Lost Girls

chapter 33

Bishop's Hospital lies at the end of a gravel side road off the main highway heading north. Only a small wooden sign marks the place to turn. This would be odd for a regular hospital, where people rush in the middle of the night to have babies delivered, limbs set in plaster, or hearts pounded back to life. Insufficient for a place requiring a sign official looking and prominent enough to be caught in the panicked swing of headlights. But not so odd for an asylum, halfway house, old-age home, or whatever combination this place is.

Make the turn and bump along the S-shaped entryway, dripping boughs bent low enough to scrape across the Lincoln's windshield before lifting away to expose the hospital at the end. The building is a converted brick house, better suited to its present purposes than as the dwelling place of the single family for whom it must have been originally built. Out front is a wide circle for cars to park with a long-abandoned flower bed in its center, and everywhere else the underbrush has been allowed to creep up against the walls to cover most of the first-floor windows. In fact every effort appears to have been made (or not made) to let the place fall into an advanced state of overgrowth and disrepair. The easier then to be hidden and, with luck, forgotten.

I approach the single reception desk tucked into the curve of the staircase where a nurse sits with head lowered over papers. Behind her hangs a full-size portrait of a twenty-something Queen Elizabeth sitting on her throne, her youth weighed down by scepter, crown, and robes. I'm expecting crosses or a religious mural somewhere, somebody haloed or bleeding, but aside from Her Majesty there's nothing but bare walls.

Clear my throat to pull the nurse's attention away from what turns out to be not papers but the romance novel she's buried her head in. When she raises her eyes to mine she exposes a face much older that I would have expected, a complicated map of wrinkles and clouded eyes.

''Welcome to Bishop's. I'm Nurse Fergus. What can I do for you?'' she says in an accent even more abrupt than Mrs. Arthurs's, the tone flat and lean. A born and bred local.

''Satisfy curiosities,'' I say.

I tell her that I'm Thom Tripp's lawyer and that I'm researching the origins of a curious episode in the local history, namely the Lady in the Lake. I'd like to look over the medical records, see if she had a name and what happened to the two girls that were taken from her. When I finish, Nurse Fergus looks up at me with her two-dimensional face, pug nosed and frowning as a Pekingese.

''I wouldn't say 'curious' myself,'' she begins. ''I wouldn't say 'episode' neither. Now, I can't claim I remember her myself--I started here in fifty-four, and by that time she was gone. But even then you couldn't speak of the Lady without someone around here giving you a look.''

''Would there still be a medical record available on her?''

''Under what name? She never told anyone, which makes sticking her file into the alphabetical order a tricky business, as you can imagine.''

''But might there be an Unknown Persons section to the files where she may be?''

''Possibly. We could take a look and see. But I'm not so sure just anybody can come along and look at another person's file. And I told your friend Thom Tripp the very same thing.''

Nurse Fergus opens her eyes wide and shows a knowing playfulness in the blood-vesseled whites.

''Tripp came here to look at her file?''

''Told him that there's procedures for access to hospital records. Or you have to at least prove that you're a relative.''

''Why? Did he say why?''

''I didn't ask, to tell you the truth. But even if I had, I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten very far. Your friend is not the most talkative man to walk the earth.''

''He's not my friend.''

Nurse Fergus lowers her eyes, shrugs.

''Can I see the file, nevertheless?'' I ask, sensing she may wave me away if I don't press on.

''I've told you. There are procedures. Unless you're a relative?''

''I'm no relation. But I am a lawyer, and I can assure you that this is all entirely proper.''

''That so?''

''Absolutely.''

Nurse Fergus does something with her mouth that could either be an early symptom of Parkinson's or an effort at a girlish smile.

''First satisfy my curiosity,'' she says. ''What's this got to do with what you're up here for? Are you following your friend, or was he following someone else?''

''Neither. It's nothing,'' I say, and go for a smile myself. ''It's just an interest.''

''An interest.''

''They say everybody should have a hobby.''

''Well, you've picked a bloody strange one, I must say.''

And she's right, of course. I'm losing my grip on the trial of the season and all I can do is waste my time looking up a dead old girl with a bad reputation. Because I can't go back to the honeymoon suite to do something useful. Can't push the image of her face from my mind, the husk and song of her imagined voice. Because all I can do is let Nurse Fergus grip my wrist and take me down the main hall to the Records Room, where she pulls open a bottom drawer densely packed with worn files.

''More Unknowns here than you'd guess,'' she says. But it's only a few minutes before she sticks a thin, oil-stained folder under my nose with a croak of satisfaction. ''She'd be this one.''

An exposed water pipe gurgles uncomfortably above my head. Both of us wait for it to subside and in this time I notice how close we stand to each other, pushed together by filing cabinets, hanging bulbs, damp boxes stacked on the floor.

''Shall we have a look?'' Nurse Fergus takes a half step closer to my side, crosses her arms together under rolls of cardigan, turtleneck, and breast.

''A peek?''

''A peeky-boo.''

Only two pages. A standard admission form with ''Nameless'' printed in the space allotted for patient identification, and under TENTATIVE DIAGNOSIS the words Unable to mother. The second page is a two-paragraph handwritten report outlining her escape from hospital. Apparently she'd used the old knotted-together-sheets-to-make-a-rope routine, tied the one end to the bedpost and threw the other out the third-floor window, breaking through the glass with her bare arm. Then down she went into the snow, scrambling into the woods in nothing but her gown and slippers. At the end, the underlined sentence: ''Red Ward recommended for patient upon return.''

''Not much in the way of detail,'' Nurse Fergus comments as she reads with her chin on my forearm.

''What about her children? There's nothing in here about them, or where they ended up. And nothing about her hysterectomy.''

''How would you know about that?''

''Town gossip.''

''You must have been speaking to some of the old folks around here if you've heard that kind of gossip.''

''Nurse Fergus, I always seek the company of old folks wherever I go.''

I wonder for a second if this last bit would be taken as offense. But apparently not, for she only grins wider and sucks at her dentures in satisfaction.

''Back then, you didn't have to explain things as much,'' she says. ''Today, of course, you can hardly strap one of the rough ones into their bed without having to have a lawyer come round to sign some form or other. But when I first came here everything was run the way the doctors wanted it. Truth is, by the time you ended up in a place like this, chances were nobody else wanted much to do with you anyway. So they used to do hysterectomies without the patient's consent, and all sorts of other things --some far worse, really--without much paper to show for it. And as for taking a mother's children from her, well, you'd just get the justice of the peace up in the town to sign an order and you could ship them out to the main Toronto orphanage without another word. From there God knows where they'd end up.''

I return the file to the approximate place she pulled it from and rise, the silk violets on my necktie brushing across her knuckles as I go.

''Thank you for your help. I didn't imagine I'd find very much--''

She takes me by the elbow with a bony firmness.

''Are your curiosities satisfied now?''

Pull my arm away. A girlish giggle at my back as I half run down the hall.

When I get back to town there's still time to visit Tripp before they shut the cellblock down, but I call instead. Then I'm left on hold long enough that sleep, curling and warm, begins to settle around me where I sit. But before it has its way with me I hear the receiver being lifted at the other end and the wet, halting sucks of my client's breath. There is no greeting, and for a time I imagine him at a bare table in one of the fluorescent rooms of the Murdoch Prison for Men, the phone held to his ear from almost forgotten habit. It's clear that if nobody else spoke--neither me nor the guard standing behind him nor whoever whispered to him privately in his head--he would stay this way forever.

''Thom? You there?''

''Who's this?''

''It's Barth, Thom. How're things?''

''Do they let me have visitors?''

''Who would you like to have visit?''

''Tuesday's the day. Visitors come on Tuesdays. To see the others.''

''You're allowed visitors too. Who would you like--''

''Can I have pictures?''

''Can you--what kind of pictures? Because it all depends.''

''You know, I'd actually prefer them to the real thing. To be frank.''

''Well, with pictures it all depends on the subject, Thom, so if you--''

''You know the subject. It's been the same subject for some time--''

''--hey, hey, okay, can we just get back--''

''--unless somebody changed it without letting me know.''

Tripp coughs, sending something hard flying around inside him, and resumes his powerful breathing that sounds down the line as the crashing tide of the sea.

''Thom, just listen for a second. I want to ask you something, all right? About the case.''

The tide draws back up his nose.

''Our story is that the bloodstains in the back of the car came from Krystal's scraped knee,'' I say.

''Our story.''

''So how did the blood get on your shirt, Thom? Isn't that strange?''

''Are you asking me to explain what--''

''Yes, I am. Asking you to explain how the blood got on your shirt if she was sitting in the backseat with a cut on her knee.''

''They come and go on Tuesdays. But pictures. Pictures are different.''

''Thom, please, don't change the subject when I--''

''It all depends on the subject, though, doesn't it?''

''That's right. You're goddamn right about that. And right now the subject is trying to save your fucking ass, Thom. So for Christ's sake could you just--''

''Now, isn't that an odd thing! An English teacher who'd rather have pictures than books!''

Tripp makes a sputtering suppression of laughter, a flapping of lips so close to the mouthpiece that it distorts into an imitation of flatulence. But that's thankfully all. The laughter doesn't escape, and soon the respiratory tide returns, proof that the unstoppable oxygen machine that is my client is alive and well.

''I apologize for my outburst. But I have some questions, Thom, and I would like it--I would be so pleased if you could help me out with some of them.''

Nothing from the other end. But I can sense him listening.

''For example, I was talking to a former colleague of yours the other day. Miss Betts. She told me about the trouble you had with your divorce, being denied custody of your daughter. Now, all of that may be something we might think about using, or worse, it might be something the prosecution might want to use. But I'd like you to tell me what happened there anyway, so that I can answer--''

''A face like her mother's,'' he says so softly I barely hear it.

''Is that who you saw up in the window of Melissa's school the day you tried to visit her and the police kept you away? Was it your wife's face that you saw?''

''No. Melissa was crying. My wife never cried.'' He turns his head away. ''All her teachers standing behind her trying to say teacher things and pull her away but she wouldn't let them. Because she was my little girl and she wanted to see her daddy.''

I have to strain to hear the last of his words, each of them fading after the other as though the phone were being slowly pulled away from his mouth.

''Did you try to take Melissa away, Thom? Is that why they wouldn't let you see her anymore?''

''There's that word again. Take, take, take. But I ask you: how can a father take his own daughter?''

''So you're saying that you did, then. Or tried to. As far as the law is concerned.''

''I thought being a father was supposed to be the most natural thing in the world,'' he laughs now. ''I couldn't tell you as far as the law is concerned. But that's where you come in, isn't it?''

''I suppose it is, Thom, yes.''

I imagine him there in his prison overalls, his boyish skin in need of a shave, a trace of dinner still in evidence somewhere on his fingers or chin. And now that the talking is over he's allowed his face to loosen again, his features returned to their usual setting of gummy distraction. Not that he's mad, exactly. It's that he's decided that wherever he goes in his head is better for him than any of the currently available offerings of the waking world.

''Listen, I'll let you go now, Thom,'' I say. ''I'll visit soon.''

The receiver is halfway to its cradle when the mechanics of Thomas Tripp's body are interrupted by a request from its brain.

''Bring pictures,'' he says.