The Dissent of Annie Lang

by Ros Franey

I stood up. ‘Maisie!’ I was round the table and wanted to give her a hug, but we don’t do that, so I grabbed her hands. ‘Oh Maisie, it’ll save her life. Thank you! Thank you so much!’ I burst into tears again.

  Maisie gave my hands a quick squeeze. ‘All right, well don’t get overexcited about it. I’ll speak to Mrs Lang this morning. See what she says. She may not agree to the weekends, mind, but we’ll give it a try.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘Now run along and get dressed, it’s almost breakfast time and you’re making me late. And Annie—’ I was halfway out of the room. I turned and looked at her. ‘Not a word about what happened this morning. D’you understand?’

  ‘Of course,’ I promised her. ‘Beatrice doesn’t know about me and Nana coming indoors, anyway, so I couldn’t even tell her.’

  ‘Good. Mum’s the word,’ said Maisie.

  Maisie wasn’t able to let me know what Mother and Daddy said that day, but when I got home from school in the evening, Nana, her lead and her old tartan rug had gone. I had no way of knowing whether I’d see her at the weekend – or indeed would ever see her again – but when on Saturday morning I looked anxiously out into the yard, there she was, sitting where she always sat. And that’s how it went on. Nana went to live with Maisie and Mr Brown, and we had her at weekends – which was heaps better than if she’d gone to live with the Blessings. But just like the appearance of Nana’s kennel in the first place, and like everything else in our family, the matter was simply never discussed.

  After a few days I did tell Beatrice it had been Maisie’s idea, though, and Bea said, ‘You spoke to Maisie about it? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  I fidgeted and looked down at my fingers.

  ‘Well it was a really sensible thing to do,’ said Beatrice warmly. ‘Well done, Annie. I should have thought of that. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit distracted with the baptism classes. We should have asked her earlier, instead of going through all that West Bridgford palaver.’ I felt bad I couldn’t tell her what had really happened, but all the same it was like the sun coming out to be praised by Beatrice.

  Throughout these days there was no word of Miss Blessing; whether she had been found safe or not, I had no idea – and of course I could no longer ask. The Evening Post named one of the girls, whose family gave an interview to their reporter, but the others remained anonymous. Then the following Sunday came a genuine clue – and not so much a clue as a boulder dropping from the heavens into our congregation.

  If you haven’t realised it so far, I should explain that at the Golgotha Mission we do not indulge in pageantry; in fact any demonstrative behaviour would be completely out of place. We have no symbols, no rituals, no processions, no fanfares of any kind at all. We have hymns and the harmonium, of course; we have prayers and sermons, but any kind of drama would be considered unholy, even sinful. The baptism by total immersion, when discreetly before the service the wardens take up the grating and reveal the short staircase going down into the mysterious bath which they fill with kettles from the vestry sink, is as dramatic as life ever gets at the Mission.

  So it was entirely within keeping when, at the time of notices, which generally comes before the final hymn, Pastor Eames straightened his back, gazed out at his flock, and announced that there would be a bring-and-buy-sale in aid of our fellow Mission and the school at Tai Yuan-Fu in Shansi Province, China, on the last Saturday in February, to which we were all invited to contribute. And he reminded us that since this school was presided over by our sister, by which he meant his niece, our Auntie Frances Eames, we had a particular duty to support it – the ladies, especially, to bake cakes. And that the collection from our services the previous month had raised a total of six pounds, fifteen shillings and eightpence which, in his view, fell short of the sum he would like to have been able to present to the God’s Purpose Overseas Mission for the provision of Bibles to our friends in Ethiopia. In recognition of this, he had invited Mr Gloom of the G-Pom to deliver a lecture on Friday fortnight (his actual name was Mr Bright, but Fred and I knew better: we had heard him lecture before). The subject of this one was to be Coptic Christians and the Conversion Question and we were all urged to attend. Grandfather Eames paused and peered at us severely over his steel-rimmed spectacles as if to say this was not so much an invitation as a summons, to make up for the poor level of collections the previous month. Then he put aside his notes and said:

  ‘The soul, the divine part of man, needs refreshment, just as the body does, and Jesus is the only One Who can supply that. While I know from experience that we can draw continuously on Him, I find my greatest uplift in life is when I go to the House of Prayer. But that House must remain Pure if it is to benefit the body and soul of its congregation, and it is therefore meet and necessary to remove the tares that may from time to time take root in its fertile earth …’ I was thinking about the way he said Pure – he pronounced it, ‘pyaw’ and I was repeating it over to myself experimentally when suddenly his words jolted me back to the present: ‘… Therefore it is with sorrow I must announce that our former sister Miss Mildred Blessing shall henceforth, and permanently, be excluded from this congregation, let us pray.’ He said it in the tone of voice you might use if you were running through a shopping list to yourself – half a pound of lard and some damson jam – yet as the words sank in I sensed a wave wash through the rows, an exchange of glances and raised eyebrows undercover of rheumatic knees being lowered on to hassocks and overcoats catching in upturned heels. I vividly remember I was sitting between Mother and Beatrice. I dropped to my knees, aghast, sending the chair in front scraping forwards and earning a fierce look from Daddy, two seats to my right.

  The sermon that day had come from St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, ‘When I was a child …’, those verses about children only half-understanding the grown-ups, and how we had to work out what God was up to ‘through a glass, darkly’. But at that moment – and I have thought about this a good deal since – I knew that whatever Miss Blessing’s transgression, however appalling and unpardonable even by the Good Shepherd (who is supposed to forgive all His lost sheep, isn’t He?), I didn’t believe a word of it. And I resolved that one day I would find out what it was, and put it right.

  Part Three

  1932

  NINETEEN

  Wednesday, August 3

  I’m following Staff Nurse Jennings down the corridor from my usual ward to the ward where Millie Blessing is a long-term patient. We stop halfway at a heavy barred gate. Nurse Jennings selects a key at her belt and we pass through. Before locking it behind her, she looks at me anxiously.

  ‘Do you have shoelaces, Miss Lang?’ She glances down at my feet. ‘A comb, perhaps, or a mirror?’

  ‘I left my bag in Sister’s room,’ I assure her, wondering what on earth could befall a comb on the long-term ward. ‘I have a hanky.’ I take it from my pocket to show her.

  ‘Anything else in your pockets?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No pencil, notebook?’

  I say nothing, but hold up my empty hands.

  She hesitates a moment longer. ‘I know it must seem odd,’ she says. ‘But when you’ve been working with them as long as I have, you learn never to be too careful.’

  We continue down the corridor towards a second barrier; this one is of solid metal. Instead of unlocking it, Nurse Jennings pulls a bell lever and sets off a jangling on the far side. A small flap opens and a man’s face appears.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Staff Nurse Jennings with one visitor.’

  There is a noise of a key in the lock; then a bolt slides back with a squeal and the door swings open.

  ‘Go in quickly,’ says the nurse. We enter and the person who unlocked the door now locks it again behind us. On the inside we’re in a kind of cage, and through its bars I can see a long ward, similar to Fred’s, except that its high windows are protected by thick iron mesh which blocks out much of the light. Beside every bed there is a small locker and an upright c
hair. One or two of the beds are occupied but most are neatly made. A long table runs between the two rows of beds. Some women are sitting at the table; others by their beds; a few move around the room. There is a strong smell of carbolic, but what hits me is the noise: it is a kind of undertow of groans and calls that bounce off the ceiling and tiled walls. Some of the women appear to be speaking into a void; others to be rocking within themselves. No one seems to have noticed us. The attendant comes forward and now unlocks the cage and we go through into the ward.

  Nurse Jennings starts across the vast room towards a door halfway along one side. ‘Come,’ she instructs me, over her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. They won’t bite. But it’s better if you don’t catch anyone’s eye.’

  I follow her. As I pass one of the beds, a woman snatches at my skirt. ‘Miss – miss —’

  I turn and smile, but I pull my skirt away and keep moving.

  ‘Hey, miss. You new here, miss?’

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Not now, Hodgkins,’ orders Nurse Jennings.

  The woman throws her head back and cackles. ‘Not now, Hodgkins! Not ever, Hodgkins!’

  ‘That’s enough now! You don’t want to go back in strips, do you?’

  ‘Don’t care was made to care. Eh, Nurse? ’Ere, duck, new girl, they’ll eat you for breakfast in ’ere!’

  ‘She’s not stopping,’ says Nurse Jennings. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Hodgkins.’

  ‘Not stopping,’ the woman mimics. ‘They never do stop in ’ere, do they, Nurse, if they’re decent and sane. And if they’re mad or bad like we are, they stop for ever an’ ever.’

  We’ve reached the door halfway up the ward. It gives on to a side room with a thin Turkey carpet, half-a-dozen stained-looking armchairs, a well-stocked bookshelf and, in one corner, a piano at which Mildred Blessing is sitting in her grey shift. She is practising scales. A second woman, seated on one of the armchairs by an empty fireplace, is weaving something on a card with a blunt wooden peg instead of a tapestry needle and singing along to the music. She stops, peg in mid-air, to stare at us. Miss Blessing stands and comes forward; her face registers no recognition and no greeting.

  ‘Well, Blessing,’ says Nurse Jennings, ‘We’ve found you a piano player. This is Miss Lang.’

  Mildred holds out her hand and I take it. The fingers are cold and dry. ‘How do you do, Miss Lang?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, Miss Blessing.’

  Nurse Jennings stands back. ‘Hmm. Well, I’ve to leave you now. Some of us have got work to do. You’ll be all right with Blessing, Miss Lang. She’ll make sure you’re not bothered. I’ll come back in half an hour or so.’ She turns on her heel and notices the woman in the armchair. ‘You all right with her?’ she asks Mildred.

  ‘Ivy is fine,’ says Mildred. ‘Leave her be.’

  ‘Aye. She’s no trouble, is she?’ Then with a sharp look, Nurse Jennings adds, ‘See to it – you know.’

  Mildred nods. ‘Don’t worry, Nurse. And thank you.’

  ‘I can lock you in, if you want to be left in peace?’

  ‘We’ll manage. It’s fine.’

  ‘Ta-ta, then.’ Nurse Jennings leaves the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  Miss Blessing smiles for the first time. ‘I’m so glad it’s you,’ she says. ‘I hoped it would be. I knew you’d volunteered. I thought there was a chance they’d let you in here, but they wouldn’t, of course, under normal circumstances. I should have guessed.’

  ‘Well, I’m here anyway,’ I say, though now I’ve got what I’ve been working for, I feel awkward and at sea.

  ‘Don’t look so shell-shocked,’ she says. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  I blurt out, ‘I just don’t understand what you’re doing here …!’

  ‘No.’ Her face seems to close down for a moment. ‘But I’m here. So. We’d better get on with it. Haven’t got long.’ She turns away to the piano and picks up a pile of music. ‘The choir are singing some C.V. Stanford and Hubert Parry in Part One. In the second half it’s extracts from the Mozart Requiem. The Parry is Songs of an Ending.’ She pulls a face. ‘Written in the Great War and all about death.’ I remember that her father died in the war. ‘The good news for you is that it’s unaccompanied. All you have to do is give them a split chord at the start of each one. The tricky accompaniment is the Mozart.’ She hands me the music, frowning. I realise she’s as nervous as I am.

  I look it through. ‘This’ll be all right, as long as I can take it away and learn it now.’

  ‘These copies are for you.’

  I tell her I’m hoping to do Grade Eight next year, if Mother will let me.

  ‘Then it won’t be too difficult,’ she says, clearly relieved, but she doesn’t take the opening to ask me anything about myself.

  We’re speaking rapidly in low voices. The other woman, Ivy, seems impervious; she is concentrating on her weaving, tongue clamped between her teeth. But I don’t want to be talking about the music. I want to know about her. Why did she vanish so suddenly? How long has she been here? Where is her family? And why is she shut away in this place?

  I look up at her. ‘Miss Blessing—’

  ‘Millie. Please.’

  ‘Millie, you know just after I last saw you—?’

  But she interrupts me. ‘How’s your brother?’ She asks. ‘I was so sad to see him in here.’

  I hold her gaze for a moment. She says, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I hope you understand.’

  So we talk about Fred’s breakdown. I tell her that in some ways I’m finding it easier to have conversations with him in Mapperley than I did before. ‘He’s having this treatment. Perhaps it’s something to do with that.’

  ‘He’s having the intravenous Cardiazol?’

  I nod. ‘Sometimes it gives him a stiff neck or a bad back.’

  ‘That’s the convulsions.’ She shudders. ‘I was with one patient who broke a rib; another lost a tooth. Sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this, should I? They don’t know how it works, or who it’s going to help. It’s just the latest thing, so they give it a try on most people. It really does seem to help some of them.’

  ‘Have you had it?’

  ‘No. My situation was different. But I’ve been with people who have. I doubt if that’s what is helping him talk to you.’ She is silent for a moment. Then she says, ‘He’s probably just getting better, Annie. I’m sure seeing you and having you there will be helping. Talking is the thing.’ She breaks off.

  ‘But you can’t?’

  She shakes her head. She can’t meet my gaze. ‘I haven’t seen anyone from outside for so long, I’ve forgotten how to speak of myself. And too much has happened. I’m a completely different person from the one I was before.’ Her eyes have filled with tears and she checks herself and turns away.

  ‘But you still play Sheep May Safely Graze.’

  ‘Music is the only thing …’

  And that is about all she can tell me. When Nurse Jennings returns, I take the sheaf of music and prepare to leave, disappointed for both of us, with the sense of an afternoon wasted.

  ‘Did you sort it all out then?’ asks Nurse Jennings.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Nurse,’ I tell her.

  Millie Blessing nods. She is looking distracted and for the first time I can see something like panic in her face. I hope it’s because our interview is over and she’s said none of the things she may have wanted to say. Suddenly emboldened by this possibility, I turn to the nurse again. ‘Nurse Jennings, I am going to go away and learn the music, but then I shall need to come and practise it with Miss Blessing,’ I tell her. ‘And I’ll need to rehearse with the choir; it’s the only way this will work.’

  I catch Millie’s brief expression of relief and know I’ve guessed right. ‘Shall I speak to Sister Jones about it?’ I ask. ‘Sister Jones sings in the choir, doesn’t she? I’m sure she’ll understand … And before we get to that stage, I’d like to go through the music again here with Miss Bles
sing once I’ve learnt it, please; it will save a lot of time in rehearsal.’

  Nurse Jennings looks from one of us to the other. ‘Very well, Miss Lang. I can’t play the piano for toffee-nuts, so if that’s the way it works, and Sister Jones is happy, it’s all right by me.’

  And that’s how we leave it. I’m to come back at the same time next week. Miss Blessing’s grip is a little stronger when she shakes my hand goodbye.

  Wednesday, August 10

  As soon as I enter the long-term women’s ward for my second visit today, it’s clear that something is wrong – or more wrong than usual: raised voices and high-pitched screams are coming from a little knot of patients further up the line of beds. Staff Nurse Jennings instantly breaks away from escorting me and shouts for assistance as she runs towards the scuffle. ‘Go in there, Miss Lang,’ she instructs, ‘and close the door!’

  Suddenly, there are running feet behind me as a posse of attendants and nurses come scurrying in her wake. Millie Blessing appears in the doorway and watches, expressionless, then pulls me through, closes the door and leans against it. She’s very pale, but all she says is, ‘Flo can be violent.’ She explains that this patient, Flo, is having a bad day, being obstreperous and shouting. Earlier, one of the less experienced nurses had threatened her with the strip-cells, and this sent her into a wild, flailing attack on the nurse. A few patients had tried to pull her away and a fight broke out. Things had quietened down for a while, but it all flared up again just as I arrived. Millie explains that the strip-cells are in a separate corridor segregated from the main ward by double doors so no sound can escape. Each cell is bare but for a light bulb behind a wire-mesh guard and a mattress on the floor. Sometimes women ask to be segregated because they’re feeling desperate and want a bit of peace, or because they think they might do something stupid; but if it’s a disruptive patient, as in this case, she is usually bound into a straitjacket, given a sleeping draught whether she wants one or not, and left there until her attack has passed. Millie explains prolonged attacks are called ‘psychosis’. Then she says, ‘That’s what I had – after the baby.’