any trouble tonight?’

  Rattan shook her head and her jaw dropped open into a yawn. ‘All pretty quiet.’

  The light from outside was trying to get in through the gaps in the curtains. There was a beam of bright yellow on the empty bed.

  ‘Where is Kath?’

  ‘Took a turn, apparently. Yesterday morning.’

  ‘What kind of turn?’

  ‘Something to do with her chest, I’d imagine. Or her heart. Who knows with them in here? They’re all at death’s door.’

  ‘She’s not dead, is she?’ Iris said, trying to keep her voice calm. Kath’s breathing had been getting worse and worse, and she’d been hacking up great big globs of green phlegm.

  ‘She wasn’t yesterday. Haven’t heard anything since.’

  Iris fell quiet.

  ‘You have to get used to it in here,’ Rattan said as she stared into the gloom of the ward. ‘They’re all going to go at some point.’

  They sat in silence, the only sound coming from Nurse Rattan sucking her teeth. It set Iris on edge. She would have started to clean the floor, but that would have woken the patients, and Rattan had no intention of getting any of them up; she was to look after them whilst they slept and nothing more.

  Finally, the other staff arrived, and Nurse Rattan hauled herself to her feet. Iris hopped up and opened the curtains.

  ‘You’re very fresh this morning,’ Shirley said, scowling at her.

  ‘He still hasn’t called?’

  ‘No.’ Shirley yanked the bedsheets off Flo and grappled the lady onto the commode.

  ‘Do you know what happened to Kath?’ Iris said.

  Shirley squinted to where Kath should have been. ‘She was fine Saturday.’ She lifted Flo back onto the bed.

  Flo grabbed Iris’s hand and pulled her close. She had green eyes which were watery at the edges, lips that disappeared into her face, and short, fine hair as grey as a rain cloud. Who would she have been when she was Iris’s age? The Kath in this life and the Katy from the diary seemed like completely different people, but of course, they weren’t. Had Flo been as full of life as Katy? And what would Iris be like when she was old, with liver spots and cataracts, a burden to everyone around her?

  ‘You’re all right, Flo, just lie down for me and we’ll get you dressed soon.’ Iris stroked Flo’s hair until the woman’s grip began to weaken.

  ‘Ready now?’ Shirley waited beside Dot’s bed, staring at Iris, hands on hips.

  Iris hated that about Shirley; when she was in a bad mood, everyone knew it. The patients cringed away from her, Iris stepped on eggshells; nothing anyone said was right, and everything earned you a glare from her beautiful blue eyes.

  Iris wouldn’t speak to her whilst she was like it.

  When they had finished seeing to the patients, Iris caught Nurse Carmichael as everyone made their way to the day room for breakfast.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, what has happened to Kath?’

  ‘She’s been moved to the infirmary. Pneumonia, they think. Her lips were turning blue.’

  ‘Is she any better today?’

  ‘I haven’t had the time to enquire.’

  At the end of her shift, Iris paced down the corridors of Smedley. Sun slanted in through the tall windows, bleaching the white tiles on the floor. Everyone was on the move, the day shifters leaving, anxious to get home to enjoy the last rays of sun, the night shifters plodding inside, reluctant to get to work.

  ‘Iris!’ Behind, Shirley trotted up to Iris, a grin pinching her lips, her eyes glinting. ‘Where are you off to so quick?’ She didn’t give Iris time to answer. ‘What are you doing Friday night?’

  ‘What do you want, Shirley?’

  ‘What’s stung you? Will you come to the pictures with me?’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Dr Brown, by any chance?’

  She pouted and scuffed her shoe on the floor. ‘Might do.’

  Iris turned to walk away. ‘I shall only be in the way.’

  ‘Don’t be silly! I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want you to come.’ Shirley grabbed her arm. ‘Please come, Iris!’

  Shirley could be a pain, but there was something about her – a giddy, childish charm – which Iris couldn’t ever seem to say no to. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fabulous! There’s a late night showing at ten.’

  ‘We might not have finished work—’ Iris called, but Shirley was running down the corridor and out of the main door, where a young doctor held the door for her.

  Kath was not dead. Iris found her in a bed at the far end of a ward by the window. She and the other patients around her were dozing, sunk into their beds, the flowers on their cabinets wilting in the heat.

  Kath looked so small. The loose nightgown showed the protrusion of her breastbone and the stretch of thin skin across it. Propped up on top of three pillows, her mouth gaped, and her breath rattled in the quiet of the room. Her hair was a mess; she would have been upset about that. Iris would bring a brush next time.

  Iris slipped her hand over Kath’s. Her fingers were icy, the bones sharp under the weak muscle, but on contact, Kath opened her eyes and peered at Iris.

  ‘Hello. How are you?’ A stupid question, but Iris couldn’t find any other words.

  Kath’s mouth opened further. She sucked in a breath, then coughed. The cough grew worse, the liquid on her lungs bubbling up her throat. Iris put an arm around her back and sat her upright so she could get the stuff up. She spat the green mucus into the dish that Iris held under her chin, then Iris wiped her mouth and made her sip some water.

  Kath sagged onto her pillows. Some strands of hair stuck to her forehead, and Iris pushed them off, feeling the heat from Kath’s head.

  ‘I started your diary.’

  Kath squinted at her.

  ‘Mrs Leverton sounded quite a character.’

  Kath brought her lips together as if she would say something, but no sound came out.

  ‘It’s all right, you just rest.’

  In a few minutes, Kath was sleeping. A middle-aged nurse came onto the ward to distribute the tablets.

  ‘How is she?’ Iris said.

  ‘Bad.’ Nurse Okeke – as it said on her name-tag – put her hand to Kath’s forehead and tutted. ‘Are you her daughter?’

  ‘No. I... She was on my ward before.’

  ‘You work on Ward 13?’ The woman’s chocolate-coloured eyes widened.

  Iris nodded.

  ‘That place.’ The nurse sniffed and said no more; she didn’t need to. The ward was a shambles – was it any wonder Kath had fallen ill in there? Too many patients and too few staff.

  ‘I wasn’t here yesterday. Has she improved?’

  ‘A little. She was given oxygen last night, which seemed to help.’

  ‘Will she recover?’

  The nurse shrugged. ‘She is old, too skinny. The antibiotics must fight it off.’ She placed the penicillin tablets on the table. ‘Kath?’

  Kath flinched.

  ‘It is time for your tablets.’ The nurse slipped her hand underneath Kath’s head and lifted her. She put the tablet into Kath’s open mouth and held the glass to her lips. Kath did as she was supposed to, and Iris saw her throat move as she struggled to swallow.

  ‘Good girl.’ The nurse placed her down, then looked at Iris. ‘It is getting late.’
/>
  ‘I would like to stay a little longer, if that’s all right?’

  The nurse glanced through the door but, seeing everywhere was quiet, nodded. ‘Twenty minutes.’

  Iris picked up her bag off the floor and brought out the diary. Kath’s eyes opened when she saw it, and she reached out for it. Iris put the book on the bed, and Kath’s fingers traced its flat, leather surface.

  ‘I thought I might read it to you, if you’d like that?’

  Kath plucked at the binding, then pushed it towards Iris. Iris picked up where she had left off.

  1900

  Thursday, 4th October

  I saw Bertie today. It was after lunch, and Mrs Thorpe had taken over main care of Mrs Leverton, and so I had several hours before I needed to return to get her to bed.

  I had thought he wasn’t coming, for I waited and waited when I got to the woods. I watched the leaves falling off the trees and I broke them between my fingers. I like it when the leaves go all crisp like that. I snapped them into tiny pieces and made orange-coloured confetti, and I threw it in the air and walked into it, imaging I was on Bertie’s arm and we’d just got married.

  I heard a giggle then, and I saw him striding towards me. His cheeks were as red as apples, and his breath was coming quick and sharp. He’d taken off his jacket and hat, and sweat shone on his brow.

  He said nothing before he kissed me, long and slow. He was buzzing with heat, and I curled into him, for I’d got cold from sitting on the damp stump for such a while.

  He asked me how I was getting on, and I told him all about Mrs Leverton and Marion, but I didn’t tell him much more. I didn’t want my whole time away from The Retreat to be filled with talk of it.

  I asked about home. He said he’d seen my ma and da only this morning and that my little sister, May, was getting on well in Mr Roddington’s house. He hadn’t told them he was meeting me, of course.