by Kate Bradley
I feel my throat thicken with threatened tears.
She stands up and glances towards the door like she wants to run to it, to stop me going through it. ‘You’re so, so young.’
I’m so, so old.
I walk out without looking back.
It feels good to be eighteen. Yesterday I left my childhood behind. Leaving my, now ex, social worker’s office when it suits me is my first independent act as an adult.
Tomorrow will be my second and final one.
Wednesday
01:02
Destiny
I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about Jenni. I’m thinking about what’s going to happen to her. I’m thinking about how she got away with it all.
I remember I was going to take one last look at my cuttings album. I pull it out from under my bed. I turn the first page. It’s from the Mirror, front cover: ‘Teaching Justice’. I read the paragraph next to the headline. ‘Jenni Wales, 40, single-handedly exposed a child-trafficking ring. Jenni, a decorated ex-soldier, foiled the gang, which ended in a bloody standoff, when Jenni killed the men who were selling snatched girls abroad.’
I turn the pages.
I’m briefly distracted by my nails – they look so clean, milk white against baby pink. They are the nails of someone who has done nothing wrong. They surprise me.
I read how in a later article that: ‘Hero Jenni Wales, 41, finally got acquitted of all charges following the nationwide campaign to recognise her work in putting a stop to a criminal gang.’
An inside spread from The Sun sees Ella in a bikini and the headline, ‘Jenni is my hero’, and then the text tells: ‘How Jenni single-handedly pulled her from a nest of viper-like villains, who’d handcuffed her and pumped her full of drugs. Cruel kidnappers had snatched natural beauty, Ella, 17, chaining her in a cellar, ready to sell into a lifetime of work in the sordid sex trade. Innocent Ella was only saved when national hero, Jenni Wales, pulled her from the building, teaching the villains who really was boss.’
The next page saw Jenni putting her hands over her face as she was papped. ‘Tragic hero, Jenni Wales, 41, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital following a mental breakdown. Jenni, who became a national treasure after her heroic actions saved the lives of numerous future victims, has said before in an interview that she did not manage to save the girl she tried to.’
I know she was talking about me. I still want to scream at the cutting that I didn’t want her to save me, that I didn’t need to be saved, but I’m now too tired.
I drop the scrapbook and collapse onto the mattress, pulling the coverless duvet over me.
In the dark, I think about what Val said about the police wanting to prosecute me and about how Ollie tried to blame me. I think about this, turning it over in my mind like a new stone that shows promise of something more interesting, perhaps more precious than its origins first suggest. I do remember that witnesses remembered the brothers inviting people to the party. At the time, I thought that a party invite had been too far a reach to get the trafficking charge to stick. But now I think Ollie might’ve traded information. I wish I could tell him I know. I wish I could write to him, but I don’t know what prison he’s in.
Then I realise that there is no time – time has run out. For the first time, I sigh at the lack of possibilities. I stare at the ceiling, amazed that I have even considered possibilities.
Wednesday
06:30
Destiny
I put my uniform on for the last time. It is pale blue, with a loose-fitting top and trousers that match. I brush my hair in the mirror, careful not to look at my reflection. I brush it slowly back, still amazed by the short bleached hair that makes me look so different. I add eye liner, nothing else.
I get out my coloured contact lenses and my irises change from blue to brown. I take out my earrings and put them down on the bathroom shelf.
I cannot resist. I pick one up again, turning over the gold stud in my palm; Aleksander bought them for me and I’m amazed that I will never see the earrings again. I can’t wear them at work, otherwise I would wear them now and of course I’m not coming back here ever again, so they will just sit here on this shelf until someone packs up my belongings. But I can’t help but feel a pang of regret and wonder if there isn’t something more appropriate I can do with them. It should be something significant. I wish I had someone to leave them to, someone who would care about them for me, so there was a sense of their importance going on, going forward. But there is no one. I think of Val and her babies. I wonder if, when she is gone, they will treasure her earrings. Confused at my sudden rush of disappointment, I put it down, making a little chink sound as it touches the glass shelf.
I sit at the table and on the note pad I bought especially for the occasion, I write a letter to Robert and Marlena. I’ve decided since talking to Val that Robert and Marlena might deserve more than some abstract guessing game. I realise that just because they are paid, doesn’t mean they definitely don’t care. Perhaps they know what it’s like to watch everyone picnic from the shade too. So although I keep it short, I am clear about why I’ve done it.
When I’ve finished, I put it in an envelope, writing their names on the front with a short instruction. I put it in the kitchen cupboard, lay it on the layer of dust that has been there since I’ve arrived; I’ve already decided that that is the perfect place to put it as they will only clean out the kitchen when I’m gone, ready for the next fuck-up.
Wednesday
13:06
Destiny
Now the patients’ lunch things have been cleared away, many of the staff take their own lunchbreaks. I go to the hospital canteen, while many of the patients doze in high-back chairs. There’s another nursing assistant in the queue in front of me and she has started a conversation with me about the chips as we wait in line to be served. ‘Your first week on Willow, isn’t it?’ she says.
I nod. ‘Although I worked on Sycamore for six months.’
‘Got a transfer?’
‘I really want to work in rehab.’
She nods thoughtfully and tells me it’s good. ‘And better than working round all those zonked out on ECT.’
After she’s been through the till, she waits for me.
We chat about the differences of the wards as I follow her to a table. She looks at my lunch – fish and chips, mushy peas – and I asked them to give me the biggest they could and they shoved a mountain of chips on my plate too. I also took an apple pie and custard.
She looked me up and down and then back at my lunch as I take things off my tray. ‘I would’ve thought you’d have eaten like a bird.’ She’s about my age and my height, but not thin like me.
‘I thought I’d treat myself as it was my birthday on Monday.’ I don’t tell her it’s because I will never eat in this canteen again.
She claps her hands with a childish delight. ‘Your birthday! How old?’
I smile in spite of myself. ‘Eighteen.’
She squeals and looks round like everybody else should be sharing such a thing. ‘You’re eighteenth! You should be off all week celebrating!’ Her face is so comic, I have a strange desire to shove a chip in her open mouth to make her laugh. But I remember I don’t know her. I don’t even know her name.
‘They let me have the weekend off and that was enough,’ I say, giving her a wink.
She catches the point. ‘Def. Where did you go?’
I say the name of some club in town. I eat a big piece of fish in batter; it tastes great. I should eat this more often, I think, then I remember what’s happening later today. She’s waiting for an answer. ‘I got a limousine to take us there, me and my school buddies.’
Her eyes widen, she’s impressed. ‘Awesome. Next year, invite me. I’m Charlotte, by the way,’ she says, sticking her hand forward.
I try her name. ‘Charlotte.’ I like the sound of it in my mouth again. I had a sister, Charlotte. I remember telling Miss that. I never told anyone about my lost family, not
until her. My lost sister will probably be living in America still, but this Charlotte looks almost as nice. I can almost, holding her hand and looking in her eyes, imagine what it would be like to have a friend like this girl. My life would’ve felt different if I’d had a single friend who wanted to spend my birthday with me. ‘Next year, Charlotte, I will.’
A bit of me almost wishes it could be true.
Wednesday
13:49
Destiny
This is what I’ve been waiting for. I’m standing in the crowded ward office as the senior nurse is divvying up duties for the afternoon. They call out patient names and then staff are allotted the duties. I check my nails again to make sure they are clean as I wait for the names to be called. Then I put up my hand. Everyone looks at me – it’s not a hands-up situation. Besides, I’m still so new that no one here, except Charlotte next to me, really knows who I am.
‘Can I be the escort? Please? I . . .’ I hadn’t counted on the staff looking at me like I was the strangest thing in a mental health ward. ‘It’s my birthday and I fancy the fresh air.’ Everyone looks to the window, where rain hits the glass. Almost comically, they all look back at me again.
‘If it stops raining,’ I add. ‘Otherwise, I’ll push them around the corridors . . . if you think that’s better . . . but I don’t mind going out . . .’
They like them to go out in all weathers. There’s no such things as bad weather, only bad clothes, apparently. This is bullshit, of course.
For a long second, I imagine this woman will say no. You will have to do something else. Or, yes but stay indoors. And I will feel that rage again. The rage of not being listened to. The rage of people doing what the fuck they want no matter what it means to me. I imagine them staring at my rage and then taking control just like they do with their patients, just like what happened to me when I had my bad time.
Charlotte is looking at me with a question mark in her expression.
I force a smile. It might look worse.
I imagine having to go back to the bedsit, to walk past reception and say hello to either Robert or Marlena, forcing myself to smile so they don’t get concerned.
I am so consumed with living the crushing disappointment that I don’t realise that the woman has already answered me and has moved on to allocating a different patient to a different member of staff.
I turn to Charlotte and whisper, ‘Did she say yes?’
Charlotte doesn’t take her eyes off the woman but nods, whispering, ‘Yes.’
I breathe deeply, my palms flat against the wall behind me. After all the planning, it is now happening. Charlotte is asking me something in a whisper but I don’t even bother to try and hear.
It’s all come true for me, finally.
I am taking Jenni.
Wednesday
13:59
Destiny
I can barely breathe. Jenni is sitting in front of me and I am standing there holding her coat. She doesn’t look at me, but instead stares at a patch by my feet. She looks the same, unlike me. Her face is the same, her hair is the same, she is the same. Although I notice that her clothes are different. I was used to seeing her as a teacher: shirts under blazers and smart trousers. She always wore the same shoes every day – black lace-up brogues, polished to a high shine. We used to notice stuff like the same shoes every day. Then, the teachers weren’t real people, they were only teachers. But Jenni Wales became a real person to me. Now she has on tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. But apart from the clothes, she looks the same.
A second glance tells me that she’s not the same. Her face is slacker and she’s a bit fatter around the middle. She knows I’m standing here, because her eyes glance up, but move across me as if I’m as much a part of the ward as the table or the bed. But then I am taller now, in uniform and I’ve lost weight, leaving my face even more angular. And of course my hair and eyes are a different colour. I’ve been careful to think this through.
I’m nervous to speak in case she recognises my voice. Aleksander had paid for a few elocution lessons for us both; it was part of his plan. Now I realise how incredibly unusual he was – he truly cared about making himself into something else. I know that, given the chance, he would’ve done it; he would’ve become something different than he was at birth. It seems to me that is what is the problem with our country: nobody can become different to what they already are. If people try to be different, they are sneered at or laughed at. How dare they try? Who do they think they are? People agree that one should better one’s education; it’s better to try and say ‘one’ not ‘I’; to take exercise classes to improve fitness; to learn a language. Do that: be thinner, smarter, richer, healthier. If you don’t, you’re a failure. But don’t try and be a better class. Never do that.
But Aleksander knew what he was and he wanted to be different. He wanted to have children who wouldn’t struggle like we had: we both wanted that. Our children would’ve gone to the finest private schools. We were going to be fantastic parents. We would both have cut-glass accents and a successful, legitimate job of importing European goods. Our start-up position would’ve been far behind us. Our children would never have known that we both grew up poor: in Aleksander’s case, beaten and hungry; in my case, unwanted and abused. They would only look out from a huge window, across a huge garden, and know what it was to have loving parents.
But they will never know that, because they will never be born. She didn’t just rob me of Aleksander, but also of our whole life together.
‘Stand up,’ I say to Jenni, holding out her coat, my voice more hostile than I mean it to be. I hate this woman. She took me from my life.
And today she’s going to pay the price.
Wednesday
14:05
Jenni
As Destiny searches for my shoes, I can see that her hands are shaking. This means that what I have been waiting for is happening now. I’m glad.
She had stood me up, got me into my coat and then into the wheelchair, even got me into the corridor before she realised that I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I’d wanted to tell her to be helpful, but it’s so long since I’ve wanted to speak, I’m not sure I could.
I think I’ve been better a while. I’m not sure when exactly, but certainly for a little while.
It was George and Sal that made me realise I was back. They come every two weeks, my only visitors since Dad died, but I went from seeing them but not properly, like a projector image that’s not clear in the strong sunshine, to them actually being there. I must have absorbed them before, poor image or not, because I knew that they visited me. I know the patchwork on my bed was made by Sal and I know that she makes lots of them and her church ships them abroad to the poor. I know that George’s face is noticeably different since his jaw had to be operated on and I even know that it was Aleksander who did it. He must have told me all this, but I don’t remember him telling me. I don’t remember the visits. All I know is that they were always there in the most distant of ways and then they came into focus and they were sitting and talking to me and I was there with them properly and I thought that I might actually talk back to them, I just didn’t get round to it.
But I do remember the visit I got from Billy’s girlfriend Maddie, when I hadn’t been here long. I recognised her instantly.
She sat opposite me. I realised, then, how bad I must’ve been. The nurses here all talk to me like I’m having a normal conversation with them, their faces giving nothing away. But seeing Maddie was like looking in a mirror. It’s like I could see how I looked by her reaction to me. I could see her shock.
She left soon after, leaving a box of fruit jellies on my table. As she left, she turned and said: ‘Thank you. Billy always said how . . . you were always nice to him.’
And then she went and she never came back.
And that was all I was left with, the knowledge that I had been nice to him. It didn’t seem enough then and it still doesn’t now.
; I used to like jellies but they sat there until someone took them away. I was relieved when they went because my head hurt a lot back then and the sight of them made the pain in my head, which sounded like the old transistor radios when trying to find a station, much worse.
But as time has moved on, I’ve spent a long time thinking. I look out at the grounds outside, staring at a bird feeder that someone’s hung. I watch the sparrows and blue tits and other small birds I don’t know the name of, and I think that I was nice to Billy – enough for him to tell Maddie. I think about that a lot. Perhaps I always will.
But then I got better. The thinking had been enough for such a long time, but then it wasn’t any more. I started to feel restless. I began to be aware of my body again and I wanted to move. Not in the way I did before – the days of competing are behind me. I’m glad. For me, exercise was a way of not thinking. But now I’ve had this time to think, I understand things about myself that I didn’t know before. I now understand what happened to me and about what happened to my family. I’ve finally given myself time to grieve. And now I think I might be ready to go home.
I think my dad would be proud of me.
I was thinking of telling the staff about going home, when Destiny suddenly turned up on the ward. She looked different: a little taller, her hair shorter, and her eyes, I don’t know if it’s my memory, but her eyes are now brown.
I know enough to know she’s been here a few weeks. I know she knows who I am. She never comes over but I’ve seen her watching me. I know something else too, I know from the look on her face that she hates me.
She’s right to hate me. I know she’s here because she’s going to kill me.
And I know that I will let her.
Wednesday
14:09
Destiny
I wheel Jenni towards the ward entrance. This is the tricky bit. When I worked on Sycamore ward, I brought patients in all the time to Willow where most of the rehab goes on. I already had my plan from the day I started volunteering at the hospital. I did several months as a volunteer before getting a paid job here. I’ve been watching all that time. Waiting.