Beside Myself Read online

  I am about to ask if I can get down and go and look at the Where’s Wally? book in the corner, when the conversation changes colour and it is like we are in a television and someone has twiddled the knob to make it go orange and fuzzy.

  ‘So,’ says the man, who it turns out is called Dr Palin, clapping his hands on his knees and leaning towards me, ‘what seems to be the problem?’

  ‘We’ve been having a lot of tantrums,’ says Mother. ‘And her schoolwork has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the year. I mean, she’s always lagged behind her sister in just about everything, but over the past few months she seems to have taken a giant step backwards.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Dr Palin, and he begins to write on another pad.

  ‘There’s also been some erratic behaviour,’ says Mother, as the Barbie behind her head gives me a big wink.

  ‘Umm?’ says Dr Palin, making his voice go up and glancing sideways at me.

  ‘Well, for example, the other week she hid in the park and wouldn’t come home,’ says Mother. ‘We had friends coming round that evening and you can imagine the disruption it caused. Horace spent the whole night looking for her.’

  ‘Horace?’ says Dr Palin.

  ‘My, er, gentleman friend,’ says Mother.

  ‘I see,’ says Dr Palin. ‘And is Horace—?’

  ‘We’re cohabiting, yes,’ says Mother, talking in the pointed voice she uses for words like ‘lavatory’, so that for a moment it feels like someone has sprayed a puff of Country Fresh in the room.

  The Barbie shakes her head and does a poo-ey face.

  ‘I see,’ says Dr Palin, not looking up from his writing. ‘For how long?’

  Mother’s cheeks get red and she tosses her head. For a minute I think she is going to tell Dr Palin to mind his business and not to lower the tone, but instead she says, ‘Since August, I think. Yes, August.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Dr Palin and goes on with his writing. ‘And the problems began—?’

  ‘Just before the start of the school year,’ says Mother. ‘But I’m quite convinced that couldn’t have had anything to do with it. Horace is gentle. He’s kind and he’s reliable. He’s quite simply the best thing that could have happened to us, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Mmmn,’ says Dr Palin, flicking through some sheets of paper. ‘How long is it since your husband—?’

  ‘Committed suicide?’ says Mother, with a wrinkle of her nose. ‘Three years this spring.’

  I look up at the Barbie again but now she is sitting still.

  ‘I see,’ says Dr Palin. ‘And does Eleanor talk about him much?’

  ‘Not really,’ says Mother, her red fingernails picking at a thread coming loose on her skirt. ‘Neither of them do. To be honest, it all feels a very long time ago. That day and everything around it are pretty much a blank in my mind and I’m sure even less of it remains for the girls. They were only four when it happened and he’d hardly been a model parent before that, so…’

  ‘Mmmn,’ says Dr Palin and his pen pauses, hovering in the air.

  ‘She’s been making up stories too,’ says Mother, hurrying on.

  ‘Oh?’ says Dr Palin, and his pen starts writing again.

  ‘All sorts of wild things, but she does keep going on about swapping places with her twin sister. Quite honestly, we’re sick to the back teeth of it.’

  ‘Mmmn,’ says Dr Palin, looking at me. ‘And her sister is—?’

  ‘Thriving,’ says Mother. ‘Good as gold. If anything, she’s made even more progress with her schoolwork this year.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Dr Palin. ‘And what about bedwetting?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says Mother. ‘We’ve had a few incidents.’

  And now it is my turn for my cheeks to go red, because it is like Mother has pulled up my skirt and showed Dr Palin my knickers, all without asking me. Plus, it was only a couple of times and Ellie used to do it a lot more. I cross my arms and scowl at Dr Palin, and inside, the angry feeling starts to sizzle.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Dr Palin. ‘Faeces too?’

  ‘No,’ says Mother.

  And they carry on talking like nothing has happened. Like there has been no rudeness here and nothing for anyone to feel ashamed about, while waves of hotness run up and down my body.

  Then Dr Palin leans towards me and puts his hands on his legs again, and this time he nods and smiles like he really wants to hear me speak and not just Mother saying it.

  ‘So, now, Eleanor,’ he says, making his voice go all sing-song like a character on children’s TV. ‘What’s it all about?’

  I stare up at him, at his glasses and his nose that has been wiffling into my toilet business. And all the words I have been wanting to say about Ellie and Akela and Mother and Mary and Chloe and the sick come rolling up in a big unsayable ball that clogs up my throat. Behind it more words are rushing to speak, swarming up like wasps that cluster on and sting whatever they can get at, and all I can do is sit and stare at Dr Palin’s toilet mouth and his eyes that have looked into everything and think they know it all.

  ‘Come on, Eleanor,’ says Mother. ‘Tell the doctor what the matter is.’

  Behind her head, the Barbie’s expression has changed from friendly to superior, as though she is thinking: I might be broken, but at least I’m not her.

  I open my mouth but there is nothing there, only the silence of the words all fighting, wrapped up in the hotness of Dr Palin’s toilet questions. I close my mouth again.

  ‘Mmmn,’ says Dr Palin. He runs his pen down the writing on his pad. ‘This story about swapping places,’ he says. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any possibility it might be true?’

  Mother goes red and sits up at that so that the Barbie disappears behind her forehead. And inside me all the angry, unsaid words are blowing up and up like a balloon.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I don’t know the difference between my own children?’ she says in her most get-me-the-manager-this-instant voice. ‘After seven years of caring for them single-handedly, throughout their father’s… illness? After sacrificing my own interests and happiness to make sure they are washed and clothed and fed, without any outside help? What sort of a mother would that make me?’

  The air in the room quivers like a twanged elastic band. Dr Palin holds up his hands as a thrumming sound starts in my ears and the fidgets come in my hands.

  ‘Not at all, not at all, Mrs Sallis,’ he says. ‘It’s just important that we explore all the options…’

  ‘Well, you can start by exploring more realistic ones,’ says Mother in a loud voice that still sounds far away behind all the rumpus happening in my head.

  ‘Such as?’ says Dr Palin.

  ‘Well, this business with the umbilical cord for a start,’ says Mother. ‘I mean, no one’s ever truly got to the bottom of any damage that might have caused. And then there’s—’

  But whatever Mother was going to say next gets lost because all of a sudden the balloon of words that have been trying to get said has popped into a roar, which bursts from my mouth and goes all round the room. And I am up and powering over to the bookshelf where the broken toys whisper, and I am sweeping and hurling and scudding them and the books behind on to the floor, as if, if I can just get all their wrongness away, it will be much better. Again and again. Handfuls and handfuls. The Barbie and the scribbled-on Mr Potato Head and the building blocks that are sticky from too many children’s hands. And even when fingers come and try and pull me back, I slap them away, shouting and stamping how I won’t stop and I won’t give up and I won’t be quiet and sit back down. Nothing is ever going to make me be quiet. Nothing is ever going to make me behave. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.

  11

  There was a tray in front of her and a pair of chocolate-coloured hands manoeuvring it into position. A smell of disinfectant.

  ‘There,’ said the nurse in a sing-song Nigerian accent, her face lit by light from the window on the other side of the bed. ‘Good to see
you’re awake. I expect you’re hungry.’

  She bustled around, her shoes squeaking. Beeping. The hum of fluorescent lights.

  ‘Your brother chose it,’ continued the nurse. ‘Cottage pie and raspberry flan.’

  ‘My brother?’ said Smudge, shaking her head to try to dislodge the cotton wool that seemed to have packed itself round her brain.

  ‘Oh, he’s been so good,’ said the nurse. ‘He was here all night waiting out in the corridor. He brought you a change of clothes and chocolates. Nothing was too much trouble. He’s gone home now for a quick shower and change but I don’t expect it will be long before he’s back here again.’ The nurse smiled. ‘You must be a very close family.’

  Struggling into an upright position with pain jabbing her right side, Smudge wondered vaguely if she had woken up in another life. She touched her forehead and found that thin strips of material had been stuck slantwise above her left eyebrow, right through the tattoo. Shit. She looked around for a mirror, but there was nothing to hand – nothing to show her what she was dealing with or how bad the damage was likely to be.

  ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised he was worried,’ continued the nurse, fiddling with a contraption set up next to the bed. ‘That was a nasty accident you had there. You were lucky to get away with just that bang on the head and those two broken ribs, especially with you so rundown and dehydrated. You really should take better care of yourself.’

  A handful of images were coming back to her now: clattering along a road, headlights, that man – who was he again? Something sinister, something unpleasant. Bailiff? No, worse. Something to do with Hellie.

  She shuddered. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the nurse, batting her protest away. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. If everyone had relatives like that, the beds here would be empty, let me tell you. He even spoke to the police and asked them to come back later when you were better able to talk.’

  Smudge gave a start. ‘Police?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the nurse. ‘The driver reported the accident. He said it was your fault. He said you ran out without looking. The police just want to talk to you to check that you agree, that you don’t want to press charges.’

  Smudge slumped back on the pillows. ‘Oh yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘Whatever.’

  The nurse tutted and launched into a speech about the importance of taking care when crossing the road but Smudge wasn’t listening. A familiar craving was beginning to trickle through her. She glanced around for her coat but couldn’t see it. The rollies were in the pocket – she was sure she’d left a spare for when she got home. If she could just find it and get a few drags in she’d be able to think straight.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to the nurse. ‘Do you know where my coat is? Only I really want a fag and—’

  ‘Oh no,’ said the nurse, wagging a finger. ‘You are not going anywhere. You are staying right there until we can be sure that bump on your head hasn’t done anything serious. We are not taking any chances.’

  Smudge gaped as the zinging in her nerves intensified.

  ‘But—’ she said. ‘But surely you must do something for people who need to smoke?’

  ‘Like what?’ said the nurse, placing a hand on her hip.

  This was getting to her now. ‘Smoking rooms? Nicotine patches?’

  ‘Ha!’ The nurse slapped her thigh and laughed loudly. ‘Nicotine patches? Where do you think you are? This is the NHS. We are not made of money. Excuse me.’

  And with that, she turned on her heel and bustled away up the ward, her shoes squeaking like basketball players dodging around a court.

  Smudge clawed at the bed sheets, feeling the rough stiffness of them underneath her fingers. Any minute, she knew, the fizzing would start and then she wouldn’t be able to think straight. She had to make a plan.

  She looked around the ward: five elderly people slumped in beds, and her; a television above the window playing a news report about a campaign to stop some aggressive new building in London, the Hairpin. Nothing promising.

  She pulled up the sheets and eased her legs out of the bed. Perhaps if she stood up, she’d be able to sneak out and bum a smoke from someone out in the car park. But the floor lurched alarmingly when she put her feet down and there was a painful tug in the back of her hand from a tube that seemed to be hooked up to the device beside the bed – some sort of drip by the looks of it. Pain gouged her side once more.

  Fuck. Something else then, quickly. Something else. Her brain scrabbled like a dog trying to dig its way through a door. Smoke was flooding her thoughts, fogging her synapses and bringing the same useless ideas looming again and again through the mist: getting up, going outside, bumming a smoke from someone in the car park.

  A man in a dark leather jacket, with flecks of grey at his temples and shadows under his big, brown eyes, appeared at the end of the bed. She stared at him with a wild, hopeful expression.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Do you have a fag?’

  The man frowned, confused.

  ‘Uh, I think so—’

  He glanced at the contraption beside the bed.

  ‘Are you sure you should be smoking while you’re—’

  ‘Oh spare me the lecture,’ she groaned. ‘I’m gasping. I can’t think straight. Seriously, if I don’t get a fag in a minute, I’m going to crack up.’

  The man nodded uneasily. Glancing up the ward, he pulled the curtain round the cubicle. Then he took a box of Marlboro Lights from inside his jacket. ‘Here.’

  She reached out and took one, fighting the old habit of taking another for later on – for Ron, as someone in the unit once told her. Her fingers thrilled to the feel of the tight roll of paper and the urge to smoke came on stronger than ever.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now just help me pull the bed and that drip thing over towards the window so I can lean out.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘There’s definitely no smoking in here. There’s a sign.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Smudge, rolling her eyes. ‘Either you help me or I rip this thing out of my hand.’

  The man lurched forward, hands outstretched. ‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ he said. ‘It’s just – well, can’t you wheel it outside?’

  ‘Nah,’ she said in a low voice. ‘They won’t let me. They say I’ve got to stay put because I hit my head. If that nurse sees me trying to get out, she’ll kill me.’

  The man nodded. ‘Oh that nurse. Yeah, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of her. She saw me adding sugar to my machine coffee last night and I didn’t hear the end of it. For about three hours.’

  ‘Mmmn,’ said Smudge. She drummed her fingers on the rail of the bed and started to gnaw at her lip.

  ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue,’ he said. ‘The fire alarms in this place are only old spot-type detectors. If you lean far enough out, no one will be any the wiser.’

  ‘What are you? A health and safety inspector?’ she said. She looked at him with narrowed eyes and saw how clean-cut he was, how straight. His shirt was pressed and tucked into his jeans.

  (‘Red alert!’ shrieked a voice.)

  ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  He ducked her gaze and went over to the window. After a moment’s fumbling there was a click and the plastic casement swung outwards by about three inches, allowing a puff of cold morning air into the room. The faint hiss of drizzle came with it. Spring was still a long way off.

  ‘Now,’ he said, coming back round the bed, flushed with his own daring, ‘if I can just push this over there—’

  She fidgeted with impatience as the window came closer, broadening the view out across the car park towards the grey block opposite. When the bed was flush with the sill, he handed her a lighter and she lit up, leaning forward, trying not to tug the drip in her hand.

  ‘God, that’s so much better,’ she said, feeling her head start to clear after the first few drags. Turning round,
she saw him watching her with such intensity that she felt obliged to offer him a puff.

  He waved it away.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be trying to give up. H— the family don’t like it.’

  She stared at him, feeling the good effects of the cigarette halt and freeze in her veins.

  ‘Fuck. You’re him, aren’t you?’ she said flatly. ‘John, Dave – whatever your name is. Her husband.’

  ‘Nick,’ he said. ‘Yeah. Afraid so.’

  She turned back to the window and finished the cigarette in quick, rough drags, before flicking the glowing butt away.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ said Nick weakly. ‘The cars. What if there are people—’

  She turned back to look at him, scorn on her face. An urge rippled through her to do something extreme – something freaky to send him running out of there. She thought about ripping the drip out of her hand and shaking blood all over the floor.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK?’ he said, starting back at her expression. ‘I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I just wanted to talk to you. I had to talk to you. There are things—’

  She screwed up her eyes and shook her head violently. Voices clamoured inside her mind, trying to drown him out (‘Buffoon! Curmudgeon! Cleft-footed weasel!’). She would not hear him.

  She felt a tug on her arm and opened her eyes to find him standing beside her, his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Please!’ his mouth mimed through the hubbub in her head. ‘Please!’

  ‘Fuck off!’ she shouted with all her strength, blasting the clamour into silence.