Dead Man's Embers (19 page)

The room into which Angela has brought her is dim and crowded, Non's seat is hard and too small, and she is jammed up against a large woman sitting next to her on one side and Angela in the aisle seat on the other. She refuses to be drawn into conversation by Angela. The noise is already at a pitch, every single person must be chattering. It is too much.

Today has been one tribulation after another. First, that dreadful ward with those poor men. How could Angela use them in that way as a lesson to Non? Is that how a nurse should behave? And for her to end hating them, or at least hating what they represented, that was wrong, too. Then Seb – her cheeks burn at having mistaken his name so stupidly, he must have thought she was foolish from the start – and his diagnosis; she is still not sure what to think about that. And third and worst, her visit to Burlington House.

After coming away from her consultation with Seb she had done as he suggested and found a seat in the shade of the rose-red building. People – patients and their visitors, she supposed – milled about as they seemed to do everywhere in this huge city, reflecting the turmoil in her mind. The young doctor was brilliant, Angela had told her. Non remembered people saying that to her about her father. She wished she knew more about Osian Rhys the man, rather than the father or the romantic or the herbalist. After he died she soon learnt that her sister would not talk about him. When the young Non had made even the most innocuous mention of her beloved father, Branwen had flown into a rage. There had to be a reason for that, she had thought, as she closed her eyes and leaned against the back of the seat, and when she next saw Branwen she would find it out. It was here in this great city that her father had bought her mother's ring – the ring that had enabled Non to be here. She had opened her eyes and sat up straight. Had her father sent her here? She had banished that foolish thought the instant it came into her mind, but it had made her consider what she should do. She had not been able to find out much more than she already knew about Davey that was useful – except, and her heart had skipped a beat, that she had cast a spell upon him – but perhaps she would be able to find something out about her father, something that would help her to decide what she should do with Seb's advice. She had heard Branwen's voice telling her to think, for goodness' sake, not to be headstrong, the voice rising to a crescendo until she had closed the doors of her memory against it. She had walked up the stairs to Angela's ward, to ask her for directions to the place where the Royal Society resided, and told her she would be back at the lodging house in William Road in time for Angela's return late in the afternoon.

Go back the way we came this morning, Angela had instructed, as far as that Underground station I pointed out to you – Warren Street – and take the Hampstead line to Leicester Square. You can change there to the Piccadilly line and get off in Piccadilly Circus, it's not far from there – just ask someone on the station. Non had no recollection of passing Warren Street station that morning and had to ask for directions as soon as she left the hospital. But after that her journey was uneventful. The underground train was fast and noisy, and she was curious rather than nervous as the train rattled and screeched through its wormhole tunnels. She was glad to sit down, to rest, to watch the reflections of the other passengers in the windows, to read the posters decorating the carriages, to memorise the information that, last year, underground trains travelled the equivalent of eight thousand times around the world – eight thousand! – to tell Wil when she returned home before she recollected, with a physical jolt, that she could not do that. When she reached Piccadilly Circus she lost her way twice trying to leave the station and find Piccadilly. Eventually, after asking for directions, she arrived at Burlington House.

She saw the cobbled yard, the huge wooden doors with the gold lettering above them on the lintels, the carved stone decorations, all as her father had described to her. The east wing was so large and imposing that the thought of her father being there as one of the many honoured scientists filled her with pride. She had asked the attendant in the hallway for help and was guided to a reading table where she was given books containing the names of all the members during the years when her father had been a frequent visitor. Many of the names were familiar to her; she had heard them on her father's lips so many times during her childhood, some spoken with more admiration than others.

But her father's name was not among them. She went through the lists three times. First reading down the page, then backwards up the page, then down again, putting her finger against each name so that there was no chance of missing one. She asked the stern man behind the desk if it was possible that a mistake had been made but his expression was so incredulous and unforgiving that she felt herself shrink just like Alice in Mr Carroll's book. But she asked again if there were other lists she could consult, told the stern man her father's name and his work. The man informed her that there were other – and here he paused in disdain, Non saw his lip curl – that there were other royal societies of this and that, but this Royal Society was not where her father had belonged, or spoken about his voyages, or been given money from a collection – another curl of the lip – which enabled him to buy her mother a betrothal ring. She had walked away from Burlington House angry with the attendant, angry with her father, angry with Branwen for refusing to speak of him, angry with herself for her gullibility, and utterly confused.

When she had arrived back at Angela's lodgings, she had been exhausted, hot and near to fainting. She was glad to drop into the armchair in the stuffy little room. She was fed pink salmon from a tin and brown bread dry from the heat of the day, food that made her want to gag, and which she washed down with the tea for which she was desperate and grateful. And then she was persuaded by Angela – because she had neither the heart nor the energy to keep refusing – to come out for the evening, to come to this other stuffy, crowded room.

‘Shhh.' Everyone in the place seems to be shushing everyone else. Non's neighbour turns to her – who has not uttered a word – and shushes her, her finger against her mouth as if Non were a five-year-old. The shushing is like the sea on the sand at home,
and pleasanter than the chattering. The air in the room is stifling and the smell of sweat overlaid by the scent of perfumes and pomades takes Non's breath away. She dips into her handbag to find the thyme oil she carries for Osian, inhales deeply from the vial and feels her breathing ease a little. She wishes she had thought to bring some water to drink in the bottle that Branwen had pressed on her for the train journey, for her mouth is dry already.

The audience falls silent and each member of it gazes towards the stage – a wooden dais at the front of the room, with a curtain drawn across it. In the silence the gas lamps hiss and their flames leap, but their light fails to combat the dark shadow cast by the church to which the hall is attached. Through one of the room's high windows Non can see the bright, cloudless blue of the sky, and thinks she ought to feel less enervated here in this shade, but somehow the dimness is neither restful nor comforting, and takes her back to that other room in Port with Catherine Davies and Elsie. She had been surprised that Angela was so anxious to come to this séance, but now she recalls her mother-in-law's yearning to contact Billy, and Elsie's joy in the train on the way home, and supposes that similar feelings have brought Angela here.

The curtains are drawn back to reveal a small round table holding a lamp, with a chair next to the table on which the medium, dressed in mourning, is seated. At her feet sits a child, swathed from head to foot in white. Despite her disbelief, Non shivers slightly with apprehension at this further reminder of the scene in the little sitting room in Port, and she hears again Ben Bach's voice calling his mother.

The audience seems to hold its collective breath as the child descends the stairs from the dais and walks step by slow step along the aisle looking from side to side at the rows of eager and anxious
faces. Gasps follow her – whether of disappointment or relief, Non cannot tell – when she passes people by. Some proffer rings from their fingers, or letters, creased and dog-eared, from their pockets, but they are all ignored by the child. Non wonders if all mediums use children, first Madame Leblanc, and now this one. It is not right to make a child do this kind of dishonest work, this hocuspocus.

‘Yes, yes,' says a voice from the dais as the child stops to take a ring that is held out to her. The woman proffering the ring is close enough to her that Non can see she is young, and pale, and holds her now ringless hand to her breast. To stop hope escaping? The child carries the ring back to the dais, and the medium holds her hand out for it, then fingers it, turning it round and round, while the audience waits in intense silence, broken only by the hiss and stutter of the gaslights and the distant hum of noise from the city going about its business outside.

‘You have lost a beloved one?'

The young woman gasps and nods and puts her hand to her mouth, and Non feels fury spurt inside her at what the woman on the dais is doing.

‘I have a message to tell you not to worry. He is safe and is watching over you.'

The young woman is hiccupping and crying, and fumbles with the ring when the child brings it back to her. The audience is already watching the child to see who will be chosen next. How can Angela, an intelligent woman, sit here and believe that woman is anything but a charlatan? All these people, desperate – just like Elsie Thomas and Lizzie German, and old Catherine Davies – desperate to think their husbands and sons are safe somewhere and thinking of them. Non decides to leave. She tries to rise from her seat but Angela puts a strong hand firmly on her thigh and
forces her to sit back down. And Non sees that Angela, too, has a ring in her hand, which she now holds out towards the child, who walks past without taking it. More rings and letters, a watch, even a mysterious leather pouch, are taken to the dais and their owners comforted by the medium's platitudes. Again, the child walks along the aisle, and approaches Angela; Non can see the tremor in her hand as she offers the ring to the child. It is a ring Non has not seen Angela wear and she supposes it must be a gift, a betrothal gift perhaps, from Edward. Non watches the child take the ring and walk to the dais with it. She is consumed with anger at herself for allowing this, and at the medium when Angela cries with joy to hear that her beloved is praying for her.

‘That is just like Edward,' she says to Non, smiling and dabbing at her tears with her handkerchief as the child returns the ring. Angela is desperate to find Edward, Non thinks, but without hope of ever succeeding because he is lying somewhere in the soil of France where already lush grass and red poppies are claiming him. A woman sitting in the row of chairs behind them puts a comforting hand on Angela's shoulder. That small hand in its black glove makes Non instantly ashamed of herself for her lack of understanding and for thinking only of her own concerns. She hears Lizzie German admonishing her, People want to know, don't they, missus? No one speaks of it, she thinks, looking at the people around her in this room, no one speaks of their terrible grief. Angela's face still shines with her tears. She is a woman left on her own to make her way bravely in a world which has no place for women on their own – bachelor girls, is what Non has seen them called in the newspaper, as if it is a choice they make for fun. Non sees that Angela will never recover from Edward's death, and not just the fact of his death but the way of it, the ignominy of it. No wonder she has had to harden the exterior she shows to
the world, she has needed to do so in order to survive; but here, now, Non sees the young woman with whom Edward fell in love. In a surge of compassion Non puts her hand out to find Angela's hand and clasps it tightly.

As her train whistles and chugs its way out of the grand station at Whitchurch and through the countryside Non begins to feel that she is, at last, going home. Angela, turned once more into the efficient nurse, had seen her to Euston and a train that had been as packed on the way out of London as it had been on her journey into the city. What a vast and confusing place London was, and the station at Euston in its bleakness and blackness, even when the sun had managed to struggle through the grime, was like a conduit to the city, reflecting the variety of its people from the obviously rich, with their maids and their luggage looked after by porters, to the down-and-outs, the tramps and beggars that the policemen were constantly moving on. She had barely caught her train because of an altercation outside the ticket office between a young policeman – he had not looked any older than Gwydion – and a tramp of indeterminate age who was trying to board the train, ticketless. The tramp had been turned away in the end, to the tutting and relief of most of those waiting.

Non wonders about the tramp, about why he was so anxious to board the train. She is ashamed that she did not help him in
some way. She could have paid for a ticket for him, she had money left in her purse. Where had her sense of charity been? When the tramps came round at home on their tour – it was like an annual pilgrimage, always with the same familiar pilgrims – they were given tea in their billycans and slabs of bread and butter, or dripping, and even cheese or meat from those who could afford to give it, to see them on their way. The gentlemen of the road were treated with respect. They were treated like vermin in London, she had seen it.

You would have to be blind not to notice the indigent people everywhere, women and children as well as men. Every street corner had a maimed soldier, sometimes in a vestige of a uniform, sometimes smarter in an old suit and hat, trying to sell matches or bootlaces from a tray to passers-by. Sometimes they had given up any pretence at dignity and just sat on the dirty pavements, their despair there for all to see in the heads sunken onto their chests and the scruffy caps upended next to them to hold the few coppers anyone could spare. Ignore them, had been Angela's advice, and in the end that was what Non did, not because she thought they were a stain on the face of the city, as she had heard someone claim, but because when they looked at her to thank her for her pennies, she could not bear the misery and desolation and hopelessness in their eyes. It reminded her too much of the look she often caught in Davey's eyes.