by Kim Noble
The majority of people kept themselves to themselves. With the way some of them responded when I walked by, you would have sworn they were scared of me. As if. I wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
And yet, did that girl just flinch when I walked over? Must be my imagination.
I was at San Martino’s for about four months. In that time I arranged to go home on weekend visits three times. Each one ended in exactly the same fashion. I would make the call, Dad would reluctantly agree to pick me up, the last episode all too fresh in his memory, and home I would go.
And then he would drive me back.
Sometimes it was the following morning, sometimes the same night. I can’t explain it. It’s not what I wanted. He hated it, he made that clear. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t hate me too. Anyone would, if they’d been messed around like that.
Except I hadn’t messed anyone around. Yet everyone said I was changing my mind the minute I stepped into our house. I know that’s impossible. But that’s what they said. Mum, Nan, Lorraine, Dad and Lillian. I wondered what they were getting out of this big joke but nothing came. It was obviously their little game. I had to think that. The alternative was too harsh: if they weren’t messing around for a laugh they were doing it to hurt me. No kid wants to imagine that of their family. I certainly didn’t.
School, for a while, became a haven for me. The one place I could go and be normal. Yes, I still got into trouble, sometimes for unknown reasons as usual, but even that was normal for me. I lost track of the number of times I was put on report. My days spent in the orange room, however, made more of an impression – even if I couldn’t always remember why I was sent there.
One particular visit stays with me. It was actually my last time there – although I didn’t appreciate it then.
How I got into the room remains a blank. I don’t know what I’d been accused of or how vociferously I’d denied it. I just remember being there. Staring at those walls, those hideous satsuma walls, then suddenly noticing a draught. I looked behind me and saw glass sprinkled all over the floor. A quick glance up and I knew the window had been smashed. It was the only explanation. Although it looked as though the pane had mostly come inside I knew realistically there was only a fraction of the detritus on the carpet. That meant the majority of the damage had fallen outside.
Which meant the problem had originated inside the room.
With me.
It couldn’t have been. I would have remembered. I hadn’t moved from the seat.
In which case, who had smashed the window?
My heart raced as I tried to work it out. It wasn’t me, I knew it wasn’t. Yet all the evidence pointed that way. As soon as the teacher came back, that’s the conclusion they’d jump to. But I’d been framed. Again.
I don’t know how long it took but eventually there was the unmistakeable sound of footsteps approaching and the door being swung open. The teacher didn’t enter, just stayed in the doorway and called me out. I leapt out of my chair and ran towards the exit, towards freedom. I honestly thought I was going to make it. But just as I reached the door the teacher noticed my jumper.
‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she said.
I looked down. I was covered in tiny shards of sparkling glass.
It didn’t take her long to glance up at the window, then trace the mess to the floor.
‘Oh, I’ve seen everything now.’ She stared at me, struggling to find the words. ‘Trying to climb out of the window? Did you really think you would get away with it? Tell me you didn’t. What on earth were you thinking?’
‘I didn’t do anything!’ I bleated, but it fell on deaf ears. The teacher looked like she had gone into shock, shaking her head and muttering to herself. Her whole body was quivering, I noticed. She was shaking – with rage.
‘That’s it,’ she snapped coldly. ‘That was your last chance.’
The last chance for what?
I soon found out.
The letter was sent to my parents. I was not welcome at Tavistock School without a reference from a psychiatrist asserting that I was not a physical threat to myself or other pupils.
That’s no problem, I thought. Dr Picton-Jones can tell them I’m fine.
I didn’t see what possible purpose my doctor could have in not defending me to the school. But she found one. At least she had the good grace to explain her reasons to me personally. I hated her for it, but at least she wasn’t hiding, like everyone else. She showed me her letter to the Tavistock. It said that, in her opinion, my mental health had improved impressively and that I had experienced no recent episodes of self-harming. However – and this was the crucial part – she could not in all conscience vouch for how I would behave in the future.
That last line was the final nail in my coffin. Tavistock replied to say that until Dr Picton-Jones could make such assurances then I would not be welcome back.
‘Is that it?’ I asked her, stunned. ‘Can’t I go any more?’
‘I’m afraid not. But we’ll keep working on it, I promise.’
Those four familiar words came rushing back. It doesn’t make sense. It was so unfair. How can you be excluded from school because of something you might do in the future – but haven’t done yet? It was mind-blowing, staggering – and above all, victimisation of the highest order. Whoever was out to get me at the school had succeeded.
I’d never really got on at Tavistock, I admit that. But at least I’d attended. I always tried my best, whatever the subject. It wasn’t my fault if results – and behaviour – didn’t necessarily go my way. It wasn’t for the want of trying.
So, I thought, I’ve been taken from my own home and now I’ve been kicked out of school. Someone was messing around with my life. That had to be it. What other explanation was there?
I didn’t care about my education but I was surprised no one else did. I asked Lillian what I was meant to do about school from now on.
‘You won’t need that where you’re going, dear.’
‘What do you mean where I’m going? I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Of course you’re not, dear,’ she said, clearly backtracking but not betraying even slight nerves.
But I was. I found out a few days later. I’d done my time at San Martino’s. Now I’d been thrown out of school I needed to be somewhere that would try to do more than just house me. They’d help me as well. And so, bags packed yet again, I said goodbye to Lillian and the others and was driven across south London to Ham, near Richmond.
My next new life was just beginning.
CHAPTER NINE
The elves and the shoemaker
It was a Raleigh Chopper. Bright red, five gears controlled from a wicked T-bar gear lever on the central column, a long reclining seat and rear hoop backrest; dropped handlebars calling for outstretched-arm cruising. It was the closest thing to a Harley-Davidson a fourteen-year-old boy in the 1970s could get his hands on. Even the kickstand screamed ‘motorbike’. And Ken had one.
Ken liked nothing more than bombing up and down the winding gravel paths, through the trees, over the grassy mounds. Nothing made him happier. It was every boy’s dream.
Time up, he pedalled back to the four-storey building on Ham Common Road. He wasn’t sure why he was there. If people couldn’t cope with his being gay that was their problem. He wasn’t going to apologise for it. What did they want him to do about it, anyway? But the nurses and doctors were nice. He always felt safe there.
Life, it seemed to me, was like going to the station to catch a train. You buy a ticket, board your carriage, store your luggage. Your destination is an hour or so away.
Then the train pulls away and you realise it’s actually a rollercoaster.
That’s how it felt. I usually ended up where I was heading but some of the routes I took to get there left me baffled – and often more than a little shaken as well. But, as I consoled myself every time: it’s the same for everyone.
The Cassel Hospital was another lovely
old mansion that had been handed over to medical causes. It was a lot bigger and originally a lot grander than San Martino’s, and it was able to house more so-called ‘troubled’ teenagers as well as adults. It also had more live-in staff. The biggest difference between there and my previous home-away-from-home, however, was that we weren’t just being given a roof over our heads and a bolt on the door. The Cassel was a therapeutic community, with sessions every day. Whether I liked it or not, the system had sucked me even further in. I was a ‘patient’ now.
It was a very busy place with a wide range of people. There was an adult unit, an adolescent unit and a separate family unit where whole families lived in. Usually there were about six families in situ at a time. Most often it was the mother who was the patient. So while her children attended the hospital school and the father would go off to work as normal, the mum would spend her day having therapy at one session or another.
The adolescent unit was on the first storey of the main building, mixed in with the single adults. The family unit was an extension of the hospital, connected via a long corridor. The outpatient block would originally have housed the servants’ quarters – that’s how large the place was.
Of course, I wasn’t told any of this before I arrived. My first experience of the Cassel was discovering myself at the foot of a magnificent sweeping staircase. Obviously I was no longer at San Martino’s. I wasn’t carrying anything or wearing a coat so I’d obviously been inside for a while. I looked again at the stairs: was I going up or coming down?
Suddenly a voice called out, ‘Can’t find your room?’
A tall, gangly chap was strolling down from one of the downstairs rooms.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you.’
I smiled, as much at his really plummy voice as anything, and followed him up the staircase. I didn’t know where I was but obviously I was there for a while if I had my own room.
‘There you go,’ he said, pointing to an open doorway. ‘Took me a few nights to find my way around as well.’ A few nights? How big was this place? Then I realised he might just be trying to make me feel better. ‘My name’s Carl, by the way. And you’re Kim?’
I nodded. That was my title. That was what everyone seemed to call me. Even though my name is Patricia.
My room was warm and welcoming, although I decided to reserve my opinion until I met the occupant of the second bed. That turned out to be a girl called Barbara, who was very nice. She told me how hard it was to get into the Cassel. You had to be monitored and vetted for months usually, she reckoned.
I racked my brain. ‘Cassel’ sounded familiar but not overly so. At least I knew now where I was. I certainly didn’t remember being vetted, though. I’d have done anything to have failed that audition.
Another girl, Maureen, backed up Barbara’s story. She had actually come over from America just to be treated there after trying to kill herself by jumping out of a high window. I didn’t find that out immediately. Apart from her depression she seemed as normal as me. Then there was Rosie, from Cambridgeshire, who had a real problem with obsessions and phobias. She wasn’t the worst one, though. One of the women from the adult unit was convinced she was going to catch germs off everything. She hated it when her family came to visit and afterwards wiped down everything they’d touched. She got so paranoid about door handles that instead of using the door she’d climb out the window and jump across to the fire escape. If the staff had caught her that would have been the end of it and it was really dangerous. But she had to do it. I don’t know why – and neither did she. She used to laugh about how weird it was as much as the rest of us.
Most people there were good fun, actually, and I spent a lot of time messing around with them. The only person who couldn’t hide her frustration was Beth. I felt sorry for her because she was still a teenager so she was cooped up with us – even though in the outside world she’d had her own flat for two years.
There was a nice vibe to the place and because of the community nature of the set-up, we were all expected to pull our weight. For some reason my job more often than not tended to be cleaning the back stairs. This was really hard work but when I tried to get out of it one of the nurses said, ‘Well, that’s what you volunteered for.’
That wasn’t right.
‘No, I think there’s been some mistake.’
‘No, mistake, love. You told me yourself. You said you wanted to hide away.’
I bloody didn’t. But if that’s how she wanted to play it, at least I knew the score.
One of the other chores was laying the breakfast table. It was a woman called Cathy’s job to come down in the morning before everyone else, and set the places and get the cereals, fruit, cutlery and crockery out. The families sorted themselves out separately but the rest of the adults, adolescents and staff would all eat together there. Just as I hated scrubbing the stairs, Cathy detested getting up early. Day after day we’d come down and nothing had been done. It wasn’t the Cassel’s way to lecture too heavily, although words were said at one of our group meetings. Then the next day we came and everything was set perfectly. The next day was the same and so it continued for weeks. Everyone was fed on time.
And then one day Cathy said, ‘It’s not me doing this.’
No one believed her, but she swore it was true.
‘I haven’t set the tables for ages. You know what I’m like at getting up.’
That bit rang true but as someone pointed out, ‘Who’s going to get up and do it if they don’t have to?’
No one could answer that.
‘What is this: “The Elves and the Shoemaker?”‘
We all laughed at the idea of helpful little fellows popping out in the night to do nice things for people. It was a story I remembered from childhood. I think we had a little children’s book of it at home.
Weirdly, one of the staff said they’d seen me wandering around early in the morning, sometimes even heading back from the direction of the dining hall. That wasn’t true. I liked my bed as much as Cathy. I never left my room before I had to. Why would I?
Although the Cassel was essentially a psychiatric hospital, its unique selling point, as far as I could tell, was that it eschewed any form of medication except for first aid or in emergencies. Its work was carried out entirely by various types of therapy – you name it, there was a therapy incorporating it somehow – and attendance was compulsory.
I was one of five or six adolescents. There was the same number of single adults plus half a dozen families. We singletons had shared rooms, which was great, and a therapist and nurse between two. Basically there was always someone on the premises to talk things through with – although after the day’s regular sessions, that was the last thing I ever felt like doing. Everything had been so thoughtfully set up. Nothing was left to chance. And yet the same thought still nagged:
This is all very nice – but I don’t need therapy.
That wasn’t what the staff thought, however. I was enrolled for therapy so that was what I was going to get.
At least they were looking for something wrong with me, I reasoned. They hadn’t written me off. As much as I was confident there wasn’t anything wrong, if they did happen to discover a ‘problem’ then they could ‘cure’ it and afterwards they might leave me alone.
With everyone being so welcoming I tried to fit in. It wasn’t that hard. Just being around people my own age was a comfort. Like me, they all claimed they didn’t know why they were there – that was incredibly bonding for us. As much as we liked the staff and doctors, from that moment we were united: us against the outside world. For the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere.
Like the rest of them I still had to attend school. In a way, I was fortunate having been expelled from Tavistock – I had no choice but to go to the Cassel unit school. A teacher would come into our building and give a wide variety of lessons. Some of the others were still enrolled ‘outside’ but that didn’t stop them from being uproot
ed and placed on the Cassel syllabus. In a way, then, the advantage was mine.
At least I could understand why I was sent to school. It was the law. It’s what people do. A day of fifty-minute therapy sessions, on the other hand, just seemed like someone’s punishment of me. There was so much variety, which should have been a good thing. In reality, it just gave me more to hate. What’s more, it was really intensive stuff.
After my first session of therapy, and with my head still buzzing, I collapsed in bed.
I’m glad that’s over.
But then I got up – the breakfast things had already been set – and realised there was more to come. Today it was the community meeting. Everybody attended. All patients from all groups, all staff, all therapists and all doctors attached to the unit – the whole ‘community’ in fact. I suppose some people respond better to crowds. I don’t. On the other hand I didn’t exactly respond brilliantly when it was one on one.
If I only knew what they’re looking for. Maybe I’d be able to help …
Therapy was the order of the day, all day and every day. One day was put aside for a one-on-one with the nurse, followed by your private therapist session. An entire day of talking about yourself like that is pretty hard. Some people are born to do that. I found it suffocating. After thirty minutes I was sick of the sound of my own voice.
To bed, and then another day, another round of therapy – and this time the adolescent group’s turn to share their pain and discuss their triumphs. That was all right. Barbara, Rosie, Stacy, Lucy, Maureen and I had got on well so far. It was a supportive atmosphere (although Beth refused to attend). We lived in the same quarters anyway so there wasn’t much we wouldn’t soon find out about each other if we didn’t know already.
Thursday’s evening therapy group was the tricky one – although less so for us adolescents than our other guests. As its name suggests, the Parent Adolescent Group was open not only to patients but their parents as well. After Mum’s performance at Warlingham I was surprised when she turned up.