due for an interview, an assessment, with the psychiatrist, Dr. Kieran Quarrell. These were rare and had to be made the most of.
He watched the blood run down the walls and seep up mildly round the edges of the linoleum. It was clear red blood this morning. It burst through the wall-coveringâwashable vinyl, with a cheerful pattern of two-dimensional sunflowersâin small bright gouts and bubbles. From there it descended in trickles, which joined to form a clear red sheet towards the base of the wall. Round its edges, as sheets of blood do, it coagulated and browned. Round the edges of the linoleum it pulsed a little, as though some system of veins under the floorboards were pumping it out. He watched it soak into someoneâs white sock that had been left lying around. He felt calm. The blood, that morning, was an interesting phenomenon. He would have liked to discuss it with someone. Was it there or not there? He was certainly seeing itâwith his eyesânoting its viscosity and flow. He was not making it up. It wasnât a projection of his state of mind, which was calm, not bloody. It was not a metaphor.
On the other hand, he was almost entirely certain that if he picked up the soaked sock, it would be white wool, and would not drip red. In certain
hectic
moods, he saw blood falling through the air itself, in sheets, like rain. Then sometimes he lost, lost, lost his head a bit, lost what the male nurses called his cool.
He thought, if he failed to mention the bloodâand he was under no obligation to mention or not to mention thingsâthen he might talk himself out of there, out through the gates of the enclosure. He was almost entirely sure he wanted to get out. His life had a purpose. It was meant to flow on, towards its goal, not to eddy round this anchored bed. An obligation was laid upon him, to
live
his life, which he was not doing. Those who spoke to him explained that, not entirely patiently, over and over. The voices, like the blood, were
there
and he himself did not produce or control them. They were different from the hum of chatter in the Association Room. They were not in his head. He listened to them. He knew no one else heard them.
He had hidden his pill in his shoe. A clear head was required. His head was old and young. His hair was a bright white mass. His beard bristled brindled, black and fiery, with touches of steel. He was a big man. He sat quietly on the edge of the bed, and waited, and watched the blood.
Chapter 4
Frederica gave up teaching because she wanted to teach. All that summer in 1968, the students marched and held meetings, made banners and discussed the nature of things. They barricaded the administrative offices. They wrote long documents with endless clauses, demanding both to be released from the oppression of imposed ideas and establishment-structured concepts, and to be better prepared for the âtotal environmentâ they were to enter. âTotal environmentâ meant the world of employment. The art students at the Samuel Palmer School were particularly hostile to the newly-introduced courses of Liberal Studies, which included Fredericaâs literature, as well as some philosophy, sociology and psychology. A note was pushed under the door of the Liberal Studies Office. âWe Demand that courses in Literature and Philosophy be made
conceptually relevant
to Jewellery Design.â
The past was to be abolished. Someone put all Alan Melvilleâs Vermeer slides in a bath of acid, and displayed them with a notice âThe Lady Vanishes.â Richmond Bly, the head of Liberal Studies, and a Blake enthusiast, was very much on the side of the students. At a passionate 36-hour meeting, in which he urged the students to become Tigers of Wrath and do away with the Horses of Instruction, he agreed that there should be no more authoritarian lectures, that all meetings of students and teachers should be open-ended explorations, or interchanges, and
He watched the blood run down the walls and seep up mildly round the edges of the linoleum. It was clear red blood this morning. It burst through the wall-coveringâwashable vinyl, with a cheerful pattern of two-dimensional sunflowersâin small bright gouts and bubbles. From there it descended in trickles, which joined to form a clear red sheet towards the base of the wall. Round its edges, as sheets of blood do, it coagulated and browned. Round the edges of the linoleum it pulsed a little, as though some system of veins under the floorboards were pumping it out. He watched it soak into someoneâs white sock that had been left lying around. He felt calm. The blood, that morning, was an interesting phenomenon. He would have liked to discuss it with someone. Was it there or not there? He was certainly seeing itâwith his eyesânoting its viscosity and flow. He was not making it up. It wasnât a projection of his state of mind, which was calm, not bloody. It was not a metaphor.
On the other hand, he was almost entirely certain that if he picked up the soaked sock, it would be white wool, and would not drip red. In certain
hectic
moods, he saw blood falling through the air itself, in sheets, like rain. Then sometimes he lost, lost, lost his head a bit, lost what the male nurses called his cool.
He thought, if he failed to mention the bloodâand he was under no obligation to mention or not to mention thingsâthen he might talk himself out of there, out through the gates of the enclosure. He was almost entirely sure he wanted to get out. His life had a purpose. It was meant to flow on, towards its goal, not to eddy round this anchored bed. An obligation was laid upon him, to
live
his life, which he was not doing. Those who spoke to him explained that, not entirely patiently, over and over. The voices, like the blood, were
there
and he himself did not produce or control them. They were different from the hum of chatter in the Association Room. They were not in his head. He listened to them. He knew no one else heard them.
He had hidden his pill in his shoe. A clear head was required. His head was old and young. His hair was a bright white mass. His beard bristled brindled, black and fiery, with touches of steel. He was a big man. He sat quietly on the edge of the bed, and waited, and watched the blood.
Chapter 4
Frederica gave up teaching because she wanted to teach. All that summer in 1968, the students marched and held meetings, made banners and discussed the nature of things. They barricaded the administrative offices. They wrote long documents with endless clauses, demanding both to be released from the oppression of imposed ideas and establishment-structured concepts, and to be better prepared for the âtotal environmentâ they were to enter. âTotal environmentâ meant the world of employment. The art students at the Samuel Palmer School were particularly hostile to the newly-introduced courses of Liberal Studies, which included Fredericaâs literature, as well as some philosophy, sociology and psychology. A note was pushed under the door of the Liberal Studies Office. âWe Demand that courses in Literature and Philosophy be made
conceptually relevant
to Jewellery Design.â
The past was to be abolished. Someone put all Alan Melvilleâs Vermeer slides in a bath of acid, and displayed them with a notice âThe Lady Vanishes.â Richmond Bly, the head of Liberal Studies, and a Blake enthusiast, was very much on the side of the students. At a passionate 36-hour meeting, in which he urged the students to become Tigers of Wrath and do away with the Horses of Instruction, he agreed that there should be no more authoritarian lectures, that all meetings of students and teachers should be open-ended explorations, or interchanges, and
Similar Books
