The Judge's Daughter (29 page)

‘A first assessment can take several hours.’ The crisply ironed female glanced at Agnes’s abdomen. ‘You should be taking better care of yourself in your
condition.’

The unwelcome visitor seated herself in the corridor, took flask and box from her shopping bag, and began to eat her lunch. She wasn’t going anywhere. The sister’s eyes were still on
her – even the eyes seemed fixed by starch – but Agnes munched stoically on her sandwich. She was not hungry, yet she refused to be beaten by a woman too big for any boots. Helen was
here and Agnes had no intention of leaving before seeing her.

The woman in question emerged from her office. ‘Follow me.’

Was it possible for vocal cords to be starched? ‘Thank you.’ Agnes repacked her lunch in its original place of residence. There followed a journey slowed by the unlocking and locking
of doors. The fact that she was inside a mental hospital was underlined by the nurse’s behaviour. In this place, those who failed to cope with life were condemned to exist. It was all cream
and green, with fat radiators punctuating walls.

‘She’s in there.’ The blue-and-white-clad woman walked away, turning as she reached yet another locked door. ‘I’ll come back for you shortly. Try not to tire her.
If you have any trouble, press the red button.’

Agnes swallowed. Thus far, she had managed well enough, but now she was about to face grim reality. Helen was in that room. She had been hauled from her house by two big men, placed in an
ambulance and driven to Manchester. She had not been certified. Had she been declared unfit for human company, Agnes would definitely have been turned away.

She turned the door knob. ‘Here goes,’ she whispered softly.

There were bars at a high window. A bed with a white quilt sat next to a nasty little locker that carried the scars of past assaults. Paint failed to hide completely scratch marks on a wall.
Helen sat in a green chair, hands folded in her lap, eyes down-turned, lips slightly apart.

‘Helen?’ The eyes looked dim. ‘Are you drugged?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

Agnes sat on the bed. ‘What happened? Denis ran home this morning to tell me about the ambulance arriving in the night. Louisa had a word with him. She wasn’t well enough to visit
you, so I took her place.’

‘I’m glad you came. Thank you.’

‘Has your father been?’

Helen smiled ruefully. ‘No.’

‘What happened?’ Agnes asked again.

‘The dream. This time, I woke screaming – please don’t ask me why. I was little Helen all over again – dolls in my room, a teddy bear rug, fairytale books. I could hear
and see him and Louisa, but I also heard another woman’s voice telling me to come away.’

‘Your mother?’

Helen shook her head. ‘No. A servant of some kind. This time, I must have got very near to the truth, because I woke in terror. A doctor gave me an injection, I believe. Then I was brought
here. I’m a voluntary patient, but, if I try to leave, I’ll be certified for a month while they test me. I can’t win, so I have bowed to the powers and promised not to attempt to
escape. With so many locked doors, it would be a useless effort, anyway.’

Helen was a prisoner. Agnes held the woman’s trembling hands. It was all she could do; no one on God’s earth could change the minds of doctors.

‘I’ve been assessed once,’ Helen said. ‘So far, so good. I think I passed my scholarship all over again. They looked very confused, as if they didn’t know what to
do with me. A peculiar set of people, I must say. If they are the ones who decide whether the rest of us are sane, God help the world. As for therapy – what good are they doing by shutting me
in here without company or reading matter?’

Agnes smiled. ‘They’re watching us,’ she said, her voice deliberately loud and clear. ‘We are animals in a zoo, you and I. There’s a camera in the corner, some sort
of microphone, too, I expect. We are under scrutiny.’ She rose and walked towards the corner. ‘Hello, doctors,’ she said. ‘I am Agnes Makepeace. There’s nothing wrong
with this woman, but her father needs locking up. He’s a vicious, nasty piece of near-human detritus. Save a room for him.’

‘Good afternoon.’

Agnes froze, then turned slowly. Zachary Spencer, face stained a dark red, stood in the doorway. ‘You are coming home,’ he told his daughter.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. They say there is nothing the matter with you.’ His eyes remained on Agnes. ‘I wish I could say the same for your friend. Meet me at the main entrance. Do you require a
lift, Mrs Makepeace?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Very well.’ He turned on his heel and left.

Agnes crossed the room and perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘He heard me.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Will he sack Denis? Only Denis has been offered another job, so we can escape if necessary.’

‘Don’t go. Please, don’t go.’

‘He’ll punish Denis. He might even stop paying some of our rent. Helen, your father is one scary man.’

‘He’s afraid.’ Helen’s tone was quiet. ‘I may be on the receiving end of those little yellow pills, but I know why he’s here. He wants to pull me out before
doctors get to the bottom of me.’ She stared hard at her visitor. Nothing must happen to Agnes, Denis, Louisa. Four friends, she had now. To the list of three, she added the name of Mags
Bradshaw. Friends meant strength and support. ‘He’ll do nothing to you,’ she said. ‘He’ll do nothing to Denis. Don’t move away, please. I have his measure
now.’

‘And the dreams?’ Agnes asked.

‘Will be dealt with. I don’t need to be in hospital to get help. I can visit a psychiatrist privately – Father need never know.’

Inwardly, Agnes shook. The judge knew her opinion of him. Denis worked for the judge. Helen lived with him, as did Louisa. Louisa’s pregnancy was proving difficult. Inner instinct dictated
that Agnes and Denis should leave Skirlaugh Fall and go to live near Lucy. The stubborn streak, along with concern for Helen, urged Agnes to remain exactly where she was. Then there was Pop. How
would Pop manage without her and Denis?

As if reading her ally’s thoughts, Helen asked, ‘Did you know that your grandfather is commissioned to make a scale model of our house? It’s to be a present for Louisa after
her child is born. She never had a doll’s house as a child. It will take months to make, but Father insisted and he’s paying a good price.’

‘Oh.’ Agnes could find no sensible remark with which to punctuate the pause.

‘He gathers all around him like a farmer bringing home the harvest. He pays Denis, he pays some of your rent, he pays the staff. Now, he goes for your grandfather. We exist only at the
edge of his vision – especially if we are female.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t walk out on me just yet, Agnes, because you are a piece of my harvest.’

Agnes gazed at the floor. ‘I can’t help being afraid. He’s so high and mighty, and I said what I said and he heard me and—’

‘So did the microphone.’ Helen strode to the corner and spoke to the box near the ceiling. ‘You know I’m not mad,’ she said clearly. ‘My father is the cause
of my temporary disarray. Keep your drugs and your electric cables for him. I am going home. Home is another word for hell. Goodbye.’

As if on cue, a nurse arrived with a sheet of yellow paper on a clipboard. ‘You are released,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’

Helen laughed mirthlessly. ‘I’ll never be released, Nurse Jenkinson. Not until the day someone signs his death certificate.’ On this note of high drama, Helen walked out of the
room, Agnes hot on her heels. A key chain clattered, doors were unlocked, locked, unlocked, locked again in a seemingly endless walk to the outside. A woman screamed. Echoes of other doors slamming
in other corridors flooded the air. Cream and green were the colours of the day, while the scent was pine disinfectant with a faint whiff of carbolic.

‘God help all who stay here,’ said Helen as they reached fresher air and open space. ‘Come with me, Agnes – don’t leave me alone with him.’

‘You won’t be alone – Denis is driving.’ Agnes waved a hand at the Bentley. ‘See?’

‘Then you will cause more speculation by refusing a lift from your own husband. See? Whatever you do, my father enters the equation. So come along – let’s go home.’

The drive started in complete silence. Helen, next to her father in the rear seat, saw nothing of the landscape throughout the journey. Agnes and Denis, in the front of the car, made mindless
small talk about Pop, Eva and little domestic issues, but the conversation was strained. Agnes, dropped off at the cottage, thanked the judge with all the politeness she could muster.

Inside, she collapsed onto a sofa. How many times had she berated Pop for failing to hold his tongue? What had she done? That foolhardy business with the camera had given Judge Spencer further
food for thought. ‘Don’t let him take it out on Helen or Louisa,’ she begged God.

It was a long day. When Denis finally came home, he stood over his wife, one hand running repeatedly through his hair. ‘He wants to know who you’ve been talking to,’ he
said.

‘No comment.’

‘Agnes, he demands to be told how you formed such a distorted view of him. We’d better clear off – we’ll be safer with George and Lucy.’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean, no? He’s boiling over in his study right now. Helen’s shut herself in her flat, won’t talk to anyone – even Louisa. He’s banging about like
a bull at a gate – why did you do it?’

‘I didn’t know he was there – what are you up to?’ Denis had picked up the phone. ‘Denis?’

‘I’m phoning George.’

‘No. We stay for now. He daren’t touch me.’

Denis shook his head and walked into the kitchen. Much as he wanted to remain in the village, he needed his family to be safe. The phone rang. He answered it. ‘Ah. Hello, sir. Right. Thank
you very much.’

Denis replaced the receiver and spoke to his wife. ‘He forgives you because of your condition and because he knows his daughter was out of sorts when she expressed her opinion of
him.’

‘Load of tripe,’ was Agnes’s reply.

‘Very likely. We’re keeping our options open, love. One more day like this one and we leave the village. All right?’

She nodded.

‘I mean it, Agnes – I’m not messing about.’

‘I know. He won’t do anything to us, Denis. He’s already in trouble up to his double chin. Helen is the only one in real danger. Please, love, let’s wait a
while.’

With that, Denis chose to be satisfied for the time being.

Stella Small, a woman of over six feet in height, saw private patients in a room that matched her name. For her own part, she had lived at peace with her surname, although,
while growing at a rate of knots in childhood, she had needed to adjust her attitude at an early age. Having overcome her own giant status and silly name, she had equipped herself to help others
through a life whose stone-punctuated and mud-spattered alleys marked Stella’s clients in ways that went above and beyond feet and inches.

‘I’m Helen Spencer.’

‘Ah. Yes. Do sit down. My name is Stella and yes, I am Dr Small. If you are anxious or depressed, you will not wish to joke about my name. If, however, you are enjoying a good day, feel
free to smile and we can get the business of my size out of the way.’

Helen chose to smile. ‘You were recommended by my GP. Father had me locked away in a mental hospital for about sixteen hours, then decided that I had recovered. He fears my
memory.’

‘Right.’ The doctor scanned Helen’s notes, adjusted her spectacles to achieve better vision, then sighed heavily. ‘These doctors can’t write legibly. You are
unhappy?’

Helen nodded.

‘Which is not the same as depressed. But you have had some panic attacks and have behaved unconventionally from time to time.’ She closed the file. ‘Happily, I am able to do
two things at once and, while appearing to read your notes, I have been counting the number of times you have blinked. You are not neurotic.’

‘Good.’

‘Tell me everything.

Helen would never be able to explain why, but her whole life poured from her lips within half an hour. The doctor did not prompt, was not worried by short silences and, when Helen had finished,
stood and walked to the window. ‘When I pour tea into a cup, the tea takes on the shape of the cup.’

‘Yes?’

‘But you have no shape. You cannot measure yourself – no comments about my height, thanks – and you pour all over the place. There’s no mould, you see, no cup to give you
shape.’

‘But that doesn’t mean I am insane.’

Stella Small shook her head. The spectacles left her nose and dangled on a piece of braid just above her breasts. ‘I must get some new glasses,’ she remarked. ‘No, you are not
insane, but your father may be. You have had no love and no parents – that is his fault. Those dreams – that lost memory – he is a part of that.’

Helen waited for more.

‘The brain is a clever beast. It will allow you to remember when remembering will do less harm than it might just now. Meanwhile, get out of your father’s life.’

‘But Louisa—’

‘Will have to take her chances with the rest of us.’ The doctor returned to her chair. ‘Emotional retardation is completely divorced from intellect. You are a clever woman, but
you have been through adolescence in your early thirties. You even chose a man who was safe, a man who would never carry you off on a white steed. Miss Spencer, you have only recently reached
maturity. You don’t need me or drugs or a straitjacket. You need a removal van and a fresh start. I repeat – get out of your father’s life as soon as possible. You have my
telephone number. If you need me again, I shall be here.’

A few minutes later, Helen found herself wandering aimlessly through the bustling streets of Bolton on a market day. She bought tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber and a large box of Milk Tray for her
stepmother. The doctor’s words echoed – ‘Get out of your father’s life.’

She sat on a bench and opened the chocolates. Louisa did not like coffee creams, so Helen rooted them out and chewed thoughtfully. Why should she do the moving? He was the miscreant, the sinner,
the bad apple. ‘Get out of his life?’ she whispered. Oh, no. It would be far better if he got out of hers. How did a person get rid of a father? What plan might be employed to shift him
from Skirlaugh Rise?