Silence for the Dead (5 page)

O
ver the next two days of grueling work, I came to know more about Portis House. I learned to coax water from the reluctant taps in the laundry, where we filled our buckets for daily washing. I learned how to rub polishing wax onto a floor so it wouldn't look opaque. How to buff the convoluted knobs of a brass bedstead without missing a spot. How to carry a bowl of hot soup up a flight of winding stairs without spilling any on the tray. How to fold a bedsheet properly at the corner of a bed, though I was slower and clumsier than Nina, and had to watch her more than once from the corner of my eye, admiring the fast, sure way she hefted the mattress with her beefy hands.

I also learned how to spend just five extra minutes in the lavatory, rubbing my aching feet; and, for a wonderful, beautiful quarter hour, I found a deserted spot outside the kitchen door, out of sight of the windows, where I smoked a cigarette, my eyes closed in a rapturous daze, the breeze blowing last autumn's leaves over the cobbles in front of me and out over the low, rolling grounds beyond.

West, the soldier with the missing legs, had lost them to a grenade lobbed into his trench by advancing German infantry; his fiancée had abandoned him after he came home in a wheelchair, and his family had sent him to Portis House after he'd embarrassed them by weeping at his coming-home party. Other men were here because of anger fits, drunkenness, the inability to get out of bed, and—the worst cases—delusions and even catatonia. The last catatonic patient, however, had been removed some three weeks earlier, it having been decided that Portis House was too remote and far too understaffed to care for such a case.

All of this I learned from Archie Childress, the soldier Nina had taken broth to on my first day. On the second day he was assigned to me. “He can't eat. You'll have to coax him,” was all Nina said. “You'll see for yourself.”

The infirmary was on the same floor as the men's bedrooms, though down a corridor and near the entrance to the west wing of the house, which was completely closed off. It was large enough to accommodate three beds, a working sink, a cupboard with linens and basins, two wooden chairs, and a small table, which I assumed was for dressings or doctors' instruments. It had a single window, and the patient lay here alone, unattended and looking at nothing. It took me a moment to realize that the room was so large because it had once been the master bedroom.

That first day I entered, carrying a bowl of hot soup and a cup of tea on a tray, I found a man sitting on one of the beds, fully clothed but for shoes, leaning on the headboard with his legs stretched out, his hands folded politely in his lap. The curtains on the window were closed and his face was half lit, though I could see he was too thin for the patient's uniform he wore.

I set the tray on the table and straightened. The quiet fell like a blanket. The man on the bed made no move.

Perhaps I should say something, I thought. No one had told me what ailed this man, so I had no idea what to expect. “I've come with your supper,” I said, my voice loud in the silence. He took a deep breath and shifted a little, and in the intimacy of that sound I realized this was the first time I'd been alone—completely alone—with a patient. We even had this section of the house to ourselves; the rest of the men, with the exception of mysterious Patient Sixteen, were downstairs. My throat closed a little.

What was I supposed to do? He didn't look feverish, or bleeding. What was wrong with him that he couldn't eat supper with the others? My back hurt; my hands stung from the disinfectant we'd used to wash the main-floor lavatory. My arms were shaking with exhaustion, but I readied myself anyway, wondering whether I could defend myself. He looked well enough to come off the bed and at me.

He breathed again—it sounded like a sigh this time. He leaned forward and unfolded his hands.

“My name is Nurse Weekes,” I said in my nervousness. “I can help you. That is—do you understand?” I bit my lip. “Can you speak?”

He leaned farther forward. His hands now rested on his narrow thighs, on their backs, cupped loosely as if waiting to catch something. The daylight filtering through the window made everything as sharp as a pencil drawing, and I saw that his hands shook, both of them, shuddering against the fabric of his trousers, an uncontrolled tremor that moved with its own rhythmic purpose. He curled forward over them a little, as if they were injured, looking down at them. He had sandy brown hair, a gaunt face, a narrow, well-shaped nose, lips set in a determined line. Stubble lined his jaw and cheeks.

I blew out a breath. The shaking hands must be why he had trouble eating. My mind turned the problem over. “Perhaps we could—”

“I sss—” The sound came from him in a resentful growl, and I stood in silent surprise, watching him wrestle with himself. “I speak,” he said finally to his hands. “It's just that I am tongue—that I am tongue-tied when I am around ladies.”

Well. No one had ever mistaken me for a lady, but I let it go. “You should eat something.”

“No, I'm quite well, thank you. Are you the new nurse? Nurse R— Are you Nurse Ravell's replacement?”

It was a curious stutter he had, in which he sometimes backed up and ran over his words again as if in a motorcar. “Yes, I suppose I am. Was she the one with the freckles?”

“Yes. A curious girl. Very—very quiet.” He glanced up at me, something embarrassed in his expression. “Do you know if she's all right?”

“I don't know, I'm afraid. I think she quit suddenly. You really should eat.”

“No, thank you. You sound—you sound like a London girl.”

“Yes.”

“That's nice.”

“Look, Mr. Childress—”

“Archie. Call me Archie.”

“Archie, then. You really—”

“How long have you worked here?”

Now I realized he was parrying me. “You should eat your supper.”

“No, I'm—I'm quite well, thank you.”

“But I just think you—”

“Do I
look
like I can eat my supper?”

His face flushed red. He was still but for his shaking hands, glaring at me.

I took a breath. I would not back up. I would not run. “You look like a man who can try.”

“Do you think I haven't tried? Do you?” Anger made his stutter disappear. “I have tried. My hands have been shaking for sixteen months. It takes an hour to cut and eat a simple piece of meat. I have to be—I have to be fed like a
child.
”

Suddenly I was near tears, wanting to scream. “Very well.” I turned for the door. “It's nothing to me. Good night.”

“What are you—?”

“I'm leaving,” I said, the words pouring out of me. “For God's sake. I'm tired, my feet are throbbing, my own supper is waiting, I'm bloody starving, and I have hours of work to do before bed. I've no time to coddle you while you feel sorry for yourself.”

“Wait.”

I paused, blinking hard, my face turned away from him.

“I'll t—” His stutter was back, and I winced. “I'll try. You're—you're right. And I—I am hungry.”

I heard the bed creak, and turned to see he had moved to the table and was sitting down before the bowl of soup. He took the spoon in one shaking hand, dipped it in the broth. I stood frozen by the door, watching in helpless fascination. The spoon lifted slowly, so slowly, from the bowl of soup. He levered the spoon up, with painful deliberation, the tremors shaking the liquid from side to side, jettisoning broth over the edges. By the time the spoon reached his mouth, only a tiny amount of liquid was cradled in the bottom; much of this was lost down his chin as he tried to empty the single swallow down his throat. The entire maneuver was executed in perfect silence.

Sixteen months like this,
I thought. All I could say was, “Archie.”

He dabbed the napkin to his chin with a shaking hand and looked me in the eye, speaking with perfect clarity. “You're not much of a nurse, are you?”

I shook my head. “No. Actually, I'm the worst nurse you've ever seen.”

Suddenly we were both laughing. And that's how I made friends with my first patient at Portis House.

•   •   •

“
Y
ou should be eating your meals downstairs,” I said to Archie the next night as we managed his soup. I'd dumped out his tea and transferred the soup into the cup. It wasn't perfect, but it had a better success rate than the spoon.

“Do you think this”—he gestured to the setup, he and I at the little table, trying to get food into him—“would go over well with the others?”

It wouldn't, of course. “I only meant that the infirmary is horrible, and you've nothing to do. You should at least be getting exercise with the other men.”

“I'm mas-master of the house here.” He gestured around the former master bedroom. “The finest—finest suite. And I have something to do now,” he said, taking a shaky sip of soup. “I can gossip about the others with you.”

“Is it so bad?” I said.

He shrugged. “Matron—Matron gives me extra time to eat my—meals in the dining room. I do—I do the best I can. The others like to have a go at me, especially Creeton, but I can—I can handle it.” He looked at me. “You're wondering why I'm in the infirmary, aren't you?”

“It crossed my mind.”

He scratched his forehead slowly, his hand juddering. “A few days ago I had a par—I had a par—” He took a breath. “I had a particularly difficult episode.”

That seemed to be all. I frowned at him. “What happened?”

Now he looked distressed. “I had a particularly difficult episode.”

“I'm sorry.”

He closed his eyes. “Is it Monday?”

“Yes.”

“The doctors will—will be here in two days, then. Wednesday is when they come. Matron said I'm to—to stay here until the doctors say I can leave. It's safer here.”

What did “safer” mean? I looked at his gaunt arms, his sunken cheeks. “You said you could handle it.”

“You don't—you don't like it here, do you?” he said.

I crossed my arms. “You're parrying me. Again.”

He smiled a little.

“Well,” I said, “perhaps it's best if you do come down. It's extra work to bring your meals, you know. You and the mysterious Patient Sixteen.”

A spark of interest crossed Archie's eyes. “He hasn't come down, then?”

“No.”

“I see.”

I pictured a man disfigured, his face part gone, or maybe burned away. Ally had seen men like that in London, their noses blasted off or their eyes seared shut, and she'd been quiet when she spoke of them, dragging painfully on her cigarette, her eyes looking old. “I don't even know what he looks like,” I ventured, hoping for a warning. “The other nurses take him his meals. I haven't seen him.”

“You won't,” said Archie, the words slipping out softly as if he spoke to himself. “They won't let you see him.”

I looked at him, stunned. “What do you mean, they won't let me?”

He dropped his gaze and stirred his soup, the neck of the spoon chattering gently against the lip of the cup. “Ask them,” he said. “You'll see.”

“
P
atient Sixteen,” said Boney as we cleared plates from the empty dinner tables, “is a special case. A
confidential
case.” She raised her chin. “The fact is, you don't yet have clearance.”

“What does that mean?” I protested. I'd thought I had a handle on the politics here, but I could see that I'd been wrong. The idea panicked me a little. “How can I need clearance to give a man his supper?”

The inevitable words came from Boney's mouth: “Matron's orders. Nurses come and go here. Not all of them are trustworthy. The clearance to deal with Patient Sixteen is not given until a nurse has proven herself to Matron.”

With what Matron knew about me, the likelihood of her giving me clearance was almost nil. Not that I cared about it, of course. “Listen,” I said. “The doctors come on Wednesday. Nina told me that the patients have to attend the group sessions. So it mustn't be so secret then.”

“Patient Sixteen is an exception.” Boney stared disapprovingly at my confusion. “The doctors see him in private. His door is allowed to be closed, but not locked. He is not to mix with the other patients. He does not attend group sessions, meals, or exercise. Paulus Vries and two other orderlies have clearance, as well as Nurse Beachcombe and Nurse Shouldice, myself and Matron. And no one else.”

“Why?” I asked, though I already knew it was futile to try to get Boney to spill anything. “What's wrong with him?”

“That's not for you to know. And only nurses with clearance can assist the doctors at all. You've only been here three days, and you've proven yourself sloppy and insolent. If you think you'll get clearance, you're sadly mistaken.”

She said those words—“the doctors”—with such righteous awe it was obvious she had her precious clearance. I thumped a stack of plates on the cart. Of course I was sloppy—I had no idea how to nurse. And as for the insolence, well, this was my attempt to be
nice
. Boney had no idea what thoughts I clamped my jaw on daily.

“Just keep trying,” said Boney with a superior smirk as she pulled the cart into the hall. “It takes time. The last girl wasn't here long enough to get clearance before she left. Improve your attitude and perhaps Matron will consider you. Now—please go see Paulus. He's to give you some work to do.”

Paulus Vries wore the orderly's uniform of shirt and trousers of white canvas, and sported a thick mat of pale, springy hair on his forearms past the short sleeves of his shirt. He wiped his large hands on a towel as he spoke to me, regarding me with indifferent eyes. “It's the lav,” he said without preamble. “All that knocking in the pipes, and the toilet won't stop gurgling. Do you have the same problem in the nurses'?”

I shook my head. The nurses had their own lavatory on the third floor, near the old nursery where we slept. The patients shared a lavatory on the second floor, on the east side of the house that contained their rooms. The infirmary was the only room with a separate bathroom.

“Well, it's a problem,” Paulus told me. “The fellows have been complaining about the noise, and it isn't just in their barmy minds, either. There are sounds, and a smell, too. Probably an animal in the walls chewing the pipes, or something's died in there. It's driving some of them more out of their minds than they already are.”

I frowned. We were standing in the downstairs hallway, just outside the kitchen, and orderlies brushed past us back and forth. “That's all very interesting. Why is it to do with me?”

“Because two of my men did a bit of exploring in the drains with a length of rubber hose, and something in there was backed up nasty. Caused a bit of a mess.” He tucked the towel into the waistband of his trousers.

I waited for him to go on, but he didn't. “I'm to clean it?” I asked. “Is that what you mean?”

He shrugged. “I'll carry the mop and pail up for you if you like.”

“A nurse?” I said. “A nurse is supposed to mop the patients' lav? That's orderly work.”

“Not today, it isn't. Matron's orders.”

I watched him, feeling sick, as he pulled a heavy metal bucket and thick mop from the closet.
She's testing me,
I thought as I followed him up the east staircase.
Of course she is. She wants to see if I'll quit, like the others.

The smell hit me before we even approached the lavatory door. It was a dank, horrible miasma, not a smell of bodily fluids, but of something rotting. It seemed to creep from the crack under the closed door like a living thing. My stomach turned.

Paulus seemed not to notice, or perhaps he'd smelled worse. As he approached the door, a voice came from the hall behind us. “Sister!”

Creeton stood in the open doorway to his room, watching us. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the doorframe, taking in the bucket and mop and starting to grin. I turned away.

“What a good little nurse you are,” Creeton called after me. “Cleaning up like this. We're a bunch of brutes here, I'm afraid. It looks like someone left a nice present in the lav just for you.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Sweet scented and something to remember us by.” He laughed. “Has any man ever given you a present quite so nice?”

“Leave off,” said Paulus. “You're supposed to be downstairs in the common room.”

“I forgot something. I'm glad I did now. This is much better than watching Somersham giggle or Mabry mop his bloody nose.”

I found I was gripping the mop handle, my hold so tight my knuckles were white. I'd been heckled before, plenty of times, but there was something about being heckled by Creeton that made my skin crawl.

“You go,” Paulus said over my head to Creeton, “or I'll carry you down there myself.”

But Creeton's steps left the doorway and came toward us. “I want to watch. Will she be on her knees scrubbing, Vries? I'd like to see that.”

“You go,” said Paulus again, as I stared at the door and smelled the unspeakable smell, “or I get angry.”

There was a long pause, as if Creeton was weighing his chances; then his steps turned away with the same slow, deliberate insolence he'd used on Matron. I brushed a forearm over my eyes.

Paulus was watching me. There was no mockery in his expression, but there was no pity, either. “You have to,” he said simply. “It's her way. You either do this now, or you do something else later. Something worse.”

I nodded.

He put his hand on the doorknob. “Just don't vomit. If you do, I have to tell her.” He opened the door.

It was the largest, most modern bathroom I'd ever seen, and if it didn't have a vile sort of black mold sprayed over it, I'd have thought it beautiful. A claw-foot tub dominated one corner; in the other was a sink, elaborately styled, and a toilet. In an oval mirror mounted on the wall, set in a gold-painted frame, I could see a matching footbath on the facing side of the room. Tiles of pristine white set in a diamond pattern covered the floor, and smaller tiles hand-painted with blue flowers decorated the walls. Over it all, above the bathtub, was a high window, opaque with blue-and-white stained glass.

They had put the hose down the drain in the bathtub; most of the mess was concentrated there. Something was spattered on the walls, black and dripping over the pretty hand-painted blue. It seeped from the edge of the bathtub and pooled on the floor, running between the tiles. The stench was rotten. As I stood in the doorway, a black drop disengaged itself from the curled edge of the tub and landed on the floor with a fat
plip
.

I put a hand over my mouth. “How did they manage to do this?”

“A hose has two ends, doesn't it?” said Paulus. “What came up one end came out the other. They tried to put it in a bucket, but you can see it didn't work very well.”

“But what
is
it?”

“Buggered if I know. Something dead, most like, as I said. It made a sound coming up— Well, I've put the soap in the bucket. Just do the best you can.”

I couldn't even nod.

“I'll be outside the door,” he added before he left. “I'm needed in the kitchen, but I can stay a few minutes. In case Creeton comes back.”

Then Paulus was gone, and I was alone. I filled the bucket in the sink, turning the pretty china taps. I soaped the mop and began to clean, my eyes watering from the smell. I started on the floor, but the black stuff smeared and wouldn't come off. I scrubbed harder, dousing with more soap and water. It was definitely some kind of disgusting mold, thick and viscous, blackening the grout. Suddenly I was thirteen again, cleaning my father's vomit from the floor of our rancid old flat, my stomach heaving at the sour smell, sweat dripping from my forehead into the mess, trying not to clatter the brush against the bucket, trying not to make any sound as he slept in the next room.
Please, please, don't let him wake up. Please
—

There was a sound in the wall.

I stopped. It came again—a low groan from deep in the building, far off and down below. Somewhere, something clanged against a metal pipe with a hollow sound. I'd been at Portis House for three days, and I'd never heard anything like it.

I stood frozen, half bent over my mop, cold sweat on my temples, staring at the wall.

It wasn't a precise, mechanical sound; the groan came and went, now closer, now seeming farther away, like breathing. The clangs came irregularly, and then came a low ticking, as of something dripping in rhythm. It sounded for a while—
tick, tap, tick
at perfect intervals—and stopped.

“Paulus?” I said.

My breath came hard in my chest. It was just the house, of course—the walls settling, water coming from somewhere in the roof. It was a big place, and there were bound to be sounds. The groan came again, and I pressed my eyes shut. For some reason, the thought I'd just had came to my mind again.
Please, please, don't let him wake up
 . . .

The noise eased off and quiet fell again. I dunked the mop into the bucket and scrubbed with renewed vigor. The sooner I got out of this horrible, solitary bathroom, the better.

As I finished the floor, my arms shaking with strain, there was a single far-off clang. I jumped as if someone had touched me. Behind me the toilet gurgled and I nearly dropped the mop handle, grasping it again at the last second and leaning on it like an old woman, my heart pounding. The sound from the toilet was thick and sucking. I kept my back to it and imagined turning around to look, seeing black mold in there instead of water. I deliberately walked away and twisted the taps on the bathtub, letting the gush of water drown out the sound.

Leave. Just get out of here.

And tell Matron I couldn't do it? No. I can't.
I needed this job.
Needed
it. Matron was looking for a reason to dismiss me.
She's told you to clean the bathroom. So stop jumping at sounds and bloody well clean it.

It took another half hour with a scrub brush to clean the bathtub, and by the time I finished, I was wet with sweat, tendrils of hair coming from my braids. My sleeves—even though I wore them at the shorter, elbow length, as always—were edged in black at the cuffs, and I had wet smears on the chest and front of my apron. My arms shook with the strain of scrubbing, and I could smell myself, the rotten smell of the mold mixed with the pungent odor of sweat.

But the lav was clean. I dropped the brush in the empty bucket and ran my forearm over my eyes. I suddenly felt like weeping. Nothing was worth this—nothing. This humiliation, this disgusting work under a woman determined to break me. I'd sold my pride, bartered my soul for a job. But what did it matter? Who cared about the pride and the soul of one stupid girl? I didn't even have enough train fare to leave.

In the wall behind me, the groaning started again, far off and low. I gripped the bucket and raced for the door, away from that horrible sound that seemed to crawl up my spine, to grip my brain. I had to get out, get out.
Don't let him wake up, don't let him wake up, don't let him—

Paulus Vries was not outside the door. He'd had to go back to the kitchen, leaving me alone in there, if he'd ever stayed at all. I closed the door behind me and set down the bucket, the sweat on my body and neck icy cold. My head throbbed and I looked around the dim corridor, part of me surprised to find I wasn't actually in our old flat, dizzy with exhaustion from a sleepless night. I was only in the east wing of Portis House, in a hallway lined with the men's bedroom doors, quiet now as all the patients were down in the common room, the last of the twilight fading into darkness. I could no longer hear sounds in the walls; but whether they'd stopped, or I could just no longer hear them, I had no idea.

My eyes burned with some unnameable emotion, and my legs felt weak. I was still standing there, trying to gather the strength to take a single step forward, when someone came toward me down the hall. It was a heavy, skirted silhouette—Nina, I already knew from the slouch of the shoulders.

Her doughy face looked alarmed, her eyes frazzled behind her glasses. “Kitty—for God's sake. Where have you been?”

My voice croaked. “Matron's orders.”

She glanced down at the bucket and the blackened mop. “Oh. Well, she could have picked a better time, I have to say. West's legs are hurting him, one of the others needs a headache powder, and I've just realized I never collected the supper dishes from Patient Sixteen. If the kitchen tells Matron, she'll kill me.”

“It's all right,” I heard myself say, as if from far away. “I'm finished now. I'll get the supper dishes for you.” When Nina paused, her expression uncertain, I pushed on. “Don't worry. I have clearance. Boney just told me tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. You go get the headache powder. I'll collect the dishes and bring them down.”