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Part One
Four Point
Compass.
Extract:
You’ll always know when it’s going to begin,
for your moods will start to fluctuate.
Too many thoughts
all crowding in,
and that’s when you’ll hallucinate.
Beware of those ‘voices’
making a din,
or you might start to gesticulate.
And society thinks
it’s a cardinal sin
if its rules you violate.
Without some ‘treatment’
you just can’t win,
‘cause your mind is going to evaporate.
So wipe off that
smart, inappropriate grin –
or they’ll all know you hallucinate!
1.
At the top of the hill where the
sign said Waterside Mental Institution, Eva made a sharp
right hand turn into the hospital grounds.
Up ahead the road was dotted with
patients in work overalls, feeding on to the main road from
dirt tracks on either side that bore the signage, “Piggery”
and “Dairy”. As if programmed for their destination, some of
these patients were tramping doggedly onward, while others
were meandering along the bitumen - all disregarding Eva
creeping up behind.
Still getting used to the gears in her
new car, Eva negotiated a steep drive, past lush paddocks of
grazing milking cows and a shed of squealing pigs.
Less than a month before she’d read an
intriguing poem published in the city newspaper. She
couldn’t recall exactly how it went, but she remembered that
at first glance the poem had appeared to be a clever play on
rhyming words, focussing on madness. A second reading had
exposed the anger that accompanies misinterpretation and the
vulnerability of the poet who had chosen to remain
chillingly anonymous.
Well, this idyllic setting would be
wonderfully conducive to regaining one’s mental
health and she, the fresh psychiatric nurse, was about to be
involved in that process.
One of the meandering patients started
spinning rapidly in the centre of the road twirling a piece
of string, his eyes fixed on the sky. Eva peered up through
her windscreen expecting to see perhaps a low flying plane,
but there was nothing of note in the clear blue.
Another rather anxious looking individual
was stepping it out, both hands down the crutch of his
overalls. Without a toilet anywhere to be seen Eva felt
momentarily sorry for his plight – until she recognised the
true intention of his behaviour and diverted her eyes, her
face colouring with embarrassment.
The inmates stared at her curiously as
she weaved between them. A few greeted her with waves and
shouts. Then an individual with alarmingly protruding teeth
stumbled towards her car window yelling, “Hello Mum! What
ward you from?” Eva hastily wound up her window and locked
the door. Why would he call her ‘Mum’ when she wasn’t his
mother? And how was she going to handle these people on ward
level without the security of a car window to wind up and a
door to lock?
Fringed on either side with yellow
buttercups growing wild, the road narrowed at the bottom of
the hill to make way for a wooden bridge over a fast flowing
stream. Eva slowed to an idle as a frightening sensation
she’d never experienced before ran over her. Palms sweating
on the steering wheel and heart threatening to jump into her
throat, she pulled over to the side of the road, explaining
the sensation away by telling herself that she was bound to
feel apprehensive at the prospect of a new career and that
this uneasiness was sure to be heightened by the purchase of
an unfamiliar car that accelerated like a leaping lemur
without the slightest provocation.
There she sat for a while, car slewed to
a halt beside the wild buttercups, wiping her palms with a
windscreen rag and trying to calm her racing heart with deep
breathing.
She’d bought the car second-hand of
course. It was exactly what appealed to her - streamlined
and fast with a purring V8 motor. When they’d gone for a
test drive that morning the city salesman had used the
closing line, “Doesn’t she growl?” Naturally he was
unaware that Eva was privy to the hole in the muffler and
the dropped doors (typical of that two-door model). Added to
that she’d guessed the speedo had been ‘flicked’ and that
he’d done a quick touch-up job with a can of spray paint
over a moderate degree of rust around the windscreen and on
the roof.
Eva had found him pseudo-surprised when
she’d haggled the price, using as her bargaining points an
estimation of fifty dollars to have the rust cut out around
the windscreen and twenty dollars to have the hole mended in
the muffler. She would return the next day to see if he had
found her offer acceptable.
The city salesman had suggested slyly
that by tomorrow the car might be gone. Perhaps she’d better
snap it up now?
Eva had responded with a shrug, saying
there were plenty more cars like this one in other
yards.
Most certainly her offer had proven
acceptable and she’d driven away that morning in the car of
her dreams.
She glanced in the rear vision mirror and
caught sight of ‘Hello Mum’ catching up to her parked car,
his buck teeth snapping in anticipation as he made a grab
for her back windscreen wiper. Eva lurched on to the bridge
and rattled across the crooked planks, the uneasy sensation
persisting for she noticed there were no sides to the bridge
- just a fast flowing stream gushing beneath.
Although feeling a little calmer, but
still puzzling about Hello Mum’s greeting and wondering if
his prominent teeth were the result of his biting someone,
Eva passed a sandstone building designated, Pay Office. A
long line of nurses was moving toward the steps; the men
dressed in grey with diagonal-striped ties; the women in
identical uniforms with stiff white aprons. Some of the
females were wearing starched veils, others peaky caps – all
gathered in pockets of carefree conversation, ignoring the
passing parade of patients returning to their wards and the
new starter crawling by in her leaping lemur car.
A few nurses were coming down the steps
of the office holding brown envelopes, counting their money.
Eva would soon be one of them receiving remuneration for a
job well done.
The Matron was sitting, or rather
squatting, behind an old cedar desk, glowering at Eva over a
mountain of paperwork. Eva was instantly fascinated by her
extensive shoulders which squared rather suddenly from
beneath a multiple of chins. Slowly the Matron’s gaze
scanned Eva’s body, pausing momentarily at her breast area.
“We need a lot more pretty young nurses
like you around here.”
Eva felt panicky. Had she forgotten an
article of clothing in her haste to get ready this morning?
The Matron produced from under the counter a parcel wrapped
in brown paper and slapped it, unceremoniously, on the only
vacant spot on the desk. Meanwhile the scrutiny of Eva’s
body continued, a leering grin cornering the Matron’s mouth.
Eva, her face scarlet, absently ran her hands over her
clothing.
Then suddenly the woman’s demeanour
changed. She mumbled, “Four…” (and a couple of other
indecipherable words).
“Do you mean Ward Four, or four o’clock?”
Eva asked timidly.
“Four Point Compass. Rehabilitation of
course, you little fool!” The Matron’s pig eyes narrowed.
“Starting date, the first of April at twelve hundred hours.
From then on, at six-thirty hours.” There was a distinct
wobble amid the manifold of chins as the woman cocked her
thumb toward the brown paper parcel. “Now take your uniform
and piss off out of here!”
continued…...
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