by Ruth Wade
‘Ah, your fight was one of the serious kind.’
‘Why did you say those things?’
‘What things, Stephen? Has my husband been telling tales out of school? Take it all with a pinch of salt; you know how much he likes to goad a willing victim.’
‘I was going to wait in the empty cottage like you suggested.’
‘You’re babbling.’
‘In your note. You may have had second thoughts but I got it all the same.’
‘If you were one of your own patients you’d see this is an alcohol-induced fantasy. I never wrote you a note.’
‘Then how did I know where you’d be?’
‘I told Edith I’d be babysitting one of the new residents and she probably mentioned it to you.’
Stephen’s fuzzy brain belatedly latched on to the truth: Edith Potter had discovered the power of the written word to deceive. She had played him for a fool and he was just stupid – or desperate – enough to be taken in.
‘You look as though you’re about to throw up.’
‘I told you, I’m fit to drop.’
‘But it’s more than that, isn’t it?’
She placed her hand on his knee. Stephen felt the fire in every cell of his body.
‘This case is testing everything I have, kitten. And I’ve a horrible feeling I may not be up to it.’
Helen smiled. ‘It’s years since I heard you call me that.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No, I like it.’ She turned her body slightly towards him. ‘But another thing I remember is how you always judge yourself so harshly; you’re a very good psychoanalyst, Stephen, one of the best. Hang in there and prove it.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Nice and smooth. Much better. Now I’m off to get you that bedding.’ She stood up.
‘Helen ...’
‘No, Stephen, please.’
‘But you don’t know what I’m going to say.’
‘Yes, I do. The same as always when you have too much to drink. You want to know why I chose Peter over you.’
Stephen flushed at his predictability. He was sobering up fast. She sat on the couch again – but this time a little further away.
‘Peter is a thoughtful, intelligent man. And a driven and dedicated doctor.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the best recommendation I’ve ever heard.’
‘You can never truly explain why you love someone, Stephen, what you see in them. We both know that, at its most basic, it’s a projection of the values and attributes we feel are missing in ourselves. The things you think you need to make you complete. And I don’t feel up to exposing my failings to your scrutiny at the moment.’
‘I think you’re pretty near perfect.’
He hadn’t meant to say that. Sodding alcohol.
She laughed. ‘Oh, Stephen, and that’s what I love in you. The world is always so black and white in your book, isn’t it? Goodies and baddies like in the cowboy reels. Well, I’m certainly not going to shatter your illusions. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Stephen felt himself drifting off again but this time with a warm glow inside him that had nothing to do with the wine. He hoped there would be one snatch of this particular drunken conversation he wouldn’t forget in the morning.
PART IV
BEDDINGHAM HALL
NOVEMBER 1927
Experiences in general involve the presence of objects to the mind.
We cannot perceive without perceiving something, we cannot suppose without supposing something to be the case, and even apparently objectless emotions are found in analysis to be directed upon something before the mind.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Edith stood back from the window. The glass was streak free at last. She’d been awoken by dreams that were confusing in their content but riven with guilt and fear. They’d left her feeling suffocated. As soon as the light was creeping over the rim of the Downs she’d gone up to the house and removed some vinegar from the kitchen, and an old newspaper from the pile by the front door. For what felt like hours she’d rubbed away at the flyspecks and filthy corners of each pane, going around the four again and again because dirt was bound to have settled in the interim. The acetic acid had etched into the torn skin on her knuckles but that had somehow made the whole exercise more satisfying. And now one component of the room could pass as clean. There was little she could do about the floor without a mop and bucket but she’d put on the gloves Helen had bought her and wash down the furniture and surfaces using her face flannel.
By the time she’d polished the apples and replaced them in the bowl, the sun was trying to break through the fog obscuring her view of the slope up to the Hall. It must’ve started coagulating the minute her back was turned. She felt as she imagined a ship’s captain would when a sea mist descended without warning. It disconcerted her to be so cut adrift. Perhaps if she re-cleaned the windows then things would become clear again.
Her world was feeling a little more ordered by the time her breakfast arrived. Except it only lasted as long as it took for Helen to place the tray on the table and tell her that Dr Maynard had cut short his holiday, had arrived at the Hall first thing, and was going to stay the rest of the week. The note idea had failed spectacularly: she should’ve realised they were all in it together and would’ve conspired to arrive at a suitable punishment. Her suspicions were confirmed when Helen had given her a funny look before she’d left. In the past it would have upset her but she now knew that what she’d mistaken for friendship had only been a cynical ploy to get her to open up. Most probably suggested by Dr Maynard. The two deserved each other.
A hangover from her dreams had left her convinced she could smell pipe smoke, although it could have been the memory of pipe smoke – something made it impossible to distinguish what was thought, and what sensation. The burning tobacco had mixed with the vinegar to resemble fried onions. Not unpleasant, but it had no business being here at all; if she softened the block of laundry soap in water and slid it over the cushions she might be able to get rid of it.
*
He knocked on the door as she was burnishing the mantelshelf. She peeled off the cotton gloves, pausing to examine where the fingertips had nearly worn through before hiding them in the fruit bowl. When she let him in he virtually bounded over to fetch his chair.
‘It’s a wonderful day for a walk over the fields, Edith. Just think, I’d have been battling with some landlady’s rubbery over-cooked fried egg about now if I’d remained up north as originally intended.’
‘I take it you and your adulteress came up with a suitable ruse for your impromptu return?’
‘I want you to know that’s there’s nothing – and never has been – anything like that between Mrs Hargreaves and myself. We’re just good friends.’
‘But you knew who I meant, didn’t you?’
It was a lot more satisfying to see him flush without that ridiculous beard for him to hide behind. He was staring at his shoes now, all his puppy-dog eagerness long gone.
‘I want you to know that I don’t hold any rancour about the note – although it was cruel of you to pretend it was from her. Can you tell me why you did it?’
‘No. Unless it was some of that automatic writing you were so persuasively lecturing me about.’
‘That was after you instigated the charade. I’m not reprimanding you, Edith; I just want to understand what was in your head at the time, that’s all.’
A late-season fly buzzed against the windowpane. The distraction soothed her a little. She wanted to open the door and let it out. The room was beginning to feel awfully small.
‘I can see this is difficult so we’ll leave it for now; we’ve plenty of time ahead of us. I suspect you’ll get pretty sick of the sight of me by Sunday.’
Edith wanted to say that she wouldn’t have to wait nearly that long – within the hour would do it – but instead walked across the room to stand beside the armchair.
‘I’d like to grow some roses. As you’re
going to be hanging around, do you think you’d be able to make a trip to Fletching and bring back the Reverend Hole Reynolds’ book on the subject? I remembered I had it when discussing the possibilities with Arnold. It has a green cloth cover with a gilt floral design embossed on the front with a large red letter R in the centre. It’s on one of the top shelves if my memory serves me correctly.’
Good. The precision of the details should be enough to convince him that everything in her mind was under control.
‘There’s bound to be someone going over that way, so I’ll see what I can do about cadging a lift. I’m here now so let’s start the session proper, shall we? Can you tell me something about your feelings towards your father?’
‘And perhaps you could pop into the Police House and ask for my watch? It’s most inconvenient to have to keep relying on the church clock in the village. I don’t always hear the chimes.’
‘Do you get the impression that time is going quickly or slowly for you?’
‘Oh, relatively, I’d say.’ Edith busied herself with plumping up the still-damp cushions to hide her smile of victory. ‘For example, it must be nearly lunchtime because I’m starving.’
‘Didn’t you have your breakfast?’
‘Yes, except that was hours ago.’
‘It’s good that you’ve got your appetite back but I wonder why you’re hungry again so quickly. It’s only ten o’clock.’
‘Physical activity.’
‘I noticed you’ve been cleaning. The place is spotless.’
‘Hardly that. Look over there. See that cobweb? I’ll just fetch something to flick it down.’
‘Why don’t you leave it for now?’
‘No, I can’t. I won’t be a second.’
*
He was writing more notes when she came back from returning the towel to the bathroom. She sat again, being careful not to allow her eyes to stray from the now soothingly clean corner.
‘Your father ...’
‘Is dead and buried, Dr Maynard. I really can’t understand your obsession with the past; surely it’s my future you’re here to do something about? I’d like a bright one if it’s all right with you. Despite the fog.’
‘It’s a beautiful day, Edith, I told you. Why don’t you put your glasses on?’
She sighed as a mother would to a persistently inquisitive child. She took them from her skirt pocket, hooked the wires behind her ears and turned to look out of the window. The fog was now thick and sulphurous.
‘Ah, that’s better. Lovely sunshine.’
‘If you’re ready, I think it would be a useful exercise if you talked a little about your father’s decline. After that we can work back to what you remember about your early years with him.’
‘Sort of warm up on the irrelevancies?’
‘That’s a good way of putting it.’
She stared at the hearth for a while. Were they specks of soot? Why hadn’t she noticed them before? But of course she hadn’t had her glasses on then. Maybe she’d better go over the whole place again when he left. Now ... what to tell him?
‘It was the bouts of extreme melancholy I noticed first. Dark dungeon days he’d call them. Then his use of language became affected. He developed a pattern of using certain words in a strange context. Like ... oh, yes, he’d appear with a pruning knife in his hand and say I’m just going to transmogrify the roses. In anyone else that might’ve been them trying to be clever but he was the great Dr Gerald Potter and prided himself on being accurate and precise in every single thing he uttered. That deteriorated into calling things by the wrong names. A mirror would become a puddle, his collars rope. I remember him once asking for me to bring him a walking stick and when I handed him one from the umbrella stand he’d said you cloth-eared, half-brained imbecile, how do you expect me to write with that? He’d wanted a pen of course; and it wasn’t one of his good mood days. But there was always a sort of warped logic in his confusion and I got quite good at guessing because I just thought about whether the noun he’d used was hard, soft, flat, shiny, edible, or whatever, and then narrow it down from there.’
She paused for a moment to lick her lips. She’d kill right now for a cup of tea. Should she suggest that they go up to the house to get one? But then the fog would get into her lungs and make her wheeze. No, better finish this and then she could have a mouthful of water from the tap.
‘Would you say you liked your father?’
‘What a strange thing to say. You’re not supposed to like your parents: respect, honour and obey – revere even – but like?’
‘Can you remember him ever doing ... or saying ... anything that might’ve sparked off this antagonism?’
‘You really must stop trying to put words into my mouth, Dr Maynard, because I never said any such thing.’
‘But I believe there is something in your subconscious trying to tell you that there was, and it’s emerging via the automatic writing. We understand better what we’re able to articulate – which is why I always tell you everything I can about the process we’re going through together ...’
Edith preferred her interpretation: that he loved the sound of his own pompous voice. Her gaze had wandered again; the streaks on the glass were like backlit rainbows reminding her of the flanks of bacon beside the slicer in Treadwell’s shop. The fog must be lifting at last. But Dr Maynard hadn’t stopped talking.
‘... then again it occurs with children who invent an imaginary friend who can act out things such as breaking rules, manipulating adults, or committing acts of cruelty. In adulthood, such projections can populate the daydreams of the lonely or deeply dissatisfied. All constructs of the mind serve a purpose ... except if carried too far the temporary relief from harsh reality can become a permanent flight. Has anything I’ve said rung a bell with you, Edith?’
So loud and clear her hands began twitching in her lap like voles trying not to betray themselves to a circling hawk. She turned back to face him, willing the muscles in her face to behave themselves.
‘With so much time spent in hospital and my sickbed, you won’t be surprised to learn I amused myself by inventing an older sister I called Rebecca – no, no, that’s wrong, my memory’s playing tricks again; she was named Wendy ...’
Much easier to remember, with shades of Peter Pan to flesh her out a little.
‘ ... She had long blonde ringlets, whereas mine were cut short after the fire, and chattered non-stop to make up for my moody silences. Wendy was always daring me to do things I knew were naughty such as throwing my jelly on the floor for the nurses to slip on or hiding my pills under the blanket so they thought I’d taken them.’
He looked so ridiculously pleased with her that Edith almost felt sorry for him.
‘Were you always clear on the fact that she didn’t exist?’
‘But she did, Dr Maynard, in my head and that made her real to me.’
‘Of course, of course.’
‘She smelt of violets. So I always knew when she was about to pay me a visit because the sickly scent would be there a minute or two before she arrived.’
‘Was she consistently badly behaved?’
‘She could be kind when she wanted to be, when I was in too much pain to sleep, for example. Then she’d spin me tales about beautiful princesses or magical ponies that could fly off to a desert island with white sand and a turquoise sea. Do you mind if I get a drink of water? I’ll be back in a moment.’
It wasn’t only her mouth that was drying up. Besides, it would give her a chance to wash her hands again; she’d been resting them on the arms of the chair in an effort to appear relaxed and who knew what germs she might have picked up.
Edith returned from the bathroom carrying a tooth-glass full of water. She’d decided not to drink from the tap to give the drugs time to settle. Or had that been in the other place? All this making things up was confusing her. She had to put a stop to it.
‘Wendy did do something very bad once ... She put arsenic in Dr Potte
r’s evening cocoa. Rat poison. He was sick as a dog right off, and then confined to bed for a week. When Granny found the empty box on the shed floor she blamed me of course, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t allowed in there and didn’t even know we had any.’
‘Edith, think back to what I said earlier about the role of imaginary friends ... If Wendy poisoned your father then it was your unconscious desire to cause him a degree of harm that could’ve ended in death.’
‘Except that wouldn’t count as murder if it wasn’t deliberate.’ She took a sip of water. Her throat closed around the coldness as it slipped down.
‘In psychoanalysis deliberation isn’t everything: intent is.’ He leaned towards her, his elbows on his knees. ‘We’ve covered more than enough for now. I don’t want to over-tax you but it would help if you could spend a little time seeing if you can work out what might be behind that automatic writing you produced because I’d like to use it as a platform for our next session. Don’t worry about the words at this stage; it’s the drive to write them that interests me.’
‘Is that what you want me to do this afternoon?’
‘That, and to draw me a picture.’
‘Are we back at school now?’
‘Not exactly, but visual memory seems to inhabit a different part of the brain from the verbal one and the exercise might release some clues as to what it is that’s blocking you.’
He reached into his briefcase.
‘I brought some coloured pencils and a sketchpad down from the Hall. Some of the men are quite accomplished artists.’
So it wasn’t only her he patronised. But with the materials she’d be able to make a proper plan for her garden; ensure the roses were planted to best contrast their form and colour.
‘Will you be going to Fletching to get my book?’
‘As soon as I can, Edith.’
‘And my watch.’
