A Psychiatrist, Screams

by Simon Parke

  ‘No,’ says Frances.

  ‘I don’t miss the cold,’ says Bella, ‘that cold hall!’

  ‘Nice marble floor, very classy,’ observes Kate.

  ‘But cold. Prison in January’s not all bad.’ Holloway was warm, no question.

  ‘And I don’t miss the ravens,’ adds Bella. Kate is surprised.

  ‘You didn’t like the ravens?’

  ‘What’s there to like about ravens?’

  ‘I always thought of you as one of them,’ says Frances. Bella blushes a little.

  ‘Scavenging on the lives of others, opportunistic killers of the small and vulnerable. I think you were very like the ravens of Henry House, Bella.’

  Immediate offence taken.

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘Oh, I take responsibility. But I’m not a raven.’

  ‘No,’ says Bella, ‘you were the cock of Henry House, if you know what I mean,’ - she was suddenly girly, nervous giggle - ‘ordering everyone’s time but not as bright, in the end, as the other animals imagined.’

  This time Frances blushes, heat in her face.

  ‘No offence,’ adds Bella.

  Frances feels the darkening, the black hole, she’d felt it since the first mention of Henry House and how powerful it was. The light prison space, the respect of guards and peers, the history course she’d started. Without knowing, she’d begun to imagine herself half-decent again, right and not wrong, good and not bad, until mention of that place, the deceit and ruin it stood for, her own tomb as much as that of Barnabus. And now self-pity as well, my God! How she missed the alcohol, missed the annihilation, the oblivion of the three-day bender. Social drinking? What was the point of that?

  ‘I do miss its history,’ says Kate.

  ‘The history of the place was awful,’ says Frances. ‘Unremittingly awful.’

  Kate explains herself:

  ‘The sense of being part of something other than myself, a bigger story.’

  ‘There was only unhappiness to share in, believe me.’

  ‘Someone must have been happy at Henry House down the years!’ Kate wanted to be cheered up.

  ‘Yes - Pat,’ says Frances, with a reluctant chuckle.

  ‘I don’t think she’s happy,’ says Bella, playing with the small milk carton.

  There was movement around them, another shift coming in for tea.

  ‘It’s good to know someone more bitter than me,’ says Frances. Bella shrugs.

  ‘I heard she’s almost running the place now,’ says Kate.

  ‘Hardly,’ replies Bella.

  ‘That’s what I heard.’

  ‘Well, she couldn’t be running it, she hasn’t the qualifications. What qualifications has she got?’

  There’s an awkward silence.

  ‘Perhaps the happy are qualified,’ says Kate, who’d exchange her second class English degree and Equity membership, for whatever it was to be content, to be happy.

  ‘The happy?’ says Frances. ‘What hope for anyone if that’s the qualification required?’

  And that was that, as it worked out, because there was now an officer by their table.

  ‘The lilies and gladioli will not plant themselves, ladies. And then what will we look at in the summer?’

  The Stormhaven Three rose from the table, left the tea room and each other. One day at a time, think only in days, and summer would come in its own time, like the lilies and gladioli, one summer and then another.

  And then another.

  Ninety Five

  The lights were still on in Henry House long after the speeches were finished. Abbot Peter had left in a taxi, whisked away into the mysterious night, something about a plane, but the evening went on, Dr Minty the tearful host, so happy again, happy at the talk, the laughter and the hope around him, such conversations, he could hardly keep track! And certainly not privy to every encounter in his home that night - like the one currently unfolding in the master bedroom, where a small man now stands in the doorway looking in.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.

  Patience had returned to the master bedroom. The last time she’d been here was the morning of 31 October, the dawn of Halloween.

  ‘Just remembering,’ she said dreamily.

  Truth be told, and she did tell it now, she’d come here for a little quiet. The evening had been joyful, perhaps she’d felt an adult for the first time, valued for the first time, but full of noise and now she wanted peace... and memories.

  ‘Remembering your days as a cleaner,’ said her father, more instruction than question.

  ‘No,’ says Patience. Ezekiel is uncomfortable.

  ‘I was a lover here, not a cleaner,’ she adds, looking at the four poster.

  Ezekiel’s hands become tense fists by his side. He would not call her a whore, he was learning that sometimes it was best not to speak; but then he struggled for another word.

  ‘It’s better that you know me, Father, rather than invent me - much better. Barnabus and I would have married.’

  ‘Over my dead body!’

  It just came out, parental authority, he knew no other way. But the man who’d frightened her once, did so no longer.

  She says: ‘Do you really imagine your body, dead or otherwise, could have stopped us?’

  And now she’s smiling, can’t help it, there’s pity in her eyes, looking at her father in the doorway, a suited bundle of terror, so frightened in the world, in the real world where his word wasn’t law. And she’s imagining the conversation as the organ blasts the wedding march and cameras click and flash:

  ‘Who’s that on the floor, half way down the aisle?’ asks Barnabus, in his smart grey wedding suit.

  ‘Oh, it’s my father,’ she says, in her creamy dress, veil tossed back.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He insisted we marry over his dead body.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the family tradition...’

  And then she’s sad, sad for the day that will never be, for the life that will never be.

  ‘Could you leave me now?’ she says to the small man in the doorway.

  Ninety Six

  ‘Well, just ask him,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘I can’t just ask him... can I?’

  ‘What’s the worst he can do?’

  What was the worst Channing could do? Michael knew:

  ‘He could laugh at me.’

  Sometimes the man, and sometimes the awkward teen, still cautious in the world, waking slowly to his strength.

  ‘It’s time for bravery, Michael.’

  And so he had just asked him, and how things unfold, neither planned nor considered, but he caught him on the stairs, Martin Channing, editor of the Sussex Silt - the ‘bad mag’ as his friends called it - on the stairs at Henry House, you remember these things when you get your first job, because that’s what he’d asked for, and here’s the thing: Martin Channing didn’t laugh at him at all.

  ‘Do you know what young people want?’ said Channing, pausing for a moment.

  ‘Of course I know.’

  ‘And can you write?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Fair enough. That probably would have been Shakespeare’s reply at your age.’

  ‘I’m better than what you’ve got.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Loads better, no question.’

  Rebecca, listening at close distance, is uneasy. Why rubbish his current writers, Michael? You’re going to blow it.

  ‘And the story is god,’ says Channing.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You must remember the story is god.’

  Channing surveys the boy with snake eyes, aware of the challenge laid
down. The story is god? Before him, Michael sees Satan in a pink shirt, demanding his soul. Does he give it? Rebecca’s thinking he should give it, definitely, for the moment at least, a temporary handing over of the soul, just to get started, just to get his first job.

  ‘No, the truth is god, Mr Channing.’

  The editor smiles, he likes the boy’s spirit.

  ‘As long as it’s a good story, Michael, as long as the truth dazzles.’

  ‘The truth always dazzles, Mr Channing.’

  The editor’s face is hard to read, though Rebecca’s having a go and thinking ‘Careful, Michael, you don’t know who you’re dealing with here - so why don’t you just bow a little? Sometimes bowing is helpful.’

  ‘Monday, 9.00 a.m.,’ says Channing. ‘You know where we are?’ Rebecca’s thrilled. Monday 9.00 a.m.? A job? Wonderful! Just say yes, she thinks, just say ‘Of course, Mr Channing’ and well done Michael, she’d buy the editor flowers.

  ‘I should do,’ says Michael, ‘I once threw a brick through your window.’

  Pause. Forget the flowers. Why did he say that?

  ‘So it was you?’

  ‘It was me.’

  ‘I remember its arrival,’ says Channing.

  As a car on ice, loss of control and Rebecca knows a frozen moment of terror. What chance of a job now? Channing speaks, sounding like the magistrate he’d never be, he says it was very fortunate no one was hurt, really very fortunate, a grossly irresponsible act.

  ‘I trust it won’t become a habit?’

  ‘You’d printed lies about a friend, bad lies.’

  ‘I can still hear Cheryl’s scream, Michael; but of course you never thought of Cheryl. It’s always the small people who are hurt by protest.’

  Channing’s phone is ringing.

  ‘Monday, 8.00 a.m. Don’t be late.’

  ‘You said 9.00 a.m.’

  ‘And you threw a brick through my window,’ he says by way of dismissal, the phone already to his ear, though mouthpiece covered.

  ‘And you’ll need to apologise to Cheryl on reception, she was hysterical, bring chocolates or something.’

  He carries on down the stairs, mouth now to phone. ‘Chivas! How are things? Rupert still clinging on you say? That’s fine, but we’ll need him gone by the end of the week...’

  ***

  ‘You mean you’re finally going to introduce us?’

  They stood in the gallery overlooking the hall. Virgil had suggested Suzanne come and meet his father - and she’d laughed.

  ‘Well, why not?’

  ‘I can’t imagine, Virgil - but then it isn’t me who’s kept the two of us apart for the last however many years.’

  ‘We weren’t talking.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘So how could you talk with him, if I wasn’t talking with him?’

  ‘Very easily - if your tantrum wasn’t such a global event.’

  ‘Look, I don’t see why you’re being so snotty about it. I only suggested you come and say hello, thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘So you are talking now?’

  ‘I had the old bugger round to supper.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I mean you can’t go back - but at least, well, you can talk.’

  ‘I think that’s brilliant, Virgil. Late in the day but brilliant.’ Suzanne gives him a kiss.

  ‘He apologised.’ Pause.

  ‘And Abbot Peter says that’s all any parent can do.’

  ‘Abbot Peter?’ says Suzanne.

  ‘He was the one in the habit.’

  ‘I got that far.’

  ‘He had to go, something about a plane. But he said all a parent can do is apologise.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And not some general “Oh yes, I was terrible, I was to blame for everything, wasn’t I?” nonsense.’

  ‘My mother exactly.’

  ‘But specific things, specific apologies - and then it’s up to the child to make their way from there. That’s what the Abbot said anyway.’

  ‘Abbot Peter.’

  ‘Good bloke - bit of a religious codger, obviously, but a true blue.’

  ‘And a famous family man, obviously,’ said Suzanne, laughing.

  ‘Well, he must have been a son to someone.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘And you do know that detective is his niece?’

  They looked down into the hall to see Tamsin talking with their daughter Emily. They sat in the recess where Bella had once ruled.

  ‘Well, thank God she isn’t his girlfriend. Older men shouldn’t, you know.’

  Virgil did know, but still couldn’t help himself.

  ‘I mean, she’s a bit of a Grade One stunner obviously.’

  Suzanne looks at him.

  ‘Like you, of course, like you! I mean, it’s not as if you stop looking at other women. You just don’t - .’

  ‘Virgil, I’m afraid I may die before you both make it.’ His father had arrived beside him.

  ‘We were just coming, Father, this is - .’

  ‘Very good to meet you, Dr Minty, I’m the missing Suzanne.’

  They grasp hands and in his watery eyes there’s a meeting place already, it sometimes happens.

  ‘It’s so good that you and Virgil are talking again,’ she says.

  ‘It is good, isn’t it? Very good. Isn’t it good, Virgil?’ He looks to his son, who looks awkward.

  ‘Don’t get embarrassing, Father.’

  ‘And we won’t allow him between us again,’ says Suzanne firmly.

  ‘So what do you do?’ he asks. ‘When you’re not spending a dull evening at Henry House.’

  ‘You mean income?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I trained as an Educational Psychologist... and I’m just getting back on the bike.’

  ‘Interesting. You don’t expect that sort of thing in Stormhaven.’

  ‘Amazing what you find under stones.’

  Dr Minty is wondering if she might help the new ventures here at Henry House.

  ‘I’m going to show Emily my old bedroom!’ says Virgil.

  ‘Don’t over-estimate her interest, dear.’

  ‘But it’s my bedroom!’

  ‘Precisely. I’m sure she’d prefer to see the priest hole, as indeed would I.’

  ‘Show you the priest hole?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Virgil is bemused.

  ‘But that’s my secret!’

  ‘You don’t need your secrets now, Virgil. You needed them once, but you don’t need them now. So will you show us?’

  Ninety Seven

  While in the master bedroom, later that night, Pat sat on the four-poster, listening to the voices on the stairs, to life in the building, good sounds, this was a Plague House no more, she’d make something of this place, she’d continue his work, Barnabus’s work. Abbot Peter spoke so well of him and she’d made contacts already... and then there he was, standing by the window, impossible, the clown she loved, standing there, looking at her. Heart-stopping.

  ‘Barnabus!’

  ‘Hello, my dearest.’ Feeling for words.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ She was up off the bed.

  ‘Just passing through,’ he said, ‘just saying goodbye, my love.’

  ‘Barnabus.’

  Was this a dream?

  ‘Goodbye, my precious.’

  ‘Barnabus, don’t - .’

  ‘And know this - you were my Shakh-e-Nabat!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The life not given... our life... but had it been...’ His voice fading.

  ‘Barnabus.’<
br />
  She reached towards him.

  ‘I am gone, my love, going.’

  ‘You can’t go!’

  ‘I’m drawn away, drawn forward.’

  ‘Come back to me!’

  ‘So brief, but do this... I’m waning, like the moon, remember?... but do this, my sweet lover, laugh one more time.’

  ‘I can’t laugh, Barnabus.’

  ‘Laugh for me one more time, for we laughed, didn’t we?’

  Such warmth, and they had laughed. But she was crying, though maybe laughing, so sad but happy as well, no sad, sad and sobbing as her hand passed through his fading face, and then desolate and then dancing, dancing as she’d once danced for Barnabus, dancing with the disappeared, dancing into the pain with her tears, with the future, dancing in Henry House.

  Epilogue

  Peter’s flight from London Gatwick to Istanbul took four hours, and then a six hour wait in the hades of the departure lounge, before boarding the plane to Shiraz.

  Avoiding the horrors of in-flight entertainment, Peter returned to his final conversation with Tamsin, as they’d stood together waiting for the taxi outside Henry House, flying towards Shiraz, but for now, gazing on the building with Tamsin, aware of its power once again, silhouetted against the darkening sky line.

  ‘So Henry House finds a new identity,’ he’d said.

  ‘You mean the children’s thing?

  ‘The “children’s thing”, yes.’

  The ravens were crowded and chatty on the chimneys, mimicking the noise within.

  ‘Why don’t they just shape up like the rest of us had to?’ said Tamsin, now looking down the road for the taxi.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, people are always doing this and that for children, like it’s something great.’

  ‘It is great.’

  ‘Gets on my nerves. Am I allowed to say that?’

  ‘As long as it’s true.’

  Tamsin cut a desperate figure.

  ‘Is it your own childhood that gets on your nerves?’ asked Peter.

  ‘I didn’t have a childhood, so how would I know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I survived.’

  ‘It’s the time of our lives when we’re most shaped, though.’