Soon after I arrived in New York in early 1979 I began visiting an elderly aunt living in Connecticut. Growing up in Louisiana’s segregated 1920s, she’d migrated north with her banker husband in the early 1940s. After raising her children in Bedford Stuyvesant and Washington Square in its heyday, the family moved to a restored Connecticut shingle house near Old Saybrook. 

As a struggling student living in a damp rooming house on West 21st Street, my aunt’s southern hospitality was irresistible. I’d take the Metro North New Haven train from Grand Central Station to a depot near her home and spend the weekend being wined and dined, often for hours at a single sitting. My aunt believed in chewing every mouthful one hundred times for good health and longevity. Most of the local maître ds knew her quite well. Some even kept count of her mouthfuls as the end of their shifts drew nigh. 

 Almost all our meals were eaten in restaurants, even breakfast. This ritual was only disrupted with a platter of food assembled from the contents of the menagerie of swan, bear, crocodile and hen shaped aluminium foil doggie bags stashed in her refrigerator. Forgetting what she’d saved, such meals were always an adventure. “Oh my”, she’d giggle, “Look at this piece of pumpkin pie. Shall we share it?” Pates, chicken breasts, serves of potatoes dauphinoise, carrot cake and chocolate brownies. “Now how did they get there?”, she’d marvel. On several wet Sunday afternoons, I helped her consume the previous week’s leftovers. The dining table, set with crisp linens, twinkling glasses and polished silverware was soon littered with cardboard and foil wrappings. When we’d finished, we were groaning from overeating. It was more food than I’d eaten in a month. Otherwise, between restaurant outings, our weekends were filled with visits to her friends, a diverse array of genteel international widows who’d chosen her corner of Connecticut for their retirement. 

One late spring afternoon, I tried on a magnificent chartreuse silk Balenciaga 1940s dress belonging to my aunt’s newest elderly friend. She had been married to a northern European ambassador and sadly had no daughters. Her fine silver hair was tinted a brilliant shade of red and she wore Diorissimo perfume. The aroma of Lily of the Valley filled the air of her lovely salon decorated with Scandinavian modernist paintings, violet button velvet cushions and a pair of celadon green brocade sofas. A founding advocate of WHO, we talked about post WW2 refugee resettlement programmes and women’s rights. She was indeed a woman of the world, poised at an historically significant period, vitally conscious of the global changes underway in the post war years. The contrast between the reach of her moral consciousness and her stylishness was new to me. It was astonishing to be in her company, wearing her Balenciaga dress, hearing her stories as she showed me more favourite gowns in the trunk she’d opened for my pleasure. A frilly pink Givenchy cocktail dress seemed quite unlike her usual taste, but it had been a gift, she said, from an admirer. A lovely dark cyan green Chanel satin ball gown and several beautiful taffeta and tweed ensembles followed. 

The Balenciaga dress she’d offered me to wear that afternoon was special, she said. It was modelled on El Greco’s depiction of the vivid robe worn by the angel Gabriel in ‘The Annunciation’ (1578).  I was enraptured by her account of this exquisite garment’s inspiration. Its intricately pleated neckline and deceptively fitted waist added to its overarching grace. It fitted me beautifully. Listening to her stories while wearing this dress cast me into a divine reverie. It was as if the gorgeous satin gown was lifting me aloft. My mind emptied until I heard her speaking again.  

Would I accept her Balenciaga dress as a gift? Behind her, my great aunt’s daughter was holding up my retro NY punk clothes -paint splattered oxford shirt, Levi’s, Fiorucci ballet sneakers- shaking her head. Indicating to me that I was expected to decline her generosity. I meekly obliged though it left a sad taste in my spirits. Yet somehow, once you’ve worn a dress like that, the feeling never leaves you. Everything you wear becomes that garment. 

I was still wearing the Balenciaga dress in my mind a few weeks later when I accompanied my great aunt on a visit to her youngest son, whom we all called Uncle Dick. He was incarcerated in the mental health facility on Riker’s Island, New York’s largest prison in the middle of the East River. We set off by bus to a pre-arranged appointment. At the gates of the North Infirmary, our details were recorded and we were frisked. I was shocked to see the guards dispassionately patting down the old lady. She looked beautiful, dressed in a velvet coat with her silvery hair set in a classic French roll. She was excited to be seeing her son. 

Inside, we were left alone to make our way to the in-patient’s psychiatric ward at the end of a long corridor. As we walked arm in arm, a steady stream of inmates gathered to accompany us. Some gabbled nonsense, others flicked wads of wet paper. A spit ball landed on my neck. One made menacing signs of throat slitting, another humped suggestively. A man pulled his prison pants down and flicked his cock as if trying to get it to stand. Though I was glad I’d accompanied my aunt, I felt there was little I could do to protect her. Nothing could stop the seething psychological mayhem going on around us. She went on valiantly. We both looked straight ahead as we passed locked doors, cells and diverging corridors. Someone spat at us. I felt something trickling in my hair like a live insect, only it was a gob of saliva I dared not touch. There were no guards in sight. 

At last we made it to the end of the long passage which opened out into a large windowed activities area filled with men in varying states of mental undress. A toothless elderly fellow was doubled over, making signs with his hands. Other inmates paced up and down compulsively. Several circled us as Uncle Dick emerged from the shadows to join us on a padded bench. Chairs were arranged then removed. A tug of war broke out over who was allowed to be present in the semi-circle of seats assembled for our visit. Uncle Dick shouted at one man to get away. At last he sat down and as though tuning out the relentless babble around us, began to focus and engage. 

His first questions startled me a little. I didn’t know how to answer. Did I go to parties in Manhattan, he wanted to know? During his brief career on Broadway in the 1950s, cocktail parties were his undoing, he believed. The glamorous Copacabana and the 21 Club were his main haunts. Would I promise not to accept too many invitations? In between his manic chatter about socialising and the pebbles rattling in his mind, Uncle Dick spoke carefully, with a lovely southern accent. A glimpse of his former beauty lay in the lock of blonde hair feathering his brow. 

I thought of my recent afternoon spent wearing the Balenciaga dress, of the downtown New York night clubs, underground performances and the dance parties I frequented. He went on speaking urgently now. Did I like dancing? “Yes, I love dancing”, I told him. “Will you dance with me?” He ducked his head and began sidling along the bench towards me, his face averted. There was still no eye contact. When he stood up, he seemed crumpled and frail, his prison pyjamas hung loose on his tall skinny frame. I stepped towards him. “Come, show me how you dance,” I said. He turned his back, then around again to face me, steadily straightening his body and finally stepping forward. He took me in his arms and together we moved through a few tentative steps. Then, his feet seemed to lighten with a muscle memory from deep within his spirit. Nimbly spinning me around, then holding me close, his body seemed to buoyed by a natural stylish dignity. We could have been anywhere. Resting my head on his chest, I smelled the prison’s laundry detergent. Around us, a number of inmates formed a circle, some clapping, others humping and jeering. Our silent tuneless dance routine continued. Uncle Dick was graceful, leading me through timeless sequences of waltz steps in synch with the music playing in both our heads. He closed his eyes and continued moving to an internal beat, lost in a rhythm as he spun me around the floor for several minutes. A familiar feeling of disassociation steadily overcame me. I felt as though I’d completely left my body to watch myself wearing a chartreuse Balenciaga dress, dancing with a schizophrenic man surrounded by a crowd of imprisoned onlookers. 

Tremors of shifting tensions caught my eye. At the edge of the crowd, I glimpsed my aunt alone on the bench and gently broke away from my dance partner’s clasp to join her. We’d brought a basket of treats, fresh fruit and a meal. When we opened it, Uncle Dick seized an apple and began gnawing at it with his few remaining teeth. Beside us, the basket was being surreptitiously emptied. He kept trying to stop his fellow inmates’ insidious cat and mouse game but soon gave up. He told us he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother. He’d been down south in Georgia working as a hired farm hand before the voices in his head grew too loud again. His teeth started falling out when he had all his fillings removed, when the mercury started messing with his mind. 

Six months ago, he’d woken up on the uptown platform at 125th Street Subway Station in Harlem. Someone had pissed on him in the night. His wallet was gone. His shoes were nowhere in sight. He went to find the culprit, got into a fight and ended up in Riker’s, one of the world’s largest correctional facilities. No one knew what to do with him when he wouldn’t voluntarily take his medications. He’d committed no real crime, certainly nothing to warrant an extended stay. But there was nowhere else for him to go when he was like this. He was a danger to himself, the authorities believed. He related all this in a gentle dispassionate tone, with a depth of acceptance about his situation that was quite moving. He could see no resolution. No future. Just the present, where amidst the amped up psychological chaos of Rikers Island Prison, his mind occasionally landed onto a tiny oasis of calm. For the privilege of this peace, he was prepared to put up with the cock wagging crazies, the petty thieving street thugs, the spitters and shiv wielding bullies. He was OK here, he assured us as he walked us to the exit. He was safe.  

The Colour of Night,  Notebook Three, Chapter 13

Read more extracts from Jane Rankin-Reid: Frame 37 and Frame 51