The Boy Who Could See Demons

by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

  ‘In his office, I expect,’ I told him. ‘Did you want to see him?’

  Alex shook his head. I noticed his dressings had been changed but the silvery morning light revealed the bruising around his face to be travelling through the blue hues of deep impact. I recognised this was a very serious self-harm episode, completely undermining how happy he appeared on the surface.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ I asked.

  He seemed suddenly hesitant to meet my eye. He rubbed his bicep and said, ‘Sore.’

  ‘I bet.’

  I pulled up a chair at the table, mulling over the best way to broach the subject of Alex’s father. It was important that I eased him into the subject gently, establishing that whatever it was his father had done was not going to land Alex in trouble. On the table was a tray of food leftover from breakfast – a dilapidated fruit salad, a tub of warm Greek yoghurt and porridge sprinkled with pine nuts. I lifted it out the way and set it on the floor close to the door, handing Alex a cup of water.

  ‘You can have some if you want,’ he said, glancing at the tray of food. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Thank you, Alex,’ I said with a smile. ‘That’s very kind. But I’m allergic to nuts, remember?’

  ‘Nuts?’

  I nodded. ‘These are pine nuts,’ I say, glancing at the porridge.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘Nuts make you sleep, don’t they?’

  I remembered my lie. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘They don’t even look like nuts. They look like tiny, little bullets.’

  There was a depth to his tone that I recognised instantly. Some of the children I have treated recently have witnessed the violence in Northern Ireland first-hand. One girl, Shay, was blinded during a riot in Drumcree several years ago. She is being treated for clinical depression. Another fifteen-year-old boy from Carrickfergus was shot at point-blank range in the knee – ‘knee-capped’, they call it here – for his father’s defection from a terrorist organisation. The trauma of that event has made him suicidal. Michael insists that Cindy and Alex have not suffered by the conflict in Northern Ireland, but I am uncertain. ‘The Troubles’ is a term most significant to those at a distance from the violence – to children who have grown up in the thick of it, The Troubles are simply a part of life.

  ‘Have you ever seen a bullet, Alex? Or a gun?’

  ‘You mean in real life?’ he replied, keeping his eyes on the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded.

  ‘Can you tell me where?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Did a policeman come to arrest your dad?’

  He stiffened at the mention of the word ‘policeman’, then shook his head briskly. Then he squeezed his eyes together tightly, his face scrunched up in concentration, both hands forming fists. I opened my mouth to speak, then waited for him to relax. A minute passed. I laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder.

  ‘I promise you won’t get into trouble if you tell me what happened.’

  He opened his eyes and looked past me. ‘Ruen wants me to ask you some questions, is that OK?’

  ‘Why does Ruin want to do that?’ I asked gently.

  Alex gave my question some serious pondering. ‘I think he just wants to know more about you,’ he said. ‘Maybe because he and I are friends … sort of … and he wants to be your friend, too.’

  ‘What sort of questions does Ruin want to ask me?’

  ‘Um … I’m not sure. Grown-up stuff, I think. Ruen’s really weir—’ He stopped short of saying ‘weird’, flicked his eyes to the right then laughed into his hand.

  ‘If you answer my questions, I’ll answer yours, is that OK?’

  ‘About Ruen?’

  ‘No, Alex. About your father.’

  He blinked, then gave a small nod.

  ‘All right – if I’m going to be interviewed, let’s do it properly,’ I said lightly, taking my mobile phone out of my pocket and finding the ‘voice record’ app. ‘We’ll record it, shall we? Like a proper interview.’

  Alex shrugged. ‘I don’t care, they’re not my questions.’ He produced a piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. I leaned forward and looked down at what was a list of questions, scrawled in black marker.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Number one. Was your daughter called Poppy?’

  I was unable to contain a gasp. This was more than a guess, and I am strict about not sharing personal details. I struggled to work out how he could possibly have known her name. Surely Michael would never have said? The sound of her name on his lips made beads of sweat form on my brow, between my shoulder blades.

  Eventually, I said: ‘Why do you ask, Alex?’

  ‘Not me, Ruen.’

  ‘Why does Ruin care about my daughter?’ I said tensely.

  He paused. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, gathering my composure. ‘Next question.’

  ‘Did your daughter die four years ago?’

  This time I felt my heart pound, and I wanted to leave. No, I wanted to run out of there. But I reminded myself that we had reached a critical point in Alex’s treatment. He was at long last revealing clues to Ruin. So I counted to ten in my head and breathed slowly in an attempt to check my emotions. I needed to stay focused on the real reason why Alex might be asking such questions. When I opened my eyes I saw that he was visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s just … I promised Ruen I would ask you these questions. I don’t mean to upset you.’

  I steadied my breath. ‘Can you ask Ruin why he’s so keen to know about Poppy?’

  Alex turned and repeated my query to Ruin, who was purportedly standing behind him. After a few seconds’ silence he turned back to me and said, ‘Ruin says he really likes you and admires that you can play the piano.’

  I remembered his comment about Ravel from our first meeting. ‘I love the piano. But you already know that, don’t you? Shall we move on to the next question?’

  Alex shuffled in his seat and looked down at his list. ‘Number three. Do you believe in God?’

  ‘The jury’s still out on that one, Alex,’ I said, before correcting myself. ‘Sorry, Ruin.’ I decided to buy into the possibility of Ruin’s presence in the room, noticing the way it instilled a confidence in Alex, his posture straighter, his eyes holding mine.

  ‘That answers number four, then,’ Alex told me.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Do you believe in Satan, the Prince of Hell?’

  ‘What’s the next question?’

  ‘If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?’

  I felt my shoulders lighten at the breadth of the question. I exhaled, long and slow. Poppy, I thought, alive and well, and just then I caught sight of the NHS-standard canvas at the other end of the room. A field of poppies.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Alex told me. ‘Ruen says you’ve already given your answer.’

  I blinked. ‘Can you tell me why Ruin wants to know these things, Alex?’

  He didn’t answer for a long time. Finally, he nodded.

  ‘I only have one more question,’ he said quietly.

  I felt disappointed that he was starting to evade direct questions. I took a deep breath and thought of ways to retrace our conversation about his father.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Do you love Michael?’

  I laughed, but instead of answering I watched Alex very carefully. He lowered his eyes to the table, as if he felt ashamed.

  ‘Do I love Michael?’ I repeated after a long pause. Alex nodded very slowly. Why did he want to know this?

  ‘Next question,’ I said.

  ‘There isn’t another …’

  ‘Next question,’ I said, with an insistence that surprised us both. Alex’s lip began to tremble. He looked fearfully to his right, then turned to me again.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, his shoulders lowering. ‘Ruen says he already knows the answer.’

  I watche
d him fold away the piece of paper before I discreetly held up my phone to record my own questions. ‘Can we talk some more about your dad?’ I asked him, changing position in my seat to appear more at ease. ‘Can you tell me about him? What he looked like? What you remember about him?’

  He nodded. A few seconds passed. I offered a prompt.

  ‘Was he kind to you?’

  He thought about it. ‘Yes, I think so. He died when I was little, you see, so I only remember a few things about when he was alive.’

  ‘What do you remember? Can you tell me?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I remember he liked buying me toy cars. And we’d go swimming sometimes and he always brought bags full of food when he came to stay.’

  ‘So he only came to stay with you and your mum? Did you ever stay at his house?’

  He shook his head. ‘Dad lived in lots of different places. I think he lived in America for a while and also in Dublin and Donegal. One time he said he was living in a barn.’

  ‘A barn?’

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘He said it was very smelly and uncomfortable.’

  ‘I bet it was. Do you know why he was staying in a barn?’

  He seemed lost in the memory now, his legs – usually swinging from his chair – still, his gaze distant. ‘He’d spend all day in the kitchen cooking weird food that Mum didn’t really like but she ate it anyway cos she was hungry.’

  ‘What sort of food?’

  ‘I don’t remember. It smelled weird and sometimes it made my eyes water.’ A pause. ‘He had tattoos on his arms.’

  ‘Tattoos?’

  ‘Yeah. There was an Irish flag here’ – he clapped a hand around his left bicep – ‘and words here.’ He touched his right forearm.

  ‘What were the words?’

  ‘Actually I don’t think they were words. They were letters. They stood for something. I don’t know what.’

  I held my breath, anxious not to push him too far. ‘And when your dad died, Alex – how did that feel?’

  He stared ahead. ‘Lonely, I think. Until Mum bought me Woof and then it was OK. She cried and cried.’

  ‘She cried when your dad died?’

  ‘Yes, but she was angry, too. And scared. She tried to throw our piano out but Ruen said we mustn’t.’

  ‘Where is Ruin now, Alex?’

  He looked around. ‘He was here a minute ago. Don’t know where he’s gone.’

  ‘Did Ruin hurt you? Or did he tell you to hurt yourself?’

  A sudden fear passed across his eyes. ‘The policeman …’ he said. And then he started to cry and I wrapped my arms around him, but he would say no more.

  I left Alex at the hospital with instructions to contact me as soon as he was able to be discharged. In the meantime, I touched base with Cindy’s therapist to find out whether she had given her permission for Alex to be treated as an inpatient.

  ‘No, she hasn’t.’ Trudy sighed on the end of the line. ‘But I’ve assessed her as unfit to act in the capacity of Alex’s mother. His aunt has agreed to make this decision for him at present.’

  There was a stretch of silence as both of us reflected on this sorry state of affairs. If Cindy had not given her permission, the news of her own sister going against her wishes would certainly be hard for her to take. And I felt extremely sorry that I had not managed to persuade her that treatment at MacNeice House would be in Alex’s best interests – in fact, she was likely to perceive the move as a step towards the breaking-up of her family. I feel in a bind, and yet I am determined to treat Alex accordingly. It is, quite literally, his only hope.

  The severity of Alex’s hallucinations and the length of time they have been active indicate that his condition is deteriorating. Poppy was the same. In a short while, if left untreated, there is every chance that Alex will pose the same level of danger to himself or others as Poppy did. I can’t let that happen to another child, another mother. In consultation with Ursula and Michael and with Cindy’s permission, I resolved to prescribe a small dose of Risperidone. The effects will be monitored over several weeks, with regular consultations carried on throughout.

  I returned to my office to write up my notes and compile a group email to Michael, Howard and Ursula.

  To: U_hepworth@macneicehouse.nhs.uk;

  H_dungar@macneicehouse.nhs.uk;

  Michael_Jones@lea.gov.uk

  cc: Trudy_Messenger@nicamhs.nhs.uk

  From: A_molokova@macneicehouse.nhs.uk

  Date: 16/06/07 17.03 p.m.

  Dear all,

  I am writing to inform you that I have arranged for Alex Broccoli to be transferred to MacNeice House where he will stay as an inpatient for approximately two months. I am treating him for early onset schizophrenia. I am happy to brief you further on my interviews with him and the programme of treatment, which I am currently compiling. Our next meeting is on 19/6 at 2.30 p.m. – I look forward to seeing you then.

  Best,

  Anya

  I had barely hit the ‘send’ button when an email pinged back.

  To: A_molokova@macneicehouse.nhs.uk

  From: Michael_Jones@lea.gov.uk

  Date: 16/06/07 17.03 p.m.

  You do realise this will mean Alex is placed in foster care?

  Sent from my BlackBerry

  I stared at Michael’s email, re-reading it, my mouth turning dry. I felt his hand on my face.

  And suddenly I questioned everything.

  The ghost I have seen

  May be the devil: and the devil hath power

  To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

  Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

  As he is very potent with such spirits,

  Abuses me to damn me.

  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  19

  ESCAPE

  Alex

  Dear Diary,

  There’s two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and says, ‘Do you know how to drive this thing?’

  I guess I don’t need to write jokes any more as I won’t be playing Horatio again because I’m in hospital and the doctors say there’s absolutely no way I can get out to perform in the shows for the rest of the week. Though Auntie Bev told me something this morning that made me feel a wee bit better. She turned up wearing a blue headband and a thin blue vest with a Superman logo on the front which I thought was weird for a girl to wear. Her face was pink and sweaty and she was drinking from a lime-green water bottle.

  ‘Have you been wall climbing?’ I asked. She gave me a look that said she felt guilty.

  ‘Sorry, Alex,’ she said, and she sat so close to me I could smell sweat. ‘I know you’d love to go. I’ll take you once you get out.’ She looked at the clock. ‘Do you want to come and have lunch with me?’

  ‘They’re letting me go?’ I said excitedly.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, lifting my shoes from under the bed. ‘But we can go to the canteen just down the corridor. Would you like that?’

  I said I would and stood up. I felt wobbly on my feet still but she held my elbow and helped me put my shoes on.

  ‘I met the casting director before the show started,’ Auntie Bev said as we walked slowly to the canteen. ‘Roz,’ she said. ‘That’s her name. Turns out Roz has very bad sinusitis.’ I looked up and saw Auntie Bev pull a face like she’d something really cool to tell me.

  ‘What’s sinusitis?’

  ‘It’s this horrible yucky illness that makes you feel like you’ve been punched in the face for about a week.’

  I was horrified. ‘You punched Roz in the face?’

  Auntie Bev made that hooting sound that meant she was laughing.

  ‘No,’ she said, pushing a square silver button that made the doors open into the canteen. ‘It means that she has an illness that falls into my area of expertise.’

  We stood in the doorway, looking over the empty tables and chairs. I was glad it was really empty and the food on the shelves of the open fridge looked a lot nicer than t
he food they brought me on a tray. Auntie Bev took my arm and walked me to a table in a corner beneath a big clock with a picture of an ice cream on it.

  ‘I told Roz all about you, you know,’ Auntie Bev told me. ‘I said you’re a star in the making. That Quentin Tara-whatever-his-name-is would be glad to have you.’ She sat down in the steel chair opposite me and clicked her tongue. ‘And that I’d send her a top-of-the-range sinus irrigator free of charge.’

  She winked. I didn’t really get it but the way she was smiling made my heart beat really fast. I felt like I could breathe deeper than I ever had before. She flipped open the plastic menu and had a good long look.

  ‘What do you fancy, Alex? A jacket potato with beans and cheese? Or what about a nice omelette? You can get it with bacon and peppers.’

  I shook my head. ‘Onions on toast, please.’

  Auntie Bev lowered the menu and stared at me as if she felt sick. ‘Really, Alex?’

  I nodded and she looked sad.

  ‘I know you and your mum don’t have much money, but while I’m here let me spoil you. I love you. Honest, I’ll get you anything you want on this menu.’

  ‘Onions on toast,’ I said, nodding. ‘It’s the best thing ever.’ And just then my stomach gave a big growl.

  Auntie Bev’s smile came back and she set down the menu. ‘Well, maybe I’m missing out, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll have that too, shall I?’

  She got up to tell the lady behind the counter what we wanted and I felt glad that Auntie Bev was going to eat the same as me. When she sat back down she smiled and said, ‘Good thing I keep after dinner mints in my bag.’

  When she left I felt good for a while but then I started to feel bad. I think I’ve upset Anya and I don’t really know how or why. I tried to explain to her that the questions were Ruen’s but I was stupid to expect that she would believe me when no one believes me at all. I don’t even know why I ever told anyone about him in the first place. I don’t know why Ruen told me that I hurt myself when I didn’t. When all the doctors and nurses talk to me now they speak to me like I’m either really stupid or like I’m carrying a knife or something. When I ask about Mum they don’t look at my eyes and they say things like, ‘Oh, don’t you be worrying about your mother,’ and, ‘Now, Alex, just you be patient while your mum pulls herself round. Why don’t you get some sleep?’ I just want to get out of here and check that she’s OK.