Wildthorn (18 page)

Dark. A dank smell.

I open my eyes. Fog, in my head, in front of my eyes. I blink to clear them.

Dark still.

I listen, my ears straining for clues.

Silence.

Silence and cold.

Such cold.

My thoughts come slowly. I tell myself to move, curl up, wrap myself in my arms.

I can't. My wrists, ankles are fastened down.
I can't move.

And now I hear it. Rustling. My mouth dries. A mouse? A rat? I'm not afraid of mice, but rats? In the dark, when I can't see where they are? When I can't move and they can? When they can run over me and bite me with their sharp yellow teeth? I try to shout
Help!
But only a feeble croak comes out.

No one answers.

The rustle continues but there aren't tiny feet running over me, or teeth gnawing at me.
Relax. Breathe.
Tell yourself, it isn't a mouse, it isn't a rat.

Breathe.

Drip.

My mouth's dry and I can't swallow.

Drip.

Somewhere moisture's gathering and falling, but I can't reach it.

What am I doing here?

My mind is a pocket with a hole in the bottom—everything I used to know has fallen out.

I struggle to concentrate. And then I remember ... Weeks ... the window breaking ... the cloth.

They've tied me down in the dark because I attacked Weeks.

I remember everything—how it was all going so well, until Beatrice's locked door—and Weeks. How did she come to be there just then? Only Beatrice and I knew what I was planning. Someone must have overheard me. Alice passing in the hall? Someone must have told Weeks and she waited for me. But before that, what did she do?

Beatrice, what has she done to you?

Grey now. A faint light.

I'm more awake. Slowly I look round. A narrow room like a cell. Walls streaked with grime. A grating high up near the ceiling. In the door, about a third of the way down, a dark hole, like an eye.

I'm stiff with cold. Now I can see why. I'm lying on a mattress which crackles as if it's stuffed with straw, but there are no bed covers—all I'm wearing is a grubby gown. They've taken everything—all my clothes, even my underwear. They must have taken my hairpins too—my hair's straggling round my face.

I go to turn over, but I can't. Then I see the metal bolts in the floor, the canvas straps fastening my wrists and ankles. I try to pull loose, clench my fists, and there's a searing pain in my right palm. I remember now—the sliver of glass I clutched at as Weeks held me down on the floor. But I can't reach the strap with it. I tug hard, hoping to loosen the bindings, but it's no good.

My heart flutters, panic rising. To keep it at bay, I look round again. There must be something here, something that will help me. But there's nothing else in the room, except a chamber pot in the corner, a chamber pot I can't reach, and even as I think this, I'm aware of the pressure in my bladder. I grit my teeth.

Hang on. Surely someone will come. Hang on.

I try to think about something else, anything ... and then its hits me. Today, now, I would have been free, waiting to fetch Beatrice in a carriage, looking forward to our arrival at Carr Head, Aunt Phyllis's welcome...

Stop it,
I tell myself, blinking back my tears.
At least you're alive.
My heart contracts.
Please let Beatrice be safe somewhere, even if she thinks I've let her down...

With a grating sound, the door opens and I squint at the light spilling in from the corridor outside, at the two women who fill the doorway.

One of them addresses me in a loud voice, as if I'm deaf. "Well, my lady, got yerself into a fine pickle, ain't yer? This'll teach you to attack the folks what look after you. There's gratitude. Mind, you, Sal," she nudges her companion, "I'd 'ave liked to see it."

Sal, who is tall with a long face like a horse's, chuckles like a simpleton. "They say Weeks 'as got a real shiner."

Her partner purses her lips. "Serves 'er Ladyship right, I say. Now then, you, time for breakfast."

They advance into the room and Sal deposits a tin mug and plate on the floor some distance away from me, all the while observing me warily.

"Untie 'er, Sal," says the shorter one.

The other hesitates. "I don't want a punch or a kick, Hannah."

"I won't," I manage to croak.

"Damn right, you won't. For if you do, you'll feel my fist quick enough. Go on, Sal, 'urry up." Hannah looms over me with her fist clenched, while Sal fumbles with the fastenings.

I try to sit up, but my head swims and I fall back on to the mattress, with a groan.

Hannah gives me a shove in the ribs with her boot. "Come on, we ain't got all day. Use the piss-pot if yer going to."

I haul myself up again and, keeping my hand closed tight on the piece of glass, totter across to the chamber pot on legs that feel like rubber.

I'd like to wash my hands and face, to brush my tangled hair, to rinse out my furred-up mouth, but there's no means to do those things here.

Hannah jerks her head at my breakfast so I perch on the edge of the mattress, whose coarse ticking, I now see, is grimy and stained. The mug contains cold water and I gulp it down gratefully, even though it tastes bitter. I pick up a broken crust from the plate, but, at the first bite, my throat closes.

I can't help it, I can't eat it.

"Right then, get yerself laid down."

I feel so dizzy, I'm glad to lie down again. But then Sal gingerly takes hold of my ankles and I know she's going to fasten them. "Please..."

"
Please
" Hannah mocks. "Polite, aint we? But orders is orders and ours are to see yer tied, tight as a tick, my lady."

It's no use struggling—they'd easily overpower me.

Hannah watches while Sal ties the canvas straps that fasten my ankles to the bolts, then she checks them. Satisfied, she nods, and Sal moves to my wrists. I can't help clutching the glass more tightly and a drop of blood falls and stains the floor. It's all over in a second—Hannah darting at me, prying open my hand and wresting the sliver from me. With an exclamation, she brandishes it in front of my face.

"So! Not do us no harm, would yer? What's this for, if not to put our eyes out?"

"No," I protest. "It's not for that."

The expression on Hannah's face changes. "Hear that, Sal? We'll have to report this to Matron. This one wants watchin' or she'll do 'erself in."

Sal's mouth is hanging open and Hannah nudges her. "Stop gawping, will yer! Get 'er fastened."

When Sal has done, Hannah checks her work and pulls the straps a notch or two tighter. Sal picks up the mug and plate, they're moving towards the door.

They've gone, leaving me alone in the dark.

I don't know how long I've been in here. The light fades... returns ... they come with the mug and the plate.

At least I think they do. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm awake or dreaming. I sleep a lot. They must be putting a sedative in the water. When I do wake, I feel very drowsy and my mind's ... blurry.

Perhaps it's for the best. Better not to think.

Sometimes I hear that rustling and I tell myself it's a tree in full leaf, rustling in the wind. I like to think of this tree, my tree, with its sturdy trunk and roots deep in the ground. I imagine myself perching on its high branches, like a bird ... and then I spread my wings and fly...

It's peaceful here, with no one to bother me and everything slipped away from my mind except for my tree. So when they come one day and I've used the pot and drunk some water and someone, I think it's Hannah, says, "It's time to go," I don't want to go anywhere.

"It aint no use clinging to the mattress. Get 'er hands, Sal."

Between them they manhandle me to my feet.

I'm so weak I can hardly stand but this doesn't bother them. One on each side, with a firm grip on my arms, they drag me along corridors, my feet trailing. Where are we going? I must have spoken this aloud without realising it, because Hannah says shortly, "You'll see, soon enough."

When we stop in front of a door, Hannah takes a key from her pocket and inserts it in the lock. She winks at Sal and then says to me, "We hope yer like yer new home, my lady. You'll find it very comfortable." Hannah turns the key, and opens the door. "Welcome to the Fifth Gallery."

I stare at her, numb. Before I can gather my wits, I'm pushed into the room.

A stomach-churning stench makes me catch my breath. And the noise—after the silence of my cell, it's magnified to a painful pitch—and it sounds inhuman, more like the baying and howling of wild animals. There are bodies, bodies everywhere, in a turmoil of restless motion that makes my head spin.

Hannah prods me forward.

A blue uniform emerges from the confusion. "This her, then, what had a go at Weeks? She don't look like a goer."

This one has a deep voice, like a man's. She's big too with broad shoulders.

"Oh, yes, she's a vixen, all right," says Hannah. "And watch her—she might try to do herself in."

"One less for us to worry about then, eh?" The attendant laughs, a deep throaty laugh. "Right-oh then, Hannah, leave her with us. She'll soon settle in."

She grips my arm and steers me between the bodies. Those that don't move aside fast enough are knocked out of the way.

I look back over my shoulder at Hannah and Sal, faces that I know. But they've already disappeared.

"This is yours." The attendant points at a bed covered with a grimy blanket. I look around. The room is full of beds. No other furniture, just beds with a shelf above them. Most of the shelves are empty.

I swallow. "Where's the day room?"

"Day room! La! We don't have such fancies as day rooms here. This is where you are and this is where you'll stay." With a push that propels me forward on to the bed, she stalks off.

I scramble to the bed head and crouch there, my back against the wall. I want to shut my eyes, to make all this disappear, but I feel too vulnerable. My stomach is clenched and my heart is beating so fast I think it will burst out of my chest, but I keep my eyes open, trying to be ready for whatever comes next.

We must be somewhere in the basement of the building; what light there is, filtering through high gratings, creates a muddy, underwater atmosphere.

Everywhere I look I see filthy, scrawny figures.

Some are inert—they stand like stones or crouch, whimpering, under their beds or lie, like bundles of rags that have been flung down. Others, driven by a restless energy, rage up and down the passage between the beds like tottering scarecrows, their thin stick arms gesticulating wildly. Some carry out the same sequence of actions over and over again, like machines. One stands at the door rattling the handle and calling for help. One keeps trying to eat coal out of the bucket until an exasperated attendant tethers her to her bed. My nearest neighbour is shredding her blanket, all the while staring at me and muttering under her breath.

No wonder Miss Gorman was terrified of Weeks, terrified of being sent here again. I look again more carefully, but I don't recognise her in any of these creatures. I don't recognise anyone.

"You friggin' bitch!" The sudden shout, so close, makes me jump and my heart hammers. But it's all right—they're not shouting at me. At the foot of my bed, two scarecrows are at each other's throats, scratching, tearing each other's hair and shouting obscenities.

Rather than stopping them, the attendants gather round as if it's an entertainment. But as quickly as it flared it dies down; the combatants lose interest and wander off. My heart beat slows a little. It wasn't me. But it might have been.

Now a bell rings and the patients are herded towards the door. An attendant approaches and frowns at my gown. "What have you done with your dress?"

"They took it." My voice is a wisp.

"Took it! More like you tore it up, you nuisance."

She goes off grumbling, returning shortly with a mud-coloured bundle that she thrusts over my head. I'm struggling to find the armholes when she yanks and twists my arms into the sleeves. I fumble with the fastenings but before I've done them up she seizes my arm and hauls me from the bed. The dress hangs like a sack to just below my knees. She jerks her head at the pair of shoes she has brought. I squeeze my bare feet into them.

"Come on, you great dollop, move." I stumble and she punches me on the back with her fist.

Patients under the beds are dragged out and we're hustled through the doorway and along the corridor. All the time, the attendants chivvy us with blows.

We scramble through a door into a bleak courtyard overshadowed by high walls. I stagger a few paces, using a wall as a support, but I haven't the strength to stand. I collapse on to the hard ground and it takes me a while to get my breath back, for the shuddering in my body to subside.

This must be our exercise yard. There are a few snowdrops in one corner, but they're lying on top of the soil, their blooms crushed. The light hurts my eyes—above our heads is a square of blue sky, so bright I can't look at it. The air is fresh and sharp and I breathe in great lungfuls. How long since I've been outside? Not since the night I tried to escape...

No one is walking. They carry on as they did inside while the attendants stand round gossiping. Some patients squat in the dirt. One piles stones up in a heap, another is eating a snowdrop. Out here the rampaging ones have more room to fling themselves about and I hunch up close to the wall, trying to keep out of their way. Some are amusing themselves by throwing things over the boundary. One has a crust in her hand, which she launches with a whoop, while another tips out her shoes. A brown lump falls out—and I suddenly realise, with a little shiver of revulsion, that it's excrement. This is hurled over with a scream of glee and the shoes follow after.

Something sharp strikes my head.

"Come on, you booby. Time to go in."

The attendant moves off, her keys dangling from her hand, leaving me stunned, but not from the blow.

What roots me to the spot is the realisation that to her, I'm no different from the others. I'm one of these lost, abandoned souls.