A Break in the Machinery – Part 2

The black dog waits.  He cares not who owns him, or when. But given the opportunity, he slides through the door and slips inside, unnoticed. He belongs to many. He makes himself at home by finding an inconspicuous place, where he slumbers. He sleeps until he hears his name. Then he stirs, rotates, yawns… the black dog awakens.

The memories of that night and the following days are not clear. The hours of darkness are a blur.  I am lost, who to call, what to do.  I am torn, I remember, between the bubbling reactions of  panic and logic. Panic – only to find he is down the road having a beer?  Remain calm, to find out tomorrow he has been run over by a bus on the highway?  The thoughts stream through, my runaway train on an abandoned track. Where is he?  Why?   I do what I think is normal – clean up, tidy up, walk around in circles. I feel ill, try and read, worry worry worry, refuse to call anyone in case they think I am an idiot should he stagger home in the morning full of Jack Daniels and a story about a hard day. 

Only he doesn’t stagger. And there is no story. There is just morning, dawning, empty bed, empty room, empty house.

 I have sketchy memories of this time and the days that follow  a jumble of people and conversations and fears and feelings.  I write what I remember and hope it is cohesive. I realise there are chunks of time – lost hours, lost days – I don’t recall. I think a little part of me lost my mind for a while.

It’s 7.30 AM. I can prolong this no more. I raise, shower, dress. The hammering of the heart is so loud. Can everyone else hear me? I may explode, the yammer is so loud. I  manage some type of normal face and make lunch, schlep the child to school, take myself home and stare at the phone.  It refuses to ring. It’s stubborn, like me. I know it works – I have tested the dial tone a million times in the last few hours.  I raise the plastic again and resist the urge to fling it against the wall.  It’s not yet 24 hours, the kindly  woman at the Police Station informs me gently. Nothing we can do yet.  Call us tomorrow …

  

It’s 2.15 AM. I am exhausted. I feel like I have run a marathon, cried an ocean, screamed myself horse. The mirror lies to me – I look dishevelled, surely but I still look like me. I feel, on the other hand, like a banshee. I am wild of eye, a twitch has set in and my hands shake so I can barely hold  the handset to check the dial tone once again.  When the telephone finally screams at me from my hands, I am so startled I drop it on the floor.  I stand and stare at the deceiving, lying, wicked plastic object until the tinny voice from inside it jolts me:  “Hello? Hello? Mrs Rhubarb?” With shaking hands, I pick up the receiver, and try to find my voice. “Hello?” I manage…..

At around 2.00 AM - some 36 hours after he had vanished, my husband was found.   

He was incoherent.  He was unable to tell anyone who he was – he could not recall his name, his age, his address, his date of birth. (Although he could remember mine,and gave it as his).  He was unable to tell anyone that he had a wife, a child, a life. 

 

He was recorded as a vagrant.

He had, at some stage, crawled into a phone box for shelter. It happened there was a  1800-R E V E R S E  poster aimed at runaway children on the wall.  I was later told he used that telephone number to call his father in Melbourne.  All he could say to his father was “It’s all over, I can’t do it anymore.”  His father called the authorities (but not me – and that’s a whole other story). From there, he was collected and taken to PCMH*.  His father also called a mutual friend. The mutual friend called me – finally.  And from there, I located my husband.

I have no memory of getting to or from the hospital. Someone has my child. Someone must be feeding and watering those who rely on me. Someone must be. Someone.   I can not see him; he will not tolerate anyone or see anyone or see me. I am told he becomes agitated when someone says my name , so they mention me not.  He cries when someone says our son’s name. I am told it’s best if I don’t push, to wait. I have become invisible to him, to others. The focus is on the the patient. I am merely a casualty in the war of his mind.  I wait.

  

I am going mad, waiting. Someone tells me I must  wash, I must eat. Someone tells me I mus go home.

Finally someone fetches me a doctor, who feeds me a pill – and I remember falling on the shower floor, consciousness slipping away as the sedative takes hold and  I sink into an artificial sleep where the world continues to revolve whilst I sleep the sleep of haunted dreams.  Perhaps that all it is. My own nightmare.

It has been 72 hours, I find, looking at the digital calendar. A mere 72 hours of calmatives, sedatives and hospital care.  72 hours before he speaks, finally.  I am allowed to see him.  But now I am on medication to keep me calm so life is all neon yellow and green and blue and no one will leave me by myself  even in the toilet.

  

My story, so far, has been  my  perspective, however disjoint and fractured the memory may be. These are the parts he will never know – he nor my child. They will never know, never see, me almost hysterical with worry, asking, repeating, crying and questioning. They will never know the terror of being the one waiting, the one watching the second hand on the clock tick by, the one no one is concerned for because the real worry, the real concern, goes to him.

And so it should.

For a while, the black dog sleeps….