Shooting Butterflies (38 page)

I put my arm up across my face, trying to shield myself from the words. But he goes on.
Betrayal. Depravity. Moral corruption. Bad seed. Inherited weakness.
Then he leaves me weeping on the floor.

I beg him to let me see my children, but he refuses.

Sir Charles has told him they are best kept away. He shows the doctor my painting. ‘I don't understand why,' I say. ‘He won't like it.'

‘You might think this amusing, Louisa, but I assure you there is nothing amusing at all about your situation. I am working hard on your behalf to make sure that when you come out of this, you will still have some friends.'

‘Have you heard from Viola?'

‘No, and I don't expect to.'

‘And you're sure she left no message for me?'

There is a pause before he replies, ‘No.'

‘I don't believe you, do you hear? You are lying.' I realise that I am shouting but I cannot stop myself. ‘You're lying, do you hear? She wouldn't leave without a communication of some kind.'

* * *

I am better. There is no storm inside me now. But still Sir Charles is not satisfied. ‘Mrs Blackstaff,' his expression is stern, ‘were you aware, at the time, what effect your … exhibition,' the word is bracketed between two raised eyebrows, ‘would have on your husband, on your friend, Miss Glastonbury?'

‘
Your
friend Lady Glastonbury's daughter.'

‘Were you aware, Mrs Blackstaff, of the harm you were doing?'

I am too exhausted to explain or to try to please. It would have been easier, of course, if I had possessed the gift of dissembling. A few tears on the great man's country tweeds, a helpless flapping of hands and murmured expressions of grief and regret might have helped my cause.

I want to see my children, so for his next visit I try to think of an explanation that might satisfy him. There would never be time for the whole truth and he would never accept that I was proud, still, of my work.

‘I mourned my baby. You see, I killed him.' (Sir Charles jots down
probably delusional
in his small black notebook.) ‘No, you don't understand.' I put my hand out, touching his lightly. He shies away. For a week now no one has actually touched me or allowed me to touch them. No caresses from Arthur, no sticky kisses from my small children. I yearn to be touched.

‘Voices are telling you that you killed your child?'

‘Yes. No, not voices, not in the sense that you mean. I'm talking of an inner voice. You have an inner voice, don't you, Sir Charles? An inner voice that tells you the truth?'

‘We are not talking about me, Mrs Blackstaff.' He is writing in his book; his hand, pale and stubby-fingered with a covering of silky black hair across the knuckles, moves fast across the page.

He can upset my calm like no one else. I feel the heat rise in my cheeks as my heart pounds, harder and harder, until I fear it will burst free from the confines of my ribcage. Numbness spreads from my shoulder down my left arm. I have to stand up. ‘Stop that writing,' I shout.

‘There is no need for aggression, Mrs Blackstaff.'

I sit back in the chair and try to turn my thoughts inwards, towards far more pleasing images than that of Sir Charles with his long face where every feature pulls downwards, but I know
something bad is happening.
I
hear what I say but
he
seems to hear something different.

‘It was the only way I could find relief. When I paint it's as if the work itself is the answer to all the questions. The accusing voices cease.' I look at him, searching for some glimmer of understanding in his eyes, but there is none. ‘My husband turned away from me when I needed him most. In the past I have made excuses for him, but no more. To him I was always in the wrong. I never got it quite right, Sir Charles. What was it about me that I never got it right? I thought I might go mad, asking, asking myself that question.' Sir Charles scribbles away in his notebook.
Subject exhibiting signs of paranoia, mentioning being in conflict with the rest of the world that in turn is colluding against her.

I am desperate for him to understand ‘Then there was Viola.' I feel my jaw relax into a smile and my eyes soften as I speak her name. ‘She was a rock. She
heard
me. She melted the ice around my heart.' I lean towards him, willing him to look me in the eyes, but his gaze keeps slipping off my face.

‘I admit that I knew I was causing mischief by showing my work the way I did, the night of the unveiling of my husband's great canvas, but I'm afraid that at that moment I did not care.' I realise I'm speaking loudly again, so I lower my voice. ‘I don't often get angry, Sir Charles. And I'm not proud of what I did. But I had to do something. You must understand, Sir Charles, that I had been in prison and I had to get out. I didn't care whether or not the sun rose in the morning or set at night. I did not care about eating or dressing or even washing. And the worst of it was that when I lost John I lost the others too. Or so it felt. Even when they were in the same room with me I heard their little voices as if in the distance. I wanted to reach out and hold them but it was as if an invisible wall was in the way. Then, suddenly, it was not there any more, that wall. I could not stop talking, running, hugging my children; oh, it was as if I was living all the life I had missed out on.' I look up at him. ‘But, Sir Charles, I am quite myself now.'

‘I see,' he says.

But to Arthur he says much besides. They stand not more than a foot from my door talking as if neither of them cares that I might
hear. Sir Charles speaks words like
persecution mania, suppressed grief, hysterical temperament
and
moral insanity.

I knew that I had hurt Arthur gravely but I still expected him to speak up in my defence. ‘You failed to tell me, when I first treated Mrs Blackstaff, that both her parents were suicides.' It is Sir Charles speaking still.

‘She comes from bad stock. I should have realised. But I was young. She was a dashed handsome woman, Sir Charles. Ah well, there's no greater fool than a lovesick fool, what?' Their voices trail off as they move down the corridor.

I get up from my chair and follow them. In the past I have complained of feeling invisible but now I'm glad of it as I listen, unobserved, at the top of the stairs.

‘I never considered that she might be seriously ill. Is it something I have done? You must tell me the truth. I can live with it. I have to live with it. I am not a man to shy away from my responsibilities.'

‘My dear fellow, of course you're not. And you must remember that you have nothing at all with which to reproach yourself. There is obviously an inherited weakness and a moral weakness too, I am sorry to say. The death of your younger son greatly exacerbated the problems already there. Your wife is calmer now. The mania has subsided, as has the severe melancholy which it followed. However, I believe a period of supervision and treatment is desirable. Of course I could attempt to treat her in your home but in view of the presence of two impressionable young children I strongly recommend that Mrs Blackstaff be admitted to the Harvey Clinic. It's an excellent private facility and she will be under my direct care. We have recently introduced a treatment pioneered by my esteemed Hungarian colleague, Doctor László Meduna, whose belief it is that there exists a biological antagonism between the illness grand mal and psychosis. I have found the treatment most effective when undergone by patients such as your wife.' There is a pause. In the silence I hear the beating of my heart, so hard, so loud I think they must find me out at any moment but they don't even look up.

‘You're right,' I hear Arthur sigh. ‘The wellbeing of my children must come before all else; there can be no question of
anything other. I cannot allow them to be further exposed to their mother's … their mother's perversion, but an institution …' From my place above I see how he rakes his hair with his strong fingers; fingers that, not so very long ago, travelled across every inch of my body as he whispered, ‘Let me worship at your shrine.'

How comical that sounded now, how very comical; and I can't help myself, I burst out laughing; and although I'm quick to cover my mouth, it's too late: they've seen me.

My husband's face is an upturned plate. ‘My God, Louisa, what are you doing?'

I can't stop laughing.

‘I'm afraid that you have no choice,' Arthur tells me. ‘You can agree to go or you can be sectioned. I'm sorry to sound harsh but, whether or not you can see it now, we all have your best interests at heart.'

‘The children; I can't go away, they need me. I'm not ill, Arthur. I admit I have been acting somewhat out of character and I'm sorry, sorry for embarrassing you and …'

‘Louisa, it's not a matter of saying sorry. You're not well, which is why no one is blaming you. But you need looking after in a way that we can't manage here and, quite frankly, I don't think that you are a suitable person at present to be looking after our children.'

‘Arthur, don't say such things. I'm their mother; I love them.'

‘You said that you had asked yourself many times in the past months whether they would not be better off without you. Sir Charles told me that you yourself had expressed doubt about your suitability to be in charge of young minds.'

‘I didn't mean it, not like that. Please, Arthur, you must not take the confidences I have given you and turn them against me like this. I have doubts, but we all do, don't we?'

Arthur shakes his head sadly, as sadly as an actor in a tragedy. ‘Don't make this any more difficult than it has to be, I beg you, Louisa. This is not a punishment. You are going to be looked after by people who understand your problems and as soon as you're strong enough you will come home again. Then you can spend
as much time with our children as you like; once you are your old self.'

‘I don't want to be my old self, Arthur. I will die if I have to go back to that.'

‘Louisa, listen to yourself; you're hysterical, irrational. No, really, I cannot be expected to put up with this.' He rises from the chair. At the door he turns with a look of deep reproach and leaves.

‘Your mama needs a rest,' Jane tells my son who is weeping in her arms. Her voice is light and briskly cheerful. ‘She has had enough of naughty little boys and girls and needs to spend time on her own. And you, young man, must not be selfish and stop her.'

I am already in the car. I want to scream at her not to say these things to him but I sit there, saying nothing, doing nothing as the motor moves off. I see my small son waving and tears fall down his cheeks. Lillian is happy with her new doll and does not need either comforting or explanations.
Why now?
I'm sure she is saying to herself.
Why should I want to understand them now?

I know from the smell of camphor that it's time for another treatment and I steel myself for what is to come. There is no point in begging for them to let it be, to stop. The treatment is doing me good, so they say. And this is not a bad place. There are locks but they are seldom used. We are even allowed to stroll freely in the grounds, though if we are found outside the perimeters we will be locked up.

The feelings of panic and terror that the camphor induces before the blessed fit takes over are hard to bear, especially when you know what to expect. And I do know. I have been here for three months now. I have not been allowed to see my children in all this time. I tell Arthur and Sir Charles – I tell them all, the doctors and the nurses – that if only I could see my children I might not need any further treatment, but of course they won't listen. When you are well no one notices you and when you are sick no one listens.

The door to my room opens and Sir Charles comes inside followed by two nurses. ‘Now, now, Mrs Blackstaff, let go of the bed and let us get started. You know it has to be.'

‘It's for your own good,' the young nurse says but she looks unhappy. Mostly the staff are kind.

I doze and in my sleepy state I think of them, of Georgie and Lillian, and how comfortable, how picture-perfect they looked having their tea with Jane Dale by the sitting-room fire. The curtains had not yet been drawn; it was only four o'clock but already it was getting dark. I used to dread the darkening evenings but lately they have become my friends. The doctors are surprised at how strong I am. But you have to be, to walk twelve miles in one night.

I am coming home. There they are, waiting at the door, my husband and my children; my family. I am crying as I step out
of the car helped by the chauffeur. Jane Dale appears behind them on the front steps. She looks so young although we are almost of an age. She is wearing a soft green dress that clings to her tiny figure. Lydia is not there, nor Nanny. My mother-in-law departed this life while I was away. Arthur came to see me at the clinic to break the news in person. He did not visit often; it was not judged to be in my best interests, he said. But he did come to tell me about Lydia having passed away and about Nanny having left. When I cried he thought I wept over his mother and, more tenderly than he has spoken to me for a long time, he said that I must not upset myself, that she had had a ‘good innings'. But it was for Nanny I wept. She had been my ally.

My husband kisses me on the cheek, gingerly as if he is afraid I burn. ‘Welcome home, my dear.'

Lillian allows herself to be embraced before running off to play with the new puppy. Georgie refuses to come near me, clinging to Jane Dale's arm. She is smiling, not at him, not at me, but to herself. I kneel in front of my son and put my arms out but he just fixes me with those eyes I love so well and refuses to leave Jane's side. I look up and meet her gaze and I see the triumph before she turns away to arrange a more suitable expression. ‘Kiss your mama, Georgie, and say welcome home,' she tells him but she keeps her hand on his shoulder.