Far From The Madding Crowd

A familiar knock at the door; it reminded me of a cat scratching at carpet, all nails and fury.

All four of us knew who that was. One person sighed audibly, one pretended not to hear, another got up to open the drawer of the printer as though something urgent had occurred to the paper inside. I told myself a scrape of nails on the door did not meet the criteria of a knock and stared out the window. Was that a rabbit? Or a rat? Oh it was a small log. I thought of all the calls and forms I had just avoided, thankful of the tree in the garden. Managing risk though meant I would have to go and remove it, or throw it over the fence.

It was enough of a purpose.

I walked to the door and opened it.

“I’ve destroyed myself” Mary stared at me, felt uncomfortable with our eyes communicating and looked down at the hand she had been using to get help. I followed her gaze, I don’t know if she saw what I did. The mud, the dirt, the nail tartar: the possibilities burrowed thickly under long nicotine stained nails.

I thought briefly of ignoring her plight and encouraging her to have a shower, maybe even attend to this myself and asking a reluctant colleague to help, but that was my thought, not Mary’s, if you are dead showers are not important. Or relevant.

“I’ve destroyed myself”, she said again, less urgently.

“It’s not time yet Mary”, a voice called from over my shoulder, “another ten minutes…when it’s eleven, it’s ten too at the moment”.

Mary looked up again, squinted at the clock in the office.

“I’ve destroyed myself”, she said, louder than before, a brief flare of anger that dwindled to a scowl. Straining to make out the hands on the clock again, just to be certain this was no lie, she then seemed appeased. Perhaps, ten minutes was not so long, perhaps, her destruction was slightly less pressing, I dont know, but she turned slowly away, steadied herself and walked slowly back to her preferred chair.

It was difficult to find a satisfactory response for Mary. She spoke little but for two or three refrains that clearly meant something to her but did not invite an answer, they were more statements. Sometimes they were literal, sometimes they implied something like cigarettes. With these two or three unanswerable questions – unanswerable in that any response so far has proved fruitless – Mary negotiated life and other people. You know when she is well I’ve been told when her reportoire expands up to six or seven sentences and she stops knocking at the door. When she lies in bed all day, when she actually uses her room; this is the point at which she leaves hospital to return to her own home and lie in her own bed where sometimes she listens to the radio.

Mary doesn’t produce much discussion within the team. No one knows how she destroyed herself, why, how it came to be, or if she could be made alive again. Mary was Mary. Mary was in hospital more than not and people had stopped asking such questions. The pattern had been set. Mary came in dishevelled and emaciated, quiet and vacant, or loud and combative. She was injected with a long acting drug and slowly began to eat again. Then came the routine of the hourly cigarette dance until someone said she was ready to go.

Mary sat in her chair looking at the clock through the office window. I went and sat next to her, joining her watch time pass, both of us eyeing the second hand slowly ticking away at life, urging it on so Mary could get her cigarette and find whatever peace she did during those 5 minutes of every hour she could smoke it.

I remembered the log. Mary noticed this change, looked at me then at the clock, back at me.

“I’ve destroyed myself”, she said, softly this time and put her hand on mine for a moment. She looked at me, as blankly as ever, but somehow different.

“It’s ok Mary”, I said, “I’m staying here with you and in 5 minutes I’ll get that cigarette ok?”

Mary eased a little into her chair, as did I to reassure her and we returned our eyes to the stupifying effect of watching a clockface as t anticipated the marking of another hour.