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“Well, gentlemen. Mrs. Wylit.” Lance gave a mockingly formal bow, one hand still on the rim of the cab’s door. “Perhaps we’ll see you in the clink later as we all await the King’s pleasure. Sorry. The Queen’s pleasure”
“Be careful.” James tapped on the glass of his window and rolled it down. Arthur bent, and blocked the sliver of moon from his vision. James reached through the door and grabbed his jacket sleeve. “Whatever’s — look, do be careful, Arthur.”
Arthur held his gaze, green to green, for a long moment, before breaking it away. His features were sullen and immobile; he was anxious, assuredly, about the task before them, but James could sense something else running beneath, as though he held dowsing rods and had discovered an underground aquifer. Arthur looked at Lance and said, “I will.”
The cab left Arthur and Lance at the bottom of the lane that led up to the asylum, and continued on to the front door to dispose of James and Mrs. Wylit. The hospital grounds were bordered by hedges and a row of trees that provided cover and a chance to sneak in unseen.. The night was, as luck would have it, especially dark, with a slivered moon and intermittent clouds that blocked the stars. Of course, there were floodlights attached to sections of the building, but their light wash was by no means comprehensive. St. John’s was old, and its time was running out, now that the war was over and wards such as these were closing all over the country in lieu of more modern facilities. There was a chance, with a distraction, that Lance and Arthur would be able to sneak to the shed that the orderly had revealed to them.
Back at the flat, there had been much discussion about who would be best for each job. James had pushed to accompany Arthur — even with the strange way Arthur had been acting, he couldn’t imagine one of them going to jail without the other. James wasn’t strong, but he could be fast on quiet feet. These were skills that aided him in the past when he’d needed to escape Morgan and his gang.
Arthur, however, wouldn’t hear of it. Lance himself agreed when James brought up how often Lance used charisma to get himself out of trouble, and wouldn’t that mean he’d be better running interference for Mrs. Wylit? This logic fell on deaf ears. Arthur wanted Lance to help him break into the shed, and to play lookout, and that was that.
It was so rare when Arthur insisted on something that James was unsure how to react. In the end, he’d thrown up his hands and the discussion (if you could call it that) had ended there. Lance seemed to have no issue deferring to Arthur, though James wished he’d shown more backbone. Perhaps he was feeling guilty for what they’d done, which James supposed he rightly should. Why should he hold all the guilt for what had happened in St. Mary le Wigford?
Mrs. Wylit lolled next to him on the seat. She fumbled open her bag and withdrew the mostly-empty bottle of pear brandy they’d found abandoned in the kitchen cabinet in the rental flat. As she raised it to her lips, James snatched it from her grasp. Mrs. Wylit cursed and stared him down with a bloodshot, iron gaze.
James looked at the bottle, and smelt it. He recoiled, but nevertheless brought it to his mouth and took a long pull. Though he managed to swallow it, he fell into a coughing fit that brought tears to his eyes. Mrs. Wylit guffawed and slapped the back of the seat. The cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror and chuckled as well.
“Ugh, good God.” James caught his breath and shoved the bottle back into Mrs. Wylit’s hands. “I thought you drank that garbage to feel better.”
Mrs. Wylit toasted him, and took a slug herself. “It’s the initial burn, lad. It goes away.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re quite numb to it,” James snapped as the cab pulled up to the front steps of the hospital.
“Quick, do my face.” Mrs. Wylit reached into her bag again and handed James her lipstick. “I’m so excited I’ve gone trembly.”
“Ah, young love.” James took the lipstick and cupped Mrs. Wylit’s face in one hand. With the other, he smeared the cheap lipstick over her mouth.
“Beautiful,” the cab driver chortled.
“Bugger off,” she said, the second word encased in an unladylike burp. “C’mon, James. Fate awaits us.”
After he had received his quid, the cab driver was more than happy to speed off into the darkness, away from the bughouse, as he called it. And equally happy to get away from whatever his four passengers were planning.
They pounded on the doors until a wary janitor made the mistake of letting them in, only to watch them race up the staircase to follow the signs for the men’s ward. There, James learnt a few things that he had not previously known.
First, apparently James’s understanding of how the insane were treated was based more on novels and radio dramas than reality. One of the first rooms they’d passed was a large, open space with a circle of chairs in the center. A man in a lab coat sat next to a patient, who stood in front of his chair to address the audience. “Some days I’m happy, frighteningly happy. Others, I want to hurt...” In the few moments he’d watched, James had been entirely taken aback by what he’d seen. He’d expected drooling patients in straight jackets. These men sat and listened to one another, some smoking, looking like a group of blokes meeting for a quiet cuppa.
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 banging 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.