by Paul Sayer
‘Peter, I want to be frank with you. Yours is not the kind of case we should be dealing with at One World. We had one similar, a man who made a remarkable recovery, but he was not as advanced as you are. Now they seem to think we can just take all their hopeless causes and perform miracles with them. It’s not like that. God, that it were so easy. Ah, dear God, that it were.’
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a dewdrop from the end of his nose.
‘Let me put it another way,’ he said. ‘Our techniques are under observation and there’s much pressure on us to succeed. By that I mean we must be seen to cure. We have our critics, and there are those who praise us. But, as ever, it is the damning voices which ring out loudest. Do you follow me? Peter, can you understand what I’m saying? What I’m saying is that you may well hold a vital key to our future. They are watching you, bound to be, and they’ll want to see you progress. For us, my boy, you might try a little. Do as we ask, search your inner resources, look beyond your limits, and do something to help yourself. Do you trust me? Do you?’
He nodded to himself, and muttered, ‘Yes, I think you do.’ Then he wheeled me back to the house.
In the days that followed I gleaned more of my surroundings and particularly my fellow residents who numbered about twelve or so, though a precise count was difficult since two girls I took to be twins were in fact triplets, and their divided and coupled appearances made counting intolerably difficult. And they spent much of their time flitting noisily about in pursuit of each other’s company, changing their clothes many times in the course of a day, often wearing each other’s garments. Another woman, a compulsive drinker of water, would swallow so much that she vomited, projectile fashion, often the length of a room, after which she would dutifully fetch a bucket and mop to clean up the mess, quietly and without fuss. A man sat in a corner of one lounge pulling tufts from his hair, examining them in his palm before rolling them into soft balls which he pushed into a small cloth bag he carried everywhere with him. There was another man, the Major, a tall, slim, handsome type who seemed out of place among the others. And the rest were ordinary psychiatric sorts, crazy by degrees, that I had already met before; that is, I knew their ailments better than my own, their various madnesses having occupied other shells in other places of refuge I had haplessly frequented. Mostly I saw them at meal-times since they seemed to disappear for great parts of the day to places in the house or outside where I understood some of them did some kind of work.
We all ate in the kitchen where Anna, sitting behind me, watching Tom going about the laborious business of trying to feed me, decided that I should be taken from the wheelchair to sit at the table like all the others. This Tom did by sitting me on a dining chair with arms, and wedging me in with cushions so that I should not fall sideways or slump forward on my face. This rule of where I should sit was also to apply when I was taken to the lounge where, if I was lucky, Tom put me in a most agreeable soft armchair.
On that first morning I was weighed then stretched out on the floor to be measured. Tom did this and all the rest of the donkey work involved in my induction into One World. He also took to carrying a rolled-up copy of my “contract” in his cardigan pocket. Sometimes he would read to me from it: ‘In the morning you will consider your programme. It is not our business to make you dependent on us. You will concentrate your every effort on helping yourself. When you wake think about your clothing. What kind of clothes will be suitable for that particular day? What would you like to wear? Would any particular item of your wardrobe appear in keeping with your current mood, or the way you view your unique personality? Think about reaching for your clothing and putting it on, even if you are yet in the stage where you might need some assistance. What other tasks will you have to perform to make yourself presentable to the day? How will you achieve those tasks?’ And so on. But he seemed to stop bothering with it after a while.
In the mornings he would come into my room and sit quietly since he was meant to allow me to wake naturally. He would make some kind of notes, though whether they concerned me I never knew. However he soon grew tired of this since he had other work to do, and he also realized that though I was fully awake and might have been for the whole night, my eyes had slipped shut and would not open until he either lifted the lids himself or sat me upright on the bed. Usually he settled for the latter, pulling me up and looking quickly with a little distaste to see what mess I had made during the night. I was not supposed to have a draw sheet in the bed but Tom, since he was the one who had to change and wash the bed clothing, took to surreptitiously slipping a slit plastic bag between the bottom sheet and the mattress. I guess he minimalized his reports about my incontinence, which was greater than it had been at the hospital. He would prepare sheets of wet tissue in the hand basin, bringing them over, slipping a few, if he remembered, into my hand, before wiping me down and shaving my stubble. All the time he would chatter, doing his best, I admit, to try and get me to do something for myself. One morning he playfully covered me in talcum powder and I sneezed. Mildly astonished, he dived into a drawer to produce a vest which he dangled in front of me saying, ‘Come on Peter. Try this. See if you can put it on.’
Each day he gave me an injection or two of a sickly-smelling substance which came in two brown phials and which he mixed in the syringe he rolled between his palms. He seemed to enjoy this and the homely kind of skill it took to flick the bubbles from the tops of the phials and place the needle on the syringe.
I was usually the last into the kitchen, the rest having gone about their vague business save for the odd straggler, the obsessive drinker perhaps, from whom Tom would snatch her glass of water and send her packing. After breakfast I was taken to a small gymnasium. Tom would lay rubber mats on the floor and begin a fanciful routine whereby he picked me up, hugging me from behind, as he rested my heels on his feet and began walking with me. In one corner was a long mirror where I would catch our comical reflection as we turned on each circuit of the room. Since I was taller, he had to bury his head in the small of my back to keep me upright as he groaned, struggling for air, rhythmically counting to four with each effort aimed at simulating the technique of walking. Sometimes Anna would come and watch, pacing the floor in her long boots, peering at us from odd angles, looking for knee flexions or any sign of voluntary movement by me, the thin scarecrow in the arms of a short, breathless old man.
In the afternoons Tom gave me hot baths and sometimes immersed my arms and ankles in a trough of melted wax before going through a series of passive movements with me, occasionally prompted by John or Anna who would come into the steamy bathroom to look at me, earnestly absorbed by the activity, pinching my skin, probing for any sign of new muscle or fat, often interrupting Tom to suggest new angles through which he might rotate my head or arms. This over, I was dressed and taken down for the evening meal, usually long before the arrival of the others to allow Tom time to start cooking and setting places.
This was a pleasant hour, the best of the day, spoilt only by the others coming in dribs and drabs, demanding, arguing, shoveling food down, and leaving to bang up the stairs, slamming doors, turning on radios. I tended to receive my meal of strong meaty extracts and syrupy sweet fluids only when time permitted between the serving and satisfying of the others. Later I would be taken to the lounge to watch television, often alone.
One evening one of the triplets wandered in, flicked through all the channels, sat for a few minutes, turned the volume up, then disappeared upstairs to change her clothes. Then the Major came in and asked, ‘Mind if I change the TV over, old chap?’ Tall, graceful, thin-limbed, he bent over the set, turned the sound down a little and switched over.
Tom and Jerry.
Tom was bouncing Jerry back and forth on a table tennis bat to which he had him attached by a piece of elastic. Smack. Smack. Smack. The Major settled into a chair and grinned. Jerry freed himself and dashed across the room picking up an umbrella which he pitched into Tom’s o
pen mouth. The umbrella opened inside Tom’s head making his face huge, spread like a parachute. Then Tom, sitting on a drop-leaf table, was propelled from the kitchen by a giant catapult. The table became transformed into an aeroplane, the leaves opening up for wings, and he flew round the pink living room, glaring down with narrowed eyes and pointed teeth on the fearful, running Jerry whom he bombed with a marrow released from the underside of the table. The mouse swallowed the thing whole. Gloop. He was bloated into the shape of the marrow. Tom flew out of the window and circled the house, re-entering by smashing another window. The Major chuckled heavily saying, ‘Go on, Tom!’ Jerry goaded the cat into crashing into a kitchen dresser. Tom emerged from the pile of broken crockery waving a white flag, stars spinning around his head. The Major smiled in quiet satisfaction.
SEVEN
All right, so what was my problem, then? Why should I get myself into such a state, making such a fuss just because people were trying to help me? What made me the way I was in the first place? Illness? Paralysis? Trauma? Maybe the last, yes, maybe, but my intransigence was not the result of an accident, not that. It was not in my mind at that time to ask myself such questions, though in the end I would be forced to look at my past, the whole dim province that lay beneath the dust and grime on the ramps and galleries of my memory.
Mostly I had begun to think about the motives of those about me who seemed so earnest in their efforts to galvanize me, metamorphose me into something fulsome, a whole appropriation of the kind of creature they believed I should be, an approximation perhaps, of them, or the people they thought themselves to be. They, like all before, made their decisions certain in the belief that they were acting in my best interests. And it came easily to them, for I did not, could not, speak up in my own defence.
I had, it seemed, come to take my stillness and the comfort I found there, too much for granted. Yes, that was it – I had become complacent, too happy with my lot, and now I was being made to account for it. I had no inalienable right to contentment, I knew that, but these people were taking great exception to me and it looked as if they were not going to rest until they had come up with some permanent arrest of my catatonic state.
I put on weight. Not much, just a few pounds I think, but even that was contrary to the general wasting process to which I had become peacefully resigned. And I had sneezed of course, but that was neither here nor there. Sometimes I felt ill, nauseous, but I guessed there was something in the injections I received to suppress my ability to vomit, a tactic opted for, no doubt, on the very first day of my arrival when I had so ungraciously rejected Tom’s first efforts at feeding me. The house with its many small rooms, heavy wide doors, angled windows, mirrors and paintings, seemed to be absorbing me in some way, pressing in on me, constricting, trying to digest me, always watchful. At night I would lie awake and listen to the winter wind scratching around in the woodland outside, lifting the dead leaves, making the trees crackle like fire, and I would wonder if I should ever leave the place alive. In my dreams I began to see them reaching for me, probing inside my skull with their clever fingers, teasing at my innards, producing a wayward organ by some trick, some sleight of hand which did not require incision of my flesh. And they would talk to me and baffle me with indecipherable conundrums.
I began to long for the hospital, its patchy discipline, its superficial concern for its own survival, its watery formality and poor standards, its inability to justify itself in the things that it did and the way that it did them. I could hide there, whether I was alone or in the company of thirty other men. I was invisible, dare I say inviolate, and they could not reach me, did not want to, save for the odd token gesture for appearance’s sake. But it was different at One World. John and Anna were ambitious, apparently insatiable in their pursuit of ‘improvement’ in my ‘condition’. There was no mention of my being sent back to the hospital. Where would it all end? More importantly, how could I escape? I could not, of course; I could only endure. I would eat, I would shit, feel the cold, but after all there was no other option for me but to endure.
I had one course of action open to me: I could refuse the food. By letting my tongue thicken I could fill my mouth and Tom could not get the nozzle of the tubing he used properly inserted. The method was effective. At breakfast, one morning, bits of liquidized cereal oozed from my lips, not a drop swallowed. Likewise with the lukewarm sweet tea. Tom accepted it all quietly. I had wonderful visions of my skeletal frame being strapped to a stretcher and carted back to the hospital. At lunch-time, when everyone else had eaten and gone, I prepared myself for a repeat of this routine. Anna came into the kitchen. She was carrying an overtly displayed clear plastic bag full of purple sachets. Tom had his back to me. He was warming soup on the stove. Anna ordered him to start his feeding ritual. I felt very happy, now having a senior and influential audience to impress. Tom gently squeezed the meaty mixture into my mouth and it duly reappeared between my lips, dribbling down my chin. ‘I see,’ said Anna. She motioned the old man to stand away. ‘Well, we shall have to see what we can do to help you, Peter. This is most unsatisfactory. You’ll make yourself ill, and that’s not what we want at all. Is it?’ She began emptying the contents of two of the sachets in a saucer, adding a little water and mixing up a smooth paste with a spoon. From a cupboard on the wall she took two gauze swabs which she rolled up into pads and soaked in the mixture. She looked impatiently at her watch. Tom was now standing somewhere behind me.
‘Right, Tom, ready,’ she said. He came forward and placed his hands lightly on my shoulders. She came over and put the saucer in my lap. From her bag she took a pen which she used to prise open my lips. ‘God, those teeth,’ she said. ‘Make a mental note, Tom, we must get those seen to.’ She poked around with her sharp-nailed finger. ‘Some of these are so loose I could pull them out with my hand. Don’t you want to keep your teeth, Peter? You are a silly boy, neglecting yourself so,’ she said while she took the Pads from the saucer and pushed one into each corner of my cheeks.
The first sensation was somewhere in the roof of my head. I could have sworn I smelled rich flowers or freshly cut vegetation. Then a hot sweet oil began burning into the roots of my jaw and my whole mouth started to hiss and sizzle as though it were frying. My eyes streamed and I became frightened to breathe. I was dribbling badly, from my mouth, my nose, my ears, and I wondered if it was blood. They were burning away the muscle, of that there seemed no doubt, for my chin began to drop. I was about to gulp in cool refreshing air when, on Anna’s nodded instruction Tom put his strong hand beneath my jaw and clamped my mouth shut, causing me to bite a corner from my tongue. I could no longer breathe, neither through will nor desire. I could hear the wheels of my chair wriggling somewhere beneath me on the cold stone of the kitchen floor. At last she nodded to Tom and he released his grip. My cheeks suddenly became puffed and a huge flood of liquid poured from the hook of my jaw, into my open mouth and the two pads, yellowed and small, fell out on a bed of saliva. Anna stood upright and wiped the mist from her forehead. ‘There,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘You can open your mouth if you want to, can’t you Peter? Ready for a drink now? I’ll bet you are.’ She gestured to Tom to wipe my mouth and front, which he did with a tea-towel while she went to the fridge and poured a glass of milk. ‘Right, Peter,’ she said. ‘Drink.’
She crooked her fingers into the top aspects of the orbits of my eyes and wrenched my head back with an unnecessary violence. She poured the milk into my mouth and I had no choice but to swallow, gobs of air accompanying the icy fluid, making my insides bloat and roll. When she had finished she showed Tom where she was putting the rest of the sachets. He nodded blankly. ‘And now’, she said tartly, ‘I think you should feed him. And none of that liquidized muck either.’
She left the kitchen with the jaunt of a schoolgirl, her heels making hammer taps on the stone floor.
Soon it reached the point where the mere sight of one of those purple sachets dangled before my eyes made my mout
h unlock and I would begin unhappily lusting for the odd food Tom brought me, suckling it even though my teeth grated in agony. And the food knifed at my insides and I envisaged whole chunks of stomach, lung and pancreas, being dismembered, rotting, evaporating, being dissipated through my pores, my shit, my breath.
I might have seen their behaviour as unreasonable, though I was never one to criticize. Tom, on the other hand, seemed quietly put out at having had to administer this treatment. Maybe he thought it harsh, unethical. If that was the case then he was not alone, for another member of our queer household emerged with the same opinion.
EIGHT
‘Money. It has to be that. Money at the bottom of everything. Honour? Duty? Professional pride? Not likely. Old hat. Once maybe, but not now. No. Nothing like the quids to motivate a man, give him reason, aspirations beyond his station, and all that. Prestigious, though, this project. Only been going a couple of years and they’ve had a ream of publicity. One wonders why, though.’
The Major was wheeling me through the woods. It was a weekend day and there was no work allotted to the house at that time of the week. My own efforts, that is, my therapeutic programme, were also eased. No exercises in the gymnasium, no baths, only the bare bones of injection and heavy feeding. John and Anna seemed to take it in turns to go away for the weekend, and this time it was John’s turn to remain at the house. Mostly he left people to their own devices, be it staying in bed the whole two days, going out to a nearby town - which he particularly approved of - or simply idling about the house watching sport or films on the television. For his own part he was rarely inclined to leave the smoky comfort of his office. We passed on up a track, down a dark tunnel of overgrowth, the bright sun a jewel moving parallel and as witness at the other side of the deep thicket. In front of us a few tresses of cloud lay snagged on a pure blue sky. The Major seemed in good humour.