From a Safe Distance (14 page)

In the queue forming along the corridor, I joined the ranks of those I once despised.

The sun shone between the tall trees lining the main drive up to the old hospital buildings. It was my first time outside and I had found that my clothes were quite loose. Ian came with us. I was a bit high at the time and I laughed at Barbara, who was walking really slowly.

Inside the door with flaking navy paint was a dingy café. We sat in a corner with our green NHS cups and saucers. Ian said he'd be back in ten minutes.

Some strange characters inhabited this world. A shaft of light from a high window cut a sample of the smoky air, and we watched in silence as a man of about forty-five walked to and fro, in and out of this spotlight, keeping up a loud replay of the latest conversation with his psychiatrist, speaking both parts. Every so often he would go up to the counter and buy a single cigarette. His eyes saw only the bits of the real world he needed at any given moment. The rest of the time, he was totally immersed in his private dialogue made public. Another man sat nearby, in drab clothes, chain-smoking as if with a mechanical arm, rocking back and forth on his chair, his lips moving silently the whole time, saliva trickling down his chin, adding to the dark patch on the lapel of his jacket.

They were long-stay patients from Albert ward, up here in the original asylum, but they seemed to be from a different century. A bent old woman shuffled round on a tour of the ashtrays, looking for decent butts. To make a new cigarette, she would crumble the tobacco from the butts onto a paper and roll it up. I had seen people doing this on Tor ward as well. Not only did these people from Albert have very little money – fags were the patients' currency – they never seemed to have visitors to bring them anything. Did they
have
anyone? Did anybody know they were there? Had they
been abandoned, years ago? They made me think of old slanting gravestones, neglected and forgotten.

By the time we had finished our tea my mood had changed again. Ian and Barbara had to support me down the hill and back to Tor ward. The swings were not as frequent or as intense though by now, and at least I was more aware of those around me.

I was getting wise to things that happened on Tor ward as well. The whole of society was represented, but as if in parody. I became able to work out why the other patients were there. The ones who did not appear to be ill were ready for discharge. You had to know whom you could trust to go to the shop for you, too. I wanted a cigarette.

‘Oh, here she comes! Just ‘cos she's having ECT, she thinks she's special. And did you hear her the other day, when she was high, bragging about her degree!'

‘I know, she's the big “I am”. Makes me sick. So up herself.'

I realised I must have embarrassed myself when I was in the grip of this thing, but no more so than others I'd met on the ward, who gave completely the wrong impression of what they were like in the real world. Seeing them get better proved this. They became calmer, quieter and most of all, their features seemed to shrink back to a normal size from the cartoon version they had come in with. I couldn't help thinking of Aunt Mary's rolling eyes.

I decided not to sit in the smoking room after all; I went into the garden. Gil was sitting on one of the benches. He was a quiet friend, a companion in depression. As I walked towards him, he raised his eyes. They were concentration-camp eyes, hollow but shining with an invincible light.

The last one: nothing to eat or drink after midnight, blood pressure check in the morning, hand in your valuables and write “bag in office” on your hand to avoid alarm when you come round. It's hard to believe, but it's things like that you forget. Wait til you're sent for, then up the back stairs with your assigned nurse to the ECT suite.

There is the black bed again. The room is full of equipment and there is the doctor, a nurse and the anaesthetist. Climb on the bed – a trolley, I now realise. Any caps or crowns? No. Leads on my chest, pulse monitor on my finger, find a vein. I feel cold today and it makes it harder for them to find one. Scratch: now the valve is in my hand. A cold trickle runs up inside to my elbow. Oxygen mask and …

I've missed you Mum.' We hugged each other. Then we sat in the living room at number 79, two days after I had been discharged from Tor ward. The grass was long and I only had two tea bags left. ‘How's Jim?'

‘Oh fine. I think he's got a new girlfriend, but I'd better let him tell you himself.'

We drank our tea. The old clock I had bought ticked on.

‘Vee, I'm really sorry I couldn't visit you in hospital, but it's a long way to come, and the main reason is of course that Ron's been so ill. Flu then pneumonia. I couldn't leave him and I couldn't tell you at the time. I was so relieved to hear your voice on the phone the other day though, sounding more like your old self. And Ron's made a full recovery. So my dear people are back with me.'

I tried to explain how strange I felt: I didn't really know who my old self was any more. Assuming of course that people have constant “selves” to which they can return. From what? Where had I been then, in the meantime, if I wasn't with my self?

I told Mum that one of the nurses out there had said this might be hereditary. This did not come as such a shock to Mum, thank goodness, although neither of us could work out why, if that were the case,
she
hadn't been affected. If some crisis was needed to “switch on” the illness, surely Dad's death would have done it? But she was more interested in learning all about ECT.

‘Well, you're put to sleep – see the little scars on my hand? Then they put a
small
electric current through your brain.'

‘Oh, I don't like the sound of that!'

‘But it is only a small amount. You have a kind of fit, but you don't know about it of course, then you wake up.'

Mum pulled a face. I explained that not everybody has this treatment, and anyway, it doesn't always work for those who
do
have it. In fact, I went on, nobody really knows how it works in the first place, but then again, they don't always know how the tablets work either. As she could see though, it had worked for me, and that's all that mattered for now. I said I didn't know if I'd be there today if wasn't for ECT. OK, it had affected my memory, but they'd told me a lot would come back.

She stood up. ‘Right, are we going shopping or not? You need a lampshade for the hall for one thing. I was shocked when I got here last night to see a bare bulb!' She bought me a tee shirt and lunch as well, and we restocked the kitchen.

‘I'll stay one more night, Vee.'

We set about cooking a meal, while I tried to tell her what things were like in Tor ward and how I felt, but it sounded false and unreal, as if I was recounting a nightmare which nobody else could understand because they hadn't lived through it. Or perhaps it was somebody else's nightmare. But every attempt to describe what I had in fact only
half
lived was inadequate. You don't experience psychosis; it's the nature of the beast. So I don't think Mum was any the wiser in the end. And I could appreciate why people find illness like this so hard to understand. If those who experience it can't describe it properly, what hope is there?

‘So what are you going to do about work then, Vee?'

‘Oh, don't remind me. The money I got from the College won't last forever, so I'll have to start looking soon I suppose. Something tells me it might take a while.'

Lucy Bennett had a tiny office overlooking the car park. The clinic on the hill was surrounded by trees planted when it was built and it reminded me of my old school. Her room was full of books, leaving just enough space for a desk and two chairs.

‘Now, you've been referred to me after your recent admission to Tor ward.' Her hazel eyes smiled at me. She had an oval face and shortish greying hair, from which long thin russet-coloured earrings emerged, toning with her unusual jacket. ‘Do you know why you're here?'

‘Not really.'

‘Well, a psychologist's job is to try to unravel any thought patterns which might have contributed to your becoming ill. Of course you'll go on seeing Dr Wilson as well.'

‘I see.'

‘What I think would be helpful,' she went on, ‘for both of us, is if you keep a diary of your moods, and bring it to our next session in a fortnight.'

I nodded. Using the glasses on a chain round her neck, Lucy glanced briefly at her notes, making her earrings move.

‘So, Vee, how do you feel now?'

‘There are gaps in my memory which can be awkward. Apart from that, I don't really know how I feel. It changes from day to day. I don't know if I'm the same person as I used to be before I was ill, or whether I'm on my way back and haven't got there yet. I suppose only time will tell.'

‘Try and capture these states of mind in your mood diary. Do you keep a diary anyway?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. What about your moods, specifically. Do you think they've settled down?'

‘Well I don't feel as weird as I did. I feel more or less level, just a bit wrung out.'

‘Do you feel able to talk about your father? When did he die?'

I hadn't seen Patrick for a while, but then it
was
exam time. For a week or two all I wanted to do was sleep, but I knew I had to make an effort to get a job. I arranged to meet up with one of the men I'd flirted with when high in hospital, but realised immediately that I shouldn't have done. In our normal lives, we wouldn't have given each other a second glance. I could tell he felt the same; I vowed I would never make the same mistake again.

Then one evening, there was a knock at the door. To my surprise, Ian the nurse was standing there, in cycling helmet and gloves, holding the handlebars of a racing bike, which he was trying to prop against the porch wall.

‘I've done something I shouldn't have,' he said quietly. ‘I looked up your address in the notes.'

‘Come in,' I said, eyeing his lycra shorts and muscular legs and imagining … well. ‘Cup of tea?' I asked, as if trying to deny what was in the air.

‘Great. How are you?' We went into the living room.

‘OK I think.'

He smiled. I stood for a moment, looking at him, and felt a silly, matching smile grow on my lips from the tension, which had to be broken. But by whom? Getting the tea was my way of opting out, although of course I would have to come back. But Ian followed me through into the kitchen. I put the mugs out and his hand was on my shoulder. I thought any feelings I might have had towards him had died when I left the ward, but I was wrong.

‘This has to stay between you and me, yes?' he said softly into my neck. I turned and we kissed. The kettle boiled unnoticed as our desire exploded and we found ourselves
undressing at top speed and landing on the bed. We went at it like animals.

Ian came round once a week for two or three months, but the lust soon faded. We couldn't go out anywhere as a couple; it was like being with Tony. So once we had discovered each other's bodies, there was nothing left to do. He could lose his job if he wasn't careful. So we went our separate ways.