My Daylight Monsters (2 page)

Magdelena
.

Mary.

It was meant to be.

The doors swing open and we enter the ward. It
greets us with an open plan waiting area with sofas, magazines, and potted plants. On the left there’s a neat reception desk with a pleasant looking receptionist, sitting upright, blond hair tied back, no make-up but pretty. The walls are adorned with bright words:
wellbeing, health, happiness
…

It’s supposed to put us at ease
,
but it feels more like a false sense of security. My muscles clench at the thought of what lurks beyond the comfy sofas.

“Good morning, how can I help you?” asks the receptionist.

Mum puts her handbag on the desk and rifles through it. “My daughter is here. I mean, she’s here for the… umm…”

“I’m here to be committed,” I say with a sideways smile. “You’ve got the straight jacket in my size, right?”

Mum clucks. “Mary!”

The receptionist laughs. “No, it’s fine. It’s funny. I’ll get the ECT machine charged up especially.” She lifts her eyebrows like she’s talking to a child and they’re sharing a joke. “What’s your name, luvvie?”

“Mary
Hades,” I reply. I regret making the joke now. I feel about five years old. I’m the little girl with the swollen tonsils, getting poked and prodded by the doctors as they talk in that smooth way only doctors talk. That was a long time ago.

“Welcome to
Magdelena Ward, Miss Hades.” It’s like we’re checking into a hotel. “I’ll take you through to the nurse. Now, you’ve already been assigned a doctor, haven’t you?”

“Yes,
Dr. Harrison,” Mum says enthusiastically. “He’s Mary’s psychiatrist. She’s been seeing him since the… well, for four weeks now.”

“Okay, and Mary will be staying with us—”

“We’ve agreed on a week to begin with,” Mum replies.

The receptionist calls through into a back room and a chubby nurse takes over on the desk.
She grabs some files and shuffles along towards the locked doors at the end of the room. We follow, dripping water onto the corridor floor.

There are two sets of glass doors. One is accessed by a swipe card. The other is accessed by a buzzer. Once the first doors are locked the buzzer doors are opened by
someone inside the psych ward, as though the patients are house-bound cats no one wants to let out. While we’re waiting for the nurse to let us in, she rambles on about the art-therapy programme, the food and the daily schedule. Mum makes mm-hmm noises and says, “Oh, that sounds excellent,” while Dad rolls his eyes so only I can see.

Finally we’re in. A shiver passes down my spine. There’s a booth on the
left which is manned by a tall man with stooped shoulders. A short, thickset woman in her forties, with greying hair, greets us. She shakes the hands of both my parents.

“And you must be Mary
, then. If you want to come with me, I’ll get you settled in. Do you have a bag? We’ll have to keep that for a little while, but don’t worry, you’ll get your belongings back. We don’t want you to have anything you could harm yourself with.”

Dad passes her the hold-all and she lifts i
t through the hatch to the man, who glowers down at us like we’re an inconvenience. I want so badly to go through my things before it goes. Suddenly I don’t even remember what I packed.

“We followed the guidelines,” Mum chimes up. “No razors, sharp edges or draw-strings.”

I can’t help but cringe. I’ve never been suicidal, and I can’t think of a worse way to go than by my shoddy attempts at it. I don’t
want
to go anywhere. I like it here. I like breathing and reading books and watching TV.

“I’m sure you have,
Mrs. Hades. It’s only routine, there’s no malice intended. We have to make sure we’re doing our job.”

“That’s fine,” Mum says, as though giving her permission to something she has no control over. “Whatever helps
Mary.”

“Of course.
So, Mary, would you like to see your room?”

I g
lance at Mum and Dad. Is this it? Is this the moment I go and they go and I’m stuck here, in the land of white and squeaky floors?

“Right then.” Dad clears his throat and breaks the silence. “Your mum and I will let you get settled in. We don’t want to cramp your style.” He rock
s back on his heels awkwardly, as though he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

Mum is crying. She’s trying not to but her leaky eyes mix with the rain water on her face. She pulls me into a rough hug and grasps at my damp hair. “Be safe, sweetheart. We’ll be back for you soon. We’ll visit all the time. I promise.”

She passes me over to Dad. “Call us if you need anything. Be good, Tiger.” He’s not called me that since I was eight years old.

“I’ll be fine.” I roll my eyes. Mum’s back stiffens a bit. I’ve offended her now, by not being as sad to see them go. Of course she doesn’t see it, the tremble in my hands or the way I pull my sleeves down and ball them into my fists.
Yet another example of behaviour to file under ‘sulky teenager’ or ‘ways my teenage daughter behaves that I don’t understand’. “I’ll see you soon.”

“We’ll visit all the time,” she repeats.

I almost crack. I almost let the tears come. It takes a deep breath to hold them back. “Okay.”

“Be careful, sweetheart. Make sure you take your medication,” Mum says.

“I will, I promise.”

After another quick hug
I find myself being led away by the nurse as Mum and Dad back away. This is it. I’m an in-patient.

“Now, love, my name is Frances Granger. You can call me Frances, you can call me Nurse Granger or you can call me Nurse Frances.
You cannot call me ‘Nurse’ or ‘Miss’. We’re not like that here. We’re a community. You cannot call me ‘Mrs Granger’
,
either. That’s my mother’s name.” She chuckles as we walk away from my parents. I glance over my shoulder
and see the thin man showing them out. Nurse Granger continues chatting away. It’s like she’s trying to distract me from everything. It’s nice of her. “This is the communal area.” We turn a corner into a section divided by dull-grey sofas with bright cushions—desks and tables that could be from any classroom at any standard school—and an ancient television. There are about half a dozen girls and boys about my age. They all wear loose jogging bottoms and hoodies. Some simply stare into space. “There’s a bookcase with plenty of reading material. Board games and card decks are found in the chest next to the book case. You must rotate the games between you.
Some
patients felt like using them all day, so we hand out tokens now.”

We pass a group of four people playing cards.
They laugh and joke like old friends. Maybe this place won’t be so bad. But then I spot other patients sitting on their own, muttering under their breath. I can’t help it. I get scared. I want to get away from them.

“This corridor leads through to the rooms. There are toilets on the right. You can see the sign
s for male and female. You’ll be sharing with another girl. The boys’ rooms are further down the corridor. On the left, through those double doors, are showers and bathrooms.” She stops outside a door with a narrow glass window panel. It’s frosted. “Knock! Knock!” she says in a cheery voice.

“What?” comes the
reply.

Nurse Granger opens the door a crack. “It’s just me, Lacey. I’ve got your new roommate here.”

“Another lamb to the slaughter,” says the voice. It has undercurrents of menace and the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

Nurse Granger clucks her tongue and opens the door wide, letting me enter. “Oh, stop it
, Lacey. Really, Mary, she is not as bad as she makes out.”

I step reluctantly into the room. Lacey sits on a mes
sy single bed on the right side of the room. She has a mass of platinum blond
e
hair
spilling over her hoody, which is pulled right up to her chin. Her nose is in a book and she doesn’t move, not even to stare at me.

“You
’re still wet from the rain, dear,” Nurse Granger says. “I’ll get you a towel and some fresh clothes.”

“When will I get my things?” I ask as she turns to leave.

“Once we’ve checked everything through. I’ll leave you to get to know Lacey. Dr. Harrison will want to see you later, to have a chat. All right?”

I nod and she leaves, closing the door behind her. Lacey dumps her book on the bed and leaps to her feet.

“Let’s have a look at yer then.” Her eyes trail my body. Up and down, twice over. “You don’t have that glazed-depressed stare. You’re not fidgety enough to be an addict or a manic. What are you in for?”

I don’t really want to tell a stranger. “It’s complicated.”

She snorts. “I bet.”

The fluorescent strip light flickers overhead. I try to move away from
Lacey’s black-lined panda eyes and instead focus on the window at the back of the room. There’s a bedside table in front of it, with cupboards beneath. The glass is dirty and frosted. Outside, the rain pelts down.

“You’ve not got the crazy eyes of a psychotic,” she continues. “Voluntary or involuntary?”

“A bit of both,” I reply, moving over to examine the wardrobe. The hangers are plastic. As I’m seventeen, I’m no longer a child, so it was ultimately my decision. But Dr. Harrison did say he thought that while I wasn’t in immediate danger of ‘harming myself or others’, that with my ‘track record’ he would ‘strongly suggest’ that I consider checking into a psychiatric ward. Even just for a short while.

“You seventeen as well, then?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“So… not an addict, not bipolar, not psychotic… there has to be a reason.”

Why wouldn’t she leave it alone?

“PTSD?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this,” I snap. “I’ve been here about five minutes. My parents have only just left.”

“Dropped off by the ‘rents. Nice. Mine couldn’t give a shit.”

When I turn away from the wardrobe and back to her, she pokes me in the stomach. “What are you doing?”

“Not overdosed recently then? I don’t want no suicidal roommate. Man, they are
such
a drag.” She pulls back my sleeves.

“Hey!”

“Good, you’re not a cutter, either. I hate the sight of blood. And you’ve got a bit of meat on you, so you’re not anorexic. I hate sharing with them. All the rotting food stuffed under the bed. Yuck!”

“Do you mind?” I pull away and sit on my new bed.

Lacey sits back down on her own. For a minute she appears a bit upset. Regretful even.

“Sorry,” she says. “
I never know when to shut up. I-I’m Lacey Holloway. I’m kinda manic and socially awkward. There! Is that better?”

“I suppose.”

“You from out of the city?” she asks.

“Yeah. Harrington
, you know it?”

She nods. “Right posh in Harrington
. Bet you have a right nice house.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Lacey has a bit of a malicious grin but she doesn’t come across as a mean person—just a little all over the place. “Better than living on the estate.”

“The one by the train station?”

“Yeah. It’s minging.” She wrinkles her nose as though she can smell it from five miles away. “I prefer it here. Even if Nurse Granger is a ball-buster.”

“She seems all right.”

“Oh, she is at first. But she soon turns nasty.” Lacey winks. I get the impression she likes to exaggerate.

“Is she a bit of a Nurse
Ratched?” I ask.

“You what?”

“Like in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’?”

“Dunno, mate. Never heard of it.”

“Oh, okay. It’s a famous film and book? Never mind.” I move on. “What are you reading?”

Lacey picks up her book and examines the cover as though trying to remember. “Just some soppy romance thing. You get so bored you’ll read
owt in here. I read a book about canals, last week.”

“How long have you been here?”

She exhales through soft lips, reverberating in a floppy
brrr-brrr-rrr
sound. “Oh, I dunno. About a year.”

“A
year
?”

“Yep!”

“But… that’s so long.”

“I guess.” She shrugs. “I’ve been home in that time. It didn’t work out.” Her face darkens. “So I ended up back.”

“But what about education? Aren’t you going to do any A-Levels or go to university?”

“I’m not smart enough, or rich enough. Not like you.”

I open my mouth to say something; I don’t know what. I don’t know how to respond. Luckily, Nurse Granger appears at the door with towels and clothes.

“Is there somewhere to change?” I ask meekly.