From a Safe Distance

by Bishop, Julia

  Preparing for Christmas with the residents was fun, even if it did mean taking them shopping for their own presents. Oh no, I wasn’t thinking about bad things all the time, even if Aunt Mary lay dormant in my head. Part of my brain was always going to be her crypt, but it was well-concealed.

  It was difficult to avoid becoming attached to some of the residents. I formed a special bond with one in particular: he was known as JD. This morning, typically, he had stated that he wanted to wear “long-sleeved socks, please”. He’d had brain surgery at the age of twenty. Now forty, he could not walk unaided and his thinking was like a young child’s. So taking him shopping could be tricky: if he saw something he wanted, the world had to know. Tantrums were sometimes unavoidable. I was his keyworker, which meant that other staff came to me if they were planning something which involved JD.

  I managed to get Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, along with the week beforehand, as a special favour because of the wedding on 22nd . It meant I’d have to work New Year, but that didn’t bother me.

  Mum and I met up to choose our outfits at the end of November. Jim had told her that Sophie was expecting! A boy!

  ‘You here Chrimmas, Vee?’ JD’s wheelchair had developed a squeak, I noticed.

  ‘No, but I’ll be back soon after.’

  ‘Ow. Where goin’?’

  ‘To see my family.’

  ‘Where they live, then?’

  ‘Oh, not far away.’

  ‘’Cos I got a prezzie for you. I love you, Vee!’

  15

  Porteblanche

  I don’t remember much about that Christmas, even now. ECT does that, taking out whole swathes. The double wedding took place, but it was now a blur, blotted out by the malicious spring which followed.

  I recall how everything was all too green and urgent again, with the exam bird singing for its life. Brendan seemed worried. The juniors on Forest were looking at me, then pulling faces at each other. I didn’t know why: I felt fine, full of energy and working at top speed. Then the white door opened and I plunged into the trap, the black tunnel, with its rows of slamming train doors. I crashed.

  ‘Vee?’ I could see Brendan’s arms on the dining table. ‘I think you should go home. Did you know that you’ve been high as a kite all morning?’

  I couldn’t answer. I deserved to fail again. Back at Old Oak, Phisto curled up on the bed next to me, purring his comfort. I’d put on a manic display I didn’t recall and I felt guilty and embarrassed, so I couldn’t cry. I don’t know how long I was lying there, or who came and found me, or what they did, but I remember being helped into an ambulance by people who smelt faintly of iodine and clean, whole, other lives. Perhaps I was going to the moor.

  When I returned to my much thinner body after what seemed like weeks of endless night, a nurse was sitting by my bed. ‘Vee? Oh good. You’re back. You had us all worried!’

  ‘Where..?’ I coughed. My mouth was not used to speaking. ‘Where am I?’ I whispered.

  ‘In the Porteblanche Unit at Howcester General. Are you thirsty? Hungry?’

  ‘Water, please,’ I managed, drank, then fell asleep. A rough sea of moods had thrown me around for what seemed like an age, until the extra drugs and ECT began to take effect and calm the waves. I would be right up there with the lightning, then I would crash into the depths. Eventually I would be washed ashore and able to see the highs and lows as separate from me, the changes in the tide as less threatening, the black clouds fading. It became a familiar pattern. For the time being, however, there was Freda.

  ‘Why did you let yourself get into that dreadful state?’ she asked angrily, as if I had deliberately wasted her time and NHS resources. I realised that Freda thought I had not been taking my medication, but I could not find the words to defend myself.

  Whether you were very ill or recovering, a good nurse would talk to you the same way. Your validity as a human being would not be in doubt. Such nurses represented stability; they were reference points for normality, coming in from their own separate, normal lives. They didn’t mock, they had compassion, discretion and best of all, they listened. I’d met plenty of them in Tor ward.

  But nowadays, here in this Porteblanche place, talking to patients was out of fashion for nurses, it seemed. Nor did it matter any more, apparently, if they expressed negative opinions or made assumptions about people in their care when those people were present, or spoke about them in a derogatory way as if the patients were deaf. These so-called nurses were like schoolchildren trying to impress their friends. Some of them, including Freda, were no better at being a nurse than someone brought in from the street.

  Had the training changed, the emphasis? The attempts to understand, the time spent listening, were scarce. There was nobody here like Ian from Tor ward, in whom I could confide or to whom I could express my anxiety. Most of the nurses just sat in the office chatting and laughing until late when we were trying to sleep. They were merely onlookers, reluctant to help, quick to find fault, except for a few. My brain had closed off and now I was closed off from the staff – from nearly everyone, in fact.

  I felt desperate. Oh, I couldn’t take another day inside this head which I couldn’t control, and I had to do something about it. So I started to plan. I confided in another patient. I was lying on my bed when Freda marched in without knocking.

  ‘Got your affairs in order then, have you?’ she asked with venom. ‘Let me tell you something.’ She put her face to within two feet of mine. ‘If you attempt suicide, you will be moved to the Secure Unit. In there, you’ll have no visitors and no ECT. Think about it.’

  She removed all the coathangers from my wardrobe, then swept out of the room without another word. When I thought about this, I realised she’d not only come across as menacing, but she’d lied! Of course people in the Unit got visitors and ECT! Why would she say that? In a world where I wasn’t wanted or needed, which would no doubt be relieved when I wasn’t around any more, where the smallest dot of interference from me in other people’s normality was unacceptable, there was something I couldn’t understand: how could doing something so right for me, so right for the world, produce such a hostile reaction in someone considered normal?

  In Tor ward you had been allowed to smoke anywhere except in your bedroom, but here they had a designated smoking room, a sign of the times. I could envisage a future where there would be no smoking room at all and patients (and staff) would have to go somewhere outside, because the staff here hated having to enter the smoking room. I could understand that – it did get a bit thick in there sometimes.

  But for now, Porteblanche smoking room was the centre of the universe. You could listen to music, chat, or just sit and smoke. In the corner was a large man with a mountain of long black hair. He would remain quite still for a long while with his hair forward, completely concealing his face. Then he would suddenly fling the hair back and sit up straight, like a whale surfacing for air. A black woman paced up and down, talking loudly to an invisible friend about life on the street. From time to time she alarmed everyone by launching into a stream of abuse at top volume.

  As my mood swings grew less dramatic, I became aware of a curious ward hierarchy: the two young men who always wore the same clothes were drug addicts, the lowest form of life on the ward according to the patients I spoke to. They only had one thing on their mind: to get out. Once or twice they went missing for a day, but were brought back. Then came the schizophrenics, who didn’t really understand what was going on a lot of the time. Top of the tree were those of us no longer referred to as manic depressive, but as “bipolar”. The alcoholics, amost as lowly as the drug addicts, would try and mimic the bipolars to score points and get attention from the nurses. But we could see through them. Oddly enough, being bipolar was apparently a desirable state. With the name change from manic depression, who knows? Perhaps “being bipolar” would catch on as a fashion accessory like a chihuahua under the arm, for people who would never have a clue about its true n
ature. It would be like believing you could befriend a hurricane.

  I had eight treatments. We could sit outside in the garden if we were well enough and I noticed that roses were in bloom. Mum arrived.

  ‘Oh, you’re looking much better than when I last came, Vee!’ She had tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve brought you some bits and pieces. Has Jim been, or phoned the ward?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I’m only just beginning to make sense of this.’

  ‘Only they’ve got some news. I don’t suppose they’ll mind me telling you but Matthew was born last night in the hospital here, next door. All’s well apparently. I expect Jim will be in touch.’ She was obviously very proud. ‘Have you seen a psychiatrist yet?’

  ‘I’m due to see one tomorrow.’

  I was an aunt!

  The next morning Freda was on. I always knew when handover was finished because there would be a sudden burst of voices when the office door opened. I heard Freda’s voice and strange little laugh.

  Eventually it was time for the ward round.

  Max had not observed life on a psychiatric ward from the same perspective as Vee of course. Helen was glad he had Vee’s book to occupy his time; she was very busy at work, and he was left to his own devices for most of the day. He had caught up with Helen now, and reading kept Vee’s memory alive for him, to such an extent that he thought he could sometimes feel emotions from her, as if she were in the attic room with him. So he read on. Ah, yes. Vee was about to be called into the ward round. He wished it could have been different.

  ‘Dr Greenwood will see you now, Vee. Through here.’ She smiled. It was a kind nurse who had spoken to me before. Dr Greenwood? My heart …

  I knew I would have to put my face straight quickly and hide my surprise, pretend not to know him. I was well enough, and I had been in the system long enough, to grasp that. There wasn’t time to think about anything else.

  I was shown into the small room reserved for ward rounds at the end of a corridor. Max sat under the window, facing me as I came in, with a nurse on each side. He had a folder in his lap.

  ‘Hello, Vee. Do take a seat.’ His voice was controlled but gentle. The look he gave me, though brief, conveyed the message: “yes, it’s me, but you don’t know me, OK?” Just as I’d predicted. He was ten years older of course, his hair had receded and was now completely grey, but it was definitely Max.

  ‘How are you feeling now, after ECT? You’ve been in quite a bad way.’

  ‘Much better thank you,’ I replied.

  ‘Would you like to go on weekend leave tomorrow? Then if all goes well, we can think about discharging you next week. But I would like to arrange for you to see a CPN – that’s a Community Psychiatric Nurse – when you’re back at home. Anything you want to ask me?’

  That was cruel! Of course there were things I wanted to ask him! He opened the folder briefly. Then his steady gaze, over his reading glasses, and his mask of professional detachment left me in no doubt as to how to respond.

  ‘No. I … I’ll go for the weekend leave, please.’

  He was lucky: he’d had time to get used to the idea of meeting me! Come to think of it, he must have seen me at my worst without my knowledge. A host of memories suddenly mingled with the embarrassment of my present situation and refused to be submerged: Max undoing my blouse … caressing and kissing … It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I wasn’t supposed to be his patient! The knowledge that I had done what was necessary for the time being was my only consolation.

  On the weekend leave, I went shopping with Mum. I had a warm welcome from Phisto at the flat, but a silent reception from one of the girls I shared with. I think it had something to do with my resemblance to an axe-murderer. I attacked the pile of post waiting for me. When finally I returned to Old Oak properly, there was one more letter to open. Personnel had sent it through the internal mail: they wanted me to attend a disciplinary hearing.

  ‘Why … why cryin’, Vee?’ JD caught sight of me when I arrived at Forest House two days after coming out of Porteblanche.

  ‘I’m OK, JD.’

  ‘Not OK. Here … here … ’ He was holding out his arms for a hug, but I decided against it as he had spilt breakfast down his front.

  ‘I’ll see you later, right? You should be at Activities, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘OK. S’pose so.’

  I wanted to talk to Brendan, who came out of the office just at that moment.

  ‘Vee cryin’, Brendan.’ JD had followed me in his wheel-chair and was worried.

  ‘Oh, hello. Were you after me?’ Brendan showed every sign of being busy.

  ‘I’ve had a letter I’d like you to look at.’

  ‘Go and sit in there. I’ll be back in a minute.’ I waited, looking absently at the notices which had appeared during my time off. Brendan came back and shut the door.

  ‘Now, let’s see.’ He read the letter standing up. At more than six feet, he towered over me. ‘Oh, so the hearing’s in … half an hour. The trouble is, Vee, they see an absence like this as you failing in terms of performance, which is all that matters to them.’

  ‘But when I’m well, I do a reasonable job, don’t I?’

  ‘Wh … yes, you do! Better than reasonable. But absence means you don’t, if you see what I mean. It kind of … cancels it out.’ The phone rang. ‘I’ll ring you back’, he muttered hastily into it. ‘Vee, they can’t tell the difference between a bad performance at work and not being at work at all. That’s what you’re up against. Their policies don’t cover your circumstances.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You go to the meeting and stick up for yourself. That’s all you can do. I can’t really help beyond that, I’m afraid. They’ve seen the good reports I’ve written about you. I take it a Union rep will be there to support you?’

  ‘Yes. I met up with him yesterday afternoon. It was the first thing I did after opening the letter. It’s Bernie from the repair shop. I don’t know if he’ll be any use, quite honestly. I don’t think he really grasped what was happening.’

  ‘Well, I wish you luck. By the way,’ he added, with a friendly smile, ‘It’s good to see you looking much better than when I saw you in Porteblanche.’ He turned and picked up the phone. So he’d visited me! I wished I could remember. And who else had? It was a disturbing idea. And I had to admit that, although I had told them at interview that I’d been depressed, I don’t think anyone, including me, had anticipated a three-month spell in hospital. Was the medication wrong? Oh, I had so much to ask Max! What made things worse at this stage was that I was still trying to find the real me again, so I wasn’t as strong as I’d have liked going into this hearing. The white door wasn’t quite shut, but I was treated as if it was; most people, after all, only have one state of being, and are fortunate not to know other mental dimensions.

  ‘Come in, sit down.’ Susan Perry, the Personnel Manager, sounded weary and distant. She was a pale-faced woman of about my age who spoke with a Yorkshire accent and always wore a short skirt and jacket. There were two men in suits in the office as well.

  ‘You’ve met Jack Marshall and Tim Clark, Senior Managers, haven’t you Miss Gates? You will appreciate,’ she went on, without giving me a chance to reply, ‘that absences of this length cannot be tolerated. They put a great strain on us in terms of manpower.’ Her voice sounded mechanical.

  ‘I do realise that, yes, but I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘Now … we know you’ve had problems, but you see, if everyone took three months off when they felt like it, we’d be in a right mess. Think about it. And think about your colleagues for once.’ This was said with emphasis, so that I felt like a naughty child. But I had to speak up, take Brendan’s advice, as Bernie didn’t seem able to take part.

  ‘I was actually ill in hospital. It wasn’t that I felt like taking time off!’

  Ms Perry showed all the understanding of which she was capable, which meant ignoring what I had to say. ‘Be that as it may, the
result’s the same for the Centre. And if you were in hospital, Miss Gates, how do you account for the fact that you were seen at your flat a few days ago?’ It was obvious she held all the cards.

  ‘I was on weekend leave. That’s what they do, to see if you’re ready to come out of hospital.’ As expected, this had no effect.

  ‘We have decided to give you a verbal warning at this stage.’ She glanced at a folder on her desk. ‘According to our records, you have only worked for seventy-five per cent of your time here. That’s not good enough.’ She paused. Brendan was right. Then came a bizarre question. ‘When are you going to be ill again?’

  A groan of disbelief was all Bernie could manage. I couldn’t believe it either. It was like asking someone when they would next catch cold.

  ‘I don’t know.’ This was all I dared answer, because in a split second, I suspected that the question was designed to provoke me. An angry outburst wouldn’t help my cause at all.

  I left the department feeling sick and bad-tempered. There was guilt, too, introduced by Ms Perry’s overriding concern with staff numbers. I could have done without that, and their suspicions; I was still struggling to get my life back together, and it was clear I was on my own.

  16

  Cakes, Sophie and Max

  ECT does not discriminate between short-term and long-term memory. If a plate of cakes represents the mind, ECT is the hand which can take memories at random from any part without your knowledge. Some of the cakes reappear at different times, and some take longer to find their cue. But some disappear for ever. So it was with the Christmas before Porteblanche. I have a vague memory of the wedding, however, which went something like this.

  I remember knowing it was hard for me to join in with the excitement all around me. I only really caught a little of the atmosphere in that small room, when the registrar, a short woman in an embroidered suit, began her important and dignified address. Even then, I watched as if I were an observer from another world.