The White Garden (19 page)

There was something alarming now in his laughter. Vickie looked away and said, ‘Why don’t you just give all your patients Deep Sleep and be done with it?’

‘I probably would if I could get away with it. But you realise I have to be seen to develop all these other possibilities as well

— specially the ones that don’t frighten the horses — or the whores — like gardening. And I’m kind of interested in all that as well. The newspapers love my gardening patients. All very good for business. They can’t
all
be asleep all the time you know. Most of the patients I see — and their families for that matter — just need a little blip-blip-blip — and a good fortnight’s sleep and they’re right as rain. More or less.’

‘What about the long-term patients?’

‘Oh them, poor things. They’re too far gone to live in the world and so I give them somewhere to be. What would Shirley Temple do without Mandala, for example. And I need to study them, of course.
Illumination
is going to be the most fantastic breakthrough in all this stuff. New ground, absolutely new ground. The minefield of the human mind, that’s what I’m onto, Victoria. Hallucinations — what do they signify? Delusions.

Why? How? Where do these things come from — what are they for? I get the patients to go right
into
their worlds of delusion, and that way I can study them. Other people have always tried to get rid of the delusion, but I take the opposite approach — go right into the thing. If you want to be Joan of Arc, then I say, you go and be Joan of Arc. But what I want to know is — why
fucking Joan of Arc
, for Christsake? That’s what I want to know.

Why fucking Joan of Arc? In particular. Why did Shirley Temple hit on Shirley Temple?’

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125

‘Do you think Joan of Arc was really a man?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. But getting back to laundry—’

‘Do we have to?’

‘Once upon a time in French madhouses they had the laundry divided up according to the kinds of madness. Delirious women did the actual washing; imbeciles hung it out to dry; melancholics did the ironing; and then the monomaniacs folded it.’

‘It always seems to be women.’

‘Oh, it always is.’

‘And why is Mandala mostly women?’

‘Law of nature.’

HORSEHOOF BALM

‘Therese’s case is of course somewhat alarming and bewildering for you, and I can fully appreciate your worry, Mrs Gillis.

However, I am very familiar with the problem, and I know that with the proper treatment, and allowing the thing time to take its course, there is no reason why Therese should not, in good time, recover her grip on everyday reality.’

Each word was like a wound to Dorothy’s heart.

‘In certain very sensitive people, people of intelligence and creative ability in particular, there are events, moments in life, when the only safe course is to allow the power of — call it the imagination if you like — to allow the power of the imagination to take over. The patient experiences two realities — this can happen in a split second — I have seen it — the dreadful pain of what is happening in the here and now, and the ease and beauty of the life of the imagination. The patients imagine themselves, fully, and without doubt or reservation, into the life and person of another — someone they admire greatly, someone they identify with, someone they wish, for a variety of complex reasons, to be. They become that person. It is one of the most mysterious safety valves of the human heart. A man is powerless and forlorn in his day-to-day life; he doesn’t function at his work; his family life, if you follow me, is depressed — this man becomes Lord Byron and — ting! hey presto! — he is as happy as Larry. Or he takes on the person of Christ or Napoleon. I could take you up to the Men’s Wing (which is a self-contained, fairly small operation up on the edge of the hill there) and show you how all this works, how it makes sense. But of course, you will have met Shirley Temple.’

‘Yes. Yes I have met Shirley Temple.’

Dorothy felt her own grip on reality slipping away as Ambrose talked. She began to think of Shirley Temple as just a happy and useful woman, whereas before she had found her helpful but terrifying. She had classified Shirley as incurably insane — not necessarily dangerous, but quite mad.

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127

‘When Shirley has run her course she’ll be as right as rain.

And in the meantime, the world she is retreating from is not standing still — oh no — the life that woman left behind is righting itself in her absence, and she is on one glorious holiday here. She is — as far as she and I and everyone here is concerned — she
is
Shirley Temple. You see the treatment for what might be called deluded people here is completely different from anywhere else in the world. Here in Australia, at Mandala in particular, we are at the forefront of this work. Nobody here is going to try to stop that woman from being who she is (by that I mean Shirley Temple), and nobody is going to just tolerate her and patronise her. Oh no. Here at Mandala we encourage that woman to follow through her delusion (so called) to its logical consummation, whatever that may be. You may possibly have heard of the work of a British doctor, R D Laing? No?

Ah, well Laing has a clinic in London, Kingsley Hall, where he practises what has come to be known as “anti-psychiatry”.

What this means, in effect, is that the patients are free to express themselves totally. If this means they draw breasts all over the walls from one end of the house to the other, so be it. That these drawings are done in excrement — so much the better. I see you are shocked. It is all a matter of entering into the story that patient is telling herself, letting the story write itself on the walls of the world. I have visited Kingsley Hall several times, and I’ve seen there at least one miracle in the making. A woman called Mary Barnes is developing into one of the finest painters in Britain — all as a result of being allowed to be herself, to paint — whatever — on the walls of Kingsley Hall. That’s one of her pictures.’

Ambrose pointed to a painting of violent blue and yellow swirls. Black twigs, like burnt hands, stretched up through the waves of colour. Dorothy blinked.

‘I go even further than Laing, you know. I allow the patients
total entry
into the world of delusion, entry through such doorways as the psychedelics. That’s the very, very latest pathway to the secrets of the human mind. Go into the delusion, be whoever you are, see the truth at the very centre of things. Love,
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that’s what it’s all about. Love. Love of self means love of the universe. Think of William Blake.’

Dorothy was aware that Ambrose had virtually forgotten she was there. He was a great bird in flight, a prophet preaching to a vast crowd, a man possessed by the truth.

Dorothy dared to interrupt him. She said: ‘Therese, Doctor Goddard. What is happening to Therese?’

‘Now Therese,’ Ambrose went on, not pausing in the flow of his rhetoric, ‘Therese Gillis has become St Therese of Lisieux, and no mistake.’

Dorothy felt her heart twist within her and saw momentarily the opening of a black abyss. She stared at Ambrose in complete belief, absolute understanding of what he said. Like a large spoonful of bitter medicine, Dorothy took it in.

Dorothy was taken in. She was a girl standing in a fairground with her hair in braids and a bag of cotton candy in her hand.

She watched and listened as the man with the red face, the man in the tartan jacket and the dirty bowler hat shouted over the heads of the crowd: ‘One bottle of Horsehoof Balm and all your worries are over! The quick cure for all kinds of pain. Horsehoof has no equal. It stops pain as if by magic — the action on the nerves is truly astonishing. Toothache, headache, earache, sore throat, chilblains, burns, blindness, bowel or liver complaints, sprains, bruises, neuralgia, cholera, dysentery, sudden or acute pains, typhoid, sore eyes, influenza, indigestion, ringing in the ears, heart disease, rheumatism, infertility, coughs, hay fever, cancer, nervous exhaustion and insect bites. Internal or external. Antiseptic and laxative. A soothing remedy for all pains.

Gives immediate relief. In the words of the senior physician of the Mater Dolorosa Hospital in Rome, Italy: “Horsehoof is of considerable benefit in all forms of disease.” This is a remedy derived from the fruiting bodies of the horsehoof fungus, known to the ancient Greeks and the Australian Aborigines for its remarkable healing properties. For one shilling only, you can place a bottle of this remarkable Horsehoof Balm in your home today. Don’t delay. From the palace to the cottage the word is

“Horsehoof”! Try it. Accept no imitations. Buy the genuine Horsehoof now! You will never look back.’ The man’s eyes

Horsehoof Balm

129

were alight with conviction. The crowd cheered and clapped and handed over their shillings. The man in the bowler hat finally held up the empty suitcase from which all the bottles of Horsehoof had been sold, waved to the crowd, and was gone.

‘It is important, Mrs Gillis, as you will understand, that Therese should be given every encouragement. We must clothe her, as it were, in the habit to which she is entitled. Occupational Therapy will supply the fabric, and will supervise the making of the habit strictly in accordance with the rule laid down by the Order. Therese will participate in the dressmaking, although much of it will be done by others, and, if necessary, by professionals. She will be moved from the Sunroom and given her own cell in the old Convent Wing. It so happens that out in the Convent Wing we have St Teresa of Avila — a patient who has come a very long way since she first came to us. Are you familiar with the layout of the building? The Convent Wing is over to the west.’

‘I know. You see, doctor, the girls, Therese included, came here to school when it was the Immaculate Heart.’

‘A rather nice coincidence, you could call it.’

Dorothy looked down and blinked back her tears. She had a sudden clear recollection of Therese running down the path of the school towards her. Therese was wearing the pinafore the little ones had to put on over their uniforms. It was an old-fashioned apron, made from blue and white floral cotton, with a big bow at the back and huge floppy frills over the shoulders like wings. Therese ran towards her laughing and threw herself into Dorothy’s arms.

Was this the moment for Dorothy Gillis to stand up and face Ambrose Goddard and tell him the idea of ‘clothing’ Therese was ridiculous? Was it now that she should tell him things had gone quite far enough, that she was simply going upstairs to pack up her daughter and take her home? What was all this nonsense about Therese being the Little Flower, and living in a cell next to St Teresa of Avila over in the old convent?

This
was
the moment, but the moment passed.

On the treatment report Ambrose wrote: Sod. Amytal/Ritalin completed. Patient given over to delusion. Course of further
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treatment — DST, ECT, locate patient in convent cell accommo-dation, supply habit etc. Possible LSD. Weekly Review. Sleeping Beauty ward possible.

‘There will be a strict weekly review of Therese’s case, Mrs Gillis, in consultation with the nursing staff and the other doctors. Now, do you have any questions?’

Dorothy felt her entire body compose itself into a hunched, tormented question mark. Therese had slipped beyond her grasp, beyond her world, into some strange bright realm understood only by Dr Goddard. And Doctor Goddard stood before her now, his bowler hat a little crooked, his smile so reassuring, his suitcase again filled with shiny bottles of Horsehoof Balm.

Dorothy held in her hand the soft pink cloud of cotton candy, crusts of sugar forming around her lips.

She stared in silence at the man with the Horsehoof Balm.

The question would not form.

ST TERESA OF AVILA

In the Welsh Vale of Towy there’s a market town called Llandovery. If you turn left at the railway station and take the road that leads into the hills, you come to a gate and a lodge. A large round wooden sign says ‘Llan Carmel’. The rule of life followed in this convent is that laid down in the reforms of Teresa of Avila in the sixteenth century in Spain. This convent has been here since 1934. The nuns lead an enclosed life of prayer and work, reciting the office, supporting themselves, knitting, making altar breads and honey. Soft bells ring to call the sisters to prayer, and at night the Great Silence falls, not to be broken until the first prayers of the morning.

In 1950 the Pryce-Jones family left the market town of Llandovery for a new life in Australia. It was a large family, and one of the daughters, Rosamund, always said she was going back to Llandovery to be a nun. Rosamund entered the Welsh convent in 1962. Her cell was made from an old railway guard’s van, and was stark but warm and comfortable. The walls were white, the floor was bare, and there was a bed, a small bookshelf, a black cross, a thermos flask, a picture of St Teresa and a stoup of holy water.

Rosamund never took her final vows. She had what was described as a complete breakdown and returned to her family in Melbourne where she entered a small Catholic hospital for mental patients. She seemed to have gone into a world of her own where she was no longer Rosamund Pryce-Jones, but had become Teresa of Avila. She was humoured and cajoled and ridiculed and punished and treated with one kind of drug and another. When she failed to respond to treatments of drugs and ECT, her doctor consulted Ambrose Goddard on the question of a lobotomy for Rosamund. Ambrose suggested the Rosamund might come under his observation at Mandala while he assessed her case. So Rosamund was transferred to Mandala where it became clear that a lobotomy was not required. Instead she was given her habit and her cell and her life as the sixteenth-century
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saint. This life Rosamund saw in bright, bright colours, and she saw it also as a kind of book that opened up before her. There was joy and optimism in her delusion. She thought of her life as a book of colours, a path of light split into its brilliant range of red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet. A book of colours.