Capcir Spring Page 6

  Each had a Harrod's carrier bag. She knew them by sight. This was not a neighbourhood where one knew ones neighbours. She never learned their names. They were somehow connected to Pauline. She ran towards them. They turned and stared, such things didn't happen in this part of Hampstead.

  "Please help me" she sobbed through her short breaths, "I've been attacked. Help me..."

  She reached their steps and passed out at their feet. They saw in an instant the torn shirt and the blood that was now flowing freely from the fresh wounds. The man rushed back to the vehicle and grabbed his phone to summon assistance while the woman stayed beside Mary to see if there was anything they could do to make her comfortable.

  *****

  It must have only been a minute or so later when she came round. She was aware of the friendly half known female face peering down at her at close range. There were others standing round at a distance. She distinctly recalled one voice perhaps known to her, but she couldn't put a face to it.

  "Isn't that James' wife"

  She wanted to scream. Even after all that James had just done she was still only a person because she was James' wife. If only they knew.

  Sirens sounding. And then there was the sensation of being lifted. There was a policeman there too. I don't want a policeman she thought, it will only get James in more trouble. I don't want to get him into more trouble. He must be ill. Inside the ambulance, lying down on the stretcher-bed. Someone is tearing her shirt of her. Loud ripping noise. That is a good shirt. It cost more than she could really afford. There was lots of blood.. Where has it all come from? Why is my shirt all red? Then nothing. Must have passed out again.

  Casualty. Nice doctors and nurses. Rushing me through the people all sitting in the waiting room. Is it fair that I jump the queue. It doesn't hurt. They are all busying themselves around me, as if I am a really urgent case. They seem to think I'm in a bad way. No need to rush, I don't feel too bad. Why have you connected that drip to my arm. I'm not focusing very well. Can't remember. Why am I here.

  It must be late. It is really dark. I am in bed. A strange bed. There is a light the other side of the door in the corridor. There is a thin strip of light from a fluorescent shining through a wide crack under the door. My head aches. I must be in hospital. How did I get here? Footsteps, quick echoing down the corridor. My door opens. Sudden flood of light. Its a nurse. She leaves the door open behind her and comes across to my bedside.

  "What time is it?"

  "Its just about midnight. How are you feeling now?"

  "I don't know?"

  "Are you feeling like a little chat then" came the friendly Irish brogue.

  "I suppose so"

  "Someone has been waiting outside for ages to see you. Is it OK if I let them in for a few minutes. I'll not let them stay too long."

  It'll be James. He will have sobered up and he will be full of remorse. He will have come to apologise. Everything will be all right now. But she then felt a wave of real pain as the full horror of what had happened hit her for the first time and she wondered if she wanted to see James at all.

  The nurse was already at the door and beckoning. Too late. A man. A tall man. Silhouetted in the door frame against the corridor lights. It was...she started, it was no one she knew. She breathed out with a huge sigh. Sadness? Relief? No she was too confused, too empty to know what she felt.

  "I thought you were my husband" she said.

  "Detective constable Murray" he smiled a warm, reassuring smile. I am here to talk to you about what happened this evening. I want to ask you a few questions if you feel up to talking."

  "Yes I'd like to talk." Perhaps he can help me to understand what has been going on. Was it a dream?”

  "Please tell me then what happened tonight. I'll take some notes so speak slowly. "

  "I was talking to my husband and he got very angry. I've never seen him like that before. He had been drinking. I have never know him drink spirits before. He was wild, possessed you might say, totally unlike his normal self. We argued a bit, mostly him telling me why he hated me so much..."

  She sniffed. Did he really say what she so clearly remembered him saying? "Then he picked up a knife and came at me. He lunged at me a couple of times and I threw my shopping bag at him and I ran out onto the street. Then I was being looked after. It all happened so quickly, yet some parts of it happened very slowly. It's so strange. I hope James is all right. He must be having some sort of breakdown or something. He isn't normally like this. Or else it was the whisky? I have never known him drunk and he has never as far as I know ever drunk whisky."

  "Can you remember anything else?"

  "He said lots of cruel and unkind things. He said he hated me. He said he had hated me for a long time. Can you believe that. It was all different when I left for the shops at three. I left the house a normal happily married woman and I return and find it has all changed. I thought we had been happy, well tolerably happily married and then this. He had been drinking.. half a bottle of whisky at least and he never usually touches spirits. I expect it was the drink that unsettled him so, but why did he say such hurtful things?"

  "Why indeed. Mrs Hill, has your husband ever been violent towards you or anyone else before?"

  "No never."

  "Would it surprise you if I told you that after you were brought into hospital some officers went over to your house to interview him. And to cut a long story short he attacked them."

  "James attacked policemen?" she exclaimed.

  "He had to be restrained by four or five officers and taken away, for his own safety as much as for everyone else."

  "What has happened to him now?"

  "He is being looked after at the local police station."

  "You mean he is locked up in a cell"

  "He has to be watched to make sure he can't hurt anyone else or himself. You yourself saw what a state he had worked himself up into earlier, well he hasn't calmed down any yet. The police have called in special doctors, as we believe he is ill. We have taken evidence from people round about and they all testified as to what a nice man he was, how calm, kind and gentle, how helpful. Don't worry Mrs Hill. We won't treat him like a mindless thug just because he has had a sudden illness and behaved like one. I can assure you that we will see that he gets the proper medical attention that he so obviously needs."

  The officer returned the following morning and took a full statement. She quizzed him on James but he had no further information to give her beyond what he had been able to tell her the previous night.

  Mary stayed in that hospital bed for two nights. It wasn't that she was badly injured but it was they said the effects of shock that had so upset her whole system. Indeed she lay silently on her own most of the time, not wanting to see anyone and not wanting to talk. Her mind though was in turmoil. Over and over she relived those minutes. The words that James had spoken she repeated to herself over and over again. She could not forget any of the sentences or the strange grating tone in which they had been uttered.

  She was discharged two mornings later. Her mother came to the hospital with a new set of clothes for her to wear. She must have called at "Marks and Spencers" on the way to the hospital as everything was wrapped in bags and still had price tickets attached.

  Mary and her mother had never been close. Her mother had never really liked James and it irked Mary more that she could admit that her mother may have been right all along.

  The new outfit was plain, even severe, but it had the effect that Mary's mother hoped. It helped her to face the world and make a fresh start.

  Her mother tried to persuade her to come home with her but she insisted that she should go back to Hampstead. That was her home. All her possessions were there. Her mother's response was strange.

  "Are you feeling strong? "she asked, its a bit of a mess."

  Mary simply nodded and let herself be driven across London. She couldn't imagine much really. After even such a short spell in hospital the streets looked
strange, bustling with thousands of people going about their lives, unaware of what had happened to her. And they would never know. She had only been in the safe sterile ward for two nights and yet she was feeling estranged and distant from the familiar streets.

  Parking was difficult near the house as usual but eventually her mother found a space a couple of hundred yards up the road from the front door. Everything was so quiet, so normal. It had been different last time she was on this street. The sky overhead was clear and the sun was shining, the weak orange glow of autumn. The street was empty.

  It was all so normal. Up the old stone steps and open the lock. The double lock was securely fastened this time. Push the door wide open and then gasp. Everything was a mess. Pictures had been pulled off the walls and smashed onto the floor. They went through into the lounge and the furniture looked as if it had been slashed with a knife. Porcelain figurines from the china cabinet were on the floor in pieces. Feathers fluttered everywhere from cushions that had been burst.

  They exited quickly and in silence went through into the kitchen. All the jars of currants, pasta, spices, herbs and one hundred and one ordinary things had been smashed on the floor. The smell was something between an oriental bazaar and a compost heap. The chairs were overturned. Jars of jam had been smashed onto the mess. Eggs had been thrown at the wall and had run down the wallpaper leaving a now putrid slime.

  She reached down, picked up one of the kitchen chairs an sat down and wept. Her mother stood beside her, knowing that she had brought a pocket full of tissues as she thought this might happen, and rested her hand gently on Mary's shoulder. At length Mary recovered to ask,

  "What do they think happened?"

  "It was like this when the police called to interview James after the er.... incident. At that time they didn't know it was him who had attacked you. They came in and found James crashing round like a demented creature, smashing and destroying all he could get hold of. Apparently he was wild. It took four to hold onto him, and get the knife away from him. And all the while he was babbling on about getting rid of the bad bits where ever they were to be found."

  "Fortunately it seems that he didn't go upstairs. All your clothes and bedroom are untouched."

  "And what of James"

  "I knew you would ask me that so I phoned the police station this morning before I left for the hospital to collect you. He has been taken to a special hospital, down in rural Surrey. The officer's words to me were that he needed help. They will be wanting to see you to firm up the statement you made in hospital and to see if you are going to press charges. His personal opinion is that he won't be deemed fit to plead"

  "I couldn't press charges. He is my husband. I love him." She paused, "At least I did until two days ago. Now I don't know. I just don't know."

  Mary hung her head in her hands and sat for a while in silence.

  "I feel, how can I explain, empty inside. I feel as if a part of me has been removed. I suppose it is like when someone you love dies. Actually that is what has happened. The James I loved has died. I will perhaps get him back again but after what happened could I ever feel that I really know him again? Could I ever trust him again? Even if they tell me he is better?"

  They talked and Mary agreed to pack up a few things and go and stay with her mother for a few days before she felt like coming back and sorting out all that had to be attended to. She was still feeling very weak and feeble from her injuries, the shock and her time in hospital.

  Going to stay with her mother wasn't an easy option for Mary as they had never really got on as well as mothers and daughters are supposed to. But at this time she wanted to be looked after like a small child and not to have to cope with the pressures of everyday life. There was also so much to be sorted out. After a couple of days she felt much stronger and having got the address of the special hospital from the police, she persuaded her mother to drive her out to the hospital.

  It wasn't like any hospital that she had seen before. A high wire fence, topped with barbed wire surrounded it, and there were security guards on the gate. The buildings looked like a collection of army barrack huts, all with grills at the small windows. The doctor who met her in an anti room was young, perhaps not yet thirty, but his face was lined and he looked tired.

  "I will take you to see your husband but I warn you to be prepared for a shock. He is very ill. He has been living a life for a long time now suppressing certain tendencies. Our initial diagnosis is that he is schizophrenic. This on its own is not that serious and can be treated with drugs. We don't know what brought it on? May be some trigger, maybe just a build up of pressures from various sources over a long period of time. It is much more worrying to note that he is showing psychotic and psychopathic tendencies. I don't know if we will be able to find the right drug combination to keep these dangerous elements under control. He is at the moment under sedation so it is perfectly safe for you to see him."

  "What would happen if he were not sedated"

  "We would have to put him in a padded cell for his own protection and perhaps even use a straight jacket. He is, you must realise very seriously disturbed. Have you ever seen an animal in a zoo which is in a highly disturbed state. It rushes from side to side, throwing itself into the walls and bars of its cage, often inflicting serious injury on itself. People are capable of similar reactions when they are disturbed and unrestrained. Come."

  He led the way through an enclosed walkway into an adjacent Nissan hut. Every door was unlocked before them and locked behind them. At last she was taken into a small single room. It was all white and very bright. On a bed under a white sheet lay James. He looked pale but his eyes were open and were darting rapidly around the room.

  "Hello James " she begun, unsure of what to say "How are you?"

  The eyes that had been wide open, staring at the white ceiling, fixed on her face and the mouth issued a growl and he pulled back his lips to bare his teeth.

  "Bitch" he spat "You've put me here. Bloody bitch"

  He moved as if trying to sit up and get closer to her but as Mary looked she could make out the wide straps showing through the sheet that kept him lying on the bed.

  "I'd not finished with you. I only started. One day I'll get the job finished. Teach you to do this to me. I'll get my knife again. I'm sorry that it hurt you but next time I'll be quicker and you won't feel a thing. It's for your own good you know."

  Mary didn't know what to say or think. She had definitely not expected a continuation of the verbal abuse from the night of the attack.

  "You are ill. They will make you better here." She said softly, wondering though as the words passed her lips if she really believed that recovery was possible.

  Before she had finished speaking he screamed. "I really hate you and all you stand for, and your friends and your secrecy, locking me out of part of your life. I hate everything but you are not beyond redemption. And I am the one to redeem you. I am the one to bring you the release and freedom that comes from getting rid of the bad parts. Getting rid of what holds back our relationship from truly blossoming."

  "Oh James, you are ill. You don't know what you are saying. I still love you." These words that in her heart she was beginning to doubt had no calming effect. In her anticipation of the visit she had been sure that by telling James that she loved him would have had a calming effect and brought him to his senses. But there was no such reaction.

  "I've never felt better in my life. I feel on top of the world. I've got rid of that shell that I had to live in and can be myself at last. And I want you to have that freedom too. Get out of that shell of hatred and worship me. For I am the one who brings salvation to you my girl. I come as the one to bring the truth and the truth will set you free."

  "Most of all though I despise you. If you do not believe in me it will be better for you if you had never been born. For the devil and all his angels has a place prepared for you in the everlasting pit."

  Mary turned away quickly and made for the door
. She had heard about as much as she could take. The doctor at her side led her out and they walked away in silence. James' screams and abuse continued behind them from behind the white padded door. She turned to the doctor and asked through her tears,

  "Would I be a fool to hope that he will go back to as he was before? That this will all be forgotten? That he will make a full recovery and I can, without a care in the world, return to share his life and bed? Would I be a bloody fool to think like that?"

  After a significant pause he replied, "We always have to hope and often when we can get the balance of medication just right we can achieve a lot. But and this is the big but, if we can normalise him, he will have to remain on those drugs probably for the rest of his life. If he misses a dose one day then he may be right back here again. Though we do finally wean some people off all medical support, with cases of such severity it is difficult to say what will happen. The illness came on very suddenly by all accounts it could possibly leave suddenly too. All things are possible but the odds are not stacked in favour of the complete cure that you obviously hope for."