“Doreen…!” Tea was splashing everywhere, soaking the biscuits and racing across the table to pour in a steaming torrent onto the carpet. The nurse indignantly turned off the tap, her skirt and starched apron damp with the flying drops. “Doreen, why did you do that?”

“Jesus told me to.” Doreen spoke matter-of-factly. She gazed happily at the mess before her, pleased that she had been able to resolve these irreconcilable natures. Her moment of insight had seemed divinely inspired.

“Get to your room!” The nurse bore down on her. She seized Doreen’s wrist and elbow and pitchforked her violently across the floor, shaking the old woman so severely that I feared she would break an arm. No blows were struck, but a dose of corporal punishment was being administered. Doreen stumbled to the carpet, and I rose from my seat to help her, ignoring the outraged nurse and the shocked stares of the relatives. Doreen’s body was as light as a child’s. She clung to her injured arm, sobbing to herself. When I left her at the door of her dormitory she stared at the rows of deserted beds and spoke to them plaintively: “Jesus told me to…”

*   *   *

After saying goodbye to David I made my way down to the lodge, glad to see the empty lawns and the car park. “Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one,” David had counted as he returned the pieces to the box. He locked the catch and added: “Thirty-two.” He smiled at me, fully aware of the game we were playing. Find the key was David’s game, but he had never found it, and the search had led him to Summerfield, while Doreen had found her own in a moment of faith and imagination. I thought of this simple woman protecting herself from the world with her cordon of flowers, solving a pressing mystery of time and space with a brave gesture.

I gave my name to the orderly and stepped into the sunlight. In a curious way I felt that I was being discharged from Summerfield. David and all the patients in this Victorian asylum had put their heads together, trying to solve the puzzle from whose board an essential piece had been stolen.

I walked to my car, across the damp asphalt that never dried after the night’s rain. Before I started the engine I made a note to visit David in the following fortnight and to bring daffodils for Doreen. Summerfield fell behind me, an empty labyrinth hoarding its exits and entrances.

Part III: After the War

PART III

After the War

Into the Daylight

14

INTO THE DAYLIGHT