‘Completely.’
‘You are growing quite a beard now. Does it bother you?’
‘Well,’ Ned’s hand went to his face. ‘It has taken some getting used to. It itches and it must look very odd, I suppose.
‘No, no. Why should it look odd? A beard is a most natural thing.’
‘Well …
‘You would like to see yourself in your beard?’
‘May I? May I really?’ Ned’s legs started to jog up and down on the balls of his feet.
‘I do not see why not.’
Dr Mallo opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a small hand-mirror which he passed across to Ned, who took it and held it on his jiggling knees, face turned away.
‘You are afraid to look?’
‘I’m – I’m not sure.
‘Set your heels to the floor and take some deep breaths. One-two-three, one-two-three.’
Ned’s knees stopped their jogging and he moved his head. He lifted the mirror from his lap, swallowed twice and slowly opened his eyes.
‘What do you think?’
Ned was looking at a face that he did not know. The face stared back at him in equal surprise and horror. It was a gaunt face, a face of hard cheekbones and deep-set eyes. The straw-coloured hair on its head was long, hanging lankly over the ears, the beard hair seemed coarser and tinged with a suggestion of red. Ned put a hand to his own face, and saw a bony hand rubbing the beard line of the face in the mirror and pulling at its moustache.
‘You like this face?’
Ned tried to avoid meeting the eyes in the mirror. They were resentful and coldly blue. They seemed to dislike him.
‘Who is he?’ Ned cried. ‘Who is this man? I don’t know him!’
The face in the mirror had tears streaking its beard. It licked its cracked lips. Its mouth pursed in disgust at the face of Thomas looking in.
‘That is enough. Give me the mirror now.
‘Who is he? He hates me! Who is he? Who is he? That isn’t me! Is it Thomas? It isn’t Ned. Who is it?’
Dr Mallo pressed a buzzer on the underside of his desk and sighed. Foolish of him to have tried such an experiment. A distasteful display, yet fascinating also. Such pitiable distress, such complete dislocation of subject. Mallo’s student dissertation on the work of Piaget came back to him. If he were still a man of academic energy there could be a paper in this. But Mallo’s days of professional ambition were behind him. He watched Rolf come into the room, wrestle the mirror away and snap bracelets on the boy’s wrists with the methodical efficiency that never deserted him.
‘Calm yourself, Thomas. You see now I hope that there is still a long way for you to go. We will allow you a period of calm for a while. No more writing for the time being, just peaceful reflection. Chlorpromazine,’ he added to Rolf, ‘75 milligrams, I think.’
Ned’s eyes were fixed on the hand-mirror which lay face down on the desk. He was not aware of Rolf pulling up his sleeve. His mind was filled only with a desire to see that haggard face once more and to tear its malevolent eyes from their sockets.
There were special days that came very rarely, days when the food was piled high on Ned’s tray and flower vases and bowls filled with fresh fruit were placed on his table. In the mornings Martin and Rolf would lead him out of the room and stand him under a shower at the end of the corridor. They would hold him there and sponge him clean. Then, still under the shower-head, but with the flow of water turned off, they would cut his hair and shave his beard. His room too, when he returned to it, would have been scrubbed clean and washed. The chamber pot would have gone and the sweet scent of pine room-freshener would hang in the air.
In the afternoons of these extraordinary days Dr Mallo would visit him, together with two others, a man and a woman who did not wear white coats and who brought the atmosphere of the outside world into the room with them. The woman’s handbag and the man’s briefcase fascinated Ned. They bore flavours and smells that were intriguing, enchanting and frightening too.
They all spoke to each other in a language that Ned could not understand, the same language that Rolf and Martin spoke and that he had decided long ago was Scandinavian. He heard his name mentioned in those conversations, always as Thomas now, they never used the name Ned any more.
The woman liked to talk to him sometimes.
‘Do you remember me?’ she would ask, in thickly accented English.
‘Yes, how are you?’ Ned would reply.
‘But how are
‘Oh, I am much better thank you. Much better.’
‘Are you happy here?’
‘Very happy thank you. Yes. Very happy indeed.’
One day in summer they came again, but this time there were three of them. The same couple as before but with another woman, younger than the other, and a great deal more inquisitive. Ned picked up Dr Mallo’s tension at her questions and did his best to say what he thought the doctor expected and wanted of him.
‘How long have you been here, Thomas?’ This new woman’s English was better even than Dr Mallo’s and she spoke to Ned very directly. The others used to ask him questions politely, but never with the impression that they were especially interested in his answers. This woman seemed very curious about Ned and paid great attention to the way he replied.
‘How long?’ Ned looked towards Dr Mallo. ‘I’m not sure how long…’
‘Don’t look at the doctor,’ said the woman, ‘I want to know how long
‘It’s a little hard to tell. Perhaps three or four years. Maybe a bit longer?’
The woman nodded. ‘I see. And your name is Thomas, I believe?’
Ned nodded enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely.’
‘But when you first came here, your name was Ned.’
Ned found that he did not like to hear that name. ‘I was in a bit of a state then,’ he said. ‘I needed to clear up a lot of the ideas in my head. I had been imagining all kinds of things.’
‘Have you made friends with the other patients?’
Dr Mallo started to speak to the young woman, she listened for a while and spoke back at him rapidly. Ned imagined that he heard some words that were a little like the English words ‘Better’ and ‘Hysteria.
It was strange to see how small Dr Mallo looked, and how afraid he was of this young woman. His head was on one side as he listened to her, and he nodded and smiled, passing his tongue quickly over his lips and making notes on the clipboard he carried with him. It was something more than the woman’s height that made him look so small beside her Ned thought, even though she was nearly a foot taller than him. His whole demeanour reminded Ned of how he tried to look when he was doing his best to please Rolf or even Dr Mallo himself.
The woman turned to Ned. ‘The doctor tells me that you have chosen not to associate with any other patients since you have been here?’
‘I… I don’t think I have been ready.’
The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
Ned knew that he must not look to Dr Mallo for prompting or encouragement. It would please him more if he showed that he could think for himself.
‘I wanted to be more confident in myself, if you see what I mean. I didn’t want to lie to anyone about who I was. Also,’ he added, ‘I only speak English and I’ve not wanted to have the problem of being misunderstood.’ That last idea came to him from nowhere and he hoped that Dr Mallo would be pleased at his inventiveness.
There followed another flurry of conversation in which the other woman and her companion joined. Dr Mallo nodded his head decisively and made some more notes. Ned could see that he was trying hard to appear pleased.
‘I will see you again soon, Thomas,’ said the young woman. ‘I hope that the company of some English speaking people will be helpful for you. Will you promise me to try and talk to other patients? Just one or two to start with. Under supervision in case you become nervous. I think you will enjoy it.’
Ned nodded and did his best to look brave and resolute. ‘Good.’ She looked around the room. ‘You do not have any books here, I see.’
‘I have been writing again,’ said Ned almost defensively. ‘I have written some poems actually.’
‘No doubt you will write better poems if you have the chance to read. Books are always healthy. Goodbye, Thomas. I will see you on my next visit and I expect to see you with books in here. We will talk about what you have read and what friends you have made.’
That evening, when Martin came with his supper and to take away the fruit bowl and the vase of flowers, Ned almost whined at him.
‘That woman said I had to talk to other people. Is it true? I don’t want to. I want to be left on my own. Tell Dr Mallo that I don’t want to meet anyone. Especially not English people.’
‘You do as Doctor tells. If Doctor wants you meet other people, you are meeting other people,’ Martin replied. ‘Not matter if English or not English. Not your choosing. For Doctor to choosing. And here, look.’ Martin dropped an enormous English encyclopaedia onto the floor beside the bed. ‘You will read.’
Ned smiled himself to sleep that night. The lost memory came to him of a kind old man reading the
Babe glanced up from the chessboard as Martin led a reluctant patient through the glazed partition and into the sun-room.
Smooth-shaven from yesterday’s official visit, Babe noticed. Another bloody Scandiwegian by the look of the blue eyes and flaxen hair. Frightened eyes they are. Mind you, fake-frightened perhaps. Wary and alert under the guise of compliance and the fog of Thorazine. I know that look well enough. Our man has been here a while and a day, I can see that. Knows how to play it safe. Now why have they kept him from us? What will be
