Rosie (40 page)

‘This is Monica,’ Aylwood said, turning her head just slightly to where Rosie cowered in the doorway. ‘She’s thirty and she never speaks.’

Rosie could hardly bare to look. The woman wore nothing but a rough linen shift and her legs and arms were no thicker than a small child’s. But it was the face rather than the filthy state she was in which really appalled Rosie: contorted, bestial and savage. Her lips were drawn back revealing yellow teeth.

‘She’s the worst here,’ Saunders said as he and Aylwood dragged the woman towards the door past Rosie. ‘She isn’t human.’

Rosie thought she had never seen anything so vile as the way Saunders and Aylwood dragged that demented, shrieking woman along the corridor to the bathroom, her feet scrabbling uselessly at the floor. Yet she had no choice but to follow.

The bathroom wasn’t like the ones downstairs. There were two baths in it, one with a solid contraption over it which suggested patients were immersed, then locked in with only their heads sticking out. The rest of the space was taken up by a large white-tiled shower area, divided into three with metal partitions in-between. Aylwood manhandled Monica into the corner with Saunders holding her tightly from behind the partition, then Aylwood turned on the water and jumped back.

Monica’s scream proved the torrential water was icy, and the force of it made her cower back into the corner. But Saunders merely reached up and redirected the shower head right on to her and held her securely beneath it. To Rosie’s further horror, Aylwood picked up a long-handled brush and began to scrub Monica with it, her face, head and body. Monica’s shift slithered down to the shower floor at almost the first thrust of the brush and her body was so emaciated and covered with bruises that Rosie averted her eyes. She was acutely reminded of disturbing pictures she’d seen of inmates of the concentration camps in Germany.

‘There isn’t any other way to clean her,’ Aylwood shouted over the roar of the water. ‘So take that look off your face.’

Rosie was absolutely certain there must be a kinder way. It was like watching a cow or pig being scrubbed down ready to go to market, but no farmer she’d ever met was as rough as these two. Aylwood whacked the woman on her back, forcing her to bend over, then thrust the brush up between her legs to wash her there with almost vengeful pleasure.

Such barbarism was made worse by knowing that tomorrow Rosie would be expected to take Aylwood’s place. She just knew she couldn’t do it.

Monica continued to yell, but slowly it became less strident and interspersed with gasps and finally they turned off the shower. Saunders held her while Aylwood rubbed her down with a thin grey towel. They forced her arms back into a clean linen shift, then dragged the woman back down the corridor to a different room. Here without a word to Monica they forcibly pushed her in, then Aylwood locked the door.

As they went back down the corridor to fetch another patient, one of the domestics, Coates, was just finishing scrubbing out the room Monica had vacated.

‘Coates cleans out the rooms as we do the patients,’ Aylwood informed Rosie curtly. ‘If she’s slow tomorrow when I’m not here, shout at her. It causes problems if there isn’t a clean room to put them back in after their showers.’

Rosie didn’t think she’d ever have the nerve to even ask Coates to hurry, let alone shout at her. She was an ex-mental patient like all the domestics, a big raw-faced woman with purple hands the size of hams, who constantly muttered to herself. It was common knowledge that even Matron was nervous of upsetting her.

There were only nine patients in all, five women and four men. Rosie was surprised by this; she had always supposed there to be at least fourteen or so, and there were enough rooms up here for that many. Of these nine, only three more were dirty, two men and Mabel, the woman Rosie had heard wailing on her arrival at Carrington Hall. She had imagined someone able to keep up such a constant noise to be robust, a sort of stereotype madwoman like the wife of Mr Rochester in
Jane Eyre,
but she was nothing of the kind.

Mabel was just a frail old lady, so thin she could barely stand on her own, and her back was deformed. Her white hair was sparse, she hadn’t a tooth in her head and just one glance told Rosie that she wailed merely because she was in pain. Her heart went out to her. She wanted to pull Aylwood away from her, insist that Mabel was put in a wheelchair to take her to the bathroom. But she didn’t dare do or say anything.

Another two men and one woman were just wet, but all of them received the same appalling treatment as Monica, even though they showed no inclination to fight, and one of the men was so infirm and shaky he could barely stand. The last two females, one a young girl called Angela, the other a strapping great woman called Bertha, almost as tall and as heavy as Saunders, were allowed to use a toilet and then wash themselves under a warm shower, but Aylwood and Saunders still stood menacingly over them, allowing them no privacy.

Maureen had related many hideous tales of brutality at Luckmore Grange, including a description of bathing much like this, but Rosie had never imagined for one moment that such things could be condoned in a private home. In truth she had always suspected Maureen of wild exaggeration anyway.

Now in the face of what she’d seen, she did believe Maureen. She was appalled to think that she’d heard those terrible noises for so long, and been so suspicious, yet allowed herself to be convinced by others that it was none of her business. What sort of person was she that she could work, eat and sleep in a place, sensing that some thing was badly wrong, yet do nothing, say nothing?

Perhaps she was mistaken in thinking Aylwood and Saunders enjoyed humiliating and hurting these unfortunate people. Maybe time and experience would prove that they were merely callous rather than cruel. But all the patients had bruises and scars on their bodies. Every one of them had cowered away from their keepers like frightened dogs as their cell doors were opened. The rooms they were returned to had the mattresses and bedding removed for the day, leaving only the bare wooden base of the bed which was securely fixed to the floor. They had nothing, no clothes, shoes, personal possessions and absolutely no comfort. It was barbaric.

Rosie was acutely embarrassed to be forced to stand beside Saunders watching Angela and Bertha washing themselves. They looked perfectly capable of doing it unsupervised and even if a man was needed there for safety he could at least turn his back on them. She stole a sideways glance at him. He was watching Angela closely as she soaped her breasts and stomach, his tongue flickering across his lips.

Unlike the other patients, Angela was young and quite pretty, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, and her thick black naturally curly hair hadn’t been shorn off. She had a curvy, well-rounded body with small pert breasts and taut buttocks. There was a savage look in her eyes, and she was muttering and grunting just as much as some of the others had, but there was nothing repulsive about her.

The hairs on the back of Rosie’s neck stood on end as she saw Saunders’s response. Although she had no real experience of such things, she was sure that he was becoming aroused by looking at Angela. His expression reminded her uncomfortably of the way Seth had looked at women. She looked inquiringly towards Aylwood, perhaps hoping to have this thought squashed, but instead she saw an equally lascivious expression in her eyes too. But as if she sensed Rosie watching her she smirked.

‘I bet you’re wondering what she’s doing up here?’ she asked. ‘She looks harmless, doesn’t she? But believe me, Smith, she’s the most dangerous patient in Carrington Hall, far worse than Monica because she’s entirely unpredictable. She was down on the first floor when she first came here, until she attempted to strangle another patient. She tried to blind Sister Welbred with a fork once. She’s bitten and clawed everyone. She’s like a cobra, and you never know when she’s going to strike. So don’t give her an inch.’

The bathing was completed by half past eight, and by then Rosie had seen enough to want to run out of Carrington Hall and never return. But if she thought the bathing was inhumane, breakfast was to prove even worse.

Saunders went to one end of the corridor with Simmonds in tow. Aylwood and Rosie began at the other end. Rosie had a small tray shoved into her hands at the first door, a bowl of almost cold porridge, another bowl of equally cold scrambled egg, two slices of bread and marge and a mug of tea. Aylwood unlocked the door and walked in, then made Rosie stand with her back to the door to prevent the inmate making a break. This first patient was one of the old men; she wasn’t even told his name. He was sitting on the bare wood of the bed as Aylwood handed him the porridge. He lifted the bowl to his lips, sucking it down in one noisy slurp, then held his hand out for the scrambled egg which he ate with his hands. From starting his porridge to the final guzzle of his tea, the whole thing took less than two minutes. As they locked the door behind them on the way out, Rosie glanced back through the window and saw he was picking the spilt food off his shift and eating that too as if he was still hungry.

The next room was Mabel’s and she was already wailing again, lying down on her side on the bed rocking herself. Her thin bare legs were covered in hideous, bulging purple veins and she made no move to sit up for her food. Aylwood poured the porridge into a spouted feeding cup, added more milk and stirred it round. She advanced on Mabel, hauled her up by the shoulder, then holding the old lady’s neck in a vice-like grip, she literally poured it down her throat. Mabel was gagging as it went down, her arms waving frantically like sails of a windmill, but Aylwood didn’t slow down. When the cup was empty, she poured the tea into it, and that was force-fed too.

For some reason she wasn’t offered scrambled egg, perhaps because feeding her that required too much effort. Once the last dregs of tea were finished Aylwood indicated to Rosie that the job was completed, then locked the door behind them, leaving Mabel to her wailing again.

This procedure was repeated with everyone. No attempts at conversation or cajoling. If they didn’t eat willingly and fast, they were force-fed. Angela ate her porridge willingly enough, but knocked the bowl of scrambled egg out of Aylwood’s hand. Aylwood slapped her hard across the face, then holding her neck she forced the woman to get down on the floor and gobble up the spilt food like an animal.

Monica didn’t get any breakfast at all. Although she calmed down after her shower, Aylwood none the less gave her an injection which knocked her out. Rosie wondered if that was the reason Monica was so thin. If this happened every day she probably hardly ever got a meal.

Rosie was sitting on a chair in the corridor when Dr Freed arrived to do his rounds soon after ten that morning. She had been told by Aylwood that her duties until dinner time at twelve were merely to patrol up and down the corridor at regular intervals checking through the viewing panels. She didn’t even say what Rosie was supposed to be checking for, or what constituted an emergency. It sounded as if she just wanted the new girl out of her hair so she and Saunders could read their newspapers in peace.

All was quiet again. The patients, except for Monica, were sitting on the floor, just staring into space. Monica was out cold on the bed base without even a pillow or blanket. As Dr Freed came in escorted by Matron, Rosie jumped to her feet. She had seen the wiry little doctor innumerable times before downstairs, but she’d never spoken to him as Matron always accompanied him there too. He examined the patients in the treatment room next to the office and even if there were any instructions for the staff, they were rarely told about them.

‘Smith! Tell Staff Nurse Aylwood Dr Freed has come to do his rounds,’ Matron called out.

Rosie did as she was told, hoping that she’d get an opportunity to speak to him later on, but she didn’t. Saunders ordered her to go and make tea for them in the tiny kitchen at the end of the landing and by the time she got back to the office with a tray, Aylwood was there, sitting in an easy chair lighting up a cigarette. Saunders was perched on the desk talking to her.

‘I made some for the doctor, too,’ Rosie said nervously. ‘Is he in with one of the patients?’

Aylwood gave her a withering look. ‘He’s gone. Leave his tea, I’ll drink that too. Get on back to the corridor.’

Rosie slunk out, but there on her seat she could hear Aylwood and Saunders talking. She gleaned that the doctor had recommended electric shock treatment for Mabel and for one of the men. They didn’t even mention Monica.

As she sat there in the corridor without even a window to see out of, it suddenly occurred to her that she knew no more about mental illness now than when she had arrived here last September. She knew most of the patients downstairs were born with some brain damage. But what about the ones up here? Were they normal until some tragedy or trauma tipped them into the dark terrifying world they lived in now? And if this was the case, surely something could be done to help them?

It was sad enough downstairs to see adults just shuffling around all day with nothing to do, but at least they had the companionship of the other patients, the staff talked to them, and they could look out of the windows. These poor people up here had absolutely nothing, totally isolated, locked away from any human contact. Even the tiny windows in their cells were too high up for them to see out of. Rosie thought it would be better to die than be forced to live that way.

Rosie had never known time pass so slowly as it did that morning. Downstairs there had been the routine of cleaning and bed making, and chats with the other girls and patients to speed it along. But Coates did all the cleaning herself, and there was no one to talk to. Saunders was lounging in a small rest room further down the corridor, reading a newspaper and chain-smoking. Aylwood appeared to be doing some sort of paperwork in the office. Except for when Nurse Gladys Thorpe came up to help Aylwood take Mabel downstairs for her electric shock treatment there would be no further visitors to the ward until Simmonds arrived with the dinner trolley.