Among the Mad (18 page)

“Right. Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.” She
scraped back her chair as if to stand.

“Dr. Masters, there is one more thing, if you have a
moment or two.”

Masters looked at the wall-mounted clock. “Yes, of
course. I’ve a few minutes.” She smiled and leaned forward again, her hands
once more resting on the desk.

“I know you were in France, during the war, and you
were involved in the treatment of men with war neuroses of one kind or
another.”

“Well, eventually I was in France. At first, as you
know, they told us women doctors that we should go back to our kitchens, but I
joined one of the all-women medical units set up by Dr. Elsie Inglis—there was
an indomitable woman for you—and was privileged to work with a truly dedicated
and professional group of nurses and doctors. Before long my presence was
requested by the boys at the top when shell-shock cases began coming through
thick and fast, and I was able to work alongside men. And yes, it was my background
in neurology and psychiatry that they were interested in.”

“I am familiar with the different levels of war
neuroses, Dr. Masters, the distinctions between neurasthenia, battle fatigue,
soldier’s heart and hysteria, but I am involved in a case at the moment that
demands—I believe—a deeper understanding of the mind of a man who has seen
battle at close quarters and is afflicted mentally and emotionally by that
experience.”

Masters tapped the desk again. “Remember, there were
many cases of shell-shock recorded where the patient had been nowhere near a
detonated shell, nowhere near the front line of battle. Simply anticipating a
move up to the front could turn some men. Unfortunately, despite the best
efforts of myself and others with specific training in dealing with injury to
the mind of a man, the army doctors—and the brass, I might add—wanted clean-cut
delineations between wounded and sick, between shell-shocked and malingering.
Wounded and shell-shocked would be granted the ‘W’ armband—and the pension that
went with it. Simply being an ‘S’ case—sick—meant you were turned around and
sent back up the line at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“I understand. I’ve also been speaking to Dr. Anthony
Lawrence—do you remember, he was here for a while, then moved to the Princess
Victoria? He has said much the same thing. Anyway, I simply wanted to get some
sort of . . . ” Maisie looked out of the window as she considered her words with
care. “Some sort of reflection from you, as to what it was like to treat such
an affliction.”

Masters ran her hands through her short, bobbed
gray-flecked hair. “That’s an interesting question. I don’t think anyone’s ever
put it like that.” She sat back, then forward again, having considered the
question. “I don’t know whether you know this, but I was born and grew up in
British East Africa. My father had a coffee farm—it’s now run by my younger
brother—so we had a very different childhood in comparison with our peers here.
We were rather wild, if I may admit such a thing. We were both sent to school
in England at age eleven, and although I returned briefly prior to commencing
my studies at medical school, it is those early years that defined me, defined
my sense of what I could do—I wasn’t used to anyone telling me that a girl
couldn’t do this, or that. But here’s something that struck me in France. It
was the memory of something I’d seen as a child.”

Elsbeth Masters pushed back her chair and walked to the
window behind her, where she placed her hands on the bulbous radiator as if to
cleave from it a warmth she had known at another time. She turned to Maisie and
continued, now leaning back against the source of heat. “I remember going off
one day with my friend, a young Masai boy, the son of one of our servants. No
one seemed to mind us playing together, out and about for hours until sundown,
following the men when they hunted. On this particular jaunt we saw a lion take
down a gazelle—and I mean at close quarters. It quite took my breath away. It
was as if something happened to the gazelle at the moment of capture, something
awe-inspiringly terrible and wonderful at the same time—as if, in knowing the
gazelle was to die a dreadful death, ripped apart by the jaws of the lion, the
Creator had given the captive a reprieve by taking her soul before she was
dead, so that no pain would be felt because the essence had gone already.”

Maisie nodded, able to see the scene in her mind’s
eye, so charged was the doctor’s description.

“And I saw the eyes of the gazelle again in France,
and it struck me that perhaps a heartsick God had looked down and taken up a
soul, leaving only the shell of a man.” She shook her head as if to extinguish
the recollection, and brought her attention back to her visitor. “I sometimes
thought that, in my work, I was really trying to create the conditions whereby
a soul might be persuaded to join a man’s body once again, thus making him
whole.”

Maisie nodded.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’”

“No, not at all, not at all.” Maisie smiled. “I was
just thinking back to the days when I worked as a nurse with shell-shocked men
at this hospital—looking into their eyes and knowing that part of them was
lost. Perhaps to return, perhaps not.”

“Now, do you have any more questions for me?”

“Just a couple. Do you know Dr. Lawrence well?”

“Curious that you mention him again, because I hadn’t
heard from him in years, yet I received a letter from him this morning,
wondering if we might meet.” She shrugged. “I suspect he has a paper he’d like
me to review before he reveals it to a wider peer group.”

“How are you acquainted?”

“Funnily enough, it wasn’t directly to do with our
regular work with the insane, but years ago, in connection with patients who
had suffered in gas attacks.”

“I see.”

“Yes. There was a team of boffins—you know,
scientists, physicists, that sort of person—working in Berkshire on antidotes
to gas. There was some experimentation, I think you would call it, and they
were interested in having a degree of neurological and psychological assessment
as part of their research.”

“Did you work for them?”

“For a very short time. I wasn’t sure if it was a
command or request, to tell you the truth, but I didn’t like what was going on.
I looked into it, you see, and realized that they were—if you’ll forgive the
phrase—playing fast and loose with the health of anyone and everyone who worked
there. Anyone or thing who breathed could be dragged in for an experiment or
test. I could just imagine it: ‘Just put down the teapot, Mrs. Smith—breathe
through this mask and tell us how you feel.’”

“And Dr. Lawrence? Did he continue?”

“I believe he did, for a while.”

Maisie nodded and looked at the clock. “Thank you so
much for seeing me—and for anything you can do for Mrs. Beale. She is in a
desperate situation.”

“Yes, I understand. I’ll take this along to admissions
now—we could have her transferred within the next four or five days if all goes
well.”

Maisie stood up to leave, and as she held out her hand
to Elsbeth Masters, the doctor stepped from behind her desk. It was only then
that Maisie realized the woman was not wearing shoes, and stood before her with
bare feet.

“Oh, don’t take any notice of me. I just cannot abide
wearing shoes to this day. I was barefoot until I was eleven and I try to
reclaim that sense of freedom whenever I can. I think I would go quite mad if I
couldn’t take my shoes off several times a day.”

Maisie said good-bye, and as she moved to leave,
noticed a pair of polished brown leather shoes set on the floor just inside the
door, each with a stocking folded and tucked inside.

NINE

“So, what I need to know, for numbers, darling, is are
you coming?”

“Coming? Coming where?” Maisie frowned, taken aback
when the telephone rang and she picked up the receiver to hear Priscilla’s
question, without so much as a “Hello, Maisie” by way of introduction.

“Old Year’s Night—party, at our house. Everyone—and I
do mean everyone—in London will be there. Do not let me down, Maisie, I have a
very nice man for you to meet.”

Priscilla was Maisie’s dear friend from her early days
at Girton College, and though they were as different as two young women could
be—Priscilla’s devil-may-care attitude toward work and play was intimidating to
Maisie at first—they had been drawn to each other in the way that opposites
attract. The loss of all three beloved brothers in the war, followed by the
death of her parents, who succumbed to the flu epidemic, led Priscilla to
escape to Biarritz on the west coast of France soon after the end of the war.
It was here that she steeped herself in a raucous social life, and drank to
anesthetize the pain of her losses. Then she met Douglas Partridge, who had
been wounded in the war—his arm had been amputated and he required a cane to
support his weight as he walked—and fell in love. She credited their marriage
and family life with their three sons as having saved her from herself. Since
returning to London for the sake of their sons’ education, Maisie had noticed
that Priscilla was not taking to life back in England.

“Oh, Pris, no—I don’t think I could bear another one
of your arranged meetings with so-called eligible men, who seem to me to be
playing the field for all they’re worth.”

“But you will come to the party, won’t you? Supper at
half-past eight, then dancing before we see in the New Year—and let’s all hope
things get better this year. Now then, do not tell me you’ve had second
thoughts. How long have we been friends? And this will be the first turn of the
year we’ve been able to spend together.”

“You’re verging on blackmail, Priscilla.”

“I know, look what you’ve driven me to—do say you’ll
be coming.”

Maisie smiled and sighed. “Oh, all right, I’ll come—in
fact, it will be lovely. I could do with some lightness in my life.”

“You could do with a lot of lightness, if you ask me.
So, see you at half-past seven for drinks—opening salvo to the evening’s
festivities. And you never know, you may rub shoulders with the PM himself—not
that we expect him to stay, being more of your dour sort.”

Maisie thought she could hear the clink of ice against
glass in the background. “I’ve already rubbed shoulders with him—and yes, he is
a bit uninspiring.”

“You’ve met the PM?”

Priscilla’s voice was louder than was necessary, and
now Maisie was sure that she was drinking, but she made no mention of the fact.

“I know what you’re thinking, Pris—surprising in my
line of work, eh?”

“Well, now that you come to mention it . . . but
anyway, see you for the party. Wear something stunning. If you are not suitably
clad, I will drag you to my dressing room to re-garb you. Remember it’s a
party, Maisie, not a wake!”

“I’m sure no one will be interested in what I wear—”

“Nonsense. Now, I must dash, so much to do. Bye for
now, Maisie dear.”

“Bye, Pris.”

Priscilla’s telephone call had come within moments of
Maisie’s return to her office in Fitzroy Square. Billy was out, and it was
already late afternoon. She considered the worrisome possibility of Priscilla
drinking so early in the day, before the pre-supper cocktail hour that had
become so popular in the past few years, and could imagine her friend pouring a
gin and tonic while saying, “Well, the sun must be over the yardarm somewhere
in the Empire!” But she feared that in Priscilla’s case, the distinction
between a pleasant pre-prandial drink and being drunk was beginning to blur
once again.

Maisie had intended to catch her breath and bring her
notes up to date before going to the meeting in support of women’s pensions.
She couldn’t think why MacFarlane insisted upon her going. She was aware that
the interest of Special Branch in groups of women gathering together had
started with the suffragettes long ago, based upon the threat they represented
to the men who governed the country—yet she could no more imagine such a group
involved with poison gas than she could imagine a woman taking over Ramsey
MacDonald’s job. But if such an investigation brought her ever closer to the
real threat, then she had to go.

She set to work, checking the clock on the
mantelpiece, for she would have to make her way to Scotland Yard following the
meeting of women, but after spending some time making notations on her own case
map pinned across the table by the window, Maisie sat back, her thoughts on the
conversation with Elsbeth Masters. She had always liked Masters. There seemed
to be a wisdom about the woman, a way of carrying herself that suggested
knowledge, capability and compassion, without the need to be strident, the
latter being an unfortunate trait she had found in other women of a similar
professional stature. More than anything, Maisie could not banish the picture
of a dying gazelle from her mind, and kept seeing the fine-boned face, the
luminous black eyes devoid of a spirit that had ascended as the lion’s teeth
clutched the animal by the back of the neck and brought it down. And she
wondered: Was that me? Had her soul abandoned her as shell fire rained down on
the casualty clearing station? In her youth, had she been unable to reclaim
that essential part of her being? Might it account for her reticence, her lack
of emotional mastery when faced with the possibility of a more intimate
connection?