by Iona Grey
The disco finished. Voices drifted up, shouting goodbyes. Car doors banged and engines started. And then, gradually, the quiet crept back in.
It was the familiar quiet of his childhood years, punctuated occasionally by the secretive call of an owl from the wood behind the house, but tonight Will listened to it with an unfamiliar feeling expanding in his chest.
Total contentment.
Jess lay curled around him, one leg thrown over his, her head on his arm and her hand resting on his chest. He couldn’t see her face, but the soft, slow sigh of her breathing told him that she was deeply asleep.
She’d slipped into sleep quickly, tears still shimmering on her eyelashes, as if the intensity of her orgasm had exhausted her as much as it had taken her by surprise. Will couldn’t stop himself from smiling like a fool as he went over it again. Not trusting himself to stay the distance he’d crushed down his own rampaging desire and focused on her first, stroking and kissing and licking until she was rigid and quivering. As she came she’d cried out with such rawness that for a second he thought he’d hurt her, but as he tried to move his hand away she’d seized it and pulled it back, then levered herself up and on top of him. He’d barely had time to tear the condom (ribbed, strawberry flavoured, and dating from the time when he’d thought such things the height of sexual sophistication) from its packet and roll it onto his throbbing erection before he was inside her. He’d only managed to last four earth-shattering thrusts.
Afterwards, when his heartbeat had almost returned to normal and she’d stopped trembling in his arms, she’d told him that she finally understood what all the fuss was about. ‘I never got it before. I never . . . believed it could be like that.’ Just thinking about it made him want to leap out of bed and do a naked victory dance, and stick two fingers up at Milla whose withering boredom in bed had been as much to blame as the pills for his inability to perform. It felt like the shadowy beast that had stalked him for five long years had finally been slain.
Her shoulder gleamed like pearl in the moonlight. He circled his finger around it, his stomach clenching with helpless love. He remembered the song she’d sung earlier – The Way You Look Tonight – and hummed it drowsily into the warm silk of her hair. She stirred, sighed, and sank back against him, her knee a little higher on his thigh. Too high for comfort, or relaxation. Bugger. He was never going to be able to sleep now.
The bags he’d brought up from the car were on the floor beside his desk, and from where he lay he could see the brown envelope sticking out of the top of hers. Very gently he disentangled himself and went over to get the certificates and took them back to bed. Propping himself right on the edge so he didn’t disturb her, he tilted the paper up to catch the moonlight and began to read.
‘Breakfast.’
Jess closed her eyes as he came in, to make it look like she’d still been asleep. Opening them a fraction she watched through her eyelashes as he set a tray down on the desk, acclimatizing herself gradually to how gorgeous he was so she didn’t blush like a teenager when she looked at him properly. While he’d been downstairs she’d been looking at the photographs that lined the walls, mostly showing a younger, skinnier Will in a variety of settings – at parties, on white-sanded beaches, playing rugby – in all of them looking handsome and privileged and glamorous, and completely out of her league.
‘There’s coffee, and croissants. They’re not warm, I’m afraid, but I wanted to escape as quickly as possible. Downstairs they’re doing the whole silver cutlery and linen napkins in the dining room thing, but I thought I’d spare you that.’
She sat up, clutching the duvet awkwardly to her chest and wondering whether he was embarrassed of her. One of the photographs showed him wearing a black suit and bow tie, with his arm around an exquisite blonde girl in a strapless dress. Had he taken her down to have breakfast with his family?
‘If you want to go down I don’t mind,’ she muttered, trying to arrange the pillows against her back without letting go of the duvet. ‘I’ll stay here.’
‘I’d rather have breakfast in the tiger enclosure at London zoo,’ he said, opening a drawer and pulling out a t-shirt. ‘Here – do you want to put this on?’
It was pale pink, with crossed oars and the words ‘Leander Rowing Club’ on the front. He turned away tactfully as she slipped it over her head. After the closeness they’d shared just a few hours ago – because of it, perhaps – it felt stilted and awkward. Last night she’d been utterly helpless with need; not just physically naked but emotionally too. As his hands and mouth had worked their magic she remembered crying out, and knew that the cry had come from the depths of her soul. Never before had she felt anything like what he’d made her feel, and it had changed her. In its aftermath she felt shaky and fragile, like she’d been broken apart and remade. Like the world had split open and she’d caught a glimpse of heaven.
He sat on the bed and passed her a mug of coffee. She took it without meeting his eye.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re very welcome. I’m afraid I have a confession to make.’
She sipped, determined not to let her emotions show on her face. So this was it; the bit when he told her it had been great but he didn’t want a relationship. He was so nice, he was bound to add that they could still be friends, as if he hadn’t noticed that she was the only person he knew who’d been to a comprehensive school. As if there was a possibility of bumping into her in a posh wine bar sometime.
‘Last night I couldn’t sleep. I have no idea why – I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to having a fantastically beautiful and sexy girl in my bed or anything – and so I had a look at those certificates you brought. I know I should have waited and gone through them with you; I’m really sorry. Hey – I’m trying to apologize here. What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’ Jess pressed her lips together, swallowing back the laughter, but it rose inside her anyway. She could feel it warming her cheeks, glowing in her eyes. ‘There’s absolutely nothing funny about doing something so . . . terrible. Did you find anything interesting?’
‘Possibly. Stella’s daughter died in a hospital called Leyton Manor.’
‘That’s not unusual is it? I mean, lots of people must die in hospitals – that’s where you’d be if you were seriously ill.’
‘Ah, but this isn’t that kind of hospital.’ He got up and went over to the desk, switching on the computer. ‘I looked it up. It’s on the outskirts of London, about fifty miles from here. It changed its name to Leyton Manor sometime in the 1930s, but it was built in the Victorian age and originally called The Imbeciles Asylum.’
‘So it was like a psychiatric hospital or something?’
‘Not quite. Listen to this . . .’ He clicked on the screen and brought up a page of text. As he began to read, the expression on his face changed. The laughter of a moment ago evaporated and he looked troubled. Pained, almost. ‘“The hospital was designed to accommodate one thousand, two hundred and fifty inmates in ten blocks, with separate laundries and workshops, a model farm and a kitchen garden. During the First World War its patients included those who had been removed from the front line suffering from ‘battle fatigue’ or shell shock. In the Second World War parts of the hospital were given over to civilian air-raid casualties and the treatment of venereal disease, though the majority of its patients were still those termed ‘mentally defective’ or ‘ineducable’. Many of these were children, given into the care of the hospital by families who were unable or unwilling to support them at a time when both mental illness and learning disability carried huge stigma.”’
‘I don’t understand.’ Jess put her cup down, trying to assimilate this new information into her picture of Stella. ‘It sounds . . . horrible.’
‘Oh yes, you can bet it would have been.’ There was an edge to Will’s voice that she hadn’t heard before. ‘This article doesn’t go into detail, but it goes on to say that “. . . conditions in the hospital were exposed by a campaign group made up o
f patients’ families in the 1970s and ’80s, and this led to gradual improvements being made. In 1990 it was finally closed, and the old, barrack-like Victorian blocks demolished to make way for small, modern units providing ‘family’ houses”. That would have been too late for Daisy Thorne, though,’ he finished bitterly.
‘But why . . . ?’ Jess shook her head in confusion. ‘Stella gave up . . . everything for Daisy. It makes no sense – why would she abandon her in a place like that?’
Will sighed heavily and slumped into the chair in front of the desk. His lips were oddly pale, his eyes black and unreadable. ‘It says it right there. It was a time when mental illness and learning disability carried huge stigma – even more so than they do now.’ He gave a scornful laugh. ‘Which believe me, is saying something.’
Her heart gave an almighty jolt, like it was trying to break out of her chest, as she began to understand. ‘Will . . . ?’
‘Sorry.’ He dropped his head into his hands for a second, then raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I should’ve told you, but it’s not the kind of thing you can easily slip into conversation. Not unless you actually want to make someone run away from you screaming, in which case announcing that you’re a former inmate of Readesmere Hospital for Complete Nut-Jobs is a rather neat way of doing it. Six months I was there, much to the horror and embarrassment of my parents. There is just no socially acceptable way of saying in the annual festive round-robin that your son has entirely lost the plot and is in a secure unit, medicated into oblivion and—’
He didn’t get any further. She got out of bed and went to him, taking his face between her hands and stopping the flow of words with her mouth. Her heart felt swollen with compassion, too big for her chest. She kissed him gently, emphatically, lovingly, again and again, until she felt the tension leave his body and his arms go around her.
‘I wouldn’t have run away. I won’t,’ she said fiercely. Her forehead was pressed against his and she looked into the dark, troubled pools of his eyes. ‘Come back to bed and tell me. Tell me everything.’
Neither of them spoke much as they drove home.
Earlier, the words had come spilling out of him as he’d told her how the shiny mirror of his life had cracked, then shattered into tiny, lethal fragments. About the laborious process of putting the pieces back together again. She had listened, holding him and stroking his hair until the well of words had run dry again. And then she’d shown him, with shivering tenderness, that what he’d just told her made no difference to how she felt about him, and that he was no longer alone.
When they finally surfaced and went to say goodbye to his parents he’d been able to do it without the symphony of negative emotions that was the usual signature tune to the end of his visits. But, as the Spitfire swallowed up the miles and London got closer he found himself trying to think of ways to make the journey last. There was so much he wanted to say to her, like ‘thank you for turning my potential worst nightmare into the best twenty-four hours of my life’, and ‘when can I see you again?’, but he couldn’t think of how to say any of them without sounding needy. Actually, he couldn’t really think of anything at all, because her hand was warm on his thigh.
‘I still don’t get it.’ Her face was turned away from him, her voice drowsy as she looked out at the featureless grass bank of the motorway. ‘Dan said Stella stayed with Charles because of the baby. She wouldn’t leave her, and yet, that’s exactly what she ended up doing. I can imagine that there was a stigma, but when you love someone that means nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t make sense.’
She turned towards him then, and their eyes met briefly before he had to tear his away and look back at the road. A motorway sign loomed suddenly in front of them, like – well, a sign. He flicked his indicator.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Leyton Manor. I think we should have a look at the place where Daisy Thorne lived and died, don’t you?’
The hospital was on the outskirts of the town, signposted from the main road. All that remained of the original building was an imposing Victorian block, three storeys tall, with a bell tower in the centre which looked somehow sinister, even on a bright spring day with the daffodils in bloom and cherry trees like sticks of candyfloss in the landscaped gardens around it.
Will left the Spitfire in a little car park beneath a huge oak tree that must have stood there since a time when there was nothing but fields around it. They walked around the Victorian building, which had been renamed The Manor and converted into offices for a healthcare trust. Behind it were several single-storey buildings, which Will guessed was the new accommodation for former residents mentioned on the website. They looked neat and homely enough, if not exactly beautiful. Bird tables stood in their front gardens, and brightly coloured windmills spiralled in the brisk breeze. It wasn’t yet warm enough for people to be outside on a Sunday afternoon, but you could see that they would be, when the summer came.
At the front of the old hospital building a more formal garden had been laid out in a large rectangle. It was slightly sunken, and edged with thick, square hedges that provided shelter from the wind. Gravel paths ran between flowerbeds in which tulips swayed and staggered.
They came to a bench, beneath an arbour that in a few months would be smothered with roses, and sat down. The old hospital was straight ahead of them, a black shape against the clean spring sky.
‘It still looks bleak,’ Jess said, with a shudder. She was wearing a shirt of his, a checked one from his wardrobe at home, and she looked so clean and wholesome and beautiful that he felt his heart expand in his chest. ‘Can buildings absorb feelings, do you think? Like the house on Greenfields Lane. Even though it’s damp and neglected and full of Nancy’s stuff, it still feels happy somehow. And safe—’ She stopped as something behind him caught her attention. ‘Hello there. Are we sitting in your seat by any chance?’
Will turned to follow her gaze. A stout little figure had appeared from behind the hedge and was standing a small distance from them on the path, staring at them with bright, curious eyes. Her short grey hair put her at about fifty, he guessed, though there was something distinctly childlike about her open expression and the way she was shyly shifting from foot to foot.
She shook her head abruptly, darting out her tongue and running it over her lips. ‘Not my seat. Daisy’s.’
The words were spoken quickly and indistinctly, so that for a moment Will wasn’t sure he’d heard properly. But he felt the little tremor that passed through Jess’s body. She sat up, leaning forward.
‘Who’s Daisy? Is she your friend?’
Encouraged by the warmth in Jess’s voice the woman came closer, though she was still too shy to look directly at them. ‘She was my friend, a long time ago. She died.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear that.’
Staring down at the path, the woman nodded solemnly. ‘Mrs Daniels put the seat there, so we wouldn’t forget her. It’s got her name on it.’
Will and Jess turned to look. Neither of them had noticed the little plaque on the back of the bench that said: In memory of Daisy Thorne, who loved flowers.
‘Mrs Daniels?’ Will asked.
‘Yes. She was Daisy’s mum, but she’s my friend now. She comes to see me on Monday afternoons. In the winter we go out to a café and have cake, but in the summer we sit here and have ice cream.’
Realization exploded inside Will’s head, dazzling him. Daniels. Of course. It was perfectly legal to call yourself what you liked without any kind of official paperwork being done. No wonder Stella Thorne hadn’t shown up in any of the usual places. It was all he could do not to let out a shout of triumph and astonishment, and to hold back the flood of questions, but beside him Jess’s voice was perfectly calm, her manner completely relaxed as she moved along to make room on the bench. ‘Which do you like best?’
‘Ice cream.’
‘Me too – especially if it has a flake in it. I’m Jess, by the way, and this is Will. What’s
your name?’
‘Georgina.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you, Georgina. Do you want to sit down?’
The woman came forward, an expression of hesitant pleasure on her face. She sat in the space Jess had made between them, and smoothed her skirt over her knees, studying the buttons down its front intently.
‘I don’t suppose,’ Jess asked gently, ‘you’d happen to know if Mrs Daniels’s first name is Stella?’
Georgina looked up, bright-eyed. ‘Yes, Stella. Do you know her?’
Over her head Jess’s eyes met Will’s, and she smiled.
‘Not exactly. But I have a friend in America who knew her very well once, and he’s been trying to find her for a long, long time.’ She turned her sun-filled smile to the woman sitting between them. ‘I’m so glad that we met you, Georgina. Will you help us?’
39
As Jess rushed to get ready for work on Monday morning Jazz knocked on her door and handed her a letter.
‘Postman’s just been. Looks official. Maybe you’re being called to give evidence in the trial or somefink . . .’
When she’d got back late yesterday afternoon Jess had returned the red shoes and ended up drinking coffee in Jazz’s room until after dark. They’d sketched in for each other the outlines of their lives, the events that had brought them to the hostel. She’d told her about Dodge, and about the story she’d read in the newspaper. She looked down at the envelope. Furnivall Ramsay Pemberton Solicitors was stamped on the front, in red ink. With trembling hands she tore it open and scanned the contents of the letter quickly, while Jazz looked on.
‘Well?’
‘It’s not about Dodge. It’s about a house.’
The words pulsed meaninglessly before her eyes, and she started again from the beginning to try to make sense of them. There was a line at the top of the letter that was printed in bold. Transfer of ownership of 4 Greenfields Lane, Church End it said.
‘Whose house?’ Jazz demanded impatiently.