by Aly Sidgwick
Later, I tell Rhona I won’t see any more newspaper men.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I think it might good for you.’
I glare.
‘Meeting folk is good for your recovery.’ she says. ‘The Western Courier guys are a bit annoying, but—’
‘I won’t do it again,’ I growl. ‘I’ll run away.’
Rhona puts her hands down flat.
‘Where would you run to?’ she asks quietly.
I look at her. I can’t work out if she’s angry. She stares back. But the moment passes.
‘You know, running away never solves anything,’ says Rhona. ‘You can’t spend your whole life in the conservatory. We’re here to help you. Mrs Laird, Caroline, Joyce …’
I make a face. Joyce is the lady with red glasses.
‘Then there’s Dr Harrison, who was here last week. You remember the woman who made you go to sleep?’
I glare at Rhona.
‘Don’t need any of you,’ I say, though I know that’s not true. I need Rhona quite a lot.
‘Hon, it’s not good for you to be isolated. Now that you’re talking, it’s important to keep moving forwards. Upwards. And that means increasing your social circle. When you finally go home to your family, you’ll want to be able to talk to them.’
I gasp. Tears come into my eyes.
Home. I’ve never told her how much that word scares me. How can I go back to a place that doesn’t exist?
‘I … don’t have … family,’ I say.
Rhona sits forward in her chair. ‘Everyone’s got family, Kathy. It’s just that you’ve forgotten who yours is.’
‘They’d’ve come to get me.’
‘Oh, hon … There could be all kinds of reasons for them not getting in touch. Remember, no one out there has seen your face properly. The papers aren’t allowed to—’
‘They’d still know! They’d know I’m gone!’
Rhona looks at me for a long time. Her face is sad, but she doesn’t say anythin’. In the end I turn over, pullin’ my bedspread with me, an’ lie with my back to her. Through the window, the sky is black. I can see myself in the glass, like iss a mirror. Over my shoulder, Rhona’s head is in her hands.
#
Dark dreams follow me through the night. Movin’ in circles. Chased by tears. Afterwards, I only remember one.
A man stands tall against a blackened sky. Shinin’ pale, with his back to me. Snow swirls down an’ lands in our hair. At our feet, hundreds of jellyfish lie dead.
Help me, I say. Help me.
Thin hands hang by his sides. One clutched tight. The other creased and limp. I reach for the second one, but my hands drift right through. Suddenly I see I am barefoot.
Help me …
The man’s back quakes. Like laughter, emptied of sound. I claw at his hands. The silence grows. Shoals of stars buffet us. He will never turn around.
#
Breakfast time. I look through the mugs to find the one with the green stripe. At first I don’t see it, so I almost don’t have tea at all. But iss there at the back. I take it to the hot drink machine, put it under the tap, an’ press Tea. Then I put in three sugarcubes an’ carry it with me to the conservat’ry. I feel a bit sick today, so I don’t get any food. Thur’s only three people in the dinin’ room, an’ none of ’em stare. I look at their faces as I go past. They’re all old. One is Mrs Bell an’ one is Mrs Shaw. I know the third one’s face but not her name. Prob’ly another Mrs. Only the staff call the oldies by their first names. I get the feelin’ they’d clip the rest of us round the ear if we tried. Mrs is safer. I don’t want to talk to ’em anyway. I don’t like talkin’ to anyone besides Rhona.
In the conservat’ry, I start to feel better. The sky is pale, with hardly any clouds. Across the moor, the mountains are solid-lookin’. Rich, hot-chocolate brown. I sip my tea an’ look at ’em. Outside, the tree is perfectly still. It must have been windy in the night, cos thur’s lots more keys on the roof today. They cast a muddy shadow over the room, with little gaps of sky shinin’ through. It feels nice. Like I’m in a nest. This is the closest I get to goin’ outside alone. I’m allowed out without Rhona, of course. The fence is there, so they trust me to walk round the grounds. But I don’t want to. Iss big out there, under the sky, an’ I still can’t face it by myself. That’s okay, though, cos Rhona always says she’ll come with me. I think she even thinks iss her idea.
The world over the fence terrifies me, though I know I’ve been out there before. Folk say the sea washed me up, an’ I know that that bit’s true. I remember the pain an’ exhaustion. Kickin’ in darkness. Thinkin’ I will die now. But my life before that stuff’s a myst’ry. Ev’ryone thinks I’m from a country across the sea. Or, well, they say that, but they say it in a way that sounds like they don’t believe it. I don’t know what the truth is. Sometimes when I wake up my head has little pictures in it, of things an’ places an’ people I don’t know. But they never stay clear for long, an’ I’m never able to piece them together.
My song is the strangest part of all. I can reel off those funny-soundin’ words as easy as the ABC. But when it comes to their meanin’, I’m stuck. Even when Rhona showed me what the words meant in English, I couldn’t understand. Iss jus’ about foxes an’ the sun an’ stuff. Why would I bother to learn that by heart? Iss part of me, like a dead plant rooted deep inside my head, an’ I don’t think I’ll ever dig all of it out. But I won’t sing it any more. How could I do that, before, in front of ev’ryone? What a clown. The song has started to scare me, cos iss a bridge to a part of myself I don’t know. I want to stay on this side, with Rhona an’ the conservat’ry an’ the tree. Things are simple here. I need things to stay the same.
Voices drift through from the dinin’ room. Louder for a while. Then nothin’. I reach for my mug an’ iss gone cold. I drink the tea anyway. Nice an’ sweet.
3
Saturday is music therapy day. Iss somethin’ I’ve stayed away from, cos I know now that that’s where I used to sing my song. But Rhona gets cross today when I say I won’t go. She says I’ll get no treats if I don’t start joinin’ in. I scowl.
‘I’ll be next to you the whole time,’ Rhona says.
I grab her arm. We go down the stairs an’ follow the others into the day room. Thur’s a man at the front with a little white bit on his neck. ‘That’s the vicar, Mr Duff,’ says Rhona. He has a green guitar on a strap an’ he hugs it to his chest as he chats to Mrs Laird. Ev’ryone comes in an’ finds a chair.
‘Ready?’ says Mr Duff when ev’ryone’s sat down. He has a deep, boomy voice. Caroline comes round with bits of paper an’ shoves one in my hand. For a few minutes, ev’ryone talks at once. Then Mr Duff plays a note on his guitar, an’ they go quiet.
‘Page four,’ whispers Rhona. She opens the leaflet in my hands. ‘Amazing Grace’, it says. Ev’ryone starts to sing, an’ actually they don’t sound bad. The older ladies are the loudest – all warbly tra-la-la – an’ Rhona whispers iss cos they used to be in the village choir. When the song’s over Rhona says, ‘Well done,’ even though I didn’t join in. No one else looks at me, an’ that is good. They sing one more song, an’ another, an’ another. At the end they sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, an’ I’m so surprised to hear it that I sing along with ’em. Rhona smiles at me, an’ I smile back. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all. When the singin’ is over, Mr Duff reads some words out from a little book. Ev’ryone puts their faces down. ‘Amen,’ says Mr Duff. Then he goes out of the room. People start talkin’.
‘It’s dancing time now,’ says Rhona, an’ helps me to my feet. Mrs Laird wheels in a gramophone on a wooden trolley an’ fiddles with it while Caroline moves the chairs into the corner. People start dancin’ to the music, but no matter how much Rhona nags me I won’t join in. She sits with me a while, watchin’ the others whirl round the room. Then Joyce comes in, sayin’ thur’s a telephone call, an’ they both disappear. The Mary girl whirls over
, lookin’ happier than I’ve ever seen, an’ grabs my hand without askin’. I don’t want to hurt her feelin’s, so I dance with her an’ it ends up bein’ tons of fun. We fall over a lot an’ bump into people an’ jump over chairs that’ve been knocked over. By the time Mrs Laird turns off the music, I’m out of breath.
‘That’s right, Kathy!’ calls Mrs Laird. ‘Shake a leg!’
When I see Rhona later, I tell her I had fun at music therapy. I’d thought that’d make her happy, but instead she hardly looks at me. Her eyes an’ nose are all pink-lookin’.
‘Are you sad?’ I ask.
‘My mother is very sick,’ she tells me, after a pause. Then tears come out of her eyes, an’ she goes across the room for some tissues. I tell her I like dancin’ now, an’ she says, ‘Oh that’s nice.’ She doesn’t say more about her mother, an I’m glad about that. I don’t like Rhona bein’ sad. When she wipes her eyes I look the other way.
‘I danced with Mary,’ I say.
‘Oh? That’s nice, that you two should make friends. Being the youngest and all.’
‘Mary’s the youngest?’
‘Well … She was until you showed up. But we still don’t know for sure how old you are. So, you see, you’re both competing for the crown.’
‘How old’s Mary?’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘So … I’m twenty-eight too?’
‘No, hon. I just told you. We’ve got to guess. The doctor said he thought you were thirty years old.’
I think about this. Thirty is a terribly big number. It doesn’t seem fair.
‘Why do I have to be thirty?’
‘Well, there were several factors to consider. Your skin, your hair, the state of your tee—’
‘I want to be twenty-eight!’
Rhona sighs a big sigh. Stuffs her tissue up her sleeve.
‘Well, who knows, sweets. Maybe you’ll get to be. All you’ve got to do is remember.’
I scowl. Rhona tries to pat my arm, but I hop off the bed an’ move to the window. For a while, she doesn’t speak. Then, right when I don’t expect it, she says, ‘Have you remembered anything?’
I turn an’ look at her.
‘If I do … you’ll send me away. Won’t you?’
‘You’ll get to go home.’
‘Hmm.’
‘So have you? Remembered anything?’
My mind is full of fuzzy shapes. Iss been like that for a while, but there is one new thing. One very big, very scary new thing, an’ that is the man from my dreams. I’ve never seen his face, an’ he hasn’t popped up much, but I know he’s important. Somehow, deep down in my heart, I’ve come to know the dream man’s really out there. He’s real, an’ he knows who I am. Thur’s a badness round him that scares me. I don’t think anyone could protect me from badness that big.
‘No!’ I say, louder than I meant to. I think Rhona gets a shock. Her eyes go big for a second.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
Rhona’s eyes shrink an’ go back to bein’ puffy. She stands up from her chair.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘when you do … I’ll be here.’
That night I dream of the man again. When I wake up the bed is full of sweat. Thur’s a warm cup of tea by my side, but I’m the only one in the room.
#
Tuesday is my day for havin’ Mrs Laird talk at me. She’s the brain doctor, Rhona said, an’ ev’ryone has to see her once a week. I don’t like tellin’ her stuff, cos I know iss not really private, in the end. Rhona always finds out what me an’ Mrs Laird said, an’ she tries to sneak it in when we’re talkin’. Askin’ questions all sly like, an’ waitin’ to see what I’ll do. But I can’t get out of seein’ Mrs Laird. Iss like a law or somethin’. Even when I don’t talk, she writes down loads of stuff. Today iss worse than usual, cos all she asks about is a man with sandy hair. I don’t know where she got that from, cos I never told anyone the dream man has hair that colour. Iss funny. It feels like a trick. I say I don’t know what she means. Then she gets cross an’ brings out photos of my face all mushed up. Iss not the first time I’ve seen those. Rhona said the police took ’em.
‘This is what you looked like when you came here,’ Mrs Laird says. ‘Don’t you want to catch the person who did that?’
I look at the photos. They don’t really look like me. Mrs Laird says some stuff about progress, an’ not being afraid. Then she packs the pictures up an’ lets me go.
I’m sad after the session, an’ I want to go for a walk, but when I go to Rhona’s office she’s busy with a diff’rent girl. I scowl over her shoulder at the girl on the sofa. Iss the curly-haired one who had the party. Her eyes are all pink today. I scowl.
‘Go by yourself, dear,’ Rhona says. ‘Some fresh air will be good for you.’
‘No. You come with me.’
‘I’m with Jess now. We can go for a walk tomorrow.’
‘Not tomorrow. Now.’
Rhona sighs. ‘No can do, hon.’
‘Why can’t I have a cake?’
Rhona looks surprised. ‘What?’
‘I want special cake. Like her. Cake an’ candles.’
‘You mean … for your birthday?’
‘My cake an’ candles.’
Rhona’s face goes straight. She dumps her papers an’ comes right to the door. Looks in my face, very close. Like she’s cross.
‘Kathy, what date is your birthday?’
‘Let’s go outside.’
‘Listen, hon. This is important. Do you know what date your birthday is?’
‘Will I get cake?’
‘Yes, dear. You’ll have all the birthday cake you want. Just tell me when the right day is.’
I look at Rhona. This is too annoyin’. I jus’ wanted to go for a walk. But nothin’s goin’ to happen till I answer. I try to think. When is my birthday? The only birthday I remember is Jess’s.
‘Nine … teenth,’ I say.
‘The nineteenth?! Of what? Which month?’
I look past Rhona, to the calendar on her wall.
‘April,’ I say.
‘So … it was your birthday two weeks ago?’
‘No … uh …’
Rhona looks at her calendar too. She frowns. Looks back at me.
‘We’re into May now, Kathy. I just didn’t turn the page yet.’
‘I said May,’ I say, an’ look away from her eyes.
‘Is your birthday in April or May?’
‘May.’
‘The nineteenth of May?’
‘Yes.’
‘Seriously? Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
My face is all hot now, but I don’t think Rhona sees. She takes me in her office an’ tells Jess to go. But that’s as far as my luck holds. Instead of gettin’ her anorak, Rhona picks up the telephone. She sits at her desk an’ talks an’ talks an’ talks, an’ writes on some paper, an’ talks some more. Iss boring. Sometimes Rhona dials numbers into the telephone. Sometimes it rings an’ she picks it up. I jiggle my feet against the desk, an’ that makes a glass ball thing fall off a stack of paper. I jump as it thuds to the floor.
‘No!’ shrieks Rhona. She drops to the ground an’ comes back up with the ball in her arms. Iss purple, with pretty dark swirls inside it. ‘Please don’t play with this,’ says Rhona. ‘It’s very dear to me.’
‘What is it?’
‘A gift from my mother. It’s called a Caithness globe.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘Nothing. Just … Oh … Kathy, why don’t you go outside?’
‘I want you to come too.’
‘Go on. I’ll catch you up.’
‘Rho-na.’ I scowl. But I don’t want to make her cross, so I nod my head an’ go.
The sea is super bright today, like silver. I stand on a rock by the back porch, lookin’ at it. Iss funny bein’ out here without Rhona. Somethin’ shiny catches the sun an’ winks back at me. I like that. Iss pretty. I walk slowly round the out
houses, an’ while I’m doin’ that some clouds come across. By the time I get back to my rock the sky is dark grey, but the silver light winks on an’ on. Iss comin’ from down the hill, jus’ behind the perimeter fence. Jus’ then, the porch door bangs open an’ Rhona runs out.
‘Get inside, Kathy!’ she shouts. Her face is super mad, so I do like she says. She locks me in an’ stomps downhill with her arms swingin’. I watch till her head drops out of sight.
#
Wednesday.
I’m not allowed outside today, an’ I’m not allowed to sit in the conservat’ry. All the curtains are closed, an’ that makes it feel like night-time. I sit in the dinin’ room, pickin’ at a slice of toast, as angry voices echo down the corridor. The telephone rings a lot.
I’m not hungry, so I creep to the hall an’ stand at the end of the blue corridor. From here I can hear better. I think iss Joyce who’s talkin’.
‘—can’t cottonwool the girl forever, Rhona. If you just do what they want, everything will be fine. They won’t print the picture. The money keeps coming in. Everyone’s happy!’
‘This is not about money!’
‘Ladies! Ladies! Please …’
‘That poor girl’s safety is in our hands, and all you can—’
‘We could never afford to keep her here without those handouts. You of all people should—’
‘I said no!’
‘You’ll be doing her a favour. Besides, she’s not the only patient to consider. It’s like Custer’s Last Stand in here!’
‘Animals!’
‘What if they print pictures of the others? What if the families sue?’
‘Exactly! They’re animals, so why are you so keen to let them in?’
‘Come on, Rhona, they’re not that bad.’
Chingle-ingle-ing chingle-ingle-ing …
‘Don’t you dare pick that up!’
Chingle-ingle-ing …
‘One interview, Rhona. One little interview.’
Chingle-ingle-ing …
‘Over my dead body!’
Chingle-ingle …
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
#
Thursday.