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The Anvil - Part I

CHAPTER 1
We are introduced to Clare upon her admission to psychiatric care, and begin a flashback chronicling her decline.


pages 4 & 5:


The Hempstead Psychiatric Centre looked like a disturbed mind itself. More than anything it resembled an untidy stack of shoeboxes, precariously balanced.

Its full title was 'The Hempstead Psychiatric Centre for Emotionally Disturbed Adolescents'. Back in 1970 it stood next to a large brown shoebox of a medical building which entirely dominated one corner on a downtown street. Although seemingly dwarfed by the shoebox, the centre extended farther back from the street and was actually quite a large complex, teeming with psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. The patients were nowhere to be seen.

The girl sitting inside the Hempstead Psychiatric Centre had a similarly misleading appearance. Her large brown eyes were lost under a pair of straight black eyebrows. Her small mouth belonged on a hurt child. Pallid from an indoor existence, she sat hunched in one of the lobby chairs, surrounded by a protective halo of long brown hair. Nobody could have seen that her plain fall coat hid a dancer's body, with a long curved neck and posture which was an acquired habit. Inside clenched fists her fingernails had been bitten to the quick.

She sat there with her head down, an ignominious sight. Every once in a while she raised it and peered around the room, taking in one detail after another, then drifted back into the self effacing stupor from which she had emerged.

She was wedged between a man and a woman, both middle aged. The woman was comfortably plump and matronly. The man was tall and distinguished in appearance, with an aristocratic bearing.

About a month before, school had started.


Clare Worthing was fifteen years old in twelfth grade. She came from a prosperous family of British origin consisting of two parents, three daughters and a dog. Everyone except the dog had emigrated to Canada when the children were little, and that was where they lived now. Since the age of nine Clare had attended a private and elite ballet academy. That September she had found herself staring instead at a large and bare public high school.

A week later she would be referred to Hempstead, suffering from debilitating nausea. A minor was not allowed to be perpetually sick. It was called truancy. She had to be put somewhere.

The reason her mundane existence had become insupportable was buried deep within the Worthing family. To understand this we must travel back in time to its origins, then forward to Clare's life at Hempstead to see how the truth would unravel in that extraordinary place.

This is Clare's case history. There are two versions. I will give you the true one first.

All the psychiatrists in the world could not have taught her the one thing she needed to know. Forgetting about therapy. Forgetting about getting better.

That was her therapy. That was what saved her.


CHAPTER 2
Clare's early childhood is described.


pages 21 & 22:


There had been another child before them –a boy, tragically and unnecessarily stillborn under horrible circumstances after more than fifty hours' labour. Their mother told Clare that she had woken up from her sedation staring into the two huge, scared eyes of a very young nurse.

"He's dead, isn't he?" she had said. "Don't be afraid. It's all right to tell me." And the nurse had burst into tears.


CHAPTER 3
Early years at a private school are described.
(Carrie was one of the other students.)


pages 41 & 42:


During Clare's childhood, neighbourhood kids had occasionally asked each other, "What are you?" The meaning of this open ended question differs from place to place, and reveals what issue people deem most important in each area. Years later in New York it would always mean "What race are you?" Here and now it referred to religion.

Coming from a family which refused to ally itself with any religious group, Clare found herself answering this singularly rude question with one word: "Nothing". She did not relish telling other people that she was nothing. It was bad for her. It was also bad for her to hear the usual reactions to her answer.

"But you must be something. Everybody's something."

And after full appreciation of this oddity: "That's weird".

When Carrie learned that Clare was nothing her automatic response was, "I don't want to know you". However, the advantages of knowing Clare soon became apparent to Carrie, and she changed her mind.


pages 43 & 44:

Carrie encouraged Clare whenever she showed signs of improvement, rather as a mother encourages a toddler to walk, with a softened voice and arched eyebrows. But after cross questioning her victim, she felt it incumbent upon herself to remark that she didn't think much of Clare's beliefs, which were rooted in the premise that reality was not dependent upon being observed, even by a deity.

Carrie's focus, however, was upon the details of life at which she excelled, and she lamented Clare's whimsical heedlessness of trivia, assumed to stem from the evil of her godless upbringing. Clare lost things. Her homework had jam on it. Her blouse frequently needed to be tucked in. And Clare was impertinent. There were criticisms after she ventured to discuss a correction with the English teacher, and a few comments that people who don't believe in God think nobody's better than they are.

When someone remarked favourably upon Clare's draughtsmanship in art class, Carrie remarked, "Well, she's not Leonardo da Vinci, but she's not Carrie either". It was important to remind Clare that she was not in Leonardo's league. Especially since some people used expressions like 'exceptionally gifted' and 'perfect likeness' when they saw her sketches, very bad for someone who already thought nobody was better than she. It was also important for Carrie to denigrate her own work, in order to demonstrate that humility which on her was so charmingly becoming.


CHAPTER 4
We learn more about Clare's family.
(Lisa and Dian were Clare's sisters.)


page 53:


"Dian," said Lisa, "An umbrella and candy are not over thirty dollars."

"I don't know how much they cost. I don't remember, and I consider it unethical to lie," came the prim answer.

"Say it's thirty," urged the customs official. "It's thirty."

"It's thirty," assured the other two girls in unison.

"No," said Dian quietly, "I'm not sure how much it cost". The official began to emit huge sighs, and it took a long time to get out of the airport.


CHAPTER 5
Clare was treated for a crooked spine.


pages 65 & 66:


The nurse suddenly towered before Clare, told her that the doctor would see her in a minute and disappeared. Clare went cautiously into his office. Nobody was there, but an X-ray hung on the wall in front of his big desk. It showed a male bone structure. The bones looked grey, as though they were disintegrating.

She opened a door just a crack and timidly put her nose through. Dr. Hill was there with a boy on an examining table. The boy looked perfectly fine.

Clare pulled her nose back and returned to the waiting room. Presently the nurse returned and said loudly and repetitiously, "You should never go into a doctor's office without knocking". Then she added, "I'll see whether the doctor will take you now. You must never...." I omit the rest.

Clare waited. When the nurse came back she was completely changed. "The doctor will see you now," she said gently, then put her arm around Clare and smiled. And Clare would always love her for doing that.


CHAPTER 6
We notice disturbing trends about Clare's family life, but do not yet understand their significance.


pages 83 & 84:


Then there was Dian's birth. Clare would never forget the sound of her mother's anxious voice assuring her that everything was all right. The little girl wondered why Mummy was in a wheelchair, and why her voice had become high pitched and tense. The fact was, everything would have been fine but now it wasn't. As usual, Mummy was sending out messages that she (Mummy) felt concerned, this time about Clare's reaction to the baby's birth. Clare picked up the messages loud and clear. Mummy was concerned, and Clare was expected to appease Mummy. And whenever she heard that tone of voice, she would know that it was her job to keep her mother happy.


CHAPTER 7
We see more of school life.
(Eloise, Anita and Adrienne were classmates.)


pages 90 & 91:


When she turned against Clare Eloise gave her a label, like all her rejects. The complexity of a human being summed up in one word. Anita was a show off. Clare was immature. Carrie was just weird. Adrienne was hypocritical. People were identified with their faults.

Clare later found out that the catalyst which caused Eloise to finally drop a favourite was an adverse comment from someone else. When she discovered that another person did not think highly of her companion she started to get nervous. Clare had no idea how fortunate she was to get away with defending Anita one day, since Eloise didn't like being confused by conflicting opinions. Terry had left the school, and Anita was probably very hurt by a double loss. After Eloise she teamed up with Adrienne, citing sincerity as her new friend's most appealing virtue.


CHAPTER 8
The cumulative effect of six years at the private school began to take their toll on Clare.


pages 106 & 107:


They were children, and they were unhappy being trapped in that place. And children always like fun people. If they smile at you and you don't smile back, that means you're not a nice person. Life is simple. Judgment is easy. It was a terrible thing for Clare to feel that danger all around her, to cry her eyes out at night in the fear that they might not like her, because she needed so much to have people like her, because she knew how vicious they were, how they thirsted to hate, how she had to be perfect or they would not want to know her, and how when she was out of luck, even if she behaved perfectly they would not.

How does it feel to cry and cry and cry in terror because you know what they do to people they don't like? Do you know what children do to people they don't like? Have you ever felt that viciousness below the surface? The enjoyment of baiting something they outnumber, the compulsion to conquer, the thrill of letting out everything on something defenceless, something which answers quietly or not at all, something alien –all that is a reaction to their own fear of such a thing happening to them. They are so afraid to be targets that they willingly contribute to someone else's ruin in order to detract attention from themselves. Within the group they are invisible.

It is a terrible thing to be afraid of the people you live with and work with, but that is the way of children, and the more ruthless among them learn to deflect the madness which they see onto other people. They juggle with it, and toss it away. But they must be very careful in this game, because all they need do is become visible once and the worst will happen. And yet, they must not show the others their fear because they know that is guaranteed to make them visible. Children are trapped for years in a cage with people who want to hurt them. It's fun for these people to hurt them because, you see, they are in the cage too, slaves to their parents who hit them and treat them with contempt. A child has no options. She wakes up on a pillow still damp at the edges, and she goes back to her enemies every day.


CHAPTER 9
Clare's family recognized that something was wrong.


pages 117 & 118:


Clare was seeing a psychiatrist these days. Mummy had made the first appointment without her knowledge, and after informing her of it called a family meeting.

In a tight little voice Mummy explained that she and Daddy had gradually come to believe Clare was hurt in spirit, just as one could be hurt in body. Going over her own unwilling evolution to this realization, she nodded her head over every word.

"And just as, when a person's body is hurt, she goes to a body doctor, so when her spirit is hurt she goes to a spirit doctor," she said painfully, sitting rigid in her chair.

"Why don't you just say 'a psychiatrist'?" interjected Dian irritably.

Mummy's distinctions were quite incorrect, by the way. When you're hurt, you're hurt. Not until many years later did Clare learn that her mother had been as unwilling to visit a psychiatrist as her own parents had been to visit a physician.

Clare had a few uncomfortable interviews with the psychiatrist, who sat behind a huge desk. This was after Mummy had repeated her speech to him, followed by a silence full of misery. When Mummy was unhappy she began vociferously and then abruptly became mute.

The psychiatrist gave Clare a barrage of tests and reported that she had a low self esteem.

"She has every reason to have a high opinion of herself," said Mummy.

"Of all people, Clare is the last I would expect to have a low self esteem," said Daddy.

"We were always diligent in making her feel that everything she accomplished was worthwhile," added Mummy mournfully.

Then she cancelled the appointments.

"I think she doesn't need help any more. She's so much better, everything seems to be settled now," said Mummy, speaking far too quickly. The psychiatrist looked lost behind his desk. Clare wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault.

"I didn't really think that doctor was doing anything for you," Mummy explained later.


CHAPTER 10
Clare was accepted at the Hempstead Psychiatric Centre.
(Mrs. Jolson was her parents' advisor there.)


pages 136 & 137:


She declined into a vegetative state. Slavers get tired trying to achieve the impossible, and her parents were exhausted.

Every morning she would lie motionless on her bed. As instructed by the omniscient Mrs. Jolson, Daddy roughly heaved her out of it and tore off her nightgown while she hung from his arms. He threw her curled body onto the bed, forced apart her arms and legs while he pulled on her clothes, then kicked her feet into place and yelled that she must stand on them, to no avail. Then he pried open her eyelids with his fingers while Mummy cried, "Please don't, please don't!"

Mummy was nearly screaming, but Clare could do nothing to help. Daddy literally dragged her inert body downstairs. "I will not carry her," he declared. "She can walk for herself." Then, with Mummy crying agonized tears and repeating, "Don't hurt her, don't hurt her –you're hurting her!" (and the dog barking, and Clare wondering whether these assaults would dislocate something and ruin her ballet career) he would throw her on the sofa and keep Mummy from consoling her.

"Let's have breakfast," he would say. "If she wants some she can come into the dining room." And Clare would lie on the sofa bruised and crying in the breathless way small children cry, because he had knocked the wind out of her. And her tears would be for Mummy too, for being so hopelessly ignorant.


pages 138 & 139:

Clare did not want to go to Hempstead. She had her first real knowledge of homesickness when Mummy helped her pack. Mummy was so very dear, and Clare was so very afraid. How could she go to this place where nobody cared about her? Mummy promised that she would write Clare a note every day and leave it with the receptionist.

Mummy's way of expressing love was busily packing everything twice. This was fine with Clare, who had no desire to assist her own departure. She looked at her half filled suitcase and resisted the urge to return her clothes to their drawers. She wanted time to stop still, but of course it never does and we have to do most of these frightening things which turn out all for the better. Mummy always showed her sympathy by piling all sorts of unnecessary baggage upon people. Clare, who preferred to travel light, had to discard most of what Mummy pressed on her in a futile attempt to substitute for her absence.

Every second was an eternity and every second flew as they walked into the lobby. Which brings us back to where we started, with Clare Worthing sitting huddled in the Hempstead Psychiatric Centre, a parent on either side, awaiting her doom.

graphic courtesy of Shapiro Webgallery
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