by Ros Franey
We enter a bare room with brown lino on the floor, the bottom half of the walls painted brown, the top half sludgy green. There are some wooden benches and a few scattered Windsor chairs, three of which are occupied by people who, I imagine from their identical baggy suits, must be Fred’s fellow patients. They glance up as we enter, then two look away again and the third, a pale middle-aged man, continues to stare. A vase of cornflowers on a table in the centre gives the room a welcome splash of colour. My nurse goes to an open door on the far side and shouts, ‘Lang. Visitor.’ I follow her, as much to avoid the staring man as out of curiosity. Peering around her headgear, I can see a large dormitory with beds up each side, a small locker and a chair beside each, perhaps twenty beds in all. From the far end, a figure stands, raising his arm like a schoolboy in class, eager not to be passed over. He is halfway down the room, hurrying but shambling in his grey uniform, before I recognise that it is really Fred. His hair is short, shaven high above his ears. His face, pale with dark circles beneath watery blue eyes, has bones and hollows I have never seen before. My heart cries for him.
‘Fred.’
‘Annie! You’re here? You’re really back?’
I cannot stop myself: I throw my arms around him and hug him tight, partly (I admit) so he can’t see me weeping. ‘I’ve come to see you,’ I mumble unnecessarily.
‘Oh Annie,’ he says. ‘You don’t belong in this place.’
I pull back and look at him. ‘I’m not sure you do, either.’ I don’t care if he sees I’m crying.
He grins ruefully. ‘Oh, I belong all right. If only … But it’s so odd to see you here. I can’t believe you’re real!’
I take his hand and lead him to a bench. We sit down. Like so many things since my homecoming, he seems to have shrunk.
‘Twenty minutes,’ says the nurse. I’ve forgotten about her. ‘And don’t upset him. I’ll be back.’ She hands me Sister Bellamy’s precious note and leaves the room. I glance around for signs of a member of staff on the ward – not that the still figures dotted around the room would seem to pose much of a threat. There is just one: a male attendant sitting at a desk in the corner, apparently writing notes. He pays us no attention.
At first it’s easy. I chatter away about France, trying to keep my voice low. I tell Fred Maisie helped me arrange the visit, told me what to do. ‘But they seem fine about visiting. Mother and Daddy said the hospital don’t like it, but the Sister was all right.’
‘Of course that’s what they say.’ He’s nodding vehemently. ‘All part of the plan, Annie. After all. After all … what’s a nice boy from a nice family doing in a place like this? Lock him away, I say! Oh, if only…’
He’s not bothering to lower his voice. One of the figures on a nearby chair grunts in agreement.
Fred’s anger is disquieting. ‘I thought there was a rule here that visits are upsetting for patients – for the people in here,’ I tell him softly. ‘But that doesn’t seem to be the case for you.’
‘Why would it be? It’s not upsetting for anyone here, is it, Mr Soames?’ he calls over to the attendant in the corner. ‘It’s upsetting for Mr and Mrs Harry Lang, worshipful Grand Master of the Basford Lodge! A mad son! How perfectly frightful!’
The attendant in the corner glances up and says, ‘Quieten down, lad,’ but Fred is in full flood. ‘That is, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Harry Lang the Second,’ he announces to the room at large. ‘Not to be confused with Mrs Harry Lang the First. Ha! If only if only if only …’
I’m conscious I’m doing exactly what I’ve promised not to – I’m ‘upsetting’ my brother – and for a moment I wonder if there’s some wisdom in Mother’s edict. ‘I mean, they think it’s not good for you to see people from home,’ I press on. ‘Not good for your recovery. They only want the best for you, Fred.’
At this, the fight goes out of him. He looks at me dully. ‘Do they, Annie? Is that what they really want?’
‘It’s what we all want.’ I take his hand again.
‘But what’s the point?’ He asks. ‘What’s the point of wanting the best for me, when it’s no one’s fault but mine? I’m the problem. I’m the son, the great disappointment; the son with the awkward truths.’
‘It’s no one’s fault at all,’ I tell him. ‘You’re not well. No one’s to blame.’
‘Oh, but they are,’ he says softly. ‘You have no idea, Annie. There are people who are very much to blame, and I know who they are.’
I sense the precious minutes ticking away and that this is not a fruitful line of thought. So I ask him questions about life in the hospital and after answering for a few minutes in a desultory way, as if it were nothing to do with him personally, he suddenly launches into a recitation: ‘Six a.m.: First Bell. Patients to Rise. Eight a.m.: Bell: Patients’ Breakfast. Eight-thirty: Bell: Patients go out to work. (That’s not me, by the way, I’m too ill. Tee-hee.) …’
This is all so unlike Fred that I can’t help asking, ‘What about treatment? Are they giving you medicine?’ Perhaps that’s what’s affecting his mood.
There’s a long silence. I think maybe he hasn’t heard me; he’s staring into space. After a deep sigh, he says, almost in his normal voice again, ‘When I came here they thought I was a raving lunatic, you know. Ha! Well I probably was. Schiz O’phrenic.’
I look at him in alarm and he repeats the word with a little flourish, as if presenting a rather larky Irish gentleman.
‘And are you?’ This is surely more serious than anything I’ve been told.
He ignores the question. ‘So they have a treatment for schiz-o-phrenics called Convulsion Treatment. They like labels, you see. Label, label.’ He savours the word, rolling it around his lips.
I try to keep my voice steady. ‘And what does this treatment – what happens?’
He is staring into space again. Then he says, ‘Did you say you brought Dundee cake?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m so sorry. I brought grapes.’ I’ve forgotten the grapes; the bag has now collapsed on the bench beside me, grapes falling out of the bottom. ‘Do you have—?’ I glance around looking for a plate or a bowl, but it’s pointless to ask. The room has nothing at all: no games, no pictures, no books – not even a Bible – and certainly nothing like a plate.
Fred stares at the grapes. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Grapes for the sick. Is that what Mother takes to her parishioners, do you think, or does she just take the Gospel? Hmm?’
‘She doesn’t take grapes,’ I tell him. ‘I know that, because she’s had me visiting the sick every day since I’ve been back. You wouldn’t believe how many sick people there are in St Ann’s!’
‘St Ann’s, thou art sick!’ Fred intones. ‘You know she told me Blake was unhealthy? Blake the Apostate! (Or is it heretic?) See, this is my problem, Annie: a boy with two mothers. One teaches him “The Tiger”, the other bans Blake! What to do?’
I shake my head. The two mothers seem to be a recurring theme, but before I can say anything, he’s off again: ‘Whole of benighted St Ann’s is sick, Annie, none more so than every member of the congregation of the Golgotha Mission. The Invisible Worm that flies in the night. Oh yes. Blake knew what he was talking about.’
I’ve never known Fred quote poetry since he was at the elementary school. Clearly, I’ve missed out on some important features of my brother and I want to get to know this grown-up Fred; it upsets me all over again that he’s locked up in here. ‘So – this treatment?’ I prompt him gently, sensing the Mission is another subject to be avoided.
‘Yes-yes.’ Fred snaps back into his hospital-routine delivery. ‘With Intravenous Cardiazol.’ In the distance, another bell rings. ‘Hark! The Convulsion Treatment with Intravenous Cardiazol Bell. Ah, but it doesn’t work, you see.’
‘What happens? What do they do to you?’
‘… For schizophrenia. No, no, no. But it does work,’ his face falls. ‘Well, they say it does, for melancholia.’
‘So you don’t have schizophrenia afte
r all?’ I really want an answer to this question.
‘Pay attention, little sister. This is what I’m telling you. If the treatment doesn’t work for the condition you have – hey presto! Change the condition, of course, and keep taking the medicine! Melon-Colia. Sounds like orange squash, doesn’t it, but oh dear me, it’s not. If only …’
‘Tell me about this treatment.’
‘Don’t want to talk about that, thank you.’ He pulls a face.
But I need to know. ‘It makes you sick?’ I prompt him.
After a moment he recites, mechanically, half to himself,
‘… The Invisible Worm
That Flies in the Night
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.’
He thinks for a moment and then adds, conversationally, ‘… Does my life destroy. All our lives. You know, when the No Blake rule came in, I learnt a couple of his poems off by heart. He couldn’t strip those away.’
I’m trying to keep up. ‘You mean she – Mother?’
He sighs in exasperation. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not Mother. Neither Mother: our Father, Annie.’
I stare at him.
‘Our father which art in Hell.’
I recoil. ‘Fred, how can you say that?’
‘All right,’ Fred concedes. ‘Maybe he’s not there yet, but he will be one day.’ Then after another pause, he whispers, ‘Burning, like a fiery river.’
‘Burning? Where?’
He brushes his hands up his arms, over his chest and stomach. ‘Before the convulsions come. You’re … pulled … out of yourself. You can see them,’ – he indicates around his head – ‘the nurses and the doctors, but you’re in another place. And your brain … shakes. Afterwards,’ he pauses, shudders, turns his head away.
From the back of the room, the attendant calls out, ‘Five minutes, Mr Lang.’
A wave of irritation passes over Fred’s face, but he ignores the attendant and smiles and says to me, ‘So much to talk about, little Annie.’ He takes my hand. ‘Please believe me: I’m not mad.’ His eyes search my face pleadingly. ‘Not mad, my dear. Just very … sad, and so much to say. You don’t know the half of it.’
My eyes fill with tears again. I smile back at him.
‘Don’t cry, don’t cry. If only … Were we ever happy, Annie? What was our childhood? What was that? I can’t remember any of it and it’s gone. We had fun sometimes, did we – even after our own mother died? D’you remember? We did. Please say we did.’
I can’t speak. I nod.
‘D’you remember the engine, the Flying Scotsman? That was my best present ever. But by the time I was home for the holidays again – pouf! It was too late. And dear Nana … I miss her, Annie. I miss her so much. If only we hadn’t had that blessed beetroot for tea that day. I lie awake at night sometimes and cry for her. She was the only one who understood. Imagine that.’
‘If it wasn’t the beetroot it would have been something else,’ I tell him sadly.
He’s not listening. ‘D’you remember—?’ He breaks off. ‘“The dog that flies in the night”? No, that’s wrong, isn’t it?’
‘“The dog that didn’t bark in the night”?’ I smile. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘That’s it! Oh Annie, I’m so glad you’re here! It’s been bothering me for days!’ My heart leaps up to see him smile at his own mistake. ‘Well, I was right about that.’ His face darkens. ‘All those whispers in corridors. Those conversations breaking off when I went into a room. They knew.’
‘Mother? Daddy?’
He snorts. ‘Mother, Daddy, Nana, the World. Even Beatrice knew: I got it out of her in the end. Only you didn’t. You knew nothing, little sister.’ He sighs. ‘Poor Nana.’
The door opens again and my nurse bustles in. ‘Say goodbye now, Miss Lang. Time to go.’
I make to stand up, but Fred clutches my hand. ‘She’s here, you know, Annie. I see her in chapel on Sundays.’
‘Nana?’ I’ve been starting to catch glimpses of my real brother, but now he tells me he’s seeing our old dog in here?
Fred lets out his breath in a kind of despairing sigh and pushes me away. ‘Go,’ he says. ‘You can’t begin to understand.’
And then I have a thought, though it seems barely credible. ‘You see – who, Fred?’
‘I told you not to upset him,’ snaps the nurse.
I look at her urgently. ‘Please let me just—’
‘No.’
‘I’ll come back very soon, Fred. I promise,’ I tell him. ‘As soon as I can get away.’
Fred shrugs as if it’s all the same to him. And then the nurse, jangling her bunch of keys in her left hand, grips my arm with her right and marches me to the door. I manage to turn back for one last look, and he’s sitting staring into space again as he starts to eat the grapes.
I can’t wait to get out of the place, so I can let myself cry all the way home on the bus.
THIRTEEN
1932
Thursday, June 23
Reading back over my first visit to Fred, I don’t know why it upset me so much. The Fred of that first day was positively chatty in comparison with the poor, withdrawn figure of my two visits since. My main objective is to find out why he’s so angry with Daddy – angrier even than with Mother, it would seem; and what is it the whole world knew, according to Fred, except me? Then who is he seeing in the chapel?
On my next visit it’s immediately clear there’s no chance of discovering any of this. Draped over one of those miserable hard forms, jacket hanging loosely from his shrunken shoulders, he can barely muster an ‘If only …’ and my every question is met with profound sighs: ‘You don’t understand, Annie,’ his principal refrain.
He has started to rub at his neck and twist his head awkwardly. I ask him, ‘What’s the matter, Fred? Does it hurt?’ and he moves his head from side to side and says, ‘Treatment.’
‘Your neck hurts from the treatment?’
Silence.
‘What is the treatment, Fred? What happens?’
‘My own fault. If I’m quiet, I won’t have to have any more.’
‘Is that why you’re barely speaking to me?’ I joke. ‘Is it so horrible, the treatment?’
‘It took four of them last time.’
‘Four of whom? To do what?’
‘There’s no point in discussing it, thank you.’
‘I’m sure they know what they’re doing. You have to give it a chance.’
He looks at me sharply for the first time this visit. ‘You’ve changed, Annie. You’re becoming one of them. You’d never have said that before.’
I can’t meet his eyes. How do I know if what they’re doing is any good? It seems to be making him quieter, but in a way that’s worse. If I try to speak of outside things, hearing my own voice reedy and trite, he drags everything back to himself.
‘We had a letter from Beatrice; she’s been on a river trip to Greenwich.’
Silence.
‘She walked through the park and visited the place where the Meridian is. You know: Greenwich Mean Time.’
Silence.
‘She went with some of the girls from work; they took a picnic. It sounded very jolly.’
‘If only …’
‘I know, my dear. But when you’re better we can go and visit her. We can both go. She can show us the sights.’
‘I’m never going to get better.’
‘Fred, of course you are. You just need to rest in here for a while.’
‘It’s all my fault – so what’s the point of it? You don’t understand, Annie.’
‘There is a point. Fred, we’re young. You’ve got your whole life…’
Silence. Deep sigh. ‘If only …’
By the third visit, I realise it’s counterproductive to challenge these expressions of hopelessness, so I just hold his hand and say, ‘I know
.’ To which he replies, ‘No, you don’t.’ I have by now a long list of taboo subjects and unwise questions, such as, ‘How are you?’ or, ‘Do you remember when we used to …?’ These two unleash the deepest sighs of all. If this is melancholia, it’s grim indeed. I even start to long for the quick-fire retorts of O’Phrenia. I try teasing him. I try agreeing with him – ‘Yes, you’re right, it is pointless!’ – but neither seems to work. Of his treatment, I can learn nothing further. On my third visit, Fred is still complaining of a crick in his neck from ‘the treatment’.
I approach an attendant to ask about it, but he says only, ‘I’m afraid, Miss, you will have to ask the doctor.’ I enquire if there is a doctor on the ward, knowing full well there is not. I say, ‘Mr Lang has hurt his neck. He says it’s the treatment. Please will you tell the doctor? Or write it in his notes. Or something?’ I glare at him as fiercely as I can. The attendant says he will. I hope he does.
As our third, painful visit draws to an end, Fred looks at me properly for the first time and says, ‘Will you come to chapel with me on Sunday, Annie?’
I’m startled. ‘Here?’
‘Of course, here. I’m not going anywhere else, am I?’
‘Am I allowed to?’
‘Just come!’ He giggles. ‘Wear a sack. They’ll think you’re a patient.’
Sunday is a problem, of course. We have to go to the Mission on Sundays; I shall not be able to get away. But his sudden eagerness, the first he has shown all week, prompts me to say, ‘I’ll try, Fred. But no promises: you know how it is.’
‘You can do it, Annie. You’ve lived in France!’
I can’t help laughing at this, mostly at the relief of seeing a flash of the brother I know.
‘I want you to come,’ he explains, ‘because I want to prove I’m not seeing things. It is Miss Blessing in the chapel! I want you to see her, too.’