Out of the Mist

"That's a lie!"

"We have even had to call the police to have him removed, and he has been continually ringing our house wanting to speak to our daughter. . . ."

"That's another lie! I called once on the day that Cassandra disappeared."

"I explained to this person that my daughter did not know him and had no intention of speaking with him and that he should accept the fact that she was living in England with her fiancé."

I have to admit that I did myself no favours with what happened next, I lost the plot and began raving about a conspiracy to keep us apart because they thought that I wasn't good enough for Cassandra. I think at one stage I might have pushed over a camera I was that angry and it got worse when I looked at Sabrina's smug expression. Security stepped in and I was escorted from the TV station.

It took me several hours of hard work to fray the acetylene hose so that it looked like years of wear and tear. The tank regulator was turned on but the hand-piece tap was off. I could have just simply turned the hand-piece on but then that would look like a deliberate act and I decided that if I was going to end it all it had to look accidental. I smashed the globe of one of the lights in the studio being careful not to break the filament, and when the smell of acetylene was strong enough I flicked the light switch.

They told me later, much later, that I was lucky that I was standing near the large window that faced the alley. The blast blew the window out and it also blew me through the resultant gap and I landed several feet beyond the broken glass, sustaining only minor injuries.*

It wasn't until I was interviewed at the hospital, firstly by the police and then by a Psychiatrist, that it was decided that I had attempted suicide.

The police attempted to speak to Cassandra only to be told by her parents that she now lived in London.

*Author's Note: This may seem farfetched, but I have personally witnessed a similar situation. A man had decided to end it all and had sealed the gaps in his kitchen and turned on the gas stove. While he was waiting for the gas to take effect he got impatient and decided to have a final smoke. The blast blew him through the window but the room did not catch alight. The explanation was that the force of the blast extinguished the source of the flame.

Chapter 3: The Mists of Time

My world became a slow moving, misty place where people emerged from the fog only to disappear back into the fog. Nothing was in focus.

My reality became one of "Here take these." followed by a denser fog, that, just as it was about to clear was recharged by more pills. In one of my more lucid moments I thought that I was being deliberately kept in this fog, and that I would never be allowed to emerge into a clear day, a clear world.

My humiliation was complete, I was wheeled to the bathroom and cleaned up by a nurse, I was showered by a nurse and shaved by a nurse. I was fed by a nurse, I was told to go to sleep by a nurse, I was told to wake up by a nurse. My life was no longer my own, my thoughts no longer existed, reality had abandoned me, my desire to live had abandoned me.

Once a month I was taken to see the Psychiatrist, Doctor Stanley Wilkinson, who asked me questions that I didn't understand and wrote my answers, that he didn't understand, in a pad and ordered more pills to keep me from something that I couldn't understand.

No-one came to see me, ever. I didn't know who I expected, but I thought that there must have been someone out there who must have missed me. Then again, maybe in my foggy world people did come and were just another out of focus face in an out of focus world.

My mist was peopled by strange impersonal things that put their faces close to mine and uttered some sort of guttural language that I didn't understand and occasionally poked and prodded me with bony fingers to see if I was real. There was a sameness about these beings, a cloudiness in their eyes and a slowness of movement that mirrored mine. Try as I could I couldn't get my limbs to move in any sort of cohesive manner. My movements were not being controlled by my brain, my brain had failed in its ability to tell my limbs what to do. I was aware that I could consciously send messages to my limbs but they rebelled, they completely ignored me, as far as they were concerned my brain ceased to exist. Even my mouth has rebelled against my brain. I knew what I told my mouth to tell my occasional questioner but the noise that came from my mouth was totally wrong, my brain told the truth but my mouth lied. I wanted to ask just how many pills I should be taking, but my mouth said something like 'Mowheddymillssoketicking?', and when I told them that I wanted to go home, it came out; 'Eyewaddagome.' How these utterances were translated I was never to know, I was just fed more pills and left in my bed until it was time for me to be wheeled to the bathroom to have my arse wiped.

There were times when we were taken into a large room and placed in a large chair and told to watch the television. I usually went to sleep only to be woken and led back to my room. I'm sure, now, that the nurses thought that they were doing the right thing, because no-one ever complained which was due to the soporific effect of the drugs and the boring programs that we were forced to endure.

One hour merged with the next, one day merged with the next, one week merged with the next, one month merged with the next until time became irrelevant, there was no way of keeping track, there were no clocks anywhere, no calendars, it was as if the staff were afraid that if we could keep track of time we would realise that we were being given either too many pills or not enough or the right pills at the wrong time or the wrong pills at the right time. It is hard to keep track of what we were given when we have no concept of time, my mind lived in a fog and my senses lived in a blur, I was numb to everything.

There was little for me to do other than stare blank eyed at the ceiling. If I could have remembered how to count I could have counted the holes in the ceiling panels, but then, they didn't stay in focus long enough. Once a sometime I had to sit in a chair while the nurses changed the sheets on my bed, once a sometime I could climb into a bed that smelled different.

There was a highlight of sorts after I had been in that place several years. Several inmates, including myself, were ushered into a small bus and driven to a place where there were strange furry creatures. Along the way to this place several of the passengers waved at people walking down the sidewalk who glanced quickly at the sign on the bus and ignored us. The trip ended in disaster. One of the inmates was petting an animal when it decided to get friendly and licked him. He jumped back, screaming at the top of his voice and it took all of the hospital staff and some of the other staff to usher him from the scene, leaving behind a group of scared and bewildered patients.

The nurses returned quickly and ushered us back to the bus where our fellow inmate sat, restrained in the back seat. I don't think we were ever taken there again.

I was told after I emerged from that world, that I had been there for over ten years and would have remained there but for a series of unconnected events that conspired to liberate me.

It began on the day that I was allowed to stroll, alone, outside my mist shrouded existence for the first time and into a bright world of blue skies, sunshine and warmth. The grass was green, the flowers brightly coloured and the sounds of birds invaded my previously muted world. But that wasn't what caught my attention. I was drawn to a statue on a plinth at the centre of the lawn, something about it brought back memories, memories of happiness, memories of pain. While the mixed emotions troubled me, I was experiencing something that had been denied me for years, many years, emotions.

I stood in front of that statue caressing its shape with hands that remembered a time past when I caressed similar shapes, the touch of the smooth metal brought back memories, but what those memories were I could not remember.

Later that day I took a cake of soap from the bathroom and by kneading it with a little water I produced a plastic paste that I was able to mould into a close replica, albeit on a smaller scale, of the statue on the lawn. One of the nurses saw it and brought it to the attention of the head nurse who, in turn, showed it to my psychiatrist.

I was given a blood test and it was found that there was an extremely high concentration of antipsychotic drugs. This caused the review of my medications, who administered them and how often. I was immediately placed on a program to reduce my intake of these drugs.

A plan for my rehabilitation was formulated. I was encouraged to join an art group and, while the others were pasting badly cut-out pictures onto a large piece of cardboard to produce a chaotic image, I began making clay models.

At first my busts all had the same morose, introspective expression on their faces, a reflection of my feelings at the time. This, in turn became an expression of deep thoughtful contemplation, as if my people were trying to piece together important information that had been kept from them. That these expressions bore little resemblance to the real expressionless faces of my fellow inmate models caused some concern to my psychiatrist who interpreted it as me imposing my reality on that of the sitters, not, in his eyes, a good sign.

Early in this process, one bust in particular had caught his attention, it was of a woman, a beautiful woman, and the expression on her face was not the usual one that habituated my works, it was softer and different in some intangible way. The work was, like the others, sent away, never to be seen by me again. I had no idea what happened to them after I had finished them.

Around that time a news item appeared in the American press but it attracted little attention outside the art world. Christies Auction House in London had sold a statue by 'the reclusive artist Grantley Benson' to the financier Christopher Cullen for an undisclosed, but substantial, sum. Two people in particular were interested in it, Huw Williams who, ten years before, had been my manager and Stephen Fielding.

It was decided that I should be moved, in my best interests, into a half-way house for the perpetually bewildered, where I could, under close supervision, be given a free rein to explore my talents. As each clay figure was completed it was taken away to who knows where, it was as if I was never to dwell on the past. As soon as the present became the past it was whisked away, never to be seen again. I was being trained to think only of the future.

Each figure was a reflection of my rehabilitation. Each figure was an improvement on the previous one, both in technique and in its treatment of the subject. The faces were no longer distorted by doubt and introspection, there appeared, slowly and perceptively, a look that scanned the future with promise and faith.

My life became an ordered but disordered existence, I could sleep for as long as I liked without someone telling me that it was time to wake up and get out of bed, and there were days when I stayed in bed until mid-afternoon. After breakfast, whenever that was, I was taken to a studio and allowed to work, undisturbed, for as long as I wanted. There were times when I worked well into the night and this was not a problem for them, my meals were brought in at regular intervals, but I was never forced to stop work to eat. In fact nothing was ever said if, when the nurse returned, I hadn't touched the food.

I began to seek new subjects for my work, copying from newspaper and magazine photographs of people and, increasingly, animals. It was here that my talent began to really blossom. What I was effectively producing was a caricature of the animal that heightened its features. For instance, when I formed my sculpture of an eagle, I made the eyes slightly bigger and more piercing, the open beak seem more menacing and the talons bigger and sharper, this was the consummate killing machine and the power of its weaponry was brought into exaggerated reality.

I was no longer merely representing the image before me, but I was enhancing that image in a way that exposed its strengths and weaknesses, I was imposing myself on the world as I saw it, I was joining the world again.

"We are really pleased with your progress," Doctor Wilkinson told me one morning during his regular visit, "We are witnessing your personality emerging from the depths, we have reduced your medication and, because of that, have hopefully reached a balance that can allow you to live a relatively normal life again. We feel that it is time to release you, conditionally. We have found a small house for you in the country, you will have a full time Carer who will look after your needs and make sure that you can look after yourself. You will have a studio to work in and will be able to work, when you want, and for as long as you want. The only thing that you won't be able to do, for the time being, is to leave the property."

"Who is paying for all of this?"

"The money is coming from various sources, some from the government, some from monies that you already had in your bank account, but more importantly, most of it is coming from the sale of the work that you have been producing."

So it was that I found myself in a small timber cottage tucked in among a grove of trees a couple of hundred yards back from a rural road. How far it was from the nearest town or other house I didn't know and, for the time being I wasn't allowed to find out.

My carer, Susan Murphy, was a no-nonsense woman in her mid forties, grey hair pulled back into a severe bun, her care-lined face bisected by a pair of large hazel eyes. She was ample of breast and hip, not too tall, around five foot three, but walked with a fluid grace that was totally unexpected.

"Let me set things straight for you Mister Benson, there will be no hanky-panky of any sort while you are in my care. I am here to look after you as a mother would. Not a wife, so any thoughts along those lines you can forget right now."

"I have my own room, which is off-limits to the likes of yourself, but I can, and will, enter your room, at any time that I see fit in the carrying out of my duties as your Carer, if you have a problem with that let me hear it now." She waited for my response, but there was none.

"I will cook your meals for you and clear up after each meal, I will do your laundry for you, I will cut your hair for you, and I will ensure that your medication is taken as prescribed by your doctor, but I will not help you in your ablutions." Again there was no response from me.

"You have your playing with clay to do and I have my quilting, when I am quilting I will not be interrupted, do you understand?"

"Yes."

Chapter 4: Another Time, Another Place.

"You can't make me do this!" Cassandra was angry, angrier than either of her parents had ever seen her.

"We can and we will. What do you expect us to do when you come here and tell us that you are pregnant, and to that, that art student of yours, fall on your neck and be happy?" Her father was equally angry.

"Who would you want me to fall pregnant to? Timothy Fairweather?"

"And why not? He is perfect for you, he comes from the right family, he has plenty of money in his own right and will inherit much more when his father passes on. He is good looking, he has good manners, and his polite to us."

"But he is so bloody boring! I just can't imagine life with stuffy old Tim, he's old before his time. I would be allowed no thoughts of my own, no personality of my own, no life of my own. He would tell me how to vote, how to dress, how to wear my hair and probably when to breath. I probably wouldn't even be allowed to continue with my Art studies."

"Just what did you intend to do about this child of yours?"

"I intend to marry Grantley and raise this child, and several others in a happy home, maybe not a rich home, but a happy home."

"And what do you plan to use for money, you won't be able to call on us to bail you out, you realise that."

"We have quite a bit saved from our work already, and I'm sure that we can survive on our earnings if we can find a place in the country that doesn't cost too much and we can grow our own food."

"We will not have our daughter living like some hillbilly in the backwoods!"

"You don't have a choice, that is what I, we, want."

"Does he know about this?"

"Not yet, we are going out to dinner tonight and I will tell him then."

"I don't think that is a good idea."

"I don't think that you have much say in the matter."

"What have we done to deserve this from you? Haven't we always given you everything you want?"

"No! Can't you see? You've met all of my material wants and then some, when I was a little girl I was sent to the very best prep school along with all of those other prissy little girls, then on to the best private school with a different group of prissy girls. Did you ever once ask if I enjoyed my life in those places? If you had you would have known that I hated it, I hated all of that and if it hadn't been for the time I spent pouring my heart out to Mary, I would have gone crazy. She showed me the stability one can achieve when one is loved. Grantley has given me love, unconditional love, not the air kissing love that I get from you. You haven't, when I needed it most, given me love." Cassie lowered her voice. "I felt more love with Grantley even though living with him in our apartment, sleeping with him on a mattress on the floor is so far removed from my life here, he loved me totally and I returned that loved, totally."

"How can you say that! We love you, you know that."

"Have you shown me love this afternoon? No! All you are concerned with is your image, your status in this world. You couldn't care less about what happens to me as long as I do as you say. Where do my feelings come into this? They don't! And that's the cruel part of this whole episode."

"Why don't we sit down and have a cup of coffee and calm down." Sabrina rang a small bell and Mary came into the room. "Coffee for the three of us please Mary. No, wait a minute, I'll come and give you a hand."

Cassandra took a sip of her coffee, "Is this a new blend?"

"Yes, don't you like it?"

"It's alright, just a little on the bitter side, that's all." She picked up a cookie from the plate in front of her and dunked it into her coffee. This brought a frown to her mother's face, another bad habit that she had learnt from that ghastly friend of hers. That will have to be stopped.

"I don't feel well." Cassandra took a tissue from her bag and mopped her brow. "It can't be morning sickness already, can it."

"Why don't you lie down for a minute or two."

Several hours later a large Diplomatic package passed through London Gatwick on its way to the American Embassy. It was not inspected, it was loaded, unchecked, into a van that headed into London.

"Where am I?" Cassandra woke in a strange room, her head was spinning.

"You're awake are you?" The voice came from a woman in nurse' uniform seated beside the bed in which Cassandra lay. "I'll let them know." She got up and left the room.

Cassandra tried to sit up and survey her surroundings but found herself restrained.

A large man in a white coat entered the room. "It's good to see that you are with us again, how do you feel?"

"Where am I, what is this place?"

"You are in England and this is a private Sanatorium, You apparently had some sort of psychotic episode on a plane crossing the Atlantic and you were brought here. It was lucky that your parents have friends in high places otherwise you might have ended up in a public psychiatric institution, and we couldn't have that, could we?"