Thorn by Sarah Rayne

she was mad. That was what this was all about. They all thought it: Great-Aunt Flora, Dilys and Rosa, and nice, dizzy Juliette. That was why nobody seemed to be grieving about Royston and Eloise. Had the dark-haired young man at the funeral thought she was mad as well? His face was blurry now – almost everything was blurry now – but he had looked at her in a way she did not think anyone had ever looked at her before. As if she was grown-up. As if she was ordinary and did all the things that ordinary people did. Imogen would most likely never see him again in her life, but it was somehow important that he did not think she had done something so – well, so
grisly.
It was very important indeed that he did not think she was mad.
    The regime in Briar House was rather casual. It appeared that no one minded if you missed the occasional meal, providing you did not make a habit of it and providing you were not in Briar House for any kind of eating disorder like anorexia. There was a small kitchen on the floor below Imogen’s where tea and coffee could be made, or even scrambled eggs or soup, although you had to ask one of the nurses to bring things in for you and it made problems if you had no actual cash, which Imogen had not. The kitchen was shared between several rooms, and Imogen thought, half enviously, half regretfully, that it was the kind of set-up you had in university halls of residence. It was a sad irony that when she should finally experience the kind of university half-liberation she had wanted and her school had wanted for her, it had to be in a place like this.
    The matron was a well-built lady of uncertain age and, from the look of her mouth, even more uncertain temper, and Imogen had disliked her on sight. People talked about the eyes being the windows of the soul, but mouths were a much better indication and Matron Porter’s mouth was not wide and generous to match her build, it was small and pursed like an old-fashioned drawstring bag. She doesn’t much like me, Imogen had thought on the first day, vaguely listening as Aunt Thalia explained about the sedatives prescribed by Dr Shilling. ‘Diazepam, Matron. Quite a mild dosage, I understand. But you’ll see she takes it?’
    â€˜Certainly.’
    Imogen thought that Matron looked the kind of person who would enjoy shovelling repellent medicine down people.
    She was given a room of her own, which was a relief because she had been visualising grim dormitories with iron beds and lockers. In the really bad moments she had been visualising iron bars at the windows. But she was shown to a room on the second floor. It was not very big, but it was clean and there were chintz curtains and a matching bedspread, and a small dressing table and wardrobe. The room was by itself at the end of a corridor, at the foot of a narrow stair that went up into the attics.
    There was still a dreamlike quality to everything. Imogen felt as if her mind was wrapped in cotton wool. She tried to think about her parents and how it was appalling that they were both so abruptly dead but there was only a vague dull sense of loss. This was terrible. It was terrible to feel so little about your mother and father. She felt detached and slightly light-headed, as if her mind had been dislocated and as if it needed someone to tweak it back into place. Her sight did not seem to be quite synchronised with the rest of her, either. As if she was seeing everything through water, or a fraction of a second after it happened. She thought this might be the sedatives, and determined that as soon as she was fairly sure that Matron was not checking on her, she would stop taking them. There was a washbasin in her room, and it would be easy to tip the tablets down the plughole and wash them away with the taps turned on full.
    On her second night in Briar House, Imogen met Quincy.
    It was a curious meeting. Imogen had been taking a shower before going to bed, and she was crossing