by Tom Marcus
As Pam continued to look at me, smiling, saying nothing, I briefly avoided eye contact with her to take in my surroundings. Clocks absolutely everywhere, at least twelve behind her, all set to the same time but of differing sizes and shapes. No digital clocks, which I found strange given the sheer amount in this small office, also how the fuck did she manage to keep them all in sync with each other; she must check them daily. I was starting to profile mad Pam, imagining her having 900 cats at home and switching the lights off and on twenty times before she could leave the room. There had to be something causing her to smile this way.
Five more minutes ticked by, and it felt like a lifetime, then I caught Pam’s eyes still looking at me, smiling. It was like a switch had been flicked and I felt my bottom lip twitch; was I about to start crying? No way, I wasn’t upset. The twitching got stronger as Pam continued her gaze. Was she some sort of Jedi, mind-fucking me into submission? I had to regain control, I didn’t like this feeling of insecurity at all.
‘What’s with all the fucking clocks?’
Nothing, not even a flinch in her smile. Actually, thinking about it, she wasn’t staring at me but I hadn’t seen her blink for the entire time I was here. Ah, fuck me, she was a psychiatrist, she wanted me to talk first. Bollocks, welfare had made the link between me not sleeping and being an operator and decided to see if I was suffering mentally. I needed to front this out; if the service thought I was mentally unstable I would never get back out on the ground, and I wasn’t ready to be retired yet.
‘Have I wasted my time coming down here or what? You’ve brought me in to smile at me while I count how many clocks you have? Fuck this, I’m going. Shove your smiles up your arse.’
Standing up to leave, I pushed my chair back too aggressively and hit a bookshelf behind me.
‘Shit, sorry.’
‘Why are you pretending to be angry?’
The Jedi finally spoke and called me out straight away; she knew I was fronting this out to cover up the fact I’d got emotional. She must have seen my lip quivering. Tilting her head, she started her probing.
‘You can either tell me why you’re wearing a mask and pretending to get through this so you can get back to your team or you can talk to me here and we can get you some sleep.’
Adjusting the chair, I sat down, feeling emasculated. Pam had recognized what I was trying to do and, perhaps more importantly, she knew I needed help. I still don’t know how she unlocked that emotion in me but it wasn’t long before that upset feeling came flooding back tenfold.
‘I, er, I’m having nightmares. It’s scaring my wife.’
‘What are they about?’
‘I’ve no idea, I can’t remember them. But, well, they’re getting worse.’
Noticing the fading grazes on my knuckles, she nodded towards my hands.
‘Are you lashing out during the nightmares?’
‘I think so, yeah. Last night I just came to in the corner of the room, I can’t remember the nightmare, though.’
‘Tom—’
I interrupted her, I didn’t want to be called by my proper name. It was too official. I was an operator, not a patient.
‘It’s TC, please. TC.’
‘Sorry, TC. How long have you been known as that?’
‘Since Ireland. I used to be in the army, Special Operations with the service over there. It’s where I was recruited from.’
‘You were recruited?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wow, OK. Most people in A4 went through the application process. Not many are actually hand-picked now. Great. How did that make you feel?’
Oh, fuck’s sake, here we go. This wasn’t a normal chat to break the ice, I was being analysed here. I didn’t trust her; she was clearly smarter than I was. Obviously no operational experience, but she’d got inside my head and triggered emotions I didn’t even know I had. I was here, though, and if I didn’t play this right I would never rejoin my team.
‘How did it make me feel? Erm, not sure. I worked for the service unofficially and then I got given the opportunity to get officially badged as a surveillance officer, so jumped at it.’
‘Who recruited you, maybe I know them?’
‘Ian. Ian Grey.’
‘Ah, I don’t know that name. Most of the people I mix with are G Branch. Is he A Branch, I presume?’
She didn’t know Ian was dead, she wasn’t lying or pretending. If she was hiding the fact that she didn’t recognize the name, Pam was extremely good at this game.
‘Ian GREY, he died? Found dead in Northern Ireland? IAN GREY?’
My lip went again, and this time my eyes filled up with tears. I couldn’t hide this or front it out any more. I couldn’t stop giving answers either, because Pam the mad Jedi had somehow managed to pull on little strands within me, knowing which one would give her a specific response.
‘Have you been having nightmares about Ian?’
My voice broke while I desperately tried to regain emotional control.
‘No, I don’t know. I can’t remember them.’
‘Tell me about the work in your team, anything that happened that has been particularly frightening.’
‘Our worlds are totally different, you live in fancy London, the sun hits your face as you walk from the coffee shop into this office checking your clocks. You have no idea what my world is like.’
Sensing my armour going back up and me trying to deflect any more probing, Pam interrupted me.
‘Tell me about your world, please.’
Her smiling stopped, her hooks were in now. I was frightened of what she was going to say at the end of the meeting.
‘I’m going back to my team, aren’t I?’
‘TC, no, you’re not. But this isn’t the end of the world for you. Whatever has happened to you is affecting your personal life. Soon it could affect how you operate, which means you are a risk to yourself and your team.’
‘I’m fine, I just need a decent night’s sleep. Honestly, I’m fine.’
‘OK, so say we put a plaster over this little cut. Maybe it heals and you don’t have any more nightmares. But what if that cut becomes infected and you become seriously ill? Let’s fix this now and get you sorted. I’ll make sure your pay isn’t affected.’
I would never see my team again. I knew they would carry on as if I didn’t exist because they still had a job to do. I felt deflated, like I was shrinking. I’d lost my identity. Working in counter-terrorism was all I knew. The majority of my adult life up till this point had been stopping people doing evil things. I couldn’t do anything else; I had no education or qualifications. I was drowning in debt and had a family to provide for.
‘So I can’t go back to my team because of nightmares? This is bollocks!’
‘Have you heard of PTSD?’
‘Of course I have, it’s what you guys are calling shell shock or Gulf War syndrome. I don’t have that.’
‘Then you won’t have a problem talking to the leading expert in PTSD, will you?’
‘Let’s make a deal, I talk to this expert and they say I don’t have PTSD then I can go back to my team and we treat this as lack of sleep?’
I needed to get her onside and quick; if this went any further my career would be gone and I’d be kicked out of the service.
‘OK, if the professor says it’s not PTSD then we’ll look at other treatment. But you have to be honest with him. He’s a high-ranking officer within the military but he’s one of the best psychiatrists in the country. No one in the world knows more about post-traumatic stress disorder than him. He’s also vetted, so you can talk to him in this office.’
I felt like I’d shot myself in the foot asking for help. Having PTSD attached to me would officially mean I couldn’t go on the ground or operate with any other agency again. Bigger than that, though, it meant admitting there was something wrong with me mentally.
‘But while you’re here, let’s see if by talking you can figure out what’s upsetting you, sha
ll we?’
‘Fine.’
Pam knew I was pissed off; I lacked the will to hide it from my face. I knew I couldn’t trust her.
‘Tell me about growing up, only child?’
Funny how when asked about my childhood people assume I was an only child. I must emit some sort of signal that suggests I had to fend for myself as a kid.
‘Typical broken home, scruffy kid. Never bullied, the usual.’
‘TC, if this is going to work you need to talk to us. You want to get back to your team? Then you have to convince us, without lying, that you’re able to return.’
I waited for her to ask questions, but she was right. I had to make them believe I was good to go again. This was going to be hard, opening up to someone I didn’t know. I’d spent decades cementing feelings and experiences away to protect those around me. Removing that armour plating completely would be difficult, maybe impossible but if I didn’t do this I could potentially lose the most important thing in the world – my family.
‘So, tell me about your parents.’
‘My dad was in the army. He and my mum were in Hong Kong when my sister was born. I wasn’t looked after that well. My sister is a lot older than me and moved out as soon as she could. Sometimes I’d go and stay with her in squats.’
Waiting for some sort of response on Pam’s face to gauge whether or not this was what she needed to hear, I waited for the next question,
‘Did you join the army following your father’s footsteps?’
Fucking hell, this was going to be a long day, but I was here and fighting for my career. Pam would sense if I was lying, so I needed to be honest and bare all. Fuck.
‘I suppose so, in a way. Really I just wanted to belong to a family. Be around people who thought the same as me and looked after each other. I pretty much raised myself from an early age. My dad drank a lot.’
‘And what about your mother?’
‘I don’t know the reason, maybe because of the way my dad got when he was pissed or because she had to work to bring in enough money to put food in the cupboards, but she didn’t pay much attention to me. As soon as I could join up, I did.’
Her body positioning changed as she hooked her ankles underneath her bum sat on her chair, as if she was enjoying listening to me.
‘How old were you when you joined the army?’
‘Sixteen, straight from school.’
‘Your father, was he ever violent towards you?’
‘Not really. Plenty of telling me to fuck off and abandoning me on the street so he could go to the pub, but he never hit me.’
‘OK, tell me about your time with A4, how did you find the training?’
‘Training was easy, it’s just a case of learning the terminology and how the methods and tactics differ from the military.’
I could sense Pam was about to pull on another loose strand here.
‘Must be hard to switch off, being trained to such a high level of observation?’
‘Erm, I suppose so. But I’ve always been like that for as long as I can remember.’
‘During your training you’re given hyper-vigilance, a skill that allows you to do an incredibly important job keeping this country safe. However, unless you have a way of switching that off, your brain becomes tired and struggles to cope. During sleep, your brain will file away memories, that’s what your dreams are.’
She was starting to make a lot of sense, and I was guilty of not talking about things or taking time out to switch off. Truth is, I didn’t have time to take up a hobby or go out with the family. I was always working.
‘Yeah, I get that. The pace of operations at the minute is horrendous. We just don’t get time.’
‘Can you remember any traumatic events you might have experienced?’
‘Traumatic? Not to me, but plenty of other people would class as frightening, but we all have different levels of awareness. Something I find normal could well scare the shit out of the local shopkeeper, couldn’t it?’
‘You’re right, TC, we do have differing thresholds. But if someone finds they go through a traumatic experience, the natural reaction may be to cry, scream or shout and then talk about it. That way the brain can process it all. People who tend to lock it all away and bound onto the next traumatic experience can end up with PTSD. At that point the brain no longer recognizes what is real and what isn’t. A nightmare becomes very real because the memory banks can remember something similar actually happening.’
The Jedi was back and she waited for me to say something. She knew exactly how to control me, and I felt impossibly weak and unable to deflect her questions any more. I could feel the tears streaming down my face but only realized snot was coming out of my nose when Pam handed me a fistful of tissues.
‘OK, TC. Take as long as you want. I’m going to speak to Sue and sort it out so you can go home. Don’t worry about pay, we’ll make sure it’s not affected. When you’re ready, go home and we’ll post you a letter out with a date to meet the professor to talk some more, OK?’
I was desperately trying to compose myself, but I couldn’t stop crying. Whatever she’d unlocked in my head, it was working, but I didn’t want it to. I needed this to stop so I could get back out on the ground with my team. I was fighting for my professional and personal mental freedom, but I was losing this fight; I didn’t know if I had what it took to defeat whatever this was, or whether I really had PTSD or not. I didn’t want to admit I had a mental health problem.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Driving home back to my family, I felt numb and vulnerable. I’d let someone in MI5 see my emotional state, a weakness I didn’t know I had. The problem was that person was a psychiatrist and, despite her lack of operational experience protecting this country, she was one of the most powerful people in the service. One quick phone call and a few signatures from her would remove me from operational duty and ensure I would never walk through the security tubes at Thames House again.
I couldn’t seem to compose myself. It was this strange mix of anger and sadness, I was constantly fighting back the tears but ready to scream and shout at a driver in front of me if they didn’t react to the green traffic light quick enough. I was given a prescription of diazepam, which I was immediately suspicious of; with our routine drug testing something like this would almost certainly mean I’d never return to operational work.
When I explained to Lucy that night what had happened, she saw this as a positive step. I knew she was right, of course; our family and health comes first before anything and it was that positivity that I held on to as I desperately tried to focus on beating this. I refused to research PTSD. Its symptoms and the restrictions it had over people didn’t interest me. I believed if I focused on something I would attract that thing, and if I focused on being who I was and staying strong and fit I’d be exactly that. Focusing on negativity would ensure I’d crumble.
I was shit at taking medication. I’ve never been able to swallow tablets. During my time in the military we had to take anti-malaria tablets in the desert. I stopped trying to take mine three days into an eight-month tour. I would rather risk getting malaria than take the tablets. I just couldn’t swallow them, until Lucy showed me a really easy simple method. That brief moment of simplicity was golden. She told me to place the tablet in between my front teeth while clenching my back teeth together, then to drink some water, and the tablet slid down with ease. All these years of running around the world with guns, hunting mass murderers and terrorist leaders, and it was only now that my wife with the gentlest of touches showed me how to beat a tablet half the size of a Tic Tac.
‘You fucking spaz!’
I nearly spat the tablet back out with laughing. It was exactly what I needed to hear; I couldn’t bear it if I was treated like a victim, and after all I still didn’t know what was up with me, but having my wife take the piss and make fun of me was exactly the therapy I needed right then.
I’d never done drugs before, which for someone who
grew up the way I did was a miracle. I was surrounded by people taking drugs at school, even dealing on the playground. I would watch as the older kids passed wraps of cannabis to each other when they asked for a ‘Henry’. I didn’t tell the teachers it was happening. I didn’t do anything, just watched.
It didn’t take long before the diazepam kicked in. I suddenly felt drowsy,
‘I’m going to bed.’
Standing up to walk up the stairs, my body felt drunk and tired but my mind still sharp. It was like my body had been shut down but not my brain. I made it to the bed and collapsed in a heap, too heavy to even cover myself up, and my muscles continued to fail me as they completely relaxed. What the fuck was happening? I thought this medication was designed to help me sleep, not lock me in some sort of ridiculous torture.
I could barely move, eyes slammed shut and for all intents and purposes this body was asleep. My brain wasn’t, though, and instead of being sharp to the environment around me I could only see my memories as the different parts of my brain tried to process everything. I remembered Pam talking about this and started to repeat what she had said, this was normal. The images I could see now in this dreamlike state were exactly what I had to do to heal.
I hated this, hours and hours of the window of the car smashing, turning my head to see the Special Branch officer’s face when I dislocated his elbow as I smashed his head against the windscreen; he morphed into the director telling me of Ian’s death, and casting my gaze out of the broken windscreen I see Stu’s bike on the floor leaking oil and other fluids, except it’s not oil, it’s Stu’s blood filling the street in front of me. It goes on and on in a loop, I can’t fight it or force myself to get up to stop the memories. It’s like a horror film happening with me as the main character, except some of the events aren’t happening in the right way and starting to merge into others. Suddenly I’m outside the mosque as the riot police close in, I turn to run and all the players from the operation we nicknamed Op JENGA are standing in front of me, laughing. A huge bomb goes off, leaving a massive crater in the ground, and as the smoke and debris settle I see the Russian, DIRTY BOOT, talking to SHARP PENCIL, discussing how they were going to kill me.