Spider Light(98)
Her arms were twisted behind her back, and then leather straps were put around her wrists. A buckle pulled too tight bit into her flesh. More straps were fastened around her ankles.
‘And you’ll have the gag as well if you don’t shut up,’ said hatchet-face, and they went on shearing her hair.
‘We shan’t mind if we have to gag you,’ said Higgins. ‘Quite enjoy it, in fact.’
‘We quite like punishing unnatural creatures who get into bed with other women,’ said hatchet-face, and they both laughed in a horrid jeering way.
Maud sobbed with despair and frustration, but neither of them took any notice.
‘If we take off the restraints for the bath, will you behave properly?’ said hatchet-face at length.
‘Or have we got to drop you in with the straps still on?’ said Higgins.
‘Take them off, please,’ said Maud, hating herself for pleading but hating the straps even more. ‘I won’t struggle again.’
‘That’s better,’ said hatchet-face. ‘But keep the gown on. We don’t want to see all you’ve got.’
‘We aren’t Thomasina Forrester,’ said Higgins. ‘Nor one of her pretty little sluts from Seven Dials.’ Both women laughed coarsely.
Maud clambered over the high sides of the bath. The granite scraped her skin through the canvas gown, and there was a scummy line where it had not been properly scrubbed out. The nurses brought two tall cans of water and poured it in a quick splashy torrent. Maud gasped because it was much too hot, and her skin had turned bright pink where it touched her. But when she tried to climb out, they held her down.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Higgins, and hatchet-face fetched something that had been lying ready in an enamel bowl. At first Maud thought it was a bathing cap, fashioned from the same scratchy canvas as the gown, and wondered if they were protecting her shorn head from the hot water. They clamped the cap tightly down over her head, and Maud screamed, the sound echoing in the enclosed space. The cap was icily cold, and sent spears of pain slicing through her entire head.
‘Pounded ice,’ said Higgins. ‘You’re having the cold treatment, see. Hot to the body and cold to the head. Very effective.’
‘Only quarter of an hour, though,’ said hatchet-face. ‘Don’t want to…What is it we don’t want to do, Higgins?’
‘Inflame the membranes of the brain,’ said Higgins, reciting this parrot fashion. ‘And we replace the ice every five minutes.’
Maud had no idea whether the two women followed this regime, because by the time they put the second application of ice on her head, she had already entered a world where there was no room for anything but the spiking pain in her temples. When finally they carried her back to her own room, she was dizzy with the contrast between the fiery heat in her limbs and the icy agony of her head. Thomasina and Simon were there, of course, still hammering their way out of Twygrist as they were on most days, but for once Maud could not pay them any attention.
As the day stretched out and the light began to fade, she had the beginnings of an idea for escaping from this place. There was an irony about this, because it was almost as if the ice-cap had made her brain work again. Ways and means for escaping wreathed in and out of her mind: half-remembered snippets of things that had happened in Quire House; fragments of gossip and conversations and things found and heard. Little by little Maud began to see a way of getting out of Latchkill. And, what was even more important, she began to see a way of ensuring that she stayed out.
As soon as Maud was sure she had the details clear in her mind, she set about putting her plan into action. She waited until the evening spider light lay thickly across Latchkill, and then tidied herself as well as she could without a mirror, combing her hair as neatly as possible. It would eventually grow to a decent length of course, but that might take months or years. In the meantime it felt dreadful. Like an urchin’s hair, or a beggar’s. Or a lunatic’s? But I’m not a lunatic, thought Maud angrily. How dare they treat me as if I am?
She waited until she heard the clatter of the supper trays being brought round, and then sat in her usual corner, apparently staring at the wall. Her heart beat furiously but her hands were perfectly steady.
Here came the footsteps along the passage, together with the rattle of the metal dishes. From the tread it sounded as if Nurse Higgins was on tray-duty tonight, which pleased Maud very much. She stayed absolutely still, listening as the door was unlocked and opened. It was Higgins. She brought with her the unappetizing smell of mutton stew.
‘Here’s your supper,’ she said, and stepped into the room to put down the tray. That was when Maud moved, springing forward and smashing the tray upwards so it slammed into the woman’s face. Hot glutinous gravy splashed across her eyes, and she cried out, and flung her hands to her face.
Maud laughed triumphantly and snatched up the lidded enamel bucket which she had placed nearby, and brought it crashing down on Higgins’ head. There was the sound of a crunching blow and Higgins slid to the floor. A huge delight swept over Maud: this was the woman who had cut off all her hair and jeered, and who had exulted over those agonizing ice-cap treatments. Was she genuinely unconscious? Maud bent over to make sure. Yes, she was breathing in an unpleasant snorting way and a line of white showed under her eyes. Good.
She half-carried, half-dragged the woman onto the bed, and arranged her so she was lying with her back to the door. Anyone looking in would think it was Maud herself, hunched up in one of her silent sulks, staring at the wall. Maud already knew it was quite usual for the nurses to ignore a patient who was withdrawn. ‘In a sulk again,’ they would say if they looked into the room. ‘Leave her alone for a few hours–she’ll soon be hungry enough to behave.’ But she had no idea how long it might be before Higgins was found, so it was important to move as quickly as possible. Once Higgins came round, she would raise the alarm anyway. That might be several hours, but it might be much less than that.