PHENOMENA: THE LOST AND FORGOTTEN CHILDREN

by Susan Tarr

  The Twins, Leonard and Margaret, had been at the hospital most of their lives, like Malcolm. The only real difference he could tell was they had a surname – Sutherland.

  Dick told him their story.

  “They were not always mad,” Dick said. “Just their mum was. Their dad went back to England to make a better living. Something to do with the unions, as it happens.”

  Malcolm sat quietly on the bench alongside the tennis courts and listened.

  “He planned to save his money and get them all back to the homeland, but no one heard a word from him. His wife went mad with worry, literally, so they wanted to commit her but her kiddies wouldn’t let go of her, screaming and hanging onto her legs. Six-years old they were, like peas in a pod. And no one was willing to take on twins born of a mad mother. Like, who knew what might happen?”

  Dick scratched his head, blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn. “So they let them come with their mum. And they did all right until she died of pneumonia. Now those two are inseparable.”

  Malcolm remembered something. When he was first admitted to the children’s ward – not The Annex – the kiddies were already there. He had watched them walk around, hand in hand. They sat together and walked together and ate together, speaking only to each other. And they mirrored each other’s movements.

  Back then, he spoke to no one. Mostly he sat and listened, or walked and listened. But sometimes he didn’t even listen. He remembered The Twins, Leonard and Margaret.

  Beyond his aborted attempt to climb Mount Charlotte, he still harboured a deep yearning to be closer to heaven, closer to Julie. He studiously avoided the area by Ned’s willow tree. Of that dreadful time a couple of months back he’d heard nothing more, not since the attendants and the bus driver had discussed it. It was as if a tide had come through and simply washed all trace of that life away. Daily, he became more relieved that perhaps he was not going to be blamed for helping with the hanging. He was also saddened that a man such as Ned The Accountant could so easily be forgotten.

  But had the hanging been forgotten?

  Were they even now searching for the wearer of the other pair of boots – him?

  How long did these enquiries take?

  He vowed he’d stay vigilant for as long as it took. And he would be as discreet as possible.

  This particularly fine day Malcolm chose an area above the boiler man’s house and struggled with the barbed wire fence until he was behind it. His boots were soaked by the time he reached the base of the hill, but having made it so far he was exhilarated.

  Gasping and panting, he finally reached the top of the extinct volcano that was Mount Charlotte.

  In his chest was that all-familiar yet strange sensation: a quickening, a thumping. He shuddered as sweat ran in rivulets down his back. What did this recurrent feeling mean, this powerful erratic pulsing inside? Vowing anew not be different from anyone or anything, he decided he would keep it a secret. Yet it happened a lot lately when he thought about Julie, or when he remembered things, or thought about the hanging and the subsequent enquiry.

  Sheltering from the biting wind low beneath a copse of trees at the summit, he snuggled into the base of the gorse bushes. In the village where most of the staff lived, smoke from their fires whipped up into the pale sky. And in the deep gully to his right were naked dead trees. There was also golden gorse, and the sweet scent of them carried on an upward draft.

  Mr Green had said in some places the moisture from the underground stream was closer to the surface, and that was where the willows grew. Toward the main road, he spied a cottage with a rusting roof cloaked in road dust. Opposite was the railway station.

  Never before had he seen the sharp contrast of the houses and roads down the hill, the dark macrocarpa hedges. Black demarcation lines where one property began and another ended, farms began and farms ended. He could see as far south-east as the hills above Blueskin Bay, where Jack confided he climbed to get his supplejack for crayfish pots, and the mist shrouding the cars travelling south along the Kilmog. North was Christchurch, where Ned The Accountant went. Yet how did he know Christchurch was north when he’d never been there? He only knew Seacliff and where he had come from, south.

  Confusion muddled his thoughts with roiling patterns. And the wild sea at the bottom of the cliffs had never looked so inviting.

  His mind turned to Julie who existed only in darkness. She told him her parents had disappeared while she was spending a day with her grandmother. Tea was eaten, it was night time, and still they never came for her. Her grandmother continued to care for her. It was years later when blind Julie was found by the neighbours, along with her dead grandmother.

  Malcolm knew what happened to people like Julie. They were deposited, confused and bewildered, into the care of the mental hospitals for the unloved and unlovable, the uneducated and the unwanted – soon forgotten, feeding the insatiable appetite of the institution, placating the guilt of the knowing masses. Deposited there to be described, measured, weighed and quantified, labelled, segregated and finally, cattle-ised – as had happened to him.

  Seacliff Mental Hospital was a solid stone-block wall that encased the frail, the feeble, and the despairing, a milling herd of now compliant cattle.

  That’s how Julie had come.

  His chest pounded again, and he gulped cold air into his lungs and allowed himself to grieve for her.

  Whilst he had forgotten much, he was surprised at the intensity of the memories newly slotted into his mind. When eventually he wiped his eyes clear of tears he glanced toward the hospital growing into the hillside as if it had been birthed there. It surely did look like a sprawling prison, no different from the real prison past the Robbie Burns statue in the Queens Gardens, opposite the railway station in Dunedin, past Josephine…

  Josephine?

  He knew Josephine was somehow connected to Julie.

  But now as he stood on top of Mount Charlotte, overlooking the rolling hills, the ocean, the village and The Building, he finally understood what Jack had said about the land inevitably slipping toward the sea. He’d spoken to Julie of these things. It had made little sense to him then. Jack had said that even the houses in the village would slide into the sea one day and some farms would go before them and other farms would go after them.

  He clambered back down to the road, and then walked down to the village to see how he fitted in. Sundays were when the farmers and village people stood on the steps of the stone churches to catch up on news. Did he fit in? he asked himself. Not yet. But one day he too would stand on the steps of a stone church and talk of mundane happenings.

  The hospital had its own chaplain. Malcolm often wondered about Father Teague – always in a hurry, always carrying his well-thumbed Bible as if it were part of his uniform. Sometimes Father Teague visited a ward Malcolm happened to be visiting as well.

  Father Teague would stand there on the fringe of a group gathered together for whatever reason, and he’d smile nervously before saying, “Good morning, everyone. How are you today?”

  Mostly he was ignored and his awkwardness would increase until a patient responded to his greeting. He might get spat on or told to sod off. Or perhaps he was mistaken for a family visitor and regaled with news as far back as the turn of the century. But Father Teague was blessed with infinite patience. And while he might not have been blessed with the courage of Robbie Burns, the bronze statue in the Queens Gardens, he was patient and caring. He would sit, if it were appropriate, and safe, and nod and listen, sprayed all the while with spittle or cake crumbs. He neither flinched nor moved away. Malcolm thought perhaps Father Teague did have the courage of Robbie Burns. Sometimes, when he stood up to leave, Father Teague looked like a moist Lamington.

  A fly landed on Mr Desmond Markby’s shirt. His hand darted out like pincers. He plucked the fly off his shirt mid-buzz and popped it into his mouth. Malcolm stifled his immediate laughter as he saw Father Teague visibly flinch.

  Father Teag
ue had come to visit Old Sammy this day. Malcolm watched them sitting opposite each other in the dayroom, the heat of the morning sun creeping through barred windows that broke the sunlight up into a grid of interlocking little squares. It warmed up the furniture polish so it scented the room, disguising, ineffectively, other odours like piss and shit and rotten teeth.

  Old Sammy was struggling to come to terms with exactly who his visitor was. Each time he selected a name, he was wrong.

  “Ah, Luke, young man,” said Old Sammy to Father Teague. “How nice of you to pop in and see me. I was telling my dear lady wife, Beryl, how I look forward to our little chats.”

  Father Teague smiled angelically, clunking his heavy teacup against the saucer.

  Old Sammy nodded his head keenly. “And how’s that sweet little wife of yours, Adam? And are your children doing well? Little Mary is such a treat.”

  “Listen to him going on,” Alfred growled into his teacup. “From Luke to Adam to Micah to Zephaniah and he’ll keep going until he’s covered the whole bloody Bible. The Messiah himself will be next on his friggin’ list.”

  Mr Desmond Markby delicately removed a tiny black leg from between his teeth.

  But when Old Sammy called Father Teague ‘Joshua’ all hell broke loose in the dayroom.

  “He’s not Joshua!” shrieked Alfred. “Joshua broke down the walls of bloody Jericho, you flaming old coot. He’s not friggin’ Joshua!”

  Everyone stopped whatever mindlessness they were engaged in. Phaedrus’ hand remained motionless in his crotch. The teacups stopped clattering on their saucers while Mr Desmond Markby held his pinkie finger out from his delicate hand and moved not a single muscle. Old Sammy was caught mid-slurp and Patrick froze with his gummy mouth wrapped around his saucer.

  Malcolm was highly amused and he drew his gaze level with Father Teague, who said, “Right you are there, Alfred. It was Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho. Well, I never… Oops, is that the time now?”

  He said this last bit as he craned his neck around to locate the wall clock even as the words left his mouth.

  “I must be gone then.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Lobotomy

  Malcolm watched silently from the dayroom as the sullen rain splattered its misery against the windowpanes. The dayroom was over-crowded, today no exception. Sometimes the numbers dropped, only to rise again. The staff alternated between amiable patience and marshalling the patients like cattle into trucks on a train, shunting them from here to there. The impression Malcolm gleaned was that mad people shouldn’t speak. It only caused trouble and more work. They should sit and be quiet. Quietly mad.

  Eating in overcrowded dining rooms reminded him of happier times with fewer numbers elsewhere. Julie? Right now he could not remember all of her story or details of their lives together, just snatches here and there. Or why he was often brought to tears at the mere thought of her. He knew she had died but he could no longer remember how or why.

  He wondered often if The Treatments were to blame for his loss of memory, and if this happened to him after each session. He strove daily to avoid drawing any attention to himself that might result in further treatment. But he worked tirelessly at garnering each and every new memory as it surfaced. He sought to know more about Julie, and his mother.

  Today, there was a distinct undercurrent running through the ward. Staff talked of a new procedure.

  “Does it truly require invasive brain surgery?” asked one male nurse.

  “Yes,” another replied. “It’s called a leucotomy though some call it a lobotomy.”

  “What’s it supposed to do exactly?”

  “It makes mad disruptive patients normal. Cynthia’s on the list. I can’t wait to see how she turns out. No more crying all the time and tidying the furniture, realigning the cutlery in the dining room. She’ll probably be discharged to go home, along with the other patients when they become normal.”

  Normal? For the men, a pair of sharply-pressed serge trousers, a white shirt with epaulettes, and shiny shoes? Was that the normal they spoke of? Like male attendants?

  Hah, he scoffed to himself. I’d rather be quietly mad.

  He thought rotters like his ward’s bully should have been inside rather than on staff. The man was more physical with the patients than Malcolm ever thought necessary. But the hospital was understaffed and what staff they had was overworked, and some were probably unsuited for the role they undertook. As a rule, those on staff were kindly even though they were sometimes frazzled.

  He’d taken note of what happened when other patients swam against the tide: the deprivation, punishment, and the dehumanising loss of memory – both present and past. Now there was this discussion on the new procedure, The Leucotomy. And whilst it gave hope to many, it also caused panic among the patients and a fear they might be in there forever. In the lockup. In the loony bin. In the booby hatch.

  Someone asked him how long was a lifetime and what came after?

  He had no answer for other patients’ questions. He had enough unanswered questions of his own.

  “Come on, man. Get up! You’ve been warned. Now move it or you’ll get the hose again.”

  Shivering in the liquid darkness, he was drenched and cold. He wanted to ask what he’d done to warrant the hose but who could he ask? He was no one and worth nothing. And this attendant was a bad man. Malcolm heard the jeers, the coarse laughter, how he would be a good candidate for The Leucotomy, how with half his brain gone he’d talk more or talk less.

  All he wanted to know was what was fact and what was truth and where the rest of his memories were. He existed under the constant threat of solitary confinement, the straitjacket, the padded cell and all that involved, the fire hose, The Treatment or The Leucotomy – or was it The Lobotomy? – if he was disruptive or disobedient or if he wasn’t quietly mad.

  Always, all ways, under the total direction of someone else and yet how was he disagreeable?

  This saddening nothingness disturbed him immensely, growing bigger each day, darker and hungrier, consuming some of the others. He saw it reflected back from their vacant eyes, blank nothingness. Steadfastly, he hung onto the belief that he wasn’t the same as them; he knew he was different, that he didn’t belong here with them. So he stood apart from them as the winds of change blew them from place to place – stood apart and listened.

  The idea that there could be another punishment even worse than The Treatment caused a stir of vast proportions. Names were read, and those who were noisy, those not content to sit quietly and be mad in silence were herded away for this latest form of correction. When they did return, with cloth turbans wrapped around their shaven heads, they were from then on – and forever – silently submissive.

  Malcolm, when he saw them, feared he would be grouped irrevocably among them, irretrievably claimed as one of the walking, eating, sleeping dead…

  “Evil is such a lazy thing,” Satan ranted to no one, tearing at his hair, his eyes boggled and frenzied. “It piggybacks along the way. God has everything. God! Has! Everything!”

  Malcolm stood silently outside the high-fenced lockup and watched Satan drop to his knees, sobbing. Satan was a nickname. Everyone called him that.

  “He’s lucky,” Satan howled to the sky before jumping back onto his feet, arms outstretched, screaming at the top of his lungs. “But heaven is empty while hell is bursting at the seams!”

  When he caught sight of Malcolm behind the high wire fence he loped over to him, imploring him to believe.

  “The Bible, it’s all there. Read it for yourself. This one begat that one, that one begat this one and begat and begat… I don’t understand any of it.”

  Abruptly Satan’s voice and face changed again, dark and thunderous. “It’s a big wild world out there. Devils and hell! And the loneliest of them all is Father Teague.”

  Malcolm leaned closer to the fence, filled with a new interest and compassion for the terror of this man’s hell, of his God, o
f him not knowing the difference between them.

  “He’ll despair, you know, and then he’ll fail. The loneliest. The loneliest. He’s just a man after all.”

  Satan’s voice had dropped lower, heavy with pain.

  Malcolm, compelled to look straight into Satan’s eyes, saw the horror and the insanity. He realised he did not fear the man.

  Satan asked him quite calmly, “Do you know why you’re afraid when you’re alone?”

  Malcolm shook his head. He was not particularly against being alone. He enjoyed his solitude.

  “No, I don’t,” he said, just as calmly, curious to hear Satan’s answer.

  “I do,” said Satan. “Secretly I don’t want to be scared anymore. You won’t tell anyone my secret, man? You won’t tell?”

  “Of course not,” Malcolm said, though he had little idea of what Satan referred to.

  “You feel it inside like you’re falling down fast,” Satan growled. “Stand still, man!”

  Malcolm stopped scuffing his boot in the grit, and stood rigid as directed.

  “When the voices get mad it gets cold. I want them to leave but they won’t go. The existence of God has destroyed us. And now the devils are gone. People are still mad, but that’s just people. Will you forgive me, man?”

  “Yes, I will forgive you.” He could do that.

  Satan slunk away.

  His rants were soon replaced by a sharp hissing sound. The approaching madman was the new patient, nicknamed Snake. He hissed and bobbed his head, arching his neck like a cobra. The hissing came from inside his red mouth where his tongue had been neatly sliced to form two prongs that vibrated with the noise. He left Snake to his hissing. He had other things to do.

  After a lengthy time of quiet non-disruptive reflection, he was drawn to Father Teague and his Bible. He wanted to find out what happened after this life was spent. He wanted to find out about Joshua who fought the battle at Jericho. So he sought out Father Teague on a regular basis. Weekly he joined a group within the holy house called The Chapel.