The Girl Behind the Gates

by Brenda Davies

  Under the trees the light is dim, and she shivers as the damp air enshrouds her. She stumbles along between silver birch and elm and willowy saplings that grab at her as she rushes past them. Then, all of a sudden, she is in the clearing, where she can see the first of the markers claimed by ivy creepers and the remains of last summer’s periwinkle and bluebells. As her eyes adjust to the falling dusk, she can see, stretching out into the distance, within the wood and beyond, hundreds of them, some in rows and some haphazardly placed, soldiers fallen in battle. She stands stock-still, her frozen hand gripping her throat, her other arm across her chest, clutching her side, as if to prevent herself from falling apart.

  Something half remembered from all those years ago rushes unbidden into her mind, and her hand covers her mouth as a yelp escapes. She can see Nurse Jamison dashing from the sluice at the back of the treatment room, avoiding Nora still lying on the bed, her birth wounds being stitched. The fear and shock on the nurse’s face as she ran out, her hand half covering her tears.

  Nora starts to run again. Gone is her concern about the noise she is making or who might catch her. Twigs catch in her hair, scratch at her face and tear holes in her stockings. She realises that she has lost the path, but something instinctual pulls her forward. Her foot catches in a tree root, sending her sprawling in the dirt as her hand jars against one of the markers, its little central spike puncturing her palm. Instantly she is on her feet again, unaware of the bleeding from her hand or the blood mingled with tears that streaks her face. Her chest burns as her breath comes in jagged gasps. And suddenly she is there. She stops, gulping deep breaths. It’s been years since she has run like that.

  The markers are huddled together, defending the tiny corpses they guard. She falls to her knees. Could it be? Please God, not . . . She can’t even bear to finish the thought. She claws away rotting vegetation, searching, brushing her hair off her face with her sleeve; creeping forward, her knees bleeding as she frantically examines every marker, clearing them of their layers of grime.

  Each bears a series of numbers.

  1939 8.7.1922

  1910 6.4.1918

  Did these babies die in 1939 and 1910 respectively?

  2038 23.9.1937

  2249 11.12.1942

  Or are the last numbers the date?

  2197 18.6.1939

  And the first a hospital number?

  2361 16.1.1940

  2410 19.3.1940

  Hospital numbers and dates, then. Nothing to say who had lived and who had died or anything about the life that had passed between.

  And then she freezes.

  She stares, hardly daring to move. Her heart races and her breath comes in painful rasps. She has found a cluster of graves of babies who died in 1940. Her hands tremble as she slows down, hardly daring to look, yet knowing she would search for ever if need be. One by one, peering through the falling twilight, she examines every date and number, feeling a stab of guilt every time she passes over one, glad that it is not the one she is so desperate and terrified to find.

  Her breathing ceases as she sees 1529 – her own patient number. She closes her eyes, staving off the moment of truth.

  For what seems like an eternity she hangs suspended out of her body in a safe, numb place far above. She sees her body resting back on its heels, motionless, its eyes staring. Then its hand reaches out, clearing dirt from the numbers.

  1529 30.4.1940

  It must be some cruel joke. A nightmare? Please. Her bleeding hands trace the contours of the earth slowly, lovingly – not even a swelling, a ridge, a hint of a disturbance. She caresses it. But then she digs, forcing her nails into the hardened soil, skinning her knuckles, filling her recent wounds with filth, glorying in the pain. Mixing her blood with this earth that has contained her flesh without her knowledge for all these years.

  She is not aware of her wailing, nor of the sudden commotion around her. Or the arms that lift her, dragging her away. Neither Stan’s tenderness nor Gladys’s motherly tones can reach her.

  ‘Come, Nora,’ Gladys coaxes. ‘It’s all right. Come.’

  But nothing is all right, nor will it ever be again.

  ‘Poor little bugger,’ Stan mutters, his voice thick with anger and sadness.

  They carry her screaming, struggling body back to Rowan, where Gladys undresses her and gently lowers her into a warm bath where, after a while, her body seems to almost melt into the warmth, limp and silent as the light fades out of her eyes. Gladys bathes Nora’s cuts, cleans her nails, washes her hair and finally wraps her in a blanket and demands a wheelchair to take her to the dormitory. Stan pushes the chair in silence, and the grim cloud of purpose emanating from both him and Gladys demands a clear way, and respect for this grieving mother.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Weeks later, Nora lies motionless and unseeing, hiding in a protective cocoon of her own making. A silent, detached world for one, with neither borders nor end. Here, nothing exists any longer – not even Nora herself. ‘Nora,’ Gladys coaxes every now and again, but Nora is unreachable, confined to her own private theatre where, while she’s awake, the film of her life rolls intermittently before she sinks once more into the oblivion that is her one answered prayer.

  The soapy sponge is gentle on her face. From a far-off, misty place she can perceive the sadness in the hand that guides it as it cleans her skin. She hears the tinkling splashes of water as the sponge is rinsed and wrung out over the enamel bowl. But she feels nothing. No movement. Nothing matters. They can do with her whatever they wish.

  As though someone has heard her, Nora’s arm is lifted and the sponge sweeps around her armpit before her hand is placed back on the sheet. Towels are moved. Her torso is raised to a sitting position and bent forward, a position she’ll hold all day if someone doesn’t move her again. Something is pulled over her head. Her arms are guided into sleeves and for a moment stick out like a scarecrow’s until someone guides them back to rest beside her body. Her body is lowered backwards onto the bed, her head onto the thin pillow. A sheet is pulled up, a blanket placed over it. Her body moves involuntarily as someone lifts the corners of the mattress to tuck in the corners of the sheet. And then, she is still. A hand settles momentarily on her brow. A kindly gesture no doubt, but too late for Nora. She is no longer there.

  The weeks become months. The routine continues. Discussions take place. No one really addresses Nora – there’d be no point, anyway. The tube by which they feed her is changed. Her personal hygiene is catered for. Her catheter removed and replaced. Her period is stemmed with a rough sanitary towel. Dr Stilworth does his daily rounds and hopes for change. Each day he raises her arm or leg and releases it, and each day the limb stays where he’s put it until he applies pressure to replace it on the bed. He raises her head and removes his hand, and her neck remains rigid until he presses down on her forehead to settle it back on the pillow. He shakes his head sadly. This strangest of all signs – waxy flexibility – is still present and doesn’t bode well. He scribbles in her file.

  No change. Catatonic stupor.

  Summer is long gone and autumn will soon give way to winter and still there is no change apart from Nora’s wasting muscles and stark pallor. Having completed his examination, Dr Stilworth places a gentle hand on her brow then walks away, his shoulders hunched with the weight of the responsibility he feels for this woman’s state. He finally approaches Dr Mason’s office, his steps as heavy as his heart. He’s grateful that the old man hasn’t hassled him. Now that he is Dr Mason’s second in command, Dr Stilworth pretty much runs the ward. But he’s tired. His leg aches and his walking is deteriorating. Sometimes, as he looks at himself in the mirror as he shaves, he observes his greying hair and wonders where his life has gone. He knocks on Dr Mason’s door with trepidation. ‘Dr Mason.’ He dispenses with the usual small talk. ‘May I discuss Nora Jennings’s case with you?’

  He has long resisted what his clinical judgement knows needs to happen next, but now he si
ts with the proverbial cap in hand at the feet of the master in whom he has had little faith and not much more respect. For some years he has avoided getting caught in a one-to-one situation in this room, where Dr Mason’s authority surrounds and almost suffocates him. Better when there’s a dilution forced by the presence of others. Of course, he knows that Dr Mason must be aware of his disrespect, but neither of them has had the courage to confront it. Now he looks at his chief – old, a little bent, and looking even more tired than he himself feels – and for the first time in a very long while, he feels pity for the man.

  Dr Mason’s waistcoat is, as always, buttoned except for the last, but no watch chain hangs there now; a gold watch weighs down his left wrist instead. His coat is still starched and pristine and his pinstriped jacket hangs on its hanger on the hat rack. ‘Come. Sit,’ Dr Mason says, gesturing to a chair with his well-manicured hand. Tom resists the urge to rebel by choosing a different one, as he usually does, and hopes his boss registers this token of Tom’s change of heart. He places Nora’s notes on the desk between them.

  ‘As you know, she has been in a catatonic state for many months. There’s no change apart from the usual muscle wasting. My concern is that she could now continue to a permanent vegetative state unless we attempt to interrupt it.’ He’s surprised that he’s managed this well-prepared statement coherently and without letting out the emotion he feels bubbling up within him.

  ‘And what do you propose?’ There’s no hint of satisfaction or gloating in Dr Mason’s tone. A simple clinical question. Tom is grateful.

  ‘Though it’s possible that recovery may be taking place on some level while she’s closed in and protecting herself from the outside world, we’re at the point where further delay becomes risky.’

  ‘Indeed. So?’

  ‘Sadly, I think we have little choice but to use electroshock.’ Even as he says this, he remembers the promise – one he should never have made – all those years ago: ‘I promise you I will never endorse this treatment for you.’

  Dr Mason strokes his chin. ‘I think, in the circumstances, this is the most acceptable path,’ he says gravely and with none of the relish and fire there used to be. ‘So, yes, go ahead.’

  Tom exhales. Much as he hates this treatment, he has seen its life-saving benefits from time to time, and certainly nothing else he has tried has made any difference whatsoever to Nora. He fears it could be her last chance. ‘I’ll set it up.’ He stands and gathers the notes in front of him. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He looks sadly at his old adversary for the first time in some years, a reluctant respect growing between them.

  ‘Shall I say daily?’

  He holds his breath. Painful memories surface of a former patient who received electroconvulsive therapy several times a day for many weeks, hardly recovering from one shock before the next was given. Though he was certainly less disturbed at the end of perhaps a hundred treatments, his memory was wiped clean and his entire past was lost. And he was one of the lucky ones. For every memory Tom has of this treatment working, he can recall a dozen cases where the patient did not recover but suffered serious fractures during the uncontrolled seizures. And, of course, there were those who died. He didn’t want any of this for Nora. She’d been lucky to have escaped such horror before and, apart from being institutionalised, she’d remained pretty well intact – until she found out the truth.

  ‘Yes, let’s try once daily and review her progress.’

  Tom walks down through the ward to the nurses’ station. Stan and Gladys are chatting, both of them also showing signs of age and of the harrowing life lived along with their charges. They have become Nora’s guardians. Tom puts down Nora’s notes on the desk. ‘Electroshock once daily, starting tomorrow,’ he says, and turns without a word. He walks, and keeps on walking out into the grounds. Sometimes he loathes his job.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tom hates the smell of this room. He hates its atmosphere. Yet, like a surgeon who spends all his time immersed in blood and guts and pain, he’s accustomed to his professional milieu. One day, he knows, he might even miss it. He trails his hand along the rail of the trolley, his eyes intent on Nora’s closed eyes. Her mouth is distorted – the lips dry and misshapen, not yet having fully recovered from the mouth gag. Her skin: how it has aged. The translucent, honey glow of only a few years ago has faded. Her eyes appear lost, fallen into the depths of their sockets. Tom prickles with guilt and shame for his part in what’s befallen this once beautiful woman. What a tragedy. He tightens his grip on the rail, superfluous as he is. Only there because, if there were no one by her side in recovery, she’d have to be strapped down.

  An hour ago, he had walked alongside her as she was wheeled catatonic into the treatment room for her eighteenth ECT. He was there as she was prepared, her motionless body in its split gown, the grotesque napkin in case she should soil herself. Her neck had been extended until straight. The nurses had lined up at each side of the bed. One would hold her head, another her shoulders, another her feet and another her body, immobilising her to minimise injury. He had prepared the ECT machine. Sister had prised Nora’s mouth open and inserted a rubber gag. He had finally prepared the electrodes and, having switched on the machine, applied them, one to each temple. He had watched as her body jerked and bucked, the nurses utilising all their strength to hold her safe, even though her hands and feet were restrained.

  Some never lose consciousness and are terrified, and later confused and somnolent; most struggle and fight. Nora does neither. Until now, there’s been no change and he knows that there must be a point at which they stop subjecting her body to this dreadful invasion. But the likelihood of her recovery then will be slim, and she could stay like this indefinitely. Catatonia can be like that. He wonders about how many more her brain can stand, and also how many more his heart can bear.

  A nurse bustles into the treatment room to take Nora’s obs, and Dr Stilworth pulls himself away, busying himself with the notes, flicking back to recap on Nora’s history, but really only playing for more time before he’ll have to leave. The nurses can deal perfectly adequately with recovery. He knows that they know that too. Eyebrows will be raised as to why on earth he hangs around for so long, but he no longer cares.

  Behind him there’s a murmur, or maybe a soft groan, but certainly a sound. He pauses, frozen, and only turns when he hears it again. No sound of any kind has issued from Nora these months – not after previous ECTs, not with any kind of treatment or any examination designed to elicit a response to pain.

  But there it is – and now her eyes flick open for a moment. Her breathing remains deep and regular.

  He prays.

  Meanwhile, Nora watches the images dancing on the backs of her eyelids, trying to decipher the chaotic thoughts tumbling and turning in her mind. She opens her eyes again, bewildered, tries to focus. Spinning, tilting, trying to regain balance then shifting again. Find something to focus on. A spot on the ceiling. There. But then it starts to move and roll and spin. She presses her head into the pillow. Stop. Please stop. But no. She clutches handfuls of the sheet to steady herself. Yes. The treatment room. Yes. And, again, she blinks.

  Tom clears his throat and, elated, he turns away and blinks the tears from his eyes. Then he gathers his notes, gently taps on the rail of Nora’s trolley and walks away. ‘Call me if there’s any change,’ he says, as he limps out into the corridor. He walks as quickly as he can, not yet ready for the brouhaha of Rowan. He needs to think. He must be very clear in his clinical judgement. He can’t help but agree with Dr Mason that to stop ECT abruptly would be unwise. Though Nora is now awake, she may still be deeply depressed. And while ECT has done its work to break the catatonia, and prevented Nora from remaining in a vegetable-like existence possibly for the rest of her life, she will now return to the grief and harsh reality from which she managed to escape for a while. The situation is complex, to say the least.

  The next morning, Nora is fully awake and she complains lustily
as they wheel her into the treatment room – she remembers what this means and shouts and pulls against her restraints. Once inside, she looks up at the smiling aide who forces the mouth gag between her clenched teeth with a mixture of rage and fear in her eyes. Her body remembers this, too. Holding her terrified eyes with his, he slowly draws a finger up her chest, between her breasts and then around each nipple.

  Bile rises in her throat and she thrashes about, arching her back. He continues to smile as he lazily massages first one breast, then both. She watches his gloating eyes with horror as he becomes more aroused and his hands move more roughly. Nora screams silently with frustration and rage, bucking and thrashing. He bends his face closer, his mocking eyes boring into hers. ‘I don’t know what gives you the gall to have such airs, after what you’ve done, you little whore,’ he hisses, his face so close now that Nora can smell his vile breath. ‘Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me!’ He moves his hand lower and fumbles with her gown. He pushes his fingers between her legs. ‘And don’t forget,’ he rasps, ‘it’ll be worse later if you ever say anything.’

  Nora’s ability to remove herself from her own body fails her, as fear and fury vie for supremacy. Her eyes bulge wide with fury as she tries with all her might to squirm away from the invading hand. She longs to spit out the mouth gag and spit out her anger right in his face, and her impotence enrages her all the more. But there’s nothing she can do.

  From the corner of her eye she sees a movement the aide has not. Dr Stilworth is in the doorway, a look of horror spreading across his face. ‘Get off her,’ he bellows and the aide leaps back. ‘You bastard! Leave her alone!’ Nora’s eyes dart back and forth as she tries to communicate with Dr Stilworth, the mouth gag still firmly in place.