The Stars’ Tennis Balls

the same with me and time. There’s a word for it. Tonic something…

So, let us say that breakfast is eight. If that is true then lunch is half past twelve. I know this, for I have counted the whole stretch of time between breakfast and lunch many times. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi and so on. That was a very dark period: over the course of many many days and weeks I would lose count somewhere and the failure would set me weeping for the rest of the day. I began to believe that I was losing count deliberately because I did not want to be a master of time again. The day did come, however, when I had perfected the art of counting without dropping a stitch, as I called it, and I could be sure that four and a half hours passed between breakfast and lunch. I discovered that the count (when I was sure of it) was always between sixteen thousand and sixteen thousand five hundred Mississippis. Sixteen thousand two hundred seconds is four and a half hours, though you would be ashamed of me if you knew how long it took me to be absolutely certain of that simple calculation. Dividing by sixty and then by sixty again ought to be easy, but my brain found it hard to contain all the numbers at once.

16,200. It doesn’t really seem like that much when I write it down. Sixteen thousand two hundred. Does it seem more written in words or figures? Believe me, when you count them out, one by one, it seems to take hours. Well, it does take hours of course. Four and a half of them.

There is a single high window in this room and on the other side of it (I have jumped up when trampolining on the bed) there is a tree which I call my larch. I never really knew a larch from an oak at any time, but I think larches are tall and my tree is tall, so therefore it may as well be a larch. On winter days when the sun is low I can see its shadow move across the ceiling. I ought to be able to calculate a great deal from this, but I don’t know enough about the sun and the earth. I do know that when I start to see the shadows summer is over and the long winter is about to begin and that when the shadows fade away it is spring and the endless summer is close at hand.

I have attempted, as you might imagine, to count the days and weeks, but something is stopping me. I tried once to mark them off against the wall, using my fingernails but the act of it soon filed them down and I wasn’t able to continue. They always take back the plastic cutlery and I am sure that if I were to mark the walls with my felt-tipped pens they would be permanently confiscated. I could start now on the paper, with the prisoner’s traditional rows of soldiers and a line through them to mark the week, but the truth is, I don’t want to know how much time has passed. I cannot tell you how many winters and summers there have been. Sometimes I think it is three, sometimes as many as five.

There was a time when I thought I could detect when it was Sunday. There would be a brightness outside and an atmosphere inside that made me sure of it. The echo of footsteps seemed to ring differently in the corridors, which I suppose sounds mad. I would say to whoever brought in the food, usually Rolf or Martin, ‘Happy Sunday!’ but there was never any response. Once Martin, who for a short time I had decided was nicer than Rolf, said, ‘It is Wednesday today,’ and that upset me greatly for some reason.

I was moved into this room when my shoulders had mended. I have almost forgotten the first room, which might be a kind of mercy. I had been strapped to the bed there and was at almost my lowest point. Rolf would not speak to me. Dr Mallo would not come. My memories tormented me more than the pain. I still believed that it was all soon to end, you see. I thought that the father of my dreams would come and set me free, that the terrible misunderstanding was shortly to come to an end. I know better now. Dr Mallo has explained that this is my home and that I have no other. I have been ill. My mind has been full of false memories which only time can dispel. If I am slow with myself and patient I will be able to see things more clearly.

I am a very sick young man. I am a fantasist who has chosen to invent a history for himself which does not belong to him. A feeling of personal inadequacy has led me to believe that I once possessed a life of ease and affection and respect. I imagined that I was a happy, adjusted and popular boy with a famous and important father and a contented existence at a well-known public school. This is, apparently, very common. Many unfortunate children choose to inhabit a world like this rather than confront the reality of their lives. It is difficult for me because the fantasy was so real that I have burned out of my memory the real life into which I was actually born. I just cannot recapture or imagine it, no matter how hard I try. My assumed identity is so strong a part of me that even now, knowing the truth, I cannot fully let go of it. Dr Mallo tells me that mine is almost the strongest and most intractable case he has dealt with in all his professional life and this helps. It is hard not to feel a little proud.

The more able I am to accept the truth the easier my life here becomes. The paper and felt-tipped pens are a result of a ‘breakthrough’ that occurred some time ago. I see Dr Mallo every now and then. Perhaps these sessions are regular, once a fortnight, or once every ten days, it is hard to tell. Eight or nine visits ago I broke down and admitted to him that I knew I was not called Ned and that everything I thought had been my memory was indeed false, as he had been telling me for so long. Perhaps he thought I was saying this to please him, for at first nothing changed. In fact he was quite severe with me, accusing me of pretending to agree with him just to make life easier for myself. After a few visits however, he told me that I had made a genuine breakthrough and that this meant I could be trusted with a few privileges. I asked if that meant I might be allowed to read some books. Books will come later, he told me, for they can be dangerous to those with a frail grip on reality. Firstly, it would be a good idea for me to have some paper and pens and to write down everything I felt. If Dr Mallo trusted that I was really coming to grips with my situation, I might then start to visit the library.

What about other patients? Would it be possible for me to join in with them? I had noted evening and afternoon periods marked by an electric bell and always connected with the distant sounds of doors opening and closing, feet shuffling and sometimes a little laughter.

Dr Mallo congratulated me on my observation and held out the hope that one day I would be balanced and strong enough to associate with others without danger to myself. In the meantime, it was important for me to grow healthier in my mind. He is pleased that I have the self-respect that keeps me physically fit and hopes I will be able to set myself mental exercises that are the equivalent of the bench-presses and sit-ups with which I test my physical self.

So now I shall take everything very slowly and not allow myself to become too excited. I must not exaggerate any apparent improvement, for if I am honest, I have to confess that in my sleeping moments, and even sometimes when I am awake, the echoes of the old false memories still fill my mind like seductive ghosts. It will be of no use to me at all if I am over-optimistic about my condition. There is still a very long way to go.

I hear the squeak of the trolley outside. It will soon be time for my medication and supper. I must set down my pens, square the paper neatly on the table and sit up straight. I would not want Dr Mallo to hear that I have been overheated or undisciplined.

Von Trapp! Those were the children in The Sound of Music. You see! Things really do come back when you relax. The Von Trapp Family Singers…

This has been a wonderful and encouraging day.

‘So now, Ned my friend, how are you today?’

‘I’m very well, Dr Mallo, but I wonder if I can ask you something?’

‘Of course. You know that you can ask me anything you please.’

‘I think it’s wrong that you still call me Ned.’

‘We have talked of this before. I am very happy to call you what pleases you. Have you perhaps another name for me? A remembered name?’

Ned wrinkled his brow at this. ‘Well, sometimes I think I might be Ashley.’

‘You would like me to call you Ashley?’

‘I don’t think so. It isn’t quite right. I’m sure that I do remember an Ashley and that I think of him with someone like me. I associate the name Ashley with pretending to be something you aren’t, but it’s all a little confused. I don’t think Ashley is me. I was hoping you might think up a name. My real name may come back to me soon, but in the meantime, anything you give me is better than Ned. The name Ned is beginning to annoy me.

‘Very well. I shall call you…’ Dr Mallo looked around the room as if expecting to light upon an object that would offer a connection to a suitable name. ‘I shall call you Thomas,’ he said, after gazing for a while at a picture on the wall behind Ned. ‘How is Thomas? An English name I think, for you are an English young man. This we know.’

‘Thomas …' Ned repeated the name with pleasure. ‘Thomas…’ he said again, with the delight of a child unwrapping a present. ‘Thomas is very good, doctor. Thank you. I like that very much.’

‘So we shall call you Thomas,’ said Dr Mallo, ‘but I need to believe that you understand the name. It is an escape from Ned, a symbol, we shall say, of a new beginning. It is important you are realistic with this name and do not imagine that Thomas has a past into which you may retreat. It is a name we have conjured up together here for convenience and to mark your progress. Nothing more.

‘Absolutely!’

‘So now, Thomas my young friend. How have you been?’

‘I think I’ve been well,’ said Ned. ‘I’ve been very happy lately.’

The sound of the new name in his ears was wonderful, it released a feeling to be hoarded and treasured in his room later. ‘Hello there, Thomas.’ ‘Thomas, good to see you. ‘Oh look, there’s Thomas!’ ‘Good old Thomas…

‘And at last,’ said Dr Mallo, looking at a tall sheaf of paper in front of him, the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘I am beginning to be able to read your writing without great effort.’

‘It is better, isn’t it?’ Ned agreed enthusiastically. ‘I find I can shape the letters so much more easily now.

‘And more slowly I hope? With less excitement?’