The Lost Child

by Emily Gunnis

  As realization dawned, Dr Hunter finally spoke. ‘If what you are implying is the case, that the child is hers, there will be consequences. You could go to prison for abduction, and the child taken away.’

  ‘Let me see her, Dr Hunter, or I will blow this scandal wide open and drag your name through the mud along with Barton’s!’

  ‘Dr Hunter, there you are!’ A nurse burst through the door. ‘You’re needed in the day room urgently.’

  Dr Hunter stared at Harriet for a moment, then spoke. ‘Nurse, take this young lady to Burnham Wing and tell the receptionist to tell Sister Julia that she is allowed five minutes with Cecilia Barton. And take the little girl to the canteen and arrange for her to have some tea and stay with her until I meet you there.’

  The walk to Burnham Wing was the longest of Harriet’s life. Her wool coat was soaked from being in the rain and her body began to shiver despite the warm July day as Rebecca walked solemnly beside her. The child had run out of energy to complain, the promise of a hot meal keeping her going.

  After a few moments they reached a Victorian building coated in thick green ivy. Over the heavy white-painted door with its polished brass door handle was a sign saying BURNHAM WING. PERMITTED STAFF ONLY. The nurse buzzed the door open.

  Inside was silent, in stark contrast to the elements outside. The hall and corridor were laid with a soft bright red carpet and the lower half of the walls was papered in a wood grain.

  Behind the glass panel signposted ‘Enquiries’ was a telephone switchboard kiosk. Inside on the immediate right behind a reception desk sat a prim-looking young woman with a starched white shirt and a red alice band. Her long dark hair hung down in a bob around her face.

  ‘Please could you call up to Sister Julia on Abbey Ward and tell her that Cecilia Barton has a visitor? And that she is to stay five minutes and no longer.’

  ‘Cecilia Barton is on the locked ward. They aren’t supposed to have visitors this late in the day, it unsettles the whole ward before supper.’

  ‘Sister Julia. Visitor for Celia Barton. Dr Hunter’s instructions. Five minutes only.’

  ‘Come on,’ the nurse said to Rebecca, and as Rebecca left, Harriet felt all her strength go with her.

  ‘Go down to the bottom of this passage,’ barked the woman at Harriet. ‘Turn left. And then first right, you’ll see a set of stairs. Climb up to the second floor and you will find it half-way down that corridor on your left.’

  The long passage was coated in thick white linoleum with shone like a conker and had a smell which made Harriet feel queasy and claustrophobic, a mixture of bleach and extinguished fire. There were no windows and only a series of closed doors with ‘No Entry’ written on them.

  As Harriet climbed the stairs her legs began to feel heavy, as if they had suddenly realized where she was going and what it meant. She had to tell Cecilia about what she had done. About the lie she had been living for the past five years while Cecilia had been locked up at Greenways. She had no idea how Cecilia would react. All she knew was that she had to see her and tell her the truth.

  Eventually she reached a heavy iron door painted white with a small glass window with bars covering it. To the right was another brass bell which she pressed. It was eerily quiet and as she peered through the window she saw a nurse dressed in white walking towards her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve come to see Cecilia Barton. Dr Hunter sent me.’

  ‘This really isn’t a good time. She’s just had an incident and it will unsettle the other patients even more to have a stranger on the ward. Miss Barton hasn’t seen anyone for months. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a visit sprung on her.’

  ‘Dr Hunter made it clear I was to be allowed on to the ward. I will only be five minutes, then I will go. Kindly open the door.’ Harriet glared at her through the hatch.

  ‘Very well. If the doctor said so.’ The woman slowly stood aside and Harriet stepped on to the ward.

  Harriet stopped, her heart beating so fast that it was making her feel nauseous. She looked around the room, her eyes darting for any sign of Cecilia, but there were none. The room was cold and draughty and Harriet noticed that each bed only had a thin blanket on it. Harriet pulled her coat tightly around her and looked at Sister Julia.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the nurse as she set off down the ward.

  ‘This really is most unfortunate timing.’ She turned back momentarily. ‘It’s nearly bathtime and we’re all needed. We can’t leave them, not for a minute. The last time we made that mistake a patient drowned herself. Any momentary opportunity.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’ Harriet looked around, drinking in her surroundings. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she could feel the misery housed within the room’s green walls; it seemed to radiate from every surface, from each poor soul sprawled on their bed or slumped in an armchair. Harriet was struck by the silence. There were no screaming idiots or signs of lunacy; instead, apathetic patients, lost in their sadness. A rotten-egg odour hung in the air, making Harriet feel even more queasy.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ Harriet wondered out loud.

  ‘Paraldehyde,’ answered Sister Julia. ‘Cecilia needed a shot to settle her. There really is no point in you seeing her now.’

  ‘Did you see my wife on your way in?’ a male voice called out to Harriet as they passed.

  ‘Pardon me?’ said Harriet, pausing momentarily as Sister Julia stormed on ahead down the long ward.

  ‘My wife and children, they just visited me, brought all sorts of goodies, I’m a lucky man. Did you see them? When you came up the stairs?’ The man spoke quickly, in fits and starts, and looked to be in his fifties, with grey hair and wearing brown pyjamas. He had a warmth to his voice and a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘How nice,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m sorry but I didn’t.’ She hurried to catch up with Sister Julia who had reached the end of one room and was pausing at a locked door to the next.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like I have been the only visitor this afternoon. That man said his wife and children had been.’ Harriet was slightly out of breath from hurrying to catch up.

  ‘Did he also tell you that it was 1936 as he believes it to be? Or that his wife died over ten years ago and that nothing is known about his children as no one ever comes to visit him?’ Sister Julia let out a heavy sigh and raised the keys on her belt to the lock.

  ‘You are about to enter an acute ward for the sectioned and most disturbed patients. Only senior staff have a master key, and there will be a senior nursing colleague waiting by the door while you speak with Cecilia. I will also be right next to you.’

  ‘I don’t understand why Cecilia is in here,’ said Harriet, trying to mask her anxiety.

  ‘Stand well back from her, don’t touch her in any way and no sudden movements. Five minutes, and then we leave. Have I made myself clear?’

  Harriet nodded. The door creaked open and she felt a raging heat coursing through her body and up into her face, as if she were a wild animal trapped in a burning forest, knowing her fate was coming.

  It looked like a hurricane had hit. Tables and chairs had been thrown about, and torn books and broken glass littered the floor.

  ‘Cecilia had an episode. Her inner voices were overwhelming her. It took three of us to hold her down.’ The nurse spoke with little emotion, well versed in the private agonies and inner torment of those in her care.

  ‘Where is she?’

  The nurse indicated a figure in a high-backed chair. Harriet caught her breath. She recognized the shape of her immediately. Her long blonde hair, her narrow shoulders.

  Harriet inched forward so that she was standing directly in front of her friend. Harriet gasped at the vision in front of her. Cecilia was unrecognizable. Gone were the sparkling green eyes, the thick mane of blonde hair, the sun-kissed skin, the permanent half-smile on her rose-coloured lips. In her place, a ghost. Pale, emaciated, her hair brittle, her skin translucent. She appeared to be staring
straight at her, but when Harriet moved Cecilia’s eyes didn’t follow her. She was slumped, her ear resting on her shoulder. A trail of drool escaped from her mouth.

  Through force of habit, from years of tending to Cecilia’s every need, Harriet leapt forward to wipe it away.

  ‘Get away from her! What do you think you are doing? I thought I made myself very clear.’

  ‘What on earth have you done to her? Why is she slumped like that?’

  ‘I told you, she had an injection to calm her down.’

  ‘And she had a treatment this morning, they are always sleepy for a couple of days afterwards,’ added the nurse.

  ‘What treatment?’

  ‘Electro-convulsive therapy,’ said the nurse matter-of-factly. ‘And before you start complaining, contrary to popular belief, the patients queue up to receive it, because it mechanically lifts their depression. Cecilia’s illness is far more unpleasant than the treatment. There is a danger of serious or permanent memory loss but, unfortunately, for Cecilia, that doesn’t seem to be the case.’

  ‘What do you mean, unfortunately?’ Forbidden to touch Cecilia, Harriet stood back. ‘What is she supposed to forget?’

  ‘Her baby,’ said the nurse, shaking her head. ‘She drowned her, but she refuses to admit it. I find that patients can never hope to get better when they are in denial about what has made them unwell in the first place. Cecilia doesn’t make life easy for herself.’

  ‘If she would cooperate, they would go easier on her,’ the patient piped up.

  ‘Cecilia can be a handful, she fights the staff and she spits and bites. We have to find ways to control unruly patients, for the sake of everyone else on the ward.’

  ‘So you do this to her because she fights back? She doesn’t belong here!’

  ‘I’m not sure I appreciate your tone. Cecilia was psychotic when she was brought in and continues to be to this day. She hears voices. She is a danger to herself and others and tries to take her own life practically every week.’

  ‘Of course she does, she’s locked up in hell. She would never hurt anyone. I have to get her out of here. Cecilia, listen to me. Rebecca is alive, and you have to get better. We are at Seaview. You have to come and find us.’

  Suddenly Cecilia looked up at Harriet and launched herself forward, locking her hands around Harriet’s neck. Harriet couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Cecilia! Let go, Cecilia!’ The nurse leaned over and began to pull at Cecilia’s elbows. But they were locked rigid.

  ‘Nurse!’

  A young girl came hurtling towards them, preparing a syringe, her hands shaking in the panic.

  As Harriet’s world began to blur, Cecilia pressed harder, her green eyes piercing now. ‘You were my friend,’ she hissed. ‘You stole my little girl.’

  Slowly Cecilia released her grip as the injection took hold and as she slumped forward, the tears trickling down Cecilia’s face dripped onto Harriet’s cheek.

  ‘Please help me,’ Cecilia whispered, as Harriet clung to her friend’s broken body and wept.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Rebecca

  9 p.m. Wednesday, 19 November 2014

  ‘Jessie’s alive, Mum. They’ve just taken her off in an ambulance with Harvey to St Dunstan’s Hospital.’ Iris was barely audible through the wind on the beach.

  ‘Oh thank God! And the baby?’ said Rebecca, unable to stop the emotions she had been bottling up inside from spilling out.

  ‘I didn’t see her. They took her off first, in another ambulance. She’s alive but Harvey said she’s not good.’

  ‘Do you know any more than that? Did you see the baby? Where were they?’ Rebecca sunk her head into her hands and began to cry. Jessie and Elizabeth were alive.

  ‘They were in the bomb shelter. Apparently the baby was unconscious. Jessie was in a terrible state. They had to sedate her. Where are you, Mum?’ Iris asked.

  ‘I’ve just got to the hospital. I was going in to see Cecilia, but I might wait for the ambulance to arrive with the baby in. I might be able to help.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Iris. ‘But I spoke briefly to Harvey and I know Cecilia doesn’t have long, Mum.’

  ‘Harvey knows about her?’

  ‘Yes, the police took him to see her in the hospital. He says she is telling the truth,’ said Iris.

  Rebecca, feeling dizzy, put her head back and took a few deep breaths. ‘Well, I know Harvey won’t want me anywhere near the baby.’

  ‘I’m sure the baby is in good hands. My friend Mark works as a consultant in A&E. I know he’s on duty at the moment, he’ll take good care of her,’ said Iris. ‘You don’t want to get to Cecilia too late. I’m on my way, Mum. I’ll meet you at the hospital.’

  Rebecca could hear the anxiety in Iris’s voice. ‘Okay, darling. I’ll see you soon.’

  Rebecca got out of her car and tried to compose herself. She looked at her watch. 9 p.m. It had been thirteen hours since the baby had been given her last shot of antibiotics. Her tiny body would be shutting down. She pictured the little girl in the ambulance now, an oxygen mask over her mouth. The first few minutes after they arrived at the hospital would be crucial.

  Rebecca tried to compose herself but the thought of Cecilia Barton in the building behind was bearing down on her.

  Unable to sit still, she began to walk towards the entrance of Accident and Emergency, straining to hear the sound of ambulance sirens to signal that Jessie was near. Rebecca looked up at the hospital, picturing Cecilia Barton in a bed somewhere, waiting with all of her secrets that Rebecca didn’t want to hear. Harriet was her mother. She loved her; that love had been the only thing that was good about her childhood. The thought of it being built on a lie was too painful to bear.

  Rebecca began to feel a strange sensation creeping over her, a fear she hadn’t experienced for fifty years. As she looked up, the faint lighting in the hospital ward above her created a shadow-like silhouette of a woman. It looked as if the woman was looking down at her, banging on the glass, her shouting silenced by the distance between them. Then she blinked and the figure was gone.

  She knew she needed to go to Cecilia, but she felt torn about leaving the location where baby Elizabeth would soon arrive. She waked into reception and up to the desk. ‘Hello, I was wondering if you could tell me which ward Cecilia Barton is on please.’

  ‘Are you a relative?’ said the woman. Rebecca stared back at her, then slowly nodded.

  Rebecca looked down the long corridor. The memory of her and her mother’s outing to Greenways when she was five years old started to trouble her as her heartbeat hammered in her ears. She could picture the bespectacled young woman behind the glass panel. She could hear the words she had spoken to her mother as Rebecca had clung to Harriet’s hand.

  ‘You need to go out, turn right and follow your nose along the shingled path. You’ll see a sign for Summersdale Wing. It’s just past the art block.’

  Rebecca imagined her beloved mother standing next to her, as she had done that day when they took the long bus ride from Wittering out to Chichester. She could still feel her new wool coat, too tight around her waist, the cream ribbon in her hair, the coarseness of her patent-leather shoes. See the worry etched on her mother’s face. ‘Today we are going to meet your daddy . . . He wants to come home. Would that be all right with you?’ Her mother had smiled in a way Rebecca hadn’t seen before. Her eyes didn’t light up and sparkle as they usually did at Seaview.

  ‘I don’t know. I like it just the two of us.’

  She started to make her way to the ward. The black night was giving way to moonlight.

  It had started to rain, and they had got lost. Running through the thundering rain, up the steps and into the musty room. Her mother fumbling for the light switch and flicking it on.

  The painting had been on a stand. The woman with the green eyes had stared back at her. ‘She tried to drown herself and her child. Her baby’s body was never recovered, but she was rescued. She is here, Mrs W
aterhouse. Cecilia Barton is a patient at Greenways.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said a young woman’s voice. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I heard you asking for Cecilia Barton. Are you Rebecca?’

  Rebecca looked up at her, too lost in thought to respond.

  ‘My name is Rosie. I work at the care home where Cecilia lives. Are you on your way to see her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rebecca. ‘I don’t know if I can.’

  ‘She just wants to meet you. It would mean everything to her if you went. I’m sorry to say this but she doesn’t have long. Would you be able to come now?’

  Rebecca stared at the woman, then turned back to the entrance of Accident and Emergency: no sign of the ambulance yet.

  Rebecca reached into her pocket and pulled out the gold locket which she had shown to Jessie just days before, and which her mother had been holding the night she died.

  ‘I think this might be Cecilia’s,’ Rebecca said quietly.

  The locket caught the moonlight as Rosie looked at it and smiled. ‘Shall we go and find out?’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Harvey

  9.30 p.m. Wednesday, 19 November 2014

  Harvey watched the father of Jessie’s baby run down the corridor towards him and tried to keep his composure.

  ‘Harvey!’ said Adam, launching himself at Harvey and throwing his arms around him. Harvey forced himself to hug Adam back.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this on your own. I got back as fast as I could, they couldn’t get me on a bloody flight.’ Adam looked tanned and healthy and Harvey felt like punching him.

  ‘You should never have gone away when she was so close to her due date, Adam,’ Harvey said as calmly as he could manage. ‘You’re a father now.’

  ‘I know, it just never occurred to me that she’d have the baby nearly a month early. I really am sorry.’ To Harvey’s shock, Adam started to cry. ‘I screwed up, I know I did. I really love her, Harvey. I was going mad on that plane. I don’t want our baby to die.’