by Stuart Ayris
PETER MIDDLETON - But we are not talking about mere chest infections, are we Dr Weepy? We are talking about a man’s thoughts, his emotions, his moods, his connection to society, indeed to the world. We are talking about the sensory experience a man has of his life - and if that experience is too dissimilar to that of the rest of us then we call it an illness - and the cure for that illness is to subject the transmitters or whatever they may be to drugs which debilitate the workings of the mind to the extent that a fog, a vacuum, develops; the only way out being to agree that you are mad and that the venerable Dr Weepy is right.
Sigh miles high Mr Peterman and raise your hands to the venerable amongst us. Tolerate their frown with a stoic tinge and seek not to vanish into the antiquity of it all.
IRIS PEARSON - Thank you Mr Middleton. And thank you Dr Weepy.
Nodding head Weepy wibbly wobbly leaning back recline and sink into the form of all our souls the power turning twixt and thus into the spirals of my mind.
IRIS PEARSON - Are you ok, Mr Anthony? We can stop for a moment if you like?
In the name of love! Before you break my heart - think it oh oh ver.
SIMON ANTHONY - I am fine thank you. Well, in a manner of speaking, of course.
IRIS PEARSON - That’s good. I am aware that these kind of things can be very stressful so please do let me know if things are becoming too much.
SIMON ANTHONY - Thank you. I will.
IRIS PEARSON - Now, if we could come to you please Miss Shoraton. A summary of your Nursing Report if you please.
Quivering quaking in your shakings redden up as your lamp arises bringing forth the fundamental shift of the soul to the surface, breaking the mighty tensions with which the gentle of heart must forever contend. The beat of my heartness, the heart of my beatness and the twanging of your memory strings combines to fill the VOID with musical delights and absent smitings that behold nothing but the glory of the future and the nebulous hammerings of the past.
PENNY SHORATON - Thank you. I have known Simon for about four years. In that time, he has had three admissions to Crimson Ward. On the current admission, I have been his Keyworker. He was admitted informally having just tried to drown himself in the marshes in Tollesbury, where he lives. When he was admitted, he was disorientated in time, place and person. He walked around the ward constantly with little communication to others. He was noted to be responding to auditory hallucinations whilst in his bedroom. It wasn’t clear as to whether he was experiencing visual hallucinations as well.
Simon initially complied with oral medication which was given in liquid form due to him having secreted tablets during previous admissions. He took his depot from one of our student nurses but continued to present as confused and disorientated. There were initially no signs of him being a suicide risk or a risk to others.
When Simon was seen in ward review by Dr Weepy and Dr Nardy, he became distressed and was placed on continuous observation. This was mainly due to the fact that on previous admissions he has attempted to harm himself when distressed. It was the following day that he absconded from the ward. He was found after three days, asleep in a field near Tollesbury. It seemed he had cut a narrow strip of grass about a foot long and placed matchsticks in the ground at each end. According to the police, it looked like some kind of miniature cricket pitch.
When Simon returned from AWOL, he was taken first to the Section 136 Suite and then to his room. It was there that he tried to hang himself and I was one of those who found him. In his pocket, there was a selection of scrabble letters - nine of them from what I remember although I can‘t remember which ones they were. I think there was an F and a Y and perhaps a G.
IRIS PEARSON - I am not sure we expect you to remember such unnecessary detail, Miss Shoraton. Do go on.
PENNY SHORATON - Sorry. Thank you. Well when Simon returned from A&E he was placed again on continuous observations and began to comply with his medication. Over the last few weeks, he has become orientated to reality and there has been no evidence of responding to visual or auditory hallucinations. He is now on intermittent observations. He hasn’t had any periods of unescorted leave but does currently have one hour escorted leave per day around the grounds.
Beauty is as beauty does and we all stand together! The lady of all our wonders sighs and touches so gently her own cream hands and her eyes enter mine with the gargantuan fullness of the steamer departing from the shores of Albion’s purity. There is nothing like the deep ocean look of the majestic love that throbs within a fairy woman’s soul and the splendour of its radiance when it encompasses your whole entire earth. Penny Shoraton you are not only my angel but the fulfilment of all my misshapen logic and blunders. You stream into me and take apart all that is treacherous in the mountainous regime of my powerless worth. I am yours, in madness, your friend and your lover - Simon Anthony.
IRIS PEARSON - Thank you. Are you ok to continue Mr Anthony?
SIMON ANTHONY - If it’s alright with you, I would like to just take a breath in the garden. Only if that’s alright, of course?
IRIS PEARSON - In that case, we will adjourn for, say ten minutes? Thank you everybody.
The leaves depart and the light ascends, flowers pulsing through the veins of time. The breath of all is upon me now weaving and meandering in and out of my mighty heart and dishevelled mind. The arras awaits to save me once more. Falling apart is so much harder than keeping it together, the crimble crumble of my stony pony brings about a gathering of unfortunate miasma that can lead only to a debacle from which there is no escape. But I know all that and knowledge alone is what will keep me strong. It’s a quarter to four and the bell doth ring clanging me home from school into the greasy arm slithering dreams of a grim decaying monster.
Love me do, people. Love me do!
17. The Mental Health Review Tribunal
(Act II)
Well, from behind the arras I do now reveal myself and once more am I to be subjected to the jestery tinklings of adultspeak; but, ah, the light in which I will submerge my fine self is that which gushes forth from the angel of all my heavens and pours over my big old aching soul. All else is but shadow to me now.
IRIS PEARSON - Thank you for returning on time everybody. So, if we can continue? Before we adjourned we had just heard the evidence of the nursing team. Now I will ask the panel if they have any questions.
DR KHAN - Do you consider, Miss Shoraton, that Mr Anthony is currently a danger to himself?
PENNY SHORATON - I don’t think so, though it’s difficult to say. He has obviously tried to kill himself in the recent past and you can’t rule out him trying to kill himself in the future I suppose. But right now, he is really well - probably as well as I have seen him for a long time.
Love is in the air! Every time I look around it seems I’m bound to have found the sound that leads ever to the ground, that deep dark bass that throbs and fathoms the ultimate assuaging of the tortuous rhythms of my heart. I love you, Penny Shoraton.
DR KHAN - Well, going on from there, do you consider that Mr Anthony warrants continued detention under the Mental Health Act?
PENNY SHORATON - That’s not really for me to say, I don’t think. All I’m saying is that Simon has been very unwell and now he’s getting better. Whether he needs to stay on a Section is really up to you. And the others of course.
DR KHAN - Thank you.
IRIS PEARSON - Raymond?
RAYMOND LISTER - Could you please explain to me what you mean by Mr Anthony being ‘well’?
PENNY SHORATON - When Simon first gets admitted, he is always very deluded in terms of time and place. This is the first admission where he has not worn sunglasses the entire time. When he is unwell, he can be very unpredictable. When he is well, he seems just like me or you. You can have a normal conversation with him and you wouldn’t know there had ever been anything wrong with him. He really does go between being incredibly ill to more or less fine.
RAYMOND LISTER - So it is your professional opi
nion that he is now, as you call it, more or less fine?
PENNY SHORATON - Well, yes. More or less.
More or less and twist and shout, roust the boutings and beat me dry. The world doth take its chaos and ram it into sidings and skirtings to sculpt and mould the eternal freeform thoughtness of it all into yesses and nose and right and wrong and thisem and thatem so everyone can feel the safe carousing and wondrous extensions of intimated intimacy and beauty beholded in the eyes of HE WHO IS KING. You treat my thoughts with your contempt and your medicine but judge me by my words alone. I can believe I am Jesus or Buddha as long as I don’t tell you, yet you can freely admit that there is a God that speaks to you and you could become the president of the united states - is that not the cold hard truth? Oh broken hearted simpletons of this vacuous void you call the civil west, the archetypal homespun society that ingratiates itself with the firm and the angle, the sharp and the crangle, the pinpoint and the needle, the cross and the bearer - do not ever truly delve too deep inside my mind lest you yourself go mad. I’m in love with her and I feel fine, I’m in love with her and I feel fine…
IRIS PEARSON - Now do you have any questions for the nurse, Mr Middleton?
PETER MIDDLETON - Hi Penny.
PENNY SHORATION - Hi.
PETER MIDDLETON - So if I understand you, Penny, you do not currently believe Simon to be a risk to himself or others?
PENNY SHORATON - He has really improved over the last few days which is great to see. He is spending more time out of his room and interacting appropriately with the staff and some of the other patients. I know that, in the past, he has been aggressive to nursing staff, but on this admission there has been nothing like that.
PETER MIDDLETON - I understand it was you who found Simon hanging a few weeks ago. Was there any indication that something like that was going to happen?
PENNY SHORATON - Not really. I mean he was on continuous observations more due to his risk of absconding. We were all obviously aware when Simon returned to the ward that he was very unwell. He hadn’t seemed upset though. If anything, he had been very calm. He was playing his Beatles music like he always does and seemed fairly settled. It was definitely a shock when he tried to hang himself.
PETER MIDDLETON - Have you spoken to him since about why he did it?
PENNY SHORATON - Well he was initially taken to A&E. When he returned the following day, he was very subdued. It was difficult to get anything out of him. It was as if he was kind of in shock about what he had done. As Dr Weepy said, ECT was considered but Simon started to pick up as the days went on. As is consistent with previous presentations, when Simon is in his psychotic phase, he doesn’t really remember very much which I suppose maybe just as well.
Or is it more about what I don’t tell you than what I don’t remember? But of all these friends and lovers, there is no-one compares with you. Some are dead and some are living. In my life, I’ve loved them all.
PETER MIDDLETON - I take it you do not currently consider Simon to be a danger to himself.
PENNY SHORATON - No, not as he is at the moment.
PETER MIDDLETON - Thank you, Penny.
What a lovely couple they would make - the fragile fleetings of paleface Peter and the boundless chasm of beauty that is my Penny. I look and observe and see all from a position just a little further back than you could ever believe. I am here upon my cinema seat, popcorn down my shirt and coke too cold watching the film of my life as it is played out before me. There is little I can do but to muse upon the variations of theme and the lightening of darkness, the exquisite contradictions that fuel every waking moment where power and might meet the meek and the mild. I sit back and view all for that is all I can do. Play on, good people, play on.
IRIS PEARSON - And now over to you Mr Cromwell. I understand that the report submitted from your Community Mental Health Team was not written by you, but that you are representing the author due to sickness?
DAVID CROMWELL - That’s right. And I would like to confirm that this is the first time I have met Simon.
IRIS PEARSON - I see. Not a very good show, is it? Anyway, we must proceed. Do you have anything to add to the report?
DAVID CROMWELL - No.
IRIS PEARSON - Dr Khan?
DR KHAN - No questions.
IRIS PEARSON - Raymond?
RAYMOND LISTER - None from me.
IRIS PEARSON - Mr Middleton?
PETER MIDDLETON - Just one question, Mr Cromwell. Could you please confirm what level of support Simon will receive from your team were he to be discharged today?
DAVID CROMWELL - One of our team will visit Simon on a regular basis. It will probably be one of the nurses, seeing as he is on a depot. They will keep an eye on him to see how he is and help him with anything he needs help with. It might have been me, but I’m a social worker. I don’t do depots.
PETER MIDDLETON - So you don’t know as of yet who will be Simon’s Care Co-ordinator?
DAVID CROMWELL - I’m sorry. I don’t. I can check for you after this if you like?
PETER MIDDLETON - Thank you. But I’m not sure that will be necessary. Suffice to say, there is a plan in place were Simon to be discharged by the panel today.
DAVID CROMWELL - Yes.
PETER MIDDLETON - Thank you.
Hurrah! Hurrah! Support for little old me to keep my eyes on the prize and keep me keeping on like a bird that flew. Mister, Mister Raymond Lister, you and your friends are always welcome in my humble abode fireplace ablaze and wooden floor scuffed with the bootmarks of the downtrodden man. Come in, come in!
IRIS PEARSON - Now, Mr Anthony. I want to thank you for your patience to this point. It must be very difficult to be the subject of such a discussion. Now it is your opportunity to have your say. In your own time, could you please tell the panel what your thoughts are with regard to your current detention under the Mental Health Act.
Step onto the stage young sir. Cross that white, white touchline of your shame and jog onto the park to try and dazzle in so little time, to make a mark, to cement a place, to raise an eyebrow and to make them realise you are worth more than all of this. Carry the drinks no longer for that sweaty, putrid middle order batsman who doesn’t even like cricket yet gets in every week whilst you sit there at home working out averages and gazing at black and white photos and wondering what it would be like to stride out in confidence, to swing a bat with authority or to bowl a ball with venom. Stride out fine man and jingle jangle with the best of them.
SIMON ANTHONY - Err. Thank you. What would you like to know?
IRIS PEARSON - Just please tell us how you feel about your current detention. Anything you would like to add to what has been said, to what you have heard.
SIMON ANTHONY - I think everyone has done a really good job. They are all very nice and very kind. I don’t really know what else to say. If Dr Weepy thinks I need to stay here, then maybe I do. I wouldn’t like to disagree with him. He has a wonderful beard. I think he cries more often than I do. But then crying is good. It’s just the way the soul squeezes out its squeezings.
PETER MIDDLETON - Simon, Simon. Perhaps it would help if I ask you some questions?
SIMON ANTHONY - Ok.
PETER MIDDLETON - You have heard many things said about you this morning. I would like to clarify a few points with you. Firstly, do you recognise that you suffer from a mental illness for which you are required to take medication to remain well?
SIMON ANTHONY - I do.
PETER MIDDLETON - And are you prepared to continue with that medication if you are discharged from the Section.
SIMON ANTHONY - I will
To love, honour, cherish and obey sweet Weepy so that you may sleep safe in the knowledge you have cured the incurable, fixed the unfixable and ticked the tickables of all that is required of you. Til death do us part. And may it be mine, not yours.
PETER MIDDLETON - In terms of the support available to you in the community, Simon, are you willing to engage with whatever
is offered, visits from a nurse or social worker etc?
SIMON ANTHONY - I will.
PETER MIDDLETON - I have no further questions.
IRIS PEARSON - Dr Khan?
DR KHAN - Hello, Mr Anthony. Could you please explain to me how you understand the illness with which you suffer? I am very pleased to see you seem to be recovering by the way.
Here goes the goes. That old question. It’s all perception and lack of perception. I see things that you don’t see and I feel things you do not feel. I experience sensations, smells, tastes, terrors and hopes and dreams and absolute doodle dandy wonders. When I express them, I am ill. When I keep them to myself, I am well.
SIMON ANTHONY - I was first diagnosed with Schizophrenia when I was about seventeen or eighteen. The medication helps me to be more like other people. Sometimes, at times of stress, I have to come into hospital. The nurses and the doctors make me better and then I go back home. I can’t thank them enough for the help they give me. That’s it really. I’m sorry that I can’t be more exact.
DR KHAN - Please don’t apologise, Mr Anthony. I understand you very well.
Like you understand gravity and the movement of light and centrifugal force and atoms and car engines and all those other concept driven quantifiable elements of life. You are a very bright man, Dr Khan. But have you smelled the baking of potatoes in early nineteenth century England or lain upon a cricket pitch gazing upon the snow white sky of ultimate heaven? Have you listened in awe to the gock-pause-thwack or felt the power of the fundamental belting blues that roars and soars from the soul of the absolutely wretched and departed? You understand what I think you can cope with. That is all, my friend. So let us both live our lives in the way we choose untouched by such sensorial admonishments as rank and class and pride and wellness and illness and await in complete dismay the final denouement.
IRIS PEARSON - Raymond?
RAYMOND LISTER - None from me.
Nice smile Raymondo, just short of patronising but with enough kindness to infer a depth of wisdom of which you may be entirely unaware.