The institutionalised tr.., p.7
The Institutionalised Trilogy, page 7
The pep-talk took up the time; she was fortunate indeed to get accepted on such a program, she was to both confront and overcome her limitations and then, with their help, she would undoubtedly be offered a place at a much more prestigious university, when the time came, than the one to which she was originally destined. Moreover she would be leaving financially secure, she would be far more advantageously placed than the average student.
They had seemed to have traversed the network of affluent richly decorated passageways in mere moments, they had reached the lift and with the bleeping acceptance of a multi-digit code, preceded by the turning of a key, they were inside, the doors gliding closed with the faintest of clicks. A key was inserted into a control panel and turned. There came the gentlest of movements, barely a shudder and then only initially, then faint droning hum. There seemed no perception of movement. Ascending? Descending? She had no idea.
The nurse had come to the close of her little presentation as they had arrived at the lift and now stood silently alongside the wheelchair, the girl having been left facing the rear wall, there being insufficient room to manoeuvre the chair around once the doors had shut. She tried looking back over her shoulder, oddly there appeared to be no floor indicator, in fact there appeared to be no indicator of any sort. The inside of the lift appear to be featureless apart from the keyhole in the control panel and even that lacked any sort of indication or markings. The floor was covered in a thick white carpet, the walls and ceiling were every bit as white but with the appearance of some softly padded plastic material or fabric. How she was to come to dread this monotony of white she had as yet had little conception.
The nurse had simply inserted a key and turned it clockwise, perhaps a quarter turn. There was something about the movement, a certain discontinuity encoded as little time-lapses of hesitation, that suggested a series of alternative orientations were available, perhaps representing different floors. She decided that it must be the case but it was impossible to be sure. For while she mused over the rationale behind such a poorly designed and ambiguous system, for how long she couldn’t tell, she always seemed to be in such a fog these days, calm, true, but muddled. Time often seemed to ebb and flow around her these days, it went quickly, it went slowly. What had she been thinking about? What was it? It was so annoying; she couldn’t quite recollect, something to do with the lift controls? She just couldn’t quite recall ...
The door hissed open. A nurse seemed to emerged from the adjacent wall like a ghost, her white uniform blurring the boundary between woman and structure. To some degree she had expected the clinical whiteness, just not to this extent, not taken to such sense-distorting perfection.
To her left the gently curving reception desk hid yet another nurse, as equally white-camouflaged as the first and appearing to almost to float like some apparition, discorporate within the contrast-impoverished landscape that was her habitat.
Pleasantries were minimal, a clipboard was handed to the reception desk nurse, her soft peach complexion exaggerated by the framing of her nun-like headdress, and duly signed. With that, her escort departed.
The girl had gone to stand but was asked to stay seated. Moments later they were on the move, the reception desk nurse pushing, her companion taking up the lead, perhaps two paces ahead. All around a silence reigned beyond any she had ever heard, if such an observation could ever be sensible. It was silent yet not quite silent. As she became acclimatised so she became aware of the soft rustle of the nurses’ dresses, the rhythmic swish of nylon-clad legs. Tiny, insignificant, details assumed greater stature and new worth. She was learning the importance of observation; in time such minutiae would become an obsession.
Ahead, the nurse’s full hips swung with pendulum fascination within the closely-fitted confines of her skirt. But it was something else that held the girl’s attention. It hung from the nurse’s belt, the woman having placed a hand against her right hip to steady its swing; every bit as long and thin as her aunt’s cane yet white and lacking even the few ridges and irregularities expected and accepted of the smoothest rattan. There was a perfection to the finish, a sheen that suggested some form of plastic or, perhaps, glass fibre had been employed in its manufacture; the lower section rippled with each step, despite the woman’s steadying hand, displaying a whip-like behaviour suggestive of an extreme, serpentine, flexibility.
It certainly could not be as it appeared of course; such a thing would be illegal no matter what waivers she might have signed. Obviously there was some sort of legitimate function for such a device, although, try as she may, she was unable to fathom any likely medical scenario that would require a long thin whippy length of plastic rod. Then again, who suffered corporal punishment nowadays, let alone in an institutional environment?, It would be more than they, or anyone else for that matter, would dare do these days, surely.
And yet was she not, herself, an exception? Of course there always had to be the exception to prove the rule, wasn’t that what they said? Perhaps she was that exception? Besides, had not even she had cause to question the legitimacy of her aunt’s introduction of it into their relationship? Had she not, on more than one occasion, entertained the notion that, as unlikely as it seemed, her aunt perhaps had some covert motive, that some sort of illicit satisfaction was to be wrung from her wielding of her cane. Always, though, her conclusion had been the same: It had to be this way, it was the only thing that would work with her, help her, she had deserved it. It was ‘tough love’, but did it have to be quite so tough? Her aunt had the right and she accepted that fact yet hated herself for her own docile acceptance. Why did she always seem to end up defending her aunt’s treatment of her? Why, even in her own mind, did she always have to come up with these constant excuses for her aunt’s behaviour, not to mention her own submission? Somehow she couldn’t quite fathom, perhaps she never would, it was just the way it was. If anything it was diagnostic of her illness and yet that notion, in itself, only served to underline her aunt’s integrity and add truth to her words...
Again her thoughts were interrupted; they had arrived. Before them stood a white door. A door as unremarkable in its plainness as it was extraordinary in its delineation, or rather its lack of delineation previous to its swinging out from the wall. Few barriers guarded greater transitions than that to be experienced by one crossing that threshold. Ahead, and standing aside so as to give passage to the wheelchair in which the girl now sat so apprehensively, the nurse bent at the waist, sweeping her right arm arcing through the air in an over exaggerated, almost ironic, gesture, welcoming her new patient to her new world. One girl’s world, for the next three months anyway.
A Funeral: In Finality a New Beginning?
“Was it the dreams again?” Real concern, Julia’s voice was a beacon cutting through the mental fog of sleep.
Sweat soaked her through, saturated her bedding, the girl was shaking. The woman braced her with one arm around her shoulders while arranging the pillows, so as to support her back as she sat up, with the other. There was a mug of warm milk waiting by her bedside and the usual brace of green and gold capsules.
A dream, Just a dream?. Not just a dream, that dream, that nightmare, again. How often had she awoken from it now, just like today. Why did it have to be today of all days? Wasn’t it the funeral today? Where was she?
Julia’s presence was somehow confusing, although, as always, she was grateful for it and for Julia’s smiling reassurance. Susan Stringer looked around, her mind heavy, slow; she was in her room at home. It was coming back to her, it was the day of the funeral, that was why Julia was here, she had been staying over for the last few days to help out with the arrangements. Oh God, Oh God! It was today, at 10 o’clock, she was shaking again, sweating profusely in panic. Julia passed her the capsules then held the mug up to her lips for her to wash them down, she would hear no argument.
The procession snaked up and down avenues lined with London Plane trees passing two-storey terraced houses little changed since their 1880s inception. This had been his origin, his making, her father; they passed the house in which he had been born, the two houses in which he had subsequently been brought up throughout the later phases of those early years and, finally, they passed his first school.
The estate had been very different then of course, a private estate owned by the Church and built originally to house 19th-century railway workers. Later Westminster council had purchased the entire estate -the lowest point in its history some would say, the area deteriorating to the point of becoming downright dangerous to be in, at least after dark. Later still, many of the homes had been sold off to the residents; the resulting upsurge in pride had since transformed the area. Baskets of flowers now decorated doorways, flower boxes brightened window sills from behind carefully painted ornate barley-sugar twist guard rails of black iron. The Queen’s Park estate, nice enough, now, yet lacking the gentrification typified by Notting Hill, merely a canal’s width and a couple of main roads distant and just as equivalently in the shadow of the swaggering sun-blotting giant that is Trellik Tower.
These houses, though, lacked the grand scale of Notting Hill, little more than two-up-two-down brick-built semi-cottages huddling behind tiny front gardens, many still sporting privet hedges, with a plaque of stone over the front door decorated with a monogram and the date of building. At each turn a pair of spired roofs identified the corner houses, providing a faintly churchlike character to the welcome and a preparation for the idiosyncratic architecture lying beyond.
And then they were pulling out onto the grey bleakness of the Harrow Road, its only saving graces being the opening up of the view to the canal and the continued survival of the local library building. A short drive through the early lunchtime traffic saw them soon passing under the pale cream stone arch, the expanse of All Souls Cemetery, Kensal Green, opening up to accept them.
Throughout it was as if she was floating dreamlike; somehow it just wasn’t real, she felt detached, but mercifully so. There had been ample enough time to reflect, this was all for the best really, a merciful release for her father and relief from her torture; he had been an active man, he would not have dealt well with the infirmity, the debility. That last stroke had been devastating, the damage widespread; had he survived he would have been left totally dependent, a prisoner in his own body. This had been the severest of a series of four such episodes, each more crippling than the last, the first of which had struck him barely 6 months ago. His death had not been unexpected but, nevertheless, she had had no option other than to witness his deterioration and with that, despite Julia’s support, her own.
Yet, in truth, without Julia’s support she couldn’t have got through it: it had been Julia who had suggested and arranged the counselling sessions that had helped so much, Julia who had suggested that she delay her university placement. And she had been right too; she could see what Susan couldn’t, that she wasn’t ready for it, wouldn’t be ready for it for quite some time, that she would need time to convalesce. Julia had handled it all for her; she had written to the relevant people, obtained assurances that her place would be kept open. Yes Julia had been wonderful throughout, she would be forever grateful; the consultations with her private doctor would not have come cheap yet without Julia’s insistence she wouldn’t have even recognised that she needed help. Without Julia’s persuasion she would never have adopted the relaxation techniques the doctor had recommended nor accepted the use of the sedatives she prescribed, no matter how mild, how gentle. She knew now that without these things and without the concerted support of these two women, Julia and her doctor, she would not have gotten even this far.
Her stepmother was the first to emerge from the leading limousine. Susan had opted to travel in the third, or rather she had had the decision made for her; Julia had made so many decisions for her over the last six months, she always seemed to know what was for the best. As always she was closely accompanied by the supportive Julia, she was kept well away from the upsetting sight of her stepmother and well back from the infinitely more upsetting sight of her father’s coffin; Julia had been right again.
Then, with grim inevitability, it was her turn to step out, she did so unsteadily gripping Julia’s arm for support, Julia in her turn momentarily entertaining the notion that she had the girl somewhat over-sedated. In the event, Susan’s unsteady gait went virtually unnoticed as did her slightly insensible, stupefied expression, most eyes being focused on the graveside and the ‘grieving’ widow.
True, the girl’s stepmother glanced across from time to time but showed little concern nor interest. Julia was taking the greatest of care to guide the girl, holding her close with a comforting arm round the shoulders.
All along it had been Julia that had orchestrated Susan’s support and treatment; she had been a nurse, she was professional, responsible, she had recognised that the gentle sedatives, originally prescribed for the girl, would become insufficient but she knew also that a girl as independent as Susan, or rather as Susan had been, would be apt to reject the sense of dependency that came with heavier sedation. As the girl’s father’s condition had deteriorated, as the girl had become more upset, more amenable to support, so she had gradually increased the dose.
It had always been clear to her that the girl was going to need greater support, particularly towards the end and especially on this day - she had been careful, systematically monitoring the efficacy of each increment and ensuring that the changes would remain virtually imperceptible to her patient. More recently, though, she had been able to introduce greater hikes in Susan’s medication, the girl having become far less conscious of the effects. True, Susan had, on occasion, exhibited evidence of having suffered brief amnesic episodes and it was true that, of late, those episodes were becoming more frequent but Julia, with her usual diligence, had been monitoring the situation.
To Julia this was an acceptable side effect; it only affected a relatively short period, at the peak of the dose, before the effects of the drug began to wear off. The girl was clearly not aware of these lapses and in many ways it was seen as beneficial. Indeed, it had been expected; Julia had kept careful records, subtly testing the girl without her being aware, assaying the effect at each increment by way of carefully structured probing questioning and feeding back the data to the girl’s doctor. She estimated that at the next increment there would be reached a consistency of amnesic episodes, in that such an episode would occur with each provision of the girl’s medication. If this proved the case they would plateau the dose, it would be then left to Julia to modulate the dose so as to tailor the length of each amnesic period to their requirements, if not then the dose would be incremented once more.
The weather seemed to conspire with the mood, overcast yet allowing for enough irony as to, on occasion, paint the distant chapel with shifting shafts of bright gold. Above them and all around the horse chestnut canopy seemed to be prematurely mottled in reds and variegated golds, autumnal even though only, in truth, late August.
There was a silence around the graveyard, a peace beyond the senses, the silence of lichen and mould and dank fallen pre-autumn leaves. There was an odour too, one that she associated with such places, had done since she was at school, when she had spent many a summer’s afternoon with friends wandering, sitting, sometimes smoking, and not always tobacco, doing anything in fact rather than suffer maths or domestic science. Such places then had seemed gifts of salvation but that smell had been ever present and now permeated throughout those memories; death, she supposed, although, in truth, more likely the odour of some plant favouring soil enriched by mechanisms upon which she would rather not ponder nor dwell.
There was something else hanging on the air, the canal perhaps? She couldn’t be sure what it was only that there was an oily industrial legacy to it and that it carried a darkness with it that seemed to emanate from the skeletal and obsolescent form of the gas holder hovering in the distance, over the preacher’s shoulder, the image floating mirage-like through the distorting haze of her mind. Its obsolescence seemed a commentary on a man’s life, her father’s life; decay was everywhere and, even if not immediately apparent, was waiting in the wings. The priest’s words washed over her, she was devastated, beyond comfort, beyond faith or belief.
There was no release to be had here, not for her, nor was there future promise offered. Euphemisms could not give comfort; he was not ‘asleep’, he was not ‘resting’, he had not ‘passed on’. Her father was dead! There, she had done it, she had thought the unthinkable, admitted that of which she was in most denial; that she was now alone in the world!
Yes there was her stepmother of course, but here was a woman of an age more suggestive of an older sister and possessed of a nature that the term ‘grasping’ barely did justice to. That woman’s mere presence was sacrilege enough, that she should dare shed a tear, hypocritical, an insult at best!. “The bitch, the bitch” the words ran through her mind, were all she could think of; at least the hatred blunted her grief.
Susan was the last to attend the graveside. She tossed a solitary rose down onto her father’s coffin and read for the last time the brass plate, his name, her family name, not that bitch’s. The first earth was falling onto the pine as she turned away, somewhere a rook or two muttered a mourning croak. She broke down entirely, ran, stumblingly, to the arms so often her support in the past and more so now, more than ever before.
