PHENOMENA: THE LOST AND FORGOTTEN CHILDREN

by Susan Tarr

  Malcolm was on the alert.

  On the constant lookout for the ginger-haired, freckle-faced boy skating around the floor in his socks. On one sweep past the boy grabbed the talcum powder tin from Malcolm’s hand. Then he stopped where he was, and stood grinning on the far side of the room. Malcolm limped over and reached for the tin but the boy dropped it on the floor and stomped on it.

  With a loud bellow Malcolm flew at him.

  The boy, with shrill cries, head-butted him and gouged at his eyes. He kicked and punched and bit Malcolm’s ear until it bled. His jersey, red-soaked, was ripped from his shoulders. It took three male attendants to separate the pair after their long noisy fight. Both had bloodied noses and flushed cheeks, bites and scratches, and torn clothes.

  Malcolm had clumps of ginger hair in his hands. The other boy held tatters of grey jersey. One pair of eyes flashed fury. The others narrowed with manic spite.

  A man gripped Malcolm’s hand. He watched helplessly as a nurse scooped the flattened tin, bits of jersey and ginger hair into a rubbish basket. He struggled free and rushed the nurse, bringing her down with a tackle to her knees. The attendant again over-powered him, hauling him off by the scruff of his neck. He dumped Malcolm roughly in the corner and told him to stay still or there’d be big trouble.

  “And I mean big!” he roared.

  The nurse walked away with the rubbish basket, and gone were the sole tangible remnants, or proofs, of the life he’d shared with his mother.

  “Mummy!” he screamed to no one understanding.

  “That does it, my boy. You’ve been told.”

  The attendant held Malcolm by the shoulders. Another held his chin tilted high. The nurse poured bitter medicine between his clenched teeth.

  This old man he played one he played knick-knack on my thumb with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man came rolling home

  He dreamed he woke in a frozen room with high walls damp with running water. It was dark; only the moon slanting a feeble ray of light through the high-up window. He tried to be quiet, but he was scared and freezing. His teeth chattered.

  “Mum-m-my? D-dad-dy? I’m lost. Please find me. It’s me. It’s your M-Malcolm. Find me.”

  Within this pleading he lay drenched in darkness until in utter confusion he screamed loudly.

  “MummyMummyMummy!”

  A fat English night nurse came on soundless feet and filled him with more bitter medicine. She cradled him in her arms for a long while, and hummed a song.

  “You’ll be fine, little man. You’ll be fine.”

  This old man he played two he played knick-knack on my shoe with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man came rolling home

  In the dayroom, there was one boy who had a face like the flat backside of the moon. He never moved. Another child with pale unseeing eyes glided around, hands outstretched, bumping into things yet always smiling. Her chin had a running gash on it, and cuts and bruises covered her arms and legs. They called her Julie. Often the nurses would do their rounds while holding Julie’s hand, or take her outside into the gardens to touch and smell the flowers.

  This old man he played three he played knick-knack on my knee with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man came rolling home

  To begin with, Malcolm did not wet his pants. He was not like the others. Even the nurses said that.

  “He’s not like the others, is he?”

  He listened attentively as a senior nurse explained him to a junior nurse. She thought he had a mild hemiplegia – a symptom of cerebral palsy. That would account for his gammy leg, weak arm and clumsiness.

  The dreams were relentless: the loud toot-tooting…his school suitcase…lead soldiers…his mother fading away…

  He woke in the night and cried for her and the same old night nurse came silently as the night itself with her torch, to feel under the sheet – wet boy. It was she who pulled the bedding apart and wiped the brown rubber before remaking his bed. Crooning to him, she changed his pyjamas.

  “You’ll soon settle in, dearie. You’ll be fine, little man.”

  She hugged him on her knee until his sobbing ceased.

  Long, fearful nights she would sit with him, cradling him in her arms, warm and close against her plump breasts while he whimpered himself to sleep, curled into a tight little ball on her lap.

  Still he searched for his mother’s talcum powder tin in all the rubbish baskets, or sometimes in the pockets of the nurses’ uniforms. Either they pushed his hands away or hugged him tightly.

  This old man he played four he played knick-knack on my door with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone

  dreams upon dreams

  layers upon layers

  all mixed up now

  now now Malcolm rest now

  now this moment is a new now

  every new moment is a new now

  how long will it be like this now

  He found his thumb, his comforting, sucking thumb, rocking back and forth on the floor like the other children who sucked and rocked, rocked and sucked. Some of them crooned or moaned or screamed or sang or hummed or dribbled incessantly. Or peed or messed. Few of them spoke any words – real words. Children with round staring eyes full of nothing watched in moon-faced silences. The Down’s syndrome children were lovable, often walking over to stand in front of him, reaching up a hand to touch his face and smile a little.

  He had no love left in him to give them.

  The senior nurse drew up a chair and watched him for a while. She told the junior nurse, “I fear he is regressing. He’ll become like the other children in time. He should go to school, keep his brain active.”

  I’m not like them, he thought. I want to go home.

  There were seventy-three adult patients in this ward along with the fourteen children. When Malcolm overheard this, he wondered vaguely where they all were and where they had come from.

  One morning he was taken by the hand and led into a small classroom where some other children were already seated. It was explained that he must be a good boy and learn well. A kindly teacher returned his pencil to his hand whenever it fell to the floor. After some time she switched the pencil to his other hand, his better hand. The books were familiar, as was the pencil and rubber. At the end of each lesson, everything was gathered up and accounted for prior to the children being taken back to the dayroom.

  Regularly, with all the children together and some of the adults, a nurse brought jugs of fresh milk into the dayroom, while another nurse carried a square wooden tray heaped high with orange quarters. Yet another had a tray with dried bread crusts and plastic mugs.

  Malcolm sat rocking back and forth with a honey crust dripping slowly down the front of his pyjamas until some boy, screaming like a fire siren, scooted over and grabbed it from him. More crusts and honey on toast, screaming on toast, toast on toast…

  Always he watched and listened.

  One child was only a baby, a boy of about ten weeks, he’d heard. Everyone seemed to love him, both the patients and staff alike. The baby had been abandoned at the public hospital. His mother saw how his head was shaped like a moa egg, and she said she had tried to love him but couldn’t. She didn’t ask what would happen to her little boy once she left him at that hospital. She had, however, named him Derek. It was written on his birth certificate, which she’d pinned to his blanket. The family name had been cut out, as was the serial number and date of his birth. So just a piece of paper with Derek written on it.

  Another called Bryce lay still in his iron-framed bed. Malcolm heard the white-uniformed nurse say he was quietly fading away. He stood for a long time watching him, waiting and wondering if he would actually see him fade. Bryce had arms like skinny twigs. He was far smaller than Malcolm, yet the nurses said he was more than twenty-three years old. But how could that be? Twenty-three was a grownup. Yet Bryce was small – and fading fast.

  On a hook near Bryce’s bed hung a
little shirt and pants set. Malcolm studied the tiny brown shoes hanging by their knotted laces. His own boots were so cripplingly tight now he couldn’t wear them. Watching the small boy fade, Malcolm leaned over and smelled his neck. Then he searched beneath the sheet to find the boy’s hand, to stroke and maybe squeeze it a little, to tell Bryce all was fine and dandy.

  Sister Daly dragged Malcolm and his wordless protest away, and dumped him in the dayroom.

  “Bad boy! You have to be good to go to school.”

  That night he lay stiff and tight in his stiff tight iron bed.

  That night he fell silent.

  This old man he played five he played knick-knack on my hive with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man went rolling home

  The butterfly. Malcolm watched it grow on the outside of the barred window ledge. A wriggly fat caterpillar, a cocoon, but once it got out of its old skin it was brand new and beautiful.

  Cockroaches – he watched the little shells break open and they hatched running, fast and shiny.

  One boy sat in Malcolm’s corner of the dayroom picking constantly at his skin. A nurse bound his bloodied hands and arms with bandages and tied them behind his back. His name was Douglas Bad Boy.

  Malcolm wondered why Douglas Bad Boy picked his skin off. Maybe beneath his skin was a better boy, a brand new boy, a good boy. Same as Douglas, Malcolm felt an overpowering need to be out of his old skin to find himself beneath. A brand new boy, he would go home to his mother and father and his new baby brother, Geoffrey, too. They would be a regular family once more.

  He picked at his skin.

  The sun shone and the butterfly flew away.

  Cockroaches – they grew the fastest. On the walls. Behind the curtains. They scurried into the corners of the floor, beneath the door. They scuttled along window ledges. And grew bigger. At night they came out to feed. At night he heard them.

  Cockroaches!

  But who will hear you scream? In the dead of the night, who will hear you scream? Lying paralysed in fear as the cockroaches scurried across his bed. In the dark he heard them clicking. In the dark he smelled them, and felt them clawing his feet beneath his pyjamas. Who will hear you scream, Malcolm Bad Boy?

  If he were to become new again he knew exactly what he had to do. At first it was difficult. He used his teeth and blood slicked down his wrist. But the new boy remained inside, and it hurt so he stopped.

  On silent bare feet he limped toward the kitchen. They were baking crusts. All brown and straight on a wire rack, like little soldiers. Malcolm stood at the open door waiting to be noticed. He stood very still. He was very polite.

  You don’t have to wait all the time. Use your brain, boy. Go get the pinecones yourself. Go fill the coal bucket. Have you got a brain? That’s what it’s there for. Whack!

  He walked to the far bench where there were crates of oranges alongside a chopping board. He couldn’t find a bandage. All he found was a wooden spoon.

  This old man he played six he played knick-knack with my sticks with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man went rolling home

  Malcolm lived in the children’s wards, always shifting, always changing. He lived how they all lived, growing together until he was the same as them. His limp worsened in bare feet until they gave him new boots, larger and heavier and uglier than the last pair.

  Black.

  Vaguely, far beyond his moon where his memories collected, he had expected regular brown shoes.

  For now, he sat cross-legged on the floor and rocked. He held his new boots cradled in his lap. He dreamed that he held his mother while she faded away and he rocked her gently in his arms. Sometimes he was peaceful inside his clouds. Sometimes he rocked his baby brother, Geoffrey. Sometimes he wondered about the brand-new boy, the good boy trapped inside him. Sometimes he didn’t – anything.

  Bryce was gone from his iron bed and the little clothes and brown shoes gone as thoroughly as he.

  Another secret.

  A boy raced insanely by, whirring fire-engine siren noises until a nurse gave him a good slap and a spoonful of medicine.

  It was quiet

  No more noise

  He rocked

  His mother and Geoffrey and Bryce gone

  This old man he played seven he played knick-knack up in heaven with a knick-knack paddywhack give the dog a bone this old man came rolling home

  CHAPTER 29

  Socialising

  Some of the older girls and boys were escorted for two hours daily down the rocky road to the Seacliff village primary school. Malcolm knew he went to school though he couldn’t remember where. He had worn grey shorts and a woollen jersey. And he had a school suitcase with his name on the front. M, and then something else… B? Malcolm Bad Boy? Was that his name?

  When he was much older he went each Saturday night with the other patients to watch moving pictures at the village hall, down from the primary school. He learned to sing – though he didn’t sing out loud – and soon knew all the words and tunes. The hall in The Building was disused. The staff often talked of how it was going to be renovated and refurbished later on. Not this year, though. Not any time soon.

  Monthly dances were held in the village hall. Mrs O’Connell, who had dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses thumped away at the piano. A chap called Ralph played the drums, and Jack Green squeezed tunes out of his piano accordion. Once they were warmed up, the other men would go outside to drink beer from a keg mounted on a post. The ladies weren’t expected to venture outside. They went downstairs for a secret smoke.

  Malcolm stayed where he was told. He was intrigued with the tea chest strung with tight wires that made a bass sound when strummed. He considered how he would like to play an instrument such as that, or an accordion like Jack’s.

  Though he hadn’t spoken a word for years, he was thinking about speaking again. This idea was brought about by a new attendant.

  “It’s time to go. Hey, you. What’s your name?”

  “M-Malcolm,” he began.

  “Malcolm who?”

  “M-Malcolm.”

  “What’s your surname, your other name, man?”

  The attendant jollied him along quite nicely.

  “Malcolm B-b-bad B-b-”

  “It’s all right. In you get, then.”

  He climbed into the waiting bus.

  Both attendants spoke loudly to each other.

  “Ya hear the news tonight, Fred?”

  “Nah, missed it.”

  “Labour Government finally fell. Some news, eh?”

  “No shit! After fourteen years?”

  “Hard to believe, eh? Malcolm, sit in behind the driver. Easy goes it. Watch your step, man.”

  He liked going down to the village hall to the pictures. The local men and women dressed up pretty sharp, hair wetted down, or curled and lacquered to stay in place. The patients sat on hard forms at the back of the hall next to the doors, in the spot that was said to be the coldest and draughtiest.

  Going to the pictures helped Malcolm remember a life somewhere else from amongst his young past.

  There was a new patient, Monica. She refused her food. The staff saw that as a form of unco-operation. But Monica just wanted to get out and go home and grieve. Her only son had drowned when a lorry spooked his horse. It had bolted across Waikouaiti Bridge, farther north of Seacliff, and thrown the boy into the stony river below.

  Monica sang dirges. She sang of her heartbreak and her confusion, lamenting the tragic death of her son. Malcolm could see this. But her constant mournful singing was deemed auditory deviance by some staff. That she never made any attempt to comb her dishevelled hair and sang songs of which she created both the words and melody worked against her.

  Another patient named Mark – a different case although it appeared to Malcolm to be similar – staff often discussed within his hearing, how Mark’s singing was a positive expression of emotion and recreation and to be encouraged. Apart from her
indications of heartbreak, Malcolm thought Monica was no worse case than he or Mark.

  As he grew up, he listened to every word spoken around him, to him and about him. Often it seemed that physical difference was perceived as linked to ‘madness’, as if patients had to be seen as different to those employed to care for them and the wider public. He’d never seen a staff member or visitor wear a boot like his. Somehow these physical differences justified their confinement. Staff would comment that this patient ‘had a wild stare’ or that one ‘wore a sullen expression’. If their shoulders slumped, or their face was cast down, or they shuffled when they walked or had a genuine limp, like his, did that help to remind the staff and public that they were mad and therefore needed special treatment? Was madness visually recognisable? If so, what did his clumsy limp, his shuffle, his weak hand and more often downcast face say about him?

  CHAPTER 30

  Death at The Building

  Dick Clough sat on the bench outside Clifton House. They met there on a regular basis, by chance not by arrangement.

  He brightened when he saw Dick.

  Every single time they met, Dick greeted him enthusiastically.

  “Gidday, Mal!” His grin widened. One day it would split his face and open it up right to his ears. “How are you, then?”

  “Fine, thank you, Dick. Are you all right?”

  “Right as rain. But I’ve got a bit of a secret.”

  Malcolm had guessed as much from Dick’s fidgeting, the covert glances he sneaked over his shoulders. They were surrounded in secrets.

  “You know Pete Durham is gone?”

  “Where’s he gone to this time? Town?”

  “Death by Request.” Dick snuck more covert glances over his shoulders into the empty space of the gardens, his voice raspy and rank with spittle.

  “That’s the word on it in the house, though no one’s really talking about it.”

  Malcolm was shocked. He’d not heard of such a thing for quite some time. Poor Pete. He’d liked Pete.