Far From The Madding Crowd

The brick compound loomed out of the mist, blackened by damp, dusk and soot.

Reginald Unwin stopped at the gate.

For a moment he thought the building had no windows.

Then the mist shifted and they appeared: long rows of them, dark and blind beneath stone lintels, reflecting nothing of the evening. The walls seemed to have been built without interruption, one stretch of brick following another until the whole place became less a building than a boundary.

He adjusted his grip on the case.

He carried it with both hands as though it contained something fragile.

Inside were three uniform shirts, folded tightly enough to keep their creases. A pair of polished black shoes wrapped in newspaper. Two collars. A shaving kit. A leather-bound notebook. And a set of fountain pens his father had insisted he take.

A nurse must be neat in appearance if not in spirit.

His father had said it with a laugh.

Unwin had not laughed.

He had thought about it all the way there.

At the gate, the wind carried a smell from somewhere beyond the walls. Wet earth, coal smoke, and something medicinal underneath. Carbolic, perhaps. Or boiled linen.

He entered.

The compound was quieter than he had expected.

There were no voices from the windows. No footsteps crossing the yard. No patients wandering under supervision. Only the faint clatter of something metallic from a distant building and, beneath it, a low continuous sound he could not place.

It seemed to come from the ground.

Unwin looked down.

The paving stones were slick with rain.

“Mr Unwin?”

He turned.

The woman standing beneath the covered entrance was smaller than he had imagined.

Mother Fry.

He had heard the name before he had seen her. Everyone had.

Not Matron Fry.

Mother Fry.

She wore dark blue, stiffly starched at the collar, with a watch pinned high against her chest. Her hair was grey and drawn so tightly back that it seemed to pull the skin from her face. She looked neither old nor young. Merely complete.

“You’re late.”

“I’m sorry, Matron.”

She studied him.

“Mother.”

Unwin hesitated.

“Mother.”

“Better.”

She turned without offering her hand.

Unwin followed.

The entrance swallowed them.

The temperature dropped almost immediately.

He noticed it first in his hands. The fingers holding the case tightened around the handle.

The corridor was long and badly lit. The electric bulbs had metal shades beneath them, throwing pools of yellow onto the floor, leaving the spaces between them dim. The walls were painted a colour that might once have been cream.

There were doors on either side.

Some were open.

Some had observation panels.

Some had nothing at all.

Mother Fry walked quickly.

Unwin had to lengthen his stride to keep up.

“You’ll be on nights until I know what you’re made of.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Don’t say yes when you mean you don’t know.”

“I understand.”

“That is another one.”

He looked at her.

She kept walking.

“Most things here,” she said, “are done because they have always been done. You will be told the reason afterward, if there is one.”

Unwin glanced towards one of the open doors.

A man sat alone on a chair inside.

His hands were folded between his knees.

He was staring at the wall.

“Don’t look too long.”

Unwin looked away.

“Why?”

Mother Fry stopped.

For the first time she turned fully towards him.

Her eyes were pale and remarkably clear.

“Because they notice.”

Unwin waited.

She resumed walking.

He could not tell whether she meant the patients.

The staff.

Or something else.

They passed a nurses’ station. Two women were writing in a ledger. Neither looked up.

Beyond them came a sound like a distant animal crying out.

Unwin stopped.

Mother Fry did not.

He hurried after her.

“That,” she said, “is Ward Three.”

The cry came again.

It was higher this time.

Then abruptly stopped.

Unwin swallowed.

“Is someone hurt?”

Mother Fry looked at him over her shoulder.

“Not necessarily.”

They continued.

The corridor narrowed.

The air grew colder the deeper they went, though the windows were shut and there was no obvious draught.

Unwin noticed condensation gathering along the glass of a door.

He reached towards it.

Mother Fry caught his wrist.

“Don’t.”

Her fingers were surprisingly strong.

Unwin withdrew his hand.

She released him.

“Some doors are locked for reasons you won’t understand yet.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And some are locked because someone forgot why they were locked.”

She began walking again.

At the end of the corridor stood a heavy door with a small square of wired glass.

Beyond it, Unwin could see beds.

A row of them.

Too many.

“This ward is yours,” Mother Fry said.

She produced a ring of keys from her pocket.

They were old-fashioned things, long and dark, each one worn smooth from use.

“You’ll do what’s asked. You’ll learn the routines. You’ll keep the medication records correctly. You’ll count twice when you’re tired.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’ll never assume silence means sleep.”

Unwin looked at her.

“Sir?”

“Patients,” she said. “They become quiet for many reasons.”

She unlocked the door.

The smell reached him first.

Disinfectant.

Sweat.

Stale bedding.

Urine.

Something metallic beneath all of it.

Mother Fry pushed the door open.

“Don’t trouble yourself with the noise.”

She said it softly.

Almost kindly.

Unwin frowned.

“What noise?”

Mother Fry looked at him for a moment.

Then she stepped inside.

The ward stretched away beneath a row of weak lights.

Beds stood against the walls.

Some occupied.

Some empty.

A man was sitting on the floor beside one bed, rocking slowly back and forth. An attendant stood nearby with his arms folded.

At the far end, someone laughed.

The laugh continued too long.

Unwin set his case down.

A nurse passed him carrying a tray.

She did not speak.

Mother Fry pointed.

“First room.”

The door opened.

A man was strapped to the bed.

He was perhaps forty. Perhaps thirty. It was difficult to tell. His hair was soaked through with sweat and his skin had taken on the grey, waxy colour of someone who had been ill for a long time.

Leather restraints crossed his wrists and chest.

A gag was tied across his mouth.

He was awake.

His eyes moved towards Unwin.

Then towards Mother Fry.

Two attendants stood beside the bed.

One held a syringe.

The other checked the restraints.

“What has he had?” Unwin asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“What’s the dose?”

The attendant looked at Mother Fry.

Mother Fry looked at Unwin.

“You’ll learn.”

The man on the bed began struggling.

The leather creaked.

The gag muffled whatever he was trying to say.

Unwin stepped closer.

“Hold him still.”

The attendant obeyed.

Unwin looked at the syringe.

The liquid inside was clear.

He had been taught about insulin coma therapy.

He had read the manuals.

He knew the theory.

The controlled reduction of blood glucose. The induced coma. The hope that something might be reset inside the damaged machinery of the mind.

He had been told what to expect.

That was the strange thing.

Nothing about the room surprised him.

Not the restraints.

Not the gag.

Not the syringe.

Not even the man’s eyes.

He had arrived knowing the work would be difficult.

He had simply not understood that difficulty could become ordinary.

The needle entered.

The man’s body jerked.

Unwin watched the plunger descend.

Someone behind him closed the door.

The sound was very small.

A click.

For several seconds nobody spoke.

Then the man stopped struggling.

The ward settled around them.

Unwin listened.

There it was again.

The sound he had heard before.

Low.

Steady.

Almost below hearing.

He looked towards the floor.

“What is that?”

Mother Fry was standing in the doorway.

“What is what?”

“That sound.”

She stared at him.

Then her expression changed.

Only slightly.

Something like recognition.

“Old buildings make noises.”

“I thought it was machinery.”

“So did I.”

She closed the door.

Unwin remained beside the bed.

He looked at the patient’s face.

The man’s eyes were still open.

Unwin checked his pulse.

Steady.

He checked again.

Steady.

He reached for the chart.

His handwriting was careful.

Precise.

He wrote down the time.

The dose.

The patient’s name.

Then, beneath the official information, he hesitated.

There was a blank space.

He did not know why he wanted to write something there.

Not a clinical observation.

Not a measurement.

Something else.

Something that said:

He was frightened.

Unwin looked at the words in his mind.

Then at the blank paper.

He did not write them.

Instead he closed the chart.

He rolled up his sleeves.

“Where do you want me, Mother?”

She looked at him through the glass.

For a moment she seemed almost sorry for him.

Then the expression disappeared.

“Here,” she said.

And she walked away.

Unwin listened to her footsteps receding down the corridor.

The patient breathed beneath the restraints.

The lights hummed.

The building breathed with them.

Unwin picked up his pen.

And began his first night.