Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

environment to which they return that drives them back to madness, that reawakens the intolerable voices in their minds? It is hardly a new idea that certain situations induce insanity. That being told repeatedly over many months that one is mad will make one so, for the person who believes herself to be insane must be insane. A medical version of the Cretan paradox: all lunatics are deluded and I am a lunatic; is it possible that what I say about myself is true? It is not these games of words that will cure hurt minds.

She begins to rock again, the book still open on her lap. She returns to her original question: what of those whose home situations are maddening, so maddening that a lunatic asylum appears by comparison a sane and healthful place? It is a possibility that does not seem to have occurred to Browne: it is not that some people’s minds are so fragile that they require the permanent protection of an institution but that some people’s homes are crazier than institutions for the mad. Some households do not tolerate sanity. Perhaps such an understanding of domestic life is exactly what a woman brings to medicine. Ally sighs. It is an idea unlikely to be well received by the medical profession and indeed by the general public, especially when presented by a woman doctor. An unnatural, undomesticated being, very probably subject to mental instability herself, for why else would a woman declare herself unsatisfied by her own family life and seek to usurp the masculine role? It is axiomatic that a woman with a professional life cannot speak of domestic happiness. It is almost lunchtime. Ally sets aside her blanket, checks her hair in the mirror and goes downstairs.

Aunt Mary is in the hall, also looking at herself in the mirror. Ally sees Aunt Mary’s reflected face change to the guilty expression of the person surprised in the act of self-regard.

‘You are still beautiful, Aunt Mary.’

Aunt Mary shakes her head. Seen from above, there is more grey.

‘I was never that. And I’m not wearing so badly, but then why should I? I’m not out all hours and all weathers, living on bread and water like Elizabeth. I wasn’t contemplating mortality, darling, only wondering if this lovely green is a little trying to a winter complexion. What do you think?’

Ally comes down the remaining stairs and shakes her head. Through the fanlight over the front door, she sees the fog eddy and re-gather. ‘Ask Uncle James. Or Annie.’

Aunt Mary turns away from the mirror. ‘He said he’d be home to lunch today, but with this fog, I don’t know whether to wait. You know how he likes us to lunch together. But there’s rice with the chicken, it won’t improve with keeping and Cook will be cross.’

Ally smiles at her. ‘Well, are you more afraid of your cook or your husband?’

‘Cook. Without a doubt. Do you know how hard it is to replace a good cook? Let’s go in and eat.’

Ally and Aunt Mary have almost finished their chicken and rice when they hear the front door open and close. Uncle James comes in, droplets of fog clinging to his beard.

‘Sorry to be late, dearest. The post came just as I was leaving. The fog, you know. Lunch smells delicious, is that paprika and mushrooms in the sauce?’

Uncle James is more interested in food than anyone Ally knows, except perhaps Aubrey. Maybe there is something in the discriminating eye of the artist connected to a similar exactitude about the palate. Paprika and mushrooms. She remembers the mutton hash, the rusks.

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘Splendid.’

Fanny comes in, but Uncle James waves her away and begins to eat. ‘Wine, Ally?’

She shakes her head. She takes a glass in the evening, sometimes, when Uncle James is especially persuasive.

‘Suit yourself. It’s a good bottle.’

Aunt Mary accepts half a glass. Their eyes meet and they lift their glasses to each other, husband and wife, Uncle James’s eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch, remembering something that makes Aunt Mary blush and suppress a smile. Still, at their age, friends and lovers.

Uncle James is still smiling at Aunt Mary. ‘Ally, are you busy this afternoon?’

The kind of question best answered with caution. ‘I was planning to study. Why?’

‘Three new paintings came in. Aubrey West.’ He and Aunt Mary exchange more sober glances; they must have talked about this. ‘We thought you might like to see them. Well, see one of them again in particular. Before it disappears back into private hands.’

She knows, of course, that there are images of herself and her sister on walls, in houses, around the country and even, now, in America. She knows that her face, versions of her face, and versions of May’s face watch over other people’s meals and parties and solitary moments, drift in other people’s dreams and memories. She has no picture of May.

‘May?’ she asks. ‘You have one of Aubrey’s paintings of May, in your office now?’

He sips his wine. ‘Yes.’

Aunt Mary leans forward. ‘We weren’t sure whether to tell you, darling. Whether it would upset you, when you have been so recently troubled. But we thought—James thought—that the auction is next week and there is no knowing when you might be able to see it again. We thought you should choose. But you know that it is quite up to you. It will make no difference to anyone else, no difference whatsoever, and you must do just as you think will be best for you. But we thought you should decide for yourself. And I will accompany you if you like me to, and not if you don’t.’

Ally puts down her knife and fork. The chicken was too rich, rises in her stomach.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I should do.’

No, she thinks, no, she does not want to see May, whose voice and step flit through her dreams, whose words mock and goad, who has been dead and gone and taunting