Another Night, Another Day

It’s also believed that being in the public eye exposed the fragile presenter to scrutiny which she found hard. Two years ago she was photographed leaving Moreland’s Place in Lewes, a local clinic specializing in the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

  Mr Lawrence said, ‘I knew Lillie had been a patient at Moreland’s, but I had no idea she was so unhappy. She moved into this block when she was 17, and often popped in for a cuppa. Last time I saw her she was laughing and full of life – she’d just come back from a shopping spree and dropped by to show me all her new clothes.’ He choked back tears as he added, ‘She was a delightful girl and those who loved her can’t believe one minute she was here, and the next, she’s gone. We will all miss her hugely.’

  Karen doesn’t stop until she’s finished the piece. Then she peers at the smaller pictures. There’s a blurred shot of Lillie and Tamara as little girls, another of Lillie glammed-up with a recent winner of Street Dance Live, one of Lillie cuddling her baby nephew Nino, and finally Lillie in a mackintosh exiting the clinic, shielding her head with a paper in a bid not to be recognized.

  Karen leaves the newspaper open on the coffee table and takes a seat on the sofa next to Abby. Wordlessly, she reaches for Abby’s hand and they interlock fingers. Then for several minutes the two women sit, eyes cast down, hands clasped.

  41

  Michael senses her breath first, warm against his cheek. Even in this soporific state, he knows who it is.

  ‘Mickey . . .’ she is whispering into his ear. ‘Mickey . . .’

  He feels her take his hand; her palm is soft and smooth.

  ‘It’s me, Chrissie.’

  He opens his eyelids, a crack. He can’t bear to see too much, unsure of what he’s going to find.

  ‘Oh Mickey, thank God you’re back.’

  Where is he? He’s not entirely convinced he’s alive.

  Gradually her face comes into focus; it’s on a level with his own. His wife is almost unrecognizable: her sandy hair flat and unwashed, her eyes red-rimmed, and beneath faint freckles her skin is grey.

  ‘Why?’ Her voice is pleading.

  He has the vaguest sense of remorse, but what it relates to he can’t fathom. He has an urge to explain, ‘I’m not myself’ – he has a recollection he’s wanted to say that to her before – but the words won’t come out. Finally, after a huge effort, he manages to mouth, ‘Sorry . . .’ He feels his eyelids droop.

  Chrissie says, ‘They’ve given you a sedative, love.’

  He turns his head on the pillow, trying to see beyond her. Even this small movement is hard. Behind the armchair she is sitting on he makes out another bed with a white metal frame. There’s a hump beneath the blanket; someone else is there, back turned.

  So he’s not at home.

  A smattering of memories returns. The beach . . . The sea . . .

  ‘Michael?’

  He jumps awake at the sound of his name and opens his eyes. Everything is blurry, but gradually a figure comes into focus. A tall, skinny woman with her hair scraped tight off her face is standing beside him.

  ‘It’s Leona, I’m the psychiatric nurse. Remember me?’

  Michael frowns, trying to piece together what’s going on. He manages to say, ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Sussex Hospital,’ says Leona.

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘You were brought into A & E on Saturday night, and transferred to this ward yesterday.’

  But I don’t know what day it is today, thinks Michael.

  Leona looks down at him. ‘You were very lucky.’

  I don’t feel lucky, thinks Michael. He doesn’t know what he feels.

  ‘Do you remember what happened?’

  ‘The sea . . .’ says Michael. He can recall swimming and getting colder and colder. After that . . . He tries to dredge up the memory. Nothing.

  Leona sits down. ‘It seems as if you were trying to take your own life, Michael.’

  He can sense shame beginning to creep through his veins.

  ‘If you can, I’d really like to talk a bit more about that night. I want to help, you see, we all want to help.’ Leona glances down to the end of the bed. Michael lifts his head a little and sees Chrissie standing there, twisting her hands. ‘Last week we chatted about how you’ve been feeling lately. I came to your house to see you?’

  ‘Mm.’ Last week . . . ? It’s no good, Michael’s lost all sense of time, he hasn’t a clue how it fits together.

  ‘I know you’ve been very down, and I’m terribly sorry I didn’t appreciate how bad things had got.’

  Down? thinks Michael. No, she’s not grasped it.

  ‘It seems you took a real nosedive in the few days since then.’

  He longs to be able to communicate, but he seems to occupy a meaningless fog where he’s lonely and disconnected from everything – even the things he knows he should love, like Chrissie, don’t make him feel anything. He’s been stuck there for what seems an eternity.

  I couldn’t bear it any more, he recalls dimly, so I took myself out to sea . . . Every second I experienced in my head was torture – still is – and you’re bringing me back to it, waking me up and wanting to talk about it. Shut up, he wants to say. But he can’t, and Leona sits there, waiting.

  Eventually he offers her a morsel to fend her off. ‘I don’t feel myself.’

  ‘Can you explain a bit more?’

  ‘I feel I’ve disappeared.’ And you can’t help someone who’s disappeared, he argues. Not when that’s what they reckon has happened, whilst they’re sitting right in front of you. The Man With No Personality, that’s me.

  ‘There are medicines we can prescribe that may well help give you a sense of your old self back.’ Leona glances again at Chrissie and she nods.

  They’re in cahoots, thinks Michael. They’re going to drug me, keep me in this God-awful place. He can hear the man a few feet away groaning and he can smell piss. He shakes his head. ‘Pills will make me lose my personality even more.’

  ‘No, they won’t, Michael,’ says Chrissie. She moves to stand behind Leona’s chair.

  They’re going to coerce me into submission, thinks Michael.

  ‘Leona and the crisis team think antidepressants could really help you. I don’t know what you’ve got against them. I thought you’d been taking them since you were at Moreland’s, I didn’t know you hadn’t—’ She starts to cry.

  Oh, leave me alone, thinks Michael, please.

  ‘I wish you’d give them a go, Mickey.’ This comes out as a howl. ‘The kids want you to as well.’

  ‘The kids?’ Do Ryan and Kelly know he’s here?

  ‘I had to tell them,’ she says.

  But still he’s adrift. ‘I can’t remember what happened.’

  Chrissie pulls a tissue from the sleeve of her top and dabs her eyes. Then she turns to the nurse. ‘Is it OK if I tell him?’

  Leona nods.

  ‘A woman on the beach saw you wading out, love. Apparently she was with her dog.’

  Ah yes, thinks Michael. Through the fog he can just make out that memory. ‘It was yapping . . . They were on the other side of the rocks.’

  ‘Yes, that was the lady. Bless her . . .’ Chrissie goes quiet. Then she composes herself again. ‘She was a way off, but she could make out you had your clothes on. So she watched you, and when you started swimming straight out to sea, she got very worried.’ Chrissie starts to cry again. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘She didn’t rescue me, did she?’

  ‘No, she’d never have reached you – she called 999 and—’ Chrissie gulps, ‘ – they sent the lifeboat from Brighton. The men pulled you from the water and then you were transferred from the beach by helicopter to here. Apparently you’d only just gone under – the crew saw it happen . . .’ She stops again. She’s shaking, Michael notices, violently. ‘I keep thinking what might have happened if they hadn’t seen . . . They’d never have saved you.’

  Shame burns through Michael’s veins like fire: all t
hese people, trying to keep him alive, when he has no personality worth saving.

  A couple of minutes more and they’d have been too late, he thinks. I wish they had been. And now Chrissie’s having all her horrible sad feelings and directing them at me, like spray from a hose, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t even stand being in my own mind, let alone dealing with someone else’s.

  Leona leans forward. ‘Michael, do you remember when we met before, and I asked if you could describe your mood? You drew that line, yes?’

  Michael nods.

  ‘You told me you couldn’t see what medication could do for you, and you didn’t want levelling off as you were flat already.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I’d like you to give it a shot, Michael. No one wants to take tablets. Believe me, I know. I see people like you – some better, some worse, some about the same – a lot.’

  No one’s like me, thinks Michael. They couldn’t possibly be. Being in my mind is like existing in a hell on earth. I’m only here because of some damn dog.

  ‘It’s my job to try and help you. A lot of folks hate the idea of pills, just like you. However, when you get sick, sometimes you require treatment to get better. At the moment, you’re like someone who’s had a heart attack, but who’s refusing to allow anyone to give you the kiss of life.’

  Her expression is serious, but Michael can’t grasp what she’s trying to say.

  She continues, ‘You’ve been feeling down for months and months, and managing without medication, I know. But you got to the point where you attempted to end your own life. Isn’t it worth giving antidepressants a go?’

  ‘You want to turn me into a zombie . . .’ he mutters.

  Leona shakes her head. ‘That’s the last thing we want. At the end of the day, it’s your choice. And it’s only a trial – if you try them and you don’t like them, you can stop.’

  There’s a low cough from Chrissie. ‘Is it because you’re too proud, love?’ she ventures. ‘Maybe think of them like blood pressure tablets, something like that. I don’t think you’d refuse them, if doctors said you needed them. There’s no shame in taking medicine.’

  Michael’s head is hurting; he can’t argue any more. ‘OK,’ he relents. ‘I’ll take your bloody pills.’

  ‘Darling, thank you!’ says Chrissie, and bends to kiss him. Michael is aware he used to like being kissed, but now it does nothing for him.

  Leona nods. ‘It’s a good idea, trust me. One day you’ll feel much better than you do today, I truly believe that, though I know you can’t imagine it. The antidepressants will take a few weeks to work, but I’m very hopeful they’re the best way forward.’

  ‘Hurry up and get them so I can go back to sleep,’ he says.

  Leona raises an eyebrow. ‘Great. I’ll sort your prescription.’

  Once she’s gone Chrissie slips into the chair. ‘The kids have come back home, Mickey, and we really want to help.’

  ‘Ryan and Kelly . . . ?’ He closes his eyes to shut out the guilt.

  ‘Yes, they came to see you earlier, but you were dozing. They’re so relieved you’re all right . . . They both break up soon anyway, so it made sense for them to finish uni a bit early, and it’ll be nice to have them around, won’t it?’ She strokes his arm. ‘We’re going to get through this. Truly we are.’

  ‘Mm.’

  It’ll take weeks for the medication to work, Leona said, yet Michael has been dragging himself through the most miserable, endless wasteland for months and months already. It’s as if in the distance, across a strait of water, he saw the promising glimmer of a different land, and just for a while, when he ventured into the sea, he thought he’d finally be able to reach that better place. But he’s arrived at the other side, and found it’s merely another miserable, endless wasteland. And now his whole family is involved. How can he explain that he doesn’t think he can go through this any longer?

  * * *

  Gradually, as Karen clutches Abby’s hand, she feels her friend calm down and the jigging of her legs subside. The two women are still sitting this way when Gillian comes into the lounge.

  Normally Karen finds it hard to read what Gillian is thinking – the tight bun and half-moon glasses lend her an impenetrable air – yet today her face is taut with anguish. A few paces behind Gillian is Johnnie, but the spring in his step and the broad smile have gone, and as he reaches for one of the chairs, he glances at the newspaper on the table and Karen sees the pain in his eyes. Despite her own shock and upset, she empathizes. To be expected to take responsibility for other people – many of whom are in a precarious mental state already – must be ghastly.

  Gillian moves a chair to the end of the room by the whiteboard, drops down into it and closes her eyes. It seems the therapist is bracing herself, but she stays like that such a long while, breathing in and out, that Karen begins to grow concerned she may be too upset to lead the session. Eventually Gillian lifts her head and looks around at them in turn.

  ‘So, I expect you have heard the very sad news about Lillie.’

  There’s a universal acknowledgement that yes, they have.

  ‘I’ve come to let you each know that, as best we can, the staff here will do everything in our power to support you through this. We appreciate this is a big shock for many of you, as it is for us. Many of you knew Lillie well and I believe considered her your friend—’ there’s a wail of grief from Colin, ‘ – and were deeply fond of her.’

  Gillian’s lip quivers and she pauses. Karen gives Abby’s hand a squeeze; Abby squeezes back.

  ‘In a while I’m going to hand over to Johnnie and there will be space to share your feelings in the group about what’s happened, but first I thought we could start today by remembering Lillie with a few minutes’ silence, if you’re all agreed?’

  They nod assent, and Tash’s yelping diminishes to an occasional whimper, then stops. And as they sit there in a silence broken only by the tick tick tick of the clock on the wall, Karen is thrust back to another moment, on another Monday morning, more than two years earlier. Then, as now, she was left reeling, unable to comprehend what’s happened, or why, or where she should go from here.

  * * *

  ‘Friend’, thinks Abby. The last time I saw her, Lillie called me her friend. And to think I so nearly asked for her number, but thought she must get pissed off with people hounding her. I should have taken that word for what it signified and pushed for her address or email – something. I could have been a shoulder for her to lean on, I could have said I understood, and if she’d told me she’d been skipping her meds, I could have encouraged her to keep taking them . . . Even a text might have helped.

  Instead my own difficulties took precedence, and now it’s too late.

  Perhaps I’m kidding myself, she thinks. Even if I had called, who’s to say Lillie would have answered, or confessed how she was feeling? Evidently she didn’t tell her sister or Gillian or Colin or anyone else how desperate she was, and she was much closer to them.

  Still, she reasons, shouldn’t those of us who’ve experienced similar lows look out for each other? All of us in this room let Lillie down to some degree; we failed one of our own. Only three days ago she and I were due to overlap in day care. I considered asking staff if she was OK when she didn’t turn up on Friday – but I thought they wouldn’t tell me. How precarious her situation was. If only I – we – had been aware of just how bad things were, perhaps she would be sitting in this room today.

  V

  A Glimmer of Light

  42

  After a while, Leona returns to Michael’s bedside.

  ‘Success.’ She brandishes a white paper bag. ‘I also managed to discuss your situation with the psychiatrist, Dr Kasdan.’

  ‘I thought he worked at Moreland’s . . .’ Michael is perplexed.

  ‘He does. But he’s a consultant and works three days there and two days here. Luckily he’s in this afternoon, which was helpful, as he remembers you.’

/>   ‘That’s good,’ says Chrissie. ‘I’d been worried all this inconsistency in staff wasn’t helping.’

  ‘We do try,’ says Leona.

  ‘Oh, er . . . I didn’t mean you, love . . .’

  ‘No offence taken.’ Leona turns to Michael. ‘Dr Kasdan and I agreed it would be good to start you on these. It’s a common antidepressant which a lot of patients react well to.’ She opens the paper bag, removes a box and lays it on the bedcover.

  ‘What about side effects?’ he asks.

  ‘I’d prefer you not to get too caught up in those. It’s easy to obsess when you’re in a vulnerable state. They’re detailed in the leaflet inside the pack.’

  ‘You’re scared I’ll change my mind.’

  Leona looks squarely at him. ‘Yeah, I suppose I am. You’ve been on quite a journey, from what I’ve witnessed, my friend – and it’s not even a fortnight since we met. It depends how you see it, right? You’re thinking, Leona’s not telling me about side effects as they’re so awful.’

  ‘Er—’

  ‘Whereas I’m thinking, I don’t want to focus on the negatives, as I believe these bad boys—’ Leona taps the box, ‘ – could help this man. Not on their own, as I’ve said before, but alongside a programme of exercise and guidance in managing depression and with the support of his family.’

  ‘Ah.’ He just about gets what she’s driving at.

  ‘For some strange reason, I don’t want you bumping yourself off. And nor, I suspect, does your wife here. I reckon she’d be mighty sorry to lose you, too.’

  Chrissie gives a half-smile.

  ‘But my worry about you, Michael, is you’re on the edge. You quit the tablets before they have any effect, and who’s to say you won’t take a walk back into that lovely warm ocean out there you find so inviting?’ She flings an arm in the direction of a nearby window. ‘Yet I know that we can get you through this. I’d like to see you make the most of this programme – I reckon you could get stuff from it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It seems you and I share a trait,’ continues Leona. ‘We tell it like it is. So, you can get yourself in a right palaver about side effects if you want. Or you can go with my advice.’ She glances at Chrissie, then back at Michael. ‘Which is it to be?’