23

The ballroom was a great, stark hall that was reached by a corridor in the female wing of the hospital. There was a stage at one end, and on the stage the members of the small band that had been hired for the entertainment were sorting out their music and tuning their instruments. They were worldly looking men in dinner jackets. The drummer was a small, cruel-faced young man with a pointed beard.

Round the hall were rows of chairs, which male nurses were pushing and shoving and rearranging. Other male nurses stood in conversation, smoking and self-assured.

A convoy of old men arrived escorted by two male nurses. None of them was in costume. They were from one of the wards for people who were almost beyond participation in any activity. Some of them would be completely insane. They were made to sit on a row of chairs at the back. The male nurses placed themselves at either end.

People were arriving in all kinds of costume. There was a butcher with a striped apron and a straw hat carrying a card­board meat axe. There was a lady in a crinoline having diffi­culties with her parasol. There was a tough old woman dressed as a witch with a pointed black hat and a broomstick trailing from her fist. Larry came in with a red and white cloth tied round his head and a black patch over one eye. He brandished a cardboard cutlass. There was a ghost bobbing along in a white sheet. There was an undertaker in a tall hat with black crepe round it. His face was painted yellow. There was a man dressed as a cook with a huge white hat and a frying pan. Mr Allsop talked to a sorrowful John Bull who had a toy dog on a string for a bulldog.

I sat and watched the dancing. I could only dance in my dreams.

Many odd couples moved and revolved over the floor. David, a ghastly, bright red woman, danced with a tiny pale girl dressed as a milkmaid. Two women dressed as men danced affectionately. A queen in a crown danced with a man in a sou’wester and oilskins. A schoolmaster in cap and gown danced with a girl in a paper grass skirt. Two pretty nurses dressed as nurses danced carefully together to encourage the others.

The Chief Male Nurse went up on the stage and announced that Dr Toeman and Mrs Toeman would judge the costumes. He directed that all the people in costume should form them­selves into a procession round the hall. Then Dr Toeman and Mrs Toeman went up onto the stage to be in a position to make their decisions.

The people in costume began to form up into a column. There was some jostling. Suddenly a man in a kilt was set upon by a red man with a single green feather in a band round his head. Male nurses rushed in, and both men, the innocent Scotsman as well as the violent Red Indian, were taken away and out of the hall.

The band attacked ‘Sons of the Sea’ with gallantry. The head of the column went forward round the hall and joined up with the tail. And then the whole procession was revolving. There was lurching and walking proudly and laughing and waving to the uncostumed who sat watching. Mr Allsop came past with his flat cap level and his spear held perpendicular. Mr O’Brien staggered past under his policeman’s helmet. John Bull had his dog trodden on and the string broke. The lady in the crinoline was still having difficulties with her parasol. She thrust it about, endangering eyesight. A party of Arabs marched past in robes that had once been bed linen. The man in the sou’wester and oilskins held up a string of cardboard fish for display. A plump lady skipped past dressed as a French sailor. A girl came along dressed as a drummer boy. Her drum was a real drum and she rattled on it bravely with drumsticks. She wore a red tunic that fitted her tightly to show that she was not a boy, and white knee breeches and white stockings. On her shoes were silver buckles. She had tied her hair back with a bow of black silk and she wore a black three cornered hat.

On they rumbled. They were more real than men and women in the world outside. In the sober world there were illusions of choice. But at this fancy dress ball there was consciousness. The French sailor was a volunteer, not a complaining conscript. The queen with a cardboard crown was a queen by choice, not by accident of birth. Here was no pretence. Or so it seemed to me.

If I had not been a reasonable person, I would have liked to join them, dressed perhaps as a can-can girl, vulgar and blatant. I might have shouted, ‘This is what we have become! Once only our stomach and our sex had desire, but now our brain has desire! Madness is the lust of the brain!’

Dr Toeman and Mrs Toeman had picked out the winner of the first prize. It was the girl dressed as a drummer boy. She received a large box of chocolates and some stockings. To me it seemed unjust that she should be allowed to dress as a boy and be given stockings.

The procession marched on again. The lady in the crinoline received the second prize. It was another box of chocolates. One of the Arabs received the third prize. He was handed a box of cigarettes.

There was a fourth prize and a fifth prize and a sixth prize—I lost count. Nearly half the people in costume got something. The last prizes were packets of cigarettes. Finally Dr Toeman held up his hand and said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s all there is. But I can see some people I would have liked to have given prizes if we hadn’t run out. It’s a pity. We’ll have to have more prizes next year.’

Tomorrow I would go home.