Listen to the Moon. Michael Morpurgo

ever said to her. She looked up at him for a moment, and then lifted a corner of the blanket to show him. The word came out slowly, and only with great concentration and effort. “W… Wil… helm,” she said softly, and said no more.

      But she had spoken! Lucy had spoken! It was indistinct, but it was a spoken word, a recognisable word, definitely a word.

      Alfie had to tell someone, anyone, at once. He ran downstairs and burst into the kitchen. “Lucy spoke!” he said. “She said something. She did! I’m sure she did.”

      “You see, Doctor? Did you hear that? She is getting better, she is!” Mary said, and she reached out to grasp Alfie’s hands. “That’s wonderful, wonderful, Alfie. What did she say?”

      ‘Wilhelm’ was on the tip of his tongue. Then he thought again. No, he thought, no one must know, not even the doctor. He had so nearly blurted it out. Trying to gather his thoughts, he said, “I’m… I’m not sure. Couldn’t really tell, but it was a word, promise, a real word. It was!”

      The doctor smiled up at him, prodding the tobacco deep into his pipe with his thumb. “It doesn’t matter what it was,” he said. “She was trying to speak, that is what is important. You have done well, Alfie, very well indeed. But in spite of this – and it is good news, Alfie, very good news – as I have been telling your mother and father, I do still have grave concerns about Lucy’s future. I have examined her again this afternoon, and I have to say there is a great deal I do not properly understand. I should have expected her to have recovered much more quickly by now than she has. Her health and strength are much restored – her ankle is now as good as the other one – thanks in large part to how well your mother has cared for her. But it is not only Lucy’s inability to speak properly that worries me, it is also her reluctance to get up out of bed. And this is not just physical. There is something else wrong here, something in her mind.”

      “In her mind?” Alfie asked. “What do you mean, in her mind?”

      The doctor sighed. He lit up his pipe and sat back. “Listen,” he went on. “This is how I see it. Only a few weeks ago – what is it now, eight or nine weeks, is it, Mr Wheatcroft? – you found that poor child half dead from cold and starvation on St Helen’s. A couple more days out there on her own, and I’m telling you she would not have survived. You found her just in time. And you’ve all done wonders with her, brought her back from the brink. She’s eating better now, that terrible cough of hers is all but gone, and she’s stronger now every time I see her. She is in no danger any more. She will survive, of that I have no doubt – in her body at any rate. But as for her mind, as I say, there I do have some concerns. It is a good sign that she spoke, Alfie, very good. Yet, all the same, I do worry for her sanity. And I do have to say that, in this regard, I have seen very little improvement up till now.”

      He paused, puffing long on his pipe before beginning again. “To me, she seems lost, lost deep inside herself, as lost as she was on that island. The child has clearly been traumatised, in shock, you understand. How this has happened or why, we do not know, for she cannot tell us. She can hear – I have established that. But, for one reason or another, she cannot or will not speak. What is it? Two words in nearly two months now – that is hardly speaking. Maybe she has always been like this from birth, we simply do not know. The mind is as fragile as the body, and, sadly, we know far less about it. But what I do know is this, and am quite sure of it – I have observed this often among the wounded sailors and soldiers I have treated – that the body can help cure the mind. Body and mind work best together. The first step, and I am convinced of this, is to persuade her to get out of her bed. We have to get her moving, to take an interest in life again. It is the only way.”

      “I told you, I’ve tried. She won’t be moved, Doctor,” said Mary. “I’ve tried everything I know. She just lies there. I don’t know what else I can do.”

      “Believe me, I understand, Mrs Wheatcroft, I do,” the doctor went on. “No one could have done more. But that’s my point. I’m afraid that sooner or later, if she does not improve, she may need more… well, let us call it specialised help. And that she can only get in a hospital on the mainland.”

      Mary started to her feet, tears in her eyes. “You mean the madhouse, don’t you, Doctor? That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it! Like the asylum in Bodmin, where Billy was. Over my dead body! I have been to that place. We were there together, Doctor. Or have you forgotten? It is a hell on earth, you know it is. I won’t let that happen, not again. I saw what they did to Billy in that place. For goodness’ sake, Doctor, you helped me get Billy out of there. You know how they’re treated. They don’t live, poor souls, they just exist. It’s a prison, Doctor, not a hospital. They just lock them up and throw away the key. There’s no care in the place, no hope. No, until her mother or father comes for her, she is ours to care for. You hear me, Doctor? I’ll not let her into one of those dreadful places in a million years. We shall make her well in body and mind, you’ll see. And God will help us. Didn’t Lucy just speak to Alfie? Isn’t that a good sign?”

      “Indeed it is, but I just want you to face the possibility, Mrs Wheatcroft, that’s all,” said Dr Crow.

      “It is not going to happen, Doctor,” Mary whispered fiercely through her tears.

      “None of us want it to happen,” the doctor went on. “All I can tell you is that if we’re to have any hope of healing her mind then you have to get her up and walking, somehow. She must be strong enough by now to walk. You have to try to get her outside.”

      “I’ve tried, Doctor,” Mary told him despairingly. “Do you think I haven’t tried?”

      The doctor turned to Alfie. “What about you, Alfie? You got her to speak just now. Take her round the island, take her out in the boat, maybe over to Samson to see the cottages, or down to Rushy Bay to see the seals. We’ve got to get her to take an interest in life, to get her out of herself. And Mrs Wheatcroft, you go on doing just what you’ve been doing, talk to her, read to her, care for her, but try to bring her downstairs more, get her helping in the kitchen, out on the farm.”

      “She’s seems so damaged, so fragile,” Mary said. “I can’t force her, can I? How can I make her do what she doesn’t want to do?”

      “Marymoo,” said Jim, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “Let’s do what the doctor says. Let Alfie try to take her out a bit. He’s more her age. She might go with him. You can’t do it all by yourself, Marymoo.”

      “She’s got to learn to live again, Mrs Wheatcroft,” the doctor said, getting to his feet. “Even then we can’t be sure she’ll get well. But it’s her best hope and my best advice, that’s all. Get her up, get her moving, whether she wants to or not.”

      He stopped at the door as he was leaving. “This is just an idea,” he said. “Music. Maybe music would help. I’ve got one of those wonderful gramophone contraptions back at home on St Mary’s, and some records to go with it. I’ll bring them over next time I come. Easy enough to operate: you just wind it up, put the needle on, and out comes the music. Magic. Extraordinary invention. Everyone should have one. No one would need a doctor then, put me right out of a job, but I shouldn’t mind. Very healing stuff, music.”

      All that week Alfie tried, and his mother tried, but no amount of gentle persuasion or cajoling could induce Lucy to get out of bed. Then the next time Dr Crow came calling, a week or so later, he brought his gramophone with him as he had promised. As soon as he arrived, he wound it up, and put a record on. Miraculously, piano music filled the room, filled the whole house. Jim, Mary, Alfie, and the doctor, all of them simply stood there, watching the record going round and round, listening in wonder, utterly lost in the music.

      “It’s Chopin,” said the doctor after a while, conducting the music with his pipe.

      The stair door opened behind them. Lucy was standing there in bare feet. She was swathed in her blanket, her teddy bear in her hand. She drifted across the room towards them, towards the gramophone. For long moments, she simply stared down at it. “Piano,” she whispered, and then again, “Piano.”