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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775582373 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 366 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Walking to Africa
By Jessica Le Bas
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2009 Jessica Le BasAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-237-3
CHAPTER 1
Was This the Beginning?
Summer
In ordinary New Zealand — it could be Otahuhu, Porirua, or St Kilda by the sea — on
an ordinary New Zealand day, an ordinary 14-year-old girl at an ordinary school, with
an ordinary family who love her to bits, becomes extraordinary
The kid with the round lips and a pack like a shell on his back says, hey girl what's that
stuff on your face? You got a disease or something, eh pizza face?
And the girls with their long legs and the diamond studs in their flat bellies look down
and say, nah, we're busy eh
And the summer disappears into cloud
And it rains
And the pain comes on such that she stays home
and she stays home
The room spins when she stands up, the sky circles and her stomach revolves
— round and around, till no food can find its way down
and she is cold and alone in the big house
wraps a blanket round her body, and another, as she grows thin ... and dizzy
from the heights that are about standing up, and O she just can't make it to school
maybe tomorrow
The remote control is in control
The videos are about love and heartache and in the end they are always happy
She takes the morning by the hand and leads it through the afternoon, where she
pecks like a sparrow at a plate of food she distrusts
She cannot possibly find a place to put it
Her days are love stories on a late-night screen.
Autumn
And there are visits —
To doctor A
It's a virus — stay home. Rest
Back to doctor A
Some viruses are hard to shake off you know — stay home. Rest some more
To specialist A
To specialist B
3 weeks in the hospital, in bed
a CT scan
the MRI thingy
X-rays
blood tests (again)
a lumbar puncture
Where they look for
brain tumours
amoebic meningitis
some foreign object stuck in her ear, her head
a grommet gone astray
Does she do drugs?
Does she smoke — anything?
And there are pills for nausea
and there are pills for the spinning in her head
and there are pills for the pain in her head
and there are pills for the thought that it might be something inside
her head
that has been there all the time
hiding.
Winter
You drive an hour that she hates, in a car that moves too fast too far too often
Once a week to doctor B who watches the way the arrows move
says no rhubarb and no milk and no sugar
You ask him about food. She doesn't like it any more
and he says try this for Now
As you leave he asks has she had a head injury?
Now runs out
Doctor B says it is Beyond Him
She stays home
She stays home
She is pleased about no more driving too far too fast too often
with her eyes on the hills going past
and she lies down
To specialist C
A paediatrician
who measures this and that
takes more blood
finds Nothing Untoward
To the nurse (no angel) when the doctor is not there
who says it's about time you snapped out of it my girl
it's all in your head
after nine months of lying down — it's time to get up!
To specialist D
A psychiatrist
who says these pills will lift your spirits
They don't
perhaps some more
perhaps some more
More
*
No spirit lifts
A small knife lifts
in her hand
It's not a bad bleed really
They find her in her room
with her pink cellphone
— whispering 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111
*
She says she is having none of this or that
She says she is sick of it all
the feeling of not getting up
and the feeling of not getting up
and not knowing where up should/could be
and down is a faster, quieter place
The knives are taken away, taken away ha ha
Spring
And there are more visits
To specialist E
Another psychiatrist
who says we will change Those Pills
come back in 8 weeks
And the love stories screen in video
and the music croons through the night
and all the colour in the room finds its way to the television screen
and she pulls on a woollen hat and another blanket hides her bones
and the colour of her eyes is not beautiful
After 8 weeks
perhaps some more pills
perhaps some more ...
perhaps some
perhaps
*
And she learns the love stories off by heart, and the songs she does not sing
but could if she should wish to — one day
if she should need love songs — one day
Now even the happy endings are sad.
Summer, by Another Name
The night she takes all the pills you are writing fiction in a cupboard
You are inventing a narrative arc
You are not inventing a flood, the end of a world
It comes anyway
The phone does not ring from A & E
At midnight they take her to a respite home
respite
The next day you add the word to your notes
you plan to research it
for greater understanding
*
In a psychiatrist's room at 1 pm
She comes barefoot because her shoes are at home, under her bed
She stares at the place between her toes and tears roll down her face
They land on her toes in yellow sand
She has been on a trip to the beach this morning
because that is part of the programme
the way they do it in Rehab
They say
We have something here that is Beyond Us
We must get Specialised Care
We must send her Away
AWAYAWAyAWayAwayawayawayawayyyyyy
They say — Mental Health Unit — for Children
Mental Health Unit Mental Health Unit Mental Health Unit Mental Health Unit Mental
Health Unit
— and the words sit in mid-air looking for a place to land
mmmmmm mental health unit mental health
unitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt....................
The Beyond
2. The Beyond
You drive 500 miles — 500 miles 500 miles 500 miles ...
And it is a Far Off Place
this place they call Cure
where the main streets are named Treatment and Therapy
and a wild wind rushes through
They call the wind The Unknown
— kin to The Unlikely
the side-effect of thinking you don't know where you stand
It is a big hospital, of bricks and black windows closed
You recognise Another Universe when you see it
You have driven 8 hours for visiting
You get lost before you arrive
At the desk a man in a uniform marked Security points to a corridor
marked No Admittance. He unlocks the distant door with a secret
key that he turns under his desk, where you cannot see
You go Down —
Down the No Admittance Corridor
Through the Distant Door.
Beside Her
She is sitting on a couch in the dayroom
She is looking down, between her knees
She is counting her toes
Her toes are round and pink
still swollen smooth with baby fat
You cry
You sit beside her
She cries
*
There are nurses not in white coats
They have smiles and real names
They offer you cups of tea and sandwiches with real tomatoes
This is real
There is susan and warren and mavis and amy and paula and jane
and pedro and ron and catarina, and in a tweed coat a man they call
Doctor Beam who you know is their Leader because of the tweed
coat and the sandals and the way he half smiles like he
knows things that are good to know
You look for answers between his lips but there are only rows of possibilities
lined up to choose from
Depression is a strange one, says Doctor Beam, and your daughter
is a long way down.
Talking to Doctor Beam
You think of telling him about
the day her brother swung the speckled hen by its legs
like a discus thrower
and her, in her colosseum seat
watching the feathers fall
How she stood, her little palms on her cheeks
and giggled, squealing more more
He would've done it again, for her
if the hen hadn't run off
Or the way she bounced cross-eyed
in a baby-swing hung from the door's lintel
laughing as the world revolved
between one room and another
And the day the teacher rang
to say she was with the emergency doctor
with fever
and never did get up
and the tests — the tests
finding nothing they could name
she found a small door
to a dark room where it was quiet
asked for no explanation
Doctor Beam says tomorrow, 2 pm
he has a space, and a form to fill
his pen runs out of ink
and he leaves the room
to cadge another from a colleague
returns, says now where were we?
*
Doctor Beam may not be the person you are hoping he is
As he turns you look for wings
None
Perhaps the sandals are a clue
and should not be discounted.
Safety Measures
Steel Bars stop windows from escaping. One arm is allowed out to
feel the temperature of the day. The shoulder is a restricted
apparatus. The body, O not the body. The mind gets away
undetected
When the onions arrive for tea a Cunning Knife comes out on a
leash and works its thing in no time at all. Then it is escorted under
wraps (Nurse James's checked shirt) back to its cage
The visitor stops knitting, the last row of moss. They come, take
her bag (pink baby wool, 4 ply, Steel Needles) and place it under a
desk in the nurses' station
Her deodorant is kept in a locked drawer. Impulse. She must ask
for each spray, like a reward. It smells like stolen goods and has
little effect on her body odour. She perspires. Sweat takes no
captives
Can. Tin Opener. A guarded opening of closed places. Sliced
peaches are sliced. A circle of serrated steel is taken away like a
criminal waiting to happen. Can is recycled. Can's lid is another
caseload
Crafty Scissors are blunt-ended in pretty colours — lime-
green and cerise and lilac. Their smooth-skinned handles hang in
the long locked cupboard, away from the eyes of impatient
technique.
She Says I Hate You
She sits sits sits stares stares
She says why am I here?
They give her food in a box to drink
They sit beside her
She says no
They do not leave her till it is drunk
She has a room of her own
where the windows have bars
where the overhead water pipes rattle like a Monster
She curls up in the intestines of a Monster
*
When she is not looking
the kid in the next room steals her iPod
It could've happened anytime
The kid takes it home on weekend leave, sells it to a mate for $20
The kid buys Burger King for herself, steals a car, and smashes it under
the influence of something not diagnosed
The police say you can kiss goodbye to that iPod
There is no more music.
There Are Other Kids
Some who scream and some who cry, some ask why
and some say whatever and fuck and no-bloody-way
Some watch videos, or play Nintendo or Skip-Bo or draw pictures
They get out of bed and they have a shower
They wait for the food trolley to arrive
They eat toast and fruit and porridge at the long table at breakfast
They overflow their plastic cups with warm milky Milo
She is given a straw and a box of breakfast
It tastes like lunch and dinner tasted yesterday
The nurse sits beside her at the long table
The nurse eats toast and drinks Milo
The boy they call Jerome says fuck and shit
He is told to sit in the time-out chair
Jerome says fuck you and I aren't going there
Jerome is told to go to his room on the count of ... 1 2 3 ...
Jerome runs at the speed of light
He makes screamy noises all down the hall to his room
like a siren coming to a big accident.
What Next?
Jerome draws a large square on his white page
colours it crayon-yellow
smudges black and brown round the crust
calls it Toast
He draws a larger square around his Toast
colours it porcelain-white
calls it Plate
A knife one side
A fork the guards
The red crayon spreads jam
it's raspberry jam
because those small black dots are the bits
that get stuck in your teeth
A pencil, like a knife
scores the toast in half
your piece is the small piece
Later he folds it in plastic wrap
slides it on to the shelf of the fridge
right at the back where no one can get it
for his breakfast
Question: What happens next?
a) They walk to the river and feed it to the ducks
b) The night staff eat it with milky tea
c) He takes a big bite and gets sick. They take him to another hospital where they remove a picture of toast with raspberry jam from his head
d) The knife and fork run away with the Toast
Answer
All of the above.
A Map of the World
ANOTHER GIRL'S STORY
For two weeks she quit the dreams, said she 'd be going home soon
now that the dreams had stopped
At breakfast on Thursday the side of her face looked like a rasher of bacon
They said she hit the wall in the night, but she was having none of that
They gave her the room with a window the size of a mouth
that opened into the nurses' station
It had no power points and the ceiling was high up
nearly as high as the sky itself
She said fuck fuck and bastards all of them
when they showed her the new room
She remembered the boy who had it before her
how the male nurses gently held an elbow each
and took him there, screaming
his legs dancing like he was running on thin air
She thought then that she was dreaming
He quietened down
He went home
At breakfast she was subdued, sullen from a night's sedation
She arranged her cornflakes on the tabletop
carefully interlocking the pieces till they resembled a map of the world
She told the nurse it was a cat, pissing in the corner of her new room
She didn't feel like telling the truth.
Whatever
She drains her box of food
She goes into the dayroom and sits on her couch
You bring your knitting and sit beside her
You knit
The garment grows into a foreign creature
She says whatever
She says go away
She says
I hate you
I want to die
You knit
The other kids go to the schoolroom with their nurses
The other kids go for morning tea
The other kids play outside on the climbing ladder
Jerome says do you want to come too?
She says no
The other kids do crafty things in the OT room with paper and wool
The other kids do stuff with paint and glue
Jerome says come on, it's fun ya know
She says whatever.
Birds in a Cage
They once had two budgies in a cage
in the dayroom
but they stopped singing
sat close together all day, shaking
and finally they fell off the perch
together
The woman with the cleaning machine
reckons the big dude dropped his meds in their water
The male nurse with the loopy ears says, nah
they were depressed. It was suicide
Jerome says they were the lucky ones
they got discharged early
to a better place.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Walking to Africa by Jessica Le Bas. Copyright © 2009 Jessica Le Bas. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Half Title,Title Page,
Dedication,
Epigraph,
1. Was This the Beginning?,
Summer,
Autumn,
Winter,
Spring,
Summer, by Another Name,
2. The Beyond,
Beside Her,
Talking to Doctor Beam,
Safety Measures,
She Says I Hate You,
There Are Other Kids,
What Next?,
A Map of the World,
Whatever,
Birds in a Cage,
3. Perspectives (1),
This is Bernard's Answer,
Walking to Africa,
Rooms,
Being There,
A Red Canvas,
The Coffee Table,
4. Another Autumn,
What Was It?,
Home Leave,
O Another Winter,
The Angel/Nurse,
Ducks,
5. Voices,
6. Cutting the Deck,
A Long Way from Home,
Not the Fair Ground,
White, and Shades of Pale,
The Darkest Place in the Universe,
Aftermath,
An Afternoon Walking,
The E Word,
Coming Up ...,
7. The Homecoming,
... Going Down,
Another Ordinary Day / Another Ambulance,
8. The Adult Inside the Child,
The Adult Inside the Child is Asked to Come Out, Please / Please Come Out Now,
Finger Knitting,
In the Adult / Mental Health Unit,
Noise(s),
Cutting Connections,
Sing-A-Long,
9. Visiting Hours,
The Trick of Almost Winning,
Harm's Way,
Two Cats,
Slice,
10. False Perception,
The Colour Blue,
Newly Discovered Sites on the Moon,
Spells,
And Sat Down Beside Her ...,
The News on Reality,
11. The Not-Great Escape,
Out Patient, Out,
Out Driving Round Town on Friday Night,
Where is She?,
Wash,
Shade,
12. Perspectives (2),
What You Say,
What They Say,
How Things Lie,
13. Epilogue,
Laptop,
Your Right Arm,
For Her, Poetry (i),
For Her, Poetry (ii),
Note and acknowledgements,
Copyright,