Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness

by Thomson, MaryJane

  “I don’t really feel like doing it at the moment.”

  “Oh, it looked cool.”

  He walks away.

  “He was in ICU with me,” I say.

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about what he says. You should be proud of yourself, seeing you are getting better.”

  At this stage I don’t know what getting better means. All I know is that I feel better for having been out.

  “You seem more relaxed, even in the time I’ve known you.”

  “Yeah, although sometimes going out on my own reminds me how I used to be. I kind of want to be that way again—you know, see those old friends and do what I used to do.”

  “Just like me. I want to be back with my husband and kids and have it the way it was before I got sick.”

  “It will happen for you,” I say. “You’re getting better every day. You’re not all panicky like when you first came in.”

  Just as I finish my sentence Waris walks over. “Oh darling, look at you. I almost don’t recognise you. Shall we go now?”

  10

  Waris focuses on holding her dress above her ankles as we walk down the steps. This reminds me it’s been a while since I’ve worn a dress. When we get to the road she says, “You must be feeling better. You look great in your new shoes and your jeans.”

  “Yeah,” I say, looking down at my shoes, feeling pride. “The other ones weren’t practical, and getting out in the day and seeing all the people makes me want to feel normal.”

  “Well, you certainly look normal. It would be good if you didn’t wear your hat and glasses all the time and let us see your beautiful face.”

  “Oh, I can’t do that,” I say. “The head is a precious stone, Waris. I don’t want other people’s junk filling my head.” I put one hand on my head.

  Waris laughs. “Your head is safe around me. Maybe you should try not wearing your hat and see how you go.”

  “Do I have leave tomorrow?” I say. I’m planning how I can ring Jared.

  “Yes, you do. Do you have things to do in town?”

  “A bit. I just like going out.”

  “Yes, I think getting out has been good for you. Not long to go and you will be released. We just need to work out where you are going to go.”

  “I could get a flat.”

  “You could, but it has to be safe for you, and away from the people you used to use drugs with. When I say goodbye to you, MaryJane, I want it to be for good, so you don’t keep ending up in the ward.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t want to end up back there either.”

  “Have you thought about a halfway house?” Waris says. “It’s a shared accommodation for people getting out of the ward.”

  I have heard of halfway houses but have decided I don’t want to go and live with a bunch of sick people and keep absorbing their energies.

  “I’m not so big on the halfway house idea. I want to find somewhere on my own where I can keep doing my pictures and writing my songs.”

  “I know you want to do that MaryJane, but it’s good for you to be around people, or even better to go home to your parents.”

  We arrive at the fruit market where they sell cigarettes. I scan the fruit and flowers as I walk in and head to the counter. Waris tells them I am over eighteen. We get the cigarettes and head to the bakery. I look at the passing traffic moving to a standstill and feel blessed that I’m not stuck in it. It reminds me of when I used to drive and get road rage. I do, however, look longingly at the cars, wishing I could drive away somewhere and get out of the city.

  At the bakery Waris gets her usual, a pie. I stand waiting, staring into the distance, wondering where they are going to send me. The voice says going home is not an option. I start thinking of my bedroom at home with the comfy bed and the lights with red shades that send a nice pink glow into the room and how it would be nice to have easy access to coffee and tea and be able to smoke in a garden with real flowers. The voice says they are not my real family. I don’t tell Waris any of this as I know it would sound crazy.

  We walk back up to the ward along the tree-lined street. I look up and see the leaves glowing with the sunlight beaming down on them. Waris eats her pie while we walk. I pick up the pace; I’m in a hurry to get back and ring Jared. I fantasise about the possibility of living with him again. If only I had never left in the first place I might not be in this situation. It’s been a while, but since leaving him events have snowballed.

  “You are doing great, MaryJane. If you keep on like this, making good decisions, you won’t be in the ward much longer.”

  Hearing her say this makes me feel guilty: I know she would not deem me ringing Jared a good decision.

  When we get back everyone is at dinner. Fiona and Lester are sitting together. I join them and eat some rice. I stare at the mural on the back wall, attracted to its bright colours.

  “Babe, haven’t seen you all day. How was town?”

  “Oh, it was all good. Bought some shoes and had a bit of a walk around.”

  He looks under the table at my shoes. “I love the colour, babe.”

  “I do too,” I say, looking at the flower on the breast of his red shirt.

  I feign a smile but what I’m really thinking about is using the phone and removing myself from this world.

  Lester looks at me. “Are you going out tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, it’s nice to get out and take a walk and not be cooped up in here.”

  “You’re lucky. I’m still getting accompanied. I’m surprised you didn’t get us anything, if you know what I mean,” he says, winking at me.

  If there was ever a time to tell him what I was going to do, now would be the time, but I decide against it. “I thought about getting some today. I stood outside a bar ready to go in for a drink but I had no ID. A drink would have been nice.”

  “Well, maybe you could sneak a bottle of something back in when you next go out.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah,” Fiona says. “Very easy to be caught with alcohol: it has a strong smell. And if you got caught they might lead the trail back to MaryJane.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And then it would suck because I might never get out of here.”

  Lester finishes his meal. “I’m just so sick of feeling like this,” he says.

  “Me too,” Fiona says. “A drink would be great but guess we have to wait.”

  “You’ll get unaccompanied leave soon,” I say to both of them, “I can get you a bottle of something if you like. Maybe just have it later on when you don’t have to talk to anybody.”

  “Don’t worry, babe, I’ll get it. Don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  We take our trays up and make drinks. I tell them I will meet them outside. I go to my room and get the piece of paper with Jared’s number on it. The voice tells me to talk to him: “Ring him and go and meet him tomorrow.” I start getting butterflies in my stomach, excited by the prospect of seeing Jared and having drugs. The voice says, “You need drugs to cope with the trauma of all the abuse you have had in your life. The rules of religion don’t apply to you; you are sick and there are things you need and drugs is one of them.”

  I stare out the window and think about the regret I had earlier around leaving Jared. I want to get back to taking drugs and carry on with the life I was living, just do things differently, go to different places, say different things.

  I get up off my bed and say to the voice, “I’m not sick, I just want to get on with my life. Can you stop talking to me.” I turn out my lights and look through the semi-darkness at the orange on the ground. I go to pick it up but suddenly its shadow looks menacing. I shut my eyes, pick it up and say, “You are not my mother.”

  The voice says, “Your mother was Sarah Vaughan.”

  I put the orange down and say, “She couldn’t have given birth to me: she would have been in her late fifties.”

  “She waited until the right time to give birth to you.”

 
I sit on my bed and look through the dark at my pictures, frustrated that I can’t get the voice to go away and leave me alone. I sing a song, “Send in the Clowns”, that Sarah Vaughan sang. As I sing I hear her voice echoing around my head. At the end of it the voice says, “You sound just like her.”

  I look at my white skin glowing in the darkness and say, “They wouldn’t have had the technology back then to make my skin white.”

  “There was a special doctor, highly skilled, who was able to do it.”

  I start to cry for a mother I never had or never knew. I put my head in the pillow, mourning the loss of her and my father. The voice says, “She didn’t die, you will meet her one day.”

  I hear a knock at my door and go to answer it. It’s Fiona. She says, “Are you all right? You’ve been in here a while. You seemed a bit down at dinner.”

  I rub my eyes and say, “Oh, I just lay down on my bed because I was a bit tired. I could really use a cigarette.” We walk outside. It’s still a bit light but the table is in the shade as the sun has nearly gone down.

  “I get down as well so I understand if you don’t feel like talking,” Fiona says.

  “Oh, it’s not that. I just had a lot of things on my mind.”

  I think to myself, I can’t exactly tell her that I was born black and that I have two of the best singers of the last century as my parents. It’s not exactly believable. So I decide to tell her I’m stressed about where I’m going to live. I tell her about the halfway house Waris suggested.

  “Oh, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be in there. Be like an extension of being in here.”

  “Yes. I want to forget about this place when I leave. Who wants to be reminded of being in here?”

  “Guess the sad thing is that some people have no other place to go, no family, children or close friends. It’s hard to keep all those things up when you’re unwell: all your energy goes into yourself or you get paranoid.”

  “Yeah, people suffer from all kinds of things,” I say.

  “Can’t you go home?”

  Once again I can’t tell her why I can’t go there, so I say, “I just feel like they are a bit controlling. I want to feel free.”

  “I understand. I wouldn’t be able to go back and live with my parents. Parents do put restrictions on the way you want to live your life. Why don’t you get your own place?”

  “Waris says they’re worried I will go back into a flat with people I used drugs with. But of course you can get drugs anywhere, whether you’re in a flat, a halfway house, or even with your parents.”

  “Sure you can. They’re everywhere.”

  “I would like to find a place I can make my own, put up my pictures, buy some nice things, and just do what I want. Why do we have to have so many restrictions?”

  “I guess they feel the need to protect you.”

  Fiona lights up another cigarette. I can see the sky changing and wonder what time it is because there is a cutoff point after which you can’t use the phone. I tell Fiona I need to make a phone call. I go back inside, where everyone is helping themselves to Milo. I knock on the nurses’ station door. “I need to make a cell-phone call. What’s the code for the phone?” A nurse gives it to me on a piece of paper. Waris is in there. She says, “I’ll give you your meds soon.”

  I go to the phone and dial the code, and then I punch in Jared’s number. The phone rings for a while but sure enough Jared answers.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, it’s MaryJane.”

  “Oh, darling,” he says emotionally, “I wondered when I was going to hear from you.”

  “Well it’s me.”

  “Honey, I’m not a rapist, I was so upset when you said that. I was just trying to help you.”

  Back when I was in ICU the voice was telling me that thousands of people had raped me, including Jared and other close friends. I cut off my friends because I thought they’d hurt me. Everyone who rang to speak to me I called a rapist. I had vivid images of these people raping me. I even got pangs of pain where I thought I had been abused. The images and the pain made it all seem real.

  “I know, I know, I’m so sorry I said that. I just wasn’t very good that day. I really didn’t mean it. I miss you and I’m ringing because they are giving me leave now. Maybe we could catch up tomorrow if you’re free.”

  I hear Jared holding back tears. He says, “I want to be with you so bad. Of course I will see you tomorrow. What time do those bastards let you out?”

  I laugh and say, “I think ten o’clock ’til about four or five.”

  “Well, maybe I should pick you up outside your old flat just after ten, give you a few minutes to get down there.”

  “Okay. I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Okay, darling, see you tomorrow.”

  I hang up the phone all excited that I’m going to see him and possibly get on, depending how persuasive I am. I walk out the door and see the nurses dispensing medication and wonder how much more of this scene I can handle. I walk back to the smokers’ room. It’s dark outside. I go and crouch on the grass beneath the moon and pray that I get drugs tomorrow. The voice speaks to me and says I will.

  Waris comes out just as I stand up. She says, “Who did you ring?”

  I say with a smile, “Maybe that’s private. It was just an old school friend, nothing for you to worry about.”

  She starts muttering under her breath and gives me my meds. I swallow them and say, “So, I’ve got leave tomorrow?”

  “Yes. You can be out most the day, just be back around four.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  I see Waris’s back hunch over as she walks away. She looks tired. I say, “Hey, Waris, make sure you have a good rest tonight.”

  She smiles and looks happy. “I will, MaryJane.”

  I walk out of the smokers’ room as Lester is heading in. He says, “Babe, remember what we were talking about.” I smile and say, “Haven’t forgotten.”

  I walk to my room and get into bed. I start planning the conversation I will have with Jared in the morning. Nervous tension is running through my body. I pray to fall asleep quickly so tomorrow will arrive. I turn off my light and start to feel the sleeping pill kick in. The voice speaks to me as I start getting tired. He says he will be with me forever and never leave me. I feel comforted to know this.

  There have been times over the years of having the voice that I have sat and prayed that it will never leave me. The voice has helped me come to terms with death and see that it isn’t a bad thing because he will take care of me: I will just go somewhere and return, like a Christ figure. The voice is a trusted companion and a loyal friend, the best I had ever had. I have often married him and pledged I will never be with anyone else: I feel he is my husband or partner through life.

  I think to myself, as long as I have the voice it doesn’t matter where I go. I start saying Psalm 25 of David in my head to reassure me I needn’t fear anything, because I am a bit afraid of being caught doing what I’m going to do the next day. I think about how the drugs will stay in my system for only forty-eight hours, so I have a good chance of getting away with it—as long as I don’t smoke marijuana, which hangs around in your fat tissues for weeks.

  My craving for the drugs surpasses the risk involved. I’m willing to risk getting drug-tested and caught, even though that would mean I probably wouldn’t get leave again. I have a real urge to get relief and feel how I used to feel. Drugs were such a part of my daily routine that, even after months of not using, I still crave them, crave being in the situation with a friend or dealer, cooking up the drug, injecting it, and feeling the rush and how much better it makes you feel.

  Next morning I wake at five. I go and see if the smokers’ room is open but it’s locked. I go back to bed and wriggle and roll around. I look out my window and watch daylight come in. I say a prayer, telling God how grateful I am to have sight to see things that are beautiful. I also pray to find a place to live and for the docto
rs to just let me go, and I say a prayer for God to be all right too.

  By this stage I’m really hanging out for a cigarette. I go out to the smokers’ room and sure enough the usual people are there. Lester isn’t shouting into his headphones; he’s just staring outside.

  I make him a coffee slowly; I say a prayer for him as I stir it. I pray for him to be restored to what he wants to be. I ignore Virginia and Nola, just pretend they’re not there, and I give the coffee to Lester.

  “Oh babe, you’re the best,” he mouths, “not them.” He points backwards to Nola and Virginia.

  “I’m seeing my old boyfriend today,” I say.

  “Oooh, babe, are you getting back with him?”

  “No, no, that was a long time ago. We’re just friends.”

  “That’s great. It’s good when you become friends with your exes. Half the time you are better off that way.”

  “I agree. The only problem is they do have a tendency to want to get back together all the time.”

  “Oh, he’s still in love with you.”

  “It’s kind of a weird relationship,” I say. “I go through phases of hanging out with him and then I end up back in here and we lose touch. But something will happen: I will either ring him or bump into him. Don’t think I’m meant to not see him. Maybe it’s just time.”

  “Just make sure you’re not leading him on. Guys are not the brightest at times and they get the wrong idea.”

  “Yeah. I miss him as a friend when I don’t see him. Maybe I just need to stop altogether, but… it’s nice to be loved.”

  “I love you, babe. You certainly make being in here a lot easier. You are not crazy like the rest of these people and you’re still young enough to go on and have a life. Don’t let what happens in here hold you back. They try to put restrictions on us and hold us down and keep us needy, but it won’t happen to you or me.”

  I get up and make myself a coffee. “I hope you get back into your radio show,” I say.

  “I will but I’ve got to get out of here first.”

  “You will and so will I. We can’t lose hope.”