by K. L. Slater
In the face of his calm reaction I feel myself relax just a touch. Could it be that Mark might have been mistaken after all?
‘I should have perhaps mentioned there was indeed an incident late last year. Very tragic it was. Tragic.’ He looks towards the window, his forehead creasing. ‘But it didn’t happen here at the house, my dear. And they weren’t staying in your apartment.’
‘Oh!’ I’m unprepared for the wash of relief that comes with his words, and yet, the situation is still very unclear. ‘Did . . . did they both die?’
‘There was a tragic accident. We were all very shocked here.’ His fingers drum the arm of the sofa and he shakes his head. ‘It was a very sad business indeed.’
He hasn’t answered my question.
Had their deaths left a vacancy at Adder House which Skye and I have now filled?
Even if we are in a different apartment, the very thought of it makes my flesh crawl.
I remember when I first met him at the coffee shop, he said someone had let him down so he was trying to fill the vacancy again. Surely he hadn’t meant someone had died!
‘What . . . what happened?’ I ask him.
‘Here we are, here’s the tea!’ Audrey announces brightly, walking in with a stacked tray. Skye bobs around behind her, scooting to sit next to me once she can overtake her.
I feel a bit out of breath. Shocked. But Dr Marsden smiles widely at his wife as if what we just spoke about means nothing at all.
‘Audrey told me a secret, Mummy.’ Skye’s face is alight with excitement.
‘That’s nice of her.’ My voice sounds flat, and my daughter’s excitement immediately dampens a little.
I can’t move past the fact that Mark was telling the truth after all. Dr Marsden is trying to talk around the terrible incident, but I can’t just leave it hanging there, unresolved.
If there’s nothing to hide, why didn’t he just tell me exactly what happened instead of talking around it?
A vintage Royal Albert teacup and saucer appears in front of my face and I look up to see Audrey there. She looks at her husband and back at me. ‘Milk, no sugar, I believe?’
‘Thank you,’ I manage, the china rattling in my hand.
‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ Skye reaches for my other hand and I squeeze hers. For a little one, she’s so perceptive.
‘Mummy’s fine,’ Dr Marsden answers for me. ‘She’s just had a little shock, that’s all.’ He looks at Audrey meaningfully. ‘Local gossip-mongers at work again, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh no.’ Audrey puts down the tray and sits next to her husband. ‘People exaggerate, Freya. Please don’t take too much stock from idle gossip.’
‘I’d like to know what happened, though. For my own peace of mind.’ I look at Audrey, hoping to appeal to her woman to woman. ‘I hope you understand.’
‘It’s perhaps not the best time to discuss it, dear.’ She smiles at Skye, whose excitement has now disappeared and a worried frown has taken its place. ‘Suffice to say, the child’s mother was . . . very troubled.’
Dr Marsden nods sagely.
‘We did what we could, of course,’ Audrey offers. ‘To support her, I mean, with the little information we had. But I’m afraid help can only be given if it’s accepted.’
They’re talking in riddles, but I can’t do anything about that because I don’t want to frighten Skye by asking them to clarify the details. They’re admitting that something happened, but they’ve said it didn’t happen here. At Adder House.
Dr Marsden categorically said that . . . didn’t he? I fall silent. I don’t know what else to say.
‘Adder House is your home now, Freya,’ Dr Marsden says softly. ‘You mustn’t allow some fellow you don’t know to upset you in your own safe space.’
How can I just ignore it when someone as down to earth as Mark volunteers such shocking information with nothing to gain? And what about the woman’s comments outside the café?
I desperately want Adder House to be our safe space, but I need to know exactly what happened here eight months ago. I just do.
Mindful that Skye is taking all this in, I choose my words carefully.
‘So you’re saying that it definitely didn’t happen here at Adder House?’
‘Definitely not. But perhaps this is not the right time to discuss such matters in front of this little one, who’s all ears.’
Dr Marsden means well, but that way he’s got, of telling me what I ought to be doing or not doing, like he’s speaking to a child . . . it’s irritating. Audrey does it, too.
I force my mouth into a tight smile. ‘Perhaps we can talk about it again’ – I glance at Skye – ‘at a more appropriate time.’
‘It’s best not to trouble yourself with such thoughts.’ Audrey’s words sound clipped at the edges. ‘We prefer not to revisit upsetting memories if we can. Far better to look to the future, I find.’
‘True, true.’ Dr Marsden echoes her thoughts.
Easy for them to say. They’re not the ones in the dark here.
Audrey claps her hands. ‘Speaking of which, it’ll soon be time for our visit to St Benjamin Monks. Are you excited, Skye?’
Skye nods cautiously but doesn’t say anything.
I finish my tea, the weight of what I wanted to discuss still hanging in the air.
Skye seems subdued and fidgets on the sofa next to me. I stand up and thank them for the tea and agree to meet Audrey in the foyer at 10.10 a.m. when we’ll set off for the school visit.
The apartment door closes behind us with a dull thud and Skye runs ahead, skipping lightly up the stairs to the second floor. Her faint singing drifts down the stairs like a silver thread.
Sunlight dapples the polished wooden floor. I look around me and a warm, grateful feeling floods my chest, beating the worries back even if they don’t dissolve completely.
Whatever happened to that poor woman, it didn’t happen here. And it didn’t happen in our apartment.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
27
Back upstairs, we have about fifteen minutes until we have to leave for our visit to St Benjamin Monks.
I really didn’t expect nor particularly want Audrey to accompany us to school, but I can’t very well put her off when she’s been so helpful. Besides, it might be a chance to talk more about what Mark the builder told me and what the woman at the café alluded to.
I let Skye watch Beauty and the Beast on my iPad for a little while as I sit on the sofa next to her with my laptop on my knee.
It’s quite old now, as far as laptop models go, and the antivirus software is long out of date, but it will have to do.
When we were still together, Lewis used the laptop far more than me. I’ve never been that technologically savvy, never needed to be, save for my Facebook account, and I haven’t logged into that for months.
I feel a bit guilty sitting next to my daughter, both of us not talking and glued to our separate screens. But it doesn’t happen that often, and today, it’s really important I get online and hopefully get this stuff straight before it grows bigger in my mind.
I might not use a computer much these days, but I’m pretty sure it takes about five times as long as usual to boot up. I open up Google and run a search for ‘Adder House London death’. Lots of press stories come back, but they’re all regarding people or animals who’ve been bitten by adders in London parks.
I tap in the actual address of Adder House and get back various nearby properties that have been listed on Rightmove for eye-watering sums in the last few years. None of them is this property.
I try: ‘death of woman at Palace Gate’.
Incomplete search results boomerang back. Most featuring unexplained deaths of females in London, but missing various keywords in my original search query.
I try a whole host of other phrases – no joy – and finish with: ‘Suicide of woman in Kensington’.
Unexplained deaths, murders, assisted suicides of the terminall
y ill, but that’s it. According to the search results, almost no one has committed suicide in Kensington, or indeed the whole of London, in the last ten years. Which must be far from the truth.
It seems Mark was right. This stuff is not widely reported in the media, and that’s something I never realised. It seems even journalists have their boundaries, and suicide is beyond what is deemed acceptable.
It occurs to me, in the tragic cases of young people who had been bullied, or university students who fell prey to depression and feelings of hopelessness, far more exposure is needed to shine a light and raise awareness and disrupt the taboo.
But in the case of a young mother who takes her life, leaving her young daughter behind, there is barely a whisper, online or otherwise.
The lack of information only serves to make me determined to find out more.
But for now, I close the laptop and snuggle up to my daughter, inhaling the scent of shampoo in her hair, my cheek resting on the soft skin of her upper arm.
Thinking about the as yet anonymous little girl who used to live somewhere in this house makes me feel very sad.
‘You’re missing it, Mummy!’ She nudges me gently, thinking I’m falling asleep as I nuzzle close. ‘Belle is about to fall in love with the beast!’
‘Ooh, my favourite bit,’ I say and sit up straight again. But watching Belle acting all coy gets my sleepy mind wandering.
Lewis and I met at a house party on Christmas Eve, thirteen years ago. We were both with other dates, and afterwards, we both said it was clear neither of us wanted to be there. I saw his bored face from across the room and felt vindicated that I wasn’t the only party pooper present.
Later, when we bumped into each other at the drinks table, our dates appeared to have both drifted away somewhere.
‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ I asked him boldly when he offered to pour me a wine.
Unsurprisingly, when I look back, our period of dating didn’t consist of expensive meals out or romantic breaks away in boutique hotels. We couldn’t afford that stuff, but truthfully, we never wanted it.
Our time getting to know each other was full of cycling, bowling, hiking, and sleeping. Lewis was the first man I’d met who relished an afternoon nap after a cheap lunch of cheese, crackers, and wine.
These were the precious moments we shared together. It gave me an intimacy, an acceptance I’d never known, and I thrived on it.
The happy times don’t mean any less now because of what has happened since. It just means that mostly, I simply can’t bear to think about how perfect everything seemed to be back then, our lives full of possibility and promise.
Of how being together was the singular, most important thing.
‘Work to live, not the other way around.’ That had always been Lewis’s motto in the early days.
Given time, that had changed, too. And afternoon naps were looked upon as being a waste of time that could be spent working, not a luxury to share together.
Skye snuggles into me happily as we watch the film together. Except I am not watching the film at all. I’m bluffing. Laughing in all the right places because I know it off by heart.
It’s a different story inside. I feel like I’ve swallowed a hard knot of rope; a lump in my stomach that ever can’t be shifted.
We were close, Lewis and I. So close. We shared all our hopes and dreams. We shared our fears.
Once, we spent a long day hiking in the hills and when we got to the top, we sat and held hands to watch the sunset together.
‘No secrets ever,’ Lewis whispered in my ear before he gave me a long, lingering kiss. ‘Promise me?’
‘I promise,’ I said, and I meant it.
I thought I would always be with Lewis, that he would always be in my life. My rock.
Now he’s gone, not just out of our home but gone forever.
It brings up in me a feeling I want to hide from. A feeling I don’t know how to deal with.
The feeling is fear.
Moving here amongst people I thought might become friends felt so good. But there are no people like us here . . . everyone is so much older and from a different life altogether. And now we’re much further away from Brenna, and it feels like we’re out on a bit of a limb.
Adder House might be a strange little bubble of privilege screened off from the world, but it’s imperative that I feel sure my daughter is safe here.
28
You track the woman outside when you can, observe her and the child around the house and garden where possible.
Her mood is changing; her confidence is waning.
The fact the child will soon be starting at St Benjamin Monks is encouraging. This is where the fun really begins.
You reach for the cotton gloves and slip them on to your hot, moist hands.
I carry Douglas through the spartan, echoing corridors towards Professor Watson’s offices.
He will be one year old in just a month’s time and he is getting heavy. He is not walking yet, but he is crawling. Sometimes, I feel as if my heart might burst with pride.
I glance at the signs for the scientific laboratories ahead of me and shudder.
Yesterday, I had taken a baby who was suffering from feeding problems up to the medical examination area for an appointment and I had to pass this turning.
On the way back down, I couldn’t help myself. I peered in at those poor lab rats.
I had heard the scientists did not think of their small subjects as living creatures at all but viewed them merely as objects . . . things, to be experimented on. That is how the doctors and scientists are able to distance themselves from the sheer horror of it all.
I would never agree to Douglas having an operation of any kind if he did not need it.
No matter what was offered to me.
But, as Rosalie assures me, Professor Watson is not that kind of scientist at all. I feel confident of that.
I have had a bad week with my boy. His calm, sunny nature has seemed to dissipate as the days go on. He has grumbled and whimpered, even after being fed and changed.
It isn’t like him at all.
I spoke to Rosalie only yesterday and asked if the work Professor Watson is carrying out may be contributing to his distress.
Rosalie laughed. ‘You have a healthy imagination, my dear. Has the professor ever touched a hair on the child’s head? Has he struck him?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then you must not worry, Beatrice. The professor operates within the highest ethical code and employs methods the likes of yourself, a mere wet nurse, cannot possibly contemplate. Only a few more sessions and dear Little Albert will simply forget everything that has happened.’
I nodded, feeling marginally better.
‘And your position at the hospital will be secure, perhaps even a promotion on the cards if the professor is pleased with your efforts.’
A promotion will make life so much easier, particularly when my sister gives up working.
I turn left and walk a short way across a carpeted area that features plants and a large window overlooking the hospital gardens that lets in lots of natural light.
I knock on Professor Watson’s office door and wait.
The door opens and the professor peers down at me through the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his narrow, bony nose. He has a very pale complexion as if he barely ventures out into the elements and thin, almost colourless lips that have now stopped smiling and returned to their customary flat line.
‘Beatrice,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘Please come through.’
It is only afterwards it occurs to me that, as far as I know, Professor Watson has never uttered a word to, nor even smiled, at little Douglas at all.
1920 Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore
Extract from the confidential case study diary of Professor J. Watson
OVERVIEW
The child does not want to leave his mother’s arms today. He has cultivated a mistrust o
f the surroundings of my office in only two previous sessions.
The child is thinner and of a paler complexion.
Beatrice, the mother of the child, is to remain present during the sessions.
Session three takes place in a controlled environment, the private office of myself, Professor John B. Watson. Also present is Dr Rosalie Rayner and Beatrice, the subject’s mother.
STAGE FOUR
A neutral stimulus is presented: Little Albert is given toy building blocks to play with for a period of five minutes. After a cautious start, the child appears to gather confidence and his interest in the bricks increases to normal levels.
Following this, the coloured bricks are removed and various other stimuli are presented to Albert with and without noise accompaniment: the rat, a rabbit, a Santa Claus mask, a seal fur coat, a dog.
BASELINE REACTIONS:
After a slow start, Little Albert played with the building blocks quite happily.
However, when the other stimuli were presented, they produced negative responses in the child including crying, moving away from the stimulus, and crawling away.
These responses remained with and without accompanying noise. End of session three.
Mother agrees to return with Albert in eight days.
29
As if to mark our departure from Adder House to visit St Benjamin Monks Primary, the sun comes out, bathing the foyer in a riot of colour from the stained-glass frontage.
The warm glow in here spreads through my bones and I’m a heartbeat from happiness, if only the weight on my chest would allow one. But that’s not going to happen until I feel reassured about exactly what happened with the previous tenants.
While we wait downstairs for Audrey to come out of her apartment, I notice Skye is a bit quiet. I reach for her hand and give it a reassuring little squeeze.
‘I wonder if your new school has this pretty glass in it, too? People seem to like it around here.’
‘I liked my old school,’ she says glumly, staring straight ahead. ‘I don’t want to go to a stinky new school.’
