The Winter Sickness by John Eider
Toby had been asked that question twice now, and had no better answer the second time. He shook his head to say he didn’t know; and Vernon continued,
‘College boys. This town was crying out for college boys. It was never hard to get them into college. In other towns it would be such a lot for them to leave behind, but here, unless they were very shy, it would be the perfect escape.
‘No, but so much harder to get them back. Thank God some of you return,’ he patted Toby’s arm. ‘And so, Toby, you see I have as much to tell as I believe you’re hoping to be told.’
With his cup in hand, Vernon settled further into his chair and began his tale in earnest,
‘This was Nineteen Sixty-four. You understand how it was back then. A child with psychological problems wasn’t cared for like they are today. They were often taken from their families, put away in a home, subjected to strong early drugs or had their brains operated on. They were even electrocuted, Toby, actually electrocuted. You’ve heard of that?’
‘Electroshock therapy?’
‘You see, I’m something of an armchair expert, from our researches in those early days. Even common things like depression and stress just weren’t understood. My father came back from the War in Europe when I was just a kid. He was fine, without a scratch. Uninjured, people thought. But he would wake up screaming – I’d go in, woken by the noise and worried he was hurt. My mother would be sat up with him, cradling his head in her arms. And she’d tell me everything was all right, and that Daddy had just had a bad dream, and that she was with him now and he’d be fine.
‘But even at that age I knew he wasn’t fine. Sometimes, when we were out he’d be looking at people who weren’t there; and other times he’d just start shaking. The kids I knew said similar things of their fathers: that they could be distant, or suddenly get angry or upset. But it was never mentioned by the adults, not for years. I’ve read all about it since – shell-shock, post-traumatic stress. But you see what I’m getting at, Toby?
‘The doctors didn’t understand, and the treatments were horrific. And so, when our children got the sickness, then we couldn’t tell anyone what was happening without the doctors jumping all over them... I only want to paint the picture, Toby, of how scared we had to be to make the decision that we did.’
The man was imploring Toby, as though pleading for his forgiveness.
‘Now, the pipeline and the first settlement had all been built in the summer, so we knew how hard that first winter was always going to be. The snow came, as we knew it would, and the roads became blocked. But to then have our children all fall suddenly ill? Mumps, or measles, we wondered. More like a fever, someone else suggested. He’d been overseas with the oil company and had seen tropical diseases first-hand. We moved the children all together, fed them, mopped their brows. We waited over them, wrung our hands – yes, we literally wrung our hands – and knew that things were very bad.
‘As this went on through the winter months so there was talk of “the sleepy sickness”, which was an illness people used to suffer which could leave them in a coma for years. Even flu could be fatal back then – still can be now. I only mention all this as a window to our minds at that time, so you can sense how we were thinking.
‘Every so often one of the children would call out, or burst from the fever with a maniac’s energy. They would babble, speak in tongues. The mothers took it worst, and blamed us men for doing nothing. We could say, “What can we do?” But we were cowards, scared. I can admit that now.
‘All seemed black; I couldn’t sleep with the worry. Over the weeks though, the mood settled. The children seemed quite stable in their condition, and didn’t seem to be getting any worse. We had a man with us who’d been a medic in the War, who could see that there was nothing physically wrong with them.
‘And then came the thaw, and the kids all got better – to a boy and girl. I can’t tell you the relief of those days. We rang the chapel-house bell that spring, for people were religious back then, and we’d built a little chapel. We even found a holy day falling around that time, to gather at and sing hosanna! We sang the Lord’s praises that day. With our children, our healthy, happy totally-forgetting children beside us.
Chapter 43 – The Consequence of Lies
Toby sat in Vernon Monroe’s warm lounge, trying to take it all in. He wished to keep every detail to remember later. Their cups were long drained, but Vernon had a more important role than playing host – he was unburdening his soul. He went on,
‘But then there was a question of what to do next. Oh, we debated it for years. But the decision had been made that happy day in church. And that decision bedded itself in deeper, each year that the pattern of the illness repeated. The sickness could be contained, nothing would be said, and no one would have any long-term consequences.
‘Winter after winter, we began to see the difference in the boys and girls; and with no one needing to say it, we started keeping them apart.
‘Men volunteered to watch the boys, and our first Sheriff was always going to be central to that. He broke his vow to do so, his vow to Serve and Protect. Even today those of you who follow him are living with that break. He took the biggest risk of all of us, by lying to his superiors out of town, and filing phoney crime reports or not filing what should have been filed. And yet I remember that he did so quite calmly, and with a simple sense of what needed doing. Hoolihan, his name was. He remained Sheriff for twenty years.
‘And around him men formed a cadre, drawn both from his own staff – that was growing as the town grew – and from seasonal volunteers. They gave themselves uniforms, an unspoken code, and found a sense of belonging, like a club.
‘I wasn’t one myself, not all men were, but I watched it happen – within their ranks the Deputies closed themselves off from the town; as at the same time moving into the dominant position. With them being illegal to start with then there was no way to stop them – families needed their service and were grateful for it.
‘They formed a conspiracy within the conspiracy.
‘Meanwhile the girls began to be taken to the town school to be looked after by the teachers, who in those days were all women. It soon became a school just for girls, and another school was opened for the boys. In its own way, the School became as secretive as the Sheriff’s Office. We men didn’t think too much of it – it was just another of those areas of life we weren’t allowed into, like appointments at the dressmaker’s, or their endless coffee mornings. Back then women were mysterious, and we learnt to leave them to their ways.
‘So was born the set-up that we see today. I’d say that within those first few winters we had all of it arranged, and it began to feel natural.
‘And with every new family who arrived each year, when the snow fell and their child got ill, we’d put an arm around their shoulders and say, “It’s all right, they get better. And once they’re old enough, it stops completely.” And they’d be relieved. And then a little shocked when we told them that no, we weren’t going down the hill to find a hospital. Instead, we kept the secret, and whether they liked it or not, they’d be keeping it too.
‘But there are other effects. Aren’t there, Toby.’
‘Lies.’
‘Yes. The consequence of lies. They are their own burden. They become worse than the thing you’re lying about.
‘At first we lied out of consideration for our children’s reputation, and keeping them out of the madhouse. Self-interest too, of course, worries over keeping our jobs, or being thought problem-families. And then after a while the secret itself became the secret, and it becomes its own problem; as even if the sickness had ended, we could never have broken the code.
‘I’ve thought over the years of how we might have gotten free of it: all of the town leaving at once and no family re-settling within a hundred miles, the old community broken up and deliberately forgotten. We could all have made new lives.
‘But someone else would have come to live up here a
The man would sometimes slap his knees, getting up to pace around as he spoke, before returning to his chair, only to then jump up again. He mused,
‘Oh, I know it would be different these days. There’d be Oprah Specials, “Help us Help the Children of Stove”. Doctors flying in from all quarters. There’d be kind hearts across America, the world reaching out, offering to take them in. We’d be like that Mexican mining town after the landslide – the world would want to care. But we had done the best we could at the time, and had made a rod for our own backs.
‘“Our children are hurting,” we could say. “How can we help?” the world would ask. So far so good. And then the question we dreaded, “How long has it been going on for?” And imagine the shock when we told them, “Half a century.” And then the fear that our methods would be learned. And the worst excesses found out – that some busy bee would root out the truth of our Worst Year.’
At this Toby felt a tingle down the spine, though hoped Vernon didn’t notice him squirm in his chair to give himself away.
‘You see,’ the older man repeated, ‘we early settlers had lived through the Second World War, served in Korea, worked abroad. Confinement and pacification – that was how you treated fever, mania, men losing their minds. And every spring the kids got better! Every spring they got better.’
Toby recognised that the man was about to cry. In his bluster he was attempting to justify his actions to himself, as much as to Toby.
But Toby could only listen; as he went on,
‘Look at you. Look at how you and your brothers and sisters turned out. Can you say we did wrong? We only wanted to keep our jobs, to work for our families. Yet, I don’t know if in attempting to do right we didn’t drive you away. Not all the best of you return.’
‘Your son stayed.’
‘Yes, till he was about your age. But he left before his own children reached their teens. And as for my daughter, well I think she tries to forget that her childhood ever happened.’
Mr Monroe didn’t mention a wife, and Toby thought it best not to enquire. Instead Toby was asked,
‘So, what of you, Toby? What of your future?’
‘I don’t think that far ahead.’
‘Come now, a man in his prime. You must have hopes, dreams?’
But Toby couldn’t answer.
‘I suppose “all this” makes the future hard to plan for. You still think about your House Mistress? Who could blame you. A sad lot, that. A sad lot.
‘I’ll get us more tea.’
‘No, please,’ said Toby as the man got up. ‘I should be going. I can’t have them miss me for long.’
‘No. Lots to do. Lots to do. “To be original you must return to the origin.” Have you ever heard that expression, Toby?’
Toby shook his head. He hadn’t.
‘It must be odd for you to doubt things. Unnatural, uncomfortable. After all, this is the world you were brought up in. You didn’t create it. It is an odd thing to think that mine was the last generation for whom the way our town works was new. Since then it has been a fait accompli – is that the term? Just the way things are. So why would you doubt it?’
Toby was startled by the choice of words – and who’d said anything about him doubting anything? Was Vernon Monroe seeing through the Deputy’s shell, or simply projecting his own feelings onto his guest?
Parting at the door, Toby was half-turned to walk away when he felt a hand on his arm and heard the old man say,
‘Do you ever wonder, Toby, if it could go on for ever?’
But Toby didn’t answer. Instead he left in a grump he’d later regret, and mumbled to himself once he was down the road,
‘This town! Isn’t there one person who wants this to end who can do it for themselves? Why do they lump it all on me?’
And everything that Toby was told that day, he told in turn to Jake that evening, as eager to unburden himself as Vernon Monroe had been. For Jake, and not Toby, was the one who’d break the secret to the world. And Toby knew deep down that that was all that Vernon wanted.
Chapter 44 – Toby’s Parents
Toby had one more call to make. One he would put off till the end of the season if he could, and then until the next winter after that.
‘Toby,’ said his mother as he stood at the already-open door.
‘You shouldn’t let the cold in,’ he answered. He was telling her off before he was even in the house, and hated himself for it, even as he could do nothing about it.
‘Kettle’s on,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
As he arrived in the kitchen she turned and caught sight of him,
‘Oh, look at my boy. Always so smart. You remind me of your father dressed like that.’ She placed the tea things down to smooth his black lapels, before turning back to the kitchen counter. ‘We miss you in the summer. But I know you have to live your own life. You know the Richmond boy hasn’t returned again. June and Bill haven’t seen him for six years now.’ Something caught in her voice. ‘Toby, those three years you stayed at college, I thought we’d never see you again.’
Toby came to stand by her where she stood at the work-surface, putting a hand on her shoulder. He wanted to hug her, but something held him back. Instead he said,
‘I wanted to come and see you sooner,’ he lied, or half-lied. ‘But we’ve been busy.’
‘I know, the snow came early this year.’
Just then the sound of footsteps came in from the path, and a voice sounded in the hall,
‘It’s like a barn in here.’
‘Well, shut the door then.’
Toby smiled – he had forgotten his parents’ joke argument conversations. It was just the way they rubbed along, and perhaps you needed something like that to be together all those years?
‘Go in and see him then,’ Toby’s mother urged to her son. ‘Alvin, guess who’s here.’
‘Hello, Dad.’
‘Give us a hand then?’ His father had already closed the front door, and was pulling his winter boots off. Together they managed it, though not before his dad had said,
‘Look at you, all done up. They still keep the old threads then?’
‘Same every year,’ said Toby.
‘I don’t see you fellows very often now, with me retiring and not having children young enough.’
‘How is Bernice?’ asked Toby then. His sister.
‘They’re all doing fine,’ chirped his mother, as women do when speaking of families and not people. ‘They sent us a postcard from Bermuda – can you imagine?’
‘What are they doing there?’
‘On vacation, silly. They’re still living in Connecticut. And who can blame them with that countryside? Not me.’
‘Rainy though,’ said his father, as if their own weather was all unclouded afternoons.
His mother brought the tea things into the lounge, and the family sat around the little coffee table. Why was it so difficult, thought Toby, just to tell them that he loved them? The answer came back: because there was too much else there stopping him. To have gotten over that would be to acknowledge everything that had happened to them over the years and everything the town didn’t like to talk about. The ice was too thick and Toby could not crack it. Yet it let them see through it, and so all sat not hearing one another.
‘You’ll be needed back there, won’t you,’ said his father eventually, giving Toby an excuse to leave and they a chance to breathe again. This had been their first meeting in a year, between three people who cared for each other; and not one of them could wait for it to be over.
Back in sunny Carvel, Toby often saw other families in the park or in shops or in restaurants. He knew that he could never have conveyed to them how his family was. His father hadn’t even been a bad man, by which Toby meant he’
Chapter 45 – Nonday
Toby slept heavily the last two nights before returning to duty, and so made no visits to the Emsworth place. Each morning of that week of enforced leave, he woke to the sound of the wood-walled guest house in ferment. It was as if the boots of other Deputies were coming through the boards above him, and that every opened door was being pulled off its hinges.
Once back on his rounds though, he was glad of the distraction that came from meeting Jake to give his testimony.
‘It’s actually easier to get away while on duty,’ said Toby one night, preparing himself for the next chapter of his life story. ‘You don’t have to make up tales of where you’re going. Before, I was having to tell my landlady I was going for midnight walks to clear insomnia brought on by the pain pills.’
‘And she bought that?’
‘She’s not daft.’
But Jake had other things on his mind,
‘Don’t worry about the big stuff tonight, Tobe... Just talk about the little things, the day to day.’
So that night Toby would tell Jake that it was a relief to get back to duty. That there was nothing like the therapy of work, even when that work was Toby’s work. How during his lay-up he’d missed his colleagues, had missed the chance to help them. And how helping them made him feel less bad when calling on their assistance in return.
He told of going back home with Fitch after shifts, and of Mrs Fitch making them all cocoa. And of the baker making it a rule to give free bread to any Deputy at any time of day or night; he even going so far as sleeping in his armchair downstairs in the shop, waiting for the nighttime ringing of the bell above the door.