Asylum Piece

he sun was shining, it was a lovely, calm day, one of those premature spring days which sometimes come to encourage us towards the end of a long, hard winter.

In the hall, which is dimly lit, someone moves out of the shadows and approaches the group. It is Miss Swanson who has waited a long time patiently for this moment. Dressed now in a blue knitted dress of exactly the same style as the mauve one which she wore earlier in the day, she comes up to the girl and, ignoring the nurses entirely, enfolds her in a compassionate and triumphant embrace.

There is dead silence inside the car. Even he, unimaginative and withdrawn as he is, feels the burden of silence. ‘Why doesn’t she say something?’ he wonders, peering at the averted whiteness that is her face. The car takes the final bend sharply and her body is thrown against his.
Suddenly she grasps his shoulders with both hands; he is surprised at the strength of her fingers, he feels her pointed fingers nipping into his flesh through the jacket and shirt.
‘You can’t leave me here ... You must take me back with you!’ she cries shrilly, against his chest.
‘Now, Freda, do try and be reasonable. You know perfectly well that I can’t take you – that the doctors say you must stay here for the present.’
He tries to disengage her fingers; but he cannot capture her hands which, like desperate sparrows, are beating all about him, clawing at his sleeve, his lapels, his tie, even his face. He can do nothing except dumbly defend himself against those clawing, beating hands, his ears deafened and appalled by the broken treble that fills the interior of the closed car with ceaseless, inarticulate lamentation.
They have come now to the entrance of the clinic.