by Sue Walker
Anna was trying again. “C’mon, Alex. Everyone else has done the circle recently.”
Alex ignored her. But Innes saw Carrie make a move with her fist. A kind of punching the air. “Yeah! Get on with it, Alex.” She had caught Alex’s eye, and was trying one of her stare-outs.
“Go fuck yourself, Carrie! You go in the poncy circle!”
Innes shifted uneasily. Each muscle and sinew in Alex’s arms, legs and jaw was tensed. She looked fit to pounce. On Carrie. On anyone. And she was infecting the room with an air of tension. An excited air of tension. It felt like some of them at least were enjoying this display. Innes slid her eyes away from Alex. Abby had warned her. Don’t get caught in Alex’s firing line. Lay low if she’s making a scene.
And just as she thought Alex was going to start in on her, Innes watched with relief as Carrie stole the limelight, sneering and spitting her insults into Alex’s rigid face.
“I did it last month. Prissy Miss Alexandra’s scaaared!”
Danny winked at Innes, as if to say ‘watch this’. He reached out a thin but muscled arm and lighdy touched Alex. “It’s okay. Ignore her.” He looked like he was readying himself for a Carrie assault.
But Isabella cut in. “I’ll do it. I know I did it just after I came in a couple of months ago. But I don’t mind doing it again.”
Silence. All round. Innes watched Anna. She seemed to be letting it ride. Student Sarah was trying to do the same, but she had an almost feverish look in her eyes. Christ! The student really seemed to be getting off on all the game-play. The nod from Anna to Sarah was subde, but Innes noticed it. Probably some of the others did too. The student took over. “Why d’you want to do it again, Abby?”
Abby had uncrossed her legs and pointed her red-socked toes into die centre of die group. “Well, everyone else has done it more times, than me. Except Innes, of course. But she’s new, and if Alex doesn’t want to do it, I will.”
Anna flashed her eyes at Sarah and retook, control. “Okay, Abby. Come into die centre. All stand.”
Innes took a quick inventory of what everyone else was doing. She stood up and shuffled inwards like the others, until the circle was quite tight around Abby. She watched in wonder as Sarah walked into the centre and put her hands very gendy, almost intimately, on Abby’s waist, to steady her, and then tied a soft black silk scarf round her eyes. Then, equally gendy, she handed Abby to Anna, who, in turn, handed her on to the next in the tircle. The pace of Abby’s rolling round the ckcle increased, but she remained limp and trusting in all their arms. She watched as first Danny, followed by Alex, drew Abby’s slim body a little too tightly towards their own, before reluctandy, it seemed, passing her on.
The ‘game’ appeared to end by an invisible sign, as the rolling slowed and Anna held Abby and helped her to the ground, still in the centre of the ckcle. Anna indicated with both palms downwards that they should all lower themselves on to the floor. Just like the minister in church, telling his congregation to sit after a hymn. Sarah slid forward and gently removed Abby’s blindfold, smoothing her dark, slightly tangled hak.
Innes felt a nudge from her neighbour. It was Simon. Sporting a mischievous smkk. “It’s called a trust game. For obvious reasons. It’s meant to help us gel as a group, and dilute or defuse any tensions or unsaid hostilities. Get it? It’s kindergarten stuff?”
Carrie barked out a laugh. “Hah! That’s right, Si! Simon’s going to knock spots off all you psycho staff one day when be becomes a psychiatrist. Yeah, Heid Doctor Si!”
Innes watched a slightly dizzy Abby get herself comfortable, still in the ckcle. Anna reached out and touched her shoulder. “How d’you feel, Abby?”
Abby smiled. Mainly in Danny’s dkection. “I feel…relieved. Relieved that no one dropped me!”
Danny wasn’t taking his eyes off Abby. He laughed with her relief. “Nae chance of that, Abby! I’d kill anyone who let you down.”
From the look in his eyes, Innes had no doubt that he meant it.
It was unusually clear and fine for an early spring day. She’d remained at the stern until the white shoreside buildings of Ullapool were nothing more than toy houses. She couldn’t calculate eight miles out, the place where it had happened. But she stood fascinated, watching the frothing waters, where engine and propellers cut the ferry’s wake through the glassy waters of the Minch.
“Don’t be so glum. It’s a rare treat this, you know.”
Innes turned round and saw an elderly man smiling at her. “I’m sorry?”
His face had the brick-red of the outdoor life. “The Minch, lass. Like a mill pond. An uncommon thing. Bonnie, though, eh?”
She returned his smile. “Yes. It’s beautiful. But I was thinking about the man who killed himself. Off the ferry? Earlier this year?”
The ruddy face immediately lost its happy look. “Oh, aye. That man Rintoul. From Calanais way. Poor laddie.”
“You knew him?”
“Nah. But knew of him. All islanders know a bit aboot everyone else, lass. He wis a crofter. Had just a small place. Enjoyed a drink. His neighbours liked him. He got oot on to the starboard side up towards the prow and just jumped in. I mean, no one actually saw it. It was far too cold for anyone tae be on deck, and the ferry deck’s a noisy place. The wind, the splash o’ the waves as they attack the hull. Nae chance o’ hearing the poor man falling in. It’d be just one more splash among the many. And I reckon ye’d have tae jump in tae get over the safety rail, see? Anyway, he didnae get pulled under luckily or they’d have had an awfy job identifyin’ him.”
“How d’you know all this?”
“Ach, ma second cousin’s a deck-hand on this route. Wisnae actually on the boat at the time, but he heard all aboot it. Anyway, that’s all in the past. Enjoy the trip, lass. Bye-bye.” He lifted a callused hand in farewell and disappeared down steps into the ship’s body.
She sat on one of the empty rows of weather-worn plastic seats facing the stern, wondering at the beauty of the view as the boat cut its way past a host of little islands whose names she neither knew nor would have been able to pronounce—Gaelic, in spite of her first name, was as alien to her as Gujarati.
She zipped up her waterproof tighdy around her neck and closed her eyes. The gende hum of the engines and roll of the swell brought a much needed calm to her. Worry about work had been gnawing away at her. She’d had to lie. Lie to her doctor about some Virus’ diat she thought she had. The doctor had found her glands down, her temperature normal, but her pulse high, and had given her the benefit of die doubt. She had a week off. After that, blood tests would be needed and ‘furdier investigations’. She had slunk guiltily from the surgery, convinced mat she had been rumbled and would be struck off the doctor’s list. An hour later, she had been rational again and realized diat an overworked GP just wanted to get her out of his way as soon as possible. If a sick-note would do it, then fine.
Her boss had been exasperated at losing yet anodier staff member to sickness. But she did consent to Innes being left undisturbed during her convalescence. Meaning no awkward calls at home to discover if she were really in her sick bed. “Just get better. We’ll need you back a.s.a.p. Understand?” More guilt. She’d cancelled a couple of dinner invitations, theatre visits, telling any friends who might be tempted to ‘drop round’ to cheer her up that she might go somewhere quiet for a few days. And that was that. Deceit accomplished.
As she’d hurriedly and guiltily arranged her double flight from London to Glasgow, and then on to Inverness, she’d been dear in her own mind about her need to get away. Away from London. Away from her normal life. To do fhisl It was only after she’d picked up her hire car at Inverness Airport and was making the drive through the breathtaking scenery on the road to the Ullapool Ferry port, eagles occasionally swooping across her vision, that she began to have doubts.
She viewed her actions with mild astonishment. She’d actually allowed herself to do something on impulse. Of course she’d thought through wh
at she was doing with this Isabella/Danny thing. She could legitimately say to herself that she wanted to know what drove Isabella to kill herself. She could also part-convince herself that she had failed Abby by not returning her call. Though she had had every right and reason not to. A ghost from the past, a past that she, and she presumed many of the others, wanted to bury and let alone. Psychiatric histories had a way of following you in life. Blight and stigma. That hers was an adolescent episode had always seemed to her different. More normal. More expected. She knew it was a self-justifying excuse. The fact was, she had been mentally ill when she was fifteen (and probably for a while before that, if not after) and was put into a psychiatric hospital. No matter how you dressed it up—‘experimental unit’, ‘innovative programme’, the need for everyone inside to have an IQ of above 145, since the brighter the patient the better the response to the treatment, so the story went—it was still a place of sickness. She’d got better, though, hadn’t she? And largely forgotten about it all. She’d forged a career…been married…and divorced…had friends…sometimes lovers…had money…had travelled…had a life…Stop it!
She opened her eyes and squinted against the breaking sunshine. She stretched her legs and wandered over to the rail, watching the propellers frothing away. There was no getting away from it. What she was doing was outlandish. So out of character as to be borderline mad. She had left the security of her own home and ordered life to go haring off after what? What did she really care about Isabella? It was sad, shocking even, that the woman had killed herself. And Danny too. But, if she was to be truthful, Abby’s and Danny’s deaths frightened her because of the vulnerabilities they opened up for herself. Had the Unit somehow preprogrammed both these people to take their own lives in middle age? Or was some weird folie à deux, formed all those years ago, now coming to its natural and fatal conclusion? Or was it some form of the then ‘new’, ‘innovative’ therapy that had suddenly backfired on these patients in later life? It was terrifying.
She smiled at the thought of Danny. Danny Rintoul. He’d been one of her favourite people in the Unit. A rapist and sexual offender at fourteen. Shocking. To some. But somehow one of the best things about the Unit was that nothing shocked. Everyone saw beyond their own and others’ crimes and misdemeanours. Some, invariably soon after admission, had tried to ignore or deny them. But not for long. That was strictly not allowed. Face up and move on, was.
In retrospect, she’d felt rather a lot for Danny. He’d been nothing to write home about. No oil painting. But…he’d had a gentleness. He really did rehabilitate. And they shared something too. Something that bound them. Something that had led them both to the Unit. Mothers. Special kinds of mothers. Both had been matriarchs. Ruling their dictatorships over frightened only children and weak husbands and unprotecting fathers. The hours she’d spent with him in the record room, playing ghastly 455 of awful seventies glam-rock bands. And those endless evenings down by the swing, talking about their families. His—abusive, dirt-poor. Hers—cold, comfortably-off-thank-you-very-much. Damaging, destructive upbringings, both.
His parents must be dead. The newspaper said he left no family. Dead parents. Like hers. She wondered how he’d felt about that. No parents any more. Triumphant? Relieved? Or, like her, confused and guilty. Matters unresolved.
She wrenched herself out of that line of thought and looked up, seeing again the scenery surrounding her. Danny. Dear, dead Danny. Danny who’d fallen in love. Not with her. But with Isabella. Beautiful, dead Abby.
Abby had been quick to befriend her. Bringing an intimacy and sense of…well, almost a sense of security to her first few weeks and days in the Unit…
EIGHT
“They encourage you to tell everyone why you’re in. Or why you think you’re in here. At the end of treatment, they can sometimes be pretty different things. You may come in to confront one thing but then that might open up a can of worms. So I’m told!”
Innes felt almost happy. The sunset was amazing and the night fragrant from the garden. And warm. So warm. She watched Abby rocking gently on the swing, head thrust backwards, taking in the last golden rays. They were getting on fine. And she was settling in. She was steering clear of a few of them. But Abby seemed normal. Though Dr Laurie had made her cry in group therapy that morning. It was horrible. He’d made Abby tell about when her father had locked her in the cellar for a whole day and night. Just because she’d only got a B+ in her history essay. He was the one that should have been knocked up. But, as Laurie had acknowledged, Abby’s dad, a respectable lawyer, had put it all down to his ‘disturbed daughter’s fantasy’. And her mother? Abby had said that she was a vain, egotistical and fragile woman.
The session had been an eye-opener in more ways than one for Innes. It had been horrible to hear about Abby’s bastard of a father, and even more upsetting to see her cry. But Laurie had cooled things down. Started discussing Abby’s ‘behavioural reactions to what was going on at home’, as he put it in his plummy, rather intimidating voice. And Abby’s ‘behavioural reactions’, which Laurie catalogued, had surprised Innes. Looking at her, Abby seemed the most normal, grown-up and pretty, even beautiful girl. But she had a history of running away from home and, like Innes, of not attending school. And she had another, quite peculiar problem but one Dr Laurie said was “not at all uncommon and very often caused by extreme stress and/or emotional chaos in one’s life. Those who suffer from obsessional or compulsive behaviour are seeking control in their lives, lives that they feel are spinning wildly out of control.” He’d talked about Abby being ‘over-ordered’, of doing things like having to have everything on her bedside table set out exactly in the way she wished, of having to wash and wash her hands. And, when she couldn’t do all this organizing behaviour, Laurie said she’d sometimes get frustrated, become withdrawn and generally find the world a very frightening place. Laurie had said most of Abby’s ‘over-ordered behaviour’ happened inside her own head, in her thoughts. Only a bit of it could be seen through her outward behaviour. Somehow, Innes couldn’t believe any of this about Abby, but, after she’d stopped crying in the session, Abby seemed quite happy to admit to it. In the few hours since then, Innes had been unable to resist staring at Abby’s bedside table, and she saw how unusually neat and carefully positioned everything was.
And even as she watched Abby on the swing in the fading light of the sunset, Innes noticed her fiddling about, checking things in her pocket, ensuring all was as it should be. Nevertheless, she seemed light-hearted now and happy to go through everyone else’s reasons for being in. She scraped her feet to stop the swing, chuckling at a private thought.
“Right, you have to be either ‘highly disturbed and behaviourally out of control’, as Dr Laurie would put it. Or just highly disturbed but severely enough to make you unmanageable by parents or others, such as schoolteachers, etc. We certainly all fall into those categories, one way or another!” She paused and smiled at Innes. “Okay, so Lydia’s got an ‘eating disorder’. That’s pretty obvious. She’s an odd case, actually. She was a late child. Her mum’s really old. And she’s an only child and very, very spoiled. Laurie’s had a few sessions digging things out of Lydia. Looks as if the dad got really jealous after the arrival of Lydia and has been a shit to both mother and child ever since. Lydia’s got lots of problems. Manic-depression and her eating thing are just two of them. She’s also got a background in arson. Tried, not very successfully, to burn down the family home. And started a fire at her old school. That’s all stopped now. But it’s a very dodgy side to Lydia. Also, she’s very nosy. So look out!
“Now…as for Simon. Si’s textbook, if you ask me. He was a twin. I say was because the twin died. Apparently his cow of a mother blamed Si for the other one’s death and has been a complete bitch to him ever since. His dad’s away all the time. He’s a famous physicist or something. Always abroad. Anyway, Si feels like he’s worthless. Shame, “cos he’s really clever. And he notices everything. He knows loads of th
ings that the staff don’t want us to know. He’s even seen the nursing reports. Maybe he’ll do that again soon. If we’re nice to him. Actually, he’s a bit frightened of us girls. Especially Carrie and Alex. He’ll be a hopeless husband one day!”
Innes laughed. The first real laugh since she’d come here. “And what about Carrie? What was all that stuff about drugs this morning?”
“Oh, Anna was just checking Carrie hadn’t picked up any dope when she went up to the shops. She’s done it before. Carrie’s mum’s a druggie. There’s no dad. Meaning she doesn’t know who her dad is. Neither does her mum. Carrie’s been beaten up by her mum and her mum’s various boyfriends since the year dot. And I think she’s been…you know?”
Innes raised an eyebrow. “Been mucked around with?”
She watched Abby give an embarrassed shrug in reply. “Yeah. Some of her mum’s boyfriends fancied Carrie more than they did her mum. I don’t necessarily think Carrie asked for it. These…these boyfriends were pretty nasty, some of them. Anyway, that explains a bit of Carrie’s aggression. Best leave well alone. Same with Alex. I really don’t get Alex at all. I’m not even sure the staff do, you know? I’ve seen her mum and dad. Very well-to-do and normal. Alex is so different from her older brother and sister. They’re really conventional, one’s at university, going to be a doctor, the other one’s an accountant or something boring like that. Alex…Alex’s just got something bad in her.”