The Book Collector Read online

  But was there something wrong with her? Should she tell a doctor perhaps what she had seen? But the delusion seemed so strange, so out of the ordinary that she felt she could exclude it from her real life. Lock the image away in a box, so that it no longer had anything to do with her. The insects had been a strange illusion brought about by the sleepless nights, the exhaustion of the birth. Perhaps she should think about hiring a nanny as Archie had suggested. But the idea of handing over the care of Felix to someone else was anathema to her.

  She would forget about the delusion. The birds were singing outside. It was a lovely day. She would get dressed and take Felix for a walk in his pram around the estate. She would be his guardian, protect and care and love him. This motherly love lay deep within her, a fact now of her life, just as Felix was now a fact of her life. She was the luckiest woman alive and all traces of the memory of those abominable crawling insects had vanished.

  Chapter 10

  VIOLET HID ALL the knives away.

  ‘Where are the knives, darling?’ Archie asked.

  ‘They’re blunt. They need sharpening,’ she said.

  But one had cut her finger deeply as she passed it over her skin before putting it in the back of a drawer. Its blade had been so sharp. It had shone, the steel, in the moonlight. The night was silent. She had wanted to check the sharpness of the blade, out of curiosity. So she had carefully wrapped the knives up in kitchen cloths and put them at the back of a drawer they never used.

  When they didn’t reappear, Archie asked the housekeeper to order new ones. Violet felt she couldn’t hide the new knives, so she tried not to look at them whenever she saw them lying out.

  She went into the village to post some letters. Mrs Hutchinson was talking to the girl behind the counter at the Post Office. Mrs Hutchinson’s blue eyes were dancing with excitement. ‘It’s not like Amy to disappear without a trace. Such a shy girl.’ Mrs Hutchinson lived in a cottage at the far end of the village. Her grey hair was escaping from thick plaits that were tied up around her head like a laurel crown.

  ‘It’s not, and she had just been released too,’ replied the girl behind the counter. ‘Her mother is distraught. ‘

  ‘So she should be. She should have kept more of an eye on her. It’s always the quiet ones.’

  ‘So you think she ran off?’

  ‘What else could it be?’

  ‘I heard she had just started seeing Patrick Harper.’

  Mrs Hutchinson didn’t reply. She didn’t like being disagreed with, especially if her opinions were based on hearsay rather than fact. The shakier the ground the more determined and affronted she became. Violet remembered Amy as quiet too. She had once seen her ambling lethargically up the street pulling the lead on her dog, who seemed even more relaxed than she was. Her body was shapely and she had walked with a kind of stooping, elaborate, slow grace.

  ‘Had her mother noticed anything odd?’ Mrs Hutchinson asked.

  ‘Amy was always odd!’

  The two women laughed, heartlessly.

  ‘Why was she odd?’ Violet couldn’t help asking.

  Mrs Hutchinson and the girl turned towards her simultaneously, as if they had only just noticed she was in the shop with them. She hadn’t been hiding, Violet thought. They looked startled to see her. More startled than by the unexplained disappearance of Amy Louden.

  ‘She would mutter to herself. Quotes,’ the girl said.

  ‘From where?’ Violet asked.

  ‘Fairy tales, I think. They were quotations about love.’

  Life seemed evasive. Violet had created an astringent limbo land for herself of reading and watching instead of living, only brought alive by the gaze of others. Her own perception of herself was not strong or certain enough to give herself credence.

  Her friend Bea said, ‘It’s dangerous, your small enclosed world – it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Yes, it does. It’s my reality.’

  ‘But only in a cocoon.’

  ‘I’m managing.’

  But she felt at the heart a kind of fear at what was happening, how she had put all her power into Archie’s hands, how naturally and inevitably it had happened.

  Why was it, she wondered, that she disappeared so easily? She was like Tinkerbell who needed applause in order to stay alive.

  When she looked down at her body she could see that she was real but how often now did she feel disconnected from her body, having lost herself in the ether of her mind? And her body was her only connection with the material world, the flesh and bone of it.

  At the time, she was not fully conscious of what was happening to her, fears growing up around her like jungle plants, suffocating her energy. She hardly knew why she kept crying. It was just a feeling of terrible loss that this baby was beginning to signify, that she was losing Archie all because of the baby and that she would never get him back. All because of the baby, that soft, succulent creature of rosy flesh and open sweet blood-red mouth wanting her milk.

  She started not to want to touch Felix, that soft skin that she had once loved to touch. His warm flesh felt repulsive, made her feel uneasy, as if the surface of him was invading the surface of her skin. She could only tolerate him when he was fully clothed. She started to visualise peeling off the skin, leaving him raw and red, as if in some way that would reduce the power he had over her.

  Devastating anguish followed these fantasies. It was as if the violent imagery of her thoughts had become detached from her true self, a rational link severed, so that these images came grasping and unbidden to her mind. She felt they were nothing to do with her and as such she was not responsible for them. No one need know about them. After all, it was not as if she were really going to act upon them, do what they were suggesting her to do. They had no power over her as long as she kept strong and resistant to them.

  Chapter 11

  HER THOUGHTS KEPT returning obsessively to the book of fairy tales. She knew there was a clue in there somewhere to what was happening to her mind. When Archie was out of the house, she returned to his study, took down the painting and opened the safe again. She took out the book and looked at the first letters of the chapters, the last letters, combed it for possible anagrams, diagonal messages. She could find no pattern. She looked at the pictures. The mermaid in the sea. The girl dancing in the red shoes. The wild swans flying in formation. No little strange details in the pictures. What was so special about this book? She flicked through the stories again. All stories she had read as a child and didn’t need to read again. She put the book away. She noticed the cream circle on the green cover had been filled in a little to look like a waxing moon.

  That night she dreamt of a naked corpse hanging in a room of dark rock, arms and legs pulled apart in a triangle, an image from the anatomy book she had been reading. The skin had been peeled off to reveal the bloodied flesh of the body, the veins, the muscles. Flies hovered in the air. Discarded strips of skin lay around on the floor. She tried not to retch as she bent over on the floor, the hem of her dress becoming soaked in blood, her pale satin pumps now soiled red in a lacy filigree.

  She woke up next to Archie, screaming. He quickly turned on the gaslight and tried to calm her. She garbled her dream to him in detail, hysterically.

  He went white. ‘I’m calling the doctor.’

  ‘No,’ she shouted. ‘No, I don’t need a doctor.’

  She struggled.

  ‘No, I’m not ill. I’m fine.’ But the doctor arrived and she noticed that his face was a blank. There were no features on his face at all, just a cowl of skin where his face should have been. The doctor manhandled her onto the bed and rolled up her sleeve.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something that will calm you down.’

  Morphine, she thought. They are giving me morphine. And a few moments after the injection had been given she felt nothing was more important than anything else. She could hear Felix crying in the background and it sounded like the harmless mewing of a cat.
r />   As she lay on the bed, she heard her doctor say to Archie:

  ‘We’ll need you to sign the certificate.’

  ‘You think this is necessary?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a form of hysteria that’s been brought about by the birth of her baby. It is rare but I have known of previous cases. You say she is having extremely violent nightmares? And, more significantly, delusions about your son?’

  Archie nodded. ‘What will happen to her?’

  ‘It means we have to look after her. And then she can come back home.’

  ‘I only want what is best for her.’

  ‘It is the only way. Unless you wish to have her looked after at home. But she is clearly a danger not only to Felix but herself.’

  ‘I only want her to be well again.’

  ‘Then sign here.’

  Violet heard, after the rustle of documents being brought out, the sound of the scratch of the pen on the document. In a vacant state she watched Archie packing some of her clothes in a suitcase, her green velvet dress, underclothes, dressing gown, slippers, toilet bag. It was like she was looking at the distant horizon of a flat sea, beneath a steel-grey sky.

  The doctor, still with his featureless face, brought her unsteadily to her feet. Archie dressed her in front of the doctor. She felt no shame, just a mild curiosity as to what the doctor must be thinking at her husband’s strange behaviour.

  They led her to the carriage.

  Archie gently settled her in, then leapt out again, before she could grab hold of him, and shut the door.

  She said through the open window, ‘You’re not coming? I want you to come.’

  ‘You know I can’t. I have to look after Felix.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ She had forgotten all about Felix.

  ‘Make sure they look after her well, there,’ Archie said to the doctor.

  ‘Of course. I know all the doctors who work there, personally.’

  Archie gave Violet one of his most sincere smiles as the carriage set off. She was amazed at how Archie was dealing with this crisis with such equanimity. She looked out of the carriage window. It was growing dark. She was surprised at how late it had become. She could see the sun going down behind the black silhouettes of the trees. The carriage set off down the driveway, the rattling oddly comforting. She felt strangely relieved to be leaving behind her previous life.

  Chapter 12

  THE CARRIAGE DROVE swiftly until they reached the asylum. It was a large Victorian building, heavy and imposing. The carriage drew up in front of the impressive entrance flanked by colonnades and the doctor helped Violet out and up the wide grey stone steps. She was beginning to feel oddly elated. As if this place was just a new version of her old home.

  The doctor led her into the huge entrance hall and down a gas-lit dingy white corridor and up some back stairs. She could hear women shouting from behind closed doors but she could see no one. The place seemed completely empty. There was an institutional smell of bleach and damp. There was another scream. The doctor took her into a small bare room with a narrow bed taking up most of the space.

  ‘Someone will come for you in the morning, Lady Murray, to settle you in.’

  He shut the door and she heard the lock turn. She undressed unsteadily, washed in the basin in the corner of the room and gingerly climbed into bed. Her mind felt dazed and incoherent. A music hall song kept on going around in her head.

  She felt the bed was floating like a boat on water. Her stomach felt light. The light-headedness was delicious after all the anxiety and fretting of the past few months. What on earth had she been worrying about? Then she remembered Felix. What a lovely baby he was, how healthy and strong. He was so fine with or without her. She felt relieved to be in this lovely new self-contained room. She didn’t have to worry about anything any more. She could give over her life, without guilt or regret.

  In the morning the novelty had worn off, and her enthusiasm was dissipating. She now felt mildly curious and wondered how long she was going to have to stay here. Her body ached where she had been manhandled. In the asylum there were no places to hide and she was exposed in all ways. They had taken her clothes in the night and dressed her in a loose-fitting gown of serge cotton. The material gaped open, and her flesh was on view unless she held her gown tightly around her. There was nowhere to hide the expression on her face. She imagined the gaslight in the room would show all the structure of her cheekbones, the fine lines on her forehead and around her eyes. Even the shadows beneath her eyes would be emphasised by the obliquity of the light.

  A new doctor walked in. He had a face, a face with strong features that seemed to dictate the world around him. He was middle-aged and handsome with flecks of grey in his dark hair. He exuded a strong commanding aura as if he had been hewn from the asylum’s stone. He put her immediately at ease. He seemed eminently reasonable. She could smell the pungent scent of sweat on him – it was not unattractive. She was feeling oddly sensual. Was it the morphine, the delusions, her heightened awareness? He seemed to pick up on this, seemed vaguely amused and unaffected. But she wondered if he was truly unaffected. She wondered if when men appeared to grow calm, they were actually trying to contain attraction for someone.

  She noticed when he grasped her wrist to take her pulse that he had hairs on the back of his hand and his arm like a werewolf. He was so different from Archie, who was so lithe and slim and hairless. Archie could disappear.

  ‘How are you feeling, Lady Murray?’

  She felt odd, exuberant, tired, sexual, alert, oblivious, all at the same time. How could she explain?

  ‘Distracted?’ he continued.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘That is normal. You are still under the influence of the morphine.’

  He had a German accent.

  ‘When will I be allowed home?’

  He laughed loudly. ‘But you have only just come to us.’

  ‘So how long will I be here?’ She felt persistent.

  ‘However long it takes for you to recover.’

  ‘How long will that be?’

  ‘That I cannot tell. The delusions have to stop first.’

  ‘I haven’t had any since I’ve arrived.’

  ‘That’s good. Very good. How many were you having previously?’

  ‘It just happened once.’

  ‘And nightmares?’

  ‘Just once.’

  He wrote this down. She didn’t like him writing this down. She couldn’t be sure of the exact facts any more. Not sure at all.

  ‘Approximately,’ she added.

  But he didn’t write this down.

  ‘And did the delusion involve your baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the nightmare. Who did that involve?’

  She thought of the hanging corpse. ‘Me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It involved skin.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  She shook her head.

  He was writing frantically now.

  ‘Sounds like projections. Projections of your own trauma. The trauma of childbirth.’

  ‘But the childbirth was normal.’

  He looked at her strangely, as if she were lying to him.

  She was still wounded from the birth, still ashamed at how she had been ripped open. She had bled after the birth so much it had coated the sheets.

  The doctor’s lips were beginning to part. Her heart raced. Oh no. He was giving a smile. Don’t, please don’t. His lips pulled back to reveal a strong set of perfect teeth. She was still looking at him, trying to seem calm.

  She made to rise from the bed but he quickly took her legs firmly and gently and put them back under the covers.

  ‘You need bed rest, Lady Murray.’

  ‘There is nothing for me to do here.’

  ‘Did you bring any books?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I will see what I can find for you.’

  It was only that afternoon,
after she had been lying in bed for hours, mindlessly looking at the ceiling, that he finally brought her some books. They were history books.

  ‘No novels,’ she observed.

  ‘We don’t think novels are helpful for the mind of an ill patient. They can over-excite.’

  How right he was. She opened up a history of Napoleon and started reading about his military campaigns.

  A nurse came in and left some flowers in a vase.

  ‘These are from your husband.’

  They were her favourite, tulips.

  ‘Does he not want to visit me?’

  ‘You’re not allowed visitors yet, Lady Murray.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The nurse brought in supper, soup and fruit salad, but still they would not allow her out of her room. She could just see sky and the top of a tree’s branches outside the asylum window. She wanted to get back to Felix. She felt restless and guilty. Her breasts leaked with milk. Her breasts seemed so full and heavy and she had to pump the milk away, tears streaming down her face, and then watch as a nurse poured the milk down the sink. She washed before going to bed where she had a sleepless night in which she could hear Felix crying for her.

  The next morning, the doctor returned.

  ‘My baby needs me,’ she said.

  ‘He is being well looked after.’

  ‘How do you know?’ His kindness was beginning to irk her; she was feeling it was false.

  ‘Your husband is a considerate man. Did he not send you flowers?’

  She didn’t say anything. Archie had worked his spell on the doctor, too, she thought. He came across as the loving, caring husband, so proud of his wife and son, but he didn’t really care.

  He would say how proud he was of his family, but why, she thought, didn’t she feel any of his love? She saw the appearance of love. What was missing in him? Or was it what was really missing in her?