by Sue Walker
“Yes. The substitution, the wrappings, all that is ancillary to the other central questions. Namely, what is the significance of the rope and knife? And why was it aimed at Alexandra Baxendale? Why did it elicit such an extreme reaction from her? There can be no doubt that whoever planned this knew precisely what effect this would have on Alex. The items are obviously symbolic.”
He had stopped. She knew he wasn’t finished. It was just one of his well-known tactics. He was looking round at his staff, making sure he had their absolujte attention. Then continued. “But symbolic of what? Anyway, I suggest we get this place cleaned up and exercise hyper-vigilance today. Sarah? If you get the chance for another tete-a-tete with Alex, see what you can find out. Okay?”
Sarah knew Alex had been avoiding her all day and had been planning her moment. Alex was good at that. She must have followed her through to the annexe. As she was replacing a file in the Records Office, Sarah heard the click of the door and its lock being set. There Alex was, leaning against the door, in skin-tight vest and baggy camouflage army-surplus trousers.
“Alex, you know you can’t come in here. It’s out of bounds. And you certainly can’t smoke in here.”
She regretted the didactic tone immediately. She watched Alex take a longer draw of the roll-up than usual and blow perfect smoke rings in her direction. “Yeah, that’d be a laugh, if all our records went up in smoke, eh?”
The girl looked tired. Already slim, she seemed to have lost pounds in a day. But gone was the vulnerability of last night. The tears, the sobs, the…outpouring.
“You okay, Alex? What is it? What’s up?”
She thought Alex was going to make an advance and steeled herself not to respond. Instead, the girl took another long, slow drag at her cigarette. All insolence and…yes…a hint of flirtation. “Oh, nothin’s up, baby nurse Sarah. Just swinging by.”
And then, without another word, she unlocked the door and was on her way out, only pausing to smile. “I’m fine, thanks. Oh, and that stuff I told you last night. All bullshit of course. Complete crap. Yeah, we had a laugh, but it was all good clean fun, as they say. Just a big nasty joke. That’s what too much vodka does for you.” She was heading out of the room, her last remark uttered sotto voce, as she entered the corridor.
“And you don’t half look gorgeous today, baby nurse Sarah. See ya!”
Sarah followed Alex out of the room and watched her selfconsciously swagger down the corridor that led to the Unit house proper. She stopped only once, to grind her roll-up butt into the carpet with an over-sized Doc Marten’s boot. Very Alex.
Sarah left it five minutes before going back to the main Unit building. Ranj was in the Nurses’ Office in a better mood than before. “Hey, Sarah. How you doin’? You look…I dunno, worried. Come, tell me all about it. Coffee?”
She had to sound out her worry with someone. Ranj was probably better than anyone. Anna would question her questions and Adrian was a non-starter.
She nodded her assent to coffee and sat down opposite him, talking slowly, as if she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. “Ranj? Why…why would a patient tell you an…an unbelievable though disturbing story, which clearly disturbed them, and then almost immediately afterwards retract it as a ‘joke’?”
“Alex?”
“Not specifically. A few of them have done the sort of thing I’m talking about. Just wanted to know your take on it, as an old hand at this game.” She didn’t like lying to Ranj. But it was necessary.
He handed her the coffee, sipped at his own drink and sat back, feet on the chair next to him.
“Righto. There are obviously levels of story-making. There’s no one in the Unit that is a complete deluded fantasist I mean, not living in this world. Lydia’s probably the nearest to that when she’s really in the darkest part of her bipolar world. The others? Well, Carrie, Danny and Alex will make up stories. But they’re usually acts of bravado. Indications that they feel they’re not getting enough attention. They also like to wind we staff up, in case you hadn’t noticed. A simple ‘pull the other one’ usually suffices and stops them in their tracks.”
It wasn’t enough for her and she racked her brains to think of a way to get more out of him. “But what if they’re, say…very down, or even very upset at the time, and they seem to be convincing?”
“Yeah, well, whatever the circumstances, I think it’s key to listen, really listen to their story. Chances are it’s saying something about what’s going on with them. It may be a rewriting of some trauma in their past, it may be a kind of allegory of how they see their life. It’ll be symbolic in some way. Unless it’s just one big massive porky, purely to get your attention. And then you have to ask yourself why, at that particular time, they want your attention.” He paused to smile at her. “That make sense?”
She returned the smile and nodded.
He drained his mug and sat up. “Anyway, that’s enough about fantasy. Did you get any further with Alex today? She say anything more about last night’s fun and games at the raffle?”
“Nope. I tried again just now but nothing. I don’t think we’re going to get to the bottom of it.” Her final lie of the conversation came easily.
The simple truth was that she didn’t want to know what last night was about. Right now, she’d happily see die back of Alex for ever. The girl was beginning to scare her. She’d be happy to see the back of them all. And as far as last night was concerned, she was going to consign it to history. After all, Alex had been barely coherent. It wasn’t even a story she told. More a series of borderline hysterical claims. Just kept insisting that the raffle ‘joke’ was because of something she’d done, something they’d all done, “Something so bad, no one will forgive us. Ever. And I mean ever” Then, when she pressed Alex on the rope and knife issue, things started to get more worrying. “What’s the worst you can do with a rope and a hunting knife—go hunting? Hah! You could say that! And where do you think we last had rope and a knife before tonight? It wasn’t in here, that’s for sure. Think. It’s not difficult…”
The implications seemed…felt…sinister last night but now…she wasn’t so sure. Certainly, something had upset Alex—deeply—and the raffle episode was far from a light-hearted prank. But other than that, who could say? These kids, Alex in particular, were utterly unreadable when they wanted to be. Liars, deceivers, even cunning strategists at times. From now on, all she cared about was managing the Alex situation until she was eventually discharged. Patients couldn’t stay here for ever. The average was eight or nine months. No, Alex would go at some stage. And that couldn’t come soon enough. What a bloody mess things were in. She’d been nothing short of a fool. She needed her own head examined, risking everything like that. Reckless. Reckless and stupid.
Sarah had switched off all the electric lights and lit candles. That way she could see outside. The wind was still hammering the sleet against her windows and the surface of the loch was one huge black chasm. She wandered over to the third filing cabinet in the spare room that doubled as her home office, keys clinking in her hand.
With trembling fingers she pulled it out from the bottom drawer. Back at the window, she put on her reading glasses and peered at it, the candlelight flickering shadows across its still glossy surface. Breathing deeply, she allowed herself more whisky. The photo was in remarkably good nick. Probably because it had been kept in envelope after envelope over the years. She had moved it around with her all her life, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to look at it. It had assumed the quality that photos of dead loved ones acquire. Almost living reminders of them. You know you have them, but it’s usually too painful to look, since they remind you of what you’ve lost. And yet you keep them. Talismans. Kept out of love.
But the similarities stopped well before then. Yes, she’d kept it, yes, she couldn’t bear to look at it. Why had she kept it? Easy to self-analyse on that. She’d kept it for the same reason that she couldn’t bear to look at it. As a r
eminder of her shame. Her stupidity. Her vanity. Its presence in her life also reminded her of what she hadn’t dealt with. In her own therapy and analysis over the years, she’d alluded to ‘problems with a particular patient’ in her early professional life. Her astonishingly astute psychotherapy trainer and personal therapist had almost managed to get more out of her, but she’d resisted. If her therapist had had an inkling of what her euphemistic phrase really meant, she wouldn’t be where she was today. Without doubt, if her own decent and principled therapist had got wind of the truth about her and Alex, that would have been the end. She’d have seen Sarah thrown out of the profession, maybe worse. No, she’d successfully implied that it was a difficult professional problem, not the breaking of that most sacred of professional ethics: do not get sexually involved with a patient. Especially a severely disturbed fifteen-year-old girl.
God, she shuddered to think of where she might be. She let the candlelight flicker again over the faces. Apart from the then characteristically awkward-looking teenage Simon Calder, where were all the rest? What had become of their lives? She shook her head at the photo, her fingertips brushing over the faces, most of them…what? Gloomy? Uneasy? Frightened? That bloody camping holiday and that bloody orienteering fiasco. They’d found the kids all right. Safe, well, though reeking of booze and resolute in their denials that they’d been drinking. And then there was Alex’s story…that weird unsettling story, if you could call it that. More an irrational outburst with some disturbing claims behind it but most probably attention-seeking lies and embellishments. She thrust that to the back of her mind, thinking again about her own lucky escape. Not only might she (and Anna and Ranj—hence Anna’s fury that day) have been prosecuted for professional negligence if anything had happened to the kids, but if the Alex thing had come out she’d probably have been sent to prison.
She blew out the candles and meandered her way through the rooms of the flat, restlessly pacing, whisky glass in one hand, photograph in the other, eventually settling back into the living room. The snow had stopped falling, and she could see the ripples in the waters of the loch. Loch Fyne. That was the one good thing that had come from the camping debacle all those years ago. It had introduced her to the beauty of Argyll and this marvellous loch in particular. And here she was, living in luxury by its edge. But how different it could have been…
“Well, just you wait! I’ll fucking show you. You can get struck off for what you’ve done! Struck off! If not put in bloody prison! I’ll show you!”
She’d been waiting for something like this and had her riposte ready. She watched Alex trip over a tree root and shouted her reply, “Stop it, Alex! Stop! Don’t do anything stupid! Anyway, no one’ll believe you! No one! Think about it. I’m telling you…”
She bent down by the river, picked up the bucket of dean dishes and headed back to the camping huts. Christ This was the last thing she needed. She didn’t think Alex would do anything rash right now. She thought Alex would be too embarrassed, shy even, to draw sexual attention, especially that sort of sexual attention, to herself, which she would undoubtedly do if she caused some big allegations scene. And, though she hated herself for it, hated herself for all that she’d let happen, she knew that she’d be able to deflect Alex’s accusations with the ‘crush’ defence. Patients often went through a phase in their treatment when they developed crushes on particular members of staff. And everyone knew Alex was a little troublemaker. No, if the worst happened, she knew what her answer would be. As she entered the clearing where the huts were, she relaxed. All seemed normal. There was no hysterical Alex, crying rape.
She knew Alex. She’d be sulking in her bunk. Chainsmoking and ignoring everybody and planning some sort of bad behaviour. Better keep a close eye.
She wasn’t aware of losing sight of them. Darkness had fallen by 5 PM, and they really should have bivouacked by then. They were running bloody late. She checked her own compass and map, and saw the flicker of two torches ahead. Simon and Carrie.
“Don’t get too far ahead, you two!” But she doubted they could hear. The wind had really picked up during the past hour, and its whistling through the trees drowned out most other sounds, except for the loudest of Carrie’s laughs.
But the moon was well-nigh full, so at least she could see their two silhouettes pretty clearly. She checked the map again, squinting at the cross where they would overnight. “Damn!” She’d stumbled over a log. Map, compass and torch went flying. The black rubber torch was pretty much indestructible, and she saw it beaming through the damp bracken and leaves on the forest floor. “Fuck it!” She wiped herself down, retrieved the map and compass, and was on her way again. God, she hated this. Still, she was happy that she’d taken on Carrie and Simon for her team. Poor Ranj. Stuck with an insufferably sulky Alex and a moody Danny. Though he did have Abby to brighten his group up. Instinctively, she did her regular check ahead. No torch lights. Cloud had covered the moon. Apart from the strong beam from her own torch, everything was blackness. Fantastic!
“Carrie? Simon? Hey, where are you! Hold on! Carrie! Simon, get back here! Come on!” Hell, they’d never hear her above the wind.
And then it happened. Her own hundred per cent reliable torch gave out. Not even a warning flicker. She shook it, pressed it to her ear. Shit! The bulb must’ve been damaged in her fall. The delicate glass was now rattling about inside the torch head. Shit, shit, shit! No spare bulb and no backup torch. She had a candle and her cooking stove. Both bloody useless in these conditions. She stopped and leaned against the nearest tree. This was serious. She couldn’t move safely onwards, but she had to find the kids. Why the fuck had she been so cocky about that damned torch? Ran) had told her she should have a back-up. Even offered her a little plastic Ever Ready thing with spare batteries. But she’d refused. What a fool! The moon was floating in and out of the clouds. She could move when it was out, but then she’d have to keep stopping and starting.
And the kids? They were already galloping ahead anyway. Just before her fall she thought they were trying to do a runner. And now she had no way of catching them up. Well, there was nowhere for them to go, except the rendezvous point. They weren’t stupid kids. Far from it. No, they’d make camp where, she hoped, Ranj, Alex, Abby and Danny were waiting for them. As for her? She’d have to sit it out until there was a cloudless patch of sky and she could safely run on.
She let herself slide down to the damp ground, relieving the weight of her rucksack against the trunk of a tree. It was only then that she realized her own situation. In the middle of nowhere, alone, no light, and about fourteen hours until daylight. She had all the right wind and waterproof gear but still she shivered. She kept looking up through the branches, but the moon had completely disappeared. She did have her whistle, though. She reached into a side pocket of her rucksack and brought it out. That was one safety measure that Ranj had insisted on, for all of them. The noise from it would have carried well over this terrain but for die bloody wind. Anyway, Ranj said die whisdes were for ‘absolute emergencies’ and this didn’t really qualify. Except that the kids were on their own.
She pulled her hood tight and leaned her head back, eyes shut. What to do? An owl’s hoot penetrated die whoops of die wind, as did a rusde behind her. She scrabbled to her feet and swivelled round, die weight of the rucksack nearly felling her again. “Carrie? Simon? It’s Sarah. Is diat you? Hey!”
Her words were carried away on die wind, into nothingness. She could feel die increase in her heartbeat. She had to get out of here, moon or no moon. She could still see her compass and knew in which direction to go. Head bent, she took each step slowly, whistie in one hand, compass and plastic-covered map hanging round her neck. And then she saw it. The faint beam of light shining behind an incline a few hundred yards away. The kids! Thank God! She peered ahead. Only one beam. Carrie or Simon? Whoever, die other one couldn’t be far behind. She reorientated herself towards its source, feeling the relief that comes after a build-up of tensio
n. As she climbed the incline, she could still see only one torch beam, fanning left and right, as if looking for something. Or someone. And dien she heard it. The shrill sound of a whisde, penetrating clearly through the wind. Oh, no, the kids! Her hand was tight round her own whisde, and immediately she replied with three long blasts.
“Here! I’m here!” Three more blasts. Three returning on die wind. And then the torch beam started bobbing up and down, its owner obviously running towards her.
“Carrie? That you? Simon?”
The figure was nearly upon her, slidiering down a mossy hump.
“Sarah! Thank goodness!”
“Ranj, what the h—”
But he was shaking her by the shoulder. “Listen. I’ve lost them. Abby, Alex and Danny. Where’s Simon? And Carrie?”
Her initial relief had been replaced, yet again, by rising panic. “Oh, God, no! I lost them. I fell…my torch broke…I’ve been calling them. Oh, God, Ranj, what the hell’s happened to them? We’ve got to find th—”
He cut across her. “Okay, wait a minute…Right, come with me up to the top road. The Land Rover’s there. They can’t be far. Come on, move it!”
A heaving flurry of snow slammed itself against the window, chasing the recollection away with a jolt. The photograph that she’d just brought alive lay before her, her eyes re-focusing on the rows of faces. Ghosts. She recalled that there had been staff post-mortems aplenty, analysing that night’s events. All were agreed that the patients had deliberately gone missing. It had been a planned operation. Why? It had been impossible to find out. It was pretty obvious that they had been drinking and, it was assumed, smoking dope at some point, given their glazed, spaced-out demeanour. As far as the staff were concerned, Carrie had been in the frame for supplying both, but there had been no proof. No one had talked. Exactly where they had been and what they had been doing until they were found huddled and shivering at the side of the top road remained unknown. Alex had offered her some weird story that she kept to herself, but, at the end of the day, the staff agreed to leave it, apart from a couple of lectures about drink and drugs that everyone, staff and patients, knew were a waste of time. In all probability that night had been some attention-seeking ploy that had gone wrong, and they’d got themselves lost and frightened. City kids out of their depth. But somewhere deep down, she’d never really bought that. She couldn’t of course discuss this with any of the staff, but she felt that this was an Alex-instigated act of revenge, in response to their row that morning. And just how far that act of revenge had gone she could never be sure. She’d never felt comfortable about the whole episode. Although she and Ran) had got a bollocking from Anna, who in turn with Laurie had the thing squared away as ‘extreme acting out’, she couldn’t help wondering for months afterwards about the convenience of this explanation. That night Anna had been scared stiff too. They’d all have been finished if the kids had come to harm. Anna had vetoed calling the police ‘until they were sure’ they really were missing. Sarah had always considered that a dangerous, self-serving and wrong decision. Yes, it had left a bad taste, even though it was soon forgotten as a topic of conversation in the Unit. Except. Except that the atmosphere was never the same with that group, and she was glad when they’d all gone. Every last one of them, including a much chastened and quietened Alex. But she didn’t think she was a healed Alex. In truth, had the Unit done them any good at all? Didn’t that debacle of a reunion picnic not prove her case? That fight at the end. She and Alex had managed to avoid each other quite successfully all day until then. It seemed that they both wanted to forget about what had happened in the Unit. And that suited her fine. It had been tricky. She’d never forget when she and Anna were lying on the rug, near the rocks, by the Auld Kirk, and Anna started going on about, or rather referring to, professional and ethical boundaries. No affairs with patients! She’d just wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. In hindsight, it was bloody useful that there was a rumpus. She’d been feeling more and more uncomfortable in Anna’s presence. Almost as if Anna could read her guilty thoughts. Rubbish of course. Anyway, the chaos of the fight showed that very few of the former patients had been released into the world any better than when they had come in.