Curative by Charlotte Randall

Author:Charlotte Randall
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742288383
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2010-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Deliquium

I am told it is May. I am told that it is a wonderful May this year, warmer and finer than usual right from the start. I enjoy my time out in the yard. The fiddler comes, not always sober, but he plays simple tunes well enough. He doesn’t bring his daughter. I am just beginning to think that life is improving when, one late afternoon, Mr Haslam appears in my cell. I am sitting unrestrained on the bed, lost in one of my many plans of escape.

‘What do you think of the weather?’ he asks me with a pleased smile, as if he himself were responsible for it.

‘Very pleasant.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? Owing to the unseasonably fine and warm weather, we have decided to bring the summer treatments forward this year.’

‘Summer treatments? I thought music and poetry and a view of the sky were my current treatments.’

‘Life isn’t all poetry and fiddling, even for madmen. It is our custom here to apply medical treatments to all of the curables every summer, all at the same time.’

‘I’ve had a number of your so-called medical treatments. They made me ill.’

‘These will make you better. It is not enough that we might have a rational conversation together from time to time; there is still a nerve in you that, when plucked, vibrates with a lunacy all your own.’

‘Oh, and what nerve is that?’

‘It is difficult to describe precisely. But it speaks Latin, lacks insight and sometimes claims to be a king.’

‘That nerve is educated, refuses to be bullied and understands a complex metaphor.’

‘That nerve is arrogant, deluded and doesn’t know its place.’

‘I don’t feel like having this competition.’

‘Good. You realise the wisdom of not doing so. We will begin your summer treatment tomorrow. We begin with bloodletting, move on to vomits and vesicants, and conclude with purges.’

‘Thank you. That sounds most enjoyable.’

‘During this time, if you are well enough, we also might use plays.’

‘Use plays?’

‘As a treatment. It has been reported that play-acting has produced calming effects on the lunatics in some asylums. I assume it is because they are all bored rigid. But the physician is keen to try it anyway.’

‘So we are to stumble round throwing up and shitting ourselves while declaiming to be or not to be?’

‘You remain a very coarse man.’

‘Well, who knows – it might be an improvement. I always thought a prince having such anxieties was a flagrant self-indulgence. Much more fitting for lunatics who can’t control their guts or their bowels to put the eternal question.’

‘I see you are familiar with Hamlet.’

‘I’m familiar with all of Shakespeare.’

‘I despise the theatre.’

‘I thought you might. I rather went off it myself. Too much dross. It’s become difficult for an intelligent man to be entertained these days.’

‘Too much immoral muck. And an actress is as good as a prostitute.’

‘Better, I’d say.’

Mr Haslam draws his mouth in sourly and motions to the keeper to unlock the door. ‘I hope your treatment cleans up your mouth,’ he says, pausing in the doorway.

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