short story

the mad

the bad

and the different

When I was seventeen years old, I sound like Leonard Cohen, I had a nervous breakdown. My father took me to the doctor who gave me a bottle of green iron tonic. He said it was female problems. That is what they said in the 1950s. It took me months to recover.

The world seemed a long place away from where I sat in my bedroom. My friend Penny was sent to the Royal Derwent Hospital by her father when at eighteen she became promiscuous. My friend Joy was sent there at seventeen when she stopped eating. My mother's friend Faye was sent there after the birth of each child. My brother's friend Dasher went there and stayed forever after he hurt a child. Electric shock therapy, insulin treatment and knock me out medications kept control.

The 100 women resident in the Hospital had the use of two small yards of less than a quarter acre each. The adjoining three acre paddock was forbidden to them. The Male division had a walled garden of a quarter acre. Two small enclosed yards of a quarter acre each were in use for unquiet inmates, and a small area in front of the hospital was used by quiet and convalescent inmates. There was no classification of the inmates in the wards. And around it all was the ha-ha.

Not seen and not heard.

By 1990 such hospitals and institutions were systematically closed. Along with all the refuges and safe places for people on the fringe, they disappeared. The mad, the bad, the different, were suddenly plunged into the edges of the community. The government dollars went into new institutions which were opened for the elderly - called homes for the aged. The non-elderly were given medication.

I first met Alistair when he was 40. A beautiful man interested in art and opera. A poet with Sweeney Reed and Shelton Lea as his heroes. Great and dangerous fringe dwellers of the 70s. Alistair dressed in hand knitted jumpers of soft greens and heathers and a cravat. He had been living with Kevin for many years. Big fat bald Kevin, dressed in oversize t-shirts, tracky daks and thongs. He would snap his fingers to go home and Alistair would follow. On the days he managed to escape Kevin we would wander through galleries, listen to music and sip endless cups of coffee. He clung to my armpit like a limpet when he became nervous. I suspected that there were other days when he disappeared from Kevin's orbit.

The day I found my long pink boots in Brunswick Street Alistair was beside himself. He searched endlessly for the same boots in size 11. He found some similar boots in scarlet costing twice as much as my pink boots. Kevin was beside himself and so cross at the waste of money I thought he would hit me. Much later that day, Alistair, in red boots and his Alice outfit, went out on the town. Through the city streets and by ways that were unsafe for me. Kevin found him days later in a medical emergency ward, battered, bruised and bewildered with his red boots on.

After Kevin died Alistair queened his way through the underground of the city for weeks on end. No longer taking his medication. No Kevin to monitor his alcohol intake. His costumes competed with Gaye Hawke's Queen of Australia creations. From time to time one of his nine sisters would rescue him and nurse him back to health. The last time I saw him he turned away. Grand he was. The Grand Duchess of Gordon Street. Somewhat tattered and bedraggled he staggered off into a side street.

When he was 50 he was placed in an all male institution. An old age home. Like the thousands of older women and sometimes men daily encouraged by their families to desert their lives he went quietly. Out of sight out of mind. He sits with the other men like an old juke box telling the same story day after day. Medicated. Alcohol free. Writing the same poem.

The 100 residents in the Home have the use of two smaller gardens. The adjoining two acre garden is forbidden to them. Two small enclosed yards are used for recalcitrant residents, and a small area in the garden in front of the Home is used by quiet and convalescent residents. There is no classification of the residents in the Home.

My Aunt Daisy lived in her sister's garage for years, sponged herself with Dettol daily, wrote poetry and muttered to herself. One year when we were children she served my sister and I red jelly flowers – mouldy. My sister in desperation has said to me at times – you are just as bad as Aunt Daisy though I cannot remember serving mouldy jelly.

When she was fifty seven years old my mother's sister Auntie Marie, the artist, went to bed for a year and painted. She said it was because there were fleas in the house. I have never had fleas in the house.

My friend Digger ate his way through the 70s on magic mushrooms. He lives with imaginary people in a room in town. He is never lonely. Sometimes he writes music and sings at the local pub.

When I was fifty seven years old, at one of my exhibitions, I overheard my older brother comment – looks like she has finally settled down- and my sister nodded. On the outside looking in. On the outside. Outside.

Are we mad? Sometimes

Are we bad? Occasionally

Are we different? Yes