Perseverance Street (11 page)

After two weeks he eased off on the drugs; she had enough in her system to have lowered her resistance to his
advances. He added what he thought to be personal charm to the prescription, smiling at her, talking sweetly to her, stroking her hair and allowing his hands to brush against her breasts pushing against the thin cotton of her nightdress. On some days he would ask her to lie back on her bed and to lift up her nightdress as he needed to examine her breasts for lumps. She did as he asked. He was a doctor; why wouldn’t she? She was wearing no undergarments but she was too weary to give the matter much thought. She was too weary to notice his erection as he ran his hands over her breasts, stroking each nipple in turn, then running his hand over her stomach down to her pubis. His eyes fixed on hers, but hers were blank. Unfeeling and unaware what he was doing to her.

A month
went by. To Lily it could have been a week, a day or just a few minutes; she had so little concept of time. In all this time she hadn’t left her room other than to go to the bathroom just down the corridor. Her level of consciousness allowed her to walk and to talk in short sentences, to eat and take her drugs. She was losing weight simply because the drugs had taken away her appetite, her willpower and most of her common sense. She was totally reliant on Dr Freeman, a man she instinctively disliked.

He still hadn’t penetrated her. He was worried about a forthcoming inspection ordered by the board of trustees which would involve him explaining the treatment of each patient. Up until now he’d always been able to wing it, with one of the trustees calling in from time to time to enjoy the same perverted persuasions as Freeman. But now a government department had taken an interest and he’d been warned that the inspections would be much more meticulous than before. His decidedly unethical treatment of Lily for manic depression would be a major problem, unless …

She was lying on her bed, in her nightmare dreamworld, when
he came into her room and sat beside her.

‘Lily,’ he said, ‘we’re putting you on a new treatment.’

He knew she wouldn’t respond, in fact he doubted if she was listening.

‘It’s a minor operation to relieve the pressure on your brain. Afterwards you won’t need all these drugs that make you sleepy. You’ll feel like a new woman and no doubt we’ll be able to release you within a week or two. What do you think about that?’

Lily said nothing. She just stared at him with nothing but emptiness behind her eyes. Freeman went on.

‘It’s called a prefrontal lobotomy. It’s cured thousands of manic depressives like you.’

He chose not to tell her that it involved drilling through her skull to cut through the frontal lobes of her brain. He also chose not to tell her that it was an unproven operation which the visiting surgeon, Mr Goodchild, had only performed four times before in the Ecclestone House Hospital, with mixed results. The symptoms of two of his patients had been relieved temporarily, another had shown marked deterioration and the third had been transferred to Keighley Hospital and was currently little more than a cabbage. The inspection was due in two days so it would help Freeman’s cause if the inspectors found Lily in recovery, with her head bandaged and still drowsy from the previous day’s strong anaesthetic.

‘We’ll be operating tomorrow morning,’ he told her. Lily gave a faint nod and went back to sleep. Freeman left her, satisfied
that he’d done his duty in keeping his patient informed of all forthcoming treatment. He’d mention that to the inspectors, including the part where she was most grateful to be having the operation.

The following morning Lily was awakened by a male nurse who told her she was being taken down to pre-op. Lily didn’t know what that was but she eased herself out of bed and into a waiting wheelchair. She’d totally forgotten what Freeman had said to her the previous day. She was now being taken through a part of the hospital she’d never been to before.

‘Where am I going?’

‘For your operation, Lily.’

She was suddenly scared, the first emotion of any kind that she’d felt since arriving there and being injected with her first drugs.

‘What operation? I don’t want an operation.’

‘It’s for your own good, Lily. It’s a very clever operation that’ll make you better. You ought to be grateful.’

She was wheeled into the anaesthetic room where she was asked to climb on to another bed. The nurse went over to a table, filled a syringe and turned towards her.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘It’s what you need to make you feel relaxed, Lily. There’s nothing to worry about, I promise.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, of course … just a little scratch.’ He injected her in her arm.

‘What sort of operation?’ she asked again.

‘A necessary one, Lily. Shortly we’ll be putting you to sleep
and when you wake up you’ll feel so much better.’

Michael and Christopher moved, fleetingly, across her mind and she felt immensely sad, but she couldn’t remember why. It would be good to feel better.

The rider
of the motorcycle combination stopped at a crossroads to check a map against a road sign. The helmeted head shook in confusion. The leather-clad biker got off and reached into the sidecar to take out a bottle of whisky. After a couple of deep swigs the bottle was replaced and the map re-examined as if the drink had helped sharpen the mind. Then the goggles were reset over the eyes, the rider remounted and, with a throaty roar, set off again up the narrow, winding, uphill road. A heavy mist was shrouding the Pennine tops. It was mid-morning in late June. In an hour the sun would be warm enough to burn it off, but right now there was a real pea-souper up ahead.

The mist swept down like a dirty grey cloak and the rider switched on the headlight, more to alert oncoming vehicles than to improve vision. The beam just bounced back off the fog. Suddenly, to the right, about two hundred yards away, the swirling mist cleared and revealed a large stone building which might well be the rider’s destination; hard to tell in this mist, even though the biker had spent time there. If it wasn’t it might provide sanctuary for a while until the weather improved. The motorcyclist
slowed down to a walking pace; eyes glued to the right-hand side of the road, looking for the dirt road that would lead to the house. There it was, an eight-foot-wide track that would take most motor vehicles going one way. Rarely did two vehicles meet each other coming the other way out here.

There was a wooden sign saying
Hospital No Through Traffic
. The biker gave a smile as bleak as the weather and took the machine up the track. After a less than a minute the hospital came into view. It was a substantial stone building which had begun life as a country house before a descendant of the original owner decided it was no fun living out here on the cold, cheerless moors and sold it to a company which converted it to a thirty-bed hospital. The government took it over during the First World War and used it for treating wounded soldiers, before turning it into a psychiatric hospital, with Dr Freeman in charge.

The noise of the motorcycle combination brought a young man in a white coat to the front door just as the rider was dismounting.

‘Can I help you?’ asked the white coat, peering at the face behind the goggles.

The rider lifted the goggles and returned his smile. ‘I do hope so. I’m told that Dr Freeman still works here. Is this true? I’m an old friend of his.’ The voice was low and gruff – a smoker’s voice. The rider hitched the goggles up to the front of the helmet. Scarf round the neck, tucked into the leather windcheater. Face still barely visible.

‘Yes, he’s still here. Can I tell him who you are?’

‘Still here, eh? Hidden
out here for all these years – twenty to my knowledge. Is his wife still around?’

‘No, I believe Mrs Freeman left before I came to work here. Who did you say you were?’

‘Did a bunk eh? Can’t say I blame her. We had some high old times, Benny Freeman and me. High old times. Tell you what. Why don’t I surprise him? He’ll like that. Great man for a practical joke, old Benny. Where is he?’

‘He’s in his office.’

‘Good, no need to show me. I know the way. The rider pushed past the young man, entered a large vestibule, went up a curving staircase to the first floor. Along a corridor to the right was a door bearing a sign saying:
Dr Freeman. Do not enter without knocking and waiting
. The rider entered without knocking and waiting. Behind a large desk sat a man in his sixties who was in the act of quickly withdrawing his hand from the young woman at the side of him. By the way she smoothed her dress and hitched up her underwear it was obvious where his hand had been. The young woman was wearing no uniform and had the drawn look of a psychiatric patient. Other than that she was quite pretty.

‘Good morning, Benny Boy. Still up to your old tricks with the patients eh? Still lying your socks off? Still abusing the inmates? I thought you’d have grown out of it by now, you seedy old creep.’

Freeman’s face turned puce. ‘Who the hell are you?’

The rider took off the helmet and scarf. Freeman’s puce face blanched within the space of two seconds. Delilah Maguire smiled down at him, showing an array of gleaming white teeth that could only have been false. She was
a tall, strongly built, hard-looking woman in her mid-fifties and she looked to have lived every year of it to the full. Her eyes were bright blue and full of life. Her nose was on the long side but it gave her face character and strength. As she removed the helmet her hair sprang out as if desperate to be released. It was long and wild and wiry and sprinkled with grey. She stuck her left hand behind her head in an automatic movement, twisting her hair into a ponytail which she tied into place with an elastic band that had somehow appeared in her right hand.

‘I suggest you postpone this consultation until another time, Benny Boy. I have serious business to discuss with you.’

Freeman’s white face reddened as he sent the young woman from the office. Delilah plonked her helmet and goggles down on the doctor’s desk, sat in the chair opposite and rested her booted feet on his desk. ‘You have my niece, Lily Robinson, staying here.’

‘What? How the hell did you know that?’

Delilah grinned triumphantly, swung her feet off the desk and leaned forward. ‘Actually, I didn’t, you rapacious old goat – until you just told me. I knew the bastards had sent her to a nuthouse but they wouldn’t tell me where. Jesus! This is the first place I should have looked.’

‘If you’re a bona fide relative you have a right to know where she is,’ said Freeman, nervously. ‘If you’re not, you’ve no right to be here.’

Delilah laughed out loud. ‘Bona fide? When was I ever bona fide anything? I wasn’t even a bona fide nutter when
they sent me here. It never occurred to me that young Lily would follow in my footsteps. When I read about her in the paper I checked every hospital in West Yorkshire to try and find her – and here she is, under the care of the great Dr Freeman, pervert of this parish.’

‘Get out before I call the police!’

Delilah’s face turned ugly; she pulled out a long-bladed knife from inside her jacket and leaned across the desk, holding the knife at Freeman’s throat.

‘If you’ve been screwing young Lily I’ll swing for you, Benny Boy. You know I’ll do it.’

Freeman pushed himself back in his chair but the knife followed him, drawing a speck of blood.

‘Jesus! You mad bloody woman! She’s only been here a month. What the hell do you think I am?’

‘I know what you are, Benny Boy.’ She took the knife away from his throat, but still held it at the ready. ‘Take me to my niece. I’ll ask her myself.’

‘I thought you said she wasn’t your niece.’

‘She’s the daughter of my best friend who died a year after Lily was born. I swore on her mother’s deathbed that I’d look out for her and I would have if the bastards hadn’t kept locking me up. Better late than never, eh?’

The knife was once again hovering not far from Freeman’s throat. He knew this woman of old and what she was capable of. She’d once done time for seriously stabbing a vicious gangster in a knife fight. He got to his feet.

‘OK, but when you see her you’ll realise what a mistake you’re making. Lily is in need of treatment.’

‘Just take me to her.’

Freeman made
for the door. Delilah put the knife away and picked up her helmet and goggles. She followed him, whispering in his ear.

‘Just remember, I know what I know. If I open my mouth and give the police names they’ll bang you up for a ten stretch at least. So far I’ve kept it to myself because it was of no use to me, but now it is. I do that, you see. I keep stuff in reserve. I’d practically forgotten about you. Just goes to show, eh? My old mother used to say, “Delilah girl, never throw anything away if you think it might come in handy one day.” ’

Freeman led her back downstairs and along a corridor to a room marked
Pre-op
.

‘Pre what op?’ asked Delilah sharply, stopping outside the door

‘She’s scheduled to have a very necessary operation.’

‘What sort of operation?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me. You’d be amazed.’

‘It’s called a prefrontal lobotomy.’

Delilah froze for a moment, then said, ‘And you think I don’t know what one of those is? Do you think I don’t read? Do you think I don’t know that most of the people who have that operation are never right in the head again?’

She pushed past Freeman into the room. Lily lay on a bed, on her side, face away from the door, wearing a surgical patient’s gown which revealed her naked buttocks.

‘Has she been anaesthetised?’ snapped Delilah, adjusting the gown to protect Lily’s modesty.

‘Not
yet. She’d had a pre-med but the surgeon hasn’t arrived yet. I imagine it’s due to the fog.’

‘Where’s the anaesthetist?’

‘I’m qualified in that field.’

‘You? Do me a favour. You’re not even a qualified human being.’

Delilah went over to the bed and touched Lily on the shoulder. Her voice changed. It was softer, friendlier. The voice of an affectionate auntie.