The man readjusts his glasses and grimaces, as if hit by a sudden pain. 'Those records are confidential,' he says.
Iris fumbles in her bag. 'I've got a letter from him in here somewhere, proving I'm a relative.' She delves deeper, pushing aside her purse, some lipstick, keys, receipts. Where is the letter he faxed over to the shop this morning? Her fingers brush against a folded piece of paper and she pulls it out, triumphant. 'Here,' she says, pushing it towards the man. 'This is it.'
The man spends a long time perusing it and then Iris. 'When are you looking for?' he says eventually. 'What date?'
'The thing is,' Iris says, 'they aren't exactly sure. Nineteen thirties or forties.'
He gets down from his stool with a long sigh.
The volumes are enormous and weighty. Iris has to stand up to read them. A thick epidermis of dust has grown over the spine and the top edges of the pages. She opens one at random and the pages, yellowed and brittle, fall open at May 1941. A woman called Amy is admitted by a Dr Wallis. Amy is a war widow and has suspected puerperal fever. She is brought in by her brother. He says she won't stop cleaning the house. There is no mention of the baby and Iris wonders what happened to it. Did it live? Did the brother look after it? Did the brother's wife? Did the brother have a wife? Did Amy get out again?
Iris flicks over a few more pages. A woman who was convinced that the wireless was somehow killing them all. A girl who kept wandering away from the house at night. A Lady somebody who kept attacking a particular servant. A Cockenzie fishwife who showed signs of libidinous and uncontrolled behaviour. A youngest daughter who eloped to Ireland with a legal clerk. Iris is just reading about a Jane who had had the temerity to take long, solitary walks and refuse offers of marriage, when she is overtaken by a violent sneeze once, twice, three, four times.
She sniffs and searches her pockets for a tissue. The records room seems oddly silent after her sneezes. She glances around. It is empty apart from the man behind the desk and another man peering closely at something on a blue-lit microfiche screen. It seems strange that all these women were once here, in this building, that they spent days and weeks and months under this vast roof. As Iris turns out her pockets, it occurs to her that perhaps some of them are still here, like Esme. Is Jane of the long walks somewhere within these walls? Or the eloping youngest daughter?
No tissue, of course. She looks back at the pile of admissions records. She really should get back to the shop. It could take her hours to find Esme in all this. Weeks. Peter Lasdun said on the phone that they were 'unable to identify the exact date of her admission'. Maybe Iris should ring him again. They must be able to find out. The sensible idea would be to get the date and then come back.
But Iris turns again to Jane and her long walks. She flips back through time. 1941, 1940, 1939, 1938. The Second World War begins and is swallowed, becoming just an idea, a threat in people's minds. The men are still in their homes, Hitler is a name in the papers, bombs, blitzes and concentration camps have never been heard of, winter becomes autumn, then summer, then spring. April yields to March, then February, and meanwhile Iris reads of refusals to speak, of unironed clothes, of arguments with neighbours, of hysteria, of unwashed dishes and unswept floors, of never wanting marital relations or wanting them too much or not enough or not in the right way or seeking them elsewhere. Of husbands at the end of their tethers, of parents unable to understand the women their daughters have become, of fathers who insist, over and over again, that she used to be such a lovely little thing. Daughters who just don't listen. Wives who one day pack a suitcase and leave the house, shutting the door behind them, and have to be tracked down and brought back.
And when Iris turns a page and finds the name Euphemia Lennox she almost keeps turning because it must be hours now since she started this and she's so dumbstruck by it all that she has to check herself, to remind herself that this is why she is here. She smooths the ancient paper of Esme's admission form with the pads of her fingers.
Aged sixteen, is what she sees first. Then: Insists on keeping her hair long. Iris reads the whole document from beginning to end, then goes back and reads it again. It ends with: Parents report finding her dancing before a mirror, dressed in her mother's clothes.
Iris goes back to the shop. The dog is overjoyed to see her, as if she's been away a week, not just a few hours. She switches on the computer. She checks her email, opens one from her mother. Iris, I've racked my brains again and again about your grandmother and I don't recall her ever mentioning a sister, Sadie has written, Are you sure they've got it right? Iris replies, Yes, I've told you, it's her. And she asks how the weather is today in Brisbane. She replies to other emails, deletes some, ignores others, notes down the dates of certain jumble sales and auctions. She opens her accounts file.
But as she inputs the words invoice and downpayment and outstanding her concentration keeps slipping out from under her, because in some corner of her mind is the image of a room. It is late afternoon in this room and a girl is unpinning her hair. She is wearing a dress too large for her but the dress is beautiful, a creation in silk that she has looked at and longed for and now it is finally on her, around her. It clings to her legs and flows around her feet like water. She is humming, a tune about you and the night and the music, and as she hums, she moves about the room. Her body sways like a branch in the wind and her stockinged feet pass over the carpet very lightly. Her head is so full of the tune and the cool swish of silk that she doesn't hear the people coming up the stairs, she doesn't hear anything. She has no idea that in a minute or two the door will fly open and they will be standing there in the doorway, looking at her. She hears the music and she feels the dress. That is all. Her hands move about her like small birds.
Peter Lasdun is crossing Cauldstone car park, struggling to put on his mackintosh. A keen wind is coming in gusts off the Firth of Forth. He gets one arm in but the other sleeve flaps free, turning the coat inside out, the scarlet tartan lining waving in the salty air like a flag.
He is just wrestling it into submission when he hears someone calling his name. He turns into the wind and sees a woman hurrying towards him. He has to stare at her for a moment before he can place her. It's that Lennox woman, or Lockhart woman or whatever her name is, and she is accompanied by a monstrously large dog. Peter takes a step back. He doesn't like dogs.
'Can you tell me,' she says, as she bears down on him, 'what happens to her now? To people like her?'
Peter sighs. It is ten past the hour. His wife will be opening the oven door to check on his dinner. The aroma of meat juices and roasting vegetables will be filling the kitchen. His children, he hopes, are doing their homework in their rooms. He should be in the car, on the bypass, not trapped in a breezy car park by this woman. 'May I suggest you make another appointment-'
'I just want to ask one question, a quick question,' she flashes him a smile, revealing a row of nicely kept teeth, 'I won't delay you. I'll walk to your car with you.'
'Very well.' Peter gives up trying to put on his coat and lets it flap around his ankles.
'So, what happens to Esme now?'
'Esme?'
'Euphemia. Actually, you know…' She trails off and flashes him that smile again. 'Never mind. I mean Euphemia.'
Peter opens his car boot and lifts in his briefcase. 'Patients for whom no provisions have been made by relatives,' he can see the policy document before him and he reads the words aloud, 'become the responsibility of the state and will be rehoused accordingly.'