Perhaps she’d be angry, or perhaps just disappointed in me. Most people were, sooner or later.
I tried rolling onto my side, but it was no warmer that way. It was the beginning of summer, but the nights were still chilled, especially this far north out on the marshes by the sea.
Who were the Gersbachs and why had they built a house here? I wondered where they’d gone. I saw my brother Syd’s bedroom, the bed so neatly made up, the coverlet folded down precisely, the way it had looked on the morning he left for war without saying good-bye. Shut up, Kitty, and go to sleep.
I pressed my eyes shut. My nerves were waiting for the screaming, waiting, waiting. He gets afraid, Martha had said of Captain Mabry. He thinks he sees something.
Cold sweat trickled down my body. Creeton’s hand on me, the blunt intrusion of his fingers through the fabric of my skirts. Captain Mabry’s blood, his stillness on my lap. Someone moving behind me, though I never saw who. I dozed, part of me still waiting for something to come—the hard grip of fingers, or the screams. Or the shuffle of feet behind my back. Dawn was years away.
And Syd’s cold bedroom, dark and abandoned. Someone moving behind me that day, too, as I stood in the doorway.
No matter how bad it gets, I said to myself just as I did every day, I’m never going home.
CHAPTER SIX
Over the next two days of grueling work, I came to know more about Portis House. I learned to coax water from the reluctant taps in the laundry, where we filled our buckets for daily washing. I learned how to rub polishing wax onto a floor so it wouldn’t look opaque. How to buff the convoluted knobs of a brass bedstead without missing a spot. How to carry a bowl of hot soup up a flight of winding stairs without spilling any on the tray. How to fold a bedsheet properly at the corner of a bed, though I was slower and clumsier than Nina, and had to watch her more than once from the corner of my eye, admiring the fast, sure way she hefted the mattress with her beefy hands.
I also learned how to spend just five extra minutes in the lavatory, rubbing my aching feet; and, for a wonderful, beautiful quarter hour, I found a deserted spot outside the kitchen door, out of sight of the windows, where I smoked a cigarette, my eyes closed in a rapturous daze, the breeze blowing last autumn’s leaves over the cobbles in front of me and out over the low, rolling grounds beyond.
West, the soldier with the missing legs, had lost them to a grenade lobbed into his trench by advancing German infantry; his fiancée had abandoned him after he came home in a wheelchair, and his family had sent him to Portis House after he’d embarrassed them by weeping at his coming-home party. Other men were here because of anger fits, drunkenness, the inability to get out of bed, and—the worst cases—delusions and even catatonia. The last catatonic patient, however, had been removed some three weeks earlier, it having been decided that Portis House was too remote and far too understaffed to care for such a case.
All of this I learned from Archie Childress, the soldier Nina had taken broth to on my first day. On the second day he was assigned to me. “He can’t eat. You’ll have to coax him,” was all Nina said. “You’ll see for yourself.”
The infirmary was on the same floor as the men’s bedrooms, though down a corridor and near the entrance to the west wing of the house, which was completely closed off. It was large enough to accommodate three beds, a working sink, a cupboard with linens and basins, two wooden chairs, and a small table, which I assumed was for dressings or doctors’ instruments. It had a single window, and the patient lay here alone, unattended and looking at nothing. It took me a moment to realize that the room was so large because it had once been the master bedroom.
That first day I entered, carrying a bowl of hot soup and a cup of tea on a tray, I found a man sitting on one of the beds, fully clothed but for shoes, leaning on the headboard with his legs stretched out, his hands folded politely in his lap. The curtains on the window were closed and his face was half lit, though I could see he was too thin for the patient’s uniform he wore.
I set the tray on the table and straightened. The quiet fell like a blanket. The man on the bed made no move.
Perhaps I should say something, I thought. No one had told me what ailed this man, so I had no idea what to expect. “I’ve come with your supper,” I said, my voice loud in the silence. He took a deep breath and shifted a little, and in the intimacy of that sound I realized this was the first time I’d been alone—completely alone—with a patient. We even had this section of the house to ourselves; the rest of the men, with the exception of mysterious Patient Sixteen, were downstairs. My throat closed a little.
What was I supposed to do? He didn’t look feverish, or bleeding. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t eat supper with the others? My back hurt; my hands stung from the disinfectant we’d used to wash the main-floor lavatory. My arms were shaking with exhaustion, but I readied myself anyway, wondering whether I could defend myself. He looked well enough to come off the bed and at me.
He breathed again—it sounded like a sigh this time. He leaned forward and unfolded his hands.
“My name is Nurse Weekes,” I said in my nervousness. “I can help you. That is—do you understand?” I bit my lip. “Can you speak?”
He leaned farther forward. His hands now rested on his narrow thighs, on their backs, cupped loosely as if waiting to catch something. The daylight filtering through the window made everything as sharp as a pencil drawing, and I saw that his hands shook, both of them, shuddering against the fabric of his trousers, an uncontrolled tremor that moved with its own rhythmic purpose. He curled forward over them a little, as if they were injured, looking down at them. He had sandy brown hair, a gaunt face, a narrow, well-shaped nose, lips set in a determined line. Stubble lined his jaw and cheeks.
I blew out a breath. The shaking hands must be why he had trouble eating. My mind turned the problem over. “Perhaps we could—”
“I sss—” The sound came from him in a resentful growl, and I stood in silent surprise, watching him wrestle with himself. “I speak,” he said finally to his hands. “It’s just that I am tongue—that I am tongue-tied when I am around ladies.”
Well. No one had ever mistaken me for a lady, but I let it go. “You should eat something.”
“No, I’m quite well, thank you. Are you the new nurse? Nurse R— Are you Nurse Ravell’s replacement?”
It was a curious stutter he had, in which he sometimes backed up and ran over his words again as if in a motorcar. “Yes, I suppose I am. Was she the one with the freckles?”
“Yes. A curious girl. Very—very quiet.” He glanced up at me, something embarrassed in his expression. “Do you know if she’s all right?”
“I don’t know, I’m afraid. I think she quit suddenly. You really should eat.”
“No, thank you. You sound—you sound like a London girl.”
“Yes.”
“That’s nice.”
“Look, Mr. Childress—”
“Archie. Call me Archie.”
“Archie, then. You really—”
“How long have you worked here?”
Now I realized he was parrying me. “You should eat your supper.”
“No, I’m—I’m quite well, thank you.”
“But I just think you—”
“Do I look like I can eat my supper?”
His face flushed red. He was still but for his shaking hands, glaring at me.
I took a breath. I would not back up. I would not run. “You look like a man who can try.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you?” Anger made his stutter disappear. “I have tried. My hands have been shaking for sixteen months. It takes an hour to cut and eat a simple piece of meat. I have to be—I have to be fed like a child.”
Suddenly I was near tears, wanting to scream. “Very well.” I turned for the door. “It’s nothing to me. Good night.”
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“What are you—?”
“I’m leaving,” I said, the words pouring out of me. “For God’s sake. I’m tired, my feet are throbbing, my own supper is waiting, I’m bloody starving, and I have hours of work to do before bed. I’ve no time to coddle you while you feel sorry for yourself.”
“Wait.”
I paused, blinking hard, my face turned away from him.
“I’ll t—” His stutter was back, and I winced. “I’ll try. You’re—you’re right. And I—I am hungry.”
I heard the bed creak, and turned to see he had moved to the table and was sitting down before the bowl of soup. He took the spoon in one shaking hand, dipped it in the broth. I stood frozen by the door, watching in helpless fascination. The spoon lifted slowly, so slowly, from the bowl of soup. He levered the spoon up, with painful deliberation, the tremors shaking the liquid from side to side, jettisoning broth over the edges. By the time the spoon reached his mouth, only a tiny amount of liquid was cradled in the bottom; much of this was lost down his chin as he tried to empty the single swallow down his throat. The entire maneuver was executed in perfect silence.
Sixteen months like this, I thought. All I could say was, “Archie.”
He dabbed the napkin to his chin with a shaking hand and looked me in the eye, speaking with perfect clarity. “You’re not much of a nurse, are you?”
I shook my head. “No. Actually, I’m the worst nurse you’ve ever seen.”
Suddenly we were both laughing. And that’s how I made friends with my first patient at Portis House.
• • •
“You should be eating your meals downstairs,” I said to Archie the next night as we managed his soup. I’d dumped out his tea and transferred the soup into the cup. It wasn’t perfect, but it had a better success rate than the spoon.
“Do you think this”—he gestured to the setup, he and I at the little table, trying to get food into him—“would go over well with the others?”
It wouldn’t, of course. “I only meant that the infirmary is horrible, and you’ve nothing to do. You should at least be getting exercise with the other men.”
“I’m mas-master of the house here.” He gestured around the former master bedroom. “The finest—finest suite. And I have something to do now,” he said, taking a shaky sip of soup. “I can gossip about the others with you.”
“Is it so bad?” I said.
He shrugged. “Matron—Matron gives me extra time to eat my—meals in the dining room. I do—I do the best I can. The others like to have a go at me, especially Creeton, but I can—I can handle it.” He looked at me. “You’re wondering why I’m in the infirmary, aren’t you?”
“It crossed my mind.”
He scratched his forehead slowly, his hand juddering. “A few days ago I had a par—I had a par—” He took a breath. “I had a particularly difficult episode.”
That seemed to be all. I frowned at him. “What happened?”
Now he looked distressed. “I had a particularly difficult episode.”
“I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes. “Is it Monday?”
“Yes.”
“The doctors will—will be here in two days, then. Wednesday is when they come. Matron said I’m to—to stay here until the doctors say I can leave. It’s safer here.”
What did “safer” mean? I looked at his gaunt arms, his sunken cheeks. “You said you could handle it.”
“You don’t—you don’t like it here, do you?” he said.
I crossed my arms. “You’re parrying me. Again.”
He smiled a little.
“Well,” I said, “perhaps it’s best if you do come down. It’s extra work to bring your meals, you know. You and the mysterious Patient Sixteen.”
A spark of interest crossed Archie’s eyes. “He hasn’t come down, then?”
“No.”
“I see.”
I pictured a man disfigured, his face part gone, or maybe burned away. Ally had seen men like that in London, their noses blasted off or their eyes seared shut, and she’d been quiet when she spoke of them, dragging painfully on her cigarette, her eyes looking old. “I don’t even know what he looks like,” I ventured, hoping for a warning. “The other nurses take him his meals. I haven’t seen him.”
“You won’t,” said Archie, the words slipping out softly as if he spoke to himself. “They won’t let you see him.”
I looked at him, stunned. “What do you mean, they won’t let me?”
He dropped his gaze and stirred his soup, the neck of the spoon chattering gently against the lip of the cup. “Ask them,” he said. “You’ll see.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Patient Sixteen,” said Boney as we cleared plates from the empty dinner tables, “is a special case. A confidential case.” She raised her chin. “The fact is, you don’t yet have clearance.”
“What does that mean?” I protested. I’d thought I had a handle on the politics here, but I could see that I’d been wrong. The idea panicked me a little. “How can I need clearance to give a man his supper?”
The inevitable words came from Boney’s mouth: “Matron’s orders. Nurses come and go here. Not all of them are trustworthy. The clearance to deal with Patient Sixteen is not given until a nurse has proven herself to Matron.”
With what Matron knew about me, the likelihood of her giving me clearance was almost nil. Not that I cared about it, of course. “Listen,” I said. “The doctors come on Wednesday. Nina told me that the patients have to attend the group sessions. So it mustn’t be so secret then.”
“Patient Sixteen is an exception.” Boney stared disapprovingly at my confusion. “The doctors see him in private. His door is allowed to be closed, but not locked. He is not to mix with the other patients. He does not attend group sessions, meals, or exercise. Paulus Vries and two other orderlies have clearance, as well as Nurse Beachcombe and Nurse Shouldice, myself and Matron. And no one else.”
“Why?” I asked, though I already knew it was futile to try to get Boney to spill anything. “What’s wrong with him?”
“That’s not for you to know. And only nurses with clearance can assist the doctors at all. You’ve only been here three days, and you’ve proven yourself sloppy and insolent. If you think you’ll get clearance, you’re sadly mistaken.”
She said those words—“the doctors”—with such righteous awe it was obvious she had her precious clearance. I thumped a stack of plates on the cart. Of course I was sloppy—I had no idea how to nurse. And as for the insolence, well, this was my attempt to be nice. Boney had no idea what thoughts I clamped my jaw on daily.
“Just keep trying,” said Boney with a superior smirk as she pulled the cart into the hall. “It takes time. The last girl wasn’t here long enough to get clearance before she left. Improve your attitude and perhaps Matron will consider you. Now—please go see Paulus. He’s to give you some work to do.”
Paulus Vries wore the orderly’s uniform of shirt and trousers of white canvas, and sported a thick mat of pale, springy hair on his forearms past the short sleeves of his shirt. He wiped his large hands on a towel as he spoke to me, regarding me with indifferent eyes. “It’s the lav,” he said without preamble. “All that knocking in the pipes, and the toilet won’t stop gurgling. Do you have the same problem in the nurses’?”
I shook my head. The nurses had their own lavatory on the third floor, near the old nursery where we slept. The patients shared a lavatory on the second floor, on the east side of the house that contained their rooms. The infirmary was the only room with a separate bathroom.
“Well, it’s a problem,” Paulus told me. “The fellows have been complaining about the noise, and it isn’t just in their barmy minds, either. There are sounds, and a smell, too. Probably an animal in the walls chewing the pipes, or something’s died in there. It�
�s driving some of them more out of their minds than they already are.”
I frowned. We were standing in the downstairs hallway, just outside the kitchen, and orderlies brushed past us back and forth. “That’s all very interesting. Why is it to do with me?”
“Because two of my men did a bit of exploring in the drains with a length of rubber hose, and something in there was backed up nasty. Caused a bit of a mess.” He tucked the towel into the waistband of his trousers.
I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “I’m to clean it?” I asked. “Is that what you mean?”
He shrugged. “I’ll carry the mop and pail up for you if you like.”
“A nurse?” I said. “A nurse is supposed to mop the patients’ lav? That’s orderly work.”
“Not today, it isn’t. Matron’s orders.”
I watched him, feeling sick, as he pulled a heavy metal bucket and thick mop from the closet. She’s testing me, I thought as I followed him up the east staircase. Of course she is. She wants to see if I’ll quit, like the others.
The smell hit me before we even approached the lavatory door. It was a dank, horrible miasma, not a smell of bodily fluids, but of something rotting. It seemed to creep from the crack under the closed door like a living thing. My stomach turned.
Paulus seemed not to notice, or perhaps he’d smelled worse. As he approached the door, a voice came from the hall behind us. “Sister!”
Creeton stood in the open doorway to his room, watching us. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the doorframe, taking in the bucket and mop and starting to grin. I turned away.
“What a good little nurse you are,” Creeton called after me. “Cleaning up like this. We’re a bunch of brutes here, I’m afraid. It looks like someone left a nice present in the lav just for you.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Sweet scented and something to remember us by.” He laughed. “Has any man ever given you a present quite so nice?”
“Leave off,” said Paulus. “You’re supposed to be downstairs in the common room.”
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