Freedom Island (15 page)

❊

‘You came back.’
              Mary was uneasy. She knew Frank would be the only Resident who would not respect her new position. In fact, she was quite sure he felt himself above them all. And oddly—for the man she had once chosen—she was unable to read his thoughts.
              ‘Yes, Mary,’ and he paused. ‘By accident.’
              ‘I know. The Deputy told me about it.’
              Frank could sense her vexation, and lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry I left. I just couldn’t stay.’
              ‘Well now you will have to.’ He looked up.
              ‘You will not be allowed out again
. . 
. ’ she added, ‘you betrayed Odd’s trust too.’
              ‘I thought he wouldn’t mind.’
              ‘How did you imagine that?’ she snapped. ‘Odd’s never been the same. Don’t go expecting any favours from him now
. . 
. quite the opposite.’
              ‘Oh Mary
. . 
. ’
              ‘No! that’s enough. We have nothing more to say. I run Bedlam now! I have a new lover, and you will be kept under close watch.’
              ‘You run Bedlam?!’ But she was gone.
‘This is your cell. First floor, North Wall,’ the Orderly said.
              The window had been double-glazed, the walls painted and a toilet sat freshly in place: but the mould remained unstoppable. That night Frank once again felt the relentless Bedlam damp in his joints, in the mattress—damp—, in the sheets—everything in this hell-hole damp! Could Mary and Odd really hate him this much? First floor? It certainly seemed Mary had taken to her new administrative responsibilities with zeal, and without personal favour; he was being punished as a textbook runaway.
              He arrived for lunch in the canteen the following day, disheveled and tired—a look mirrored by those who emerged from the same corridor. He wondered what sins they had committed.
              Hopefully, he glanced around searching for Odd, but he was nowhere to be seen.
              ‘Hi Frank.
’
He turned.
              It was Blofeld, a man for whom Frank once had little time for—apart from the chess, but who now seemed like his only friend in the world.
              ‘It’s good to see you back on your feet,’ Blofeld commented cheerfully, not without surprise.
              Frank was shocked. Somehow Blofeld’s happiness was suddenly the worst thing he could encounter. Worse than the damp. To be surrounded, in one’s misery, by contented people! They sat down.
              Frank jumped, startled by a drum roll.
              ‘They are the “Bedlam Brothers”,’ explained Blofeld, with a smirk. ‘Many Residents learn musical instruments these days. Or languages, or dancing. What would you like to learn?’
              ‘I’m not sure I will have the chance,’ Frank replied. ‘They put me on the North Wall, first floor
. . 
. I think Mary and Odd might have it in for me.’
              ‘You did leave them.’
              ‘I left Bedlam! It’s a prison, for innocent people!’
              ‘I’d advise you to stop that kind of talk, if you want your situation to improve.’
              Frank looked down at his fingers, and was surprised to see that his hands were shaking. At that moment Odd appeared in the room. Frank was immediately taken aback by his appearance: thinner—dryer, and his once charming floppy hair had been cropped uniformly short. Odd stared back at him, without smiling, and walked over.
              ‘Hello Frank. I’m sorry you’re on the North Wall, but you know the rules.’
              ‘Yes. Do you know how long I will be there?’
              ‘For a while. We have no other cells available.’
              ‘You have done well for yourself,’ Frank said after a pause, sounding unintentionally bitter. He stared at Odd’s black leather shoes. Trying to be polite, he added: ‘it seems you chose the better path than me—to use the system rather than to fight it.’
              ‘It’s our natures, we are different in that way,’ Odd replied, slightly puffed-up. ‘You always try to be different, Frank, “alternative”, regardless of whether or not the alternative is better.’
              ‘It was better.’
              ‘Was. But your alternative was not viable, shacked up with the homeless and gypsies until you were at death’s door.’
              ‘And here? I can be healthy and miserable?’
              Odd frowned. ‘You owe your life to the former Governor, you know. He is on the Runaway Register himself now, so we shall be expecting him back here soon: but as a Patient this time. What an extraordinary fall from grace.’
              ‘I prey you don’t find him.’
              ‘For me it’s neither here nor there. But it is most probable.’ Then he added proudly, still hoping for the approval of an old friend: ‘I am “Resident Orderly” now.’
              ‘Resident
. . 
. what?’ Frank replied, unable to hide his cynicism.
              ‘Yes,
’
smiled Odd, though irritated by the reaction. ‘And I have a proper apartment on the fourth, forty square metres with kitchenette and a French balcony.’ —Belittled by justifying himself, he then frowned and left, patting lightly Frank’s shoulder as he went. It felt like a goodbye, Frank thought, and abruptly he felt desperately sad to have disappointed his old friend.

❊

My face on the padded vinyl floor, my arms aching my fingers puffy my shoulders searing with pain a plate of food sat steaming in the corner in a Perspex box. I tried to remember what the hell had gone on but couldn’t put things in order—the recent and distant, the real and imaginary.
              My mind was thick, the stench of detergent clung to my throat, and although I tried to remember I only confused myself: nothing would come or else just anything: memories or thoughts knitted together coming of their own accord, passing randomly; I had no idea if they were factual or concocted or observed, but then again I could think in the moment—the immediate moment—clearly.
              Suddenly I pictured them right here: I could see them all; the generic mothers and their non-specific children bawling their eyes out, a man with a battered face and tobacco-stained hair, and then a pair of mascaraed eyes though not quite the face and somehow I realised how happy they all were to see me like this: in a straitjacket, in a locked room.
              A key turned and in walked a doctor, or rather a man in a sky-blue coat who appeared somewhat intellectual, the drug waiter perhaps: a pseudo doctor, blurred but recognisable, familiar:
              ‘Welcome back, Ollie,
’
he said, and he handed me my glasses.
              ‘What?’
              ‘Ollie, nice to have you back. I’m Gordon, by the way,’ he said, fiddling with his bottles and needles. ‘You have been calling me Gustav rather a lot. Strange but true.’
              ‘You’ve been in and out, you know’ he added. ‘I hope we can keep you with us this time. In the past you and I have become quite good friends.
              ‘We have put you on a new drug and you are, I’m afraid, a bit of a guinea pig. To be frank, we’ve already failed with everything else.
              ‘You won’t have your old memories anymore,’ he went on, ‘but let me assure you that’s for the best. This is a great chance to take your life forward, Ollie, it’s important you accept it. We have everything planned for you.’
              ‘You’re insane.’
            
 
‘Don’t fight the drugs,’ he reiterated.
              ‘Where am I?’
              ‘You are in Bedlam Hospital, in Kent.’
              Pause.
              ‘We will rehabilitate you, put your feet back on the ground.’
              ‘What?’
              ‘To be honest, you will continue to be a bit delusional,’ he added, looking concerned. ‘You may believe certain events happened that never did, creating memories to fit a fantasy, that kind of thing. So try to take things with a pinch of salt, will you?
The following days jogged along in the obscure fascination of trying to remember. It was a game in which I felt oddly content with myself, like a semi-conscious dream on a weekend lie-in; I was somehow aware, somehow not.
              Daily, I was led through the corridors with their tired walls, iron radiators and smells. People appeared to know me—they smiled, screamed, shouted and spat, the pale-faced orderlies looked at me, a few with pride and others with contempt or disinterest, until finally led no longer, I would emerge into the open, oxygen flooding me, in the hospital garden.
              Through a kaleidoscope of memories, some true and some not, and my own turbulent emotions, I felt quite sure I had never felt this before. My heart knew loneliness, frustration, anger, purpose, love and guilt. But now: nothing. Just emptiness. It was as though time was spent and here I was teetering on the precipice of old age, suffering a humiliation that would go on and on.
              Month in, month out, I let the days pass with the flaccid aura of a man who had wasted his life. The relentless damp ate into my bones through all the seasons, and it was on one of these days, just like all the others, that I glanced across the crowd of patients milling around the garden and noticed a familiar face. And then I remembered: the cake shop! That scar, it was unmistakable! Yes, this woman had a scar, exactly like that tender, untouchable girl: but could it really be her? A memory, not a fantasy? I made my way through the crowd of patients, bothered at my presence: past their huffing, grunting, faces;
              ‘Excuse me,’ I asked when I reached her, ‘did you work in a cake shop?’
              ‘Fuck off.’
              Red-faced, I walked back again, as another ran up to me: ‘I’m Frank!’ I turned and walked away.
              After that, they watched me like hawks with mysterious eyes, and I could never be sure if they were monitoring me or merely intrigued, or genuinely crazy.
              I would look into the familiar washroom mirror. No confident, humorous, thoughtful expressions; instead deterioration before my eyes, disintegration like an autumn tree; a relic from forgotten times: wrinkles, discolouration, a lump or two here or there, sagging ears, yellowing teeth, drooping eyelids
. . 
. I was crumbling, as though leaping passport picture to passport picture, all possibility gone. And the more I slowed, the more time sped up—not so much attrition but rather the days and nights accelerating as if someone were flicking the light on and off.
              I was able to bear this solitude thanks only to the near silent presence at dinner each evening of my mother with a sympathetic tear perpetually running down one cheek, tutting under her breath and clasping what she claimed were two blue books one of which was black, then on occasion a fantastical dentist with wire weaving between his upper and lower teeth, joined, hinging slightly forward, not strongly, but just enough, enough for a gentle tug, yank, as was necessary to alleviate the natural aching of the roots, as he’d explained with difficulty.
              Putting it all down to the drugs they were giving me, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest but rather enjoyed having them all around. Best of all was the first Sunday of each month when, without fail, I would be joined for dinner by an extraordinary girl with a sweet face, who sat naked with both hands tied behind her back and crayons between her fingers, her face burrowing into her food.

❊

‘Here for the show!’
              Half-asleep, the Governor peered from the tarpaulin: he saw a large sign with ornate letters, a design so laden down with fanciful details that he had to re-read it, and then once more although it were no longer necessary, letter by letter like a child: B...E...D...L...A...M. But before anything could be done they were past the gate and crawling toward the exercise yard. Good God, they were there to perform! Gripped by fear he broke into a torrent of sweat, Dalma grabbed him, her painted nails dug deep into his arms: without reason he broke free from her, scampering about the bed of the truck on all fours, searching through boxes, to see what he could find. Anything!
              Such an extraordinary—appalling—turn of fate. It had never occurred to him to ask where they had been heading. The truck rolled across the gravelly yard and came to a halt. Dalma climbed down, followed by . . . a bear. It was almost thirty degrees and from inside the costume the roasting Governor tried his best to respond to the comments of the other troupe members by using body language and humour alone. The former Deputy stood before them. The chapel bell began chiming, interrupting the pleasantries, and they stood looking at each other, waiting. The Deputy looked at the overweight bear at the back of the group, but didn’t laugh. The bells stopped, the Deputy held out his clipboard and pen, pointing at the dotted line for Dante’s signature.
              They followed the Deputy in through a back door, and then up a spiral staircase until they reached the third floor.
              ‘You will use these rooms here,’ and he gestured to a row of newly-completed south-facing studio apartments. ‘Or will you be sleeping in tents?’
              ‘This will be fine, thank you,’ responded Dante. With that, the Deputy left and the former Governor rushed to the farthest studio and sat shaking on the bed.
Frank was diligently scrubbing pans in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled-up, his face skinny—as usual—to the pint of illness.
              ‘Pass me that pan.’
              Consumption seemed to have stolen years from his life—his innermost power, and as the other Patients remarked in shameful knowing whispers: he looked like a circus freak himself.
              ‘Sloth is a walking corpse, look at his cheeks!’
              ‘That one doesn’t have long left, I’ll tell you.’
              But, oddly enough, he felt great: positive. He was grateful for the defeat of his consumptive disease and for a second chance at living—even if it were in Bedlam. And although the others were blind to it, he had a sparkle in his eyes that had never been there before. No, he did not plan to escape again. He planned to do well for himself, buying love with his labour—like Blofeld, and accumulating luxuries in return for loyalty—like Odd. Death, or the very close brush with it, had made him a hardened realist, a pragmatist, and the harsh reality of hiding in a forest was not one he wanted. Besides, the new Bedlam, under Mary’s rousing stewardship, was a far more rewarding and comfortable place to be: she’d fired the worst of the Orderlies, while those that remained—who feared her more than anything—had been re-trained in the arts of civil politeness and personal space.
Dante’s Circus was set-up in the Great Hall within the hour: everyone knew their job. Already colourful from Mary’s aesthetic refinements, the room was now augmented by purple velvet drapes, golden silk ropes, red satin curtains and a bold stage complete with trap door. The sun shone through the windows along one side, casting the shadows of their bars onto the wall opposite, where hung the sombre portraits of the previous Governors, each of course known by his particular celebrated tale of death. They heard the monster beyond—the Great Vault: that same apocalyptic roar that every Sunday morning would disturb the silent nobility of ineffective prayers in the chapel. Finally all was ready, the troupe ate and rested until the grey Lunatics and Patients ambled in, and the band begun beating their drums and blasting their trumpets. Sohna and Mohna cartwheeled across the stage, then contorted themselves into a tangle: one face cheeky the other serious. Cymbals crashed. Dante emerged with the pomp and gait of a Persian emperor, announcing in his naturally resonant voice:
              ‘You, sorry unfortunates of Bedlam, shall remember this day, these exotic wonders and extraordinary feats, through the duller days and nights of the remainder of your lives!’
              He stepped aside as Dalma emerged full of her youthful confidence in a sequinned leotard, magnifying an already exceptional figure.
              ‘A dress fashioned over an entire year by two hugely experienced and ugly hands just for this moment,’ Dante elaborated, but the crowd had already forgotten him.
              She leapt across the stage . . . not dancing exactly, but improvising—another clash of cymbals and she was followed by a cancan of Residents from the Wednesday dancing class, to universal applause. The show rolled on toward the grande finale . . . when out came a potbellied bear performing tricks they had all seen before.
              As the crowd cheerfully booed the first trick, one member of the audience was transfixed. Not the former Deputy, nor Frank, but Mary who armed with her multi-dimensional talents had a way of recalling the most peculiar of details about anyone she had ever met; even after the briefest of encounters. She was staring at the bear’s feet, moving side-to-side in light almost dance-like movements at odds with the heavy figure—the weight on the balls of the feet rather than the heels, as he turned to the crowd on either side of the hall. Even before the first abracadabra, Mary knew it was the former Governor.
              The second trick went horribly wrong, to outrageous guffaws. The Governor was now staring back at Mary through his eye-holes: he knew she knew. Terror-stricken, he instinctively stood still. Dalma, imagining stage fright, turned her anguished eyes toward Dante, who skipped forward, his eloquent routine re-starting as though all were as planned, and the terrified bear was led in backward steps by Sohna and Mohna, between the purple drapes.
              Mary leaned back toward Odd, who was sat in the row behind her:
              ‘The bear . . . ’
              ‘Yes?’
              ‘That’s the former Governor.’

Frank was thoroughly enjoying the show, chuckling away to the extent that those about him who had been anticipating his imminent demise now regretfully diagnosed the onset of dementia: his was not a face suited to enthusiasm, or happiness, and his ridiculous expression was suddenly transfixed as he noticed Odd and Mary staring back at him. Instinctively he moved his head fractionally, thinking they must be looking behind him, then immediately understood that they weren’t.
              ‘It’s an escape attempt!’ whispered Odd to Mary, fully convinced by the horror in Frank’s face.
              ‘Have the Orderlies take Frank to solitary. Twenty-four hour guard!’ she snapped, without attempting to hush her voice. With that, the Orderlies sat about them turned to look at Frank too. By the time Odd had conveyed Mary’s instructions to them, the entire Hall was staring at Frank.
              Frank turned to Blofeld, sat beside him. Blofeld must have been the only one in the hall oblivious to what was going on: he had his hand on the leg of a young woman. She, was staring at Frank.
              ‘What did I do?’
              ‘Nothing,’ Blofeld answered generally.
              ‘They’re coming for me!’
              As Blofeld looked up, his lascivious smirk faded. ‘Go peacefully. There’s no other option, is there?’
              Back-stage, the bumbling bear removed his furry head to reveal a flabby face now white with terror.
              ‘They’re on to me!’ he squealed, bear-hugging Dalma as though it might be enough to save him. The others gathered around.
              ‘We need to hide you,’ Dalma said.
              ’And Tolstoy . . . ’ she added, ‘put on the costume, now!’
              They rushed her Gajo out to the trucks. The courtyard was deserted—everyone was inside, and they squeezed him into a compartment in a truck floor, reserved for emergencies and pilfering.
              ‘Take off your head!’ demanded the Orderlies. And Tolstoy lifted the bear head. The Orderlies were not surprised, having doubted the possibility that their former esteemed Governor could have reduced himself to the status of a performing bear.
              ‘Come with us!’ and they presented Tolstoy to Mary, who was not in the least surprised either.
              ‘You were the bear on stage, correct?’
              ‘Yes.’
              ‘I don’t believe you. Do that first trick again, the one that actually worked. Here—a pack of cards . . . ’
              ‘No.’
              ‘No?’
              ‘No. I am not one of your inmates. I do not take orders from you.’
              ‘Bring me their leader!’
              Five silent minutes crept by, Mary’s white fingertips tapping the table, her face intense, until Dante appeared flanked by the confused Orderlies.
              ‘Is this the man who performed tricks dressed as a bear?’ she demanded.
              ‘Yes.’
              ‘You’re lying!’
              ‘We, Miss, are leaving immediately,’ he said with obstinate politeness. ‘I will not be spoken to like that, we are professionals!’ he turned proudly and left. The Orderlies were at a loss, awaiting Mary’s direction.
              She knew Dante was lying, but she knew too the stubbornness of the gypsies.
              ‘Search everywhere before they leave.’
              They found nothing.
Frank, who had only just been upgraded to cohabitation on the second floor, was returned to solitary confinement, first floor, North Wall. Apart from the ominous desperation and familiar physical discomfort, it was barely a hardship: used to the natural rigours of gypsy life and always grateful to be alone, he settled back in and responded to the countless interviews and animated interrogations with the same absolute response: ‘I know nothing’.
              Unconvinced, Mary undertook a thorough investigation—a serialised drama that gripped Bedlam for a month. The Great Hall was sequestered and rearranged with a row of tables in the centre: nine chairs behind and one in front. Mary sat in the middle flanked by Odd and the former Deputy, and thereafter Orderlies and Prefects of diminishing stature. One-by-one the nervous Residents were questioned—all two thousand of them—with a seamless tedium to which only Mary seemed immune, until finally they finished to a simultaneous sigh.
              ‘We have our man,’ Odd declared with certainty. The others were mystified—Mary included—having detected no evidence of guilt whatsoever.
              ‘Blofeld.’
              ‘Blofeld?’
              ‘Blofeld. He was in on it.’ It was an honourable act of residual friendship for Odd to defend Frank—whom he was quite certain was to blame, whilst being a simultaneous opportunity and pleasure to turn on his other former cell-mate, Blofeld.
              Exhausted and confused, the others turned toward Mary to gauge her response. Mary nodded, unwilling to concede that Odd might have picked up on something she had missed. The others were unable to hide their expressions of amazement since, as everyone knew, all Blofeld had ever cared about was getting his way with women, and beyond that he would never do anything for anyone: he was the least likely Resident to compromise his advantages in the new regime, for the benefit of someone else—i.e., for the alleged attempted rescue of Frank. A few minutes of confused exchanges followed, culminating in a unanimous Reasoned Opinion: ‘Justice must be seen to be done.’
              ‘Bring him in.’
              The Orderlies led Blofeld in, whereupon he was confronted with the guilty verdict as though the absent evidence was irrefutable, and to which he was too dumbfounded to articulate a coherent defence. Mary turned to Odd.
              ‘What will be the sentence?’
              To which Odd dryly declared, turning smugly to Blofeld: ‘You shall be publicly executed in the vegetable garden. On Sunday.’
              ‘But . . . ?’ the former Deputy and Mary both appealed in astonished reflex.
              ‘You shall be an example to all,’ added Odd pompously, ignoring the vague appeal of his seniors. ‘There is a price for abusing the generous hospitality of New Bedlam.’
              As the Orderlies dragged him away, Blofeld finally found his voice, turning back to hurl the foul insults that were to assure his destiny beyond reasonable doubt.
              ‘Gag and chain Frank: give him a front row seat!’ Mary ordered, regaining her command, and well aware that Frank himself was far more likely to be the guilty one.