Thorn (28 page)

Freda was greatly looking forward to working at Thornacre alongside Leo Sterne. She had already begun to weave a whole new daydream, in which they were comrades by day and something a little more intimate by night. Well, why not? Her mind flew ahead and she saw herself and Dr Sterne side by side, discussing patients, happy and absorbed, working into the night, hardly aware of the time. Sometimes she would work with him on these occasions; at others she would go back to her own room where she would doze in a chair until he came, when she would serve a relaxing little supper.

This was a very promising scenario indeed; Freda dwelled with glandular pleasure on it. She had bought a new dressing gown in pink quilted satin and had had her hair permed before leaving Briar House so that she would not need to wear rollers in bed. As she turned off the A1 she developed the theme to allow Leo to discover some marvellous new treatment which he would not have found without her own quiet support and encouragement and the late-night suppers.

She found the turning to Thornacre without any difficulty, although the condition of the driveway was a scandal, all rutted and cracked, with weeds growing up everywhere. The rhododendron bushes and the dripping laurels shut out the light and made the place shockingly gloomy. Freda would see about having them all torn up and some nice neat lobelia beds and marigolds planted instead. Quite melancholy it was at the moment.

The house was much bigger than she had expected, but it showed the same disgraceful signs of neglect. It was built of black stone or even granite, and there was a central portion, which had probably once been the main living area, with two jutting wings, both covered with ivy. They would have that removed as soon as possible; Freda could not be doing with ivy which everyone knew weakened brickwork and darkened rooms. And seen at closer quarters, everywhere was dirty and shabby. Freda felt momentarily quite depressed. But all that was needed was a good session of cleaning and plenty of elbow grease.

Driving up to the house, Freda began to visualise the outfit she would wear to Buckingham Palace when Dr Sterne was given the long-deserved recognition for his services to his profession. She would have to find out whether an OBE was higher than an MBE. She would be at his side, of course; she rather thought there was an area specially set aside for relatives to watch the ceremony on these occasions. She would wear navy silk with white polka-dots and white gloves and a daring hat.

She drove happily on up the drive.

L
eo Sterne alighted from Tottenham Court Road Tube station and walked down Charing Cross Road.

It was that curious hour when Soho was just crossing over the line that separated its daylight identity from the dark and frequently sleazy face it wore at night.

Leo found this part of London endlessly fascinating. She was a hypocritical old tart, Soho. By day she catered primly for ordinary business people and workers and shoppers, and twitched her lace curtains aside to admit them into the bistros and trattorias and restaurants for their blameless lunches. But when night fell, the lace curtains were dragged back to display the red lights, and the short skirts came out and the high heels and black stockings. The tart painted her face and rummaged into her tatterdemalion ragbag of whips and chains and black leather, and, suitably accoutred, went padding off to peddle sex and vice.

Crossing into Old Compton Street, Leo went deeper in, glancing into the window of one of the bars as he passed. Pulsating crimson light washed endlessly over the walls like a rippling river, and the pounding of hard rock music assaulted his senses. At the far end was a tiny stage with two marginal nudes, dancing. Their faces were blank and their eyes were glazed and bored, and a sudden image of the street markets and the flesh traders of ancient Rome flicked across his mind. The main difference was that the music was louder, and that now you could read the book and you could see the film of the book if you wanted to. You could even play the lead in the film. Films . . .

He paused before a dimly-lit door, where a bluish light showed and where the legend ‘Original Videos' was set over the entrance. Somebody had tried to smudge the first letters so that it would read ‘Vaginal Videos', which was probably quite a good description of much of the merchandise. The sour smell of stale cigarettes and spilled beer gusted out, and the yeasty reek of raw sex. If anyone recognised him now they would probably think it unexpected of the eminent Dr Sterne to frequent such a place, but it was not very likely that anyone would see him. He did not much care anyway, but from force of habit he glanced up and down the street, and then took a deep breath and went in.

The man who was both owner and manager of the cinema was at first incredulous and then suspicious. This looked as if it might be one of those potentially awkward situations where the customer wanted to poach the settings and use other actors, and then flog the whole thing under a different packaging. He embarked on his customary explanation-cum-apology, which was liberally sprinkled with the words ‘copyright' and ‘performing rights'.

Leo said impatiently, ‘God Almighty, man, I'm not interested in how many laws you're breaking. And I certainly don't want to buy pornographic films. Or steal your ideas and flog them on the black market in Amsterdam. All I'm interested in is the backgrounds you use. Those whirling kaleidoscopes and all that violent raw colour. I want them to try to jolt coma patients back into life. I'll pay the going rate, whatever it is, and you can put in as many write-protect gadgets as you like.'

‘And you don't want the actors?'

‘I don't want the actors. Oh, and that music that went with the first one you showed me, the one with the females dressed as cats –yes, that's it. Yes, that I do want.'

‘You like the music?'

‘It's dreadful,' said Leo. ‘It's like a throbbing migraine. But I want it. Was it chosen for its erotic qualities?'

The manager was understood to say that it had been shown that certain types of music reached the erogenous zones of people's minds.

‘Yes, you've only got to walk into a disco these days to know that,' said Leo.

‘We do have others that are not so . . .'

‘Abrasive? Arousing? Erectile?'

‘Exactly. Slower, more sensual. Voluptuous rather than actually lusty. Would you wish to see one of the romantic sequences?'

‘No, I want it abrasive. I want the whole thing as violent and as raw as possible. Well? Can you do it?'

The manager did not say that in this business people would do anything if they were paid enough. He said, ‘Certainly. In view of the unusual nature there would need to be an extra charge, of course.'

‘Of course,' said Leo coldly.

He was aware that he was treading an unconventional path with the videos, but he knew it was not really much more than unconventional. It was common enough practice these days to try to reach even persistent vegetative patients with favourite pop music or videos of football matches. New methods had to be tried and uncharted areas had to be explored. Physicians had to experiment. What about Dr Knox sending Burke and Hare to disinter fresh corpses for dissecting rooms? What about Freud delving yeastily into the dreams and sexual repressions of disturbed minds? Or even the Old Testament Joseph donning his dream cloak and sitting at Pharaoh's feet to interpret visions? Spiking into the erogenous zones with framework pornography was small stuff by comparison.

Six hours later, the videos in his briefcase on the seat beside him, Leo drove through the rose and gold dawn that was painting the eastern skies, and turned off the dual carriageway.

He had driven through the night after leaving London, and although he was not conscious of fatigue he knew he would need to sleep for a time. He would have argued that fatigue was something he had long since learned to overcome, but he was stiff from the long drive and if he was to make any impression on the unyielding blackness of Imogen's mind, he would have to rest and re-charge his mental strength.

Imogen . . . It suddenly seemed entirely right that he should be driving through this mistily beautiful autumn morning towards Imogen. Leo felt his heart quicken. He had believed himself to have long since grown the physician's necessary armour, but he knew that Imogen had slid under it, almost from the start. He had not been able to forget the sight of her backing away from her mother's grave on that terrible night, holding her hands out in front of her as if to push away what she had seen. It was the classic retreat, rare but unmistakable. An abrupt hysterical withdrawal into a stupor state. An interesting case, the A and E registrar had called it.

As he took the narrow turning that led to Thornacre, Leo remembered that the Porter woman would probably be in residence by now, and that common courtesy would require him to spend a little time with her during the next few days. This was a nuisance, because he wanted to concentrate on Imogen's treatment.

He considered Freda's appointment. ‘Have you any strong objections?' Professor Rackham had asked before making it.

‘I don't think so. She's not the world's finest nurse, but as far as I know she's ruled Briar House efficiently enough. She's a bit long in the tooth, although that sometimes works to advantage, of course. She's rather vulgar although she tries not to be.'

‘I didn't know you were a snob, Leo,' said Rackham, amused.

‘Neither did I.' Leo frowned, and then said, ‘I don't think I am, in fact. But she's false. One voice – one face come to that – for people she thinks are important and something quite different for the rest of the world.'

‘Aren't most of us guilty of that to one degree or another?'

‘Yes, but not to excess. She's – there used to be a word,
genteel
.'

‘Well, can you work with her or can't you?' demanded Rackham. ‘We'll keep interviewing if necessary. I have to say we thought her methods were a bit old-fashioned when we interviewed her, and her qualifications aren't very good by some of today's reckoning.'

‘That isn't necessarily a bad thing,' said Leo. ‘Some of the best psychiatric nurses I've known never passed an exam in their lives. And I do want to start with a clean slate.'

‘True. The reference from Thalia Caudle was very good indeed,' said Rackham.

‘Oh, appoint her,' said Leo. ‘Providing she does what I tell her when she's on duty and keeps out of my way when she's not I don't care whether she's the Grand Cham of Tartary or a Piccadilly hooker. In fact on balance I'd prefer the hooker – they're more in touch with ordinary people's problems. I don't suppose I'll need to see much of her anyway. We really only want an overseer for the nurses.'

‘They call them managers these days,' said Rackham, rather drily, and Leo had grinned.

The marvellous dawn was giving way to a grey-streaked November morning when he drew up before the huge iron gates and wound the window down to punch his number into the electronic intercom. The company who had helped tighten up and modernise the security arrangements had issued most of the senior staff with individual numbers, so that the small intercom system only needed to be manned during office hours. Leo waited for the gates to open and drove through, engaging second gear for the steep rutted drive that had been the old carriageway.

He liked this part of Thornacre. He liked it for the ghosts that lingered here, the imprints of things that had happened before Sybilla Campbell had bequeathed her dark legacy of murder and madness –the carriages that would have driven up here, and the sound of the horses' hooves on frost-hardened ground. Box lanterns would have cast a warm light across the snow in winter, and the house would have been lit by dozens of candles, the long windows welcoming and bright. In spring the garth would have been starred with bluebells and primroses and windflowers, and in summer the lilac would have scented the air for miles and the liquid notes of wood pigeons would have poured softly into the long, drowsy afternoons. The lilac was long since dead, the garth was overgrown and forlorn, and the house had lost any grandeur and any attraction it might once have possessed. But driving towards it, Leo felt, as he always did, Thornacre's romance. It was a dark romance, a cobwebby Gothic thing of midnight shadows and tanglewood gardens with crumbling old stone archways and lichen-crusted ruins . . .

He frowned and shook his head to chase away the ghosts, and parked his car in the old stable block which had been sketchily converted to garages. But as he entered Thornacre's central hall, the ghosts entered it with him. Leo could feel them clustering around him, and he thought they would never quite go from Thornacre; their sad presence would linger on, just as other sad presences lingered, for there were parts of Thornacre and secrets inside the place that Leo and Professor Rackham had agreed they would never dare to make public . . .

Even with Thornacre beginning to emerge from its grim years, too much of the darkness was still here.

The news that Thalia was leaving London for a while created a mild stir within the family but no one was very surprised because everyone had known, in a vague way, about the plan to collect folk songs and old ballads for the proposed new Ingram imprint. Everyone had known that Thalia was taking on the project as a kind of memorial to Royston and Eloise.

The aunts thought it was very nice indeed that Thalia was finding solace in work. A roving commission, she had called it, and she had told Rosa that she thought of starting off in Warwickshire – all those associations with Elizabethan England: the ballads of Shakespeare and his troupe of players; Richard of Warwick and Charles Stuart's armies fighting at Edgehill. All very interesting. From there she would work gradually northwards. The Midlands: Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire where the thousand-year-old Horn Dance originated. She would delve in the old bookshops and she would talk to historical societies and librarians, and even old residents of villages.