school photos 17
By celticman
- 2584 reads
The phone box was a two-minute walk down the street from the house. The inside of it was grotty, smelled of pee, which was just badness, Jean thought, because if anybody needed the toilet that badly they could have slipped round the back of the wood framed garages closeby. She had a stack of ten pences, fifty pence worth, balanced on the chipped and metal tray of the box. Her feet shuffled as she dialled the number, waiting for the pips. She’d wanted news, any news that her son, would be alright.
Visiting time was between half-two and half-three, but the nurse on the phone that first night said they could be flexible, but no visitors the first few days. Jean didn’t know what she meant. A casual dismissal of the structure of the day worried her, but she’d uh-hud on the phone as if she did. Over the next few days she couldn’t quite catch the nurses’ names she spoke to on the phone, when she asked them they mumbled something, but they said reassuring things and made reassuring noises until on the third day she’d heard one nurse, she thought of as Krinkly Crisp, tell another that ‘it was that pain-in-the-arse woman on the phone again’. Jean hung up fuming, and lit a fag to calm herself. She felt like phoning a taxi and getting it up to Gartnavel and knocking heads together. When she told Joey later he’d just looked over the book he was reading in bed that night and laughed.
Getting Joey ready for the hospital visit was in some way worse than getting the kid’s ready for their absence. That was easy sorted, Jo was eleven almost twelve. Jean told her to keep an eye on Alison for a few hours. If she’d any problems she was to run next door to old Mrs Bells’. Jo had given her that squint-eyed look as if to say the world would end in a raging ball of fire before that happened. She also didn’t know what to take John, a book perhaps, but wasn’t sure if—she’d heard all kinds of stories— in the psychy wards they weren’t just as liable to froth at the mouth and eat the pages. John wasn’t really interested in books or reading anyway. He preferred sketching, but God knows what he’d have done with a set of pencils. Joey had already warned her that he couldn’t take more time off work, which meant he wouldn’t, because he didn’t like hospitals and he especially didn’t like psychiatric hospitals like Gartnavel. Before they’d left she’d settled on a set of crayons and picked up his sketching pad. Flicking through it, a picture of a beautiful looking little girl in school uniform made her shiver, partly because it had little Ally’s eyes. But then she noticed a scuff mark from Joey’s work boots on the linoleum in the kitchen. She got a dish towel and ran it under the tap, started furiously scrubbing at the grey smear, hating him for his carelessness and blindness. She rung the rag out and hung it under the sink to be used later to mop the dishes.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he’d said, when she’d first told him that she’d found out where he was, ‘he’s just gone a bit daft’.
Jean and Joey stood on the platform at Dalmuir station waiting for the Hyndland train that would take them to Gartnavel. It wasn’t far, about twenty minutes on the train, but it was too long for Joey. He was dressed in his best navy-blue suit and a diamond patterned tie in a tasteful lime colour, with the knot loose, hanging lopsided and low at his chest like a lasso hanging onto the hitching post of his neck that he’d forgotten to tighten. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, and the winged collar spread wide as a dove in flight. His chest was tanned from working outside and he thrust it out, a gold crucifix hung on a chain to let those that bothered looking that he was proud of being Roman Catholic. He paced up and down platform two, huffing and puffing in exasperation eyeing Jean, blaming her, when the red light wouldn’t turn green. She ignored him, smoked a cigarette and struck up a conversation about the changeable weather with a stout woman standing leaning on a stick.
The woman that let them into the ward held up her keys and grinned at them as if they were kids. She’d puffed out blond hair that curled one way and stopped half way down her face and a body like an American fridge-freezer crammed into a cream trouser suit with brown Doc Marten boots.
‘Wow,’ she said, ‘you’re early.’ But they’d been booked in to see the psychiatrist which made that okay. She marched along the hall ahead of them.
‘There now.’ She ushered them down the hall with a wave.
Joey took the lead. He peered in at a boy cueing a white ball on a six-foot-snooker table, fringe of hair flopping over his eyes.
‘It’s in here,’ said Jean. There was a nameplate MR TOM WILLIAMS slipped into a slot on the door. She wondered whether to knock.
Joey pushed in ahead of her and flung open the door, an uncharacteristic jerky movement that showed his haste to get in and out as quick as possible. She couldn’t help tilting her head back, listening to the voices that came from the dayroom close by, hoping to hear Krinkly Cut’s voice. Someone was picking chopsticks out of a piano. The institutional smell of fag smoke was bleeding from the dank green walls and strong disinfectant partially covered the stifling smog of ammonia. But the room they entered was not much bigger than an extended closet with a desk and a few chairs.
‘Please sit down.’ The voice was Oxford or Cambridge, the plums of years of Received Pronunciation; the beard was recent Che Gueverra and his white uniform of doctor’s coat was baggy pockets and lived in yellow. It was only apparent how lilliputian John’s psychiatrist was when he stood up, his hand outstretched to offer them a seat.
Sighing as if they were backward children he concentrated on John’s notes rather than look either of them in the eye. The seizure, if it was that, was just an aberration, a freak of nature. It might happen again. It might never happen again. If a pattern emerged the man with the notepad, looked into Jean’s eyes to reassure her, he was just the man to chart its progress. There were medications that could control, but not cure it. They could manage it together. He got up as quickly as he sat down, briefly shaken Jean’s hand when he got up to leave and nodded at Joey on his way out.
‘What about his psychiatric problems, his…?’ Jean asked.
He batted away her laywoman attempts at understanding his domain with a thin pink lips that struggled out of his facial hair in a sluggish smile ‘…psychosis’. He grabbed her hand again, cupping it in his own, his dark eyes looking into hers, showing that he understood the shock she'd been through.
‘Can we see him?’
‘Of course. Of course. Feel free.’ He waved his hands about for emphasis. ‘We’re not a prison camp.’
They followed him into the corridor. He pulled shut the door and locked it. ‘Feel free,’ he said again, waving them away towards the dayroom.
It was a large central space divided into two. Some patients, a row of different shaped and coloured heads were sitting in easy- to- wipe shiny chairs, their faces pointed at the telly. Jean supposed these were the dribblers and jerkers.
‘Glad to meet you, glad you could come,’ said a man with in blue blazer and a squarish head, holding his hand out. ‘You got a fag for Eddie?’
‘Sorry don’t smoke,’ said Joey.
A woman glided up from a chair behind a pillar, one of the chairs lining the dayroom walls. She wore a scratchy acrylic trouser suit with man-sized flares. ‘C’mon Eddie,’ she said, leading him away. ‘Don’t bother the visitors.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Jean.
Joey shook his head. ‘Jesus. It’s harder catching the eye of one of these nurses in here than it is catching Blind Bobby’s eye behind the bar in Macintoshes at closing time.’
Jean spotted John’s profile, sitting close up at a low table framed against the large windows of the room, the blinds partially shut to keep the light out and from spoiling the telly programme. He was canoodling with some girl wrapped round him like a snake. As they got closer he stood up, brushing her off, so that she almost fell to the floor.
‘What’s that she’s wearing?’ said Joey, ‘you can practically see her fanny through it.’
'It's a nightdress,' said Jean.
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Comments
"But he (the) room they
"But he (the) room they entered was not much bigger"
Excellent celt. The observation and the details that you drop in with such skill bring this short piece into rich focus. Utterly convincing world and relationships on show here.
Keep going.
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I ate a whole packet of nuts
I ate a whole packet of nuts while reading this, I think that means I enjoyed it since I'd normally pause to assess the fat/salt content. Really gripping and thoroughly believable, if not a little depressing.
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Fantastic. This is a great
Fantastic. This is a great moment to shift perspective - and Joey's reaction to the event is so well captured (in a way that builds nicely on the cops with black eyes in the last chapter). Love the way this is all building - the tone is gritty and the detail really brings it to life. Again, another great cliffhanger ending. A few editing notes:
His chest was tanned from working outside and he thrust (it) out, a gold crucifix hung on a chain to let those that bothered looking (know) that he was Catholic and proud.
Wow,’ she’s (just she) said, ‘you’re early.’ But they’d been booked into (in to) see the psychiatrist which made that okay. She marched along the hall ahead of them.
I'm not sure if 'Received Pronunciation' should be capitalised.
and: "If a pattern emerged the man with the notepad, (who was now looking) [looked] into Jean’s eyes to reassure her, (delete this [he]) was just the man to chart its progress.
Finally, just thought I'd say how much I liked this line: "He pulled shut the door and locked it. ‘Feel free,’ he said again"
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All very real-seeming. And
All very real-seeming. And now John (his name's John Joe isn't it) has found himself a bird! Hey I will have to wait 'patient'ly for what happens....Elsie
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I'm guessing this series is
I'm guessing this series is in response to that thing that always happens in this month?
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Dun't matter whether you sign
Dun't matter whether you sign up wot matters is the fact you're producing the goods.
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... and we're back to Huts -
... and we're back to Huts - except much much better. Onto the next one - sorry it's all been a bit chaotic. Catching up now ....
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I can see I have a lot of
I can see I have a lot of reading to do, but I'm hooked and looking forward to catching up on your story. Jenny.
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Hi Celticman
Hi Celticman
Another good chapter. I liked the way you showed how a psychiatic diagnosis affected the family. And the way the doctor brushed them aside, assuming they couldn't understand and didn't matter was good.
Jean
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Oh, he's been committed. I'm
Oh, he's been committed. I'm curious to see how this turns out. Moving on...
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Not hard work at all! I
Not hard work at all! I wouldn't be reading them if I wasn't enjoying them. :)
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