Asylum Part 4

She turned to him and saw that under his arm he had a bundle of Max's clothes.

"What are you taking those for?" she whispered.

He put a finger to her lips, then walked boldly across the yard. She went back upstairs. The cupboard door was open, and clothes were missing from several hangers on Max's side. She heard Brenda coming out of her room. She was making the bed for the second time that morning, this time with clean sheets, when Brenda spoke from the doorway.

"Would you mind if I ran a bath? One gets so sticky."

"Of course not," she said, not turning.

She went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table. Why had he taken Max's clothes? What could he possibly want with Max's clothes? What on earth was he up to?

Max came home from the hospital just after one, so there were four for lunch. Stella became more animated when she felt under pressure, and she most certainly felt under pressure that day. Even a couple of large gins could not reduce the magnitude in her mind of the risk they'd run. She couldn't begin to imagine the consequences if they'd been caught. So she gaily served cold meat and new potatoes with b.u.t.ter and chives, and a tomato salad with a garlic dressing, and energetically pursued a semblance of normality. Max was quiet and preoccupied throughout, and when it was over he asked her to bring his coffee to the study.

He was at his desk. He turned toward her as she came in, and his expression provoked a fresh flare of anxiety in her. She was very much on the defensive, and her response was to a.s.sume a blithe unconcern; but she was afraid they'd been seen and reported, and this seemed confirmed when he said: "What dealings do you have with Edgar Stark?"

"I see him in the vegetable garden most days," she said, frowning slightly as though attempting to fathom the source of this unusual inquiry. "Why?"

"Has he ever come into the house?"

Has he ever come into the house! The bed was still warm with the impress of his body, the sheets in the laundry basket stained and damp!

"Only the time he brought Charlie in."

Max sighed. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

"There's no doubt now that alcohol's being smuggled into the hospital. The nuisance of it is, the attendants get so badly rattled. We have to be seen to be taking it very seriously indeed."

"Is it out of the question that an attendant brought it in?"

She was unsure of the wisdom of putting this to him. If she was under any suspicion it would look like a diversionary tactic. If on the other hand she was not suspected it would be a perfectly logical question. She watched him closely. He did not lift his head. She knew she was safe. For now.

"It's not out of the question but it's not an idea Jack's eager to pursue just at the moment. It's all so b.l.o.o.d.y political."

"Are you looking for a scapegoat?" She was deliberately pressing her advantage. "That's not very fair."

"Of course we don't want a scapegoat. Nor do we want to accuse anyone until we're certain."

"It hasn't come from this house."

"It might have come from the cricket pavilion, I suppose."

"It might," said Stella. There was a pause.

"Walk over there with me," he said. "I'll get my keys."

His keys. Upstairs, on his dressing table. Or perhaps in the pocket of his linen jacket. In the cupboard. She sat there in the study and waited for him to come down. His desk was neat, only the morning's mail and a couple of files on top, all his pens and pencils and papers sorted and consigned to their various drawers. The study window looked out onto a patch of lawn bordered by flower beds, and beyond it the pine trees that hid the house from the road. On the bookshelves, stacks of psychiatric journals and textbooks.

"Stella."

She came out into the hall. He was on the upstairs landing, leaning over the top banister.

"Did it go to the cleaners?"

"What?"

"My linen jacket."

Think fast, Stella. Get it right. Save the situation. "No. Can't you find it?"

He went back into the bedroom. She climbed the stairs. He had his back to her as she came in. He was going through his suits and jackets on their hangers. He didn't turn around.

"This is very odd. I'm missing a shirt and a pair of trousers too."

"Nothing's gone to the cleaners this week."

"I had my estate keys in the pocket. Where's Charlie?"

"I don't think he would take your clothes."

"Nor do I."

He sat on the side of the bed frowning at his fingernails. Stella leaned against the door frame. The sunlight streamed in across her dressing table. She knew she was about to lose everything, and in a way she didn't care. She was curious to see how it worked itself out. His accusation was imminent and she had no idea what she was going to say.

"He must have got in here."

"Who?"

"Edgar Stark."

"That's impossible. How could he, with me and Brenda here? Let me see if Charlie's in the garden."

He was sitting with his hands in his lap, frowning. A man as organized as he was, a man so much in control of his world: such a man did not lose a shirt and a pair of trousers and a linen jacket with the estate keys in the pocket.

Stella darted downstairs and out through the front door. They weren't back from lunch yet. She ran through the vegetable garden and into the conservatory, where Edgar's white jacket hung from a nail by the door. She tore open an empty seed packet and with a stub of pencil scrawled him a note. She stuffed the note into the pocket of the jacket and left it sticking out so he wouldn't miss it.

As she crossed back to the house she saw the working party appear at the end of the drive. There was no more she could do except pray that Edgar would see her note and find an opportunity to get rid of the clothes. She met Max in the hall. She told him that Charlie wasn't in the garden and probably wouldn't be back for hours now.

"I don't think Charlie would touch my clothes," he said again, and went back into the study.

She stood there in the doorway. "What are you going to do?"

He was beside his desk, the phone in his hand, facing her. "Put me through to Block Three." This he said into the receiver as they stood there gazing at each other.

The news came that evening. Brenda came down at five and Stella told her about the missing keys and clothes, and they went into the living room and each had a large gin. Stella couldn't keep still. Her anxiety was of course explicable in terms of sympathetic concern for her husband.

"Max will cope, my dear," said Brenda.

"Of course he will. But one does worry."

They'd both had another large drink by the time Max came home from the hospital. Brenda was still in the living room and Stella was in the kitchen making dinner. She heard the front door open and came out into the hall. His face was closed and angry. She went down the hall to him.

"What is it?"

He didn't look at her properly his eyes merely flickered to hers, then slid away. In the living room he stood in front of the empty fireplace and delivered his news.

"Edgar Stark has absconded."

And at that moment the siren began its awful singsong wail.

CHAPTER ...

This is what we think must have happened: Edgar told John Archer after lunch that they wanted him in the chaplain's garden, and went off by himself. He retrieved Max's clothes from where he'd hidden them in the woods at the end of the Raphaels' garden. Wearing Max's clothes he had then made his escape, keeping well away from the road until he was clear of the estate, and then, by thumb or bus or train, he found his way to London. I was not at all happy to hear how lax security was on the outside work parties, but the question that most disturbed me-and Jack too-was what Max had been doing in the hours between the discovery of the missing clothes and the discovery of Edgar's absence, close to five?

This was an interval of almost three hours almost three hours. The search of Edgar's room and a subsequent search of the entire ward had yielded nothing, but Max hadn't told Jack what was going on. If he had looked for Edgar in the chaplain's garden immediately, and discovered his absence, the alarm would have been raised very much sooner and we'd have quickly picked him up.

But Max was apparently so determined to get to the bottom of it all before he saw Jack that he made mistakes, and the most significant was this failure to establish Edgar's whereabouts during the afternoon. After returning to the hospital and checking with the staff in Block 3 that nothing had turned up in his absence, he went to his office. He then, apparently for no good reason, waited another half hour another half hour before calling Jack. By that time the working parties were due back in, and John Archer had already discovered that his patient was missing. I was told at once, and without delay I went to Jack's office. When Max telephoned, I was with Jack, and he already knew that Edgar had gone. What Jack did not know, and what it must have galled and humiliated Max to have to tell him-and this of course accounts for much of Max's behavior that afternoon-was that the escaped patient was wearing his, Max's, clothes. I certainly had no sympathy for him; he had allowed my patient to escape. And Edgar, for all his s.e.xual bravado, still needed me. He was a sick man. before calling Jack. By that time the working parties were due back in, and John Archer had already discovered that his patient was missing. I was told at once, and without delay I went to Jack's office. When Max telephoned, I was with Jack, and he already knew that Edgar had gone. What Jack did not know, and what it must have galled and humiliated Max to have to tell him-and this of course accounts for much of Max's behavior that afternoon-was that the escaped patient was wearing his, Max's, clothes. I certainly had no sympathy for him; he had allowed my patient to escape. And Edgar, for all his s.e.xual bravado, still needed me. He was a sick man.

Jack and I decided not to use the siren immediately, reluctant to arouse the countryside to the escape of a patient until we had to. Better to organize a search party and mount a quick sweep of the estate, try and pick him up, before he got too far. We were both aware there were two things a patient needed to abscond successfully, clothing and money, and one of those at least he had secured. For two hours attendants fanned out across the estate. They searched the farm and the marsh, and they penetrated some way into the forest. Dusk was coming on. They didn't know how much of a lead Edgar had. No more than three hours, they believed, but three hours was enough for a resourceful man with clothes and money. n.o.body knew whether he had money; n.o.body but Stella, of course, who had more than once given him cash, enough certainly to get him to London. In the meantime we could only hope that he was still out there somewhere, stumbling blindly cross-country, and as such an easy quarry for the local police, who were informed of the escape when after two hours he had not been found.

Brenda and Stella responded to the announcement of these dramatic events with exclamations of surprise and concern. But it was Brenda who thought of Charlie, who had not come home yet. Stella promptly simulated extreme anxiety; she channeled the emotional impact of Edgar's escape into anxiety for Charlie. She hoped that Max didn't notice that the boy's welfare was his grandmother's rather than her own first thought.

Max's curt response was that Edgar Stark had no interest in boys. "He wants to get as far away from here as he can."

Shortly afterward Charlie came running into the house in a state of high excitement at hearing the siren, and eager to know everything.

Stella went back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner. He wants to get as far away from here as he can. She stood at the stove with the tears coursing down her face. She heard Brenda come in. She wiped her eyes with her ap.r.o.n and lit the gas under the potatoes. She had to maintain a facade that suggested nothing other than reasonable distress that the hospital would now undergo gross disruptions, to the detriment of patients, staff, and staff families alike. She murmured something of this to Brenda.

"It is a terrible nuisance," Brenda said. "Very tiresome of the man indeed. And he worked in the garden?"

"He was restoring the conservatory."

"It's shocking to think he came into this house. What would have happened if one of us had been here at the time? I understand he's committed violence against women in the past."

"I suppose he made sure the house was empty first."

"What if Charlie had surprised him upstairs in your bedroom? In your bedroom bedroom, Stella! Don't you feel violated? That he came into your bedroom?"

"It's a shock. I haven't altogether a.s.similated it."

"Of course not."

Brenda conducted this interrogation without once taking her eyes off Stella. Something in the younger woman's reaction to the escape puzzled her, and Stella was aware of it. What had she given away? Was it her failure to think of Charlie, when told that an escaped patient was at large in the countryside? Or had she failed to show sufficient surprise; as though she'd known? known? She prayed she could get through the evening without further scrutiny. She prayed she could get through the evening without further scrutiny.

But worse was to come. Halfway through supper the telephone in the study began ringing, the hospital telephone, and Max left the room. When he returned he told Stella that Jack wanted to see them both at his house.

"He wants to see you both?" said Brenda.

"Yes, Mother," said Max with uncharacteristic firmness. "He wants to see us both."

They drove up past the Main Gate just as it was getting dark. Long strips of cloud, pink, blue, and mauve, were strung across the fading sky, and against the thickening evening light reared the Main Gate with its two square towers and the double gates between. As they'd got into the car Max had asked her why she thought Jack wanted to see her as well, and she'd told him she had no idea. He said nothing more, and they drove in silence until they reached the superintendent's house, up beside the female wing.

Bridie opened the door to them, looking suitably grave. With a pang of distaste Stella recognized how deeply over a long marriage she had insinuated herself into the fabric of Jack's working life, and it occurred to her that she would never be in Bridie's position now. Previously she had thought it hers for the taking, the role of medical superintendent's wife, and she had mentally spurned it. Now she saw she would never be offered it; the superintendency was lost. She wondered had Max grasped this yet.

Bridie showed them into Jack's study, a large book-lined room, comfortably furnished, and Jack, his broad back to them, fussed at the whisky decanter and asked them without turning if they would have a drink. Stella said yes with some alacrity. Bridie closed the door and left the three of them alone.

"Make yourselves at home," murmured Jack, and there was a gruffness and a detachment in him that she had never heard before.

"b.l.o.o.d.y business," he said, when they were settled. "This is my fifth escape. Always h.e.l.l, even if we get him fast. Edgar Stark."

He fell silent, frowning at his whisky, and the name of Stella's lover hung there in the gloom as the evening died and the last of the birdsong drifted in from the garden.

"This is difficult. I'll come straight to the point. I haven't told you this, Max. I saw no reason to distress you both by pa.s.sing on wild rumors. But in view of this afternoon's events I must bring this thing into the open."

He paused again. This "thing"-what "thing"? The way Jack p.r.o.nounced the word, to Stella it was a disgusting thing, decaying, bad. Why did she need to be present for the bringing into the open of something decaying and bad?

"What rumors?" said Max.

The superintendent sighed. He turned to Stella. "It's been suggested," he began, "that your relationship with Edgar Stark went beyond what's proper for a doctor's wife."

"Where has this come from?" said Max sharply. "Why wasn't I informed?"

"It doesn't matter where it came from. I don't need to tell you how these things work. The patients talk among themselves, an attendant overhears, the attendants talk, it soon gets back to me."

"I'm astonished you take it seriously!"

Stella said both she and Jack were surprised by Max's vehemence.

"Max. Please listen to me. Of course I am skeptical of rumor. I hear a great deal in the course of the day, little of it with any basis in reality. But this is a large inst.i.tution, and people talk. Of course I give it no credence. However. I need to know why such a rumor might have arisen."

"Stella talked to him in the garden, but there's nothing beyond that."

"Stella?"

They both turned toward her. Max was angry, and while on the face of it his anger was in reaction to Jack's accusing Stella of impropriety, she understood that the fact that this interview should even be necessary, plus, of course, his sickening awareness that he'd mishandled the theft of his clothes and in effect allowed Edgar to get away, all this complicated the situation, and his defense of her was not as gallant as it appeared.

"Of course not, Jack," she said, a tone of disbelief softening the outrage in her voice. "I chat with him sometimes when I go into the vegetable garden. Or I did. I chat to all the patients, I think it's important."

"Did you see him every day? I'm sorry, Stella, I have to know where this came from."

A pause here. She a.s.sumed an expression of dignity in the face of insult. She was a respectable married woman whose virtue had been questioned. She allowed that expression then gradually to give way to a pained acceptance of the realities.

"We eat a salad from the garden every day. If I see Edgar I say good morning to him, and sometimes we talk."

Jack allowed a small pause while he frowned and nodded and watched Stella carefully.

"Thank you, Stella," he said at last. "I thought it must be something like that. I do apologize. But you understand. I pity the psychiatrist's wife, it's a thankless task you perform. We're the only ones who know the cost." This was addressed to Max, who also nodded absently and frowned.