Little Red Coat: 2nd half.
El Capitan, Yosemite
.........Dr.
Friedman, the consultant paediatrician, was Jewish.
“Your
consultant is the best Child Psychiatrist I have worked with. No nonsense and no jargon, Freud or
otherwise.”
He turned
to his two registrars. Drs. Klein and Rosenthal, both Jewish:
“For anyone
aspiring to be a paediatrician, a good understanding of child psychiatry is
crucial. Half our cases may have a
psychological slant, and the other half may have problems created by the
doctors!”
How
insightful!
The round
started with a seven-year old boy who had an accident in the school playground
and suffered a fracture.
“Boys!”
The boy was
in good spirits and had all sorts of drawings on his plaster cast.
“I bet he
can’t wait to get out of here, but we need to make sure there is no
concussion.”
It was the
golden era of medicine. There was no
haste to discharge patients, and accidents were real accidents.
So I
thought.
“Where does
child psychiatry come in?”
His two
Registrars gave me a look as if to say: we agree with you!
Then, after
a couple of fairly routine cases we came to this boy all bandaged up, except
the face, which bore some bruise marks. The two paediatric registrars looked
distressed and Dr. Friedman proclaimed:
“Mountaineering
accident!”
“Mountaineering?”
Their look turned from one of distress to one of bemusement.
“In London?’
The 70s was
a time of change in London. The Vietnam War and the hippies movement seemed
like a psychotic mix. With the explosion
of hallucinogen use and the unexpected success of the daring musical Hair, a
new social revolution was underway and the secure ways of the old world were to
change forever. It was not for me to
judge if it was for the better.
In the mad
world of drugs, nudity and profanity, we had dubious characters in charge, and
the most serious corruption in high places.
Incredibly lessons were not learnt and we continued to witness the
breakdown of decency: people in command of positions of influence abused their
newly acquired power and supposedly finance experts eventually collapsed banks
and even countries. This erosion was replicated also in families, in the form
of unbelievable abuses, both sexual and physical.
We were by
the bed of an injured boy in the paediatric ward. The injury was said to have been the result
of a mountaineering accident in London!
Just as Dr.
Friedman attempted to elaborate on the case, a short man in his sixties who was
with the injured boy stood up. As he was
not in any uniform, I knew he was not hospital staff.
At the same
time, Dr. C appeared behind Dr. Friedman.
“Sorry, the
meeting about the tea-lady took much longer than I thought, but at least we can
keep her for another year.”
This was
before the era of Nespresso and other coffee machines. We did not have tea bags or instant coffee,
but a lady whose job it was to make tea and coffee according to our individual
preferences. She knew exactly who the
coffee drinkers and tea drinkers were and never made any mistake. Today we seem to ignore the fact that health
care professionals too need looking after and that some grandmothers need a
job.
Despite
trying to hide behind the two registrars, the strange man was noticed.
“Aren’t you
the cinematographer?” Dr. C asked the tiny man who seemed to get tinier.
I did find
it improbable that my consultant should know the cinematographer at her local
cinema, not knowing the full story that unfolded later.
The
cinematographer was stocky with silver hair and fairly dark skin. He was not
from the Caribbean, and his skin tone came from sun exposure as he was a
devoted member of the nudist club. He
lived in a new age commune that Mark’s mother moved to after splitting up with
his diabetic and impotent husband. This was way before Viagra, of course, and
in this commune Mrs. Green found herself in different beds on different nights. Her sexual needs were now much better
serviced and my patient Mark had stopped soiling.
Mark was
one of my twelve psychotherapy patients.
By then I had built up the case load and become at ease with the
patients. Each of the twelve cupboards
was filled to the brim with their drawings and selections of toys. Child psychotherapy was quite fun!
But a new
problem emerged for Mrs. Green and who else would she turn to if not Dr. C? Her daughter Ruth would not go to school or
more specifically she did not want to wear her red school coat and refused to
attend school.
“I do not
know what her problem is. I even spent a lot of money to have it dry cleaned!”
“But that
was what was used to wrap up the dead baby!”
One day the
cinematographer had some altercation with one of the founding members of the
commune because he thought some sexual activity went too far, even for a new
age man like him. He was asked to leave immediately. He went into one of the children’s
bedrooms to get his old suitcase when Ruth happened to be in the room. He
opened the case and there was Ruth’s school coat. Ruth reached out to retrieve her coat but
found a dead baby wrapped in it. She
screamed! Police was called. Both parents were arrested and later
sentenced for not reporting death and served three months of a one-year
sentence.
A very
lenient society it was, and no one looked into how the baby died. Not only that, on release, these guilty
parents were even allowed to become registered as foster parents! The result was the child suffering
mountaineering injuries. He was in their
foster care.
Need I say
more? That was before Maria Colwell[1]. Fostering was good money then.
“So you are
allowed back?”
“Yes,
doctor! They needed my money.”
Dr.
Friedman’s registrars were shocked to hear the story from my consultant.
“We will
call Social Service and this time we will make sure.” Dr. Friedman turned to
his registrars, “Well, what did I tell you, the importance of Child Psychiatry
input!”
Ruth
I started
seeing Ruth at Mrs. Green’s request.
“The
Chinaman did wonders for my Mark!”
“Dr. Zhang,
please.” There was an unwritten rule
that the same therapist should not provide therapy for two children in the same
family, but Dr. C relented in this case. She must have thought that Ruth would be safe
in my hands, despite my still limited experience. I think she would have otherwise assigned
Ruth to my psychotherapy supervisor, an Anna Freudian. To be honest, even today, I have a lot of
difficulties with the focus of Kleinian theories on good breasts and bad
breasts.
For me it
was an interesting experience to find Ruth’s “mother” so different to Mark’s “mother”. It just showed that psychotherapists were
very much dealing with the subjective.
Being brought up in a 70s liberated flower-powered environment, Ruth
might have some skewed perceptions and believed that dead babies were regularly
wrapped up in coats rather than buried.
I tend to believe children do not lie, unless proved otherwise.
Ruth
continued her therapy with me whilst attending our day unit up in Hampstead.
One day, Miss W the social worker was in a very excited mood and told me:
“Ruth said
she is going to school. Well done!”
The fact
was it might not be my therapy that did it.
Miss W happened to be in John Barnes (the local department store) and
she had the brain wave to buy Ruth a new school coat.
“Ruth was
really thrilled to see the little red coat and told me she wants to show it off
to her friends at school.”
Ruth went
back to school but continued to see me at the clinic.
The commune
was disbanded and Mrs. Green moved back with Mark and Ruth’s father.
The guilty
foster parents were later sentenced to three years each for child abuse and the
injured boy was taken into care after his recovery.
I will not
easily forget the kind act of a Quaker: Miss W, and the little red coat.
[1] http://mandyparrytraining.co.uk/spotlight-on-maria-colwell-the-cinderella-child/
3/5/2023
YK:
「小紅外衣」後半部說的故事
周志權兄，同學中之文藝人（紅學家）也。他說他很驚訝牧農大夫以蒙太奇編輯手法Montage
editing style寫他的「傳記」。這引起我以看電影的心態來欣賞大夫作品的興趣，並以上引半章書作嘗試。當然，談電影，黃華麒兄才是專家
，但我們未有機會聽他說話（我知道他最近在澳門大學講課，非常忙），希望他不介意我在這樣獻醜，並不吝𧶽教。
如果大家有書本，可看222頁至228頁，沒有的，如有興趣，也可聽我道來。
故事的角色，當然有大夫，此外，按出場序排列的有：
Dr Friedman（顧問兒科專科醫生、猶太人）
Dr Klein （Dr Friedman徒弟、猶太人）
Dr Rosenthal （Dr Friedman徒弟、猶太人）
“受傷男孩”（”攀山意外受傷”個案主角）
Dr C （女、英格蘭人、顧問兒童心理專科醫生、大夫上司）
影院放映技師（約60歲、個子矮、皮膚黝黑、與”受傷男孩”同來）
Mrs Green（新紀元運動追隨者、離開丈夫、住在公社、認識放映技師、她的兩名孩子是Mark和Ruth）
Mark（大夫的病人）
Ruth（經歷”小紅外衣”事件後也成為大夫的病人）
Miss W （主任醫院社工、基督教貴格會會友Quaker）
故事發生主要地點是倫敦，London
Tavistock Clinic，時為70年代。
大夫正以兒童心理專科醫生的身份陪同兒科專科醫生團體（Dr
Friedman, Dr Klein, Dr Rosenthal）巡視兒童病房。開始前，Dr
Friedman大讚大夫的師父Dr
C，說她是他夥拍過的最好的兒童心理專科醫生。轉過頭來，他向同是猶太人的兩名徒弟說：「想做好兒科醫生，就必要掌握兒童心理科的精要；兒童科病例一半可能是與心理科相關，另一半則可能是醫生們造成的問題。」語不驚人誓不休，戲劇効果強！
看過三幾個病人後
- 第一個是一名在學校操場跌斷骨的七歲小男孩，他興致勃勃，在石膏模上畫滿了東西，等醫生確定他沒有震盪傷害後他便可以出院 - ，便來到了”攀山意外受傷男孩”的榻前，那時先前仍被上一會議耽誤的兒童心理科顧問醫生Dr
C也趕到了。「對不起，剛才的會議比我想像的長，但我們保住了我們的茶水部亞姐，她至少明年仍可在這𥚃工作。」電影中，凡是要角，出場總會有些意想不到的說話。
鏡頭霎時轉到今日時空中大夫獨呷著以咖啡機自製的一杯飲品，他懷念著那些與深知自己和其他同事飲用喜惡的侍茶亞姐和洽相處的日子，生活似是來得休閒些、雅致些。
眼前的男孩面有些瘀，全身繃上了繃帶，給醫院的說詞是在攀山意外中受傷。「在倫敦遭遇攀山意外？！」醫生們大惑不解，大夫對意外就真的是意外的信心也開始動搖了。醫生們發現了保持低調、與”受傷男孩”同來的皮膚黝黑的小老人，Dr C認得他是隣近影院的放映技師。
鏡頭模糊了，轉了去描繪當年英國寄養家庭的狀況和社會背景。提供寄養家庭服務往往是為了賺取可觀的收入，也無需經過嚴格甄辨，曾犯案者也會被接納。
鏡頭接著描繪故事幾個角色的生活，及他們彼此之間的關係：
放映技師是一位天體運動熱烈擁護者，住在一所新紀元運動公社內，並在那裏結識了Mark（大夫的病人）的母親，Mrs
Green。
Mrs Green自與她患有糖尿病及性無能的丈夫分開後，便搬進了公社。在那𥚃，她床無定處，但卻床第不虛，而Mark這小病人的弄髒情況這時侯停止了。但在這時，新問題卻出現了。
Mrs Green的女兒Ruth不肯穿著小紅外衣校服，不肯上學。「我真不知她有什麼問題，我甚至已不惜化費，把它乾洗！是的，我們在公社曾用小紅外衣包裹過一個死嬰。」
事情的經過是這樣的
- 有一天技師先生與公社的一名創辦者齟齬，因為他認為那𥚃的性活動太過份了，連他這樣的新紀元人士也忍受不了，結果越吵越大，被即時趕出公社。他匆忙收拾，在其中一間兒童睡房取回一個行李箱，Ruth正在那𥚃。打開行李箱，露出Ruth的校服。Ruth伸手取回，赫然發現紅外衣竟包裹著一個死嬰，驚聲尖叫！警察來了，嬰兒父母因無申報有人死亡被捕了，後來也被
判一年有期徒刑，坐了三個月監。
當時社會十分寬容，嬰兒死因無人追究，更離譜的是犯事夫婦竟被批准辦寄養家庭服務。前述”攀山意外受傷”的孩子就是寄養在這家庭的。
Mrs Green充份信任醫治Mark的大夫，央Dr C也讓大夫看Ruth，Dr C便破例准大夫醫治同一家的兩名子女。小插曲 - 膚色歧視不會為個人恩惠或成就而轉移，大夫也無奈
：「那Chinaman為我的Mark作了奇事！」「請你尊重，那位是鄭醫生。」
鏡頭又再推遠，描繪當代的彎曲悖謬
- 越戰舆嬉皮士運動交織得像精神病的交集，迷幻藥被爆炸性地使用，音樂劇Hair意外地走紅，新的社會革命席捲而來，穩固的舊秩序從此改變…..
毒品、裸露、褻瀆充斥世間，社會輕看正派，位高權重者或其身不正、或瘋狂貪污，理應以新賦權力維護大眾權益者濫權，理應是財務專家者搞垮了銀行、甚至國家….
崩潰和腐蝕也入侵著家庭，展現在日益嚴重的性虐待和人身虐待中。畫面（文字）留有空間
- 導演（作者）似乎話中有話：究竟他是只話當年，還是也問今天，看官可自行演繹。
大夫繼續為Ruth治療，成長於以花為力量的70年代的小孩子可能有認知偏誤，以為死嬰不是被埋葬的，而例必被外衣包裹的。
有一天，素來夥拍大夫的社工Miss
W興奮地宣佈： 「Ruth恢復上學了，恭喜你，鄭醫生！」「其實未必是我做了什麼，」大夫想，「只不過Miss
W剛好在本地百貨店John
Barnes，心血來潮，為Ruth買了一件新校服。」Ruth非常喜歡這件新的紅外衣，告訴Miss
W她巴不得馬上穿上，返回學校給同學看。
故事的結尾亦反映著蒙太奇手法：
公社解散了，Mrs
Green搬回與Mark和Ruth的父親同住；
“受傷男童”的寄養家庭父母被判三年監，男童痊愈後得到認真的照顧；
大夫不會輕易忘記貴格會會友Miss
W的善行和那件小紅外衣。
其實，不只本章下半部的故事，「小紅外衣」整章書都不乏蒙太奇手法；不過，我功力和精力都欠缺，就此打住了。再者，大夫委實是寫書，不是拍電影。我想起在電影技巧叫蒙太奇的，在文學手法中，叫意識流stream
of consciousness的應是與之相似。我不是搞文藝的，對這些只是畧有所聞，一知半解，認真考究還是留待其他同學吧！
More: 再寫了一篇，請大家指教。
