‘I will, I promise.’
An uneasy silence descends once more, punctuated only by the whirr of the windscreen wipers. Every few minutes the old woman takes a raspy breath, threatens to say something, and then thinks better of it. Eventually she speaks. ‘I’m Jean, by the way.’
‘Oh … right. I’m Lauren.’
‘What a lovely name.’
‘Thank you.’
‘If there’s something you’re worried about, Lauren, you could always tell me, you know. I’ve got four grandchildren of my own.’
Is there anything more tear-jerking than the kindness of strangers? ‘That’s … great … Jean, but I’m fine, honest.’
‘It’s not about school, is it? There’s a lot of pressure on you youngsters these days.’
Part of me would like to tell her everything. What a story that would be for her grandchildren! But I don’t of course. ‘I told you. I’m going to see my grandmother.’
‘If you say so, dear.’
Half a netball match further down the road, we pass a pub called the Last Orders. There’s a play area in the garden with a slide in the shape of a white-faced clown. The pinpricks of eczema become a thousand daggers. Because that’s when it finally hits me: this isn’t some kind of random mystery tour – I know exactly where I’m going.
‘I think we’re nearly there,’ I say, wondering why it’s taken me this long to figure it out. ‘About five more minutes.’
‘Really?’ says the old woman. ‘It looks like the middle of nowhere.’
She’s right. But I’m pretty confident I know where we are. And if I cut across the fields and approach it from the back there’s less chance of being spotted.
And sure enough, fifty metres beyond a trio of tiny cottages and a barn conversion is an empty car park with spaces for about four cars.
‘That’s my grandma’s house,’ I say. ‘The one in the middle. Can you pull in here, please?’
Jean slows to a snail’s pace, checks the mirror three times, indicates for the benefit of the dead badger, and pulls up in front of the rusty pay-and-display machine. It seems impossible, but somehow her wrinkly face gets even wrinklier. ‘It’s getting dark. Maybe I should see you to the door.’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s just back there. And you don’t want to get wet, do you?’
She stares out at the teeming rain. ‘You will be all right, won’t you, Lauren?’
‘Yeah, course.’
‘Well, at least take my husband’s mackintosh. You’ll catch your death.’
I’d kind of imagined her as a lonely old lady. ‘He’ll need it, won’t he?’
‘I’ve been trying to get him to take it to Oxfam for years. You have it; you’ll be doing me a favour.’
I reach into the back for the disgusting old raincoat. It stinks of dog. And I’m all for dumping it until I step out into the pouring rain. ‘Thanks for the lift, Jean. And don’t worry, I’ll be okay.’
She calls after me. I catch the gist (something to do with always respecting myself and staying safe) but most of it is carried away on the wind.
I nod and wave, before walking slowly towards the row of cottages. Jean performs a torturous sixty-four point turn, and I glance back as she heads off down the road.
A moment later, I race back to the car park and set about trying to find the public bridleway sign that I know for a fact is lurking in the undergrowth.
And once I find it, I pull up the collar of this pervy raincoat, point my nose in the right direction and pray there are no mad cows about – apart from me! At least it’s not far now: just a short walk across the field and the last part through the woods.
My feet sink into the mud, coating the bottom of my school trousers in a thick layer of goo. And by the time I hit the woods, darkness is closing in around me. But already I feel calmer, kicking through a carpet of soggy leaves.
And through the branches, I get my first glimpse of it, glowing gently like a child’s night light, the usual cluster of teenage smokers huddled round the door. Behind them is a sign I can’t read yet – white letters on a pale blue background that spell out the words:
OAKHILL HOUSE
33
SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (PART ONE)
The sign outside the door gives no clue to the building’s purpose. Not even a logo or a simple CAMHS in-patient unit – just two words on a pale blue background.
It’s kind of ironic, because a short walk down the hill is the yellow-bricked Victorian monster that they converted into a hundred luxury apartments when the new hospital was built. The foundation stone at the front entrance rather gives the game away:
COUNTY BOROUGH LUNATIC ASYLUM – ESTABLISHED 1861
But if you check out the website – which I do sometimes, believe it or not – you’ll see that Oakhill House (established 2009) looks more like something off a TV design show: wavy award-winning architecture; a fern-strewn courtyard complete with decking and modern sculptures; its own gym, art studio and huge windows looking out onto thirty acres of grounds. And most of the time I hated it.
There were two kinds of kids at Oakhill House: the ones who were desperate to avoid being discharged; and the ones, like me, who were desperate to get out. All I wanted was for my MTD – the multi-disciplinary team – to release me back into the wild. And every night I’d make a pact with myself that I was going to say and do all the right things. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.
So why have I come back? What strange logic has drawn me to the scene of my darkest nightmares? The answer’s simple. This is where it all started to make sense.
And one place was special: a secret place, somewhere only the two of us knew about. I figure that if I can just get back to it, I might feel better.
But the night staff are arriving for the changeover in a procession of clapped-out cars (the Mercedes C-Class saloon probably belongs to the consultant). No matter how unlikely it is, I can’t run the risk of being recognised. So I hide in the trees, waiting for my chance. And when the last of the smokers drifts back inside for dinner, I shoot across the car park and down the hill, hugging the shadows in case the new inmates of the asylum think I’m a burglar and call security.
Waiting for me at the bottom is a row of derelict Portakabins, where yesterday’s lunatics assembled transistor radios or tended tomato plants. Slowly decaying, their shattered windows an aching mouthful of jagged teeth, it’s about time the wrecking ball put them out of their misery. I crunch across the broken glass, craning my neck backwards and squinting up.
And there it is, piercing the night sky like a three-hundred-foot penis: the old water tower. Erected by direction of the Asylum Visiting Committee to secure a better provision in case of fire. It looks like the kind of place a Disney knight would rescue a Disney princess from, with fake battlements and ivy climbing the wall.
The Disney knight would probably have hauled himself up the princess’s hair extensions. But if he’d taken the trouble to do his research he would have found the rusty iron staircase at the back.
Last time I’d needed a bunk-up. I’m a lot taller now, so getting one foot up between the spiky green railings and launching myself over isn’t nearly as impossible as it once seemed. Ducking under the DANGER: KEEP OUT sign, I pull up the collar of the old man’s raincoat and start climbing.
Last time it was the middle of summer. Tonight it’s wet, cold and slippery, and the wind’s whistling around my mud-stained ankles. I stick close to the wall, like a cartoon bank robber on the run, already wishing I’d taken up jogging like Dad suggested. Because by the time I step out onto the roof, I can hardly breathe.
Weeds are sprouting up everywhere and I’m sure that crack wasn’t there before. I nestle down in our favourite spot by the back wall, pulling my knees up to my chest and trying to look on the bright side. But you know what? I’m not feeling too great. Not surprising really, because I’ve started thinking about school.
He’s bound to have told them. The Chines
e whispers will have whizzed down the corridors and be all over Facebook by now. How can I go back there if everyone knows? What’s the point if it’s just like before?
Maybe this will make me feel better. There’s no wall at the front of the water tower, just a row of fake battlements with two-metre gaps between them and a sheer drop onto the spiky railings below.
I walk towards the precipice, staring into the half-light. On a clear day you can see forever, but with the stars dimmed behind a cloudy curtain of rain, I can only make out the dark outline of the woods and a twinkly crocodile of cars heading home.
Half a metre from the edge I start feeling better. And I’m seriously thinking about taking the next step, when a familiar voice stops me dead in my tracks.
‘I thought I’d find you up here.’
34
LAB RATS
H always insisted that he wasn’t an emo. He was just a twelve-year-old boy who liked to dye his hair and wear make-up. ‘Who wants to be like everyone else?’ he said, talking to his trainers as usual. ‘You’ve got to dare to be different.’
A lot of them came out with that kind of crap in group discussion sessions, ‘inspirational’ stuff they’d picked up on Facebook and trotted out for the benefit of their treatment teams. So it wasn’t his taste in advertising slogans that we bonded over, it was gambling and drugs.
The pool table in the recreation room was usually dominated by the older kids. Maybe there was a fight that night or some other Oakhill House psychodrama, because for once the table was free. I knew we shared the same key worker, so it was just possible he’d put him up to it, but it was a major surprise when the kid with jet-black hair and a soft squeaky voice challenged me to a game.
H was an old hand. I’d only been there a week; I was still terrified that I was surrounded by nutters. And perhaps if I’d noticed some of his more bizarre behaviours (always touching things right in the middle, only taking a pee at five, ten, twenty-five or fifty-five minutes past the hour) I would have rushed back to my little room with the blindingly white walls. But there was something so unthreatening about his refusal to make eye contact that – although I’d never played before – I said I’d ‘give it a shot’.
‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ he said, chalking his cue fifteen times.
‘No,’ I replied.
And after he’d shown me the basics, we had a bet on how many colours I’d have left, and he fleeced me of my chocolate rations.
Like half the others at Oakhill House, we were both on twenty milligrams of Prozac: a green and white capsule that I struggled to swallow every morning. So while we played, we talked drugs, checking off side-effects like a shopping list.
‘Dry mouth?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Feel sick the whole time?’
‘But can’t puke either?’
‘Yeah. (Nice shot.)’
‘Feel like a zombie. But not in a good way?’
‘Yeah, or like an animal they’re experimenting on.’
‘Lab rats, that’s what we are.’
‘How about dreams where you want to kill somebody?’
I had those before I started taking Prozac, but I wasn’t going to tell H that. ‘Sometimes, yeah.’
‘But there’s one good thing about it.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘At least it makes you feel better.’
It wasn’t one of those intense friendships that sometimes developed in there, but after the game of pool we’d often find ourselves sitting together down in the dining room while they tortured the anorexics with a full-fat yoghurt, or sharing a nervous smile when someone had a public meltdown. We didn’t talk much. Both of us liked fast cars, but I’d never heard of half the bands he was into, and he certainly wasn’t interested in designer clothes.
Of course, the main thing we had in common was depression, although H had admitted himself to Oakhill House voluntarily, whereas after threatening the food-tech teacher with an electric mixer, they’d left me with no choice.
It was the middle of August so there were no classes, just a drug-dulled tedium of art therapy, African drumming lessons and weekly meetings with your treatment team. So it was a real release when your key worker decided you were well enough to walk in the grounds. At first we just dawdled over to the hospital shop together, but after a while H wanted to explore.
It was H who decided we should climb the water tower, catapulting me over the railings and racing up the iron staircase because he was desperate to see how many steps there were. And for a few weeks we sat on the roof counting clouds. Well, H did – I lay back and listened. In between counting, he’d let slip the occasional detail about his past, and gradually I pieced together his backstory:
After several months of CBT and exposure therapy he was finally getting it under control. At its worst, he could barely leave the house. But it had all started with a tuna sandwich.
Two weeks after his dad went off with the kitchen designer H had this terrible premonition his mum was going to die. That’s when the ‘magical thinking’ kicked in. At least they call it magical; I don’t see it myself. H decided that if he chewed every mouthful of his sandwich thirty-two times, he could keep his mum alive. And after it worked, he did the same thing at every meal. But it didn’t stop there. His list of rituals grew longer by the second: checking every electrical appliance eight times before he went to bed (if they weren’t switched off his mum faced certain cremation); changing his computer password twice daily; only typing with his left hand. And then there was the obsessive washing: four times an hour with antibacterial gel and a scrubbing brush. He told his mum it was to protect her from bubonic plague. That’s when they knew he needed help.
It made for interesting listening. So I was happy to sit back and relax. But then, one afternoon, H started asking questions.
‘So what’s your problem then? I know you’re angry about something, but what is it?’
He was the first person I ever told.
And I’ll always remember his reaction: not horror or nervous laughter even, just a casual shrug and a few words of encouragement. ‘It’s all right, I understand. Everyone deserves a second chance.’
Back then I was glad I’d told him. From where I’m standing now, it feels like the worst mistake I ever made.
Sometimes H wanted to play ‘chicken’, seeing how close to the edge we could get. It seemed strange for someone who was frightened of practically everything, but he said it made him feel alive.
It made me feel better too, although it certainly wasn’t because I felt alive, quite the opposite in fact. You see, I always figured that if things got too much for me I’d be able to jump.
35
SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (PART TWO)
‘I think you’d better come away from there,’ says Harry. ‘You’re making me nervous.’
‘Supposing I don’t want to?’
‘Come on, Lauren. You could really hurt yourself.’
‘I thought that was the whole point.’
‘It’s so dangerous, especially in all this rain.’
‘You used to enjoy it,’ I say, turning shakily to face him. ‘Why don’t you have a try?’
‘Stop it,’ he says, dropping his crash helmet and edging towards me. ‘It was a stupid game. I was ill. You know that – we both were.’
‘Oh, so you know who I am then?’
‘Of course I do. I’ve known for a long time.’ (Right.) ‘It took me a while. But there was something really familiar about you. And then when you started asking all those questions, I gradually worked out why.’
‘No shit, Sherlock.’
‘Just come here, Lauren, please. Then we can talk about it.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you pretend you didn’t know me?’
‘Why do you think?’ he says, taking another step towards me, his arm outstretched.
‘You tell me, H.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
; ‘Yeah, all right, keep your hair on.’
‘Please, Lauren. You’re frightening me.’
‘You haven’t answered my question yet. If you knew who I was, why didn’t you say?’
‘I’ve never told anyone at school about my … I didn’t want them finding out I’d been in Oakhill House. You know what people are like,’ says Harry. ‘And you obviously didn’t want to talk about it either, so I just kept quiet.’
‘Yes but —’
‘We’ve both changed so much since then. It didn’t seem fair.’ His outstretched arm begins to shake. ‘Please, Lauren, just come away from the edge.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I’m begging you.’
Harry looks so desperate that I grab hold of his hand.
He wraps his arms round me, like a human straitjacket, and I drink in the reassuring combination of sweat, machine oil and Calvin Klein. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again. You scared me to death.’ Eventually he lets go. ‘What’s that you’re wearing anyway?’
‘I got it from the woman I hitched a ride with.’
‘You didn’t hitch, did you? You do know how stupid that was?’
‘You’re telling me. She was driving a Peugeot 107.’
Harry smiles. ‘So you’re still into cars then?’
‘Yeah, course, why shouldn’t I be?’
He takes a collapsible umbrella from his coat pocket, magicking it into life, like a schoolboy Mary Poppins. ‘Want to sit down for a bit?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
And without thinking, we take our place against the back wall, peering through the clouds at the smudgy stars.
‘You’re not counting them, are you, Harry?’
‘No,’ he says, putting his arm round me. ‘I’m just thinking how beautiful they are.’
‘That’s good then,’ I say, resting my head on his shoulder. ‘So how have you been?’
‘Yeah, good. Most days. I still get a bit down sometimes, but I know how to handle it now.’
Only We Know Page 13