Madness (3 page)

The room I am in is very dark. The blind covering a window on the left wall lets in a tiny stream of blue light. The bed I am in has high metal sides. There's a woman sitting on a chair in the corner. I try to move and find I can't. I feel my body, finger pads lightly touching, pressing the tube that runs out of my nose, the tube that runs out of my neck, the long electrical cords running from my chest into a monitor that looks like a television. It is very quiet. The woman in the corner is reading a magazine.

The room I am in is very dark. The blind covering a window on the left wall lets in a tiny stream of blue light. The bed I am in has high metal sides. I try to sit up and find I can roll over. Immediately the monitor next to my head starts to bleep and call. The woman on the chair gets up, someone else comes into the room.

‘Sorry,' I say. ‘Sorry.'

‘You're connected to a heart monitor.'

The room I am in is very dark. The blind covering a window on the left wall lets in a tiny stream of blue light. My parents are here and Anna is here and my friend Tanya is here but I can't quite reach them, I am lying underneath a glass wall. How do I move towards them, how do I reach out?

‘You are in the Cardiology Unit,' a nurse says one morning. ‘Your heart rhythm is irregular. You nearly died, but you're getting better now.'

‘I'm alive?'

‘Anna and your friend Tanya found you and called an ambulance and came into the hospital with you.' She walks away, out of the room, her shoes squeaking a little on the linoleum.

For the following six months I live in a kind of nether world – a dead space. Recovery grinds forwards. Stops. Grinds. My parents arrange for frozen meals to be delivered fortnightly. The fridge is otherwise empty. There are bags of coffee beans and cat food in the cupboard under the sink, and blocks of dark chocolate and dusty, unlabelled spice jars in the pantry, along with packets of pasta and rice and bottles of sauce months past their use-by date.

There is little difference between day and night inside my flat; globes in the living room throw the same light. On the walls Ian Curtis and Nick Drake examine their shoes next to Munch's
Scream
and posters of paintings by Marc Chagall, René Magritte, Picasso, Escher and Albrecht Dürer. They provide sustenance.

Most days I get out of bed in the late morning, shuffle to the kitchen for coffee, sit on the floor in the living room with the cats and coffee and medical textbooks, poetry, British crime fiction, books by de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, Camus, Jung. Books to keep me alive. Books that remain closed and still on the floor.

The phone rings, the air shifts, I blink.

In the afternoon I eat a block of kosher chocolate with hazelnuts. There are words on the wrapper in French and Hebrew and English, equally unintelligible. I screw the wrapper up and the cats shiver it around the room with the tips of their paws.

The phone rings, the air shifts, I blink.

Once the sun goes down it's safe to leave the flat and I walk in the dark down the street to buy chocolate and merlot and a newspaper for the pictures and headlines. It takes over an hour to look at the pictures and read the headlines.

Then there's the cocktail of evening medication that induces sedation but not necessarily sleep. If one thinks of sleep as having a role in cognitive and emotional processing, then dreaming is a reflection of the mind's attempt to evaluate and reorganise emotion and memory. If dreams are a portal to the inner world of the psyche, then I am preoccupied with Sacrifice, Death, Primal Thinking and the essential Red of Blood. To keep the people in my head from taking over, I play music from the good stereo in the living room through the night. Every morning I'm surprised to be alive.

The people who live in my head are elusive. There are many secrets. They inhabit the body, the brain – but are not me. They have a consciousness (of sorts) but are without corporeal form. It doesn't seem to bother them. There are days when I soak up colour and sound in different dimensions and life is serene, other times there is silence, or howling – not a scream – deeper and drawn out, more guttural.

Henry is the closest thing to humane. He has a richness, a gentility. He is thoughtful and moderate. Henry is married to Rose. Rose, woman of valour. Rose is enveloping warmth, flowers, perfume, flowing clothes – chiffon and velvet – all colour.

The Cold Ones are severe. Unrelenting. Psychopathic in their gleeful execution of pain. They are clever. They sneer, undermine, are disdainful. They prefer to whisper – criticisms and threats. They are featureless, blank-faced. They do not blink or flinch. They like shadow.

The Savage Ones are fire and brute force. They roar in the imperative.

you bitch do this this

The Cold Ones nod.

shes scared now

They titter and slither and whisper in the shadows.

KILL HER

The Savage Ones like rape. They're not averse to fights, assault, blood, death. They find it funny. They make me dream it. They like to hear things crack and wrench. Red eyes. Red skin. Heat. Sweat.

Then there are the Cruel Ones – fond of knives and teeth.

touch us you die

They're always moving, they don't sleep. The Cruel Ones and the Savage Ones gang up. Hilarious to bind hands and eyes, to dart about, to whisper, to kick where there is tenderness, to snicker where there is pain. To shout obscenities, entice nightmares, scream (shrilly); lose all sense of light and dark.

you are rotting bitch rotting we are gutting you like a fish

They are gleeful.

don't move don't breathe don't fucking breathe suffocate there is force in circumstance BITCH stab yourself you're a fucking animal we're watching you bleed where's the red we're gonna kill you (singsong, lilting) do you deserve this

Yes.

Sometimes my parents come around and open mail and pay bills and help me clean. Without them I'd be heading for destitute. We go to a local cafe for lunch. Everything outside in the day is moving 40 per cent too fast for my eyes to process. I keep my head down. The first item on the menu is French onion soup. Three words, French and Onion and Soup. Come on, I say to myself. Nothing. The words have drowned somewhere between my occipital lobe (vision) and parietal lobe (visuospatial processing). I look up. In the cafe people are chatting, laughing, eating. I look at the menu. Nothing. Don't you dare cry. I pinch the loose skin on my abdomen. The waiter arrives.

‘Hi,' he says. ‘How are you today?'

‘Very well thanks,' I say, smiling. ‘How are you?'

He smiles back. ‘What can I get for you?'

‘French onion soup, please,' I say pleasantly. I may as well have ordered tripe.

Recovery grinds forwards. Stops. Grinds. One step forward, two steps back, then one forward and one back, then two forward and one back. Many people recover partially after an episode of acute illness and are then stuck with a background level of disability that is life-long. For some, the background disability gets worse with every acute episode.

Friends from university, Tan Ying and Lara and Melyse, are completing their hospital internships, moving into responsible working lives and climbing Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They are experimenting with love. Their clothes are crisp and their bodies shine. I am now able to pick up the phone at home and answer it when it rings.

Overnight my hair has grown and greyed. The season has changed. With some return of cognitive function, the other side of life materialises: the external realm, a kind of ocean on the surface of which I flap about like an insect. Periodically I swim. Periodically I drown. The swimming requires negotiation. Every day I'm new to the water and the water does not part to welcome me. It is deep and dark and cold.

I revise for hours from clinical textbooks, terrified that I've lost years of knowledge secondary to ECT. I go out with friends, nod and laugh in the right places. I care very much about the happenings in their lives and my stupid fucking heart is cold.

Then one morning the sun reaches through the top of the curtains, setting the bedroom ceiling singing like water. I breathe and smile – a true smile – the first for almost a year. Something warm is inside me and I get up and the warmth is energy and it's in my legs and belly and it's part of that weird, nebulous thing called pleasure.

The people in my head hiss and jeer–

die die

But today, I think I might get through this. I just might.

The blue of the sky is what I think about most. The blue of the sky, and the pale spring sun and the budding trees. It is a time for renewal, for stretching out old bones, stepping into the light. I examine the unfolding of spring in my little garden. The infinite awe of the universe has exploded into a purple and white magnolia; there is a blush on the ground at my feet. In the house the walls suck in sunlight and lift themselves up into the ceiling. Clothing dries in the breeze, mould lifts off old shoes, mould spores dissolve in the sun, disperse in air fragrant with plum blossom.

The people in my head are slightly feverish whenever the season changes. Henry and Rose magnify space, Rose is forever smoothing her dresses, taking steps to the left, to the right, hearing her fabric swish and curl. Henry is compassionate about her need to show off. He follows a pace or two behind, he takes her hand, kisses it, touches her hair with the tips of his fingers. Rose has a ring on her index finger – a garnet set in rose-gold filigree. She knows how to make it catch the light, to make the garnet a ruby. She can sit and let the light reflect off a facet of garnet onto the wall, let it dance there.

Molten metal couldn't be more beautiful than this
, says Rose from her rocking chair, the toes of one bare foot resting on the floor. Henry is sitting in between her legs. She is brushing his long hair that is black and straight as water.

Slower
, he says. She slows. She makes the hair breathe, it comes alive, like light through a dark lampshade, it glows.
Beautiful
, says Rose, and sighs.

The other people in my head sneer–

pathetic

They sound like wind through long grass.

paaath kill her

They want Rose dead as much as they want me dead, and yet we aren't good company. Rose and Henry know how to make me cringe, they know where there is softness, where my heart lives.

A research assistant position in clinical cancer research is advertised in the paper. ‘Clinical' means working with patients, for which I have trained for six years. As an assistant I would not have primary responsibility for someone's medical care. This I consider essential because of the risk that I might become unwell again and with it lose the ability to think rationally. So I apply for the job and commence full-time work six months after discharge from hospital.

The new work environment is a small team of clinical researchers located in a busy public hospital. They're trialling a variety of new treatments for cancer – new kinds of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy and the very first gene-targeted biological agents. My role will be in patient education and support and in the collection of data that will later be used in statistical analysis.

Participation by patients in a clinical trial is entirely voluntary. I learn how best to talk with people about complex medical science so that it becomes accessible and understandable. I learn to observe body language, to ask open questions and to be comfortable with silence.

The other members of the team are warm and welcoming and the work is challenging without being stressful. I WILL NOT fuck up this opportunity to be part of the normal working world, to contribute something.

Appearing ‘normal' is an hour-by-hour challenge. To get to work on time I set the alarm for five. It takes over an hour to wake up because of the sedating effects of alcohol and evening medication. Out of bed, espresso, shower, black and grey clothes two sizes too big, more medication, espresso, train, office. I take an interest in my colleagues' lives, work hard, avoid conflict, follow instructions.

The people in my head are quieter; they hiss and slither. If they start to get loud, I curl my hands into fists to keep the rest of my body language in check and then I engage with something or someone else – anything as a distraction, anything so I don't have to listen to their bile. If the creeping feeling of paranoia makes it hard to breathe, I walk for a while in the local park – off the paths, under the fig trees.

In the evening there's European chocolate for dinner and then I unfurl into bed amongst layers of pyjamas and quilts and blankets and cats. I don't cry. Sometimes I howl.

Tonight Melyse and her boyfriend James and I are pre-gig-drinking. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are playing at Festival Hall, a venue known as Melbourne's grungy House of Stoush because it was originally built for boxing and wrestling matches. Music keeps those parts of me that are commonly called heart and soul alive – alive in the way a leafless shrub has still-green inside some of its brown twigs. (As a child this discovery gave me a rush of joy. ‘It's not dead yet!' I'd shout. ‘I'll save you I'll save you,' to the plant in its pot by the door, nearly dead. The smallness of the world). Music does this religious-like thing of thrusting me skyward. Going to a concert is the closest I'll ever come to flying.

Me and Melyse are in the statutory uniform for the evening: black skirts, black t-shirts, black boots, black hair, black fingernails. She looks fabulous. Inside the hall we're drinking Coopers Pale Ale, watching all the other people in black – older, younger, thin, not-so, smoking, drinking. Smoke from the smoke machine makes me wheeze.

The lights go out and it's so dark, no breathing and then ‘Yeeeaaaah,' everyone shouts, and they're here, six men on stage: guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboard and Nick in his black suit, spider-walking and smoking. Black. The bass. And that voice. Fuck. Sandpaper, honey, a deep tolling bell, guts everywhere. Piano now and someone playing a violin like a guitar and I'm on the ceiling hotcoldhot arms sweat my head is burning the shivering delicious this measuring of truth the violin the violin harder, reaching in with that red beat, hot like eyes are, you and me Nick, finally. Hah. Fantasy is a fine thing.

Whisky is my new evening friend. From the moment I come home from work it is waiting for me, waiting in its glass bottle, pure amber, pure abandon, oblivion. The first drink, a thick slop of whisky and ice is all flurry, all the taste, the fine smoothness, the fire as it goes down the gullet. The second is softer, there's a haze in the room, the walls are further away, there is less leering. Inside my head the scuffling ceases. The third is softer still and warm and calm is seeping in. My eyes blur.
Mercy
, whispers Henry.

death

But they whisper. The fourth drink and I am aware of the spirit, holy or otherwise, residing outside my window. It is the darkness of a soul, the brightness of a camellia, the softness of pussy willow. It sits in the silver birch playing a tune in a minor key. With its wings folded it breathes whitely on the glass. I stretch out towards it, whisky bottle at my side. The fifth drink and I leave the room, crawl up the stairs with my eyes closed, I lie on the stairs, arms above my head, face drizzled with whisky and spittle, jumper around my neck. I keen.

Weekends I am dried up, thick and fuzzy, voice muffled, foul smelling. I put on my clothes carefully, socks last, mindful to bend over slowly to avoid vomiting. I pick up the whisky bottle and drink what's left, holding it up for the last drops.
Mercy
, whispers Henry.
Death
, whisper the others.

The local bottle shop isn't open till 10 a.m. I find some beer in the cupboard and drink that. There are magpies calling outside. I sit on the couch drinking beer and listen to the magpies. I take a lot of Largactil and some clonazepam left over from the hospital and curl up tight tight on the floor. I stay that way for a long time. The magpies stop calling.