Moonman3

Everybody had a plan. Just phone Gartnavel. Just phone the doctors. Phone an ambulance. Even phone the police. They’ve got to do something. But, there wasn’t really any plan, just reports from Cassie’s sister, and her husband, and her sister’s husband’s son, and just about everybody that knew Bob, in some capacity, that he ‘wasn’t right’. They didn’t like telling us. But they had to. And we listened. We had to. There was always that part of us- that hoped- that somebody would finally say something that made sense. We held on to that, as yet, unspoken promise of some kind of solution.

The good thing about Mondays is that everything is reset to go back to normal. Unfortunately, Bob’s General Practioner (GP), Dr Fleming was off sick. The psychiatrist Mr Tabor, that had assessed Bob when he’d been admitted to Gartnavel, was on annual leave. The psychiatrist that was covering for him couldn’t be contacted. And the psychiatric nurse that Cassie had spoken to on the phone, from Mardenhill Resource Centre, promised to phone us back right away, but seemed to be using the Mayan calendar. Monday is a good day to be waiting by the phone, because Tuesday has got to be better.

The default plan was to bundle Bob into a taxi and take him up to see a GP. Nobody had the energy to think it through. It was just strapped together, like different sized bits of wood, in the hope that it would hold. Initially, somebody must have said to Cassie that a GP could section anybody, under the Mental Health legislation, for 72 hours. Others said that it wasn’t GPs that could do that, but the police. We knew from experience that the latter was delusional thinking, and just hoped that the former wasn’t, as well.

The only way that we got an appointment for any GP was because Erica, Cassie’s sister, had been to high- school with one of the receptionist in Dumberton Health Centre. Other that that, the next appointment would have been a minimal five-day wait. Bob had secured an appointment with Dr Hagen. We didn’t know anything about him, but that no longer mattered.

Ironically, with so many phone calls coming in, Bob was no longer easy to find. His brief appearance at our house had stunned Cassie. When he looked at his mum his lips were set at sneer, and face contorted into a primal scream, but his language was worse than that. He blamed her. She was evil. That was the guttural message. The strange thing was I wasn’t, even though I’d punched him down the stairs and kicked him. That was his mum’s fault, as well. But he just kept bouncing back, standing on the grass verge outside and staring in the windows, screaming at his mum when he saw her. Even when we closed the curtains he stood for hours. Waiting.

Then he was gone. Erica phoned to say that he was down at her house. It was one of those strange quirks. We thought of it as her house, rather than her husband Gary’s, because women seemed to dominate it. Cassie was glad he was there, and not glad at the same time. He was safe. But Cassie’s sister’s daughter, Maureen, was also staying with her mum, Erica, and she had a baby boy, Kenny. So what little space there was Bob took up. His presence anywhere seemed to suck oxygen out of the air. What made it worse, was Bob started following Maureen about their house. He was convinced they were married, and Maureen’s child, Kenny, was his. But we didn’t find any of this out until later, when Bob accused Maureen of being a bad mother, because Kenny had a mark on his crown. Nobody knew where it had come from.

I walked down to Erica’s house. Gary was already there, as was their son Billy. We planned to bundle Bob into a black Hackney cab and take him up to the Health Centre. The cab driver had other ideas. She saw Bob, us encircling him, in a loose linked human chain, and simply drove away.

Billy phoned one of his pals and we were tentatively on schedule. We carted Bob into the back of an old red Ford van, the kind that Postman Pat and his black and white cat made infamous. But it was a tight squeeze with four adults in the back. Bob lay sprawled out over the cement and plastic buckets. If the journey to the GPs had been longer we might all have ended up on the sick with bad backs, as we balanced precariously in the back.

Bob was far less docile when he spotted his mum. It was as if some unknown hand had applied a current of electrical charge. He went back to practicing being the devil. We tried to ring fence him and keep him away from her. But we also had to try and make the appointment on time. Gary, Billy and me were muttering to each other, like a football team, to ‘keep together’, muscling up, and at the same time addressing Bob like a referee; promising him he’d just been in for a minute. But we’d have made any kind of promises, any kind of threats, just to reach our goal. Nothing seemed to work. And we looked at each other and knew we’d run out of ideas.

The doctor’s surgery was arranged in such a way that the Wizard of Oz would have been able to find his way. It was primary colours, red, blue and green, for each practice. The receptionists had their own crimson coloured NHS costume, but acted as a stand in witches. The flame haired receptionist pointed out, we really couldn’t do this. And we really couldn’t do that. And, with a lot of dramatic huffing and puffing, an admonishment: couldn’t we keep him under control. That was the whole problem. We couldn’t. And neither could he.

Bob was standing looking out the window muttering, as changeable as the weather outside and in. ‘Geez a fag,’ he commanded. But he’d forget what he’d asked for, seconds later, and go back to muttering. He didn’t do requests; only orders. Most other remarks were directed at his mum. She was ‘a fucking cow’.

There were three GPs in the practice. Two of them, a young Asian man and an older man I recognized but whose name I couldn’t remember until I looked at the wall plaques-Dr Stewart- walked out with folders and wandered behind reception, casually chatting to the receptionist. But anybody else was just have said they were snooping; seeing what all the fuss and noise was about. It wasn’t their problem, of course.

Dr Hagen was busy, in the way that all doctors are busy. All eyes followed him when he walked the short passage from his office to the reception area. He was an older grey- haired man, which was immediately reassuring, because he did not seem to be off the conveyor belt of young locums, just out of medical school, that proliferated like spores, and knew everything. He wore the mandatory white shirt and colourless tie; a simple uniform of competence.

There seemed no need for words; the receptionist’s head- nodding - performance fully briefed Dr Hagen. She also handed him a folder, which he perused, looking up at Bob, standing at the surgery window, as he walked along the passage past us. Inside the safety of his own surgery door, he popped his head round and called for a ‘Mr Davis’.

Cassie and I stood up. Gary and Billy stood up. Bob made no sign of recognition.

‘Mr Davis,’ said Dr Hagen, looking around the waiting room, with a half-smile on his face, as if he wasn’t quite sure who Robert Davis was.

‘Mr Davis,’ he said, again more insistently.

Gary touched Bob on the arm. Billy sidled up to the other side of him. I formed the third part of a triangle, boxing him in.

Cassie was opposite us. She looked as if she was talking too fast, words bursting out of her mouth, and bruising Dr Hagen’s ear. He was not smiling now, but was nodding, even when Cassie broke away from him and sprinted over.

‘He said that if we can’t get him into his room then he can’t assess him,’ said Cassie, with tears beginning to pool in her eyes.

‘It’s YOU. YOU. YOU.’ said Bob, the corner of his mouth, spitting out saliva, every word aimed in the direction of his mum.

‘C’mon,’ I said, grabbing him by his greasy sleeve, pulling him in the direction of the Dr Hagen’s room.

Bob let himself be pulled and prodded in the right direction. He made no resistance. His eyes looked straight ahead, as if he was wearing blinkers, and there was something of the unwashed horse smell about him. That and fags. Always fags. He walked straight ahead as if tethered. But I kept a firm grip and was ready for him to break away.

We stood side by side in Dr Hagen’s office, my hand still manacling Bob’s sleeve. Dr Hagen slipped in behind us and closed the door. Then suddenly he was standing in front of us, smiling, as if he’d pulled off some kind of magician’s trick.

‘How are you?’ said Dr Hagen, addressing Bob.

‘Fine,’ said Bob, staring down Dr Hagen.

‘I’ll need to see the patient alone unless…’ said Dr Hagen

I nodded, let go of Bob’s jacket and turned towards the door. Bob simply followed me. So I shut the door and turned back to Dr Hagen.

‘Right,’ said Dr Hagen, thinking extempore, ‘if you could just sit here,’ he said, dragging one plastic chair in front of the desk, ‘and you can sit here,’ he pulled over another.

I sat down. Bob frowned, as if the weight of the decision was pulling down his face, but also sat down in the other chair.

Dr Hagen scooted behind his desk, sat back in his chair, and put on his professional face. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ he asked Bob, in his rehearsed voice.

‘Nothing,’ said an unblinking Bob, cutting him up with his stare.

Dr Hagen looked at me, to answer. And if Cassie had bludgeoned him with words, I outdone her.

‘Yes,’ said Dr Hagen, ‘I can see there are a number of problems here.’ He leaned in towards us. ‘In future, it would probably be better if you booked a double appointment, because I’m only down here for fifteen minutes. And that time is up.

I’m really not sure what to do here. You mentioned cocaine and alcohol abuse. I’m sure if he attended AA meetings that would help enormously’.

Dr Hagen stood up to show that we had overstepped our time.

‘Can’t you at least give him something to help him to sleep? He’s not slept in five days,’ I pleaded.

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate,’ said Dr Hagen, raising himself up to his full five foot four.

Bob followed me out the door. Gary circled round to block him off.

‘Just let him go,’ I said, and under my breath, ‘maybe he’ll jump off the Erskine Bridge’.