Things went along so calmly for so long. I copped a lot of envy from other girls: they didn’t say much but I saw it in their eyes. When they did say anything it was usually as a joke, like ‘Oh, you can afford it,’ or ‘Does your father want a personal assistant?’
We hardly ever saw Dad. He’d always worked hard; now he doubled it. He took to going to the office at five o’clock in the mornings. He said he got more done then, because no-one else was in and there were no phone calls. But he worked late into the evenings, as well. The subject of our presents didn’t come up again for quite a while, although it was sort of understood that Mark would get his motorbike. No-one mentioned my idea at all. I thought it was actually a seriously good one. We could all be together in the country, having picnics under trees, swimming in the river, riding horses, everyone happy. But maybe they thought it was just some dumb teenage spur-of-the-moment junk. Probably Dad had been so pissed that night he’d forgotten it. I couldn’t be bothered bringing it up again.
Apart from Dad working the much longer hours, I didn’t see much change in our lives. It wasn’t what I’d expected. At one stage I’d thought that we’d be living in total luxury, in some huge mansion where we wouldn’t have to do any work, just lie by the pool all day drinking from golden goblets. But no, it wasn’t like that.
Oh, Checkers, he was the other big change of course. Not always for the good, either—I mean, he caused heaps of trouble. Our neighbours—well, the Sykes weren’t a problem but the Whites hated him, right from the start. They complained every chance they got. And Checkers seemed to sense that. How else could you explain the way he acted around them? And having no fence between the houses meant he could cause a lot of aggravation. Whenever Checkers wanted a crap he went to their back lawn. It was like he saved it all up for their place. He never crapped anywhere else. And, to save aggravation, I used to go and shovel it up and bury it. I hated that job. Really hated it, I mean; not just the way people say ‘Oh I hate doing that,’ and giggle. It made me sick to my stomach. Those moist little heaps, different shades of brown, the fresh ones still glistening, the older ones drier and darker—see, I can make myself sick just by writing about them.
I could never be a mother because I could never bring myself to change the nappies.
Anyway, Checkers. Some of the things he did to the Whites were quite legendary. They had a cat, Muggins, stupid ugly big thing that was a sort of purple colour. It looked like the hair on an old lady after she’d had it dyed. No, I’m exaggerating. It was a blue-grey colour and could trace its ancestry back to Henry the Second or someone. Of course Checkers, who had a bit of hunting blood in him (I think he was part cocker spaniel), thought that Muggins was provided purely for his amusement, or to keep him in practice. He spent half his life chasing Muggins, who had to change from a ground dweller to a tree dweller if he wanted to stay alive. Mark and I made things worse by deliberately sooling Checkers onto Muggins whenever the Whites went out and we saw their heap of purple fluff prowling round the place. It got so that all we had to do was say, ‘Muggins, Checkers, Muggins,’ and he would detonate into a frenzy of barks, rushing around looking for a victim to tear limb from limb.
One afternoon I was in the garden studying for a Biol test when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up in time to see a streak of blue-grey doing about one-fifty across the lawn. Checkers was in hot pursuit, siren wailing and lights flashing. Muggins skidded around the corner of the Whites’ pool, raced along the end section, turned again and made for the gazebo. Checkers, seeing where he was headed, decided to go for the short cut and took a flying leap across the pool. He got about a third of the way over before belly-flopping, in a great splash of spray. But he wasn’t bothered. He paddled forward bravely, looking for the cat. Only problem was that when he got to the other side he couldn’t get out; I had to leave the Biol books and go and rescue him.
It was only a week later that the Whites were at our place for a tennis party. Everyone was sitting around being very elegant: ‘No, really, you go on, I’ve just had a set . . .’, ‘Isn’t she marvellous . . .’, ‘Oh, well played, partner . . .’, ‘Let me get you a drink, darling, you’ve certainly earned it . . .’ Mark was there, scabbing a cake, but we weren’t allowed to play: it was an adult party. Suddenly a strange cat, a reddish-coloured one, trotted down the drive and leapt onto the little wall beside the garage. Without thinking Mark yelled out, ‘Muggins, Checkers, Muggins.’
Like a ground-to-air missile, Checkers launched himself straight at the Whites’ place. He didn’t even see the visiting cat, although the cat saw Checkers and was gone in a blur of orange.
A second after he’d yelled out, Mark realised what he’d done. By then it was too late, of course. Mr and Mrs White were seriously angry. ‘Well, really,’ Mrs White said, standing up. ‘June,’ said Mr White, turning to my mother, ‘this is the bloody limit. These kids have got no respect for anything. They just do as they like.’
My mother started falling apart. You get to recognise the symptoms if you’ve seen it often enough: the trembling lower lip, the head dropping, having to lean on something with both hands. Normally Mrs White was pretty sympathetic when Mum couldn’t cope—Mrs White always blamed Dad—but this time she was too fired up to be sympathetic. Mark and I had to stand there, with our heads down too, while we got told what irresponsible, immature, untrustworthy little criminals we were.
I wished Mum would stick up for us at times like this, but she never once did. It was the same when we were in trouble at school. She wanted everything to be so perfect: tennis parties, her children, the appearance of the house, herself. She went into instant spin-out when they weren’t. Sometimes it seemed with me she was spinning out all the time, because I was never perfect, not once, ever.
Anyway, the tennis party struggled on. Mark and I had to apologise, Checkers was tied up, and the conversation, from what I heard of it, got very lame. It was a long time before the Whites spoke to Mark or me again.
But it was a typical episode from life with Checkers. Where he was, nothing was predictable or dull or in a rut. That’s one reason I’d love to have him with me now, in here. This place is so predictable. They need a Checkers to brighten them up-staff and patients both. It’s funny, because all of the patients are weird in their own special way. Apart from Ben with his attention deficit hyperactivity, there’s Oliver with his eating disorder, Emine with school phobia, Cindy who tried to kill herself, Daniel with an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Esther who’s ‘query psychotic’, according to Sister Llosa, when I heard them discussing the patients at the change of shifts one day. I think that means they’re not sure whether she’s totally off her board, or just normal average crazy like the rest of us.
In a way, though, Daniel seems the most crazy. I don’t know how an obsessive-compulsive disorder works, but there’s something quite funny about it to people like me, who haven’t got it. The strange thing—or one of the strange things—is that Daniel can laugh at it, too. He actually laughs at the weird stuff he does, but he can’t stop himself doing it. For instance, one of his obsessions is with cleanliness. Like my mum, only worse. He spends four, five, six hours a day in the shower. This causes problems for some of the staff, like Sister Norman, who’s obsessed with the fact that Daniel is gay, and gets nervous when any guys are in the bathroom too long with him. She goes around looking for male nurses she can send in to check out the situation, and if she can’t find any she sails in there herself. The more paranoid she gets, the more Daniel teases her. When someone who’s in on the joke, Oliver for example, is in the bathroom Daniel drops all the pick-up lines he can think of, in a loud voice, while Sister Norman goes into a frenzy outside. She knows Daniel’s just stirring her but she can never be quite sure, and it drives her crazy: the steam floating out of the bathroom and, with it, Daniel’s voice: ‘Oliver, that’s such a big one . . . wow, look at that . . .’
Daniel spends so much time in the shower he gets all pink and wrinkly. But his obsession with cleanliness isn’t just to do with taking showers. A couple of days ago he lost ten bucks and, about two minutes after I heard him complaining about it, I saw the money, blowing along the driveway near the basketball court. I chased it, grabbed it, and took it in to the Dayroom and tried to give it to him. He took one look and backed away fast.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Where’d you find it?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Outside,’ I said. ‘Blowing down the drive, across from the court.’
‘I can’t touch it,’ he said.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I wish I was. But I can’t, not when it’s been contaminated like that. Listen, if you want to do me a really big favour, change it for a new one on Wednesday, when the bank comes. Then I’ll be able to have it back.’
It was weird. I can’t imagine living like that. That’s why Daniel never plays basketball, of course. In fact he spends most of his time indoors.
He’s got other obsessions too, not all related to cleanliness. He won’t go into a new room until he’s touched five different types of wood. He said it started with the saying ‘touch wood’, and he got in the habit of touching wood before any new experience, then he figured that the more different types of wood he touched, the more lucky he’d be.
He gets dressed in a certain order, even buttoning up his shirt by doing alternate buttons, starting at the bottom, then going back down.
Like I say, I don’t know how he survives. I don’t know how he gets anything done in life.
Somehow though, despite the individual weirdnesses of the people in here, when you put them together, the effect is dullsville. I don’t know whether it’s the staff or the drugs or the monotony of the daily routine, or all those things. Maybe every institution is like this. But it sure is getting on my nerves.
I suppose that’s the ultimate joke. We’re here because of our nerves and the place makes us worse. Some joke, some catch.
‘Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22, and let out a respectful whistle. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.’
I love that book. But we could teach the guys in Catch-22 a thing or two.