The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (34 page)

Mum found Margueretta lying on the floor in her room. She wasn’t moving. Mum shook her and shook her and shook her. And she screamed in her ear. But she wouldn’t wake up. There were empty bottles lying beside her, maybe two or three. And a small brown bottle.

I ran as fast as I could—out the front door and down the street in the rain. I never had time to put on my shoes, and the grit dug into the soles of my bare feet. I slipped over three times on the wet pavement and skinned my knees, but I didn’t feel anything. And the giant oak trees leaned in and pressed against my eyes like the walls of the dark, dark cellar. But I kept my eyes open until I saw the light.

No one would care that I was in my torn pajamas. It was the middle of the night, and only the bats were out, circling as they do and darting and swerving. They never make a sound.

I pushed the door at first, and it wouldn’t open. Then I realized that you have to pull, and it opened easily. Everyone knows the number. They told us in Cub Scouts what to say when the person answers. But my fingers were wet from the rain and the little holes on the dial were made from metal and my
fingers slipped again and again. And even though I’m twelve, I’m small for my age, and I had to stand on tiptoes to see the numbers clearly.

But I did it. I dialed 999. And told them we need an ambulance. Yes. My sister. That’s right.

I think my sister is dead.

The ambulance was there only minutes after I got back home. The ambulance men were anxious and sweating as they worked, mostly silently. They looked at the empty bottles. Then they put a tube down her throat, as she lay limp on the floor. And they pumped saline solution into her, and it all came out of another tube into a bowl. There were no pieces of carrot or little chewed up lumps of beef. No bread or cheese. No sardines. Just white pills bobbing around like little sailboats adrift in a choppy sea of foam.

And there was the smell. The sweet, sickly smell. Akanni never said anything; he just hopped from leg to leg, his huge brown eyes staring at everything. And I looked at the soles of my feet. They were bleeding and black. Purple-red and black.

They carried her down on the stretcher and stopped at the front door.

And one of the men turned to my mum.

“How did you let this happen?” he said.

And that made Mum scream.

Mum went with them in the ambulance but she wouldn’t talk when she came back home.

It was four days later that she took us to the hospital.

“Are you aware how destructive aspirin is?” the doctor asked.

“No,” Mum replied, “we don’t keep aspirin in the house.”

“Well, if you want to kill yourself, aspirin is a pretty effective way to do it,” the doctor continued, “and if you hadn’t acted in time she would be dead now. You have to get the aspirin out of the gut within an hour. There is no antidote for salicylate poisoning. And there are lots of possible severe side effects that can also kill you or debilitate you. The toxins shut down your
organs. She’s lucky to be alive. If you had left her until the morning, you would have found her dead. Quite dead.”

“I heard a loud bang. Something fell on the floor.”

“She will have to stay here for observation for at least a week. We have to monitor the toxin level and get fluids and salts in her body. Dr. Browning wants to see you before you leave. He’s in the office at the end of the ward.”

“Will she be able to see again?” Mum asked.

“See again? I don’t know. She’s only just come out of intensive care. She was in a coma. There may be permanent damage. We just don’t know what has been damaged.”

We were in the Queen Alexandra Hospital. Margueretta was connected to four separate monitors. When she regained consciousness in intensive care, she said she was blind. Apparently an aspirin overdose can blind you.

“Mrs. Mitchell. Come and sit here,” said Dr. Browning.

“You two wait there with Akanni,” Mum said.

So I waited with Emily and Akanni at the door of the matron’s office. But the door was open.

“You need to hear this,” Dr. Browning began.

“What? What is it?”

“Look. I think she will survive. Survive this overdose. And I hope she will get her sight back. It happens. The aspirin overdose can cause a temporary blindness.”

“Thank God.”

“Yes, thank God. Mrs. Mitchell, she very nearly died. You saved her life. Without you, she would be dead.”

Mum began to cry.

“But it can’t continue like this.”

“No, it can’t. Or I’ll be joining her in here,” Mum replied.

“She should be getting better. The ECT…the group therapy. Her group therapist said she’s very intelligent, and she’s a lively contributor to the sessions. She’s very popular, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure she is. She can put on that ‘little girl lost’ look, right enough. But I know the truth. It’s a living hell.”

“I thought she was improving. We all did. And then this.”

“Why is she doing this to us?”

“I have something to tell you. This is very serious.”

“I’m sure it is serious.”

“She’s going to have to be locked up.”

“Locked up?”

“Yes.”

“Locked up?”

“I need you to agree to putting her in the lock-down ward of St. James’s hospital. She came as close to death as you can come. It’s for her own good. But you can still visit her. In fact, I would encourage it. But, perhaps not the children. It’s not an easy place to see.”

He looked through the open door at Emily and me.

“And one other thing—before you go.”

He handed Mum a folded piece of paper.

“This is a letter.”

“A letter? For me?”

“No. Not for you. This is a letter that Margueretta wrote to me. It’s a common problem. We can deal with it another time. But it’s my professional duty to bring this to your attention.”

Mum read the letter on the bus ride home. It is a love letter. Margueretta is in love with Dr. Browning.

92

I
was down on the kitchen floor trying to make an effective pattern with the tiles, which is not easy with the unexpected addition of red. I am extremely distressed that I have had to buy red tiles. Once these floor tiles are down, no amount of prying will get them back up. So the only answer is to go with a random red tile in amongst a geometric pattern of blue, green, and white.

“What’s he doing?” asked Joan Housecoat.

“Covering the black floor,” Mum replied. “Would you like some tea?”

“I would. But why is he using those red tiles? It looks like a blooming flag!”

“They sold out of blue. And green. And white.”

“Ooo-er. I’ve got something to tell you. Something quite important.”

“That’s nice.”

“Well, I’m having a nervous breakdown,” Joan said.

“What? Here?”

“Well, not right here at the moment, but yes. I’m having a nervous breakdown.”

“A nervous breakdown? How do you know?”

“Dr. Wilmot told me.”

“What happened?”

“Ooo-er. It was Wednesday. And Fred always has steak and kidney pudding for his tea on Wednesday. But I forgot the kidneys.”

“Go on.”

“I started crying.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I went up to the surgery, and they managed to get me in to see the doctor. And Dr. Wilmot said I was having a nervous breakdown.”

“Just like that?”

“He said I had two choices. Either take the maximum dose of Valium for the rest of my days…or go in for ECT. So I’m thinking about doing the ECT. You’re in and out in a couple of days.”

“What caused it? Did he say what caused your nervous breakdown?” Mum asked.

“I shouldn’t say really.”

“Why? What did he say?”

“Well. Ooo-er. He said it was all the screaming and the shouting and all that.”

“Screaming and shouting? Where?”

Joan pushed out her bosom and ran her finger round the neck of her housecoat and pulled her chin in.

“In here,” Joan circled her head and pursed her lips. “All the goings on in here. It’s given me a nervous breakdown.”

“In here?”

“That’s what Dr. Wilmot said. It’s really difficult to live next door to it.”

“Next door to what, exactly?”

“Next door to a bloomin’ madhouse!”

“Well, I hope you told him that was a load of nonsense!”

“Why would I? He knows what’s going on in here. Half the bloody street knows, excuse me! What with the psychiatrist and the police and the screaming and cutting her wrists and the obscenities and the doors slamming and…”

“Oh, I see you’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”

“These walls are paper-thin, you know! No one should have to live next door to this! Fred’s been to the council. We’re on a transfer list. We’re going
to a better place where we all can get some peace and quiet. I’m not having ECT for nothing, you know!”

“Well, you can put that cup of tea down, Joan!”

“Ooo-er.”

“You can put that cup down and get out of my house. You are not welcome here anymore!”

“Well! That’s fine by me. I’ll remember this when that daughter of yours cuts her wrists again. Don’t come running to me! I saved her bloody life. And washed your dirty dishes. This place was filthy. Cat shit everywhere…”

“Get out!”

Margueretta’s sight came back. She saw colors at first and then blurry images. But she should permanently give up alcohol because her liver is damaged, and it may not ever recover. Dr. Browning said she was very lucky. But she had to stay in hospital much longer than anyone thought. And then they sent her to the lock-down ward of St. James’s.

That’s where the real lunatics are.

93

I
need money. It’s all well and good selling my lunch tickets, but it takes a whole month to make enough money to buy just one pack of floor tiles, and I’ve only done half the kitchen and haven’t even started on the front room. And Miss Sanders said I am looking very pale, and she’s worried about me. I was trying to see up her knickers at the time because she likes to sit on top of her desk in front of the classroom. The middle of the front row is the best viewing point, and I’m sure she knows I’m trying to see her knickers because she crosses her legs again and again and she watches my eyes and smiles at me, which makes it very difficult to study the terrace farming techniques of the rice paddies in Southeast Asia.

When she asked to see me after our geography lesson I thought it was because she saw me looking up her dress. She also does not wear a bra, and she has small breasts, which you can see when she bends down to look at your written work. I need a lot of help with my written work. I’m sure I’ve seen a nipple. But she didn’t mention her knickers or nipples. She wanted to see me to ask if I was feeling all right and if there are any problems at home.

She told me to sit down and tell her anything I wanted her to know. There were several things I wanted her to know. She said our conversation was private.

“Is there anything going on at home that you want to tell me about?”

“No.”

I wanted to tell her she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I desperately want to see her naked.

“Are you sure? I feel as if you are hiding something. Something that’s not right.”

“Not really.”

She bent forward when she said that, and her dress moved up her silky thighs.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“Yes. I feel fine.”

“Well. If there’s anything wrong, at home, or anything at all—you can tell me. OK?”

“OK.”

“I’m not an old fuddy-duddy teacher, you know.”

She rubbed my hair when she said that. I nearly fainted.

“I know.”

I would like to slowly undress her.

“Is it about a girl?”

“No.”

“You’re a very sensitive boy, aren’t you?”

If only I could tell her that she makes me shiver when she’s near me. And I still want to see her naked.

“Look. I know you haven’t got a dad. But you’ve got a mum, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, can you talk to her about things? You know, about anything that’s troubling you?”

It would be pointless to explain to Miss Sanders that my mum is going mad. Or that the reason I’m looking so pale is because I’m half-starved owing to the fact that I am selling my free lunch tickets so that I can buy floor tiles to cover the black floors that are the inexplicable reason why my mum is going mad in the first place.

So I said nothing about the asylum and the wrist-slashing and the filth and the leprosy and everything. She just shrugged her shoulders and looked sorry for me when I stared down at the floor.

I went to the park after school to think about Miss Sanders. I needed to be alone. When she was talking to me I got goose bumps on the back of my neck, and I felt this glow all over my head, like someone was pouring warm water on my brain. She’s not married. And I think she likes me. I wish I was older or maybe just taller. I would put my tongue in her mouth. I would clean my teeth first.

And I wish I was in the park again right now. We call it a park, but it’s really just waste ground with some swings and dog shit. There’s brown, black, red, and even orange dog shit. Orange stinks the worst. If you ever get that shit on your shoe, you will need more than a dock leaf to get it off. Best to wait until it is hard and then chip it off with a stick.

There are packs of dogs running wild all around our estate. People buy dogs and then throw them out when they can’t afford to feed them. The male dogs try to hump each other and that usually starts a fight that is great to watch. Then they go back to trying to hump each other. There’s a small red-haired dog that the big dogs pick on. He gets humped a lot.

That girl in the park was amazing.

She came over to say hello, and even though I wanted to be alone, we sat on the swings together. Then I said we should play a game. So we played fizz-buzz. I don’t know who she is, but she can’t count. You have to say fizz if a number has a five in it or is divisible by five, or buzz if it’s a seven, and fizz-buzz if it’s both. It’s pretty simple really if you concentrate and know your five and seven times tables. But I had to let her win a few times to make her think she was good at it. Then I said we should play for money. I let her win some money, and then I made my move. She started to panic when she owed me five shillings—and she didn’t have any money at all.