“Because two of my men did a bit of exploring in the drains with a length of rubber hose, and something in there was backed up nasty. Caused a bit of a mess.” He tucked the towel into the waistband of his trousers.
I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. “I’m to clean it?” I asked. “Is that what you mean?”
He shrugged. “I’ll carry the mop and pail up for you if you like.”
“A nurse?” I said. “A nurse is supposed to mop the patients’ lav? That’s orderly work.”
“Not today, it isn’t. Matron’s orders.”
I watched him, feeling sick, as he pulled a heavy metal bucket and thick mop from the closet. She’s testing me, I thought as I followed him up the east staircase. Of course she is. She wants to see if I’ll quit, like the others.
The smell hit me before we even approached the lavatory door. It was a dank, horrible miasma, not a smell of bodily fluids, but of something rotting. It seemed to creep from the crack under the closed door like a living thing. My stomach turned.
Paulus seemed not to notice, or perhaps he’d smelled worse. As he approached the door, a voice came from the hall behind us. “Sister!”
Creeton stood in the open doorway to his room, watching us. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the doorframe, taking in the bucket and mop and starting to grin. I turned away.
“What a good little nurse you are,” Creeton called after me. “Cleaning up like this. We’re a bunch of brutes here, I’m afraid. It looks like someone left a nice present in the lav just for you.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Sweet scented and something to remember us by.” He laughed. “Has any man ever given you a present quite so nice?”
“Leave off,” said Paulus. “You’re supposed to be downstairs in the common room.”
“I forgot something. I’m glad I did now. This is much better than watching Somersham giggle or Mabry mop his bloody nose.”
I found I was gripping the mop handle, my hold so tight my knuckles were white. I’d been heckled before, plenty of times, but there was something about being heckled by Creeton that made my skin crawl.
“You go,” Paulus said over my head to Creeton, “or I’ll carry you down there myself.”
But Creeton’s steps left the doorway and came toward us. “I want to watch. Will she be on her knees scrubbing, Vries? I’d like to see that.”
“You go,” said Paulus again, as I stared at the door and smelled the unspeakable smell, “or I get angry.”
There was a long pause, as if Creeton was weighing his chances; then his steps turned away with the same slow, deliberate insolence he’d used on Matron. I brushed a forearm over my eyes.
Paulus was watching me. There was no mockery in his expression, but there was no pity, either. “You have to,” he said simply. “It’s her way. You either do this now, or you do something else later. Something worse.”
I nodded.
He put his hand on the doorknob. “Just don’t vomit. If you do, I have to tell her.” He opened the door.
It was the largest, most modern bathroom I’d ever seen, and if it didn’t have a vile sort of black mold sprayed over it, I’d have thought it beautiful. A claw-foot tub dominated one corner; in the other was a sink, elaborately styled, and a toilet. In an oval mirror mounted on the wall, set in a gold-painted frame, I could see a matching footbath on the facing side of the room. Tiles of pristine white set in a diamond pattern covered the floor, and smaller tiles hand-painted with blue flowers decorated the walls. Over it all, above the bathtub, was a high window, opaque with blue-and-white stained glass.
They had put the hose down the drain in the bathtub; most of the mess was concentrated there. Something was spattered on the walls, black and dripping over the pretty hand-painted blue. It seeped from the edge of the bathtub and pooled on the floor, running between the tiles. The stench was rotten. As I stood in the doorway, a black drop disengaged itself from the curled edge of the tub and landed on the floor with a fat plip.
I put a hand over my mouth. “How did they manage to do this?”
“A hose has two ends, doesn’t it?” said Paulus. “What came up one end came out the other. They tried to put it in a bucket, but you can see it didn’t work very well.”
“But what is it?”
“Buggered if I know. Something dead, most like, as I said. It made a sound coming up— Well, I’ve put the soap in the bucket. Just do the best you can.”
I couldn’t even nod.
“I’ll be outside the door,” he added before he left. “I’m needed in the kitchen, but I can stay a few minutes. In case Creeton comes back.”
Then Paulus was gone, and I was alone. I filled the bucket in the sink, turning the pretty china taps. I soaped the mop and began to clean, my eyes watering from the smell. I started on the floor, but the black stuff smeared and wouldn’t come off. I scrubbed harder, dousing with more soap and water. It was definitely some kind of disgusting mold, thick and viscous, blackening the grout. Suddenly I was thirteen again, cleaning my father’s vomit from the floor of our rancid old flat, my stomach heaving at the sour smell, sweat dripping from my forehead into the mess, trying not to clatter the brush against the bucket, trying not to make any sound as he slept in the next room. Please, please, don’t let him wake up. Please—
There was a sound in the wall.
I stopped. It came again—a low groan from deep in the building, far off and down below. Somewhere, something clanged against a metal pipe with a hollow sound. I’d been at Portis House for three days, and I’d never heard anything like it.
I stood frozen, half bent over my mop, cold sweat on my temples, staring at the wall.
It wasn’t a precise, mechanical sound; the groan came and went, now closer, now seeming farther away, like breathing. The clangs came irregularly, and then came a low ticking, as of something dripping in rhythm. It sounded for a while—tick, tap, tick at perfect intervals—and stopped.
“Paulus?” I said.
My breath came hard in my chest. It was just the house, of course—the walls settling, water coming from somewhere in the roof. It was a big place, and there were bound to be sounds. The groan came again, and I pressed my eyes shut. For some reason, the thought I’d just had came to my mind again. Please, please, don’t let him wake up . . .
The noise eased off and quiet fell again. I dunked the mop into the bucket and scrubbed with renewed vigor. The sooner I got out of this horrible, solitary bathroom, the better.
As I finished the floor, my arms shaking with strain, there was a single far-off clang. I jumped as if someone had touched me. Behind me the toilet gurgled and I nearly dropped the mop handle, grasping it again at the last second and leaning on it like an old woman, my heart pounding. The sound from the toilet was thick and sucking. I kept my back to it and imagined turning around to look, seeing black mold in there instead of water. I deliberately walked away and twisted the taps on the bathtub, letting the gush of water drown out the sound.
Leave. Just get out of here.
And tell Matron I couldn’t do it? No. I can’t. I needed this job. Needed it. Matron was looking for a reason to dismiss me. She’s told you to clean the bathroom. So stop jumping at sounds and bloody well clean it.