The Road to Redemption (17 page)

”Its best if you talk about these things you know. Helps you to get over it.”

John had to think fast. He wasn’t going to discuss his inner most sexual thoughts with this old bastard.

“Yes,” said John, “you are probably right but Dr Rush said I would need to talk to a specialist sex therapist about that and you don’t have anyone here.”

The doctor was now looking at him very suspiciously.

“Dr Rush is an intern. I have many, many years experience in psychiatry.”

“Yes, but you’re not a trained sex specialist are you?” persisted John.

There was no reply from Dr Smith. Round one to John.

“Hmm, I see also, you hate your father-in-law and are having sexual problems with your wife,” he persisted.

“Well that's something else Dr Rush said I might need to talk to a specialist sex therapist about in the future.” John was almost pleading now. How was he going to stop this unnecessary interrogation?

Just then there was a knock at the door. It was the young nurse. Evidently there was a problem in the dining room.

“OK, John we will discuss this further tomorrow. Make sure you go to group discussion tomorrow morning.”

“Phew,” thought John, saved in the nick of time. At least for now.

In fact Dr Smith was still recovering from the death of his wife of 40 years, who had died of cancer, just over a year ago. Dr Smith had really loved his wife and had been comfort eating and not sleeping well. Both of these things had made him put on weight. He was a very good psychiatrist and a friend of Dr Rush’s father. They had been at university together and had written a couple of papers together.

He had not been trying to “perve” into John’s sex life, but could see that John had taken an instant dislike to him and it was not because of anything he had said or done.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Boy it was hot.

At 5pm a bell sounded and the patents all started heading into the dining room. The food was terrible. For the main course he had runny mashed potato with some overcooked peas and some sort of stew that looked like something the cat had thrown up. For dessert, he had ice cream and peaches. The ice cream was a bit runny, but not too bad, however the peaches were out of a tin and tasted terrible. Nothing like Audry’s cooking he thought.

After dinner he went for a walk and heard a TV going. In a small sitting room a number of patients were watching the news. John had been right, there were bush fires burning all over the state and a number of homes and lives had been lost. They were referring to it as a firestorm. Very depressing thought John.

He heard a noise and looked around to see a large woman, pushing a trolley. She had on the same type of blue uniform, that Nurse Scott had been wearing, earlier in the day. Looked a lot better on Nurse Scott he thought. The new nurse proceeded to go round to each patient and hand them a small plastic cup with pills in it and a glass of water. They all took their medication without question.

She looks like that psychopathic nurse from the movie “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, thought John, Sister Rached. I’ll bet she tries to control all the patients in here.

When she got to John, she handed him a glass of water and a plastic cup, with one pill in it.

“What’s this?” Asked John

“Its something to make you sleep,” she answered gruffly.”

“Its OK,” said John, “ I don’t need anything to help me sleep.”

“You will take this pill, I am not going to have you wandering around at night.”

John looked at her, god she was ugly. I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley he thought. She must be the night nurse; I’ll bet she sleeps on the job when everyone’s gone to bed. He took the pill.

He finished watching the news then went to his bed and tried to read his book, but it was still very hot and he found it hard to concentrate. He tried to go to sleep, but was agitated thinking about his “problems” and also with the heat that wouldn’t leave him alone, so much so that his back was sweating against the mattress. The sleeping pill he took was not working and he was not sure that he slept a wink all night. He certainly was awake when “Sister Rached” did her rounds a few times.

He had been wrong about a few things during that day. The thoughts he had about Dr Rush wearing glasses and Dr Smith wanting to “perve” on his sex life, were wrong. Also, John couldn’t know it, but in fact “Sister Rached” was not a psychopath, just an old woman who was a bit grumpy and did night duty to get away from her husband, for a while. The only thing he had been partially right about was that “Sister Rached” had been known to fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, when everything was quiet and everyone else was asleep.

Next morning he got up feeling very washed out from lack of sleep. He somehow managed to get himself to breakfast and had just finished when he saw Nurse Scott coming towards him. She was a much better sight than that horrible night sister.

“Dr Rush would like you to go to group discussion this morning. It will be starting in a few minutes. Just go down the stairs and take the first door on your left.”

Chapter 18   Group Discussion and Room C

John stumbled down the stairs and nearly tripped over. He had hardly slept a wink all night, wriggling in the heat and thinking about Audry, George, Alice, everything. How he hated his life, what was the point to it? After at first going the wrong way at the bottom of the stairs, he finally somehow found the group discussion room.

This was in the basement of the hospital. There were some tables around the sides with various arts and crafts on them. On one side of the room, there were a whole lot of pottery type items, most of which looked very amateurish. On the other side there were a whole lot of paintings, which again looked very amateurish. They must have been doing some occupational therapy, thought John. I don’t think they have any budding artists around here.

In the centre of the room there were about 20 chairs arranged in a circle. Dr Rush was sitting on the far side.

“ Good morning John.”

“Good morning, Janet,” he replied.

She gave him a really dirty look, as if to say how did you find out my name? That is not how you are supposed to address me.

“OK John,” her voice was strained as if to say that’s enough of that.

“Take a seat please, we are just waiting for a few more people.”

John looked around as the stragglers wandered in. What a depressing mob, he thought. He noticed Dan and then saw Lizzie was sitting, with an empty chair beside her for “Thomas”. The young suicide girl was sitting directly across from him. He also noticed another a young girl who looked very skinny, in fact her cheeks looked like they were all sucked in and her arms were so thin, he could see all the bones. Must be anorexic, he thought. Further around from him was an old man, with his head down who looked very depressed. In fact with the amateur arts and crafts and the run down look of the room, the whole thing looked very depressing.

Dr Rush commenced proceedings

“How are we all feeling today?”

There was no response. Some were shuffling in their seats, while others were looking sheepishly around the room. Deadly silence. She tried again

“Is there anything anyone would like to share with us?”

Again deadly silence.

“I don’t mind, we can all just sit here and say nothing if you like, it’s up to you.”

Dr Rush looked over at the young suicide girl.

“Sandra, yesterday you were talking about how our parent’s have a big effect on the way we think. Would you like to talk about that further?”

So that’s the name of the suicide girl, thought John. However Sandra just shuffled in her chair and looked at the floor, then pulled her sleeves down over her bandages. So they all just sat there for what seemed like quite a while, without anyone saying anything. All right I’ll be the bunny, thought John and launched out with,

“The food around here is lousy.”

“OK, we can talk about the food if you like. What is wrong with the food John?”

“What’s right with it,” he said, “It’s all lousy.”

“OK, apart from the food is there anything anyone else would like to talk about.” She was trying very hard. Again they all sat there for what seemed like ages. This is bloody ridiculous, thought John. What a depressing mob. OK I’ll stir them up.

“Look Lizzie, Thomas has fallen on the floor. I think he’s dead.”

He got a reaction but nothing like he had ever seen before. Lizzie let out an almighty scream, that seemed to echo round the whole hospital and with that mass hysteria broke out. Dan jumped up and started pacing back and forth across the room, yelling something incoherently, with his head down. The old man was rocking back and forth in his chair, making a terrible moaning sound. Sandra, the young suicide girl, had her head down, with both hands over her ears. The young anorexic girl was sobbing uncontrollably. One of the other patients got up and threw his chair at the wall, smashing the pottery and knocking the whole table over.

Dr Rush got up from her chair and came straight at John, pointing towards the door.

“Get out of here John. OUT right now.”

As he left, he could hear Dr Rush saying,

“Look Lizzie, Thomas is OK he’s getting up. Dan sit down please.”

Hell, he wasn’t expecting that. He went back and sat on his bed and tried to read his book, but wasn’t really taking it in. He was still in a state of shock.

After about an hour, nurse Scott came into the room.

“Dr Smith would like to see you Mr. Mason.”

“Uh oh,” thought John.

“Sit down,” said Dr Smith angrily.

“You have caused nothing but trouble since you have been here. Do you have any idea the trouble you caused at group this morning? This is a soft psychiatry hospital here. Do you know I could have you scheduled, to a full lock up institution? Do you know what that means? You will have an official record saying you are a mental patient and I can keep you there as long as I like.”

I’ll bet you would love to do that, thought John, as the anger swelled up inside him.  But it was more than anger, this time it was rage.

“You hypocritical old bastard,” he yelled at Dr Smith. “You’re worse than George, you prick. You’ve been dying to send me there haven’t you?” John was off his face.

“I’d like to push that nose of yours right down your throat. All you want to do is perve on my sex life, you ugly old bastard. I’ll bet you haven’t had a decent fuck in 20 years.”

John was absolutely out of control now. He was yelling and screaming all sorts of abuse at Dr Smith. What he didn’t notice however was Dr Smith reaching for a red button under his desk, just as a filing tray on the desk and other papers and pens went flying all over the place. Next minute two burly orderlies wearing white coats appeared at the door. They grabbed John, one on each arm.

“Take him to room C,” ordered Dr Smith.

The room was dark and John was totally out of control. The two orderlies pushed him in and closed the door. He started kicking and pounding on the wall. Suddenly, through his rage he noticed something strange. The walls were soft. My god they’ve put me in a padded cell, but he was in such a state now that nothing could stop him. He was kicking and pounding the wall and wailing, all at the same time. He went on losing all sense of time. Finally through sheer exhaustion he sank to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably, on all fours. After a while he fell back against the wall in a sitting position with his knees up against his chest and his arms around them, sobbing and rocking back and forth. He had never cried like this in his life before. He did that for ages, until finally out of sheer exhaustion he fell asleep. He had literally cried himself to sleep.