Lady Gwendolyn looked at this woman caressing her, this woman she could hardly believe was her mother returned to her, and tears fell in silent streams down her face. She looked up at Dai Mervyn.
“Merlyn, our most trusted physician, is this thy magic that thou hast conjured forth – to bring my mother back to me? Indeed I am transported to a strange and foreign place where miracles surround me. And this is the greatest miracle of them all.” She turned to her mother again.
“I see in thy heart that thou art truly my parent. No one else could treat me thus, though I know not how this is possible. Thou were taken from me, killed by Saxons, when I was but a child, not seven winters old. I saw thy lifeless body and cried over it like an infant. But here thou art with me alive once more, this very day. In thine eyes, in the line of thy face, I see my mother again. Older, ‘tis true, but thy heart and mine do not lie. I am thy daughter!” The Lady Gwendolyn lifted her arms and the two women embraced, tears springing forth from them both.
Gwen’s mother looked across at Dai Mervyn. Had she heard right? Was her daughter really saying that she thought her mother was dead? Killed by Saxons? One thing she was sure of, and overjoyed for, was that her daughter had thrown herself into her arms and returned the love that was offered her in a way that had not happened for years. Ceri did not know whether or not her daughter’s emotional state was in turmoil, but now, for certain, her mother’s was!
Dai Mervyn was feeling more than a little uncomfortable. He was witness to a remarkable family reunion and felt as if he was intruding – like an actor in a play who could not think of his lines. He shifted on his feet.
“Shall I wait outside while you two get acquainted with one another again?” he asked.
“NO, Merlyn!” Fear lent urgency to Lady Gwendolyn’s command. “Thou must not leave me again! ‘Tis only thee, I suspect, that can explain all that has happened here. So many, most disturbing visions and strange persons have passed this morn that are beyond my ken. I am thus scared witless without thee. Pray tell me, dear friend, who are the many emotionless people who live in this citadel? I am a stranger to them as they are to me, yet they approach with such foreign ways and customs – neither warlike nor welcoming; neither friend nor foe. Most unsettling. And the light! How dost it change so much? So fearfully strong and bright, yet it comes and goes like no candle can shine. Merlyn – there are so many mysteries here. Art thou comfortable with all this? Tell me if my fears have reason or not.”
Dai Mervyn glanced at the psychiatrist, sitting silently in the corner, and looked at Gwen’s mother as well. How was he to react to this strange request? The poor girl was certainly not on the same planet as the rest of them; in shock, maybe; undoubtedly under the mistaken impression that he knew her, and she him, better than was in fact the case. They’d only met once before yet she spoke as if they were old friends, if not actual family.
“Gwen, you’ve woken up in hospital. It’s a place where the people here are dedicated to help thee get better. It’s not that they are emotionless. It’s just that they are trying to understand what’s made you so ill, and how best they can help you. If they get emotionally involved with thee, they can’t see straight enough to find a cure, see?”
He found himself talking to Gwen like a little girl that needed fatherly reassurance. Even his language was reverting to that he’d once used with his own daughter. He was being drawn into a role that was making significant emotional inroads on him – let alone the effect it had on her.
“As for the light, well they’ve had to darken it in here for you, my love. Switch off the lights in this room, see, but they left ‘em on outside in the corridor, so the doctors and nurses can go about their business, OK?”
“Switch lights? Doctors and nurses?” Lady Gwendolyn shook her head, not understanding a thing of this.
“Gwen, you’ve been to the doctors before, haven’t you?” Gwen’s mother reminded her. “Remember how they poke you about to see what hurts and what doesn’t? They’re not being unfriendly or unemotional – they are just trying to sort you out. Don’t worry, love.”
Lady Gwendolyn nodded. She supposed that it did make some sort of sense, though she’d never seen such behaviour before – nor had Merlyn ever been so distant with the many injured folk he had treated over the years in Camelot. Camelot! The emotional atmosphere in that place called to her.
“Now I have awoke, wilst thou take me back to Camelot? I accept what thou tellest me about this place, but I yearn for the warmth and friendship of my home!”
“Aye, Gwen. That we’ll do for thee as soon as they tell us you’re better. OK? But we’ll have to talk to the doctors here about that first.” Dai Mervyn looked questioningly at Mr Cohen. Perhaps they could all talk outside for a moment?
The consultant silently withdrew, signalling to the other two that they should do so as well.
Ceri leaned over and kissed her daughter. “We’re just going outside for a minute, dear. To talk to the doctors, my love. We’re not going to leave you, OK? We’re coming back.”
Dai Mervyn agreed. “Just you hold on here awhile? Alright? There’s tidy for you.” He felt as if he could kiss Gwen as well, so much was the effect this was having on him. He was glad to get outside the room to try and get a hold on himself.
Mr Jerome Cohen closed the door quietly on Gwen as soon as all three were outside. He looked at both Ceri Griffiths and Dai Mervyn to gauge their reactions. The two were considerably moved by the experience.
“My poor girl,” said her mother. “She…she doesn’t fully understand what has happened to her. There’s obviously some dreamlike fantasy about me dying in the past…but, my God, she’s beautiful with me. Beautiful. I’ve not had her like that with me for years.”
“Dunno about your daughter coming back to you, so much, Ceri, but I tell you – she’s doing that to me,” said Dai Mervyn. “Quite, quite, remarkable!”
Mr Cohen nodded. He was trying to put all his many thoughts together over this uniquely puzzling case.
“Ms Griffiths, Mr Merlyn, your own reactions to this experience are perfectly normal. I have to consider how far the behaviour of the patient – which has provoked your own emotions – can itself be considered ‘normal’. Physically, she is well. I can detect no dizziness. Her vision is clear. Her intellectual faculties do not seem to be incapacitated in any way. Her short-term memory is equally fine. She can recall what has happened to her here, in hospital, with no difficulty. Her emotional state has changed significantly in the short time she has been awake. She has been frightened to the point of almost fainting away in fear, but now – thanks to your influence – she has quickly, remarkably quickly, returned to equanimity. It appears now that she is not emotionally unstable to the point of being a danger to herself or others. It is too soon to be certain but early fears of chronic mental illness appear unjustified. Her emotional variability seems not to be due to some imagined, internal mental conflict but instead has been brought upon by an external environment that appears to be entirely new and strange to her.”
He stopped.
“And that is the crux of the problem for me. The situation Gwen Price is confronting is a world of which she seems to have little prior knowledge. Her language is strangely old-fashioned for us; by the same token, our language, the concepts we refer to, is strange and foreign to her. Lights that switch on and off, for example. Perfect sense to us; nonsense to her. So Gwen is struggling to come to terms with a new reality for her. No wonder she is emotional! The loss of her mother was clearly very real to her at one time in her past, Ms Griffiths. Imagine coming to terms with her new, live mother now. Her emotional state is therefore quite normal, given the size of the adjustment she is required to make. The issue is why is she faced with this great emotional adjustment? You’ve been alive and living with her all along, if I’m not mistaken?”
Ceri Griffiths nodded. “Is…is she schizophrenic, Doctor?” She hated using the term. It frightened her, but she had to ask.<
br />
“Schizophrenic? The term covers a wide range of conditions. This is far from being a typical case of schizophrenia. Her language is important: an external symptom of her internal world. It is certainly not childish language. It’s construction and use is mature, consistent and not in any way confused or muddled. It is the product of a sound mind. I return to the paradox – a sound mind but confronted with a reality that is entirely strange to her. No, not entirely strange – you two, particularly you, Sir, are reassuringly familiar to her. But who is Kate, I should ask? Before you came, she was repeatedly calling for this person.”
“The only Kate she has ever known,” Ceri said, “was a cloth doll she had when she was a child. She named it herself. Went to bed holding it every night, she did.”
“Until what age, may I ask?”
“I’ve been trying to think. Around six or seven, I suppose.”
“Around the time she alleged her mother died,” Mr Cohen confirmed. “That fits. Another question, if I might insist: your own surname indicates you separated from Gwen’s father some time ago. How long ago, please?”
“Gwen was nine when we finally separated. But things had been stormy between us for some years leading up to the final break.”
“Does she still see her father regularly?”
“When she wants to. I don’t think she’s got a major problem there. But they are not that close; nor is Gwen with me, to be honest. She’s always been an independent girl, strong-willed and not one to give, nor willing to receive, much love and affection. ’Til just now, that is.” Ceri’s eyes filled with water just thinking of it.
“Hmm. Thank you, Ms Griffiths.”
“Mr Cohen,” Dai Mervyn butted-in to the conversation, “what about taking Gwen home? Can we? Does she really need to stay here in hospital, ‘specially since it frightens her?” He was pushing for a decision in their favour.
Mr Cohen smiled; the heavy hint was not needed. “Mr Merlyn, I need to see her again. That is imperative. I need to see what sort of progress she makes over the next few days, and even longer into the future. Gwen is a unique case in my experience of almost forty years of clinical psychiatry. Absolutely unique. But take her home? The journey itself will confront her with a range of experiences that may well seem new and frightening for her. But I have just said she has a sound mind and confronting her new reality will have to take place whatever and wherever she is. Given the emotional support that only you can provide, perhaps it is best that she goes home with you. The more she is in a familiar emotional environment, the better.” He saw the leap of relief to the two beside him. “Go back into Gwen now and let me get things arranged here. There are a number of things we have to sort out before she can go but I think that by lunchtime, that is twelve o’clock, midday, we can get everything finished. The nurse will come and sign her out around then. Gwen will have to continue seeing me as an out-patient, of course. We will fix up appointments for her and let you know before you leave. Well, that’s all for now – I will indeed be seeing you again in due course. Good day to you both.”
Ceri Griffiths was overcome with conflicting emotions: delighted that she could take Gwen home with her; worried about Gwen’s confused state of mind and what it all meant; delighted that her daughter sought the love and support of her mother. Dai Mervyn looked across at Ceri and could feel some of the turmoil that was going on within her. He smiled kindly at her.
“C’mon!” he said, opening the door. They both went back in to see Gwen.
“Good news, Gwen,” her mother couldn’t wait to tell her. “We are going to take you home soon. First, let’s get you up, showered and dressed. Dai – can you find out where I can take her?”
“No problem, Ceri. There’s a shower room and toilet right next door.” Dai Mervyn held the door for the two women to leave.
The next half an hour was entertaining and yet even more emotionally impactful for Ceri. It was like taking a little child through a host of wondrous new experiences that were totally unexpected. Her daughter seemed never before to have seen doors that opened and shut so silently; the floor’s surface for her bare feet was so smooth and fascinating to touch; and such a mundane and prosaic necessity as going to the toilet was converted into a surprising and diverting experience involving this miraculous fountain with water gushing with a roar from hidden places! Gwen’s hospital robe was discarded in the shower room, but she then had to run her hands over the glass of the shower cubicle to understand what this amazing transparent shield was…and the mirror over the basin? Was that me in there with my mother? Lady Gwendolyn hugged her mother with eyes wide open in astonishment and then did it again, watching herself do so in the mirror, laughing and crying with joy and wonder. Her mother could not stop her own tears, sharing such intimacy with her new daughter. Most entertaining of all was turning those strange tap things and seeing hot water spray forth out of the wall. Lady Gwendolyn shrieked in surprise and pleasure as she turned herself around and around under the shower. She waved to her mother from under the cascade, smothered herself in shampoo and played with the bubbles as they coursed down her own body, smiling and giggling in the sheer magic of it all. Her mother just watched, scarcely able to believe the transformation in her daughter that she was witnessing.
Dai Mervyn all this time was waiting outside, listening to the shrieks of laughter and amazement and could only guess what was going on inside that room. Eventually mother and daughter emerged, hanging on to one another and Gwen wrapped in towels and grinning from ear to ear. So much fun to be had in simple ablutions. Dai couldn’t stop himself from joining in with their laughter and general merriment.
By the time that the Lady Gwendolyn had to get dressed she had come to realise that the miracles would never stop. She allowed her mother to produce the strangest clothes she had ever worn, realising that these garments, particularly those that clothed her legs, would make her look a lot like all those other strange emotionless people she had seen earlier. A functionary came and went, speaking to her mother and Merlyn and she understood that there was now no restriction on them all leaving this citadel together. She had to walk slowly along the passageway, however, staring one way and the other at a myriad of persons and objects that were utterly foreign to her. They came to magic doors that glided open. She looked at Merlyn in alarm.
“Stop!” she cried. “This is too much! Into what sort of torture chamber dost thou take me, Merlyn?”
Merlyn and her mother just laughed. They reassured her it would be fine. All stepped into this strange metal box, lights flickered, the box shook and she felt for a moment as if she was falling. Then it stopped, the doors glided open and the scene outside had changed: she had magically been transported down to a different level where scores of people seemed to be hurrying to and fro. Gwendolyn was for a moment frozen rigid. So much activity! She allowed herself to be walked out through large transparent shields and into the open air. She stopped again. Everything was totally bewildering. Smooth stone surfaces stretched away in every direction. People with blank, hard expressions hurried past not even looking at her. There was a large area dotted with strange, evil-smelling, variously-coloured horseless chariots. Merlyn led the way across this area, seemingly undisturbed, and she held tight to her mother’s hand wondering where this was all going to lead. It was all so unimaginably exotic. Camelot seemed an entirely different world away.
“This is my battered old Land Rover, Gwen,” Merlyn said to her. “I insisted on bringing your mother here today. So you get in the back with your mother, I’ll drive you home.”
Climbing aboard was at first a startling experience, especially when the engine came alive. But the movement, the noise, the speed and the rapidly changing view of street corners, traffic lights, shop-fronts, bridges over and under, and monstrous buildings, buildings and more buildings became altogether too much. It was overwhelming; alien; frightening. The Lady Gwendolyn had to bury her head in her mother’s lap and cover her ears. The city was a terrifying
place.
Chapter 5
THE HOTEL
The car stopped and Dai Mervyn switched off the engine.
“You’re home!” he called.
Lady Gwendolyn lifted her head at last from her mother’s lap and could risk a look at her surroundings. A small village road was outside; lined with a terrace of slate-roofed, brick houses, each with a small garden in front. They had stopped by number 5, Raglan Road, which had a small wooden gate and a privet hedge.
“But this is not Camelot,” she trembled.
“It’s our home, my love, where we both live. You don’t remember it?”
“I remember living at Camelot, where I was taken as a child after…after I lost you, Mother…and where I have lived these last dozen years – with Kate, with Merlyn, with all the Court of King Arthur and my beloved queen. Merlyn – thou knowest all this. Tell my mother so and take us there forthwith in thy chariot!”
This was something of a problem for Dai Mervyn. He’d got used to her calling him by the wrong name; he understood that she was living in the past and was frightened by the present, and that he and her mother were the only contacts that could bring these two worlds of hers together, but how could he take her to visit this Camelot that existed only in her mind?
“Gwen, my precious young lady, the Camelot I can take you to is a lot different to what you imagine, I reckon…”
“Different? How so? Dost thou not live there anymore?” Gwendolyn thought over all that she had recently experienced and the entirely foreign appearance of just about everything she had seen since she awoke. Had Camelot too undergone some violent and alien transformation? Her heart sank. She feared the worst. But if so she still had to see it.
“Aye, my precious. I still live there…but you do not!”
“No matter! Whatever Camelot has become, I must see it. I must.” She looked pleadingly at her mother. “I fell and became unconscious there. That fair citadel is everything I have come to know and value in life. If it too has changed as all else, then I must return and see what has become of it.”
Welcome to Camelot Page 7
