The hospital had been a workhouse in the nineteenth century, but now it was very much the reverse. These days it was populated by a bizarre combination of largely unproductive individuals; managers, clinical staff and patients all circling around in a costly carousel of bureaucracy, political correctness, over-dependence and inertia. But I was part of it, so I ran my eyes over the three tiers of soot ingrained 1860 brickwork and made my way around the back……..
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There was still just enough time to walk to work, so I pulled myself away from the window, donned my once-a-year Wellingtons and put on the old student great coat. I snapped open the warped door, staggered under a blast of freezing air, pulled on my tea cosy hat and headed up the street, now almost enjoying the bagatelle forces which seemed to be gripping me. There was certainly a weird unreality in the world, as the icy wind warmed my cheeks, the frost crackled loudly underfoot, and the snow blew lazily upwards in concentric circles. I was spellbound, rather like a child walking into a fairground from the pitch black street, and I became aware that my senses were almost penetrating the objects about me, enhancing colours and forms, shadows and perspectives, sounds and smells. Bringing everything alive with magical ease.
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“Caring for psychiatric patients in the community is a fine and noble idea; unless the community itself is a pathological phenomenon.”
Anon.
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‘Patient rights’ set me apart from my more enlightened colleagues. The massed bands of professional advocates, inspectors, relatives, mental health charities, public relations managers and health trust solicitors ensured that people with even the most dubious ‘mental disorders’ were insulated from the irksome risks and obligations of life like a protected species. I perceived work as the first therapy, not the final illusive goal, and couldn’t accept that maximising rights whilst minimising responsibilities could possibly provide successful rehabilitation within a society allegedly based on ‘give and take’ principles…
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When I first started working at the unit, it was only a degenerate minority who regularly used their elephant hides and mercenary natures to exploit the system, but now a majority of staff had joined the bandwagon and the protesting few could only stand by as managers and abusers cutely turned the tables. Staff members who regularly drew attention to the excesses and deficiencies were at first cleverly humoured and given empty promises, but then gradually marginalized by counterattacking challenges, jokes about their ‘obsessions’, and ostracising acts. I had now almost entered this final phase, and I could feel the crowded ranks closing against me, as my naïve advocacy on behalf of the taxpayer was routinely reviled by the collusive ‘closed shop’. Farce, travesty and collective delusion had become so deep-seated in our local psychiatric services, there was literally nobody left to complain to.
“You don’t seem to think much of our management skills, Steven?” the Locality Director once said.
“Well, I know one manager who can render the first line of ‘Old Man River’ as a continuous belch, but apart from that………No.” I replied.
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I couldn’t help noticing that Carol’s eyes were like the cross hairs on the sights of a sniper’s rifle, but I was by now absolutely immune to any amount of sulking, and my mind wandered, not for the first time, into a reverie of paranoid self-analysis. I was getting old, and all around me deceit, excess and spin seemed to be turning mockingly orthodox, while my own values and beliefs lay buried under an avalanche of 21st. century sleaze.
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We piled into the car still chewing our bacon gristle, shuddered over the traffic calming humps and joined the other grey-faced parents sitting uncomfortably at the semi-permanent temporary traffic lights on both sides of a big deserted hole. All around us there were children in blue, green and red uniforms traipsing along with dull bestial looks and vast rucksacks stuffed with key stage hieroglyphics, while mouth-frothing trolls hurled obscenities from the side roads; their ways barred by stone age rivals. Thirty minutes and two miles later we were at the school, where the usual collection of thick-skinned narcissists were parked once again on zigzag lines in front of the gates, their eyes glinting with gunslinger venom at my well-practiced slow motion ironic applause, while a procession of cold, scantily clad young mothers sashayed by, modelling their latest catalogue purchases. It was here that Carol smiled for the first time today, as she blended seamlessly with the crowd, flicked a switch, and started chattering gaily……
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Along the bumpy track, heading for the main road, came a little blue car with vintage go-faster stripes and rusty wheel arches. The window wound down and a girl asked one of my friends if this was the right way out. She turned in my direction, and the harps played.
It was Kate.
It was corny.
But it was very nice.
She had come to see me, but couldn’t find anyone who knew the nurse called Steven J—-. This was probably because at C——– we only called each other by our preferred names or nicknames, and I was known usually as…..well…..something else. I was of course no longer a nurse.
The others left us, and we looked at each other with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry, Steve” she said, moving a little closer.
“No Brad Pitt today?”
“Definitely no Brad Pitt.”
The church clock struck six, and we walked towards our new home, in a dream.
Without shadows.
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Along the way, I opened the solitary letter which had arrived for me that morning, and read:
Dear Steven,
You will be glad to hear that our investigation into the death of Cecilia S—- last year is now complete. Evidence has now come to hand that a fellow resident assaulted Miss S—- immediately before the reported incident, and that this indirectly led to Miss. S—’s fall and subsequent death.
We are sorry for any distress the investigation has caused you at such a difficult time, but the evidence above mentioned has only just come to light following a similar incident on the unit last week. The person responsible has admitted involvement in Miss. S—’s assault too.
All the best for the future,
R. S—-
So, a reprieve after all this time.
I carried on walking, adding a merry whistle to my skipping gait, surprising my companions who hadn’t heard me whistle before, and who no doubt wished they would never hear it again. We arrived at the East Field and began the day’s work, gradually feeling the sun climb and fall on our backs, seeing the gold sheaves multiply, and the land gradually return to earth. Then, late in the evening, we turned for home, the old black sheepdog ran ahead, and (being sensitive sorts) we lifted our heads to the shimmering horizon.
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Carol had been profoundly shocked at my suicide attempt, and good old ‘Bill’ had been relegated to the past as soon as the size of his debts and the target of his ambitions had fully emerged. He had been “very keen” on providing my wife with a third child, but initially failed to mention the vasectomy he had received five years earlier – an oversight which cast many of my own failings into a more amenable light. She had certainly advanced as far down the road of infidelity as my tortured dreams had indicated, but my own chequered past clearly made this forgivable, and for a while the dropped jigsaw was back on the table. She disapproved of C——- Village, however, and her letters were becoming less frequent.
I jerked around to a piercing voice.
“Some health service managers have received pay rises of up to 30%, raising suspicions that money is being taken away from basic care to fund ‘fat cat’ salaries….The number of people saying they’re too stressed to work is rocketing…but many of them are just so bored they want a rest from work. Some Doctors dispense sick notes on demand…The compensation culture has made them very careful… but if malingerers were dismissed, there could be millions available to help the bankrupt N.H.S…… “
I leaned over, switched off the radio, and went out to work. It was late summer and hot, the harvest had started, and my lean brown body ached enjoyably as I greeted the others and we walked down the dusty path, towards the farm. A row of rooks watched us from the bough of an ancient oak tree, and wreathes of wild flowers covered the nearby hills, while behind us trudged the oldest resident in the village, with his incongruous blunt scythe.
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