Whistle in the Dark

by Emma Healey

  Significant other

  Jen had been happy to find out that the donor father of her unborn grandchild was Tom. They’d known him since Meg was at primary school, a funny, diffident boy, not unattractive but strangely unable to keep hold of girlfriends. He was a lanky sort, with loose, rangy joints, and Jen associated this looseness with his lack of grip on relationships.

  He was too stubborn, Meg told them when they asked why yet another girl had fallen by the wayside. He insisted on his routine, his hobbies, his obsessions. A good friend; a terrible boyfriend. Jen and Hugh had thought (a long time ago) that Meg and he were an item, before she came out. And then Jen had wondered if he was in love with Meg. It was still possible.

  He seemed to be very enthusiastic about the baby (from what Meg told them) and was eagerly learning everything he could about pregnancy and giving birth and child-rearing. Jen suspected that the actual baby would throw him, though, and that he would likely always be rather shy around his own child. She suspected that would suit Meg quite well.

  ‘Bit of a nonentity,’ Hugh would say when Tom came up in conversation.

  ‘He’s an introvert,’ Meg always said when Jen asked why she never saw him any more.

  ‘Oh, sweet boy,’ Lily tended to say, with a fold of her hands.

  ‘Who the hell’s Tom?’ Lana asked, irritated again.

  Fanfare

  An irritated Lana was a familiar Lana; a mysteriously tearful Lana was a familiar Lana; a suddenly cheerful Lana, an unexpectedly kind Lana, an offence-taking Lana, a sullen and silent Lana, Jen recognized them all. The Lana she couldn’t get used to was the rage-filled one.

  ‘Fuck off!’ Lana shouted from her bed on Monday morning.

  They had been home for two and a half weeks and today was the day she was supposed to start back at school. But when Jen went into her room, she was greeted by the smell of TCP and the sight of thin, blood-dotted lines etched across sallow forearms.

  ‘Fuckoff fuckoff fuckoff fuckoff.’

  It was like a sort of announcement noise, Jen thought, a trumpeting, as if her exit from her daughter’s room required a fanfare. This was what she thought on one level, anyway, the level that stayed upbeat, the level that kept positive and found the good in every situation, or, if it wasn’t able to do that, then forgave and knew it was important just to have tried. But underneath were the levels that didn’t keep all that textbook advice in mind, that couldn’t remember or couldn’t stomach it, or couldn’t find space amid the despair.

  She went very carefully and quietly into her own room and collected up the mugs and glasses that she and Hugh had taken to bed, and took them very carefully and quietly down to the kitchen and, balancing them against her body, very carefully and quietly opened the dishwasher. It was full. Jen looked about for somewhere to put the things, but all the counters were strewn with debris: empty cereal packets and string bags of shrivelling satsumas, discarded envelopes and dusty vases, Oyster-card holders and broken attachments for blenders and sandwich toasters and salad spinners.

  She’d had enough, she decided; she’d reached her limit. Her arms dropped, her fingers uncurled, the mugs and glasses made a horrifyingly loud noise as they crashed to the floor. The volume, and the piercing, jagged quality of the sound, were so shocking that she couldn’t relate it to the deliberate collapsing action her own arms had performed, couldn’t attribute it to the sudden, frustrated decision to destroy something.

  ‘What was that?’ Lana called as she got to the bottom of the stairs. ‘What happened?’

  Jen, embarrassed, grabbed a tray from its hook and stood holding it up like a shield. ‘I tripped,’ she said, ‘and everything slid. From the tray.’

  Lana lingered at the kitchen door, untying and retying the bandana around her head. ‘What did you trip on?’ She frowned for perhaps less than a second, but it was an assessing frown, a frown that took everything in and wondered aloud, a sceptical, calculating frown. It said: I know this is about me, but I’m not going to acknowledge it and I’m not going to stop being angry with you.

  ‘Tripped over my own feet,’ Jen said, in that breezy voice she had been trying to perfect for over a year. ‘Silly me.’

  Lana took a step forward, her mouth open, unguarded, as she stared at the wreckage.

  ‘Be careful,’ Jen said. ‘There’s a lot of glass and you’ve only got socks on.’

  Lana’s mouth tightened. ‘That’s Dad’s favourite mug.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jen looked where Lana was pointing.

  ‘You broke his favourite mug.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.’ Jen searched through the jumble of fragments, trying to recognize any parts which might have once formed a beloved drinking vessel of Hugh’s, but although the patterns and colours were familiar there was nothing that stood out, nothing that was linked to Hugh in her memory. She was fairly certain he didn’t notice what mug he drank from, let alone had invented a hierarchy, but he’d gone to work early so she couldn’t ask him.

  ‘Okay,’ Lana said. ‘I’m going back upstairs.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jen said.

  She wanted to say more, to call after her: I didn’t do this to attract your attention, you know. I didn’t expect this would make you care about me or feel sorry. I didn’t think about the fact that you’d be able to hear me from your barricaded room. I forgot you. But instead she carefully and quietly picked her way through the shards of glass and porcelain and got the dustpan and brush and gathered up the smooth pieces and the gritty splinters and poured them, chinking and rustling, into the bin.

  Hazardous waste

  Upstairs, Lana’s bin was filled with blood-soaked cotton-wool pads and, when Jen emptied it several days later, she was reminded of the ruined white fleece jacket that Lana had been wearing when she was found.

  And something else had been found. The police called to tell Jen this while she was shining a torch over the kitchen floor to check for any stray glass shards. Whatever the new evidence was, it apparently warranted another interview, and could a PC pop round to the house to follow up?

  Stigmata

  ‘And how do you feel about the police coming back to talk to you?’ Dr Greenbaum said the next day, during their first therapy session since returning from the Peak District. ‘Are you worried at all?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lana said. ‘But it’s annoying. I don’t want to keep going over it.’

  ‘Ah, and here I am asking you to do just that.’

  ‘That’s okay. At least you ask more interesting questions.’

  ‘I do?’ Dr Greenbaum looked amused. ‘That’s encouraging to hear. In that case, tell me a little about the holiday, tell me how you felt on holiday.’

  Lana told him, repeating again everything she’d said to the police, talking about the tutor and Stephen and Matthew. Jen could hardly concentrate. There were new cushions on the low armchairs, satin-covered cushions, overstuffed and slippery against the faux-leather seat backs. She and Lana, and even the doctor, had slid into a semi-reclined position, as if they couldn’t be bothered to sit up for this story, as if they’d all heard it too many times.

  ‘And can you describe anything you painted?’ Dr Greenbaum asked, his voice slightly strained by the position of his neck.

  ‘I can show you, if you like,’ Lana said, getting her phone out of her bag. ‘I took photos of the good ones.’

  ‘You have those? I thought you’d lost your old phone,’ Jen said.

  ‘Er, ever heard of the iCloud, Mum? There aren’t rolls of film inside, either. Don’t know if you noticed.’ She passed the doctor her new phone, tentative, as if he might tell her at the last minute that he wasn’t interested.

  ‘Very good, Lana,’ he said, ignoring the pointed exchange between mother and daughter and flicking through the images. ‘Very Romantic. This is the tradition of the sublime, I suppose. Imposing landscape, beauty as terror.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose. Actually, some of them are Mum’s.’
<
br />   ‘Mum’s? Very good, Mum.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jen said, sliding further on to her back with the effort of speech.

  ‘I think we should put them up at home,’ Lana said. ‘Like, have them framed.’

  ‘You want to be reminded of those places?’

  ‘I just think they’re good pictures.’

  ‘Well, perhaps Mum can be persuaded to display them, then.’ He looked at Jen.

  ‘Oh, they’re not that good,’ she said. ‘But we could get some framed if Lana wants.’

  ‘Great. And what’s this?’ He stopped on an image. ‘A nun?’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Lana reached for the phone and locked the screen. ‘It was just a painting I thought was interesting.’

  ‘Why? This is a picture of stigmata, correct? The wounds of Christ appearing on a nun, appearing supernaturally. You relate to this image in some way?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s, like, something I understand, or maybe it makes me feel understood. I don’t know.’

  ‘What about it do you understand?’

  ‘Like, the pain, I guess. Or the cuts. I mean, because of, you know, cutting.’

  ‘You relate stigmata to deliberate self-harm?’

  ‘No. Sort of. I mean, there is a kind of a connection, isn’t there?’

  ‘Perhaps there is. Suffering, and suffering deliberately, is a big part of Christianity, is it not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not really a Christian.’

  ‘Ah, well, neither am I, so we’re like the blind leading the blind. A phrase from the Bible, incidentally. Though I think it has its origins in an older Hindu text.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘But wearing hair shirts, practising self-flagellation, fasting, submitting to torture, these are all things demonstrated by the saints, I know. And it’s interesting to think how these practices are reflected in life today. Self-harm, anorexia, engaging in risky behaviours with sexual partners. It’s interesting to me, anyway.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Where did you find the image?’

  ‘Google.’

  ‘You searched for it?’

  ‘Not really, I just found it.’

  He nodded and rubbed a hand over his jaw. ‘What I’m trying to get at, Lana, is: does this raise up the practice of self-harm for you? Does it make you think it is a noble thing? A sacred thing?’

  Lana had her hands flat on the seat, and she straightened her elbows, making her body stiff. She seemed to be thinking. ‘No,’ she said, finally.

  ‘It’s just a way of finding context?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, this is really old, this painting, but she’s probably my age, right? Whoever she was. She even kind of looks like me.’

  ‘Are you suggesting, then, that the cuts you make are spiritual or divine?’ He’d raised his eyebrows, as if prepared to be amazed.

  Jen sometimes got the impression that Dr Greenbaum was laughing at his patients, being sarcastic. Hugh thought so, too, and tried never to say anything during the sessions. He couldn’t make every appointment and, on those days, Jen missed being able to analyse the doctor’s comments with him afterwards. She wondered now if Dr Greenbaum had ordered the slippery cushions especially. Was it amusing to watch his clients attempting to stay sitting up? Or did their attempts tell him something about their personality, their mental state?

  ‘No,’ Lana said. ‘Obviously, I don’t think God cut me.’

  ‘Then are you saying that this nun in the picture made those marks on her hands and feet herself?’

  Lana smiled. ‘That’s blasphemy.’

  He smiled back. ‘You believe in blasphemy?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Has someone suggested this connection to you, Lana?’

  There was a pause. Jen caught Lana’s glance.

  ‘You mentioned a man on your holiday who talked to you about religion,’ Dr Greenbaum said. ‘Did he talk about stigmata?’

  ‘His name’s Stephen,’ Jen said, unable to stop herself, but feeling that another word might force her on to the floor, she said nothing else and braced herself against the chair, heaving her body up a little.

  Dr Greenbaum nodded but didn’t look at Jen, and Lana ignored her; trained to listen only, speak only, to the psychiatrist. ‘I don’t really remember,’ she said. ‘He might have.’

  ‘Have you felt more inclined to harm yourself because of this picture, or the connection you feel to this picture?’

  ‘No. Less, if anything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it seems sad, or it seems stupid. Like, I don’t want to be some delusional religious fanatic. They’re crazy, they’re creepy.’

  ‘Okay. In that case, Lana, I ask if there might not be a better image for you, a safer, more helpful image. Is there, perhaps, a better analogy for how you feel, something that doesn’t reference nuns or “creepy” religious fanatics?’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘I think that’s something you could work on between now and our next appointment. Find an image and describe how it relates to you; write something down, if you can. And bring the image with you. And Lana, something without blood, if possible, please. If just to shield me. I’m rather squeamish, you know.’

  ‘Okay.’ She laughed. ‘I promise I’ll find an image that’s blood-free.’

  ‘Then that seems a positive action to focus on. What do you think, Mum?’ He paused for a moment then slid himself up in one movement, pulled his satin cushion out from behind him and threw it to the floor. ‘I hate these,’ he said. ‘What a terrible choice of fabric. My promise to you, Lana and Mum, is that these cushions will be gone by our next session.’

  Don’t think

  The hours after a family therapy session were often fraught. Lana always seemed to regret having said anything in front of her mother, and she’d lose her temper at the smallest hint that Jen was remembering any exchange between her and Dr Greenbaum. And so there were thoughts Jen tried not to think when Lana was near, in case her daughter saw the questions on her face.

  She had, of course, looked for images of stigmata when they’d got home and had been horrified by the photographs of mutilated hands, of people crying blood or wrapped in gory bandages. The only comfort was the fact that Lana’s picture, as she’d described it, was an old painting. And those images, when Jen searched them, were calmer, cleaner. She was grateful, too, for the irreverence of the internet, for the photographers who’d dressed up their dogs to re-create religious paintings, for the bakers who’d made hand-shaped, raspberry-jam-filled ‘stigmata cookies’.

  The thoughts she tried not to think the next morning included: How did this happen? Where have you been? When can I stop worrying? Why won’t you talk? Why must you hurt yourself? And now there were more questions, new questions: Where did the stigmata idea come from? Who put it in your head? Did Stephen influence you? Do you think you need to be punished for some kind of sin? She kept her face blank but knew that Lana knew the questions existed.

  She was about to leave for work, late but not disastrously late, when Lana appeared in the hall, baring her teeth but not quite smiling. That cracked canine showed at the corner of her lips and Jen felt it was watching her. She had the notion suddenly that it was someone else’s eye, another being inside Lana using the tooth to look out at the world. For a minute it all made sense. That was why she kept her mouth firmly shut, that was why she hardly ever spoke or smiled, because she didn’t want the tooth-eye to see out, to see who was there.

  And then, of course, it stopped making sense and Jen shivered at her own mad thought.

  ‘I did that thing that Dr Greenbaum said to do,’ Lana said. ‘I found a picture and I wrote about it.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  Lana nodded and showed Jen her phone. A photograph from a museum lit the screen: a glass case full of songbirds, all posed at different angles, as if they were landing or taking off from a painted tree.

  ‘And I wrote about how it
relates to me.’

  She handed Jen a piece of blue-lined paper, covered in biroed words which had been written with such pressure that they’d left raised patterns on the other side of the page, like a form of Braille.

  Flutter

  My body feels like it’s made up of a thousand tiny birds flapping their wings inside my skin: a blue tit at my elbow, a sparrow along my thigh, a pigeon jabbing me in the belly button. I can hardly walk, I can hardly hold myself up, without the exhausting tickling of their feathers. The ticklishness is what makes me scratch at myself, with fingernails and pens and scalpels.

  Sometimes, when I see a bird in the garden or a park, I expect it to fly right into me, so I’d rather not go outside.

  Sometimes, I don’t dare move my head, or speak out loud, in case I cause a whirlwind of wings and claws inside me.

  Sometimes, questions flutter from their beaks: What is the point, they say, how long will this go on? Can you stand it for many more years, or months, or days? Where can you escape to? When will it all end?

  Sometimes, I think of ways to get rid of the birds, to poison them, to fall from a great height and feel them rush out of me.

  Sometimes, I wish someone would crush them out of me.

  Stutter

  Jen called in sick after that, not wanting to leave Lana at home alone with her birds. They watched daytime TV and ate some of the shrivelled satsumas and didn’t talk, because Lana felt she had said enough (though Jen asked where the picture had come from, and if this was why she’d spent so much time lying on the garden lawn, and if anyone had attempted to crush the birds out of her, and whether it was Matthew and his birdwatching that had influenced the note).

  As usual, the questions went unanswered, but Lana’s skin made it through the day without any more marks, and nothing in the vein of stigmata, which was all Jen could hope for. And because they were both at home drinking tea from the undropped, unbroken mugs, the milk ran out.