by Sue Walker
It had been a wrong one, though. She could still feel the shock of that first-day glimpse. Dozens of wizened, cadaverous bodies, huddled inside themselves. Sitting in rows of high-backed, hellishly uncomfortable-looking chairs. Each summoning up seemingly irrelevant recollections from aeons ago. Another life ago. Youth. She had that now. Physically. Though she felt as ancient inside as the old dears down the road.
She wandered closer. Yes, she could make it out now. The group. Four only. One on a swing. Penduluming away. She was a girl with deep-red hennaed hair, which in the sunlight gave the unsettling impression that her entire head had been dipped in blood.
“Go and say hello. I’ll be with you in a minute.” That’s what Anna had said ten minutes ago. She’d introduced herself as the Nursing Sister. A tall, good-looking woman who sported hippy clothes. In fact, it looked like a bloody sarong or sari she’d been wearing, though the woman was white-skinned. Oh, well, they were very casual in the Unit. And unusual. ‘Unorthodox’ was the word Innes remembered her sour-faced mother had pompously used, as she and her husband had reluctantly followed their daughter into those tense, family-therapy meetings. Innes flinched at the memory and dawdled down the path. No way was she going to introduce herself to this lot.
“Innes! Hold on!”
Sister Anna. Cockburn. Yes, that was her last name. She remembered first meeting her weeks ago after family therapy, when still an out-patient. Sister Anna looked out of breath, obviously having sprinted, sari raised above her knees, down the garden of this rather impressive and imposing stone mansion. Well, it would have been lovely if it hadn’t been converted into a loony bin. The Adolescent Psychiatric Unit. ‘The Unit’ for short. In reality she knew exactly what she was entering. A loony bin for teenagers. The Bin. Not ‘The Unit’.
Anna had caught up with her. “Sorry!” Innes put on her best scowl as Anna rattled out her explanation, clearly anxious to get on with things. “I got tied up on the phone. Let’s go and meet some of the others. They’ve all been home for the weekend. Let’s see how they are.”
She deliberately trailed behind the nurse as they approached the cosy little bunch, now huddled around the henna-haired beauty who was lounging on the swing, ensuring that the breeze was making the most of the well-cared-for tresses. Anna beamed a huge smile to them all. “Hi. Welcome back. Good weekend?”
“Yeah, but Sunday nights are shite!”
Anna waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, you always moan about Sundays, Danny! Anyway, that’s Danny, moaning and smoking himself stupid as ever. Say hello, Dan.”
“Hiya.” The boy Danny spat the greeting out at her with a glob of sodden tobacco from his roll-up, and shrugged into the ancient washed-out Ziggy Stardust t-shirt that hung loosely over his skinny shoulders, slyly giving her a thorough sexual assessment. Innes wondered what his think-bubble about her was. “Wow! Not bad. Not bad at all…” Or, “Crap, ugly cow…” She knew how she saw herself and tried to turn away from him, already feeling a failure.
Sister Anna was keeping the fixed smile, continuing in what Innes thought, and surely everyone else did, was an irritatingly chummy way. “Listen, this is Innes Haldane. Remember we told you she was joining us?”
“I didn’t know we were expecting Nessie! What kind of fuckin’ name is Innes? It’s a fuckin’ last name! I had an old boot of a geography teacher called Mrs Innes! Fuckin’ hell!” The henna-haired witch smirked at her own witticism and stared. Innes thought it best to look away, making an instant decision on the red-head. She was going to be big trouble. Best give her a wide berth. For now.
Sister Anna was obviously trying to ignore the comment too and the hennaed bitch’s sour look. “Very funny, Caroline. So, that’s Caroline, Carrie to us all and th—”
“Only to my friends!” the Carrie girl snapped back.
Innes watched as Anna again ignored Caroline’s second plea for attention. “Yes, okay, it’s Carrie to us all, actually. Then…here’s Simon trying to be invisible as usual.”
Simon had die appearance of a twelve-year-old. Facially at least. But he had to be six foot two if he was an inch. He wore the uniform of the exclusive Edinburgh public school Fettes College, had an unfashionably short haircut and ugly National Health specs. He said nodiing but hung his head even lower dian it had been, trying to find cover behind Caroline. Innes offered him a curt nod, which he mirrored back to her, his eyes friendly, if timid, behind the duck lenses.
Anna was ploughing on, patience nearly gone. “And last but not least, this is Lydia.”
“Hello, Innes. Pretty name. Just like you. You’re very pretty.” Innes felt die redness of her cheeks. No, I’m not pretty. I feel horrible! Always horrible. She tried a smile at the Lydia girl. Her voice was posh English. But gende. She was a big girl. In fact she was huge. Grossly overweight, die rings of fat around her belly and breasts straining at die cotton of her pink summer dress. But she had a friendly face, and, aldiough triple-chinned, she suited die ruby-coloured, velvet Alice-band round her blonde bob. She seemed die friendliest of die lot. And quite normal, if a little on die gushing side. Maybe she was just a bit childish?
She answered die girl with a shy smile and conventional reply. “Eh, hello, Lydia. Pleased to meet you. Eh…actually my name’s Gaelic. Gaelic for ‘island’.”
Lydia appeared impressed. “Ah ha! Well, welcome to die Unit.”
The Caroline girl had started swinging again, flinging her head back until die red hair brushed the grass beneath her as she shouted to the summer sky. “Yeah. Welcome to the Unit! Welcome to the Mad Hooooooose!”
“There’s still a couple of others you need to meet. They’ll be at tea now. Come on in.”
She followed Sister Anna. The last two hours had been spent unpacking and in the Nurses’ Office, being talked through the routine of the place. Five o’clock was tea-time. She was led into an industrially equipped kitchen with a remarkably bright black-and-white checked lino floor, covered with tables and chairs arranged into a messy circle. The place was scruffy but clean.
She allowed the nurse to direct her to a chair opposite a sulky Caroline, who was playing with a disgustingly greasy fried egg.
There were two new people at the table. Anna made a vague pointing gesture. “Innes, this is Alex.”
Innes nodded, careful not to stare for too long. Alex was a girl. A girl with a skinhead haircut and revolting, livid, purple scars criss-crossing her forearms. Forearms that she seemed to be brazenly showing off by wearing a skimpy red vest. Her prominent breasts were the only real giveaway that she was a girl.
Innes tried a half-smile at Alex, who ignored her and looked over towards Anna. “What the fuck’s this swill meant to be? It tastes like fucking shite! And where the fuck is Sarah?”
There was no attempt to explain to Innes who Sarah was. She watched as Alex dropped a blob of tomato ketchup on to her pile of chips. “Well?”
Sister Anna seemed calm and sipped at a cup of black tea. “Sarah’s not back on duty till tomorrow.”
Alex dropped her knife. “How the fuck’s that allowed, then?”
Anna gently laid down her cup. “Cut it out, Alex. It’s been arranged. That’s all.”
“Like fuck it has!” The crack, as her plate of food hit the far wall, made most of them jump.
Innes flinched and then watched nervously as the other new person scraped her chair back and walked a few steps towards her, hand held out in apparent greeting. “Don’t mind Alex. She always acts up and forgets her manners when someone new arrives. Can’t stand anyone else getting the attention. I’m Isabella/by the way. Abby for short. Abby Velasco. Welcome, if that’s the right expression, to the Unit.”
FIVE
Swimming-pool death. Verdict: suicide
An inquest returned a verdict of suicide on 42-year-old leading dental surgeon Isabella Velasco, whose body was found floating in the swimming pool of the Belsize Sports Centre ten days ago.
Police say they are satisfied that Professor Vel
asco slashed her own wrists after a swimming lesson, while suffering from depression. Pathologist’s evidence gave the actual cause of death as drowning. Professor Velasco inhaled water after she lost consciousness as a result of catastrophic blood loss and the ingestion of a cocktail of drugs, believed to have been taken from her place of work. Professor Velasco’s GP told the inquest that her patient had been suffering from bouts of depression and panic attacks during recent weeks but could not say what factors in Professor Velasco’s life had led to this.
Outside the inquest, shocked friends and colleagues said they were ‘astonished at such an action’ and found it ‘incredible’ that Professor Velasco would kill herself.
A spokeswoman for the British Dental Association said, “Professor Velasco was a highly regarded dental surgeon. Isabella will be much missed by her colleagues, students and patients.”
She tossed the newspaper aside, wondering which friends and colleagues had been talking to the press. She hadn’t waited around long enough to see or be seen by them. Instead, she’d scutded away through the rain, feeling troubled and guilty, back home to a bottle or more of wine and greeting the next day’s heavy workload with a hangover. That couldn’t go on.
“Ms Haldane? Your booth’s ready. Number fourteen. Just up those steps. On the left.”
“Oh, right. Thank you.” She waved a vague thanks to the librarian and headed for the microfilm machine.
She’d been at it for half an hour and was practically crosseyed from rolling through dozens of pages of microfilm. But thanked her lucky stars anyway. The British Newspaper Library had only just received the most recent filmed copies of the Western Isles Courier, an online version still being an age away.
The detective at the inquest hadn’t pinned down the exact date of Danny Rintoul’s death. But ‘beginning of the year’ was more than enough. She focused weary eyes back on the slowly moving film, running at a slighdy skewed angle through the huge screen. And almost missed it.
Man falls to death from island ferry
A man fell to his death yesterday morning from the Stornoway to Ullapool Ferry. He has been named as Danny Rintoul, a 41-year-old crofter from Calanais, Isle of Lewis.
Mr Rintoul’s body was found floating about eight miles from the port of Ullapool. A spokesman for Alba Line Ferries said that a full inquiry was being undertaken by their senior staff, police and Health and Safety officials.
Mr Rintoul was unmarried. Originally from Edinburgh, he had kept a croft on the islands for the last fifteen years.
A fatal accident inquiry into the death will be opened in Stornoway next week.
She spooled through the next week’s edition. Again the name jumped out at her.
p> Suicide verdict in ferry-death case
The fatal accident inquiry into Calanais man Danny Rintoul, 41, has returned a verdict of suicide. Mr Rintoul, an unmarried crofter, fell to his death from the Stomoway to Ullapool Ferry last week.
The inquiry heard that Mr Rintoul was largely a loner but on good terms with his neighbours, Mr and Mrs Mackay, of nearby Borasdale Cottage. Mr Murdo Mackay, 53, said that Mr Rintoul had mentioned on several occasions that he could not swim and had a fear of water. The topic had arisen a number of times when Mr Mackay was discussing his daughter, a lifeguard at Stomoway swimming pool.
Mr Rintoul’s GP, Dr Archie Fairbairn, said that Mr Rintoul had consulted him during the previous weeks for complaints that he diagnosed as ‘psychosomatic’. He considered Mr Rintoul to be suffering from depression and anxiety, but his patient had denied that he had any particular problems.
On the day of his death, the ferry sailing was extremely busy, with both car and foot passengers, and Alba Line staff have no recollection of seeing Mr Rintoul at any stage of his journey. Accidental death was ruled out after the inquest heard evidence that, despite the rough seas on the day in question, the protective barriers on all the public decks were well above recommended safety standards and therefore an accidental fall overboard would not have been possible.
Mr Rintoul leaves no immediate family.
She spooled back and forth again, but that was all she found, except for a brief death notice about the funeral, which was obviously being organized by the neighbouring Mackays. They must have liked him. Who’d have thought he’d end up a crofter in the back of beyond? Yet it wasn’t really that surprising. Danny had always been a loner. Despite the sex crime that had brought him into the Unit, he’d been essentially gentle. At moments, heart-rendingly thoughtful. Like the time he’d bought Lydia a new hamster, after the previous one had died because her unthinking parents had gone on holiday without feeding it. He’d kept that one quiet. But Lydia, who had had a mad crush on him right after the incident, had told Innes all about the drama during one of their oft-shared, long, insomniac nights.
And when you heard what his upbringing had been like! Those interminable group sessions with Laurie—Dr Adrian Laurie—Medical Dkector and ‘God’ of the Unit staff. Laurie would mercilessly prise the sordid, horrifying details of Danny’s abusive childhood out of him. Each strand of personal information ripped red-hot from his being, like a ritual evisceration. How she’d hated Dr Laurie during that period. Later in her treatment she understood why he’d done it. Why he did it to everyone.
She hauled herself back into the present, printing off the two news stories from the microfilm machine, and sat back, her sigh of exhaustion and puzzlement causing irritation from a fellow library user. She fingered the warm photocopies. The similarities. Suicide. Depression. Anxiety. Water. Drownings. And Danny and Isabella had been meeting. Secretly it seemed, since the policeman at the inquest had said no one who knew Danny had ever heard of her. Or vice versa.
But something must have been going on between the two. In some ways it didn’t surprise her that they were in touch. But it was the deaths of them both that was the shocker. Both depressive suicides. In many ways they seemed oddly meant for each other. It had been obvious—to her at least—from the start…
Anna was ‘facilitating’. Innes said the word to herself again. All these technical, psychiatric terms that she was trying to get used to. Anna was being assisted by Sarah. Sarah Melville had been introduced to her as a ‘student’, but Isabelk had told her that she was a fully qualified nurse who wanted to specialise in psychiatric work, especially with adolescents. Innes wondered why. Sarah was attractive in a kind of fit, athletic, games-teacher way. But quite mannish in her bearing. She always wore faded, tight jeans and embroidered cheesecloth shirts. She seemed nice enough. But Innes didn’t trust her. Didn’t trust anyone right now, come to that. Except maybe Isabella, or ‘Abby’, as she said she wanted to be called. Yes, Abby seemed fine.
She let herself listen in to the rest of the room. Anna had exchanged her sari for old jeans, tit-hugging t-shirt and a baggy open shirt. Her usual sexually provocative choice for Thursday morning psychodrama, Danny had unsubtly informed Innes in a stage whisper, a rude expression all over his face. She noticed more than his pair of eyes sneak a glance at Anna’s tall but shapely figure, as she joined them all on the floor. The heat of the already blistering morning had layered a distinctly sensual sheen of light sweat on Anna’s face and upper lip, sticking straggling hair to her forehead, which she periodically brushed away with a delicate dab of the wrist. A straw poll would always have put Anna on top of the Unit’s sex-symbol league. And she seemed to know it. Though Sarah probably wasn’t far behind with some. Boys and girls alike. But Innes thought she’d better keep those observations to herself.
They’d finished the initial relaxation. Innes thought about these opening exercises. They involved lying supine, stretching all muscles from head to toe and lifting as many parts of the body off the floor as possible. The entire performance took about twenty minutes, with Anna, the ‘facilitator’, wandering around in bare, scarlet-toenail-polished feet, talking gently to each patient. Helping lower a leg here, raising an arm there. Tactile. Calm. Reassuring. Above all, safe. Or th
at’s what it was meant to be. Innes felt both nervous and under scrutiny, since it was her first session.
She felt, rather than saw, Anna scan the darkened room. Innes half opened an eye and took in the view. The floor was littered with patients lying on their backs, spread indiscriminately, like corpses on a battlefield, each one with their eyes shut. Each one with their own thoughts. Some public. Mostly private.
Without a word, Innes heard Anna part the curtains of the large ground-floor lounge, intentionally breaking the impression of serenity that had descended upon the room. It was time to let the light in again. Both physical and emotional.
Anna’s voice was raised now. To rouse them. “Right! In a circle please. Cross-legged. All of you know this one. Except Innes. So if one of you would care to step in, we can show her how it’s done.” She cast a slow eye round the ring of faces, stopping at one. “How ‘bout you, Alex? You’ve not been in the circle for ages.”
Alex scratched her shaven temple, the raised scars on her forearm picked out brightly by the sunlight flowing in from the garden. “I fucking knew you were going to ask me. Fucking knew it! Well, you can just go and fuck yourself! Fta not going in”
Innes felt the tension in the room. Everyone was staring at Anna to see how she was going to deal with it. But Anna looked relaxed and quietly continued to observe Alex.
Innes thought about the Alex girl. She had forgotten to drop her g’s. Alexandra Baxendale’s deep voice always reverted back to her class roots when used in anger. She’d noticed that already. She’d heard that Alex had’been a public-school girl who’d joined a skinhead gang when she was thirteen. ‘Rebel’, ‘hard-nut’ behaviour. Apparently planned to ‘fuck up’ Mummy and Daddy’s image. Until the gang she’d run with beat the living shit out of an 83-year-old pensioner. The rest of the gang, several years older, got borstal. Alex got the Unit. Lucky, when you considered what else the gang had done. And got away with. Everyone knew she’d had a lucky escape from justice by being in the Unit. Well, the patients did anyway. Abby had told her that she thought the staff didn’t know about a lot of the stuff Alex had done when in her ‘psycho’ mode. You had to watch yourself with that Alex. Never turn your back. Keep out of her way when she was in a mood.