by R. D Rhodes
She held it open and I stepped in front, only to be stopped at another identical locked door. She unlocked this too and we entered onto a long, empty narrow hall, lined with closed doors on the right and large barred windows to the left. She again took the lead and darted ahead- clack-clack-clack- and while I tried in vain to keep up, at the same time I was searching out of the windows to make out my position. It was pitch black, but I could make out the vague forms of the same trees I had seen before, running down the hill either side of the path that cut through the grounds. And down to my left, directly below the main stairway I had come, was the car park, lit up under the orange streetlights.
“This is Ward four.” Sanders said. “These are all the patients’ rooms on your right. On your left, as you can see we have the grounds- if you behave you get an allowance of leisure hours and can go for walks out there. There is a library upstairs if you like to read and we have TV and DVDs in the common room which I am just about to show you.”
She spoke quickly over that continued clack-clack-clack of her heels. The friendly manner that she’d shown before had all but disappeared in a rush as she tried to get to wherever it was we were going. Her bleached blonde hair was bunched in a smooth ponytail that cascaded down her back, and it kept bouncing about as she strode forward. Her chestnut eyes made up with mascara, her lips rouged soft pink, her cheeks glowing with rosy blusher- she was a bonnie girl, and from her long neck and long legs and slender hips I could tell she was one the guys would like. But in the seconds we walked together something struck me as odd. I tried to figure out what it was. I kept looking and trying to work it out, and then I noticed that walk. With every sharp little step, there was a deliberate wiggle of her tight little ass. She didn’t look like a model, she was one. The fact was emphasized by her heels. They weren’t big high heels, only an inch or two, but they were still heels. I didn’t think you were allowed to wear them in hospitals, but I supposed since she was head nurse she could do what the hell she liked.
“That room is the nurse’s station,” she said, nodding to a closed door. “It’s off-limits to patients, as is my office there. That’s the quiet room, you can go there anytime you need to chill out and calm down. That’s the toilets there- this is a male and female ward, so you each have your own, and here, here is the common room.”
The ward turned in an L-shape and opened out into a spacious living area with minimal furniture apart from two separate dinner tables, and on the back wall- the centerpiece of the room, surrounded by the plastic deck chairs that you would normally only see in peoples back gardens- a massive, fifty-inch plasma TV, shielded in a thick plastic see-through cover. A lady was shining up the screen with a cloth. She turned to smile at me then went on with her job.
“It’s a big Telly, isn’t it?” Sanders said.
I nodded.
“You can watch that anytime you’re not on activities. Now, you must be tired. Do you want to go and get settled in?”
“Where is everyone?” I asked. Apart from the receptionist and the lady at the TV, I hadn’t seen another soul on the grounds.
“Oh, they are all in bed. The rooms get locked at eight. The night staff are in the nurse’s station.” And sure enough, at that moment a cackle of laughter rang out from a few doors down.
“I’ll show you to your room.”
I followed her wiggling ass and swinging hips back down the corridor. As we past the closed doors on our left I peered in through the small glass panels, trying to get a glimpse inside. In the darkness I could just make out the dark figures of bodies crumpled up inside their beds.
Sanders stopped at one of the doors, jangled through her keys and unlocked it.
She stepped inside and switched on the light and I followed her in. It was a small room. The single bed took up almost all the space. There was a cupboard and a set of drawers and opposite the door a little window with large black bars beyond it.
“Now, I need to know, do you have a mobile or laptop with you?” she inquired, quite snappily, looking at my bag, “Because they’re not allowed in the ward. It interferes with the therapy.”
I didn’t have anything like that. I had just come from custody, and I never expected to even be there, so I never got much time to prepare. “No.” I replied quietly. “All I have with me is clothes.”
She kept looking at my backpack. I pulled it off and held it out.
Her eyes on me looked satisfied. “No. It’s okay,” she said in slightly calmer tone, “I’ll trust you on that. Some other media is allowed. Music, certain books, mp3 players and IPods, but you have to check with me first, and it will be monitored. You can also use the phone on the ward for an hour a week, but again that is monitored. Now breakfast is at eight tomorrow, so you’ll get a wake-up call at seven-thirty. You’ll be needing a shower, and you can have one after breakfast. Do you need anything else?”
I stood in the middle of the room under the artificial light. The window looked smothered and pathetic under the overbearing bars. The way she’d said that I would be needing a shower told me what a mess I must have looked.
She stood irritably with her hands on her hips.
“Do you have to lock the door?” I said. “Can I go for a shower now?”
“No, sorry. Locking the doors is protocol. This is a high-security ward, so all doors have to be locked from eight.”
“Is it necessary?”
“Of course it is!” she raised her voice, “The rules are there for a reason. Now if there’s nothing else-“
“What about the bathroom?”
“If you need the bathroom, it’s best to go right now. There is a buzzer here. If you are up in the middle of the night and need then press this.” She pointed to a button on the wall by the door, “Otherwise you will just have to wait till morning.”
I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t know what else to say.
“Okay. Thanks. I don’t need to go.”
“Right. I’ll give you another ten minutes till the light has to go off. Goodnight then, Aisha. You’ll be fine here.” She flashed a smile and pulled the door shut tight, and I watched through the glass panel as she locked it and walked away.
A heavy sense of resignation pushed down on me. I turned around from the door and took in the small box room, feeling any morale I had left slipping away. The air felt hard and heavy as I gazed at those pasty white walls, that little bed, that depressing-looking window. Rooms like this are built to sap the soul, I thought.
So this is it now. This jail cell.
I walked the four paces around the bed to the window, but I couldn’t see a thing beyond the bars apart from the dim outline of a building across from my cell.
I dropped my backpack to the floor and went back around the bed to switch off the light. Jesus, what a day. What a fucking day it had been.
I kicked off my shoes and crawled under the covers with my clothes still on.
Chapter 8
A dull hammering pounded against my brain. My eyes pushed open and two further knocks rattled off the wooden door.
“Aisha, breakfast.”
It took me a few seconds to make sense of where I was. And then I remembered.
I rubbed my eyes and opened them fully to see a pale, miserable morning light trickling in through the window and landing on the wall by the door, throwing black shadows of the five bars. The room seemed even smaller than it had last night. The weight came over me again.
“I’m comin.”
“It’s in ten minutes. In the common room I showed you last night. Just make your way down when you’re ready, okay honey?” Sanders voice trailed off as her heels clacked away down the corridor.
I stayed under the covers a while longer, savouring what little warmth, comfort and security they provided. Then I scrambled out of bed and heaved myself over to the window. It was still foggy and it covered the hospital grounds, hanging thickly in the air. All I could see was the tarmac of an old road two floors below, and the bare brick wall
of the building twenty yards across.
Just make the most of it, I told myself. Just do what you always do- take one day at a time.
I pulled out some clothes from my bag and put on a plain black shirt and a pair of jeans. I pushed my feet into my old trainers and tried the door. It had been unlocked. I swung it open and stepped out into the ward, following the other patients who were making their way towards the end of the corridor. As I headed along a balding man- in tracky bottoms and a white Adidas t-shirt that was three sizes too small for him- quickly walked up the side of me, glanced me side-on then slowed his pace. He smiled and put out his hand.
“Hello, my name is Robert.” he said slowly.
He folded his sweaty palm around my hand. His big, brown eyes had a dull but warm expression, and from the way he smiled, he didn’t seem particularly dangerous.
“I’m Aisha.” I said. I pulled my hand away and let the sweat settle on my hand by my side, forcing a smile back as we walked together. With each step that he took his shirt lifted up a little higher, revealing his stout belly.
“Is this your first day?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I replied.
We past the other rooms on my right and the windows on the left. A car was parking up in the fog outside, the trees were swaying softly, but apart from that everything beyond the window looked so calm and still. It seemed like the land was asleep.
I felt Robert’s gaze on me again. I looked back at him, but he didn’t look away.
“Breakfast is my favourite.” he announced, looking at me seriously. He was scratching at the bald patch between his greying hair- balding and greying despite the fact that he only looked about thirty-five. His jaw was gaping open and I noticed the salivation gathering at the corners of his lips.
“Your favourite… meal of the day?” I asked.
“Yeah… I like coco pops. What do you like?”
The saliva multiplied and as his mouth continued to gape open, long white sticky drips hung at the back of his throat like stalagmites forming at the back of a dark cave.
“Hm, I like coco pops too.” I replied.
“Do you?” his eyes widened.
“Yeah.”
As we turned into the common room, following the many bodies in front of us, Robert seemed to be pondering what I had said, but catching sight of the TV he suddenly seemed to forget himself. He rushed in to join the other twenty or so patients who were gathered in front of its massive screen, all of them sitting in the four rows of the white plastic deck-chairs that I had seen last night, the same ones that are about a fiver each in Asda. Most of the other patients had plastic trays of food on their laps and they were all sitting with their backs to me, captivated by the sight of Spongebob Squarepants.
Jesus, I thought, looking at them all. More than three-quarters of them were severely overweight. All I could see as I looked around was an assortment of chunky necks, fat torsos and glooping jowls. I glanced away from the TV crowd to the three people sitting at the table tucked away in the far back corner of the room, and then at the two older guys sitting amongst ten empty seats at the table to my left. But what immediately struck me above everything, was the atmosphere in the room, the silence beneath the TV.
“Oh, morning Aisha!” a voice chirped. I turned to my right to see Sanders clothed in a tight white shirt and skinny jeans, standing behind a trolley with two other nurses either side of her- a good-looking man in his mid to late twenties on her left, and a woman in her thirties, morbidly obese and the biggest on the ward by far, on her right.
A few patients turned to look on hearing my name, then quickly lost interest and went back to their food.
Sanders face broke into a wide, warm smile. A few loose strands of blonde hair hung over those sparkling, chestnut eyes. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” I replied, nearing the trolley, feeling all three pairs of eyes pouring into me as I stood before them.
Sanders kept looking at me. “Oh, where are my manners, eh? This is Kev, and this is Liz,” she said, indicating to each one, “They are some of the other nurses on the ward.”
“Hi.” I said, glancing first at the man whom she had called Kev. He had been slowly looking me up and down through a set of laughing blue eyes so intense they were like a wolfs. His long, curly brown hair covered his ears and his fringe came down to just above his brows. His woolen Levis jumper was well-fitted around his athletic torso, and the dark blue of it further emphasized his eyes. His skinny, designer jeans were similar to the ones Sanders was wearing. He looked like an actor, or an aged boyband member.
“Hey.” He smirked arrogantly.
“Hull-low.” said the obese woman. She looked numbly at me through eyes that were crushed behind layers of fat on a full, fleshy, sagging face. She didn’t seem to have any neck, just an extra couple of chins that sunk into her shoulders. Her arms and chest were draped over by a baggy, oversized purple top that hung like a gown way down to her knees. She observed me back coldly, and I quickly looked down at the floor. When I raised my eyes again Sanders had her hand on her hip and her front thrust forward. She turned to her left, “Is there a McGillivray there, Kev?”
Kev pulled his eyes away from me and leafed through a series of tickets that were sitting on the trolley. He stopped at one and handed Sanders a tray with a bowl of porridge and a side plate of buttered toast.
“Thanks, Kev.” She handed me the tray, flashing those pearly Colgate ad teeth, “Just make yourself comfortable, darling.”
I took the tray and turned towards the nearest table where two guys in their forties were sitting. The back of their heads were dipped low as I approached. I edged around the table so that my back was to the wall and I could look out onto the room, and I pulled out a chair and sat down. One of the men was sitting two seats to my right, the other directly across from him. They never even acknowledged me. The guy on the other side had less hair and a more receded hairline, but apart from that, they didn’t look much different. They had the same high cheekbones and the same pointed noses, both were around the same age. Both of their heavy, lidded eyes stared glumly down at the food they were picking at.
“Hey.” I said aloud. “I’m Aisha.”
I waited for a response. But there wasn’t one. The balder one stabbed a spoon into his bowl and stirred his milk and soggy cornflakes in a circle. The other guy lifted his eyes and glanced at the nurses at the trolley, then lowered them again to his food. But there was no spark behind his pupils. No sign of recognition.
I looked from one to the other, and I wondered if they were twins. Five minutes must have passed. They kept staring at their cereal and the same lost, gone-with-it look remained. The same deadened expression. It was as if they were both in some sort of a coma. I shifted uneasily in my seat and looked beyond them to the trolley, shocked to see Kev’s blue eyes still on me. He winked at me and smirked.
I glanced away, to Liz at his side, who was watching him looking at me and her stub nose twitched. Sanders was shouting out names.
I watched a few patients come and go and pick up their breakfasts from her. She struggled to be heard over the din of the TV, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
I looked back at the TV and at the many heads fixed upon it. A couple of people were laughing silently, drowned out by the din. I thought I heard a murmur of conversation from the other table, but when I looked the talking seemed to stop. I looked around the walls and towards the window in the corner of the room. Its greyness seemed to seep inside. It felt like it was in everything I could see. I scooped up a few spoons of porridge and swallowed them down past the lump in my throat.
“Robert Alloway.” Sanders shouted. The man I had been speaking to earlier rose up from his seat in front of the TV and crossed over to the trolley to get his breakfast. Sanders ran a hand through her hair. Kev was leering at her from the corner of his eye.
The comatose twins at my table still hadn’t moved, hadn’t altered in appearance. Hadn’t e
aten another bite between them. They were just staring into their bowls. Then the same one glanced up at the nurses again.
What is he watching them for? What is he wanting? I wondered.
I was starting to feel even more uneasy. I considered getting up and joining the other table, or sitting in front of the telly with the others, but just then another nurse-an older one with her grey hair in a bun- came into the room wheeling a smaller, squeakier trolley. I watched as her steady, bored grey eyes read from a list she held in her right hand, then she approached each patient in turn, first doing a round of the people who were slumped in front of the TV.
There were several drawers on her trolley, and she kept rolling them open and taking out little clear tubes. She popped these open and allocated out the different coloured pills within them, making each person swallow and show the inside of their mouth before she moved on to the next person. I watched her circle the TV crowd then wheel the trolley towards the other table.
“Sandy Anderson.” She called out, addressing one of the men. The man took a pill from her and swallowed it down.
“Nina Holmes.” The young girl at the table looked up and held out her palm, then tossed what she was given into her mouth.
“Eric Simpson.” The next man did the same.
Then, without raising her head, she angled the trolley around and steered it towards our table. She stopped before us and I expected her to call out one of the guys’ names when she said-
“Aisha McGillivray?”
A jolt ran through me. I looked up at her, surprised. “Yes?”
“You’re on..” she paused and held out a sheet of paper in front of her, “Twenty milligrams benzodiazepine.”
I felt my eyebrows screw up. “Sorry? What’s that?”
“It’s just a mild anti-depressant,” she said casually, looking down at the trolley and picking out two red pills from a tube, “it’ll help you feel better and calm you down till you’re properly settled in.”