Mumbles From the Madhouse: Chapter One

Mumbles from the Madhouse: Chapter One

Angie was perspiring as she rounded the last bend. The half-mile drive led her to the entrance of the huge, ugly, grey building. So much for cool, calm, composure, she thought. She was here and she tingled with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. She’d heard the stories before she ever applied for the job. The reputation of the place was well known. She was here to make big changes.

She flung back her head and was irritated not to feel her long hair bounce comfortably onto her back. She’d pulled it into a severe, tight bun, adding several years to her twenty seven hoping that it would give her an air of poise and professionalism that she found it difficult to feel in her heart.

The main entrance was in front of her. There’s no turning back, she thought, as she pulled on the ancient ringed bell pull. She glanced up to see two hideously ugly gargoyles taunting and mocking
her from their perch six feet above her head. She fancied she could hear them chanting. ‘You stupid, stupid, girl. Come in here and find... you'll enter quite intact, and then quickly loose your mind.’

If the door hadn't creaked open, she’d have giggled at her silliness. When stone gargoyles warn you to beware, it was a sure sign that the cookies were beginning to crumble. She was clearly at the right place.

The lady who opened the door to her was of average height, with cropped, ginger hair and a sour expression.

Angie smiled what she hoped was a warm and confident smile, introduced herself and said that she was expected for her first day of duty by the Matron, Mrs Lynne Phillips.

‘Lynne's off sick,’ the woman informed Angie, ushering her in. ‘And I haven't got time to be bothered with you today. I've got two girls off and now with the matron off, too, it leaves me in a right mess. I haven’t got time to hold your hand all day. You'll just have to manage as best you can. That’s what the rest of us have to do. We just have to manage.’

It wasn't the welcome she’d expected. Lynne had promised to meet her at the door and give her the guided tour, introducing her to the patients and giving her a bit of background on each of them. She’d said that she’d make the afternoon available to stay with Angie, for her induction.

The severe, rude, lady, introduced herself as Mary Peters and set off at a furious pace down an endless, bleak, corridor. She moaned continually about her state of overwork as she bustled. Angie did her best to keep up, assuming that she was expected to follow. She shifted her briefcase to ease the pain in her arm. The case, that had given her confidence with its professional feel of unyielding new leather when she’d set off, just felt cumbersome and heavy.

The smell hit her the second she walked through the door. They did their best to mask it with strong disinfectant and deodorising room freshener, but the smell of incontinence—and misery—was too powerful and dominant to be smothered.

Angie concentrated on inhaling as little as possible. They came to double doors, new ones that looked out of place in the period setting of the ancient building. The doors were fronted by a combination pad. Old Fish Face, as Angie had christened her, did a little sleight-of-hand conjuring with the push in numbers, twisted the handle and the door opened.

The noise released with the opening of the soundproofed door, was cacophonous. There was wailing and moaning, several voices shouting, some screaming and one man yelling a constant stream of foul language. The smell had doubled in intensity and Angie fought the instinct to gag.

Old Fish Face gave a mirthless laugh, ‘I hope you're not squeamish,’ she said ‘Well that's the best I can do for you. I've got to get on. Just do what you can. Oh and remember, don't turn your back on any of them. They’re all in here because their conditions make them violent either to themselves or to others. Don't show any weakness, they'll take advantage of it—and don't—for a second—leave them unattended, they’ll kill each other. There’s a panic button under the desk in the therapy room. You think you've got cause for complaint? I've got to work through my breaks today—but will I get paid for it?’

She was off down the corridor, still ranting about her unfair conditions. Angie assumed she wasn't meant to follow and that, in effect, her induction was over.

She stood with her back to the doors that she’d just come through wondering what the combination was to get out of there. What the hell was she supposed to do now? She couldn't spend the next eight hours standing with her back to the door. But what she was supposed to do, or where she was to go to do it, she had no idea.

She wouldn’t be beaten by this imposing place with its unfriendly staff and neglected appearance. She didn’t like what she’d seen so far or what her senses showed her. She’d make a difference to the lives of these poor, cast off people, who nobody else wanted the responsibility of. However little it was, Angie was going to make her mark on this institution for the mentally ill, and it’d be for the better.

She was still, 'stood standing,' as her mother used to say, pondering the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the situation when she met the first of her sixty charges. There was another question blowing in the wind of Angie's mind, where the bloody hell were all the staff? There was so much crazy noise but no bustling efficiency, no uniforms.

The man shambled out of a door to the right. He was stooped and moved his slippered feet with the tentative steps of very old age. Angie was shocked to see that he couldn't have been more than thirty. Drug names whose effects would suit his appearance ran through her mind, Lithium, Mogadon, Temazepan, Dyhydracoedine. He was sedated. He was also dirty and unshaven; his cardigan was stained and buttoned wrong and his flies gaped open with the tail of his shirt sticking through the hole. He wore a woman’s hat on his head.

‘I want the three twenty five to Liverpool. What time will it be here?’

‘Er, I'm sorry love, I don't know.’

‘Whaddya mean, y' don't know? You sell the tickets don't ya?’

‘No love, I'm the new OT.’

‘Oh you're a prostitute? I don't hold with you lot all over the station. I could give you a right good seeing to all right, but I'm not going to because you’re dirty.’

He reached behind her and rattled the door furiously. ‘Open the door. C’mon you bastards, open the fucking door.’ He looked beyond her with rheumy eyes and Angie felt that he was talking to her directly this time when he shouted, ‘Open the door.’

‘I can't, it’s locked and I haven't got the key.’

‘Open the fucking door,’ His voice had a hard edge to it.

‘I'm sorry I can't, look it’s locked. I’m locked in as much as you are.’ She gave the door a half-hearted rattle, also wishing that it would open to let her out.

‘Fuck off yer Bastard.’

The man lost his temper. Angie moved away from the door as he pounded against it, shouting that he needed to get on the platform because he had a train to catch. Angie felt out of her depth and wanted to put some distance between them.

She moved down the corridor, not having the slightest idea where she was going. The first door, opening to the left, was a day lounge and that seemed as good a place as any to start. She walked through the door with a grin to hide the mounting panic that was threatening to have her screaming at the door to be let out beside the train man.

‘Hello everybody, I'm Angie and I'm the new Occupational Therapist.’