April 15, 1965
There's more nerves in me right now than the human body has any right to have. Robert would say I'm being stupid, that "there's no one more qualified than you for this" but he has to say that. He's the one who practically handed this to me.
What do I know about asylums?
Nothing, that's the answer to that question. Don't know a damn thing and I'm petrified of doing this wrong. These people are counting on me to heal their relatives, to find medicines for the mind.
I'm going to fail.
He capped his pen, slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket and stood up as the bus stopped. His journal closed in his hands and he hurried to stuff it into the outer pocket of his briefcase before reaching over his head for the case there. The driver nodded at him and then whistled to the boy dozing in the front seat. With a snort and a yelp, the boy was out of the bus faster than the man could limp to the front.
"Pleasure having you aboard Mr. Bates."
"Thank you." Bates shook the man's hand. "It was an adventure in and of itself."
"I hope so sir." The man winked, "And anytime you need a hurried escape from this place you just call on me, Charlie Carson, and I'll be here in two ticks."
Bates took the driver's card and then exchanged it with his own. "I promise I'm here to work, not to stay."
"These places drive sane men mad and the insane even farther down the path." Carson nodded solemnly, "You take care of yourself in there Mr. Bates."
"I'll do my best." Bates descended the stairs, sliding Carson's card in with his pen and then arranging his briefcase and case to the same hand so he could take the duffle the boy handed him. "Thank you Andy."
"Pleasure's all mine sir." He mocked a salute and Bates flicked him a tip.
"No need for all that."
"It's the right thing to do for those who sacrificed for our country." Andy nodded at his leg. "I assume you got that in the service."
"You're right." John tapped his leg with the duffle in his hands. "Serving in the SOE but that's all I'm allowed to tell you."
"Well good luck Mr. Bates."
"Thank you Andy." John shifted the strap of his duffle more comfortably on his shoulder and secured his hold on his cases to take the path toward the stark building.
His feet scraped and clicked on the pavement and the steps sounded solidly of stone under his weight as he ascended to the door. Risking his case to the damp stone for a moment, he raised his fist to knock at the door but stopped when it opened. A girl, with her mass of dark hair tied back under a nurse's cap and the bluest eyes he ever saw, gasped at the sight of him and then broke into a smile that crinkled lines near her eyes.
"I do hope you're the doctor we're expecting and not an unexpected patient."
"Oh no, I'm here for the long haul." He extended his hand, "John Bates, psychologist."
"It's good to have you." She shook, still smiling. "We're a bit understaffed here and your application to our board was just a miracle."
"Glad to be of service. The offer was a miracle." John bent, grabbing his case, and grimaced. He leaned to the side and caught himself before the woman could help him. "Sorry about that. Bit of shrapnel shifts in the leg occasionally and causes some trouble."
"War injury?"
"One to match my father's." He waited a moment for the spasm in his leg to stop. "But that's what my mother says."
"Has your father passed Doctor?"
"About ten years ago." John shook off the nurse's immediate rush to sympathize. "He lived a good life and married my mother. That's all he ever wanted."
"How'd they meet, if I can ask?" She ducked her head, "I'm always one for a good love story."
"They met in Service. My father was the valet to an Earl and she was the lady's maid to his eldest daughter."
"It sounds romantic."
"To hear them tell it, the whole thing was a grand epic." John sighed, "But I can feel him turning in his grave since I've yet to ask you your name."
"Sybil Crawley," She cringed. "It's a name you'll hear often in this village."
"I take it you're related to the family with their name plastered on every available surface?"
Sybil nodded. "They weren't very pleased when I turned down the chance at a higher class education for my nursing and midwifery courses but they've seen the good I can do and they're coming around to the idea."
"It's a noble endeavor for which you're not thanked nearly enough." John smiled, "My grandmother, on my father's side, was a nurse."
"I'm the first in my family." Sybil pointed John down the corridor. "This'll be your office. For the moment we've got you sharing a room with the head of the male nursing staff, Mr. Barrow, but I expect once they've finished the construction on the upper floors they'll move him up there with the other nurses to keep them all in line and you'll keep the room."
"I'm used to sleeping in barns and bunking with fifty other men crammed into a can." John laughed, "I can handle a roommate."
"I'm more worried about him handling you." Sybil lowered her voice as they reached the room and she produced a key, turning it in the lock before handing it over. "He wasn't too happy about your hiring, if I do say so myself."
"Has he got it out for me then?"
"My father…" Sybil stopped herself, "That is to say, the head of the hospital board, recommended you and they thought-"
"Wait," John put up a hand, his duffle and case on the bed with his briefcase balanced a bit precariously atop the rough pyramid. "Your father is Robert Crawley?"
"Yes." Sybil winced, "I try to pass myself off as a cousin since the Matron isn't a fan of my family in general. Especially not after a rather bad row with an aunt of mine… or was it a second cousin? Anyway, when Susan Flintshire got her sacked from the General Hospital in York, Matron Sadler took it upon herself to make trouble for my father whenever she can."
"She's not going to like me much more than Mr. Barrow than is she?"
Sybil shook her head, "You've not got many supporters here I'm afraid. Most are expecting you to fail and those who aren't won't lift a finger to help you since there's nothing in it for them." She shuddered. "It's disgusting but the life here… It wears on the soul caring for those who can't keep their minds right. That leaves it's own kind of marks."
"Not on you."
"I wear mine differently." A clock deep in the building chimed and Sybil lifted the little watch hanging from her apron and widened her eyes. "I'm so sorry but I've got to dash."
"Here then," John tucked his key away and left his things on the bed, taking only his briefcase, and went out the door with her. "Show me my office and that'll be it."
They wove between lines of patients, some ambling as if only for the exercise while others shuffled from the force of the line behind them. John noted the way they walked, the way some stared, and the quietly labored breathing of many of them. Each nurse held a firm tone to their voice, calling out orders or physically guiding their charges where they needed to go, and the layers of sound bounced off the walls to almost deafen them.
Each person pushed on, heedless of others in their personal quests to go where they needed to travel, and John kept his eyes on Sybil. The grace of her movements reminded him of water running the path of least resistance and when they managed a break in a corridor, a long line of patients trudging by, John turned to her. "Do you dance, Nurse Crawley?"
"I studied ballet as a child but I had a rather bad injury when I was seventeen. It made dancing as a profession impossible."
"Seems a shame."
"It was. I-"
"Student Nurse Crawley!" Both heads turned as a woman with her hair done up under her cap and the coldest blue eyes John ever saw glaring down at them. "You're late for your shift."
"That would be my fault, Matron." John cut in before Sybil could manage a word. "She was helping me situate myself so I didn't get lost in the shuffle and I delayed her. The only fault she has is compassion for the needy."
"I'm sure you're needy in a great many things, Doctor." Matron stared him up and down. "Only just arrived and already throwing out delicate system off its track."
"Some systems could use a shake of the branches now and then." John held his ground, straightening to tower over her as best he could manage. "I'm sure there are things we do that could stand a bit of altering."
"Life is best left as it is." She glared at him before snorting. "But an appointment like yourself wouldn't understand delicacy in such things."
"The subject of how I gained his position need only remain limited to my qualifications, which I can present in now less than three degrees with related certificates, and my experience, of which I have much in many areas and some of them are still classified by our government. Now, Matron," John stepped toward her, keeping down his smile when she quailed slightly. "I'll have Student Nurse Crawley here show me to my office and then she'll continue to her daily duties with no demerits or other punishments. Is that understood?"
Matron ground her teeth and nodded, "Yes, Doctor."
"Thank you." He rolled his neck and extended his hand, "John Bates, it's a pleasure to meet you."
She only looked at his hand and scoffed. "Vera Sadler and the pleasure's all yours."
"I'm sure it is." John faced Sybil, "Could you help me with the rest of the directions? I won't get lost if you'll show me the way once, I promise."
"This way Doctor Bates."
They continued through the halls, Sybil not daring to speak until she reached John's office. Another key came out and she unlocked the door before handing it over. John compared the two keys quickly and then clipped them onto a chain attached to a pocket watch dangling from his waistcoat.
"Hate to lose them."
"Doctor Bates," Sybil's hands clasped behind her back and John faced her, frowning. "It's probably not my place to say but… Could I ask you not antagonize Matron Sadler in future?"
"I do hope you're not saying that for her benefit."
"Most definitely not." Sybil shook her head fast enough to send a few wisps of her hair loose of the tight hold. "It's just… She can be rather a tyrant with her power and I worry about some of the other student nurses. They're not… They don't handle it well. And the patients here handle it much worse."
"I'll keep that in mind." John set his briefcase on the desk. "Could I ask you a favor in return?"
"Of course."
"Tell me if she's abusing the patients or any of the staff. I won't have that in my hospital and I refuse to allow any continuation of brutality for as long as I'm here."
"Yes Doctor."
"That'll be all." John waited for Sybil to close the door and then turned to his desk. "Right, let's begin."
"John?" The hand at his shoulder startled him and John almost jumped right out of his chair. Anna raised her hands in surrender, her keys still trapped in the fingers of one hand, and she tried to hold back a smile. "You're rather the involved reader."
"Sorry." John shook his head, "I was reading the other John Bates's diary."
"Diaries are for planning." Anna took another chair at the table as John stretched, cracking his back and then straining his muscles. "That's a journal."
"Okay, pedant." John set it down between them, marking the page with a spare notecard. "He's rather feisty. Reminds me of your attending at hospital."
"Gwen?" Anna whistled, "They must've been in for a wild ride back in…" she checked the first page of the journal.
"Nineteen-sixty-five." John shook his head, "He definitely didn't last long there."
"That kind of work can take a toll on the mind."
"That's not what Edith Pelham suggested." John tapped his finger against the cover of the journal. "She said he left after a row with Father Green that resulted in the hospital board trying to circumvent the rule Doctor Bates put down about restricting him from the premises."
"They restricted him?" Anna sat back in her chair, "I hope he saw right through that slimy bastard."
"I get the feeling he heard things he wished he hadn't but I haven't gotten that far."
"Read me a bit?"
"Uh," John looked around, "Can we move to the sitting room? I think this chair's gone and sent half my ass to sleep."
"Alright then. You get your ass awake while I shower." Anna paused, standing up from the table, "In other circumstances I'd invite you to join me but given the state of me…"
"I understand and I'm grateful for your consideration." John waved her up. "Go on. Shower, get comfortable, and I'll get something going here."
"You cook?"
"Occasionally." He pointed to the stairs, "Go on."
"You sound like my father."
"I promise I won't ever make you call me 'Daddy'." They both paused, John reddening, "That wasn't-"
"I don't know. I always saw myself in the domination position." Anna winked and headed upstairs as John gaped after her.
He hurried about the kitchen, checking on the last bits of the washing and then hurrying through a simple pasta he left steaming in a bowl as Anna came down, drying her hair with a towel. She dropped it to hang over the back of a chair and took the bowl between her hands. "Don't think I didn't notice you tidied up the place while I was gone."
"I thought it the least I could do since I'm living here."
"Still…" Anna took a bit, shrugging and then digging in for more. "It's more than most would've done."
"Maybe." John nodded at her. "Do you want to finish that here or do you eat in your sitting room?"
"Since I don't worry about dropping crumbs at my age, I can take my food anywhere." Anna picked up the bowl, "Follow me."
They took their seats, Anna curled on the edge of her sofa as she ate and John opening the journal. "He's settled in at the hospital and he's met Student Nurse Sybil Crawley, Matron Vera Sadler, and he's heard about the head of the male nurses, Mr. Barrow."
"Sounds like a gripping drama." Anna nodded at him, "I hope you narrate with different voices like an audio book."
"I can try my best but I make no guarantees." John cleared his throat.
April 21, 1965
Barely a week and I'm already convinced I've made the best professional decision of my career while simultaneously making the worst personal choice. My roommate, Mr. Barrow, bears me more than the minute grudge SN Crawley intimated when I arrived. He's taken to childish pranks and a sort of petulance I'd expect from one just entering puberty, not claiming seven years of professional work. And for a man proud of his military service, he seems determined to dwell more on his grievous injury than his actual service. There's talk amongst the staff that it might've been self-inflicted but I don't hold with gossip. Much to their irritation, and despite my own personal support of the belief that he has the capacity to make such a low decision, I made a rule about spreading gossip around this place.
It was one of the biggest problems.
Before the war, when I was just a student myself, I used to believe the rumors of dramatic goings-on at hospitals were just tales the lecturers told us to keep us interested past the boringly endless anatomy slides. Given the outbreak of the war and the nature of my commission, and my work with the SOE, I barely had time to experience a hospital setting when I was young enough to enjoy the intrigue. When I remained behind, in Burma and India, to finish my work for the SOE and help with the recovery I had translators. Most of them didn't tell me what went on beyond the basics I needed to do the work. Now that I've experienced even a fraction of it… It exhausts me.
I feel old. Barely over forty and the world's left me hollow. I've no patience for the intrigues and plots they all seem to hatch here. More for their own amusement than for any real purpose but even that sickens me. Perhaps it's that my parents never liked gossip. They only ever spoke of others if they thought they could do them some good. I've risked putting myself at odds with all in the hospital by not taking part. According to SN Crawley (who I believe I've made my unwitting spy in all this) they think I'm trying to prove something to them.
My unit sometimes thought the same thing. That I was holier-than-thou and beyond myself because I wouldn't drink with them or chase the local girls. But I helped deliver enough children with white fathers in the aftermath of the war… I didn't need to leave a child of mine in the arms of a woman forever shunned. And my father didn't drink. He warned me against it as the Irish in our blood made us beasts with it and the Scottish there made us mad for it. Except for the glass of champagne to celebrate when the Germans and the Japanese surrendered, that was all to ever pass my lips.
My father would be proud.
I've thought of him more lately. He lived to see my commission but before I took my first mission to India I'd laid him in the ground. He was always older, almost two decades my mother's senior, but he seemed so strong. The untouchable and impervious god who carried me on his shoulders and read to me and loved my mother where I could see. That man couldn't ever die. That's why my mother's convinced he'll never be dead, because we still remember him. It's the thought I carry with me as I struggle to help these people broken and battered by time and tide.
I've always thought the mind a curious thing. Now, I fear it. It rules some of my patients where they believe they see people who aren't there or hear voices from demons or Satan or their long-passed relatives. My mother, spiritual woman that she is, wouldn't believe in something like what they hear. They suffer where none can see and I have to help them.
It's perhaps the most dangerous commission I've ever dared take.
John looked up at Anna, clutching the empty bowl. "He should've been a poet."
"I think the two of you are more alike than you are different." Anna adjusted only enough to leave her bowl on the coffee table. "What happened next?"
John turned the page, "It looks like he's got some notes on a patient."
"Go on then." Anna settled a pillow behind the small of her back. "I'm curious."
"I can tell." John swallowed, "Okay, next day."
Given the dearth of doctors I manage most of the patients on my own. In the last week it's been triage to address those patients with immediate concerns and to follow up on those with notations in the files left by my predecessor, Doctor Laing. He seems a good man and a good doctor. I judge it by the way SN Crawley speaks of him and from the level of vitriol Mr. Barrow and Matron Sadler use when mentioning him. With those two breathing down his neck I can understand the transfer to Bethlehem Hospital in London.
Today is the first time I've address the patients caught in the wash of the change and my first was…
He noted the file, opening it on his desk and standing when a knock came at the door. Crossing over the office, pulling his tie straight as he did so, and opened the door. Sybil stood there with a blonde woman who stared at him with the deepest blue eyes he ever fell into.
Shaking himself, and clearing his throat for good measure, John opened the door fully. "Thank you Student Nurse Crawley, I'll take it from here."
"Right." She put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'll leave you in Doctor Bates's care then Anna. Don't worry, he doesn't bite."
"Thank you Sybil." Anna entered the office and waited on the carpet as John shut the door almost all the way. "Doctor Laing always shut the door."
"I want to avoid anyone feeling trapped in here." John gestured toward it. "I've had a few in here who think I'm locking them in if I shut the door."
"I'd rather you shut it all the way, if it's all the same to you."
"Of course." John closed the door with a soft click and motioned toward the sofa. "Would you like a seat?"
"Thank you." Anna's measured steps put her at the sofa in a short time and she sat with all the poise of a lady. John leaned over his desk to close the file and bring it with his pen and pad to the chair near the sofa.
"I hope you don't mind if I take notes during our session."
"It's what's expected." Anna laid her hands gently on her lap, crossing her ankles. John's eyes darted after the motions and he sat back, leaving the file on the small table beside his chair as she met his eyes. "Is there something wrong Doctor Bates?"
"I'm not sure you're aware, Ms. Bancroft, but your file doesn't tell me enough to understand your posture."
She frowned, "I'm not sure I understand the insinuation."
"You've crossed your ankles, you sit with your back straight, and your hands rest on your lap. They don't flop there, you're not slouching, and your legs are always kept together." John shrugged, "It speaks to a very specific kind of breeding. One I'd hazard you gained all through your formative years, which leads me to believe you're a woman of reputation."
"Not now that I'm here."
"Tell me then, Ms. Bancroft," John brought his legs to cross and supported his pad on his knee. "How were you raised?"
"Perhaps I could press you for more useful conversation?"
"I find this useful."
"I meant for me." Anna's fingers twitched and John glanced toward them, noting the wringing motion that twisted the edge of her formless shift a moment before she dropped the gray fabric and adopted the mantle of lady once again. "Doctor Laing and I had many sessions where he tried to diagnose my problem as a condition experienced by many girls of my… breeding, as you put it. Said the hysteria would be solved with marriage and I must put myself in the mindset to accept that would be the moment it would come."
Now it was John's turn to frown. "Doctor Laing's notes don't mention hysteria, Ms. Bancroft."
"Might I know what they do say?"
"It's not a habit of mine to risk the information to patients but I get the feeling you're not going to tear it to pieces if you read it." John handed the file to her. "The only notes Doctor Laing made in your file were those that encouraged your admission here as a matter of public and personal safety."
"Then you've no access to his notes?"
"He didn't leave me any. Those he did leave pertained to other patients. You he marked," John tilted his head to read it. "Making steady progress and probably release."
"Release?"
"The date is unspecified but I think he had high hopes for your recovery. However," John settled back into his chair, watching Anna read the notes in her file with interest as each page turned. "It does put us in a rather interesting position."
"Does it?" She barely noticed him, her eyes flicking toward him for only a moment as she continued reading.
"It means you'll have to rehash the basics for me." John made a note on his pad. "Although I could already tell you I disagree with whatever he told you about hysteria."
"You do?"
"I do." John tapped his pad. "It's an older term used by men uncomfortable with the idea that women wish to exercise a healthy sexuality. More to the point, they're afraid of the women in their lives exercising the morals of the men in their lives and so attempt to tramp down the natural desires and inclinations of the body in women to justify the pedestal on which they place those women with whom they wish to breed."
"As opposed to the gutter where they leave those they only wanted for their bodies?" Anna finally closed the file. "Do you know why I'm in here, Doctor Bates?"
"There's a letter from your priest that says you're a danger to yourself." John pointed at the file, "I'm sure you read it in there."
"Would you believe me when I tell you that every word of it is a lie?"
"I'm inclined to believe you'll tell me the truth as you see it." John held up a hand when she opened her mouth. "That's not doubt, Ms. Bancroft, that's professional caution. While I've seen more sanity in you in five minutes than I saw in my whole first week here, I must respect the purpose of this institution and the fact that there is a chance you might not be in your right mind."
"Do you think I'm mad?"
"We're all a little mad, Ms. Bancroft. My purpose is to assess if your level of madness if the kind that would make you a danger to yourself and others."
"And if not?"
"Then I let you go and worry about those who need far more help." John scrawled another note on his pad. "Since you don't believe you're mad and I've got the feeling that you're not as mad as people believe, I suspect we'll not have to be here long."
"You believe that?"
"Ms. Bancroft, I believe the purpose of my expertise is to help you train your mind to make you capable in society. It's not to keep you trapped here like a prisoner. There are those who need these beds more and I intend to help those who need it, not to force those who don't need it to take more of it."
She stared at him, her forehead furrowed until the tension in her shoulders relaxed. "If you're serious, Doctor Bates, then I think we should begin."
"I quite agree." He readied his pen, "Speak when you're ready."