And she ran out of the suite, as she scrabbled in her bag for the keys of the Plymouth.
‘Here we go,’ Joe said. ‘Oh, but here we go –’ And he pulled the syringe away and took off the tourniquet and then reached out and held Maddie’s shoulders firmly as she rolled and twisted and then arched her back and the words came pouring out of her in a fountain, a cascade of emotion, and Annie stood and stared, feeling the fear and horror coming from that twisted anguished shape, letting it roll over her too, and shaking as she listened. It didn’t seem possible that just hearing words could create such an electric atmosphere of pain and terror in this small shady clinical room. But it could and it did, and her pulses thumped heavily in her head as she stood and the words went on and on and on.
A black ribbon of road, twisting, rolling, curving ahead of her in the lights, looping and unlooping itself interminably.
Her hands clamped to the wheel, so tightly held that her fingers sang with pins and needles and when she had to change direction her muscles twitched uncontrollably so that the car leapt and swerved and she had to pull it back and over again, so that often she was twisting more than the road was.
Her foot clamped to the accelerator, the other hovering over the brake and her calves aching with tension.
The dashboard, glowing with little lights, and the needle on the speedometer swinging and creeping upwards. Fifty miles an hour, then up to seventy, and down to sixty again as the road began to curve. A sudden plunge to forty on a corner and the tyres squealing their fury at their mistreatment.
Lights coming, tiny pinpricks, starlike and innocent but growing, swelling into a nightmare of dazzle, shrieking their arrival at her, and then sweeping over her in an insulting contemptuous blaze that made her swerve yet again.
The mirror above her head, in which the lights of the traffic behind dwindled and vanished and then grew again as followers came up to her and she had to slow down for fear they were police who would stop her, until they passed and she could speed up again, pushing her foot down to the floor so that the car leapt forwards and roared with anger under its bonnet.
Time crawling round the clock so slowly that it was not possible to believe there was any change at all. Seconds limping like hours and still the black silk of the unravelling road and the hiss of passing billboards that leapt into her lights and dwindled again. And all she could think of was Gian Giovale’s voice, that stupid silly sentimental voice. ‘Not another thought. Don’t give it another thought. I fixed it for you – they’ll sort it all out - fires happen all the time. Fires happen all the time, fires happen all the time –’
And then the clock lied to her and it was time she was there, but she wasn’t. She had passed Barnstaple, and now the familiarity of the name wasn’t a comfort; it was an added threat, somehow, a reminder that this place was alien and cruel and hated her – and Dennis Port and still the signposts for Osterville had not appeared and it was past eleven-thirty and still she had to push and push and push and –
And then it was there. The wheels rattled beneath her and there was a glint of water on each side in the glimmering darkness and a sign that read ‘Cape Cod Canal’ and then she was on a narrower, rougher road, one that roared rather than sang beneath her wheels and there beside the road she saw it: the sign for Osterville.
A run of trees on her right beside the sea; she could hear the sea now, hear it murmuring and warning her and she opened the window with one shaking hand and the cold night air came rushing in and made her gasp, so that she opened her dry mouth and sucked in the dampness and the salt of it and was grateful.
The trees beside the sea running away ahead of her, and little glints of light showing the other side of the road where now suddenly there were demure picket fences and shaven lawns, black in her headlights as she passed, and mailboxes painted white and gravel paths and always, always the smell of the sea coming in.
And more than that. A different smell that she had to be imagining because she was so frightened, because she had been thinking of it so long, because she had created it inside her own nose.
A cheerful smell. A warm and friendly crackling sort of smell, the sort of smell that made you feel comfortable on cold March mornings and dank winter evenings.
The smell of burning wood.
37
August 1953
The car swerved, almost without her knowing she had turned the steering wheel, and she heard the gravel spurt under her wheels as she went careering through big double gates and up the drive past the trees and bushes on each side which nodded at her in friendly welcome as her bonnet thrust them aside and then, undeterred, pushed their leaves in through the open window, and the smell increased and became so thick it turned into sound, and became the crackling of sticks burning under coal as they tried to make it catch. And suddenly she was five years old again and sitting on her mother’s lap in the kitchen of the house in Hackney where they had lived before they had gone to the flat in Regent’s Park; sitting there with Mummy and stretching out her feet to the fire so that she could watch the flames seeming to come out of her toes and laugh at them and love the heat on her skin -
But this wasn’t the house in Hackney and she wasn’t five years old. This was Cape Cod, a million miles from anywhere and her own babies were stretching out their toes to the blaze and – she began to cry in terror, loudly gasping and wailing so that the sound ricocheted around the car and buffeted her ears as she pushed the engine furiously, twisting and turning, rushing onwards, until the last turn came and there in her lights were two men, leaping up and down and bawling with silent open mouths at her, with their arms held out, trying to stop her. And she couldn’t stop but sat there with her foot clamped to the accelerator and her own mouth open as she wailed her terror, and they jumped aside as the car hit a barrier, hard, and she felt a sickening blow to her forehead as something came at her out of the glittering lights and blacked them so abruptly it was as though the whole world had died.
Annie stood with her hands over her ears, trying to shut it out, but she couldn’t. The wailing was so loud and the pitch of it so high that it was impossible to escape it, and she closed her eyes, hoping that would make it less intense, but in fact it made it worse.
But Joe had an arm across her shoulders now and was speaking to her loudly.
‘You can go if you like, Annie, but try to stay. It’s all so interesting and –’
‘Interesting?’ She dropped her hands, as the wailing eased a little and became a high keening. ‘You call this interesting} To see someone go through this, and to sweat and yell and shriek like that and call it –’
‘It’s a bloody sight better for her than to sit rocking in silence for another thirty-five years because she doesn’t know how to wail,’ he said sharply. ‘And it is interesting. We’re beginning to know what it is that she’s been avoiding all this time. It’s like lancing an abscess – once the pus is out she can start to heal. This is horrible to watch, perhaps, but then opening an abscess is horrible too. They smell disgusting as well. But they get better afterwards then as she’s going to get better.’
‘Better?’ Annie said and moved away from him to go and stand beside the bed and look down on Maddie. She had her eyes wide open, and was staring up at the ceiling, but obviously not seeing anything, and her mouth was stretched in a wide rictus so that all her teeth showed. It was an ugly sight, but an oddly endearing one, and impulsively Annie put out one hand and set it on Maddie’s. ‘How can this be better? At least before she was contented enough. I wish I’d never got involved –I wish I’d left her alone. It was a wicked thing to do, wicked –’
‘As wicked as leaving your mother alone?’ Joe said softly, and she lifted her chin and stared at him.
‘What? I never left her alone! Except that once, when – why are you so cruel to me? You know I took care of her all the time, all that I could –’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not talking about what you did,’ he said, his voice still
soft, beneath the continuing wailing coming from Maddie. ‘Why should you imagine for a moment that I’d criticise you on that score? Of course I know you were splendid – you took wonderful care of her. I’ve told you that many times. No, I mean what your father did. He left your mother alone, didn’t he? Left you and she alone most of your lives, just coming back often enough to make sure so that you could do nothing else but sit about and wait on his pleasure. Wouldn’t it have been better if you and your mother had protested like this and then had healed? If she escaped from him, started to live for herself and healed as Maddie is going to? Because she will, you know. All this will leave her and she’ll be free again. Jennifer was never free, was she? Always tied to Colin, always dancing to his tune, and there were you, tied to her, and furiously angry about it, and still are –’
‘I’m not listening to this! I don’t have to! I’m not your patient, and never you forget it! She is, Maddie is, not me – and I don’t have to listen.’
But she didn’t go. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to do, to walk to the door and open it and walk out, and he wouldn’t have stopped her. But she didn’t. She just turned and looked at Maddie again and wanted to hug her and rock away her misery.
‘I know you’re not my patient,’ he said and then came and stood on Maddie’s other side. ‘Do you think I could talk to you the way I do if you were? We’re colleagues. She’s our patient - she belongs to both of us.’
‘I wouldn’t do this to her,’ Annie said. ‘It’s too dreadful –’
Then you’d do her a disservice. I’m delighted about this – it’s the best thing that could have happened. I should have tried it long ago – though perhaps, before you, it wouldn’t have worked –’ He leaned down and spoke into Maddie’s ear. ‘Maddie – where are you? Tell me where you are. What’s happening? Tell me, Maddie –’
At once Maddie rolled her head on the pillow and began to wail even more loudly, and as her head shook from side to side Joe looked across at Annie and made a small grimace.
‘She’s refusing me, Annie. You try, will you? Ask her the same question.’
‘I won’t – it’s all …’
‘Stop being so selfish! It’s her needs that matter, not your sensibilities!’ he snapped. ‘And this is what she needs. She listens to you more than she does me. So ask her – now.’
Annie stared at him for a long moment and then, unable to meet his eyes any longer, bent her head and looked down at Maddie. And as much to show him that it would make no difference in any way as for any other reason she said quietly, ‘Maddie, where are you? What’s happening to you, Maddie? Tell me about it.’
‘What are you doing, lady, trying to kill yourself?’ A thick voice, with an edge of annoyance to it and she tried to open her eyes against the blackness, but then discovered they were open, and there was something over them, and reached up, and tried to push it away.
‘Hey, leave that alone, lady – you got to be cleaned up, ain’t yer? So’s we can see what damage you done – hey, Chuck, come here – this look okay to you now?’
The blackness vanished and a dimly seen face replaced it, a rough, lined face with a stubble of unshaven beard and emitting a gust of cheap tobacco and beer smells, and she grimaced and tried to turn her head away.
‘Yeah, that’ll do,’ the face grunted and disappeared. ‘The bleedin’s stopped – it’s just a scrape. Lucky broad that one. Could ha’ killed her stoopid self.’
‘Jay,’ she said. ‘The boys –’ and struggled to stand up. It seemed so odd to be lying down on the ground when she was supposed to be driving to Jay and the boys. She didn’t know quite why she was in such a hurry to get to them, but that she was on her way to them and it was desperately important she get there, this she knew, and she pushed down on the ground beneath her hands and shoved and the world twisted and lurched sickeningly and then she was sitting up. And staring at a group of men who were wearing hats that looked like the coal scuttle that had been used to stand beside the fireplace there in Hackney when she was small, men with streaked and grimy faces that appeared and then vanished as the light flickered around them, first silhouetting them and then throwing their faces into vivid relief. And she blinked, puzzled, and rubbed her head.
And as she did it she remembered in a single great rush. The boys and Jay were in Cray Costello’s house and Gian Giovale had promised to – and somehow she managed to struggle to her feet as the world continued to rock and swirl uncooperatively about her and stood still for a moment to push down the nausea that was rising in her chest.
‘I have to find them,’ she said and turned and began to walk blindly towards the source of the erratic flickering light and the smell. It was a thicker smell now, less friendly, as chemicals seemed to become part of it and she thought, that’s paint. There’s paint burning somewhere. It isn’t just sticks under coals, it’s painted wood. Oh, God, it’s painted wood -
Someone seized her elbows roughly. ‘Where the hell you goin’, lady? There ain’t no way through there. You go back to your car and wait for the cops. We’ve got them coming soon as we can get your goddamned wreck out of the way and get another engine. Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference … Listen, where’d you get off drivin’ up here anyway? You oughta know better than to get in the way of fire engines, dammit –’
‘My boys are there –’ she managed to get out. ‘My little boys – my husband – they’re there in that house – I have to fetch them out and make sure they’re safe – let me go and get my boys –’
There was someone on her other side now, holding her elbow and no matter how hard she tried to escape she couldn’t. Her feet scrabbled uselessly against the gravel beneath her shoes as she tried to resist the hard male grip.
‘What’s that?’ one of them barked.
‘My boys,’ she said again and turned her head, which was now hurting abominably, from side to side, trying to see faces beneath those shovel brims and wanting to escape the smells that were washing over her; not just tobacco and beer but onions and old sour leather and rubber and the thick reek of smoke. ‘They’re in there, my little boys –’
‘Oh, Gawd, lady,’ one of the men said, and his grip seemed to lessen a little, though not enough for her to be free. ‘Oh, Gawd, lady. I’m sorry. How old’s these kids?’
‘Buster’s two and the baby – let me go, for God’s sake! Let me go and get them –’
‘I don’t know – hey, ask Eddie, will you – see who was fetched out o’ there.’
‘You know goddamn well who was fetched out. Barbecue, that was who was fetched out –’ Someone else had come crunching up the drive from the direction of the house, and now he pulled off his helmet and she stared at him. There was a line on his forehead above which his skin was white and clean, and below it his eyes shone eerily in his blackened face.
‘My boys,’ Maddie said and her voice was loud and shrill, and she listened to it, marvelling at how controlled it sounded. ‘My little boys. My husband –’
The man with the half-white forehead stood very still and looked at her and around her the other three men stood in the same wooden posture and she looked from one to the other as beyond them the sound of voices shouting and the rush of water from hoses came in little bursts, and the light rose and fell like a fairground’s invitation. Then one of the other men took off his coal scuttle helmet and after a moment the others did the same and all stood and stared at her, bleakly, silently, and she began to shout at them, to tell them not to be so stupid but to go and fetch her boys at once, now, this minute, and to tell Jay she was here and waiting for him -
One of them moved forwards awkwardly and put his arm across her shoulders. It felt heavy and stiff, and the leather on his sleeve rubbed against her skin, and, grateful for the sensation, she dropped her head sideways and rubbed her face against it, needing to feel the contact because it gave her a grip on reality. Without it all this was a mad, impossible, sickening nightmare, the effects of a
ll the whisky she had drunk – and she seized on that thought, bouncing it about inside her skull, telling herself over and over again that she was just having a drunken dream, that all this misery was her own fault for swallowing that garbage, and she never would again, not ever, ever, ever – and all the time she rubbed her face on the leather sleeve and wept.
‘Lady, I’m sorry. There ain’t no one can get out o’ that place in one piece and that’s the truth of it,’ the man said gruffly and she thought again, whisky, whisky, this is whisky. But it didn’t work. The bouncing ball inside her head which was that comforting thought dwindled and then vanished and all that was left was the echoing void in which his words could jeer at her.
‘They couldn’t ha’ felt nothing, that’s one comfort. These frame houses, they go up like goddamned paper, you know? Might as well be paper ones, like they got in Japan, I swear to you. It was all over before we got here, tell you the truth. We just been fetching dead people out this past half-hour. They had a party there, hey? Cray Costello, he was always havin’ Parties. Goddamn, I been up here myself and been given a drink with the guy. A great guy Costello, and I had to have the finding of him – and a lot of the other people, I didn’t know who they was, and that’s the way of it. It must ha’ been quick for your family – real quick – here, you come and wait in the cabin of the engine there till the cops come and they’ll take you back to town, settle you in the hospital with a sedative, huh? Come on lady –’
‘How did it happen?’ She heard her own voice again, high and loud, and marvelled. She could speak? Incredible. ‘How did it happen?’
The man shrugged and she felt the leather of his arm rub her face again, but it wasn’t comforting now. Just raw and harsh. ‘Could ha’ been anything. Ain’t the heatin’, that’s for sure – they ain’t started the boilers yet anywheres, it’s been rare hot this August. And it couldn’t ha’ been oil lamps on account of the last party he had when they had dressin’ up and he made it all like Paul Revere’s time an’ all that, with candles and oil lamps – that was when we was all up here and had a drink with ‘em on account he was careful no danger and hired us to keep an eye out, you know? Well he’d ha’ done that again, wouldn’t he, if he was having a party like that? Did your – didn’t you know what kinda party it was? Was there a reason why you wasn’t here?’ And she felt his curiosity focused on her as vividly as she had felt the leather of his sleeve.
Maddie Page 39
