by Stephen Fry
I have attempted, as you might imagine, to count the days and weeks, but something is stopping me. I tried once to mark them off against the wall, using my fingernails but the act of it soon filed them down and I wasn’t able to continue. They always take back the plastic cutlery and I am sure that if I were to mark the walls with my felt-tipped pens they would be permanently confiscated. I could start now on the paper, with the prisoner’s traditional rows of soldiers and a line through them to mark the week, but the truth is, I don’t want to know how much time has passed. I cannot tell you how many winters and summers there have been. Sometimes I think it is three, sometimes as many as five.
There was a time when I thought I could detect when it was Sunday. There would be a brightness outside and an atmosphere inside that made me sure of it. The echo of footsteps seemed to ring differently in the corridors, which I suppose sounds mad. I would say to whoever brought in the food, usually Rolf or Martin, ‘Happy Sunday!’ but there was never any response. Once Martin, who for a short time I had decided was nicer than Rolf, said, ‘It is Wednesday today,’ and that upset me greatly for some reason.
I was moved into this room when my shoulders had mended. I have almost forgotten the first room, which might be a kind of mercy. I had been strapped to the bed there and was at almost my lowest point. Rolf would not speak to me. Dr Mallo would not come. My memories tormented me more than the pain. I still believed that it was all soon to end, you see. I thought that the father of my dreams would come and set me free, that the terrible misunderstanding was shortly to come to an end. I know better now. Dr Mallo has explained that this is my home and that I have no other. I have been ill. My mind has been full of false memories which only time can dispel. If I am slow with myself and patient I will be able to see things more clearly.
I am a very sick young man. I am a fantasist who has chosen to invent a history for himself which does not belong to him. A feeling of personal inadequacy has led me to believe that I once possessed a life of ease and affection and respect. I imagined that I was a happy, adjusted and popular boy with a famous and important father and a contented existence at a well-known public school. This is, apparently, very common. Many unfortunate children choose to inhabit a world like this rather than confront the reality of their lives. It is difficult for me because the fantasy was so real that I have burned out of my memory the real life into which I was actually born. I just cannot recapture or imagine it, no matter how hard I try. My assumed identity is so strong a part of me that even now, knowing the truth, I cannot fully let go of it. Dr Mallo tells me that mine is almost the strongest and most intractable case he has dealt with in all his professional life and this helps. It is hard not to feel a little proud.
The more able I am to accept the truth the easier my life here becomes. The paper and felt-tipped pens are a result of a ‘breakthrough’ that occurred some time ago. I see Dr Mallo every now and then. Perhaps these sessions are regular, once a fortnight, or once every ten days, it is hard to tell. Eight or nine visits ago I broke down and admitted to him that I knew I was not called Ned and that everything I thought had been my memory was indeed false, as he had been telling me for so long. Perhaps he thought I was saying this to please him, for at first nothing changed. In fact he was quite severe with me, accusing me of pretending to agree with him just to make life easier for myself. After a few visits however, he told me that I had made a genuine breakthrough and that this meant I could be trusted with a few privileges. I asked if that meant I might be allowed to read some books. Books will come later, he told me, for they can be dangerous to those with a frail grip on reality. Firstly, it would be a good idea for me to have some paper and pens and to write down everything I felt. If Dr Mallo trusted that I was really coming to grips with my situation, I might then start to visit the library.
What about other patients? Would it be possible for me to join in with them? I had noted evening and afternoon periods marked by an electric bell and always connected with the distant sounds of doors opening and closing, feet shuffling and sometimes a little laughter.
Dr Mallo congratulated me on my observation and held out the hope that one day I would be balanced and strong enough to associate with others without danger to myself. In the meantime, it was important for me to grow healthier in my mind. He is pleased that I have the self-respect that keeps me physically fit and hopes I will be able to set myself mental exercises that are the equivalent of the bench-presses and sit-ups with which I test my physical self.
So now I shall take everything very slowly and not allow myself to become too excited. I must not exaggerate any apparent improvement, for if I am honest, I have to confess that in my sleeping moments, and even sometimes when I am awake, the echoes of the old false memories still fill my mind like seductive ghosts. It will be of no use to me at all if I am overoptimistic about my condition. There is still a very long way to go.
I hear the squeak of the trolley outside. It will soon be time for my medication and supper. I must set down my pens, square the paper neatly on the table and sit up straight. I would not want Dr Mallo to hear that I have been overheated or undisciplined.
Von Trapp! Those were the children in The Sound of Music. You see! Things really do come back when you relax. The Von Trapp Family Singers . . .
This has been a wonderful and encouraging day.
‘So now, Ned my friend, how are you today?’
‘I’m very well, Dr Mallo, but I wonder if I can ask you something?’
‘Of course. You know that you can ask me anything you please.’
‘I think it’s wrong that you still call me Ned.’
‘We have talked of this before. I am very happy to call you what pleases you. Have you perhaps another name for me? A remembered name?’
Ned wrinkled his brow at this. ‘Well, sometimes I think I might be Ashley.’
‘You would like me to call you Ashley?’
‘I don’t think so. It isn’t quite right. I’m sure that I do remember an Ashley and that I think of him with someone like me. I associate the name Ashley with pretending to be something you aren’t, but it’s all a little confused. I don’t think Ashley is me. I was hoping you might think up a name. My real name may come back to me soon, but in the meantime, anything you give me is better than Ned. The name Ned is beginning to annoy me.’
‘Very well. I shall call you . . .’ Dr Mallo looked around the room as if expecting to light upon an object that would offer a connection to a suitable name. ‘I shall call you Thomas,’ he said, after gazing for a while at a picture on the wall behind Ned. ‘How is Thomas? An English name I think, for you are an English young man. This we know.’
‘Thomas . . .’ Ned repeated the name with pleasure. ‘Thomas . . .’ he said again, with the delight of a child unwrapping a present. ‘Thomas is very good, Doctor. Thank you. I like that very much.’
‘So we shall call you Thomas,’ said Dr Mallo, ‘but I need to believe that you understand the name. It is an escape from Ned, a symbol, we shall say, of a new beginning. It is important you are realistic with this name and do not imagine that Thomas has a past into which you may retreat. It is a name we have conjured up together here for convenience and to mark your progress. Nothing more.’
‘Absolutely!’
‘So now, Thomas my young friend. How have you been?’
‘I think I’ve been well,’ said Ned. ‘I’ve been very happy lately.’
The sound of the new name in his ears was wonderful, it released a feeling to be hoarded and treasured in his room later. ‘Hello there, Thomas.’ ‘Thomas, good to see you.’ ‘Oh look, there’s Thomas!’ ‘Good old Thomas . . .’
‘And at last,’ said Dr Mallo, looking at a tall sheaf of paper in front of him, the trace of a smile on his lips, ‘I am beginning to be able to read your writing without great effort.’
‘It is better, isn’t it?’ Ned agreed enthusiastically. ‘I find I can shape the letters so much more easily now.’
‘Completely.’
‘You are growing quite a beard now. Does it bother you?’
‘Well,’ Ned’s hand went to his face. ‘It has taken some getting used to. It itches and it must look very odd, I suppose.’
‘No, no. Why should it look odd? A beard is a most natural thing.’
‘Well . . .’
‘You would like to see yourself in your beard?’
‘May I? May I really?’ Ned’s legs started to jog up and down on the balls of his feet.
‘I do not see why not.’
Dr Mallo opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a small hand-mirror which he passed across to Ned, who took it and held it on his jiggling knees, face turned away.
‘You are afraid to look?’
‘I’m – I’m not sure . . .’
‘Set your heels to the floor and take some deep breaths. One-two-three, one-two-three.’
Ned’s knees stopped their jogging and he moved his head. He lifted the mirror from his lap, swallowed twice and slowly opened his eyes.
‘What do you think?’
Ned was looking at a face that he did not know. The face stared back at him in equal surprise and horror. It was a gaunt face, a face of hard cheekbones and deep-set eyes. The straw-coloured hair on its head was long, hanging lankly over the ears, the beard hair seemed coarser and tinged with a suggestion of red. Ned put a hand to his own face, and saw a bony hand rubbing the beard line of the face in the mirror and pulling at its moustache.
‘You like this face?’
Ned tried to avoid meeting the eyes in the mirror. They were resentful and coldly blue. They seemed to dislike him.
‘Who is he?’ Ned cried. ‘Who is this man? I don’t know him!’
The face in the mirror had tears streaking its beard. It licked its cracked lips. Its mouth pursed in disgust at the face of Thomas looking in.
‘That is enough. Give me the mirror now.’
‘Who is he? He hates me! Who is he? Who is he? That isn’t me! Is it Thomas? It isn’t Ned. Who is it?’
Dr Mallo pressed a buzzer on the underside of his desk and sighed. Foolish of him to have tried such an experiment. A distasteful display, yet fascinating also. Such pitiable distress, such complete dislocation of subject. Mallo’s student dissertation on the work of Piaget came back to him. If he were still a man of academic energy there could be a paper in this. But Mallo’s days of professional ambition were behind him. He watched Rolf come into the room, wrestle the mirror away and snap bracelets on the boy’s wrists with the methodical efficiency that never deserted him.
‘Calm yourself, Thomas. You see now I hope that there is still a long way for you to go. We will allow you a period of calm for a while. No more writing for the time being, just peaceful reflection. Chlorpromazine,’ he added to Rolf, ‘75 milligrams, I think.’
Ned’s eyes were fixed on the hand-mirror which lay face down on the desk. He was not aware of Rolf pulling up his sleeve. His mind was filled only with a desire to see that haggard face once more and to tear its malevolent eyes from their sockets.
There were special days that came very rarely, days when the food was piled high on Ned’s tray and flower vases and bowls filled with fresh fruit were placed on his table. In the mornings Martin and Rolf would lead him out of the room and stand him under a shower at the end of the corridor. They would hold him there and sponge him clean. Then, still under the shower-head, but with the flow of water turned off, they would cut his hair and shave his beard. His room too, when he returned to it, would have been scrubbed clean and washed. The chamberpot would have gone and the sweet scent of pine room-freshener would hang in the air.
In the afternoons of these extraordinary days Dr Mallo would visit him, together with two others, a man and a woman who did not wear white coats and who brought the atmosphere of the outside world into the room with them. The woman’s handbag and the man’s briefcase fascinated Ned. They bore flavours and smells that were intriguing, enchanting and frightening too.
They all spoke to each other in a language that Ned could not understand, the same language that Rolf and Martin spoke and that he had decided long ago was Scandinavian. He heard his name mentioned in those conversations, always as Thomas now, they never used the name Ned any more.
The woman liked to talk to him sometimes.
‘Do you remember me?’ she would ask, in thickly accented English.
‘Yes, how are you?’ Ned would reply.
‘But how are you?’
‘Oh, I am much better thank you. Much better.’
‘Are you happy here?’
‘Very happy thank you. Yes. Very happy indeed.’
One day in summer they came again, but this time there were three of them. The same couple as before but with another woman, younger than the other, and a great deal more inquisitive. Ned picked up Dr Mallo’s tension at her questions and did his best to say what he thought the doctor expected and wanted of him.
‘How long have you been here, Thomas?’ This new woman’s English was better even than Dr Mallo’s and she spoke to Ned very directly. The others used to ask him questions politely, but never with the impression that they were especially interested in his answers. This woman seemed very curious about Ned and paid great attention to the way he replied.
‘How long?’ Ned looked towards Dr Mallo. ‘I’m not sure how long . . .’
‘Don’t look at the doctor,’ said the woman, ‘I want to know how long you think you’ve been here.’
‘It’s a little hard to tell. Perhaps three or four years. Maybe a bit longer?’
The woman nodded. ‘I see. And your name is Thomas, I believe?’
Ned nodded enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely.’
‘But when you first came here, your name was Ned.’
Ned found that he did not like to hear that name. ‘I was in a bit of a state then,’ he said. ‘I needed to clear up a lot of the ideas in my head. I had been imagining all kinds of things.’
‘Have you made friends with the other patients?’
Dr Mallo started to speak to the young woman, she listened for a while and spoke back at him rapidly. Ned imagined that he heard some words that were a little like the English words ‘Better’ and ‘Hysteria’.
It was strange to see how small Dr Mallo looked, and how afraid he was of this young woman. His head was on one side as he listened to her, and he nodded and smiled, passing his tongue quickly over his lips and making notes on the clipboard he carried with him. It was something more than the woman’s height that made him look so small beside her Ned thought, even though she was nearly a foot taller than him. His whole demeanour reminded Ned of how he tried to look when he was doing his best to please Rolf or even Dr Mallo himself.
The woman turned to Ned. ‘The doctor tells me that you have chosen not to associate with any other patients since you have been here?’
‘I . . . I don’t think I have been ready.’
The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
Ned knew that he must not look to Dr Mallo for prompting or encouragement. It would please him more if he showed that he could think for himself.
‘I wanted to be more confident in myself, if you see what I mean. I didn’t want to lie to anyone about who I was. Also,’ he added, ‘I only speak English and I’ve not wanted to have the problem of being misunderstood.’ That last idea came to him from nowhere and he hoped that Dr Mallo would be pleased at his inventiveness.
There followed another flurry of conversation in which the other woman and her companion joined. Dr Mallo nodded his head decisively and made some more notes. Ned could see that he was trying hard to appear pleased.
‘I will see you again soon, Thomas,’ said the young woman. ‘I hope that the company of some English speaking people will be helpful for you. Will you promise me to try and talk to other patients? Just one or two to start with. Under supervision in
case you become nervous. I think you will enjoy it.’
Ned nodded and did his best to look brave and resolute.
‘Good.’ She looked around the room. ‘You do not have any books here, I see.’
‘I have been writing again,’ said Ned almost defensively. ‘I have written some poems actually.’
‘No doubt you will write better poems if you have the chance to read. Books are always healthy. Goodbye, Thomas. I will see you on my next visit and I expect to see you with books in here. We will talk about what you have read and what friends you have made.’
That evening, when Martin came with his supper and to take away the fruit bowl and the vase of flowers, Ned almost whined at him.
‘That woman said I had to talk to other people. Is it true? I don’t want to. I want to be left on my own. Tell Dr Mallo that I don’t want to meet anyone. Especially not English people.’
‘You do as Doctor tells. If Doctor wants you meet other people, you are meeting other people,’ Martin replied. ‘Not matter if English or not English. Not your choosing. For Doctor to choosing. And here, look.’ Martin dropped an enormous English encyclopaedia onto the floor beside the bed. ‘You will read.’
Ned smiled himself to sleep that night. The lost memory came to him of a kind old man reading the Tales of Uncle Remus. Something about Brer Rabbit, the Tar Baby and the briar patch. He did not quite know why the story was relevant but he knew that it was.
Babe glanced up from the chessboard as Martin led a reluctant patient through the glazed partition and into the sun-room.
Smooth-shaven from yesterday’s official visit, Babe noticed. Another bloody Scandiwegian by the look of the blue eyes and flaxen hair. Frightened eyes they are. Mind you, fake-frightened perhaps. Wary and alert under the guise of compliance and the fog of Thorazine. I know that look well enough. Our man has been here a while and a day, I can see that. Knows how to play it safe. Now why have they kept him from us? What will be his big secret, we wonder? Been keeping himself fit all on his ownsome, that I can see. The full range of physical jerks. And talking of physical jerks, Martin will have tried it on with him, the lardy beast. Not got too far either, by the angry claw of his grip on the boy’s shoulder. Well, well. This is all something new to put the mind to.
