Audi Alteram partem by Abi Wyatt

Audi Alteram Partem by Abi Wyatt

I guess that most people, if they are honest, will admit to having one nasty secret, some
action or experience, either from their childhood or a long-ago, lost life, the recollection of
which fills them with horror, guilt, or disgust; or, perhaps, makes them blush to the roots of
their hair with stomach-churning, toe-curling embarrassment. It’s natural to suppress such
memories – and, in this, I’m no different to most guys – but sometimes it seems that there’s
something out there that won’t let matters rest. At such times, you could almost swear there’s
this great universal finger that wag, wag, wags away from one side of the ether to the other
and then pokes its nail-bitten end deep in someone’s private pie. This, of course, is how most
people feel but I am something of an expert. I am a psychiatric nurse, recently retired.

It should be no surprise, then, that this is how I feel when, out shopping one bright, spring
morning, I find myself face to face with Sister MacDonald. For twenty-five years I have
managed not to think of her but, in the space of a single heartbeat, all the details I have tried to
forget are dragged out into the light, dusted down, polished up, and shoved back in the
forefront of my consciousness. The work of years is undone at a glance because there she is in
front of me, older it is true and a shade plumper but unquestionably herself.

All those years ago, when I first knew her, her exceptional beauty had been legend. Her
mother was Anglo-Indian, well-educated and socially ambitious, and her father some kind of
engineer, a passionate, flame-haired Scot. That their only daughter got the best of the gene
pool was quite obvious to all those who knew her. Not only was she was slender with small
hands and feet and a complexion the colour of pale butterscotch, but her cheekbones were
impossibly high and her eyes, large and dark. Her full lips were well-defined, her nose very
slightly retroussé; the long coil of her auburn hair was glossy and thick. In a stable of nags,
she was, so to speak, a sleek and well-groomed hunter, one whose coat was smooth as silk and
the colour of damson jam.

Before you go leaping to conclusions, I was never what you might call a friend of hers. We
were colleagues, nothing more; we worked the same wards. Even without the publicity,
however, I would have known her anywhere. One glimpse of those eyes and I was right back
at the The Aspens, watching her making her rounds, though somehow or other she always
made it feel like a kind of royal progress.

On top of that, though, there was a hint of something darker, something almost dangerous. It
was a kind of well-scrubbed sensuality that was never very far from your mind. From the
eager-eyed students, still wet behind the ears, and the sleep-starved junior doctors all the way
up to the men at the top, they were all half in love with her, though some of them were
circumspect and wouldn’t let on. I was in love with her, too, I suppose, at least up to a point –
until that one chilling breakfast time when everything changed.

This morning, though, Achala MacDonald is made up like a celebrity and sitting at a makeshift
desk in the middle of my local book store. Next to her is a smaller table stacked high with
copies of her autobiography. Every two or three minutes, she takes one from the pile, opens it
and signs her name. Sometimes, she stops to chat or to shake a customer’s hand.
For a minute or so I stand and watch but she is far too busy to notice me. A huddle of people
press in on her as if drawn by some unseen power. The queue extends as far as the main
entrance and is starting to curl up the stairway. The people in it advance at a shuffle, six or
seven inches at a time.

It is impossible to think that Achala is not enjoying herself. She is nodding and chatting happily
and smiling that wonderful smile. She must be in her fifties but, dressed to kill, she is still very
striking. I pick up a copy of ‘Daring to Care’ and join the end of the queue.

‘Hello, it’s lovely to see you here. Thank you so much for coming.’

Her tone is effusive but she does not look at my face.

‘What name shall I write?’

She opens the book to the blank front page and allows the ballpoint pen to hover over it. A
hint of impatience grates in her tone.

‘Ashley,’ I say, ‘Ashley Johns.’ I allow a lengthy pause. ‘How about: To Ashley, a former
colleague. It all seems such a long time ago?’

At the sound of my voice her face falls. There is no more professional pleasantness. A muscle
in her cheek starts to twitch and her forehead wrinkles to a frown. Then she smiles a quick,
tight smile and those black eyes widen.

‘Ashley’ she says, ‘is that really you? How wonderful to see you. What are you doing these
days? Keeping well, I hope.’

‘Retired,’ I say, not unpleasantly, but at the same time studying her face. I have no intention of
letting her off without a searching look. ‘I gave up nursing some years ago. You know what it’s
like – too many patients, not enough time.’

She has the good grace to look uncomfortable but she makes no reply. Instead, she laughs
lightly and gestures towards the book.

‘I was lucky,’ she says, shrugging her narrow shoulders. ‘I got into this almost by accident. A
friend of mine’s husband is a publisher. It was entirely his idea.’

‘You are being much too modest, I’m sure – but you always were very fortunate.’

Though I am careful to smile at her, there is no warmth in my eyes.

Tight-lipped now, she signs with a flourish and I wish her all the best with the book launch.
She turns to the woman behind me and again deploys her winning smile.

I no longer feel like shopping and I need to taste fresh air so I make my way back to the car
park. Then I hit the lunchtime traffic so I can’t get out of second gear. On the passenger seat
sits my solitary purchase with its carefully posed cover photograph. Its title, picked out in red
letters, beggars belief.

By the time I get home I am hungry and cross so I make myself coffee and a sandwich before
heading off to my study to avoid the rest of the world. My partner of four years is out with
our dog but I leave her a note: I am in the study. Your lunch is in the fridge. What I am feeling
is, I think, a mixture of excitement and anxiety. I am wondering what I might find here in the
pages of this book. For almost five years we worked together, which is too much time to skip;
and, anyway, the unit was new then and, therefore, very prestigious. Psychiatry at the cutting
edge; she couldn’t leave all that stuff out.

She didn’t. The Aspens is in there alright, albeit somewhat modified. I have skimmed through
fifty pages, as far as the end of chapter three. The book is well-written I have to admit, at least
in terms of the market. She – or perhaps her publisher – knows what will sell. Sister
MacDonald comes across throughout as clever, gutsy and glamorous. She out-manoeuvres
her opposition and thinks only of the patients in her care.

But Chapter Four is the crucial bit, the bit I have been looking for. I read it very slowly and
then I read it again. It tells how the Staff Nurse Achala MacDonald takes up her post at the
Unit and impresses all those with whom she works with her dedication and her skill. Soon,
she is promoted to Sister MacDonald. She is humble in the face of such a triumph. She single-
handedly pioneers new regimes of care.

At the same time, though, she is forced to contend with the forces of racism and sexism. There
are people in positions of influence whose prejudices are deeply entrenched. Not
infrequently, she is abused by patients and, more than once, she is attacked. Saddened but
stoical, she goes on with her work.

By the time I reach Chapter Five, I am pretty much seething. I consider getting back in the car
and driving into town but then I think I can’t trust myself to stay inside the law. It’s not yet
four o’clock but I go out into the kitchen and root out the weekend whisky. My partner is back
home now and peeling potatoes at the sink.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ she says.

I grunt and shake my head. I locate a tumbler and help myself to ice.

‘You really don’t want to know.’

I am muttering darkly. I more than half fill my glass and close the study door.

The surface of the paper I have found in the drawer has been given a parchment effect. It is
heavy paper, cream-coloured; there are envelopes to match. It would be very much quicker to
use the laptop but to do so would seem inappropriate. This is something, after all, that goes
back to a time when many things were written: love letters, doctors’ prescriptions, job
applications, letters of resignation, a patient’s medical notes.

Dear Sister MacDonald – I write very slowly and with painstaking care. I am using my silver
Harley Davidson but I find myself unused to its weight – I am writing to you because there are
no words that could speak my sorrow or my anger on discovering that such a one as you, to
whom life has given so much, has repaid that bounty by stooping so low and straying so far from
the truth.

I pause then to read back what I have written. It is formal, even slightly pompous; but this is
ok because the important thing is to stay in control. Out of control, I am nothing at all, just the
lunatic fringe. I know too much about how these things work to allow the powers that be to
make me a madman and dismiss me out of hand.

When I have finished, I seal the envelope but I do not address it. In the absence of any
alternative, I suppose I must send it to her agent, I must trust that minor celebrities are still in
receipt of their mail. One stroke of luck, though: I have stamps left over from Christmas; no
time, then, for second thoughts but straight to the post box on the corner. First, though, there
is another letter, more important and much more difficult.

I square my shoulders, take up my pen, and begin to write once more.

To the relatives and friends of Mr Dobromil Kowalski, a patient of Polish origin, who was treated
for clinical depression at The Aspens Psychiatric Unit for a period beginning in November, 1980
and ending in March 1982. Mr Kowalski was cared for under the supervision of the then
Consultant Psychiatrist, Peter Arthur Ludgrove and in the daily care of ward Sister of Achala
MacDonald.

I can offer no apology for the lateness of this letter; nor, indeed, can I explain it except in terms
that were and are wholly inadequate. Though the fault in the first instance was not my own, I
lacked the courage to make it known; instead, in the pursuit of a comfortable life and in fear of
my so-called superiors, I stood by in silence and did not challenge what I knew to be a great
untruth.

In all conscience, therefore, I have to inform you that, contrary to certain medical reports,
Dobromil Kowalski did not commit that act of physical violence that was alleged by Sister
MacDonald in February, 1981 and subsequently upheld by hospital authorities in the enquiry of
March of that year. The sadder – and much more shameful – truth was that it was Mr Kowalski
who was the victim since he was attacked, in my presence, by Sister MacDonald in the course of
her duties when he repeatedly refused the medication she was attempting to administer.

For a moment or two, I cannot go on. The letter tells only the bare facts. There is nothing in it
of the horrible scene I have carried for so long in my head. It does not mention, for example,
that Kowalski was mute, that he cannot – or will not – speak or that, for more than fifteen
minutes, he has stood quite still with his heavy jaws clamped, stubbornly resisting all her
attempts to open his mouth.

Sister MacDonald, however, is as stubborn as he is and she simply refuses to be beaten.
Instead, she takes a breakfast knife and, raising it to his mouth, tries to slip the flat of the blade
between his clenched teeth. When the knife slips, Kowalski flinches but he does not utter a
sound. It is this that prompts Sister MacDonald to lose all control.

While I watch in horror, she raises the knife high above her head and slashes wildly at Mr
Kowalksi’s neck, chest and arms. It is not, of course, a very sharp knife, and so she does not
kill him. His wounds, though, are serious and take many weeks to heal. Eventually, I am able to
drag her off of him and I call out loudly for help. She is escorted to a nearby office. The police
are not informed.

How is it, then, that the enquiry is so very much delayed; and why, in the end, does it find in
favour of Sister MacDonald’s blamelessness? This is a question I put to many people but not
for very long. Very quickly it is made clear to me that such curiosity does not sit comfortably
with my professional interests.

Now, back in the present, I finish both the letter and the whisky. I am very tired and slightly
drunk but one last thing must be done. From the desk draw I take another, larger and
envelope and I slip both letters inside it.

Audi Alteram Partem, I write neatly, To the Editor of The Daily Mail…

© Abi Wyatt

All Rights Reserved www.millionstories.net

www.millionstories.net

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