For instance, around the walls there was a clear space or runway, as if there were a second invisible wall against which a table, chairs, bookcases were arranged, a yard or so inside the visible wall. And again, all around the walls to the height of about five feet, the paper had an irregularly smudged and rusty look, which turned out to be bloodstains from Lynda’s bitten finger ends. And yet again, a pair of shoes apparently left forgotten on a chair, if you examined them carefully, took on the significance of a travelling gipsy’s or an Indian’s sign to friends or tribesmen: one shoe would be set at an exact right-angle to the other. Or one of poor Dorothy’s embroidered cushions that had
God is Love
on it, was put in juxtaposition to a theatre advertisement showing a conventionalized hell. And so on: after a few moments, what had seemed a perfectly normal set of rooms, had become a place to get out of as fast as possible-either that, or a place to study, to make sense of, to sink oneself into.
Lynda wore a old flannel dressing-gown that she had put on like
working clothes or a uniform. It was tied neatly at the waist with a cord, and turned up at the wrists as one does to scrub a floor or do the washing-up. Her mass of shining auburn hair that had coarse grey pushing up into it, was tied behind her head in a ribbon. Thus had she prepared herself for the task or challenge of being ill.
She moved around the space between the two walls visible and invisible, with her back to the room. She moved slowly, staring, directing the pressure of her gaze up and down and around the area of wall she faced; and she pressed her palms against it in a desperate urgent way, as if doing this would cause it to fall outwards and let her step out of the room over rubble and brick. Or the movement of her hands had a testing feel: how solid is it? Or: What is it really made of-are you sure it isn’t soft? Or she would turn her back to it, and face into the room; and keeping herself in a straight line from head to buttocks, bumped herself against it in short regular bursts of thud, thud, thud, thud; and this movement seemed to say ‘I must go on doing this, must go on with some kind of activity, until it creates enough energy to let me turn myself about and go on …’ After a short recuperative time of such almost-resting, or meditative movement, she would turn herself about and continue on her progress around the wall, feeling, pressing, banging-around and around and around. When she reached the window, across which the curtains had been pulled, making a tall wide pasture of deep green velvet, she sensed her way across with subtler gentler touches of her fingers; and during these parts of her journey one had to ask if-since this was a window, an opening-her pressing and pushings at the wall did mean: Can I get out? How strong are you? For perhaps they meant something quite different.
Martha sat in a comfortable chair in the middle of the room, watching: and Lynda, ignoring Martha, worked her way around. Yet it seemed to Martha that while Lynda seemed to be ignoring her, might even try to walk right through her if she had been in the way of her circular progress, she was really waiting for her to say something, or do something; for in her posture, the set of her head, even in her furtively directed glances was the suggestion of a defiance held in check, but kept ready:
I’m not going to do what you say
! But Martha had no idea what was expected of her: what Lynda’s experience made her expect. When Lynda fell off to sleep, which she did in a huddle near the wall, like a prisoner dying against an obdurate barrier behind which she has been shut, Martha
went up to Mark. It was nearly two days after this bout or fit had started: Martha had napped, slept in the chair; as far as she knew, Lynda had not. Mark was in his study, not working, but lying in a deep chair trying to absorb what the walls said. (There was a new wall, hinged, with the facts and figures about mental hospitals, asylums, patients, mad people, people incapacitated, in the countries of the world.) He also had the appearance of listening to what was going on in the basement, or following it in his mind.
‘When Lynda goes around and around the walls, what do you do? ’
There isn’t much to be done. I keep reminding her: “You aren’t locked in, Lynda, you can walk out any time you like.’”
‘Oh, I haven’t been saying anything at all.’
‘Well, keep her in touch with reality-that sort of thing? ’
‘I suppose so.’
When Martha had bathed, and eaten, she returned to the basement and found Lynda sitting on the floor, like a child, humming to herself, and swaying back and forth. She looked contented: or at least gone far enough inside herself not to care about the outside world. She saw Martha and shot her a look of hatred. It was theatrical. Then she got up and began her progress around the room, shooting her angrily inquiring glances towards Martha.
Martha tested: ‘Lynda, you aren’t locked in, you can walk out any time you want-there’s the door.’
This had an astonishingly large effect-though Martha had half-expected it. Lynda moved faster, using her fists in a series of short violent bangs on the walls, looking at Martha all the time. It was very theatrical. Somewhere in Lynda someone watched what she did, so that the look of challenging defiance at Martha was-funny? No; yet Martha needed to laugh-hysterical gusts of laughter were suppressed. Lynda moved faster, waiting for Martha to say it again. Martha kept quiet: Lynda’s movements became wild and angry and her eyes widened in prepared fury. ‘Lynda: those are ordinary walls. This is where you live. You can walk out any time you like.’
And now Lynda whirled around on Martha, picking up a heavy Victorian leather chair, and holding it over Martha’s head. It was incredible that she had the strength: yet she held it there, grinding her teeth at Martha, until, when Martha did not move, but confronted Lynda with a smile kept as cool as she could make it, she put down the chair, muttered to herself, and shook her head, which
looked as if she were saying:
You can’t hear what I’m saying, because I don’t want you to
-and then continued her progress around the walls. Faster than she had; muttering angrily, darting her theatrically furious glances, playing the role: Leave me alone: you aren’t there.
So Martha said nothing. Lynda wanted Martha to be ‘reasonable’ so that Lynda could then defy her? Or, Lynda wanted Martha, or somebody, to be there, but didn’t want them to be anything, say anything-merely wanted to be left alone? At any rate, for a day, then two days, Lynda continued around and around, while Martha stayed in the chair. Lynda did not sleep during that time and after a while, since Martha did not say: ‘Those are your walls, they aren’t a prison cell, ’ she began moving more slowly; then might stand for an hour or so, hardly conscious of Martha, her head resting on her fists that rested on the wall. Yet her eyes were open. She had gone completely inside herself, and never looked at Martha, yet once Martha dozed off, and found that Lynda was crouching beside her staring into her face, the way a child stares for the first time at a frog or an ant, or some new creature. Then she saw that Lynda had pushed a cushion against her head to stop it slipping. And once Lynda said, in a perfectly normal voice: ‘It’s cold in here, shall we have the heating on? ’
Yet she did not eat, or drink, nor did she need, or so it seemed, to sit down, or to lie down and sleep. Another day passed. There was a small crisis that could have been worse when Lynda returned from a visit to the bathroom with some pills laid out on her palm. She did not look at Martha, yet she laid them down on a table in a row, like prettily coloured little toys, or sweets, and made as if to take them. Her desire to challenge Martha into starting up and forbidding her to take them, was so strong that Martha had really to fight to keep quiet. But she did keep quiet. Then Lynda swept the pills, without taking any, into the palm of one hand with the edge of her other hand and dropped them into a saucer. There they stayed, untaken, as if Lynda said: Look, you see, I’m
not
taking them.
And now Martha was unable to stop herself worrying about Lynda’s not eating, not drinking. She was always too thin: now she was a branch of bones over which an old dressing-gown was tied, and the skull grew strong while eyes, cheeks, sank into it. Martha made some light food in the kitchen and brought in a tray, and,
without speaking, put it on a table. At once Lynda went into her posture of defiance, she sparked angry eyes at Martha, muttering inaudibly.
‘If you don’t drink something, you are going to be ill, ’ said Martha; at which Lynda picked up the tray and flung it on the door. She then continued on her way around the walls. Martha got out cleaning things and began to clean up broken crockery, spilt eggs, milk. Lynda watched, in her way of observing everything while appearing not to do so. Then she came from the wall to the carpet, knelt down, and lapped milk that lay in a half-broken saucer. She watched Martha as she did so. Martha felt an extraordinarily strong compulsion to do the same. Yet she realized it was no impulse of Lynda’s that had brought her to lap like an animal on the floor: she had worked it out: she had known what she was doing. Now Martha, kneeling on the floor beside Lynda, worked out what
she
should do: she realized that her ‘if-I-do-this-she-will-do-that’ was the counterpart of Lynda’s calculation. There was a danger here. What sort of danger? Being ‘reasonable’, ‘sensible’? was always wrong-or so it seemed: it was that which had turned out to be dangerous, ending in threateningly wielded chairs and thrown traysful of crockery. Thinking: This is dangerous, to me, not to Lynda, ’ she nevertheless poured an inch of milk that lay in the bulge of an overturned glass jug, into a plate, held this to her mouth (she did not go down on her hands and knees to the floor to drink) and drank symbolically, not quite lapping. And now Lynda sat up, from her all-fours position, and watched, smiling. It was a sour smile. Triumphant? No. She was acknowledging something, admitting something? Martha had no idea. Then Lynda got to her feet, went into her kitchen, and came back a moment later with a large glass jug filled with water and a glass. She poured water, unsteadily, spilling a lot, into a glass, and drank it. The unsteadiness, speaking of weakness due to not eating, not sleeping, alarmed Martha but she made herself keep quiet. Lynda drank glass after glass of water, without looking at Martha, with an air of someone in a desperate hurry to get on with her real business of checking, or challenging, or acknowledging, or holding up, the walls. Which she proceeded to do.
It was stifling inside this large low room, with its burning lights because of the drawn curtains, and the heat full on. But Lynda would not hear when Martha suggested opening the window. There
was a strong smell of sweat. Lynda sweated badly. Lynda ought to bathe; Lynda ought to sleep; Lynda ought to eat; Lynda ought, ought, ought, ought … Time passed. Upstairs, presumably Mark sat in his study, ‘working’, or trying to make what was on the walls into a pattern of sense. Outside in the street life went on. Indeed the sounds of workmen lifting the road to mend the drains or gas or electricity or telephones could be heard; there was a drill at work somewhere close. All around and above, London worked, ate, slept, talked, went to parties, but here it was like being under water, or shut away, or looking at ordinary life from another dimension.
Martha found she was longing for movement: she said to herself, that she was an active person, not made to sit day after day, controlling movement, controlling words. Her limbs were restless and longed to be in use. Then she understood that with part of her she wanted to join Lynda in her journey around the walls: she did not want to go out of the flat at all. Of course not-how could she ever have thought anything so irrelevant as that it was possible to go out of the flat? How could Lynda go out, as she was, skinned and flayed, exposing herself to a world that would judge her ‘sensibly’? And how could Martha go out, since she was part of Lynda?. In one moment she, too, would get up and progress around those walls, around and around and around.
To sit here, an observer, while Lynda worked on this task of hers, was callous? Ought she to join Lynda as she had (almost), lapping from a saucer like a cat or a dog?
Almost
… she hadn’t actually done it.
She could not bear to sit still another moment. She got up, holding what felt like a potential explosion of energy, and, having cleared a space on the carpet still stained by spilled milk, slowly did physical exercises, taking no notice at all of Lynda.
To move, to use one’s muscles, after long sitting, long inactivity, what a joy, what a gift, what a blessing! She went on slowly, enjoyably, stretching and bending and reaching, working out the restlessness from her body. And Lynda leaned against the wall and watched. Not at all aggressively, not at all needing to defy or to challenge; nor saying, Leave me alone; or, You can’t reach me.
When Martha had finished the exercises, she said to Lynda, I’m going upstairs to bath-I’ll be gone some time. For she had thought it out: in all these years of Lynda’s being in hospitals or having to
be guarded by nurses or by Mark, she had never hurt anyone, had not even much hurt herself. There had been things thrown, a fight or two, a broken window. They said she was violent; she said of herself that she was violent when being silly. Yet the fact was, she did not do hurt-no one had been hurt. Martha spent a long time in the bath; changed her clothes, ate. She even slept for an hour or so. She came down again to find Lynda sitting in the middle of the carpet. Lynda did not look at Martha, but got up and went to the bathroom and bathed. Slowly and messily; water could be heard sloshing about; and things were thrown. Lynda was singing and muttering. Snatches of songs, bits of conversations, a yell of gutter laughter. It was filthy, disgusting; but the obscenities had a rapid, repetitive almost ritual sound to them. Lynda, like women in the street shouting envious obscenities at a famous whore, or a film star; or like Mrs. Quest; had decided to visit that particular region of the human mind; and, like Mrs. Quest, had decided not to stay there. She came out of the bathroom like a good clean child in another dressing-gown, this time a dark pink cotton, and her hair was washed and newly tied. She returned to sit on the carpet. She and Martha looked at each other and this look said, on Martha’s side: Lynda, are you ready to become normal again? And on Lynda’s side: No, not yet, I don’t want to.