Mboya says, Zack, it would make sense if you’re going to photograph them to have them all in the one place — on the same ward. Busner nods. — Yes, yes, my thoughts exactly — and now there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do this. . — For throughout the asylum system a cultural revolution has taken place: mixed wards, and together with these soixante-neufards! He had discovered two feisty young things arranged exactly thus and in full view on his acute ward over at the Halliwick, and thought, Good luck to ’em, and would’ve discharged them right away purely on the basis of this healthy sexual function, were it not that once the head had withdrawn from the tight pocket of the covers its eyes were extremely dilated — even by psychotic standards — while the ungummed mouth said: I put my ear innit annit toll me you wuz cumin wiv yer dyman eyes YOU KILLED THE COSMONAUTS!Then the nurses came running and that was that. Already Busner suspected that the acute staff were aware of his diagnostic legerdemain, for, try as he might, the speciousness of it all overwhelmed him. So, confronted by hysterical misery, he simply imposed on it his own commonplace unhappiness: On mornings when he was low Busner diagnosed depression, on those when he was low but had also drunk too much coffee, manic depression. And on mornings when he gripped the sides of the sink and saw staring back at him from the mirror a tousle-haired Ancient Mariner whose eyes could not meet his own, and whose temples rang with the rhymes of myriad surrealistic voyages, he shaved, got dressed, drove the Austin to Friern Barnet and diagnosed the first patient he saw either as schizophrenic or as hypomanic, depending on the toss of a coin, confident that whichever one it is. . it’ll all come out in the wash. — Mboya says, There’re a couple on 45, three on 34, one very poorly old fellow on 31. . He counts them off on his
teak fingers. Despite his amazement at this cataloguing, Busner doesn’t want to interrupt his flow, so simply removes a Woolworth’s shilling jotter from his jacket pocket, notes these down with the red Biro, then adds the one he saw on 14, and four they had both seen who ticced in time to the noise of the injection-moulding machinery in the Industrial Therapy Workshop, which was clearly audible through the walls of 26. Mboya is well ahead of him, though, for not only has he ranged the entire escarpment of the hospital — from the Fellowship Resocialisation Unit in the east to the Medium Secure Unit in the west — but he also has a hunter’s eye for the others, picking them out unerringly fromthe human morass. When he is done the whereabouts of twenty-two enkies have been established. — Twenty-two for definite, Zack, there’re another four or five I can’t be absolutely sure about. . Busner bridles internally prickly pride of the isolate at how frequently Mboya is using the just-tendered first name, his new toy . .and so says doubtfully, How do you know, Enoch? How can you tell them apart? The nurse speaks forensically: Like people with Tourette’s, the post-encephalitic patients exhibit all sorts of hyperkinetic behaviour. You’ve seen it for yourself: they yawn, they sniff, they gasp and pant like worn-out dogs, then hold their breath ’til fit to burst. . Busner holds his own breath as he stares at this prodigy, who remarks, Yes, staring, they do a lot of that too — I should’ve thought any psychiatrist worth his salt would’ve noticed that their fixation is so different to the way schizophrenics’ eyes wobble about. Then there’s their bellowing and their cursing — such cursing! Zack, I swear, I’ve heard gutter talk coming out of these little old ladies — your Miss Dearth too. Busner has an urge to interrupt — B-b-b- that’s forestalled by Mboya’s traffic policeman hand, and — Yes, urges, that’s what they have: uncontrollable urges. Y’know, when I went to the Newspaper Library over in Colindale and looked up first-hand accounts of the epidemic You did that? I read how they were labelled as moral aments, McConochie’s poor shades,even juvenile psychopaths. There was one ward right here that was dedicated to keeping these patients under lock and key — poor souls! Think of it, Zack, they didn’t know why they were coming out with such. . such obscenities, or why they had to grab and to touch, but you can imagine how such behaviour was dealt with in the twenties. . Busner feeling himself enslaved by this onrush of the factual, struggles to assert. . mastery. Erethisms, he says, by which I mean an uncontrollable sexual arousal — and he hopes I don’t sound patronising. But Mboya only ducks his head to accede and continues: It’s astonishing, Zack, the more you look it into it, the more you discover that the post-encephalitics have borne the brunt of every successive wave of psychiatric opinion. To give only one example, you’ll’ve noticed how Mister Ostereich on 14 sticks out his tongue at anyone who comes near him — and it stays that way. In the literature this is called flycatcher tongue, but in the thirties, when Bleuler’s ideas gained purchase here, it was decided that this was consciously willed by the patient — and aimed at the psychiatrist! They are alone now in the canteen apart from a pimply girl in a snood who mops the tea puddle beneath the incontinent urn. Far off in the bowels of the hospital there are whistles and yelps fractured by the whooshclack of swing doors. Busner pinches the buttons on his