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Overview
1885. Anne Stanbury wakes up in a strange bed, having been kidnapped from her home. As the panic settles in, she realizes she has been committed to a lunatic asylum, deemed insane and therefore unfit to stand trial for an unspeakable crime. But all is not as it seems…
Edgar Stanbury, her husband as well as a grieving father, is torn between helping his confined wife recover her sanity and seeking revenge for his ruined life. But Anne’s future rests wholly in the hands of Dr. George Savage, chief medical officer of Bethlem Royal Hospital.
The Medea Complex is the darkly compelling story of a lunatic, a lie, and a shocking revelation that elucidates the difference between madness and evil…
Rachel Florence Roberts was born in Liverpool. She was inspired to write The Medea Complex after suffering with postnatal depression, following the birth of her son. The Medea Complex is inspired by true events that occurred towards the end of the 19th century, and is Rachel’s first novel.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780698188242 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 07/15/2014 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 301 |
| File size: | 769 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
How the Bastards Did It
Anne
October 11th, 1885
Unknown Location
What I really want to know is how the bastards did it.
It’s the blackest part of the night, and I’ve woken upon a bed of straw. However, I quite clearly remember falling asleep on a mattress stuffed with horsehair, same as I do every night.
I sit up quickly.
Well, then. Someone has stolen it.
I must see what else they have taken: my jewellery, my bonnet, my books . . . all ripe for oiled little hands; why, they may even have stolen my hairbrush! They could, at this very moment, be making ladders out of the strands from my very head! To think—something tickles my foot, probably an insect; straw breeds the damned blighters—yes, to think, somebody or something crept amongst the shadows into my room and simply took my bed! Whilst I slept! I push the blanket away—blanket? A filthy, dirty, stinking, thin, scratchy, awful blanket?
They stole my quilt!
“Beatrix!” I call, struggling to free my legs. I kick the coverlet off and shuffle to the edge. I must get help, quickly. The thieves won’t be too hard to find if we are fast enough: a mattress is not an easy nor sensible thing to walk along a road with, even under the cover of night. I stretch my feet, wiggling my toes searchingly. They scrape against the floor and I move them around, wincing at the coldness. Where are my slippers?
“Beatrix! Wake up, we’ve been robbed! They’ve taken everything!” I bend over and reach down towards the floor, my hand clinking against my chamber-pot. Damn, damn, damn—where are they? This is wasting valuable time. How did the men get past the butler, the hall-boy, the maids? How was I not awakened? Why would they steal my mattress, when there are plenty of empty guest rooms they could take one from? I stand up angrily, annoyed now.
Why am I standing on a cold floor? Where is . . . ?
They’ve done away with my Ambusson rug!
“Beatrix!” Where is she? “Come in here and light a light, will you?” It is too dark. I’m cold. I can’t see the door. No matter. I need my shawl. I raise my arms in front of me and swing my hands back and forth as I head towards my wardrobe. I have no need for light; I know this room well.
I take a few quick steps and walk straight into a wall that shouldn’t be there.
What the . . . ?
I run my fingers across it. The wall is cracked and in a dire state of disrepair, and I pull my hand away.
This is not my wall.
A fleck of paint flakes off, making a soft pft sound as it hits the floor. Something cracks inside my mind.
This isn’t my bedroom.
I’ve been kidnapped.
No, no . . . stumbling backwards, I look around me—it is so dark I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed. I hold them open with my fingers for a moment, but it makes no difference.
There must be a logical explanation for this. Perhaps I hit my head falling from my horse again. Perhaps I am still asleep. I pinch myself, yet the pain that shoots through my hand is suddenly overtaken by a horrible ache inside my breasts: a hot, tender, bruised, strange sort of—yearning.
I am fearfully, horribly, awake.
Where am I? I dare not breathe, but somehow I do. I have to.
“Beatrix!” I say, quietly. The sound of nothingness buzzes inside my head.
What time is it?
I must move.
Reaching out, I walk slowly at first . . . cautiously searching for something, anything, that might inform me as to my location. As my panic increases, so does my pace. I must find a lamp, a door. A dressing-table. However, I brush nothing but air until I hit another stone wall. Placing my back against it, I follow it quickly with my palms until I reach a corner. I continue onwards, repeating the motion, until I realize I have counted four corners and effectively walked in a square.
I’m in a room.
A small room.
A small room without a door.
As horrendous a prospect this may be, I duplicate the process; carefully searching for any grooves or handles that, in my haste, I may have missed the first time. I kick my feet outwards, hoping to knock over a chair, or a hat-stand. Yet frighteningly, other than the bed, nothing of sufficient prominence nor irregularity strikes me. I walk diagonally across the room, I walk in circles. Nothing.
I sit on the floor.
How is this possible? Every room has, at the very least, a door. Even if a person is poor—they still have doors!
I don’t know how long I stay like this, thinking of everything and nothing. Scared to call out, too frightened to move, and yet terrified not to do both. I close my eyes for just a moment.
When I open them, a small pool of light rests upon my arm.
I lift my head.
A small, square window hangs roughly twelve feet above the ground. Unusual, vertical lines cross its pane. I squint. What are they? Cautiously, I rise, intending to investigate, when a loud bang reverberates from somewhere nearby.
I shriek, and run towards the bed that I can now see; albeit faintly. I grab the blanket off the floor and leap, pulling the cover over my head. I hide myself deep and pray they won’t notice me.
They.
My heart is beating too fast. I can’t breathe under this insect-ridden material, and it smells. A piece of straw pokes me in the back, but I resist the temptation to move.
“Lady Stanbury?”
Who?
“Anne?”
Me?
Oh, it’s Beatrix, dear-hearted Beatrix. I push the cover away from my face, and ready myself to jump into her arms.
“Quick, Beatrix, come inside! Quickly, now! What has happened to my bed, where are we—”
A familiar scratching sound: the lighting of an oil lamp. Held up to a woman’s face.
A face that is not Beatrix’s.
I scream.
She is wearing a white uniform complete with a starched collar: a strange wrap-around dress slightly reminiscent of my maids yet, bewilderingly, somehow subtly and grossly different. Her vast body fills the doorway, illuminated by an unknown source of light. She stands still for a moment, assessing me, as another insect crawls up my leg.
Doorway?
There is a doorway?
“Now, now, Lady Stanbury,” she says, bosom heaving, “I don’t expect any trouble from you, especially not at this ungodly hour. Here is your breakfast.”
I flick at the spider and push myself as far up the bed as I possibly can—away from her. What has she done with Beatrix?
“Where is Beatrix?” I say, my voice rising, wavering. She puts a stinking tray on the floor next to my bed and peers at me as if I am a specimen.
Who in hell is this damned fiend, and how does she imagine I will eat my breakfast . . . off the floor? I may be sleeping on straw, but I am not a pig!
“Beatrix will be along momentarily, my Lady,” she says. Smirking, she steps away from the bed. Before I realise what she is about to do, her hands move toward her fat hips—oh God, she has a plank of wood in there, she is going to beat me to death, she must have killed Beatrix—and with a small incline of her fat head . . . performs a wobbly, insubordinate imitation of a badly-executed curtsey. “I am your maid, now.” She spits the word into the air.
I could kill her.
I will kill her.
“Leave at once, intruder! I certainly did not employ any more maids—you liar!” Leaping off the bed, I run to the other side of the cell. Where is Beatrix? She is dead, I know it. “Father! There is a thief in our house!” Where is my riding crop? I shall beat her senseless. I whirl around to find it, but wait—this is not my room. I have been kidnapped!
What is this accursed place?
“Calm yourself.”
“Father! Beatrix!” Spots of black float in front of my eyes. Lord, if I faint in this monster’s clutches, I’m doomed. She might try to eat me.
Until Father or Beatrix arrives, I must find something to hit her. An object to defend myself. Yet, sadly, there is only the thin mattress on which I awoke, atop of which lies a brown blanket. Whose blanket is that? No matter, it is useless. Even the bed frame looks affixed to the floor. The room is roughly eight feet squared and unfortunately, sparse. Not even a wardrobe to topple. The floor is as bare as my toes, and somebody stole my rug.
Heavens.
And the window! It has bars across it! I have been thrown in a cell! Lord, have mercy on my soul! This is an exercise in utter futility. There is nothing to make a weapon of here. My safety is a thing of the past.
“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .” I mutter, searching the room. I wipe my hands across the floor, picking up dust and throwing it. God will help cast out this devil.
In my haste to find a dangerous object, I fail to notice a lone flagstone in the floor which has risen above its neighbours. The one inch jut is adequate enough to trip me.
Landing on my head, pain shoots through my brain.
“Doctor!” Doctor? Does she imagine she can dupe me into believing I am in a hospital? This cell does not resemble a place of rest! I consider the wall opposite me as I lie on my face, my cheek quickly becoming numb. It is a sickening yellow in need of a paint—who paints their walls yellow? Don’t they know this is the year of green?—and somebody needs to fix this floor. And what is that smell? Twisting my head, I raise myself onto my elbows and look back at the offending slab. It mocks me, and threads of green grace its edges. Green. I smile. But wait . . . how . . . what is that on my legs? What am I wearing?
This is not my nightgown! They have stolen my beautiful Parisian beauty and replaced it with an awful, linen thing which trails beyond my feet.
The reason I tripped! The hem must have become stuck on the slab. This gives me a sense of satisfaction. It is simply my clothes conspiring against me as opposed to my own unwieldy awkwardness. Score one to Anne, zero to my fat jailer—you supplied me with the wrong size gown! A manic laugh resounds inside my head, and I chuckle. This is evidence of her stupidity—if she cannot judge the size of my frame then she will surely make a further mistake; which, I am certain, will allow me to escape.
I am happy. Tomorrow she might give me the jailer’s keys for breakfast and put the bowl of porridge in her pocket. That would serve her right. Suddenly dizzy, I roll onto my stomach. She can have a view of my behind. She doesn’t deserve my face.
“Why is she laughing?” A man’s voice.
“How am I to know? But she has fallen, there is blood everywhere, and she has urinated upon herself!”
There are two of them? If this situation weren’t so dreadful, it would be almost comical. And who has urinated upon themselves? That is disgusting. Splayed in a most undignified manner on the floor, dressed in an appalling linen gown with blood trickling out of my head, I contemplate which is more worrisome: the state of my cell, no fit state for a Lady; or the fact that a man has an open view of my unmentionables?
My head does not bother me, the warmth of the blood is soothing.
“Pervert!” I shout.
The floor is comfortable. I don’t want to get up.
Rustling and hushing from behind me.
Before I realize what is happening, I am hauled into a sitting position. I squirm in a pathetic attempt to stay where I am. What impolite, rude behaviour!
“My father will not give you a solitary farthing!” I say, looking into the face of the ‘doctor’ holding me. “Unhand me at once and let me go home, you, you . . .” I struggle to find an insult strong enough. “You utter, foul sod of a rotter!” My voice breaks. Ashamed and astounded, I start to sob.
“Lady Stanbury, look at me,” he says. I refuse, and moan into my gown. He is not talking to me. He can’t be talking to me. I am not who he thinks I am—and yet he continues. “I am a doctor. My name is George, Dr. George Savage. I am the chief medical officer here at Bethlem Royal Hospital. I assure you, you are safe. You have not been kidnapped. The courts’ simply requested that you were sent here until we can make you well again. I give you my word that you are not a prisoner. You are a patient.” He attempts to rub my arms and is rewarded by a smack in the face.
This is outrageous. They have the wrong person! My name is not Lady Stanbury, nor do I know of any person by that name. Safe? They steal everything I have, even my own body, and then they try to assure me I am ‘safe’? I don’t believe a word he says! Blood runs into my right eye, making it difficult to assess him in any detail, but I can see enough to know he is nothing but a charlatan. A long, brown beard and a well-fitting suit—no doubt stolen from some poor gentleman.
How dare this degenerate masquerade as an eminent doctor?
“My name, if you please, is Lady Anne. You have kidnapped the wrong woman. I never saw you in my life! Incompetents!” Suddenly, the situation strikes me. This is hilarious.
I laugh.
“Chloral?” asks the enormous example of a human by his side.
“No, no,” he says, “we only dose them as a last resort. It is better to let her rest awhile, see if she comes to her senses somewhat by noon. Get the new attendant to come and clean her up.”
I blink with panic as they move away from me.
“Don’t you dare leave me alone in this place!” I jump to my feet and almost faint. Swooning, I run after them but I am too slow—they are at the door. The ‘nurse’ winks at me and slams the door: a yellow door which matches and blends perfectly with the imperfect walls. They leave me standing and for a moment, I sway . . . not sure where to go, what to do.
Eventually, I sit on the bed and sob.
Behind A Beautiful Smile
Dr. George Savage
M.D, M.R.C.P
October 12th, 1885.
Royal Bethlem Hospital
Preparing for my next entry, I scan through Lady Stanbury’s admission notes. Her life—reduced to one page of tick boxes and ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, filled by a person who surely never met her before. Age. Weight. Height. Personality. Risk.
Crime.
Before.
After.
For a moment I find myself taken by her photograph. Such a normal looking woman. Demure. Soft. Kind.
Her eyes stare at mine and I close the book, pushing it away.
Unfortunately, insanity is scarcely recognized until it interferes with the law in some way, and Anne’s crime certainly brought attention to hers. As a father, the knowledge of what she did scratches at my heart; yet on a professional level I understand she is blameless. Given time I expect her to recover completely, but sometimes I wonder if it would be a mercy for her if she did not. I remember all too well the screaming crowd outside the hospital on the day she arrived. Men, women, and even children armed with placards, many shouting for death: all demanding justice.
Society is scared of that which it does not understand and my job—no, my role in life, is to enlighten them. Lady Stanbury’s crime is widely viewed as the worst a woman could ever commit. The very nature of it incites other women to madness, as if one woman’s broken virtue could taint them by mere association of their shared gender.
I pull the case book towards me, licking my finger and flicking through it until I reach the next blank page. Picking up my ink eyedropper in one hand and a pen in the other, I carefully fill it without any spillages. I smile. Preparation is everything. I do not want to run out mid-sentence.
It has now been little over a week since Lady Stanbury’s admission to Royal Bethlem Hospital and as yet, no discernible progress has been made. Despite rest and recuperation, everything of which she suffered on admission is still very much established. There are no longer any doubts nor questions regarding the initial diagnosis.
Patient is violent, and as a direct consequence of this I am unable to do a complete physical exam, though she is still lactating and remains amenorrheic. Friction of the breasts with salt and castor oil has, as yet, proven impossible.
There is no sign of mastitis.
She remains flushed in appearance.
I am in full agreement with Dr. Goldenheind and Dr. Johnson: the two physicians who signed the first certificates of insanity. Their reports adequately reflect the behaviour I have since witnessed.
She remains in isolation for her own safety.
Commissioners duly informed.
I read over what I have written, and carefully correct the bottom curl of a ‘y’.
There.
At this time, Lady Stanbury is certainly a person who should be deprived of her liberty, as much for her own sake as for that of society. She is not the first woman to be admitted to my asylum on this charge and will not be the last.
Behind her beautiful smile lies the diseased mind of a lunatic.
Fish-eyed Fiend
Anne
October 16th, 1885
Royal Bethlem Hospital
Last night I was kept awake by a woman weeping: an awful, incessant, irritating sound that rose steadily in pitch and prolongation throughout the night. Covering my head with the flimsy blanket proved useless. “It’s difficult enough to sleep in here, you fiends!” I cried, hammering at the handle-less door that confuses me so: the yellow, metal gateway that separates me from freedom. It does not even have a keyhole for me to peer through. I don’t know if something worse than incarceration awaits me on the other side, but there is not much in this world more terrifying than ignorance.
I do know that I’m at the mercy of my captors if I can’t find a way out.
Damn them all, the bunch of goats. I roll over and try to get comfortable. An errant strand of straw pokes me in the eye. Giving up, I push myself onto my knees and try to stem the tears that pour from my injury, thinking of my family.
Father must be frantic, and what of Beatrix? I hope they are both safe and well and haven’t been abducted too . . . no, no doubt they have contacted the police and everyone is busy searching through fields and rivers looking for my body. Indulging myself in this moment of self pity heartens me, and I close my eyes. I can smell the water and touch the sky. Surely, my incompetent kidnappers left clues that will lead my family to me.
Yes!
But . . . what if they didn’t? What if I am left here—forever, and nobody knows where I went?
I blink. I want to see my eye, but then I suppose I should be glad I am without a mirror. Surely I resemble a lower-class prostitute, since I can’t remember the last time my hair was brushed, my face washed, or my finger-nails filed. I haven’t had a warm bath in days. My eye releases more tears just thinking about the feel of warm water on my skin.
As the darkness of my cell begins to fade I get out of bed and move towards the window. I raise myself up until I am standing on the tips of my toes, and listen closely for any sounds the dawn may bring. I stand here for a long time, and it occurs to me that no church bells toll the hour.
I must be somewhere in the countryside.
I keep listening—for how long I don’t know—until my suspicions are eventually confirmed with the rewarding crow of a cockerel. I have no way of telling the time in here: no clocks adorn the walls, and I wonder idly whether my captors might be kind enough to supply me with a stick. As I consider my plight and troubles with keeping time, my cell door creaks open, disturbing the quiet. The fat woman that appears every morning is hovering in the doorway, holding my breakfast tray. I don’t know why she hesitates there, every day. It is as if she is teasing me, or goading me: I don’t know which.
Watching me.
Well, at least my captors don’t want me to starve to death.
“What unsolicited advice do you have for me this morning?” I say, as she moves wordlessly into the room. She normally comes armed with a prepared speech regarding my behaviour: stop banging, stop shouting, stop crying. She ignores me and bends, putting the tray onto the floor. My breakfast unsurprisingly consists of a single bowl of thick, tasteless, glutinous porridge; a vast and sad difference to the perfectly golden, buttery toast to which I am accustomed.
“I said—”
“Yes, Anne, I heard you. Just as I heard you screaming in the night.” She doesn’t bother to look at me, busying herself with my breakfast.
I walk around to peer at her large behind. The fabric is stretched tight across her buttocks. If she bends forward any farther, she is liable to rip open the seams.
“Were you trying to kill someone last night?” I can’t help but imagine all the sorts of wonderful foods that she eats in the mornings. Bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, sausages . . . all piled high on beautifully polished, silver plates.
“No, Anne, I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry, you ‘wasn’t’ what?”
“That’s the answer to your question.”
“What question?”
What is she talking about?
“You asked me if I was killing someone last night. I wasn’t.”
Oh, that.
“You were,” I say. I pick at my nails.
“I wasn’t.”
She’s such a dirty liar! I resist the childish urge to stamp my foot.
“You most certainly were.”
She stares at me.
“Look,” I say, pretending to be nice. Polite. “Can I have something other than this slop for breakfast?”
“No.”
“Who do you think I am, Oliver Twist?”
She mutters under her breath and stands, turning as if to leave.
“May I have a stick to tell the time?” I say, quickly, not wishing to be thwarted so soon. She spins and looks at me as if I am mad, and I back away from her until I hit the wall.
“No, Anne. I dread to think what might occur if we gave our inmates sticks. Full out war, I expect. And how do you suppose a stick will help you tell the time?”
Inmates?
“Well, you place a stick in the ground, upright—normally easier if you have a bit of soil, which I don’t, but I’m fairly sure I can make it stand up somehow. In that porridge, most likely. Anyway, then, when the sun hits the stick, you look at the shadow as you would imagine a clock-face, and—”
“Anne, stop. The only times you need to know are that of mealtimes. In fact,” she says, and I hear the sneer in her voice, “you don’t even need to know the times of those! You are to remain here, alone, inside this room.” She pauses and looks about her, before walking over to me. I huddle into the paint but she brings her face close to mine. Foul breath invades my nose, and panic wells up inside of me. “Do you need to be somewhere?”
“Well, yes, I—I need to be at home,” I stutter. The stench of her essence blocks my voice.
“I will bring you your food for now. When, and if, you are eventually allowed out into the hospital freely, a bell will ring at the times of breakfast, lunch and dinner.” She shakes her head. “A stick—Lord have mercy!” As she opens the door I run and try to peek around her.
It’s no use.
She’s too fat.
And yet . . . any human contact is better than none.
“I want to observe the body,” I say, enticing her to stay.
“Oh, Anne . . .” Her fat chins ripple as she closes the door. I am reminded of the red jelly Mrs Cook used to make for me when I was a child.
I shudder.
I don’t think I will ever eat it again.
No matter.
I leap onto the floor and search the porridge with my fingers.
No keys.
Dejected, I sit with my back to the door and watch the sun rise in the sky through the window. I realize with sudden clarity that I’ve seen that woman before, in the dream I had a few nights ago. What if it wasn’t a dream: maybe that’s how I got here? I ponder this for a while, but quickly tire of thinking. I’m bored of everything. The days in here are long and utterly pointless, and nothing holds my attention. Not even my thoughts.
Eventually dawn turns to noon as the yellow fireball peaks at the uppermost part through the bars, and at once my stomach grumbles. It has learned that lunch will be delivered soon after the sun hits that particular spot in the glass: just so. There is a crack in the window at that exact point, and I wonder why. Was someone here before me? Did they throw something at it in an effort to escape? Did the sun burn a hole through it? Will I soon be freed? Will we all melt away?
Suddenly, my dull mind is racing with more thoughts than I can control.
What do they want with me?
Do they intend to harm me?
Who are ‘they’?
And where is Beatrix? I miss her. Nobody else here speaks French and if I don’t practice, I may forget how to speak it. I hope that my confidante, my best friend, is outside these four walls discussing my freedom with my kidnappers. It is lucky my captors are not French though, as Father would be absolutely hopeless in any sort of foreign negotiation.
A tickling sensation in my hands. Looking down, I find I am holding a pile of yellow paint chips. I must have spent my morning picking them off the walls, but I don’t remember moving from the door. I brush them away, scattering them onto the floor.
The fat woman in the apron returns right on time but she is not alone; instead, she is accompanied by a younger, slimmer version of her foul self. They are wearing identical aprons, so no doubt this newcomer is a lying, thieving fiend too. This new one reminds me of a rat: all teeth and bones. Her eyes protrude from her face.
My, they do employ the most graceless women.
“I don’t suppose you speak French, do you?” I say, staring at the newcomer hopefully. She shakes her head and remains silent, looking at the floor and twiddling her key-chain.
“Does she even speak English?” I say, pointedly, to the fat one.
“Be quiet,” the fat-one replies. “Today we are going to take you for a walk. God knows, I shan’t be taking you alone. You’d like that, I imagine?” She nudges Rat-Face in the side, who startles before scuttling over to me. She grabs me by an arm, and I ignore the urge to smack her.
“I thought you said I couldn’t leave the room,” I say. I lean as far away from Rat-Face as possible.
The fat-one snorts.
“Yes, well . . . the doctor has decided he wants you out for a while. Might drive you crazy if you stay in here too long.” She slides a look at Rat-Face, who sniggers, and this time it truly takes all of my self-restraint not to hurt her.
“Oh, how wonderful! Yes! I would love to go for a walk!” I smile innocently. I almost clap. Bastard, only letting me out for a ‘walk’ like a dog. If a fair opportunity arises, I’ll give them both the slip. A-ha. That would surprise the ‘good doctor’, wouldn’t it?
“Let’s get it over with then,” the fat-one says. She grabs hold of my other arm, and the two of them pull me out of my cell into the longest corridor imaginable.
Light!
One side is made almost in its entirety of large windows—as far as I can see. Sunlight pours through the glass: shining stars and whorls up the walls. Wooden benches run along both sides of the passageway at regular intervals, and potted flowers bloom under the golden rays. It is incredible. It is almost beautiful. The twitters of canaries co-mingle with the sounds of doves cooing, emanating from ornamental bird-cages scattered everywhere on small wooden tables.
And people! There are other women! This fact delights me for a moment and I almost jump with joy, until I remember that I am a hostage and whoever my captors are, they must earn a fortune in ransom money if I am not the only one here. I am smiling and frowning at the same time: a stifling, rumbling pot of contradictory thoughts.
As I am flanked on either side by my two captors, escape is imminently futile. I have no choice but to follow wherever they lead.
“Thieves, robbers . . .” I gripe quietly under my breath, loathe to make my feelings known in case I am marched back to my cell but unable to suppress them completely. I stay alert for signs of an exit whilst letting myself be manoeuvred down the corridor.
As we make our way through the hallway, we are forced to slow our pace by a woman curled up in a foetal position, moaning and crying on the ground. We stop just in front of her, and my fat captor nudges me in my side with a surprisingly knobbly-feeling elbow. The woman is laid at another’s feet: those of a handsome, fair-haired woman who is leaning forward, stroking her face. She is dressed in the same apron as my captor, but she seems different.
She looks kind.
“Anne,” the fat-one says, “do you see this woman?”
“A little hard to miss, seeing as if I take one more step I shall trip over her,” I say.
“This is your body.”
“Pardon?”
“The body you presumed had been left after the alleged murder last night,” she says, grinning at me. She elbows me again in my ribs. I wince. “I told you nobody was killed.”
“Oh.” I am momentarily lost for words.
“This is another patient, just as you are a patient. Her name is Grace.”
“Miss Grace, could you kindly move your body off the floor so we may walk by?” I say, studying her. Grace stops sobbing and looks up at me. I smile, but this is wasting time. I need to find an escape.
“Don’t be cruel,” says her captor, who stops stroking her head for a moment to look at me. “This is Grace’s spot. She stays here all day, and she’s been here much longer than you.”
“Her family hasn’t paid the ransom then yet?” I shake my head, sadly. Then I tut, and waggle my finger. “Shame on you. Shame on all of you. Cretins.” I am rewarded with a curious, questioning glance.
“She thinks she’s been kidnapped,” says my fat jailor.
“I have been kidnapped,” I say, assertively. I nod my head to emphasize my point.
“Oh, this is the one, who . . . you know . . .” says the nice looking jailor, her eyes widening as she flicks them over me from head to toe.
“Yes,” says the fat-one.
“Pardon? I’m the one who what?” I’m confused.
“Nothing of your concern at present,” says Rat-Face. “Now come on, we can walk around Grace and continue on our way.” She starts tugging at my arm, but the fat one pulls at my other arm in the opposite direction. We’re not going anywhere unless they both pull me one way or the other. Rat-Face gives up the fight and lets go of me.
I turn to the fat-one.
“Are you taking me home?”
“No. I’m taking you for your salt and castor oil rub. You’re leaking. “
“Leaking where?” I look down at myself. “What do you mean?”
She sighs.
“Forget it, Anne.”
I do. But something else forms in its place.
“Well then . . . can I please have a stick?”
“No.”
“But I asked nicely!”
“No.”
I sigh, and turn to the fair haired woman.
“Do you speak French?” I raise my eyebrows pleadingly as I am pulled past her.
“Oui.”
That one word gives me the hope and courage I need to smile and let myself be dragged onwards.
• • •
“What is your name?” I say, as my fat jailor leads me back along the corridor. We had a not-so-nice walk up and down the corridor—for an hour. I know because I counted the steps in my head. Rat-Face scuttled off somewhere halfway through: possibly to find some cheese or a dead body to chew upon; on step three hundred and eighty-seven.
“My ‘name’? Oh, Dear Lord . . .” She starts to laugh and wipes a tear from underneath a fat eye with a tubby finger. Somehow, she manages to keep one hand shackled firmly around my upper arm. “My name is not the one that should be of importance to you. It is your own.”
“What?” We reach my cell door and she hands me over to a nearby woman, asking her to keep hold of me for a second whilst she unlocks it.
What does she think I am, a donkey? To be tethered to a lamp-post at will? The girl holding me is wearing a night-gown identical to my own. However it strikes me very quickly that she is worryingly bald: out-rightly denuded of hair, and two large, water-filled blisters bulge as over-sized slugs sucked onto her head. Her eyes are devoid of human emotion, and her eyelashes are gone. I yelp and kick her in the shin, and she lets go of me with a cry.
I start running down the corridor, the sunlight burning flashes in my vision as I pass the windows at the speed of a gazelle. The sound of a shrill whistle being blown momentarily startles me but I ignore it, keeping my momentum. I revel in the fact that my feet are taking me far away from here, leading me home. I’m free—I’m free, there’s no way that fat woman can possibly catch me. People jump out of my way, tables crash in front of me, a birdcage tips over, and as I look behind me, I see a dove soaring his own way to freedom. It is a funny sight and I giggle, just as a familiar cramp hits me in the side and I am bowled over by a man.
“Nurse Ruth!” he shouts, in a loud and authoritative boom. The buzz of activity I incited during the past few minutes stops. The only sound is that of someone faintly laughing, and the doves wings as he flaps ineffectually against the glass in a fatalistic attempt at freedom.
I know just how he feels.
Just as someone catches him in a net, the man catches me and as we are both being led back to our cells in opposite directions, the bird’s little black eyes meet mine. He stops struggling for a moment, looking at me.
What happened? he says. We were almost there.
I know bird, I know. I’ll ask them to give you extra feed tonight for your trouble.
But it’s not really good enough is it? I hate you, he says.
I shrug. Qui onques rien n’enprist riens n’achieva, I say to him.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I repeat aloud, in English.
The man deposits me back outside of my cell, and the fat one comments on how ‘mad’ I am, glaring at me as she holds the door open. The doctor tries to push me through, but I thrust back. Most unwomanly, but I don’t care.
“They’re all mad, Nurse Ruth, or have you forgotten where you work today?”
“If only,” she harrumphs, practically farting out of her mouth.
“You never answered my question,” I say. My principled display of non-conformance with the doctor continues as I advance through the doorway: inch by excruciating inch. He is stronger than I am, and it annoys me.
“What question, Anne?” she says, idiotically, as she watches me with her ever-present smirk.
“You could at least employ someone intelligent,” I say to the man, whom I realize now is the ‘doctor’. “I asked her name, about four minutes ago, and she’s already forgotten about it.”
He looks at me and offers me a small grin. For a second; less than a second, I feel a brief sense of solidarity. It quickly disappears when his fish-eyes goggle at me.
“My name isn’t the question Anne, and my memory isn’t the one in dispute here; yours is. Lady Anne Stanbury,” she says.
I could scream; I really could.
So I do.
And then, with a lack of any other options, I sit on the floor in the doorway. The ‘doctor lets go of me.
“Oh, how frustrated you people are making me! I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again: you have the wrong woman! My name is Lady Anne, yes, but my surname is Damsbridge: D-A-M-S-B-R-I-D-G-E. Just in case you’re having difficulty understanding that, I thought I should spell it out for you. But are you illiterate? Yes, I suppose you probably are. Again, Damsbridge. My father is the Earl of Damsbridge. The name of Stanbury is not mine, I have never heard of it, and I don’t even know anybody by that name!”
“Anne, her name is Ruth,” says the ‘doctor’. ‘Ruth’ farts again, and the doctor turns to her. “Well? There is no harm in her knowing your name. She should, anyway—you’re supposed to be building a relationship with the patients. I’ve told you this before.”
Ruth makes another sound, and I ask her whether she just farted out of her bottom or out of her mouth. “For when you talk, it’s nothing but a lot of smelly noise,” I tell her. “Your breath stinks. I noticed the other day, but decided to be polite about it and not say so.”
Her face turns a deep shade of pink.
“But . . . she’s so . . . so . . . stubborn! Doctor, she won’t do hardly anything I tell her, she—”
“There is no such thing as a ‘stubborn’ insane person, Nurse Ruth. A man or woman bereft of reason is perfectly incapable of such. The only stubborn people of the world are sane, and to understand this is your job. Now, leave us alone for a minute. Seen as how I am here, I may as well use this opportunity to try to assess Anne again.” Large hands push against my back amidst a muttered apology for doing so, and I am finally forced inside my cell.
“You shan’t be assessing anybody, least of all me,” I say. I leap to my feet and run away from him. I stop at the opposite end of the room. “And I’m not bloody well insane!” As I raise my voice, Ruth leaves, slamming the door behind her.
Ruth.
Fat-Ruth.
It has a certain ‘ring’ to it, or ‘roll’. A dumpy, lardy, big Fat-Ruth roll.
“Put out your tongue, please, Anne,” the ‘doctor’ says, approaching me slowly.
“I don’t want to, you beast,” I say. I’m really in trouble here.
“Anne. You must show me your tongue. I am a doctor.”
“My tongue is perfectly fine, you fiend. The only thing wrong with my tongue is that it has to be used to talk with you,” I say. I close my mouth and purse my lips together tightly.
He sighs and looks about him, before making his way over to my bed. He sits on it and puts his head in his hands.
“Yes, you may very well cast your eyes upon the ground, you despicable creature. How dare you lock a Lady in a cell, and pretend to be a doctor, in order to look upon her tongue?”
He moves to pull something out of his pocket, and I move quickly: far too fast for him to catch me.
“Anne—”
“A-ha! You never imagined this did you, you wobbly eyed fish!” I am over the other side of the cell now, facing him, brandishing my chamber-pot. I hold it above my head. “It is full: stinking, filthy, dirty full, and I shall throw it upon you unless you give me the key.”
His puffy fish-eyes wobble a little more, practically standing on stalks out of his face.
“I can smell them,” I say. My arms are starting to ache. I am malnourished, no doubt, from tepid, thick, nasty porridge.
“Smell what?”
“Your eyes, you sea-creature.”
“‘My eyes?”
“Yes, your eyes. Your horrible, beady eyes. Fish-eyes. I should imagine you’d like to cut mine out and make chairs out of them. I simply refuse to put my tongue out.” I can hear my own voice, and it sounds slightly hysterical.
He starts writing on a long, slender notepad, evidently that which he had pulled out of his pocket before I retrieved my weapon.
“Can you stretch out your arms for me instead then, Anne? Perhaps wiggle your fingers a little?”
Whilst I’m holding a chamber-pot? Either he thinks I am stupid, or he is stupid.
“No. I shan’t do anything you ask of me. Is that my ransom note?”
“No, Anne. It is—”
He is a liar.
“It is, I know it is. Why else would you be writing upon a pad? I hope that the ink leaks out of your pen, all over your disgusting, cheap-smart clothes.”
He frowns, ignoring me, continuing to write, occasionally wiping an invisible piece of dust from his lap.
“Have you ever taken any morphine, Anne?”
I ignore the question.
“Give me the key.”
“No, Anne. I can’t give you the key.”
“Give it to me!” My voice rises, my throat starts to close up. “Give it to me right NOW, give it to me, give it to me! Give it to me, give it to me—”
The door opens with a bang, hitting itself upon the wall. Some yellow paint falls onto the floor in a pile. I want it.
“Doctor! What on earth is she up to now—”
I launch my chamber-pot.
Time stops for a moment.
I giggle.
“Oh, my!”
The ‘doctor’ runs to Fat-Ruth’s aid.
“Doctor! Ohhhhhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhhhhhhh!!!!”
I am in hysterics. The laugh simply won’t stop and it comes with force, pushing my voice up my windpipe and out into the air in dancing, happy tones. It forces me to bend over, such is its vigour and wait; something is shining next to my foot.
A shard.
Before I can grab it, hands pull my arms behind me sharply and I am thrown to the floor. My giggle stops in a huff sort of sound, and I can’t breathe right. The odour of faeces invades my nose.
“Nurse Ruth!”
“What, Doctor? What? You want me to let this little wretch hack us both to death?”
“She would not have harmed us, she is—”
“She would! Why is this lunatic not at Broadmoor?”
“Because of her father, Nurse Ruth . . .”
My father? Broadmoor? Lunatic?
The hands let go of me, and they, as well as I, are covered in my filth.
“Get the gloves, Nurse Ruth,” he says, wiping at his trousers. I laugh, now they have something on them to be wiped off.
“How about the dress?”
“Yes, fetch the dress then. Right away.”
What are they talking about? The ‘doctor’ looks at me forlornly from a few feet away, blocking the door.
“I am sorry to have to do this, Anne,” he says, leaving. Fat-Ruth comes back, holding a brown sack.
“Do what? What is that?”
“A restraint. For imbeciles like you,” Fat-Ruth says, and launches herself upon me with astonishing speed. I wonder if, earlier, she just watched me run for amusement.
“Let me go, let me go, let me GO!” I shout and I shout and I shout. My voice is heard by everyone but acknowledged by no-one.
Presumed Curable
Dr. George Savage
October 16th, 1885
Royal Bethlem Hospital
There is nothing in the world more soothing than a strong cup of coffee coupled with a light read. I consider the newspaper in front of me longingly for a moment before pushing it aside, and open Lady Stanbury’s case file.
Emotional side of Lady Stanbury uncontrolled, a tendency to mood swings, verbal and physical violence, marred by restlessness. Hallucinations ceased, yet delusions very much in force. Attempted to escape this morning, disturbing other patients and frightening staff. Threw a full chamber-pot of faeces over an attendant. Reached for a broken shard, unknown whether she harboured intention to do harm. To remain in isolation until behaviour improves. Currently restrained in strong clothing for as short a period as necessary, whilst she is a danger to herself and others. Lunacy Commissioners informed.
The law requires that, during the first three months of a patient’s admission, I make an entry into this book every week. After that; once a month, and after that, once every three months. However, given my newest patient’s current behaviour, I find myself writing inside it much more often than required—I do not wish to incur a twenty pound fine.
Gone are my mornings of a good, hearty breakfast accompanied by news of lighter matters.
I finish the paragraph and blow on the paper, the ink drying perfectly. That should make the commissioners happy. A tidy read portrays an organized hospital.
I tap my pen against the desk, thinking.
Prescribing Croton Oil.
Attention to the bowels can be of great service to these particular patients though, in Lady Stanbury’s case, I am eager to examine her uterus. Yet. . .