Featured Poet - Helen Ibbotson

BONNIE AND CLYDE

I was married on a sunny day. Tears and laughter, joy and deep fears, the rustle of silk and the scent of flowers. Friends and family gathered in cheerful groups. My father spoke only once, as we travelled to church together. “It’s not too late,” he said. Friends from different eras in my 21 years met for the first time and exchanged stories. I cried only once, when a particularly insensitive pal sprayed my beautiful dress in green foam.

Peter owned a house already, so I simply moved in. 21 and barely out of school. My mother-in-law coached me on housework. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would need me to do it. She explained that furniture polish applied to the curtain rails would make sure the curtains drew smoothly, without squeaks. I stared at her, and barely repressed the laughter which would be inappropriate for what she took to be a serious matter.

I tried to cook. Selected recipes, bought ingredients. Called my mother to find out how many potatoes two people would eat. Peter came home to find me in tears over the wreckage of my Tarte tatin. He took over the cooking. At my school, domestic science was the province of those too thick to study physics. My love of physics ensured I had no grasp of the culinary arts.

Peter knew I’d had mental health problems. They had not been very evident to date, in the happy whirl of courtship and wedding planning. I wondered: would he stay or would he go? Peter had seen a falsely glossy picture during our courtship, but my mother had taken responsibility for talking to him. She shared my diagnosis but found him unconcerned. The priest who married us also tried to shake his complacency, without success. Pete was untroubled. In his view, all women were mad. So what?

A couple of months after our wedding I stayed up all night, raging and raving, planning the assassination of a politician. In the morning, I left, with a carrier bag in hand and no coat. Peter pleaded with me not to go. In my supermarket carrier bag were 12 tampons, a debit card for an account with little money, packets of cigarettes and a lighter. I added my copy of Ulysses, spotting a good opportunity to get through a long and demanding book. I ran most of the way to the station, unsure of the need for haste but convinced of it.

I caught the train to Derby, and climbed out following the instructions of my voices. I walked down the street to a grand hotel and swept inside. I hid myself in a function room, busy constructing a garotte from a wire coat hanger. I destroyed several before crafting a possible garotte for politicians with not much fight in them. I got quite bored waiting. Garotte in hand, I settled down to read Ulysses.

Deaf to all the pleading of porters and hotel management, I lay in wait for my prey, who, the voices assured me, would soon walk in. Management knew I was there and got nowhere trying to persuade me to take up different quarters. My public school accent and originally expensive clothes made them hesitate to take forceful action. I might – or my father might – one day be a customer. In despair, the manager called the police.

The police put me in a cell, where I tried to hang myself. The voices insisted on it. The price of failure, of course. I made use of an orange blanket, after which the police removed the blanket and most of my clothes. The police were not unduly concerned about my threatening behaviour. My politician was abroad, and nowhere near my choice of venue. I was not considered a threat, but was clearly mad.

The police took me to my home town, direct to the psychiatric unit where I’d been treated many times. They put me on a three day hold, and drugged me unconscious as usual. They then departed, duty done, with the responsibility for my fate passed over to the psychiatric team. I had a bed, which was, at first, all I needed.

Unknown to me as I slept, conspiracies were brewing. I had been on a 28-day section earlier in the year and could not be subjected to another. Therefore, the powers decided, it should be long term. Six months or a year, infinitely repeatable, in a long stay secure unit. I suspected they had the power. But I never thought they would apply it to me.

The psychiatrist did not bother to explain this, or even to see me. He knew me well enough. I found out from nursing staff and visitors. My parents came, to plead for me. No result. A sidekick doctor tiptoed in, expecting to see me raving and out of control. His role was a precaution against unfair deprivation of liberty. He was bewildered by my begging him not to sign, by my semblance of normality. ”You seem anxious.” he offered weakly. “Would you not be anxious?” I asked. “The psychiatrist can’t be wrong” he muttered and signed anyway. Such is the doctors’ pecking order.

They met with Peter. The Registrar told him straight. “You need to walk away and forget you ever met her. She’s mad, she’s schizo, she’ll knife you one night.” Pete came straight to me and we held one another. He could not stay long as the visiting hours were very limited. He went to his parents for consolation, where his mother told him to dump me immediately. I think it had something to do with curtain rails.

The next day, I extricated myself neatly from the locked ward and caught the bus home. I was tidying up a bit when the police came round. “Where is she?” they asked anxiously, peering over my shoulder. I thought I just needed to explain. They listened, but they had their orders. They treated me with considerable sympathy. But back to hospital we went.



I was now under closer supervision. Time was short. Once the new long term order came into force, I’d be gone, would not be free again. Because I had shown some virtuosity in the arts of escape, it was likely I would be sent to a secure unit. The psychiatrist was negotiating my placing. Peter and I planned all through visiting hour.

I was quiet and resigned, calling no attention. The next morning, I manoeuvred some confusion about who was minding me and where I was. I was lying on my bed, of course, reading Ulysses. “Sorry, nurse, did you want something?” Then a dash for the fire exit. Locked, of course, but with an adjacent override. That set off the alarm. I ran — fit in those days — straight into the car park and hid.

Chaos followed behind. All manner of alarms and panics. Security guards converging on the ward where I wasn’t. Lockdown, gates slammed, patrols readying themselves. And I? Through the fence, leaping across a line of back gardens. Then a bus, slowing for a stop, and I was aboard, going in completely the opposite direction to home. I relaxed on the bus seat, having paid my fare with nonchalance. I tried not to pant for breath and watched the passers by with more acute attention than usual.

Peter and I had a time and place planned. My only job was to get there unobtrusively. Not a problem. He had a week off work. He came equipped with a tent, a gas stove and sundry camping equipment. We shopped for food and, supplies complete, disappeared into the high moors, leaving the car well camouflaged in a wood. The weather held. Bacon and eggs, buttered bread, strong tea in a nest of heather. Nights sharing a sleeping bag. We walked cross country, well away from footpaths or roads, and pitched our tent out of sight. I got to finish Ulysses.

After a week or two, confident they would have been cleared we went to stay with my parents. And finally, cautiously, back home. No further hue and cry. No search, no interest. From the point of view of Them, too late. The order had lapsed. My parents had been visited by the police, and the house searched. They know nothing and said so. They promised to inform the police if they heard of us, but managed to break their word on this occasion.

Peter and I weathered many more mental health crises over the years. He never stopped supporting me, and I never stopped trusting him. Our marriage is well over the 40 year mark and rolling on, and our three grown up children are happy and successful. This is not the only time that Bonnie and Clyde rode out – Peter fought for me in all situations, whenever the medical establishment tried to negate me. At this stage he is my designated carer. Unlike Bonnie, I have never again sought to kill, and I suspect my chosen politician never had much to fear anyway.

IV

From this shabby window, I can see over the rooftops

Dirty rain trickles across dusty panes, pigeons scratch.

Once I climbed the highest tower, right to the roof

And looked in all directions, north, south, east, west

And saw a sea of dirty buildings, poverty beneath the lowering sky

Hopeless city streets, further than I could ever walk

A threat in each of a million doorways

Hatred walked behind me as I started to run

I see the hosts! 

From my high window, I see golden chariots, 

Pulled by pairs of galloping horses,

Breasting the whirling clouds and thundering by.

Take me too!

I could take the tablets in handfuls.

But no. “They’ll make you feel better”

But no. I’ll save them instead.

One by one, with a sip of water for each.

Until the bottle is done.

Tremulous hope. Take me too!

I wrote a note. It is customary, after all.

But then I hid it so carefully that it could never be found.

Some things are private.

V

Locked ward

Iron framed bed. Fixed windows above grass and tarmac.

From here I can’t see the sky.

Lie on the bed. Walk to the day room, 

where the TV blares but nobody attends.

Queue for medicine. Queue for food. Lie on the bed.

A screaming wretch is dragged down the corridor.

His clothes have come off, his genitals flopping helplessly.

They’re coming for me. Try to fight.

The nurse’s hands clench on my neck, squeezing, gripping, pressing.

I go limp. He holds the pressure long enough to make the point.

And flings me on the bed. That earns a jab in the bum.

Lie on the bed. Maybe sleep. Maybe race through those doors and run.

They pursue like a pack of hounds until they bring me down.

Jab in the bum. Lie on the bed.

The world is a distant dream. Reality is somewhere I once knew.

Bang my head on the wall for strange comfort.

Outside the seasons turn. People have lives and purpose.

With every hefty medication dose my thoughts quiet.

Until I am asleep in my head. Lie on the bed.

Automaton. Shuffling towards the door. Once it meant something…

Lie on the bed. Dead. Not dead.

VI

Time passes, sunrise, midday, sunset, sleep.

I see the world behind a thick layer of frosted glass.

Sometimes I want to reach through, mostly I just breathe.

I’m well trained, take my meds on time. 

Should I feel something, I know which tablet to take.

The air is soft and thick, like a cat’s fur.

Now and then, I choke on it.

The doctor signs me off once a year – “No change”.

I like to stare at nothing, fascinated.

I hold long engrossing conversations in my head.

Sometimes, I sit in my chair all day 

And do nothing, nothing at all.

Sometimes a few minutes of activity.

I sleep well, drugged unconscious.

I go nowhere, see no-one, think little.

I’m waiting to die. I’ve waited years already.

I monitor my body for pains that might signal my end.

Sometimes I make plans, but they run through my fists like water.

I’m ready to be gone. My time is done.

I hope for nothing except the blessing of a quiet death.

OCCAM'S RAZOR

The ward is silent bar the distant chatter of the staff.

My peers are asleep, huddled like rats in their burrow.

I have nested in white health service towels in a dry bath.

My project requires a locked bathroom, and no-one to know

I bought the razor blades a time ago, tucked them in my washbag.

They cost very little. Who’d have thought a death could be bought

so cheaply? Slowly I scratch my guideline and drag

the blade across my pulse, flexing to cut where the skin is taut.

I watch the matching wounds on each wrist gape wide.

No pain. Should there be pain? I cut some vessels, but not enough blood.

Nurse bustles in, using her universal key. "Not another suicide!"

I’ll have to get more blades. Job not done, I’m still not dead.

The doctor had to get out of bed to apply the stitches. He was cross.

No one asked me why I did it. I’d no clue, but I loved making cuts. 



THE CARPENTER'S DAUGHTER

Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary?

Matthew 13:55

March offers rain and wind, showers and sun.

In the City, no lambs or bursting greenery.

Rows of chocolate eggs in the shops,

And a six foot high technicolour rabbit.

Blackened bricks squat to the ground.

Dirty water gushing from broken gutters.

Rain lanks my hair to my head.

Creeps into my trainers to dilute the blood.

Why are my feet bleeding? Something to do with Jesus.

That reminds me that I need to hammer nails

Through my wrist. No hammer. No nails.

But plenty of vinegar in the caff down the alley.

Smell of dirty grease. Scuffed lino. Peeling chipboard.

"Black coffee, please." Corner seat, back to wall..

When did I last eat? Not here. They’ll poison me.

I watch carefully until no-one sees.

Sly fingers grasp for the vinegar 

Wild eyed and wet, I stare anxiously around.

Both the adjacent tables are watching me, as is the waitress.

Panic as I thrust the bottle into a pocket.

Spilling my coffee, I bolt for the toilet and lock the door.

I collapse onto the toilet, panting with anxiety.

Recovering, I sip the vinegar meditatively

Until it is gone. It is the will of God.

Calm now, I shove the empty bottle behind the toilet pan.

A dirty, spidery space. I pretend to wash and dry my hands,

Just in case anyone is monitoring. I exit the toilet,

Seeing my table clean I leave the cafe too. The waitress scowls.

VOICES

I am as I think —

Gentle chatter that tells me what I am, who I am —

I’m doing this, in here, while over there... —

A louder interloper repeats my thoughts,

Innocuous thoughts, suddenly made ridiculous.

My thoughts are torn apart, criticized, held to ridicule.

The chorus laughs, scorn and humiliation.

Can I just stop thinking? Can I blank it out with loud noise?

I call it the demons. What would you call it?

A chorus of criticism. Contempt. Mocking and poking fun.

I find that banging my head on the wall is oddly comforting.

Not too hard, gentle, rhythmic. For my action, a deluge of scorn. 

The voices rise to screams. Their message strengthens.

Die, bitch. You need to die. You can’t do anything right.

You poison all you touch. You deserve to hurt.

So attractive, a peaceful sleep ahead. Black velvet silence.

We’ll leave you alone if you just hurt yourself. 

My logic is drowned out. I start to pace and posture.

I want to rip my head off. I want to run to exhaustion.

Slowly, the plans form. It has to be hard and to hurt

To feel like vengeance for being this pathetic creature.

I want to join forces with them, want to be one of them.

I’ll be free, will no longer harm my children, distress my husband.

‘I will kill her. She needs me to do that. She is broken.’

Sometimes I bargain. ‘Yes, but tomorrow. I need a bit longer.’

The screaming fills my head until I can no longer think.

I stagger blindly on my path to death and salvation.

As the first steps are taken, some relief. They’ll ease if I just keep going.

Sometimes, suicide feels just like redemption.

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