A Special Relationship (28 page)

I just looked at the wall.

‘Your doctor – Rodale, isn’t it? – she called me at the paper and said, if you didn’t start consuming solid food, she wanted to consider ECT. As in electro-convulsive-therapy. As in shock treatment. She said it was the best way to bring you out of whatever place you are right now – but she’d need my consent to do it.’

Silence. He wasn’t looking at me again.

‘I don’t want to give my consent. But I also don’t want to see you continue in this state. So—’ he leaned forward ’—I’d snap out of this if I were you.’

I turned away.

‘Sally,
please
…’

I pulled the covers back over my head.
Oh why do I pull infantile stuff like this?
Suddenly, he pulled the covers off me. Looking me straight on, he hissed, ‘Don’t force my hand.’

Then he left. And I found myself thinking,
He’ll sign the papers in a New York minute. And then I can assume my new role as Electro-Girl. Juice me up, Scotty …

After he was gone, Agnes got out of bed and walked over to where I lay. Her gait was still hesitant. So too the focus of her eyes. But she sounded lucid.

‘It’s Sally, right?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Well, listen up, American. My husband didn’t want to sign the papers either. I mean, he begged me for a week to try to come round and eat something and act like I knew where I was. But I didn’t. And when I kept tearing the feeding tube out of me … well, it left them with no choice. The night before they began the therapy, my husband sat by me and started crying, pleading with me for one last time to eat something, anything. But …’

Pause.

‘… the next morning, I pulled the tube out again. And that evening, they started the ECT.’

Pause.

‘Just had my fifth yesterday. Guess it’s doing some good, ‘cause I’m eating again, and I’m able to play again a bit with Charlie. But …’

Pause.

‘… they say you only suffer short term memory loss. But that’s not what I’ve been suffering. Kind of more like an entire section of my brain’s been wiped. And I keep trying to find it – keep rooting around for it. But …’

Pause.

‘… know what I think? I think all that electricity ends up frying it right out of you. Burns it to a crisp. The doctor keeps saying, once the treatment’s over, it’ll all come back again. But I don’t believe her. Not for a moment. ‘Cause—’

Pause.

‘Listen to me. You can avoid this. You can. Just one mouthful of food, eh? Just one. Here …’

She pulled over the table, on which sat the untouched dinner tray of food. She reached for a bread roll and pulled off a piece of it.

‘… just a piece of bread. I’ll even butter it for you.’

She did just that. And put it next to my face. I turned away. She used her spare hand to pull my head back.

‘Come on, you can do this.’

I turned away again. She forced me back. I turned away. Suddenly she put the roll directly against my mouth. I turned away. She yanked me back, her grip tight now. This time, she forced the bread against my teeth. Which is when I snapped, and brushed it away, and spat in her face. Without stopping to think, she suddenly backhanded me across my face. The shock was ferocious. So too was the pain. And I heard myself shouting, ‘Nurse!’

Nurse Patterson came into the room.

‘So … you can talk after all.’

Of course, I retreated into silence for the rest of the night. Of course, I didn’t touch the dinner tray. Of course, I took my knock-out pills like a good girl, and then waited for sleep to club me. But when I woke the next morning … no, I wouldn’t say that the fog had lifted, or that I was suddenly feeling reborn, rejuvenated, or at one with myself and the world. On the contrary, I still suffered from post-sedative fuzz and a general feeling of all-purpose toxicity, combined with a strange weariness … even after another eleven hours of unconsciousness. But, for the first time in days, I actually felt hungry. And when the Scottish nurse brought in the breakfast tray, I mumbled two words, ‘Thank you.’

This made her look up at me, a little startled, but rather pleased as well.

‘You’re most welcome. Think you can eat?’

I nodded. She helped me sit up and rolled the table over the bed, and set up the tray, even opening the paper napkin for me, like a waiter in a restaurant.

‘Could you drink some tea, perhaps?’ she said.

I nodded again.

‘I’ll be right back.’

Eating was not an easy process after nearly a week. But I did manage to ingest half a bowl of porridge. It was slow going – and, once or twice, I felt distinctly queasy. But I kept at it. Because I knew I had to.

The nurse poured me a cup of tea and looked on as I ate, beaming. I realized that, to her, any patient that turned a corner was a success story.

‘Don’t worry about finishing everything,’ she said. ‘You’re doing grand.’

Halfway through breakfast, Agnes stirred awake. Like me, she too was on heavy knock-out pills, so it also took her a moment or two to work out where she was, and what she was doing here. But then, gradually, the world came into focus again – and she caught sight of me hovering over the breakfast tray, fork in hand.

To her credit, she said nothing. She just gave me a small nod, then got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back, she came over to my bed and said, ‘Sorry about last night.’

‘It’s okay,’ I said, just about getting the word out.

‘How did breakfast go down?’

I shrugged.

‘That’s how I felt too – first time I ate after … Then again, the food’s such crap around here …’

I managed a little smile.

What I found difficult, though, was the actual act of talking. I could get a word or two out, but then something seized my larynx, refusing to let go.

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Agnes said when she saw me struggling. ‘It takes time to come back.’

When lunch arrived, I managed to eat half a chicken leg and the white goo that they passed off as mashed potatoes, and a portion of perma-boiled carrots that had a decidedly plastic texture. But it was important that I make a good show of my lunch – because Dr Rodale was due in shortly – and I wanted to be absolutely certain that my rediscovered appetite was noted for the record.

She certainly walked into our room with new-found pleasantness.

‘I’ve just heard your good news, Sally’ she said. ‘Breakfast
and
lunch. Most reassuring. And I gather you’ve even managed to articulate a word or two. Do you think you can speak a bit now?’

‘I’ll try’ I said, the words taking some time to form.

‘No rush,’ she said, clipboard and pen at the ready. ‘But it would be most helpful to know …’

And she ran through the entire checklist again. My answers were largely brief – and I seemed to be using words of one syllable. But with her coaxing, I was able to answer all her questions – and, courtesy of my co-operativeness, I seemed to have brought her around to my side. Because when she was finished, she congratulated me on ‘a job well done’ and emphasized how her previous tough tone was a way of breaking through the barriers that had been constructed in my head, courtesy of my postnatal depression.

‘Of course, the road ahead is by no means certain – and it must be negotiated with prudence. For example, do you feel ready to see Jack yet?’

I shook my head.

‘Perfectly understandable,’ she said, ‘and under the circumstances, probably sensible. You should see him when you feel ready to see him – which, we hope, will not be too far off.’

She then explained that what I was going through was undoubtedly horrible for me, but by no means unique. Now that I had started to place my feet back on
terra firma,
it was possible to treat my condition largely through the use of anti-depressants. With any luck, I should start to see some significant improvement within six weeks.

Six weeks? In here?

Dr Rodale saw the shocked look on my face.

‘I know that sounds like a horrible length of time – but, believe me, I’ve seen depressions that, in their most virulent phase, have dragged on for months. And the good news is: if you start responding well to the anti-depressants, we will be able to send you home as soon as you’re judged fit to go home.’

You mean, when I’m no longer a danger to myself and my baby?

But as soon as that thought crossed my head, another one cut in:
Knock it off now.

‘You look like you want to ask me something,’ she said. ‘Any questions?’

‘No,’ I said – and the sound of my voice brought another pleased look to her face.

‘No questions at all?’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied.

Eight

T
HE DOCTOR WAS
right. Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, so there is no instant cure for depression – no fizzy Alka-Seltzer evaporation of the black swamp into which you’ve plunged. Rather, it’s a slow, piecemeal progression back to
terra firma
(whatever that is), with frequent manic diversions en route, just to make certain that you’re not getting too damn cocky about the rapidity of your recovery.

Still, Dr Rodale often reminded me that I was free to leave of my own accord whenever I wished. Not that she actively encouraged me to flee the coop. Rather, I sensed that she was legally obliged to keep informing me of my freedom of movement. She also felt professionally obliged to tell me that, for my own sake, I really should stick it out in the unit until (as she so inclusively put it) ‘we all feel comfortable about your return to the home front’.

The home front.
As in: the place of quotidian tranquillity to which you return after bloody combat on the battlefield … though when did my London home front ever resemble a serene refuge?

Still, Tony decided to play the role of the dutiful, caring spouse – and even expressed contrition for his anger towards me when I was still in coma-land.

‘You know, I was just articulating a desperate frustration … and worry,’ he said the evening after I started eating again. ‘And it was also an attempt to help you … uh …’

Snap out of it?

‘Anyway, it’s good to have you back. The alternative would have been … frightful.’

But electrifying …

‘Been to see Jack yet?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘No rush, none at all,’ he said. ‘The doctor told me it’s going to take a little … uh … time, and the two of you could be in here for some weeks …’

Tony did his best to mask his glee at such a respite from
la vie conjugale,
not to mention the broken nights of early babyhood (not that he’d had much experience of Jack’s sleep terrorism, courtesy of his office eyrie).

‘I’ve informed the editor about your … uh … condition, and he’s been most sympathetic. Told me to take as much time off as we needed.’

To sit by my bed and hold my hand and keep me company? I don’t think so.

But Tony proved me wrong on that one. Day in, day out he showed up at the hospital and spent at least an hour with me, always bringing me a collection of that day’s newspapers – and, as I started to become more compos mentis, a steady supply of novels and back issues of the
New Yorker.
He even went out and splurged on a Discman with an FM radio and a very fancy pair of Bose headphones, which had a little power pack that helped block out all external noise. And he gradually brought in around twenty or so CDs from home. Much to my surprise, he showed an appreciation of my musical taste. Lots of baroque concerti grossi by Handel and Corelli. My prized 1955 recording of Glenn Gould playing Bach’s
Goldberg Variations.
Ella Fitzgerald’s sublime collaborations with Louis Armstrong. And Bill Evans’s famous
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
disc – which, ever since I’d heard it in college, always struck me as the height of sophisticated cool … and did even more so now from my confined vantage point of a South London hospital.

The music became a touchstone for me – a way of measuring my gradual return to some sort of sentient state. But I was also aware of something that Dr Rodale told me: ‘At first, you’ll possibly wonder if the anti-depressants are doing anything. It takes a little time to bite – and it never works the same way with everybody.’

She warned me about possible side effects – and before there was any sense of the drug biting, there was no doubt that its chemical byproducts were playing games with my system. First came a desert-like dryness in my mouth, spreading rapidly to my throat and eventually (and most disturbingly) to my eyes.

‘We’ll get you some liquid tears to keep the eyes hydrated,’ Dr Rodale said. ‘Meanwhile, keep drinking two litres of water per day.’

Then there was a kind of nausea – in which my stomach began to heave, but nothing followed.

‘This should settle down – but you
must
keep eating.’

Food was Dr Rodale’s big obsession – making me wonder if she’d spent a lot of time treating anorexics (or had herself been one). I suppose she had a point – because, according to Nurse Patterson, refusal to eat was a commonplace postnatal syndrome, and one that tended to exacerbate the depression, for a lot of obvious physiological reasons.

‘When you don’t eat,’ she said, ‘you become even more susceptible to the downward curve.’

I was eating again – but my progress back to something approaching an appetite was slow, due, in part, to the horrendous slop they served at the hospital. So Tony began to do a Marks and Spencer’s run for me every day, picking up sandwiches and salads, and even conferring with the nurses about what I should be eating.

Once again, his solicitousness surprised and pleased me. Of course, I knew he’d never articulate the reasons why he was suddenly being thoughtful and considerate.

‘Does it matter what his motivations are?’ Ellen Cartwright asked me. ‘The important thing is: Tony is showing concern. And don’t you think that’s a good thing?’

Ellen Cartwright was the unit’s resident therapist. Dr Rodale pushed pills, Ellen got you in touch with your inner idiot. But like everyone I’d met so far at the hospital, she was a serious pragmatist – and someone who also adopted a very English point-of-view about the messiness of life: there’s a great deal to be said about muddling through.

Ellen favoured long, capacious skirts and big baggy linen shirts. She was in her early fifties – and from her style, her long grey hair, and her taste in sub-continent bangles, I sensed that there was a touch of the subculture veteran about her. But when it came to dealing with the complexities of my condition, she was reassuringly practical.

‘You’ve switched countries, you’ve put your career on hold, you’ve become a mother, while all the time trying to adjust to married life with a man about whom you’re frequently uncertain … and that’s before we factor in the fact that the birth of your child was a difficult experience for yourself and for him. Now, when you add up all that, can you really sit there and tell me you think you’re making too big a deal about all this?’

‘I just feel so … I don’t know …
inadequate.’

‘In what way?’

‘Every way.’

If our conversations had a general theme, it was this long-standing feeling of inadequacy – the perennial worry of the perennial B student (which I was throughout high school and college) who never felt she was achieving her potential … who was always just about ‘all right’ at everything, but could never excel. And it didn’t matter that I had done time on a major newspaper, or had been a foreign correspondent, or had the reputation for being very confident on the professional front. In private, the doubts always loomed – and I kept wondering when I’d eventually be found out.

‘But you never were “found out”,’ Ellen Cartwright said, ‘because you were obviously very good at what you did.’

‘You’re just trying to make me feel better about myself.’

‘Actually, you’re right – I am trying to do that. You should feel positive about such accomplishments. I mean, the way you talk about the
Boston Post,
you make it sound like you were hired to work the till in some supermarket. Can’t you see what you’ve already accomplished?’

‘What I see,’ I said, ‘is someone who threatened the life of her child.’

How I wanted to see things differently. But during the first two weeks on anti-depressants, I still felt sheer, absolute terror about even just looking in on Jack. I articulated this fear on a regular basis both to Ellen and to Dr Rodale. And when Tony danced around this question all I could say was, ‘I just can’t see him yet.’

After two or three times, Tony had the good sense to stop asking me that question – because it was so obvious that I couldn’t handle it. He didn’t even mention visiting Jack – though I knew that he poked his head into the children’s ward every night that he came to see me.

But Dr Rodale remained as direct as ever – and seemed to be using my inability to see Jack like my initial inability to eat: a benchmark hurdle that, once crossed, would indicate a further return to stability … not to mention a sign that the anti-depressants were finally kicking in.

Certainly, I was beginning to feel a gradual undercurrent of …
what?
Calmness? Not exactly – as I could still suffer from episodes of extreme anxiety. Chemically induced bliss? Hardly – as I often had to lock myself up in the bathroom to sob uncontrollably. And as for the amelioration of guilt …

‘So far, I would call your progress steady and encouraging,’ Dr Rodale said as I entered week three of the anti-depressants. ‘You’re eating, your moods seem steady, you’re doing positive things like reading and listening to music …’

Yes, but appearances can be deceptive. Because, every morning, when I finally climbed out of my drug induced coma, the realization of where I was (and the reasons that had brought me here) came crashing in on me with desperate ferocity. It took the next dose of anti-depressants and a long private hour with Glenn Gould on my Discman to force me into a false sense of quietude.

From the outset of my admission to hospital, Sandy was phoning constantly – initially monitoring my progress (as I found out later) by talking to the nurses. She also spoke a few times with Tony. He managed to talk her out of coming to London after my admission to St Martin’s, correctly telling her that I was in no fit condition for visitors. Then, when I was back in the land of the moderately functional, I told her that it wasn’t the best moment for a transatlantic visit, hinting that I really didn’t want her to see me in my current condition. The fact that her eldest son had just broken his wrist in a bicycle accident kept her on the other side of the pond … to my intense relief. But we still spoke daily. We agreed a specific hour (4pm in London/11 am in Boston – when she had a half-hour break from her morning teaching load), and she’d ring a pay phone in a Visitor’s Room down the hall from where I was billeted. As it was outside visitors’ hours, it was always empty. Both Ellen and Dr Rodale considered it an important part of my recovery to maintain close contact with family – so the phone was considered mine for that half-hour period every afternoon.

At first, Sandy sounded like she herself needed a course of anti-depressants – or so said Tony, who actually rang her in Boston to break the news about my hospital incarceration. Even when I finally started to speak with her, her anxiety was apparent and,
comme d’habitude,
she had spoken to every possible leading expert on postnatal depression in the Greater Boston area. Not only that, she’d also made contact with some heavyweight Professor of Pharmacology at Harvard Med, who gave her the low-down on my anti-depressant load (‘It is absolutely the right dosage for you’). And she also established telephone contact with Dr Rodale (‘Well, you are my only sister,’ she said, when I expressed a certain wariness about such interference), whom she also thought sounded like good news.

‘Oh, she is,’ I said in one of our early phone calls. ‘As long as you obey her every command.’

‘Well, at least you didn’t get sent down for shock treatment – which, I’ve found out, is a last-ditch solution over here.’

‘They use it here too,’ I said, thinking about poor scrambled Agnes.

‘Hey, that doctor’s gotten you back to some sort of equilibrium.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘Believe me, from the stories I’ve heard—’

But I didn’t want to hear such stories. I just wanted to be out of here.

‘You’re going to have to let them be the judge of that,’ Sandy said, surprising me with her ‘the English doctors know right’ stance. ‘You’re still fragile. I can hear it.’

Then, just to underscore the fragility of everything, word came back about Agnes. It was nearly three weeks since she’d checked herself out, and I’d had a variety of roommates since then – all short-term internees, and all of whom I treated with polite diffidence, using my Discman and assorted reading matter to keep my distance. I was also allowed to take a walk in the hospital grounds whenever I wanted to – so, once a day, I’d put on the street clothes that Tony had brought me and spend fifteen minutes walking around the inner courtyard of the hospital. It wasn’t exactly the most aesthetically pleasing of spots – as it was a concrete quadrangle, with a patch of green in the middle, around which the hospital staff cadged a cigarette. While I made my daily circle around this grubby enclosure, I always found myself thinking how easy it would be for me to escape – even though I was here of my own alleged free will. In fact, I believed that Dr Rodale encouraged me to take this quotidian walk to enforce the fact that I wasn’t a prisoner, and also to get me to accept the reasons why I’d ended up here. Because I’m certain that Ellen informed her of the escape fantasy I articulated regularly during several sessions.

‘So what’s this “escape fantasy”?’ Ellen asked me when I first brought it up.