by John Tan
The Mystery Surrounding Hamplock House (2014)
By John Tan
“Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
“How do you know I’m mad!” asked Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
-- Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson); Alice in Wonderland
“How you see your future is much more important than what has happened in the past.’
--Zig Zigler
PART ONE: THE STORY BEGUN BY THE HEROINE, A MENTAL PATIENT (of Queens, New York)
1
I remember the roads getting there impressed me with a quaint feeling of oddness which grew—with the general sights and indifferent bustle, of housing and commerce—a forty-mile stretch that gradually thinned and was trimmed to shops and flats and the occasional villa—so that I was out of sorts, when, finally, I went up the steps towards Hamplock House, my new home, that was part of the asylum establishment, for, having a breakdown eleven months earlier and unable to cope in my father’s house,-- it was the beginning of September, and here I was for an indefinite stay. Even in town, where I had had lunch though it was only sixty miles from the City, in Upper New York State, seemed a world away; and from the first, it was its foreignness that irked and piqued me. I had decided to stop in one of the coffee-shops, called Tavistock Café, bearing the name of that town, and had pronounced to myself the lamb sandwich tasted dry and the cheese had no flavor or savoriness about it, and the pepper, right out from the pepper-cellar, bland to the point of being devoid of any piquancy. Having quickly paid the inquisitive and neatly-coiffured waitress, I left, feeling thirsty and as if I had eaten sawdust. Even the detective show on Tee-vee, Starsky and Hutch, and the M.A.S.H rerun brought resoundingly home to my mind—which I caught fleeting glimpses of— as prominently set up behind the counter for the patrons’ viewing—that everything was detached and distant. Nothing seemed interesting—not even the red and gold of the countryside peeping out but on the whole showing green under the sunlit blue vault and the white bridge as we drove up the gate-- that was to enclose me indefinitely, but now, this loss of appeal to my palate and my sense of smell, what did they signalize, what did they presage in regard of coming days?
‘For your great convenience, Miss, and you did say you are going to Hamplock House and not to the hospital, I will drop you at the main entrance,’ said the about sixty-year-old taxi driver, grinning through his oily face, ‘is that all right?’ I was jolted from my reverie, as my eye scoured the scene before me. ‘This corner, Miss, is the new wing of the hospital and your building is down the avenue through another gate at the bottom of the drive. Do you see the grey building with the curious turrets and the cupola with the ornamental weathercock, surmounting the wind-vane? and sheer black roofs?’ The man’s voice was still buzzing in my ear as I got out, carrying my bags, and he, my luggage, and thus I concluded it was going to be a contrary day today—in all sobriety, although I was on a mild dose of tranquilizers: doctor’s orders. The impression, however, which stayed with me the whole time I was in Hamplock House, was definitely a definite something…
He said, ‘The place is haunted, Miss, they say the place is definitely haunted.’
‘Who said?’
‘The people who live around here.’
I was firstly ushered by a helpful and genial attendant to the social worker’s office, who was called out of delicate duty of lecturing to an intractable inmate, a middle-aged lady who was salivating and kept on rolling her eyes, when I made an appearance, and when this person dressed in white saw me, she dismissed the inmate and ordered the attendant to fetch me a fresh cup of tea, adding, ‘I hope you take tea, but if you prefer, the Columbian coffee they have here, of course--’ She left her sentence unfinished, and I answered brightly and tried to smile, saying as the tea no doubt was bound be excellent, so I don’t mind taking a cuppa with her.
While we were daintily sipping our tea, this official asked to see my papers and to check to see if they were in order, and she produced her own documents from her cabinet which she asked me to sign in triplicates, and gave me one set to keep, then, letting her eyes scan over her own, folded her arms against her mahogany desk finally, and pronounced everything was good as gold and in order. ‘Let me see here, according to our file on record, an intern will come later to have a chat with you at 4 PM and Dr. Cranston will be your psychologist and you will board in the same room with old Mrs. Cavendish, let me see, no: 44, that is on the left wing of this block, up a short flight of stairs, the last room facing east, on the second floor. The ground floor is taken up those by our inmates that are either on wheelchairs or are bedridden. I hope that doesn’t sound too worrisome. I will come and check up on you to see how you are getting on before dinner-time which is served at six in the dining hall. Welcome to Hamplock House, Miss --’ giving my limp hand a hearty shake and saying, ‘Bolton will help you carry your things up, and I hope you enjoy your stay with us.’
Following the obedient Bolton, I saw I was immediately now in the visitor’s hall and wandering about was one or two of the bulbous-eyed inmates, shambling along, which the attendant greeted, but without receiving any answer, and there were many rooms facing away from the octagonal vestibule—of which the social worker’s room was one. There was an atrium revealed behind a wall alongside of which was a walkway leading to the left wing of the four storied building, and both of us walked up to it.
‘Nice façade,’ I murmured, not knowing what to say, ‘so many nice bow windows,’ because I remembered my impressions of the whole front.
‘For your information this building was built by Augustine Tecumseh Hamplock the Third, the millionaire banker, if I’m perfectly correct,’ returned Bolton. ‘In fact, he built the entire mental institution, as he was a man of a philanthropic bend. I am taking a course in psychiatry and between us, I prefer Jung to Sigmund Freud, myself. This house rose on its foundations in 1882 A.D. – if I’m not mistaken, and the hair-brained architect had built it partly Gothic and partly in the Gregorian style, so that it might seem odd to you. Have you seen millionaire Hamplock’s painting that was in the corner facing the occupational therapist’s room outside the corridor on your way going in?’
‘Millionaire Hamplock’s painting, madam?’
‘Of course, I mean a portrait of him with two of his children,’ Bolton corrected herself, pretending to preen, and by this time, we were walking along the corridor with rows of rooms on either side, rooms with white doors, which sometimes opened to disclose whatever tracasserie was inside, and there seemed a perpetual hum or droning and I seemed to hear people groaning or calling out in their drug-induced delirium or something—until, on the second floor, we stopped outside no: 44, my mind still lingering on what Bolton had said about the portrait which I will devote a few lines to next,--while I waited with a mixture of curiosity and dread, the attendant unsmilingly knocked.
2
I was struck, after I had tucked in the corned beef and the spuds and vegetables at their dining-table because I was famished—and although the food also tasted odd—and it was afterwards I went to explore the grounds and came upon the painting where the attendant had indicated to me, that was done in the Holbein style by some wandering European artist—of the man who built Hamplock House himself. Mr. Hamplock was certainly striking to look at, dressed in black, a broad-shouldered man of about fifty-five years of age, with fiery liquescent eyes, sitting, I suppose in an upright position, where two little children, a boy and a girl, of about the age of seven and four, were supported on his knees; but it wasn’t a full-length portrait
. Having some time, I studied the man’s face at leisure since I wasn’t interrupted, and I thought I caught a look of some mortal terror in his eye—which could, of course, only be a blob of paint that was highlighted by the evening sun through one of those big windows I had earlier mentioned.
Then I went straight up to my room, thinking, from glancing at the week’s menu, tomorrow will be lamb basted in its own sauce with onions and pureed tomatoes—I hope that lunch will be better. On opening the door, I discovered my roommate was arranging and rearranging her bric-a-bracs on her bed, with her feet under the covers, and her bony finger pointed to a pile of blue-flowered linen on my bed and nodded her white head towards me and said without preamble in a mysterious tone, ‘She wanted you to have these,’ and then, indicating the cane chair that occupied a prominent place in the center of the room, said the same thing. ‘This was hers, and she made me promise to give it to you.’
‘Who?’ I asked, spluttered rather, with wonder.
‘Mrs. Elkland who passed away on that same bed that is now yours, not more than three weeks agone.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What was she like?’
‘I don’t know much about her; but I have heard some things. I shouldn’t like to talk about her too much, you know?’ she lowered her voice into a whisper.
‘Why?’
‘These walls, they have ears--’
‘What do these walls have--?’
‘Nothing. Do you like to have a look at some movie magazines,’ shoving one under my nose as I had come close to her bed, and I saw that she had that emaciated look they all had, ‘you should like this one,’ she gasped as she tried to chuckle.
I saw it had a cover with Marilyn Monroe all in white, clasping her all-aswaying skirt, and by this time I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and fell promptly into a dreamless sleep--the first night of my sojourn in Hamplock House.
3
Now, if I hadn’t wakened up in the middle of the night, I would perhaps have formed a better opinion of Hamplock House in the morning. But as a matter of fact, I did woke up, having been overtaken by an unaccountable feeling of impending danger, and went to stand in the corridor with the door of no: 44 half-opened and I could see from their glass panes that most of the inmates’ venetian blinds were lowered, and some of the inmates had their night-lights on. The truth was I did not realize at first, I was awake then, and I must have been like some somnambulist standing fronting the dark passageway, of which the other end was the staircase. From a side-casement, a tall one, I saw the spidery branch of an old oak, and the blue moon: a shining orb, in unyielding splendor and throwing into stark relief part of the old bony banisters, against the somber gloom in which it seem to rise—a palpable shadow just as seeming to quicken my pulse just from where I was viewing it. (Then it sunk in, I was wide awake, and this wasn’t a dream.) I heard or thought I heard someone’s belt being beaten against the floor or something, and for a moment, it seemed to be someone whose face was hidden behind a cape was coming to get at me—and it was then, suddenly, I remembered Augustine Hamplock from the Holbein-like portrait of him.
At any rate, my heart rose to my mouth for this incident seemed so real—that I imagined if I had not witnessed the whole thing right now. But, when it came to me again in the form of a dream afterwards—a recurring dream at that—the man’s face was always concealed behind his cape, and there was a little boy, dressed in blue vestments of some satiny material, and at first I thought it was Mr. Hamplock’s boy, but as I hadn’t examined the portrait with the boy as closely as I should the first time it was a worrying thing that I didn’t remember seeing the blue frock he wore, but the boy was always crying plaintively and being chased by the mysterious man who was tanning him with his belt with might and main. I remember the scene was enacted on the stairs that first night but I had no clear sight of the boy’s face and only his matted hair and clothing and his purportedly small frame, and the big black thing was hitting him with a brutality that was a shocking thing just to see. The two did not come up to the second floor but disappeared once again downstairs, and as the apparition vanished, I thought I heard a loud cry followed by a sob that was more like a ghastly or gruesome yell.
With what appurtenances of reason in this half-crazed state was I to make of all this, I thought! For, soon after that, the whole floor was quiet, except for Mrs. Cavendish’s snoring that came to me, ‘like artillery going off in the park’ to borrow from a phrase of Dumas’, and I came back to my senses and went back to my bed. From my room-mate’s alarm clock I saw it was two AM, but my eyes refused to shut for a long time afterwards because I was in a state of great agitation, and as a consequence slept late and nearly missed the nine o’clock breakfast, after which, the intern who was to put in an appearance the evening before came at last; and had his long-awaited chat with me.
‘So you have come to stay in Hamplock House, and I see your application has been approved. For an indefinite stay of not less than a period of six months I take it? Of course, you know this house is for the chronically ill but stable mental patients who, under our careful medical supervision, can live semi-independent lives together with other inmates.’
I looked at the intern’s face and saw there were smallpox scars which most had faded completely, and he said his name was Liam Alvarez and he was twenty-eight years old. I knew his smallpox was not recent; but he seemed all too self-consciously to adjust and readjust his tie.
‘What I don’t know is this is such a large place, with gardens and even a nice pavilion, and I had applied here on account of my breakdown last year when I was studying at college and after that I tried to learn something of hairdressing. Life was a bit tedious at home after that, until I plucked up enough courage to come here.’
‘Yeah,’ said the intern, with pride in his quavering voice. ‘Rather! This is quite a place, and it has sixty-four rooms, every one for the inmates; and an upper hall, a dining hall (you have been acquainted with this one, eh?) and several tea rooms, the warden’s quarters, the other officials’ rooms, the recreation room, the library—although this is always shut—the Laundromat, the buttery and kitchen, the gymnasium; and, in a separate building on the side that abuts the east wing, the treatment room and the dispensary. It is some place, like I say, don’t you think so?’
I thought the brick and mortar Hamplock House was an emotionally charged place, in which traces of fear, rage, remorse, and some other negative emotions, were like pheromones, chemical traces, of which seemed to rise out of the dark floorboards and woodwork, and even from the brick walls themselves; but I didn’t say so because it wouldn’t be polite. I had felt something that, the night before, gave me quite a turn, felt it that first time I set foot inside its walls, and this was something that cast my mood into sheer gloominess and I thought Hamplock House was even worse than its exterior looked, and this was, by the way, my second and more real impression of it. From the exterior, and the angle which seemed to draw up both wings of the building, if one was in a stark and preoccupied mood, to one’s chagrin, one might chance hear loud wails, cries of grief and inane laughter, drifting to you across time, so as to leave you disemboweled with—a unique set of experiences. There, need I say more? Hence, it might have been a place of disquietude, quickening with gruesome memories of some mayhem perpetrated long ago, or some suicides, that seemed to give rise to a riot of demoniacal voices or noises right from Tophet that would make the most stout-hearted weak in her knees. But, all of this is concealed in the daylight by the park-like atmosphere of the grounds, and the innocuous appearance in their shiny cars of the daytime staff. It was in the midst of a deteriorating relationship with my Father that September of 198-, that I decided to move out, after the death of my Mother from a stroke that she never recovered from, and the fact that my Father being an alcoholic and my Mother was bipolar might have something to say that urged me to stay on despite a beginning that was unpropitious.
The intern chatted and talked about himself, and said
he was a seminarian once for a year; but, he added quickly, that he didn’t have a vocation. His vocation in life was to be a clinical psychologist. ‘I like to talk, especially if I have a wide-eyed and appreciative audience, and the reward for one’s learning is one gets to have the inspiration of ideas—not a delusion, because it comes from a disciplined and experienced intellect, and his pate is ripened by experience. We see and laugh because we see a discrepancy, a mistake, a gross error, as one say a child’s nose is pulled out of joint at the arrival of another baby, and in this case who is the one that we direct our humor at? Who could be the butt of our joke? Nay, exuding an air of maturity sufficient for the purpose—isn’t laughter a sign of mental instability? Couldn’t a person laughing inanely be thought of as unstable?’ What about a murderer laughing his head off like a jackass after he had done his evil deed? An uncontrollable chuckling fit, --isn’t that a sigh of evil dislocation of mind and soul? Exaggerations, grossness, euphemisms, double entendres, are humorous because they come up on the wrong side of propriety. Must we make fun of propriety, and call someone a prude, or prim and proper—to lower others so that we are above them—so why do we make fun of propriety? I think it’s because when we act and think, we don’t have the proper air about us; and it is as if we have to breathe a purified and rarefied air and have that air trapped in our lungs, that it becomes part and parcel of our psychological system to avoid this. Are sinners redeemed? Are the humble exalted; but to know that is to know God’s time stretches out even to eternity. Is any human being born a mistake? Every person’s life is so ordained by God, and in all ways, graced living leads to heaven. Is the multiplicity of religions as they exist in this world, to be seen as a momentous mistake to embarrass the believer, and should at all costs be blotted out at once? Do infidels go to hell? I do think in the light of God’s plan to create and built community, this is not so! Is Allah and Jesus mutually exclusive and one is to be set at variance against another? Again, I think not! So I said to that woman wearing the hajib, ‘Go in peace! Be not afraid! To practice your faith in good faith--do it with a good conscience as best you can; because all have limitations and can only sit and look and employ herself with that is set as preordained before her. The clever sees and laughs at the simple salt of the earth and calls him a dolt and a poltroon; but repentance is that most exquisite feeling which on one’s own accord one admits to oneself the error of one’s ways, and therefore, the natural desire to make amends. There is nothing comical about being a heroine, and although a heroine can be reviled, but the witnessing of this often excites the piety of human pity. Bad humor comes when you are trying to get connected up to yourself, and it insinuates itself between thought and thought and thought and feeling.’