Can't Anyone Help Me?

by Maguire, Toni

  Anyone would think I was in a fucking hotel, I thought, but some grain of common sense told me to keep my thoughts to myself.

  ‘You know where the bathrooms are now. You can have a bath each morning,’ she told me, then added that they were kept locked, but a nurse would let me in.

  The next stop was the ‘lounge’: a large, square room with pale yellow walls, a television in the corner and a few tables. An odd collection of lumpy armchairs was dotted around the room and an assortment of people, wearing tracksuits, were sitting in them.

  She introduced me to a few people, who showed little interest in me, then said she would leave me there to relax.

  Glancing around I saw that few people were doing more than staring into space. In fact, they looked as though they were on something a lot strong than the Mandies I took when I really wanted to chill out. Maybe it’s not going to be too bad in here after all, I thought, but I didn’t believe it.

  As the morning passed, the other inmates showed animation only when the trolley arrived with a choice of weak tea or coffee and some cheap biscuits. The latter they piled on to plates and took back to their chairs.

  Eavesdropping on some of their sporadic conversations, I heard a few reasons why some were in there. Divorcees had depression, and people with high-powered jobs had cracked under the pressure. Those seemed the most common.

  A man who looked less zonked out than the others told me how he had got out of his car in a rush-hour traffic jam and left it at the end of a flyover with the doors locked and the engine still running. ‘I’d had enough. I just got out and walked away. Must have caused chaos,’ he said proudly, as though bringing the city to a standstill was something to be commended.

  I was intrigued, though, and asked what had happened.

  ‘The police got it blown up. Thought it belonged to an IRA bomber.’ He laughed.

  There were only two people in the room who, although older than me, were at least in the same decade. One was a student who looked suspiciously thin. Bet he’s been sniffing the white stuff, I thought. I knew how much of it Dave sold to students at a well-known university. There, third-year students, having partied too hard for two years, had to work all night to get ready for the exams. Whatever he had taken, he looked burnt out and clearly had no interest in talking to a thirteen-year-old.

  My eyes kept resting on a boy. He was slumped in a chair, his head nearly resting on his chest, as though his neck wasn’t strong enough to support it. Dark hair hung over a pale face, and beneath his jumper sleeves, I could see his thin, bony wrists. They were newly bandaged, and I knew what he had done. His fingers, the only part of his body that looked alive, curled and uncurled. Later, when I passed him, I heard him humming a toneless melody to which only he knew the words.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ I asked the man who had walked away from his car. Although I had taken a dislike to him, he was the only person who did not appear completely adrift in a world outside the walls surrounding us.

  ‘Lost his parents in a car crash, poor little bugger. He won’t talk. They’ll shock him if he carries on like that,’ he said, with some relish, as he lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into my face.

  Seeing my puzzled look, he explained, ‘They’ll run electricity through his head. That’ll get him talking, all right.’

  I said nothing. I thought he just wanted to scare me.

  That first day I watched the other people with a sinking dread. Apart from the ones who were so depressed that tears ran down their cheeks as they chain-smoked, there were people who laughed out loud for no reason. Others talked to themselves, standing in corners and muttering away as though whoever lived in their head was a lot more interesting than the people around them.

  Mind you, when I looked at what was available in the way of a conversation, I couldn’t really blame them.

  The patients seemed curiously sexless. The men’s walk had little of the usual masculine swagger, and the women didn’t move daintily or wiggle their hips. Instead they shuffled as though their legs had grown heavy and cumbersome. There were no flirtatious glances, no eyes meeting with awakening desire that normally happens when enough people of both sexes are together in a confined space.

  No: depression or medication had made eunuchs of us all.

  There was one exception to the ‘I’m depressed so I don’t care what I look like’ brigade. She was a woman on the tail end of what my mother called middle age, who caught my eye as she entered the room. The only person apart from me not wearing a shapeless tracksuit, she was in black trousers and jumper. There were pearls around her neck and in her ears, her blonde hair was swept up, her blue eyes were carefully lined with black, her dark lashes were spiky with mascara, and the nails at the end of her wrinkled fingers were scarlet.

  Seeing me – or, rather, as I learnt, a new audience – she sat near my chair, prepared to be entertaining. Nearly every sentence that left her mouth started ‘When I was a model’, or ‘When I was being photographed on a shoot’, or ‘When I was walking down the catwalk’. Well, I got the idea!

  ‘I was well known!’ she said to me, in a surprised voice, when she noticed the blank look on my face.

  If she had told me she was an old rocker, say, and had once dressed, like Suzi Quatro, from head to toe in leather, and done drugs, I might have been interested, but a model walking up and down in silly clothes?

  ‘Oh, well, you’re too young, I suppose,’ she said dismissively, and turned her head away.

  ‘She’s telling the truth,’ the man who had abandoned his car said. ‘She used to be a real beauty.’

  I must have looked sceptical: at thirteen, anyone over thirty looked old to me and Old Father Time had not been particularly kind to her.

  ‘Well, apart from three marriages and a lot of affairs, there’s been a lot of gin and cigarettes along the road she’s travelled – but she was a stunner in her time, all right. She used to make the headlines when she went into some fancy private clinic to dry out. Shame the money dried up before she dried out,’ he said, cackling at what, in his book, passed for wit.

  ‘So, the same for her as us. It’s the National Health now,’ he said complacently.

  Wanting to drown his voice, I put on my headphones and turned up the sound. He gave up on me and ambled aimlessly away.

  Oh, for a joint, I thought, and wondered if I could get to a phone and ring up Dave. He’d bring me something.

  ‘No phone calls and no visitors except your parents,’ I was told, when I made my request.

  My days there were so boring. With visitors banned and just my parents turning up – being seen to do their duty, I thought – the time stretched endlessly in front of me. My mother, sitting awkwardly in one of the uncomfortable chairs, trying to think of something to say to me, was not a visitor I looked forward to seeing. By the end of an hour – less would have looked uncaring and longer would have used up all her conversational resources – she gathered up her handbag, planted a dry kiss on my cheek and made a dignified exit.

  I can’t remember what we talked about, only the relief when she left.

  Her visits took up six hours a week, and once a week both of my parents arrived, carrying parcels of whatever I had asked for, mainly music. They tried bringing books and I did make some effort to read them, but my ability to concentrate, which had never been great, seemed to have deserted me. That visit also lasted an hour.

  Bathing and fiddling with my hair took up at least sixty minutes every day, eating accounted for another ninety, and then there was an hour with Peter. When I added it all together my day was fuller than I had expected.

  The rest of the time I spent listening to some of the other patients. Nobody had much that was interesting to talk about.

  Anyhow, being screwed by my uncle and his friends, photographed, whipped and peed on topped any of their pathetic stories, I thought resentfully. There were not many kind thoughts in my head then.

  My anger at being in hospital showe
d in my sullenness towards the nurses, my lack of co-operation with the doctors, and my refusal to eat more than a tiny amount at meals.

  What they couldn’t see, though, was how scared I was. For the question I kept asking myself was, What will happen if I don’t get better? The poor boy who had lost his parents and attempted suicide didn’t appear to be making much progress. He was still not speaking or even showing any recognition of the people who tried to talk to him. He never did say anything, not once during the four weeks I spent there. Day after day, I would see him gazing at the walls until a nurse came and touched his arm. Without making eye contact, he would get up and follow her.

  I wondered what would happen to him. I watched visitors come to see him, place caring hands on his, whisper soft, comforting words, but he stayed locked in the place that exists within the mind, which no one can penetrate to cause any more hurt.

  And, of course, I was worried about what was wrong with me. I was scared that I would be tricked into telling them the things I didn’t want them to know, which made me monosyllabic, or almost, when answering questions. ‘Who can eat this muck?’ was my standard reply when asked why I had left so much food on my plate.

  My behaviour during those early days in the hospital was not scoring me any Brownie points. When I was asked to take part in quiz games or anything else, I would walk away, jam on my headphones and listen to Metallica, especially ‘Sanitarium’. I played it over and over.

  I can still remember the words: they were about being mentally ill and seeking freedom. The song summed up my state of mind. The trouble was, my freedom wasn’t in sight, and underneath my bravado, I was scared.

  What if I was so ill, I had to stay there for the rest of my life?

  40

  The curtains around my bed swished back and a girl a few years older than me, with hair the colour of corn and deep blue eyes, stood there. ‘Jackie,’ she said, ‘I know. I don’t know who it was, probably your father, brother or a neighbour. But I know.’

  I opened my mouth to speak and she placed a finger gently on my lips. ‘Shush,’ she said. ‘Listen to me and take my advice. You’re angry, very angry, and so full of hate. Let it go. You think you’re bad, but you’re just a hurt child.’

  Her hand rested against my cheek, a caress, and I turned my face towards it.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I understand what you’re going through.’

  I knew she spoke the truth.

  ‘Who are you?’ I managed to ask.

  ‘Tonight,’ she replied, ‘just think of me as your angel.’ Then, leaning close, she whispered what I must do if I was going to leave the ward. ‘You see, Jackie, it was anger that brought you in here, and it’s anger that’s keeping you here. The more you protest, the more they will scribble in their files that you’re too ill to leave. Be good, pay attention and listen to your therapist.’

  ‘What will you do to leave here?’ I asked.

  ‘Who says I want to?’ she replied.

  ‘They think there’s more than one person inside my body,’ I said at last, putting into words what I knew to be true.

  ‘So what?’ she replied. ‘It’s better than only having one – that’s for ordinary people, and you don’t want to be ordinary, do you?’

  I shook my head slightly.

  ‘Jackie, we’re all a little split, so what are you worried about? A frightened little girl comes out and is angry because no one helps her? She’ll go away one day, when you make her safe. But, Jackie, that rebellion of yours must be like the wind that finally blows itself out. Up to now, it has been like a gale, or a great storm. Now you must let it drift away and be calm. Do you understand?’

  I did.

  She climbed on to the bed and lay beside me. Her soft arms wrapped themselves around me, and for the first time in that place, I felt comforted. My head rested against her breast, my nostrils filled with her light perfume, and as I drifted off to sleep, I felt her lips gently press against my head. When I woke, she was gone.

  ‘Who is she?’ I asked, as I tried to describe my previous night’s visitor.

  The nurse looked puzzled. ‘There’s no one like that here,’ she said. ‘You must have been dreaming.’

  Had I? I wondered. Was it a dream or was it a visit from an angel – or even the remnant of my trip coming back? Whatever had happened, I felt better.

  My anger had dissipated.

  That day I put into practice what my visitor had told me. I smiled, said good morning to the nurses, ate all my breakfast, and when I had my session with Peter, I apologized and told him that I had been rude because I was scared.

  I admitted to taking drugs, over a longer time than I had previously said. I told him I was determined to put that behind me. And hoping he would believe it, I said the drugs had made my five-year-old self appear.

  I also admitted to having done a bit of shoplifting. ‘Just small things from Woolworths,’ I said. ‘I’d never steal from a person.’

  Yes, I was sorry, I assured him.

  Four weeks after I had been brought into hospital, they discharged me. Medication and my agreement to turn over a new leaf would work, they said. They wanted to see me once a week. ‘Just to monitor your progress,’ Peter told me.

  To see into my mind, I thought, but I would have agreed to anything in order to leave that place.

  For a while, I was careful. I didn’t stay out late, even when I was at my uncle’s house. I was polite to my parents. I found new hiding-places for any drugs I bought. A plastic bag dug into the ground was one, but I kept to just a few joints. That five-year-old scared me.

  For a year it worked – until they found out about my prostitution.

  41

  I hadn’t meant to start taking drugs again. I hadn’t planned to seek out those men – the ones I knew would pay for sex. But, like a magnet, the friends I had made before I went into the hospital drew me back in. To begin with it was just a shared joint passed around, but within a matter of weeks I was taking Mandies again. Then there was the request for me to pay my share. Nothing in the world was free, I had learnt, but where was I to get the money from?

  My parents, having no knowledge of how I had paid for the drugs my mother had found, were stricter with my pocket money. A limited budget would stop me purchasing them again, they thought. If I told them there was something I wanted, they demanded proof that that was what I had purchased with the money they had given me. So they were not an option.

  Even though my mother had told him not to give me any, I knew I could inveigle cash out of my uncle; but somehow I no longer wanted to. Wheedling meant being friendly to him, and I found that increasingly difficult.

  So I found those men again. Occasionally I made a mistake and was turned down with a disapproving, knowing look that made me cringe, but mainly I wasn’t. With the money came a sense of freedom. I had my independence again and could buy what I wanted. But I was still careful. For a while I was complacent in my belief that I had been careful enough not to get caught, that my drug-taking was under control, that the teachers put my lack of concentration down to the time I had spent in hospital and that no one suspected a thing. I soon had a rude awakening.

  It was a teacher I’d had more than one run-in with who told me I was to go to the headmistress’s study. As she said those words, I felt a vague tightening in my gut. It was the beginning of fear. Somehow I knew that at least some of my activities had come to light. Her next words confirmed that my fear was far from groundless.

  ‘You’ve been found out, Jackie. Mind you, I’ve always known what a little slut you are.’ Her thin lips stretched into a sneer and the triumphant expression on her face told me that someone had talked. I wondered who it had been – not one of the men who wanted sex with an underage girl, I was sure.

  As though she had guessed my thoughts, the teacher answered my silent question. ‘Not every man you propositioned said yes, did he? Remember the one who told you not to be a silly little girl and you answered
him by saying you had plenty of experience. Well, his daughter goes to school here. He described you, Jackie, and guess what – she knew who you were, all right. And knew your reputation – it seems half the school does.’

  My heart sank. I remembered that man. He was someone I had seen with one of my punters, so I’d thought he would be all right. Shit. Clearly not.

  At her revelations that vague feeling of fear turned into an icy lump that chilled me and brought gooseflesh to my arms. This, I knew, was not going to be something I could talk myself out of.

  ‘You’ll never come to anything,’ she said. ‘You’ll just end up on the streets. See if you don’t. A common little whore, that’s what you are, and that’s what you’ll always be.’

  On and on she went as she walked beside me down those long corridors that led to the headmistress’s study – how it was my parents she felt sorry for, how I’d always been trouble, how the school should have got rid of me years ago. I blocked her words out. She was enjoying this, I thought, as I kept my head up and tried to ignore her.

  She hadn’t enough imagination to think of fresh insults to hurl at me so she repeated the earlier one: ‘Just a common little whore, that’s what you are,’ she hissed.

  At that I felt a mist of rage descend. What did she know, the ugly cow? I thought angrily. ‘What’s the matter? Found out your boyfriend’s one of the ones I’ve been with?’ I snapped.

  She gripped the top of my arm hard and laughed. ‘He’s got better taste, Jackie.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s what all the wives and girlfriends think.’

  A red tide suffused her cheeks and she propelled me into the headmistress’s office without a further word.

  ‘She’s admitted it and not a scrap of shame either,’ she said, as she entered the room.

  The expression on the headmistress’s face was neither triumphant nor sneering. Her face showed no pleasure at having caught me out in something that the school would not be able to tolerate. Instead, she just looked incredibly sad. She dismissed the teacher, who almost flounced out of the room in her disappointment at not being a witness to my final half-hour at the school. The headmistress told me to take a seat, as she had wanted to speak to me in private.