Death of a She Devil

by Fay Weldon

  ‘Only very stupid people believe in ghosts,’ she had once remarked to Nurse Travers, but she didn’t think it had sunk in. Ruby was packing up and leaving as fast as she could to get home before the storm broke, and because the wind was beginning to rise and sounded really strange, as if some hysterical actress was weeping and wailing and trying to speak at the same time as she died; Dr Simmins had once treated a road accident victim in the street who’d done that.

  She was mindful that the High Tower was known to be prone to lightning strikes, and she was unusually fearful of lightning, as she was of any sudden unexpected blow from fate. More, she had perhaps given a rather strong dose of morphine to the revolting old man; anything to shut him up. It would be touch and go, and she didn’t want to be around if it turned out to be go. Let Nurse Travers see to it. She, Ruby Simmins, had done what the ethics of the matter, and indeed her salary, required her to do. She had kept the old man alive far longer than his allotted span would suggest, and that at the request of his relatives. But the point when medical science could do no more had surely been reached. She had to get back quickly to St Rumbold’s, where she lived and had her small practice. She was much disliked locally, but she was used to that and liked to be left alone whenever possible. She had no desire to ‘join in’ village life just for the sake of it.

  ‘He may last a week,’ said Dr Simmins to Nurse Travers as she left the room. ‘He may last a couple of days, but he’s failing fast. It would be wise to notify the family. You wouldn’t want to be alone when he croaks. His ghost might grab you!’ and she laughed as she went off down the steep stone stairs. There was a sudden roll of thunder and Dr Simmins, taken unaware, stumbled and had to grab the handrail in case she fell.

  27

  Valerie Goes To Her First Board Meeting

  Nothing can stop her now.

  The Board meeting was in 2HT/3, one floor below ground level, and was windowless but at least warm, well ventilated and draught free. It was a pleasant room to work in, which members of the Board put down to the fact that down here you couldn’t hear the sound of the wailing wind.

  Valerie was asked to present the brochure, and it was met with general enthusiasm. There were already long waiting lists for bookings in the Retreat thanks to Valerie’s earlier efforts, and her revisions were much appreciated. Lady Patchett, who was feeling rather sleepy, sipped from a Thermos of coffee brought along by Valerie, which did nothing, alas, to make her more alert. Indeed, she drowsed gently and occasionally snored throughout the meeting, and no one liked to wake her. The average age of the Board was seventy-two, and everyone realised the value of sleep. And the She Devil was, after all, CEO and Chairperson.

  But apparently Valerie had presented the brochure and it had been well received. Nobody noticed the Babbage/Lovelace timeline error, still in the text, and there was gentle applause when Valerie herself pointed it out, and even gave an entertaining little lecture on how in the digital age actuality could be seen as irrelevant. The end justified the means. Valerie put it to the Board that Tower on Top as a title had unfortunate sexual connotations in a gender-fluid age, which since the IGP logo was so obviously phallic, was an argument which now did indeed have some force. The title must change to Walk the Other Way, to tie in with the Women’s Widdershins Walk. The proposed change was not just approved but won her applause. Only Ms Octavia walked out, complaining about the tone of the proceedings, but she was a sweet, muddled old thing and was always walking out. Valerie, everyone agreed, should take no notice.

  All were looking forward to Widdershins Day on the 21st of December. Luxuriette Caterers had been engaged and a programme of events had been arranged. Ms Bradshap proposed a vote of thanks to Valerie for all her hard work. Young blood was certainly needed to move the IGP from its old fuddy-duddy ways into the new digital world. The vote was carried with no opposition, and a very positive meeting drew to a conclusion.

  28

  The Servant Of A Strange God

  Mary Fisher’s in full self-justifying flight.

  Wooo-h, wooo-h! and all that. But what a fuss about nothing! All I did wrong was to fall in love. I acknowledge my fault; I did harm in the name of love, I damaged Bobbo’s children and thereby his children’s children, and so on and on through the generations. Though darling Tyler doesn’t seem all that damaged to me. But it all seems so endless, and perhaps I deserve this fate. Momus has been very informative lately and I seem doomed to know what it is that Tyler thinks and feels, to see what he does, to hurt as he does. To my mind he does not suffer nearly enough for love. It’s so boring that young men think so much about sex, and so little about love.

  But what can I know? I am a restless spirit stranded between realities. Fit only to be exorcised with bell, book and candle, instructed to depart this world and enter the next. Only who would do the exorcism? I would exorcise myself, but I have so little faith in my senses nowadays. There is nothing any more to root me to reality. I just exist, only consciousness, no body; with memories that come and go, feelings that shift and drift, as suits remorseless Momus, I suppose, to serve whatever plot he’s work-ing out. Drat him. I can’t follow his rationale at all. It isn’t fair.

  Last night a light glimmered from the Lantern Room, and I thought ‘that’s Bobbo, dying, or partly dying’, and I sent a seagull crashing into the glass. It’s the only kind of thing I seem able to do – make little unimportant things worse. It’s very frustrating. The bird died but Bobbo didn’t. I’ve always disliked seagulls, nasty things. One snatched an ice cream from my hand when I was a child.

  But oh, I loved him so, loved him to the point of death and then beyond. What did I say his name was? Bobbo? Really? Are you sure? That horrid old prisoner in the Lantern Room? It can’t be. But love is so much stronger than the person it attaches to: it’s Tyler I love. Tyler Finch Patchett. He is so beautiful!

  And that’s Jerry Lee Lewis I keep hearing in the howling wind. I love that song, She Still Comes Around (to Love What’s Left of Me). That’s every man’s declaration of trust, blowing in the wind. I’ll never let Tyler down, ever.

  I am the ghost of Mary Fisher, a lost soul, a woman despised. That’s what death makes you if you miss the boat to heaven. At least now I have Tyler to love, praise be to Momus.

  Wooo-h, wooo-h and all that.

  29

  Dr Simmins To The Rescue

  The sleeper awakes.

  The storm had passed. It was a beautiful day: a gentle breeze, a clear blue sky, a blissful ocean; sea birds wheeling and calling. Dr Simmins called by the She Devil’s rooms to hand over her weekly medical report. The She Devil remarked that Bobbo’s vital signs seemed to have taken a turn for the better: his blood pressure was normal and his heartbeat no longer fluttery. Dr Simmins agreed, saying that the path to death could be long and bumpy. By rights the old man should have been dead five years ago, but just as some people seem able to put off death in order to see a daughter married or a baby born, so some others seem able to put death off out of sheer malice. Which she was sorry to say seemed to be so in Bobbo’s case.

  The She Devil did not comment, though she thought that perhaps the doctor should get on with her job and keep her opinions to herself. Asked how she herself was, she admitted to feeling a little last-legs-ish and mentioned that she had fallen asleep at a Board meeting. Dr Simmins said yes, she had heard, and prescribed wake-up pills to be taken before such events to keep her alert. The She Devil, worried that news of her failure had got around and might be used against her, took one of the pills on the spot.

  She and the doctor drank green tea together, made in her little kitchen, with its tiny fridge, microwave and dishwasher – main meals were taken over in the modern refectory of the Castle Complex, commonly called the canteen. The place was always abuzz with conversation and comment, and on good days laughter and good cheer, although run by Ms Bradshap, a founder member, who had strong views on healthy nourishment. Very soon the She Devil began to feel livelier, and found
herself talking about anything and everything that came into her head.

  She told the good doctor how sleep was becoming difficult, that she had to get up to go to the loo in the night (‘normal for your age’, said Dr Simmins, who the She Devil noticed always seemed gleeful when imparting bad news) and was woken again and again by a tapping on the window for which there seemed no cause. It was all very well for staff to talk about the High Tower’s ‘ghost’ – though the howling sound was apparently produced by the configuration of wind, the new coastal defences against erosion, and the sharp rise of the downs, as Femina Electrical, responsible for the aerials on the roof had confirmed – but now Flora Bradshap was talking about a ghost with kinetic ability roaming wild inside the High Tower. Lady Patchett did not want staff getting hysterical and leaving. Sometimes it seemed to the She Devil that she was running a boarding school, not an institution for mature and intelligent women, dedicated to a great cause. Parity.

  The dry-rot smell had been quite strong in 2HT/3, though no one else had complained. Perhaps this was what had made her so sleepy at the Board meeting? She would have to find some building firm to look into it, and see about more damp-proofing on floor 1 down in the basements. Perhaps Femina Electrical would be able to recommend someone? It was IGP policy to employ only women contractors and it could lead to difficulty and expense.

  Dr Simmins said it would be difficult to find women pall bearers: their shoulders were not strong enough to bear the weight of conventional coffins, though she believed there were cardboard ones available these days, which were lighter to carry, so the IGP’s quest might not be in vain.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the She Devil. ‘One forgets. Bobbo. But there’s not so much of him to carry as there once was.’

  She asked if the doctor could find the address of the funeral directors, and if she thought Bobbo would still be with them by Christmas. Dr Simmins said it was touch and go. She herself wished Bobbo would just get on with it: the stairs to the Lantern Room on the ninth floor were intolerable.

  The She Devil was asking what was in the pill she had swallowed, because whatever it was had made her feel a lot better, and Dr Simmins was saying it was new on the market, sodium pentothal and a new form of amphetamine, out of the body in six hours.

  Just at this moment Valerie tapped on the door with some reports from the Expenditure Committee and the She Devil asked her to join herself and the doctor in a cup of tea, and she said that since it was green tea she would, and did. Valerie said she had good news. She said she had been looking at the long term weather forecast and today was the beginning of a long spell of exceptionally good weather and the 21st was going to be a crisp bright day and not too cold. The She Devil said if Valerie said so it probably would be, since actuality seemed to adapt itself to the new Board member’s expectations.

  Valerie said she had found out where the grandson Tyler lived and they must pop down to see him very soon. Only a week to go before the great day.

  ‘The family seems to be coming up in the world. A brand new-build house. Sylvan Lodge – sounds nice.’

  ‘A great day?’ remarked the She Devil. ‘Sounds suspiciously like champagne. I do beg you no champagne. It’s greatly overrated, very expensive and gives me acid indigestion. And do come and see me tomorrow about those invitations. I need to look them over before they go out. ‘

  ‘But they’ve gone out, Lady Patchett,’ said Valerie. ‘The party’s only a week or so away. You signed the invitations.’

  ‘Oh did I?’ said the She Devil. ‘Fancy that!’

  Valerie finished her tea, left her expenditure reports and walked out of the room with a little hop, skip, jump and a click of the heels.

  ‘I must have a word with that girl. She’s far too excitable,’ said Dr Simmins, and followed her out.

  The She Devil looked at the reports, decided they were too boring to read, chucked them in the bin and passed out.

  30

  ‘We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident...’

  ...but doctor and nurse argue as to exactly what they are.

  ‘Mr Patchett can be quite lively with his pinches,’ said Nurse Samantha Travers to Dr Simmins, ‘and I can’t forever be dodging out of his way. There’s bed baths and so forth. But I suppose sexual disinhibition isn’t unusual in the very elderly, and at least I am trained to deal with it.’ Samantha, at twenty-three, was newly married, five months pregnant, had a Grade 3 qualification in end-of-life care, and was proud of it.

  ‘He’s better than some,’ she added, in defence of her patient. ‘He’s still got at least some of his marbles left, he’s not incontinent, deaf or blind. He can even be quite funny. Of course his behaviour can be inappropriate and disproportionate – but he’s a leftover from the past. He can’t help it. I have a good job here. I even enjoy it sometimes.’

  Dr Simmins, on the other hand, didn’t at all enjoy visiting Bobbo Patchett. The old man’s sick room was towards the top of the High Tower, on the ninth floor, and the lift only went to the third. His language was appalling, his manners were worse and his views out of another century. Bobbo would not be much of a loss to the world when he went.

  ‘His pulse is very weak and fluttery,’ she said. ‘I can hardly find it, and his blood pressure is falling. We must prepare for the worst, or as some might see it, the best.’

  ‘Just like the air pressure,’ said Nurse Travers, who was, Dr Simmins feared, a victim to the pathetic fallacy – that the weather was informed by human emotion. ‘It’s falling. There’s going to be a terrific storm. See the black clouds gathering? I love it up here in the tower when the weather’s wild and the wind gets up and howls around like the ghosts of the dammed.’

  ‘I can see that caring for Mr Patchett can be quite a confusing experience,’ said Dr Simmins, ‘as nursing Alzheimer’s patients often can be. But I must point out there is very little relationship between blood pressure and air pressure.’

  As it happened, as well as her Grade 3 in end-of-life care Samantha did have Grade 3 in Alzheimer’s nursing, though she could never see many signs of the condition in Bobbo. He slept quite a lot, but his memory when awake seemed unimpaired. If anything he remembered all too much.

  ‘Old women can be just as bad as old men,’ she said mildly. ‘I nursed one for my Grade 3 and how she cackled and flashed all over the place!’

  Samantha asked Dr Simmins what Bobbo’s ETA in paradise might be.

  ‘Still a week at the most,’ said Dr Simmins, gritting her teeth. ‘Passed on’ was bad enough, but ‘ETA in paradise’ was an even worse euphemism. Dead was dead, brown bread.

  Samantha further annoyed Dr Simmins by telling her that the previous day a gull had flown into the Lantern Room’s window and either stunned itself or fallen dead. That she hoped it hadn’t been a portent of approaching mortality. The High Tower could be a spooky place. Sometimes she thought she heard voices in the wind.

  ‘Some say the voices are in my imagination,’ she said, ‘but I hear them clearly enough. It’s the ghost of poor Mary Fisher, who lived in the High Tower, and stole Mr Patchett from Lady Patchett, in the days when everyone was young and beautiful.’

  ‘We all know the story, nurse,’ said Dr Simmins, grimly. ‘Just shut the bloody window. And more fool Mary Fisher. Look at Mr Patchett now!’

  ‘But Mary Fisher loved him just as much as his wife did.’ Samantha was overcome by emotion. ‘But he turned away from her too and so her heart was broken and now she can’t rest.’

  Old Mr Patchett was sleeping again and Dr Simmins took the opportunity to plunge a needle into the withered old arm. Bobbo woke up briefly with a vicious protest of ‘Cunt, cunt, cunt!’, but quickly fell silent again.

  Samantha opened the sash window just a crack, the better to let the words ‘Cunt, cunt, cunt!’ drift away.

  31

  Me, Me, What About Me?

  Mary Fisher draws attention to herself.

  Wooo-h, wooo-h, wooo-h! Me again, the ghost of Mary Fishe
r! I do like that girl Valerie! When I lived and loved in the High Tower it was all roses, moonlit nights, champagne and loveliness. Not a whiff of dry rot. My novels were lessons in love, in the glory of adoration, of surrender. I was a successful writer of romantic novels; how beautiful then, my life! It was here in the High Tower I entertained publishers and sometimes slept with them – but then I fell in love with Bobbo, and his wife took such great offence. I thought I could afford to be sorry for her. I was wrong.

  Through millions upon millions of human couplings evolution strives towards its goal – and that goal is the grace that is perfect beauty. Call me conceited if you like, but it was in that striving that nature found its apogee in me, the perfect woman, beauty and grace itself. Ruth Patchett was just another of nature’s failed experiments, ugly, almost deformed. Of course she envied me. Seriously, though, the She Devil has no idea why she does what she does. She too is driven by forces she does not understand. When Asclepius sends in his minions to keep Bobbo alive, they take the form of one Dr Simmins.

  Perhaps it was that in her rage, in her incantations, Ruth managed to invoke Asclepius, the God of Medicine? So he obliged, giving her the powers that She Devils have, but in so doing angered Venus, Goddess of all evolution. And on a whim – these Olympians are so whimsical! – she had me, humble Mary Fisher, devoured by her pet demon, Cancer. But I so loved Bobbo. Venus saved me in this half form so I could go on loving him until he died and joined me. And Asclepius won’t let him die, so now he’s grown into this disgusting old toad. I daresay a kiss would take him back to normal.