Rosie Read online

  For some reason she wasn’t offered scrambled egg, perhaps because feeding her that required too much effort. Once the last dregs of tea were finished Aylwood indicated to Rosie that the job was completed, then locked the door behind them, leaving Mabel to her wailing again.

  This procedure was repeated with everyone. No attempts at conversation or cajoling. If they didn’t eat willingly and fast, they were force-fed. Angela ate her porridge willingly enough, but knocked the bowl of scrambled egg out of Aylwood’s hand. Aylwood slapped her hard across the face, then holding her neck she forced the woman to get down on the floor and gobble up the spilt food like an animal.

  Monica didn’t get any breakfast at all. Although she calmed down after her shower, Aylwood none the less gave her an injection which knocked her out. Rosie wondered if that was the reason Monica was so thin. If this happened every day she probably hardly ever got a meal.

  Rosie was sitting on a chair in the corridor when Dr Freed arrived to do his rounds soon after ten that morning. She had been told by Aylwood that her duties until dinner time at twelve were merely to patrol up and down the corridor at regular intervals checking through the viewing panels. She didn’t even say what Rosie was supposed to be checking for, or what constituted an emergency. It sounded as if she just wanted the new girl out of her hair so she and Saunders could read their newspapers in peace.

  All was quiet again. The patients, except for Monica, were sitting on the floor, just staring into space. Monica was out cold on the bed base without even a pillow or blanket. As Dr Freed came in escorted by Matron, Rosie jumped to her feet. She had seen the wiry little doctor innumerable times before downstairs, but she’d never spoken to him as Matron always accompanied him there too. He examined the patients in the treatment room next to the office and even if there were any instructions for the staff, they were rarely told about them.

  ‘Smith! Tell Staff Nurse Aylwood Dr Freed has come to do his rounds,’ Matron called out.

  Rosie did as she was told, hoping that she’d get an opportunity to speak to him later on, but she didn’t. Saunders ordered her to go and make tea for them in the tiny kitchen at the end of the landing and by the time she got back to the office with a tray, Aylwood was there, sitting in an easy chair lighting up a cigarette. Saunders was perched on the desk talking to her.

  ‘I made some for the doctor, too,’ Rosie said nervously. ‘Is he in with one of the patients?’

  Aylwood gave her a withering look. ‘He’s gone. Leave his tea, I’ll drink that too. Get on back to the corridor.’

  Rosie slunk out, but there on her seat she could hear Aylwood and Saunders talking. She gleaned that the doctor had recommended electric shock treatment for Mabel and for one of the men. They didn’t even mention Monica.

  As she sat there in the corridor without even a window to see out of, it suddenly occurred to her that she knew no more about mental illness now than when she had arrived here last September. She knew most of the patients downstairs were born with some brain damage. But what about the ones up here? Were they normal until some tragedy or trauma tipped them into the dark terrifying world they lived in now? And if this was the case, surely something could be done to help them?

  It was sad enough downstairs to see adults just shuffling around all day with nothing to do, but at least they had the companionship of the other patients, the staff talked to them, and they could look out of the windows. These poor people up here had absolutely nothing, totally isolated, locked away from any human contact. Even the tiny windows in their cells were too high up for them to see out of. Rosie thought it would be better to die than be forced to live that way.

  Rosie had never known time pass so slowly as it did that morning. Downstairs there had been the routine of cleaning and bed making, and chats with the other girls and patients to speed it along. But Coates did all the cleaning herself, and there was no one to talk to. Saunders was lounging in a small rest room further down the corridor, reading a newspaper and chain-smoking. Aylwood appeared to be doing some sort of paperwork in the office. Except for when Nurse Gladys Thorpe came up to help Aylwood take Mabel downstairs for her electric shock treatment there would be no further visitors to the ward until Simmonds arrived with the dinner trolley.

  Sitting alone on an upright chair out in the corridor, listening to the sounds of human misery all around her, heads banging against walls, low plaintive crying and every now and then a yell of outrage, Rosie fought back her own tears and tried to think what she must do to get out of here.

  It was obvious that pleading to be sent back downstairs was pointless. In fact, if she showed Matron how distressed she was at being here, that would only delight her. If she caused a scene, she might get the sack. Getting the sack looked far more attractive than having to face this ward again tomorrow, but where would she go once she was chucked out? She had less than two pounds in savings, and that wasn’t even enough to get a room. Would Thomas put her up until she found a new job?

  She was certain he would, in an emergency, but was it fair to ask him? People would talk about a young girl staying alone with him in his flat and his boss would almost certainly disapprove. Maybe she could telephone Miss Pemberton tonight and ask her advice? But wouldn’t she think Rosie was spineless and wonder what sort of nurse she’d make if she wanted to bolt at the first sign of unpleasantness?

  Then there was Donald. She knew he was always withdrawn on her day off, but he had a good enough concept of time to understand she’d be back the following day. How was he going to cope when she didn’t return? What if he threw one of his tantrums and got punished with electric shock treatment?

  Just the thought of that made her eyes prickle with tears and her stomach contract with fear. Matron would almost certainly blame his day out as the reason for his bad behaviour. Without Rosie to act as a go-between Mr and Mrs Cook might well give up any thought of taking him home for good. What would become of him then? He had come on so well, but without the special treatment he’d grown used to from her, he’d soon revert back to the way he’d been before.

  Then there was Gareth. Next Wednesday he’d be coming here to call for her, and she didn’t know how to contact him to arrange to meet him somewhere else.

  Rosie sighed deeply. Gareth wasn’t really important, at least not compared with Donald or the patients up here who were being ill-treated. But what was she going to do?

  She felt so angry too that the other girls who she thought of as good friends hadn’t confided in her about what went on up here. Why hadn’t they? Were they so hard-hearted they didn’t care, or were they all so afraid of Matron they didn’t dare speak out?

  This feeling of utter helplessness was very familiar. She had felt this way after seeing what Seth and Norman did to Heather. If she had done something then, told her father, or even admitted to Heather she knew, maybe Heather would be alive now.

  Then there were all the times when her father and brothers had laid into Alan. Why hadn’t she told her teacher? Maybe she had some sort of excuse then, she was only a kid herself and she was afraid they would take Alan from her. But she was an adult now. If she kept quiet and ignored something she knew to be totally wrong, didn’t that make her every bit as bad as Saunders, Aylwood and Matron?

  Rosie’s reverie was cut short by the sound of Simmonds coming through the outer door with the dinner trolley. She stood up wearily. Breakfast was bad enough, she could hardly bear to think what might be in store for her with dinner.

  At the end of the day when Rosie came off duty she was very close to breaking down. Her head ached, she felt sick, and as the long day had worn on, more and more horrifying things had come to her notice. If the patients needed to go to the lavatory, they were supposed to call out or just wait until meal times when staff unlocked their doors and escorted them there. Although one or two of them seemed to manage this, the rest couldn’t, and the mess they made was left there on the floor until the next unlocking time, which was the reason all bedding
was taken away during the day.

  More alarming still was that after tea they would be locked up again until seven the next morning, and from what Rosie could make out, after ten-thirty there was no one continuously on duty, only Sister Welbred coming up from the floor below now and again.

  When Rosie had first arrived at Carrington Hall, she’d thought the staff was huge and in fact wondered how they could all be occupied. But over the past months she’d soon discovered that housekeeping duties were the most onerous, not the nursing side at all. By watching people going on and off duty she’d worked out for herself that the second floor had a considerably smaller staff than the first and this had always puzzled her.

  Now after a day up there she understood why that was. With patients locked up like caged animals, aside from the early morning cleaning and feeding, there wasn’t any call for more staff. As for the story that Matron stayed up here all day, that had turned out to be untrue. Saunders told her she never came up unless there was an emergency.

  Rosie went reluctantly down to the staff dining-room. She didn’t really want any tea, only an aspirin for her headache and a walk outside to get rid of the disgusting second-floor smell which she felt was clinging to her. She didn’t even want to see the other girls because she was convinced now they must have known last night what she was in for today. She still had no idea what to do; she was friendless and helpless, but she felt compelled to hold on to the last vestiges of pride, and if that meant seeing the people she felt had betrayed her, then she wasn’t going to dodge it.

  Thorpe, Maureen, Mary, Linda and Simmonds were all eating their tea. She heard them talking and laughing even before she reached the dining-room. But as she walked in they all fell silent for a moment, then leaning closer to one another they resumed their conversation and totally ignored her.

  Rosie couldn’t tell if they were sending her to Coventry because of yesterday, or because Matron had ordered it. She took a place at the end of the table, furthest away from them all. Pat Clack plonked a cup of tea and a ham sandwich down in front of her, without even her usual smile. Rosie drank the tea in silence, and steeled herself against crying.

  Maureen and Mary left the dining-room soon after she came in. Thorpe and Simmonds followed soon after. Linda was still sitting there, eating a large slice of fruit cake, but she didn’t speak. Rosie gulped down her tea, but left the sandwich on the plate and got up to go, but as she went out into the passage Linda came up behind her.

  ‘Come into the sitting-room,’ she whispered. ‘I gotta talk to you.’ With that she took off like a scalded cat along the passage.

  Rosie was puzzled. She looked around, expecting to see Matron somewhere close, but there was no one. Pat Clack was alone in the dining-room, clearing the table. She couldn’t even hear distant voices. She hurried into the sitting-room to find Linda lighting up a cigarette, looking very tense and white-faced.

  Rosie sat down. Linda checked outside the door, then closed it. ‘I’ad to say sommat,’ she said, taking a big drag on her cigarette. ‘We’ve all been told not to, but that don’t seem fair to me, so I’m sticking me neck out.’

  ‘But why? What’s going on?’ Rosie asked. ‘And why didn’t any of you ever tell me what it’s like up there?’

  Linda shrugged. ‘Forget that for a minute. I ain’t got that long,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I know it ain’t too good up there, but then it ain’t no different to other loony-bins. What I wanted to warn you about is Aylwood and Saunders, they ain’t the sort to mess with, so keep quiet and say nothing, whatever you see.’

  To receive such a warning without a proper explanation rang further alarm bells in Rosie’s head. ‘But I don’t understand! Okay, so Matron’s got it in for me and she wants you all to send me to Coventry, that’s weird and nasty enough. But don’t any of you feel any sympathy for those patients?’

  Linda shrugged again. Her dark eyes were blank, her thin mouth set in a straight line. She didn’t look as if she cared a jot about the patients’ predicament. ‘They’d get the same wherever they was,’ she said. ‘So no, I don’t feel no sympathy for them. But I do for you.’

  ‘Linda, stop beating about the bush and tell me what’s going on,’ Rosie said more forcefully. ‘Why exactly was I sent up there? Was it just to get even with me because I went to the Coronation, or because Matron hopes it will make me leave?’

  A little warmth came back into Linda’s dark eyes. ‘Yeah, I reckon it’s a way to get rid of you,’ she said, scratching at her bad skin as if such a disclosure worried her. ‘See, the old bat has got a thing about you. The day after you arrived she warned all of us that we weren’t to discuss the second-floor patients or the staff there with you. And we didn’t because we knew Maureen would soon tell ‘er if we did. Maureen’s a sewer rat, she’d grass up anyone for ten fags. She was loyal to you for a while because you was the only one that was nice to ‘er, but she started to get narky when Donald got to like you more than ‘er.’

  Rosie nodded. Maureen was quick-witted, maybe she’d guessed that she was in regular contact with Mr and Mrs Cook and yesterday’s invitation had made her jealous enough to tell Matron. That would explain too why Matron wanted to get rid of her. She couldn’t sack her for that without proof, but nudging her out the door was another way.

  ‘What should I do, Linda?’ she asked. She had to put her trust in someone, and Linda was at least straight-talking.

  ‘In your shoes I’d be out of ‘ere so fast my feet wouldn’t touch the ground,’ Linda said emphatically. ‘There’s not many of us got the stomach for the second floor, but neither me, Mary or Maureen ‘as been expected to do anything more up there than feed the calmer ones and clean up the odd mess on the floor. Saunders and Aylwood ‘ave always done the real grim stuff and they love it. But the shit and the ugliness up there, and whether you can handle it or not, ain’t really the point I’m trying to make. Maureen seems to think Matron knows something bad about you. Now that is dangerous, ‘cos she’ll use it. Is there sommat?’

  Rosie’s stomach lurched and her head spun for a moment. So that was it. Matron was waiting for her to complain, then she’d threaten to expose her. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look blank. ‘Maureen’s got too much imagination for her own good,’ she said. ‘Just tell me why you think Aylwood and Saunders could hurt me in some way?’

  Linda looked hesitant. ‘Don’t you go telling anyone I said this, but from what I’ve ‘eard and seen up there, both of them are real nasty weirdos. Matron took ‘em on, knowing all about ‘em, same as she did almost everyone ‘ere but you, and I reckon they’ve got some big fiddle going between them.’

  ‘But the owner, Mr Brace-Coombes!’ Rosie started to protest.

  Linda smirked. ‘ ’E don’t come ‘ere any more, do ‘e? From what I’ve ‘eard it was a showplace when ‘is wife was an inmate. But when she snuffed it, ‘e just let Matron take over. I ain’t seen ‘im ‘ere more than twice since I come. Doubt ‘e’s got the foggiest idea what goes on and cares even less.’

  Rosie felt confused. She had a gut feeling that Linda wanted her to clear off immediately for more reasons than she’d stated. Although the girl hadn’t said as much, the implication seemed to be that if she stayed, she could expect no help or sympathy from anyone, including herself. Rosie wondered fleetingly if Matron had something on her too. Now she came to think about it, Linda was as evasive about her past as she was.

  ‘I’d better go,’ Linda said. She put one hand on Rosie’s shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about all this, you’re too young and bleedin’ idealistic for a place like this. Get out now, love, before you get ‘urt. And keep your distance from Saunders.’

  Rosie nodded, as if in agreement. ‘Thanks for being so frank with me,’ she said. ‘Will you just do one more thing for me? Would you tell Donald in private where I am and that I miss him. Explain I can’t get in to see him just now.’

  Linda arched one eyebrow. ‘Sure, just as long as you
do one thing for me too.’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘Mind you only feed Maureen information you want to get back to Matron. Like you’re looking around for a new job!’

  Fortunately Maureen wasn’t there when Rosie got back to their bedroom, as she might have been tempted to choke her. She quickly changed out of her uniform, put her raincoat over her arm and went back downstairs before anyone could ask where she was going.

  It was just before seven as she left Carrington Hall. By quarter to eight she was in Flask Walk, Hampstead, ringing Thomas’s bell.

  He took some time to answer the door. As she saw him limp across the shop on his crutches, his empty trouser leg flapping, Rosie felt very guilty that she was about to burden him with her problems. He had settled down for the evening and she guessed he wouldn’t like her to see him without his artificial leg.

  ‘Rosie,’ he exclaimed as he opened the door, but his smile was so welcoming it at least banished the fear of rejection. ‘What a nice surprise! What brings you here?’

  ‘I needed someone to talk to,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if it’s not convenient, but you’re the only person I can trust.’

  ‘Any time is convenient if it’s you,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Good job I tidied up a day or two ago.’

  Rosie had often wondered what Thomas’s flat was like – she had expected a bachelor to be very untidy, but to her surprise there was no clutter and only a minimum of furniture. He showed her his small workshop first as they passed it on the narrow stairs. A bench with a bright lamp, a stool and his tools laid out in rows like a surgeon’s beside a dismembered clock. From there they went up another few winding stairs to a small landing, the minuscule kitchen and bathroom at the back of the building, and his bedroom which he didn’t show her. His living-room was at the front, looking out on to Flask Walk. This was all painted white, with dark red curtains. The evening sun was coming in the windows and the low ceiling gave the place a cottagey feel. He didn’t have many possessions: two rows of books on shelves, two easy chairs and a small round table covered in a red cloth in the window, a wireless and a lamp on a sideboard. But the starkness was relieved by two large bright pictures at either end of the room. One was of a golden cornfield against an azure sky, the other of a white thatched cottage with a faded green door and long waving grass surrounding it.