TWENTY

The journey from Thornton Heath to Tooting Graveney can be made only by bus, bicycle or car for the Underground does not extend to the London Borough of Croydon, in which Thornton Heath sits like a resplendent jewel in a particularly impressive and ornate crown. Because my trusty BMW was sick with a disease it was beyond my capabilities to cure (it had refused to start), I was forced to choose between two self-powered wheels and a London omnibus; neither prospect was entirely of the pleasing variety, but that of cycling in the afternoon heat was infinitely worse. The upside of all this was that I had a grand view of the verdant pleasure that is Mitcham Common as I sat atop the number sixty-four bus (although that adjective was at the present time perhaps not entirely appropriate in view of the drought, since it temporarily resembled more the Arizona dustbowl than a tropical oasis). It was still, though, a welcome break in what even I have to admit can be the slightly claustrophobic environs of South London, in that one can see for more than twenty yards in any direction; I am certain it was my imagination but I even felt the first vague stirrings of agoraphobia as I sat there, feeling slightly sick from the jerky swaying, the heat of the day and the fumes of the bus’s throbbing diesel engine. This was not helped by the presence of large numbers of loud, excitable and rumbustious schoolchildren, just out of lessons, who accompanied me. Once past Mitcham Common, one comes through the delightfully but somewhat oddly named Amen Corner (I know of no strong ties between that area and evangelicalism), thence on to Tooting; all the while one is on this journey (perhaps ‘pilgrimage’?), one is aware that one is heading for the central parts of London, and perhaps one is even afraid that one is nearing a heart of darkness.

In those days, Tooting was noticeably more cosmopolitan than Thornton Heath, although that may not be true in this age. It held an air of much greater mysticism, almost exoticism, and I always found myself excited by this. I knew that there were well-advanced plans for St George’s Medical School – my alumnus – to relocate here from the somewhat more rarefied and refined landscape of Hyde Park Corner, and I looked forward to this with somewhat mixed feelings. The old St George’s building, Lanesborough House, was a magnificent early eighteenth-century edifice, and I found student life in the centre of London to be an intoxicating experience (pun intended); from what I had seen of its replacement, it looked as though architects with all the soul of malfunctioning, right-angle-fixated automatons had been let loose. However, given the ethnic mix of Tooting, the medicine was likely to prove far more exciting (if not entirely baffling) to the medical students than it had been in Knightsbridge.

My goal that afternoon was not the Fountain Hospital, where construction work on the medical school was nearing completion, but a place I had always found rather pleasant, although my reason for going there was less so. I alighted from the bus, being jostled by huge numbers of shouting, cackling children, then turned to take my bearings. I was standing near the statue of Edward the Seventh, who was looking rather forlorn, covered as he was in verdigris and pigeon poo; it reminded me rather of the fate of Ozymandias, albeit with somewhat less dignity. A large flower stall was behind it, the blooms trying to suck whatever coolness they could out of the shade of the Tooting Broadway tube station canopy. People streamed in and out of this latter, looking severely hot and stressed, blending right in with the rest of us. Try as I might, I could not see much resemblance with the area’s namesake in New York. I crossed the road when the green man said I could and began to make my way up the High Street towards Tooting Bec, which was (whisper it quietly lest ye be overheard) perhaps slightly posher.

It was not long before I turned up Selkirk Road on the left, then right into Fishponds Road. This is a long road and there is neither a fish or pond in sight. It also rises inexorably with a slight but, in that heat, killing gradient; by the time I reached its end to turn left again into Beechcroft Road, I was not so much exuding as pouring perspiration, and there was yet more ascent ahead of me, although the worst was now over. By the time I reached Glenburnie Road I was feeling none too good; at least, though, I was at journey’s end.

Springfield Hospital was built in early Victorian times when they really knew how to build a loony bin, when no expense was spared to make sure that, just because you’re one sandwich short of a picnic, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a nice view. There were large immaculate grounds, an ornamental pond (perhaps that was where the fish were), some nicely tended formal gardens and, like poor relatives, quite a few barrack-like buildings It had everything a modern hospital needs and it exuded an air of calm tranquillity, which I am sure was wonderful for the more disturbed patients. What was perhaps slightly more troubling was that some of the outbuildings had obvious high-security measures such as chain-link fencing topped by barbed wire; I suspected that these were not there to keep people out . . . I knew also that there was somewhere in the main house (although I had never seen it) an operating theatre, a piece of information that made my flesh creep somewhat. It was bad enough that I remember witnessing as a medical student the application of electroconvulsive therapy here, a sight once seen never to be forgotten. Thus does medical science make its slow, ponderous progress, leaving in its wake crushed innocents, unremarked and rewarded only by death, who have lain down their lives and well-being in a fashion just as valorous as those who die or are wounded on the battlefield; those given radium for tuberculosis, or arsenic for warts, those bled within a pint of their lives because of fever, or those with dog bites who were treated by the topical application of aqua fortis (guaranteed to make your eyes water a bit).

So all in all, Springfield Hospital presented me with a curious, perturbing amalgam of memories and association.

Not least because of one of its present patients.

The district health authority could have made a pretty penny had it been opened to the public, even without the added entertainment value of the patients. The scents of the flowers as I walked up to the main entrance were almost intoxicating, given the heat and my dehydrated exhaustion; I wondered how they managed to keep the gardens so neat, weed-free and, above all, moist. The fountain tinkled merrily, adding to the sense of oasis in this driest of summers; the black-faced rhomboid clock at the top of the building said that it was three thirty but had said so when I had been there as a student, so I guessed it had stopped. Inside the impressively tall light brown doors, the picture of opulence was tarnished slightly by the interior furnishing in the entrance hall. It was difficult to put my finger on precisely why – it could have been the chairs of moulded orange plastic that were arranged around the walls, or perhaps the scuffed black-and-white flooring that had, over the years, become seriously pock-marked, but I think it was mainly the magnificent marble fire surround that had been boarded up with plywood on which were pinned an assortment of health posters. Not that the rickety looking reception desk in the corner helped, covered as it was in light blue Formica and a bored-looking girl of twenty years and twenty stones. Elton John and Kiki Dee pretended to love each other for perhaps the thousandth time in my hearing and the receptionist looked as convinced as I did. She barely looked at me as I approached and only reacted when I said, ‘My name’s Dr Elliot.’

You see, in those days – the good old days as I call them now – although I knew that to Dad the ‘good old days’ had happened twenty-five years before then (and so on, ad infinitum) – people looked up to other people who called themselves ‘Doctor’. There was none of this ‘whatever’ attitude, and a better world it was, too. Accordingly, she reacted. She jumped, straightened up what I had seriously thought might be a congenitally deformed posture, and said, ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m here to see a patient. Tristan Charlton.’

Without complaint, without question, without even appearing to think, she turned her back on me and went to a desk against the far wall, whence she picked up a clipboard; she didn’t ask for identification and I didn’t expect her to. She ran her finger down the clipboard, then flipped over a sheet of paper, repeating the process until she reached about three-quarters of the way down. ‘Here he is,’ she said. ‘Jupiter Ward.’

‘Where’s that?’

She came back to the front desk and pulled out from underneath it a Xeroxed sheet that was a map of the hospital. She pointed at it with a stubby finger; her nail polish was bright red and badly chipped; the colour did not go well with her nicotine stains but I kept my mouth shut. Jupiter Ward was on the far side of the grounds, and they were extensive grounds; it would mean another long, hot trudge. When I murmured, ‘Oh,’ she grimaced, I think in sympathy, but didn’t actually speak. I asked, ‘Do you know if he’s there at the moment?’

A shrug. ‘I really couldn’t say.’

I sighed and repeated my exclamation of woe. She was unmoved, apparently having run dry of the social lubricant that is sympathy. She enquired, ‘Is there anything else?’

‘No. No, thanks.’

I left her to the unlikely and revoltingly platitudinous love waffle of Elton and Kiki, and went back out into the weather.

Jupiter Ward was in a single-storey block at the south-west corner of the hospital grounds. There was a sense of that kind of annoying yin-yang thing in the way that it contrasted sharply with the main hospital block. It was probably about forty years old and was built of prefabricated sheets; there had clearly been a considerable shortfall in the maintenance budget at Springfield Hospital for several years, given the amount of entropy that seemed to hang about the place. I had uncomfortable flashbacks to my days of National Service for the barracks had looked just like this. During those twenty-two months it had never once ceased to rain and I seem to remember having to run seven miles a day through the north Devon countryside for no very good reason; and, impossibly, it seemed to be wetter and draughtier inside them than out.

A middle-aged man came out of the front entrance, the latter being plain double doors painted in shiny dark red that was peeling badly at the bottom. He looked at me and I looked at him. We were each caught in that age-old mutual dilemma that is the inevitable consequence of finding yourself in a loony bin; he was wondering if I were a patient, or visitor, a doctor or a nurse, and I was doing exactly the same. It would be so much easy if each category wore a different uniform, but I could see why they hadn’t opted for that one. He dropped his gaze and hurried past, and neither of us will ever know the truth about each other.

I went in.

There was a small foyer in which were four more of the orange plastic chairs and, by the door, a rubber plant; when I brushed against it, I realized it was plastic, which seemed to say something significant about psychiatry. The carpet had once been blue but it was now merely looking sad and depressed; it was covered in many rather disgusting-looking stains. Three doors led off this room; above the left-hand one was the sign ‘Jupiter Ward’, above the right-hand one was the sign ‘Ellis Ward’; above the one straight ahead was the sign ‘Private’. The only other thing in the room was a small table on which was an opened book like a ledger, and a pencil on the end of a string. I looked at it curiously and discovered that it was a register in which the patients could sign in and out. I began to scan it for Tristan’s name but the door to Jupiter Ward opened and a rather large Afro-Caribbean man came out. He stopped when he saw me. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Um . . .’

The assumption had to be that here was a member of the psychiatric establishment (as opposed to a guest of it), but, as I have already said, you can never be sure; I’d heard a story when I was a medical student about a girl in the year above mine who had been taken advantage of by ‘Professor Welsby’, an elderly gentleman in pince-nez and bow-tie who, it transpired, had been a long-term patient with a fetish for courgettes. ‘I’m here to visit Tristan Charlton.’ I added then, just to establish my credentials (whatever his were), ‘My name’s Dr Elliot.’

He looked less than overly impressed. It was with a deep frown that he said suspiciously, ‘Dr Martindale didn’t say anyone was coming to see Tristan today. May I ask what it’s in connection with?’ From his reaction, I strongly suspected he wasn’t a patient.

‘It’s a personal visit.’

His face lightened. ‘Oh, I see.’ He was clearly relieved that no professional toes were going to be trampled on. There was a clock on the wall to his right and this he glanced at. ‘He’s due for group psychotherapy at five, but you’ve got some time. He’s towards the end on the left of the ward.’

With that he went out of the main front door and I went into Jupiter Ward.

It wasn’t perfectly reminiscent of the barracks in which I had spent many ‘character-building’ months of my late adolescence, but it wasn’t a bad attempt. It was a lot wider and taller, and the atmosphere was permeated not just by a mix of foot odour and sweat, but also by the scents of over-boiled cabbage and disinfectant; the finest parfumiers in the land could not have done a better job. Also, there was a lot more lying down than I recall, much of it being done whilst pyjama’d. It was quiet, too, save for the sound of gentle snoring, which was sort of disappointing; no screeching, no maniacal laughing and no sobbing. There were doubtless numerous insects about the place, but not a one was being consumed by any of the patients. All in all, it was a peaceful scene and I heard my footsteps on the linoleum as I made my slow way down the centre of the aisle. About half of the patients, I estimate, were present. Most of these were just lying on their beds, either asleep, or staring at the ceiling. Some were sitting on the side of the bed or up against the pillows, of which five were reading – either magazines or books – and one was talking to himself, an archetype of concentration as he discoursed in a mumble that I could barely hear and certainly not interpret; I am afraid to admit that he rocked slightly. Each of them – they were all men, of course – had just a bed, a cheaply made combined wooden cupboard and drawer unit, and another of those ubiquitous orange plastic chairs; the beds, though, were not crowded together, giving at least a nod towards privacy.

Tristan was where I had been told I would find him, towards the end of the ward. Just beyond his bed were open double doors that I could see opened on to a day room. I could hear a television and peeked around the door jamb to discover that it was like every other NHS hospital day room, in that it was depressing and soulless; as was the rule, the furniture was upholstered in brightly coloured artificial leather and specifically designed to be totally uncomfortable. There were five people in there, and presumably at least one (and possibly every one) was a nurse.

Tristan was lying on his back on his bed, dressed in day clothes, but asleep. I didn’t know whether to wake him or wait. In truth, now that I had arrived, I was unsure of why I had come at all. Perhaps somewhere inside me there had been the idea that I would march in here and let him have a piece of my mind, that he might be able to fool the psychiatrists, but he hadn’t taken me in; I think, too, I was going to assure him that he might have beaten me to a pulp on a previous occasion, but that was then and this is now . . . et cetera, et cetera; and I would say all this in a calm but commanding tone. Now I was there, though, it didn’t seem quite so simple. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was timorous or anything but, for the first time, I came to appreciate that I had a position in society to consider, that it wouldn’t look seemly to brawl in public, especially not with a patient of the NHS.

He suddenly opened his eyes but he was not immediately aware of me, I think. He just stared up the ceiling, not blinking; it was as though the on-switch had been thrown but the current had yet to increase to a level at which any other muscular movement was possible. In accord with this hypothesis, after a few seconds he turned his head so that he was looking at me; it was a smooth action but accompanied by no other, not even a change in his blank expression. I was still standing by the side of the bed but, feeling slightly oppressed by this passive scrutiny, I sat down on his chair.

Nothing more happened. We regarded each other, but he did not appear to recognize me. He had aged, I decided, but then so had I; I had aged considerably following his determined assault on my person. He was tall – a few inches over six feet – with ginger hair that was long and untidy, and mild blue eyes that belied his facility with violence. His hair was shoulder length – longer than I remember it, but not unusually so for that time – and he was unshaven. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with Pink Floyd’s prism and refracted light on it.

Had I not spoken we might still be there to this day for all I know, because he seemed disinclined to do anything more than peruse me without obvious emotion. ‘Tristan?’ I essayed, and I heard my voice to be slightly husky and, a surprise to me, edged with a tremor.

He frowned. It was a reaction, although not a particularly animated one, in both senses of that word. I repeated my salutation. Still nothing, so I felt it incumbent upon me to go a bit further. ‘It’s Lance. Lance Elliot. Do you remember me?’

It took a couple of seconds, but this did eventually induce him to lift his head and frown; not brilliant, I’ll grant, but I was desperate by then for anything. A slow, lazy grin spread over his face, enticing his lips to part slightly so that I could see a sliver of teeth; he hadn’t been keeping up on his dental cleanliness and these nameless, dateless dental dead appeared somewhat squalid. ‘Lancey. You came to visit.’

He had always called me that because, despite my best efforts, I had been unable to portray my disgust at the nickname. He wasn’t too good though, that was clear. He struggled to raise himself on his elbows but seemed uncoordinated; it took quite a while and was accompanied by small, delicate grunts. I waited, my thoughts of a manly confrontation evaporating in the presence of this performance. At last he raised his shoulders, whereupon he yawned mightily. ‘What time is it?’ he enquired through this.

‘Just after four thirty.’

‘It’s fucking hot.’

‘Rather.’

He nodded groggily. ‘It’s good of you to come.’

‘Well . . .’ I began, not sure where I was going to end, but it didn’t matter because he interrupted me.

‘Fucking load of loonies in here.’ He began to laugh softly, looking around at those around us. Suddenly he pointed at the man sitting on the side of his bed quietly jabbering to himself. ‘Look at that old cock! Talk about bonkers!’ I was programmed not to take the Mickey out of patients and had to fight hard not to tell him off. He continued, ‘He spends his time reciting the seventeen times table; every time he gets it wrong, he swears enough to make the paint peel, then he just goes back to the beginning. Not sure what his record his, but I bet it’s pretty impressive.’ A soft laugh, one that might have been a cover for tears held back, then, ‘I’ve seen some scenes over the past few weeks, Lancey. Some unbelievable sights.’ He laughed again, but this time it was as if to himself, as if to a private, unheard joke.

I couldn’t see the funny side myself, but Tristan could; after a while he could hardly control his merriment, in fact, so that he collapsed back on the bed, continuing to chortle, more of his rather unpleasant teeth making an unwelcome appearance in my ken. What could I say? I actually began to feel sorry for this man who had terrified me and broken up an important relationship in my life. He was clearly addled by an example of the latest addition to the psychiatrists’ arsenal against severe psychiatric problems – ‘the liquid cosh’ or, as it was known in the trade, a ‘major tranquillizer’. These were extremely effective in suppressing the symptoms and signs associated with psychotic depression and schizophrenia but, perhaps inevitably, they were also extremely effective at suppressing any signs of sentient life.

But then suddenly he stopped and, as if taken over by something, got back up on his elbows without apparent effort and turned once again to look directly at me. ‘We’ve got unfinished business, Lancey-boy.’ There was no amusement in his voice now. It was all rather spooky, horribly reminiscent of The Exorcist, which Max and I had been to see a few months before and was still prone to pop up in my dreams now and again. ‘I might have consented to come in here, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten what you did.’

I hadn’t done anything, but we had agreed to differ on that point a long time ago, although it had never been an easy accord, especially for me. I took a deep breath, relying on the fact that although I couldn’t actually see any nursing staff, they couldn’t be too far away. ‘What you did to the rabbit is unforgivable.’

He stared at me, his expression unreadable, for just a second, then he neatly flopped back down, eyes on the ceiling once again. He said contentedly, ‘The rabbit sure won’t forgive me.’

And that was all he said, whilst I discovered that insouciance was the perfect defence against anger and thus was I rendered without appropriate words. I heard the evocative tones of ‘Barnacle Bill’ coming from the day room and I subconsciously lamented the loss of Christopher Trace from the lives of the nation’s children. Without taking his eyes from the ceiling (which, as far as I could discern, was just a normal ceiling covered in painted polystyrene tiles), he asked, ‘Was she upset?’

‘Of course she bloody was!’ I had tried not to lose my temper, honest.

He considered. ‘But she’s still alive, isn’t she?’ he asked slyly.

He was referring obliquely to his sister, of course, and I was thinking that I had to remain calm, and only by doing that could I remain in command of the situation. ‘It was unnecessarily cruel, Tristan.’

He made play of considering this, tilting his head, distorting his lips, frowning in what was supposed to convey considered contemplation, every inch of him portraying a man who was intellectual and refined and, above all, sane. His answer, though, gave the lie to that. ‘I have yet to be convinced by anything that has happened to me, or anything anyone has said to me, that there is any such thing as unnecessary cruelty.’

‘For God’s sake, Tristan.’

‘In fact, I would tend to adopt the opposing rhetorical position; I think that, given the indifferent, Godless universe in which we have crawled from the primordial ooze, given the fact that there are no moral absolutes other than the compulsion to survive – a compulsion that is mine yet for which I cannot be made responsible (and therefore, by the simplest of logical deductions, I cannot be made responsible for its consequences) – I would say that cruelty is a necessity. I must survive and therefore must adopt whichever strategies are most likely to achieve that end.’

His voice was thoughtful, as if he were reading from his doctoral thesis – ‘An Explanation of Sociopathy’ – and he didn’t once look directly at me, although it was clear that every word was aimed at me, and my loved ones, and the wrongs he imagined had been perpetrated by me. The gentleman of the mathematical bent suddenly uttered a word of eye-watering profanity; it was beyond the abilities of my imagination to conjure up the images of group-therapy sessions in which he and Tristan participated.

Suddenly, Tristan yawned; it was an impressive thing, something so deep and so long, that paused at its peak for so long, that I wondered if he was suddenly going to plunge into unconsciousness at the end of it, but he didn’t. In a quiet voice he said, ‘Fucking pills. Screw your head right up, you know, Lancey.’

What was I supposed to say that? I didn’t have to fret too long, though, for he went on, ‘Anyway, I bet she didn’t cry too long. Bet you went right out and brought her another bunny, and she dried her eyes and was a happy little girly again.’

I had thought about doing just that, but hadn’t got around to it; it was characteristic of Tristan that he should be so unerring in his assessments. ‘Max is a vet, Tristan,’ I admonished him. ‘She’s not like that.’

No reaction. From his position on the bed, his eyes looking straight up, his sole response was to say, ‘If you say so.’

There was some commotion from the day room; someone began screaming and this brought with it sounds of someone – actually two people, I think – trying to comfort whoever it was. Tristan didn’t react other than to comment, ‘Happens all the time with that one. He thinks General Zod is after him for medical experiments. Fuck knows why he thinks that; probably quite fancies the idea of a good anal probing.’

The noise eventually abated but only temporarily for then a bell rang, which started the kerfuffle anew. Still Tristan didn’t react, other than in speech. ‘Time for you to go, Lancey, That’s the end of visiting and I have an appointment.’

It was five but it appeared I was the only visitor. I thought about exercising my prerogative as a doctor and staying for a while longer – it didn’t look as if anyone cared anyway – but couldn’t see the point. I had never been sure what I had been expecting to achieve in coming and certainly hadn’t thought to convince Tristan to leave me and my loved ones alone. I supposed it had been just to reassure myself that he really was seeking help and, perhaps also, to see my bogey man again, to fix him once more in my mind.

I got up, not bidding him any sort of farewell, although he did call after me languidly, ‘Ta ta, Lancey. Thanks for coming.’

The journey home was no less hot and uncomfortable than its predecessor. In fact, it was considerably more unpleasant because, just as the bus sailed past Mitcham Common Golf Club, I realized what I had potentially done. Perhaps I had been wrong in assuming that Tristan had nailed Twinkle in mock crucifixion to Max’s front door; in which case I had told him her first name and her profession. Not much for sure but, in Tristan’s hands, quite probably enough.