On a Scale of One to Ten

by Ceylan Scott

  ‘They are cool,’ says Janice. ‘Let’s have a think about palm trees, shall we?’

  She’s clutching at straws here; even Harper doesn’t have anything to say about palm trees, and she’s drawn one. Elle lets out a very audible groan and nudges me. Janice ignores her.

  ‘What are some qualities of a palm tree?’

  ‘They’re easy to draw,’ says Elle sardonically. Jasper laughs from the other side of the room.

  ‘Anything else? They’re usually found in hot places, aren’t they?’ Janice announces, as if waiting for us to suddenly fall happily on to her wavelength. No one speaks.

  ‘Well, they could be the bearer of shade from harsh sunlight. Or perhaps they are a ray of hope on a lonely desert island. How can we apply this to our own lives? Perhaps Harper chose a palm tree because she would be a good shoulder to cry on when things get hard?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ says Elle. ‘She told you why she drew a palm tree; this has got nothing to do with anything.’

  ‘Elle, if you’re going to disturb the balance of this group, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘That’s fine, I’m going. This is a total waste of time.’

  Janice watches her as she sweeps out, a bemused and slightly crestfallen expression on her face, as if she can’t quite work out why nobody else seems to love analysing trees as much as she does. I can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for her. She sits there, quiet and motionless for a few seconds, before sitting up straight and brightly continuing as if nothing has happened. We could all learn something from palm trees, you see.

  Once we are allowed to leave, twenty minutes later, I find Elle in the dining room, animatedly playing chess with Nurse Will.

  ‘Check,’ she announces as I walk in, flamboyantly slamming a rook down on the board.

  ‘No,’ says Nurse Will exasperatedly. ‘You can’t move diagonally with a rook, I just told you. You have to move straight.’

  ‘Your rooks might have to move straight,’ she responds shortly, knocking his bishop from his square. It rolls off the table and on to the floor.

  ‘Charming,’ he says, with a smirk. ‘Look, Elle, we can’t play if you’re not following the rules.’

  ‘Who makes the rules, though?’ says Elle. ‘Why can’t I make them? I’d make much better rules than whoever made these ones.’

  I sigh and sit down at the other end of the room, busy myself with a crossword that I can’t solve. I can’t be bothered with Elle when she is like this – when she’s snappy and agitated and too sure of her own abilities to conquer the world and every other universe besides. It’s exhausting.

  And she gets so confused. She told me she could fly once, and three members of staff had to hold her back from the stairwell. Then she said she was being discharged and sat by the airlocked doors for hours, her packed suitcase next to her. Once she forgot she needed to use the toilet because she was too busy telling the world about the time she’d created her own star in the universe. She blushed when she saw the damp stain on the beanbag.

  Dr Flores sweeps into the room. His glasses are askew on his nose and he holds his phone in his hand, covering the mouthpiece.

  ‘Elle, can I borrow you a minute?’ he says quietly, with a wave of his free hand.

  ‘I’m playing chess,’ she says dismissively.

  ‘Don’t worry, it can wait,’ says Nurse Will. ‘You should see Dr Flores now.’

  ‘Fine, then, but don’t change the board while I’m gone,’ says Elle, darting towards the door that Dr Flores holds open for her with his foot.

  Nurse Will gasps. ‘As if,’ he says.

  I catch up with her an hour later as she sidles out of the bathroom, hurriedly wiping mascara off her cheeks.

  ‘Dr Flores has refused to write me up leave, like he said he would if I was doing well,’ she mutters gloomily as she shuts the door to my bedroom, ‘because my foster carers aren’t having me back. They said they “can’t handle me”, so I’ve got nowhere to live. Again.’

  ‘What?’ I say, even though I’ve heard her perfectly.

  ‘They were long-term, as well,’ she continues. ‘I was supposed to live with them until I turned eighteen and got a place of my own, but I figured they’d still let me come back for Christmas and stuff, you know. I’ve lived with them for over three years and now they’re just throwing me out like a piece of crap.’

  ‘Elle . . .’ I say, because I don’t know what I should say. I think of my mum and my dad, who’ve stuck by me like barnacles through everything, even though I didn’t want them to. Elle has never had that; from the moment her mother overdosed on heroin in front of her when she was three, she hasn’t had that. That’s her first memory.

  ‘I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid,’ she groans, collapsing on to my pillow and tossing her hair in front of her tear-filled eyes.

  ‘You’re not stupid, Elle,’ I say awkwardly. ‘You’re not.’

  ‘I am, though. I thought they were more than just foster carers. They were my family, and even they don’t want me. Now I have no one all over again.’

  The spark in her voice is missing. She speaks in a flat monotone without pausing for breath and she sits, hunched over, like she’s been punched heavily in the stomach, wiping her face with a grubby sleeve.

  ‘You have me,’ I say, sitting down beside her and pulling back her sheet of ginger hair.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, her voice muffled by her blocked nose. ‘I really thought I meant something to them, you know? But I didn’t, they hated me all along. I’m so stupid,’ she repeats, triggering another wave of tears spilling down her freckled cheeks and soaking into the fabric of the pillow. I’ve never seen her so small.

  ‘It’s not your fault . . .’

  ‘It is my fault. There must be something wrong with me. I’ve got through ten different foster families. You know my name: Elle Simon? Where’s the Simon from? I don’t even know. Was it my mum’s name? I don’t know anything. I’m a nobody.’

  ‘Elle . . .’

  ‘This is all so pointless,’ she says, ignoring me. ‘I’m never going to get out now, even if I am trying, because I’ve got nowhere to go. And I have been trying. I need to get out of here; I hate it, I hate being locked up; I only asked for a night.’

  ‘Is there nowhere else you can stay, just for the night?’ I ask unhelpfully.

  Elle throws me a look of contempt. ‘What, like the delightful hostel I stayed at when I was twelve? Great idea, Tay.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, stung. ‘I really am sorry, Elle.’

  ‘I know. Me too,’ she mumbles, her chest rising and falling quickly with her uneven breaths. ‘I’m sorry too.’

  Screeching.

  Who’s dying? Slapped into consciousness by the relentless wails of the emergency alarm. Adrenaline pumping. Someone is screaming. Nurses in blue sprinting past the window slats in my bedroom door. I turn over in bed and try to imagine that the day has not begun with someone trying to kill themselves. The alarm continues to shriek.

  Thump.

  It’s not Elle, I tell myself. Let’s call her Distressed Patient A . . .

  I imagine sweaty hands restraining Distressed Patient A on the floor as she squirms and spits like an animal.

  Snip.

  Slicing off the ligature spun from pieces of knitted wool stolen from art group.

  Distressed Patient A swears like a human five times.

  Nurse Will tries to talk sense into the fragmented mind of Distressed Patient A as she continues to yell louder than the alarm, face pressed sideways against the itchy carpet.

  I close my eyes.

  Doors opening.

  ‘Get back into your room.’

  Doors slamming.

  Distressed Patient A prays to God for it all to end, fractured cries between weeping. God doesn’t hear.

  The alarm ceases, and the corridors are bathed in a blissful silence, broken only by the defeated snivels coming from next door
as Distressed Patient A solemnly accepts a dose of diazepam in a paper cup. My clock on my bedside beeps: 7 a.m.

  Nurse Will strides into my bedroom without knocking and sweeps open the flimsy curtains, which makes no difference as they already let in the light. It is raining.

  ‘Rise and shine, lazy bones, it’s a lovely day.’ As if I haven’t heard the commotion.

  I can still hear Distressed Patient A crying softly.

  I’m on leave. At home, but at a party. It’s Toby’s house, his party, and the room is heaving full of sober people pretending to have a good time. It is a high-heeled, tight-little-black-dress-with-slits-down-the back affair. Bottles of cider in hands, waiting for the sweetened taste of Bulmers and for tipsy to kick in. No one notices me sitting in an armchair in the corner, the unpleasant presence lingering like the stain on the living-room carpet. I don’t mind. I said I don’t like being noticed already, I think. Boys from the year above play spin the bottle in the dim, unlit side of the room, swearing brazenly and filming exaggeratedly passionate kisses on their phones for permanent humiliation. The smell of body sweat permeates the air. Crushed Doritos underfoot.

  ‘Tamar!’ Toby walks into the room and sidles his way through the near-impenetrable sea of people. ‘I’m so glad you came.’ He sits down on the floor near the armchair. We smile awkwardly at each other, pretending not to remember the fiasco of last time I saw him.

  ‘How are things?’ I say, slipping on to the floor to join him.

  ‘Good, yeah. Are you doing all right?’

  ‘I guess, yeah. Depends what you mean by all right. If trying to kill your psychiatrist is all right, then, yeah, I’m brilliant.’

  He laughs. I wish I was joking.

  ‘I really have missed you,’ he says earnestly. ‘When you get discharged, we should hang out more, go into town and get chips, for old times’ sake, or something.’

  ‘What about Mia?’ I say. He shrugs.

  ‘She doesn’t have to come. She can look after herself. Look, I am really sorry about it . . . at the hospital . . . I heard. I wouldn’t have brought her . . .’ He trails off.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Same as ever, really . . . still hates your guts, you know, the normal stuff,’ he says with a grin. ‘Angry with me for siding with you after the hospital, so I’ve got no smoking buddies. It’s kind of lonely.’ He laughs, and I can see him reliving that day. I sigh. ‘You drinking?’

  ‘I don’t know. I said I wouldn’t,’ I say half-heartedly, even though I know now that I am going to be drinking. Now that Toby has offered me the magic elixir to cure my nerves.

  ‘Just have a shot or two’s worth,’ Toby says. ‘Your mum won’t even notice. You may as well make the most of your freedom . . .’

  If anyone asks, it is the peer pressure that means I have one shot, then drink the rest of the bottle single-handedly, like it was water, on the kitchen floor, until the room swirls and Toby’s face turns to plasticine before my eyes. The room is revolving around me, darkly dressed people shouting in my ears and brushing against my back, a smashed bottle of WKD spilt on the floor, its blue stain leaching into the tiles. I think the laughter comes from me, an explosion about the hilarity of the whole damn world, because I’ve managed to forget how amusing it is. I’m still laughing as I exclaim, ‘I’m not drunk at all, I can still walk in a straight line, look,’ and hurtle head first into the front door just as someone swings it open, my forehead meeting the handle with a crack. Unamused hands of sober people hoist me up and sit me in a chair with water in a plastic cup so it won’t matter if I drop it. Toby is speaking to me, but I’m not listening to what he is saying because I am more interested in the unusual shade of his eyes; they’re greyer than I’ve noticed before, and flecked with tiny specks of peacock green that you can’t see unless you’re close up.

  Then there is Toby and there is me in a room full of people and I feel his face up close to mine even though my vodka-brain is swirling my vision and Rihanna bursts on, but it is just background noise. I brush my lips against his and I don’t think it lasts for more than a few seconds.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumble awkwardly, drawing my arms away from his back.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says, still leaning towards me.

  ‘No, it’s not. I’m drunk . . .’ I laugh.

  ‘Yeah, you are. We’ll talk about it in the morning . . .’ Fast forward to the morning, the morning in question.

  I wake up in my bed and vomit clings to my hair in solid, plaster-like lumps. I’m covered in four duvets and the radiator is on full but I am strangely cold. I’ve got a horrible taste in my mouth. I get out of bed and to my surprise find myself promptly crashing straight into my chest of drawers and collapsing on the floor. Bit strange. Then I see ECG stickers on my wrists and chest, and I remember that I went to a party. Shit, what the hell happened last night? I stagger to the bathroom and attempt to wash with water that feels far too hot on my fingers but at best lukewarm against my face. And with each splash the pieces of last night start to come together like a broken jigsaw puzzle.

  I was at Toby’s house party. He’d invited me an hour before it started, and Mia wasn’t there. Vodka was there, though. And the rest, I have no idea. I stumble back into my room and lie down because I can feel a throbbing headache coming on. I don’t know where my mum is. I know that Dad is at work.

  As the morning wears by, my hangover begins to wane and I stagger into the shower and I hold myself steady against the temperature switches. The place on my arm where my stitches are stings as shampoo slithers into the scab.

  ‘Tamar? Come out, I need to talk to you.’ Mum looks more hungover than me. She’s scowling.

  Oh, shit.

  ‘You said you weren’t going to drink at this party, it was the one condition, so what’s this? How are we going to explain to Dr Flores the fact that four hours after you arrive home you end up in the back of an ambulance because you don’t know your own limits? How’s that going to make us look?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just got . . . it was an accident,’ I say lamely.

  ‘An accident?!’ she splutters. ‘Please do tell me how throwing vodka down your own throat is an accident. I would love to know.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got a splitting headache, can we just leave it . . .’

  I try to make a smoothie from avocado and mint and kiwi fruit in a vague attempt to be healthy, as if this will combat the unhappiness my liver went through last night, but it is disgusting. Clearly, health and happiness isn’t for me. I eat half a jar of Nutella with a spoon instead.

  Brew comes into the room, his chocolate tail wagging in a slobbery greeting. He leans his head against my knees, panting, his tongue lolling out over his grey muzzle.

  My dad came up with the name Brew. I think he was referencing beer, but I’m not sure; I was only eight when we brought him home, aged eight weeks. I sat with him on my lap in the back of the car, proudly sharing my seatbelt by pulling it round his soft belly. He could fit in your pocket. Now he weighs 31 kg of solid Labrador and I can’t pick him up if I try.

  As I’m scooping the last of the Nutella out of the jar, fragments of last night start to piece together in my head.

  I saw Toby, I remember, and he’d poured one shot of Sainsbury’s Basics vodka into a shot glass shaped like a test tube, but I’d taken the bottle and helped myself. It tasted like paint stripper and it burned my throat like when you drink a cup of tea too quickly.

  Then we’d kissed; I remember it in snapshots, like the film of an instant camera – the burnt taste of weed on his lips, although I’m not sure when or where he’d smoked it, the scent of cinnamon-flavoured vodka as his hands brushed against my back, where my shoulder blades meet the middle of my spine.

  ‘Shit,’ I say. I hope I’ve imagined it. I don’t have any way of contacting him, either; my care plan clearly states that ‘Alice must not use her phone or the internet during home leave.’ No room for confusion at all. Alice, Tamar – there is hardly
any difference. Lime Grove likes to make sure I am as far from normal as possible when I’m at home.

  I’d vomited into the kitchen sink and on to the surfaces, that had happened. Doubled over and snorting vodka from my nose, with water in my eyes fuzzing over my already-blurred vision. There had been an ambulance, too, with its whirring lights and men in green, hence the ECG stickers, I suppose. There was nothing beyond that. I must have been well and truly gone.

  I remember that brief second with Toby, though: it was the one lucid memory in a fog of nothing. When I think about it, it burns a hole in my stomach in the kind of way that only comes about once in a moon’s cycle. I think it’s a nice feeling, but I’m not sure, because I have been known to yearn for things that are not nice feelings. Ask Dr Flores, and he’ll tell you that I like to disconnect from my emotions. Apparently it’s quite a pastime of mine.

  I spend the day popping one painkiller too many at a time, to ward off the sharp headache that presses against my temples like a vice, hoping vaguely that Toby will turn up in shining armour and whisk me off to the £1 chip shop. But he doesn’t, and instead my mum takes me back to Lime Grove in the same old Vauxhall, just in time to be searched before evening group begins and we discuss how our day has been.

  ‘So . . . home leave, Tamar? I hear you went to a party,’ Dr Flores says, with a smug expression. We’re in his office, but he smells of the tuna baguette he’d eaten for lunch, awkwardly perched on the end of Ruby table, psychoanalysing the way we ate mashed potato.

  ‘Yeah. I did.’

  ‘Good party, was it? Ten out of ten?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I say bluntly. ‘I was too drunk.’

  He laughs. I’m surprised by his attitude. I expected a ‘Tamar is clearly a raging alcoholic; she must never be allowed to parties again.’

  ‘I’m pleased that you went. I’m not underestimating how difficult that must have been for you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumble.

  ‘Parties are difficult for most people at the best of times, so I really am very impressed.’

  Am I not ‘most people’? No, I guess not – I’m the margin of weird people crammed into the fringes of society.