“You can have some if you want.” He gestured at the food. “I’m not hungry.”
“Thank you, Alex,” I said with a smile. “That’s very kind. But I’m allergic to nuts, remember?”
“Nuts?”
I nodded. “These are pine nuts,” I say, glancing at the porridge.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Nuts make you sleep, don’t they?”
I remembered my lie. “Yes,” I said.
“They don’t even look like nuts. They look like bullets.”
There was a depth to his tone that I recognized instantly. Some of the children I have treated have witnessed the violence here in Northern Ireland firsthand. One girl, Shay, was blinded during a riot in Drumcree several years ago. She is being treated for clinical depression. A fifteen-year-old boy from Carrickfergus had been shot at point-blank range in the knee—kneecapped, they call it here—as punishment for his father’s defection from a terrorist organization. The trauma of that event has made him suicidal. Michael insists that Cindy and Alex have not suffered by the conflict in Northern Ireland, but I am uncertain. The Troubles is a term most significant to those at a distance from the violence—to children who have grown up in the thick of it, the Troubles are simply a part of life.
“Have you ever seen a bullet, Alex? Or a gun?”
“You mean in real life?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the floor.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Can you tell me where?”
He shook his head.
“Did a policeman come to arrest your dad?”
He stiffened at the mention of the word policeman, then shook his head again briskly. Then he squeezed his eyes together tightly, his face scrunched up in concentration. Both hands formed fists. I waited for him to relax. A minute passed. I laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder.
“I promise you won’t get into trouble if you tell me what happened.”
He opened his eyes and seemed to look past me. “Ruin wants me to ask you some questions. Is that okay?”
“Why does Ruin want to ask me some questions?” I asked gently.
“I think he just wants to know more about you,” he said, after a moment. “Maybe because he and I are friends … sort of … and he wants to be your friend, too.”
“What sort of questions does Ruin want to ask me?”
“Um … I’m not sure. Grown-up stuff, I think. Ruin’s really weir—” He stopped short of saying weird, flicked his eyes to the right, then clapped his hand over his mouth and laughed.
“If you answer my questions, I’ll answer yours, is that okay?”
“About Ruin?”
“No, Alex. About your father.”
He blinked, then gave a small nod.
“All right, if I’m going to be interviewed, let’s do it properly.” I said it lightly, taking my mobile phone out of my pocket and finding the Voice Record app. “We’ll record it, shall we? Like a proper interview.”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t care, they’re not my questions.” He slid a crumpled piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. I leaned forward and saw what appeared to be a list, scrawled in black marker.
He cleared his throat. “Number one. Was your daughter called Poppy?”
I tilted my head, surprised. I guess I had been expecting questions of the Do you like jazz? variety. Although it is important that the patient–therapist relationship is a close one, I am strict about not sharing personal details. I drummed my fingers on the table next to my phone, watching the RECORD button pulse its red light.
Eventually, I said: “Why do you ask, Alex?”
“Not me! Ruin.”
“Why does Ruin care about my daughter?”
He paused. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay,” I said, gathering my composure. “Next question.”
“Did your daughter die four years ago?”
This time I felt my heart pound, and I felt overwhelmed with confusion. We had reached a critical point in Alex’s treatment. He was at long last revealing clues to Ruin. I counted to ten in my head and breathed slowly in an attempt to check my emotions. I needed to stay focused on the real reason why Alex might be asking such questions. When I opened my eyes I saw that Alex was visibly uncomfortable.
“I’m really sorry,” he said quietly. “It’s just … I promised Ruin I would ask you these questions. I don’t mean to upset you.”
“Can you ask Ruin why he wants to know about Poppy so badly?”
Alex turned and repeated my query to Ruin, who was purportedly standing behind him. After a few seconds’ silence he turned back to me. “Ruin says he really likes you and admires that you can play the piano.”
“I love the piano. Shall we move on to the next question?”
Alex squirmed in his seat and looked down at his list. “Number three. Do you believe in God?”
“The jury’s still out on that one, Alex,” I said, before correcting myself. “Sorry, Ruin.” I decided to play into the charade of Ruin’s presence in the room, noticing the way it instilled a confidence in Alex. His posture was straighter, his eyes held mine.
“That answers number four, then,” Alex told me.
“Which is?”
He didn’t break off his stare. “Do you believe in Satan, the Prince of Hell?”
My heart started clanging in my chest again. For some reason I detected a tone in his voice that suggested a link between this question and the one about Poppy, and it made the very hairs on the back of my arms stand on end. After a long silence I said, weakly: “What’s the next question?”
He consulted the sheet of paper. “If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?”
Poppy, I thought, alive and well, and just then I caught sight of the hospital-issue painting on the wall, a field of red flowers. Poppies. I smile.
“It’s okay,” Alex told me. “Ruin says you’ve already given your answer.”
“Can you tell me why Ruin wants to know these things, Alex?”
Again, he seemed to be seeking guidance from his invisible friend. Finally, he nodded and turned to me.
“I only have one more question,” he said firmly.
I felt a pang of disappointment. He was continuing to evade direct questions. I nodded and thought of ways to retrace our conversation about his father.
“Go on.”
He took a deep breath. “Do you love Michael?”
That surprised a laugh out of me. Alex lowered his eyes to the table, as if he felt ashamed.
“Do I love Michael?” I repeated. Alex nodded, still not looking at me. Why on earth did he want to know this?
“Next question,” I said.
“There isn’t another …”
“Next question,” I said, with an insistence that surprised us both. Alex’s lip began to tremble. He looked fearfully to his right, then turned to me again.
“It’s okay,” he said, softly. “Ruin says he already knows the answer.”
I watched him fold away the piece of paper. “Can we talk some more about your dad?” I asked him, keeping my voice even to appear more at ease. “What did he look like? What can you remember about him?”
He nodded.
“Was he kind to you?”
He thought about it. “Yes, I think so. He died when I was very little, you see, so I only remember a few things about when he was alive.”
“What do you remember? Can you tell me?”
“About when he was alive?”
“Yes.”
“I remember he liked buying me toy cars. And we’d go swimming sometimes and he always brought bags full of food when he came to stay.”
“So he came to stay with you and your mum? Did you ever stay at his house?”
He shook his head. “Dad lived in lots of different places. I think he lived in America for a while. And Dublin and Donegal. One time he said he was living in a barn.”
“A barn?”
“He said it was really smelly and uncom
fortable.”
“I bet it was. Do you know why he was staying in a barn?”
He seemed lost in the memory now, his legs—usually swinging above the floor of his chair—still, his gaze distant. “He’d bring bags of food when he came sometimes and he’d spend all day in the kitchen cooking weird food that Mum didn’t really like but she ate it anyway ’cos she was hungry.”
“What sort of food?”
“I don’t remember. It smelled weird and sometimes it made my eyes water.” A pause. “He had tattoos on his arms.”
“Tattoos?”
“Yeah. There was an Irish flag here”—he clapped a hand around his left bicep—“and words here.” He touched his right forearm.
“What were the words?”
“Not words. Letters. They stood for something. I don’t know what.”
I held my breath, anxious not to push him too far. “And when your dad died, Alex—how did that feel?”
He stared ahead. “Lonely. Until Mum bought me Woof and then it was okay. She cried and cried.”
“Your mother cried when your dad died?”
“Yes, but she was angry, too. And really scared. She tried to throw our piano out but Ruin said we musn’t.”
“Where is Ruin now, Alex?”
He looked around. “He was here a minute ago. Don’t know where he’s gone.”
“Did Ruin hurt you last night, Alex? Or did he tell you to hurt yourself?”
A sudden terror flickered in his eyes. “The policeman …,” he said. And then he started to cry and I wrapped my arms around him, but he would say no more.
I left the hospital with instructions for the nurses to contact me as soon as Alex was able to be discharged. In the meantime, I contacted Cindy’s therapist to find out whether she had given her permission for her son to be treated as an inpatient.
“No, she hasn’t.” Trudy sighed on the end of the line. “But I’ve diagnosed her as unfit to act in the capacity of Alex’s mother. His aunt has agreed to make this decision.”
There was a stretch of silence as both of us reflected on this sorry state of affairs. If Cindy had refused to grant permission for Alex to be institutionalized, the news of her own sister going against her wishes would certainly be hard to take. I had failed to persuade Cindy that treatment at MacNeice House would be in Alex’s best interests—no doubt she perceived the move as another step toward breaking up her family. Still, I remained determined to treat Alex accordingly. It was, quite literally, his only hope.
The severity of Alex’s hallucinations and the length of time they had been active indicated that his condition was deteriorating. Poppy was the same. If his condition was left untreated, there was every chance that soon Alex would pose the same level of danger to himself or others as Poppy did. I can’t let that happen to another child, another mother. In consultation with Iris and Michael and with Beverly’s permission, I prescribed a small daily dose of risperidone, a medication used to treat schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and the mixed and manic states associated with bipolar disorder. The effects would be monitored over several weeks, and I would continue to evaluate Alex daily.
I returned to my office to write up my notes and compile a group email to Michael, Howard, and Ursula.
To: U_Hepworth@macneicehouse.gov.uk; H_Dungar@macneicehouse.gov.uk; Michael_Jones@lea.govnhs.uk
CC: Trudy_Messenger@nicamhs.gov.uk
From: A_Molokova@macneicehouse.nhs.uk
Date: 05/16/07 5:03 PM
Dear all,
I am writing to inform you that I have arranged for Alex to be transferred to MacNeice House, where he will stay as an inpatient for approximately two months. I am treating him for early-onset schizophrenia. I am happy to brief you further on my interviews with him and the program of treatment, which I am currently compiling. Our next meeting is on May 30 at 2:30 PM—I look forward to seeing you then.
Best,
Anya
I had barely hit the SEND button when an email pinged back.
To: A_Molokov@macneicehouse.nhs.uk
From: Michael_Jones@lea.govnhs.uk
Date: 05/16/07 5:03 PM
You do realize this will mean Alex is placed in foster care? Sent from my BlackBerry
I stared at Michael’s email, re-reading it, feeling my heart pound. I felt his hand on my face.
And suddenly I questioned everything.
The ghost I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
19
ESCAPE
ALEX
Dear Diary,
There’s two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and says, “do you know how to drive this?”
I guess I don’t need to write jokes anymore as I won’t be playing Horatio again because I’m in hospital and the doctors say there’s absolutely no way I can get out to perform in the shows for the rest of the week. Though Auntie Bev told me something this morning that made me feel a little bit better. She showed up wearing a blue headband and a thin blue T-shirt with a Superman logo on the front, which I thought was weird for a girl to wear. Her face was pink and sweaty and she was drinking from a lime-green water bottle.
“Have you been wall climbing?” I asked. She gave me a look that said she felt guilty.
“Sorry, Alex,” she said, and she sat so close to me I could smell sweat. “I know you’d love to go. I’ll take you once you get out.” She looked at the clock. “Do you want to come and have lunch with me?”
“They’re letting me go?” I said excitedly.
“I’m afraid not,” she said, getting up to look for my shoes under the bed. “But we can go to the cafeteria just down the corridor. Would you like that?”
I said I would and stood up. I still felt wobbly on my feet but she grabbed my elbow and helped me put my shoes on.
“I met the casting director before the show started,” Auntie Bev said as we walked slowly to the canteen. “Roz,” she said. “That’s her name. Turns out Roz has very bad sinusitis.” I looked up and saw Auntie Bev make a face like she had something really cool to tell me.
“What’s sinusitis?”
“It’s this horrible yucky illness that makes you feel like you’ve been punched in the face for about a week.”
“You punched Roz in the face?”
Auntie Bev made that hooting sound that meant she was laughing.
“No,” she said, pushing a square silver button that made the doors open into the cafeteria. “It means that she has an illness that falls into my area of expertise.”
We stood in the doorway, looking over the empty tables and chairs. I was glad it was really empty and the food on the shelves of the open fridge looked a lot nicer than the food the nurses brought me on a tray. Auntie Bev took my arm and walked me to a table in a corner beneath a big clock with a picture of an ice cream on it.
“I told Roz all about you, you know,” she told me. “I said you’re a star in the making. That Quentin Tara-whatever-his-name-is would be glad to have you.” She sat down in the steel chair across from me and clicked her tongue. “And that I’d send her a sinus irrigator free of charge.”
She winked. I didn’t really get it but the way she was smiling made my heart beat really fast. I felt like I could breathe deeper than I ever had before. She flipped open the plastic menu.
“What do you feel like, Alex? Baked potato with beans and cheese? What about a nice omelet? You can get it with bacon and peppers.”
I shook my head. “Onions on toast, please.”
Auntie Bev lowered the menu and stared at me as if she felt sick. “Really, Alex?”
I nodded and she looked sad.
; “I know you and your mum don’t have much money, but while I’m here let me spoil you. I love you, honey. Honest, I’ll get you anything you want on this menu.”
“Onions on toast,” I said, nodding. “It’s the best thing ever.” And just then my stomach gave a huge growl.
Auntie Bev’s smile came back. “Well, maybe I’m missing out, then,” she said. “I’ll have that, too.”
She got up then to tell the lady behind the counter what we wanted and I felt glad that Auntie Bev was going to eat the same as me. When she sat back down she smiled and said, “good thing I keep breath mints in my bag.”
When she left I felt good for a while but then I started to feel bad. I think I’ve upset Anya and I don’t really know how or why. I tried to explain to her that the questions were Ruen’s but I was stupid to expect that she would believe me when no one believes me at all. I don’t even know why I ever told anyone about him in the first place. I don’t know why Ruen told me that I hurt myself when I didn’t. When all the doctors and nurses talk to me now they speak to me like I’m either really stupid or like I’m carrying a knife or something. When I ask about Mum they don’t look at my eyes and say things like, “oh, don’t you worry about your mother,” and “Now, Alex, just be patient while your mum pulls herself together. Why don’t you get some sleep?” I just want to get out of here and check that she’s okay.
I’m not going back to my old school for a while and when I leave the hospital I am going to a new school at a place called MacNeice House, just for a while, and then Mum and I will move into our amazing new house. I’ve been given homework until then but I feel like someone’s attached a vacuum cleaner to my skin and sucked out all the energy. When I sit up it feels like the whole room wobbles and my head feels like an enormous cannonball so that I have to keep putting my hands around my cheeks to hold it in place.
When the nurse brings me lunch she asks me what I’m doing.
I look up and say, “my head is going to fall off.”
I thought she was going to laugh but instead she runs out of the room leaving my food tray too far away for me to reach and I hear her shoes clacking all the way down the hall. When I look down, my bed is covered in vomit and my nails have blood under them from where I was scratching my neck. I don’t remember being sick or scratching myself.
Boy Who Could See Demons Page 18