WRITTEN BY CAT.
“There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis,” so go the words of the song by Kirsty MacColl. Chances are he’s on day release from Hope House, a last stop refuge for some of the misfits of this world: the people that the psychiatric profession has washed their hands of; and the rest of the world would rather forget.
Some come, some go, some stay and some don’t know, when or if, they want to leave. A refuge can be permanent or temporary, depending on the need and who’s to judge what the need should be for each individual? This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, or even to the living dead, is entirely intentional, erm, I mean co-incidental. No offence intended to anyone.
Gordon Trapp and Nathaniel Andrews unconventionally run Hope House.
Chapter The First: Group Therapy or Communal Madness?
New resident Chris meets his fellow housemates for the first time.
“Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourself to everyone Chris?” Gordon
smiled encouragingly at the dark haired young man, who had finally been persuaded to leave his room for the first time since arriving at Hope the day before.
Chris Emett scowled, thrusting his hands deep in the pockets of his shabby jeans.
“Perhaps later then,” Gordon smiled pleasantly, “why don’t you just sit down for now, make yourself at home. We always have an informal group session at this time of day, so we can talk about anything that might have upset or worried us during the course of the day.”
Chris scowled harder, “I think I’ll just go back to my cell.”
“Room, Chris, this isn’t a prison.”
“Can I leave any time I want, like right now?”
“You already know the answer to that Chris. When you’ve proven that you’re ready and willing to resume control of your life in a responsible and acceptable way, then you can leave.”
“In other words, I’m a prisoner here, until YOU say I can leave. Well stuff that!” Chris removed his hands from his pockets and headed for the door, only to find that someone got there before him.
“Sit down Chris,” Gordon folded his arms and leaned casually against the door. “You have to get to know us sometime.”
Chris considered trying to shove the man aside, but catching a look from the pale blue eyes, decided against it. There was something about this man...he dropped his gaze and turned away from the door. Christ, he flinched slightly as four pairs of assorted coloured eyes gazed at him with interest.
The owner of one pair of eyes, a brown pair, silently offered him a fluffy red jelly baby, which Chris declined with a shake of his head, walking stubbornly over to the window. He might not be able to leave the room, but no way was he going to sit and make small talk with that bunch of weirdo’s. It was like tales from the fucking crypt! How had he ended up here? He folded his arms, staring out of the window at the darkening garden.
“Chris, we’re waiting for you to sit down, you’re distracting the others by standing there.” Gordon spoke patiently.
“Tough!” Chris kept his gaze firmly fixed on the window, only, he felt a stirring of fear as the outside light faded and the window became a dark mirror that reflected the room behind him. A slight movement from the corner of the room caught his eyes, he focussed on it with a sick dread, surely not? Chris felt his skin prickle with fear, it had followed him!
Gordon watched the expression that flitted across the young man’s face, causing the pupils of his eyes to dilate alarmingly. He rose and moved quickly to the window, dropping the blinds. Then grasping Chris firmly by the shoulders propelled him across the room, pushing him firmly onto a seat and saying firmly. “Park it boy!”
Chris glowered resentfully at him. Sliding quickly from the chair he sat crossed leg on the floor.
Gordon decided to call it a compromise. “Would you like to tell us what you found so interesting out there in the garden Christopher?”
“Would you like to tell me why you think it’s any of your damn business?”
“Perhaps later then.” Gordon ignored the provocative tone of voice. “Let me introduce you to everyone.”
“My fellow prisoners you mean?”
“This is Nigel,” Gordon smoothly carried on. “Nigel, say hello to Chris.”
Nigel, the owner of the brown eyes and fluffy jelly baby, sitting as close to Gordon as was possible without actually sitting on his knee, said shyly, “I like gardens, don’t I Gordon, but I’m no good at gardening, are you good at gardening, I wish I was good at gardening, if you are good at gardening, can I watch you while you garden? Gordon lets me watch him while he’s gardening don’t you Gordon?”
“What’s with the gardening crap? I ain’t no fucking gardener, okay!” Chris glared at Nigel. To his horror, Nigel immediately burst into tears.
“He didn’t mean to upset you Nigel, don’t cry.” Gordon automatically wrapped a comforting arm around the sobbing man, before saying quietly. “We don’t upset each other here Christopher, mutual respect is the house policy. Please apologise to Nigel.”
“What the fuck for?” Chris, embarrassed and uncomfortable, started to his feet, “I’m not apologising for not liking fucking gardening!”
“I’m not asking you to apologise for not liking gardening. I’m asking you to apologise for upsetting Nigel. He’s very sensitive. And may I remind you that swearing is also against the house rules.”
“Je-sus,” Chris blew out his cheeks, “sorry, okay I’m sorry.”
Nigel’s tears magically dried up, he smiled engagingly, “does that mean I can watch you when you garden?”
“I suppose so.” Chris ground the words out from between gritted teeth, conscious of Gordon’s eyes on him. He felt hysteria rising, what the hell had he agreed to in coming here to this place?
“Can I have a cuddle?” Nigel suddenly lumbered towards Chris, arms outspread.
“No. Bugger off!” Chris hurriedly backed away.
Nigel burst into fresh wails, flinging himself on top of Gordon who patted his back soothingly. “He doesn’t like me, why doesn’t he like me Gordon? I like him, I want to be his friend. Tell Paul to stop laughing, he’s laughing because he doesn’t like me either. Why, why doesn’t anyone like me?”
“Stop laughing Paul, it’s not funny.” Gordon gave the giggler a stern look over Nigel’s quivering shoulder.
“I like you Nigel, I’ll be your friend.” A gentle eyed, softly spoken man who sat rocking backwards and forwards on the edge of his seat, a waste paper basket clutched tightly to his chest, smiled dreamily in Nigel’s direction.
“Will you James, will you really be my friend?” Nigel broke away from Gordon and hurled himself at James, who let out a thin, high pitched squeal of distress as he was pushed back into the seat and the basket crushed in the ensuing clumsy embrace.
“You’ve squashed my mother Nigel! I don’t want to be your friend anymore. You can’t go round squashing other people’s mothers! Gerrof! Gerrof!”
“Welcome to Hell House man!” Paul grinned cheerfully at Chris who was staring in fascinated horror as James tried frantically to shove Nigel off his knee. “If you aren’t already mental, you will be after a few weeks here.”
“Stop it Paul, you’re not helping anyone by saying things like that.” Gordon, sighing, rubbed a forefinger against his temple. It was going to be one of those sessions! Why oh why had Nat had to go to that conference this week, when they had a new resident to cope with, and with Nigel still unsettled after the visit by his parents. Wretched people, they had turned up out of the blue after a year without so much as a post card, undoing in an hour the slow, painstaking progress of that entire year.
Gordon pushed aside his weariness and the urge to scream. Taking Nigel gently by the hand, he assured him that he had many friends. “James doesn’t hate you....no you don’t James...he doesn’t Nigel....your mother doesn’t hate him either James...it’s not like you to be so unkind...besides we both know that your mother does not live in a waste paper basket...all else aside, she’s dead James...no...she isn’t in the basket...go and put it back in the corner...James...are you listening to me?”
Calm restored to the room and waste paper basket to the corner, Gordon took a deep breath and glanced around at his small group. Nigel was now peaceably engaged in de-fluffing his jelly baby, tongue slightly poking out as he concentrated on the task.
Paul was smirking sadistically at Chris who had re-seated himself on the floor and was gazing anxiously around, his eyes never quite resting anywhere. Gordon felt a twinge of sympathy for the hostile young man; he was being given a baptism of fire. This was not the calmest of gatherings; it was hardly guaranteed to put a newcomer at ease.
James was rocking gently back and forth on the edge of his seat, his lips rapidly moving as he held a silent conversation with the voices in his head. A slight snivelling alerted Gordon to the distress of another resident.
“What’s the matter Anna?” He spoke gently to a young woman whose thin face was grotesquely at odds with her bulky body. She sat huddled on her chair, twisting a strand of hair around her finger in tearful agitation.
“I’m too hot, I feel sick!”
Before Gordon could comment, Paul jumped in with characteristic subtlety, “take your coat off then you barmy cow!”
Gordon frowned, Paul always had to bait and provoke, poke and prod, especially where Anna was concerned. “I think you ought to apologise to Anna for that remark Paul, though to be honest Anna, I think Paul may have a point. You don’t really need to wear a coat indoors, especially not with a scarf and gloves.”
“She’s got four jumpers on under that coat, it’s a wonder she doesn’t have heat stroke.”
“How do you know how many jumpers I’ve got on?” Anna, face flushed with temper as well as heat, suddenly leapt to her feet, “have you been spying on me again, you spotty little pervert?”
“Why would I want to spy on a sodding skeleton?” Paul, aggravated at once by reference to his skin problem, also leapt to his feet, “you’ve got nowt worth spying on. In fact a flat fish has bigger tits than you.”
“Paul!”
“You have, you have been spying on me, and I’m not a skeleton, you pustuled pervert!”
“Anna!”
“Bony Bitch! It’s about time you started eating something, no wonder you give off such bad vibes.”
“Stop it, both of you!”
“Vibes? What are you on about- fucking vibes? You’re such a retro geek!” She whipped her gloves off and savagely hurled them at him, “pick the fucking vibes out of them sad sack!”
Paul snatched the gloves up and waved them under her nose, “are you offering me out or something? Throwing down the gauntlet, what’s it to be...lettuce leaves at dawn?”
“Anna! Paul!” Gordon finally made himself heard, “calm down at once. Take a deep breath, think about what ego state you’re operating from right now?”
Nigel stopped cleaning his jelly baby and shot an arm into the air, waving it frantically, “oh, oh, I know, I do, I know this Gordon, ask me, ask me!”
Paul made a rude noise, snorting, “I know what ego state she’s in, prize bitch ego state as usual!”
“No,” Nigel shook his head wildly, “that’s wrong, isn’t it Gordon, it’s all wrong?”
“You could invent ego states of your own,” yelled Anna, beads of sweat trickling slowly down her face as both her temper and temperature rose. “Moron, adapted Moron and total frigging Moron!”
“Wrong, wrong,” Nigel was all but bouncing up and down in his seat. “They’re not real ego states, are they Gordon? Ask me Gordon, ask me, go on, I know what ego state Anna and Paul are in.”
“SHUT UP NIGEL!!” Paul and Anna both turned from glaring at each other furiously to glare at him even more furiously.
Nigel immediately began wailing, “don’t shout, I don’t like shouting, they shouldn’t shout, should they Gordon, it’s naughty.”
“You’re upsetting mother,” James, rocking more frantically on the edge of his seat, tears rolling down his cheeks, pointed to the waste basket he’d been made to put back in the corner, “you’re upsetting my mother.”
“Now look what you’ve done you bad tempered cow. You’ve upset James’s mother!!”
“You started it pig face, and give me my gloves back!!”
Gordon inwardly groaned as the room erupted into frenzied chaos with Nigel wailing like a banshee and clinging to him, Paul and Anna shrieking and all but punching each other, and James lunging for the basket. It was all too much for the new arrival.
“Fucking Hell, it’s a lunatic asylum, I’m not stopping here!” Chris rocketed to his feet and headed for the door.
Gordon managed to disentangle himself from Nigel in time to catch Chris before he could leave the room, thrusting him back towards the circle of chairs. “SIT down Christopher, and I don’t want to hear another profanity cross your lips for the remainder of this session.”
He wagged a finger at Nigel, “stop that wailing at once, or I won’t allow you to watch Blue Peter tomorrow, and they’re doing a feature on The Sound Of Music.” The noise shut off at once. He turned his attentions to Anna. “Take that coat off young lady and at least two of those sweaters, before you faint, then take yourself off to your room. I’ll be discussing your behaviour with Nathaniel when he gets back.”
Anna complied muttering and mumbling all the while, looking decidedly more in proportion as she removed her thick coat and peeled off two heavy knitted sweaters. She glanced at Paul, giving him the V sign as she stormed out of the room.
He stuck his tongue out.
Gordon soon wiped the gleeful look from the young man’s face, saying pointedly. “As for you Paul, go to my study, find yourself a corner and stand in it quietly. I’ll deal with you presently.”
“That’s SO unfair, she started it. Why do you always pick on me?”
Gordon pointed to the door. “No arguments. Go now!”
Paul skulked out of the room, muttering and mumbling just as inventively as Anna had done.
Gordon closed the door, took a deep breath and smiled at the three surviving members of the session, saying with an air of forced cheerfulness, “you’re not seeing us at our best today Christopher, don’t worry about it, we....”
Yells and shouts from the hall, then a crash, stopped him mid-sentence.
“I don’t believe this. No one move. I’ll be back in two shakes.” He strode quickly off in the direction of the fracas.
“He smashed it!” Anna’s shrill voice.
“You skinny witch! It was your fault for ducking.”
“You’re such a slap head!”
“That’s enough, both of you! Anna, what part of go to your room didn’t you understand?”
A stomping on stairs, and the slamming of an upstairs door, was followed by the more conservative opening and closing of a door further down the draughty hall, followed a minute or so later by noises that Chris couldn’t quite identify. He swallowed uneasily as Nigel gazed at him with rapt attention.
“Paul’s naughty. Gordon’s spanking him.”
A muffled yell seemed to lend credence to this bizarre statement, the yells then built steadily.
Nigel closely examined the jelly baby, decided it was cleaned to his satisfaction, licked it, then put it back in his pocket.
“Gordon said not to move. He’ll be cross.” James, on hands and knees, broke off his intense conversation with the waste paper basket, to address Chris who was edging towards the door.
“Fuck Gordon! I’m getting out of this nut house! I’d rather sleep in a shop doorway than stay here!” Chris dashed out into the hall, colliding with a red-eyed Paul who was just emerging from what was obviously Gordon’s study.
“Watch where you’re going, you idiot!” Paul flushed, obviously embarrassed at being seen with a tear stained face.
Chris didn’t bother retaliating; he bolted for the door, only one thought on his mind, escape. Flinging it open, he rocked back on his heels with a scream of shock as the blue eyed apparition smiled at him tauntingly.
“Well,” the neatly attired man stepped over the threshold and stared down at the prone figure at his feet. “Have I overdone the after shave perchance? I don’t usually have that effect on people.” He looked questioningly at Gordon, “our new resident I take it”
Gordon nodded, then bent down and scooped Chris up into his arms, calmly heading for the stairs. “I’ll take him up to his room.” He glanced back over his shoulder, “welcome home by the way.”
“Thanks.” Nathaniel smiled, and then glanced at Paul who was still hovering tearfully in the hall. Pulling down the corners of his mouth, he said, “oh dear...trouble?”
Paul nodded miserably, “it’s not fair Nat, he always...”
“Bed Paul!” Gordon’s voice floated down from the upper landing.
“See...”
A high-pitched scream prevented further discussion.
“MURDERER!!”
Nathaniel gave the miserable youth a quick hug, “off you go, I’ll come up and have a chat with you later.” He winced as the screams reached a new pitch, “from the sound of it, James has obviously forgotten again.”
“Paul!” The disembodied voice now had a hint of vexation in it.
“Jeezuz...give me half a chance.” Paul stamped a vigorous protest onto every stair.
Nathaniel Andrews hung his jacket over the end of the banister and hastened in the direction of the screams, murmuring, “and to think I was looking forward to getting back home.”
“He killed my jelly baby!”
“You gave it to me.”
“Calm down Nigel, I’ll get you another jelly baby.”
“I don’t want another one! I want that one. I loved that jelly baby!”
“He gave it to me.”
“It’s alright James. Only, do TRY to remember not to EAT it next time, he only gives you them to look at. You should know that by now.”
*
“What’s he like then, the new boy, when he’s conscious?”
“Prickly, defensive, angry and frightened.”
“Just your average Hope House sort of a person then really.”
“Yep, he’ll fit right in.”
“Have you missed me?”
“No...I’m lying here naked on the off chance that an artist looking for a subject is going to pass by?”
“Sarcasm does not become you Gordon.”
“Then shut up, lock the door and come to bed.”