Facing the Tank (29 page)

Claire Telcott confronted Lilias in the middle of the day room.

‘I think we had better go to our room and have a little lie-down, Mrs Gibson, don’t you?’ Her tone was icy and
It’s a Wonderful Life
went unwatched for a minute as twelve pairs of rheumy eyes watched her frogmarch the new resident out of the room and up the stairs.

‘I hate you,’ Lilias said as they climbed in the sub-tropical heat.

‘Now there’s no need to talk like that,’ said Claire Telcott.

‘I hate you and I hate you and I hate you. You are a deeply evil person.’

‘You’re not so likeable yourself, dear,’ the Matron hissed.

‘I heard that,’ quavered Lilias.

She had heard a lot of things since Fergus abandoned her. Lying in bed she had heard this evil Telcott woman plotting to poison them all. She had tried to warn her fellow prisoners.

‘There aren’t any minerals in this spa,’ she told them, ‘only cyanide and they’re putting it in in tiny quantities so that the coroner won’t know there’s been foul play. We absorb it through our skin like plants.’

Nobody had paid her the least attention, however. She suspected that their passivity was the result of a longer exposure to the ‘treatment’ than she had yet suffered.

There had been a quieter moment this afternoon, after they had drunk their vile, milky tea, so she had slipped off to pursue her private investigation. All her life, it seemed to Lilias, she had been deceived on a crucial matter. It was all her mother’s fault. Her mother had been a tight-lipped, dark-humoured woman who used to put salt on slugs to watch them fry in the sun. For a practical joke she had taken Lilias from her potty and trained her to sit on the lavatory facing the door. All her life Lilias had harboured a sneaking suspicion that this was somehow wrong. She could see it in the eyes of prim women as they dabbed on fresh lipstick in the ladies’ room at the Theatre Royal, and in the way people peered at her from the side of their faces as she emerged. They all faced the tank and she alone faced the door. For years she had kept her dark secret, snatching glances at bathroom catalogues in a vain search for the truth. Of course she could ask no one outright, although just lately she had been taking advantage of her seniority to be a little bolder. She had long given up any attempt at conforming and facing the tank herself; the firm instructions of one’s childhood are far too hard to unlearn. She was left to face the door knowing in her heart that, used as they were to it, the other way round was perfectly comfortable for everyone else. Fergus had been potty trained by her interfering mother-in-law so even he was in on the conspiracy. The sole respite she had found had been after her husband’s death when the spirit had moved her to leave her son with his grandmother and follow Saint Paul on a mission to the unconverted; the African bush offered a refreshing lack of organized sanitation.

‘I don’t care if you did hear it, frankly, Mrs Gibson,’ Claire Telcott continued. ‘I make no secret of the fact that you’ve been very difficult. I’m sure an impartial observer would agree with me.’ She changed her tone, fancying that she saw a softening in the lie of Lilias’ mouth. ‘We so want you to be happy here. All it takes is a teensy bit of cooperation.’

They had finally reached the landing. Lilias was panting from the effort of the climb and her irritation at this insufferable woman’s tone, and was beginning to agree that what she really needed was a little ‘lie-down’. Then she saw the chance of a lifetime. Someone had just slipped into the landing lavatory and not closed the door behind them. If she rushed she would see. Quick as she could – she always kept a little speed in reserve so as to take her warders by surprise – she broke free of the matron’s guiding grasp and staggered over to the lavatory door. Claire Telcott’s cries confused her, however, and she found herself pulling the door to behind her and locking it.

‘Mrs Gibson! Mrs Gibson!’ the Matron called.

Lilias made no reply, enchanted by what she had found. There was a tall young man with a quantity of blond hair, and he was facing the tank. He was also fully dressed and had both hands firmly clutched around the pipe that led down the wall from the tank to basin. He did not seem at all perturbed to find her in there with him, but turned half round, smiled and beckoned her with his head. Eager for a full vindication of her cherished beliefs, she came forward and sat down behind him riding pillion as it were.

‘Mrs Gibson? I insist you come out at once. It’s no use waiting for me to go away. I’ve got a key so I can come in and get you out if you won’t come quietly. I’ll count to three. One.’ The little room filled with a warm breeze and a delicious smell like new-baked bread and honey. ‘Two.’

‘Hold tight!’ the man seemed to shout over the sound of rushing waters.

‘We’re off!’ whooped Lilias and the wall before them started to melt in the brilliant sun.

‘Three! Right. Ready or not, I’m coming in.’

There was a loud rattling as Claire Telcott thrust her key in from the other side and unlocked the door, but Lilias was beyond hearing.

It was already dark when Dawn walked back to Bross Gardens. She had broken her iron principle of never becoming drunk. She and Fergus had polished off her bottle of champagne in no time, listening to one after the other of his eclectic collection of old singles. Then he had disappeared to the kitchen and returned with a rack of toast, butter, smoked salmon, lemon juice, pepper mill and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot that he had been keeping in the fridge. They had wolfed the salmon and toast but it was not enough blotting paper for such a quantity of wine and, after a slightly fervent goodbye hug, she found herself home in record time. She wondered if perhaps she had been running or skipping unconsciously and hoped that someone she knew had seen her and been alarmed. Suppressing an impulse to jangle Mrs Parry’s doorbell then hide, she let herself in and walked through the dark to the kitchen.

Hoping to ward off the acid stomach she feared she might be getting, she splashed some milk into a saucepan to make cocoa. She was looking for a teaspoon with which to prise open the tin when she heard scratching and saw a tiny, long-nailed hand at the bottom window of the garden door.

‘Sasha!’

She almost shouted her daughter’s name. It was hard to open the door properly as the body was so close. Whining with frustration, Dawn raced back through the cottage, out of the front door and round to the back by the side passage. Sasha – she knew it was her – was lying on her river-soaked side, clutching at her stomach. Dawn hesitated, then, seeing the child was not going to flee, stepped out of the shadow and dropped beside her.

‘My baby,’ she whispered. As she reached out and ran a hand across the muddy forehead a wild trembling went through her daughter’s body and the light from the kitchen picked out the whites of the eyes as they twisted to look up at her. ‘Christ,’ said Dawn, ‘it’s you,’ and sitting with her back against the door, gently drew Sasha over so that her shoulders were resting on her lap. The shuddering continued and the smell of river weed was joined with a pungent animal scent, a smell of pain, of death. Dawn could feel the sweat breaking out on the crusted skin in her embrace. Pulling her sleeve over her hand, she wiped some weed off Sasha’s wet face. Sasha gave a wild jerk and clutched at her stomach again. ‘Ssh,’ Dawn soothed. ‘Ssh, baby. Ssh.’ With a soft, pained growl, the child twisted her head and bit hard on her mother’s forearm. Dawn winced at the needle-sharp teeth but left her arm in their grip, continuing to stroke with her free hand. ‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘Ssh.’ There was another strong smell and she felt Sasha’s urine soak her dress. ‘Poor baby,’ she said. ‘Sashasashasasha.’ She rocked the clenching child. There was a last spasm and the biting stopped. After the growling and the hard, agonized pants, the final outlet of breath was quite, quite human.

Now Dawn could cry. Curled in a corner, lit but safe from sleeping, neighbourly eyes, she gave herself up to grief. She rocked. She sighed. She was torn by spasms of voiceless sobbing and her drenched face glinted in the kitchen light. How long she stayed there she was unsure; an hour, possibly two. Occasionally she would pause and look up, distracted by the sudden whistle of some night flier over the Bross, then her gaze would drop down to her own, childish face which stared sightlessly up from her lap and she would slide once again into her important sorrow.

When there were no tears left, she laid Sasha to one side, unhooked her spade from the side wall, turned out the kitchen light to give her privacy and went to dig in darkness. She dug the grave near the river, where the soil was softest, but not so near that it might be reached by the waters in winter. She dug in a flower bed so that there would be no trace of disturbed earth. She wrecked her only good shoes in the mud and grazed her legs. Her dress would be filthy. She continued in numb endeavour. By the time she was up to her waist, her body was streaming sweat which the breeze chilled on her skin although she was boiling within. Her palms felt raw. There was a faint pallor in the sky; sunrise was not far off. She carried Sasha into the pit aware, after a last embrace, that her skin now carried the musky scent of her child. She began to shovel soil quickly then stopped, dropping the spade to one side and fetched the black candles from the kitchen. These she buried too. Crazed with exhaustion to the point where she did not care if all the Mrs Parrys in the world were watching her, she stripped off her dress and hurled it with all her might into the darkly shining Bross. The shoes she tossed one two after it. Then she trailed the spade back to its place on the wall. The dew-soaked grass felt good on her hot feet. Upstairs she bathed rapidly, so tired that she was unable to tell whether the water was scalding or icy, then fell into bed and the sleep of the just.

The late-morning sunlight was broken up by the countless little white and green glass lozenges that made up the windows of the Lady chapel, and chequered the heads and shoulders of those assembled much as if they had been gathered on a forest floor. As they rose from the last prayer for the soul of their dead sister, the little portable organ stationed near the door played an introduction and they launched somewhat gingerly into ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’ aided by the Scottish Masons who had politely downed tools in the Patron’s chapel and come to listen.

‘He plants his footsteps in the sea/And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines/Of never-failing skill …’

Although Lilias Gibson had no relatives at hand beyond her son and was known only by repute to his neighbours, Lydia was happy to see that there was a much better turnout than poor Roger Drinkwater’s funeral had occasioned. She was also happy to see that her cleaning woman and Fergus were not so very close that Dawn could leave her sickbed for his mother’s funeral. She was also glad that she had come early enough to do a little extra zealous ‘holy dusting’. There were a lot of people here to whom she had never spoken and several, presumably clients of Fergus, whom she had never seen. She sang along in her thin, sharp voice, found her eyes filled with a few tears and was glad.

‘Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take:/The clouds ye so much dread …’

The six bearers carried out the tiny coffin with Fergus walking a few paces behind them. The coffin was a most peculiar shape. It had eight sides, as usual, and was of a suitably diminished length for a little old woman, but seemed unnecessarily deep. Grotesquely so, almost. Perhaps this was a new fashion; it would be like Fergus to be style-conscious, even in grief.

Lydia arranged her face into what felt like a sympathetic glow in case Fergus looked to one side and saw her, but his eyes kept firmly ahead. She liked to think he would be happier now. They all knew it had been a merciful release for son as much as mother. When Dawn was up and about again she would sit her down for a long elevenses and ask how he was coping.

‘Are big with mercy, and shall break/In blessings on your head.’

As she started to drift out with the little crowd she saw Mrs Merluza pushing poor Mrs Chattock in her wheelchair. If possible, the Bishop’s mother looked more unwordly than ever; perhaps, thought Lydia, she was on some kind of painkiller.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ said Mercy. ‘Lovely service, wasn’t it? So peaceful, I thought.’

‘Yes. Lovely,’ said Lydia and bent down to greet Mrs Chattock. ‘Morning,’ she said loudly. ‘I think it’s marvellous the way you’re up and about so quickly!’

‘Lovely,’ said Mrs Chattock sleepily, looking first to one side then the other. ‘Lovely.’

Lydia sighed as she stood upright once more and caught Mercy Merluza’s eye. Mercy shook her head sadly.

‘So frustrating,’ she said quietly then mouthed the words ‘Borrowed time’ and shook her head again. ‘I say …’ she went on.

‘What?’

‘Did you notice something a little … well … odd about Lilias Gibson’s … er?’

‘Well yes. I did rather. Do you have any idea why …?’

‘Well I know Claire Telcott vaguely,’ said Mercy eagerly. ‘You know, she’s the Matron up at Brooklea, where poor Mrs Gibson had just been sent to rest herself.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I met her in the town this morning, looking in the window of Daniella’s, and she said that they’d had a terrible time.’

‘How do you mean?’ Lydia stood on one side to let some more people pass, and Mercy wheeled Mrs Chattock out of the way too.

‘Apparently she had some kind of fit when her, you know, her attack started.’

‘How awful!’

‘Yes and it was in … in the Little Girl’s Room and when they finally got in there to rescue her, there was water everywhere – coming under the door, even, Claire said – and she had actually tugged the pipe off the wall and out of the bottom of the tank. There was a hole in the masonry. Right through to the sunshine!’

‘No!’

‘Yes. And of course that’s why the, you know, why it was such an odd shape.’

‘Sorry,’ Lydia said. ‘I don’t quite see why.’

‘Well, they couldn’t get her hands off the pipe,’ Mercy enthused. ‘They had to get a mason to trim it as best as he could and then leave a great piece of it in her clutches.’

‘Lovely,’ said Mrs Chattock suddenly, then much more loudly,
‘Lovely!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Merluza. ‘I think she wants a cigarette. I must get her outside quickly or she’ll start to cough. I have to put them in my mouth to light them for her; makes me feel quite sick but what else can one do?’

Alone once more, Lydia walked slowly along the outside of the quire. Through some of the arches she could see a mountainous flower arrangement hung with white toy birds where Saint Boniface of Barrow had his makeshift habitation. Mrs Merluza and the wheelchair receded into the milling throng of tourists. The Scottish Masons, who had been so tactfully unemployed during the service, returned to their noisy work in the Patron’s chapel. Lydia paused in the south transept then decided that, rather than leave by the Glurry as usual, she would walk out along the great nave and through the west end like everybody else. She passed Mrs Moore and Sam the verger carrying a long bench between them and said good morning. She stopped to smile at a crowd of enchanting black children who were being guided round by Canon Wedlake and several of whom beamed back at her instead of attending to him. She had a brief chat with Emma Dyce-Hamilton, who was over to talk to the Dean about arrangements for the choir school’s confirmation service. Emma did not look at all well. They did say she was a little absent-minded. The poor, neglected thing had forgotten to brush her hair. Then Canon de Lisle’s voice came over the loudspeaker system to remind the tourists that this was a house of God and to ask them to join him in a brief prayer. Lydia hurried out. She was no good at praying standing up. Besides, having in her small secret way saved the Cathedral’s reputation, she felt she could grant herself a few days’ special dispensation.