The Glimpse

by Claire Merle

  Inside Three Mils, she shambled along a cobbled street with built-in railway tracks, anxiously casting about for an indication of how bad the place was. To her right a large field of tarmac, broken up into faded white boxes, lay empty. On her left sat a long, utilitarian building that didn’t look inviting. But at least it had windows.

  didn’t look inviting. But at least it had windows.

  She folowed an arrow painted on the ground, tripped up steps to the reception and entered flustered, which under the circumstances, she decided, wouldn’t hurt. A lady behind a circular desk met her eye. She nodded at one of the seats pushed against a bare wal. As Ana sat down, a man in a three-quarter-length doctor’s coat appeared.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Dannard. I’m afraid Dr Gudden isn’t available this morning.’ He held out his hand to shake Ana’s.

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  ‘Emily,’ Ana said, using the name Nate’s contact had matched her to.

  ‘May I?’ He reached over her and took off the chain carrying her fake ID. His intrusive proximity made her instantly wary.

  ‘Nice chain,’ he said. ‘Folow me.’ The door ahead sensed their approach and swished open. Ana folowed him down a brightly lit corridor. Dr Dannard pushed open the second door they came to and stood back to let her in. She shambled forward, the twinges in her stomach going berserk.

  He gestured for her to sit in a low chair on the patient’s side of his wooden desk. Then he settled into a high-backed leather seat opposite her and inserted her ID

  stick into his interface pad.

  ‘You’ve dyed your hair,’ he said.

  Panic stabbed Ana’s chest. Had he recognised her?

  Panic stabbed Ana’s chest. Had he recognised her?

  ‘You’ve cut your hair like a boy and you’ve dyed it because you don’t want people to think you’re pretty.’

  She relaxed, realising this was al part of his ‘astute’

  assessment. Dr Dannard was obviously happy to do al the talking, so she didn’t bother to answer.

  ‘Got a boyfriend?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said.

  ‘Dumped you, has he?’ He nodded in agreement with himself. ‘Low self-esteem. Nervous too, mmm?’ Again, it wasn’t a question. He reached into his top desk drawer and puled out some papers.

  ‘You need a break,’ he said, folding his hands together 243

  and resting them over the papers. ‘A bit of time to relax, unwind. Let somebody else take care of you.’

  He was making a stay in the dump sound like a luxury holiday.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to forget about al the stresses and strains of everything out there?’ His eyes gleamed. He pronounced ‘out there’ with an edge of disgust, simultaneously waving his hand as though brushing reality away. Ana nodded, wondering if the outside world could be so easily dismissed here.

  ‘Good,’ he said. He got up, bely bumping over the top of the desk, and left the room. Internaly, Ana began to question whether if she walked out now, the security question whether if she walked out now, the security guard would open the gate. Dannard was clearly unhinged.

  Anyone who merely looked at another person and saw a catalogue of mental ilnesses in the way they cut their hair had to be.

  He returned with a second, younger doctor, who seemed irritated.

  ‘Boyfriend’s dumped her,’ Dannard said by way of introduction, ‘and she’s not taking it too wel, are you?’

  ‘Suicidal?’ His coleague snapped.

  ‘No,’ Ana replied. She certainly didn’t want something like that getting written down on her form.

  ‘She’s got self-esteem problems,’ Dannard went on.

  ‘Nervous too.’ He leant into the younger doctor and said something Ana couldn’t make out. Probably going on about her hair.

  ‘Fine,’ the other doctor said. He strode to the table, picked up the form and scribbled something ilegible in the 244

  box, Diagnostic impression at admission. He signed at the bottom and hurried back out.

  She was in.

  Now she realy understood why her father had made her learn the test answers by heart, had made her swear she would never improvise or try to answer any of the Board’s questions truthfuly.

  Board’s questions truthfuly.

  Dannard lounged back in his chair. The pupils of his tiny eyes shone brightly as he signed the forms.

  ‘Wel that’s that,’ he said, handing her a pen. ‘You just have to sign here.’ Ana took the biro. Her hand shook.

  ‘If you can’t write,’ he said, ‘just make a cross.’

  ‘When do I get the ful evaluation?’

  The beady eyes in Dannard’s large head blinked.

  ‘So you’ve stayed in a Mental Rehab Home before, have you? I didn’t see that on your ID. A few years back, was it?

  Wel, you’re in safe hands now.’

  ‘I heard there was a big test. One hundred questions.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that. Nothing to worry about. Now sign the form and I’l cal someone to come and colect you.’ He picked up his phone.

  Ana’s hand hovered over the space where she was meant to sign. She fixed the pen on the page but didn’t move her hand.

  Dannard hung up. The clang of the receiver on the desk made her jump. She drew the pen hard down and up, making an X.

  ‘Wel, there we go,’ he said. He retrieved his hand-held scanner and scanned the document into his interface.

  Perhaps they were legaly required to have hard copies in case 245

  there was ever a virus or a power cut that wiped out the home system, she thought.

  She sat as stil as she could. Fear crawled up her skin like spiders’ legs.

  Two women arrived with a wheelchair. The one pushing wore loose green trousers and a plain green top. A large, jagged scar ran from the corner of her mouth to her chin.

  She had a truncheon on the belt around her waist. The smaler woman wore a blue three-quarter-length coat buttoned up over her clothes.

  ‘Morning, Dr Dannard,’ they sang. He nodded at them and then pretended to be very busy with paperwork. It looked to Ana as if he was trying to hide.

  ‘Sit,’ the orderly said. Ana scooted across to the wheelchair.

  ‘Rol up your sleeve,’ the nurse said, retrieving a syringe from a box in her pocket. She held it up, flicked it and let a colourless liquid dribble out the end.

  The spasms in Ana’s stomach came together in one hard fist. It’s most likely a sedative, she told herself. But who knew if they’d sterilised the needle properly.

  ‘I, um.’ She swalowed. ‘I—’

  The orderly reached for her truncheon. ‘Not a trouble-maker, are you?’ she said.

  Ana shook her head once, roled up her sleeve and held out her arm.

  out her arm.

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  20

  Jasper

  Ana woke in a vast black hangar. She gazed up at the ceiling. It was at least three storeys high. Slowly, she became aware of a mattress beneath her, an itchy rug covering her body. She felt sleepy, satisfied. A distant part of her brain told her it was the drug, told her she had to get up and find Jasper, but she didn’t feel like listening.

  Rocking her head sideways, she saw the filming studio had been converted in-to a dormitory. Dozens of mattresses were strewn across the floor. There were no other furnishings. Grey daylight shafted through the gap of a heavy sliding door; a door large enough to let a truck through.

  Close by someone sniffed. Someone else hummed. The black, squidgy wals gobbled up sound, making it impossible to glean how many others were lying in the old film studio with her. The dozen beds she could make out lay empty. From beyond the door, a constant burble of voices ran on and on.

  An unpleasant stink of vomit floated on the air. A reminder that everything was not al right. Get up, she told herself. Who knew how long she’d been lying there, how much time she’d already lost?

  Ana pushed up on her elbows. Her head
spun, and then 247

  her brain settled, hovering inside her skul. Gauging that she wasn’t hungry, she felt an element of relief. At least they’d only used a light sedative, something to knock her under for an hour, rather than a day.

  She slapped her legs to see how much feeling she had.

  Her thighs tingled on impact. She roled off the mattress on to the cold concrete floor and wrestled her limbs into a kneeling position. Then she flexed her right leg and leant hard on it. As she pressed down, the muscles in her thigh shook. Concentrating, she lifted up her other leg.

  With both feet planted on the ground, she slowly stretched out her body. Her legs trembled. Just standing took enormous effort. For a moment she felt her resolve crumble. She wanted to curl back up and drift in the hazy borderlands of her mind.

  But then she looked down. A long-sleeved, shapeless robe hung over her hands and brushed her bare knees.

  They’d taken her clothes. They’d left her without shoes or socks. She had to get moving. There was no knowing when they would come for her test. It could be any time within the first twenty-four hours of admission. She needed to find Jasper fast.

  She shuffled towards the doors, hugging her arms around her chest in a futile attempt to conserve body heat.

  The cold stiffened her elastic limbs. Her mind felt like sludge the whole world had walked their dirty boots through.

  She passed through the hulking doors into a courtyard reminiscent of a school playground. Except the kids were 248

  too old, their robes too skimpy for anywhere but hospital beds and their bodies crooked and jerky.

  Ana grew nervous at the sight of so many volatile young people clustered together. Her shaky legs buckled. She slouched against the blue studio door. Fortunately, no one was paying her the slightest bit of attention. She breathed in deeply and tried to absorb her surroundings.

  Flat-roofed hangars lined the wide yard. One of the blue doors across the way had been left closed, revealing faint white markings of a number five, encircled twice like a target. The yard was around sixty-foot long. To her left lay a brick wal with narrow passages running off both ways.

  To her right, a grey building with wals either side plugged up the other end. Her gaze fluttered over the sixty or so patients. A dozen boys, most of whom looked younger than her, threw dice and bet coloured bits of plastic.

  Another mixed group sat bunched up on a low wal. The rest of the various cliques appeared to be girls.

  Inhaling deeply, Ana shambled left towards the passageways. They had to lead somewhere. The other entrances on to the yard seemed to be hangars, like the one she’d come from. And she wasn’t going to try searching those dark interiors, not until she felt steadier and understood how the psychs kept everyone under control. So far, she’d seen no doctors, nurses or orderlies.

  She was almost at the high wal and about to turn down one of the aleys, when a girl shouted.

  ‘Oi! Get back here!’

  ‘Oi! Get back here!’

  Ana flinched and swiveled around. Nearby, a huddle of girls watched her. One of them, with a tattoo of a vine 249

  twining down the side of her neck, stepped forward. She glared at Ana through straggly hair. Ana dropped her gaze at once. She wobbled away from the wal, back in the direction she’d come. She didn’t fancy her chances against a bunch of medicated, hostile Crazies.

  As she reached a queue for the grey building, which from the smel had to be the toilets, a second smaler yard became visible on her left. At the end of it, a flight of steps led up to a closed door. To the right of the yard stood two more doors, the furthest of which was ajar.

  Ana tottered towards the hissing noise which came from it.

  Inside a luminous room with a thirty-foot-high ceiling and four arched windows, patients crowded around folding card tables. The luckier ones were seated, playing dom-inoes, board games and chess. The rest stood watching.

  Fierce whispering buzzed around the room. By the unan-imity of their sibilant communications, Ana decided talking had to be against the rules.

  She searched the room, looking for signs of how the orderlies monitored them, and noticed two surveilance cameras high above, beating back and forth along old gantry tracks. Conscious of the cameras, Ana padded into the hal.

  The springy wooden floor was warmer than the studio concrete, or exterior tarmac. Her feet began to tingle as concrete, or exterior tarmac. Her feet began to tingle as the blood circulated through them again. Her hunched shoulders dropped a little, thawing. Unlike the dark hangar where she’d woken, sunlight from the high windows heated the room without letting in the cold.

  In an aimless fashion, she wound around the games room. The agitated clusters pushing against the tables, 250

  watching and waiting for a turn, obscured the few patients actualy playing. After Ana had circled a couple of times and was sure Jasper wasn’t among those standing, she toured the tables for glimpses of those seated. She was patient, waiting until someone bobbed their head, scratched or jostled forward to reveal the players.

  She’d traversed one side of the room and was scrutinising a table near a round distilery barrel from the mil’s industrial days, when she caught sight of Jasper.

  She almost cried out in astonishment. Emotion sweled around her, too high and moving too fast to escape. Al she could do was let the wave break and hope she was stil standing afterwards.

  In an effort to calm herself, she focused on the strange copper barrel to the left of Jasper with a chimney-like top.

  Snippets of infantile banter trickled through her awareness.

  ‘It’s my go.’ – ‘You’re cheating.’ – ‘That’s not fair.’

  They were like overgrown children. She wondered why everyone looked under twenty. The psychs must everyone looked under twenty. The psychs must separate patients according to age and put the older ones in some other part of the institution.

  The emotion and adrenalin finaly ebbed away leaving one clear thought – she had to get Jasper’s attention without shocking him. She took a step back and craned over several other patients for a better look at his face. It transformed before her; the memory and the reality two different things entirely.

  His skin looked grey. Darkness rimmed his eyes. Bristly stubble and pockmarks from where he’d cut himself shav-ing with a blunt razor covered his chin. His sandy hair hung limply. The last five days hadn’t been kind to him.

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  Ana tunneled through a group of girls and positioned herself behind the chair of the teenage boy playing with Jasper. The boy shook dice, clucking and sucking his breath between his teeth. He kept shaking, shaking. The dice thumped around inside a stiff, leather pouch. Jasper, legs crossed, hunched forward with his hand plugged over his mouth, counting under his breath.

  ‘He’s cursing it,’ the boy said. Jasper smiled sneakily and carried on counting.

  ‘Throw the dice,’ someone whined. The dice fel. Silence descended over the group as they roled to a stop. Then a grin broke across Jasper’s face. The boy banged a silver dog across the board spaces, counting out four, then six. The dog toppled on to a purple stripe, barely visible beneath a sprawl of big red houses.

  Jasper fanned a wad of colourful play cash in front of his opponent.

  ‘Six multiplied by four hundred and eighty is three thousand and eighty,’ he murmured. ‘Time to pay.’

  ‘You cheated,’ the boy hissed.

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘You put thoughts into the dice.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Jasper objected.

  ‘You were counting.’

  ‘Pay or lose!’ The lively exchange stirred up the onlookers. They pressed closer. From the corner of her eye, Ana noted one of the ever-moving surveilance cameras had stopped and was pointing over them. If Jasper was the source of some commotion, he might get carted off. She 252

  needed to attract his attention and stop him from causing a scene.

  ‘You’ve got
too many houses on there,’ she said.

  Jasper’s eyes shot up to see who’d spoken. He looked directly at her without a glimmer of recognition. ‘It’s against the rules,’

  she continued, losing confidence. He’d either become amazingly good at bluffing, or he didn’t know who she was.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘six times four hundred and eighty is two thousand eight hundred and eighty. You overcharged two thousand eight hundred and eighty. You overcharged him.’

  ‘And you are?’ he said.

  Ana swalowed, barely able to get the next word out.

  ‘Emily.’

  The teenage boy leapt on to the table. He kicked the board. Tiny red and green houses went flying. ‘You lying cheat!’ he shouted, lunging for Jasper.

  A heartbeat later, an alarm blasted. Ana clamped her hands over her ears, but stil the sound shook her skul.

  Pandemonium broke out. Patients scrambled for the door, pushing each other aside, stomping over those that had falen or lain down in terror. Jasper stuffed the play money into his robe pocket and darted with an uneven gait through the crowds. She folowed, barely able to see straight the noise hurt so much. Jasper headed for Studio 5 – the hangar opposite the one Ana had woken in. Al around them patients dashed back and forth.

  Out in the yard, she grabbed his arm. ‘Jasper!’ she screamed.

  He circled around, afraid. When he saw who it was, his shadowed eyes filed with annoyance. He tried to shake her off. She leant towards him.

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  ‘Where can we talk?’ she shouted. He yanked back his shoulder, releasing her hold on his gown and was about to stumble away, when uncertainty flicked across him.

  to stumble away, when uncertainty flicked across him.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he shouted.

  Ana’s heart lurched. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he mimicked. They gazed at each other for a moment. And then around her she sensed a renewed flurry of desperation. Below the high-pitched alarm sounded the stomp-stomp of boots. The orderlies, truncheons carried between their arms like rifles, were filtering into the compound from the narrow passages by the far brick wal.