The other thing that James learnt, as Mrs. Wylit rushed in to Silas, who sat in the circle on a folding chair, was exactly how strong Matron Hartley was. As it happened, she displayed a great deal of physical prowess. She snatched his arm from behind and bent it up to his shoulder blades before she slammed his chest into the wall. James hollered, but her grip was pure iron.
“Don’t struggle — you’ll make it worse.” Her voice was cool poison in his ear. “Now, what on earth are you doing back here?”
“Viola!” Silas rose from his chair. She stumbled to him and put her arms around his neck in a quick, messy embrace. “What—”
“I say, who are you? What is this?” The doctor stood as well, and the patients turned to one another. The room bubbled with questions. One patient started laughing, long and loud, perhaps a little too long and too loud.
“Oh, Silas, what a bird you’ve caught there.”
“I met her this afternoon,” he said. “She and her friends came ‘round asking about poor old Mr. Blanchard, the war vet. Hartley had to tell them he’d passed away.”
“This is a private therapy session, and it’s well past visiting hours.” Matron Hartley slackened her grip on James, confident that her show of force was enough. It was. Though having a dust up with a matron would provide a sufficient distraction, James wasn’t entirely sure he could win. “You need to leave. Immediately.”
“I want to tell my story.” Mrs. Wylit clung to Silas. “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here? Telling your stories, and the doctor can tell you what’s the matter with you, yeah?”
“Madam, it’s quite a bit more complicated than that,” the doctor sniffed. “This is a new method called group therapy. And yes, we ask each member of the group periodically to share, but—”
“Out of the question.” Matron Hartley took James by the elbow. “Come on.” She beckoned impatiently to Mrs. Wylit. “I will call the attendants if I have to.”
“Let her speak.” Silas turned to his fellow patients. “Don’t you all want to hear her story? Maybe Dr. Brown can help her. They do this nonsense over in the women’s ward, right?” He turned to Mrs. Wylit and put his hands on her shoulders as a toothy grin spread up his thin features. “I can’t believe you came back to see me.”
“I want to hear it,” the loud laugher insisted. “C’mon doc, let her speak. You’ve always said we need to tell our stories, share our pain. You can’t expect her to keep it bottled up if it needs to come out.”
“Look at her,” said another. “She’s distressed. Sit down, luv, have a smoke, tell us all about it.”
The doctor refused, but a chorus of indignation swept over him. At last, he held up his hands. “All right, all right. You’re right. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t at least try to offer my assistance for a few minutes. Besides, for some of you who don’t like to share your thoughts and feelings, let this be an example for you. Our guest wishes to freely share what’s on her mind.”
“You can’t be serious.” Matron Hartley dropped James' elbow and flounced around the circle to the doctor’s side. “Random people bursting into our facility, interrupting treatment, bothering the patients—”
“It’s no bother,” one called. “C’mon, Matron Heartless.”
There was a quiet but significant, “Oooohhhh” between the patients. James guessed that calling Matron Hartley her less-than-flattering nickname had been an accident, or a very well-played card.
“Find her a chair,” the doctor said firmly.
“But, doctor—”
“Find her. A chair.”
A few of the patients clapped as Silas dragged another folding chair away from the wall, and shoved it into the circle next to his. James, forgotten in the doorway, slunk to the side as Matron Hartley stormed out. Her shoes spoke her echoing disdain as she stomped away down the tiled hallway.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Wylit arranged herself primly on the metal chair with her handbag in her lap, and accepted the cigarette that someone sent round the circle. She took a drag and looked at the doctor. She should have looked silly, James thought. This was all a distraction so that
Arthur and Lance could get the suitcase. But she appeared stoic to him then, quietly sad and beautiful, weathered and strong but ultimately vulnerable. She opened her purse and withdrew a handkerchief, which she used to gently dab her lipstick and fix a smudge at the corner of her mouth. “How do I begin?” Her words were met with hallowed, expectant silence. Every eye in the room was fixed on her.
“You may begin wherever you wish.” The doctor bowed slightly to her in a kind, gentle gesture. The others in the therapy circle were reverentially quiet.
Silas put his hand on hers, and she squeezed it. “Tell them about the kettles. Y’know, like me and the car engines.”
“All right.” Mrs. Wylit took a breath, and squared her shoulders. James was riveted against the back wall, his elbows on the bubbling paint. “Tea kettles. Any loud whistling noise. Sometimes a train, if I’m right next to it. I hear them, and it’s like I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Sweat breaks out all over my body. I want to be sick, but I can’t.”
Silas nodded his head as if he completely understood, though everyone else remained frozen, afraid perhaps, that if they moved they would startle this gentle sparrow into flying away. “I didn’t realize it — I mean, I knew, but I couldn’t make the words come — until I met Silas.” She glanced at him and gave his hand another squeeze. “A five minute conversation. But it was like he knew. And he knew... that I knew... and I ... I know why it is, now. The whistles.”
Fat tears dropped from her eyes in a sudden flood, a rush down the mountain like unexpected snow melt. But her face remained perfectly placid and pale.
“Tell them, Viola,” Silas prompted after a long minute. “Go on. Doc says this is a safe place.”
“Yes.” The doctor seemed to suddenly remember that he was supposed to be in charge of this therapy. “Yes, indeed. Nothing leaves this room.”
“When the bombs fell,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, “they always whistled first.”
“You were in London during the Blitz?” the doctor asked softly.
Mrs. Wylit nodded. She lifted the handkerchief dreamily up to her face and dabbed her eyes.
“Did you lose someone, Viola,” Silas said, “like I lost my mother?”
James heard a little rustle behind him. He jumped and looked back at the door. Several attendants and a few sisters were clustered in the dark hallway beyond, listening. Well, perhaps this distraction had worked after all. Though the nature of this visit to the hospital, he knew in that moment, had entirely changed.
Mrs. Wylit inhaled, and the tears stopped. Her body and face went rigid, and James thought for a moment she was going to have a stroke. At last, her voice eked out, “My baby. Maggie.”
“Oh, God,” James breathed, the words barely audible.
“She was two years old with golden curls.” Mrs. Wylit’s voice was unsettlingly robotic, unnatural. “Crushed by a chimney.” She turned to Silas and her voice became warm and conversational. “Well, of course I wished it had been my husband instead of her. His being crushed, well, I could have lived with that. All wives expect to outlive their husbands, it’s a fact of life. And one night I told him as much, and he left me, so there’s that.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and pulled on it. “I got his mother’s house in the divorce, if you can believe it. And so I live there and I rent the upstairs to two f—” James winced, thinking she was about to say fairies. “Friends,” she said. “And if it weren’t for them, nobody would give a damn if I was alive or dead.” She paused. “Including me.”
James jerked when something wet dropped onto his wrist. He realized it was a tear from his own eye. He scrubbed his sleeve over his face. Many of the men who listened did the same, and it seemed as though even the doctor was sniffling a bit. They were so transfixed at that moment, that they did not hear the muffled ban
ging sounds that floated in from outside through the open (though barred) windows. James' melancholy heart dived deep into the cavern of his chest at the sound. Arthur and Lance. Had to be. Breaking into the shed.
Under the shadow-scorched moonlight, Arthur gave the old shed door a final kick. The padlock snapped and the door rocketed open with a groaning shutter. He and Lance froze, and listened for shouts or steps rustling through the lawn’s manicured grass. After a few moments, they heard nothing but the whisper of a few cars along the street and a lonely dog in the distance.
Arthur and Lance tiptoed inside. Something brushed Lance’s face and he slapped a hand against it in case it was a spider. It was not, and was in fact the pull-chain of a bare bulb that hung from the small wooden room’s roof. He yanked it, and the space was illuminated with weak light. The shed contained a few rusted snow shovels, some unused hedge trimmers, and a wall piled with suitcases and trunks. Each was labelled with a brown paper luggage tag affixed to a handle or a hinge with string.
“Each of these belonged to someone. This many people were forgotten about.” Lance shook his head with a cluck of his tongue.
“Hurry.” Arthur began on one side of the pile and Lance on the other.
“It has to be on top,” Lance reasoned, “since he died a short time ago.” He picked up another tag and squinted at it in the low light. “I think...” Lance drew his matchbook from his pocket and struck a flame. In the flickering glow, the name on the tag came to life. “This is it. This one.” He shook out the match and lifted down the suitcase, a battered brown thing marred with scuff marks. “I’ve got it.”
“Let’s go.” Arthur went for the door, and Lance followed, pulling the cord and turning off the light. Soon, they were back out on the cool grass.
“I don’t think anyone’s spotted—” Lance began, when Arthur turned and drove his fist hard into Lance’s gut. Lance’s breath burst from his mouth in a shocked woosh and he doubled over. The suitcase thumped to his feet as he wrapped his hands around his stomach.
Arthur stood there, towered over him, silent and pale-faced in the moonlight. He watched as Lance groaned, went down on one knee, and then slowly unfolded himself to stand. Arthur expected him to cry out, to protest, to question. Why’d you do that? What was that for, mate?
Instead, Lance looked at him, and then bent down and picked up the suitcase. “All I can say is that I’m sorry. I could give you all of my reasons and excuses, but something tells me you’d rather not hear them. Besides, we’d best get a move on before someone notices us.” He winced, and massaged his ribs. “Unless you need another go.”
Arthur felt the rancor that had erupted in him and filled his fist ebb away as Lance hefted the suitcase and limped away. All that was left was the misery. He’d expected that hitting Lance would make him feel better. Help straighten things out. But somehow, the black pit in his chest only widened.
Chapter 23
Dr. Brown put his car in park and turned around in his seat. His worried eyes shimmered earnestly in the low light of the streetlamps. He watched Mrs. Wylit as she put the flask to her lips. She offered it to him, and he waved it away. “You’ve been drinking,” he said, “Because of the pain?”
“I ought to stop, I suppose.”
“Not immediately.” Dr. Brown looked at James, who was nestled in the small back seat of the little tan auto as well, close enough to smell Mrs. Wylit’s sweat mixed with the remains of her perfume and her alcohol-saturated breath. “If you’ve been like this for some time, cutting off the supply cold turkey could be very dangerous. Fevers, seizures, the like. It depends on how long you’ve been like this.”
“As long as I’ve known her,” James said taking responsibility for Mrs. Wylit’s side of the conversation. “But that’s only been about a year.”
“That’s long enough.” Dr. Brown frowned and shook his gray head. “I recommend cutting back, of course, but until she’s ready to be put under a doctor’s care, it’s dangerous for her to dry out all at once.”
“Besides,” Mrs. Wylit took another dram of liquor, speaking on her own behalf to remind the two men she was with them in the car, “if I’m not drunk, I don’t see the future, do I?” She elbowed James in the ribs with a gentle poke. “Then how am I supposed to be of use to anyone?”
Dr. Brown’s eyes bulged a moment and he shared a meaningful glance with James. “Are you sure you don’t want to check in to my hospital? You’ll receive the best of care. We can treat your alcoholism as well.”
Mrs. Wylit shook her head. “We’re on a journey, and the lads need me to see it through. How are the knights of the round table supposed to complete their quests without a witch or a wizard or a green man or some such?”
“Mr. Wilde...”
James sighed. “I won’t force her. Besides, how can I? I have no legal right to do so. I told you she doesn’t have any family that I’ve been able to locate.”
Dr. Brown lifted his hands from the steering wheel with a helpless flap. “All right, then. Well, goodnight. I hope to see you both again soon. And Silas asks you to please write.”
“I will,” Mrs. Wylit promised.
“Again, sorry about the... dramatic entrance.” James opened his door and went to the other side to retrieve Mrs. Wylit.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Dr. Brown waved, shook his head again in pensive disbelief, and drove away. The street was quiet in the dark hours of the night, and the rental flat was dark.
“Oh God, they’ve been arrested,” James lamented after a quick search of the flat did not reveal Lance or Arthur.
Mrs. Wylit emptied the pear brandy bottle and tossed it in the kitchen sink. “No, they’re not,” she wavered after a watery burp. “They’re out at the pub.”
“At the pub? That’s—”
“Your oracle has spoken.” Mrs. Wylit wove her way down the hall to one of the bedrooms, decorated simply in wood, red, and white. She flailed her feet out of her shoes and collapsed on the lacy white coverlet, leaving a smear of lipstick on the pillow case.
James went to the window and threw back the curtain. His eyes scanned the street for Arthur and Lance, but the shops and the sidewalks were deserted. He paced for several minutes before he gave up and trotted down to Mrs. Wylit’s room.
He expected her to be passed out, but she lay on the bed as a corpse in a coffin, hands threaded together by her fingers over her midsection, blank eyes fixed on the ceiling. James had to check twice to be sure she was breathing.
“Come on, Vi. You’ve got a decent bed to sleep in tonight, you might as well be comfortable for once.” He took her elbow. She eased up, a pliable doll, but lapsed back into an eerie frozen position, deflated, her arms laying in her lap like an unused marionette.
“Get undressed. Come on, now. Look, if they’re at the pub like you said, there’s nothing to worry about.”
She was silent. She did not blink.
“Vi, you’re scaring me. Stop it this instant.” Shaking her shoulders gave no result. With a heavy sigh, James took off her jacket and unbuttoned her blouse. “My arm’s on fire after that awful matron threw me into the wall,” he complained, “but all right, let me take care of you, my fussy baby.” He winced as he said it, even as it came out of his mouth. Baby. Baby Maggie. Crushed by the chimney.
In recompense, he patiently undressed her down to her slip, and eased off her stockings. He hung up her jacket in the closet, and rinsed out her blouse and nylons in soapy water. These he hung on the shower rod and opened the bathroom window to let in the cool night air. They’d be dry by morning. When he returned from the loo, she’d collapsed back on the pillows, but still fixed her eyes on nothing, her face entirely vacant. He scolded her again and took a wet handkerchief to the smear of lipstick on her face, and then climbed onto the bed to sit beside her and brush her hair.
She clung to him suddenly, her arms locked around his ribs, as if the world was spinning and she didn’t want to be thrown off of it. He whee
zed as she squeezed, but he put his arms around her when he realized the silent, bloated tears had erupted from her eyes again.
Not knowing what else to do, James hushed her, patted her like a scared dog. “Listen, Vi, you scare me when you’re like this. Totally numb and... I think you ought to...”
She made no indication that she heard him.
“Let go,” he said, and lay back with her cradled against him on the cool pillows. “Let go. Let go, Vi. Stop holding it in.”
“Holding what in?” The preternaturally flat voice was back, the one he’d heard in the meeting, so hollow and empty. It made his scalp creep to hear it. “I said it all at Silas’s meeting. Well, no I didn’t. I suppose there’s plenty of misery left. It was my fault, you know.”
“Maggie... was your fault?” He scoffed. “Vi, it was the bloody Nazis who—”
“We’d all taken to sleeping in the same bed,” Mrs. Wylit continued as if he’d never spoken at all. Her tears flowed over her lips and spattered when she spoke. “But it was a small bed, and I was so tired. Sean sprawled out like a starfish, and that left Maggie and I a little sliver to lie on. She was asleep on my arm, and it was getting all pins and needles. I only wanted a good night’s sleep. I was so tired.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “So I picked up my baby and I lay her down in her room, on her little mattress, covered her up with her pink blanket. And then I went back to my bed and I went to sleep, deep sleep. I only woke up when I heard the whistle. And the chimney, well, the chimney fell through Maggie’s room, on a bed that should — have — been — empty.” Mrs. Wylit heaved as if struck with a convulsion. James clung to her. Was this one of the seizures the doctor spoke of?
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