Mouse (21 page)

Aunty Liz put a hand to her forehead. ‘That’s far too late, young man; the damage is irreparable. Right, let’s have that cup of tea, shall we?’

Edith stifled a chuckle and Vince scowled at her.

*  *  *  *

‘She used to be married,’ Edith whispered. ‘It was her husband who had her put into
Bartholomew Place
when he couldn’t cope. She was there more than two years, I think. They divorced.’

They were sat scrunched up together on a small sofa; on either side of them a pile of clothes in carrier bags. The living-room, if anything, was worse than the hall. Vince could just about see the corner of a television poking out from behind a pile of wooden tea chests that appeared to be filled with nothing but old copies of The Radio Times. You could hardly move –
breathe
, even – for crap, he thought.

‘And you say she’s better now?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I would have hated to have seen her when she was worse.’ He nodded towards a door. ‘What’s she doing? She’s been in there ages. It’s only a pot of tea she’s supposed to be making, not the pot itself.’

‘You’re so impatient!’ she chastised lightly. ‘Nothing’s that simple with Aunty Liz. There are all manner of rituals to get through, all in a set order, and if she misses one or screws it up, she has to begin all over again.’

After what seemed an age Aunty Liz came in bearing a tray, which she carefully put down on the edge of a coffee table before them. Vince automatically went to move a pile of paperback books out of the way.

‘No!’ she cried, and his hand jerked back as if stung. ‘Leave all those just as they are; it’s important they stay that way – can’t you see, young man?’

He nodded quickly. ‘Yes, I can. Now that you mention it.’

She sat down on a padded chair, which was in the in the slow process of losing its padding from various rips and tears. A cat jumped up onto her lap and stared an unforgiving stare at Vince. ‘He’s a bright boy,’ she said to Edith as if Vince weren’t in the room. ‘Where did you find him?’

‘He works at the Empire cinema, Aunty Liz, as a projectionist.’

‘Really? Does that kind of job pay enough to get married on?’

‘Aunty Liz!’ said Edith, her cheeks at once flushing the brightest pink. ‘We’re not getting married!’

‘What? Oh dear! You’re not going to live in sin, are you?’ She wagged a finger at Vince. ‘That’s not the way to behave, young man. You must make an honest woman out of her. You do know she’s a miracle baby, don’t you,
Vernon
?’

‘Vince,’ he corrected.

‘He doesn’t want to hear that, Aunty…’ said Edith.

‘But you
are
a miracle, darling! You shouldn’t be here! And miracles deserve better treatment that this.’ She glowered at Vince. ‘My sister couldn’t have a baby, they told her, but Edith here was born against all the odds. She is a bona fide miracle.’

‘I’m not, Aunty, really…’ said Edith.

‘Don’t argue, dear, I know a miracle when I see one. Barren, she was, your mother. Unable to bear children. God smiled on her and gave us you, our little Edith!’ She turned to Vince. ‘So you will marry her.’ She began to look around the room.

‘What are you looking for, Aunty?’

‘My hat, of course!’

‘Which hat, Aunty?’

‘The one I shall be wearing at your wedding, silly! It’s here somewhere.’

Edith passed Vince a cup of tea. She caught more than a glimmer of alarm in his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about the hat just yet, Aunty Liz, there’s plenty of time. I’d like to ask you a question or two, if I can?’

Her attention snapped back. ‘Yes, dear, fire away.’

Bartholomew Place
,’ she said. ‘You do remember that, don’t you?’

She smiled sweetly and forgivingly. ‘Do you think me dotty or something? Of course I remember it.’ She bent closer to them both, her voice lowered by an octave. ‘It’s where they put people who were not quite right in the head, dear.’

‘Where is it, Aunty Liz?’

She sat back. ‘Oh, it’s over the border in
Dorset
. Not far outside
Dorchester
. Such a dreary old building. Some say it used to be a former workhouse and whether that was true or not it looked the part. It had high walls, like a prison, you might say, in case any of the nutters escaped. You wouldn’t want that, would you, mad people running like crazy all over the town?’ She gave a chiming little chuckle.

‘Do you remember being there, Aunty?’ she probed gingerly.

‘Yes, like it was yesterday. I was posted there in a governmental advisory capacity,’ she said with authority. ‘I was brought in to sort things out, to bring a bit of order to the place. That’s what I was doing there. It wasn’t an easy time for me, mind, being amongst all those crazy people, dribbling, moaning, screaming or wetting themselves all over the place. But one had a job to do.’

‘Do you remember anyone called Laura Leach being inside
Bartholomew Place
?’ Vince asked.

‘Most definitely. Laura had been in a long time before I went there, and she was in when I left.’

Vince’s heart sank. ‘The same Laura Leach who lives out at
Devereux
Towers
?’

‘The one and the same. Her father was instrumental in having her committed, they say; pushed for her to be sectioned.’

‘Why? What was so wrong with her?’

‘Ah, I don’t rightly know. Some really terrible thing had happened, that much was obvious. I mean, you wouldn’t be in
Bartholomew Place
all those years without something being dreadfully wrong. One minute she’d be as placid as a little lamb – never talking, mind you, all blank eyes, that kind of thing; and the next thing, well, screaming so much that you feared her lungs would pop with it, a regular banshee, tearing at her hair and arms in a most frightening way. They’d sedate her and lock her away in restraints when she was like that. Then you’d never see her for ages. They tried all sorts to cure her of whatever was wrong with her – ice-cold baths, electric shocks, all the most modern treatments, but she never got any better whilst I was there.’

‘That’s so sad,’ said Edith, glancing at Vince’s crestfallen face.

‘The screaming fits were the worst thing,’ Aunty Liz continued. ‘At those times she’d call out someone’s name over and over again.’

Vince’s ears pricked. ‘Whose name?’

Liz had to trawl through her fogged memories. ‘Gosh, now there’s a thing. Who was it now?’ She fell into what appeared to be a semi-trance-like state and Vince was on the edge of getting concerned for her when she said, ‘Alan! That’s who it was – Alan. Over and over and over, till they put her to sleep.’

‘Have you any idea who this Alan was, or why she’d be calling his name?’ Vince asked.

‘No, hang on…’ she said. ‘It wasn’t Alan, it was Alex, and it wasn’t just Alex she called; she used to shout,
Alex, I’m sorry…
’ She smiled a self-congratulatory smile. ‘That’s what she used to say.’

‘What was she sorry for, Aunty?’ Edith pursued.

‘For whatever terrible thing she’d done to Alex, what else?’ said Liz.

Vince felt decidedly uncomfortable now. He lowered his gaze and studied his hand on his lap. ‘I’m sure she’s better now,’ he ventured. ‘She has to be, hasn’t she? I mean, they wouldn’t have let her out otherwise, would they?’

Aunty Liz swung her head slowly. ‘No one as bad as that can ever truly get better, can they?’ she said, her eyes sombre and inward-looking. ‘It’s always there, just below the surface, like flowing water beneath a crust of ice. You never know when the ice will crack and the water will come gushing out again.’

*  *  *  *

The man from the fire brigade was not very happy with the situation. The Empire was undergoing its annual fire check and, as far as he was concerned, things were not looking good. The fire officer had dragged Martin Caldwell out of his office to go through a list of possible fire hazards and things that ought to be in place that simply weren’t in place. It was an accident waiting in the wings, he’d prophesised in a deep, doom-laden voice.

Caldwell
felt like a school kid all over again, remembering his father standing with his school report in his hand and going through the shocking grades and comments one by one. The fire officer was doing the same, in the same manner – blunt, not a hint of humour.

‘Death by burning isn’t a nice prospect, Mr Caldwell,’ he warned, leading him through corridors, into rooms, pointing out
what seemed a mountain of minor problems
that needed to be addressed before the Empire would get issued with a fire certificate. They eventually reached the basement. ‘What’s behind this locked door?’ he asked, trying the handle.

‘Nothing,’ said
Caldwell
. ‘There’s a flight of stone steps leading to an empty room, and there’s a well in one corner, that’s all.’ He didn’t mention the pile of nitrate-based films Vince still hadn’t shifted. Films t
hat might combust.

‘You don’t use it for storage, anything like that? Nothing combustible?’

He was like a fucking mind reader,
Caldwell
thought uncomfortably. ‘Nothing in there except fresh air.’

The officer went over to inspect a couple of rusting hooks in the wall near the door. He looked at a list on his clipboar
d. ‘What’s happened to the fire-
axe that used to hang here, near the fire blanket?’ he asked stiffly.

‘No idea,’ he admitted. ‘It appears to be missing.’

‘Find it or provide another,’ he said shortly, making a note on his sheet. ‘It’s there for a reason.’ He handed
Caldwell
the sheet of paper. ‘Take care of all these things otherwise you won’t get your certificate.’

‘Sure,’ said
Caldwell
walking the officer to the rear door and bidding him goodbye. ‘I can do without this shit,’ he said under his breath. He went up to the projection booth to find Vince. He handed him the sheet of paper. ‘Here, see to this lot, will you?’

He took the sheet. ‘This really isn’t my job, Mr Caldwell. Mrs Kimble, she always saw to the fire checks…’

‘Fuck Mrs Kimble. There isn’t any Mrs Kimble and I can’t get anyone to come and replace Monica, even temporarily. Just take care of it.’

He stormed from the room leaving Vince in a daze. The man was getting too edgy, he thought, and more than that his bleary eyes was a dead giveaway to his constant drinking. If head office caught him doused up like that he’d be for the chop, no mistake.

But Vince had other, more pressing things on his mind. His meeting with Katherine for one, and what he ought to tell her. The trip to see Edith’s aunt had really unsettled him. What if it were all true about Laura? There again, could you really trust the word of a woman who had spent time in
Bartholomew Place
herself and took orders from Marilyn Monroe? And though he had been fighting against it, he was starting to like Edith in a way that began to conflict with his love for Laura. It was like he was being unfaithful to her by allowing the feelings room to grow.

Vince hung back after everyone had left at the end of the day, waiting in the yard till he was certain he was completely alone. He sat there in the dark, growing tenser by the minute till he heard a car pull up outside the gates. He went out to meet Katherine who came to stand in the entrance to the yard.

‘Well, Vince, what have you got for me?’ she asked.

He wasn’t certain, but some of the swagger had gone from her voice. ‘Laura was in
Bartholomew Place
for years,’ he said.

‘So? Is she crazy?’

‘She’s not in the institution now,’ he defended.

‘What put her there?’ She sensed his reluctance. ‘Tell me, you little squirt, or I’ll make it bad for you.’

‘It sounds like something she did. Nobody’s certain what that was but it sounded serious enough for her to be committed to
Bartholomew Place
.’

‘What else, Vince? Come on, you’re holding something back.’

‘She used to cry out someone’s name – someone called Alex. Alex, I’m sorry, she’d say.’

‘Who’s Alex?’

‘Dunno. Can I go now?’

‘Where is this
Bartholomew Place
?’

‘In
Dorset
, near
Dorchester
, but it’s not used for anything anymore. It’s been closed down years. You don’t seriously think Laura had anything to do with your boyfriend’s disappearance, do you?’

‘That bitch seems crazy enough to do anything. So, is that everything?’

He nodded. ‘Can I go now?’

‘You never spoke to me, right?’ she said, taking a step towards him. ‘Me, my boyfriend, all of this, you don’t mention it to anyone, you got that?’ She rolled up her coat collar against the fine rain that had begun to fall. Vince reckoned she didn’t look half as pretty as she did when he first saw her. It was almost as if she’d aged prematurely, or the bad inside her was leaking to the surface and contaminating her skin.