Tollesbury Time Forever (22 page)

Detention under the Mental Health Act is supposed to allow for illnesses, such as the one my client endures, to be treated effectively even when the very person who suffers that illness is oblivious to the need for treatment. I would submit that treatment of the acute phase of his illness is now complete and a period of supported stability in the community, in his own home, in the village he so clearly loves, is what is now required. It is the logical step in the patient journey. Continued detention in hospital under Section, against his will, would, I humbly posit, go against the very spirit of the Mental Health Act. I have no further remarks other than that I know you will fully consider all the evidence you have read and heard and come to a wise judgement. Thank you.

Ah my Peter, you poor angel, you entirely beautiful man, you. I could tell you so much more but it would blow your black and white mind. I want you never to know of ones such as Zachariah Leonard, or of oil hair and greasy sheets and a big dirty hand over the cherry red mouth of a cherry red child, of the most searing of pains, the deepest of guilts or the broken shards of a young boy’s crystal amazement. It is not you that is protecting me, my Peter, but I that is protecting you.

Exeunt

I was told on the afternoon of 15th August 2008 that my detention under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act had been rescinded by the Mental Health Review Tribunal. I received confirmation in writing two days later and at my next ward review, the following week, with Dr Weepy and Dr Nardy, I was discharged from hospital, back to my home in Tollesbury. And all was well in my world - or so I believed.

When your thought mind thought thinkings lead you down their woe begotten tracks, upturning briars and brambles and unseen colours, you can’t just dismiss it. So the first thing I did when I returned home was to take out the scrabble letters from my pocket and arrange them on my sturdy old wooden table. F-R-U-G-A-L-I-T-Y.

I could see the little children in those small square tiles, hear their voices, feel the beating of their boom-boom hearts and smell the fragrance of how things once were and always should be. And I knew instantly it was my task to apply the diamond white lessons I had learned, apply them to my own existence.

An opportunity for fulfilment had been presented to me by the erratic meanderings of my fractured mind. I just needed to tie the knot, to buckle the braces and to snap that final piece into place that would make my life worthwhile indeed. I needed what I should never have forsaken. I needed to see my boy. But first I needed to be worthy of him.

As I thought on, the indomitable presence of my wife, Julia, edged into my Blakean vision. She was a colossus and I but a fool. I knew that. But our lives had once become entwined and we had produced Robbie. It was time for me to stand up. It was time to do what a man does.

It was about half past two when I got to The King’s Head. I got my pint and sat over by the book shelves in the far corner. I could see the world from there - both yours and mine. I have always adored looking at the photos on the walls - those
pictures of old sailing boats - wondering where the sailors had been and where they were going; and wondering whether they knew all along that it was not they who had control but the great rolling dark ocean beneath them. And above that the sky and the moon and the firmament, all majestic and immovable, historic and forever, governing the flip and the flop of the boat upon the waves.

Plosh, mooom, plash, aaahhh.

The cider sparkles golden in my glass and slowly begins to focus my mind. This can happen even when I just think about drinking. The alcohol gives hard edges to my thoughts and imbues them with greens and blues and reds. It welcomes me home and fixes me ever in place in the universe. It is my sigh and my deep breath, the whisper in my ear, the stroking of my matted hair. If you can replace what it gives me, then please feel free to remove it from my life. Until that moment, please leave me to my immaculate soothings.

Plosh, mooom, plash, aaahhh.

“How goes it, Jim?”

“Not bad, Bill. Not bad.”

“Guinness?”

“Good of you, Bill.”

From my corner, I couldn’t see either Jim or Bill, nor could they see me. I guessed it was just the three of us in the pub, except maybe the barmaid and the glamorous lady to whose photograph the bacon fries were attached. I felt relaxed, ready. There was a stillness in the air such as when you first awake from a dreamydeepsleep.

“How’s the wife, Jim? Doing her womanly duty?”

“She’s ok. She’s ok. Roasties still the best in the world and she doesn’t snore half as much as she used to. Who could ask for more than that at my age, eh?”

“Ah, the roasties. I wish she would give my missus the recipe. Finest roasties I ever tasted, mate.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

And they did. Slurp, gulp, savour, numbness, life. Roast potatoes, warm wives, gravy, the Sunday papers, heating that
works, a glow, a glow, a glow. To sigh so right and not so wrong. Cider do your duty.

“Kids ok, Jim? Behaving and all that?”

“Funny you mention that, Bill, but yes they are. Bloody adolescents, you can never work out why they do what they do. Bet they don’t know themselves half the time, what with all the hormones and that.”

“Ah, the hormones. The moaning whores we used to call them. Funny buggers. But at least they’re behaving mate. That’s good that is. Did you do the old child-killing thing on them like I said?”

Pause. Possible gulping. The Child-Killer is here lads, in the corner, by the books, his head in cider, his heart in the world. He did what he did and he knows what he knows. It comes around and around. Nobody is bad - all is good. Don’t be afraid and let not your children be afraid. It’s all FRUGALITY and that’s all.

“No, Bill. I didn’t do the bloody child-killing thing on them. At times, you’re an idiot. Now get me a drink.”

The window behind me was open and I could hear clearly several voices, affable and teasing, comfortable and utterly of this village. And, yes, doctor, the voices were all outside my head and, no doctor, they neither commanded me nor persecuted me - they simply were. They came from what I suppose would be referred to as the beer garden but which was, in reality, merely a paved area crammed with benches bordered by a fence.

“I was working on Mersea Island with this other bloke last week. This fella has himself a kebab for breakfast…”

“Don’t put me off kebabs you bastard!”

“For breakfast? What sort of twat is he?”

“Works with numbnuts there - what do you expect?”

“Shut it, all of you. Anyway. He’s having this kebab when he realises there’s a bloody moth in it! A real one, wings and everything. He was already halfway through it when he realised, poor bastard.”

“Half way through the moth? Had a couple of wings and then decided he didn’t like it?”

“Wouldn’t that be two thirds - what with the body?”

“Depends on the size of the body and if you’re talking about size or weight I reckon.”

“Half way through the kebab, you piss-taking fucks; not the moth.”

“Chilli Moth - tasty!”

“Four for a pound in the supermarket in Tiptree.”

“Serves him right for having a fucking kebab for breakfast.”

“I got some raspberries from that shop in Tiptree once. Bloody caterpillar in the middle of one of them!”

“Do you know the average English male eats thirty five to forty spiders every summer?”

“You don’t half talk some shit.”

“Have a liking for the human mouth do spiders.”

“Fuck off.”

“Spazzer.”

And round and round the world continues to turn. Time moves and tears fall. Laughter explodes and hearts stop. I will never get the hang of how all this goes on at once, how each and every wondrous one of us perceives every moment so differently. It rains for some, the sun beats for others. When I freeze, you thaw. When you scream a scream, I dream a dream. And when I am in my darkest moments, you are so madly, so smadly in love. Love is all you need. Love is all you need.

I hadn’t spoken to Julia for some years. Though Tollesbury is just a bus ride from Tiptree, I had never made the effort to reach her. When she had told me that morning outside the school that I had to leave, I had done just that. Robbie would now be twenty-six. More than twenty years had passed since I had seen him fumbling with his buttons and he had seen me fumbling with my life. Yet I still felt he was a part of me, that we had shared moments we could not possibly have shared. Tiptree. Julia. Robbie. It was time to get on a bus.

I left The King’s Head by the back entrance, out to where the benches are and did a staggering afternoon right turn down the High Street, passing the side of the pub and fully
believing that the figures of Bill and Jim were merely etched upon the window pane and were not real at all.

For what is reality but that which is corroborated by more than you or me? I have heard birds talk to me and I have seen flowers bow down to one another in greeting. I have seen colours that have yet to be invented and I have bathed in the glory of the nineteenth century open air blazing orange sun. An etching for me may be motion for you. Neither one of us is right. The only fact is that during that moment we are both alive.

The bus stop in Tollesbury is a simple brick shelter comprising two sides and a roof. The children of the village gather there at times, the young girls with their make up and the lads longing to be old enough to enter the marvel of adulthood that is The King’s Head. The chip van parks outside there a couple of nights a week and a hearty meal is had by all. The same woman that serves the chips also runs the hairdresser's which is more or less opposite where I live. She has a hard charm. I have never tasted her chips nor felt her hands upon my head. I should imagine though that she cooks magnificent roasties.

But despite the conglomeration of the aged, the young and the infirm, the bus did not come. A silence descended and the awaiting group wandered off alone and together, splintered and shattered yet replete with hope. We will not let it get us down. Chin up and queue up. The chip van will be here soon, so all is not lost. God what a wonderful nation.

I gave up on my impulsive notion to hop on a bus to Tiptree and instead shiddled and shaddled my short way back home. Within mere minutes, I was back in my old front room, sitting in my soft, low armchair, so aware that I could not rest now, that my thoughts had put into motion a series of events that I must follow. FRUGALITY was here and it was here to stay. And there was not a horse in sight.

The telephone rang. I didn’t answer it. I never do. I suppose I should get rid of it one day. But in my darkest times, I guess when it rings it reminds me that I am at least connected to the world in some sense. I see it not as someone trying to get
in touch with me but as a bell ringing to alert me that I will never, and perhaps should never, be totally free from this deep dark earth of ours. And just to prove it, there was a knock on the door.

Creak.

“Hello Simon. I’m Frank from the community mental health team. Here to give you your depot injection.”

“Ok.”

“May I come in?”

“Sorry, yes.”

Creak. Click.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you, but I think we did have an appointment?”

“It’s fine. Really. Where would you like to do it?”

“We can have a chat first if you like?”

I sat back down in my armchair and Frank sat on the settee. He was about my age, wore glasses and was unshaven. I had never seen him before. He had a yellow box in one hand and a blue tray in the other, which, from experience, I knew contained a syringe, a plaster, a medical wipe and a glass vial of medication. All covered in a paper towel so as not to scare me!

“So how have you been since leaving hospital, Simon? It’s been about a week hasn’t it?”

“I’ve been alright, thank you. It’s good to be home.”

“I bet it is.”

Silence.

Uncomfortable silence.

St Mary’s bells chime.

Uncomfortable silence resolved.

“Well, I’ll get your injection ready and then I can leave you in peace.”

Frank proceeded with his work. I had seen it done a hundred times or more by perhaps a hundred people or more. They each have their own way of doing it, of introducing the act, of constituting the paraphernalia, of delivering the drug, but the result is always the same - a sharp needle inserted into the upper outer quadrant of either the right or left side of what
I believe is called in their training, my gluteus maximus. And through that needle is pumped a solution developed and sold by the pharmaceutical industry that is designed to make my thoughts and experiences more like everybody else’s.

The nurse cracks open the vial with a ‘pop’, screws a green based needle onto a 2ml syringe and inserts it into the vial. The liquid is sucked up into the syringe and then the needle is swapped over for a clean one. The nurse pushes the liquid up until a small bubble forms at the tip of the needle. Weapon loaded. All good to go. Deep breath, mind-blank time. It’s the only way. Some try to distract you with small talk. Others just line up the drill to the wall.