Good company in the mental hospital
Harriet Waugh
ANGUS: A MUTKIRK MEMOIR by Aldred Drummond
£12.50 (including postage), pp. 86, available from William Charlton, Lee Hall, Wark-on-Tyne, via Hexham, Northumberland
Aldred Drummond died at the age of 40 some 13 years ago and, with the exception of some drawings and paintings, this novella, now privately printed, is the
Aldred Drummond only tangible evidence of his passage through life. For his friends, of course, and even barest acquaintances, such as I, he remains a vivid presence both on the retina — he was a considerable, idiosyncratic dandy — and for his verbal felicities and their delivery. He was much loved, as the memoir at the beginning of this volume by the philosophy lecturer, William Charlton, makes plain. The memoir is anecdotal and personal and describes how Drummond's considerable talents were dissipated by an unfortunate addiction to drink and gamb- ling which could (although his death was accidental) be said to have done for him in the end. Mr Charlton feels (and the novella gives evidence of this) that had Aldred Drummond lived, writing might have given purpose to his life. Certainly, many more people than those curious enough to. buy this book would have heard of him and read him.
Set in a drying-out mental hospital called St Mungo's, Angus: A Mutkirk Memoir is obviously broadly autobiographical. The narrator, who is not named, tells the story of another patient, Angus Chisholm, who becomes, in the few weeks they get to know each other, a great friend. Angus has a moustache, is plump, is entitled Major, comes from a respectable family, is a failure at selling cars and racing them, is sexually AC/DC, has a pretty sister en- gaged to an MP and is given to suicide attempts. Overall, he is good company and benign. But although Angus is the central figure, this is as much the story of the narrator as well:
Your first day in such a place as St Mungo's has a grey torpidity, gently speckled with electric colours before the eyes and butter- flies in the stomach. Reality is nebulous, except during the moments of retching in the lavatory after being encouraged to drink quantities of fruit juice. Of course the wireless is insistent, and the sweat trickling down your back itchy, but nothing is particu- larly painful. Perhaps it is often the oleo- graphs of Van Gogh's sunflowers or Gau- guin's Tahiti shrubbery on the walls which add to the impression of being in a tropical fish tank; you swim or drift, i.e. shuffle or slouch about in a dressing gown trying to be amiable. . . . Father O'Rourke, now Bishop in partibus, but formerly a friend in another 'home from home' than St Mungo's and a martyr to brandy, said that he had found the Gregorian chant in various houses of retreat a very effective sedative. For an analogous reason, autumn is the best season to be in a mental home.
It is autumn in the story and Angus' first day on this particular visit (the extent of his relationship with the institution, staff and township gradually emerges). The narra- tor, however, has been there for some time and this day has been despatched to the town to test his resolve to live sensibly. He has been set up with a bedsit, a cat for company and a job in the local bookshop and is to bicycle up to the hospital each day for lunch and to have his progress moni- tored by Dr Faud, his Egyptian psychiat- rist.
For such a short book a good many relationships are covered, one of the cen- tral being that of Angus and the narrator to the pessimistic, fatalistic and philosophical Dr Faud. Faud is not above alcoholically drowning his own angst in their company while his frustrated Indian wife Hajid takes care of some of their sexual needs. A strange, dramatic, enigmatic comedy is played out between the four of them, with the postman, Rory, Harry the gardener, the visiting parish priest, Father McTag- gart, and the two young women, after whom the narrator lusts in a desultory sort of way, playing essential but supporting roles. The story is full of baroque fun, reminiscent of Max Beerbohm — such as this from the Sunday sermon of Father McTaggart to the presumably rather be- mused citizens of Mutkirk:
And if your council be called in assemblies far afield from Mutkirk, do not be puffed up, remembering .that you too be probably part Pict, part Scot, part Jute, part Saxon, part Dane, and God alone knows what else, although may He be praised if the wreck of the Armada has brought something of the Iberian to your womenfolk.
Or more puzzlingly phrased:
I dreamt of a panther with tail ringed by a large diamond and paws gently caressing my chest, which in the dream became as hairy as Esau's. You see what I mean about life being more like poker or 'Old Maid' than chess?
I could go on and on quoting from this richly festooned tragi-comedy, and it is a great pity that Mr Drummond did not live to gladden our lives with a larger oeuvre.
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