Another Night, Another Day

  ‘Since November,’ says Colin.

  ‘Gosh,’ says Karen. Abby knows what she’s thinking because she had a similar reaction when Colin volunteered this yesterday. But that’s months of being an inpatient and you’re not better yet?

  ‘And he’s still in his slippers.’ Lillie winks.

  ‘Have you . . . er . . . been outside?’ asks Karen tentatively.

  ‘In the garden, yes – with you, on Monday.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever left the clinic?’

  ‘Can’t be arsed,’ says Colin.

  Abby can tell Karen doesn’t believe him either. He’s in danger of becoming institutionalized, she fears. No wonder his girlfriend is fed up.

  ‘He gets his fresh air on the balcony,’ says Lillie. ‘Smoking.’

  ‘Whereas she—’ Colin tilts his head towards Lillie, ‘ – is in and out of here like a jack-in-the-box. So it’s not a question of how long, but how often.’

  ‘I’m a right tart.’ Lillie wriggles and adjusts her miniskirt.

  ‘This is the fifth time she’s been banged up,’ says Colin.

  They’re like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, thinks Abby. She is growing to like Colin and Lillie a lot – they’re able to see humour in their circumstances, and it’s catching. But she catches Karen frowning. ‘Don’t you worry. Not everyone here is as addicted to Moreland’s as these two.’

  ‘So do you think it works, then, the treatment here?’ asks Karen.

  ‘Ooh, yes,’ says Lillie. ‘They’re absolutely brilliant.’

  I know, I know, Abby yearns to say to Karen. Total contradiction. Though it’ll have to keep. She doesn’t want to push these two too far. She’s grateful to them for taking her into their care.

  ‘So do you mind my asking what brought you here?’ Karen is addressing Abby.

  Abby gulps.

  All of a sudden her hands are trembling so much that a piece of cod falls from her fork. Help, she panics. I hoped I was through such awful anxiety – the last couple of days have been a false reprieve. She is forced to lay down her cutlery.

  ‘I . . . er . . .’ She has a surge of nausea and can feel the food she’s just swallowed rising up in her throat.

  ‘Oh, goodness, I’m sorry. You don’t have to say if you don’t want.’ Karen’s eyes are full of concern. She reaches over and gives Abby’s hand a squeeze.

  Abby swallows again. I don’t know why I thought I was immune from other people’s interest, she thinks.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says, even though the room is whirling and she’s longing to run away and go and lie down on her bed.

  I have to face this, she tells herself. I don’t want to end up like Colin, in here for months – I need to get back to Callum. I need to show everyone that I can cope. And Karen seems to mean well, she really does.

  Three expectant faces tilt towards her – she’s not divulged much to Lillie or Colin either. Where on earth should she begin?

  ‘I’ve had a dreadful few months.’

  Karen sighs. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s been awful. My whole life feels like it’s falling apart.’ She surprises herself with the honesty of this admission.

  There’s a silence. Abby fears she’s put something too huge and overwhelming out there. Still, at least the room seems to have stopped spinning. Perhaps if she breaks the situation down it will help her to explain. She grips the table to steady herself.

  ‘My husband and I are separating. Our son Callum – he’s seven – has autism. He’s at the severe end of the spectrum.’

  ‘My sister’s son Nino has Asperger’s,’ says Lillie.

  ‘Ah well, you’ll know a bit about it, then. Callum doesn’t speak, and he takes a lot of looking after – he goes to a special school, but all the same . . . and Glenn – my husband – can’t seem to cope with it any more . . . Well, he never really has been able to.’ She exhales. She can hear the breath leave her lungs, feel the release of tension. ‘Which means I’ve got to start again, I guess. Find somewhere for Callum and me to live. Get a job. Re-establish who I am.’ She shakes her head. ‘’Cos God knows who that is.’

  She’s aware Karen is still clasping her hand.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Karen says. ‘Not exactly, of course. But I have that sense too, of having to rebuild my life . . .’

  Abby looks at her; Karen is biting her lip. She appears worried she’s said too much. Even more telling, her eyes are filled with tears.

  This is exactly what I was trying to avoid, thinks Abby. Other people’s stuff. Although actually it doesn’t seem that Karen’s upset is going to knock her off balance. Quite the opposite.

  She places her free hand on top of Karen’s and gives it a squeeze.

  I don’t know who’s comforting who, she thinks.

  * * *

  ‘So what are you doing now?’ asks Abby. Colin and Lillie have made their excuses, keen to catch their favourite soap on TV before the afternoon session.

  ‘I fancy a walk. Put into practice that mind-body stuff Beth was on about. Want to come?’

  Abby shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t. I’m not allowed out without supervision.’

  ‘Another time, then,’ says Karen.

  Abby pushes back her chair. ‘That’d be nice.’

  Goodness me, Karen says to herself when Abby has gone. She seems to have improved a lot since earlier in the week. I wouldn’t know it was the same person.

  ‘There’s the perfect place to stroll down the road,’ Danni tells her when Karen asks for a suggestion at reception. ‘A nature reserve, called the Railway Land Project. The site was saved from development by local residents. Turn right out of the door and head straight. You can’t miss it.’

  Shame on me that I never knew this was here, thinks Karen when she gets there. All this open space, so close to the bustle of Lewes high street, and how long have I lived only a few miles away? It’s over twenty-five years since she first came to Brighton as a student; first she fell in love with the seaside town, and then with Simon, so she never left. She pauses for a moment to inhale the fresh air and take in her surroundings, just as Beth recommended.

  To the east Malling Down dominates the view, its chalk cliffs dwarfing a row of clapboard houses along the River Ouse; to the west is wet woodland; before her a stretch of reed beds. It’s been an exceptionally cold, grey spring. There’s been so little sunshine, winter has seemed to last forever. Yet today it feels as if the weather might be turning – birds are singing, trees are breaking into leaf, people are out riding bicycles and wheeling pushchairs.

  A raised footpath allows Karen to avoid the marshy ground, and from her vantage point she can see a network of waterways loop and slice across the floodplain. Why are some channels straight and others curved, she wonders. What makes them follow a particular course? There’s an old brick bridge over the broadest stream; it appears to have once carried the railway. So that must have been here long before residents reclaimed the land. Whereas nature doesn’t carve straight lines, so those must be man-made drainage ditches . . .

  Perhaps patterns of thinking are like streams, she muses. Rainwater starts eroding a channel in an almost random fashion, yet the more the channel deepens over time, the less the likelihood it will change direction. Is it possible losing Simon made me used to feeling sad? So now I’m stuck, thinking negatively as a matter of course, often on the verge of tears?

  Certainly when her mother rang from the hospital with news of her father’s stroke, Karen was thrust back to the morning of Simon’s heart attack – and she has felt horribly jangled up ever since. She is haunted by the two men; one minute she’ll imagine her father is booming ‘Supper’s ready!’ up the stairs like he did when she was a little girl. The next she’ll be convinced she’s seen Simon outside in the garden, sawing wood.

  They’re the men she loved most on earth, and now they’re both gone. Some days Karen is so flooded with sadness, she fears she’ll never feel happy again.


  I worry more since Dad died too, she realizes. I worry about Mum all alone over in Goring; I worry about Molly and her new school; about Luke not having a close male role model; I worry about work, money . . . Ruminating, isn’t that what the therapists call it?

  Though surely it’s true – I do have less to feel joyful about without Simon at my side, and life is scarier, now I’m shouldering all these responsibilities on my own. Trying to change my mood isn’t something I can do simply by clicking my fingers. If I could snap out of it, I would.

  She pictures the other patients – Lillie, Colin, Troy, Abby and Michael . . . They seem to be finding it hard to lift their spirits, too. Can any of us really change the way we think? Isn’t that what makes us who we are; what makes me Karen?

  * * *

  The therapist clears her throat.

  ‘Did you think any more about talking?’ she asks.

  Michael had been hoping to avoid his lunchtime one-toone, in spite of it being scheduled in, but Gillian came to find him and knocked on the door of his room.

  He picks at a cuticle.

  Gillian raises an eyebrow.

  He pulls at a curl of skin.

  Gillian crosses and uncrosses her legs. Adjusts her shawl.

  ‘A bit.’

  He knows she is waiting for him to elaborate. But why? All this talking, he thinks. I’ve never been anywhere people talk so much. The groups aren’t so bad. Sometimes he says a little, when directly prompted by the therapist, or if something someone else says provokes him, but usually he keeps schtum. It’s the rest of the time he minds, because many – indeed most – of the other patients talk to each other morning, noon, and, so it seems, night. Over breakfast, lunch and supper, watching TV, playing board games . . . Chit-chat, chit-chat, yack-yack-yack – they never stop. So-and-so-did-this and so-and-so-did-that and my-mother-was-awful-to-me and my-boyfriend’s-walked-out and my-son’s-a-nightmare and my-boss-wants-to-fire-me and my-meds-aren’t-working and I’m-not-going-to-make-myself-sick-I-promise and can-I-have-that- magazine-when-you’ve-finished and you-must-eat-something and I-used-to-drink-a-bottle-of-vodka-a-day . . . They’re like bloody woodpeckers, hammering at a tree. So whenever he can get away with it, Michael retreats to his room, where he lies on his bed, watching TV. Not that different to home, in that regard.

  Gillian raises an eyebrow again.

  ‘I’m used to being on my own all day,’ he offers, hoping that will suffice.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘In a shop.’ He yanks harder at the piece of skin.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I used to run a florist.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘It closed,’ he says, and senses himself snap shut like a clamshell. However much Gillian might try to prise him open, she can’t force him. Virtually everything has been taken from him: the right to remain silent is the only power he has.

  * * *

  Karen chooses a spot on the floor between Lillie and Tash to unroll her mat. Relaxation last thing on Friday, she thinks. This should set me up well for the weekend.

  On the other side of Tash a woman is unzipping her high-heeled boots.

  ‘Hi,’ Karen smiles, then sees who it is: the woman who drank the bottle of wine on Monday – Elaine.

  ‘Hiya,’ says Elaine. Her skin is jaundiced; the whites of her eyes are yellowed.

  She doesn’t recognize me, Karen realizes. Not surprising, given the state she was in.

  There are a large number of participants, and after much puffing and sighing and fidgeting and shifting they’ve finally managed to arrange themselves when there’s a soft tap on the door. Karen hears Johnnie tiptoe over and turns her head to see who’s there.

  ‘Excuse me, guys, I had to go to the bathroom. Is there room for one more?’ American accent: Troy. He looks round at the crowded space. ‘I sure as hell could do with this today.’

  ‘You’re just in time,’ whispers Johnnie. ‘Could some of you down this end of the room possibly move up?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Abby, whose mat is closest to the door.

  With further adjustments they create a gap, though those lying on mats are almost touching shoulder to shoulder, like sleepers on a railway line.

  ‘Oi. You’d better not come that close to me,’ Tash warns Elaine.

  ‘Why not?’ asks Elaine. ‘I got BO?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not you. I’ve got Tourette’s. So unless you want a clout, I suggest you stay at least hitting distance apart.’

  Karen fears they’re going to argue, but Elaine nods and edges her mat away.

  Tash is very frank, thinks Karen. How mature for her age. She’s poised to pay her a whispered compliment when, on her other side, Lillie starts to giggle.

  ‘What?’ hisses Karen.

  But Lillie can’t seem to stop. Oh dear. She’ll upset Tash or, worse, provoke Elaine.

  ‘Shh,’ Karen urges.

  ‘Sorry,’ murmurs Lillie, wiping tears from her eyes. But within seconds she is giggling again.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ snaps Elaine.

  Eventually Lillie manages to catch her breath. ‘I was just going to say, “It’s like a madhouse in here.” ’ She pauses. ‘Then I realized that’s exactly what this is!’And she cracks up again.

  Rita, stretched out on the sofa behind them, laughs along with her. ‘Ooh, you are a funny girl, Lillie.’

  Soon the rest of the group are laughing too – Elaine and Tash included.

  ‘God, I needed that,’ says Abby, leaning up on her elbows and clutching her belly. ‘Thank you.’

  Only Troy doesn’t seem to find it quite so funny. No wonder he’s not in a joking mood, thinks Karen. Imagine going from all this comfort and camaraderie straight to Afghanistan.

  It takes a loud, ‘Shush! Everyone, time to relax,’ from Johnnie for the group to quieten.

  But throughout the session Karen can feel Lillie’s shoulders quivering with suppressed giggles next to her, and can’t help but laugh to herself too.

  24

  ‘Oh hi,’ says Lillie, popping her head round the door. ‘I didn’t realize you were in here.’

  It’s Saturday afternoon and Abby is with Callum in the main lounge of Moreland’s, watching Sleeping Beauty. There are no group sessions at the weekend, so the room is free for inpatients to use.

  ‘Did you want to watch telly?’ says Abby. ‘We can go somewhere else.’ Though I hope we don’t have to, she thinks, Callum’s so well settled. Her son is sitting cross-legged on the carpet a couple of feet away, transfixed by the screen. Glenn dropped him off so they could be together, this time just the two of them.

  ‘No, you’re fine, carry on.’ Lillie perches on the arm of one of the sofas.

  ‘You look nice,’ says Abby, detecting that Lillie has lavished even more care than usual on her appearance. Her tawny hair spirals like fusilli, her lips shine with deep-red gloss and her skin is smoothed to a flawless caramel. When she adjusts the broderie anglaise bodice of her dress, Abby gets a waft of apricot.

  ‘I’m going home today,’ she says.

  ‘I’d no idea! Permanently?’ Abby knows she should be pleased for her, but without Lillie there will be a hole at Moreland’s. Who’s she going to sit with at mealtimes, play at cards, chat to and laugh with? Being alone with Colin won’t be the same.

  ‘It’s only for tonight. Dr Kasdan suggested I do a trial run, see if I can handle it.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘But I am feeling miles better, so I’m hoping to go properly at the end of next week.’

  I wish I could leave soon, thinks Abby, drinking in the back of Callum’s head with longing. But she’s not yet had twenty-four hours without an anxiety attack, and Dr Kasdan has recommended that she remain an inpatient until she’s on a more even keel.

  Just then the Disney princess breaks into song. ‘Forgive the film – my husband brought it in.’ Abby drops her voice. ‘Callum’s got a crush on Aurora.’

  ‘Don’t blame him,’ says L
illie. ‘All that beautiful golden hair.’

  ‘He keeps replaying this particular bit.’ Aurora glides across the screen, skirt swirling as she trills ‘Once Upon a Dream’.

  ‘Ooh, hang on.’ Lillie jumps up and hurries from the room. Seconds later she’s back.

  ‘Hey, Callum.’ She crouches down next to him on the carpet.

  Oh dear, thinks Abby. I’m not sure how he’ll respond. I hope Lillie doesn’t think he’s going to be like her nephew, Nino. Children on the autistic spectrum react so individually. Though the fact that Callum is tolerating Lillie’s invasion of his space is unusual.

  ‘Here,’ she says.

  Abby can see Lillie is proffering a strip of stickers. A whole row of glorious, glittery princesses, each wearing a different-coloured gown.

  Callum glances at the stickers. His eyes widen. He cocks his head and stares at them with even greater intensity.

  Abby feels goosebumps all over. ‘Wow, that’s unusual, he really likes them.’

  Lillie beams.

  Callum hesitates, then, like a lizard unfurling its tongue to catch a fly, reaches out an arm, snatches the stickers and holds them close to his chest.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Lillie says to him. ‘You can keep them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ says Abby.

  ‘Of course.’ Lillie scrambles to her feet. ‘My sister gave them to me.’

  ‘Then you can’t give them away.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, honestly.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘I’d better be off. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Good luck. Wave goodbye, Callum.’ Abby waves to remind him of the gesture.

  Callum flaps his hand – another honour – and when Lillie leaves the room he continues to examine each princess in turn, spellbound.

  * * *

  ‘So are you all locked in?’ asks Chrissie as they’re buzzed through the door from reception.

  ‘Mm,’ says Michael.

  ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re allowed out though, aren’t you, Mickey?’

  ‘I have to wait for the door to be opened, but yes.’ This isn’t strictly true; in fact Michael is only permitted to leave when a member of staff is available to accompany him, even if he merely wants to go to the corner of the street. Soon he may be authorized to venture out unsupervised, but then he’ll have to go with another patient, and their bags and pockets will be searched on their return in case they’ve purchased alcohol or anything that could be used to self-harm.