All of Me (13 page)

I wasn’t even listening properly by then. Not going home? What were they talking about?

Miss Kerfoot was giving me her best supportive face. I recognised it from her collection of sympathetic expressions. ‘The doctor’s done her best to keep you out for as long as possible,’ she said, ‘but you haven’t been helping yourself. So I’m afraid you’ve left us with no choice. There’s a bed for you at Warlingham Park.’

The doctor nodded. ‘That’s why Miss Kerfoot’s here. She’s going to help you pack your bags. I’m afraid you’re in the system now.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lights out!

Hayley watched the woman’s lips move. The words sounded English but they may as well have been a foreign language. She understood what they meant all too well. What Hayley didn’t understand was why she was telling her.

‘This is a secure unit,’ the woman was saying. ‘You’ll be monitored twenty-four hours a day. You’ll be escorted to the toilet where you’ll go under supervised conditions and you’ll not be allowed a bath until further notice.’ She picked up a small pile of paper. ‘And oh,’ she added, ‘you’ll be wearing a paper gown for the first week or two. After that, if you’re really good, we might let you have one with pockets.’

‘Supervised’, ‘baths’, ‘pockets’? Hayley had had enough.

‘What is this place?’ she demanded.

The woman laughed, walked over to the door and closed it behind her. A second later a small metal panel in the door slid back and she stared through the gap.

‘For the umpteenth time, it’s Warlingham Park. But you can call it home.’

I
magine being dropped onto a film set and the director has just called ‘Action!’ The scenery is in place, the props are ready and everyone around you suddenly starts moving. The spotlight hits you, you’re the star.

But you’ve forgotten your lines.

I’ve lost count of how many times I felt like that. The last thing I remembered was speaking to Miss Kerfoot and Dr Picton-Jones. It seemed like a second later to me but they were nowhere to be seen. In fact, Mayday Hospital had disappeared. I wasn’t in Kansas any more.

I didn’t panic. I did what I always did: played detective.

What can I see?

Nothing. Four dark walls. No windows. Worse than the orange room. No furniture apart from a grey, metal bed fixed to the floor.

Am I in prison?

I rushed over to the closed door. Where was the handle?
How am I meant to open it without a handle?
I pushed it – nothing. Then again, harder. The door didn’t budge. It was made of metal and from the dull thuds I was making, pretty thick.

I’m trapped.

Suddenly short of air.
Prison or not, I have to get out.

I banged on the door with my fists, faster and harder until I thought my knuckles would break.

‘Come on! Open the door! Let me out!’

I was screaming now, aware that my voice had no echo in this weird room, and genuinely terrified. There’s nothing worse than the claustrophobia of a locked door. I was desperate now for some air. I was going to faint.

Suddenly a small rectangular window, about eye level, appeared. A man’s face was peering in.

‘What’s all the fuss, Noble?’ he said. ‘I’ve told you: it’s solitary for you for another twenty-four hours.’

Now where was I? How did I get out of the cell? It didn’t matter. I was just grateful to have escaped. But where had I escaped to?

Okay, I’m at a table, a large round one, shared with seven other people, all grown-ups. We’re in a big room. Four or five identical tables. Fuddy-duddy décor in a really bad state.

There was a plate of grey food in front of me, half eaten.

Obviously a rundown canteen of some description, or a restaurant, but one I didn’t recognise. I couldn’t see any waiters so I couldn’t check their uniforms. The windows weren’t any help either. All I could see outside were trees and bushes.

What else?

The smell. There was something more pungent than the aroma from a kitchen. What was it? Then I realised. It was pee. The air reeked of old, rancid pee. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the carpet, from the chairs or from the diners themselves. Horrible. I pushed my plate away in disgust. There was no way I could eat now. Not in that room.

What is this place? Am I in an old people’s home?

That couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t. The people on my table, though, were much older than me.

Anything else?

The noise! The more I concentrated on piecing my jigsaw together, the harder it became because of the raucous din. I hadn’t noticed at first. It was the sound of fifty people talking at once – and nobody listening. I could make bits and pieces out. Some of it wasn’t in English. Some of it didn’t even sound like real words. One man was howling – not crying – literally howling as though he were trying to summon a wolf. Others sounded in distress. Angry, sad, upset, happy. Every emotion going was thrown in the mix. Every emotion, that is, except one.

The one that was slowly creeping up on me.

Fear.

I genuinely had no idea where I was. All I could think of was Dr Picton-Jones’s chilling words: ‘You’re in the system now.’

I looked again around my table. For adults some of them had appalling manners. Some were dribbling, some were playing with their food, some were spraying it everywhere. I wasn’t in McDonald’s.

They’ve done it. They’ve put me in the nuthouse!

I felt my blood run cold.

I scanned the room. No one was walking around. I didn’t dare stand up. But how did I get there? Had they drugged me? And how long had I been there? No one was taking a bit of notice of me. That’s not how you treat a newcomer. Whether it’s school, Brownies or a job, you normally get shown around on your first day. From what I could tell everyone was pretty comfortable with my being there. Which meant I’d been there some time.

How was that even possible?

What are they doing to my mind?

Actually, not everyone was comfortable with my being there. There must have been a cue to leave the table, which I missed, because suddenly half a dozen people leapt up and starting meandering around. They didn’t exactly look like they had anywhere to go but they didn’t want to be seated either. A few were shaking. One man’s tongue lolled from his mouth like a chewing camel. Some shuffled. The only person who looked like she had a mission was a large, middle-aged woman. I couldn’t help staring as she marched purposefully past my table. She must have noticed. She spun round and shouted in my face, ‘My son! What have you done with my son?’

I nearly fell off my chair in fright. I honestly thought she was going to punch me.

I managed to splurt out, ‘I haven’t seen your son, sorry,’ but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

‘You’ve seen him, I know you’ve seen him. Where is he?’

I looked frantically around the room for help. No one came. I couldn’t see anyone in a uniform among the scruffy throng. There was certainly no one looking like they were about to step in to save me.

‘I haven’t seen him, I promise.’ My voice was barely audible now. It didn’t matter. The woman wasn’t listening anyway.

‘You don’t like black people, do you?’ she said, leaning in towards me. Whether it was meant menacingly or not, that’s how I interpreted it. That’s how anyone would have responded.

The woman was so close I couldn’t catch my breath to scream. I could barely think.

She’s off her rocker.

That was obvious. But the problem was: how far off her rocker was she? Was she aggressive? Was it going to escalate? The woman was angry and twice my size – at least. I didn’t stand a chance.

Just as I thought she was about to hit me, she took a step back and sneered, ‘You’ve never seen a black arse before, have you?’

A black what?

Before I had even processed what she’d meant, the woman just pulled her pants down and shoved her backside in my face. I was literally pinned to the edge of the table by her big, fat bum. It sounds funny now. I’m smiling remembering it. But not back then. At that moment, at fourteen years of age, I’d never felt so threatened in my life. And never so dirty. It was absolutely terrifying. Absolutely humiliating. And, for all I knew, absolutely a sign of things to come.

Eventually a man in white appeared and escorted away the woman he called Sadie, still pulling her knickers back up, still shouting to the world that I’d stolen her son. No one asked me if I was all right. No one apologised. No one took any notice of me at all.

A sickening realisation hit me: if no one bats an eyelid then her behaviour must be par for the course. On the plus side, at least she’d confirmed something: I had been sent to a proper asylum.

Now I just need to get out.

‘Five minutes to lights out!’

What?

A woman, dressed in the same pale staff uniform I’d just seen, was standing by the door. But it wasn’t the canteen door. It was a different room entirely.

Where am I now?

I was standing next to a bed. I was in a room full of them, six going along one wall and another half dozen facing them. It looked like a hospital ward but the walls were pink, not sterile white. And there were no machines. I guessed it was a dormitory. My heart sank.

I’m still in the nuthouse.

Most of the other beds had people in them or next to them. They were all adults. Most were older than my mother, some of them older than Nan. The stench of pee was even worse than before. And the noise – it still didn’t make any sense. There were only a few of them talking now but I couldn’t make out a word they were saying.

That was the least of my worries, though. What was I meant to be doing? Was this my bed? Was I meant to be getting in? You can’t always take these things for granted. Not with women like Sadie on the loose.

Sadie!

Just thinking of her made me sweat. Where was she?

No sign of her here.

For a moment I missed the security of the cell. At least I was safe there.

The beds were all set out exactly the same with a little wardrobe and a chest of drawers either side. Apart from the one next to me, they all seemed to be spoken for, which was a good sign. Gingerly I opened the wardrobe door, half expecting to be shouted at any second. Empty. I was expecting my clothes.

I stopped. That wasn’t a good sign.

Then another thought flitted into my head.
How long have I been wearing this paper robe?

Why had I just noticed? I was wearing underwear and this stupid gown made of some sort of thick, wrinkly paper. It was like a cut-price princess dressing-up costume. Now I’d noticed it, suddenly I couldn’t get over how uncomfortable it was. Really scratchy, against my skin and my neck.

Most people were wearing normal clothes. A few had outfits just like mine except for one difference. They were made of fabric. Exact replicas but obviously a lot more comfortable. It didn’t make sense.

Why me? Why am I the odd one out?

Again.

‘Lights out!’

The woman was back.
Was that five minutes already?
I realised everyone else was tucked up so I climbed into what I hoped was my bed. The woman said, ‘Goodnight, ladies’ and the room was plunged into darkness. As my eyes adjusted I could make out her silhouette framed by the doorway, but that was it. Then the door clicked shut and I heard the turn of a key.

Locked in!

But who with?

If I’d been scared before I was petrified now. It wasn’t just the darkness, although that didn’t help. I just felt lost, abandoned. Why was I here? How long had I been here already? No one was showing me the ropes. They were treating me like I’d done it all before. But I hadn’t. I swear I hadn’t.

The questions kept coming.
Is this my life now? Is this where I live? Am I in prison?
Each new thought brought me closer to crying out.

I thought,
If I sleep, everything will be all right. Next time I wake up, I’ll be at home.

But I couldn’t sleep. The second my eyes closed the questions buzzed louder in my head. Where were my parents? Where was Lorraine? Where was Nan? Did they know where I was? Had they done this? Did they have me taken away?

The thought of being sent away by my own family was too horrible to contemplate. I didn’t think I could become more miserable but that single thought did it. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though.

Because of the noises.

A low growl was coming from the furthest part of the room. I knew it was someone snoring. What else could it be? But everything sounds worse in the dark and the longer I listened the weirder the irregular guttural snorts seemed. After a while I had to remind myself they were coming from a human and when a similar noise started closer to me I jumped.