The Girl in the Letter

by Emily Gunnis

  Suddenly there was a clatter as the knife fell onto the bathroom floor, and then with a click, the bathroom door closed.

  ‘Please don’t leave me,’ said Richard weakly, praying for some comfort in his final moments.

  But no bright light appeared, and slowly the blackness grew. Utterly alone, he lay in the cold, empty bath and watched his blood trickling down the plughole. It will be over soon, he told himself, beginning to cry. He missed his wife; he prayed she would come and meet him now.

  ‘Evelyn,’ he said over and over as the blackness took hold, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Thursday 12 February 1959

  Ivy woke with a start to the sound of a child crying. She hadn’t meant to doze off, but exhaustion had overwhelmed her and she cursed herself for being so stupid. She had heard the children crying many times before, been told by Elvira about the injections which made them all so poorly that all the children in the attic had to look after one another. But until tonight she had been utterly powerless to do anything to help them.

  She sat up and looked around the room, watching for any signs of movement from the other beds. All the girls were asleep, the only sounds the murmurs accompanying the nightmares from which they all suffered.

  She still couldn’t believe she was going home. It had all happened so suddenly. Mother Carlin had approached her at breakfast and told her that her mother was coming for her the following day. All girls had an appointment with a doctor before they left; it was routine, and she must cooperate with him fully.

  He was a young man, almost as young as her, she thought, with floppy chestnut hair, a smart blue blazer, and an accent that suggested a privileged upbringing. He had been nice to her, asking her how she was feeling about her baby and her stay at St Margaret’s. She knew better than to trust him, however, and had given very little away. As he took notes, she had told him that she was grateful for her time there, that she was happy Rose had gone to a good, loving home and that she was looking forward to putting the whole episode behind her. He had commented on her weight and brought up the hunger strike, but she said she had just been desperately homesick and that obviously Mother Carlin and Father Benjamin had noticed it and kindly decided to let her go. He had smiled at her answers, nodding gently as the nib of his pen scratched the paper which lay on the desk between them.

  Ivy pushed back her covers and the cold rushed up her legs and down her back. Shuddering, she pulled the blanket from her bed and carefully wrapped it around her, then started tiptoeing across the room, the creaking of the boards beneath her feet slicing into the silence. She knew Sister Faith would be waiting on the other side of the door, dozing in her rocking chair as she did night after night. She had never tried to pass her before; never had the courage or thought her chances of success were high enough. But now that she was leaving, she knew she had no choice. She had to talk to Elvira. There would be no other opportunity.

  Barely breathing, she approached the door and looked down at the brass handle. She knew it would make a noise, and that when it did, Sister Faith would stir, but still she found her shaking hand reaching out for it. It turned with a click, and she took a deep breath, pulling the heavy oak door slowly towards her, her chest starting to hurt from the pain of her heart throbbing inside it.

  In the silent hallway outside the dormitory sat an empty rocking chair, gently moving as if its occupant had only recently left it, a tartan blanket thrown onto it in haste. Ivy stood staring at it, paralysed with indecision. Her head prickled with goose bumps as the sound of running water suddenly came from the lavatory next to where she stood. She glanced at the long corridor to the left of her, at the end of which was another door. A door she knew led up to the attic and Elvira’s dormitory.

  Her heart lurched as she quickly closed the dormitory door behind her and began to run, her bare feet silent as they fell on the glistening floorboards. Sprinting for the darkness at the end of the corridor, she could hear the bathroom door latch lifting, the sound of footsteps, and as she grabbed the handle and turned it, Sister Faith let out a loud cough, which jolted through her like an electric shock.

  She stood on the steps up to the attic and slowly pulled the door to behind her until eventually it gave a tiny click. She waited, trying to make herself breathe, and when she felt sure Sister Faith wasn’t coming, she began to climb the steep steps up to the attic, two by two.

  Standing at the end of Elvira’s dormitory, looking round at the rows of cots lining both sides of the narrow, windowless room, she pushed away the tears she hadn’t allowed to fall for so long. Each cot contained two children, aged between one and seven, tied by their ankles to the bars at either end. Most were sleeping on their filthy mattresses, the thumbs in their mouths their only comfort. But some lay awake, their eyes open and staring in the moonlight, rocking backwards and forwards like animals in cages. Some of the children were dark-skinned, with long, matted hair; some she knew to be mongoloid; others were so physically disabled they never moved from their cots.

  In the corner of the room, a filthy ceramic basin protruded from the wall, a single bar of soap lying on the floor beneath it.

  ‘Ivy?’ Elvira’s little voice was so distinctive, and Ivy turned to see the beautiful little girl she had fallen in love with staring over at her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Ivy ran over, knowing her time was short. Elvira’s hair was tangled, her face dirty; her mattress stank of urine. Ivy wanted desperately to pick her up there and then and carry her out of that godforsaken place.

  ‘Elvi, listen to me. I can’t stay long, but I’ve come to tell you I’m leaving.’

  ‘When?’ Tears immediately sprang to the little girl’s eyes. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  ‘It’s all right, Elvi, I’m coming back for you. I’m going to the police tomorrow to tell them about what is happening to you and all the other children here, and after we get you out of here, I’m taking you home to live with me.’ She had pulled Elvira into her chest and squeezed her tight.

  ‘To live with you?’ The little girl’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at her, and Ivy felt so sad for Elvira, and the life she had lived until that moment, that it gave her a physical pain in her chest.

  ‘Yes, would you like that?’ she said, still holding Elvira tight.

  ‘I’d love it more than anything in the world.’

  ‘Then it’s done. But listen, Elvi, you must not say a word of this to anyone. Do you understand? My mother is coming to pick me up tomorrow, and then I’ll be back.’

  Elvira nodded. ‘Will it be before the doctors come again?’

  ‘Yes, I promise. I had to come and tell you not to worry. I knew you’d be upset when you realised I was leaving, and I couldn’t do that to you. You’ve been through enough.’ Ivy pulled away and took her hands.

  Elvira started to cry, the tears causing streaks to form in the black grime on her face. ‘Something will happen to you before you come back. Something bad will happen because I’m bad.’

  ‘Elvira, look at me. That’s not how it is. You are not bad, you are an angel. Nothing the sisters say about you is true. Listen, God knows the truth, he sees everything, he sees the bad things they do to you and knows how you suffer. He knows that you are good down to the strands of hair on your head. Luke, chapter twelve, verse seven says, “Even the hairs on your head are all numbered.” Don’t be afraid.’ She took Elvira’s face in her hands.

  The little girl was sobbing now, her body shaking as she lost control of her emotions. ‘I’m not an angel. They said I did something bad to their baby, that I tried to push him under the bathwater. But we were just playing and he slipped.’

  ‘Elvira, you were a baby yourself. You do not deserve this. You are not the reason why you are here, they are. They are the ones who are bad, not you. And I am going to get you out.’

  ‘Don’t leave me.’ Elvira clung to Ivy so hard that her fingernails scratched her skin.

  ‘Elvira
, please stop,’ said Ivy, looking anxiously over at the other children, who were starting to stir. ‘Please, Elvi, please stop crying. You have to trust me, darling.’

  She held the little girl until her cries began to slow and then eventually stopped. ‘I have to go now. I’ll see you in the morning in the laundry, but you’re to say nothing, do you understand? Promise me, Elvi.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I love you, Elvira,’ Ivy whispered.

  ‘You love me?’ said Elvira, wiping the tears away.

  ‘Yes, I love you. Now go to sleep, we’ve got a big day tomorrow.’ Ivy smiled and blew the little girl a little kiss before creeping back across the dormitory floor. Wide eyes followed her, children too full of fear to make a sound. She wanted to scoop them all up and run, but she couldn’t. Not until tomorrow.

  All she needed now was Rose’s file. There was no way she could get downstairs and break into Mother Carlin’s office without being seen. She would have to find a way to get out of breakfast and go then.

  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she could hear Sister Faith’s snores from the other side of the door, but still her whole body throbbed with fear as she passed her in the corridor with only inches to spare. She could see her top lip twitching, feel the heat of her breath on her hand as she passed, and as soon as she was clear, she crept back to the safety of her bed.

  Staring up at the dark wood ceiling, her brain began to form a plan. Adrenaline was racing through her; there was no way she would be able to sleep. A flutter of something she hadn’t felt for many months entered her heart, an emotion she could barely recall, but as the sun slowly began to come up, she realised what it was that she was feeling.

  Hope.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Monday 6 February 2017

  ‘Are you all right in there, dear?’ asked Maude from the other side of the door.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ said Sam, flushing the toilet and running the tap. As she stepped out into the hall, her eye was caught by a framed tapestry she hadn’t noticed on her way past.

  Maude followed her gaze. ‘Ivy made that when she was fourteen. Isn’t it beautiful? She tried to show me how, but it was too hard. She had such patience teaching the children at Sunday school.’

  Sam studied the beautifully hand-stitched material, with the words The very hairs on your head are all numbered; do not be afraid.

  ‘She used to say that all that time. “Don’t worry, Mummy, God sees everything you do, he knows how good you are.” She used to look at her Uncle Frank and whisper, “And he knows who is not good too.” ’

  Sam smiled gently, taking Maude’s hand. Her skin was as thin as paper. Sam could feel the unhappiness radiating from her; it was as though any part of her, including her heart, could snap in two at any minute.

  ‘You look so like her,’ said Maude, looking at Sam intently.

  ‘Who?’ said Sam.

  ‘Ivy,’ said Maude, pointing to a photograph on the wall. ‘She must have been about seventeen there.’

  Sam stared. With her long red hair, Ivy was the image of her.

  ‘When I first saw you, it was like seeing a ghost,’ said Maude.

  Sam started to feel uneasy. What was the old lady trying to say? Scanning her trusting, kind face for clues, Sam tried to untangle Maude’s words in her sleep-deprived brain.

  ‘I have to say, I was a little disappointed when I saw you coming down the path on your own,’ said Maude. ‘I’d rather hoped that you turning up like that meant Rose had forgiven me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Sam, starting to feel panic rising in her without understanding why. ‘Rose who?’

  Maude let out a slightly nervous laugh. ‘Your grandmother, of course.’

  ‘Nana? She’s got nothing to do with this. She just found those letters in my grandfather’s papers when he died. He was an antiques dealer; he often found letters and personal documents in the furniture he sold.’ Sam could hear the words coming out, wanting desperately for them to be true but knowing already that they weren’t.

  ‘But I gave the letters to your grandmother myself, nearly fifty years ago,’ said Maude, a look of total bewilderment on her face. ‘When she and her friend came to see me.’

  The words hung in the air. Sam couldn’t take them in. ‘My grandmother, Annabel Creed, was here? Fifty years ago?’

  ‘Yes, when she was twelve. I thought that’s why you were here. I thought she’d given you the letters and explained what happened between us.’

  Sam suddenly felt very faint and sat down on the floor, putting her head in her hands. ‘But how did you get them?’

  ‘They arrived in the post a few days after Ivy died,’ Maude said, looking up at the picture of her daughter. ‘They broke my heart. I’d had no idea what she had been through. I went back to St Margaret’s with them, but Mother Carlin told me that what Ivy had written was all part of the psychosis she was suffering. That was when she gave me the letter from the psychiatrist confirming that Ivy was not in her right mind and that what she’d written was pure fabrication.’

  ‘But Nana never said a thing to me about meeting you,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t understand. Are you sure it was her? Annabel Creed?’

  ‘Annabel Rose Creed, yes. Samantha, she’s Ivy’s daughter. She’s the Rose Ivy talks about in the letters.’

  Sam turned and rushed into the bathroom, throwing up into the toilet. Slowly she pulled herself up, steadying herself at the sink. She splashed water on her face, then looked at herself in the mirror before walking back out into the hall.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Samantha, I really thought you would have known all this. I was so happy when I read your note this morning. I thought your grandmother had finally forgiven me.’

  ‘Forgiven you? What for?’ said Sam, staring again at the picture of Ivy.

  ‘It was her friend who did most of the talking that day – she was a little bit older than Annabel,’ said Maude. ‘Annabel just sat very quietly. The adoption laws had recently changed and adopted children were allowed to contact their birth parents. The council wrote to me to say that Annabel wanted to get in touch. They set up the meeting.’

  Sam listened, shaking her head. She couldn’t take it in, that Nana had known where her grandmother was, who her mother was. Why had she never talked to her about it? Why?

  ‘And this friend of my grandmother’s, what did she say?’ said Sam.

  ‘It was terrible. I had been overwhelmed at the thought of meeting Annabel Rose, counting down the minutes until I saw her for the first time. She was so beautiful, the picture of Ivy, when she let me hold her I had to stop myself smothering the poor girl.

  ‘I hadn’t wanted to give her Ivy’s letters then, because they were so upsetting, but I got the box of Ivy’s things out to show her a picture, and her friend found them and sat in the corner reading them while I chatted with Annabel. That half an hour was wonderful – she was such a lovely girl, she reminded me so much of Ivy. But then her friend finished reading the letters and became very angry. She was shouting and said I should be ashamed of myself for not rescuing Ivy, that it was my fault she died. That I might as well have killed her myself.’

  ‘Oh my goodness, that’s horrendous. I’m so sorry, Maude.’ The old lady looked so pale, Sam thought she might faint. She grabbed a chair from along the hall for Maude to sit on.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Maude, as Sam helped her into it. ‘She was the one who tore Richard Stone’s letter up, and threw it at me; she was in a terrible rage. She told me the letter was all lies, that Ivy wasn’t mad. It was stupid of me to tape it back together. But I have so little to remember Ivy by, I have to cling onto anything.’

  Sam took Maude’s hand in hers. ‘Who was she, this so-called friend?’ she asked.

  ‘Her name was Kitty. I remember, because years later I saw her on television. I couldn’t believe it,’ said Maude, as she wiped away a stream of tears with the back of her hand. ‘She told me to never contact Annabel aga
in, and that if I did, she’d kill me.’ Sam fetched Maude a tissue.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ whispered Sam, shaking her head. ‘Kitty called me Ivy when I first found her at St Margaret’s. She denied it, but when I showed her Ivy’s picture, she was visibly upset.’

  ‘You know Kitty?’ said Maude, crushing the tissue in her hands.

  ‘I met her for the first time today,’ Sam said quietly, lost in thought.

  ‘When she was here that day with Rose, she talked about Ivy like she knew her, but how can she have?’ Maude said quietly.

  ‘She couldn’t have,’ said Sam slowly, ‘but her twin sister could.’

  ‘Her twin sister?’ said Maude.

  ‘Kitty told me this morning that she and her twin, Elvira, were born at St Margaret’s to her father’s mistress who died in childbirth. Kitty was raised by her father but Elvira was adopted by a couple who sent her back to St Margaret’s. She would have been there at the same time as Ivy.’

  Sam looked up at the picture of Ivy again, then at her own reflection in an antique mirror on the wall. ‘I think the reason she called me Ivy was because she recognised me like an old friend would. She was disoriented and forgot herself; she didn’t know what she was saying.’

  ‘Forgot herself?’ said Maude. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Kitty can’t have known Ivy, but Elvira did.’ Sam’s eye caught the tapestry on the wall. ‘Kitty has one of those tapestries in her flat. I think Ivy taught her that psalm when they were together at St Margaret’s.’ She looked back at Maude.

  ‘When Kitty and Ivy were together at St Margaret’s? I thought you said it was Elvira?’ said Maude.

  ‘When I was with Kitty she told me about the day she met Elvira for the first time. They were eight and Elvira had escaped from St Margaret’s and managed to find Kitty. They hid in an outhouse by St Margaret’s and when it was dark Kitty said she went to find help. But she fell and woke up three days later in hospital to her father telling her Elvira was dead.’