by Sarah Mussi
ROOM EMPTY
Dani is ravaged by anorexia and hasn’t eaten for days. Fletcher is fighting to stay off the streets and to stay off drugs. Will their attraction to each other save or destroy them?
Both patients at the Daisy Bank Rehab Centre, Fletcher wants to help Dani find out about the Room Empty at the heart of her pain: What happened to Dani in that room when she was four? Whose is the dead body that lies across the door? Why won’t her mind let her remember?
As Dani and Fletcher begin to learn how to love, Sarah Mussi weaves an intoxicating story of pain, fear and redemption.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Mussi lives in Brixton in South London. She has won the Irish Writers Children’s Book Award and the BBUK Award for contemporary YA fiction. She has been nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and has been shortlisted for the Banford Boase Award and Lewisham Book Award, amongst others. Apart from writing, Sarah teaches English in a South London secondary school and also travels regularly to Ghana.
Follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahmussi
www.sarahmussi.com
For the still suffering addict
Contents
Flight One
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Step Four
Flight Two
Step Five
Step Six
Step Seven
Flight Three
Step Eight
Step Nine
Step Ten
Step Eleven
Step Twelve
Acknowledgements
Flight One
Serenity and Acceptance
Step One
Powerless and Unmanageable
1
I remember the ad. It changed everything.
Greetings. If you’ve found your way to this page, it means you’re looking for answers. That’s a good sign. We may have some for you.
We’re the highly successful Daisy Bank Rehab Centre.
We can help treat your addiction issues around:
• Alcohol dependency
• Amphetamine
• Cannabis
• Cocaine
• Crystal meth
• Dual Diagnosis
• Eating disorders
• Ecstasy
• Gambling
• Heroin
• Ketamine
• Mental disorders associated with addiction
• Mephedrone/MCAT/Miaow Miaow
• Methadone
• Prescription medication
• Process addictions
• Sex addictions
We cater for fourteen clients (ten private and four state funded).
We have single and shared rooms.
We’re based in a lovely rural location.
We work solely with those under twenty-five.
We support the client in restoring their physical, mental and emotional well-being.
Our treatment programme incorporates the Twelve-step Process.
We guide the client towards an acceptance of their addiction.
We teach them to let go of the past and deal with problems in the here and now.
We value ourselves.
We can recover.
We are worth it.
2
My name is Dani. I am anorexic.
I’m a state-funded, residential client at Daisy Bank Rehab Centre.
I’ve lived most of my life in care.
I’m seventeen.
I’m hungry all the time.
I’m trying hard to eat.
I wrap my arms around my ribs and hug my Thinness to me.
It is mine. All mine.
I know I’m underweight. Tony tells me this. He tells me to embrace recovery. I must eat more. I feel I eat too much. Tony says that’s because I have a serious life-threatening illness, which includes Body Dysmorphic Disorder.
I am anorexic because I am dangerous.
If I really let myself eat, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I would just be one big open mouth. I would swallow up every thought and feeling and action. I know that is a logical fallacy. Tony says so. He suggests that it is really love and connection I’m looking for. But I do not think so. I think about food. Mountains of it. I would be one big bottomless belly. I would become morbidly obese. I would swallow up every single digestible thing in the world and everyone else would starve to death.
I cannot allow that to happen.
3
It’s been a week since Carmen died, and I met the real Fletcher.
I’d known the fake Fletcher for much longer, of course.
It was at Carmen’s funeral.
We are all fakes, aren’t we? Probably Carmen was the biggest.
Up until they sent her into the inferno, Fletcher was just a fellow client, a phoney, self-serving crackhead, albeit someone I was supposed to pair up with. My recovery buddy, apparently. I’m not sure why the programme insists on the term ‘buddy’.
They say Carmen took handfuls of pills. Mostly aspirin.
Maybe it’s because the word ‘buddy’ isn’t quite ‘friend’ but it’s friendlier than ‘partner’ – partner sounds like a lover you don’t love.
How many aspirin does it take to kill you anyway? Is there a ratio of grams to body weight?
How many calories are there in one aspirin? This was one thought I had as Fletcher grabbed hold of my arm.
Fletcher is an addict. We are all addicts of one kind or another. His kind is cocaine. Mostly. I like him. I think he likes me. He also likes crystal meth. He wears cute jeans. He’s one of the ‘cool’ kids on the programme. He drinks Red Bull. Full sugar. He says it’s the last bit of buzz he’s allowed.
Do you think she counted the aspirins and added an extra handful, just to be sure?
Fletcher tugs at my arm. I wonder if he feels my Thinness. I’m not sure I want to share it.
‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t keep on going over it.’
But I have to. Today I’m preoccupied by the Moment Of Death. I want to spin beyond it and see into the darkness.
To date, Fletcher and I have sat down and shared our strengths and weaknesses. That’s all. Fletcher is also state funded. His strength is being considerate. Mine is having a lot of self-control. His weakness is pretty girls.
Apparently she vomited them all back up anyway. That must have been a blow. Suddenly the universe offers you another chance, just after you’ve taken a lot of trouble to be very sure it doesn’t.
My weakness is that I don’t think I’m pretty. If I had been prettier somebody might have adopted me. I want to be pretty. But I’m not – I never will be on the inside. If I was a bit thinner I might be. I also might be dead. That is not something I want to be, today. I lied about my weakness to Fletcher. I told him that I think I’m an Alien. It didn’t matter, because until Carmen died I hadn’t taken the whole recovery buddy thing seriously.
Addiction makes us all liars.
After she vomited, she took her scarf and hanged herself from the upstairs landing. She must have tied one end to the banister, noosed the other round her neck and jumped into the stairwell. Just to be very sure that time.
Do you think, on the way down, just before the Moment Of Death, she regretted it?
Fletcher tugs at my arm again. ‘We need to talk,’ he says.
I know we do. Carmen was the poster girl for Daisy Bank Rehab Centre. I liked her. The fake her, I mean. She had industrial-strength tips on how to get clean, be clean, stay clean. How to trust in your Higher Power (whatever you consider it to be), even when you can’t trust anyone around you, including yourself. You always have to add ‘(whatever you consider it to be)’ in brackets when you refer to the Higher Power. I have a problem with that.
It offers too much choice. Fletcher says his Higher Power was the Buzz. He’s had to find another one. I’m never quite sure what to choose.
It’s funny, on the day she was going to graduate and check out into the world again, she chose not to. She chose to check out altogether. The Daisy Bank Group who invested in this centre must be well pissed. If she didn’t make it, what are our chances?
‘Dani,’ hisses Fletcher, ‘you’re doing it again.’
‘Doing what?’ I mouth.
I’m dizzy with hunger.
‘Your weakness.’
Only my second-best weakness. I shake my head, as if I really don’t understand him. You can lie in so many ways.
‘You’re dislocating yourself from your feelings. You’re being a goddamn Alien.’
‘Goddamn’ is the fake Fletcher’s new favourite word.
How long does it take to die when you jump off an upper landing into a stairwell?
‘Can’t you see you’re alienating yourself?’
Does your neck dislocate before you’re strangled?
I look around. My legs feel weak. My knees look huge, jutting through the cloth of my jeans. The crematorium is all pale wood and pink light. Tinny music is playing. I would hate to spin into the unknown to the sound of electronic Pachelbel. I’d like pointy knees with shapely bits. But it doesn’t really matter. Nearly everyone is crying/has cried/is sniffing/trying not to sniff. I’m just thinking about the Moment of Death and how long it takes, and if it hurts. And is there any peace beyond it? I also wonder if they’re crying fake tears. After all, we only ever knew the fake Carmen. That much is apparent. So how can we cry for her? We might have hated the real one.
Suicide is relative, says Tony. Not eating is just another form of it.
Only it takes a lot longer and is far more painful.
4
Carmen’s family are here. It’s the first time I’ve seem them. They’re all being admirably stoic. They sit apart from us addicts, lit up by a modern window of stained glass and the funeral director’s supportive smile.
I’m glad they didn’t see her after her Moment Of Death. It would have made it hard for them to be so serene. Her head was canted over far too far. I was confused. I grabbed her leg and shook it. Her leg was stiff. I thought it was some kind of joke. Her head flopped forward with a jerk. Her tongue poked out in outlandish style. I couldn’t make it out.
Judith sits in front of us. She presses her hands together, not exactly in prayer, probably wondering why Carmen failed to prove Cognitive Behavioural Therapy infallible. That’s Dr Judith Penrose, PhD (BACP Accredited), Psychodynamic Counsellor.
I like to think Carmen wanted me to be the first to find her.
Fletcher tries to direct-message me with a glance. It clearly says: This is such bollocks – this is why I hate the world.
Actually, the crematorium is very acceptable. It has mag-nolia walls, parquet flooring, institutional chairs, little black prayer books and a gateway to the beyond all arched out of reconstituted Cotswold paving.
That’s why she chose that stairwell. She knew I used to creep down to the kitchens late at night and sit on the last step smelling traces of the food I’d refused to eat.
And they haven’t stinted on the coffin. It’s shiny with lacquer and has brass handles.
So her death was a special message to me. It said: I trust you the most. Find me before the others.
My hand came away from her leg wet.
The gateway to beyond has blue curtains. One solitary designer candle lights the way.
I went on down the stairs and sat on the last step. Supper had been lasagne and garlic bread. Something dripped off her shoe on to the step beside me. Followed by sticky toffee pudding.
Everything is very respectable here.
And the flowers are fake.
Fletcher hisses more than ‘bollocks’ at me. He’s being inappropriately concerned, as if I’m taking all this very badly.
I went back up to my room and found a towel and some perfume. I wrapped the towel around her legs. It soaked up most of it. I rubbed, until her tights were clean and nearly dry. They only ripped a little. Then I wiped the stairs too. I sprayed her with Obsession, before I called Tony.
Thank God for silk and real-touch floristry.
I couldn’t let her face us all in that state.
Fletcher is in a bad way so I follow him outside.
5
Fletcher Harris Taylor is now insisting that I talk. He has every right to do that. Outside is cold and concrete, and I’m not keen on talking. That’s a lie. There are some white and purple crocuses. And the words inside me could drown the planet if I pulled the plug on them.
‘Talk,’ says Fletcher.
I’m shivering and imagining Carmen inside that coffin, burning. An Alien bursts out of the coffin lid and smiles. The Alien lasers me with a sonic beam. My skin turns to liquid. My insides pour out and flood. It’s not pretty. And a lot of people drown.
‘’Bout what?’ I say.
‘’Bout what?’ he mimics.
I shrug.
‘About everything,’ he says.
The Alien waves and gets back into the coffin.
‘OK.’
‘OK?’ he mimics again. ‘Come on! Carmen died. She didn’t make it. And she had family.’
‘Maybe that was it,’ I say. ‘Maybe she couldn’t stand them.’
Fletcher gives me a weird look.
‘Go on, say it – “like I’d know”.’
He shakes his head. ‘So it’s like that, is it?’
‘Like what?’
‘Dani Goddamn Alien Spencer. Today, tomorrow and for ever.’
I get his point. I’m being toxic.
I wonder what we’ll have for lunch.
‘Toxic’ is Tony’s best favourite word. Everything is toxic. Society is toxic. Self-hate is toxic. Crosstalk is toxic. Negativity is toxic. Addiction is toxic. Not that I’m going to eat it. Tony says anorexia is definitely toxic. Virtually no part of the body escapes its effects. Fifty percent of all anorexics have low white-blood-cell counts; thirty-three percent are anaemic. Whichever way you look at it, the anorexic’s immune system is seriously compromised. Practically no resistance to disease.
Disease is toxic.
I am already diseased.
Tony says I should talk about my disease. And Not Talking is toxic. But I don’t want to talk.
‘She’s dead, Dani. She’s not going to be around ever again.’
‘Death has its attractions,’ I say. I’m not going to let Carmen down.
I think Fletcher might punch me. I’d like that. He has supernaturally lovely, punch-throwing shoulders. And a good punch would hurt less than talking.
He punches me. He says, ‘You’ve been in rehab for eight weeks and not put on an ounce. That’s not recovery.’
I take my corner: I have put on an ounce. Actually, I’ve put on four. I’m trying to eat. I cut out my morning workout. I’m doing better than you. I’m doing better than Lee (everyone is doing better than Lee). It’s not my fault. I’ve never been loved. You try that. I can drown you. If I’d had a proper start . . . It’s all right being you. It’s easy for you. You’re not ugly. You’re a crackhead, and a phoney-fake person.
And an eating disorder is the most difficult addiction to quit.
Fletcher delivers a right hook. ‘And you don’t try in meetings. You just don’t.’
‘How do you know?’
How does he know? It’s OK for him to talk in meetings. He’s got a motor engine for a mouth; it just goes on and on spitting out toxic fumes.
Fletcher flexes and circles round me. ‘And don’t do the denial thing. Not here. Not now. This is serious, and I need a real sparring partner or I’m not going to make it. So cut out all the defensive shit.’
It’s all about him as usual. God, crackheads are so self-obsessed. What about me?
‘Even in your head.’
And then he grabs my Th
inness again and steers me away from the crocuses towards a tree. There are tiny leaf buds on the tree. There are two graves behind it.
Fletcher delivers his knock-out punch: ‘You’re ugly, and you’ll stay ugly until you choose not to be. We need to talk. Think about it and let me know.’
6
I do let him know. I send him a text after we get off the shuttle bus. When we’re all back at Daisy Bank Rehab Centre. The bus was laid on for all of us, so that we could achieve closure.
Meet me in Carmen’s old room.
It will be empty. Until the new person comes. There’s bound to be extended Circle Time tomorrow.
It seems the right place. I hesitate. Carmen would’ve wanted us to. She would’ve liked that. Lunch was a buffet of cold meat and warmed up quiche with salad. She trusted me. She believed in recovery buddies. And talking. And I didn’t let her down. Though she also didn’t like the word ‘buddy’. She thought it was affected. ‘But forget the language of recovery,’ she said. ‘It’s being real with just one other human being that heals. You can call them whatever you want.’ She was always a never-ending source of strength.
We can talk without being interrupted there.
I wonder if Judith phoned ahead, when we left the crematorium, to let them know when to warm up the quiche.
It’s nice to do something Carmen would’ve liked. Although it doesn’t matter, of course, if she would have liked it or not.
She’s dead.
7
Daisy Bank Rehab Centre is in Berkshire. It’s just a quick drive away from Ascot. You can visit your recovering child on your way back from the races. It’s also handy for Windsor and Eton. Fletcher did not go to Eton. Though O’Higgy did. That’s Fion Cormac O’Higgins, gambler, but he got stuck with the iggy bit. Everyone calls him Iggy. Poor him.
Life isn’t a game of tennis. That’s what Judith says when we complain of being stuck with things. Don’t expect it to be. Iggy knows all about that.
Anyway, the centre has a lovely garden at the rear, old urns, ornate gazebo, trailing climbers, and it’s a grand old house: five storeys of London brick and a stucco edifice. It has two staircases. The front one, which is broad and impressive, and the back one, where Carmen hanged herself.