Disturbing Ground

by Priscilla Masters

  Her judgement was clinical. The emotional lability was surely a sign of a failing intellect.

  “Perhaps the clergy …?”

  Smithson responded with fury. “I’m not a bloody Catholic. Welsh Methodist. That’s what I am. Have been all my life. I’m not about to recant like a tortured infidel.”

  It called for quick salve and a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t suggesting you were, Mr Smithson. But surely - even the Welsh Methodists can give you some absolution.” Quickly she read his rejection of the word and substituted. “Peace of mind.”

  “Peace of mind, doctor?” The old man’s face was screwed up in agony. “Peace of mind? Who the hell do you think can give me peace of mind? Have you any idea what’s playing around in my head? Sin and corruption. Children gone missing. Mothers going to look for them. And never finding them. Fathers grieving for their sons and daughters. Not knowing they’re underneath? Underneath, I tell you. Right under their feet. Brothers. Sisters. Old people. Young people. All come to haunt me they are. Ghosts. They’re still there, doctor. Underneath us. And I dug the grave.” His wild eyes dropped towards the floor.

  And Megan knew now why the matron had tried to warn her. Beneath a cloak of politeness and normality, uncontrollable anger was welling up inside him. He had lost control. His id was no longer restrained by his ego. It was making him insane. She edged nearer to the door.

  The old man advanced towards her. “Now I’ve frightened you, haven’t I? Want to get out now, don’t you? Want to escape. Get away from the mad man.”

  He was mocking her nervousness.

  “I tell you, doctor. Maybe I am mad. It’s possible. Even a sane person would finally crumble when locked inside their head are events so terrible I can’t close my eyes. I dare not sleep. She knew. She could understand. She told me all about it, confided in me, see. I listened to her. Why will no one listen to me?”

  Dignity abandoned, Megan walked out of the room as quickly as she could, her heart pounding.

  Insanity has this effect on us. As though it was an infectious disease, we want to limit contact. Remove normal values and we panic.

  And Wainwright’s words sat at the back of her mind like a bag of stones.

  “It is not unusual for people who have delusions to retain a good deal of perception and keep in touch with reality.”

  She could not remember an occasion when she had felt so intimidated by a patient. Even Bianca had not had this effect on her. She ran down the staircase and out of Triagwn then stepped outside into the clean, pure sunshine. She needed to calm herself.

  Once through the garden door she was in a dark funnel of trees: yew, pine and other evergreens which leaned together to form a passage with a subterranean feel. Beneath her feet was a carpet of silent needles. In the few spots where the trunks were not placed too close together she could glimpse daylight; dazzling bright triangles of blue that gave an illusion of unreality as though she were peering from a darkened auditorium onto a lit stage.

  Someone was coming towards her, whistling. A man. Tall. Bulky. Silhouetted in the deep shade. Striding purposefully in time to his tune. As he drew nearer she knew him. Smithson the younger. Arwel. Somewhere in his fifties, oft divorced. A member of the Llangeinor Hunt. Megan always had seen more of the bullying mine owner in the son than in the father.

  “Doctor Banesto.” He had aloud, carrying voice, louder and echoing, contained in the enclosed space. “Sandra told me I might just find you out here. You saw my father?”

  She took in his tweed jacket and plus fours. Straight out of a cartoon book. What Ho, Jeeves?

  “Hello, Mr Smithson.”

  As soon as he reached her he gave her a boisterous nudge. “Arwel, Megan. You know me well enough to call me that. How did you find my father?”

  “Very strange.”

  Piggy little eyes bored into hers. “His mind is going, Megan. What are you going to do about it?”

  “There isn’t a lot I can do.”

  “Sandra suggests you write him up for some more sedation.”

  “I could do that. Arwel. Your father is …”

  “Senile - not to put too fine a point on it. Don’t believe in all this politeness calling it Alzheimers. He’s in his nineties and he’s losing his marbles. A hooker short of a rugby team - as they say. Sandra can’t keep him here at Triagwn House because she hasn’t got the staff if he’s going to be so disruptive and frighten the other residents with all his stupid stories. He’s causing mayhem there. You heard about Mrs Price Morgan? Nearly had a nervous breakdown.” His chuckle contained no sympathy.

  “Yes - but.” They had reached the end of the tree tunnel and Megan could see Arwel Smithson’s face very clearly. Too clearly. She didn’t like what she saw. It was a dissolute face, podged up with alcohol, its muscles lax, the sort of face Caligula might have had. Cruel and unpitying. Arwel was as frightening as his father in a different way. He would have been a merciless master, the sort to tumble the maids then turn them out if they became pregnant.

  “I want my father to be properly taken care of,” Arwel said as though he didn’t expect to be argued with. “I want him fed with something that will keep him quiet and out of trouble. If you can’t do that he’ll have to be put in a mental hospital and I wouldn’t like that. You understand?”

  Her hackles rose. She was a doctor. Not a scullery maid. Paid by the Health Service. Not by him. And yet, more than fifty years after his family must have last paid a GP’s bill he still believed he could order her around like a servant.

  “I’ll do whatever I believe best for your father’s health and well being, Mr Smithson. My judgement will be made on clinical grounds.”

  “As you wish.” He tried to stare her out. And when that failed, Smithson turned on his heel and strode back along the yew tunnel.

  Megan drew out into the sunshine with a feeling of intense fury.

  Around the side of Triagwn House had once been a walled kitchen garden that must have provided fresh produce, flowers and vegetables for most of the year. But the vegetable plots had long since been turfed over, seats placed at the corners of the geometric paths, rose beds planted. There was little left of the original except a couple of gnarled trees which bore apples speckled with blight. A few of the residents were enjoying the warm weather and, knowing she was in danger of being called over for an impromptu consultation, Megan hurried through the garden and skirted the house until she was standing in front of the fountain. She sat down, on the stone rim, temporarily swamped by visions. Bianca being dragged from here, as a child, almost dead. The old man who was probably still staring out of the window, down at her, his decaying mind filled with ghosts and ghoulies. His son, determined he should be sedated until he cause “no trouble”. Her mind drifted on, lulled by the sound of water spouting from the stone child’s mouth. Megan focused on it and wondered whether Bianca had believed the stone child was drowning. She put her hand in the water and rippled the surface.

  Look at her garments

  Clinging like cerements

  Whilst the wave constantly

  Drips from her clothing.

  The poem was still haunting her.

  Maybe all drowned people resemble the woman of Hood’s poem in one way or another.

  And then for no good reason other than that she was still and allowing her mind to wander at will, as Megan sat against the fountain, her mind flicked to her own problem.

  She should never have married Guido. It had been the stupidest decision of her life, one of the few made entirely with her heart totally undirected by her head. She stared into the waters and was at last brutally honest with herself. He had been a mistake. That was all. Her life was not irretrievably ruined. She had simply - made - a - mistake. She looked down into the water, at the reflection of the red brick facade and the smooth bottom of the pool. People had dropped coins in, perhaps believing it would bring them luck. Or maybe she was wrong and it was simply generosity. A lead plaque beneath the c
herub proclaimed any profits from the fountain would be donated to the National Schizophrenic Association. Megan fished around in her own pocket, found a fifty-pence piece and dropped it in too. They needed money and she needed luck. Like the old man whose silhouette was framed in the upper floor window she needed to lay some ghosts.

  Maybe fifty-pence was all it had needed. As Megan walked away from the fountain she began to put her life into perspective. “Yes,” she said to herself. “I made a mistake. But I am still in control. I am still a good doctor.”

  And she felt a welcome peace.

  Chapter 9

  The weekend, sure enough, turned out dull and wet. Megan visited her parents who had retired to Southerndown in a glass-fronted bungalow, and on the Sunday she walked the downs with her father. He had always been a fit, active man, a lifelong supporter of the local rugby club, still involved in their training. They enjoyed their country walks together, taking their binoculars to spy on the local birdlife. The pattern of their wings, their shape when perched, colour, habitat and habit were enough for them to identify most common species. Her mother always stayed at home, protesting she had the Sunday dinner to cook. But Megan knew the minute she and her father had turned the corner and Cymro, their Welsh Border Collie, had stopped barking his enthusiasm, her mother would retire to the sofa with the latest in a string of novels, borrowed from the library.

  She returned to Llancloudy late on the Sunday night, invigorated by the sea air and her mother’s cooking, and rose early on the Monday morning, still feeling the benefit.

  But the first patient of her morning surgery was Carole Symmonds.

  Bianca’s daughter was hardly in through the door when she started to voice her reason for coming. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Doctor Banesto,” she began. “And I’m really not happy.”

  Megan ushered her in. Through the open door she took in the waiting patients’ curious stare.

  Briefly she touched her patient’s shoulder. “It’s a natural grief reaction, Carole.”

  Bianca’s daughter sat down heavily and faced Megan across the desk. Her face was tense and unhappy. More lined even than she had been at the funeral. Yet Bianca had been dead now for more than a month. Yet grief wasn’t the prime expression on Carole’s face but bewilderment. “No,” she said. “I can accept Mam’s death. At the back of my mind I’ve always had the feeling something would happen to her - that she might have an accident - get run over, fall - or something. She always seemed so vulnerable. But it isn’t that, Doctor Banesto. It’s everything else.”

  Megan waited.

  “It’s a few questions I’ve been going over and over in my mind. Since Mam died I haven’t stopped asking the same old questions. Where the hell was she all day Saturday? Why did no one see her? Not a single person. I’ve asked in the video shop. I’ve asked in the Co-op and I’ve been to the chippie. She didn’t go to any of those places all day Saturday. But Esther told me Mam left the house on Saturday morning and never came back again. All right.” She held a finger up. “Esther’s a bit twp. She might be mistaken. But not everybody else in Llancloudy Not the entire population. Nobody saw her, Doctor. Nobody. I’ve been askin’ around. It’s as though Mam became invisible. Doris Baker is certain that she gave Mam her tablets on the Saturday morning and never saw her again.

  “The second question I’ve been asking myself is this. Why did she go up the pool so late? Why didn’t anyone see her going up there? It’s quite a walk from Mam’s house to the Slaggy Pool but nobody saw her. Again it’s like she became invisible.”

  Megan opened her mouth to speak. And got no farther.

  “And couldn’t be seen again until they fished her out of that bloody pool on Monday morning.”

  “Talk to the police,” Megan urged.

  “Oh - the police.” Carole’s tone was scathing enough for Megan to withold any defense. “Couldn’t find out who’s joyridin’ the cars around here when the kids are drivin’ up and down the damned housin’ estates in full view of the people livin’ there. Can’t bring some of the little buggers to court for crimes everybody’s seen them do. How the hell are they going to tell me what happened to my mam when they can’t solve what’s under their noses?”

  “Talk to PC Williams.”

  Carole Symmonds turned a shrewd eye on Megan. “Sweet on him once, weren’t you. When you were both at school.” She gave a knowing wink. “Still - I suppose it was a long time ago. And he’s married now. Though you are not. Not any more, anyway.”

  Megan winced and Carole continued regardless. “Water under the bridge, as they say. Tell you what. Alun Williams will probably talk to you. And my Mam was your patient. Why don’t you have a word with him?”

  “I can’t. There’s nothing to go on.”

  “I’ve got an idea.” Carole glanced back over her shoulder, as though worried someone might be listening in. “You know them kids?”

  “Which kids?”

  “The ones that went for my mam last year. The ones that hang around with Joel Parker.”

  Megan was aware that she could say nothing. Nothing. Because anything she might say could be repeated, possibly misquoted, definitely attributed - to her. She could hear the words that would be said. “And the doctor said she thought bloody Joel Parker and his mates pushed my poor mother into the pool. They murdered her. That’s what she said.”

  “Look - Carole,” Megan said uncomfortably. “You should talk to PC Williams yourself. I can’t intervene. It wouldn’t be professional. It’s possible Esther’s mistaken and your mum did come home that night then went out sometime on Sunday. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well and just went to sleep. Then woke up, a bit disorientated some time on Sunday evening and wandered outside, ended up at the Slaggy Pool …”

  “I don’t think Esther’s mistaken. And anyway, I’m not relying so much on what she said as what all the people have told me who’ve got the shops where Mam used to hang out. The coroner told me the pathologist put the time of death as sometime Sunday night. She would have to have stayed out the way all day Saturday and all day Sunday. She didn’t drown on Saturday. They found her soon enough on Monday morning, didn’t they. Because her clothes were visible on the surface. I’ve talked to Mervyn Jones and he told me. He was one of the ones that first saw her in the water. The clothes weren’t there any time Sunday.” Her face suddenly sagged further. “Look, Doctor Banesto. I’m not saying she was pushed. I’m only saying I want a proper investigation. Better than what they’ve done.”

  “Talk to the police,” Megan urged again.

  Carole nodded, all her chins wobbling in unanimous agreement. “I will. I can tell you. I certainly will.”

  Megan finished surgery, took a list of visits from the receptionists and left, meaning to continue with her morning’s work. But once inside her car she sat, immobile, finding herself thrown back to last month’s events.

  Bianca’s death still felt like unfinished business.

  With the result that she didn’t even get as far as turning the engine over but as though in a dream, controlled by some force other than her own will she climbed out of her car, locked the door behind her and crossed the road to the Slaggy Pool. The water reflected the weather, the reflected grey further dulled by the dark sludge of water stained with coal dust. Megan tried to peer to the bottom but it was impossible.

  A few folk were ignoring the damp to sit around on the wooden park benches but once there they lost their animation and sat, immobile, staring down into the dark waters. All were dressed in sombre colours. Black, brown, navy macs, their hoods drawn over their heads, like monks. No one took any notice of her. They reminded her of an old Simon & Garfunkel song about old friends sitting on park benches like bookends. One of the “book ends” looked vaguely familiar but it took a few moments before she remembered who he was - the angry visitor to the dying Caspian Driver. She nodded a hello and he moved his head in greeting before bowing it again. She did not greet any of the other figures and the
y did not acknowledge her while she stood for a moment at the edge of the pool and closed her eyes, this time wilfully conjuring up the words.

  As when with the daring Last look of despairing

  Fix’d on futurity.

  Emotions are unchanged with the centuries.

  Her eyes snapped open. She was deceived. The poem was the tragic, suicide of a young woman who could not cope with the shame of being pregnant. She must stop being misled by it. Look, Megan. Look. The edges of the pool were muddy. They were also slightly slippery. But not very. Stones had been placed round the perimeter to prevent the banks from caving in. Large, round, flat stones, like the ones harvested from Southerndown beach by Ground Force afficionados. Maybe Bianca had hit her head on one of these. She peered closer, stooping slightly. It would be easy to assume Bianca had stolen up here at dead of night in order to indulge her kleptomania - that irresistible temptation to steal that had led her through the courts on many occasions. Maybe she had wanted some special stone and had reasoned she must steal here after dark.

  That would be a logical explanation.

  But it was not the right one. Bianca had never hidden her thieving.

  The round, flat stones formed a perfect circle, grinning back like teeth.

  Her eyes were caught by a splash of colour in the drab scene. On the surface of the pool floated a wreath, blown towards the sides, like a child’s sailing dinghy. Dark red roses, the card soggily draped over the stems, like Dali’s watches, the flowers already starting to discolour - to darken and curl. Megan hardly needed to make any effort to decipher the message displayed. She knew what it would say.