Gillespie and I (65 page)

I have been awake ever since, hard at work on planning the last part of this memoir. It is now almost nine o'clock in the morning. I do wish Lockwood's would open, as I want them to send over a few necessities, but I have rung their number several times, and nobody answers the telephone. I am nearly out of Muratti's and a few other things. Perishing for a cigarette.

Friday, 22nd September. Now, this is interesting, and a little confusing. A letter has arrived, in the middle-day post, from a Mr William Cuthbertson, who claims to be the newly appointed Secretary of the Glasgow Asylum. Apparently, the previous secretary, Mr Pettigrew, passed away at the end of last month, leaving a large amount of unopened correspondence. Mr Cuthbertson apologises for the long delay. He has now consulted the appropriate files, and is able to inform me that, according to the records, a Sibyl Gillespie who was first admitted to the asylum in the autumn of 1889, and released in the December of the same year, was readmitted in March 1890, and continued to be a patient there until the July of 1918, when she died of influenza.

1890 to 1918. It hardly seems credible. I wonder how accurate this information can be? People were dropping like flies that summer of 1918. Is it possible that adequate records were maintained during the epidemic? Could this person whose file has been found even be the same girl? The dates of admission are similar, but there must have been some administrative error. It surely cannot be the same person, for it would mean that Sibyl spent almost thirty years in that abominable place, and then died there.

It does not bear contemplation.

Besides, I saw her scars. I am almost certain that I saw them.

Saturday, 23rd September. Yesterday afternoon, when I walked past the dining room, I noticed that the birdcage was on the table, rather than on the sideboard, where it should be. Presumably, that is where the girl left it. Or perhaps I moved it when I was seeing to the birds, which I must have done, earlier this week. I cannot seem to remember. Things move around in here, apparently of their own accord. There are black splashes down the wall next to the piano; I have no idea what they are or where they came from; and there appear to be mushrooms growing in the bathroom. At any rate, one of the finchesâpossibly Majâwas making rather a lot of noise: a short, sharp cry that I have never heard before. A few hours later, I happened to pass the room once again and, as soon as he saw me, Maj started to make the same insistent sound. I thought it over, whilst rinsing out my glass, and decided that this would be the sort of noise that a bird would make were he suffering. The cry was too urgent, too piercing, to be anything else. Maj wanted me to notice him; he wanted me to pay attention. I suppose that I have been rather busy, these past few days, with my planning.

When I returned to the dining room, and approached the table, I saw, at once, why he was upset. Layla was lying on her side in the bottom of the cage, completely still. She looked very small, and very dead. Her feathers were ruffled and grubby. Her one visible eye was half shut, and her little legs were curled along the length of her body. She was partially covered by something rubbery and reddish-green in colour. At first, I thought it might be her little insides all exploded outwards. Then I realised that it was an oldâvery oldâdried-up piece of apple skin, from one of the half-apples that we pop into the cage, from time to time. The skin seemed to have been draped across the lower part of her body. Maj was still making his âalarm' sound, frantically flitting from perch to perch. Every so often, he would alight on the floor of the cage, beside Layla, and then cry out sharply, and look at me: as though he wanted to ensure that I had seen her.

Not knowing what else to do, I tried to talk to him in a soothing voice. I moved closer to the cage and peered inside to get a good look. It was impossible to say how long Layla had been dead, but in this muggy weather it would not take long for her to begin to rot. The cage floor was filthy, covered in seed and droppings. The water dish looked as though it contained some sort of foul, thick broth. I tried to think of a way of extracting Layla without touching her. In the end, I simply removed the base from the cage, along with the droppings, the water tray and the dead bird, and set it in the corner.

Thenâwith Maj still clinging inside, to one of his perchesâI took the upper part of the cage next door, to the sitting room, where I placed it on some sheets of newspaper. Maj seemed unperturbed by this change of location. I gave him clean water and fresh seed. Finally, in the kitchen, I poured myself a stiffener. A huge bluebottle was buzzing around some of the rubbish in there, and so I closed the door on it and took my drink through to the sitting room.

Here I sat, contemplating Maj, and wondering how the apple skin had come to be draped over poor dead Layla. Had he dragged it there to cover her body? And if so, then why? Was he acting on instinct, as best he could, to bury his mate, and protect her from potential predators? Had he draped the skin over her as some sort of tribute, or mark of respect? Or was the sight of her corpse simply so painful to him that he wanted to hide it? These last two explanations seemed unlikelyâand yet, given his frantic behaviour, perhaps not impossible.

There is also the question of what might have caused Layla to die. She was quite old, for a finch. But could that horrid girl have done something to harm the bird, before she left? She could have done it while she had me trapped in the kitchen.

Poor Maj. The love of his life, his only sweetheart, exists no more. Now, he will have to live alone, in his boxwood cage. No more can he sing to his lady love, or groom her feathers; no more will he feed her while she begs, open-mouthed, like a chick. Having said that, he seems to have adapted well to his new environment, here in the sitting room. He has drunk the clean water that I gave him and, every so often, he throws some seed out at me from between the bars of the cage. He seems less traumatised, and no longer makes that sharp, warning cry.

Next door, Layla must be decomposing. I shall have to get up soon, and dispose of her body, for it has begun to smell. Her death has had a surprisingly profound effect on me. I feel quite overcome this evening, and am incapable of working on my manuscript. I shall have to make a start on the final section tomorrow, or in a few days. Perhaps something about the bird's death, or the loneliness that Maj must inevitably feel, has struck a chord in me.

From time to time, as I write these notes, I lift my head, and glance around the room, at Maj, or out of the window, across the road to where the shadows are thickening against the gable wall of the hotel. Every so often, I let my gaze rest upon the picture that hangs above the mantelpiece, a canvas that is always a comfort to me, for it is Ned's painting, of course, the first of his that ever I saw, and my dear favourite,
The Studio
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Tom Shankland: I cannot thank you enough for your help, support and advice, at every stage of the writing of this book; I definitely couldn't have done it without you. I am eternally indebted to Petra Collins for her patience, wisdom and expertise in Scottish Law; any legal errors herein are mine. Heartfelt thanks to Lucy Mulvagh, Jamie Milne and Andrew Binnie for their encouragement and helpful feedback on early drafts of the novel. I am much obliged to Catriona and Stewart Murray and Amanda McMillan for allowing me to have a nosy around their âStanley Street' homes. For kind advice, many thanks to Alastair Dinsmor, of the Glasgow Police Heritage Society and Theo Van Asperen, of the Glasgow Art Club.

Thanks also to the following: Dr Jonathan Andrews; Jimmy Powdrell Campbell; David Lister; Dr Mark Godfrey; Professor Gordon; Robin Campbell; David Stark; Reverend Kenneth Stewart; Brian Stewart; Ronnie Scott; Kevin Brady; The Mitchell Library; University of Glasgow Library; The British Library; www.hiddenglasgow.com

I am also very grateful to Jonny Geller and Angus Cargill, and all at Curtis Brown and Faber and Faber.

Of research materials the following indispensable publications deserve mention:
Public Lives: Women, Family and Society in Victorian Britain
, by Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair, Yale University Press, 2003;
Glasgow's Great Exhibitions
, by Perilla Kinchin and Juliet Kinchin, White Cockade Publishing, 1988;
The Glasgow Boys
, Roger Billcliffe, John Murray (Publishing) Ltd., 1985;
Glasgow Girls
, ed. by Jude Burkhauser, Canongate Books Ltd., 1993;
Sir John Lavery, Photography, Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888
, by Brian Thom McQuade, published by TH.A.H.M. van Asperen, Glasgow, 2006;
Trial of John Watson Laurie
, edited by William Roughead, Notable British Trials, William Hodge and Co. Ltd., 1932, Reprinted Gaunt, Inc. 1995;
The Oscar Slater Murder Story
, by Richard Whittington-Egan, Neil Wilson Publishing Ltd., 2001;
Glasgow in 1901
, by James Hamilton Muir, William Hodge and Co. Ltd., 1901, reprinted by White Cockade Publishing, 2001;
Tea and Taste, The Glasgow Tea Rooms, 1875â1975
, by Perilla Kinchin, White Cockade Publishing, 1996;
Glasgow Pubs and Publicans
, by John Gorevan, Tempus Publishing Ltd., 2002;
The Buildings of Scotland, Glasgow
, by Williamson, Riches, and Higgs, Penguin Books, 1990;
The Godfrey Edition Old Ordnance Survey Maps
, especially that of Hillhead, Glasgow (Lanarkshire Sheet 6.06), published by Alan Godfrey Maps, 1998; The National Library of Scotland Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Glasgow @ http://geo.nls.uk/maps/towns/glasgow1894/openlayers.html;
The Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond
, by Ann Griswold, York Publishing Services Ltd., 1998;
First Aid to the Injured
, by Dr. Friedrich Esmarch, Smith, Elder and Co, 1882, (from Archive CD Books);
Lying Awake
, by Catherine Carswell (1950), reprinted by Canongate Books Ltd., 1997;
Open the Door
, by Catherine Carswell (1920), reprinted by Virago/ Penguin, 1986.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JANE HARRIS is the author of the award winning novel
The Observations
. She lives in London.

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The Observations

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Cover design by Faber

Cover illustration Â© Petra Borner / Dutch Uncle

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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Faber & Faber.

GILLESPIE AND I
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