Songbird

Cathy, the nurse, said she would accompany Maddy to the house, but that first, they must go and have a sustaining meal in the staff canteen. Maddy was happy to do this, as she was feeling very wobbly by now.

With its stone mullions and deep Georgian windows, the house had once been a proud dwelling. When they opened the door however, the stench of damp hit the two women like a wall. “Phew!” Cathy led the way, carrying Maddy’s bag. “I’d best give you a hand to get rid of this smell.”

They went from room to room, and each one was the same – damp and dingy, and filled with secondhand furniture that had seen better days.

“We’ll soon have it shipshape and Bristol fashion,” said Cathy, and they did.

An hour later, with the windows having been thrown open to let the bad air out and the fresh summer air in, Maddy could see its potential. Not that she cared about such things any more. This house was a roof over her head, that was all. For now, she needed nothing more, except to be left in peace, allowed to hide from the world and not be a bother to anyone.

Under the sink they found cleaning materials and a round plastic bowl, and out in the yard Maddy located a bucket with its handle missing. But, “It will do the job,” she claimed.

So, the two of them got stuck in, and the old house began to look like a home. “You need bread and milk,” Cathy noted as they cleaned out the cupboards “and food of sorts.”

“I saw a little shop down the road,” Maddy recalled. “I’ll go and get a few things, and sort myself out tomorrow.” When she realized she had not even a penny, the shame enveloped her. “I’m sure they’ll let me have a tab or something, until I get my first week’s wages.”

Cathy would not even hear of it. “You rinse that rusty old kettle out,” she said, “while I go and get a few things to start you off.”

By the time she returned, with eggs and milk and bread, and a few treats like chocolate biscuits and a box of cornflakes for morning, Maddy had not only scrubbed and boiled the kettle twice over, but she had also found a pair of clean sheets in the airing cupboard. “I’ve shaken up the mattress,” she told Cathy, “and I’ve shaken and aired the blanket, so at least I’ve got a bed to sleep on tonight.”

Cathy had an idea. “Why don’t you come back with me to the nurses’ home, just for tonight?”

“I thought nurses weren’t allowed to bring anyone in?” Maddy asked.

“I’ll smuggle you in, if I have to.”

Maddy thanked her, but said, “No, it’s all right. I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. Besides, now that I’ve got a bed and food – for which I shall pay you back when I get my first pay packet, I’ll be fine here. Besides, I’ve got to get used to it, haven’t I?”

The truth was, Maddy had lost all faith. She did not intend being beholden, or close to anyone, ever again. Whenever she felt good, and came to believe life was giving her a fair chance at happiness, something always knocked her down again.

They ate their biscuits and drank their tea out of chipped cups, but that was okay, because between them, they had secured Maddy a home, and a job, and for that she was immensely grateful.

“How about I call round after work tomorrow,” Cathy offered as she was leaving, “if that’s all right with you?”

Maddy lowered her gaze. The nurse had been so good to her, but, “I’d rather you didn’t,” she told her. “Just now, I need to be left alone to sort myself out… please?”

Cathy nodded. She fully understood. She had seen Maddy come into the hospital, broken in body and spirit, and dangerously close to losing her life. She had seen how the surgeon had carved into the side of her face to mend the damage, and saw the stricken look in Maddy’s eyes as she stared at herself in the mirror. And she knew that, even in her wildest dreams, she could never imagine the physical and mental trauma that this quiet and scared young woman had gone through, and would still have to go through, before she was a whole person again – if ever.

Moreover, she wondered what had happened to her, in the moments before she went into the ditch? Something bad, Cathy was certain. Something that she had never spoken of – to anyone.

They said their fond goodbyes, and afterward, Maddy walked across the room to the fireplace, where she carefully lifted down the old cracked mirror and stood it on the chair. Then, removing the scarf from around her head, she looked deep into the mirror, shocked at the woman who stared back at her.

For a long time, she examined her face, the shorn hair that had flowed long and thick. The thick tramlines of scarring around her ear and down her neck, and tears filled her eyes until she could see no more.

She looked away. But the image was etched into her mind for all time. There would never come a day, she thought bitterly, when she might glance into a mirror and see the same Maddy she had always known. She might never have been conventionally pretty, but she had sometimes felt attractive – and sexy. Brad had loved the way she used to look. The person in the mirror was not Maddy. She was a sad and lonely stranger; someone she did not know, or want to know.

“They say it will get better and that I will hardly notice the scars,” she murmured bitterly, “but they’re wrong. In my mind I’ll see them every minute of every day, and I’ll know over and over, how they came about.” She was more bitter than she had ever been in her life. “But I can hide from the world and its cruelty. And I will!”

Her resolve hardening, she lugged the mirror out to the yard, and then fetched the old sheets from the bed upstairs. Laying them out, she sandwiched the mirror in between them. Now, with part of a broken paving slab from the yard, she smashed the mirror to pieces, sobbing wildly as the glass shattered and leapt underneath the sheets.

That done, she grabbed the corners of the sheeting and dragged the remains to the corner of the yard. For a moment she gazed down on the misshapen bundle. “Like me,” she whispered and shuddered. “Broken. Just like me.”

Returning to the front room, she sat on the old rocking chair, closed her eyes and, for the first time in months, sang to herself. She chose the song made famous by Marlene Dietrich – “Falling in Love Again” – and sang the bittersweet words with all of her heart. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself onstage at the club, looking glorious in a flowing deep-pink gown, with her hair falling loose about her shoulders, and her new man standing at the foot of the stage, looking up at her.

She gazed down at him, as she crooned the words “Love’s always been my game,” and suddenly he was not smiling. Instead, he had the look of murder in his eyes, and the fear was like a physical presence. With a jolt she sat up in the chair and opened her eyes, staring about, searching for Drayton in every dark corner.

When she realized he was not there, she took in every dirty patch on the rug, every stain on the wall and the window panes, so filthy that you could hardly see through them.

The contrast between the magic of what she had been, and the sad reality of what she had become, was like a death-blow. Somewhere along the way, Maddy Delaney, the singer, lover and mother, had been swallowed up whole.

She curled up into the chair, like an injured animal licking its wounds. Deep in the back of her tortured mind, she feared that the Maddy she had known would never be found again.

She began laughing, a hard, angry kind of laugh that shook her whole body. When she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. And then she was dancing madly, twirling in a frenzy around the room, laughing and dancing… then crying as though her heart would burst.

When, many years later she looked back, Maddy truly believed that this had been the turning moment, when she had slipped into madness.

PART FIVE

Bedford Town, 1996

Sacrifices

Twenty-four

For a long time, Maddy stayed in her private madness, though now it had mellowed to silence, and simple self-loathing.

Over the years, she had slipped deeper into seclusion. Locked in her memories of a life gone away, she chose the existence of a hermit; hiding herself away in the darkness, not knowing or caring what was going on around her.

During the day she would lock her doors and windows and stay inside, even when the sun was shining, as it was today.

When evening fell, she would pull on her old coat, cover her now long undisciplined hair and partly hiding her face with a long dark scarf. Then she would hurry through the back ways to her work at the hospital.

Miss Atkins considered Maddy to be one of her best workers, and made sure she got every perk going. In truth, she found it difficult to recruit people prepared to work regular nights, and so the woman known as Sheelagh Mulligan was a valued member of staff.

Maddy knew that her strange, furtive appearance made people wary of her but she barely noticed them giving her strange looks. As far as she was concerned, she kept herself clean, did her work properly and minded her own business.

Every Friday morning, just before her shift ended, the manageress would come down with her wages, and Maddy would hurry home, stopping at the shop before it got busy, to buy enough groceries to last her a full week.

Along with a week away each year in a secluded hotel by the sea in South Devon, that was her life pattern. And she wanted nothing more.