by Sue Wallman
I lock the buggy, and follow Drew with the second golf bag. He’s leaving the room when I get there, and he makes a resigned I-told-you-this-place-is-the-pits face at me. He’s slung his golf bag in the wrong place. There’s a camera in here. He should be more careful. I position mine back in its slot then move Drew’s, and trudge home to Hibiscus.
I’ve seen other people’s bedrooms in movies and in magazines, but in real life I’ve only ever been in a handful: mine, my parents’ and, one time, Greta’s, when I had to go for a sleepover because Mom and Dad went to my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. I’ve also seen an empty patient room on an open day, when they bring parents of prospective patients through on tours. We live in a climate of trust with unlocked doors, and we share our lives with each other, but we need our own space too.
Drew’s mom has never allowed me to go into Drew’s bedroom because she says my dad wouldn’t like it, but he took a few photos of it for me on his camera. It was clean and tidy, like mine, with a lot of basketball stuff and a poster of a cycle race through some mountains in France.
Thet’s described her bedroom in her grandmother’s house to me, all pink and grand.
My room has bright abstract artwork on the wall, which came from an auction in New York, a bed I helped design myself, and on it a patchwork quilt made using material from my clothes when I was little that Mom had made by the laundry staff. A couple of times I’ve found her in my room, touching the different fabrics, cottons and silks, stripy jersey cotton and soft cashmere from when I was little. “You’ve always had beautiful clothes,” she once told me. She made it sound like she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. I once asked her to tell me what memories each fabric brought back but she only muttered something about it being better to live in the moment.
There’s a shelving unit by my bed, mostly filled with notebooks and pens. I’ve collected vintage pens ever since I saw an article about them in a magazine. I like calligraphy because it often absorbs me enough to block out every other feeling. I try it now, selecting a pen, some ink and a notebook. I write out the alphabet in different styles. Over and over.
I remember the times Drew and I planned to run away when we were little. Our plans didn’t develop much beyond rattling the gates. It was around then that the games room was installed and we forgot why we were even thinking of running away.
The one time I almost managed to leave the Creek without permission was when I was ten, and it wasn’t because I wanted to run away. It was because I was desperate to see what it was like outside the Creek at night-time. I wanted to see street lights and Pattonville nightlife, and Abigail’s house. I thought it would be easy to hide in the car overnight. I knew I’d be punished for going missing but I did it anyway.
As Abigail was slowly leaving the parking lot, Dad knocked on her car window and she’d stopped, slid it down, and said, “Well, if it isn’t my favourite doctor.” I must have shifted in my hiding place, and he caught sight of the movement. I was pulled from the car within seconds.
As we grew older we realized, Drew and me, that even if we left without being spotted, we didn’t have any money, only tokens that were worth nothing outside, and we were in the middle of a flat, rural, empty landscape with nowhere to run to. By the time Drew was old enough to work on a proper way to leave, I was telling him not to. I said life wasn’t so bad here. He should count his blessings.
I’m starting to think we should have tried harder back then.
I wait a long time for Dad at the apartment. He comes in, shutting the front door loudly. I hear him place his radio receiver on the table in the hallway, and then he comes into my room.
“Sit up, Mae.” His face is unreadable. I’m not going to react if he sends me to a solitary room.
That was my punishment for hiding in the back of Abigail’s car. The following morning Dad handed me to a nurse in the medical suite who told me to remove my shoes. As soon as I walked into the small empty white room, she slammed the door shut and bolted it.
I spent a long, long time in that room with bright strip lighting. With walls that were slightly soft so you couldn’t hit your head against them.
Nobody came when I shouted. I had no idea of time; the display on my watch had been switched off remotely. Nothing happened when I banged on the door and said I was sorry, or when hunger came, or when the fear overtook me and I retched and cried hysterical tears.
When I was finally led out by the same nurse, and sent to Raoul for a medical check, I couldn’t understand why I felt so ashamed of losing control in that room.
Dad paces in front of me in my bedroom. “You’ll eat breakfast and lunch in your room until further notice. You’ll exercise with Mick alone, and you’ll do work booklets on your own in an office in the main building. You are to stay in your room for the rest of today. You are on zero privileges until Earl sends you a message via your watch to tell you otherwise. There will also be a further punishment.”
“What will that be?”
He doesn’t answer, he just leaves. I hear Mom outside my room later, asking to come in and see me, but Dad says, “It’s out of the question, Louelle.” After the shutters have come down, he returns with a dinner tray. There’s a glass of water, my vitamin pill and a bowl of Tuscan bean soup. He watches me swallow the pill then goes out of the room. I can only eat two mouthfuls of soup and flush the rest down the toilet; I’m too full of worry.
I’ve never been on zero privileges. It means my tokens are frozen so I can’t use them. Nor can I earn them, but I can still be fined. I’m not allowed to speak to anyone unless spoken to, and I’m excluded from all unscheduled activities.
It’s hard to sleep. My room feels airless, and too hot, even though I can hear the faint hum of the air conditioning. Ben was once threatened with having to live in Larkspur with the most extreme patients when he’d done something wrong. If that’s my punishment, I’ll welcome it.
In the morning, I dress in my exercise clothes and as soon as I open my door, Dad appears with his silver laptop under his arm. “Mick’s waiting for you in Studio 1A. After breakfast in your room, go to Room Twelve on the admin floor. Be there at nine-fifteen.”
As I leave he says, “You were very stupid, Mae, to think I wouldn’t find out you were breaking Creek rules.”
I nod and let myself out of the apartment.
Studio 1A is the room used for individual, hard-core training. I wonder where Drew’s doing his exercise – and if he has the same punishments as me. Mick sees me through the glass window and opens the door. “Let’s get started,” he says.
There’s no equipment out. Mick quickly takes the readings from my watch, then points to the polished-wood sprung floor. “Fifty push-ups. Go.”
As I’m doing lunges, Thet looks through the glass window and does a thing with her hand, pretending someone is dragging her away by the neck. It gets me through the rest of the session.
Afterwards, I go back to the apartment where breakfast is on a tray for me outside my room. The shutters are up and I can hear a cleaner sweeping the roof terrace. It’s darkish outside. It’s going to rain later. I eat everything on the tray in case I have to spend a long time in solitary.
Room Twelve is a side room that faces towards the grounds staff office, the non-veranda-ed side of the schoolhouse and, if I stand in the right place, some of Hibiscus. I watch the first heavy raindrops fall, shaking the leaves in the flower beds.
“Sit down.” Dad is in the doorway. He nods towards the desk on which there’s a work booklet, a pen, pencil and eraser. “Complete the booklet. When your watch alarm sounds, take the booklet to the schoolhouse and then go home for lunch. At two o’clock, you’re scheduled to meet Mick in the lobby.”
What’s the rest of my punishment?
Dad leaves. I flip through the booklet. I’ve seen this one a couple of times before. Outside the rain is drumming down, but that’s not the only sound I can hear. There’s shouting coming from somewhere.
&
nbsp; “It’s time to get out of this hellhole… Screw you, Dr Hunter Ballard… I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
Drew? I race to the window. I see him in his outside-sports cagoule, walking across the soaking lawn with a large plastic storage container in his arms, his hair stuck to his head from the rain. His parents are behind him, on the path with suitcases, their faces hidden by rain-jacket hoods.
It can’t be. I’m paralysed while the breath has momentarily left my body, and then I run. Out of the room and down the staircase. Outside into the pouring rain. I can hardly feel the ground beneath my feet, only the thudding in my chest.
Drew shouts, “I’m not going quietly.”
His parents tell him to shush, he’s done enough damage. Two security guards are moving in. He notices me before they do, so they’re not expecting him to break free. He drops the box to the ground and I run into his arms. Although he’s drenched, he smells of every memory I’ve had of us together. Trees, grass, delicately scented breakfast fruit, sunshine on skin, sports kit and perhaps the faint waft of tobacco. “Your dad’s thrown us out,” he says. “I wanted to go, but not like this. My parents have lost everything.”
“No.” I clutch him more tightly. I shiver in my thin dress. I’m wetter and colder than I’ve ever been. “He needs your mom and dad. He can’t.”
“He has,” Drew says. He pushes me back by my shoulders so I can see his face. “He sacked them. Because I smoked a few cigarettes.”
“No.” This is nightmarishly unfair. I look at his parents. They have grim expressions.
“I’ll…” I start to say, but we both know there’s nothing I can do. Nobody can sway Dad’s decisions.
“Come on, Drew,” snaps his mom. She doesn’t acknowledge me as she walks past us with his dad. There’s a silver car waiting at the exit of the parking lot. The engine’s running.
“Where are you going?” I ask, my words tumbling together. I only have seconds left.
“As far away from this place as we can,” says Drew. “A motel to start with.” He sounds defiant but I detect a wobble in his voice.
I lunge myself at him again and hug him fiercely.
“Your dad’s a bastard,” he says.
“I know.” My words are swamped by gasping tears. “Don’t leave me,” I choke.
“You’ve got to stay strong. Leave here as soon as you can, Mae. Then have a good life.”
Don’t go, I want to say. Don’t leave me. But instead I stay silent.
He peels my arms away and I grab him again. A security guard pulls me away so fast that I stumble. I look up. Abigail is picking her way across the lawn with an umbrella towards me, slowed down by her heels. The rain is easing off, but the ground is saturated. The other security guard is leading Drew off towards the car. Mick is loading suitcases into the back.
This, I realize, is my further punishment. The worst I can imagine.
Lung-crushing pain grips me. I need Drew. How will I survive without him?
I fall to my knees and I’m pulled up again by the security guard.
Drew doesn’t look back.
There are people watching now. A couple of gardeners. Zach, Ben, Luke, Joanie and Ms Ray are on the steps of the schoolhouse. Admin staff including Earl are at the first-floor window, and there’s someone looking out of the long window in reception. Is it Dad?
I scream. Loud and long. Until Abigail slaps me on the cheek.
“Stop it. You’re hysterical,” she says. “Are you going to walk away, or do you have to be dragged?”
Walking away is an impossibility. As the car doors bang shut, and the car moves down the driveway. I see Drew’s shocked face as I’m dragged. I’m still being dragged when I hear the big wrought-iron gates clank shut, and my world folds in.
FIFTEEN
I’m taken to a treatment room. Raoul wipes my arm and injects me with something that’s cold as it enters my bloodstream. As I swim out of consciousness, I hear Dad speaking.
“They contaminated the results. I can’t forgive that.”
Raoul murmurs his sympathies, and Dad says, “I’ll drop by again later. Attach her to a monitor and tell me when she wakes up.”
The words break into fragments in my brain. They swirl, change colour and disappear.
I’m chasing a silver car. Running even though I can’t see it any more, because if I don’t I’ll die. And then I’m awake, but my eyelids are heavy and I don’t want to open them.
I hear the door squeak. Dad’s voice floats towards me: “How’s the patient?”
I keep very still, even though I know I won’t be fooling the monitor.
“Non-REM sleep, sir,” says a nurse who isn’t Raoul. She must have taken over from him, and hasn’t looked at the screen in the last minute. She sounds like all the other members of staff when they have to interact with Dad. Flustered, flattered and eager to please.
A phone rings. My body jolts; I’m not used to the sound. Surely they must know I’m awake now?
“Hello?” I hear Dad say. “Right. Yes, put him through. Hi, Peter.” Peter… Who’s Peter?
“Excuse me for a moment will you?” He clears his throat. “I’ll take over here with Mae. You can get back to your other duties. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” says the nurse.
He waits until the door closes – then he says, “OK, fire away.”
There’s mmming and uh-huhing, then, “You saw the latest data report? Yes, all the research is going in the right direction. Minor hiccups here and there, of course. As always.” He pauses. “You think we should push it that far? … I don’t see why not. Yes, it’s been a while since you saw the set-up. Come and visit.”
I’m lying down but I’m dizzy. I’m still a little sedated. Wooooozy. I have to catch each thought as it spins round my head. They keep flying away from me in unpredictable directions, like bats. My arm hurts where Raoul injected me. It feels as if someone trod on it.
A couple of minutes after Dad ends the call, I move my sore arm. Then my leg.
“Mae?” Dad places a hand on my forehead, and I fight the instinct to push it away, opening my eyes slowly. The light is bright, so I close them again.
“Sit up slowly. Take your time. You might feel dizzy,” says Dad.
I don’t want to face him but the alternative is to lie on this bed for the rest of the day attached to a monitor. After a few minutes I sit up. I feel OK but weakened, and there’s an unpleasant taste in my mouth.
Dad reaches over to detach the cable from my watch, and the smell of the anti-bacterial soap from his hands is overwhelming. “Good,” he says, as he winds up the cable. “I’m pleased we’ve reached the point where we can discuss what happened calmly. I should have been more aware of what was going on. Drew was clearly a bad influence on you, so your punishment also serves as a way of protecting you. You must remember that I know what’s best for you.”
Drew is never coming back.
“OK,” continues Dad. “You may go to Hibiscus. I’ve cancelled your afternoon exercise. You’ll start again with Mick tomorrow morning. I’ll review your behaviour in a week’s time. I need to see evidence that you are in tune with all the Creek values if you are to regain any privileges. Perhaps a therapy session on coping with change will help; I’ll set one up.” He gives me a smile, and I let it pass through me.
My throat tightens as I recall Drew’s shocked face as he left. I push down the shuddering sobs that are rising up.
Dad holds out his hand to help me down from the trolley-bed. I refuse it by pretending not to notice.
“I’ll have lunch sent up to you soon. Your blood-sugar levels are low.” He turns away to the laptop on the counter.
I walk unsteadily out of the medical suite and the main building. I need a friendly face. I look out for pink clothes, but I don’t see Thet. I want Mom, but she’ll be in the grounds staff office.
Once I’ve stumbled into my room, I curl up under my covers, and I don’t answer when
there’s a knock at the door. Someone says, “Mae? Your lunch is outside.” A while later, there’s another knock, and a different voice says, “I’m going to have to log that you didn’t eat any lunch.”
Time passes. I hear Mom’s voice. “Honey, are you awake?”
I lift my head a fraction and see her hovering.
“Can I sit?” she says.
I nod and she perches on the end of my bed and clenches her hands together. “I heard about Drew,” she says quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
His name stabs me. “How could Dad do that?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. There’s a long pause before she says, “He’s doing it for the best. It’s important to separate ourselves from negative influences. Drew was a negative influence.”
Her words don’t surprise me because she never criticises Dad, but they still hurt me. “You really think that?”
She says, “You have Greta.”
“Greta?” How can she think my friendship with Drew is in any way comparable to the barely functional relationship I have with Greta.
“You should try harder with Greta,” says Mom.
I’m about to shout at her. But I notice Mom’s squeezing her neck. “Does your neck hurt?” I ask.
“Just a fizzing feeling,” she says. “Raoul says it’ll pass.”
“What was wrong with you when you were ill?”
“A problem with my meds,” says Mom. “Nothing to worry about.”
“What meds are you on?”
Her face is blank. She doesn’t know. “I let your father take charge of that. He’s the doctor.”
I think about the bottles of pills in her bathroom. “But don’t you want to know?”
“I have to trust him,” says Mom. She looks back at the door. “I don’t have any choice.”
I know I’m pushing her in a direction she doesn’t want to go. She stands up. “Come and watch TV with me,” she says. “I’ll fix you a sunset.”