‘I’m hungry – I’m dirty – I’m thirsty.’
‘Well, we’ll have a clean-up and then we’ll get going. There’s the wherewithal here,’ said Peregrine as he let himself down from the bunk above Titus’s head and pointed to the elementary articles of hygiene.
Ablutions and formalities completed, Titus and his newfound protector took their leave of their night’s jailers, and went out into the wide empty streets, where the rough wind was not blowing poetically through a field of corn, but was playfully toying with the sordid litter of an unlovely urban purgatory.
‘First, I suggest a breakfast fit for us, if not the gods. What do you say to that, Titus? Then we can get the coach. It takes us to outside the gates.’
The coach took them through the outskirts of the town, until it came to rather barren heathland.
‘It won’t be long now. If you look over there you’ll see the towers; we get off at the end of the drive. If we’re lucky there may be a staff car we can get a lift in. Otherwise it’s a good old walk.’
Titus looked across the heath and in the distance, partly hidden by trees, he saw gaunt and rather forbidding black towers, which gave him no sense of eagerness to know the place better.
Several people got off the coach at the same time as Titus and Peregrine, who acknowledged them by name. Walking forward a few yards they came to heavy iron gates, which were closed, but at their side was a gate through which they went. A porter’s lodge was on the inside, and a rather surly little wizened man asked for their papers.
Peregrine showed his papers, then motioned to Titus saying that he was coming to help in the wards.
‘Can’t take any responsibility for who you bring here, Smith.’
‘That’s all right, Tom. I’ll answer for him.’
‘If you say so – get on in.’
It was dusk by now, and the huge building in front of them was gradually being lit, which seemed to accentuate rather than diminish its formidable aspect; it was massive, aloof and rich in turrets.
Peregrine and Titus made their way through a large box hedge until they came to a side door, through which Peregrine ushered his companion. A gloomy yellow globe of light overhead did not conceal the archaic and ugly flaking walls of ochre, painted many years earlier.
‘We’ll go to the common room, then I’ll have a word with the super and I’ll fix you up with a room. Do you feel like starting work tomorrow, Titus?’
‘Yes, but I’d like to know a bit about what I’m to do.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ll initiate you – I’m the ward nurse on Ward 12 and I’ll keep an eye on you. Mind you, I can’t say you may not be a bit upset by it all, but I’ve got quite fond of some of them, though there are others – oh, lord, yes. It can be difficult, and they can be . . . you need your patience, and your humour, and your compassion, and your strength, and above all leave your mind alone, or you might find yourself an inmate too.’
Titus found himself in unfamiliar surroundings yet again. He let himself be led into them with his eyes open.
28
Among the Dead Men
TITUS AWOKE EARLY in a rather drab little room and for a moment had no idea where he was. Slowly he remembered the various events of the last few days, and he wondered what now lay in store for him. There was a tap on the door.
Peregrine entered the room. He was dressed in a white overall, and over his arm there was a second one. In his other hand he held a mug of steaming liquid.
‘Here you are, Titus. When you’re dressed, put this overall on, and we’ll go and have breakfast; then I’ll take you to the super and show you the ward. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
Titus dressed. It did not take him long, as his clothes were scanty. He drank the hot tea and put on his white robe of office, and as he finished it another tap came on the door and Peregrine entered once again.
They went down several flights of stone stairs, their shoes signalling their descent with an echoing clatter, until they came to a vast hallway, with a skylight illuminating it, to its great disadvantage.
On both sides of the hall were double glass doors and Peregrine turned right when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Titus followed him as he pushed open the glass door, and was amazed to see a corridor that stretched endlessly from where they stood to the horizon. As they began to walk down it, their footsteps once again striking the stone floor like knells of doom, desultory figures appeared, seemingly going nowhere. Some turned into doorways on the left of the corridor; they knocked, and after some seconds and a sound of keys jangling, the disconsolate figures would disappear behind the door, and the grating of keys in locks could be heard again.
There was a common denominator in the people who passed Titus and Peregrine. Of all shapes and sizes, of both sexes and all ages, yet their gazes were turned inward. They did not see where they were, or who was there. Some sloped, some dragged their feet, some shuffled, some almost ran, some would take a few paces, then stand still, looking but not seeing. Some were holding irate conversations with themselves; others shouted obscenities. There was an anarchic lack of order, but Titus reflected that in the world outside these thick walls he had seen people behaving in the selfsame way. That he was in a hospital for people who were mentally disturbed he knew, but of the scores of people whom he had met in his wanderings there were few whose strange quirks would not have qualified them for a place in this institution. He pondered, what is sanity, what is normal? He was unable to reach any conclusion: the immediate present called for something other than intellectual activity. In fact, as he was to learn, it was better to suspend that side of himself in favour of preserving unlimited physical strength and as much imaginative insight as possible. These thoughts were passing through Titus’s mind as he walked the endless corridor.
At the end of the corridor Peregrine said, ‘Well, here we are, Ward 12’ and as he spoke he took out a large bunch of keys and, fitting one into the lock, pushed open the door. The first thing Titus noticed was the smell. It reminded him a little of the stench that had permeated the cellar where he had met Mick and his fellow vagrants. It was sickly and heavy and, although he had a strong constitution, his stomach turned.
‘I’ll take you to meet the super first. A few formalities, you know. We don’t want any trouble from the others. Just casual work, yours. They’re a bit touchy.’
Behind the locked door were screens that hid most of the interior of the large room, so that Titus could not see, only smell, where he was to work. Peregrine ushered him into a small office, cluttered with papers, timetables on the walls, a desk at which a rather anonymous white-coated man sat. He acknowledged the two men with an unsmiling nod and made no effort to put them at their ease.
‘This is Titus Groan. He is a traveller. He’s willing to help out at the moment for a few weeks. There’ll be no trouble from him, I’ll vouch for that. What d’you say?’
‘Any experience?’
‘A great deal,’ answered Titus, with a truth that was not quite to the point.
‘We could do with another pair of hands, there are three off now. We’ll take you on for a stated time, with conditions. If you break them, out you go.’
Titus was given conditions that restrained him from any kind of interference and he would answer to Peregrine for his work, and a certain small sum of money by way of remuneration.
He had during his wanderings met many such nameless people who rejoiced in their own sense of power, in however small a sphere: narrow, set and unyielding to any human frailty of feeling.