by Shane Dunphy
‘It was more than grief. He was like another person. He was startled by loud noises, wouldn’t look me in the eye. Would break down into tears and become inconsolable for no obvious reason. Dad couldn’t cope with him, didn’t know what to do. I resigned from my job in London, got one at the crèche and moved back permanently. But it made no difference. Clive seemed to get worse and worse.’
‘Post-traumatic stress. Watching your mother waste away will do that to you.’
‘That’s what we thought initially. We went to the GP, who said as much, and suggested medication: sedatives. They knocked him out, but when he was conscious, despite being a bit groggy, he was still like a frightened child. Then the hallucinations began.’
‘Hallucinations? Auditory or visual?’
‘Both. He claimed to be seeing all kinds of things. The visions were demonic, mostly. He said that he believed he was being taken over by something, being controlled. Possessed, I suppose you’d call it.’
‘It sounds a lot like schizophrenia. The symptoms often become apparent at the onset of adolescence. I’ve seen it in younger children, but it’s most common with people of your brother’s age.’
‘Again, that’s what I assumed. But isn’t there usually a history of it in the family?’
‘I haven’t had a huge amount of training in working with psychiatric illness, Roberta, but as far as I know there does tend to be a hereditary aspect to it, though not always. I don’t think you can really depend on any information on schizoid disorders as being standard, across the board. It’s all a bit vague, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, my father seemed to accept that the problem was indeed schizophrenia, and he had Clive committed.’
‘Where?’
‘St Vitus’s.’
St Vitus’s was the region’s main psychiatric hospital, built at the end of the eighteenth century when the British were constructing them in all the major towns and cities in Ireland. I had been there from time to time to visit parents or relatives of clients. It was a cold, depressing building. I would not want a family member of mine to be there, if I could help it.
‘I didn’t know they had an adolescent psychiatry ward?’
‘They don’t. He’s in with the general population.’
I had thought as much. It made any chance of a rapid recovery much more difficult.
‘It’s not a nice place, by any stretch of the imagination,’ I said, ‘but if your dad can’t cope with him, maybe it’s for the best until they can regulate his behaviour. I don’t really like the medical model of care, but I believe they can do wonders with drugs these days.’
‘He’s stoned out of his head all the time, Shane. He doesn’t seem to be hallucinating any more, but he’s begun to talk, and I don’t understand what he’s saying. He’s rambling about being abducted, about being held under the ground, about being tortured. It’s like he’s living in a nightmare, and I don’t know how to wake him up.’
‘It’s distressing for you, but he’ll come out of it, I’m sure.’
‘What if he’s telling the truth?’
‘What?’
‘I know my brother. When he wasn’t in his full mind, I knew. These disclosures … they seem to be coming from the real him, from my Clive. It’s not like before.’
‘Yeah, that’s because he genuinely believes them. In his head, whatever delusion he’s trapped in is very real. He’s not lying; he’s just not existing on our plane of reality.’
‘I understand all that. But I think there’s more to this than dementia. I mean, what if he’s telling the truth? What if all this came about because of some awful thing that happened to him while I was away?’
‘Roberta, you can’t blame yourself for your brother’s illness or your mother’s death. You had your own life to lead. It’s not like you abandoned your brother, or anything.’
‘I know, I know. I’m not consumed by guilt. Shane, this is my little brother. I accept the disclosures may be the ramblings of a disturbed mind – but then, they may not. I can’t take the chance.’
‘So you’re telling me that you suspect that Clive was, at some point while you were living in London, abducted and abused? Have you asked your father about this? Surely he’d have noticed that your brother was missing.’
‘My father won’t talk about it. Which makes me even more suspicious.’
I nodded. If I were her, I’d feel the same way.
‘So, what has this got to do with me?’ I asked.
‘You helped Micky when they’d written him off.’
‘No one said Micky and his brother were schizophrenic.’
‘The symptoms aren’t that different.’
‘They’re hugely different!’
‘Help me, Shane. Go out and talk to him, and then tell me you think he’s insane.’
‘Roberta, there are psychiatrists in St Vitus’s that can do that. It’s not my remit.’
‘Please. One conversation. I know you don’t owe me anything … that we’re not friends. But I don’t know who else to turn to. My dad doesn’t want to talk about it, and the psychiatrists have already made up their minds. But I know there’s more to this than they’re seeing. Yes, Clive’s distressed; yes, he’s not well. But I cannot believe he’s schizophrenic, and I’ll go mad if I have to see him under the influence of all those drugs for much longer. Help him, please. I’m begging you.’
I sighed deeply and looked at Roberta Plummer. It must have taken a lot for her to call me. From what I knew of her she was a fiercely independent, centred person. In college she had always viewed me with a sense of disapproval. To have opened up to me as she had was a sign of how desperate she must be.
‘I’ll have to clear it with my boss, but, if he’s happy enough, I’ll go out and talk to Clive. I can’t promise anything, okay? I may well come back and tell you I think your brother is schizophrenic.’
She nodded, tears barely kept in check. ‘Thank you. That’s all I ask.’
Dr Eric Fleming was perhaps two years older than me and dressed in a denim shirt and paisley tie; his white lab coat was a little too big for his slim frame. He had a week’s worth of stubble, and looked tired and nervy.
He walked me down the dark, high-ceilinged corridor of the psychiatric hospital towards the Occupational Therapy Unit, where Clive spent most of his days. Small windows had been set high up in the thick walls, and these were covered with grimy net curtains. The building smelled of bleach and semolina pudding. The cold outside did not penetrate within; large metal radiator grilles were hung at regular intervals on each wall, and huge metal pipes, dripping with condensation, ran near the floor, heat pounding out of them in waves. Now and then black, glistening cockroaches scuttled along the skirting boards before disappearing into cracks that seemed far too small to accommodate them.
Besides our footsteps echoing off the cracked stone walls and tiled floor, there wasn’t a sound. I am always struck by how quiet psychiatric hospitals can be. I’ve heard the howls of despair – anyone who has spent any time within these crumbling dens of unhappiness has – but they are infrequent, as if the people condemned to serve time there just can’t be bothered. As we walked, we passed an old lady in a cleaner’s uniform mopping the stone tiles, but even she was silent.
‘I agree with you, Mr Dunphy,’ Dr Fleming said as we walked. ‘Clive Plummer shouldn’t be here. There just isn’t anywhere else for him to go. We have a limited number of beds for children in need of institutional psychiatric care throughout the country, but they’re all taken.’
‘When can he go home?’ I asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear the doctor’s version of things.
‘I don’t see him leaving us any time in the immediate future, I’m afraid. The hallucinations are being kept in check by large amounts of Nembutal at the moment, and when he has violent episodes, which happen all too frequently even with the medication, he can be very hard to manage.’
‘Aren’t you worried about him becoming addicted to
the barbiturates? He’s very young to be on such a heavy dosage.’
‘It’s that or let him ride out the delusions, and they’re pretty horrible. He thinks he’s being controlled by devils and evil spirits. As it stands, he’s still in the throes of some kind of psychotic fantasy that we can’t seem to shift.’
‘What kind of fantasy?’
‘He claims to have been abducted by monsters. He says they took him to their lair and tortured him.’
‘What form of torture? Physical? Sexual?’
‘Both.’
‘Any chance he may be confusing this with a real event of abuse?’ I decided to throw it out just to see what response I’d get.
‘Why? Do you suspect something?’
‘Seems reasonable to ask.’
‘His father hasn’t reported anything to us. If he was abused at sometime in the past, of course, it would have a bearing on the psychosis.’
‘Is there any physical evidence of such an event?’
‘Impossible to tell. He injures himself to such an extent that he’s covered with scars. His father was incoherent with grief for a time after his wife’s death, and Clive had been left to his own devices. When Roberta arrived home from London for the funeral, she found Clive standing under the flow of a gutter pipe from the roof. It was raining heavily that day, and there was a torrent of freezing water coming from the overflow. She reckoned he’d been there for hours. He was blue with cold, and covered with scratch marks and bruises even then. In the intervening time he has broken teeth biting at the walls, gouged himself with pencils, tried to drink bleach … This is a desperately unhappy boy.’
We reached a large wooden door, set in the centre of the interminably long corridor. The door was arch-shaped, and had been varnished a brown so dark it was almost black. Fleming pulled a huge bunch of keys from his belt. ‘Have you ever been in an asylum before?’ It was unusual to hear that word used: asylum. It seemed so old-fashioned. But in this place the word was disturbingly appropriate.
‘I’ve visited from time to time.’
‘Then you’ll know what to expect. The duty nurse has been informed that you’re here to see Clive. I warn you: he may simply refuse to talk to you.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’
Fleming nodded, turned the key and opened the door. A narrow flight of stairs curved downwards, disappearing into the gloom, and a heavy smell of tobacco smoke wafted upwards. I nodded at the doctor, and descended. I heard the door being closed, then locked behind me, and was for a moment in almost complete darkness. I felt a moment of panic, but then an arch of light appeared below me.
The Occupational Therapy Unit was a long room with a dirty vinyl floor and high windows, the lower panes of which were obscured by opaque plastic sheets. Tables were dotted about, with board games, magazines, newspapers and books laid out on them. Couches and soft armchairs lined the walls, and most of the people in the room sat or lounged limply on these. The games and reading material didn’t seem to be attracting much attention. Smoke from a mix of cigarettes, cigars and pipes hung in the air like thick fog, and the ceiling was stained earwax-yellow from it. I found myself becoming quite lightheaded and took shallow breaths to compensate. Here’s another reason for quitting, I thought to myself.
‘You’re here to see Clive?’ a portly middle-aged woman in a nurse’s smock (there were three on duty) asked.
‘Please.’
‘That’s him.’
I squinted through the haze and saw a boy, who looked to be in early adolescence, seated alone by a low table of comic books.
‘Thanks. How’s he been today?’
‘Same as every day,’ she said with a shrug. ‘He comes, he sits. That’s about it. I hate to see youngsters in this place, but what can you do?’
‘You told him I was coming?’
‘I told him. I don’t know if he heard or understood, but I told him.’
‘Thanks.’
I pulled a chair over to Roberta’s brother, and sat. He neither looked at me nor made any show of my being so physically close to him. I said nothing for a time, examining his appearance.
The familial resemblance was undeniable, but there was something else there too. Roberta had a stout, solid build that emanated stolid resolve. Clive was more slender and had a finer bone structure than his sister. His face hinted at a sensitive personality, a gentleness that some would construe as effeminate but that had behind it a steely inner strength. I guessed that it was this hidden reservoir that had stopped him from killing himself.
He appeared to have lost a lot of weight quickly. The flesh hung on his bones, and there were deep black smudges under his eyes. Bruising was visible on one side of his face, and a gash ran across his forehead. One eye was filled with blood. I saw that both hands were marked with self-inflicted wounds from picking and ripping. His hair, as dark as his sister’s, was cut short. He wore an expression devoid of anything – fear, pain, unhappiness – and sat perfectly still, gazing unblinking into space.
I extended my hand. ‘Clive, my name’s Shane. I’m a friend of Roberta, and she’s asked me to come out and have a chat. I’m very pleased to meet you.’
No response. I left my hand there. Still nothing. A minute passed, and my arm was beginning to get tired. I was tempted to reach over and pick up his hand, shake it anyway, but was unsure how he’d react. It might make him violent, which could cause some of the other patients to get upset. I was aware of the tenuous balance maintained in places like St Vitus’s and did not want to disturb it unnecessarily. So I lowered my hand and moved my chair directly in front of him.
It seemed as if the drugs had slowed his reactions, because, after three or four minutes, his eyes rolled painfully up and fixed on me. His mouth opened slightly, and a string of saliva dribbled from the corner and hung, yo-yoing in the air for a moment before dropping off and landing on the leg of his jeans. He studied me slowly, fighting against the influence of the medication. Finally, after what seemed to be an age, he spoke. His voice was a rasp, barely above a whisper. I wondered if it was raw from shouting and screaming, because speaking seemed to cause him pain. ‘I don’t know you,’ he said.
‘I’m a friend of Roberta. She asked me to come and see you,’ I said again.
He considered my answer for many moments. ‘I know Roberta’s friends. I’ve never seen you before. And you don’t look like her friends do. You look weird. Like a … like a rock singer or something.’
I laughed. The sound seemed odd in the big, quiet, echoey room, and several of the patients turned to look at me. ‘No, I’m not a rock singer. I went to college with your sister. I suppose we aren’t really friends, but I’ve done some work with young people who’ve had problems a little like yours, and she asked me to see if I could help you.’
Slowly – everything he did was at a snail’s pace – the expression on his face began to change. Like a film being played at the wrong speed, his features rearranged themselves. It took me almost a minute to realize that he was frightened of me. Not just a little nervous either but genuinely terrified.
‘They sent you, didn’t they?’ he hissed at me, fighting to get the words out. ‘You’ve come for me. Some of them looked like you, with the long hair and the beard. I should have known they’d come for me sooner or later.’
‘Hey, relax, Clive. I promise you, I’m here because Roberta asked me to come.’
He was looking about the room now, as if he expected several more bearded assailants to emerge from the smog. His breathing became rapid, and I saw beads of perspiration dotted upon his brow.
‘You can’t fool me. I’ve been waiting for you. You’re from them. I can tell.’
In an effort to calm him, I abandoned my previous caution, and put a hand on his arm. ‘Who are they, Clive? Who do you think is trying to hurt you?’
My touch affected him like an electric prod. He stopped stock-still, his eyes boring into mine like laser beams. He bared his teeth, and I saw that many were
chipped and cracked, some reduced to little more than stumps as a result of his attempts to gnaw his way out of his hospital room through the wall. His whole frame began to shake, and a cry that had been building up exploded from his lips, a hoarse, petrified wail that ripped his already raw voice box in its urgency. ‘Them! You know them! You know!’
And then he was on top of me, knocking me backwards off the chair on to the linoleum, screaming, spitting and snapping at me with those battered teeth. For a boy of his size, Clive was powerfully strong, and it took every ounce of my weight and the momentum of our fall for me to roll over, so that I was on top of him. I pinned his arms to his sides and got my knees up on to his shoulders. It was not the recommended restraint position, but he was too strong, and the correct hold would simply not have worked. One of the nurses rushed over, straddled his mid-section and held his legs, as I moved around to effect the same hold on his upper body, pinning his arms and using my weight to stop him thrashing and hurting himself. He was still howling, not words now but panicked, animal noises.
‘What did you say to him?’ the woman asked through clenched teeth as Clive tried to throw her off and almost succeeded.
‘Nothing. He seems to think I’ve been sent to hurt him.’
She nodded. ‘He’s not really with it at all, God love him.’
The other nurses removed the other patients, many of whom had begun rocking or pacing in dismay, from the unit, and Dr Fleming arrived and administered an injection to Clive. Even with the extra drugs, it took almost fifteen minutes for the boy to become still. When he was lifted from the floor, he was still semiconscious, his eyes rolling in his head, though he seemed to focus on me for a few seconds.
As he was carried away by two male nurses, I hauled myself up. It had taken an enormous effort to hold down Clive. I was sore, soaked in sweat, and could not get my breath back in the smoky atmosphere. Feeling a terrible sense of claustrophobia, I walked to a door at the rear of the room.
‘Does this open?’ I asked, beginning to feel as if I was drowning.
Dr Fleming fumbled with his keys, and at last a welcome burst of cold fresh air poured in. It was as if a veil had been lifted. I stepped outside and breathed deeply. The rain from earlier that morning had passed, but dark clouds that looked heavy with snow or sleet gathered above like a murder of crows. Fleming stood on the doorstep, blinking in the light. The hospital was set in several acres of land, on a hill near the western edge of the city. It contained a small farm, and the gardens, if a bit overgrown, were quite pretty. I sat on a frost-coated bench and looked up at the psychiatrist. ‘So, that’s Clive Plummer,’ I said, savouring the air like fine whiskey.