Disturbing Ground

by Priscilla Masters

  Even now, when she entered through the rear entrance she could still sense dripping gutters and damp ferns. In those days the cherub of the fountain had been coated in green slime and the pool filled with stagnant rainwater. A contrast to the pure diamond drops that spurted from the cherub’s mouth today.

  And when Bianca had made that fatal visit twenty years previously things must have been different again. She could picture it, the heyday of the house, the Smithson family throwing open their garden gates with pride and patronage a few times a year, inviting the locals to gasp at their wealth. It must have been on one of these public days, almost fifty years ago now, that three-year-old Bianca Rhys had visited Triagwn with her parents, fallen in this fountain and almost died. And so a pattern had been set for her strange and tragic life. Until finally she had died in a similar shallow pool.

  During Megan’s teenage years she had vaguely been aware that Triagwn was being energetically renovated for some purpose. And when the scaffolding was finally removed Triagwn had looked different, all remnants of neglect wiped away. Then the signs had been erected, announcing that it was due to reopen as a nursing home for the elderly. The climax had come late in the nineteen eighties when a local celebrity - a paunchy, ex-rugby player - had arrived in a stretch limousine with shaded windows to declare Triagwn House open. The first inmates must have arrived within days.

  She remembered all this before swinging the wheel around and covering the last few yards of the drive, pulling around to the left and halting next to a mud splattered Land Rover.

  Sandra Penarth must have been watching for her. As soon as Megan reached the front door it was pulled open. Acting Matron Sandra was a bright, competent woman in her early forties with thick, red hair which escaped from what probably should have been a neat chignon. But her hair was too heavy to stay up and flopped onto the nape of her neck. She was casually dressed in navy blue trousers with a turquoise shirt.

  As usual the welcome was warm. “Come and have a nice cup of tea, doctor, and I’ll tell you about the few residents we’d like you to see.” Without waiting for an answer she bounced along the corridor, still chattering, the rhythm of her rapid speech tapped out by staccato steps on the vinyl tiles. The air was scented with lavender Airwick which failed to disguise an underlying odour of cabbage. And lurking beneath that was the unmistakable scent of old age.

  The pictures that hung from the yellow walls lifted the atmosphere depicting cornfields and rural scenes against cloudless, blue skies, the shadows starkly defined by bright, golden sunshine. They sported the optimistic primary colours of a child’s palette. Red, yellow, blue. Megan recognised a Van Gogh, a Rousseau, a Gaugin. No Gericaults here.

  They turned at Van Gogh’s Cornfield into Sandra’s inner sanctum. Familiar, tidy, organised, neatly copied staff rotas pinned to a cork board. On a small table in front of the window stood a tasteful arrangement of fresh flowers - chrysanthemums and gladioli - and on either side a couple of framed photographs. The desk was light Ikea, the top clear except for a blue plastic pen holder and a maroon diary, closed, a long ribbon marking a page. The chairs were comfortable and new looking, upholstered in heather coloured wool. Megan settled into one, Sandra Penarth sat behind the desk, legs crossed, still talking.

  “To be honest the biggest worry is old Mr Driver. I think he’s got broncho pneumonia. His chest has always been awful and now he’s got a bug on it to add to his worries. The trouble is that he doesn’t want to go to the hospital and his relatives really don’t want him to be forced to leave here. I mean, he’s been here six years. I don’t mind keeping him. As far as I’m concerned he can stay. He won’t last long. The work may be heavy for the nurses but they don’t complain. They just get on with it. The only thing that troubles me is it upsets the other residents when we get a death.” She looked up. “You know, Megan, one death, someone they know so well. Brings things a bit nearer.”

  “Need they know?”

  Sandra’s bosom jerked. “Hah. Try keepin’ it a secret. In fact try keepin’ anythin’ secret in this place. It’s hopeless.”

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door and one of the Care Assistants in lilac trousers and white top brought in a tray of tea.

  Sandra handed Megan a cup, sipped and smiled, waited until the door had closed again before continuing. “The other patient I’ve really got my worries about is old Mr Smithson. He’s always been a difficult patient, bossy and demandin’ but recently his mind’s wanderin’ somethin’ awful. He’s getting quite wild. He’s telling tales so bizarre he’s frightening all the other residents. And that’s not good for them.”

  Megan took her tea. It must have been the phrase “tales so bizarre” that pricked her interest.

  “What tales?”

  “Silly old stories. Absolute nonsense.” Sandra put her teacup firmly down on the desk.

  Megan persisted. “What stories?”

  She did not receive a direct answer. Sandra Penarth rattled on. “You’ll have to sedate him, doctor. He’ll have to have more Largactil.”

  “What dose is he on?”

  “I’m not absolutely sure. We’ve been giving him a bit extra.”

  “How much extra? You can’t justify giving him extra Largactil on account of his telling tales.”

  “An extra tablet or two a day. If we can’t keep him under control,” Sandra said with the tiniest hint of a threat, “he’ll have to go to a mental hospital or somewhere better equipped to deal with him. And that would be a shame really to take him away from here. Being as it was his place all those years ago when he exploited the men of the valleys down his mine. I tell you what - I don’t know how his conscience is clear listenin’ to half the inmates coughing and spluttering up their coaldust.”

  “They get compensation.”

  “They’ll all be dead by the time that comes through.”

  “Well - what could he have done? He isn’t personally responsible. It was the way coal mines were run in those days.”

  “He could have done more.”

  Megan was anxious to put a stop to the conversation. She stood up. “I’d better see them all,” she said.

  Sandra followed her out of the room and together they started the laborious ward round, stopped in the corridor by beslippered residents, all of whom had vague symptoms and vaguer questions. It was as though they needed to see a doctor purely to retain their health. But then they had little else to focus on. And all the inmates in Triagwn were over seventy-five years old. They were likely to have some pathology.

  Megan talked to all of them but the phrase Sandra had used, “tales so bizarre”, had reminded her of one consultation with Bianca which had stuck in her mind. It had been about eighteen months ago, during a period when she had been at her uncontrolled worst, peering round the surgery door as she had entered, checking the telephone briskly for a bug and finally blurting out to Megan that the child was dead. She had fixed Megan with pure anguish in her eyes, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “She’s definitely dead,’ she said. “I know it now - for certain. I’d wondered before but when he told me, this time, I knew it was the truth. It was the way he said it, you see. I knew he’d done it. Such a sweet little girl she was too. Always chattering. Never shut up. Little Rhiann.” Her face had sagged, bleak and hopeless and tears had tracked down her cheeks. “Isn’t he awful,” she had finished. “Why does he do it?”

  Megan had given her patient her injection but half an hour after Bianca had left the room she had still been struck with an awful horror. For those few minutes she had glimpsed just how real and terrible Bianca’s delusions were. And now it sounded as though Smithson senior was suffering in a similar way.

  Sandra Penarth was watching her, concern wrinkling her brow. “You all right, doctor? You look miles away.”

  Megan licked a smile onto her lips. “I’m fine, Sandra. Just a bit tired. End of a bit of a busy week. If the weekend’s sunny I shall head for the beach. Take my towel and a good paperback and
brush up on my tan.”

  Sandra grinned. “Like the rest of the population? Sit in the queues all the way to Porthcawl more like.”

  Megan laughed. “Whatever.”

  And yet she couldn’t resist probing. “What stories?”

  “Sorry?” There was a pause. “Oh - you mean Mr Smithson?”

  “Yes - what stories?”

  Sandra brushed aside a lock of stray hair. “About the mines when they were working and having to sack so many men when they were slack. Then he goes on about not knowing about their lungs being so affected and what’s that other thing - where their fingers go numb?”

  “Miners’ white finger.”

  “Yes - that’s right - from holding the drills. I just tell him. It’s too bloody late now for all these regrets. The damage has been done.”

  But these were not tales bizarre enough to upset the resident population of Triagwn nor were they the ramblings of an eroding mind. They were the truth. Smithson was an old man who had finally discovered his conscience. Sandra was right. It was too late for regrets. But the tales were not bizarre. There must be more. She kept her eyes trained on Sandra Penarth. “And?”

  “Some really silly old stories,” she finally admitted reluctantly, “about children who have disappeared, one of them buyin’ chips. Another little thing who never stopped chattering. Then he talks about old ghosts,” she added reluctantly, “people dying. Crawling through the mine workings. Vanishing when they shouldn’t have done. A teacher who never turned up to class. They’re bloody mad.”

  “Does he mean mine accidents, do you think?”

  “If he means mining accidents,” Sandra said severely, “then he shouldn’t talk about people’s faces all covered in blood, about them still lying under the ground, tapping at the ventilation shafts, trying to crawl out, still covered in that horrible coal dust. Saying he can make people appear and reappear. Like he was some magician.”

  Now Megan was smiling too.

  But Sandra’s blood was up. “There’s patients here who’ve lost family in pit accidents. Old people dwell on these sorts of things. Tragedies. Upsets them. Mrs Price Morgan lost her husband in an explosion down the pit. He was only young and old Smithson going on about it brings it all back, see?”

  Megan nodded. She did see.

  “And he must have heard about poor old Bianca because he was sayin’ he could remember her falling into the fountain when she was small and how they all thought she was dead. Then he really offended everybody by bursting out laughing and saying she drowned in the end anyway so why did they bother to pull her out. They may as well have left her there. I ask you … Gave a lot of offence. I mean Bianca was quite popular here.”

  Megan felt her jaw drop. “I’d forgotten,” she said slowly. “I’d completely forgotten. She worked here, didn’t she?” So it was explained. Bianca had shared her stories with Geraint Smithson. And now Smithson suffered the very same delusions, mixed with guilty fact - that as the mine owner he was responsible for some of the suffering that had happened beneath the ground of Llancloudy. And as his brain aged he had become less able to distinguish between Bianca’s mad tales and his own true stories. They had become muddled, jumbled together, inextricably tangled.

  Sandra was still talking about Bianca. “She worked very hard. She wasn’t lazy like some of the other cleaners. Didn’t rest on her brush for half an hour or have long tea and fag breaks. Oh - I admit. She was slow. Awful slow sometimes. I could have shaken her to move a bit faster. But she did her job. She was reliable and the patients here liked her. She was funny and strange but we knew her. It wasn’t her fault that sometimes she’d seem like she was in a world of her own. She turned up. She was honest and she didn’t mind what task you set her. Scrubbin’ toilets, cleanin’ floors. Never too proud to do the humblest of jobs. We’ll miss her. And the way she died. Well. It was a horrible accident.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Megan stopped outside one of the doors. “Well - let’s have a look at Mr Driver, shall we, Sandra?”

  “He’s got a visitor,” she said as she pushed the door open. “An old friend of his from down the mine.”

  The friend stood up as they entered. Megan knew him immediately. The small, wiry man, who had seemed so angry at Bianca’s funeral. Here, then, was a connection and possibly an explanation. Maybe his anger had been justified. Bianca had been popular here. She had been held in some affection by staff and patients alike. Her death must have seemed an uneccessary waste.

  “I suppose you want me to get out.” As expected his voice was truculent.

  “Would you mind, Mr Jones. The doctor just wants to have a quick look at your friend.”

  The man left but Megan could have sworn he muttered something under his breath. It sounded like, “For what good it’ll do.”

  She shrugged and concentrated on her patient.

  The matron was right about old Mr Driver. Barely conscious with a distinct death rattle in his throat and skin a pale waxy colour that meant only one thing. Megan listened to his chest and confirmed her initial suspicion that he had only days left to live. At ninety-one he would fail to reach his century. She discussed his care with Sandra, the visitor filed back to his vigil and they continued along the first floor corridor, visiting a few more of the inmates until they reached room four.

  She bumped into Geraint Smithson just outside his room. He was a tall man with an aristocratic air only slightly marred by his cardigan wrongly buttoned, slippers on the wrong feet giving him the air of walking, crab-like, in a strange direction and trouser flies left undone.

  “Good morning, Geraint.” Megan greeted him warmly, ignoring Sandra Penarth deftly dealing with the fly buttons.

  He seemed oblivious to the attentions and returned her grin. “Well, how are you, Doctor Banesto?”

  He had called her by her married name even though she had changed it professionally only three years ago. It didn’t fit in with senile dementia. Senility erases recent memory leaving its victims trapped in the past. Sometimes their ancient past. Octogenarians have been known to cry out for their mothers, their schoolfriends, brothers and sisters, forgetting they have spouses, children, children’s children - and even sometimes great-grandchildren.

  Her curiosity was pricked. “I’ve heard you haven’t been too well, Mr Smithson.”

  He looked past her, straight at the matron. “Can I have a word with you, doctor?” He spoke deliberately. “In private.”

  “Of course. Look, Sandra. I’ll see myself out after I’ve chatted to Mr Smithson. He’s the last of the patients, isn’t he? Don’t bother waiting around. I’ll give you a ring if there’s anything particular.” She didn’t know why she was dismissing the matron. Only that he wanted it and that she should comply.

  Sandra gave her a swift, warning glance which Megan ignored even though they both knew that interviews with disturbed patients were safer accompanied. By ignoring this first rule Megan knew she was silently questioning the fact that Smithson senior was disturbed. Certainly she felt no unease as she followed him into his single room and closed the door - breaking rule number two.

  She sat on the chair, he on the bed, his eyes fixed down at his hands fiddling nervously with the cardigan. Something really was bothering him. She waited until finally he looked up.

  “Things have begun to prey on my mind, doctor,” he began. “Things that happened many years ago. I had responsibilities, you see. As a mine owner I was in charge of the men.”

  “But your family sold out to the Coal Board years ago.”

  “I know that. But the harm was done by my family.”

  “You shouldn’t feel responsible. It was a different world then. So much less was known about the medical side effects caused by working on the coal face.”

  “Things that were wrong in the nineteen fifties are wrong today. The same things.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The old man’s eyes gleamed with a strange fanaticism. “Then that’s where you’r
e not so smart as some that are labelled mad.”

  She knew whom he meant and wondered what strange conversations he and Bianca must have held. Geraint Smithson returned her stare with a touch of defiance and something else. An unexpected and triumphant lucidity which felt more threatening than the senility she had been anticipating. Megan felt very uncomfortable - as though there were a third person here, in the room with them. Then she felt angry with herself. She was a doctor. With a patient in a bustling nursing home. She was surrounded by real people. Not alone. And certainly not accompanied by ghosts. She was merely confronted by a man whose mind was surely beginning to fray at the edges. And she felt threatened?

  Smithson continued smiling blandly at her until his eyes veered away - towards the window. And following his glance and straightening up a little she saw - quite plainly - the fountain; chubby cherub doing ungainly arabesque and spewing water from his mouth. She looked back at the old man and recognised that he saw much much more than simply the fountain. His vision extended to include not only current reality but past events, fact and fiction.

  He stood up. Tall, much taller than she, and bent over her so she could smell his nearness - tobacco, old clothes, carbolic soap. “I’ve been resident in this house for more than ninety years,” he said. “I’ve seen plenty happen. Good and bad. I remember things that went on many many years ago, before you were born. Now I’m tired and I want to go to the grave with my slate wiped clean of all the memories. But no one will listen to me. They call me mad. They try and make me sleep twenty-four hours a day. They tell me to shut up. But they won’t listen.” He sank back on the bed and covered his face with his hands. “I only want to die with a clean soul,” he said. “A clean heart. The Colon Lân of the song. It’s not a lot to ask, is it, doctor?” He was wringing his hands with sudden, acute anguish. “The trouble is I don’t know how I’m going to achieve it if nobody will listen to me.”