speaking. Maybe she has always been like this from birth, we simply do not know. The mind is as fragile as the body, and, sadly, we know far less about it. But what I do know is this, and am quite sure of it – I have observed this often among the wounded sailors and soldiers I have treated – that the body can help cure the mind. Body and mind work best together. The first step, and I am convinced of this, is to persuade her to get out of her bed. We have to get her moving, to take an interest in life again. It is the only way.”
“I told you, I’ve tried. She won’t be moved, Doctor,” said Mary. “I’ve tried everything I know. She just lies there. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Believe me, I understand, Mrs Wheatcroft, I do,” the doctor went on. “No one could have done more. But that’s my point. I’m afraid that sooner or later, if she does not improve, she may need more… well, let us call it specialised help. And that she can only get in a hospital on the mainland.”
Mary started to her feet, tears in her eyes. “You mean the madhouse, don’t you, Doctor? That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it! Like the asylum in Bodmin, where Billy was. Over my dead body! I have been to that place. We were there together, Doctor. Or have you forgotten? It is a hell on earth, you know it is. I won’t let that happen, not again. I saw what they did to Billy in that place. For goodness’ sake, Doctor, you helped me get Billy out of there. You know how they’re treated. They don’t live, poor souls, they just exist. It’s a prison, Doctor, not a hospital. They just lock them up and throw away the key. There’s no care in the place, no hope. No, until her mother or father comes for her, she is ours to care for. You hear me, Doctor? I’ll not let her into one of those dreadful places in a million years. We shall make her well in body and mind, you’ll see. And God will help us. Didn’t Lucy just speak to Alfie? Isn’t that a good sign?”
“Indeed it is, but I just want you to face the possibility, Mrs Wheatcroft, that’s all,” said Dr Crow.
“It is not going to happen, Doctor,” Mary whispered fiercely through her tears.
“None of us want it to happen,” the doctor went on. “All I can tell you is that if we’re to have any hope of healing her mind then you have to get her up and walking, somehow. She must be strong enough by now to walk. You have to try to get her outside.”
“I’ve tried, Doctor,” Mary told him despairingly. “Do you think I haven’t tried?”
The doctor turned to Alfie. “What about you, Alfie? You got her to speak just now. Take her round the island, take her out in the boat, maybe over to Samson to see the cottages, or down to Rushy Bay to see the seals. We’ve got to get her to take an interest in life, to get her out of herself. And Mrs Wheatcroft, you go on doing just what you’ve been doing, talk to her, read to her, care for her, but try to bring her downstairs more, get her helping in the kitchen, out on the farm.”
“She’s seems so damaged, so fragile,” Mary said. “I can’t force her, can I? How can I make her do what she doesn’t want to do?”
“Marymoo,” said Jim, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “Let’s do what the doctor says. Let Alfie try to take her out a bit. He’s more her age. She might go with him. You can’t do it all by yourself, Marymoo.”
“She’s got to learn to live again, Mrs Wheatcroft,” the doctor said, getting to his feet. “Even then we can’t be sure she’ll get well. But it’s her best hope and my best advice, that’s all. Get her up, get her moving, whether she wants to or not.”
He stopped at the door as he was leaving. “This is just an idea,” he said. “Music. Maybe music would help. I’ve got one of those wonderful gramophone contraptions back at home on St Mary’s, and some records to go with it. I’ll bring them over next time I come. Easy enough to operate: you just wind it up, put the needle on, and out comes the music. Magic. Extraordinary invention. Everyone should have one. No one would need a doctor then, put me right out of a job, but I shouldn’t mind. Very healing stuff, music.”
All that week Alfie tried, and his mother tried, but no amount of gentle persuasion or cajoling could induce Lucy to get out of bed. Then the next time Dr Crow came calling, a week or so later, he brought his gramophone with him as he had promised. As soon as he arrived, he wound it up, and put a record on. Miraculously, piano music filled the room, filled the whole house. Jim, Mary, Alfie, and the doctor, all of them simply stood there, watching the record going round and round, listening in wonder, utterly lost in the music.
“It’s Chopin,” said the doctor after a while, conducting the music with his pipe.
The stair door opened behind them. Lucy was standing there in bare feet. She was swathed in her blanket, her teddy bear in her hand. She drifted across the room towards them, towards the gramophone. For long moments, she simply stared down at it. “Piano,” she whispered, and then again, “Piano.”
I REMEMBER I WAS PLAYING PAPA’S favourite piece on the piano when Old Mac brought the letter in. Old Mac was Papa’s uncle and had always lived with us in the house, along with Aunty Ducka who had been my nanny and nurse. She had looked after me all my life, taught me to sew, to make bread, and to say my prayers at night. She had looked after Mama too before me, when Mama was little. I called her ‘Ducka’, apparently, because she was the one who used to push me in my pram down to the lake in Central Park to feed the ducks every day. So Ducka I called her, and Aunty Ducka she became to everyone else too after that. And Old Mac had taught me how to fly kites in the park, and skim stones, and look after the horses and saddles. The two of them looked after just about everything else as well – house, stables, garden, our every need. Life could not have gone on without them.
I hated my daily piano practice, especially scales, but Mama had ways of persuading me every time.
Threats: “You will not be allowed to go out riding unless you practise first.”
Bribery: “Play well enough, Merry, and you can go for a ride afterwards.”
Or blackmail. Since Papa had left for the war, it was Papa she often used to blackmail me into doing my daily piano practice: “Your papa will be very disappointed in you, Merry, if you have not learnt your pieces by the time he comes home. Remember, Merry, you promised him you’d practise your scales every day.”
The trouble was that it was true, I had promised him. But I still did not like Mama reminding me of it, and I most certainly did not like her sitting there watching me either, which was why I was sulking that morning as I played my scales, with as little application as possible and no enthusiasm whatsoever, just so she would know how I felt.
The routine was always the same with Mama. She’d stay in the sitting room with me until I had played my scales three times without hesitation or mistake. Only then would she let me play what I wanted. I rarely played the pieces that my music teacher, Miss Phelps, had told me to. First of all I didn’t like her, as she was so unsmiling and severe. She frowned all the time, and had very thin lips, and several long brown whiskers growing out of the two moles on her chin. And the pieces she told me to practise were either too difficult for me or I didn’t like them – one or the other, or usually both – which was why, as soon as I’d done my scales to Mama’s satisfaction that morning, I decided not to play my practice pieces at all, and instead began playing my favourite Mozart piece, ‘Andante Grazioso’.
