He sniffs and turns, draws in the unfamiliar scent, finds it most pungent at the cabinet next to the bed: musky, like newly turned earth; bitter, but swaddled in cloying sweetness. Laudanum, perhaps, prescribed by her father, who does not seem to know what else to do, apart from recommending physicians and throwing out words that mean precisely nothing for all the good they do. Unmoored, he says. Nerves.
But the outlandish words do fit this stranger, somehow, this new wife who is at turns excitable and despondent, restless and inert, buoyant and despairing; whose steps he hears in the night, boards creaking under her sleepless feet; whose muffled sobs and wails reach him even in the stillness of his study; whose joyful, tuneful voice has surrendered to a querulous and fretful tone he tries not to dislike.
The bed is as yet unmade by Millie and the disarray reminds him of something, the tatters of clothing and bedding return a memory: the ragged feathers of a rook in their yard yesterday, its torn and crimson-flecked wings spread as if in flight; Ginger standing over the blue-black corpse yowling proudly, waiting for praise, his own striped and gnarly body smaller than his prey’s; the old tom fighting ferociously for his prize as the yard-boy tried to reach the bird’s body, do away with the mess.
In these times everything seems to remind him of violence, and to bring back childhood feelings he ’d thought left long behind: resentment at being so needed, helplessness in the face of an appeal, guilt at his own incapacity. If only there were an enemy, if only it would show itself, then he would fight it. Be her champion. Why, it was only short months ago that he felt—no, knew—his love could overcome this obstacle. For Emily had turned to him trustingly when the pains first began, and he ’d soothed her when she cried It burns, held her when she returned from the water closet, clutching her belly, walking in a strange, halting motion so unlike her usual grace. And when, in the quiet night, she sobbed her dismay—I hate to disappoint you, Arthur, but it stabs and I cannot, I cannot—he assured her that his own needs could be put aside, that his love for her was not dependent on love-making, that he would always care for her, no matter the complaint. He ’d felt protective, strong enough to carry her through this ordeal, even when it had no name, even when finding the words to describe it made them both blush, even when it struck at the very heart of their marriage.
But he has not been able to help her and now something is changing between them, has already changed. It seems to him that she cannot forgive him for his inability to solve this terrible mystery—or does he imagine the accusation in her eyes? He does not imagine his own guilt; the relief as she turns inward and away from him.
The journal sits by her bed. It travels with her around the house as she moves from place to place, unable to find comfort or ease. She scribbles in it at her little portable desk, reads it avidly, treats it as her closest companion, confesses to it, perhaps, and no longer writes her almost daily letters to Beatrice. And so, it seems, she is turning away from his sister too.
Now his fingers itch to open the journal and he thrusts them in his pockets, swings his body around the chamber, thinks to conjure something precious, leave a part of himself here, in this, her refuge. Something to reach her, remind her, bring the old Emmie back to him. For she can’t have gone far, can she? His Emmie, her face alight, her gaze always running ahead to a precious something she might catch if she were to run or skip or laugh with joy. His Emmie, understanding his own childhood loss, knowing the way that grief can break time down, make each tiny moment a pocket of existence that swells and becomes forever. His Emmie, singing her trust in life’s goodness, lifting her praise to the heavens. His Emmie, who if you were both starving and had only one morsel of bread, would give it to you without thought. His Emmie, whose shade comes to him at night as he hovers between sleep and wakefulness, pulling him into her with a ragged exhalation, groaning in pleasure, cradling his head against her breasts.
That roar again. He feels it roll through his body and reverberate through his mind, trespassing on all he thought to keep safe, threatening its very existence.
They cross Devonshire Street and continue towards Regent’s Park, their feet finding a matching stride, just as they used to all those years ago at Rugby School. Arthur feels his body shifting as he walks—tense shoulders dropping, taut face releasing—and in the thick, grey silence he is almost able to think himself into someone other than a man with a tormented wife; is glad now for Tom’s insistence: a walk through the breaking day, just as they used to in that last spell at Rugby, the masters less strict as their charges became men. And now, when he senses Tom smiling beside him, he is again a carefree school fellow, off to make some mischief with his friend.
The homes of Portland Place are still shut against the night, the only signs of life a servant girl emptying slops and a sweep tucked into a doorstep waiting for the household to rise. Under a streetlamp at the corner of Park Square, a bobby sags wearily inside his uniform, lifting himself to attention to return their greetings, pretending only now to notice a vagrant rousing himself for another hopeless day and shooing him along. A black cat slips shadow-like over the road, its rakish glance at Arthur conspiratorial, as if recognising him for another creature of the night.
They pause for the market cart laden with fruit baskets, then cross the Outer Circle and make their way onto the Broad Walk. The park is monochrome in the dawn, its pathways empty. Several blackbirds sing from the small trees.
Arthur draws his coat more tightly against the nip of autumn. It should take them thirty minutes, he calculates, walking slowly and with conversation. Primrose Hill in time to see the sun rise. He must do as he planned while they walk, as he and Tom planned together: speak about Emily and what ails her. Despite his reluctance, he knows he must.
It’s not that he lacks faith in his friend. He trusts the bond forged years ago, when Lawler stood to support him in that terrible fight with Rattlin. For even with separations along the way—himself at Oxford, Tom training in medicine at the University of London—that trust is still there, along with the memories and all the things understood from a shared history, where nothing needs to be explained. And it’s this he clings onto for a moment, to justify his hesitation, his resistance to surrendering their companionable silence, the momentary ease, to dark feelings and hard thoughts. Aren’t some things best left unspoken between men? But he must confide in someone, when all is a terrible mystery, he tells himself, and he cannot think of anyone better than Tom, with his knowledge and his calm common sense. He studies his friend’s level gaze, the startling white hair more a golden-blonde these days and always kept cropped and tucked away under a hat. When he ’d teased Tom about the frequent visits to a barber shop, before the bad times had begun, his friend demanded, Well, would you trust a physician in curls? They ’d laughed then, and punched each other’s shoulders.
Flowers are waking in the Avenue Gardens, brightening into day-colour, purples in fine green skirts. Are they asters? Some kind of autumn daisy? Emily would know, he thinks. And then, when a dusky magenta peeps from the bottom layer of the next bed, he is reminded of her favourite petticoat, and could cry.
“Do you miss her?” Tom is the first to break their silence.
“It’s been only five days.”
“Still, Arthur.”
“Yes,” he admits. “Yes, I do.”
Would it be a betrayal to tell Tom he also feels a sense of respite at his wife’s absence? That he misses her, but not who she has become? He strikes at the grass with his walking stick.
“You say the issue is with congress?”
The directness is a relief. “Yes. But it is more than this, far more.” He considers, searching for the words. “She has severe pain.”
What more can he say?
Can he speak of how, at the beginning of it all, her body would clench when he reached for her? How she winces now when he touches her? How her frightened eyes shift from his? How she no longer tells him that she loves him?
Impossible.
They circle the Griffin Tazza, the winged lions muscular, their gaze blank and foreign.
“Is the pain always in that area?”
“Yes. And beyond.”
He feels the familiar stab of guilt: how his wife must bear this alone. How she chooses to bear it alone, says a voice in his mind.
They brush through shrubs busy with tiny flitting birds and return to the avenue of plane trees. Here and there, grimy-looking boys now trot along the Broad Walk, and suited and hatted men make their brisk way southward. A party of eager young women cluster at one of the lampposts, pointing out the George IV cipher to each other. Are they from the country? Spending a day in the “Big Smoke”, just because they can?
“It isn’t my field of expertise,” Tom says. “But I know enough of disorder that has no easy answer to tell you how readily such nervous malady can be made worse.” He scratches his chin thoughtfully. “You say that Charles is monitoring her health? Suggesting specialists?”
“Yes.”
A pungent, earthy scent fills the dawn air. What part of it is elephant or hippopotamus dung? What part lion? They walk through the cries and rumbles that drift over the hedge of the zoo and Arthur tries to say the words, but they skip away from him like flat stones across murky waters: Emmie at Herdley … not ideal—Bea busy, Father confused … going to Hierde House when work will spare me … And, what should I do, Tom? What can I do?
The paths are filling with people of all sorts, strides purposeful and busy. At the bridge their own boots ring hollow; below, the canal is fathomless, its water dense and green. Then it is over Albert Road, noisy now with clattering carts and the hoof-fall of smart cab horses, and up the path towards Primrose Hill, where young lads, up early, trundle their hoops down the grass, shouting and laughing.
“I’m loath to confuse the issue,” Tom continues tentatively. “Charles is a very knowledgeable physician.”
“Yes, yes, of course, but even Charles seems lost … And I’m worried, Tom. All I can think is that she must be somewhere nourishing. We’re hoping that—”
A loud honking interrupts, drawing their eyes to the dark V in the lightening sky. Some kind of goose, Arthur thinks. A flock making its way to warmer climes.
“So we’re hoping that Hierde House might give some comfort, some healing, where the city can’t,” he finishes clumsily.
Tom gives him a reassuring smile. “It is a sound decision, I think, Arthur. Really, I do. The situation can be deliberated anew when she returns to London—if the symptoms persist. These mysterious ailments can pass equally mysteriously. Don’t lose hope.”
Tom’s clasp of his shoulder is comforting and he feels his heart lift. It has been such a short span of time, really. She may yet recover, with Bea’s help, in the sweet air of Herdley. If not now, then soon. Very soon, perhaps.
So they walk on, he and Tom, speaking more easily, the matter having been broached, the worst said. They round the Shakespeare Oak, flatten the damp grass with their boots as they climb, note the first signs of russet and amber in the plane trees and chestnuts, mark the lean of the hardy little hawthorns near the summit, join the small clutch of early walkers and sightseers at the top of Primrose Hill.
A bruised mist hangs over the city. In the distance, church towers are indefinite battlements. The horizon spills orange and the air fills with bird calls, the tap-tap-tap of stick on hoop, awed whispers, and there is a clarion call in his mind, through his body—he feels his very soul vibrate with a demand. Fingers of light uncurl through the dusty city air and up the grass, a great hand reaching for him.
CHAPTER 13
PERTH, OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2008
Alice leaned against the back of the seat and tilted her hips forward. Something sturdier was needed, something … specific. Particular. A high-sitting horseshoe shape, perhaps; a ‘special’ cushion. She imagined the looks, the speculation. Pushed hard with her left foot so her bum was suspended and hoped she was close. She glanced at her mud map: a left at Ennis Ave, then right onto Braid and she’d be there.
It would be a relief to stand again. The tiny nightly pills had softened those neon spikes but the pain was still relentless, still swung back and forth between buzzing, aching and burning. What could account for it? Her mind refused to form definite thoughts, let alone convincing words. The only approach to understanding seemed to be through recent phone conversations with Joan and the relief of sharing those terrible dreams – the tearing mouth, herself consumed. Still, she felt able to survive now, when for months that had seemed impossible.
Who else could she appeal to? She thought of Pen with her rushed visits, her phone calls in between, the suggestions that led … nowhere, really. She thought of her old, stone home with its sturdy columns and shadowed verandah, the beds of natives where hairy grevillea and callistemon flowers jostled for attention. The house that was closed to her, these days. And the man. The man who no longer raced home from work with that old eagerness, his face tenderly true, his smile opening to hers.
Where else could she turn? She’d resisted joining the online groups Dr Sutherland – Susan – had told her about months ago. The idea of talking with disembodied strangers made her cringe. But she wanted to continue her research, look more into the history of vulvar pain and see how modern medical understanding compared, dig into Freud’s collected works. Further contemplate writing fiction based on all of this. And she’d made other steps into the unknown, seeing a physio – Sasha of the warm hands – for weekly sessions.
Today was the next step.
There, Braid Terrace. Halfway along, a scattering of cars, and neat beds of succulents lining the verge, the pinkish ones like flaps of flesh.
The house was a modern statement, one of those stern designs without eaves, and with windows like dark eyes that wouldn’t let you look in, that assessed her blankly as she walked towards them.
She knocked and heard the tapping of heels, then the door opened to a tall woman with wild, blonde-grey hair. It must be Sally. The woman she’d spoken to on the phone, the organiser. The one who’d told her, I’m a psychologist – in my other life!
‘Hello! You must be Alice. I’m so pleased you came.’
The voice at least was familiar, certain and with that residue of New Zealand in the vowels.
‘Thanks. It’s a bit strange. You know …’ She wasn’t sure how to continue.
But the older woman’s smile was sympathetic. ‘I sure do.’ She stepped back, into the hallway – ‘Come on, you’ll be fine’ – and touched Alice’s arm in a way that felt like reassurance.
Alice followed her along the corridor and then out, into an expansive living area with a vaulted ceiling. A couple of women chatted near the entrance and two more lounged on white beanbags in the far corner. Only four strangers then. What would they make of her? Sally’s words rose in her mind – the phone call made when Duncan was out, when she’d felt composed, had begun calmly, but ended up in tears – It’s okay, Sally had said. I know. Then she’d gone on to tell Alice that she was not alone and how this group, started by her some years ago, was to support women just like Alice, how they were a friendly bunch.
She swivelled, taking in the room. Irises burst like peacock feathers from a vase on a blonde-wood table; spring light washed the clean, straight angles of the room and its understated – but expensive, Alice guessed – works of art on walls and plinths. She looked out of the wall of glass that separated the living room from the backyard, though ‘backyard’ was a little hick for this classy garden. A cream birdbath presided from its centre, a neat flowering ash bobbed sedately and the prim lawn forbade leaves. It was a home of air and money. New money, not like her and Duncan’s old-money home. She suddenly felt reduced, a negative lifted from the developer bath too early and hung to dry, an image lacking clarity and strength.
‘Alice?’ Sally’s voice pulling her back into the here and now. ‘This is Simone … and Atikah.’
The women greeted her and she trie
d to mentally link their features to their names, to lodge them in her memory. Simone, with a protective hand on her small bump; Atikah, in a blue hijab that sheened in the bright room.
‘Come and meet Denise and Maria.’
Sally had talked about Denise on the phone, how she’d joined the group at the right time – when I’d just about run out of puff – and now helped organise it, spreading the word to GPs and gynos. Sally had told her of Denise’s ability to call a spade a spade, too, and about the cluster of ailments she battled with. Then Sally had stopped herself. I’d best let her tell you all about that, she’d said.
Alice slipped onto another beanbag, wondering if the seating was providential, or a thoughtful alternative to the usual right-angled chair.
‘Hi Alice –’
‘Hi Alice –’
The woman with a fierce face and the girl with black hair and a flurry of piercings laughed together at their overlapped greeting.
‘I’m Denise.’ It was the woman who looked ready for a fight. ‘It’s great to have you here.’ She laughed again, this time with an edge. ‘Well, not great for you, I guess.’
‘Thanks.’ Once more Alice’s words refused to flow.
She wondered if anyone had ever walked out of their first meeting with these women. Wondered how talking with other … sufferers could possibly help. How anything that didn’t involve lifting the weight of pain she hefted around could do anything at all. But then Sally and Denise and the other girl, Maria, started chatting like old friends, and just listening to them speaking about all sorts of things – work, relationships, sport – with the thread of pain weaving its way through the conversation and holding it together, made her feel she could stay, after all. So that when, finally, after she’d added a few words here and there and then was asked for the first time about her own particular suffering, she could answer.
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