At the very top of the house was the attic, which Thomas claimed as his study. He spent hours up there, isolating himself on the evenings when he did come home. It made no sense to me because there were plenty of other huge, empty rooms he could have used, rooms with windows and natural light. When I raised this with him, he complained that the noise from the street disturbed him, or the neighbour’s birds gave him headaches. He needed complete silence to work, he said. The servants were forbidden to go in there, as was I. Thomas kept the key on him at all times.
Not that I didn’t try. A little while after the embarrassing incident and him storming out for the first time, I thought I should try and give him some assurances. I crept up to the attic in the middle of the night in a clumsy attempt to seduce him. I had practised being the seductress in the mirror: my robe was unfastened, my hair was down and falling over my shoulders, and my nightgown was loose. Eight weeks earlier he had announced how well we fitted, but when I knocked on the door I heard the turn of the key as he unlocked it. Things that fitted together did not have doors bolted between them.
‘What is it, Susannah? Are you well?’ He had taken to asking me that often since we’d married. Was I ill? As if a woman seeking her husband’s attention had a disease.
‘Will you be coming to bed?’ I asked, attempting my best impersonation of Nurse Mullens with my eyes wide and gamine, though I probably looked more like a fish.
His eyes, on the other hand, were glassy, the skin of his face clammy. He must have seen me take this in, because he wiped his upper lip with his sleeve, which struck me as slovenly and not like Thomas at all. Not the man I knew. He stared at me with a vacant expression, flat and lifeless, and I suddenly felt the idiot with my robe dangling open, so I pulled it around myself. I had no need to pinch my cheeks, for they had gone red enough of their own accord. I made a dreadful Jezebel, and it was clear Thomas wasn’t remotely tempted.
‘I only wondered if you needed company,’ I said. ‘Or if you are working, perhaps I could help? It can be useful to have someone to talk to.’
He laughed. ‘You’re a doctor now, are you? Why don’t you go to bed.’ At which he leaned forward and gave me a brotherly peck.
I glimpsed over his shoulder nothing but dust-covered clutter, as you would expect to see in an old attic. Thomas reeked of alcohol, but another bitter, faintly floral scent crept up my nose. He had been smoking opium. Drops were one thing, but opium was something altogether different. I had seen opium eaters with my grandfather. He had shown me on purpose, made sure I witnessed the hollow shells of gaunt-faced men and women lost in their own fogged-up world and quite prepared to hasten their own death and even sell their children for the sake of a few hours within an impenetrable cloud of nothingness. I was still considering how this could be possible when Thomas closed the door in my face.
Thomas made intimations about having the attic decorated, putting in lamps, plumbing and a laboratory of sorts. None of this came to fruition. Instead, he hid himself away – in part to forget he was married, I feared. I did not complain, for there were enough empty rooms in the house for my own purposes. I had not thought much about his need to keep a private space. I had swallowed the handed-down belief that a man needed to unwind when he came home from work and should not have to subject himself to the demands or even voices of the women in his household until he was ready. Thomas, however, was never ready. Once he was holed up in that room, he was gone. Or he left the house altogether.
Unlike me, Mrs Wiggs had complete freedom to access his sacrosanct space. She had her own key and let herself in whenever it suited her, busying herself on one of his many errands or in duties of her own creation. On occasion, Thomas would shut himself in that room and then open the door and bellow for Mrs Wiggs. She would scurry up to meet him and if I tiptoed up the stairs and listened, I could hear their muffled voices playing together, rising and falling in a duet that often built to a crescendo of laughter. They clearly enjoyed each other’s company. Yet when I attempted to extract a sentence from Thomas, word by word, he submitted with a reluctant huff. There was no melody, and certainly no duet. It was the laughter that irritated me most. What on earth were they laughing about? What could be so hilariously funny?
