Lies Like Love (20 page)

Mr McGuiness kept on coming back. He wanted to know a lot of things: what I thought about, dreamed about, ate and drank. If I was sleeping, if I was anxious, if I had suicidal thoughts. He asked me what I hated, what I loved.

‘Peter,’ I said straight away; it was the first easy question, ‘my little brother.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Only five. He’ll be six in the summer.’ I looked up and smiled at the psychiatrist. He smiled back, like we were pals, chatting over a coffee. ‘I have a little boy,’ he said, ‘similar age. Great fun.’

‘Pete’s really into wildlife; we built this den, but it collapsed. We’re going to make another though, soon; Leo’s going to help. We’ve been writing it all up in a book, all the things we’ve spotted. We’ve seen a muntjac. Hares. And we’re waiting for a badger. And then there’s the kestrel.’ It seemed so long ago, that perfect day. Impossible it had happened now.

‘I can tell you really care about Peter, Audrey.’

I nodded. He waited.

‘I do. I really do.’ I shut my eyes. Imagined his bright face. The innocence in his big eyes. He’d lost a tooth before Christmas and there was a gap now in his smile.

‘Anything else?’ The doctor waited and I knew I had to dig deeper, present more of my heart on a plate.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell me?’

‘I love my boyfriend, Leo.’

‘Um, hmm?’

‘And …’ There had to be more. I still hadn’t said it. If I left it out, then there’d be questions asked. He’d dig and dig at me until he got the right answer.

‘And?’

‘I suppose I love my mum.’

‘Only “suppose”?’

‘No. I love my mum.’ Saying it was hard, like coughing up a bone; it hurt my throat, scratched at my eyes. It wasn’t a lie, not really.

‘Audrey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why are you crying?’

I shook my head. That was all.

Later Mum dropped in on me. I knew she was around the ward, all day, every day, but she’d found other things to do. Patients to talk to, or their parents, the nurses to laugh with. She brought them cake and coffees from the shop downstairs, she told me. They were a great bunch.

‘So, love.’ She settled herself. ‘I was thinking, how about we do some of your blog?’

‘What?’

‘Yes, it’s the perfect chance. I’ve been keeping it up and running, but, you know, you could take some of the work off me, couldn’t you?’

‘I don’t want to. I don’t know what to put.’

‘Not this again. You are a lazy bugger, Aud. There’s
loads happening. I’ll get a couple of pics and upload them too.’

‘No. Not of me like this. Please.’

‘Oh, don’t be daft. You look great; just lovely, like always. It’s like a little holiday this, isn’t it? You getting waited on hand and foot and fussed over all day long. You’re a lucky old girl.’

She handed me the laptop. Plugged it in. Loaded the page.

I began to read. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d been keeping it up to date. There was a picture of me I hadn’t known she’d taken, lying asleep, my arms on top of the covers, so you could see the bandages nice and clear, masses of text underneath. I didn’t need to read it and pushed the laptop at Mum.

‘Take that picture off.’

‘What? Why? It’s a nice one.’ She scrutinized it again, looking from different angles.

‘I’m asleep. You took it while I was asleep; you didn’t tell me.’

It felt weird, like she’d stolen something. A kidney, a limb. Another piece of my heart.

‘Come on, Aud, get cracking. I’ll leave you to it – back in ten, see how you’re getting on,’ Mum said.

I had to do it. I had to find that other girl, the one I’d imagined – the one who lived in this blog and made Mum happy; the sad, desperate girl who was going mad and was trying to die. How to create her out of the sticks and bones of my heart? How to build her out of the rubbish dump of my life? She felt things that girl, and we didn’t
share the same pain. Her pain was particular. That girl wanted to die. And I didn’t. I wanted to live. I took a deep breath and started to type very slowly with one finger. I stabbed each key and made the lies come alive.

THE PAIN PLACES: ME AND MY DEPRESSION

BY AUDREY MORGAN, AGED SIXTEEN

AND FOUR MONTHS

There’s not much I can do right.

That much we had in common, I thought, pulling a face and stabbing delete as hard as I could. OK. Try this.

Can’t even die properly, can I? Guess I screwed up again, but I shouldn’t be surprised. My whole life’s a screw-up, a nasty sick mess.

That was more like it. It wasn’t me talking now; it was her. Because I had Leo and Peter. I had lots to live for. OK, carry on.

The doctor says I’m very lucky Mum found me when she did. Lucky. That wasn’t the first thought that entered my head when I woke up and found myself stuck in hospital again. No. I was angry, because they wouldn’t even leave me in peace to do what I want with my own life. Now I’ve got to get better, because there’s no point being in hospital, and I need to get out of here. It’s swapping one prison for another. The prison of my mind and the prison of my life and this prison here. Walls and
ceilings and doors hemming me in. They watch me all the time, checking I’m not up to anything, like I’m a criminal.

I paused. Thought about it. Was this right? Was this going to help? No, I needed more.

Well, there’s no point being sorry for myself. The only person I should be sorry for is my mum. She’s the greatest. She’s helped me all these years, looked out for me, and what do I do? I get it wrong every time. I wish I could make her happy. Mental illness is terrible for families, I know that. But Mum’s never complained, even when I’ve been a total nightmare, like now. She’s one in a million, my mum, and when I say I owe her big time, I really mean it. I’m planning something for her, a massive surprise, and one day I’m going to pay her back for everything. Make her see how grateful I truly am. I swear, there’s no other mother alive like mine.

I can’t help thinking though, it’d be better for her, for everyone, if I’d have died.

That was better. Mum would like that. She would love it. I lay back, exhausted from the effort, my wrists aching again. The cuts had been deep, Mr McGuiness said, but I didn’t remember them putting in the stitches and sewing me back together like a broken doll. He asked how I knew where to cut, how I was brave enough to cut so deep. I just shrugged and didn’t mention the Thing who drifted up out of the waters and into my room. How it had known. How it was the Thing’s hands who’d worked upon my own.

His mum answered the call on the first ring; she usually did.

‘Leo, darling, how are you?’

It was good to hear her voice. He smiled and it felt strange.

‘I’m fine, Mum.’

‘So, what’s happening? It’s what, two in the morning UK time – why aren’t you sleeping?’

‘I missed you, couldn’t sleep.’

‘Missed me? Hmmm. Girl trouble?’ Leo lay back against his pillows. His mum was in a good mood, not fretting about his insomnia at least.

‘Sort of.’

‘You always were hopeless. And I mean that in a good way.’

He couldn’t take offence and laughed at her insult, remembering the little Valentine’s cards he’d made as a kid; his mother taking him to post them every year through the letter box of the little girl with bright blonde hair who lived across the square and sometimes sat with him on the see-saw. She’d thought it sweet. She could be sentimental when she chose.

‘I suppose so. Remember Suki?’

‘I do. You were devoted. But seriously, Leo –’ her voice
lost the smile – ‘remember what Graham said. No stress. Hopeful things. Your Audrey isn’t being difficult?’

‘No. She’s not. She’s lovely, Mum. Really.’ Lovely but in hospital. Lovely but in trouble. And he still didn’t know how to help.

‘Yes, Sue says so too. But I hope you have other friends, my darling. And lots of interests. What have you been up to?’

He told her about New Year’s Eve. About the piano. Playing again; how good it had felt.

‘I’ll get a piano sent to you. Sue will love it.’

‘No, no, you don’t have to do that.’ It was too much; she always went too far. Never saved his presents for his birthday, handed over everything the second she bought it; too excited to hide, wanting his smiles.

‘No arguments. You said it made you feel good. Well, that’s all I care about. The only thing that matters is your happiness, you know; that’s all I’ve ever wanted.’ There was no point trying to stop her now. Leo didn’t want to.

‘Thank you. That would be brilliant.’

‘Yes.’ He could hear how pleased she was. ‘Yes, I agree. Now get some sleep. And call again soon.’

‘Love you, Mum,’ he said, and for a while he felt a little better.

The night was another long one. I sat up, watched the clock and listened to the ward. When the nurses passed by and checked on me, I pretended to sleep. Mum was around somewhere, I guessed, and sometimes the breath I felt on my cheek was hers. I knew its bitter ripeness: chewing gum and tobacco. Unwashed teeth.

If I fell asleep, I knew the Thing would come. It was time. It was creeping closer. For a while it had been sated by the blood, pleased with all the attention. Now it craved more. I’d heard the thudding, just faintly, at the back of my brain. But the Thing wasn’t going to get me again. It wouldn’t take much for them to lock me up for good, so I had to watch. Given half a chance, It would pick apart the stitches in my wrists and undo me all over again and then I would be lost. No.

Better to be on my guard.
Keep watch and ward
, I thought, remembering a line of poetry from somewhere. A line from the mouth of a madman. But it was my line now. And I wasn’t mad. Only I knew the truth.

He decided that he would have to send something, get a message through; whatever it took. He remembered Audrey suggesting pigeon post and thought now that she’d been right. They were divided as if by an ocean or a war, but it was only really Lorraine who kept them apart, and he hated how powerful she’d become; he wished he could fight through the waves that churned around Audrey and sail her away.

He didn’t have a pigeon, but he had paper. He sat in his room tearing page after page from the copy of the complete works of Shakespeare his mother had bought him for his eleventh birthday, choosing lovers’ speeches both old and young. He folded fast, made flower after flower. Soon he had a bouquet. He started another.

Later, after Sue had made Peter have another bath and she’d brushed out his thick mop of hair, she sat reading to him before the fire and Leo joined them.

‘What’s that?’ Peter asked, staring at Leo’s hands, which were full of paper flowers, fragile and glowing like stars. They held messages and a heart, a story torn and refashioned. Love’s labour, not yet lost, not yet.

‘It’s flowers for Audrey. They’re perfect, Pete, because they’re paper. They’ll never die. We can drop them at the hospital. Do you think she’ll like them?’

He crouched down and Peter nodded, solemn and frowning as he reached out to touch very gently.

‘I didn’t make her anything,’ he said. ‘Can I make some?’

Sue found an old book of maps, long out of date, and Leo crouched beside Peter and began to tear and to fold. First he showed the little boy how to make a heart.

‘I want to do a bird. A bird to perch on your flowers,’ Peter said. ‘Audrey likes birds.’

Leo frowned. It was tricky. ‘OK.’ He took a breath. ‘Here’s how, then. Look.’ He began to show Peter, his fingers working slowly, very patient.

‘Wait,’ Peter said, and grabbed a pen and the paper from Leo’s hands, opening it out again.

‘First I have to draw us. Me and Aud, I need to put us on the map.’ He began to scratch out two stick figures. One tall with long hair, the other little, almost insignificant, beside it.

‘That’s better,’ he said, smiling, handing the paper back to Leo, and they lay sprawled on the rug making a bird, which Leo hoped one day would fly.

Mum said I shouldn’t get up.

‘Why? I want to.’

Truly I was tired. How lovely it would be to sleep for a hundred years or more. But that was the road to disaster: my body would give up; my brain switch off, my eyes turn dull and glassy. I would be Madison.

‘You’ll tire yourself out. And the doctor will be here soon on his rounds. I want you in bed for that.’

‘I’m bored.’

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, a little shaky on my feet but better than I thought.

‘This isn’t a good idea.’ Mum hovered, I waved her away. I was sixteen, old enough to go for a walk.

‘It’s fine.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘Get off.’ I shrugged her hand off my arm. The Thing hadn’t got me and I had to make sure it stayed that way.

‘I’ll get you a chair.’

‘I don’t need a wheelchair. Leave me alone.’

I walked the length of the ward, pushing myself to stride and stamp. The other kids stared at me. Someone shouted. Mum said I should make friends, but I was used to ignoring their calls and sped up a little. But still it took too long. I wanted to run. To fly. If I had one wish it would be for wings.

When the doctor came I was standing by the bed, Mum trying to lever me back in.

‘She’s worn herself out,’ Mum told him, exasperated.

‘Exercise is a good idea,’ Mr McGuiness told us.

‘The pills make me tired,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want them any more. I don’t want to be on medication. I don’t need it.’

‘The medication is to help you, Audrey.’ I hated that patient tone and hated being spoken to as if I were stupid. I wasn’t going to take it any more.

‘Yes, but – it doesn’t work. It doesn’t stop it –’

‘No buts, Aud. Listen to the doctor.’

‘But, Audrey,’ he continued, as if Mum hadn’t spoken, ‘we’ve decided you’re ready to go home. We’ll continue to see you as an outpatient, of course, but a transfer to the local inpatient unit isn’t going to be in your best interests at present.’

‘You mean they’ve got no beds,’ Mum spat. ‘This is a joke. Audrey’s ill. Seriously ill.’

The doctor listened to Mum for a while longer, nodding, but he didn’t appear to hear her and nor did I. I could only hear his words, on a loop, that in the morning I would be free. My heart began to gallop. This was definitely a chance. I had to get away from her. She’d lied about Leo and I couldn’t forgive that. Mum had to know she wasn’t going to get away with it and that I had my own plans. My brain worked fast: what could I do? Where could I go? The farm; to Peter and Leo and Sue.

The doctor was talking still, about my next appointment, about the medication, about how to contact him or
the team. Mum seethed and I smiled, my legs jiggling and jumping, my pulse thudding in my ears.

I slept well enough and by the afternoon I was finally ready to go. Smiling and waving at the nurses, I let Mum push me out of the ward in a chair. She thought I would sit there like Madison; she thought she could pull a string in my back, make me say the words she’d decided a good girl would utter. She thought she could say Leo was a rapist. She thought lots of things and all of them were wrong.