by Liz Jensen
‘He doesn’t – yet. But as soon as he hears about this he’ll be playing a key role, just you wait. It’s your only hope of nailing these bastards. Leave it to me. Ma’s made an interesting suggestion which I may follow through.’ She took another deep drag.
I was flabbergasted.
‘Ma? What are you talking about? She’s a loony! Keep her out of this! Keep her out of my marriage!’
‘Hazel, get a life. You haven’t got a marriage. Anyway, I’m not sure how you’d fare against Ma in a sanity contest. Just keep your mouth shut, and refuse all medication. I’ll work on getting you out of here but for the time being I think you should just sit it out. You’re a liability in the real world in the state you’re in. Stay in your room. Read magazines. Do whatever you housewives do.’
‘But I’m not a housewife any more!’ I expostulated, and threw myself at the basin once more.
I’d forgotten yesterday’s muesli.
‘I’m nothing!’ I choked through it.
‘Well, for Christ’s sake become something then!’ Linda spat, buttoning up an absurd bottle-green raincoat with flaps everywhere.
And she was gone, slamming the door and leaving her fag burning in the tooth-mug.
She’s always been jealous of me.
True facts are hard to find, but there is one that is acknowledged by all: thirty-five is a desperate age for a childless woman, whether she realises it or not. It is half of threescore and ten, and heralds a time of unique crisis; the onset of middle age. See Linda as a victim of this age of desperation. See her preparing to cross the pain barrier into the second half of her life, and leaving Base Camp way behind. See her in Bollingate View Terrace, applying an unprecedented amount of make-up with a shaking hand. And see her now, four hours later, arriving at a London platform and checking her A to Z. See her at Channel Praise headquarters, flashing her Ministry pass at the bored security men. And see her pluck up courage and stomp purposefully towards a door marked ‘Holy Hour Production Offices’.
Inside, the hum of computers and the murmur of competent telephone transactions. It could be a bank, if it weren’t for all the stopwatches. Nobody seems to be over twenty-five. The people are blandly attractive, in the way that is required in television, on-screen and off. They all wear name-badges and sweatshirts with the Holy Hour logo – a huge mackerel – emblazoned across the chest.
‘Do you have an appointment with the Reverend, Miss Sugden?’ enquires an office minion. He is young, with the friendly, stupid face of a koala.
‘Just tell him “eggs”,’ instructs Linda. ‘He’ll know who I am. I have some important information to pass on to him about Dr Gregory Stevenson, of the Genetic Choice project.’
‘ “Eggs”. Right, I’ll tell him “eggs”.’
A minute later, Linda is ushered through a door marked ‘Dressing-room’, and stands face to face with her saviour. At first Linda thinks he is sitting down on an invisible stool, but he isn’t. She feels giddy. She has dreamed of this moment. Fantasised about it, even, if the truth be known. The door closes softly behind her.
‘Eggs,’ says Linda, hopefully, clutching her Leningrad hat.
‘Eggs,’ smiles the diminutive Reverend.
‘I threw them at you in Gridiron City a couple of months ago.’
‘I remember it well. Quite a catharsis.’
‘I’ve come to, to – ’
‘My dear young woman,’ he says, reaching out a strong, thick hand, whose fingers are so short they seem amputated at the second joint. ‘Welcome.’
‘Thank you, Reverend,’ says Linda, struggling with a suddenly pounding heart. So much to say, so few words to reach for. ‘Thank you for bringing me to Christ.’
‘My dear child. Welcome to a new world of love.’
Love. That great trigger-word that betrays us all. Holy love, earthly love, love-is-love-is-love. They can smile now, and their eyes can meet. Nothing is more natural, at that moment, than to join in a Christian embrace. And after that to kiss one another on the cheek. And on the other cheek.
And then on the lips. Linda is shocked by the size and thickness of the preacher’s tongue, and the minty taste of his mouth.
‘I came to tell you something,’ she gasps, finally breaking the vacuum clasp of their lips.
‘Ah,’ smiles the Reverend, cupping her padded breast and squeezing it gently.
‘Something important,’ she croaks, as she feels her nether regions falter.
‘My dear child,’ he murmurs, slithering his other hand beneath her vest and bra and pressing a nipple.
What could be more natural then, than to acknowledge the urgent requirements of the bodies God gave them and rejoice in the fire that springeth in their loins? What more in keeping with His holy will than to cast off one’s Marks & Spencer blouse and matching skirt? And to raise one’s cassock – beneath which frock the Reverend reveals the most hirsutely righteous evidence of his spiritual ardour? And then to fornicate against the light-bulbed dressing table, for a total of thirty-seven seconds, until the Reverend’s Christian seed is joyously dispensed?
Which act committed, there is a moment of heavenly peace, broken by the phone. The Reverend reaches out for the receiver and snorts awake.
‘Hello? Oh, rightey-oh. I’ll be out in two minutes. Bye.’
Linda, still crushed against the dressing table by the Reverend’s short bulk, opens an eye and remembers her mission.
‘Er, I need to talk to you, Reverend.’
‘Talk? What about?’ He seems genuinely surprised.
‘My brother-in-law.’
‘Ah, families. A blessing and a curse,’ he murmurs, slithering out of her. From the corner of her eye Linda glimpses the Reverend’s member again. She hadn’t realised that hairy penises existed – but before there is time for her to register it fully, its satisfied owner is hoisting his Y-fronts up across his belly’s wad of flesh, and peering into the mirror to smooth down his hair with a dollop of gel.
‘Go in peace,’ he says.
And leaves for the studio.
Linda watches the show on the small television in the dressing-room. It is strange to think that the man who kneels before her on the screen was ten minutes ago thrusting energetically, if briefly, inside her. He is on form today, and is demonstrating proudly the maquette of the House of God, a nightmarish hybrid of Gothic, Municipal, Romantic and Eco architecture. The donations pour in. Linda watches impatiently. Her life has changed, thanks to this man. Love has ripped through her like thunder and left her bare soul hanging out. She sees a bright future of marches, causes, and militant evangelism. Let the show end, that she may wrap her arms about him and they may hasten to legitimate their union. Linda decides on a simple gold band for a wedding-ring: nothing ostentatious. The ceremony itself will have to be televised, of course, unless they can hold it discreetly, in secret, and announce it later. She will be a strong helpmeet to Vernon, she vows. A worthy First Lady to his spiritual presidency.
On the screen, a tiny pageant of worship enacts itself: a prayer, a phone-in about teen violence, then a jangle of tambourines to usher in the Surbiton Triumphal Choir, dressed as Easter chicks. Finally the credits roll, and Linda waits.
And waits.
At five o’clock the koala-faced minion pops its head round the door.
‘All right there? We’re just closing up the office now. Poets’ day, you know.’
‘Poets’ day?’
‘Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Er, can I offer you a Holy Mackerel sweatshirt as a souvenir of your visit? You look like a size twelve. We’ve got loads in stock.’
‘Thanks,’ says Linda in a daze as she follows the minion to the production offices. The place is empty, and Linda’s heart tightens with a familiar spasm. She watches him hunt in a cupboard and emerge with a Holy Hour Gift Pack.
‘So the Reverend isn’t coming back?’
‘Nope. He took the helicopter up north on a healing mission.’
There is a long pause, whi
ch the minion does not seem keen to fill.
‘Did he leave a message for me?’ Linda manages finally, faking insouciance as she stuffs the Gift Pack in her handbag.
‘The Reverend never leaves messages.’ The koala face gives nothing away. ‘He has a lot of fans, you know.’
ELEVEN
The greenhouse came and went after that, as did my wings, of which there were four – two at shoulder-level, and two that sprouted from my buttocks. They were merely decorative, and didn’t work qua wings. I reckon I must have got pretty adaptable since the Gregory thing, because I quickly got used to these phenomena, and to the daily injections from Hope, the Welsh nurse, and to the vomitings of Peggy, aka the Ossature, who shared my room. Hope was right about her being quiet; she hardly uttered a word, except to ask how much I reckoned she weighed. One of the things I learned quite quickly at the Institute was to tell people what they wanted to hear.
‘About four stone,’ I always lied. She was more like five and a half.
The other thing I got used to was the strange disjunction between my skin and the person within. You get tangerines that are like that, their loose peel attached to the segmented ball of fruit only by the most tenuous strands of pith.
I wasn’t unhappy at Manxheath. And despite Linda’s dark mutterings, I agreed with the psychiatrists that a secure environment was the best place for me while I was adjusting to the new drugs. I saw several doctors, chiefly a thin, insinuating female called Dr McAuley who always wore her hair in a bun, coiled on top of her scalp like a transplanted intestine. Ma maintained it was a wig, made from filaments of nylon. I didn’t see Dr Stern, except in the distance sometimes, or when I looked out of my bedroom window and saw him below on the forecourt, greeting a visitor. He was ‘too busy’ for any more one-to-one consultations. The drug combination I was on seemed to filter away most kinds of negative feelings, so I wasn’t depressed about this: just mildly regretful.
I lived in a new world now; a world of metallic coffee machines, foam-filled sofas, acrylic ashtrays, tables covered in different varieties of formica – objects with outlines and textures and a sense of purpose about them. You know where you are with a toilet-roll holder or a radiator – and I’m ashamed to admit that, until I became a client at Manxheath, this fact had never struck me with adequate force. In the meantime the invisibles and intangibles of life – fact, ideas, arguments, so-called ‘concepts’ – slithered off beyond my grasp. Feelings, too. They just didn’t seem to be my bag any more.
In art therapy, I discovered three-dimensional work. Macramé is a sort of cliché until you try it. But, with the help of a book called Get Knotted, I found that the intricate twining of waxed pig-string had a beauty to it and – dare I say it – a ‘meaning’ that I found lacking elsewhere. I made two hanging flower-pot containers, and a small hammock for Billy. The sessions were supervised by a theatrical woman called Diane. She was very permissive, and let us get on with whatever we wanted. This meant she turned a blind eye to Ma’s clay things, while she got on with her own projects, which involved making avant-garde earrings out of found objects such as milk-bottle tops and balls of old chewing gum. She said she had been a student at the famous Morgana Hathaway Art Foundation, which I’d never heard of, where she had specialised in non-biodegradables and something she called text. She was a big wheel, I later found out, on the Gridiron craft caucus. She came on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. We were her charity cases.
I think I could have gone on this way indefinitely, if it weren’t for the fact that the drugs weren’t quite ‘cutting the mustard’. Dr Hollingbroke’s words, not mine. He was in charge of the fine-tuning of our delicate internal ecospheres. He was a tall, balding man with a woman’s bottom; you might have mistaken him for another loony, if it weren’t for his nametag and electronic bleep. He would have discussions with nurses in which he’d say things like:
‘Has the Thorazine been pulling its weight in that female mania case?’
‘Did we overpower that Lithium dose yesterday?’
‘Vis-à-vis our new manic, I’m going to tweak that Valium combo with some Stymozopane.’
My drugs weren’t cutting the mustard because some things still broke through to me. Things which, psychiatrically and pharmacologically speaking, should have shut up and stayed put. (The doctor’s words again.) Things like Billy. I missed him with the numb aching of an amputee. And I realised with a certain weariness that I’d give up everything – the greenhouse, my wings, the memory of Ishmael – to have him back. Dr Hollingbroke told me he had some more chemical tweaks in mind to deal with this seepage problem.
Some days I’d wander about in the greenhouse. Looking back, I reckon I must have been trying, in a vague way, to find some sort of clue as to what was happening to me. It was an overheated, steamy place with any number of doors, and odd ante-chambers which were either brimful with the most undisciplined kinds of vegetation, chiefly cheese-plants, or virtually empty. I don’t know much about architecture, but even I could tell that none of it could possibly have had planning permission. Some bits didn’t even have air vents or drainage facilities. One of the largest rooms I came across contained only a broken bench and a plastic watering-can. It seemed like a shocking waste of space, but when I mentioned it to Ma she got quite irate.
‘What d’you mean? I’ve personally seen to it that every square centimetre in that greenhouse is used to the fullest effect!’
I was struck, as I sometimes am, by the Scottishness of her accent when she said those words. ‘Foolest effayct’, it sounded like. I let it drop. We were obviously talking at complete cross-purposes. In any case, I never saw the remotest sign of her or her disciples in there, and I began to suspect that all the self-aggrandising talk of horticultural industry was mere bullshit.
One day, on impulse, I knocked on Dr Stern’s door. Actually it wasn’t quite impulse. I was bearing a gigantic bunch of greenhouse flora – a riot of pink thrills and spills which Ma would have called ‘whore’s drawers’ if she’d seen them. There was no reply from Ishmael, so I walked in. It was then that I realised that time must have passed: the Modern Art calender had turned a page. The sludge greys and browns of April, the cruellest month, had been replaced by the bright orange, yellow and lime-green smudges of May, the merriest. It was quite a shock. I left the flowers in a urine flask on Ishmael’s desk. Borrowing his bulbous fountain pen and an Assessment Form, I wrote a note for him: ‘I will always love you. Hazel.’
It didn’t look quite right. He’d betrayed me, after all. So I crossed out the word ‘love’, and replaced it with ‘be available for you sexually’.
I stole the anemone paperweight. If anyone had a right to it, I did.
It was arranged on the client-provider allocation sheet that I should have daily sessions with Dr McAuley, she of the intestinal chignon. There was something in her personality that I disliked, so when Linda next came to visit and asked if I needed anything, I requested a pair of her ‘acoustic minimisers’. With their help, Dr McAuley’s invasive questions were reduced to a muffled drone. The days would begin with half an hour in her presence. I kept my eyes closed and used the time to empty my mind, much as I used to in the supermarket, when bunches of bananas and tins of gourmet sauce would float by, beckoning the trolley that glided me down the aisles. The trick was to retain that emptiness, that almost transcendental state, at the checkout, while I was filling the bags, and hopefully for the rest of the day. It was in one of these states of higher meditation that, despite my preoccupation with objects, I began to develop two rather abstract ideas.
When I first started seeing Dr Stern, I used to wonder whether I was mad, or whether the world around me was. But suddenly it came to me that it doesn’t have to be a question of either/or. It can be both. Inner and outer insanity don’t rule each other out. Hence:
Idea 1. This idea I called ‘the personal versus global insanity issue’.
Meanwhile, things had been taken from me one by one – my
husband, my home, my son, my lover, my hotel room. Some of these things I wanted back. So:
Idea 2. This idea I called ‘my rights’.
Because of the slippery nature of ‘concepts’ in my life at this stage, I decided to associate these thoughts with an object, as a sort of mnemonic device. The object I chose was the metal-framed chair I was sitting on. It had a red plastic foam cushion.
That way it would all stay in my head.
At the end of one session, Dr McAuley seemed to have something urgent to convey to me.
‘I’m not hearing what you say, Doctor; you’ll have to write it down,’ I told her.
She pulled an exasperated face and mouthed at me again, ‘Come to Group this afternoon.’
But I made her write it down anyway. Give these psychiatrists a centimetre and they’ll take a hectare. Something Ma told me, and she’s right. She wrote it on her pad in black biro. She had that bulbous, low-slung type of handwriting that they teach in secretarial colleges. I should know. Mine is like that, too.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll come.’
The socially vulnerable knitting circle, Ma called it. I reckoned that if I took my chair with me, I’d cope.
Later, at lunch, a strange thing happened: Keith flung his cauliflower cheese across the room and then stood on the table, windmilling his arms. Then he ran out, sobbing, followed by Hope.
‘Hope rushes in where angels fear to tread,’ Ma usually said when she saw Hope rushing anywhere. Or sometimes she’d say, ‘You can put hope in one hand and spit into the other.’ I don’t quite know why. But she wasn’t there to say either of these things, or to translate what Keith had said, so no one knew what it was about. She turned up later, with earth under her fingernails. When I told her about the cauliflower cheese incident, she said it sounded like Keith had had a premonition.
‘A bad one,’ she said, her already pasty face growing pale. ‘Every once in a while, someone here makes an important statement. Keith’s problem,’ she concluded, ‘is epistemological.’
‘Are you sure, Moira?’ bleated Monica Fletcher from somewhere near our ankles. ‘I’ve always thought the food here was rather good.’
