The Sister

by China, Max

  He explained briefly that he practiced certain pioneering aspects of psychiatry, which he felt appropriate for Bruce's particular problems. When he'd finished, he opened a file and took out the consent forms Penny had prepared earlier. "I'd prefer it if we left any questions we may have, until after our initial consultation. Time is a precious commodity, and I often find any queries - well, most of them anyway - are dealt with during the first session with me. Are we okay with that?" His eyebrows rose, corresponding with the question. Neither of them answered.

  "Good, this will take around two hours. You can wait for him here, or you might like to take a walk. My secretary can tell you where all the best shops are; there's a High Street not half a mile away." He pushed the paperwork across the desk in her direction. "If I can just ask you to check all the details are correct . . .?"

  She pulled a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses from her handbag and put them on.

  "Yes…" She sounded unsure. "Except for the surname, it's spelt wrong, there's only one L in it."

  "I'll get that changed. Can I get you to sign the consent forms?" He passed them to her; she read them carefully, and placed them on the desk.

  "You won't be prescribing any drugs for him, will you? I'm dead against them."

  "For me, that's the last resort. As I said just now, we tend to concentrate on therapy."

  She made small circles above the paper, holding an invisible pen between her thumb and forefinger.

  He handed her a pen.

  "You'll be able to help him, won't you Dr Ryan?" she said anxiously, pen poised above the page as if it were a condition of her signing.

  "We'll do our best."

  Reassured, she signed quickly with a flourish, her large signature stylish, yet utterly illegible.

  "Mrs Milowski," he waited at the door, holding it open for her, "we'll see you in two hours." As she passed him, he bowed slightly.

  Sitting back down, he traced his cheekbone with the edge of his finger. "It's hot isn't it?" He poured two glasses of water and held one out to his patient. "Would you like a drink, Bruce?"

  "There's nothing wrong with me," he said, eyes sullen.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow at him, tapping his notepad. "It says here, you've become withdrawn and forgetful." He traced his finger across the paper. "And here - that you are now prone to losing your temper," Ryan leaned back in his chair. "It also says you've been having trouble sleeping . . . keep waking up with nightmares…" The boy's head drooped onto his chest. "Would you like to tell me about that?" he said evenly.

  Bruce shook his head.

  "Mm-m, so let's talk about the accident," Ryan's voice lowered, becoming gentler. With his right hand insistently clicking the lead out of his silver pencil, it sounded like a miniature metronome. Milowski squinted at it. The metal was polished, shiny from everyday use. It caught a flare of sunshine, which illuminated its whole length, radiating a beam so bright, everything else paled against it; the desk and then even Ryan himself, began to fade.

  All he could see was the pencil and Ryan's face hovering above it. He found himself drawn ever closer into the miniature elongated reflection of the window.

  Something changed in his perception; he felt that he was looking out through the mirrored image, at himself.

  In the distance, he heard Ryan's voice; he felt as if he were floating a few inches above where he sat, detached, but still aware. Bruce heard his own voice speaking, disembodied and distant . . . present at the accident scene once more. Milowski's recollections unfurled, rolled out like a tapestry.

  "We let the others go snaking up the hill, the line of them thinned as it stretched out. When we realised we were going to get away with it, we moved further down the hill. Jones was on the other side of a mass of ferns that swayed like the sea. I think he was tempted by the dark shade of the copse of trees beyond. 'Look down there! Let's go and see,' he shouted. His pale blue eyes brimmed full of excitement. 'That little stream we saw earlier, does anyone else remember it? I wouldn't mind betting that it opens out in those woods. That's why it's so green down there. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm so hot I wouldn't mind a swim if I can get one, or even just a paddle. Come on!'" He hesitated, clearly immersed in his recollections.

  "You followed him?" Ryan prompted.

  The question took a moment to filter through. "Yes, he charged off downhill. We shrugged at each other, and then raced after him. The others ducked beneath the top strand of the barbed wire fence. There was an old white tin sign with faded red letters swinging from the top wire, bent out of shape, by a blast of shotgun pellets. None of us bothered to try and work out what it said. I was always the hesitant one. I parted the strands, and dipped under behind the others, careful not to catch my clothes. The quiet was overwhelming; hardly any light under the thick canopy of the trees. When I first saw it, the water didn't seem real. Chickweed grew all over the top, covering most of the surface in a green and black mosaic. The sky, reflected in the patches of exposed black water, looked like an oil painting." He tilted his head to one side and dipped it as if looking down, staring intently, he had become inanimate.

  "Bruce . . . Bruce?" Ryan tapped his pencil gently on the desk until the boy had half turned towards the sound. "What happened next, Bruce?"

  Concentrating harder, he said, "I had this weird sense of recognition, and it slowed me down . . . I tried to focus on what it was . . . where it came from. I can't quite put my finger on it . . ." he hesitated, biting his lip and then he exclaimed. "I knew I'd been there before! I didn't recognise it, not from where I was then.

  "I was back in a place I last saw when I was a seven-year-old boy standing a couple of hundred yards up the hill and I saw me gazing down to where I was standing then . . . my head's spinning . . . I can't remember what it was my grandfather had warned me about the place . . . I sprinted to catch up. Jones was hopping about, frantically removing his trousers and shirt, getting ready to dive in. The other boys shook their heads, plainly thinking that even he couldn't be that crazy . . . and then he charged towards the pond in his underpants. He's actually going to do it!

  "Just at the very last possible point he could stop - he did stop; he was in the process of turning round to face us all with a gleeful smile, arms outstretched as if to say voila . . . 'I fooled y . . . ' he never finished what he started to say. He looked in disbelief at his foot as the ankle twisted and gave way, tipping him off balance. Panicking, he flailed his arms, wildly grasping at anything, reaching for a handhold, anywhere . . . grabbing at the air. He teetered on the edge, too far gone to come back, and plunged backwards into the water.

  Clouds passed over; shadows formed in the corners of my eyes. I knew this feeling. Something was wrong. I should have realised. I was too slow making the connection. Then I remembered what my grandfather said . . . that it was a bad place. By then, it was too late."

  Ryan observed the boy's eye movements, adding to his notes. It's as if he is watching a film. "What do you see, Bruce?" he prompted gently.

  Confusion furrowed his brow as he continued, "It was as if I was standing outside myself. I watched my mouth as it shaped the word . . . Nooo! But nothing came out. I might have shouted it afterwards . . . I can't be sure. None of us could quite believe it. I stared down at where he'd lost his footing. Sticking out from the long grass, were the remains of an old boot lying on its side, the leather upper had cracked and blackened with age. The sole, wet and shiny, could have been new.

  "In those few moments, the part of me that was observing, latched on to every detail, as if my life depended on it. The deep, double splosh Jones made falling in, showed how deep the water was . . . and the stench that came up was worse than rotten eggs. The others were laughing and shouting. 'That will teach you, you crazy son of a bitch!' 'You can keep away from me when you get out of there, Jones!' Brookes cried, clapping his hands together with glee at the thought of this particular campfire tale. It all seemed to occur in slow motion, Brookes saw it first; the smil
e disappeared from his face, the same with Watson. Jones' chickweed covered face was a mask of horror; the light in his eyes disappeared—" Milowski snapped his fingers. "Switched off just like that."

  "He stopped moving - just stopped, and then he slid below the black waters. Watson jumped in first, and a second later, Brookes plunged in too. The strongest swimmer in the whole school, he turned to me, and he never said a word, but the look . . . the burning eyes . . . the jerky left-right-left movements of his head . . . each carried a warning. He seemed to say. Whatever you do . . . don't jump in!

  "Something was very, very badly wrong down there. I became even more detached than before, and I saw myself struggling with the urge to jump in after them, moving this way and that, two or three paces left, two, three paces right. In my head, I knew I couldn't swim. That day, my fear of water saved my life. The scene was now a deadly play, and I - not knowing what else to do - stood watching, as the fight for life took centre stage. I watched myself, as in desperation, I threw my magic seashell to Brookes, and he caught it!

  "For a split second, our eyes locked onto each other, united by the power of the shell. I saw myself as I punched the air and exclaimed. Yes! One millisecond . . . and then he slipped under, silently, a look of disappointment on his face. He looked as if he wanted to ask me something. The black water swallowed him and three large bubbles of air broke the surface, before the carpet of weed covered it over again. Apart from the smell, there was no sign anyone had been in the water at all. I watched myself as I sank to my knees; a shrill, unearthly wail cut through the silence . . . I wondered who was screaming and then I realised. It was me."

  When Mrs Milowski returned just under two hours later, she walked into the reception, and sorted through the magazines on the side table, selecting the most recent, a five-year-old National Geographic magazine. She was much more comfortable leafing through it here than she would have been at the doctor's or even the dentist's. She was paranoid about germs and infections; she thought it less likely she would pick up anything in a psychiatrist's waiting room.

  There was an article about the plight of Native American Indians, and the reported high incidence of alcoholism among them. She began reading it, quickly becoming engrossed. Over the page, someone had written in light pencil, 'low self-esteem'. A short electronic buzz snapped her attention back into the room. She saw the red indicator light outside the door change to green. The receptionist was just returning with a small plastic watering can. She started watering all the plants that decorated the waiting area.

  "Excuse me," Mrs Milowski pointed at the green light. "Does that mean he's finished?"

  The receptionist, half-surprised at the interruption of her duties, said, "He'll be out in a minute," her smile was thin. "You can't beat some nice foliage to brighten a place up can you?" she added as an afterthought.

  "No, you can't," she said, putting the magazine back onto the table. She pointed at the lights outside Ryan's door. "They're like traffic lights, I suppose . . ." She observed from the name displayed on the counter top that the receptionist's name was Penny.

  "Sorry?" Penny said, "Oh no, not quite; there's no amber, you see? Just stop or go. I'll let you in on a little secret," Penny whispered, beckoning her closer. "He had that put in after I walked in once while he was treating a lady." She winked theatrically. "When he's with a patient, he doesn't like to be disturbed, if you know what I mean."

  The casual way Penny breached Ryan's confidentiality bothered Mrs Milowski. The two women eyed each other briefly; Penny was about to speak when the door opened, and Ryan brought Bruce out. They shook hands. The firmness of the boy's grip surprised the psychiatrist, crushing his arthritic finger. He winced.

  On the way back to the station, she tentatively started a conversation, without expecting much in return. She'd grown accustomed to his silences. "So, how did it go?"

  "He's a really nice bloke, Mum. It wasn't what I thought it would be, although he did try to hypnotise me, and I wasn't having any of that."

  Mrs Milowski couldn't hide her surprise. "He tried to hypnotise you? He never said he was going to do that . . ."

  "It doesn't matter. He tried, but he didn't."

  She gauged her voice so that it sounded normal; a little scared of what his reaction might be. "What did you talk about?"

  He frowned; suddenly he couldn't remember much about the session at all. "Not a lot, just . . . Mum can we leave it for now?"

  "Not a lot… Bruce, you were in there for over two hours! You must have talked about lots of things."

  "Mum!" he said firmly. "I've just had hours of soul-baring or whatever; I can't remember. Right now I feel drained," The crease in his forehead deepened. "Although I do remember something . . . he wanted to know why I threw my seashell to Chris."

  Chris Brookes, one of the dead boys - this was a new development. When she'd realised his shell was missing - he'd treasured it since he was a small boy as if his life depended on it – she'd asked him where it was. He'd flown into a rage. Choosing her words carefully now, she asked, "Why did you throw it at him? Did you tell the doctor?"

  He gawped at her blankly. "I . . . can't remember."

  She decided not to press him further.

  Once on the train, she checked the consent paperwork she'd signed, and though she couldn't remember specifically seeing it, there it was. Some treatments may involve the use of hypnotherapy.

  If she'd seen that before, she wouldn't have signed. Hypnotherapy was a form of treatment she frowned on. She didn't agree with messing with people's minds. Sitting back in her seat, she smiled. It was the longest talk she'd had with him since the accident.

  Chapter 20

  By the time they returned to doctor Ryan's the following week, Mrs Milowski had realised that, despite the initial improvement, the effects of the last visit were just temporary, diminishing progressively, with her son returning completely to his post-traumatic sullen self, after only four days.

  They sat quietly in the waiting room. The green light was on when they'd first arrived. It had just started to irritate her that they'd gone five minutes past their appointment time, when the door opened, and the psychiatrist bounded out cheerfully. "Mrs Milowski, Bruce. How are we today?" He made no apology for his lateness.

  "Doctor, please call me Ellen, it's a lot easier."

  This informal suggestion triggered a scowl from Penny and seeing it; Ellen suddenly realised the receptionist thought she was flirting, and went red with embarrassment. The more she thought about it, the redder she went. "I'm so sorry," she said self-consciously. Men often assumed the reason she blushed so hard because she was attracted to them. Most of the time it wasn't true, and certainly not in Ryan's case.

  He reassured her with a sympathetic smile. "You know Ellen, there are treatments available for that . . ."

  The heat generated by her blushing formed a slight sheen of perspiration that glossed her skin. "We'll get my son sorted out first, then perhaps . . ." she fanned air towards her face with magazine in a futile effort to cool it. Bruce glanced at her with irritation. He knew she'd never sort it out, opting out with a comment like: 'I find it too embarrassing', as she always did.

  He gestured for the boy to follow him. "Shall we begin?"

  They disappeared through the door, and it closed behind them. A few seconds later, the red indicator bulb illuminated.

  Mrs Milowski felt Penny's eyes boring into the back of her head as she walked out of the room.

  The doctor walked to the window and opened the Venetian blinds; the light coming through the horizontal slats projected across the room onto the opposite wall, recreating the image, distilled into alternate grey and white bars. When he returned to his seat, Bruce had switched places, sitting in the chair that his mother had occupied last week. From there, he could see the books on the shelves better. He narrowed his eyes to focus, but could make out only the larger titles printed down the spines: Strategies of Representation in Young Children, Children's Dr
awings, Foetus Into Man. Below piles of old Nature magazines stacked on top of a range of sliding glass-fronted cabinets that were filled with similar reading.

  "Have you really read all those?" he said, indicating the bookshelves.

  He sat and revolved around on his chair to look at them and then spun back to face his patient. "No," he chuckled. "But they look pretty impressive don't they?" His glasses had slipped to the end of his nose, and he pushed them back up. Almost immediately, they slid down again.

  The silver pencil that shone so brightly last week was resting on top of a pile of loose notes. He tried to get a closer look without being noticed.

  "Are you looking at my pencil?" he asked him. "Would you like to have a closer look?"

  Picking it up, he handed it to him. It was far heavier than Bruce expected. It appeared to be very old, the engravings on the barrel worn away to a shiny, polished surface where his fingers rubbed. He saw his face in miniature, as if he were looking into a fairground novelty mirror, all big nose, receding jaw and bulbous top of the head. Faintly amused, he moved it back and forth, and then clicked out the lead, two, three clicks. Ryan watched his patient warily, as if he was afraid he would run off with it at any minute.

  "It's beautiful," he said, returning it.

  "Yes, it was my grandfather's. It's been in the family for years, and it's been with me almost since the beginning of my career. Made by Sampson Mordan . . ."

  He snapped out of his memories quite suddenly, "Right, we digress." Clicking out the lead to the correct length, he tested it against his thumbnail. Perfect.

  "Last week, you were telling me about the feeling you had, just before your first friend fell into the water." He scrutinised him over the top of his half-moon glasses. One of his eyes appeared faded, and watery; the other strong and deep blue. He seemed able to see right into Bruce, who shifted uncomfortably.