Thorn (38 page)

O
n Christmas Day Mrs Caudle came to visit Imogen.

Quincy had not known she was coming, and the first she knew about it was when Porter-Pig said in a false, bright, won't-that-be-nice voice that they would be having a visitor at their Christmas dinner.

Mrs Caudle was very friendly and Quincy began to wonder if she could have dreamed seeing her in the graveyard that day, talking to her dead son and gloating because Imogen's mother had been buried alive and because Imogen had been shut away in Briar House. Mrs Caudle talked to all the people at her table while they ate, and said she enjoyed her lunch very much indeed. She had never tasted such good plum pudding, she said. She had brought presents as well: the most beautiful cream silk dressing gown for Imogen, and boxes of biscuits and chocolates for the other patients. There were bottles of sherry for the nurses. For Quincy, whom Mrs Caudle said she remembered from Briar House, she had brought a thick drawing block, a really good one, with what Mrs Caudle said was hand-milled paper. With it was a box of watercolour crayons – aquarelle crayons, they were called, said Mrs Caudle; professional artists often used them for outdoor work. She had heard all about how Quincy had come to Thornacre with Imogen – Matron Porter had told her – and she thought it was very kind and loyal. Mrs Caudle had heard from Dr Sterne that Quincy was something of an artist and the Christmas present was a small thank you from Imogen's family.

But later on, when Mrs Caudle leaned over Imogen's bed and took her hand, Quincy knew that nothing was really any different. Mrs Caudle hated Imogen, just as she had done in London. And then quite suddenly Quincy understood.

Mrs Caudle was one of the giants, she was a female ogre. As soon as Quincy saw it, she did not know why she had not seen it before, because although her disguise was very good, she was unmistakably an ogress, exactly like the ones in the east wing. She had put on a human mask and human clothes and crept up out of her own world into Thornacre.

The invitation for Quincy to go out to tea with Mrs Caudle came as a surprise. At first Quincy was not quite sure what was meant; tea in Bolt Place had meant your evening meal – beefburgers and chips, or fishcakes or sausages. In Briar House and Thornacre it was called supper and you ate it later, so that tea happened at five o'clock and was a cup of tea and a biscuit, or bread and jam or honey. Quincy listened carefully to find out, and it appeared that Mrs Caudle meant this second kind. There was a rather nice tea shop in the village where she was staying; they had very good homemade scones and jam, and there was a small art gallery attached. On the day after Boxing Day there was to be an exhibition of paintings by local artists, and perhaps Quincy would like to go to the gallery to see the paintings. It would be a way of repaying some of Quincy's kindness to Imogen, what did Quincy think?

What Quincy thought was that this was exactly what giants and ogresses did. They pretended to be kind and they promised you treats, and then, when they had got you in their houses, they locked all the doors and leapt on you and did bad things to you. She did not want to go out to tea with Mrs Caudle at all because she was Imogen's enemy – Quincy knew this definitely, and she was frightened. But it might be a way of finding out what Mrs Caudle was plotting. There was that thing about knowing your enemy and if she could find out what was going on she might be able to explain it to Dr Sterne. She would not tell him yet; she would wait until she had something definite. Evidence, it was called. She would go out to tea and she would try to get evidence so that everyone knew about Mrs Caudle, and then Imogen would be safe.

The mention of paintings was intriguing; it might be a big pretence or it might be real. Quincy had never been to a place where you could look at paintings, and she wanted to very much. And probably she would be safe in a tea shop and painting place because there would be other people there. She looked at Dr Sterne for guidance and saw him smile and nod slightly. So she said to Mrs Caudle that she would like to go out to tea and she would like to see the paintings, and thank you very much. She tried to say it how Imogen would have said it but it did not really sound right.

Mrs Caudle said she would look forward to their little expedition. Would half past two be a convenient time? Half past two the day after tomorrow.

Mrs Caudle turned back to Dr Sterne then and Quincy had the feeling of being dismissed. This was perfectly all right; she would do some more drawings of Imogen's secret forest, which was the next best thing to being there herself. Dr Sterne would look at them later on.

Leo thought he had managed to hide his impatience with Thalia Caudle. To do the woman justice she seemed genuinely interested in Thornacre's work; she had asked if it might be possible to see more of the place after lunch. She had done a little work among the mentally sick in London, she said, only a very little, and mostly it had been to do with fund-raising. But she would be interested to see some of the methods used here and it might be that she could be of some help. She supposed, she said, with a slightly ironic glance at Leo, that Thornacre was not averse to accepting donations.

‘Good God, we'll take anything anyone offers,' said Leo at once. ‘I'll give you a list of Thornacre's most pressing needs here and now, if you like.' He smiled at her. ‘If you've really got time to spare, we could have a potted tour now.'

They started in the dayroom, which Leo had tried to brighten up but which was still furnished with cast-off chairs and tables, and curtains that did not draw properly, and a rattling old radiator that did not give out very much heat. The new heating system was still being installed. A plumbing firm from Blackmere had been given the job, but they were not very efficient and they were taking a long time over it.

Some of the patients were sitting vacantly in front of the television where they had been put, which infuriated Leo and was a painful reminder of his first sight of Thornacre's patients: most of them systematically drugged into stupors, almost all of them dumped, sacklike, in unheated rooms or left in bleak corridors. He switched the television off angrily. But at least some of the patients were seated at one of the large tables, drawing or making plasticine models or playing draughts.

The wretched Porter woman came steaming in within minutes, of course. She switched the television on again, saying it was a shame to turn it off, it was nice for the patients to watch, it perked them up no end, and it was really quite a tonic to see them laugh at some of the comedy programmes or the cartoons.

Leo had told her that the set was to be kept off, except for the designated programmes, mostly during the evening. He had explained that when the patients laughed, they were almost always copying someone laughing on the television, and that he wanted to stimulate their minds and make them think for themselves, but she had either not understood or forgotten. He was losing patience with her fast; the nurses did not like her much – Leo had heard them making up rude limericks about her when she was out of hearing – and he had almost decided that she would have to go. She would not be any loss to anyone.

Thalia Caudle seemed genuinely interested in everything. She asked to see the work that was going on at the large table: messy painting with thick, primary-colour pots of poster paint on acrylic boards, and the making of scrapbooks and flower montages. Leo was trying to get some of the more withdrawn ones to illustrate their fears, in the way that Quincy could sometimes do, although none of the others had a hundredth part of Quincy's talent. But some of them were responding to using colours or fabrics or even dried flowers, which was encouraging. Sometimes he made them join in loud sing-songs – one of the nurses played the piano – and held little talent competitions at which the patients could sing or recite. Two of the therapists had even started a small writers' group, encouraging patients to read aloud stories they had written and persuading the others to listen and comment. Leo had been very pleased, both with the modest success of this and with the therapists' initiative in setting it up.

Thalia listened – really listened, Leo admitted – and made a few comments. Her attention seemed particularly taken by Mad Meg McCann and Snatcher Harris. ‘Our two longest inmates,' said Porter, as proudly as if this was a geriatric home where longevity was praiseworthy.

‘Really?' said Thalia, politely. ‘What about Meg's foraging expeditions? Are they official?'

‘Well, we probably aren't as strict about Meg as we should be,' said Leo. ‘But she doesn't do any harm when she wanders off and she always comes back.'

‘Loaded with new bags of rubbish?'

‘Yes, I'm afraid so. We're trying to ration her to a few possessions at a time – she derives security from them. We're trying to find other ways to make her feel secure, but it's a long job.'

‘Dr Sterne is so patient,' said Matron Porter. ‘I tell my nurses we're lucky to be working with him.'

‘I'm sure you are.' Thalia looked thoughtfully at Snatcher Harris who was leering at her. ‘I find that an interesting case as well, Dr Sterne. Has he always been like this?'

‘Probably,' said Leo. ‘We're working on him but I suspect the speech centres of his brain were damaged, or simply weren't developed fully, before birth. I think that he actually understands more than he lets on, the old rogue.'

Freda Porter said archly, ‘I think we underestimate our Llewellyn. We shall have him reading Shakespeare before long, shan't we, Dr Sterne?'

Leo ignored this and said to Thalia, ‘By rights Harris oughtn't to be here at all. He's more handicapped than mentally ill but we inherited him and we'll do what we can. I don't think he's ever known another home, so it would be cruel to uproot him.'

‘An unusual case,' said Thalia, and then looked at Leo. ‘But then I believe you have several extremely unusual patients here.'

Leo felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck, and the expression ‘freak hunter' slid into his mind. He said, ‘We have many different cases here, Mrs Caudle. They all have their stories. But I daresay there are some greatly exaggerated tales told about some of them in the village.' He looked at her carefully. ‘There are certain slightly freakish conditions that most people would deny exist any longer.'

‘But they do exist?'

‘Oh yes. Any doctor or nurse will tell you that they see some very strange things from time to time.' Choosing his words very carefully, Leo said, ‘Some pitiful and very ancient diseases, which have plagued mankind over the centuries, occasionally do still recur. In remote country areas like this one, where old-fashioned beliefs still hold, or where there's ignorance, that can lead to some colourful stories.' A pause. ‘Have you ever heard of acromegaly, Mrs Caudle?'

‘I don't believe so. What is it?'

‘A rather grotesque condition that produces excessive symmetrical growth of the bones, particularly the limbs and the face. In children it's called gigantism.'

‘It sounds appalling.'

‘It's usually due to over-functioning of the pituitary gland – to exorbitant production of a growth-stimulating hormone, often from a benign tumour within the pituitary. There's sometimes an imbalance of the secondary sex characteristics as well, so you get coarsened features. There might be some bearding of the females, and sometimes there's what's known as masking. That's a kind of blank, stony stare – unnerving unless you know what it is, and sometimes unnerving even when you do.'

Thalia said in a soft voice, ‘The explanation of every monstrous fairy story.'

‘Possibly.'

‘Is there any cure?'

‘It's curable providing it's diagnosed,' said Leo. ‘Sometimes micro-surgery can remove the hyper-functioning tissue. The real tragedies are if diagnosis is made late, when the effects might be difficult to reverse. Once bones are enlarged, reducing them is a problem. And once there's beard growth on the skin—'

‘It's very rare?'

‘Not as rare as all that,' said Leo, ‘but it's rarer for it to go untreated these days, so it's not often encountered in its full-blown state. It's an ancient disease,' he said. ‘I've often thought that's what was meant in the famous bit in Genesis – “There were giants in the earth in those days.” There probably were.'

‘And there are giants inside Thornacre today?'

A pause. Leo said lightly, ‘I never break the oath of confidentiality to my patients, Mrs Caudle. And sometimes Nature's freakish tricks can be distressing to an untrained eye. Would you like to come and see our therapy wing now? It's in what used to be the stable block. We haven't got very far with it yet but we're hoping to convert it so that the patients can learn carpentry and wood-turning. We've been promised some benches and a wood-turning lathe, and we're hoping for photographic equipment next month as well. Do come and see. I think you'll find it interesting.'

It was four o'clock when Leo managed to get free. Matron Porter was making twittering noises about aftenoon tea, which was ridiculous when everyone had eaten an enormous Christmas dinner at half past one. But he was glad to leave them to it because his thoughts were already moving forward to the evening's session with Imogen.

He went quickly along to her room, his heart beating fast with anticipation, and seated himself at the head of her bed. After a moment he took her hand and, half closing his eyes, reached down into his mind until he brushed against the thin silver and gold light lying like a coiled serpent in the deepest recesses. It shivered through his mind, instantly and fiercely responsive, and Leo felt a lurch of panic. Here we go, he thought, his mind spiralling with excitement.

He grasped the thin silken coil and sent it spinning into the still, silent darkness surrounding Imogen. Come up, Imogen, and come back. Come up and up and up. Come up and out of the misty twilight woodland that that remarkable child Quincy saw and drew, come up and come back to me.