Fulham

Fulham

It was Saturday.  Andy awoke, as he often did these days, to a banging at the front door of his one-bedroom flat.  He had slept in his clothes but habit prompted him to put on a dressing gown.  On the steps were two friends he used to share a flat with, who had known Andy for the five years since he had graduated from university.

They went into the living room and sat down, while he went to make a cup of tea.

“Happy birthday, Andy,” Jim said when they were all seated, and gave Andy an envelope. 

“Well, thanks.  A bit of surprise.  Shall I open it now?”

“It’s a little something to cheer you up.  We heard Vicki has left again.”

“Yes.  I don’t think she’ll be coming back.”

“How are you doing?” Bill asked.  Andy had not socialized with them much when he shared their flat but since moving to Fulham with Vicki they seemed to be dropping in every weekend.  They looked like a comedy double-act – Jim was tall, thin with a pale serious face ringed by long black hair and a black beard.  Bill, shorter and fatter had untidy blonde hair that he often swept a hand through.  His usual quizzical expression had been replaced by one of concern.

“Actually, I’m devastated,” he said, “I’ve reached a dead end.  And I’m nearly broke.”  He told them about how unpleasant he’d been to Vicki, that if he was her, he wouldn’t come back.  They talked a bit about Vicki and what a great girl she was.  To Andy’s surprise they got up to go after the second cup. 

“Don’t forget the medicine,” Jim said as they left.

Two hours later Andy opened his front door to be met by an extraordinary sight.  Crookham Road in the sunshine.  Sunshine so bright it seemed to bounce from one surface to another and then another. Front doors gleamed and cars looked like they had just left the showroom.  He saw a few people slowly walking about, so slowly that he thought they must be drugged or engaged in some performance art.  He walked carefully down the steps to the pavement and stopped to breath it all in.  He felt so good.  Whatever he had taken had certainly started working.  He chuckled – heightened awareness, he thought. 

He walked without a destination or purpose but deliberately avoided the main road.  He didn’t want to meet anyone he knew and was nervous of interacting with anyone he didn’t.  He found himself at the entrance to an estate of tower blocks  He had been here before but today its drabness was transformed by the sun and by the realization that he had never really noticed the details of the place.  Normally just a shortcut, now it demanded a scrutiny that transfixed him.  He saw the intricate network of roads within the estate and was struck by how cleverly they had been laid out.  Each block of flats was served by two roads which ended at parking areas.  The parking areas were not connected by a roadway. 

There were two entrance roads to the estate from which the roads to the flats diverged.  He had entered by one and now saw that it changed into a footpath linking it to the entrance road opposite.  This was no ordinary council estate.  The extraordinary symmetry and disconnectedness of the road network suggested something else.  A possibility arose in his mind.

He walked on.  Now he noticed a number of people leaving the blocks of flats, clutching buckets and sponges.  He stopped and watched and noticed other people about washing cars.  The scene was surreal.  He felt sick for a moment at the sight.  These people, human beings, were worshipping their motor cars.  For it wasn’t just people washing cars, it was people washing cars with utter reverence in what were clearly choreographed moves.  The sheer materialistic horror of it confirmed what he suspected.  This was a lunatic asylum.  He walked quicker now.  Why was he here?

Of course.  He remembered something about care in the community for mental patients.  This was what it was really about.  An asylum disguised as social housing.  And that explained why there was this council estate in well-to-do Fulham.  It was all making sense.

He found himself on the main road and turned toward the High Street. The shock was like a physical blow and his mind was instantly diverted from feelings of omniscience, or at least being a possessor of secret knowledge forbidden to ordinary mortals.  He saw that the activity along that main road was of the same quality as that amongst the blocks of flats.  The asylum extends here. 

“My God,” he burst out and suddenly there was Vicki standing by his side.  She looked different, he saw the kindness in her face and felt her inner radiance.

“Andy,” she said, “What’s up.  You don’t look too good, and why are you in your dressing gown?”

“Vicki, what are you doing here for Christ’s sake.  You shouldn’t be here.”  Vicki saw the near-panic in his eyes, the utter intensity of his expression.  And the dressing gown.  Was he having a nervous breakdown?  A flicker of guilt washed over her.  This must explain his behaviour over the last few weeks.

“I have to go.  Don’t follow me.”  Andy turned to go, and Vicki grabbed an arm. 

“Don’t go.  I’ll walk you home.”

“No.  It may not be safe there.”  By now Andy knew that the asylum extended over the whole of Fulham.  That Fulham was a lunatic asylum and might have been one for decades.  In all probability it had been custom built for the purpose.  He saw people were watching them.  He shook Vicki’s hand off, told her that should split up and ran off down the nearest side-street.  She heard him yelling “I’m the only one who knows!”  Vicki continued on her way.  She was meeting Jim and Bill at the pub soon.  They could tell her what was going on.

For the next few hours Andy wandered rapidly about Fulham, unable to find his way out.  The sun was still shining and he tried to work out which direction North was.  Every attempt he made to go in that direction was foiled by necessary detours to avoid people and certain configurations of parked cars and street furniture. 

He found himself on the High Street and suddenly felt ravishingly hungry.  His mind emptied for a moment as his whole being anticipated food.  It was early evening and many of the shops were closed, though their window displays and interiors were brightly lit.  He shuddered, there was no escape from the love of things.  The thought assuaged his hunger briefly.  The pubs were open and he went quickly into and out of one.  It was like a movie.  You walked in, everyone stopped talking and looked at you.  He came to a place he had often eaten at.  It was open.

He entered the restaurant and walked quickly towards a door he had spotted at the back.  There was a quiet respectful hum of conversation from the few diners, none of whom appeared to notice his presence.  He saw a waiter come towards him and ran the last few yards to the door.  Through the door he saw a kitchen to his left, a flight of stairs ahead, and a closed metal door to his right.  A refrigerator.  He opened the door, the waiter now behind him, and went in.  It was the meat-store.  He reeled back.  It was happening again.  He saw arrayed, hanging on hooks from the ceiling, rows of human legs, arms and other body parts.

Some years earlier, he had taken a boat from Haifa to Piraeus, a three-day journey, on his way back to England after hitch-hiking to the Middle East.  It was a cargo ship which carried a dozen or so passengers.  Some time after embarking he had taken a pill prescribed, he found out later, for sufferers of Parkinson's.  He thought it might make the voyage more interesting.  Andy remembered little of the voyage, just vague impressions of running about the ship, groups of people trying to restrain him or get out of his way.  Up and downstairs, along corridors, into cabins and other rooms.  But he does remember, with absolute clarity, going into a storeroom near the galley and seeing this same tableaux.  With the awful realization that the cook was using human flesh to feed his passengers, perhaps the crew as well, full-blown panic mounted set in.  He ran from the room shouting that he must see the captain.  The captain had listened to his story calmly and said that he would look into it.  Andy remembers nothing of what followed but he disembarked routinely and made his way to Athens without incident.

Here, in the restaurant, though it was worse.  On the ship it had not occurred to him that the practice might be common to all ships.  Now, he understood immediately that what he had discovered he would discover in all the restaurants in Fulham.  This time, he didn’t demand to see anyone, he pushed past the waiter and walked as fast as he could from  the restaurant.  He wanted to maintain some decorum.

He ran the half-mile or so until he reached the street where he lived.  He stopped running and walked down it towards his flat, trying to appear normal.  He realized this might not be a good idea, knowing what he knew about Fulham. 

“Hi Andy, how’s it going?”  It was Roland, an ex-pat neighbour who had moved here a year ago.  Andy had once stored a couple of tea-chests for him that had arrived from Kenya.  They contained marijuana, not tea, and Roland reasoned that if they were onto him, it was his address they would arrive at.  Andy’s was the safest place.

“It’s going fine.”  Andy couldn’t think of anything else to say.  The world had changed decisively once again.  Not only was Fulham a secret insane asylum but its inmates were fed on dead people.

“Sure?  You look a bit worried.”

Roland’s concern touched Andy momentarily and he almost blurted out what he had just discovered.  He walked past Roland and up the steps to his flat.  “See you later,” he said though he did not expect to see Roland again.

Laying down on the sofa in the small living-room at the front he tried to work it all out.  What was he doing here?  How had he come to live in this madhouse.  He had no memory of being committed.  He remembered Tweedie, though.  Another ex-pat, had been a colleague at work who had lived in this very flat.  He had passed the flat on to Andy who had simply carried on paying the rent.  It was still officially Tweedie who lived here.  The implications were unclear but his panic had been replaced with that deep unwavering discomfort that accompanies the knowledge that you are in serious trouble.

He heard a knock at the door and he knew they had come for him.  Utterly resigned but relieved now that he had found the truth about Fulham, he was struck with amazement at the audacity, indeed, the brilliance of the authorities.  He opened the door to see Jim and Bill.  He thought they were wearing white coats.

“I’m ready to go now,” he said, “Have you found Tweedie?”

“I thought Tweedie lived here,” Jim said, a stern expression on his face.  His near-black eyes staring into Andy’s, “Can we come in?”

They walked into the living room asking Andy how he felt.  Telling him that he’d come down soon.  That everything was all right.  He told them that he knew, that they could stop pretending.

“Know what, Andy?” Jim asked when Bill went to make some coffee.

“About Fulham.”

“Oh, that,” Jim responded, “Don’t tell Bill, he doesn’t know.”

“What?” Andy leapt up just as there was another ring at the door.  Bill answered.  It was Vicki. She came into the living room and went up to Andy.  He allowed her to give him a hug. 

“Vicki, are you one of them?” he asked.  She looked at Jim.  He winked.

“I’m one in a million, darling,” she said and manoeuvered him onto the sofa.  “Look, here’s Bill with some coffee.  Everything’s normal.”

“Is there anything to eat,” he asked.  Vicki went to the kitchen and brought back some scones and clotted cream.  A favourite.  When she returned Jim  was listening to Andy’s story.  Jim was gently suggesting that he may have misinterpreted a few things. His expression remained quietly serious but confident throughout.  Bill who had been looking concerned began to look his usual quizzical self again.

Andy sat there for about an hour, not taking part in their sporadic conversation, by which time he was pretty much back in the normal world.  He looked utterly drained.  I must go and lie down,” he said.  “Can you look after yourselves?”

“I’ll stay here until you’re fully recovered,” Vicki said,  “I’ll cook something.”

He thanked her, humbly, and went to bed.

“Do you think it’s done the trick?” Vicki asked Jim and Bill as they were leaving.