Madness Read Free Page A

straight. I friggn’ keep falling asleep!’
    â€˜Are you going to take it when you go home?’
    â€˜No way. Like I said, I can’t keep my eyes open. I have to look after my daughter. I can’t do that if I’m half asleep all day.’ They nod up and down in unison and take copious notes.
    Hana comes at me with a mouth full of chocolate. ‘Kiss me,’ she says. I kiss her. Her lips are soft as clouds. Simon laughs and makes a whooping noise; I punch him lightly in the ribs.
    â€˜That good?’ he asks. ‘Wish it were me.’
    The ward courtyard has a garden containing a miniature Japanese maple with a curved trunk and several flowering gum trees. There’s also a gnarled plane tree bereft of its leaves, the lower branches having been sawn off to prevent people climbing it. We sit in a circle by its trunk, drinking de-caffeinated coffee, watching the light change light grey to dark as the sun moves across the sky. I can’t always make out who is talking.
    Two weeks after admission, the unit social worker helps me complete forms to claim Sickness Allowance: $453.30 a fortnight. I can’t tell if this is a lot of money or a pittance, the numbers sit unprocessed in my brain. And I have an appointment with the Plastic Surgery people. They remove the plaster cast on my arm with an electric saw. The stitches are ready to come out – a cut above the knot, a soft pull through skin – the wavery black string lying innocuous on stainless steel once held me together.
    â€˜ECT,’ says the psychiatrist one morning. ‘Electroconvulsive therapy.’ She accentuates convulsive.
    â€˜Fabulous,’ I say. My heart is loud, my breathing roughens, I twist my fingers into fists.
    â€˜Read this and you can sign it tomorrow.’ She gives me an information sheet. ‘If you don’t sign it we’ll have to make you involuntary.’
    You will have a general anaesthetic.
    A small electric current is passed between two electrodes on your scalp.
    When you wake up, you will have no memory of the procedure.
    It is completely painless.
    While I wait for the first session of ECT I seek out Coby on the couch.
    â€˜Have you been to the Philippines?’ he asks, his eyes are so blue they might have been scooped out of the sky. ‘It’s not just the islands. It’s the people. And the jungle. Want to listen to some music?’ Coby has earphones and a portable CD player. He lends me the left earpiece and we sit together on the couch listening to Chinese opera.
    â€˜Chen Shu Liang,’ he says, pointing at his cd player.
    â€˜You have beautiful eyes Coby,’ I say suddenly. He stares at me.
    â€˜Laughter always was the best medicine,’ he replies, gets up and walks away, earphones trailing behind him. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m mocking him.
    The ECT room has a trolley bed in the centre, a mobile cupboard full of medication, a defibrillator and a view over the road to the park. I lie down on the bed face up. There’s a picture of a forest on the roof. The anaesthetics registrar puts an IV needle in the back of my left hand. The ECT nurse, Anna, lifts up my gown and places ECG markers down the centre of my chest and under my left breast. I feel horribly exposed. Then she puts dobs of Vaseline on my scalp where the electrodes will go; it’s cold and sticky. Bernice is talking on her mobile in the corner of the room.
    â€˜Ready?’ asks Anna.
    I nod. Ready to die.
    The anaesthetic registrar attaches a syringe to the IV line and begins to push through a white liquid – I can feel it running up the cephalic vein in my arm, heavier than blood, then my head is assaulted with a huge buzzing and the world goes white.

‘Kate,’ a voice is speaking from far above me. I have no idea where I am; I am not even sure who I am. The room is all white – walls, floor, beds, curtains. If this is death, it’s whiter