Too Close

by Natalie Daniels

  ‘Connie?’ The voice is so familiar; these days I cannot tell what is inside my head and what isn’t. I don’t bother opening my eyes.

  ‘Connie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘It’s me,’ she says.

  ‘Hello me,’ I say.

  ‘I’m here,’ she says. And then I begin to think that perhaps this voice is not in my head and with great effort I open my eyes and focus on the ceiling. There’s daylight. The panels look grey not white in this light. There are three peeling, not two.

  I feel a hand take mine; it’s cool and clammy. I try to turn my head. I see someone sitting there at my bedside, a bag on their lap. I don’t recognize her at first: she’s sideways to my horizontal world and she looks different. But I know that fragrance. Yes, there she is, sitting on the chair, full of the glow of outside people from that other reality I am no longer a part of. I think perhaps I am imagining her.

  ‘Ness?’ I say, but my voice has gone now, there’s been no call for it. She smiles. She is so familiar to me. She’s cut her hair and she looks older but she is just as beautiful. Her dark eyes are full of a sweet sadness that I do not recognize.

  ‘Oh, Connie,’ she says, and for some reason she starts to cry; silently, just tears spilling down her cheeks.

  I wonder if something has happened. I try to squeeze her hand but I’m so weak I don’t know if she can feel it. She leans forwards and rests her head on my hand. I look down at her, confused, and then I notice my wrist; the scars are pink now so some more time must have passed by, weeks I suppose. Months? What does time matter? Slowly I raise my other hand and touch her frizzy bob and we stay like this for a while.

  It’s so lovely to have her here, even if she is only in my imagination. I have that peculiar feeling again that we are playing parts in a play, that we are old souls, battling through eternity together. This time I am an invalid and she is a nurse. We say nothing; we have no need for words because they are inadequate. But I feel her love.

  The moment is crudely interrupted by the door opening. It’s the Squeak, my only constant. ‘OK Connie, sit up for your visitor,’ she says, and I know then that Ness is real. I stare at her as the Squeak walks round to the side of the bed and talks to me like the simpleton I have become. She leans over, presses a button and makes my bed move into a semi-upright position, and Ness spins round accordingly.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ the Squeak asks, not expecting a reply. ‘Come on, Connie,’ she adds admonishingly. ‘She’s being a very silly girl,’ she says to Ness before leaving the room.

  I try to say something but it comes out as a whisper and Ness leans in to hear better.

  ‘She’s a right cow,’ I say. Ness smiles. I feel only love for her; I become aware of my heart beating and momentarily feel connected to my body.

  I wriggle my fingers and she takes my hand again. I close my eyes. This is not hell. This is the first piece of peace I have felt for a long time. I feel her touch on my skin and I wonder what she is doing, why she is tickling me. Then I realize she is running her finger along my suicide scars, the hackings I made on the bed while she slept. She is running her finger up and down each one, feeling every bump and shine as if she wants to feel my pain. I feel the shame of myself. What a silly girl.

  I open my eyes and she is looking at me with those sad brown eyes and takes a deep tremulous breath. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, and I am truly puzzled. I shake my head. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I can ever say to her.

  She takes something out of her bag, I cannot see what. But I see her unscrew a lid and tip something into her hand. Then with her fingertip she gently rubs some oil on to my wrist. I can smell lavender. It feels lovely, her touch on my skin; no one has touched me in this way for so long, no one has caressed my ugliness. I sigh, stretch out a little. She doesn’t stop at my wrist; she quietly moves round the bed and picks up my other wrist, examining my hand. I feel the shame again, those scars that were meant for her. I try to withdraw my hand but she doesn’t let me. She kisses my scars. Then she carefully places my hand back on the bed.

  ‘Let me …’

  And I do let her. I close my eyes. I hear the glug and slap of the oil in her hands as she rubs them together, before gently picking up my hand and lightly massaging my skin, the base of my palm, between my fingers, up over my wrist, along my arm, following the macabre patterns of the acid scars. It feels so wonderful, her touch on my neglected skin, the slippery smoothness of the oil, the warmth of her hands, the love she is giving me. I feel myself relax as those pliant fingers seem to place me in my body again. She doesn’t miss a single scar, from my fingers to my toes, via my arms, my neck, my chest, my breast, my stomach, my groin, my thigh, my knee, my foot; each damaged place she gives her full attention. She is giving me my body back; I am reclaiming this flesh.

  When she has finished, I cannot move. I lie there in a blissful state breathing in the lavender aroma of the room. When I open my eyes she is still there waiting for me, watching me. She smiles.

  ‘I brought you something,’ she says, and she passes me a white envelope on which she’s written For Connie. I try to sit up; I reach out with my rejuvenated hand and slowly take the envelope from her. I study the familiar handwriting. I love her handwriting; it is practical, masculine. I carefully open the envelope and pull out several photographs.

  She helps me. The first one is a shot of Josh and Evie. It takes my breath away. They look so bright and young, so happy, so in love; Evie is leaning against Josh’s chest, he has his arm around her. I run my finger over his changing face – his nose is bigger, his jaw more pronounced.

  I look at it for so long that Ness says, ‘There are more.’ And she helps me go to the next one. It’s Annie, smiling at the camera. Her two front teeth have fallen out and she has a huge gap that she is clearly proud of. I am overwhelmed; my eyes begin to sting. The next photo is of Polly and Annie, all skinny and knobbly-kneed doing hula hoops in the garden. I feel my body begin to fill up, a tidal wave of emotion spreading through me. I look up at Ness.

  ‘They’re fine,’ she says.

  I nod.

  ‘Everyone’s fine,’ she says. ‘We’re going to get you out of here, Con.’

  And as I begin to cry I feel alive again. And Ness leans forwards and rests her forehead against my own and holds me. I don’t deserve this. When I finish crying, she takes the photographs from my hands and goes through them all, showing them to me, reinforcing her words: the children are fine. The children are fine. And I begin to think maybe, just maybe, I am going to get out of here.

  4 April

  Dearest Connie,

  I am sorry that it has been so long since you have heard from me. Please forgive me. I also offer my profuse apologies for my behaviour and for letting you down. It was deeply unprofessional of me. I hope my absence was explained to you by Dr Johnson. The truth of it is – and I know what a stickler you are for the truth – that several complaints had been made about me (there was also CCTV footage) and I was taken off your case abruptly by my boss and was denied contact with you. It is not how I wanted to end things.

  I want you to know that I have been deeply impressed by you, not just in regards to the work we did but as regards the work you do on yourself as a human being. You and your indomitable spirit have been an inspiration to me.

  I was delighted to be informed, as no doubt you have been by now, that the Domestic Court has given you visitation rights twice a month. This is really very good news and I am sure your relationship with your children will thrive and that your life will take a strong turn for the better. Be sure that you keep taking the medication, which at last seems to be sorted. I am actually writing an article for the BMI regarding the misuse of benzodiazepines. Your story has deeply concerned me.

  My news is that I am taking a year’s sabbatical. Si Hubby and I have decided to make a change in our lives. We are selling the house, putting things to rest and finally moving on. We ha
ve found a place in Sussex away from the dirt and grime of city life. I am looking forward to a new start, although I shall always return to Enfield to visit Abigail’s grave.

  I wish you only the best with your journey. Look after yourself, dear Constance. It has been a blessing getting to know you. And I want to thank you for your boldness, your wit and your incisiveness, and for making me see the world a little differently.

  Yours,

  Emma Robinson

  Hey, Dr R. It was so good to get your letter. How I love snail mail; it feels so fantastically old-fashioned. I keep it by my bed and read it often. I’m sorry I’ve been so slow in responding (it seems that somehow spring has arrived) but until very recently, writing has felt like an impossibility and besides, I really didn’t have an awful lot to say.

  It was the Squeak who ratted on you. What an unforgiveable sweat patch of a woman she is. And yet I have grown so accustomed to her that she is now just part of my life – like haemorrhoids (my body has begun to protest about all this lying down and rubbish food). I suspect that she is also the person leaking things to the press. I do hope she doesn’t mention you but I wouldn’t put anything past her. Oh, and the other ratter was Dr Twat, I’ve no idea what his real name is – Johnson, perhaps, as you say. I don’t think he has ever said two words to me but he swoops about the place brandishing his sword of mediocrity.

  By the way, I hope you don’t mind but I wrote to your idiot boss, Tom Warner, to complain about the way you were treated. I’ve written a glowing report, signed off ‘The Yummy Monster’ (Jesus, who comes up with this shit?).

  I have two things to tell you; three, actually. Firstly, thank you for your kind words. I was very touched and surprised by them. I wanted to thank you for everything. Without you I wouldn’t be where I am now – on the mend. You have made me radically change my views about your profession. Although I’m not too impressed with your replacement; not only does she have arrest-worthy sartorial taste but she suffers from a particularly deadly variety of halitosis. I’d say absolutely anything at all to get her out of the room, which seems to be a technique that works a treat for us both.

  I got the wonderful visitation news from the social worker! I am over the moon! It’s actually once a month initially and as long as I continue to take my medication and accept my condition – bipolar psycho fuckwit – it will increase to twice a month.

  The second thing is that something extraordinary happened yesterday. I know you’ll be interested – you lot are, in essence, just nosy parkers. Now that the weather seems to have picked up a bit – there are apple trees at the back of the garden, by the way, and the blossom has come out; they are truly lovely – I spend as much time as I can outside. Oh! And our leaf is still clinging on! I check on it daily; can you believe such perseverance? Anyway, I was humouring Mental Sita on the lawn – she wanted to play doggies (actually she wanted to play dogging but I drew the line, although God knows I miss the human touch) – when the Squeak told me I had visitors. Plural: visitors. I beckoned to her grandly that she may bring ‘said visitors’ to the garden – I’ve become even more dismissive of her now that I know what a genuine scumbag she is. I was expecting it to be Karl and my father (who, incidentally, told me last visit that an exceptionally kind psychiatrist had visited him but he couldn’t remember anything about her – was that you?). Wrong again. Guess who?

  Yes, Dr R, my children came to see me! Josh and Annie were standing there by the back door staring at me with a social worker hovering nearby. I felt this extraordinary love rise up within me; the umbilical cord of motherhood is never really cut. I know that you know that. My eyes filled with tears. They looked so much bigger than I remembered and a little apprehensive, which was not surprising.

  It was not the impression I would have ideally wanted to give – I had Mental Sita on the leash, she was cocking her leg against the litter bin, and I was so surprised to see them standing there that I let go and she bounded across the lawn towards them. Mental Sita can be disquieting at the best of times but now she was literally barking.

  ‘Tell her to get down!’ I cried. ‘She’s pretending to be a dog!’

  The children just stared at her and then back at me. (I don’t look so freaky any more; my hair has grown back thick and strong. I’ve got a slight tan from the recent sunshine. I look OK. But the fact of the matter was I had a huge Indian woman on all fours on a leash.)

  Annie, as ever, was game. ‘Down! Bad dog!’ she said, and Mental Sita obediently sat on her haunches and panted, ready to play. I caught up with her, picked up the leash and tied Mental Sita to a tree.

  In a way, it was quite a good ice-breaker. ‘Hello, guys,’ I said. And we stood there for a moment staring at each other. I held out my arms.

  Even a mental mother is better than no mother at all, wouldn’t you say, Dr R? We stood there hugging for a little while under the keen eye of the social worker, and then I took them down the lawn towards the brook, which turns out to be more of a puddle with an exit. (Don’t think we ever made it that far?) These days I have no pills to pop, I have to make do with twiddling a leaf in my fingers.

  However, in essence we were all the same as ever. Annie and I sat down in the sunshine and took our shoes off and put our feet in the water and started making daisy chains. Josh squatted underneath one of the apple trees nearby. And the social worker was now sitting on the bench not too far away, looking as awkward as we were all feeling.

  Annie started asking me lots of questions about the place and I pointed out various rooms in the building. She asked if she could come and stay with me sometime and whether we could watch people dying in the electric chair. I don’t know what she’s been watching but I said I didn’t think we had one.

  ‘Don’t have any more breaking downs, Mummy,’ she said, apropos of nothing.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I said. ‘I just want to say how sorry I am for everything I’ve put you through, and I want you to know that I love you more than anything in the world and I never meant to harm you.’ I looked up at Josh; he was harder to read.

  ‘Well, you mustn’t do it again,’ Annie said. But her attention was on Mental Sita; she kept looking back towards the tree, where Mental Sita was busy licking imaginary scrotums.

  ‘I won’t. I promise. And I’m going to be allowed to see you twice a month.’

  ‘Will you have to live here?’

  ‘For a while.’

  ‘Do you think she wants to play sticks? The dog lady?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Go and ask her.’

  Annie leapt up. I watched her little athletic frame run back up towards Mental Sita, the social worker momentarily dithering about who was the greater danger here.

  ‘How are you, Josh?’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Well, it’s all a bit weird, isn’t it?’

  I nodded. And we both smiled.

  I gestured for him to come and sit beside me. I put my arm around him and he leant against me a fraction. How I’ve missed him and our little chats; we had a special bond, he and I. I know you’re not meant to say this but sometimes it felt like we were friends or siblings, not parent and child.

  ‘I’m so sorry for the mess, for not being there, Joshy. It’s not been fair on you two.’

  ‘Are you better?’ he asked, scratching his calf. I could see that his legs were hairier and I suddenly felt in awe of myself: it’s quite a feat being a mother of a man.

  ‘Yes. And I’m going to be well again,’ I said, smiling at him, determined for it to be true. ‘How’s Evie?’

  ‘They’re outside in the car.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, presuming he meant with Karl or Ness or both. I wondered how he felt about them but I didn’t ask. It was strange how differently I felt about it all now; it seemed so unimportant, so trivial in the greater scheme of things. In fact, if I felt anything I felt grateful to her for being there when I hadn’t been able to be.

  ‘How’s school?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘School’s
school.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my love.’

  He shrugged again. He was distant.

  ‘You have every right to hate me,’ I said.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ he said, sounding just slightly irritated with me. God, of course not everything was about me; this is the trouble with mental illness – we become so introverted, spinning in our own vortices. I had been so busy gazing at my own navel and the reality is: life just goes on, doesn’t it? I knew better than to press him so said nothing. I glanced back at Annie, who was throwing Mental Sita a stick.

  Josh picked up a blade of grass and stretched it between his thumbs – carefully, intently. Then he turned and looked at me. ‘Mum, Evie’s missed a period,’ he said.

  I held his gaze but my eyes widened; I really hadn’t seen that coming at all. He carried on, ‘The Boots early test thing said she wasn’t pregnant but that was six days ago and she’s convinced she is.’

  Oh. My. God. ‘She’s probably fine,’ I said. ‘Does Ness know?’

  He shook his head. Six days. She should take another test right now. I put my hand on his back and soothed him like I used to do when he was little. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Nothing is insurmountable …’

  He nodded and went back to his blade of grass. ‘Just to let you know … the thing is: if she is … we want to keep it.’

  I stared at him. I was incredulous. When he looked at me I saw a steadfastness in his expression that was new to me; I saw a young man. A flurry of pink petals blew off the apple tree behind him, landing on us like confetti.

  I suppose I was meant to say, Don’t be mad, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you: exams, university, career, plenty more fish in the sea … But I didn’t. I didn’t feel that way; I was shocked, yes, but the truth was I felt glad for them in that moment. I felt emboldened by them.

  I picked a petal off my lap and gently rubbed its smoothness against my upper lip. I thought of all the relationships that would be changed by a baby aside from his and hers – Ness and I would be for ever entwined, Karl and I, Karl and Ness, Ness and Leah, Leah and Karl – and my head began to spin. I reached out and took his hand in mine and lifted it to my lips. ‘Everything will be all right, whatever you decide, Josh. You hear me?’