Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness (4 page)

I feel myself getting anxious and light another cigarette.

“Don't worry, babe, it'll be sweet,” Lester says.

I put out my cigarette and decide I want to chill alone for a bit. I go and lie on my bed and stare at my pictures. They never fail to calm me down, and just for a minute I stop worrying. I stare at my tiny squiggles and wonder what possible images they conjure up.

Elaine pokes her head in the door. “Just doing obs.” Obs is short for observation: a nurse basically ticks a box to say where you are. A good observation for the day would probably be half a day in your room, to show you can be with yourself, and the other half in occupational therapy—the art room—to show you can mix with other people.

My obs may show I smoke a little too much. I often get observed in the smokers' area, which may not be the best sign of good health. I may be suffering anxiety, with my tension running high. That could be good information for them to have, but when, like me, you are looking for a fast route out it is not the sort of information you want them having about you.

With freedom on my mind I pick up my guitar and sing ‘Redemption Song'. I pour myself another Coke and go back out to the smokers' room. Lester's not there. I check the time: four o'clock. I figure the guy is probably here so I walk into the kitchen area, which is a coffee lounge by day. There's a short stocky-looking man sitting at the table with Lester. He's wearing a denim jacket with cut-off sleeves and not much underneath, and red and white striped pants with a gun as a belt buckle.

“Howdy,” he says, “you must be MaryJane. Nice name. I'm Craig.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I say.

Lester has a muffin bag in front of him. He starts wrapping up the conversation. “Thanks for stopping by and bringing me the muffin.”

I start looking at his boots. I think, got to get myself a pair like that when I get out. “Yeah, thanks heaps for stopping by,” I say.

Waris comes in, stops and looks at me. I can see she's wondering who Craig is. I decide to try and throw a bit of distance between myself and the situation, so I stay seated and let Lester show him out.

Waris comes over, sits beside me and says, “Who was that?”

“Oh, just a friend of Lester's. Stopped by to say hi.”

“Oh MaryJane, I don't know. I hope you're all right. I'm worried. You know you're unwell.” She gets up and moves her chair next to mine and speaks quietly. “Dr Aso comments on the appearance of you, and how you always covering up your face and wearing large clothing and inappropriate footwear.”

“Yeah, but Waris, this is how I dress when I'm normal.” I start raising my voice. Waris puts her hand on mine, trying to get me to settle down. “I always wear hats and sunglasses.”

Of course I'm lying. I do often wear hats, but oversized men's clothing, basketball caps and space boots are probably all a pointer towards my mental illness, making my stay in the ward somewhat extended.

“Shouldn't it be about what's happening on the inside and not just what we look like?” I say.

“Yes MaryJane darling, but I'm afraid what's going on on the outside might be a reflection of what's happening on the inside.”

“Can we get some fruit later?” I say, changing the subject. I have to eat while on the medication because it can leave me starving. I eat fruit because it's easier to digest than processed food.

“Sure MaryJane, we go down before dinner.”

I see Lester walk back past.

“Okay, I'll come to the nurses' station at 5.30,” I tell Waris.

 

I know better than to knock on Lester's door while he's getting it ready so I sit in the smokers' room. I start feeling high before I even have anything.

I roll a cigarette and start pacing the yard. Someone's written on the blackboard: “Murray burn in hell, the wrath of God rests upon you.” I think, I'm not the only one caught up with God. It's starting to rain so I exit the yard and sit on the seats in the thoroughfare. Two nurses, Zoe and Rita, are having cigarettes. Wary of drawing attention to myself, I leave them to their conversation. They ask me how I am. I say, “All good.”

Lester comes back out. His eyes look glassy and he has a big smile on his face. He walks right past me, flicks his hand, and points his finger backwards. Zoe and Rita look at him and giggle. I walk back past them through the smokers' room, check right to make it look as though I'm going to the bathroom, and head left into Lester's room. I grab a book and a T-shirt and head over to his drawer. I notice he has a huge window where a wall would normally be: his room has nice natural light. He has see-through curtains. No wonder he wakes early. It makes me wish I had his room. All I have is a tiny window that looks out on to the road. No room for the sun to get in that window.

I open the top left drawer carefully. Nothing. I open the top right drawer and there on top is some tin foil with a twenty-dollar note beside it. On the tin foil there are some tiny spots of oil. I roll up the twenty-dollar note and use my lighter underneath the tin foil. I smoke all the oil and then I lie back on Lester's bed and feel a wave of euphoria washing over my body. I have a feeling of complete bliss. For a minute I'm not aware of the chatter I have in my head, I just feel good. I have an urge for a cigarette, as I always do when I have drugs. I slowly get off Lester's bed and walk straight out of the room. Doug, a nurse, sees me. I look down at the ground to avert attention from my eyes. I wave the T-shirt at him. I must have left the book behind.

I walk into my room, rummage through my drawers for the Clear Eyes, put a drop in each eye, and wait a couple of minutes for my eyes to feel normal again. I get some extra tobacco, seeing as my pouch is running low. I look at my pictures and notice the ways the lines start jumping out at me. This doesn't worry me—I just start laughing. I decide to go and have a cigarette, but first I pick up my guitar and start humming and making vowel sounds while staring at the wall.

I don't know how long I've been doing this before a nurse called Hugo comes in and tells me to go outside. I make sure I have my smokes, and then I walk past everyone in the smokers' room and sit on the concrete at the back corner of the yard and start singing. I'm not singing any particular song, just making vowel sounds and humming “Oah oooh, eh, ahhh, eh ahhh.” Then I start singing “Strange Fruit” by Billy Holiday. A patient, Ralph, comes over and says how good it sounds. “If you were busking in the street I'd give you twenty dollars. You're pretty out there.”

I've never been too concerned with busking, haven't really wanted to do it, because I thought there were legions of people out to get me. When I used to think about it, I would get visions of me playing with my head down in the Railway Station and someone coming along and shooting me in the head. I always feel okay singing in a psych ward: people see you as unwell and don't have expectations of your sounding good.

I always feel like a novice when it comes to singing because I didn't start until I got a really strong hearing aid that conducted sound directly into my skull, mimicking the effect of perfect hearing. That was when I was twenty-one. The hearing aid enabled me to teach myself to sing so whenever I get a break—that is, in a hospital—I use the free time to sing.

When I learnt I could mimic people's voices and harmonise with them and the instruments, I thought I had found heaven. The feeling of resonance you get harmonising with instruments is unsurpassed by any drug. When I'm singing the long slow vowel sounds, I'm trying to remember the sound of the instruments and relive the feeling I had when I first heard my voice, just as normal people hear their own voices. Before that I never had the confidence to sing a tune unaccompanied by a radio.

3

 

When it starts to rain I head inside with my guitar. No sign of Lester—he's probably asleep.

Waris comes in. “Oh MaryJane, look at you. You're wet.” I hadn't even noticed. I am half dazed but the effects are wearing off. The singing tends to straighten me out, except the voice is speaking to me, telling me to tell Waris she's in a gang. I say, “Are you in a gang? You're wearing red. My mum's in a gang.”

“Oh MaryJane, I'm not in a gang.” She looks at me concerned and her eyes look tired,

“Are we going out?” I say.

“Oh, I don't know. If you promise me you will have a shower and wash your hair… Your mother left some shampoo.”

“But it's against my spiritual beliefs. I don't believe in using the chemicals in the shampoo,”

“But MaryJane, you'll never get leave on your own if you can't shower yourself. You'll be in here forever if you don't shampoo and use proper soap.”

I very quietly consult with the voice. He tells me I want to get leave, otherwise I won't be able to get drugs.

“Okay, I will have a shower and wash my hair. Then we go, right?” I say commandingly.

“Yeah okay, we see how we go.”

I finish my cigarette. “I want you to get the yellow nicotine stains off your fingers,” Waris says.

“Nah, nah, nah,” I say, starting to get angry at being made to look a certain way. When my inner self is not happy I like looking a bit derelict: it reflects the shambles of my mind. I'm not perfect like all the rest of them, I think to myself.

I go into my room and pick out what to wear after my shower. I decide on my black hoodie and my other pyjama pants, which have an American pop-art image from the '50s in red, yellow, blue and grey. I go into the narrow shower opposite my room, put down a towel to make sure my feet don't get where others' have been, and reluctantly wash my hair.

My voice talks to me, telling me to text Rose. He says she will come and see me and get me out of here.

 

The oil I smoked is making me hyperanalytical of my surroundings. When in an extremely psychotic state I can get really paranoid. If I am in a room full of people, I talk to the voice in my head and do character assassinations. I may hear people talking about their problems, but either I don't think their problems are really problems and get bored, or I don't listen because I'm unable to decipher sentences from words. Also, my attention span can be such that I can focus for only about a second, so by the time they pause for breath I have forgotten what they are talking about.

I still want to get some fruit—any excuse to get out for a walk. I lay my tops out on my bed. The voice is saying, “Just text, just text. She will get you out of here. Just let her know you're in here.”

“She told me she wants nothing more to do with me,” I say. “Who are you?”

“I'm Rose and I want you to text me. You don't need to be in here and I can get you out.”

The voice has switched to being an actual person. “So how exactly are we talking, if you are who you say you are?” I say.

“I talk to God directly and he directly speaks through you. Now, I think you should go speak to Waris and go out and get yourself some fruit. You have a disease, go now.”

Like a robot on remote control, I get off my bed and walk through the double doors to the nurses' station. Waris is sitting at the table along the front window. I knock on the closest door.

“Okay MaryJane, we go. You look so pretty now you've washed your hair. Maybe you will start taking off your hat and sunglasses so we can see your face.”

“I don't know about that, Waris. I'll have a smoke and then I'll wait over there.” I point to a seat opposite the main lounge.

I go out and have a cigarette. Lester's sitting there. He asks me how I am feeling.

“I was good for a little while, now I feel bit down.”

My voice tells me it's because I have a high tolerance for drugs and they have worn off, and I'm down because I have an illness.

“How do you feel?” I ask him.

“I feel good, babe.”

“I'm going to get stuff at the supermarket. You want anything?” I remember he still owes me money for cigarettes, so I don't offer to buy any of those.

“Oh, maybe a Moro bar. That would be all good, babe.”

“Okay, no worries. Ah, Lester,” I say.

“Yeah?” He looks at me inquisitively.

“Ah, nah, nothing.”

I go and wait outside the nurses' station. I decide against the seat and sit on the ground. People are going in and out of the lounge. I watch them, questioning their inner motives. My voice is saying, “You're not like them.”

“So, will you lead me to the fruit?” I say, thinking maybe a piece of fruit will cure me.

“Course I will, darling,” the voice replies without emotion. It commands me, “You must wear your hat and sunglasses: your eyes are very sensitive to light.” It's true. When I'm in this state I get especially sensitive to light: if exposed to too much I get painful headaches.

I look up and see Waris. “Okay, let's go. It's stopped raining.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate your taking me. It's very kind of you,” I say.

We walk out through the day hospital, which is connected to the inpatient unit but has doors that separate it off and are locked at night. We take a short cut down the back of the hospital and past a pohutukawa tree on to Mein Street. Waris starts talking to me about her family back in Africa and how she has to work so hard to support them. It makes me wish I could help in some way. I say, “Well, I could give you my benefit if I was allowed.”

“That's very sweet of you, MaryJane, but you need to keep your money for yourself; you're always giving everything away.”

“Yeah, but I don't need all that money, particularly when I'm in this place.”

As we walk up Riddiford Street towards the supermarket I ponder my savings. “Waris, will I be in here forever?”

Waris smiles. “Of course not, darling. We just have to monitor you closely and get you on the right meds. I don't think the ones you are on are quite right for you. You have a meeting with the doctors tomorrow. I'm sure they will have something to say about all this and your diagnosis.”