Disturbing Ground (9 page)

“Miners’ white finger.”

“Yes - that’s right - from holding the drills. I just tell him. It’s too bloody late now for all these regrets. The damage has been done.”

But
these
were
not
tales
bizarre
enough
to
upset
the
resident
population
of Triagwn
nor
were
they
the
ramblings
of
an
erod
ing
mind.
They
were
the
truth.
Smithson
was
an
old
man
who
had
finally
discovered
his
conscience.
Sandra was right. It was too late for regrets. But the tales were not bizarre. There must be more. She kept her eyes trained on Sandra Penarth. “And?”

“Some really silly old stories,” she finally admitted reluctantly, “about children who have disappeared, one of them buyin’ chips. Another little thing who never stopped chattering. Then he talks about old ghosts,” she added reluctantly, “people dying. Crawling through the mine workings. Vanishing when they shouldn’t have done. A teacher who never turned up to class. They’re bloody mad.”

“Does he mean mine accidents, do you think?”

“If he means mining accidents,” Sandra said severely, “then he shouldn’t talk about people’s faces all covered in blood, about them still lying under the ground, tapping at the ventilation shafts, trying to crawl out, still covered in that horrible coal dust. Saying he can make people appear and reappear. Like he was some magician.”

Now Megan was smiling too.

But Sandra’s blood was up. “There’s patients here who’ve lost family in pit accidents. Old people dwell on these sorts of things. Tragedies. Upsets them. Mrs Price Morgan lost her husband in an explosion down the pit. He was only young and old Smithson going on about it brings it all back, see?”

Megan nodded. She did see.

“And he must have heard about poor old Bianca because he was sayin’ he could remember her falling into the fountain when she was small and how they all thought she was dead. Then he really offended everybody by bursting out laughing and saying she drowned in the end anyway so why did they bother to pull her out. They may as well have left her there. I ask you … Gave a lot of offence. I mean Bianca was quite popular here.”

Megan felt her jaw drop. “I’d forgotten,” she said slowly. “I’d completely forgotten. She worked here, didn’t she?” So it was explained.
Bianca
had
shared
her
stories
with
Geraint
Smithson.
And
now
Smithson
suffered
the
very
same
delusions,
mixed
with
guilty
fact
-
that
as
the
mine
owner
he
was
responsible
for
some
of
the
suffering
that
had
happened
beneath
the
ground
of Llancloudy.
And
as
his
brain
aged
he
had
become
less
able
to
distinguish
between
Bianca’
s
mad
tales
and
his
own
true
stories.
They
had
become
muddled,
jumbled
togeth
er,
inextricably
tangled.

Sandra was still talking about Bianca. “She worked
very hard. She wasn’t lazy like some of the other cleaners. Didn’t rest on her brush for half an hour or have long tea and fag breaks. Oh - I admit. She was slow. Awful slow sometimes. I could have shaken her to move a bit faster. But she did her job. She was reliable and the patients here liked her. She was funny and strange but we knew her. It wasn’t her fault that sometimes she’d seem like she was in a world of her own. She turned up. She was honest and she didn’t mind what task you set her. Scrubbin’ toilets, cleanin’ floors. Never too proud to do the humblest of jobs. We’ll miss her. And the way she died. Well. It was a horrible accident.”

“Yes. Yes.” Megan stopped outside one of the doors. “Well - let’s have a look at Mr Driver, shall we, Sandra?”

“He’s got a visitor,” she said as she pushed the door open. “An old friend of his from down the mine.”

The friend stood up as they entered. Megan knew him immediately. The small, wiry man, who had seemed so angry at Bianca’s funeral. Here, then, was a connection and possibly an explanation. Maybe his anger had been justified. Bianca had been popular here. She had been held in some affection by staff and patients alike. Her death must have seemed an uneccessary waste.

“I suppose you want me to get out.” As expected his voice was truculent.

“Would you mind, Mr Jones. The doctor just wants to have a quick look at your friend.”

The man left but Megan could have sworn he muttered something under his breath. It sounded like, “For what good it’ll do.”

She shrugged and concentrated on her patient.

The matron was right about old Mr Driver. Barely conscious with a distinct death rattle in his throat and skin a pale waxy colour that meant only one thing. Megan
listened to his chest and confirmed her initial suspicion that he had only days left to live. At ninety-one he would fail to reach his century. She discussed his care with Sandra, the visitor filed back to his vigil and they continued along the first floor corridor, visiting a few more of the inmates until they reached room four.

She bumped into Geraint Smithson just outside his room. He was a tall man with an aristocratic air only slightly marred by his cardigan wrongly buttoned, slippers on the wrong feet giving him the air of walking, crab-like, in a strange direction and trouser flies left undone.

“Good morning, Geraint.” Megan greeted him warmly, ignoring Sandra Penarth deftly dealing with the fly buttons.

He seemed oblivious to the attentions and returned her grin. “Well, how are you, Doctor Banesto?”

He had called her by her married name even though she had changed it professionally only three years ago. It didn’t fit in with senile dementia. Senility erases recent memory leaving its victims trapped in the past. Sometimes their ancient past. Octogenarians have been known to cry out for their mothers, their schoolfriends, brothers and sisters, forgetting they have spouses, children, children’s children - and even sometimes great-grandchildren.

Her curiosity was pricked. “I’ve heard you haven’t been too well, Mr Smithson.”

He looked past her, straight at the matron. “Can I have a word with you, doctor?” He spoke deliberately. “In private.”

“Of course. Look, Sandra. I’ll see myself out after I’ve chatted to Mr Smithson. He’s the last of the patients, isn’t he? Don’t bother waiting around. I’ll give you a ring if there’s anything particular.” She didn’t know why she
was dismissing the matron. Only that he wanted it and that she should comply.

Sandra gave her a swift, warning glance which Megan ignored even though they both knew that interviews with disturbed patients were safer accompanied. By ignoring this first rule Megan knew she was silently questioning the fact that Smithson senior was disturbed. Certainly she felt no unease as she followed him into his single room and closed the door - breaking rule number two.

She sat on the chair, he on the bed, his eyes fixed down at his hands fiddling nervously with the cardigan. Something really was bothering him. She waited until finally he looked up.

“Things have begun to prey on my mind, doctor,” he began. “Things that happened many years ago. I had responsibilities, you see. As a mine owner I was in charge of the men.”

“But your family sold out to the Coal Board years ago.”

“I know that. But the harm was done by my family.”

“You shouldn’t feel responsible. It was a different world then. So much less was known about the medical side effects caused by working on the coal face.”

“Things that were wrong in the nineteen fifties are wrong today. The same things.”

“I don’t understand.”

The old man’s eyes gleamed with a strange fanaticism. “Then that’s where you’re not so smart as some that are labelled mad.”

She knew whom he meant and wondered what strange conversations he and Bianca must have held. Geraint Smithson returned her stare with a touch of defiance and something else. An unexpected and triumphant lucidity which felt more threatening than the senility she had been anticipating. Megan felt very uncomfortable - as
though there were a third person here, in the room with them. Then she felt angry with herself. She was a doctor. With a patient in a bustling nursing home. She was surrounded by real people. Not alone. And certainly not accompanied by ghosts. She was merely confronted by a man whose mind was surely beginning to fray at the edges. And she felt threatened?

Smithson continued smiling blandly at her until his eyes veered away - towards the window. And following his glance and straightening up a little she saw - quite plainly - the fountain; chubby cherub doing ungainly arabesque and spewing water from his mouth. She looked back at the old man and recognised that he saw much much more than simply the fountain. His vision extended to include not only current reality but past events, fact and fiction.

He stood up. Tall, much taller than she, and bent over her so she could smell his nearness - tobacco, old clothes, carbolic soap. “I’ve been resident in this house for more than ninety years,” he said. “I’ve seen plenty happen. Good and bad. I remember things that went on many many years ago, before you were born. Now I’m tired and I want to go to the grave with my slate wiped clean of all the memories. But no one will listen to me. They call me mad. They try and make me sleep twenty-four hours a day. They tell me to shut up. But they won’t listen.” He sank back on the bed and covered his face with his hands. “I only want to die with a clean soul,” he said. “A clean heart. The
Colon
Lân
of the song. It’s not a lot to ask, is it, doctor?” He was wringing his hands with sudden, acute anguish. “The trouble is I don’t know how I’m going to achieve it if nobody will listen to me.”

Her
judgement
was
clinical.
The
emotional
lability
was
sure
ly
a
sign
of
a
failing
intellect.

“Perhaps the clergy …?”

Smithson responded with fury. “I’m not a bloody Catholic. Welsh Methodist. That’s what I am. Have been all my life. I’m not about to recant like a tortured infidel.”

It called for quick salve and a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t suggesting you were, Mr Smithson. But surely - even the Welsh Methodists can give you some absolution.” Quickly she read his rejection of the word and substituted. “Peace of mind.”

“Peace of mind, doctor?” The old man’s face was screwed up in agony. “Peace of mind? Who the hell do you think can give me peace of mind? Have you any idea what’s playing around in my head? Sin and corruption. Children gone missing. Mothers going to look for them. And never finding them. Fathers grieving for their sons and daughters. Not knowing they’re underneath? Underneath, I tell you. Right under their feet. Brothers. Sisters. Old people. Young people. All come to haunt me they are. Ghosts. They’re still there, doctor. Underneath us. And I dug the grave.” His wild eyes dropped towards the floor.

And Megan knew now why the matron had tried to warn her. Beneath a cloak of politeness and normality, uncontrollable anger was welling up inside him. He had lost control. His id was no longer restrained by his ego. It was making him insane. She edged nearer to the door.

The old man advanced towards her. “Now I’ve frightened you, haven’t I? Want to get out now, don’t you? Want to escape. Get away from the mad man.”

He
was
mocking
her
nervousness.

“I tell you, doctor. Maybe I am mad. It’s possible. Even a sane person would finally crumble when locked inside their head are events so terrible I can’t close my eyes. I dare not sleep. She knew. She could understand. She told
me all about it, confided in me, see. I listened to her. Why will no one listen to me?”

Dignity abandoned, Megan walked out of the room as quickly as she could, her heart pounding.

Insanity
has
this
effect
on
us.
As
though
it
was
an
infectious
disease,
we
want
to
limit
contact.
Remove
normal
values
and
we
panic.

And Wainwright’s words sat at the back of her mind like a bag of stones.

“It
is
not
unusual
for
people
who
have
delusions
to
retain
a
good
deal
of
perception
and
keep
in
touch
with
reality.
”

She could not remember an occasion when she had felt so intimidated by a patient. Even Bianca had not had this effect on her. She ran down the staircase and out of Triagwn then stepped outside into the clean, pure sunshine. She needed to calm herself.

Once through the garden door she was in a dark funnel of trees: yew, pine and other evergreens which leaned together to form a passage with a subterranean feel. Beneath her feet was a carpet of silent needles. In the few spots where the trunks were not placed too close together she could glimpse daylight; dazzling bright triangles of blue that gave an illusion of unreality as though she were peering from a darkened auditorium onto a lit stage.