The Asylum

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  She grimaced and shook her head. ‘Same answer, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Right,’ Morton said, annoyed with himself for not being able quickly to think of anything else to talk about with her. ‘Thanks for your help. I’d better get myself off to Lewes.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I hope it goes well.’

  He didn’t know what he was plucking up the courage to say, but he had been about to say something, when an elderly man placed his hand on her elbow and asked if she worked in the library. She said that she did and turned to listen to his enquiry, which was going to be a protracted one by the sounds of it.

  Morton smiled, hoping that she would glance back at him, or better still, ask him to wait a moment whilst she dealt with the customer. She didn’t do either. She walked attentively beside the shuffling old man to the other end of the room, without looking back. ‘Bye, then,’ Morton muttered to himself forlornly and made his way to the staircase. Taking one final glance in her direction, he headed downstairs to the vestibule and out into the warmth of the midday sunshine.

  He wandered towards his car, bracing himself for an afternoon at East Sussex Record Office, where he would be as good as working for free, just to get himself out of his flat and, more importantly, to prove a point to Gerald Peacock. He got into the car and started up the sluggish engine, realising how juvenile he was being.

  Just as he went to pull out of the parking space, he noticed something moving in his peripheral vision. He pulled up the handbrake when he saw that it was her—the woman from the library—waving something at him. A rush of thoughts popped into his mind. Was she waving her phone number? Had he put his notebook down, or forgotten something? Had she remembered the location of some relevant archival material?

  He wound down his window and smiled, trying to see what was in her hand. Then he did and he flushed with embarrassment. It was the Your Guide to Reducing Food Waste leaflet. Brilliant.

  ‘Thought you might want to have this,’ she said, grinning, as she passed the leaflet through the window.

  Morton reciprocated her grin but couldn’t quite interpret her facial expression. Was she being serious, thinking that he actually wanted this leaflet? If she was joking, then it was a little elaborate. Was she flirting? ‘Thank you—most kind,’ he said, hoping that his reply covered all possibilities as an acceptable answer.

  ‘One piece of advice not in that leaflet, though,’ she said, ‘is to not cook at all.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, not sure where she was going with this.

  ‘Go out for dinner—a simple way to reduce food waste, you see.’ She smiled, turned on her heels and sauntered back inside the library.

  Morton laughed to himself, not at all understanding their exchange and pulled out of the parking space.

  The drive to Lewes was over quickly. He had spent most of the journey there in a hazy replay of what had just happened outside the library. Despite considering the many possible options, he still had no real idea what she had meant by handing him the leaflet and telling him to go out for dinner. Dinner alone: had she been mocking him? Dinner with her: had she been propositioning him? One thing that he had decided, though, was that he would return there in a day or two on the pretext of needing to look at the early Hailsham parish records after all. Anything just to get to talk with her again.

  He arrived at the small car park adjoining the archives to find it full, as had happened on countless previous occasions. He huffed, was about to moan to himself and drive off to look elsewhere in Lewes for a space, when a brand-new Mini vacated a space. ‘Nice car,’ he observed, swiftly taking the spot before anybody else could.

  Gathering up his belongings, he locked the car, dodged the standing water in puddles and pot-holes and headed back along the side of the flinty building to the end with the front door to enter the archives. Compared with almost every other county archive in the country, this place was dismal, being housed in one of the smallest least-hospitable places on earth, in his opinion.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, mustering some degree of cheerfulness for this young woman, whom he had not seen before, standing guard behind a desk just inside the cramped entrance. He knew the routine: sign in; head past the toilets, notice boards and small collection of books for sale to the lockers at the back of the room under the dark stairs; put all disapproved-of items, including mobiles and pens inside one of the said lockers; head upstairs to the Reading Room; order documents; wait an age; freeze half to death; eventually look at the long-awaited documents; sign out; leave.

  His belief continued that today luck was on his side: his friend, the senior archivist, Max Fairbrother was on duty at the help desk upstairs in the Reading Room. Thank God, no sign of Morton’s arch-enemy, Miss Latimer.

  ‘Ah, Mr Farrier!’ Max greeted, rising from his chair and shaking Morton’s hand. He was bald-headed, wearing beige corduroys with a matching jacket over a floral shirt, all adhering some protocol completely unknown to anyone else in this decade. Morton could never make up his mind whether Max looked like the archivist of thirty-odd years that he actually was, or a geography teacher on the verge of retirement.

  ‘Hi, Max. How are things with you?’

  ‘Not so bad, not so bad,’ he said, needlessly repeating himself. ‘What can we do for you today, then?’

  ‘Erm,’ Morton mumbled, glancing around the busy room. ‘Hailsham parish registers and newspapers.’

  ‘Right, so microfilm and a table, then,’ Max said, as if Morton were asking for far more than would be considered usual. He ran his index finger down the booking sheet on the desk in front of him, then lowered his voice and leant forward. ‘Have you booked anything? You know…in advance?’

  Morton shook his head, knowing that Max was able to see fine well that he hadn’t.

  Max squeezed some air through clenched teeth. ‘How long do you think you’re going to be needing?’

  Morton shrugged and looked at his watch. Two hours until document ordering closed. ‘Until the end, if that’s possible.’

  Max turned to face the three microfilm machines in the corner. ‘Well, Mr Higgins is booked on that vacant one, but he’s disappeared off somewhere. His things are still there, though, so he can’t be too far away. You can use it until he comes back and, if you fill in an order form for the parish registers, I’ll get those up and we’ll see where we can sit you.’

  ‘Thanks, Max. I’ll stand here and look through them, if need be.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m sure we can squeeze you in somewhere,’ Max said with a slight look of distaste.

  ‘Thank you,’ Morton said, turning to the closest desk to him and plucking out a couple of pink document-ordering slips from a receptacle. Owing to the long narrowness of the room, the dozen research desks—none of them with electricity sockets available—were all clustered together in the centre, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, giving the room an oppressive, bunker-type feel. Morton shuffled past the desks over to where the bank of index files to all the archival holdings were kept. He removed the blue ledger pertaining to parish records and thumbed through it until he reached Hailsham. The page listed all of the records held in the archive relating to this parish. He ran his eyes down the list and found that for which he was looking: baptisms and burials for the 1920s.

  Morton gazed around the room and spotted that one of the desks had been temporarily vacated. He quickly placed the index on the table, filled in two pink slips and hurried over to Max with them. ‘I’ve left the table number blank,’ he said, passing them over.

  Max nodded and took them from him for processing. ‘They’ll be a good forty minutes, anyway. Hopefully, by that time, one of the desks will have been freed up. And no sign of Mr Higgins, yet, so you’re looking good to go.’

  ‘Thanks, Max,’ Morton said, striding over to the microfilm reader and switching it on. He hated this one. It was the oldest of the three and was one of the early manually operated types. Placing his notep
ad and pencil down alongside the machine, he turned to the metal filing cabinet beside him and located the drawer containing filmed editions of the Sussex Express from 1837 to 1939. He selected the box containing the newspaper from January 1922 to December 1922, which included the period of time spanning Stephen Peacock’s first marriage.

  Morton opened the box and pulled out the fat roll of film, threaded it onto the machine and wound the handle until the word JANUARY appeared on the screen. Morton huffed at the quantity of film, which he would have to manually wind through in order to reach the June editions, and looked enviously at the woman sitting at the next machine, the microfilm reader rewinding in its noisy whir at the touch of a button.

  He stopped winding when a tight ache bit into his wrist and forearm. He exhaled with unnecessary gusto, as though he had just completed a competitive sprint, then tightened the focus ring to see that he had only actually reached March. Still three months to go. Using his left hand, Morton continued to wind on, stopping periodically to check the dates, as they moved past at an agonisingly slow speed.

  Finally, he reached the edition of Friday 23rd June. Normally, he would have checked every column inch of the newspaper, but with time running short and the possibility of Mr Higgins’ returning at a moment’s notice, he buzzed straight to the page titled DISTRICT NEWS. There, under area-subheadings, he found HAILSHAM. He was in luck.

  MARRIAGE—At Hailsham Parish Church on Saturday the wedding took place of Miss Louisa Pengelly, elder daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. George Pengelly, of Rocks Cottage, Hailsham and Mr. Stephen Peacock of Holmes Farm, Hailsham. The bride was attired in an ivy embroidered silk dress, trimmed with silver net, carried a shower bouquet of white roses and sweet peas, and wore a gold wristlet watch, the gift of the bridegroom. The bridesmaids were Miss Ethel Pengelly (cousin) and Miss Joyce Pengelly (sister). Mr David Martin was best man. A reception was held at Rocks Cottage, and later the bride and bridegroom left for Eastbourne, where the honeymoon is being spent.

  Morton quickly scribbled the entry down onto his pad, the machine’s having no print function, then began the arduous task of rewinding the film. Behind him, the door creaked open and Morton expected to see Mr Higgins returning to claim his machine, but it was actually the young lady, who had been on duty downstairs when he had arrived. Morton paused, took a breath while he rested his arm, then continued to crank the film backwards as fast as he could manage.

  Having stopped twice more and changed hands once, he had rewound the film back onto its original roll.

  Removing the film from the reel and re-boxing it, Morton placed it back into the filing cabinet and took the roll for 1924, the year of Stephen Peacock’s second marriage, wincing through the ache of his poor right arm at the date of the wedding: 13th December 1924.

  After a long breath, Morton wound the film onto the machine and began to buzz through to the end of the year, again as fast as he could manage.

  ‘Crikey, you’re keen,’ the woman next to him said with a hearty chuckle.

  ‘Something like that,’ Morton replied, not daring to stop.

  Morton jumped, as a hand was placed on his right shoulder. Expecting to see an annoyed Mr Higgins, he saw Max Fairbrother instead. He crouched down beside him, looking as though he were about to deliver some earth-shattering news: ‘Your documents are up, Morton,’ he slowly and quietly revealed.

  ‘Oh, great. Thank you,’ Morton said, waiting for a caveat or the revelatory extra information, which Max seemed poised to impart in addendum.

  ‘And I’ve found you a desk.’

  ‘Excellent. Thanks, Max,’ Morton acknowledged.

  ‘Pleasure,’ Max answered with a wink. He stood up and returned to his desk, and Morton continued to crank the handle.

  Painfully slowly, the months coiled by until he reached December, just as his right arm could take it no longer and he was forced to pause. Using his left hand, he moved through the first editions of the paper until he reached the one dated 19th December 1924.

  Morton moved through to the DISTRICT NEWS and checked the details for Eastbourne, where the marriage had taken place, and scanned down the sub-headings: Women’s Institute; Parish Council Meeting; Primrose League; Dog Show. At the end was the word for which he was searching: Wedding.

  Twisting the zoom and focus rings, Morton pulled the story up: A pretty wedding was solemnised on Monday at the Congregational Church, the contracting parties being Miss Jenny Winifred Hughes and Robert Edward Slater… Incorrect wedding. He stopped reading the report and checked the rest of the page, but there was no mention of Stephen Peacock’s nuptials. Since there was still no sign of Mr Higgins, Morton moved on to the next edition of the paper, but again there was nothing. This marriage had not been announced in the newspaper, Morton accepted.

  ‘Excuse me, I think you’ll find that I’ve got this machine booked out until closing time,’ a breathy male voice said beside him.

  Morton looked up with a warm smile, which was not reciprocated by Mr Higgins, who instead glowered at him with what appeared to be the smeared creamy remains from his lunch in both corners of his mouth. ‘So sorry—it was a quick check. All done now.’

  Mr Higgins grunted something inaudible and moved closer to the microfilm reader.

  ‘Just give me one moment to rewind it…’ Morton said, then added under his breath, ‘…or a few hours.’

  With Mr Higgins huffing and puffing every few seconds at his side, Morton rewound the roll of film as quickly as he could.

  ‘I suggest you book your own machine next time,’ Mr Higgins moaned, once Morton had removed the film and vacated the chair.

  ‘Yes, I shall do that,’ Morton replied. ‘Good advice.’

  Morton placed the box back into the filing cabinet, then headed over to the main desk.

  ‘Table six,’ Max directed, rather self-importantly.

  Morton thanked him and headed over to the designated desk, where he found the two dark-green original ledgers. On the top one Hailsham Parish Baptisms was etched in neat gold lettering and in the bottom right corner, in tiny white writing, was the document reference, PAR 353/1/2/6.

  The whole file, not especially thick, contained eighteen years’ worth of baptisms, so searching for children to either of Stephen Peacock’s marriages would be quick and easy. Starting at the beginning, in July 1921, Morton diligently checked all baptisms on every page, paying close attention when his finger began passing over the period during which children would most likely have occurred. But he found nothing. Not a single baptism. Not one mention of the Peacock family. Given that Stephen’s second marriage to Emma Carey had occurred in Eastbourne, Morton wondered if perhaps he had moved out of the town soon after his first marriage. Had this been a fully-paid, normal job, he would have called up the baptism registers for the various churches in that town to make certain either way, but today, working pro bono for an obnoxious old man, he wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to go to any such lengths and efforts. If he had time later before the window for document-ordering closed, he might then take a look. If not, tough.

  Next, Morton turned to the burial register, which covered the years 1900 to 1931. Again, he started at the beginning and worked his way through. Within ten minutes, he had found Stephen Peacock’s first wife.

  Name: Louisa Peacock

  Abode: East Sussex County Lunatic Asylum

  When Buried: 29th November 1924

  Age: 22

  By whom the Ceremony was performed: Arthur S. Clarke

  Morton copied down the entry with interest, wondering what had caused Stephen’s first wife to have been incarcerated in the local asylum and from what she had died at such a young age. Her death certificate would provide further information, but he was not prepared to spend more money, which he simply didn’t have, on this job just to satisfy some low-level niggling curiosity of his own.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Max called out from behind his desk, ‘documen
t-ordering will be closing in five minutes’ time. That’s five minutes until document-ordering closes. Five minutes.’

  Morton stared at the small wooden box containing the pink document-ordering slips and contemplated. There was just time, if he were really quick, to place an order for at least some of the baptism registers for the Eastbourne churches. Then his thoughts switched to Gerald Peacock’s diatribe about his incompetence and he decided not to waste his energy.

  At a leisurely pace, Morton finished searching through the burial register, finding no further mentions of the Peacock family, then handed it back to Max.

  ‘All done?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, another job finished,’ Morton said. ‘I just need to type up my notes and hand it all over to the client.’

  ‘Then the money comes in!’ Max said.

  ‘Hmm,’ Morton said. ‘Well, thanks very much for squeezing me in today. Much appreciated.’

  ‘You’re welcome—see you again soon.’

  Morton said goodbye and left the Reading Room. He headed down the stairs, collected his belongings from the locker and headed out into the pleasing warmth of the late afternoon.

  He strolled around to the carpark, feeling inexplicably dissatisfied yet unable to locate the source of the problem. He opened his car door and slumped down into the chair with a heavy sigh. As he pulled the door closed, a sudden breeze picked up the food waste leaflet, given to him by the woman in the library, and tossed it into the passenger footwell. Morton leant over to pick it up and noticed something scribbled on the bottom: Dinner? 07700 900 431. J x.

  Morton grinned inanely, as he started the car and headed back home.

  Chapter Three

  Morton pressed the doorbell and waited. He had fixed a smile on his face and braced himself for the ensuing rebuke. He didn’t care, though. Not anymore. As soon as he handed over the contents of the manila envelope in his hand, the job would be over. Not that any new work had come in as yet, but that wasn’t the point.