Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House Read online

  I looked over at her sitting on a couch with two massive arms wrapped tightly around a big brown-leather handbag. It looked the size of something I would bring on me holidays to carry all me stuff!

  ‘Are you all right, Petunia?’ the nurse shouted, smiling and waving at Petunia.

  ‘Nurse!’ screeched Petunia, suddenly hauling herself to her feet and trying to steady her big bulk. ‘I am going to walk backwards for Christmas!’

  ‘Ah, you’re too late, Petunia. Christmas has come and gone!’ smiled the nurse back at her.

  Petunia stood rocking on her feet, trying to digest this piece of information. I stared and ran into the nurse, who had now stopped to open the door into a room.

  ‘Sorry!’ I mumbled, trying to get my senses back. Holy God! Where the bloody hell have I landed myself?

  ‘OK, Martha. You take this bed,’ she said as she headed down a long narrow room. There were two beds in the room, each with a curtain screen you could pull around for privacy. The other bed was empty. I looked around, seeing a huge picture window at the end of the room. My bed was right beside it. The walls were cream, and the lockers were cream, and the metal bed was low and cream. They looked new to me. The curtain screens were a light pink, and the duvet covers a light rose with white flowers. The floor has a light dusky-pink carpet.

  I was surprised, but cautious, not intending to get too comfortable. I’m out of here at the first opportunity.

  The nurse sat down on a chair beside my bed and said, ‘Now sit down here, Martha. I need to get a few details from you.’ Then she slapped the side of the bed, smiling at me.

  I sat down on the side of the bed with my hands in my lap waiting for her to begin. She looked at a clipboard with forms attached, then took in a deep breath and said, ‘Right, Martha, are you on any medication?’

  ‘Yes, daily for my thyroid. I don’t have it with me, so I need to get some.’

  ‘Are you on any other medication?’

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Have you ever been in a psychiatric hospital before?’

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Are you attending any doctor regarding a psychiatric illness?’

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Do you have any other medical condition?’

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Are you suffering from depression?’

  I hesitated. ‘Nope! OK, I’ll qualify that,’ I said, remembering the reason for my failed exit from the land of the living, and my sortie into the Intensive Care Unit. ‘Maybe a little under the weather,’ I said. ‘Depression? Definitely not. I am feeling better already, and very glad to be alive,’ I said, creasing my face up and jamming my lips together, making a smile.

  ‘OK,’ she said, smiling and putting her clipboard on my locker. ‘You can climb into bed now. You must be tired,’ she said, pulling down the covers on the bed. I was relieved and gladly swung my legs into the bed, feeling shattered. It felt like the day would go on for ever.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’ she asked, bending down and smiling at me.

  I thought about it and decided I was hungry. ‘Yes, please,’ I said, shaking my head, feeling very comfortable.

  ‘What about scrambled egg and toast?’

  ‘Lovely! Thanks, Nurse,’ I said, wrapping the duvet around me and lying back on the pillows.

  She skipped out the door, and I looked out the window. The view of the fields was lovely. Huge sweeping lawns as far as the eye can see. With great old oak trees and shrubs dotted around the borders. God! Maybe it’s not so bad here after all. I could probably do with the rest. I certainly need to build myself back up again.

  I was feeling lovely and relaxed when the door opened and the nurse came rushing in with a tray. ‘There you are now!’ she breathed, laying the tray down on my lap.

  I looked. A big plate of buttery scrambled egg and toast with lots of butter. And a pot of tea.

  ‘Tuck in to that,’ she said, pouring out the tea for me, ‘and the doctor will be in to see you shortly.’

  My lips were beginning to open into a smile when the door suddenly opened and a head vanished back out again as quickly as it had come in. Then I heard a disembodied voice shout. We looked up at each other, the nurse staring at me puzzled. Then the head appeared in the door again, just open enough to allow the head to squeeze through.

  ‘Get her to lock-up, Nurse! Get that patient to lock-up at once!’

  I stared, not understanding, and the nurse was looking from the head to me. Then I looked again. A doctor was waving his hand, pointing his finger at me. ‘You are not supposed to be here! She’s the one a Dr Herman Hero warned us about. It’s in his report. She’s dangerous. She destroyed his office and caused terror in the surgery.’

  My heart started pounding and a rage erupted through me. ‘You fucking bastard!’ I screamed at him.

  ‘Get her out!’ he barked at the nurse, waving his hand at her then to me.

  I felt all the rejection come flying back. He’s treating me like I am nothing. Not even fit to live. My head flew down to the tray on my lap, ready to heave it at him.

  He saw what was coming and slammed the door shut. As he took off down the ward, I could hear the dull thud of his shoes on the carpet and his voice giving instructions was now fading away. I stared at my tea and then up at the nurse. She looked a little confused, and said gently, ‘Do you want to eat your tea first?’

  I shook my head, mumbling, ‘No, thanks, Nurse, I won’t bother.’

  Then the door flew open, and two nurses came stamping in and made straight for me. ‘OK. We’re transferring you,’ and they whipped me out of the bed and marched me out the door and along past the sitting room. I glanced over, seeing a lovely dining room with round tables and a long picture window looking out onto more greenery. We stopped at another door, a red steel one, and a nurse stood each side of me, pinning me in. I felt myself going very cold inside and hard.

  They unlocked the door and marched me in. I stood in a wide-open area, looking to my right at a long desk going the length of the corridor. The desk was completely surrounded by thick glass. Nurses and men in grey suits and white jackets milled around inside. My head shot around to take in the two rooms on the left.

  ‘Come along,’ the nurses said, taking my arm and marching me along the corridor.

  As we passed the first room, the door was open and a girl, she looked young, but I took her in at a glance, judging she was probably around twenty-six or twenty-seven. She stood in the entrance of a bedroom with two beds. We stared at each other as the nurses stopped to talk to a man in a grey suit who appeared out through a door from the other end of the corridor. Her face was creased up and looked half-frozen, as if she had been crying for ever and she would like to go on crying but had run out of tears and was now exhausted.

  Her huge big blue eyes stared out of her head with a glazed expression. They looked almost lifeless as she stood staring at me. But I could see a flicker of interest as she blinked, trying to take in what was happening. Thick snots had dried around her nose, and her mouth was open, showing thick white mucus around the corners as she started to moan, trying to squeeze out more tears. It was hard going, and she lifted her face to the nurses, showing them her best efforts.

  ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ she moaned. ‘I want to go home.’

  The nurses marched past, ignoring her, and marching me into the second room. ‘This is your room, Martha!’ they said, waving at a three-legged bed collapsed at one end.

  I looked around the room, taking in the lumps gone out of the wall, and black skidmarks, like someone had tried to run up it with cobnailed boots! They probably threw the bed at it too. There was a huge picture window at the end wall, but nothing else. The nurses turned briskly and walked out.

  I wandered down to the window, looking out. There was an enclosed field surrounded by high walls and huge old trees. It was probably the orchard and kitchen garden in another life. When the aristocrats owned it. Before the Church got their hands on
it, picking it up for a song when the landed gentry legged it, running for their lives during the civil war back in the 1920s. Trust the bleedin Church! Where there’s poor, there’s brass and slave labour! And they keep their distance. They don’t involve outside help. They run a world within a world. Yeah! No wonder they survived for two bleedin thousand years! They surely are making a few bob from this place.

  I haven’t clapped eyes on that Sister Eleanor one either. Not since she dropped me off with that fucking loony doctor. Hmm! That’s their style: dive for cover when there’s trouble afoot. Don’t get involved. She just comes running to do her little bit of ‘social work’. The nuns help the ‘poor unfortunate girls’ by doing their ‘works of charity and mercy’. Then get back to their convents, thinking, we do our best for our flock.

  Fuck you, Sister Eleanor! It wouldn’t have hurt you to come and see me in that hospital. But you didn’t want to get involved. You have nothing to do with me, really. I am only your ‘act of charity’. Well, I survived without ever having to ask you for help. So you can stick your ‘charity’ up your religious hypocritical arse. And stop using me to justify your robbing, power-crazy, money-grabbing fucking religious organisation. You just caught me at a vulnerable time in my life, that’s all. But it won’t be happening again. I’m no fucking victim!

  I walked up to the door and grabbed hold of it, slamming it shut. It gave a satisfying bang! I turned to walk back slowly to the window and the door shot open. A man in a grey suit and glasses stood rigidly holding on to the door, one leg balanced in the air, still hanging outside the door. His eyes whipped on me, then swept around the room. Satisfying himself the walls were still standing, he swung the door wide open and swooped out again.

  I stared after him, saying nothing. Jaysus! So this is where they lock the baddies. In the pecking order of madness, I was the craziest one here! Along with that poor girl with the puppy-dog, tragic eyes next door. She doesn’t look crazy to me, just tragic. But we seem to be the only two locked up.

  I sat down on the bed and it wobbled. Ah, Jaysus! Do they expect me to sleep in this? No way! Not with the money they’re going to get for keeping me locked up here against my will! I snorted to meself. Right! I need to think! Make a plan. You silly cow! You’ve really gone and done it now. Landing yourself in the power of the authorities. When they get you into the system, you are locked in for life. It’s very hard to get out of their grasp. I can’t believe I was so stupid! I spent years paddling my own canoe, and did quite well. Then just when I should have been sitting back, reaping all the benefits of my hard work, I end up here!

  Right! No more fucking around. Fuck! Oh, Sarah! If you could see me now! I don’t think you will be making mention to anyone in a hurry. ‘Oh! How is Mummy? Well! Actually she is locked up in the loony bin!’ Oh, bloody hell! You will never live this down. Me little girl, the light of me life! What have I gone and done to you now?

  The picture of her up on the stage at her school play. She was barely six, and they were putting on a play for the parents in honour of their First Communion they were about to make. I turned up late and planted myself on a seat right in front of the stage. All the other parents gave me filthy looks from the side benches they were stuck on, back against the far wall, well away from the stage. I waved up at Sarah, who was standing with a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders over a lovely long white frock. She was wearing a huge black hat with a veil over it.

  I kept waving and smiling. But she didn’t smile back, just kept staring at me, looking very worried. Then there was a scurry of activity behind me, and a bishop wearing a black suit with a big cross around his neck and a huge ring on his finger came and sat next to me, taking the empty seat beside me, and beamed at me. He had a mop of brown curly hair, and his blue eyes danced in his head with devilment. ‘It’s my lucky night!’ he whispered, leaning into me. ‘I get to sit beside a pretty girl!’

  Then the principal of the school, a nun, appeared and glared at me. She wanted her seat next to the bishop. ‘Hello, Sister!’ I beamed, then looked back to the stage, waving at Sarah again. When I looked back at the nun, she was creeping off to sit at the benches on the side, pushing the parents up to make a bit of room for herself. The bishop and me watched her progress, and when she was sitting down and shifting her arse to make them move up more and get herself comfortable, she clasped her hands inside her robes and glared at me with her eyes spitting venom and her face roaring red from the rage.

  I spoilt the highlight of her year. Robbing her place, sitting next to the bishop. He leaned into me again and whispered, ‘You’d better watch yourself there. You have blotted your copybook. She’s not going to forget or forgive you in a hurry!’

  I snorted laughing, and he was tittering, enjoying himself. Then he whispered, ‘That little girl with the long fair hair is very lovely, isn’t she?’ he said, looking at me. ‘And she’s a great little actress!’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, gasping proudly. ‘That’s my daughter.’

  ‘Oh! Now I see where she gets her looks from,’ he said, grinning at me, flashing his snow-white teeth.

  ‘You’re a right smoothie!’ I whispered, thinking, me an the bishop, flirting! Great gas! Even the other ma’s will get something. Think of the gossip over the coffee! Sharp intake of breath! Jaysus! Holy war!

  ‘Ah! But no! That hair of yours is absolutely gorgeous!’ he whispered. ‘The length of it!’

  I was sitting on it, and he looked, asking me how long it was.

  ‘About a foot off the ground,’ I said, answering the same old question. It was a great conversation piece. Like having a cute little dog. People always stop for a chat, oohing and ahhhing over the dog. Yeah! People always made comments about my hair. Especially men. It is unusual, I suppose, especially in Western countries.

  ‘It’s like pure silk, and it’s so well groomed,’ he said, staring at it.

  ‘Yeah!’ I said, feeling me chest puff and me nostrils flare. Gawd! What a man! No eunuch! He’s a bishop! He uses it for stirring his tea.

  I leaned into him, saying, ‘If you’d seen me last night, trying to get a night’s sleep, tossing and turning with a load of spiky hair rollers taking the head off me just so I could sit here looking lovely next to you, the bishop no less!’ I beamed at him, flashing my pearly whites, flirting like mad, causing gasps of horror and outrage, with all the earwiggers leaning in for a listen.

  He roared laughing. And people around us started tut-tutting. ‘The bold hussy! Leadin that poor bishop astray!’

  I looked over to the bench where the nun was sitting, and a row of stony-faced women glared back at me. Hah! I thought, they’re all jealous I’m sitting in the place of honour, having a party for meself! Then we all stood up and applauded loudly. I was thrilled with Sarah. She’s a natural-born actress, I thought. But Holy Jaysus! She gave me an awful flea in me ear as we drove home.

  ‘Mummy! How could you? You took poor Sister’s seat next to the bishop! And she was so looking forward to the bishop coming. And you made a show of me with all the other parents watching you laughing with the bishop like he was a real man! He’s very holy and he’s not supposed to chase women. Only nuns!’

  I will never forget the hysterics! I fell around the place laughing, and she cried her eyes out. That hurt! Wiping the laugh off me face. I could understand: children don’t like to stand out! I just happened to be young and cut loose from a man, and thought life is great fun. I was bleedin daft as a brush. There was no putting the skids under me.

  29

  * * *

  I came out of my daze, smiling to myself. Yeah! Life is what you make it. So, what now? I have to find a way of getting back on my feet. Discover that drive I used to have for wanting to know what’s around the next corner. Hmm! First thing is to get out of this place. That is not going to be easy. I’m in now! They can keep me here as long as they like. I’m now fully in their power! This is bleedin serious. Unless . . . Think!

  I could play their gam
e. Yeah! I could use reverse psychology and grovel! Become a model patient. Brilliant idea! I could tell them I’m very happy here. It’s a lovely place. And I’m glad to be away from the outside world. Now I won’t have to bother meself about making decisions. And having everything done for me is just marvellous! The only worry is, I’ll say, how long do they think I could stay here? The longer the better, I’ll tell them. But I’m a little worried because I don’t have the money to pay for this place. And I don’t have insurance. I could whine to the nurses that I’m really worried that doctor might send me home. Right! That’s Plan A! What’s Plan B? Worry about that later!

  I heard voices outside the door. ‘Not now, Mabel!’ someone said, then a nurse rushed in the door and landed a tray down in the middle of my bed. I watched as she tried to stop the tray toppling over. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she said, whipping up the tray and looking around the room for somewhere to land it. Her beady little eyes strained themselves as she gaped out of a fat round face, trying to decide where best to put the tray. She muttered to herself as she staggered from one foot to the other, turning herself, not able to decide what to do with it.

  ‘Out of the way, please!’ she said impatiently, staggering past me and slamming the tray at the head of the bed close to the wall. ‘There’s your tea,’ she muttered to me as she pushed past without even looking at me.

  I watched her go, feeling myself getting very cold. Who the fuck does she think she is? Treating me with contempt! My eyes rolled back to the tray. I leaned over, taking a look. A small teapot – get about one cup of tea from that. Two slices of buttered bread cut in a triangle. A small fat sausage, it burst in the cooking – they must have cooked that last Christmas, it looked like rubber. And its companion, a dried-up piece of leather that had died a hard death as a rasher!

  I poured myself a cup of tea and walked up to the window. I stared at the high granite wall covered in ivy and the huge old trees stripped bare, braving the winter elements. Still surviving, still growing, slowly but surely. Stronger and stronger with the passing of time, against many odds. They stood there giving joy, comfort and pleasure during many a long summer evening to generations of people now long dead and gone. In another time, long forgotten now, children chased each other around those trees, tripping in their long dresses, squealing and laughing. Women with long frocks and wide-brimmed hats sat on benches and supped lemonade. They nibbled cucumber sandwiches and laughed, then went quiet as they remembered a long-lost love. Then they pined, feeling the sun go down on their joy as the cold winds of pain crept deep inside them. Or cried when someone was sick and probably dying, with no cure for anything then!