Mrs P's Journey

by Sarah Hartley

  ‘Stupid of them to leave me this,’ Bella hissed, her left eye black and bruised, her fingers rain-tapping on the enamel chamber pot. ‘Stupid of them to have left me a mirror too!’

  With that she flung the pot at Phyllis’s head (it was empty and it missed) and chuckled as she somersaulted across the soiled mattresses. She cannot know who I am, thought Phyllis.

  The mirror, the staff had informed her, had been unscrewed from the wall by Bella the previous day, while in possession of a pair of tweezers. In this hostile environment, a plain looking-glass was a patient’s sole luxury. But it was too, an unnecessary call for vanity and Bella’s reflection proved the cruellest reminder of her very real insanity. For without the mirror she might have ignored the distorted jaw, the mouldy bruises and the hoary skin. Now, no matter how ferocious her howling, the reflection mocked Bella as she strained to conjure up the layers of soft brown curls or the plum lips that had once been so pretty for kissing. You only deserve to behold, the mirror teased Bella, the devil’s wife, shrivelled, with eyes smote and an engorged gossip’s tongue, thick and long like that of a cow.

  ‘I cannot face what I am, I cannot face my soul,’ Bella had mumbled, as she dismantled the glass in an agitated spell between medication. ‘I shall bequeath someone seven years of bad luck,’ she plotted, ‘and then, truly they will know how it feels to be me.’

  And so it happened that the very next day, Bella had been merrily swirling up a water-colour seascape on the day ward when Matron had made polite enquiries as to whether Mrs Gross wouldn’t prefer to join in with a game of ping-pong with some of the other ladies.

  Bella banished the twittering voice threatening to dilute her concentration. Her paintbrushes swooped on to the easel faster and faster and faster. Swoosh with the coal-ash greys, swoosh, swoosh with the malaria yellows into the squally seas.

  ‘Turner, Turner,’ Bella flooded her head. ‘I paint, by God, like Turner.’

  Swoosh with the milky foam on the crests of the waves and swoosh as the salt-spray flecked the clouds.

  Matron entreated again.

  ‘Never,’ Bella shrieked, ‘interrupt an artist!’ And with that she had snatched the mirror hidden behind the easel papers and with both hands crashed it down on Matron’s frilled white head.

  Commotion. Paints and glass shattered, and patients were splattered then scattered in all directions. A scurrying of puce-faced staff to the prostrate Matron at Bella’s feet.

  Matron apparently did not recall a great deal about the episode but was sent home for the rest of the afternoon.

  ‘Punishment is good for the soul,’ Bella would relay to the other ladies as they left her behind to take turns in the rose garden. For Bella it would mean no more meals in the dining hall and no more drawing. Instead, solitary confinement, slops, electric shock therapy, a strait-jacket and one visitor a week became her lot.

  And here stood Phyllis, who could hear her own voice tunnelling through her head. ‘Oh Mama, Mama.’

  Who is to say how much time slipped away in that cell while Phyllis watched her mother? Certainly the staff would have taken advantage of a family member who could relieve them of their most dangerous patient. In those days, for them to bully or beat into submission a patient writhing with a possessed strength was routine. To stab them over and over with a needle until a hit punctured the flesh and the body collapsed into a weighty carcass was never more than an hourly chore. How else to cope with the mentally ill masses?

  There must be some way to reach Mama, thought Phyllis, whose breath had slipped into a shallow quiver and her hands hung damply at her sides. To discover the colour in her hair had fled in panic would have been no surprise to her.

  ‘Take charge, Phyllis,’ she prompted herself, and swam to the surface from the murky depths of this present horror.

  ‘Do you remember that time Mama, when I paid a visit to you and Alfred? It was one January,’ she began. ‘Alfred was painting Salome. But he had no model. Then when you opened the door to me you shouted, “Phyllis is perfect!” Both of you made a great deal of fuss around me, and instead of offering me some tea, you pushed me on to the velvet draped chaise longue.

  ‘ “There, Alfred,” you said, “now paint your Salome!”

  ‘ “God dammit, Vernie – my Salome’s naked!” Alfred yelled.

  ‘So you came over to me and told me to take off my clothes. I was only thirteen. I was home on weekend exeat. Oh, the tears just ran down my face. I simply could not imagine being naked in front of Alfred. Of course, you said I was making the most dreadful fuss and ripped open my shirt, tore the buttons and everything – do you remember?

  ‘I was crying and crying, “Please, no, Mama!”

  ‘Then you scolded me with, “Surely you did not learn such prudery at Roedean?”

  ‘You made me lie there naked, until – and we had no idea – the maid let in the Savoy Chapel Chaplain, who had been giving Alfred counselling about his drink.

  ‘Do you remember the scene he caused? “Madam, that you should use your daughter for these illicit means and in front of her stepfather! Mrs Orr, I order you to allow your child to get dressed and leave this den of iniquity!”

  ‘The shame never left me, Mama, although we can laugh about it now, can’t we?’

  Phyllis held her breath and waited for signs of a response. Dead still. The high, stretched sound of her own voice had frightened her, but she forced herself to try again.

  ‘Papa has sent me a letter to read out to you,’ she said brightly, producing a small note. ‘ “Tell your mother if she’ll leave that husband of hers, I’ll give her a minimum to live on.” ’

  Phyllis neatly folded it back into her coat pocket and waited. And hoped. And then it came.

  Quiet at first, a sobbing and then a roar, ‘He and his minimums! Never let him or Tony or Dick or any man steamroller you. They’re jealous of our talents. Talents we women are too modest to recognise as worth being jealous of . . .’

  Bella’s bruised eyes never wavered from her daughter’s face, as she slunk her head into the side of the glistening damp wall and methodically slammed it against the surface.

  ‘Look at me,’ (bang) ‘co-founder of Geographia,’ (bang) ‘a gifted writer,’ (bang) ‘and what do I have to show for it?’ (bang) ‘Less than nothing!’ (bang) ‘Certified and in a loony bin,’ (bang) ‘after sixteen years with your father.’ (Bang, bang, bang.) Then Bella slid face down on to the mattress.

  Afraid to stop her and afraid to watch her, Phyllis had been transfixed, traumatised by her beautiful mother’s crumpled form which lay broken and damaged, dishevelled and grey. A wizened witch, Phyllis thought as she scanned the shocked hair, the vulture shoulders and the stiff bleached gown that hung from the living corpse.

  Then Bella had sniffed and hauled herself up on to her knees and lifted her bruised and dizzied head. Phyllis inched forward and proffered a hand to Bella, who had metamorphosed into a crouched catatonic pose. The berry-brown skin on the hand of the younger contrasted with the bloodless skin of the elder. Rivers of grey veins ran where rings had once marked the prettiness of Bella’s long fingers, but their strength was undiminished. Spitefully, her mother crunched the hand within her grasp and twisted it sharply. But Phyllis resisted letting out a yell.

  It was, she told herself, breathing quickly through the pain, a sign – a good one – of Mama’s will, that would surely see her out of this madness.

  But this was Bedlam.

  Hell on earth.

  Today the site has exorcised its past and now houses the Imperial War Museum, but the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem had taken in the insane since 1407. In 1675, copying the architectural design of the Tuileries in Paris, it had been rebuilt to attract the crowds. Its reputation, like a plague, had spread from rumour and reality. Such was the fearful gossip about the place that curious Londoners, even educated ones like Dr Samuel Johnson, bought tickets to view the lunatics in their cages – a popular excursion which was t
erminated in the Victorian era after more enlightened and humane visitors became increasingly disturbed by what they saw. The sentiments of the patients on their public exposure were, of course, never recorded.

  ‘Let Me Oooooout,’ Bella had grunted finally before slumping into a drugged sleep.

  No one else could stomach the experience of entering Bedlam to visit Bella, so it was Phyllis alone who every Monday afternoon made her way across town to witness the spirit being hauled out of her mother, as drugs, electrodes and feeding tubes invaded every orifice. A dribbling zombie is how Phyllis would later recall her mother, subjected to electric shock therapy by a psychiatrist who had pioneered the treatment in Vienna.

  The irony was not lost on her twenty-nine-year-old daughter, that this champion of women’s liberation, this trouser-wearing libertine who dared her children to roam, speak, and write freely was now shackled to a brick wall. A captive of the State, her once brilliant thoughts were aborted by drugs before they were allowed to form anything coherent. Clipped Wings, was the name of the last, unpublished play she had written, and they had done just that.

  If Phyllis feared inheriting her mother’s mania then she never spoke of it. To talk of such a thing would have exposed her vulnerable side, where faith would fail to keep her afloat, and a side that said, ‘I do not want to go on.’ And where would that have left her lifelong motto – On we go?

  High and dry.

  According to Phyllis’s niece, Mary West, both Phyllis and her brother Tony feared that their mother’s madness might be inherited, and this anxiety burdened them heavily.

  ‘What good can come of stress?’ Phyllis would argue in later life. ‘Why worry when nothing really matters that much? Kiss it goodbye,’ she would tell anyone who was anxious about a mistake they had made or something that they felt they had done wrong. ‘It is too late,’ she would smile. ‘Kiss it goodbye!’ A philosophy such as that did not just whistle up from dust. It arose from her belief that attachment to anything – be it a place, a person or a situation – would eventually and inevitably result in unhappiness.

  Deeply but lightly was how Phyllis loved. For she never recovered from the experience of watching her most prized possession, her heroine and protector, reduced to a snivelling animal.

  The deterioration of her mother’s mental state, Phyllis had at first assumed, was a mere flirtation with instability, a fantastical attention-seeking device that had in the past reeled in Sandor from whatever affair he was conducting. Yet this time Bella had tripped right over the edge of reality. Now Phyllis attributed her mother’s downfall solely to her destructive relationship with Alfred. Like two crotchety children whose combined behaviour was murderous, once separated, their pathetic, drunken rows had depressed the whole family.

  The events leading up to this pitiful sight of Bella had been as one might expect from her – extravagant, exhibitionist, and like the true actress she was, played for laughs to a full house.

  The return to England of Alfred and Bella after travelling around the world, had been heralded by a fine performance. It was a farce, recorded by Phyllis, that somehow unravelled and spun completely out of everyone’s control.

  The scene was set in Godfrey Street where Tony and his French wife Daisy were at home with their baby daughter, Mary. They were to host a family lunch which would include his mother, his stepfather and his sister. Turbot poached the French way was to be served by Daisy. In entered the world travellers (empty-handed but seasoned with drink), known to be alive from occasional greetings to their children from around the globe.

  Darlings, here we are in Bangkok.

  Park Avenue and Alfred is painting in Hollywood next week.

  At the top of the lovely tilted many-tiered wedding cake of Pisa.

  Alfred then announced to everyone (without so much as a ‘How do you do?’) that he had dreamt only the other day that he would be commissioned by the Queen Mother, Queen Mary, to paint a full-length portrait of her son, King Edward VIII in coronation robes in anticipation of the event in May the following year – 1936.

  Bella then took up his rambling tale. ‘And indeed Alfred’s dream came true, for when I showed some of his sketches to my acquaintance Lord Carruthers, he in turn showed them to the Queen.’

  ‘The Queen, don’t ya know,’ Alfred interrupted, ‘was keen as mustard to encourage her eldest boy to be depicted as the ruling monarch.’

  ‘To discourage,’ Bella added, ‘his disgraceful infatuation with that ghastly American divorcée Mrs Simpson.’

  ‘But Gawd, you’ve gotta admire our Yankee style. We just come over here and mingle with your Royals like we were Royalty itself,’ slurred Alfred.

  Tony sensed that the intoxicated man might benefit from further sustenance and led him into his studio to partake of an apéritif while they waited for Phyllis to arrive.

  Daisy, unfortunately, had been left alone to cope with her mother-in-law who was swaying around the drawing room, skimming the shelves and occasionally pulling out a book which she then flung down on to the polished floors while humming ‘God Save the King’.

  With all the French courage she could muster, Daisy truly believed she could salvage the situation by enquiring as to Bella’s health and wondering whether Grandmother would like to hold her granddaughter.

  Screams.

  Bella charged up the stairs growling. Sounds tumbled out of the bathroom of commotion and smashing perfume bottles. The baby began to bawl.

  As hostess, Daisy felt deeply insulted and definitely not shown the respect that was due in her own household.

  She paused. She looked towards the studio. The men were inside, oblivious.

  She looked towards the front door, ran over to it, opened it and shrieked, ‘Phyyllllis!’ Her sister-in-law entered, a few minutes later.

  ‘Enfin. Mad. Your mother is folle. See to her at once. She destroys my house.’

  Crashes offstage.

  Phyllis hurried to the scene of feverish redecoration.

  ‘See my black stars like Picasso?’ Bella squinted at the mascara in her hand and went on daubing the virgin walls. ‘See the new impasto created by her clutter cosmetics?’ Bella asked, and then smeared a trifle of rouges, powders and creams in a rage across her imaginary canvas. Her lips chattered and long strands of dark hair quivered away from her lightly twisted bun, a dampness sparkling across her brow.

  Phyllis crunched over the amber and glass shipwrecks and reached up in silence to enfold the body that stuck rigid in her arms.

  Tears.

  ‘It is sad, my darling girl,’ Bella had croaked, ‘when one feels it coming on again.’

  When the warmth had been sucked out of Phyllis, Bella, refreshed, had wrenched herself free of her daughter’s embrace. A tortured wail seared her departure as she flew down the stairs, slamming the front door behind her as she fled into the street.

  Phyllis chased after her mother, out of Godfrey Street, down Cale Street then Sydney Street, and on to the Fulham Road.

  ‘I am leaving him,’ Bella barked, her upright gait breaking into a steady trot. ‘The despicable despot. I’ve said it umpteen times before,’ she continued, ‘but this time it’s for ever. I’ll get back to my own work.’

  Mother and daughter arrived, heaving for air at South Kensington Tube station. Passers-by would have seen Phyllis snatching at her mother’s arm. ‘Mama, please, come and stay with me.’

  Bella had been able to detect a noise, a swirling sound blurting from Phyllis’s mouth, but she could not decipher the words as wild thoughts stampeded through her head. Her eyes were muddied with tears, her lips, apple-bruised, as she broke down. Yes! But first I shall tell Alfred what I think of him!’

  No trains. Bella collared a porter and screeched into his trembling face, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to work for a company which hasn’t got enough trains?’ One push and then another, and she nearly shoved him from the platform on to the live rail. A train pulled into the station and just in time Bella yanked him
by the collar away from the platform edge. ‘Silly man! You’ll have an accident!’ she scolded him, apparently genuinely concerned.

  Phyllis was powerless to quieten her mother as Bella clambered aboard the Tube. She was like a tornado that had gathered a force from the sea.

  Bella soon terrorised the passengers. At random she had stomped on their feet, had slapped and punched them and, worst of all – she had screamed. But apart from a few shuffling pages of The Times and some muffled coughing, the unfortunate passengers merely shrank a little.

  What a relief, Phyllis thought, that no brave gentleman has decided to step in and remove Mama from the train.

  They arrived at their stop. To keep up with Bella, to trail her back to Alfred’s studio on Cheyne Walk was all that Phyllis expected to do now. Embarrassment, mortification and humiliation were not recognised in the Gross family. You may assume that Phyllis would have cringed, would have cowered away from such uninhibited conflict. But no, this was her own dear family and for Phyllis (who probably stood alone in this belief), love prevailed whatever the circumstance. Yet, as she would discover time and time again – loyalty at any cost has its price.

  ‘Let me in! Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!’ Bella’s scarlet kid gloves battered the black front door to Alfred’s house.

  No response.

  Bella knew that as soon as she had walked out of Tony’s house, Alfred would have taken a taxi home to brace himself for his wife’s return and blockade their home for fear that she destroy that too.

  Bella had picked up a milk bottle. Smash, smash, smash. Now the lion brass knocker. Dudh, dudh, dudh.

  The front door had given signs of life. It opened on the latch chain. A flash of red beard appeared.

  ‘Not if you beg for a thousand years will I ever let you back into my house,’ roared Alfred, from behind the bottle-proof door.