All of Me (12 page)

I just have to make the best of it.

Soon I discovered the decision wasn’t mine to make.

CHAPTER SIX

You’re in the system now

Ken opened his eyes and automatically blinked in the sunshine. The warm breath of the wind in his hair felt good. He felt like staying there all day.

But where was ‘there’?

Didn’t matter. It felt good.

He was sitting on something hard, possibly concrete, probably a wall or something similar. He could feel that without even looking. His hands, planted beside him for support, pressed against the rough painted brick surface. His legs swung free over the side of the bench or block, or whatever he was sitting on. That’s all he could tell. After that he was lost, fresh out of ideas, but in no hurry to find out. The breeze on his face felt so good.

One more moment,
he promised himself.
Then I’ll get up.

Ken had things to do. He always had things to do and so little time to do them in. Where did the time go?, he found himself wondering.

He enjoyed the quiet warmth of his solitude for another few seconds, then, prepared for the glare this time, opened his eyes into a careful squint.

And then he nearly fainted.

Directly opposite him was the middle section of a block of apartments.
He was level with floor six or seven. Between him and it there was nothing but air. No road, no path, no walls, no glass.

Ken looked down, then left and right. His mind was spinning. Why hadn’t he figured it out? He was perched precariously over a ledge at the top of a multi-storey car park. The ledge was no deeper than two bricks. It was designed to keep people in. At shoulder height, it should have done the trick. What the hell was he doing balanced dangerously on top of it, legs dangling sixty or so feet above the ground? Gasping for air, he guided his fingertips until they found the back of the wall, then he dug his nails in for dear life. It wouldn’t stop him from falling but he felt better. He had to do something. After all, one sudden movement and the rest of him could follow his feet over the side.

Ken suddenly remembered luxuriating in the spring breeze on his face a few seconds earlier.

What if I’d leant forwards and not back?

It was no use thinking about it. His stomach was churning fast enough as it was.

Ken attempted to edge himself backwards. The obvious thing to do was swing his legs back up but the ledge was so narrow he was afraid the momentum would topple him in the other direction. But he couldn’t just sit there. A big gust of wind and he could be blown over. And in any case, who knew how strong this wall was? After a few nail-biting seconds he leant back as far as he dared over the car park floor and let himself fall. No sooner had he begun moving than his legs were able to swing upwards. He grabbed the top of the wall with both hands and lowered himself to safety.

For a minute or so he couldn’t move. He just stayed there, hands and face pressed against the wall, covered in sweat and his heart threatening to burst through his shirt.

Why had he been there? What on earth had he been thinking of? One false move and that would have been the end of Ken.

He shook his head. It wasn’t the oddest thing that had happened to him but it was the most dangerous.

Ah well,
he thought,
it’s over now, no harm done,
and slowly he walked away, past the parked cars and unsuspecting shoppers. He couldn’t waste his time in a multi-storey car park.

Ken had things to do.

N
obody told me anything. That was the story of my life. Friends didn’t tell me where they were going. Teachers didn’t tell me what homework had been assigned. Mum didn’t always call me for dinner. And no one told me when, why or how I kept ending up in Mayday Hospital surrounded by medics talking about stomach pump procedures. Completely out of the blue, it felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. I couldn’t help thinking,
In a moment I will wake up and everything will be all right.

But every time I woke up things were just as bad. If anything, they were getting worse.

Mum had made perfectly clear her feelings on the whole involvement of social workers in our family business. In her eyes I’d brought shame on the family. She was more interested in what the neighbours thought than solving any problem. Dad did what she said or nothing at all. The less time they spent in each other’s company the better. I didn’t mind. Anything for a quiet life. That was our family motto.

Neither of them spoke to me about the hospital visits. It was as if they were pretending nothing had happened – even though it kept happening. Dad did what he could but his main contribution was accusing me of taking his pills. Day after day it was the same stuck record.

‘What were you thinking, taking my distalgesics? They’re dangerous, Kim. When will you learn?’

‘I haven’t touched your distalgesics.’

That was normally enough to shut him up. He hated confrontation, even with me. Unfortunately that also meant there was no way he would take the hospital to task, I knew that, not even when they were kidnapping me every other week for God knows what reason. Neither he nor Mum seemed to have any interest in helping me cope or trying to stop the stomach pumps happening. Why not? Why wouldn’t they step in? It was as if they were blaming me.

I realised I had never felt so alone in my life.

School was going from bad to worse as well. In class I struggled to keep up. I would stare at the blackboard, then at my textbook, then at my friends, then back at the board, all the while absolutely nothing sinking in. What did the chalk words mean? Why was I on a different page from my friends? How come everyone knew what to write and not me?

It was as though I’d missed the lesson where we were taught how to do it. It wasn’t just the time I missed being in hospital. Some lessons I had every day …

There was always the option of raising my hand. Experience told me that never went well. This time I went for it.

‘I don’t understand, Miss,’ I ventured bravely.

‘Well, perhaps if you weren’t talking all through my lesson you’d follow it a little better.’

‘I wasn’t talking, Miss,’ I claimed. Immediately, though, I knew that was a mistake. I could see the hackles rise on the back of her neck.

The worst thing about school was the time I spent in the orange room. I seemed to spend half my time in there for no reason. I was always finding myself incarcerated from morning till home time. And always for the same reason: absolutely nothing at all.

Every time I discovered myself there it felt like another punch in the stomach. Another twist of the knife.

Why were they doing this to me? What had I done wrong? They were as bad as the doctors. How were they allowed to get away with it?

I knew kids who bullied other pupils – even when they were grassed up they didn’t get punished like me. I’d seen students do unspeakable things in class and not get half the orange room time that was always being dished out to me. How were teachers allowed to lock me up so indiscriminately? What had I ever done to them? Surely there was a law against it?

I don’t know if they were related but after my first hospital sentence I seemed to spend more time in the orange room than ever. That was all I needed. Subjected against my will to unfathomable experiments at the hands of NHS psychos, then no sooner had I recovered enough to go back to school, thrown in this tangerine prison.

I know it happened a lot because Mum mentioned it once at home. She must have been sent a letter. I tried to tell her I was victimised but she wasn’t interested.

‘You’re lucky they don’t throw you out,’ she said. ‘And then what will you do?’

If I’m honest, other kids seemed to hate it more than me. My friends said it drove them mad staring at those four satsuma-coloured walls all day. I never experienced that. For me it felt like I was in and out in no time. I certainly didn’t spend the day reflecting on my misdemeanours, if that’s what they were hoping for. Not only did I have nothing to apologise for, I didn’t even remember leaving half the time, although obviously I did.

I could have coped if I’d deserved to be there. If I park on a double yellow line today, I don’t like it when I get a ticket but I accept it was my fault. It would be a different story if I hadn’t parked illegally and I still got the fine. Any punishment is exacerbated when you don’t deserve it. An eye for an eye didn’t come into it when I was growing up. As far as I was concerned I had been the victim of bullying all my school life. Not by pupils. By teachers, by the head, by the system.

That sense of injustice continued outside school. All adults seemed to have it in for me, whether I was at work, in class or shopping with friends. Worst of all, though, was the treatment I was subjected to in hospital. If it happened outside Mayday you’d call it torture. How else would you describe being drugged then invaded by coarse hosepipes? Being flushed out by water and saline? That’s what they told me they were doing and I believed them – I had the scars every time to prove it. How else would you account for the days of pain, the enforced imprisonment and – most unpleasant – those sneering faces of doctors accusing me of scheming for my own reward?

What reward was that? What could I possibly gain from putting myself through that hell?

Not all of the faces were so bad, I have to admit. Some of the nurses said nice things to me, I suppose, although I knew they were the ones who’d dragged me there in the first place so that didn’t count. It didn’t matter what they said. Dr Picton-Jones and Miss Kerfoot, the social worker, were the only ones who seemed to be on my side consistently even if I didn’t enjoy hearing some of the things they said. That didn’t matter. I would work everything out for myself. Then I would show them.

Before I could do anything, however, I found myself face to face with the doctor once more.

It’s happened again!

That was the first thing I thought when I looked up and saw her face. She looked like she’d been talking to me. I must have been asleep. Couldn’t she tell? But I was here now. I looked around. I was in Ward 1 at Mayday. That much was obvious. That’s why the doctor was here – Ward 1’s other name was the ‘psychiatric ward’. I didn’t think there was a bed here I hadn’t been in.

I tuned into what the doctor was saying. It was the same old guff about trying to understand why I do things.

Here we go again.

‘What things?’ I asked.

‘You know very well. Why do you keep overdosing on your grandmother’s pills, and now your father’s medication as well?’

Overdose?

I desperately wanted to shout out: ‘I don’t! It’s a lie.’ I really needed to tell her, ‘They keep bringing me here and torturing me with that pipe. They’re experimenting on me for something. I don’t know what but they’ll say anything to keep me here. You’ve got to stop them!’ I had it all planned.

‘You’re wrong, you know,’ I announced defiantly. ‘I haven’t tried to kill myself.’

The doctor smiled and her whole face lit up.

‘I know you haven’t,’ she said calmly.

‘But you just said I had.’

‘No, I said you took several drugs overdoses, each of which could have killed you. But I know that on each occasion you told someone what you’d done. If you’d really wanted to commit suicide you’d have kept it to yourself.’

I don’t know how long I stared at her. I was having trouble trying to compute her words. Overdoses, suicide attempts and now non-suicide attempts. What the hell was she talking about? How was I the one on the psychiatric ward when she was coming out with stories like that? If anyone there needed help it was her.

I resolved to get out of Mayday as soon as the doctor’s back was turned. I just needed to slip my shoes on and I could be out of there in seconds.
I don’t know where I’ll go but it’s got to be better than here.

It was as if Dr Picton-Jones read my mind.

‘You’ll be leaving here soon enough, Kim,’ she said kindly.

That knocked a bit of wind out of my sails.
There goes the element of surprise
…

‘But I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

I shrugged.
Worse than being incarcerated here?
I couldn’t see how.

I was wrong.

Before Dr Picton-Jones could reveal all, Miss Kerfoot the social worker came down to join us. We exchanged hellos and how are yous. Obviously I said, ‘Fine, thank you,’ despite feeling anything but. Then the doctor explained, ‘I was just about to inform Kim where she’ll be going from here.’

‘What do you mean where?’ I asked. ‘I’m going straight home.’

‘Not any more,’ Miss Kerfoot said. ‘That’s not working for you, is it?’

‘It’s fine!’

‘Well, we can’t keep having you back in here every other week, can we? One of these days you’re not going to be so lucky.’