"It's not family, it's a lady from social services," the matron managed to make herself heard, before opening one of the casement windows with incantations of "That's better."
Mrs. Burrows gave no reaction to this piece of news. The matron rearranged the flowers in a vase on the window ledge and gathered up some fallen petals before turning to her. "And how are we today?"
"Oh, not so good," Mrs. Burrows answered, laying it on thick with a whining, despondent tone and finishing her sentence with a small groan.
"I'm not surprised. It's not healthy being cooped up indoors all day — you ought to get some fresh air. Why don't you go for a walk on the grounds after you've seen your visitor?"
The matron stopped and swiveled back to the window, scanning the garden beyond as if she was looking for something. Mrs. Burrows immediately took notice, her curiosity piqued. The matron spent her every waking hour tirelessly organizing people or things, as if her calling in life was to impose some sort of order over an imperfect world. A human dynamo, she did not stop — in fact, she was the complete antithesis to Mrs. Burrows, who had put the struggle with the last mutinous slipper on hold for the moment to watch the matron's atypical inactivity.
"Is something the matter?" Mrs. Burrows asked, not able to keep silent any longer.
"Oh, it's nothing really… just that Mrs. Perkiss swears she saw that man again. Quite beside herself, she was."
"Ah." Mrs. Burrows nodded knowingly. "And when was this?"
"This morning, first thing." The matron turned back into the room. "Can't figure it out myself. She seemed to be getting on so well, and, all of a sudden, these strange episodes started." Frowning, she looked at Mrs. Burrows. "Your room is directly under hers — you haven't spotted anyone out there, have you?"
"No, and I'm not likely to."
"Why's that?" the matron asked her.
"Bit bloomin' obvious, isn't it?" Mrs. Burrows replied bluntly, finally succeeding in ramming her foot home into her slipper. "It's the person we all fear, deep down… the final curtain… the big sleep… whatever you want to call it. That Perkiss woman has had the sword of Damocles hanging over her for a long time… poor cow."
"You mean…" the matron began, as she caught on to what Mrs. Burrows was suggesting. She gave Mrs. Burrows a gentle "pah" just to emphasize what she thought of her theory.
Mrs. Burrows wasn't deterred in the slightest by the matron's reaction. "Mark my words, that'll be it," she said with total conviction, her eyes drifting back to the silent television screen as it occurred to her that Millionaire could be about to start any moment now.
The matron exhaled skeptically.
"Since when had death been a man in a black hat?" she said, and reassumed her usual businesslike manner, glancing at her watch. "Is that the time? I must be getting on." She fixed Mrs. Burrows with a stern glance. "Don't keep your visitor waiting, and then I want to see you go for that brisk walk on the grounds."
"Of course," Mrs. Burrows agreed, nodding vigorously, but inwardly finding the whole suggestion of exercise quite distasteful. She hadn't the slightest intention of taking a "brisk walk," but would make a big show of getting ready to go out, then merely promenade once around the house before ducking into the kitchen to lie low for a while. If she was lucky, she might even get a cup of tea and some shortbread biscuits out of the cook.
"Tickety-boo," the matron said, checking the room for anything else that wasn't in its place.
Mrs. Burrows smiled sweetly at her. She'd learned very soon after arriving that if she played along with the matron and her staff, she could get her own way, well, most of the time, anyway, particularly since she wasn't much trouble in comparison with many of the other inpatients.
These were a mixed bunch, and Mrs. Burrows viewed them all with equal disdain. Humphrey House had its fair share of "Snifflers," as she called them. There was a barrel-load of these miseries who, if left to their own devices, positioned themselves all over the place like lost, lonely waifs, usually in corners where they could mope away the hours uninterrupted. But Mrs. Burrows had also witnessed the quite startling change that this breed could go through, more often than not in the evenings. Without warning, they would undergo some form of transformation after "lights out," like a caterpillar wrapping itself in a duvet cocoon only to emerge as a completely different creature, a "Screamer," in the small hours of the morning.
Then this normally nonviolent breed would howl and wail and break things in their rooms until members of the staff came to placate them or administer a pill or two. And, usually, they'd miraculously metamorphose back into Snifflers again by sunup.
Then there were the "Zombies," who shuffled around as if they were clueless extras on a film set, not knowing what they were supposed to be doing or where they were meant to be going, and certainly never remembering their lines (they were mostly incapable of any rational exchange). Mrs. Burrows largely ignored them while they stumbled around the place on their random, senseless paths.
But the very worst for her had to be the "Bagmen," horrible specimens of middle-aged, male professionals who had burned out from their overpressured careers in accountancy or banking or, as far as Mrs. Burrows was concerned, similarly inconsequential occupations.
She loathed these pinstripe casualties with a passion — sometimes, she thought, because their mannerisms and blank expressions reminded her so much of her husband, Roger Burrows. She'd seen the little danger signs that he was going that way just before he had upped and offed, disappearing who knows where.
For Mrs. Burrows hated her husband with a passion.
Even in the first years of their marriage, things hadn't gone smoothly. Their inability to have children together cast a pall over the relationship. And all the rigamarole associated with adopting meant she couldn’t concentrate on her own job and she'd been forced to pack it in: Another dream stymied. After they had been successful in their applications to adopt two young children, a boy and a girl, she had struggled to give them everything she'd had in her own childhood, all the trappings, such as nice clothes and mixing with the right people.
But it was impossible; after years of trying to make her family something it could never be — not on Dr. Burrows's fleabite salary — she gave up. Mrs. Burrows had closed her eyes to her surroundings and her situation, seeking solace in the worlds on the other side of the television screen. In this blinkered, unreal state, she'd abdicated motherhood, handing the responsibility of the house, the washing, the cooking, everything, to her daughter, Rebecca, who took it all on with surprising ease, considering she had been only seven years old at the time.
And Mrs. Burrows felt no remorse or guilt about doing this, because her husband hadn't upheld his part of the bargain when they had first married. And then, to cap it all off, Dr. Burrows, the chronic loser, had had the gall to walk out on her, taking away what little she did have.
He had ruined her ruined life.
She loathed him for this. And all this loathing fermented away inside her, never far below the surface.
"Your visitor," the matron prompted her again.
Nodding, Mrs. Burrows tore her eyes from the television and rose wearily from her chair. She shuffled out of the room, leaving the matron rearranging some boxes of puzzles on the sideboard. Mrs. Burrows didn't want to see anyone, least of all a social worker who might bring unwanted reminders of her family and the life she'd left behind her.