Silence for the Dead

by Simone St. James

  “There’s no need,” I managed, my voice stiff and strangled.

  His hand touched my bare forearm, and I jumped. “It’s just—”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  He didn’t let go; I didn’t think he’d even heard me. His fingers were long and agile, the nails cut short, the hand an almost perfect study in the dim light, curling to touch the sensitive skin on the inside of my arm. It wasn’t a tight grip, but I thought of the last time a man had touched my bare skin and I felt like screaming. The fact that my blood raced under Jack Yates’s fingers made it worse.

  “You’re right,” he said, the drag still on his words, just a slight lag that a casual observer might not notice. He was fighting it hard. “I did write the speech. I thought they’d censor me, cut me off somehow, but they didn’t. I think they knew what I would say. I believed it.” He took a breath, began to quote the speech itself. “‘I’m just a regular soldier . . .’”

  “Let me go,” I said.

  “‘. . . but despite this war, in this new world, I am more. I can be more. You can be more. Anyone can be more . . .’”

  I turned. I thought I was fast, but—drugged or not—he was damnably faster. He caught my wrist before I had the ghost of a chance to slap his face.

  “What is your name?” he said, his dark eyes looking into mine. His pupils were dilated, but somewhere in there I saw a spark that made me want to look away.

  “Kitty Weekes,” I said, holding his gaze.

  “Kitty Weekes,” he said slowly. “I think you’re in some sort of trouble.”

  “Nurse Weekes.”

  I whirled. Matron stood in the open door behind me, the massive bulk of Paulus Vries at her shoulder. Wedged in on her other side was Boney, her eyes nearly bulging out of her narrow face.

  We made quite a tableau, Patient Sixteen and I: I filthy and covered in mold, my hair askew, my uniform damp, my wrist in the grip of a man wearing only a loose shirt and a pair of trousers. I wrenched my hand and he let me go.

  “Nurse Weekes,” said Matron again. “You do not have the proper clearance to be in this room.”

  “I—”

  “According to Nurse Shouldice, you claimed the proper clearance. An untruth.” Matron’s eyes blazed with real anger, and I wondered what had so dearly set her off. “Nurse Fellows tells me the procedure has been clearly explained to you, so there can have been no misunderstanding. Have you any explanation for your actions?”

  “Of course she does,” Jack Yates said from behind me. “I asked her here.”

  Boney was nearly choking with indignant energy; this was likely the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a month. But Matron narrowed her eyes, her anger cooling under a swift look of uncertainty. “Mr. Yates. The nurses at Portis House are required to follow the rules. You needn’t cover for this girl.”

  I made an outraged sound in my throat.

  “I wanted these dishes cleared,” he said smoothly, moving up beside me. I did not look at him. “When I opened the door, Nurse Weekes was passing. I asked her to come in and take them.” He gave a remarkable impression, under pressure, of a sober man. “I see no reason to discipline her. She was only doing as she was told.”

  It was patent nonsense; if he’d hailed me as I was passing, why had I told Nina I had clearance beforehand? I expected Matron to call him on it, to put him in his place and foist me out the door. Instead she said, “Mr. Yates, you are kind, but this is not necessary.”

  This seemed to annoy him. “I asked,” he said slowly, “her here.”

  Matron swallowed, as if actually swallowing his absurd fiction. “Very well. Thank you, Mr. Yates.” She turned to me, her gaze unfeeling. “I’ve told you I expect cleanliness at all times. Please go clean your slovenly appearance and resume your duties.”

  I felt my jaw clench. “Yes, Matron.”

  “Go.”

  I moved for the door, but Jack Yates spoke again. “I have another question.”

  “Yes, Mr. Yates.”

  “What did you mean by ‘clearance’?”

  There was a surprised beat of silence. “Yours is a sensitive case, Mr. Yates,” said Matron. “We have a number of nurses and other staff at Portis House, some of whom come and go, not all of whom we know as thoroughly as we would wish.”

  “So you give them clearance?” he said. “To come here?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s a requirement for your own protection. Surely you were aware of the situation?”

  “No.” I gripped the doorjamb as he said the word, staring down at my hand, my heart lurching at the bare confusion in his voice. “No, I wasn’t aware.”

  I could turn. I could look at him once more, reassure him somehow. But I raised my eyes to see Boney goggling at me, Matron’s narrow stare on me. I wondered whether Jack Yates was looking at me, too.

  “I have no time to deal with you tonight,” said Matron to me in a low voice. “There will be an incident report. We will speak tomorrow.”

  I nodded and brushed past her. I set my shoulders, mustered the best dignity I could in a filthy uniform, and left without looking back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  To my surprise, when I arrived at the old nursery, I found Martha Beachcombe standing at the washbasin, looking in the dim mirror and pinning her hair. She was already dressed in her skirts and blouse, and her apron was neatly laid on her bed.

  “You’re awake,” I said. “It’s early for night shift.”

  She sighed. “I just couldn’t sleep anymore. I’m restless tonight.” She gestured at the curtain between our beds, which she had tried closing. “It doesn’t help much,” she admitted. She turned to me, and her eyes lit with surprise. “My goodness! What happened to you?”

  I glanced down at myself. “I had to, ah, clean the men’s lav. Matron’s orders.”

  “The lav?” She stared at me agog. “In the east wing?”

  “Yes. I had to mop it.”

  “What was wrong with it?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  She bit her lip, and an uneasy look crossed her face. I felt sure for a second that she’d heard the strange noises in that bathroom, that she’d seen the black mold coming up from the drains, but the expression passed and the moment was gone before I could think how to seize it.

  Martha looked down at her apron on the bed. “It isn’t so bad,” she said. “Matron can be strict, I admit. But she’s really a good person. Deep down, she’s very good.”

  “If you say so.” Just thinking about the lav, of what I’d heard in there, made me feel exposed, undefended in some raw way, as if everyone could see my secrets on my face. I moved toward my bed while she wasn’t looking at me. “I don’t much care what kind of person she is. I just want to get cleaned up and out of these clothes.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.” I kept my voice steady. I’d learned the trick of getting in and out of my uniform alone. It was a bulky, complicated outfit, but I reluctantly admitted it had its usefulness; I wouldn’t have wanted to clean that mold in my thin skirt. I began undressing. “I’ve met your Patient Sixteen, by the way.”

  I didn’t need to be looking at her to know her jaw dropped. “You what? I didn’t think you had clearance!”

  “I don’t. I met him anyway.” I remembered Matron’s tone as she’d spoken to him, the way she’d backed down. “So we have the great Jack Yates here, then. What is his story?”

  “Oh, Kitty, I don’t know.”

  “You may as well tell me.” I jerked off my filthy blouse and dropped it. “I’m going to find out anyway.”

  “No, I mean I really don’t know. I have clearance, but I’m not privy to the doctors the way Boney is. He came here about six months ago. He was moved here in the middle of the night, and we were told not to bother him. He never leave
s his room.” She bit her lip. “The only thing I know is—well, it’s just hearsay.”

  “Tell me.”

  She didn’t take much convincing. “I overheard Boney say once—I didn’t mean to hear it, really I didn’t—that he came here after he tried suicide.”

  That made me stop. I straightened and stared at her. The room seemed to actually tilt for a long moment. “What did you say?”

  “It might not be true,” Martha insisted. “I don’t know, not really. I don’t even know how he—well, how he tried it. But he’s labeled as a suicide risk, Kitty. Even more so than the others. We have to search his room regularly, those of us with clearance. Matron is very fussy about how he’s treated. I think she worries about him. We’ve never yet had a successful suicide here.”

  She caught my gaze for a long moment, then looked away. So there had been unsuccessful suicides, then. I didn’t ask. I couldn’t. “But Matron doesn’t make him leave his room,” I said, “and follow the rules like the others.”

  Martha shook her head, biting her lip again.

  “Why not?”

  “Kitty, he’s Jack Yates! You’re more worldly than me, I suppose, but even I saw the newsreels.”

  “That’s no reason.” I undid my skirt and let it fall to the floor, then started on my underskirt. Jack Yates, trying to kill himself. That man who’d stood before me in his room, so vital and alive. My fingers were numb on the buttons and loops at my waist. “So no one knows who Patient Sixteen is? Not even the other patients?”

  “Oh, no. He doesn’t talk to the other patients. We aren’t allowed to mention him by name. I don’t think any of the patients know.”

  He uses that lav, I thought. Even Jack Yates has to use the lav at some point. But I’d get nowhere pushing the issue. I had finished undressing, and wore only my underwear and stockings. I pulled another uniform from the wardrobe where the spares were kept and dropped it on my bed next to the dirty one. Then I put my back to Martha and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “He was on some kind of drug,” I said. “I could tell by his pupils, and his speech was slurred.”

  “Kitty, you have so many questions! He can’t have been.” I could hear Martha’s apron slide over her sleeves. “I told you, we search his room. Twice a week at least.”

  I stared down at my knees for a moment. “Martha.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think he’s weak?”

  “Mr. Yates?” Her voice was surprised. “Whyever? Because he tried to kill himself?”

  I leaned down a little, slid my hand under the mattress. My fingers slid along the slats of the bed, seeking that one thing I’d hidden. “Everyone knows that men who try to kill themselves are weak. Aren’t they?”

  “Oh, no,” she replied in earnest. “Certainly not. He’s just had a terrible time like the rest of them, that’s all. The war made some of the men sick. The unlucky ones. It isn’t their fault. They got sick, that’s all. And so we nurse them.”

  Under the mattress, my fingers found the handle of the knife I’d swiped from the kitchen my first night here. It was long and its blade had gleamed silver in the lamplight of that first night as I’d tilted it to and fro. I’d looked at it closely, making sure I saw every detail. Looking at it had made it more real, so that when I hid it under the mattress within easy reach, I could still see it before my eyes as I lay down every night.

  I’d taken it because I’d been afraid, because I wanted to be armed. It was that raw, exposed feeling again, as overwhelming as a drug. I couldn’t get the sensation of Creeton’s hand off my skin, the way he’d looked at me, and I’d known I’d never sleep unless I had some way to protect myself.

  From my patients.

  I’d nearly screamed at Jack Yates. I’d nearly struck him. I’d come within inches.

  He’s had a terrible time.

  It isn’t their fault.

  I rubbed my hands across my eyes. Well, Martha was a better person than I was; most people were. Most people were kinder, more trusting, more forgiving than I.

  I had my reasons.

  I let go of the knife, but my eye caught on something square and dusty pushed up against the wall below the headboard. The corner of it was in plain view. I slid off the bed to my knees and reached for it.

  Something metal tinkled, a smaller item tucked between the object and the wall. I pulled it out and looked at both things. One was a book: Practical Nursing: An Everyday Textbook for Nurses. The other was a circular locket on a thin chain. I popped it open and saw a photograph of a pretty blond girl, perhaps fifteen, looking soulfully at the camera from under a halo of hair. I latched it shut again. It must have been left here by the last nurse. Perhaps Nurse Ravell with the freckles. Maybe she’d dropped the locket and the book and never thought to look under the bed before she quit.

  I had just opened the book and touched the edges of the pages when Nina came into the room behind me. “Kitty, Boney is asking for you. She says you’re taking too long up here. Oh—hullo, Martha. Up already?”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “What does she want me to do now?”

  “The common room. There’s no one to supervise.”

  I dropped the book and the locket and kicked them back under the bed, taking up my uniform and putting it on as fast as I could. When I looked up I found Nina looking at me, uncertainty washing the usual sullen expression from her face. “What is it?” I asked.

  “The trouble with Matron. Is it very bad?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “She said there will be an incident report.”

  “That’s bad. I’m sorry. She asked. I can’t lie to her. I need this job.”

  By lying my way into Jack Yates’s room, I could have gotten her sacked. The thought bothered me, something I was far from used to. “It’s my fault.”

  “What got into you? For God’s sake, just follow the rules or we’ll all be out the door. Though that bathroom was a nasty one—I’ll give you that. I’ve never seen Matron make a girl do that before. When I started, she had me rake leaves out of the back garden. I thought it horrible at the time.”

  “I suppose I should be honored.”

  “No. You cleaned it, though, right enough; I checked. What’s Matron got in for you?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  Martha chimed in, “I don’t think Matron does it on purpose.”

  “No.” Nina sighed. “Of course you don’t. Get your cap on, Kitty, and let’s go.”

  • • •

  The men took daily exercise after breakfast, as long as the weather was fine. As the next day was a textbook example of June in all its beauty, a painting of sunny skies and soft breezes, the men were duly shuffled out behind the house to the grounds. I was sent with them to supervise, in the company of Paulus and one other orderly.

  I was starting to understand the intricacies of the staffing at Portis House. Matron hadn’t exactly been truthful with me; in fact, she had outright lied. Even with only nineteen patients, Portis House was grievously understaffed. Everyone—nurses and orderlies alike—was stretched to the breaking point. One week per month on night shift, Matron had told me, but that would require four nurses on rotation; we had only three. Boney was permanently assigned to “special duties” and never had to work nights, part of the reason Nina despised her.

  My inexperience meant I hadn’t noticed as quickly as I might have, but I was starting to see. When the last nurse had quit, days had gone by with no nurse on night shift at all. There were only six orderlies, including Paulus, covering twenty-four-hour duty; they did all the heavy work and one of them always had to be on call in case a patient became unruly. They walked around as gray faced as we did. If Matron told me now, as she’d said that first day, that I’d get “two hours of leisure time in the early afternoon,” I would probably laugh in her face, for the idea was as likely
as taking a trip to Monte Carlo.

  And so now there were three of us—and I a woman—supervising eighteen grown madmen on the open, sun-drenched lawns of Portis House. There was no fence or wall around the grounds; only the manicured garden near the house was circled with a low garden wall and a waist-high gate that opened out to the grasses and hills beyond. Even a child could have unlatched this gate, or climbed over it, and so the men were essentially given free rein.

  “But aren’t they even looking for more staff?” I asked Paulus as we walked through the garden gate and onto the open grounds. Since we had only one gardener, the grasses here were indifferently manicured and they brushed midway up my skirts.

  Paulus shaded his eyes and looked about. The men had scattered, some of them walking the hills, others staying close to the house. I had wheeled West in his chair to the terrace and left him there at his own request, unable to spend all of my attention on one man even if he was helpless without me. “They won’t get more staff,” he said. “Not now.”

  “Why not?” The men were given no games to play, so they simply wandered, or sat on the ground in the sun. They looked strange, dotting the landscape in their matching uniforms reading PORTIS HOUSE HOSPITAL, against the greenery and the bright blue of the sky. I realized with a chill that no one wanted to give these men a tennis racquet or, worse, a croquet mallet.

  “Money, of course,” said Paulus in his usual brusque way. “They have to make a profit, don’t they? That’s what it’s all about.”

  “They could take more patients,” I said. “Open the west wing. It isn’t being used.”

  “Then they’d need even more staff, wouldn’t they? And in order to use the west wing, they’d have to fix it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  For the first time he glanced down at me, his big face mildly alarmed. “Has no one actually told you? Don’t go into the west wing. It’s dangerous in there. It’s falling down.”