The Trouble with Polly Brown (58 page)

She then supplied me with the evidence I sorely needed if I was to even begin to believe her story. I eagerly snatched the note from her outstretched hand, and once again I was seriously disconcerted by its contents.

Dear [Patient 579; I have replaced the girl's name with her patient number, as her true identity must remain confidential],

Wimbledon is once more upon us, and still there is no word of you. I recently heard, albeit through the grapevine, that you have been hospitalized and so are considered by some to be very sick in the head. May I tell you now that this sad news is thoroughly disconcerting, for I only met a wonderful, thoroughly inspiring young lady, who despite endless tough trials yearned to love and be loved, as well as spread a little more happiness in the world. Call that an illness if you must
.

So I have been left with little choice but to sit through another year of Wimbledon tennis with a vacant seat at my right side
.

As a result of all of this I feel I need to tell you that you are constantly in my heart and prayers, and so throughout the strawberry season, which happens to be the month of June, I will send you small baskets of strawberries every single day. And before you ask yourself why, it is because I know for sure that you need more persuading than most when it comes to believing in yourself. So, bearing the knowledge that strawberries are your all-time favorite fruit to demolish, it seemed the perfect and most splendid thing to do. So, my little princess, I hope you enjoy them. The sugar and thick cream will have to wait another year, as maybe next June we will finally get together at Wimbledon
.

—Your good friend Captain Plimsol, xxx

PS: Amanda and Annabel both expressly asked me to send you their love
.

I lay the letter to one side as she continued to explain her very unusual situation.

She told me that the first few punnets just sat on the locker until they rotted, as she had no appetite and therefore no interest in eating them. Eventually a few nurses tried to encourage her to eat a few, but still she refused. Finally, one of the nurses said, “Oh well, deary; waste not, want not,” as she popped a large strawberry in her mouth, and so the patient instructed the member of staff to take away the rest of the punnet of strawberries to share with the other nurses. Now not a day goes by without the nurses on the ward collecting the punnets of strawberries from her bedside locker. They are then shared around the ward.

Surprisingly, her story checked out. The nurses cheerfully confirmed that despite Polly never receiving any visitors whatsoever, for the past month four or five punnets of fresh strawberries have mysteriously appeared on her bedside locker every day without fail. Each delivery just had a small note attached that called Polly a princess and ordered her to enjoy them.

The nurses assured me that they had been extremely vigilant in keeping watch, as they were convinced somebody was deliberately playing tricks. Naturally, they were desperate to catch them, but despite keeping a watchful eye, no one had ever seen a mysterious-looking stranger on the ward, let alone one bringing mountains of strawberries hidden away under his or her coat. This case is certainly getting more mysterious by the minute.

July 8

As usual, after Patient 579 once again handed me a number of freshly written notes of encouragement from her unidentified source, I decided to give her a large sheet of white paper. I then requested that while I read her latest batch of letters, she could help me by drawing an imaginary house. She was incredibly slow in responding to my order, but finally she picked up the crayons. After giving a deep sigh of dismay, she halfheartedly began to draw. With my pipe lit, I sat back in my chair, and after reading a few of the letters, I placed my feet up on the desk as I puffed away at my pipe, all the while dreaming that I was back on the golf course with all my good chums.

It must have been some twenty minutes before the girl placed her hands back in her lap, and with her head down she quietly announced that she had finished.

I glanced over at her drawing and realized straightaway that her house differed very dramatically from most drawings young patients had in the past obliged me by drawing.

I asked her to explain why the windows had thick, black bars, and she just shrugged her shoulders. There was also a distinct absence of any pretty floral curtains hanging from any of the windows, making the house feel very bleak and unwelcoming. In fact, if I'm to be perfectly honest, it made the house appear somewhat hostile.

Yet again, when I asked her to explain this peculiarity, she just shrugged her shoulders. It was at this point that I noticed that one of the upstairs bedrooms had been completely blacked out. When I asked her why she had decided to blacken out the room, her only response was to quietly moan, “What happens in the castle stays in the castle.” I have to say that this all felt most disquieting to me.

I would go on to duly note that there was the absence of any chimney on the roof, which to me would signify warmth and coziness, so I took the liberty of asking her, “Why no chimney?” Yet again she could give me no satisfactory answer. However, there was still worse to come, for I suddenly realized I was staring at a house that had no front door whatsoever! When I asked her why there was no front door when all houses have front doors, she just looked up and quietly kept repeating over and over, “Doors are built to hide all the nasty things inside. Doors are meant to hide all…” She then immediately clammed up and refused to disclose or explainfurther what any of this truly meant.

By this point in the exercise I have to concede to feeling thoroughly exasperated with her. We therefore sat in complete silence as I waited for her to tell me something, anything, that might bring me a little closer to understanding her private, most secretive world.

At this pivotal point in the procedure I have to confess that with my throat feeling decidedly parched and my nerves also a little jangled, I made the decision to leave the room with my teapot in hand to head for the canteen in search of some boiling water, as I wished to make myself a delicious pot of Assam tea. I also wished to see if while I was gone she might decide to once more pick up thecrayons to make some last-minute alterations to her existing drawing. When ten minutes later I reentered the room I could clearly see that the picture had not been altered one iota. The girl still sat droopily and expressionless, as suffering from this ridiculously diabolical inertia like a sleeping beauty; she appeared as though she might just slide off the chair onto the floor to sleep for the next hundred or so years.

After pouring myself another rather delicious cup of delicately blended, orange-spiced Assam tea, I decided to continue on with my list of questions, questions like, “Why have you colored the sky a deep red instead of blue?” I followed this by, “Why have you forgotten to draw the sun into your picture?” After all, most young girls love a nice, bright, glowing sun in the sky above their houses, don't they? Her response to this was quite disconcerting to say the least: “Sir, the reason for its absence is simple, for maybe I did not want to draw something that for me does not exist. After all, there is no sunshine in my life, just dark clouds—and lots of them.” I found this particular response to be of the utmost interest. I therefore made myself a personal note to follow up on this one at some later date.

I have to say that on this particularly enlightening session I went over the official time allocated, as I very much wanted to bring this meeting to a healthy conclusion. I also have to admit that I rather desired a further cup of wonderfully delicious tea, and so while my fresh tea leaves were happily infusing, I found the time to ask her why the sky in her drawing was absent of any birds. I then asked why her garden was absent of any pretty flowers, something I thought most unusual, as normally there would be an abundance of flowers on view in most English gardens.

Surprisingly enough, her reply to this question was instant: “Please, sir, if you care to look more closely, you will see that my red sky is covered in a thick, cloying smog that would surely have most birds dropping out of the sky, for without fresh air they would choke to death. As for the garden, you are sadly very mistaken, for if you cared to look harder, there are some flowers of sorts, although you might recognize them as stinging nettles. However, tomy way of thinking they are still flowers.”

“Flowers?” I questioned.

“Yes, they are flowers, although they are not pretty, and they rather horridly choose to hide amongst the brambles, ready to sting and bring pain to my bare legs as rather stupidly I attempt to strip the bushes of all their berries.”

I hasten to add that all this left me again feeling very flustered and unnerved, as well as in dire need ofanother cup of choice blend aromatic tea to provide me with more much-needed liquid wisdom. In hindsight, perhaps I should have stopped this session there and then and not gone over the allocated time, as I was now feeling as disturbed by her drawings as I was her answers. However, being the caring anddutiful servant of all troubled minds that I hold myself to be, I chose to bravely soldier on.

After placing my cup down on its saucer I resumed my questioning, asking her why she had built such anextraordinarily high garden fence around her house.

At first she was very reluctant to give me any sort of answer. So, never one to give up, I continued to press and press her some more. In truth, when she did reply to my question, I have to be honest and say that her answer still haunts me to this very hour. She sat up straight and with a look of sheer exasperation, she stared me directly in the eye. “Doctor, you of all people must surely know that just as fences and high walls keep nosy, inquisitive intruders out, they are also built to keep prisoners in, aren't they?” I began to get a little overexcited, as I saw this as a golden opportunity to ask her which of the two she believed herself to be. Her response was to once more drop her head, and then in a barely audible voice she asked, “Prisoner or intruder, which of these two do you truly believe I am?”

I have to say all this left me feeling utterly flabbergasted, for incredible as it might seem, I felt that it was she who seemed to be playing me, and so it naturally left me, her therapist, feeling most uneasy. I therefore made the rapid decision to end this debatably highly enlightening but also very disturbing session immediately!