She stopped outside her house. Simon walked on for a moment, then saw that she was not by his side. He looked back at her and at the cramped Victorian terrace in alarm.
‘This is you?’
Iris nodded, trying to hide her smirk. He was a rich boy, no doubt about it.
‘Right, good. Well, nice to meet you, Iris.’
‘You too.’
He dashed in to kiss her cheek and she felt the stubble on his top lip, smelt the scent of beer and the faint mustiness of sweat as the breeze caught his jacket.
‘Do you know how to get home?’ she said, because he was lingering.
‘I think so.’
She smiled briefly, then walked to her front door. She didn’t turn around.
Her mother was in the hallway, waiting, perching on the stairs like a gargoyle.
‘How did it go? He looks a very nice boy.’
‘You were spying on me?’
‘I heard voices. I didn’t know who it was.’
Iris dropped her bag on the step and trudged into the kitchen to get herself a cup of water.
‘What’s his name?’ Her mum came up behind her, her slippers slapping on the floor.
‘Simon.’
‘Simon what?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask.’
‘You’ve been on a date with a boy, and you don’t know his surname!’
‘But I didn’t know it was a date, did I?’
‘Well, I told you I don’t like that Shirley. If you will insist on going out with her...’
Iris slumped onto the kitchen chair and drank the water, concentrating on the sensation of it trickling icily into her stomach.
‘What’s he like?’ Her mum was wide awake, though Iris was more than ready for sleep. ‘What does he do?’
‘Bank manager.’
‘Oh, my!’ She let out a giggle, then pushed her hand to her lips. She continued in a whisper. ‘You keep hold of him, love. They don’t come around often.’
Obviously, it didn’t matter that Iris didn’t like him, that she found the thought of his body against hers repulsive. Just so long as he had a bit of money!
‘Good night.’ She left the glass on the table and kissed her mother on the forehead. She could not have another conversation like this, not now.
She dragged her feet upstairs. In the bathroom, she splashed her face with cold water, flinching at the temperature, then wiped her makeup onto an old towel. She heard her mother creak up the stairs, and for a moment, she felt guilty for not being the daughter her mum seemed so desperate for. But then she looked at her reflection in the mirror.
She did not want to wear pink skirts and have pretty hair and totter around in high heels. Her reflection was pleasant, yes, but it wasn’t Iris, not the Iris she wanted to be. She didn’t care if the Johns of the world looked at her like something on the bottom of their shoe, or if the Simons of the world thought her odd – to hell with them! And apart from a handsome face and a fat bank account, what was so special about them anyway?
She pulled out Kath’s diary before she slipped into bed. She had been reading little bits to Kath all this week after her shift, hoping it would rouse her, but still Kath had not improved. Iris would have to ring Albert tomorrow and tell him to prepare for the worst, but for now, all she wanted to do was disappear into Katy’s world.
1900
Monday, 29th October
I have been here for over one month now. As with anything, I can’t imagine my life as it was before. Did I really work for Reverend Cotton, cleaning the step and blacking the range and cooking all the meals and darning the socks?
It is luxurious to only attend to Mrs Leverton, for truly she seems as sane as me. Our habits are forming well. After wash and breakfast, we take a stroll around the grounds with Annie. The little dog runs along in front, sticking her nose into clumps of grass and hunting for worms and birds. Mrs Leverton takes my arm for support now, whereas at first, she would not. We wander at her pace, and we follow the same path which skirts beside the woodland until we come to the mound. Mrs Leverton walks onto that mound each time and smiles at the view, and it is like she is a goddess overlooking the earth.
‘I can breathe up here,’ she said to me once, by way of explanation.
I’ve realised she always positions herself near a window so that she may look out. She hates the woods, the closeness of the trees. I believe she does not like the thought of being trapped.
After our walk, we go to the day room, where she plays her tin whistle or writes. She does not show me her writing, but once I happened to look over her shoulder and saw that she addressed it to Edward. I told Mrs Thorpe and she just shook her head and smiled, the same kind of smile that mothers do when they talk about how useless fathers are, but love them all the same.
Alice always finds her when she is in the day room. She is a sweet girl, and it is hard to believe that she is twelve years my senior and daughter of a Laird and Lady on the Scottish borders. She holds her mouth open and often drools onto Mrs Leverton’s dresses, but Mrs Leverton doesn’t mind. In the afternoons, they read her favourite book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. When they have finished that, they begin the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, and when they have finished that, they start all over again. I asked Mrs Leverton how many times she has read the books, and she said she has lost count.
There is a tenderness between the two of them, a language that doesn’t need words. Mrs Leverton is the only one who can calm Alice when she gets herself in a bother. It’s a dangerous business for Alice to get in a bother, for that is when her fits begin, and they can last whole minutes. I’ve only seen it happen once. She fell to the floor, and her body shook and arched. The veins popped out on her neck and forehead, her eyes rolled back, and her lips went blue.
That one lasted only seconds, and she started gulping for air soon enough, but then she was all wobbly and her words didn’t come out right. Miss Wade – that’s her attendant, who used to be her governess, when she was a child – was no use whatsoever. She just stood beside the wall, watching, waiting for it to pass, while Mrs Leverton was down beside Alice, telling her it was going to be all right, telling her to breathe, holding her hair out of her face. I felt ever so proud of Mrs Leverton then.
When Alice had finished, Miss Wade and Mrs Thorpe bundled her up between themselves and carted her to her room while she flopped between them, still murmuring nonsense.
‘She’ll sleep for a day now,’ Mrs Leverton said as she resumed her seat beside the fireplace. I could tell she was upset. She tried to hold her book, but her hands were trembling, so she threw it on the table.
‘You’re very close to Alice,’ I said as I started on a piece of sewing.
‘We’ve been here the longest. She arrived in eighty-two.’
The year I was born, I thought. I was never any good at numbers and it took me a good few minutes for me to work it out. ‘She was twelve when she came?’
‘She was abandoned. I can remember that day with such clarity. She was small for her age, arms as thin as twigs. She was like a deer who’d been shot, her eyes bulging as she clung to Miss Wade. She’s never given that poor girl any affection, you know, not even then.’
‘Does her mother visit?’
Mrs Leverton laughed, but it was a bitter laugh, and her eyes looked as hard as marbles as she stared into the fire. ‘She is dead to her mother.’
‘I suppose you are like a mother to her now?’
She opened her book again, and after a while, she said, ‘Do you wish to be a mother, Katy?’
My needle dropped into my lap, silver against grey. I couldn’t find it until it poked into my wrist and made me bleed.
‘I don’t know.’
‘It is not easy, being a mother. One has to be selfless, to put one’s child above all others. Not everyone can do it.’
I thought that I didn’t want to be a mother just yet, but perhaps in a few years, when me and Bertie were more settled
. It made me think of Bertie, and of lots of little Berties all running around. Our babies would have his black hair and my blue eyes. They’d have clear skin like Bertie and no silly freckles like me. They’d have my da’s height, for Bertie does loath how short he is, and our sons would be strong like their father, and our daughters would be loyal, like me.
‘Alice is the only female in here who is childless,’ Mrs Leverton said, and I dragged my thoughts away from Bertie.
I looked about the room. The other three patients sat with their attendants against the walls, each doing their own thing.
Mrs Josephine Beckwith was playing a game of bread-and-honey with Winifred, her attendant. Wini seemed to be letting her win, for Mrs Beckwith had nearly all of the cards. Mrs Beckwith was somewhere in her forties, although she looked older than Mrs Leverton. Marion told me that was on account of her habit, the alcohol making the blood drain from her face, leaving her grey and shrivelled.
‘She started drinking after her husband died,’ Mrs Leverton said, when she saw me looking. ‘Her brother took her daughter as his ward when he had Josephine committed.’
I then turned to Mrs Viola Milton, who was staring at the centre of the room while Nella brushed her long, grey hair. Nella was a kind woman who always talked to me if she ever found me on my own. She’d become an attendant after her husband had died, for she’d no hankering to marry again and wanted to put her Christianity to good use. She’d told me that Mrs Milton was almost eighty years old and was suffering from senile insanity, that she couldn’t even remember her own children, so they’d stopped visiting.
‘It is Rose you have to be careful of.’
Mrs Rose Huxley and Marion sat at the far end of the room, attempting to read.
‘She twitches, do you see? There, her hand.’
Mrs Huxley’s hand jerked, as if batting away a fly.
‘And now look at her eyes.’
Mrs Huxley was staring at the pages of the book.
‘She is not reading,’ Mrs Leverton said.
‘She is.’
‘Watch. Her eyes are not moving, are they? She is still, so still. Don’t you think it looks like she is listening to something?’
The longer I watched, the more I could see what Mrs Leverton meant. Mrs Huxley’s head was slightly tilted, and a frown deep onto her forehead. Her fingernails began to dig into the leather on the back of the book. Marion, on the other hand, was busy arranging a vase of flowers on the table beside her, oblivious.
‘Watch her,’ Mrs Leverton whispered. ‘Any moment …’
Mrs Huxley screamed and hurled her novel into the air. It came crashing towards me, stopping just inches from my chair. She sprang to her feet and charged, pounding towards me, her arms outstretched, her fingers clawing at nothing, her face the colour of blood.
The scream turned into a low, animal wail the closer she came, glaring at me, and just as I closed my eyes and braced myself for her impact, there was the dreadful crack of bone against wood. I opened my eyes to find Wini straddling Mrs Huxley on the floor, her muscular arms pinning Mrs Huxley down as she writhed.
‘Leave them alone!’ Mrs Huxley screamed, again and again.
Mrs Thorpe came running into the room and told Marion to take charge of Mrs Beckwith, for she too was becoming agitated.
My heart had never beat so fast in all my life. My breath was too quick, and it was making my head dizzy. Mrs Leverton squeezed my hand until I’d got myself under control.
Mrs Huxley started to cry. Her body grew limp, and she sobbed into the floor, her tears spilling onto the wood. I wanted to lift her up and hold her in my arms and tell her that it was all in her head, that none of it was real, that not even the devil would torture a babe, that God would not allow such a thing. But Wini and Mrs Thorpe dragged her upwards, and when she would not walk herself, they dragged her out of the day room too. In the silence, we heard her shoes banging against each step as they carried her up the stairs.
‘She would have been a wonderful mother,’ Mrs Leverton said. ‘Sometimes, death really is better than living.’
Wednesday 7th November
It has been bitter today and has not stopped raining. I do hate November. It is such a bleak month. The fog this morning never lifted, and all day we’ve been held in the clouds, as if we are the only people on Earth. It made Mrs Leverton odd. She paced relentlessly, not even sitting down for Alice when it came time to read the next chapter, but Mrs Leverton knows the story so well that she recited it from memory while the girl followed at her heels, like Annie.
‘I have to see,’ Mrs Leverton mumbled as she leant against one of the stone pillars under the veranda this afternoon, squinting at the fog. Her brown eyes absorbed the whiteness and looked ghostly. I didn’t like it one bit. I begged her to come inside, to keep warm beside the fire, but she would not have it.
‘It is like we have been buried,’ she said.
Mrs Thorpe told me to prepare a hot toddy for Mrs Leverton, which seemed to ease her, and when the sun had gone down she returned to normal, but when she got into bed, her feet were so cold they did indeed feel as if they belonged to a corpse. I rubbed them for several minutes until the blood returned, and when I’d finished, she had already fallen to sleep.
My feet never warmed, though. Our room is full of draughts, and the grate splutters out such useless heat that it is pointless even lighting it. Marion came into my bed to try to warm me. She reminds me a little of a wood pigeon, all plump and soft, her chin tucked into her bosom because her neck is so short, and she is never cold.
I’d been moaning about the state of my hair. The weather had made it all flat and dull, and I’m meeting Bertie tomorrow afternoon, so I was desperate for it to have a curl. I’d been trying to get my hairbrush through it, but the tangles were so bad, and I was so cold and tired that tears were coming to my eyes.
‘Let me do that,’ Marion said, and began brushing for me, easing out the knots so I didn’t feel a thing. ‘I used to do this for my little sister.’
I told her about my May, how she’d never liked me to brush her hair or dress her or do anything for her – she was always so headstrong. She infuriated me at times, and I her, although I must admit that now I do rather miss seeing her sullen face. To stop me from wallowing in silly homesickness, I asked Marion what her sister was like.
‘She’s dead.’
I cursed myself for speaking harshly about May. Marion must have thought me so mean-hearted and selfish.
‘I’m sorry, Marion. What happened?’
‘Her lungs were weak. All of her was weak, really. She would sit up most nights and cough until blood came out. It was a dreadful thing to see, broke my ma’s heart. I remember putting her to bed and thinking it looked as if there was no one inside the sheets. She was nothing but skin and bone, you see. But she had the sweetest heart, and she’d always want the window open so that she could hear the birds in the morning. And she was so pretty. Blonde hair and blue eyes, just like you, and the prettiest smile you ever did see.’
‘How old was she when she passed?’
‘Eight. She had no fear. She was the bravest little girl I’ve ever known.’
We were quiet for a while as Marion carried on brushing out my hair. Then she started to curl it round my ribbons.
‘You’ve got beautiful hair. I wish I had it. I am just plain Marion.’
‘You are not,’ I said. I tried to think of something that was pretty about her, but by the time I’d remembered that her lips were fair and red and full, she’d laughed and moved on.
‘Going to see your ma tomorrow?’
I mumbled nonsense at her, for I didn’t want to lie to her, but I couldn’t tell her the truth, either.
Suddenly, she nicked me in the ribs and whispered like a schoolgirl, ‘You got a beau?’
I shook my head so violently that some of the ribbons tumbled out and Marion had to quickly tie them back into place.
‘Surely you must have all the boy
s after you back home?’
‘Hardly. What about you?’ I said, and hoped she would not see my face.
‘Oh, yes, I have all the boys.’ She snorted and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Have you ever kissed a boy, Katy?’
I didn’t think a kiss was such a bad thing, and I didn’t need to say who I’d kissed nor how many times. ‘Yes.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘Nice.’
‘You have got a beau! I knew it! I can see it in your smile.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
She jumped out of my bed, as if there was a bright, new day ahead of her instead of a long, cold night. ‘To kiss a boy’s lips,’ she said with a deep sigh then fell onto her own bed. ‘I shan’t ever find out what it’s like.’
‘Of course, you will. You will make a fine wife, Marion. A boy – a man – would be lucky to have you to call his own.’
‘Not for me. And I’ve no need for your pity, Katy Owen! In all truth, I am only curious about it. I have no real yearning for it.’
‘What do you yearn for?’ I rolled over so we were lying on our pillows, hugging our covers, and staring at each other.
‘I want to help people. I just want to do this.’
‘Forever?’ I said, unable to contain my horror at the prospect.
‘I’ll pass my exams next year, and I’ll work here for a few more years, but here isn’t where the real trouble is. They’re all ladies, and it’s really no hardship for them here, is it? Not like in the counties. That’s where I want to work eventually, and I want to be a matron.’
I couldn’t help smiling at her. Matron Marion amidst a sea of rocking and screaming lunatics – I could just imagine it.
‘So.’ She reached under her bed and found her handbook.
‘It’s almost midnight, Marion, can’t you leave it just for tonight?’
She shook her head and started reading. She is a truly wonderful woman.
Woman on Ward 13: A haunting gothic novel of obsession and insanity (Iris Lowe Mysteries) Page 6
