by Peter Kocan
Or they’ll just lean from their cars and call “Hey!” at you, as if you probably don’t understand normal speech but might respond to a call and turn your head. There is a bunch of young toughs inching past in a panel van.
“Hey, want a peanut?” one of them calls to you.
“Don’t you need it to think with?” you reply.
“Better not get fuckin’ smart! I’ll punch yer head in!”
“Be my guest,” you say. “I’m afraid I can’t come out so you’ll have to come in.”
You can hear the tough’s mates egging him on.
“Flatten ’im, Terry!”
“Yeah, Terry, git over the fence an’ wallop the cunt!”
Terry gazes into the yard, at the men. Especially at the huge hunchback who is huffing and beating his chest in what looks like bestial rage.
“Nah,” says Terry the Tough to his pals. “I wouldn’t waste me fuckin’ time.”
The panel van roars off, spinning its wheels.
The hunchback’s name is Lloyd something. You don’t know his surname and can’t imagine him ever needing one. He’s just Lloyd. He is usually very quiet and keeps to himself, grinning and muttering in a corner, twisting his big raw hands together, rubbing his big raw tongue over his chapped lips. If you go too close he’ll give a little snuffle of embarrassment and shuffle away. If Terry the Tough had climbed the fence poor Lloyd would have retreated at once. Lloyd works in the hospital laundry, carrying fouled linen, and blokes say that he eats bits of shit he finds there. When he has his fits of agitation he runs about grunting and beating himself with his fists and tearing up clumps of grass and throwing them in the air. The screws tell him to stop the bloody nonsense and sometimes he does. Other times they threaten him with a needle. Lloyd looks somehow relieved when screws hold him down and jab the needle in. His ugly face softens, his breathing becomes regular, he sleeps. You think Lloyd has a love-hate relationship with the needle: he fears being held and jabbed, but wants the oblivion.
REFRACT holds mostly dills at the weekend. Blokes who aren’t dills usually have parole to wander in the grounds. There are two kinds of parole—company and individual. Company parole lets you go around with another patient and the idea is that each keeps tabs on the other. Individual parole is harder to get. The only special rule for that is that you keep away from certain areas, like the staff cottages where doctors and their families live, some of the female wards, and particularly the Admission wards at the top end of the hospital. They don’t like bottom-end riffraff near Admission. Fred Henderson calls Admission patients Silk Hankies.
“Pampered little cunts, stretched on couches, telling the quack about their bad dreams, havin’ their foreheads wiped with silk hankies! They like to think they’re in some nice sanitarium for ‘nerves’. The sight of us scares the shit out of ’em!”
You wonder if you’ll ever get parole. They’d be wary of giving it to a MAX man. Fred has it of course, but he’s in with the screws. Dennis Lane had it, but look what happened to him. If you had parole you could walk along the dirt road and find where it goes when it curves past the library and the morgue. It must lead to the lake at that end. It’d be so good to walk to the lake and sit and look across. And it would seem odd to be that close to it. For nearly five years you watched the lake from the verandah of MAX, seeing it over the wall lower down on the slope. You learned the lake’s colours and moods—the early morning sheet of sunlight that hurt your eyes, the midday blue with ruffles of white foam, the dark evening pool with the image of the moon or the first stars in it. Or you knew the lake as a foggy blur under sleet, the place where the wind got its run-up to whoosh along the verandah and whine in the barbed wire. Your lake is someone else’s now. Someone in MAX is learning the colours and moods the way you did.
If you ever got parole it’d be company parole and there isn’t anyone you’d want to go around with, no-one you could count on not to get you into trouble. Individual parole would suit you. You’d keep away from the forbidden areas and especially the Admission wards. You wouldn’t want to interfere with anyone’s illusions.
OT is better now you’ve got over being afraid of the old sewing machine. The main thing is to learn the right pressure to put on the treadle and so control the speed of the needle. If the needle isn’t going too fast the thread won’t tangle so often. The first few vinyl bags you made had to be cut apart and thrown in the scrap-bin. The seams came open, or you’d sewn panels in upside down. But then you did one pretty well and the process wasn’t a mystery any more. Now you make half a dozen bags each day and Mr Trowbridge is able to leave you to it. When Mr Trowbridge is sorting out the ten different problems on his mind he’ll walk through the building pointing his long finger and ticking off what’s okay: “Baskets okay. Painting okay. Vinyl bags okay…” The vinyl bag section gets ticked off most times now, which means you can feel fairly okay yourself. Each activity is called a section and you are the only person who is a section all by himself. You’ve never been a whole section before. Mr Trowbridge feels deeply that work is the best therapy for sick minds and he has a set of phrases about it. One is WORK MAKES WELL. The others aren’t as catchy.
It’s surprising how soon the bag work becomes boring. Now it is mid-afternoon and you have done your half-dozen bags and don’t feel like beginning another. You’d like to sit looking out of the windows at the willows by the pond. The trees are catching the afternoon light. Or you’d like to turn your chair and just gaze at Cheryl, who is as beautiful as any tree with light on it. You feel a deep gratitude nowadays that you are allowed to be near women. Not just women. Cheryl. She’s leaning over a table, helping someone plait a basket, and her long brown hair is back across her shoulder, slightly damp with sweat, and there are patches of sweat on the cloth of her uniform. She is hot and tired in the afternoon. A wave of love goes through you because she is tired and because she isn’t as quick and clever as Janice and seldom wins the joking arguments they have. You and Cheryl don’t speak much, but when you do she speaks like one person to another with only a trace of the nurse-to-patient tone; and even that trace is put on with an effort because she thinks it’s the proper thing. But talking to Cheryl, or having her notice you, isn’t so important. The great thing is being in the same room with her for six hours a day. Of course she isn’t in the room all the time. She goes in and out, and it hurts when she isn’t there.
You begin doodling a new bag design on a scrap of paper. You do this a lot now. Since you are the entire bag section you suppose new bag design comes within your jurisdiction. This one looks good—a ladies’ shoulder-bag, small and neat with an outside pocket and adjustable strap. It should be two-tone in colour and fastened with a little fancy turn-lock. You begin making a prototype. You can only work on it for a while each afternoon after your quota’s done. You show it to Janice and Cheryl.
“Oooooh, it’s beautiful!” cries Janice. She has an exaggerated way of speaking to patients, half-serious, half-mocking, the way a grown-up talks to a child. If you’re a dill you respond to the serious part and if not you respond to the mocking and join in the game, like two adults discussing Santa Claus or something. But Janice will occasionally stop the game suddenly and leave you stranded, as though abruptly showing that she knows Santa isn’t real and making it seem as though you don’t.
“It’s very nice, Len,” Cheryl says simply.
“Get your eyes off it!” Janice tells her. “It’s for me!”
They have a joking argument over it. Mr Trowbridge comes and they show it to him. He examines it and tells you it’s an excellent piece of work. He’s pleased, not with the bag as such but that you’ve shown initiative. The excitement dies very quickly and you don’t bother making any more of the new style. It served its purpose. It let the staff see that you can turn your mind to things in a rational way.
Your stocks are raised also by the doctor’s attitude. Electric Ned comes to OT one day. He’s the doctor for REFRACT as well as MAX. He got his
nickname because he likes giving shock treatment. He brings you a magazine with an article he thinks you may enjoy, something about culture.
“The part about the bush balladists is informative,” he says.
“Mmmmm,” you reply. “I’ll read it with pleasure.”
“Have you seen Len’s new bag design?” Mr Trowbridge asks the doctor. He shows him the prototype and Electric Ned examines it through his thick lenses. Electric Ned is gratified. This tends to prove he was right to recommend you for OT. Mr Trowbridge is gratified. This indicates how much you are being helped at OT. You are pleased as well. You never get on better with staff than when they are taking credit for you.
All you think about now is Cheryl. Each evening when you return to REFRACT you go to the shower room and pull yourself. The shower room’s the only private place in REFRACT. It’s a large, cold room with cubicles and you can be alone there most times because the men don’t shower much except on Saturday morning when the screws herd them in and stand ticking the names off a list as they come out drying themselves. You are in a cubicle, naked, pulling yourself madly and thinking about Cheryl, her beautiful legs in dark stockings, the way she looks when she bends across a table and her uniform rides up round her thighs. You get a crazy urge to run to OT right now, nude, with your prick out stiff and rub it against her. You get a picture of how funny it would look, and giggle hysterically. Then you feel desperate again and pull yourself harder and groan. A shriek comes from the next cubicle and you almost fall over with fright. Your heart thumps and your prick is suddenly limp and small in your hand.
“Who’s there?” you ask in a tiny voice.
No answer. You don’t know whether to look or not. It could be anyone. A screw even. It could be half a dozen blokes crouched in there for a lark, ready to leap out. You’ll have to look.
You put your head round, ready to play innocent and ask for the soap or something. It’s a man named Hogben. He’s fighting his invisible enemy again. He has him in a headlock, pressed in a corner. Hogben’s eyes are bulging and staring with the effort and his muscles taut with strain. Hogben’s always cornering the invisible bloke like this.
“How ya goin’?” you say out of sheer relief that it’s only Hogben.
He suddenly releases the headlock and lets go a flurry of uppercuts at the invisible bloke’s belly. The invisible bloke seems to duck past and out of the shower room and Hogben goes after him. Hogben didn’t even see you. He only saw the invisible bloke.
Of course you understand that your feelings about Cheryl are becoming a bit strong and could be dangerous for you. You understand that very clearly when you aren’t near her, or thinking about her, or pulling yourself over her. The trouble is you are doing those things most of the time. At other moments you remember how Dennis Lane went stupid for his little retard bitch and what it cost him. Going stupid for a nurse could be fatal. Even the tiniest incident could destroy you. There are screws who’d be glad to pin something on you, something sexual and dirty like molesting a nurse, and by the time they finished blowing it up it’d sound as though you’d half-murdered her.
It is late afternoon and OT is almost deserted. You and Cheryl are alone in the room. It is very quiet. You are pretending to fiddle with a vinyl bag but you are really concentrating so hard on Cheryl that you can almost hear her breathing at the far end of the room.
“Will you help me with this, Len?” she says. She’s putting finishing touches on a linen basket. She wants you to hold the satin lining in place inside the lid while she pins it. The job is awkward: you have to stand very close and she has to link her arms around yours and pin the satin between your spread fingers. Her fingers touch yours, and each time she leans to press a pin her head comes so close beside yours that you could kiss her ear. There’s even a tiny pressure of her breast against your elbow. At least you think it’s her breast. You don’t dare take your eyes off the spot where the pin has to go. You’re trying to keep all your senses open to take in every bit of this closeness so you’ll remember what it was like. This is the most intimacy you’ve ever had with a girl. It may be the most you’ll ever have.
Suddenly you feel overwhelmed. How kind she is! How sweet to give you this intimacy! All the loneliness of your life wells up in you. You want to put your arms around her and bury your face in her brown hair and let her sweet kindness wash over you. You almost do it and the face of Dennis Lane flashes in your mind and then vanishes and you begin to do it for real this time because you know Cheryl is all kindness and sweet pity and wouldn’t report you or let you get in trouble. There’s a crash as the linen box overbalances on to the floor. Cheryl jumps away. With elaborate calmness you bend to pick up the box and a cane-knife that fell with it, then as you straighten you see Cheryl’s eyes flick to the knife and to your face and to the knife again. You lay the knife on the table. Carefully.
“It’s my knock-off time,” you say. You feel empty. “Alright,” she says softly, almost apologetically. You go out the door. “Len!” she calls.
“Yes?”
“Thanks for helping me.”
“Any time,” you say.
You walk back to the ward in a cool wind. You loved Cheryl once, but already it seems long ago.
4
“Hey, Acker!”
You are lying on the grass in the yard on Sunday when you hear the screw yell. He’s a thickset young screw, a rugby player, and calls all inmates Acker, which he says is short for Acker Shitsburg. That’s his joke. It isn’t much of a joke but it’s the only one he has.
“Hey, Acker!” he calls again. You and another bloke look up. “Not you, Acker!” he says, waving the other bloke off. “You, Acker!” You go up and the screw tells you there’s a visitor. He seems a bit edgy about it. You go into the visiting room and the screw follows. A tall and sort of languid man rises and comes forward. It’s the poet you used to exchange letters with. You’ve not met him before.
“Geoffrey Hawsley,” he says. He’s holding your hand in both of his and smiling at you from a height. He has on a fluffy blouse with puffed-out sleeves and a wide bandanna round his neck. He looks just like an artist, especially with his long hair all untidy.
“You a poof?” the screw asks him.
“My sexual taste is between myself and my paramours, of whichever gender,” says Geoffrey Hawsley. “And, though I have been known to embrace the macabre, I can offer you no prospect of ever sharing my couch of joy.”
The screw turns to you. “D’you know this creep?”
“Oh yes,” you explain. “Geoffrey’s a poet.”
“A poet, eh?” The screw spits the word out.
“I sense that we are brother artists,” says Geoffrey Hawsley, laying a slender finger on the screw’s sleeve. “Some day you must show me your cave paintings.”
“What?” says the screw, stepping away. He isn’t sure whether to punch Geoffrey Hawsley or not.
“Don’t apologise. We know how busy you must be. We shall endure your absence as the stoics of old.”
“Fuckin’ smartarse!” says the screw, moving to the door. “Just don’t stay too long. We don’t like queers hangin’ round the place.”
“Ah, crossness can be charming in some people. What a pity you aren’t one of them.”
The door slams.
“Thank goodness he’s gone,” says Geoffrey Hawsley. “It was such an effort being pleasant to him.”
He takes your hand in his again. “So you’re Len. Of course a meeting in the flesh—if you’ll pardon the phrase—is almost superfluous. I have known your soul through your letters and poems. As you, I hope, have known mine.”
“Yes,” you say.
Geoffrey Hawsley sits and draws you down beside him.
“How often I’ve sat at the piano in twilight, playing some sad gossamer piece of Chopin’s, your latest letter open before me, your newest poem on my lips.”
“That’s good,” you say.
“You are one of the rare spirits.”
“Oh, I dunno.”
“How I have longed to visit you here in your bleak prison like poor Oscar in Reading Gaol. You too, Len, are composing from the depths your own great De Profundis.“ Geoffrey Hawsley clasps your hand tighter. “But we shall free you somehow! Then I shall take you among my friends. They’re all talented, vivacious people. They’ll adore you!”
It does give you a tingle of excitement. You imagine smoky little cafes, artistic chaps with beards, sensitive girls who do pottery and believe in free love. Maybe you could make friends with painters who have nude models in their studios.
“You are reading Balzac of course?”
“No.”
“But my dear, you must!”
“Oh, I mainly read Owen and those.”
“A mere phase. You’ll grow out of it.”
“I don’t think so,” you say. Geoffrey Hawsley catches your tone.
“I’ve offended you.”
“Not much.”
“Oh, I grant dear Wilfred’s heart was in the right place, but he and his ilk remained essentially Public-School philistines whining over their spoilt rugger match. Surely you see that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” You wish Geoffrey Hawsley would go.
“I could teach you so much. I could make you one of the rare spirits.”
“I thought I was already.”
Geoffrey Hawsley wags a finger at you. “You really ought not attempt sarcasm with one so much better at it than yourself, Len dear.” He squeezes your hand. “But I forgive you, and shall spare no effort to unchain your bonds.” He takes an odd little jar from his pocket. “For the moment, though, I can offer you only— paradise!”
“What is it?” you ask, examining the white powder.
“Heaven or hell, as you wish. I am acquainted with both.”
You are suddenly very scared. And angry.
“Cocaine,” whispers Geoffrey Hawsley, passing the open jar under your nose.
“Christ, put it away!”
“You’re afraid?”