Tollesbury Time Forever (21 page)

PENNY SHORATON
- Well, yes. More or less.

More or less and twist and shout, roust the boutings and beat me dry. The world doth take its chaos and ram it into sidings and skirtings to sculpt and mould the eternal freeform thoughtness of it all into yesses and nose and right and wrong and thisem and thatem so everyone can feel the safe carousing and wondrous extensions of intimated intimacy and beauty beholded in the eyes of HE WHO IS KING. You treat my thoughts with your contempt and your medicine but judge me by my words alone. I can believe I am Jesus or Buddha as long as I don’t tell you, yet you can freely admit that there is a God that speaks to you and you could become the president of the united states - is that not the cold hard truth? Oh broken hearted simpletons of this vacuous void you call the civil west, the archetypal homespun society that ingratiates itself with the firm and the angle, the sharp and the crangle, the pinpoint and the needle, the cross and the bearer - do not ever truly delve too deep inside my mind lest you yourself go mad. I’m in love with her and I feel fine, I’m in love with her and I feel fine…

IRIS PEARSON
- Now do you have any questions for the nurse, Mr Middleton?

PETER MIDDLETON
- Hi Penny.

PENNY SHORATION
- Hi.

PETER MIDDLETON
- So if I understand you, Penny, you do not currently believe Simon to be a risk to himself or others?

PENNY SHORATON
- He has really improved over the last few days which is great to see. He is spending more time out of his room and interacting appropriately with the staff and some of the other patients. I know that, in the past, he has been aggressive to nursing staff, but on this admission there has been nothing like that.

PETER MIDDLETON
- I understand it was you who found Simon hanging a few weeks ago. Was there any indication that something like that was going to happen?

PENNY SHORATON
- Not really. I mean he was on continuous observations more due to his risk of absconding. We were all obviously aware when Simon returned to the ward that he was very unwell. He hadn’t seemed upset though. If anything, he had been very calm. He was playing his Beatles music like he always does and seemed fairly settled. It was definitely a shock when he tried to hang himself.

PETER MIDDLETON
- Have you spoken to him since about why he did it?

PENNY SHORATON
- Well he was initially taken to A&E. When he returned the following day, he was very subdued. It was difficult to get anything out of him. It was as if he was kind of in shock about what he had done. As Dr Weepy said, ECT was considered but Simon started to pick up as the days went on. As is consistent with previous presentations, when Simon is in his psychotic phase, he doesn’t really remember very much which I suppose maybe just as well.

Or is it more about what I don’t tell you than what I don’t remember? But of all these friends and lovers, there is no-one compares with you. Some are dead and some are living. In my life, I’ve loved them all.

PETER MIDDLETON
- I take it you do not currently consider Simon to be a danger to himself.

PENNY SHORATON
- No, not as he is at the moment.

PETER MIDDLETON
- Thank you, Penny.

What a lovely couple they would make - the fragile fleetings of paleface Peter and the boundless chasm of beauty that is my Penny. I look and observe and see all from a position just a little further back than you could ever believe. I am here upon my cinema seat, popcorn down my shirt and coke too cold watching the film of my life as it is played out before me. There is little I can do but to muse upon the variations of theme and the lightening of darkness, the exquisite contradictions that fuel every waking moment where power and might meet the meek and the mild. I sit back and view all for that is all I can do. Play on, good people, play on.

IRIS PEARSON
- And now over to you Mr Cromwell. I understand that the report submitted from your Community Mental Health Team was not written by you, but that you are representing the author due to sickness?

DAVID CROMWELL
- That’s right. And I would like to confirm that this is the first time I have met Simon.

IRIS PEARSON
- I see. Not a very good show, is it? Anyway, we must proceed. Do you have anything to add to the report?

DAVID CROMWELL
- No.

IRIS PEARSON
- Dr Khan?

DR KHAN
- No questions.

IRIS PEARSON
- Raymond?

RAYMOND LISTER
- None from me.

IRIS PEARSON
- Mr Middleton?

PETER MIDDLETON
- Just one question, Mr Cromwell. Could you please confirm what level of support Simon will receive from your team were he to be discharged today?

DAVID CROMWELL
- One of our team will visit Simon on a regular basis. It will probably be one of the nurses, seeing as he is on a depot. They will keep an eye on him to see how he is and help him with anything he needs help with. It might have been me, but I’m a social worker. I don’t do depots.

PETER MIDDLETON
- So you don’t know as of yet who will be Simon’s Care Co-ordinator?

DAVID CROMWELL
- I’m sorry. I don’t. I can check for you after this if you like?

PETER MIDDLETON
- Thank you. But I’m not sure that will be necessary. Suffice to say, there is a plan in place were Simon to be discharged by the panel today.

DAVID CROMWELL
- Yes.

PETER MIDDLETON
- Thank you.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Support for little old me to keep my eyes on the prize and keep me keeping on like a bird that flew. Mister, Mister Raymond Lister, you and your friends are always welcome in my humble abode fireplace ablaze and wooden floor scuffed with the bootmarks of the downtrodden man. Come in, come in!

IRIS PEARSON
- Now, Mr Anthony. I want to thank you for your patience to this point. It must be very difficult to be the subject of such a discussion. Now it is your opportunity to have your say. In your own time, could you please tell the panel what your thoughts are with regard to your current detention under the Mental Health Act.

Step onto the stage young sir. Cross that white, white touchline of your shame and jog onto the park to try and dazzle in so little time, to make a mark, to cement a place, to raise an eyebrow and to make them realise you are worth more than all of this. Carry the drinks no longer for that sweaty, putrid middle order batsman who doesn’t even like cricket yet gets in every week whilst you sit there at home working out averages and gazing at black and white photos and wondering what it would be like to stride out in confidence, to swing a bat with authority or to bowl a ball with venom. Stride out fine man and jingle jangle with the best of them.

SIMON ANTHONY
- Err. Thank you. What would you like to know?

IRIS PEARSON
- Just please tell us how you feel about your current detention. Anything you would like to add to what has been said, to what you have heard.

SIMON ANTHONY
- I think everyone has done a really good job. They are all very nice and very kind. I don’t really know what else to say. If Dr Weepy thinks I need to stay
here, then maybe I do. I wouldn’t like to disagree with him. He has a wonderful beard. I think he cries more often than I do. But then crying is good. It’s just the way the soul squeezes out its squeezings.

PETER MIDDLETON
- Simon, Simon. Perhaps it would help if I ask you some questions?

SIMON ANTHONY
- Ok.

PETER MIDDLETON
- You have heard many things said about you this morning. I would like to clarify a few points with you. Firstly, do you recognise that you suffer from a mental illness for which you are required to take medication to remain well?

SIMON ANTHONY
- I do.

PETER MIDDLETON
- And are you prepared to continue with that medication if you are discharged from the Section.

SIMON ANTHONY
- I will

To love, honour, cherish and obey sweet Weepy so that you may sleep safe in the knowledge you have cured the incurable, fixed the unfixable and ticked the tickables of all that is required of you. Til death do us part. And may it be mine, not yours.

PETER MIDDLETON
- In terms of the support available to you in the community, Simon, are you willing to engage with whatever is offered, visits from a nurse or social worker etc?

SIMON ANTHONY
- I will.

PETER MIDDLETON
- I have no further questions.

IRIS PEARSON
- Dr Khan?

DR KHAN
- Hello, Mr Anthony. Could you please explain to me how you understand the illness with which you suffer? I am very pleased to see you seem to be recovering by the way.

Here goes the goes. That old question. It’s all perception and lack of perception. I see things that you don’t see and I feel things you do not feel. I experience sensations, smells, tastes, terrors and hopes and dreams and absolute doodle
dandy wonders. When I express them, I am ill. When I keep them to myself, I am well.

SIMON ANTHONY
- I was first diagnosed with Schizophrenia when I was about seventeen or eighteen. The medication helps me to be more like other people. Sometimes, at times of stress, I have to come into hospital. The nurses and the doctors make me better and then I go back home. I can’t thank them enough for the help they give me. That’s it really. I’m sorry that I can’t be more exact.

DR KHAN
- Please don’t apologise, Mr Anthony. I understand you very well.

Like you understand gravity and the movement of light and centrifugal force and atoms and car engines and all those other concept driven quantifiable elements of life. You are a very bright man, Dr Khan. But have you smelled the baking of potatoes in early nineteenth century England or lain upon a cricket pitch gazing upon the snow white sky of ultimate heaven? Have you listened in awe to the gock-pause-thwack or felt the power of the fundamental belting blues that roars and soars from the soul of the absolutely wretched and departed? You understand what I think you can cope with. That is all, my friend. So let us both live our lives in the way we choose untouched by such sensorial admonishments as rank and class and pride and wellness and illness and await in complete dismay the final denouement.

IRIS PEARSON
- Raymond?

RAYMOND LISTER
- None from me.

Nice smile Raymondo, just short of patronising but with enough kindness to infer a depth of wisdom of which you may be entirely unaware.

IRIS PEARSON
- In that case, Mr Middleton, all that remains is for your summing up. I shall now hand over to you.

PETER MIDDLETON
- Thank you.

Deep breath, scratch your chin my Peter, pick your pretty thoughts from the wonderful fragrant garden of your mind and present your posy to judge and jury. And may you impress yourself more than all others here for you are a man who takes care of the lost and the broken, you suit and boot
and toot the toot for the down of trodden and the fragments of our bizarre human race. I would have liked to have been your bestest friend at school, to share my packed lunch with you and to dream my dreams with you. I had never the opportunity, not merely because we are of different ages and attended different schools, but moreso because my waking hours dripped ever with grease and oil. And I pray that yours did not.

PETER MIDDLETON
- The panel have heard the evidence here today and I would humbly submit that my client should be discharged from Section 3 of the Mental Health Act. We have heard from Dr Weepy who confirmed he is continuing to detain my client in terms of both Nature and Degree. I would contest that the Degree element has not been proven.

You have heard confirmation from Penny Shoraton that my client currently is well and presents no risk to either himself or others. Dr Weepy himself confirmed the improvement my client has made over the past few weeks. Were my client to be discharged from the Section today, Mr Cromwell from the Community Mental Health Team has confirmed there is a support plan in place. My client has confirmed that he is more than willing to comply with the aftercare arrangements, just as he has been complying with his treatment on Crimson Ward. He has also indicated that he would consider staying as an informal patient should Dr Weepy feel discharge from hospital to be premature at this present time.

My client has conducted himself today with humility and good grace. I do not dismiss however, the seriousness of the attempts he has made on his life over the last two months, the one that led him to come into hospital in the first place, and the hanging attempt that occurred on his return to the ward following his three day unauthorised absence. It is absolutely apparent, however, that these attempts on his own life were not a product of depression or a rational attempt to kill himself - they were the culmination of an untreated psychotic illness,
which is now, I’m sure we would all agree, thankfully in check.