When Daddy Comes Home (21 page)

Once she had wondered what would happen to them, and now she realized that nothing would. This was where their lives had ended.

Then there was the pretty red-haired woman she had met during her first stay. She had been sitting on a chair that had been placed outside her ward, warming herself in the sunshine. Antoinette remembered her when she was a woman who had been loved by a husband and her two children. She had seen the family visiting her and seen the bewilderment on
the faces of the two little ones, who were too young to understand that their mother was ill and just wanted her to return home with them. But they wanted the mother they had known, not the one whose post-natal depression was so severe that she was lost to them.

Antoinette had heard that the husband had remarried and the two children no longer visited. Now the woman sat in a wooden chair, bent almost double, her prettiness long gone as the drugs that quietened her made her gums recede and her once-vibrant hair fade and thin.

In her twilight world that she had entered long ago, did she remember who she had once been, Antoinette wondered. She hoped not.

No, she thought. Once in this place we do not believe we will ever return to the outside world. Then the words of the sister came into her head. ‘There are so many sad stories we hear in this place…but I hope you are going to be one of my success stories.’

She looked up at the window where only a patch of sky showed. The outside world had receded and grown unreal.

After all, the sad stories had all started out there.

B
reakfast was eaten in the ward. Lunch and the evening meal were taken in the huge canteen where plates of unappetizing stodgy food were served. Antoinette hated those escorted walks to the dining room. Once there, she and the inmates of the long-stay wards were separated from the other patients. Being part of the group that ate in a different part of the dining room marked her as being among the worst cases in the hospital and she was forced twice a day to see others’ reactions to the inmates of her ward.

She knew she attracted stares as she walked along the corridors, the only one not in uniform, but with her head held high she ignored them. Her footsteps rang out amongst the shuffling of the others as she walked in front beside one of the nurses. Patients from other wards must think I’m very dangerous, she thought with some amusement.

When the ward sister sent for her, she wondered if she was going to be told she had to conform and wear a uniform like everyone else, but it seemed that the sister had seen her defiance for what it was: an aversion to the category that had been given to her.

‘Now, Antoinette, I think that it would be good for you to work while you’re in here,’ she said without any preamble
when Antoinette came into her office. ‘Because you are in a secure ward, there have not been many places we could put you. But one of the wards is short staffed. Their care assistant has left. Would you like me to send you there in the daytime?’ Before Antoinette could ask her any questions, she dangled the carrot she knew would prove irresistible. ‘When you are there, you would sit with the nurses in the dining room. What do you think?’

Antoinette was too delighted at the thought of being occupied and escaping segregation in the canteen to ask what ward she would be sent to and the ward sister had sensibly kept that information to herself. All she could think of was no more detested walks to the dining hall and the privilege of having tea breaks with the staff. This would mean drinkable tea that hadn’t stewed for hours in an urn, biscuits and some new company.

‘Yes,’ she replied promptly. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Good.’ The ward sister smiled. ‘You can start tomorrow.’

Antoinette went to bed that night wondering what work she would be given. All she had been told was that she would help the nurses with their bed making and cleaning.

It can’t be too bad, she told herself. This is the worst ward of all of them, isn’t it? So it can’t be any more horrible than this.

The next morning she found out what she had agreed to.

She had barely finished her breakfast when a nurse appeared to take her the ward with a brisk ‘Follow me, please’.

She walked obediently behind the nurse, who soon turned into a part of the hospital Antoinette had never been in before. It was silent at that hour in the morning; only when breakfast
was over and cleared away would the army of female patients who cleaned the corridors appear.

They stopped outside a locked door. As the nurse put her key in the lock and opened it, a deafening noise was released from inside. A giant cacophony of sound reverberated, bounced off the walls and attacked her ears. It was a mixture of repetitive mutterings, screeches that rose in strength to a high-pitched crescendo and the shouts of meaningless words. Antoinette reeled from the sheer volume of it and the nurse grasped her arm firmly more to reassure than to restrain her.

No sooner had her ears become attuned to the clamour of the ward than she smelt a pungent stench so strong it made her eyes smart. She forced herself not to gag as her nostrils filled with the powerful odour of sweat, excrement and urine. The combined attack on her senses almost made her legs buckle as she took in her surroundings.

She had entered a travesty of a nursery. Here, instead of the very young, were the very old, who were nearing the end of their lives and were returning to an infantile state. It was filled with long metal cots in neat rows, their metal sides raised to stop their occupants jumping or falling out. Antoinette realized that some of the racket was not human but came from the metal bars of the cots being shaken by the wizened arms of the their occupants. Showing toothless gums, the women’s faces contorted as they screamed and shouted incomprehensible sounds at the new arrivals.

The rows of cots contained the old of the hospital. Women in varying stages of decrepitude sat or lay in their beds. The weak sunlight from the windows shone on scalps pink through sparse white hair; nightdresses were drawn high on wrinkled legs, exposing nappies fastened round withered buttocks.

Some of these old women had regressed completely to the babies they had once been. Antoinette watched with horror as one explored the contents of her nappy with her bony fingers before smearing the bedclothes with her find. Others, most of them emaciated and wrinkled, crouched in their cots screaming obscenities from toothless mouths while they watched the newcomers with feral expressions.

This was where the long-stay patients came when they grew old. Most of them had minds that had never been repaired. They had lived in the hospital for the majority of their adult lives and for years had been fed a diet of sedatives while their brains had been subjected to excessive bolts of electricity. Now they were ending their days in that room, but not quietly.

For the first time Antoinette was made to confront what happened to patients who never left. She had not questioned the fact that during her time in the hospital she had never seen really old people, either in the wards she had been in or when she had caught glimpses of other inmates. But here was the answer to the question she had not asked herself. This is where patients were sent when their dementia became too disruptive. She shuddered, partly with revulsion and partly with an uneasy awareness that she could be looking at her own future.

Here, there was no remnant of human dignity left.

As she watched them, she wondered if any of them were mothers or grandmothers and then felt ashamed that she had been so disgusted at the sight of them. Whatever they were, they were still people. She remembered that the ward sister had told her that some of the patients had never progressed mentally beyond toddler stage, that some had been so damaged that their minds had snapped and could never be
repaired. Antoinette understood how fear and frustration could damage the mind – years of that, along with the natural disintegration that age brings, would bring most people to this state. She felt a sudden sense of purpose. Whatever the reason was that had brought these old people here, they deserved their final months or even days to be eased as much as it was possible.

She looked at the nurses. Some of the staff there were not much older than she was. If they can work here, then so can I, Antoinette decided. Her first impulse on seeing the place had been to run back to the safety of her ward which now seemed like a haven of peace and tranquillity. She would not give in to it.

‘Just imagine,’ she told herself sternly, ‘that these old ladies are two and entering the tantrum stage. You’ve cleaned up babies before – just tell yourself this is no different.’

She was aware that the nurse was looking at her, waiting for a horrified comment or an exclamation of repugnance and resolved not to give any.

‘Where do you want me to start?’ she asked.

The nurse looked at her with something approaching respect. ‘You can work with the other care assistant,’ she said and pointed down the ward to where Antoinette should go.

Mentally rolling up her sleeves, Antoinette found the other assistant, introduced herself and started work.

There were over twenty beds to make. Sheets covered with excrement had to be removed, rubber sheets wiped and fresh bedding tucked tightly in. All the time they worked, Antoinette was aware of old women, angry at being put out of their cots, glaring at them. When the last bed was finished, Antoinette straightened up with a grunt of satisfaction.

In this ward, her work as a mother’s help in Butlins had stood her in good stead. When she had done one stint as a maid, she’d had to clean chalets when vomiting lager louts had missed the toilets and hit the floor. When she had worked as a chamber maid, she’d emptied chamber pots filled by men too lazy to leave their room to walk the short distance to the communal toilets. And when she had been a nanny, she had changed nappies, wiped nose, dressed wriggling bodies and coped with temper tantrums.

Still, nothing could have prepared Antoinette for this ward.

The care assistant looked at her with a smile. ‘I think you’ve earned a cup of tea, Antoinette. We’ll take a break now.’

Gratefully, she joined the small circle that made up the team who worked on the Senile Dementia Unit. Freshly made tea was poured, biscuits were passed round and she sat munching contentedly, feeling an easy-going acceptance from the others, the first she had known in months.

The nurses started explaining more about the patients. Most of them were doubly incontinent, they told her, while some were abusive, both verbally and physically.

If they’re trying to frighten me, they won’t succeed, she thought. Although she felt a flicker of doubt at being capable of doing anything at all, she asked calmly, ‘What would you like me to do next?’

‘Just help us and make yourself generally useful. We’ll tell you what we need as we go along,’ replied the staff nurse in charge of the group. Then she added with an encouraging smile, ‘You seem to be doing all right so far.’

Antoinette helped clean up the floors, make beds and change the clothes of the occupants. In between the hours of back-breaking work, she tried to talk to some of the patients. She sat with the quieter ones and brushed their hair, finding
that the gentle stroke of the brush coupled with the sound of her voice often soothed them. Sometimes she received a smile, sometimes a mouthful of obscenities.

She cringed away from other habits that so many of them had acquired. She had seen babies play with the contents of their nappies, using it like play dough. Here was the geriatric equivalent and it was certainly not cute or endearing, especially when they could not only spit and swear but throw the foul matter with surprising accuracy.

‘All I want to know is,’ Antoinette said despairingly to her fellow care assistant, ‘why does their aim have to be so good when it comes to throwing stuff at us and so clumsy when they have food in the same hands?’

Her companion just smiled and wiped yet another wrinkled face covered with the remains of dinner.

The day passed more quickly than she had thought possible and with it came a rising sense of achievement. It had been so long since she had felt needed – back when her father had been in prison and her mother had leant on her for support. At the end of the day she surprised the staff nurse by telling her she wanted to return.

Over the weeks she worked there, she grew more confident and felt a warm glow every time a face lit up with a smile of recognition when it saw her. She quickly become immune to the ever-present smell and learnt to respect the nurses who worked on the ward. Not only was it back-breaking work but it had its own perils. Toothless old ladies could be underestimated in their agility and age-hardened gums could leave very nasty bruises on a bare wrist that strayed too close.

Soon she knew the names of all the occupants even though most could not remember hers. She helped feed the women, cleaned their faces and changed bedding. As she worked, she
smiled at most of the inmates and wagged a finger at others when the bedclothes were stained and the sheets had to be changed.

‘Oh, you’re being naughty again,’ she told them then. She became adept at ducking when an octogenarian threw a tantrum and hurled the nearest missile or spat out a large glop of spittle.

Most importantly, she felt accepted as part of a team.

In the evenings, when she returned wearily to the ward, the card games continued. Her companions thought she was being punished by being sent to work there and Antoinette didn’t disillusion them but lapped up the sympathy. After the last hot drink, she would fall into bed, exhausted. Not even the teeth grinding, snores or cries could keep her awake.

H
alf asleep, Antoinette tentatively explored the inside of her mouth with her tongue. It felt different – something was missing. As her tongue touched her two front teeth, she knew what it was. One of the two crowns she’d had fitted a year earlier had come off. Reaching into her locker, she pulled out a compact and anxiously examined her face. Her reflection confirmed what she had been dreading; instead of the white smile she had taken pride in, there was a filed down stump. She searched the bed in the futile hope that somehow it might have fallen there but when she didn’t find it, she guessed with a sinking feeling that she had swallowed it during the night.

Antoinette had seen what happened in those wards when a patient had toothache. The hospital simply arranged for an in-house dentist swiftly to remove the offending tooth. They had found long ago that quick extractions were easier and cheaper than filling the numerous cavities in the teeth of inmates fed on a poor diet. The effort of trying to hold a disturbed patient still for more than a few moments to allow the dentist to explore a cavity was a task none of the staff wanted to undertake. The words ‘open wide’ and ‘it won’t hurt’ meant little to most of the inmates.

Every morning the trolley arrived with dentures floating in glasses, each one labelled. Before taking the women to the washrooms, the day staff popped ill-fitting false teeth into open mouths. Seeing this morning ritual, Antoinette had asked a nurse why so many women still in their thirties or even younger had dentures. The nurse replied in a matter-of-fact way that the liquid sedatives made the gums recede which weakened the teeth. Plus false teeth were easier to maintain, she said, as they stopped the patients having toothache. She didn’t seem to care that this was yet another indignity heaped on the helpless patients.

Antoinette was determined that she was not going to end up with a mouth full of the house-style tombstone dentures and resolved that the hospital dentist with his motto of ‘extract, don’t fix’ was not going anywhere near her mouth. She still had some money saved and she wanted to go to the private dentist who had done her original work. So she asked for a meeting with the ward sister and went to put her case to her.

She had expected numerous obstacles to be put in her path, so she was astonished when the opposite happened.

‘Yes, it does need replacing,’ agreed the ward sister, looking at the offending stump. ‘How much did it cost originally? If you have the money to pay for it, I don’t see that there should be any problem. The main difficulty will be that you’ll have to be escorted there and back. Leave it with me, Antoinette.’

A few hours later she gave Antoinette the good news. One of the nurses on the dementia ward had agreed to take her to the surgery in her free time.

‘I’ll phone the dentist myself,’ the sister offered, ‘then arrange an ambulance to take you.’

She did not know what that act of kindness was going to cost her favourite patient.

The ambulance parked in the street outside the surgery, making it quite clear where this patient had come from. Although the nurse had dressed in ‘civvies’ to accompany her and Antoinette was not wearing the hospital uniform, the dentist knew well enough who had made the appointment and that this was an inmate of the mental hospital.

‘I’ve brought Antoinette for her appointment,’ the nurse announced breezily to the receptionist.

‘If you just take a seat I’ll let him know you are here.’ The receptionist was perfectly polite but Antoinette saw her blanche before she hurried off to inform her boss that his next appointment had arrived. Even though she was dressed in her smartest outfit, Antoinette suddenly knew that the fact she was a patient in a mental hospital had turned her from fee-paying client deserving respect into someone almost frightening. It was obvious that the hospital had not considered her well enough to arrive alone and that the dentist would draw his own conclusions from that. It was not something either she or the ward sister had considered when the appointment was made.

A few minutes later she was ushered in to the surgery. When she had visited the dentist before, he had been full of affable chatter but with her newly acquired status his friendliness had been replaced by a cold, businesslike attitude.

‘Open your mouth,’ he commanded, and she obeyed. After inspecting her teeth, he said curtly, ‘That tooth will have to be drilled. The root has to be removed, and then we can make a post crown.’

Antoinette realized that he wasn’t speaking to her – he was addressing all his comments to the nurse. Even though it was her mouth, she didn’t seem to exist to him.

Why, she thought. Does he think that being in a mental hospital renders me incapable of hearing or understanding?

The next words filled her with alarm.

‘Hold her hands, please, nurse.’

Just as she was wondering why her hands needed holding, she felt a strong grip on her wrists and then, instead of the prick of a needle delivering the painkiller to her gums, she felt her mouth fill with pain. She struggled in her chair, trying to convey the agony she was feeling, so that surely he would stop. She could not believe that he would cause such torment on purpose. Inadvertently, her nails scratched the dentist’s hand.

‘Hold her tighter,’ he snapped, and she felt his anger and impatience at having to treat her.

When the nurse finally released her, she was still shaking with pain. She couldn’t believe he had done such a thing to her, or that she had managed to get through it. She found out later that he had removed the nerve from her tooth and not deemed it necessary to inject analgesic into a mental hospital patient.

As the pain subsided, something that felt somehow worse filled her instead. It was the complete humiliation of being treated as something with no feelings. She dug her fingers into her palms to stop herself crying as she listened to him talk to the nurse and make another appointment for the crown to be fitted.

She left the surgery on legs that still shook and jumped thankfully back into the ambulance. All she wanted to do was reach the safety of her ward. She leant her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes.

Back in the familiar surroundings of the ward, she gave the excuse for not talking that her mouth hurt. She could not bring herself to repeat the details of her treatment. All of a sudden, her perception of the hospital changed. It was where the outside was locked out as opposed to the patients being locked in. Now she saw it as a safe place where she felt accepted and even cared for.

Why would she ever want to leave when the world outside was so harsh?