The Dark Threads Read Online Free Page A

was near and I still couldn’t relax sufficiently, even though my bladder felt full to bursting. At last nature took its course, hitting the container noisily and heralding the speedy reappearance of Sister Grayston.
    â€˜That’s a good girl,’ she beamed.
    I was sent to join the other patients in the day room, and a small, pasty-faced girl with thick brown hair tied back in a ponytail came and sat next to me. She looked very young.
    â€˜It seems strange in here at first,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I’ve been in here a few months so I know what’s what now. My name’s Debbie. I’m thirteen.’
    Debbie had the same dull, heavy-lidded eyes as most of the patients, but if she was supposed to be mentally ill I could see no trace of it.
    â€˜Have you seen the Quiet Room yet?’ she asked.
    â€˜The what?’
    â€˜The Quiet Room. Come on, I’ll show you.’
    I followed Debbie down the corridor to a small, carpeted, windowless room containing four brown upholstered chairs with mustard cushions and a low coffee table. The walls were painted that same pale hospital green as the dormitories. On the floor in the corner were a record player and a few pop records.
    A tall young woman with blonde curly hair came in. ‘Hi, I’m Sheila. Welcome to the nuthouse,’ she said, greeting me with a smile. ‘I’m glad we’ve got another young ’un here ’cos most of the others are old fogeys. But perhaps I’m an old fogey to you? I’m twenty-one. I’ll guess you’re about sixteen.’
    â€˜Eighteen,’ I said, smiling shyly.
    â€˜Pills time again,’ Debbie said, standing up at the sound of a rattling, squeaky trolley being wheeled past the door.
    Sheila giggled merrily and sang, ‘Shake, rattle and roll …’ as she danced down the corridor behind the drugs-laden trolley, but her sad, pale blue eyes belied her show of gaiety.
    Before going to bed I was given two large Mogadon sleeping tablets. Despite them, I lay awake for a long time staring up at the dim green ceiling light which stayed on all night. I remembered how way back in childhood we’d talked about men in white coats taking people away in green vans to Menston Loony Bin. So this was Menston. I really was here.
    The ward was stirring when I awoke at seven. I followed other sleepy-eyed, dressing-gown-clad patients, clutching plastic toilet bags, down the corridor to a white-tiled room with a row of washbasins. After washing and dressing, I again took my cue from other patients. First there were our beds to make. I pulled the sheets back and, as if I needed a sharp reminder of where I was, there emblazoned in large, black letters across the grey blanket underneath were the words: ‘MENSTON HOSPITAL’.
    Sister Oldroyd was on duty: a tall, thin woman with heavy black eyeliner drawn around tired eyes. Sitting in the day room before breakfast, a pale, gaunt, elderly patient with sunken grey eyes pointed at my slippers.
    â€˜You’ll be in trouble if Sister Oldroyd sees you wearing those.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜You’re supposed to wear shoes during the day, luv. That’s the rule, and in here you’ll keep to the rules without asking questions if you know what’s good for you.’
    After breakfast Sheila asked me to go to the shop with her. We walked through a maze of long, bleak corridors, which branched off here and there leading to the recesses of the hospital. I was in another world. A world that reeked of cleaning fluid and urine and sadness and pain. A world inhabited by strange men and women who wandered these corridors like the living dead, muttering to themselves, arguing and fighting with their own personal demons, or just staring blankly into space as they shuffled past us with heads down, shoulders drooping: the dejected demeanour of the institutionalised. My heart filled with sadness. How did people end up like