But when I attempted to do that, Corkerdale just ruffled my hair again and told his students that consistent with schizoaffective disorder was the tendency for the patient to present with multi-persona symptoms.
Then he said I was a good chap again.
I tried to tell him, to make him understand. But already he was off, moving down the ward, his students following.
And I think that was when I first started seeing things again! When I was watching Corkerdale and his students following behind him, all in a line, disappearing down the ward in their white coats and stethoscopes. Until the line of bodies suddenly became this one long bloated creature that wobbled through the ward like a fat caterpillar, its bleached bloated body pushing and heaving its way out through the doors.
I started seeing all kinds of things after that; like turnips growing out of the wall, and the man who looked like his head was on upside down. His clothes were too small for him. And he wanted to hurt me. He’d just appear at the window, after dark, waving to me, calling and trying to get me to go with him. That’s why I kept telling the night nurses to make sure the curtains were properly shut, properly, properly shut, not half shut, not-shut, not with slits and open slats and gaping gaps and bits in the middle where the cloth didn’t meet; shut, shut, shut, properly shut curtains so the man with the upside-down head couldn’t come through.
They didn’t understand though, the night nurses. Sometimes they got fed up and said things like, ‘For Christ’s sake, Raymond, will you shut up about the fucking curtains! They’re shut, they’re shut, they’re already shut! Look.’
They weren’t though!
And I’d have to lie there all night, knowing he was watching me, the Man with the Upside-Down Head.
I think that’s why I was so tired all the time. That’s why I didn’t want to get up out of bed, because I never got any sleep at night, with the sound of the turnips growing out of the walls, and the man staring at me through the gaps in the curtains.
I know now, Morrissey, I know it was all just things in my head, things that weren’t there. Sometimes they were nice things. Like sometimes I’d look up and see my Gran and she’d be carrying Jaffa cakes, a bottle of dandelion and burdock and a bag of filled finger rolls. And I’d know that she’d come to collect me and take me out for the day, like she did when I was little and we used to go and have a picnic at one of the Greater Manchester graveyards.
I liked it when it was like that, when it was nice things I was seeing, when it was people like my Gran; or my friends.
I’d look up and see them, Twinky and Norman sitting there at the foot of my bed, smiling at me and telling me about how they’d been to have tea with Petula Clark.
And once they even told me that they’d come back to Failsworth for the weekend to visit Twinky’s mum who’d been traumatised and upset on account of her spaniel dog had been knocked over by a dial-a-pizza van. Norman said when they got back it was all over Failsworth!
I thought he meant Twinky’s mam’s spaniel dog. But Twinky said the dog was all right and only had a broken foot.
It wasn’t the dog that was all over Failsworth; it was the news! The news about Paulette Patterson’s father and how he’d been arrested; how everybody was saying it had been going on for years; before Paulette it had been her older sisters. And how the eldest sister, who was married now, had finally decided to speak out.
That’s what Twinky and Norman told me. Or that’s what I thought Twinky and Norman had told me. That’s why it made me glad at first, because they’d finally know now; that I’d never done it, never done anything to the little girl. And perhaps now me and my Mam could go back and live in Failsworth again. That’s what I was telling them, Twinky and Norman. But when I looked up, I wasn’t talking to anyone. There was no Twinky and Norman. And that left me feeling a bit sad, knowing that it must be just like the turnips, just something inside my own head.
So that then, when it was my Mam sat at the side of the bed, sat there telling me about the little girl, telling me the same thing that Twinky and Norman had told me, I just ignored it and stared at the window, waiting till she disappeared again; taking no notice as she said she’d already been on to the housing to see about getting us moved from Wythenshawe and back to Failsworth where we belonged. I just kept staring out of the window; wondering if the night nurse would remember tonight, to make sure the curtains were properly closed.
I don’t know exactly how long I was on the unit at Swintonfield, I just know it was winter when I went in there. And by the time I got out again it was past the middle of summer.
And what I used to think, Morrissey, was that the time I spent in Swintonfield was just this slice of my life that had been wasted. Like it was all just a void.
He said, Dr Corkerdale, he told my Mam that what he wanted was for my mind to be kept at a minimum level of activity and function. Just like one of the modern television sets, he enthusiastically explained to my Mam, one of those where you can select sleep mode, so that the set is almost but not quite fully switched off!
And that was what he wanted my mind to be, almost switched off. Because it was his theory that if allowed proper rest, the mind could best heal itself. And the drugs, he explained, they were merely a means of relieving the mind of pressure and stress and anxiety; so the mind could be given the opportunity to restore and reset itself.
That’s why I thought it was all just wasted time; when I was a turned-down telly, a stopped clock. When I was nothing. When my life was put on hold. When it was just empty time, in which nothing happened.
But I didn’t know. Not then. There wasn’t any way I could have known.
They started saying that I had to take some exercise. But I didn’t want to take any exercise. I didn’t even care that I’d started getting fat again. I just wanted to stay in bed.
In the end they got my Mam to persuade me. She said now that the weather was getting warmer it would be nice, just taking a gentle stroll around the grounds. That’s the only reason I started going, because it was with my Mam.
That’s who I was with, the first time he saw me. And he must have seen my Mam as well. He wouldn’t have recognised me unless I’d been with my Mam. She didn’t see him though. He ducked back, behind the chestnut tree. But as we were walking past, I saw him hiding behind the trunk of the tree, still watching us. I didn’t know; I didn’t know if he was real or not. Sometimes I thought he was the man who lived in the chestnut tree. He was always there, peeping out from behind the tree when me and my Mam went past. And sometimes I thought he must be real. That’s why I tugged on my Mam’s sleeve and began pointing. But I knew then it probably was just me seeing things because when my Mam looked up, he wasn’t there. He was never there when my Mam looked up, the man who lived in the chestnut tree; the man with the warm soft eyes who always peeped out, but hid behind the trunk whenever me and my Mam went by.
When it was one of the nurses though and not my Mam who was taking me for a walk, he always used to come right out from behind the tree. He always waved and smiled at me then and stood there watching as I went past. But I could never wave or smile back, not then, not when my eyelids were still as heavy as sandbags and my brain a ball of wool; and my legs always felt like I was wading through water, deep dirty water, wading through water, deep dark and wide.
It was only when I was starting to get a bit better, when Dr Corkerdale had began reducing my medication, it was only then that I found out that he was real; that he was the man who did the gardens and tended the grounds at Swintonfield.
There was this day when he came right up to me; the day when he started walking alongside me and the nurse. He pointed at me, then made signs with his fingers. The nurse smiled and nodded and, like he’d asked her a question, she answered him, ‘ “Raymond”. That’s right, Raymond; our latest addition, young Raymond Marks.’
He nodded. And smiled at first, but then it was like he was choking back the smile and trying to stop himself from crying. Then
he opened his mouth, like he was trying to talk. But the sounds that came out were all broken and strangled and sounded like someone who was gasping for air. His eyes were all warm but his voice made me frightened and I stopped and I clasped at the hand of the nurse. But she said, ‘It’s all right, Raymond, there’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s just saying hello, being nice. Aren’t you, John?’ He stood and he nodded as the nurse reassured me and explained that the gardener didn’t mean any harm. And it was just that he’d lost his means of talking, she said; on account of how his vocal cords had been badly injured.
‘But if you’d been here as long as I have, Raymond,’ said the nurse as we started walking again, ‘you’d get to understand his signs and his croaking, the sounds that he makes and what they all mean. Wouldn’t he, John?’ said the nurse, and he nodded. And the three of us started walking again.
Later on, Morrissey, when I’d been on reduced medication for weeks without ending up manic again and jibber-jabbering or trying to throw myself out of the window or anything like that, that’s when they started letting me walk the grounds on my own if I wanted to. And that’s when I started going to see him every day, John the Gardener. I liked him. We’d sit there outside his hut behind the big chestnut tree, drinking sugary tea with not much milk. And the nurse had been right because even though he had no voice any more, I soon learned to understand his croaking and his gurgling and his signs with his hands. That’s how we used to talk. And he’d ask me things about myself like why I was in Swintonfield and I’d explain to John the Gardener and tell him the bits I could remember; about Twinky and Norman running away to London and about the Lert and my Mam nearly getting married; about my Gran and how she got struck dumb and died. And I told him about the Wrong Boy. Not everything, not about flycatching or anything like that, but just about how I’d turned into the Wrong Boy. And how I’d become my mother’s wound.
John the Gardener used to look at me with all the sadness in his eyes when I told him things like that. But sometimes it seemed to make him really angry because he’d frown as he stared at me and shake his head and make this growling sound that I didn’t properly understand. Because I never knew!
I never knew that he was my Dad.
And that he was growling and angry because of what had happened to his son.
Why didn’t he tell me, Morrissey? Grown-up people aren’t supposed to be stupid. Why didn’t he tell me? Did he think I wouldn’t like him? Because he couldn’t talk? Because he was a gardener? And all those years before, he’d never even come back with the turf and laid a simple lawn; for me and for my Mam. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me, Morrissey, but he never did. Unless, when he gave me his guitar, he was telling me, in some sort of a way. He just went off into his hut one day. And when he came back he was carrying this old-fashioned, beaten-up guitar. He held it out towards me. But I frowned and told him I couldn’t play the guitar. He didn’t seem to understand though. He kept nodding his head and offering me the instrument. I just took hold of it in the end. And he stood there, watching me, nodding his head and encouraging me to try and play it. I couldn’t do it though. Not properly. I just messed around with it really. And all I could pick out of it was just a bit of a one-string tune that I’d remembered from when I’d learned the recorder at school. It was supposed to be ‘The Ink Is Black The Page Is White’ but it was all clumsy and faltering, out of time and barely recognisable as any sort of tune.
John the Gardener seemed to be made up though. He was clapping his hands and jumping up and down with delight, his face all excited as he kept shouting out saying, ‘Yargaarrra! Yaaaaaar. Yargaarra,’ which in the language of John the Gardener meant, ‘You’ve got it. Yes. You’ve got it.’
I couldn’t understand how anybody could get so excited about such a rudimentary picking out of a plodding, boring tune like ‘The Ink Is Black’. Anybody could have played it. But to hear John the Gardener, you would have thought I’d just played an entire guitar concerto. That’s how dads are though, aren’t they? With their own kids. If my Dad had never gone away he would have probably watched me doing Lego when I was little and then gone bragging to the neighbours that I was the next Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He might have watched me playing football with my friends on the recreation ground, then gone home to tell my Mam that I was the next Georgie Best. He might have done all sorts of things; if he’d never gone away.
Just like I might never have ended up in Swintonfield.
Morrissey, I’m sorry about the chicken. I know I only ate it because I was hungry and feeling sorry for myself. But I feel ashamed now, Morrissey. Because I used it as an excuse, what I’d found out about my Dad and how it had made me feel, I just used it as an excuse to behave badly. I don’t even like chicken!
And I know now it’s pointless, sitting here feeling sorry for myself. And feeling sorry for my father.
It made me sad. But it made me angry as well. Everything he’d ever wanted, my Dad, he’d had it there all the time; there, in his voice; the musical instrument he’d always wanted to play and it was there, all the bleeding time, in his voice, in his vocal cords. And he’d ruined it, wrecked it. The only instrument he’d ever been able to play; his only means of letting out all the melody that was in his heart; and he’d thrown it away, thrown it all away on nothing more than his hopeless love for a slutty woman from Silkstone Common who’d turned him into a fool.
And what I’ve been thinking, Morrissey, as I’ve been sitting here, is that it’s just pointless sentimentality, wallowing in the what-might-have-been. Because the fact is that my Dad was never my dad, not really. I never even knew him. The Dewsbury Desperadoes knew him better than I ever did. And if I ever had a real Dad, it was my Gran; she was a dad to me. Because it was my Gran who taught me about important things, things that mattered. Like she told me about spuds and self-pity. That’s why I know I can’t sit here much longer, mourning the life and the memory of the Dad I’d never had.
I’d grown up without him. And nothing could ever alter that. My Gran always said it was the wanting of what he never could have that drove my Dad’s mind in the wrong direction.
‘Many’s the life, Raymond,’ she said, ‘many’s the life that was nowt but a catalogue of frustration and despair with the wanting of what can never be had. Look at me!’ my Gran said. ‘Don’t you think I would have liked to have been Simone de Beauvoir or Daphne du Maurier? I would. I would have liked it very much indeed, all those tea parties on the lawn with clever people and flunkies to cut the crusts off my bread. I certainly would have liked it, Raymond. But it was never meant to be, son; I wasn’t Daphne du Maurier. And I never would be. So I just had to get on with being the best Vera Bradwell that I could possibly be.’
And my Gran was right; I knew that. I knew that my Dad had spent all his life wanting what could never be. So he’d never really lived the life he’d been given.
And I know that what I have to do now, Morrissey, is to get on; get out there on the motorway again; carry on trying to get to Grimsby.
And trying to be the best Raymond Marks that I can possibly be.
Yours sincerely,
Raymond Marks
17 June 1991
A Shelter,
The Esplanade,
Cleethorpes,
Lincs
(Mon. morning)
Dear Morrissey,
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d turned out like the rest of them; if I’d ended up just being a normal sort of person, like all them others, the Darren Duckworths and the Geoffrey Weatherbys, the Kevin Cowleys and the Albert Goldbergs and all of them.
I see some of them when I’m in town, mostly the ones who haven’t got jobs. Sometimes they shout things out, especially if there’s a few of them hanging round the benches or outside the off-licence. They just shout stupid stuff, like, ‘Hey, Marks! Are y’ looking for Spencer?’
They think it’s dead hysterical, that. Sometimes they shout out things like, ‘Psycho’ or ‘Spa
zzie’ or ‘Mong’. And if they’re particularly energised, they’ll shout something like, ‘Look out! It’s Raymond the Retard!’
I just ignore them. And most of the time they just ignore me. It’s like we come from different planets.
Some of them went away to university, like Geoffrey Weatherby did. And some of them got jobs, working in places like banks and building societies. And I see them, sometimes, when I’m walking down the boulevard or through the Precinct. We don’t even look at each other. They get nervous when they see me; because they think I might try and talk to them. And then they’d be really embarrassed because they’d have to pretend they didn’t know who I was or, even worse, have to stand there in their unisex hairdos, distressed denims and mock moccasin Hush Puppy shoes, praying that nobody would come past and see them, with me!
And they don’t know, not one of them, that the person who would be really embarrassed would be me! Because I wouldn’t want to be seen dead talking to nauseatingly normal persons like them.
That’s why I didn’t care! I didn’t care one bit about them just walking past me. I was always really glad that they walked straight past! Even Geoffrey Weatherby. And the day he did stop, that day I was walking through the Arcade and I saw him, coming towards me with his girlfriend, the two of them all entwined with each other and laughing, I wish he’d just carried on walking, ignored me, pretended he never knew me.
But he suddenly crossed over and came walking up to me, leaving his girlfriend stood outside WH Smith’s.
He nodded. Then he asked me was I all right. I just shrugged. I didn’t even know why he’d stopped. He’d never spoken to me since all those years ago when he’d ridden past me on his bike and called me Fatso.
‘With being away at uni,’ he said, ‘I’m not that in touch with what’s going on around here these days. But I … heard … I heard you had a bit of a hard time.’
The Wrong Boy Page 43