“NO!”
Her cry was primal as she climbed to her feet and stood there. Pushing sweat-soaked strands of hair out of her eyes and holding her hands out for balance, she staggered from the room to enter others; laughing one minute, crying the next, but beckoning; always beckoning. Follow me! Follow me! Follow me!
On one door was emblazoned Keep Out.
For a brief moment she just stared at it, and then, as a rabid dog might, she threw herself at the door, smashing at it again and again, refusing to stop until it gave way. It was a bathroom – no, not that, it was nothing as innocuous. It was a treatment room, one which contained several baths, all of them rusted, all of them filled with litter and dirt, and a washstand that had been kicked over, that some were kicking at still – the shadows. She started kicking too, knocking tiles from the wall, and relishing the sound as they smashed to the floor. Her attention back on the door, she also kicked at that, dredging up strength as she’d dredged up emotions, the mass working with her, lending her their strength to finally unhinge it. As it crashed to the floor, there was an almighty scream of triumph. Good! There was no more ‘keeping out’. She’d exposed it, what patients had been subjected to, and the further madness that had ensued as a result. They’d been immersed for hours, for days, not always in pleasant temperatures; in water as cold as the souls of those who’d administered it.
Back in the corridor, she was running again, the crowds parting as they’d done before to allow their friend access to wherever she wanted to go. Her foot slipped on some debris and she went crashing to the floor, not noticing the pain as her ankle twisted; hardly registering those that helped her to rise. Half-limping, half-running, she continued the rampage, lashing out at whatever objects there were to lash out at: still screaming, still yelling, every feeling that had ever engulfed her, that had engulfed them, manifesting, just as the shadows were manifesting. As in the ballroom, they were becoming more solid, none of them dazed, not now. All of them were staring at her, their expressions awestruck. In the last room, at the opposite end of the corridor to the nursery, was yet another ward, with yet more beds, and more rags hanging at the windows. She raced over, tore down the rags, upturned the beds, then finding a piece of piping lying on the floor, she picked it up and smashed whatever panes of glass were still intact, until every single one in the room was shattered, just as lives had been shattered, over and over again – before they were incarcerated, whilst they were incarcerated and even afterwards, for the thirty to fifty percent spat back out of the system.
At last she stopped and stared back at the faces around her, able to witness their terrible wonder more fully. “I know there are those who need to be locked away,” she said, in between gasps for breath, “but that was for those who didn’t.”
Bringing her hand up to wipe at her nose, dragging it across her spittle-encrusted mouth, she continued to stare at them.
“Don’t think this is over,” she warned. “We’ve still got the theatre to go.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Where there had been wailing, crying and screaming, there was now silence as she made her way back down the corridor to the top of the stairs; as she descended them one by one, her hand touching every now and again the cold hard steel of the banister. At the bottom, she turned to the right, again half-walking, half-limping, as she passed the ballroom, now also silent. The dayroom was long behind her, the kitchens too, and the dining room where so often plates had been hurled against walls, those that had dared to show such frustration, chained to their beds as punishment. To remain subdued was the only way to survive in a place like this. And if you failed, if you refused to comply, then compliance was forced upon you.
The doctor’s office was just ahead. She’d been there before, the first time she’d visited with Eclipse, but had never managed to get as far on the second and third visit. On this the fourth, she would go there, and further still, into the very heart of darkness.
As she drew closer, the horde at her back faltered.
“Don’t fall back. Stay with me. We face this together.”
It was the final stronghold; the place all patients feared, even the maddest amongst them. In the theatre, every experience that had ever shaped them, that had made them who and what they were, was rendered inaccessible, and despite what had been suffered, each knew that to feel nothing was somehow the worst of all.
It was only Ruby who entered the doctor’s office, a room left largely alone in the wake of Cromer’s abandonment; a room in which no cheap thrills could be obtained by the building’s voyeurs, just a terrible and growing sense of unease; where stark reality stared you unblinking in the face. There but for the grace of God…
Going straight to the filing cabinet that had housed the patient notes Eclipse had found scattered over the floor, she grabbed at them. In reality, it was a pitiful bundle, so many having disintegrated, although she thought there’d be a record at East Sussex Record Office of everyone who’d ever stayed here, a note of their condition, their life span, their fate. And sometimes there’d be photos, like the ones she held in her hand, the prison mug shots. Resting the notes on the desk, she started to call out the names.
“Ronald Brown, are you here? Stephen Evans, what about you? Sarah Carstairs, Annie Gibb, Doreen Hughes, come on, come forward if you’re here. Melissa Bates, Mary Wilson, Agnes Jones and, Rebecca – Rebecca Nash. Are you still here?”
A ripple ran through the crowd waiting in the corridor, but no one stepped forward.
“Are you here? Tell me your names!”
Gradually, the ripple became a roar. Was this it? Where they doing what she’d asked so many times before – identifying themselves, breaking away from the mass to become what they had been: individuals?
Ben Fuhrman, Alan Stirling, Marion Bradley, Jane Clark, Susan Ainsworth, Helen Moore, Lisa James, Thomas Mallon. It was a cacophony once more, as so many names were thrown at her, but this time it didn’t hurt. On the contrary, it was like music – a litany, as Ness had called it; a holy revelation. It was all she’d hoped for.
As the names continued to come, she began to tear the documents in her hands, her slippery bloodied fingers working to rip each and every sheet of paper to shreds.
“What I’m doing,” she told them, “is freeing you. I’m destroying what you were labelled as; what husbands, mothers, fathers, employers and, of course, the medical profession, insisted you were.” Letting the remaining torn papers fall like confetti to the floor, she brought her fist up to thump against the wall of her chest. “What you truly are is in here; it’s complex and it’s simple, it’s good and it’s bad, it’s ugly and it’s beautiful. No two people are ever alike.” She shook her head as if she too had just realised this. “And that’s a miracle, don’t you think? You’re a miracle. No pills, no treatments, and no fucking operation can touch your spirit. That’s yours to keep and it always has been – the very essence of you. None of you were criminals, not one.” She swallowed, had to force herself to carry on. “There’s a place for those who are criminally insane, who deliberately hurt others, who thrive on torture and pain, who’ve wandered so far from source that they may never return; but they’re not my concern, not tonight. You’re my concern. If any of you are still hiding in this building, come out and join us, because soon there’ll be nowhere left to hide.”
Before any could respond further, she left the doctor’s office, slamming the door behind her – any lingering fragments of glass falling to the floor. The theatre was just a little further, down a side corridor; another dirty secret that had been hidden away.
Like the door upstairs, the door to the theatre was stuck, resisting entry.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Ruby muttered, pushing against it.
Still it refused to open; it seemed fused to the doorframe.
Her voice rose. “No one’s getting away with anything, not tonight. If you are one of the guilty ones, own it. The time has come.”
Again she pushed. Her a
nkle was twisted, her fingers bruised and bloodied, her face dirty with snot and tear tracks, and now her shoulder was screaming, as she had screamed, threatening to fracture under the pressure.
“LET US IN!”
Once again, the mass rushed to assist her, breaking down the final barrier.
As the door crashed inwards, Ruby went flying, straight into the centre of the room, where a steel gurney stood. As soon as she touched it, the visions began, of those who’d lain here; those who’d been secured by leather straps, sedated whilst their brains were tampered with and connections cut. The pleading of past patients now became a universal plea. I’m not sick, I’m not ill. Please, Doctor, give me another chance, I’ll be good. Doctor, please, I beg you. I DON’T WANT THIS!
Their pain was Ruby’s pain, transparent, vivid, and tangible. Climbing on to the gurney, she lay on her back. Above her was a giant lamp, its metal arm attached to the tiled wall behind. There were no bulbs in it and yet still the light scorched her eyes as she stared upwards, as so many had stared upwards. Such a pertinent memory, was it any wonder they’d hidden from the light ever since?
The name of the doctor, what was it? The world-famous lobotomist who’d travelled the south, performing such operations? So little time they took, no more than five or ten minutes, but long enough to wipe out a lifetime.
Her fingers gripping the steel either side of her, she sat up. “Ralph Gould.” That was it! “This was one of the biggest mental hospitals in the south, you must have come here, many times. Are you still here? Do you know what you’ve done? Did you grow fat on the money they paid you? Did you revel in being held in such regard? Did you ever give a fuck about the truth of your actions? The uselessness of them?”
There was a small voice. It could have belonged to Gould. It was a protest, and a defence. It echoed what Theo had said, what Ruby had said upstairs.
Some people needed to be here.
“NO!’ Ruby roared. “NOT HERE, NOT IN THIS BUILDING.”
There were none she’d encountered who couldn’t have been helped by validation and understanding; by treatments that were gentle and sympathetic rather than harsh; by listening, by coaxing, by simple acts of kindness. “THESE WERE NOT VERMIN, THEY WERE PEOPLE! INFIRM AND VULNERABLE, BUT NOT RATS TO EXPERIMENT ON. YOU WEREN’T A MIRACLE WORKER, AND YOU WERE CERTAINLY NO GOD, WHAT YOU WERE, WAS BLIND, WILFULLY BLIND.”
Jumping off the gurney, she pushed it from her, hearing the clatter as it smashed against the tiled wall; grey tiles, a grey room, a grey building, with no place for the glorious colours of the outside world. She sank down where the gurney had been, wrapped her hands around her knees and resumed rocking herself.
His face, his eyes – Aaron Hames – they were in front of her now. He was looking at her, scrutinising her, such excitement in his gaze. What she’d given free rein to in the asylum, he obviously revelled in – this girl, this woman that was the fruit of his loins.
“So, what am I?” she said when she was able to. “A chip off the old block?”
His wretched face broke into a lunatic grin, and yes, there was something akin to pride in his eyes. “I’ve turned out just like you hoped I would, haven’t I? Soiled. A thing of darkness, the blood that runs through my veins your blood, blood that taints me. But here’s the thing, Dad,” she spat the word out, worse to her than any profanity. As she struggled to her feet, those around her cowered, including Gould, she assumed; all of them – the innocent and the not so innocent, the misguided and the guilty. What was she going to do or say next, they wondered. In here, at the epicentre, would madness hold her as it held them – its grip as tight as the iron that was once used to shackle them?
She shook her head as she continued addressing Hames. “There’s madness in me, I don’t deny it, but there’s madness in everyone. We all have our share of it, and that’s what terrifies so many, how tenuous our grasp on sanity can be; how quickly we can slide, and continue to slide. And when we’re at the bottom, there are those who would drag us deeper still. Even if we have the strength to resist, that strength is taken away, quickly destroyed. Gould, if you are here, I spit on your reputation. But not on you, I don’t spit on you. Because I believe that you believed you were doing the right thing, and something my gran always said was ‘belief is everything’. You were wrong though, which you’re probably all too aware of now; emotions can be subdued, but they can never be erased. They’re all powerful, they’re what define us; they set us apart. Rewiring someone doesn’t mean you’ve cured them. What lies beneath is still trapped there. All you ever did was bury it alive.”
Swinging round, staring at the figures that had sidled in and now filled the theatre; at the many more that crowded the doorway and the corridor beyond, she took a deep breath and continued speaking. “Mistakes are made, by everyone. And there are repercussions, always. I was a mistake – the product of a one-night stand. Some may consider my mother mad, certainly she’s done some mad things in the past. My father is mad too – he lost his mind many, many years ago.”
There was a hissing sound, Hames’ eyes firing sparks. She sent me mad!
Ruby pushed her face straight into his. “That’s right, she did, Sarah sent the darkness racing after you, but what she did, what she never realised perhaps because guilt wouldn’t let her, but what I realise, is that it would never have worked unless you allowed it to. You turned to greet those she’d unleashed and you welcomed them in. And you did that because you believed the darkness could make you bigger than you were; that it would empower you to rule over others, their fear nourishing you. You opened your arms and you consumed it just as it consumed you. What Gran thought she’d done, in the end, was too much to bear, it killed her – you killed her. And you want me to hate you for that, don’t you? You want me to hate you so much.”
His eagerness made her skin crawl.
“Tough, because I’m done with hating, with blaming, with anger, with sorrow, and misery, and pain. Upstairs, I hated everyone and everything. I extinguished one fire and raised another, and it burned inside me so badly. But fires like that, they burn themselves out. Eventually. That hatred is spent. And now that it is, I realise what I hated most was the injustice of it all; how precious lives were cut short and wasted. I hated that an ordinary, decent man couldn’t be my dad, that it had to be you.” Ruby hadn’t wanted to cry, not again, but cry she did. “I hated what my mum did all those years ago, and what my gran did. I hated Gould and the doctors and nurses amongst you who knew better deep down, but ignored that knowledge. I hated myself too, and the darkness that I know is in me; that led me to madness; that took me over the edge. But there are many ways to get there, as all of your stories prove. Hatred is only one vehicle. And standing here, in front of you all, I have a choice, just as every one of you has a choice.” She wiped away her streaming tears with a harsh brush of her sleeve as wracked sobs escaped her. “I could give in again and relight that cold, cold fire. I could let disappointment rise back up and wash over me, wave after wave of it, and each one more bitter than the last. Hames, you killed Gran – not with your hands, you never kill anyone with your hands – but by being what you are, which is a willing conduit. But I don’t hate you. I won’t. That cold fire, it takes too much effort to keep alight. I’ll reignite the one that’s warmer, that takes no effort at all. After descension comes ascension, for some of us anyway – for most of us I hope. I’m not just going to step away from the precipice, I’m going to take a giant leap; let go of all the hurt that causes my heart to ache so much. I’m going to let it go and then… well, then I’m going to see what happens.”
Another roar is what happened, accompanied by an alarm ringing in the distance as well as barking, not just from Jed, but several dogs. It was a commotion, a panic. She could well imagine it, people emerging from their houses and on to the streets, repelled yet drawn at the same time, by the magnitude of what was happening, another shift in the atmosphere. Hames – it was Hames – spitting, hissing, and flailing,
bouncing off every wall in the hospital and banging his head against brick like the woman who’d lost her baby had banged her head against brick. Restrained by several staff members, he was injected, obscenities and buried truths spilling from his mouth all the while, targeting those who were trying to help him; inflicting as much mental damage as he could before his body submitted. Despite becoming glazed, his eyes fixed on Ruby. Oh, the hatred in them, the darkness! She stared back. “You’ve made your choice, Hames, and I’ve made mine. You will never see me again and I’ll never see you. Your progeny I may be, but your likeness I am not.”
Knowing those words had hit home; seeing finally the despair at the heart of him, for a fraction of a second, little more than that, she thought her tears would continue, but every well, it seems, is capable of running dry.
With the shadowy patients now cowering in terror around her, she raised her hands in supplication. “It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s mad, but I’m not. I’m on my way back from madness.” Daring to draw closer to them, she reached out. “I still can’t imagine the full extent of what some of you went through. In comparison, I’m the lucky one. But I’m closer to understanding than I’ve ever been before. It’s so easy to lose faith in the light, to lose faith in each other too; in any goodness that there might be. Upstairs, I discovered how easy that was and in here, in this theatre, it’s easier still. And so, just before I came back, I went on anther journey. I talked to those who’d survived Cromer: people who had good things to say about it, because even here, there was a light in the darkness, it didn’t go out, not completely. There were acts of kindness, patience and understanding, and you had each other for God’s sake – you always had each other. I want you to dig deep, every last one of you; find something good that happened to you within these walls; don’t think of it as insignificant because it wasn’t. Perhaps it was a smile that was unexpected, or a touch that was gentler than all the rest. Let it be the thing you latch onto – the good, only the good. Like a seed that’s been planted, feed it and watch it as it grows.”
Descension Page 26
