Elaine and Gerald in Piccadilly Circus on their wedding day

Elaine, 84, proves it's never too late to write

Elaine Bass's story of living with her husband's worsening mental health problems makes for a compelling read, writes Peter Gruner

A Secret Madness: The Story of a Marriage
by Elaine Bass
Profile Books Exmouth Market, £12.99 Order this book

WHEN novelist Fay Weldon read the first draft chapters of Elaine Bass’s bizarre story about her marriage to a man suffering from obsessive-compulsive behaviour, she told her to keep writing.
Now 84-year-old Elaine has finished the autobiographical novel, her first book, which was published in hardback last month by Islington based publishers Profile Books.
The story begins after the Second World War and Elaine, a secretary, is settling down to what she thinks will be perfect wedded bliss with Gerald – a liaison officer for the Festival of Britain – the gallant young man she met at work.
Soon, however, cosy fireside chats turn into deadly silences and tender moments are replaced by Gerald’s obsessions with data, lists and files.
Gerald, Elaine discovers later, has violent tendencies which will ultimately destroy her happiness and force her to flee their home with their new baby.
A Secret Madness: The Story of a Marriage is a slowly unfolding horror story about a man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – a condition that today two in 100 of us suffer from. But in the 1950s and early 1960s, the time in which the book is set, mental health problems were kept securely in the closet, and there was no understanding of OCD.
Ms Weldon, who encouraged Elaine to put her thoughts down at a creative writing course in Norfolk, said of the finished book: “Gripping and moving, it will ring bells with anyone who’s ever had a ‘difficult’ marriage or worried about a child’s genetic inheritance.”
Elaine describes how Gerald, who swept her off her feet, was a tall, handsome, strong, silent stranger whose air of mystery only heightened his romantic charm.
Almost in passing he mentions he suffered mental health problems when he was young, but there is nothing about him when the couple meet that is particularly strange.
Besides, he is a masterful lover, intellectually stimulating and, to Elaine, born and brought up in poor circumstances in the East End, Gerald was all you could possibly want in a man.
It was only after they had moved out of bedsit London, to the peace and tranquillity of their own home in Devon, where they really get to know each other, that Elaine begins to realise something is not quite right with her husband.
Gerald, now unemployed, shamefacedly admits that while Elaine was at work, he visited the cinema to see the same film that he’d seen the previous day.
This was odd but not particularly worrying to Elaine, anymore than she was concerned by his habit of collecting up his small pile of books and carrying them up and down stairs, morning and night, like some personal baggage.
Or the nightly habit of emptying his pockets on top of the desk of drawers with coins placed exactly in two neat piles, silver and copper, all arranged in graduated sizes.
Slightly more disconcerting is the room that he forbids her to use, which contains sealed packing cases and big brown paper parcels holding copies of the Radio Times going back for years in strict date order.
Gerald, we learn, is obsessed with his handwriting to the extent that he cannot expose himself to any situations where writing is required.
At first Elaine finds Gerald’s habits curious and at times irritating, but manageable.
Checking and re-checking pointless facts helps appease what she recognises with shock as a bottomless need for reassurance. But he is becoming increasingly withdrawn, and one of the sinister turning points of the story is Elaine’s slow, painful realisation that her husband’s old newspapers mean more to him than she ever could.
Things get worse when their child is born and her husband can’t bring himself to look at mother or baby, and depression compounds Gerald’s obsessive tendencies so that he “creeps around the house like a man condemned.”
Gerald’s mother comes to stay and Elaine offers to let her hold their baby Melanie. “Oh no, I can’t hold baby,” says the elderly woman. Elaine is shocked by the woman’s comment. We discover that Gerald’s mother was never able to pick up and hold Gerald when he was a baby but would try and soothe him by holding his hands through the bars of the cot.
Finally, one afternoon Elaine is preparing Sunday lunch and Gerald, who had been sitting quietly reading the papers, suddenly, and for no apparent reason, grabs a kitchen knife, grips Elaine’s hair from behind and points the blade at her throat. “I discovered what it was like to be truly struck with fear,” she writes. The hand holding the knife, which she could feel touching, almost pricking her throat was quivering with malevolent anger and intent. “Come on, darling” Elaine manages to gasp. Suddenly she is able to reduce the tension and Gerald puts the knife down. But now he has stepped beyond the point of no return and Elaine decides it is time they must separate.
Elaine has since re-married. Gerald died 26 years ago. She had put the 14 years of hell behind her until the creative writing course. “I sat down with a typewriter and put down my thoughts,” she said. “Ms Weldon read the first bit and told me to send her more when I was ready. I didn’t expect any interest in my work but Ms Weldon was really inspiring.”
Since it was published a number of people have contacted Elaine with similar experiences and staff and patients at Maudsley Hospital, London, which has an OCD unit, have expressed interest in the book.
Meanwhile, Elaine believes she has at least another autobiographical book in her about life in poverty in the East End.