White Walls

by HMC

  ‘Finish what?’ he snarled.

  ‘We’ve been sharing a little bit of information about ourselves and it’s your turn.’

  ‘Oh goody.’

  George took this as his cue to let everyone know how much he hated the moment, room, people, situation and especially the new doctor. Was he expected to, so nauseatingly, dance like a puppet? What would this do to his delicate state of being and already drastically low levels of morale? He refused to be nice to such a derisory and inadequate physician.

  ‘This place is a joke. You’re a joke.’ He pointed at Jade. ‘And I’m far too depressed to deal with this sort of shit right now. So if you’ll just leave me out of your little ‘getting to know you session,’ that’d be just swell, thanks.’

  Just then Sam stood up, her face contorted. It made her look so completely different that the happy mental case reeled back and almost fell out of his chair.

  I must’ve really pissed her off.

  She clenched her fists and looked as if she might try to hit him. George giggled.

  ‘Sit down please, Sam,’ the doctor said.

  It started raining, and was so loud that it sounded like hail on the roof. George laughed at her, shaking his head. He was embarrassed for the girl.

  Before he knew what was happening, she charged across the room. Everything went black.

  Sam saw red all over her hands and smeared across the walls. She was covered in it and her only thoughts were to write them down. Write the numbers down and make sure someone could read them before she died. But it wasn’t blood. Only paint. Had she bought it? When had she bought it? She realised she wasn’t dying. It was only paint. Someone was opening the door. It was her father. He looked around and put his hand up to his brow and massaged it – a reaction that meant he didn’t like what he saw. Sam had seen it often enough to know, and had almost always been the one to cause it, the disappointment. I’m sorry, Dad. Her father shook his head and she dropped the can of paint onto her apartment floor. They gazed up at the walls together.

  Her memories were jumbled. But the numbers were definite: four numbers that, at the time, had meant something to her. The problem was she had no idea what.

  They’d been the same four tiny numbers that George Barter had tattooed across his neck. Was it the same four? Or was this place making her crazy? It would make perfect sense. She was going crazy because she was in a mental institution, and was supposed to be. Perhaps she was losing it because she’d been locked up, for five days straight, in a room with white walls.

  Punching George Barter in the face had been worth it, though. Stupid prick. No, the numbers were right. They were the same and she may never be let out to find out where they came from.

  Sam watched the rain pour down her window and wished it were louder. Winter was winding up and spring in Fairholmes always promised more downpours and storms. The dark clouds matched her mood.

  Swinging back and forth on her chair, Sam was waiting for someone to come and rescue her. She looked down at herself in her pink and blue striped pyjamas. Showering and eating at different times meant she was lonely. Sam only had the doctors and nurses to talk to and she was actually looking forward to bathing. She wanted to chat with Jade, or Anne, or Morty. Jade was her favourite. She was an absolute emotional mess of a woman trying to find her own way by helping patients in a mental ward – totally intriguing.

  As the days passed no one came to unlock Sam’s door, or to speak to her about what she’d done. She wanted to get it over with – for someone to come in and tell her what a bad girl she’d been. They could explain what she could do the next time she felt angry, count to ten, take a chill pill. She was waiting to apologise to someone and even had her words practised. She knew the expressions she would use on her face, at particular times throughout her monologue – anything to get her out of this room.

  But the honest reality was, she’d do it again. Over and over if she had the chance. That bastard deserved it. Anyway, she’d stopped before he’d bled too much. He wasn’t a cripple. Sure, he was older, but if he had a backbone, he should’ve been able to defend himself, at least a little.

  At that moment, Freddy Parks poked his head up over the ledge of Sam’s window and peered in at her. Sam jumped up and didn’t know what to think of the tiny drenched face gazing at her. Freddy grinned as if stumbling upon a hidden treasure. He waved and disappeared quicker than he’d popped up. Sam ran over to the glass, covered in wire mesh, to see him darting across the large grass paddock and being chased by Anne and Jade.

  Freddy danced in the rain and every now and then he checked to see how far behind his pursuers were. When he saw that Anne and Jade had stopped for a moment to catch their breath several metres from him, he paused to wave his arms around and up at some imaginary creature of the sky.

  Sam laughed genuinely, a good chuckle, and swore she saw him turn back and laugh with her. She continued to watch the spectacle, until Martha-Jane, the mousey nurse who’d joined in the chase, eventually captured Freddy. The escapee gave one last gigantic wave at Sam before he was hauled inside. She felt an irresistible sensation: one of warmth and satisfaction. Unfortunately it dissipated.

  She moved back to her chair and continued twirling her hair. Surely it wouldn’t be that much longer now. Sam hadn’t even got the chance to see what being in Rowan’s Home was going to be like before she got herself locked up away from the others. She wondered how her father was coping and decided to call him the moment she could.

  But, no matter what thoughts ploughed through her head, Sam always returned to George and the numbers.

  ‘You can’t leave her in there any longer. This isn’t right.’

  Dr. Green turned so fast he almost fell down the slippery front steps of Rowan’s Home.

  He glared with utter contempt. ‘Now you listen to me.’ He actually pointed a finger at her. ‘Samantha Phillips attacked a patient and is being punished. She can stay here and receive that punishment or she can be sent to a place better equipped to deal with violence. Do you understand me, Dr. Thatcher?’ Jade was becoming a little less frightened of her boss and decided to push on.

  ‘Sam’s been in that room for five days without any contact apart from Anne, Morty, or myself. Do you really think this is the best way to change her behaviour? Honestly?’ A vein in Green’s bald head looked about ready to burst.

  ‘Your sweet little Sam punched a man repeatedly in the face, Dr. Thatcher. Neither you, nor the other patients, had the strength to pull her off in time to keep the man from being beaten unconscious. In fact, she kept assaulting him, even after he was unconscious!

  ‘Now you may feel these consequences are harsh, but I feel I’ve been easy on her. Samantha Phillips is the daughter of a very close friend of mine. Now, of course I’m not going to send her away, but I’ll do everything in my power to protect the other patients, even if that means excluding one of them for as long as it takes for them to feel remorse. Is that clear? Good. This conversation is now over. Good day.’

  Jade was lost for words. He was right, and for the first time ever, he’d shown he actually cared about the patients. She let her guard down and answered with respect. ‘I apologise, Sir.’

  Green turned, nodded, and continued down the steps of the Home.

  Jade was left to feel a vile concoction of unworthiness mixed with stupidity festering in the pit of her stomach. Every time she felt even the slightest evidence arise that she was imperfect or in some way wrong, her thoughts would eat at her. Why did you stand up to your boss? You only made a fool of yourself. You’re always doing that, Jade. She had a long way to go. But at least she was stepping back and observing her thoughts now, rather than letting them tear her down to the ground. Bull, it was no big deal. Any strong woman would stand up for what she believed in.

  I don’t have to be right all the time.

  The pressure dissipated
and, for a moment, she felt like she’d won this tiny, albeit significant battle with the horrible part of herself she liked to call the ‘judge.’ She would have to talk about it during group session. Repressed emotions played a major role in her patients’ lives, no matter what they were diagnosed with.

  Jade got to thinking, the more she got to know Dr. Clancy Green, the less and less she hated his guts.

  She turned and moved back into Rowan’s, uncertain as to whether she would go home when her shift ended in ten minutes. Perhaps she’d stay for the evening instead and use her patients to keep her mind off her depressingly large and empty house. Finally, Jade decided to take some work home with her.

  It didn’t take long to drive up to the front of her new house with its creamy painted walls and bright green roof. The doctor made her way down her miniature footpath and readjusted her bundle of paperwork when something behind her stirred. Looking back, Jade scanned the empty street. A gorgeous, ginger, tabby cat emerged from the shrubbery and darted across the road. It paused. It looked at her. Then it plummeted down the storm-water drain and into the gutter in front of her house.

  Jade showered and fixed herself a cup of chai tea. Every now and then the ritual of pouring steaming hot water into a cup would remind her of her father. He was a tea drinker. Other than wine, it was all he consumed. She’d have to visit him again soon, and her brother. Angus was part of the reason why she’d come back to Fairholmes in the first place. Jade needed to stop playing dead. She needed to go out and get a life.

  Flicking her wet hair up into a ponytail, she sat at her spare room’s office desk. She’d advertise for a roommate soon, but the rent was so cheap, there was no rush.

  Without meaning to, she thought back to the night she’d left her husband and found that thinking about it was easier each time. She remembered standing at the door to their bedroom, heart pounding and listening to their conversation. Some other woman was tangled in her sheets, holding on to and talking with her husband about their future. Bitch! She remembered thinking of bursting in, ripping out his heart and holding it in her hand until the palpitations stopped. She’d laugh as he died with a sorry look on his face.

  Instead she’d turned and tiptoed back down the hallway. Her eyes, smeared with mascara, made her tears sting. She’d wiped them and painted the makeup down her cheeks, looked at her reflection in the kitchen window and asked herself ‘how could he bring her here?’

  She remembered placing the surprise bottle of wine she’d bought for them on their kitchen table – her kitchen table. Jade had moved out the door and past the strange car in their driveway. The car that had alerted her to enter the house a little more quietly than usual that evening, in order to find out whether her intuition had been right all along. She’d known. All women know. However, like most women she wanted proof. And when she had received it she definitely didn’t want it anymore.

  Jade left her husband that night and hadn’t even gone back to get her things. She had no family in the city and no real friends, so she did what any woman in her situation would do: she jumped in her car and drove 13 hours to Fairholmes to be with her brother, Angus.

  During the long drive to Fairholmes, Jade had decided that her husband wasn’t even worth fighting for. She’d let herself down by entering into a marriage that wasn’t important enough to fix. It had been convenient, nothing more.

  Jade tried to calm herself as she tidied her desk and brought herself back to the present. Leaving her laptop closed she pushed it backwards to make some space and pulled her paper documents and voice recorder out of her briefcase. Her desk clock read 9:30 and although she’d promised herself she’d be on the couch at this point, with a new mystery novel in hand, she couldn’t get Samantha Phillips off her mind. There were facts the girl had told her that were most certainly significant enough to be in her patient file, but were not.

  Jade pressed play on her small recorder and listened to Samantha speak. She listened for something that she may’ve missed.

  ‘The children sat in rows. Row after row of small kids and big kids all mixed together. The tables were long like in a prison. You know those big plastic cups we have here? Yeah, we had those. We didn’t have much to eat and it was crappy food, but if you got anything at all that was a good thing. We were hungry a lot. We were looked after by some really great people and some really awful people. Horror stories weren’t rare. I’ll tell you some one day.’

  Jade listened to Sam laugh. She was so rough for a young woman. She could look and speak so delicately when she wanted to – like a demon trying really hard to be an angel. It was a scarily appropriate analogy.

  ‘What else can I remember? Ahhh … let me think. We were allowed one toy from charity, maybe from our parents if they were still around. That’s if they knew where we were. Every year we’d get a toy. The kids would go mental and there’d be fights. But if you didn’t show off what you had, you’d be left alone with it.

  ‘So, I remember feeling excited about that every year. They would bring us special snacks at Christmas time that had been donated. Those were the last times I felt happy. After that, I couldn’t even get excited about Christmas. Imagine a kid not being able to love Christmas morning.

  ‘So eventually I just started to pretend. Most of the kids that pretended to enjoy life would get adopted. So a lot of us put on a happy face.’

  Jade noticed on the recording that the more she allowed for silence, the more Sam would speak. She’d have to remember that.

  ‘The very last time I felt sad, or anything really overwhelming, was when I was six. This kid next to me took my mashed potatoes. I remember because I was saving it ’til last. He picked it up right off my plate in his hands, all mushy, and shoved them into his mouth. I cried ’til Shelly came and she dragged him off by the ear. Shelly was nice. I should’ve talked to her, but when you’re a kid and scared, you don’t think of things like that. She had no idea about the abuse. She took him and dobbed him in. She wouldn’t have if she’d known. One of the mongrels gave him a really bad beating later that night – woke us all up.

  ‘I knew what that felt like. I knew what it felt like so well, that I lay there and cried for that kid. It wasn’t his fault he was hungry.’

  Jade heard herself interrupt to ask a question.

  ‘So you haven’t felt bad for anyone since then?’ There was quite a long pause.

  ‘Feelings that intense are just a memory for me. Some things trigger it, especially my father. But what I experience now are dull sensations – nothing like what I recall feeling back then.’ There was another long pause before she began again.

  ‘Not long after, I was adopted. I remember doing things. I remember doing pretty bad things because I wanted to feel something. I once took my next-door neighbour’s guinea pig, Chocolate Pie, and tortured it. I remember the look on Dad’s face when he found out. But he understood. He didn’t punish me.

  ‘When I did something awful, he’d just hug me. He would try to explain to me how my actions affected other people, including him, and that definitely helped. There would be consequences for the things I did. He’d try to make them suit the mistake, you know. Like, I had to save up to buy my neighbour another guinea pig, out of my own pocket money. I had to write her a letter of apology and clean the guinea pig’s cage out every week. She used to watch me from the window to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.’

  Jade heard the humour in her voice, but she didn’t find it very funny.

  ‘Dad was always really good at helping me talk about everything. I really, truly don’t know where I’d be right now without him. Rotting somewhere. You know, this place is not so bad when I think about where I could’ve ended up. Jade? I’ve never spoken to anyone about this before.’

  The doctor pressed stop on the recorder and rubbed her forehead. She wondered if Dr. Karl Phillips would be willing to come in and talk to her about his da
ughter.

  Before long, Jade gave up for the night and moved to turn off her lamp. She needed to sleep on it and hopefully she’d wake up with some ideas about how to help Sam.

  But an hour later Jade was still wide awake. She lay in her bed and ran her hands across the old scars on her abdomen. They were faint now, in comparison to what they’d been. She’d been helping her father in the kitchen as a small child. He was boiling bottles for Angus. She’d run into him as he took the giant pot off the stove. The scalding water poured down her front. It was one of Jade’s first memories and a memory her father could never forget. He would say it was lucky he had missed her beautiful face.

  Something was moving outside her window. Carefully she switched off her light and crept over to take a peek. Thinking it might be the ginger cat slinking along her fence, Jade waited for a moment. Nothing. Stop scaring yourself.

  She returned to bed, just before a figure moved through her backyard and over the gate.

  Inaudible Fluff

  Samantha Phillips woke to the sound of Nurse Anne unlocking and moving through her bedroom doorway. My bedroom. She’d become accustomed to calling it that already. It was colourless and lifeless and she’d have to do something about it. Maybe she’d ask creepy George for one of his self-portraits. She’d seen some of his work in a gallery once, and he was pretty talented.

  Maybe he could paint himself with two black eyes, just for her.

  Sam rubbed her own eyes. Anne’s face carried her perpetual grin, as the rotund nurse raised her eyebrows and placed her hands together, fingers locked. She looked about to burst. ‘You, Missy, are about to be re-released into the wild, wild world.’ She chuckled. ‘Well, not exactly, but you can come out of your room today.’ She flung Sam’s curtains wide, but the day was cloudy, so the darkness was marginally reduced. For Sam it was a bonus when the world was dimmed. She loved the rain.