Emily's Enigma. They move you out of the sun and in beneath the shade of the copper beech. “Don’t want you getting sunburnt do we, Emily?” Harry says. Harry, your brother doesn’t wait to hear a reply from you because he knows he won’t get one. No one has heard you say a word for the last two years since you left the asylum or maybe just before that, though none seem to remember how long ago it was. He wanders back to the cricket game where the other members of the family are waiting for him. You look at them waiting. Your father behind the stumps crouching down, his head looking upwards at the sky. Your brother Tom waiting at the other end ready to bowl again, throwing the ball up in the air, catching it and throwing it up again. Your mother at the other side of Granger a friend of Tom’s who is batting. She is standing with her hands on her hips with a white hat stuck on her head like an upturned plant pot. Your Uncle Jack lingering this side of the pitch his hands behind his back, waiting for Harry, looking over at you with that stare of his. You turn away and look at your knees just appearing out of your blue skirt and a slight ladder in your stocking, which neither disturbs you nor concerns you much. Nothing much disturbs you. Only when your Uncle Jack comes near you or is left in the same room with you, do you show signs of concern or anything like panic. You close your eyes, bring your hands to the side of the wheelchair, and let them rest. *********************** “You’re getting a very pretty girl,” Uncle Jack had said as he came up behind you that summer when you were home from boarding school for the holidays. He had put his hands around your waist and had given you a hug as he often did when you were a young girl. You didn’t squirm away from his grasp, but tried to discourage him by moving from his hands as if it were all a game and laughing. “How you’ve grown,” he added smiling broadly, his hands becoming unemployed for the moment. “What are they feeding you at the boarding school?” You look around for other members of your family but they are outside on the lawn preparing for the afternoon tea. He moved towards you and cornered you against the wall as if he too tried to pretend it was a game, and having cornered you, he leaned close to you and kissed your cheek. It was damp and warm. ************************ “Howzat!” You open your eyes at the shout from the pitch and the sunlight flickers through the branches above and makes you blink. Granger is caught out and he hands the bat to Tom who swings it around as if it was a sword. They clap Tom and Granger moves to bowl. You look at Uncle Jack who moves to replace your mother and she replaces your father behind the stumps. Their voices seem muffled as if they were all speaking and shouting through a gauze cloth. You look away from them and look up at the branches. The birds are talking. You seem to hear them chattering across to each other; their words violent and sharp, as if they were angry at the noise from the game of cricket and the laughter and shouts from the humans. The blackbird especially seems to be having ago. You hear it distinctly saying things about your brother Harry, and then the other bird chirps in, and then a chaos of sounds surrounds you and you put your hands over your ears to shut it out. You want to scream at them to be quiet; to yell at the top of your voice, but nothing comes, only the movement of your lips and the gesture of your hands and your eyes glaring wildly at it all. No one notices. The game goes on. Tom hits a six into the hydrangeas, and there is a sea of voices around you, and you try to stand up, but your legs refuse to move, and your hands bang on the side of the wheelchair angrily until your hands hurt and you stop. Then there is a voice behind you and two hands place themselves over yours. You look back behind you and there is Charlotte. She is blonde, short and has two deep blue eyes that hold you now and she says: “What’s got you into a paddy?” She doesn’t expect you to answer. She turns you towards her and touches your face gently as if this might calm you. She pulls your skirt down further over your knees and taps your knees. “Too much sun,” she suggests with a smile. You do not respond. You stare at her and try to remember who she is and where she fits in with the rest, but you don’t know. Somewhere in your mind she must have a place, but she seems to be lost in there; lost in one of those corridors of which your mind seems composed. ******************* After the kiss, Uncle Jack put his hands on your hips and moved them up and down as if he were searching for something he’d lost. You felt uneasy. You wanted him to stop, but didn’t know what to say or how to say it. You tried to move from him, but he had you tight against the wall. “You used to love a cuddle and tickle with your Uncle Jack,” he said, looking into your eyes with those dark brown eyes of his. “You used to jump at the chance to climb on my lap at one time,” he added, his smile broadening, his hands resting on your thighs. You looked out of the window and saw your family moving around the lawn preparing things for afternoon tea like ants preparing for the new queen. “I must go and help,” you said, but found you couldn’t move and so rested against the wall and tried to smile. “Please, Uncle Jack, I must help or Mummy will wonder where I am.” He released you reluctantly and stood back. “I’ll be watching you,” he said smiling, tapping you on your backside as you moved passed him. You moved out of the room as fast as you could and along the passageway out into the garden. You felt perspiration dampen you all over. Your head was spinning and your nose seemed to be full of your uncle’s sweat and aftershave, and the voices of your family seemed to be strangely unfamiliar. ******************** Charlotte wheels you over the lawn away from the pitch. Her voice is speaking but you aren’t listening. You are trying to formulate words and put them on the tip of your tongue, but they keep running away like naughty children, and stand at the back of your head jeering at you. You are wheeled along by the river and then Charlotte stops and peers back at the pitch and the game. “I think Tom’s hit another six,” she says. You look down at the river and see the sunlight flittering on the flowing water like butterflies. You feel the sun on your hands and neck and want it to be gone. “I don’t understand the rules much, but I like to watch,” she says, moving you further on. Then she crouches down in front of you and stares at your face. You look at her, but say nothing. She looks at your eyes as if she were trying to fathom something from them to give her clue to what you might be thinking, but there is nothing, and she just smiles and taps your knees again as she gets up. She wheels you further along, her voice murmuring behind you. You look back towards the pitch and at the game. Your eyes focus on Uncle Jack and his hands at his sides as he watches for the ball. The hands especially hold your attention. Those hands. The way they hang there, you muse inwardly. The half curve of the hands suddenly panics you, and you bang on the sides of the wheel chair with your hands until Charlotte grabs them, and holds them tightly in her own. “What’s the matter, Emily?” she says, looking at you and then following your eyes along the pitch to where Uncle Jack stands gazing back at you both. Charlotte shouts something to him and he nods and moves towards you. Your body freezes at his approach and you look away and stare at the green grass and then at the roses in the bed behind where Charlotte stands. The roses are red. Deep red. Like blood, your mind suggests, like blood. ************************ You watched as your mother and father talked with Tom below by the copper beach. They were laughing and Harry came and joined them and the Fosters came over too and they all laughed. You looked at them and smiled. The holidays were going to be fun, you mused. Your father had spoken about taking you all Switzerland later in the month and that thrilled you even more. Then you heard the door of your bedroom open and there stood Uncle Jack gazing at you with a hint of a smile lingering about his lips. “I wondered where you had disappeared to,” he said, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. “I was going to change before dinner,” you replied, looking back out of the window at your family below. You turn around and Uncle Jack was standing by your bed looking at you with a serious expression on his face. “What’s the hurry? Dinner won’t be for an hour or so yet.” He walked slowly to where you stood and took your hands in his and drew you close to his body. “My little Emily has grown so much.” He looked at you with a smile. “Yet, she doesn’t seem quite so friendly these days. Once she would have never left my side, but would have asked me to cuddle and hug her and tell her tales of ghosts and goblins.” He stopped. His hands squeezed yours and his lips brushed against your cheek. “You don’t mind your Uncle Jack giving you a little kiss, do you?” He kissed your cheek. You froze and your stomach turned. You wanted to get away and go downstairs to your family, but he had you tightly in his grasp and moved you back against the wall beside the window. “Please let me go, Uncle. I need to change. You ought not to be here,” you said. You tried to move your hands free, but he had them tight against you sides and kissed you repeatedly. Your words seemed lost on him. You wanted to scream out, but your voice seemed unable to say anything. Your legs seemed to buckle and he moved you to the bed and laid you down, and stood looking at you as if a thought had entered his mind suddenly and he leaned over you with his breath against you cheek and the sound of your family’s laughter seemed far far away. *************************** Charlotte moves you towards the house. You do not look back at the cricket game in case Uncle Jack leans over you again as he did just a while ago. You stare at the house, as it gets nearer, and wish that Charlotte understood why you get tense and panicky when your uncle comes near. Why does she just stand there talking with him, encouraging him to touch me and breathe his breath all over me? you muse angrily, pushing your hands down into your lap. “You really are a bad tempered young girl, Emily,” Charlotte says as she wheels you into the hall and along the passageway to your bedroom. “And your uncle is so kind and humorous.” You sniff angrily and hammer your hands on the side of the wheelchair. Your lips struggle to speak, but only a noise like a baby’s gabble is emitted, and you become frustrated, and hammer the sides even harder, until Charlotte grabs your hands in hers and holds them still. “Calm down, Emily, calm down,” she whispers. She stares into your eyes and you want her to know what it is you feel and what happened to you, but her eyes see only your frustration and anger. “If you carry on like this they’ll send you back to the asylum. I don’t want that, nor do you.” You look at the floor and breathe slowly. The carpet has become worn and the colour has faded. Your black shoes are shiny and motionless. You look up at Charlotte and sigh. She releases your hands and you fold them into your lap. You try to move your lips to form words but they fail and the sound resolves into a long drawn out sigh. She wheels you further along to your bedroom, takes you inside, and closes the door behind her. This is not the room you had before. This is a room set aside for you on the ground floor that was once a small guest room. Uncle Jack has your old room now. Charlotte told you a few months ago when she was talking about the house and the rooms. Charlotte shares the room with you. Your mother insisted. She didn’t want you left unattended, she said. Charlotte lifts you from the wheelchair and settles you onto the bed. You sit staring at your legs beneath your blue dress and point at the laddered stocking. Charlotte touches the ladder and sighs. “I missed that one,” she says. “Better get you ready for bed.” And she undresses you slowly as if you were a young girl and needed to be shown each movement one piece at a time. You see wrinkles in her forehead as she moves close to you, and you want to smooth it away, as if it were a crinkle in a dress, and your hand an iron ready for the task. But you sit motionless. Each thought following the next going onward and onward to no particular end. ************************** Charlotte sat on the chair in your father’s study and looked around the room. You were by the window in the wheelchair staring out at the garden. Your father looked over at you briefly and then looked back at Charlotte. “I wondered who they would send for the job,” he said, eyeing Charlotte with a stern gaze. “You look sensible enough. I only hope you realise what it is we require of you.” Charlotte looked over at you and then at your father. “I was told it was basically care of an invalid. I thought it would be someone older,” Charlotte said. “Basically, Emily needs some one who can care for her and dress her and be with her as much as possible,” your father said. “I think I can manage that all right,” Charlotte said. “Was she always paralysed?” “No,” your father said, eyeing you as if he thought you might add something to his comments. “She has had a trauma of some kind and it has left her dumb and paralysed.” “I see,” Charlotte said. She looked over at you, and then looked back at your father. “What was the trauma?” “We’ve no idea,” your father replied. “My wife found her naked in the bathroom. She was in such a state that we had to call the doctor out to her. She attacked me and her Uncle Jack, and eventually the doctor and another one from the asylum sectioned her for her and our safety. She was released recently under my care and I want her to be safe, so I need some one who will be with her as much as possible.” “Has she been out long?” Charlotte asked. “Your job is to keep her out of the asylum. My wife and I do not want her back there again,” your father said solemnly. “Can you mange that?” “I will do my best,” Charlotte replied. “Good. That is what we’re after. Some one who will keep Emily at home with us as long as it takes, until she is well again.” Your father sighed deeply and walked over to you by the window. He turned you around to face Charlotte and you stared at her and wondered whom she was and why she was there. Charlotte came over and knelt down. She took your hands in hers and gave them a short squeeze. “Hello Emily,” she said. You tried to move your lips to speak, but nothing came. Your lips moved, but only a murmuring sound was emitted. “She’s our only daughter. Something happened to her and left her like this. If you can help her to make some kind of progress.” Your father stopped. He nodded to himself. “I hope you will stay as long as it takes,” he added quietly. Charlotte looked at you deeply and nodded her head. “I’ll stay as long as she needs me,” she said. After your father and Charlotte had settled other matters, he left you and her alone together in the hall. You murmured sounds, but Charlotte shook her head. You wanted to let her know what was hurting you, but nothing would come. It was all locked away. Hidden from her view. You turned from her, hit the sides of the wheelchair with your hands, and glared ahead at the darkening passageways that lead to your room. *********************************
Copyright © 2006 Terry Collett |