I burst into tears again, huge weeping peals of tears. I cried for where I was, I cried for my hands, I cried for Guy, I cried for the life I’d never have, the worries I’d always have, I cried because it was all so horribly unfair.
I cried because, as always, Sarah was right.
I thought about my logic the day of the accident, the day in Guy’s room. “I…I…” I stumbled through sobs on my words. “I really thought if someone loved me, then maybe it would be okay…”
Sarah rearranged her skirt. “There’s two things to say about that,” she said. “One…about teenage boys, I bloody told you so.” Mum had obviously filled her in on what happened with Guy. I’d broken down and told her at the first hospital, after the doctors had picked the gravel out of my warped hands. “And the second thing to say is, people do love you, Evelyn. Maybe not randy seventeen-year-old lead singers – but your family do. And…well, your little sister tells me you’ve got two friends who won’t stop bugging her with calls. That’s love.”
I caught a stray tear. “They won’t love me once they realize who I really am.”
She picked up her file, making to leave. “I’m sure they will. But you’ve got to love you first, that’s the most important part. Anyway” – she tucked her file under her arms – “visiting hours are up, I’ll leave you in the very capable care here. You know you can call me anytime?”
“I know.”
“Well, bye then.”
“Bye.” She turned to leave me in my lonely little room.
“Sarah, wait!” I got off the bed and caught up with her in the doorway. “Do you…do you think you could arrange for me to have non-family visitors come here?”
She gave me a huge, proper, no-protective-barrier-up grin.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Forty-seven
It started with a house party.
I don’t know if you can call a get-together in a private room on an adolescent psychiatric ward a “house party”. But there were definitely biscuits – and at least one attendee was on mind-altering drugs – just of the medical, safe, anti-depressant variety.
I was so nervous that morning I shook all the way through my psychiatrist’s assessment. He peered over at me, from the depths of his red bulging file.
“You’ve been doing very well in here, Evelyn. We’re happy with your progress and I think it’s time to start discussing a schedule for your discharge.”
“Oh, that’s great,” I said, barely taking in what he’d said.
BAD THOUGHT
They won’t come.
BAD THOUGHT
They’ll never see you in the same way after today.
Good thought
But they’ll know who you are…and if they don’t like it, why would you want to be friends with them anyway?
“Are you all right, Evelyn?” the psychiatrist asked. “You seem very nervous. This is good news!”
I looked back at him distractedly. “Oh, yes, I’m fine. I’m…er…just, having some important visitors today.”
He gave a small smile. “I’ve heard. Good luck, Evelyn.”
He sounded like I was about to go on a mission to the moon or something. Maybe I was really.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes until they were here.
BAD THOUGHT
Your room is too gross, you should tidy it.
Good thought
No, Evie, you’ve worked hard to make it this scruffy.
BAD THOUGHT
They’re not going to believe you have OCD if you leave that banana skin in the bin.
Good thought
You can’t control what they think, so why bother worrying?
I left the banana skin where it was – though it did start to smell and made me very nervous. I paced the length of my room, muttering, hands shaking, stomach somersaulting.
This is it.
No going back.
You might lose them.
They might not handle it properly.
They might not come.
What’s going to happen?
Back and forth, back and forth. Sweat dripped down my forehead. I sat on the bed. I stood up again. I sat down again.
Lottie and Amber arrived with a nurse at the door.
“Miss Crane? Your friends are here.”
I gave myself a moment, before I looked up at their faces. It was like GCSE results day and you’re holding the envelope in your hand. The tests are over, there’s nothing else you can do, the results are in there, unchangeable, and yet you wait a while with the envelope – savouring that moment of not-knowing, before you rip apart the glue and see what the future has in store.
I raised my head.
They both held a giant handmade poster, with the words “Get Well Soon, Evelyn” painted on it in massive letters. Amber had used her amazing artistic talent to create a collage of famous female icons around the lettering. There was Marilyn Monroe, Thelma and Louise, Queen Elizabeth I, Emmeline Pankhurst, Germaine Greer, Eleanor Roosevelt, JK Rowling, Sofia Coppola and dozens more – cut out carefully and stuck around the poster, all of them wishing me well.
Lottie and Amber’s hands shook at the top of it. They looked so scared and sad – but also like they were trying their best to brazen it out. For my sake.
A lump rose in my throat and I coughed to get rid of it. I smiled at them, so wide my face hurt.
“Ladies,” I said, with a confident voice that didn’t really belong to the situation. “Welcome to the official Spinster Club meeting number four. Come…” I beckoned to the two beanbags I’d borrowed from the common area. “Take a seat.”
They handed me my poster and I couldn’t look at it or I’d cry uncontrollably. I hugged them both and put the beautiful piece of paper down.
“I’ve got biscuits,” I said, passing out a plate of pink party rings Mum and Dad had brought in. They looked at each other first, raised an eyebrow and then took two each. “Great, now, today’s topic for discussion is…” I coughed again. “Women and mental health: Is the patriarchy literally driving us mad?”
Lottie and Amber exchanged another look, turned to me, and then burst out laughing.
“What a fitting location you’ve picked,” Lottie said, “for such a discussion.”
I knew then that everything was going to be just fine.
“Shh,” I said. “I’ve prepared a talk.”
What I learned about Sarah
Sarah helped me research all the information for the meeting. She’d brought in her iPad and we’d poured through health reports and historical records, compiling what I needed. She’d known exactly where to look. After a long afternoon reading Victorian hospital records, I asked her why. She gave me a cheeky smile. “I actually did my dissertation on this at university.”
“On what?”
“On women, specifically. And how much society is to blame for their ‘madness’.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Sarah, are you…?”
She grinned. “A massive feminist? But of course! If it wasn’t breaking our patient confidentiality, I’d have a good mind to set up my own Spinster Club. Such a great idea, Evelyn. Like a book club, but for women’s rights. The antidote to the WI. It could go places.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“I give you my permission. To set up a Spinster Club, I mean.”