Silence for the Dead(27)

Jack Yates arrived with the first group.

There was silence as the men filed in: Archie, Creeton, Captain Mabry, and Mr. MacInnes. Jack had shaved, combed his hair, and put on shoes. He looked at me as he entered, his dark-lashed blue eyes registering quiet surprise, and then he turned to the others and sat in the chair with his back to me.

Dr. Thornton cleared his throat. “Ah. We do have someone new with us today. I hope no one will find this too disruptive.”

The men shuffled their feet and glanced at one another. They said nothing.

“This is, ah, Mr. Yates,” Thornton tried again.

They knew. All of them. I looked at their faces and understood that the doctor wasn’t telling them anything they hadn’t already known, probably from the first. It was Archie, after all, who had warned me about the clearance to see Patient Sixteen. I’d been right; there was no hope of privacy in the close conditions these men lived in, not after being here six months. The happy little fiction that no one knew Jack Yates was here was just that: a fiction.

But the men said nothing, and Dr. Thornton and Dr. Oliver continued to look pained at this supposed breach in the rules.

The tension stretched unbearably. Creeton opened his mouth, a smirk on his face; then his gaze traveled over the other faces and he closed his mouth again. Finally Mr. MacInnes nodded. “How d’ye do,” he said.

“Yes, hello,” said Archie.

Thornton looked relieved. “Let’s begin.” He pulled a leather-bound notebook and pen from his briefcase, crossed his legs, and prepared to write. “Dr. Oliver, which patient is first?”

Oliver consulted his own list. “Mabry, sir.”

“Mabry.” Dr. Thornton made an obvious note of the name. “Please proceed, Mr. Mabry.”

Captain Mabry—Matron and the doctors called him “Mister,” but the rest of us couldn’t help but call him “Captain,” he was so obviously a captain—swallowed and nervously pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “I’ve been doing much better,” he said.

“Is that so?” Dr. Thornton regarded him. “I seem to recall, Mr. Mabry, that you were having hallucinations, though we had seen improvement in recent weeks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. And what are you requesting?”

“I would like to see my children.” Mabry sat stiff and brittle, as if a single tap would shatter him.

“I’m sorry?” said Dr. Thornton. “Would you repeat that, please?”

“My children,” said the captain, a little louder. “I would like to see them—please, sir.”

“Your children.” Dr. Thornton wrote in his notebook. “Yes, you’ve made this request before.” He turned in his chair. “Dr. Oliver?”

As Dr. Oliver riffled through his papers for something, I watched Captain Mabry’s face, so plainly stamped with contained emotion, and I understood what Archie had told me the day before. We have to be well for the doctors.

Dr. Oliver handed Dr. Thornton a piece of paper, and Dr. Thornton looked it over. “I have here,” he said, “an incident report written by Matron. It states that you had one of your delusional attacks only a few days ago.”

That day at supper, Mabry lying in my lap with a nosebleed. The room was painfully quiet.

“Sir,” said Mabry.

“Well? Was it an attack? Or is Matron lying?”

“I had a nosebleed, sir. That was all.”

“A nosebleed.”

Captain Mabry’s gaze flicked to me for the merest second; then it flicked in front of me, to Jack Yates. Jack leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor as if tuning out the scene around him. He raised his head, looked at Mabry long enough to catch his eye for a second, and dropped his gaze again.

“I have a request here,” said Dr. Thornton, “from your wife, Mr. Mabry. She has applied to visit you, along with your children. If you are still having attacks, you must understand that for the safety and well-being of your family, as well as of yourself, I would not be able to allow this visit. Do you understand?”

Mabry did, with agonized clarity. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you still maintain you had a nosebleed and not a delusional attack?”

I was shocked. Thornton had no superior powers, no higher insight. This wasn’t medical treatment; it bore no resemblance to medical treatment. It was bartering, pure and simple. I wanted to scream.

“Yes, sir,” said Mabry.

“Nurse Weekes.” Thornton turned in his chair and suddenly all eyes were on me. “The incident report lists you as witness. What is your assessment?”

My face grew numb, and for a second my voice wouldn’t work. “I’m not familiar with Captain Mabry’s attacks, sir.”

Thornton closed his eyes briefly, as if greatly tried. “First of all, he is not a captain here. We have no ranks at Portis House.”

Except for you, I thought. But I said, “Yes, sir.”

“Please explain, in your capacity as a medical professional, what Mr. Mabry experienced.”

“Cap— Mr. Mabry experienced a nosebleed, sir.”

“It seemed to spontaneously bleed?”

“Yes.”

“And when it spontaneously bled, did Mr. Mabry ask you for assistance?”