by Ruth Dugdall
I know these girls’ measurements like my own, their stories told in snatches at night; even Mina tells her story in forced instalments at therapy class. I am the only one who refuses to talk. Most anorexics literally die for attention, but I told you I was odd.
Our feet smack on the tiles, our breathing bounces off the high ceiling, and Birute shivers.
‘Is haunted, this place.’
‘Probably,’ I agree. Many souls must have died here; after all, the Bartlet is an old convalescent hospital, built when people perished of TB and consumption if they weren’t sent to the seaside to rest. The windows all along one side face the North Sea; its crashing waves are the soundtrack to our days. The building is red brick, a curved grand structure, gifted to the town of Felixstowe by Dr Bartlet, hence the name. But convalescence is a thing of the past; why go to the seaside to recuperate when Real Housewives is on TV and there is pizza delivery in every town? Most of the building is abandoned, used to store broken equipment and old chairs. One block is still used for occupational therapy, offering seated exercise classes for the aging population of the town. The middle building is where Clive has his office, surrounded by empty wards. And then there’s us. A unit on the end of the curve, eight bedrooms for girls who starve themselves, only five of them occupied.
Us girls, we call our home Ana Unit. It’s not really Ana Unit, of course; it’s Cobbold Ward, but anorexia is our friend and foe so it’s right that she’s our home too.
Birute waits while I take a shit, as she’s required to do. I hear her yawning, then try not to hear. Privacy is something we don’t have; we would abuse it. When I re-appear, she is leaning on the far wall, looking out of an arched window to the sea. It’s too dark to see it properly, though the moon and stars shed some light, but the waves can be heard clapping against the shingle. I stand next to her, and she puts her hand on my shoulder, tutting as she squeezes my bony arm. We both watch the dark scene, knowing the beauty that will be revealed at daybreak.
‘You want drink with me?’ Birute asks, and of course I don’t, but the idea of sitting with her rather than returning to my monastic room is appealing.
‘Yes, please.’
She smiles, happy to have company, and we walk to the office. I take the comfy chair, and she puts her coat around me while she boils the kettle. Why does everyone have such faith in tea?
Her coat is thin, not heavy enough for January in Suffolk. Ana Unit is an expensive place for the local health authority to keep running, and the Bartlet is a drain on resources, but Birute isn’t the reason it costs so much. She’s an auxiliary; she’d likely earn more doing the night shift stacking shelves at Sainsbury’s, but instead she chooses to sit in the nurses’ office and wait for one of us to need her.
I cradle the tea, which is as orange as the brick wall of the hospital, not intending to drink a sip, as she gazes at me. At my tube.
‘Oh Sam,’ she says. ‘Poor girl.’
And though she hasn’t the words, I can hear in the way she speaks my name that she is sad for my loss, and confused about my illness. I think Birute thinks we’re mad, her poor girls.
But in many ways we are as sane as salt; it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy.
After she’s finished her tea, Birute takes me back to my room, tucks me in like I’m a child, and sits on the wicker chair as I try to sleep. Having her here is so different from when Clive sat there, making me talk. But he’s unlocked something, or the box has. Or the fact of my mother’s death.
Birute strokes my hair, which used to be so long and is now short and severe.
As sleep comes, slowly and stubbornly, I can’t fight anymore. I’m back there, at the police station. I’m with Mum again.
Detective Sergeant Penny Rickman led us to a tiny interview room with no window. On the desk was a grey file titled JENA HOOLIHAN, with a photo clipped to the cover. I felt the familiar tightening in my chest and I breathed deeply, like the asthma nurse had taught me.
Mum shuffled in the chair, which creaked under her. She touched her lips with her thumb, smudging her coral lipstick in the process, and I knew she was gasping for a fag.
‘What’s the latest on the man you arrested?’
Mum’s fingers closed together like she was praying as she waited for Penny to answer. Penny started to tap her biro against her front teeth. Click, click. It made me tense and I wanted her to stop.
‘Penny?’
She dropped the pen, and it rolled across the table on to the floor, then she placed her hand on the file. There was silence, and I felt an intimation like a breath of cold air at the back of my neck that this time was different.
‘Has he admitted anything? Have you got a court date?’ I asked.
Penny hesitated.
‘Well, the problem with a case like this is small communities come together and keep secrets. Someone on Orwell Estate knows what happened to Jena and why; they must do. We’ve interviewed everyone who was on the estate on 25 April, customers in the fish and chip shop, staff in the petrol station, teenagers hanging around the park. Our other hope is that Jena will be able to tell us something.’
I could feel the pain behind my eyes. For six weeks we’d been waiting for Jena to get her memory back and give us some information, maybe just a tiny detail, something that would give the police the description they needed to nail her attacker.
Mum shook her head firmly. ‘Jena remembers nothing.’
‘Mum, that’s not true.’
She placed her large hand over mine. ‘Shush, Sam.’ I looked at my arm, the scratch from when she had told me to shut up in the waiting room. I kept my mouth closed.
Penny gathered some loose papers and neatened them in the file.
‘I’m afraid that we haven’t produced anything but circumstantial evidence against our main suspect. We can place him at the scene of the crime on that day, but that wouldn’t be enough for a jury.’
Mum spluttered, started to murmur something, but then fell silent.
‘I’m really sorry, but unless something else comes up, I can’t see the Crown Prosecution Service proceeding with a court case. We won’t know for sure until the bail hearing in two weeks, but he could be released.’
‘What?’ Mum reached inside herself and found a strangled voice. ‘But he was there, when Jena was attacked!’
Penny nodded. ‘Several witnesses saw him in the area, and he admits being in the vicinity. But he denies ever meeting with Jena, and no one saw them together. Or no one is telling us they did. Unless something more concrete comes up, he’ll be released.’
‘And what will happen then?’ I asked, in a small voice.
Penny looked at Mum when she answered. ‘If he’s released, I’d like to act straight away, that same week, and hold a press conference to appeal for more information. I think we should hold it at the hospital, with Jena. Pull at people’s heartstrings.’
Mum put her fist in her mouth and started to shake. ‘No. I’ve told you, we won’t do that.’
Penny looked annoyed. ‘I’d like to go ahead and plan it anyway, for as soon as possible after the bail hearing. I’ll liaise with Dr Gregg and have everything lined up, and we’ll just have to hope it doesn’t come to that. The next two weeks leading up to the bail hearing on 20 June are crucial, Kath. And we’re running out of time. If there’s something you’d like to tell me, maybe something you’ve forgotten? You were at the scene just minutes after Sam found Jena. Or maybe your husband remembers something? Sometimes just one detail can help solve a case.’
Penny had said this many times over the past six weeks. She didn’t want to give up, and neither did I.
‘Is there anything, Mum? Before you found me and Jena, did you see anyone?’
She was curled into herself now, crying hard.
‘Okay, Kath,’ Penny said, ‘I’ll keep you informed of any new developments, and I’ll speak to Dr Gregg about the press conference. Of course, if Jena starts to remember, that would help immensely
.’
Mum murmured unhappily, and squeezed my hand too tightly, like she used to when we were crossing a busy road. ‘My girl, oh my precious little girl,’ she said to herself, softly and sadly. And I didn’t know if she meant Jena or me.
She looked done in, her head hanging down, hair falling from her bun, so much older than her forty-six years. Her breathing got shallower, her chest heaving with effort, and tears splashed on to the plastic table top. I pressed a tissue into her hand, but it didn’t do any good. She was gasping in short, huffy breaths, trying to shore herself up like a leaky dam.
‘Actually, Kath, there is something I’d like to ask you. Perhaps without Sam?’
Penny looked at me apologetically and I felt like screaming, I’m sixteen now, not a little kid. The worst has already happened; you don’t need to keep anything from me.
‘Okay, but I need a fag first,’ Mum said, then added, ‘Is there a loo?’ and finally, ‘Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.’
She retched loudly, a hand over her mouth, and Penny jumped up, taking Mum by the elbow and launching her towards the door.
Mum stumbled, crippled by her anniversary shoes, a line of blood around the white leather heel as she limped out into the corridor, retching again.
The door slammed shut and I was alone.
I could hear Penny in the corridor, talking to Mum, and then another door slammed. The case file was inches from my grasp. I saw my chance and grabbed it, flicking quickly through Dr Gregg’s reports until I came to the photos of the bloodied pavement by the petrol station where I’d found Jena. There was another photo, of Jena in a coma, her face swollen like a purple balloon, her head white and shaved. I turned the page quickly. Mum’s statement came next, detailing how she’d found Jena, with me bent over her, just as the ambulance arrived, after someone made an anonymous call.
Next was Dad’s statement. Just seeing his name made my hands tremble as I leaned over the words, mouthing them as I tried to work out the handwriting in places. He said we’d been preparing for my birthday tea, that Jena left the house just as it started to rain. He said she’d gone to get food, which wasn’t true. He didn’t say anything about their argument over the camera.
Finally, a statement, a long one. This must be Penny’s main suspect, the man who was currently remanded, who had been placed at the scene of the crime.
I read his name, scribing it on my memory: Douglas Campbell.
I heard Penny’s voice again, then Mum’s, louder as they got closer. I read the statement as quickly as I could:
On 25 April I’d arranged to meet Jena. I didn’t want to, with all that’s happened. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her. But I was curious when she started messaging me on Facebook and I agreed to come back to Suffolk. I haven’t been back in sixteen years.
I was hanging around behind the chippy, which is where Jena said I should wait. I was late because it had been raining, and I’d waited for the storm to pass, so I thought I’d missed her. I decided to walk down the alleyway that leads to her house, thinking I’d catch her up. That’s how I found it, the raincoat. I picked it up. I could see it was a decent coat, even though it was wet. Then I saw it wasn’t wet from the rain. There was blood on it, so I dropped it. I gave up on finding Jena, decided it was just another one of her cruel games and I should get out of town as soon as I could.
Later, when I was at the station about to catch the train back to Scotland, I saw the bulletin-board headline. A 29-year-old woman had been attacked on Orwell Estate. I guessed straight away that the woman was Jena, and the bloody raincoat must be connected. I missed my train, and went back for it.
But the coat was gone.
I heard Mum calling weakly in the corridor, ‘Sam? I need my Sam . . .’ Then Penny’s voice said, ‘I’ll get her for you, Kath.’
The door opened just as I closed the file. But now I had a name, I had a place to start. Douglas Campbell.
CHAPTER 6
3 January
Room search. Six thirty in the morning I’m woken by the banging, and then the door opens to reveal sour-faced Sian in her plastic gloves.
‘Happy New Year to you too,’ I say, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes. Just like in prison, room searches on Ana Unit are random. We can never predict what day they will happen, what hour, but this early on a cold January day is sadistic even for Sian.
‘You know the drill, Sam. Up you get.’
She opens a clear plastic bag, keen to start fingering my possessions, looking for anything sharp or sweet or salty; anything that I could use to harm myself or binge on; anything emetic. The bag already has my name written on it. So much for trust, but what do I expect?
I stand in the doorway, as Sian peers inside the toilet roll, pinches the pillow, checks inside photo frames. She looks inside my shoes, smiling up at me as she finds my dirty secret. Into her plastic bag goes the mustard sachet I sneaked from the seafront café, last trip out.
‘Tut tut, Sam. Not a great start to the year, is it?’
I won’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction. ‘Can I get that?’ I ask, pointing to the Black Magic box.
‘I need to check inside first.’
She lifts the lid, rifles through the photos like they are a pack of cards. But there is nothing she considers sharp or dangerous or too sweet, so she hands the box over. Sian is wrong, though. My memories are all of those things.
I wander along the corridor, where the curtains to one of the huge windows have been opened, so I can see the beach is empty, desolate. I slump against the wall, a heap of bones on the cool red tiles. Along the corridor, the other girls are doing the same; daylight sneaks through the open window and casts a yellow light on their faces. Stacey is curled around her huge teddy trying to go back to sleep. Fiona is leaning against Joelle, whispering and yawning, but Joelle is studying herself in her silver mirror, lost in another world. I can’t see Mina at first, but then I spot a shape within the folds of the curtain. As usual, she has made herself disappear.
The far door opens, the one that leads from the main part of the hospital on to our unit, and in walks Clive, blinking like a surfacing mole. He looks in need of caffeine; his clothes look like they spent the night on the floor. He greets the other girls, stepping over their bandy legs, but keeps walking until he is next to me.
‘Morning, Sam.’
It’s a struggle for him to sit down, and the cold floor tiles can’t be good for his saggy old bum. His pocket is bulging, and I can see the silver lid, one I recognise as belonging to a can of Enliven.
‘Really?’ I’m incredulous. ‘We’re doing this now?’
Clive yawns into his meaty hand, then looks back down the corridor. The other four girls are lost in their own worlds, sleeping or chatting or hiding. No one is listening to us.
‘I have an emergency admission to see to, but I didn’t want to miss our meeting, so thought I’d come early.’ He yawns again, then smiles at me. ‘I’m not really a morning person.’
‘Admission for here?’ The idea of someone new arriving isn’t pleasant. None of us like change.
‘We’ll see. My priority right now is for us to have our little chat. I want you to know I’m reliable, Sam. That whatever crops up, I’ll still come and see you, like I said I would.’
I scowl at him, hating that he wants me to trust him. I’d prefer to simply be a chore for him, something to get done. It weakens me, him being nice. And I’m exhausted, unable to fight this early in the morning. Fifteen minutes. Surely I can manage that? Give him just enough to stave off another can of Enliven. Try and stick to the bare facts.
I take the third photo from the Black Magic box. A front view of a single-storey concrete block with a front entrance reached by a slope, and a line of windows glinting like eyes. Minsmere Unit, the rehabilitation ward where Jena had been moved in mid-May, once she was deemed stable enough. She’d had a room behind one of those windows.
I close my eyes and wish I could return t
o sleep, but know that I have to carry on telling my story or I’ll be force-fed.
And then it occurs to me: there is no one to stop me speaking the truth anymore.
Mum was in a state of shock that in just two weeks the police’s main suspect could be a free man. I helped her down the steps from the police station, and her tears made her make-up look clownish. She gripped my arm, limping badly, and winced with each step.
‘Mum, you need to rest. Let’s get a drink or something.’
‘I’m not resting till I’ve seen Jena.’
We made our way to Ipswich train station, as we had for six weeks now. Mum stumbled every time she used her right foot, and leaned on me. A vapour of heat rose from the baking streets and I felt damp beneath my arms. Her face was mottled and beaded with sweat. She tugged off a shoe, and I saw the blister had popped, revealing pink, raw flesh underneath.
‘Come on, Mum. Let’s just go home and tell Dad the news. Jena won’t even notice if we don’t visit today.’
‘And what kind of mother would that make me?’
She clicked open her bag and rummaged through tissues and pieces of paper, first finding her small pill pot and taking a white tablet to stop the panic, her atenolol, then finding the mirror. Peering into it, she licked the corner of a crumpled tissue into a tip and tried to tidy herself up.
‘I’m a bloody mess.’
Mum caught the train to the hospital, and I walked home. As I followed the well-trod route, I thought about what I’d just read.
The police’s main suspect was a man named Douglas Campbell, who said that on the day of Jena’s attack he had arranged to meet her, and that he’d found a raincoat covered in blood, but it was gone when he returned. How convenient. And why would Jena want to meet him? Why message him on Facebook?
I longed for a trial and justice, for an end to the nightmare that started on my sixteenth birthday. For an end to my own guilt; I’d seen it, you see. Seen the attacker bend over Jena, coat puffed by the wind. If the rain had been less fierce, if I’d been taller, if I’d had the camera my dad had just given me, if I could only find that raincoat . . . But it wasn’t, I wasn’t, I hadn’t. My testimony was fucking useless and the only other person who’d seen everything was Jena. Vital information was locked away inside her broken brain.