Caedmon’s Song

by Peter Robinson

  ‘We didn’t want to upset you, dear.’ Her mother echoed the doctor. ‘There’s plenty of time to go into all the details later, when you’re feeling better. Why don’t you just rest now? The doctor will give you a sedative.’

  Kirsten struggled to sit up. ‘I don’t want a bloody sedative! I want to know now! If you don’t tell me, I’ll only imagine it’s worse than it is. I feel awful, but I don’t think I’m going to die, am I? What else could be so bad? What could be worse than that?’

  ‘Lie back and keep calm,’ the doctor said, gently pushing her down. ‘No, you’re not going to die. At least not until you’ve had your three-score and ten. If you were, you’d have done so before today.’ He moved back to the end of the bed.

  ‘So tell me what’s wrong.’

  The doctor hesitated and looked towards her father. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell her.’

  Kirsten wanted to let him know that his permission wasn’t required. She was twenty-one; she didn’t need his approval. But if this was the only way to find out, so be it.

  The doctor sighed and stared at a spot on the wall above the top of her head. ‘What you saw,’ he began, ‘is the result of emergency surgery, the sutures. It looks bad now, but when they heal, it will be better. Not like new, but better than now.’

  Anything would be better than now, Kirsten thought, picturing her red and swollen breasts covered with stitch marks like zips, like something out of a Frankenstein movie.

  ‘When you were brought in,’ the doctor went on, ‘one breast was almost severed. We counted thirteen separate stab wounds to the mammary region alone.’ He shrugged and leaned forward, gripping the metal bedframe. ‘We did the best we could under the circumstances.’

  ‘Alone? You said alone. What else was there?’

  ‘You’d been beaten around the face and head and, all in all, you had thirty-one stab wounds. It’s a miracle that none of them hit a major artery or organ.’

  Kirsten gripped the top of the bedsheet and held it tight across her throat. ‘What did they hit then, apart from my tits?’

  ‘Kirsten!’ her mother gasped. ‘There’s no need to speak like that in front of the doctor.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ the doctor said. ‘I suppose she has every right to be angry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kirsten said. ‘Thank you very much. You were saying?’

  The doctor fixed his gaze on the wall again. ‘Most of the other entry points were in the region of the abdomen, thighs and vagina,’ he went on. ‘It was a vicious attack, one of the worst I’ve ever seen – at least on a victim who survived. There were also shallow slashes across the stomach, and something that looked like a cross with a long vertical had been cut from just below the breasts to the pudenda. The cuts weren’t deep, but they needed stitching nonetheless. That’s why your skin feels so tight.’

  Kirsten lay silent and relaxed her grip on the sheets. It was even worse than she had thought. Thirty-one stab wounds. That terrible ache between her legs. She gulped and struggled to force back the tears. She was damned if she was going to prove them right and react like a baby. ‘If I’m not going to die,’ she said, ‘why are you all looking like undertakers? What’s the bad news you’re hiding from me? What is it you’re all trying to save me from? Am I disfigured for life? Is that it?’

  ‘There will be some disfigurement, yes,’ the doctor said, glancing at Kirsten’s father again for the go-ahead. ‘Chiefly of the breasts and the pubic area. But that’s not the main damage. There’s always the possibility of further surgery to correct some of the disfigurement. The real problems are internal, Kirsten,’ he said, for the first time using her Christian name, and saying it softly. ‘When you came in, you were unconscious. We had to operate immediately to put things right, to save your life, and we had to do it quickly, because there’s always considerable anaesthetic risk when a patient is unconscious.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You were suffering from severe internal bleeding, and there was a strong chance of infection, of peritonitis. We had to perform an emergency hysterectomy.’

  ‘I know what that means,’ Kirsten said. ‘It means I can’t have children, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It means surgical removal of the uterus.’

  ‘But it means I’ll never be able to have babies, doesn’t it?’

  The doctor nodded.

  Kirsten’s mother began to sob into a handkerchief. Her father and the doctor looked solemn. One machine beside her bleeped rhythmically, another hissed, and colourless fluid dripped into her arm from the IV. Everything in the room seemed white, apart from her father’s charcoal-grey suit.

  ‘It wasn’t something I’d planned for the immediate future anyway,’ she said with a little laugh, showing them she could put a brave face on things. But this time she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Her father and the doctor were both staring down at her.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she shouted, turning her face to the wall. ‘Go away! Leave me alone.’

  ‘You insisted I tell you everything, Kirsten,’ the doctor said, ‘and you’d have to have been told eventually. I said I thought it was too soon.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ Kirsten reached for a Kleenex. ‘How did you expect me to react? Jump for joy? Is there anything else? Now you’ve started, you might as well get it all over with.’

  There was a short pause, then the doctor said, ‘Some of the stab wounds perforated the vagina.’

  Her mother turned away to face the door. Such frank talk was clearly too much for her. Vaginas, breasts, penises and the rest had always been forbidden subjects around the house.

  ‘So?’ Kirsten said. ‘I’m assuming you patched that up as well.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘Oh, yes. We had to close the lacerations, stop the bleeding. But as I said, it was an emergency patch-up.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you made some kind of mistake because you were in a hurry? Is that it?’

  ‘No. We followed standard emergency procedure. I told you. You were unconscious. We had to act fast.’

  ‘So what are you trying to say?’

  ‘Well, there was some tissue loss, and the damage could be serious enough to cause permanent problems.’

  ‘Could be?’

  ‘We just don’t know yet, Kirsten.’

  ‘And where does all this leave me?’

  ‘Intercourse might be a problem,’ the doctor explained. ‘It could be painful, difficult.’

  Kirsten lay silent for a moment, then she laughed and said, ‘Oh, wonderful! That’s just what I was feeling like right now, a really good fuck.’

  ‘Kirsten!’ her father snapped, showing the first signs of anger she had seen in him in years. ‘Listen to the doctor.’ Her mother started crying again.

  ‘There’s a chance that reconstructive surgery sometime in the future might help,’ the doctor went on, ‘but there are no guarantees.’

  It finally dawned on Kirsten what he meant – more from his tone than what he actually said – and she felt a chill shoot through her whole being. ‘This could be for ever?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘And a hysterectomy can’t be reversed, either, can it?’

  ‘No.’

  Kirsten turned towards the window and noticed it was raining outside. The tree-top leaves danced under the downpour and the distant flats had turned slate grey. ‘For ever,’ she repeated to herself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kirsten.’

  She looked at her father. It was odd to be discussing such things as her sex life in front of him; she had never done so before. She didn’t know what he assumed about her activities at university. But now here he was, looking sad and sympathetic because she couldn’t make love, perhaps never would again. Or maybe it was the bit about no children that hit him the hardest, she being an only child.

  She didn’t know which was worse herself; for the first time in her life, the two things converged in a way they never had before. She
had been on the pill for two years and had slept regularly with Galen, only her second lover. They had never thought about children and the future, but now, as she remembered their gentle and ecstatic love-making, she couldn’t help but think of new life growing inside her. How ironic that it took the loss of the ability both to enjoy sex and to bear children to make her see how intimately connected the two functions were. She laughed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ her father asked, coming forward to take her hand. She let him, but hers lay limp.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at him and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I feel sort of empty inside, all dried out and dead.’

  The doctor was still hovering at the foot of the bed. ‘As I said, there is a chance that reconstructive surgery might help. It’s something to think about. I don’t know if you understand this, Kirsten,’ he said, ‘or at least if you realize it yet, but you really are very lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kirsten, rolling on her side. ‘Lucky.’

  15

  MARTHA

  The next morning the honeymooners were gone, leaving one empty table, but Keith sat with Martha anyway. He made polite conversation over breakfast but demonstrated none of the ebullience and energy he’d shown the previous day, when he had first found himself at the table with her. Enforced celibacy, she guessed, had seriously dampened his spirits. It would be best to say nothing about last night, she decided. After all, it was Keith’s last day; perhaps tomorrow she would be able to eat alone.

  A particularly near and noisy flock of seagulls had awoken most of the guests at about three-thirty in the morning, and that provided a safe and neutral topic of conversation over the black pudding and grilled mushrooms that again augmented the usual bacon and egg.

  Martha ate quickly, wished Keith a good journey, and hurried upstairs. She hadn’t slept well. It wasn’t only the scavenging gulls that had disturbed her, but thoughts and fears about what she had to do next. For weeks she had planned it and dreamed of it, gone over it all so often in her mind that she could perform the act in her sleep. Now that it was close, she felt terrified. What if something went wrong? What if, when the time came, she couldn’t go through with it? Even the holiest have their doubts, she reminded herself. Faith would see her through.

  Across the harbour, a few woolly clouds hung over St Mary’s, but they were drifting slowly inland. The sun lit up the cottages that straggled up the steep hillside. Beyond St Hilda’s, closer at the other end of the street, the sky was clear. A light breeze wafted through the window, bringing the salt and fishy smell of the sea.

  Martha didn’t know what to do with herself all day. She couldn’t act until after dark, and she had already got the lie of the land. It would look suspicious if she stayed in her room, though, especially on such a lovely day at the seaside. Spells of warm, sunny weather were rare on the Yorkshire coast. Whatever she did, she would have to go out.

  She waited until she had heard the other guests leave for the day, hoping that Keith was among them, then crept down the stairs and out into the morning sun. Already, courting couples strolled hand in hand along Skinner Street, content after a night of love set to the music of screeching gulls. Families paused and glanced idly at the racks of postcards and guidebooks outside the gift shops. Children in shorts and striped T-shirts, swinging bright plastic buckets and spades, demanded ice creams. Babies slept in their prams, oblivious to the noise and bustle of life going on all around them.

  Martha went into the first newsagent’s she came across and bought The Times and a packet of twenty Benson and Hedges. The ten Rothmans, a brand she hadn’t liked all that much anyway, hadn’t lasted very long, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t want to be caught without. For twenty-one years she hadn’t smoked a single cigarette. Now, within about a year, she had become addicted.

  She wandered down busy Flowergate, a narrow street crammed with shoppers, towards the estuary. Overhead, flocks of gulls screamed and flashed white in the sun. When she reached the bridge, she checked the high-tide times chalked on the board: 0639 and 1902. It was ten o’clock now; that meant the tide would be well on its way out. She jotted the times down in her notebook in case she should forget.

  One problem with the guesthouse was that the manager’s wife made awful coffee. Martha would have preferred it to tea in the morning, but she had no stomach for a pot of powdered Nescafé. Now she craved the caffeine that only a cup of strong, drip-filter coffee could provide.

  She crossed the bridge and turned left along Church Street, joining the procession heading for the 199 steps up to Caedmon’s Cross, St Mary’s and the abbey ruin. A short distance along the narrow cobbled street, just before the marketplace, she found the cafe she had noticed before, the Monk’s Haven, near the Black Horse pub. The cafe was meant to look very olde worlde. A painted sign, much like a pub sign, in Gothic script hung above the entrance, and pots of bright red geraniums ranged along the top of the frontage above the mullioned windows with their white-painted frames.

  Martha ordered a cup of black coffee and sat down to struggle with The Times crossword. While mulling over clues, she watched the ebb and flow of people beyond the windows: more couples pushing babies in prams; toddlers hanging onto mummy’s hand; stout old women with grey hair and sensible shoes. Outside the music shop opposite, a skinny young man clad in jeans and a checked shirt, who looked like he hadn’t slept for a month or combed his hair for at least as long, started singing folk songs in a nasal voice. Some people dropped coins into the hat that lay on the pavement beside him.

  When she had done as much of the crossword as she could, Martha read through the paper. She found nothing of interest. Waiting was no fun. It must be like this for soldiers, she thought, just before they know they are going into action. They sit around in the trenches, or on landing craft, smoking and keeping very quiet. She had no idea what she would do when it was all over. That was an aspect of the business she had left completely to instinct. Because she didn’t know how she would feel when it was done, she couldn’t make any plans about what to do. She just hoped that possibilities would present themselves when the time came.

  She wandered up and down Church Street gazing at the displays of jet-ware, beautiful polished black stones set in gold and silver, or larger chunks carved into ornamental chess pieces and delicate figurines. By noon she was hungry again. So much for the staying power of black pudding and bacon. Desperate for an alternative to fish and chips, she nipped into the Black Horse and ordered a steak and kidney pie, which she washed down with a half of bitter. Then she smoked a cigarette and struggled for a while longer with the crossword. By half past one she was out on the street again wondering what to do with the rest of the day. She didn’t want to go up to St Mary’s again, and there was no sense in simply tramping the streets all day.

  Close to the junction of Church Street and Bridge Street stood a small bookshop. The bell pinged as Martha went inside, and a plump, bespectacled girl smiled at her from behind a counter stacked with invoices and orders. The place had a large and comprehensive paperback fiction section, which Martha browsed through methodically, starting with A: Ackroyd, Amis, Austen, Burgess, Chatwin, Dickens, Drabble, Greene, Hardy . . .

  ‘Can I help you?’ the assistant asked, coming out from behind her counter and raising her glasses.

  ‘No,’ Martha said, flashing her a quick smile. ‘Just browsing. I’ll find something.’

  The woman went back to her paperwork and Martha carried on scanning the titles. She wanted an ordered world she could lose herself in for a while. Nothing modern would do; twentieth-century literature, with its experiments in style, its self-conscious artistry and its lack of morality and order, had never much interested her. At one time she had liked to escape into the occasional crime novel – Ruth Rendell, P. D. James – but such things held no appeal for her now. For a moment she considered Moby Dick. She had never read it, and the seaside, especially an old whaling centre, would be the ideal place to start
. But when she got to the Ms, she found they hadn’t a copy left in stock. The only Melville book they had was Pierre, and she was in no mood for that. Finally, she settled for Jane Austen’s Emma. She had read it at school, for her A-Levels, but that seemed a lifetime ago. With Jane Austen, you could count on nothing more to ruffle the ordered surface than an occasional social gaffe or mistaken romantic intentions.

  What better to do, then, than spend an afternoon on the beach reading Emma? She just hoped Keith wasn’t there. He had said he was moving on, but he could have changed his mind.

  She made her way back over the bridge. With the tide out, the River Esk was reduced to a narrow channel in the sand. Boats leaned in the silt at odd angles. Martha walked along St Ann’s Staith, thinking of the old days in the photograph when the railing was made of wood. She passed the amusement arcades, seafood stalls and Dracula Museum, then at the end of Pier Road she took the steps down to the beach.

  Whitby Sands runs below West Cliff, and over the centuries, the sea has carved small caves and caverns in the sheer rock wall. Martha poked her head inside one. It didn’t go very deep, but it was a dank, gloomy place, full of slimy rocks, smelly seaweed and dead, dried-out molluscs that crunched underfoot. She shivered and turned away.

  The beach itself was crowded – only to be expected on such a fine day – but Martha managed to find a spot where she could lean back against the rock and stretch her feet out. Children screamed and splashed in the water, bravely taking it in turns to stand fast as waves came in and bowled them over. Anxious parents kept one eye on the knitting or the newspaper, and the other on the kids. Some children were busy constructing elaborate sandcastles with turrets, battlements, moats and drawbridges.

  Some people were even sunbathing. A couple of teenage girls wearing skimpy bikinis lay flat out on towels. A group of boys about the same age, playing cricket nearby, kept hitting the ball in their direction just to make an excuse to chat the girls up.