For a while, I tried telling myself that perhaps this is for the best. Because if I can’t be there for you right now, as you seem to think, then what future can we possibly have? Just more of the same: endless ups and downs which neither of us can do a damn thing to prevent. We’d be better off apart. It stands to reason.
Except, of course, it’s not that easy. I’m reminded of that old cliché – one of your favourites: you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Well, whoever came up with that should have added that you can’t choose who you fall in love with either.
So do you know what I ended up thinking about last night? I was trying to list all the reasons we’d be better off apart, and instead I found myself remembering all the details of our first date. You took me to the Tate Modern and made me grade all the paintings A–E. It was a little terrifying, to be honest, or it was at first – less a getting-to-know-you than a weird cultural initiation test. I remember asking you if we couldn’t just go for a quiet drink instead, and you told me no, for two reasons: 1) Taste in art was much more revealing than taste in alcohol. 2) You were flat broke, so we had to do something free. Shortly after that, we had our first ever argument – over Francis Bacon’s Seated Figure. I graded it C and you went apoplectic and started waxing lyrical about how it was one of only three pieces in the gallery that was beyond reproach and deserved an A++ (along with Souza’s Crucifixion and Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus). But the truth is, I’d pretty much stopped looking at the paintings by then. I only had eyes for you, and I came really close to telling you that a couple of times. But I couldn’t, of course, not on a first date. It would have sounded too much like a line.
Well, it wouldn’t have been a line. So I can tell you now, three years after the fact in a letter you won’t read. You were astonishing that day. The most astonishing thing in the Tate Modern. After just a couple of hours together, I already knew that my life would feel much, much poorer without you in it.
And you have to know that a big part of me still feels that way, three years down the line. It’s just that things have got a whole lot more complicated.
Early on, I used to think we could get through anything. Actually, no. If I’m being honest, what I thought was more naïve than that. I thought that I could get you through anything, that it was just a case of unconditional support, of drying your tears and patiently waiting for things to get better. But back then I had no idea how draining it can be, trying to look after someone who, at best, doesn’t appreciate the effort. God, that sounds harsh, set out in black and white like that, but I don’t think it’s a judgement you’d contradict. I remember you telling me once that depression is a completely selfish condition, one that takes away your ability to engage with anything beyond the fog in your own head. You have nothing to give, no energy or emotion that isn’t turned inwards. So when you’re at your worst, it’s not a case of being there to dry your tears. There aren’t any tears to dry. There’s just this void, this empty shell that can’t be reasoned with or comforted.
Then there’s the mania, which is every bit as intractable, with the added problem that half the time I don’t even know how best to support you. Yes, I’ve got better at spotting the early warning signs, but at what point am I supposed to intervene? You’re feeling brighter, happier, creative, energized – perhaps for the first time in weeks – so why would you want any of that to stop? And why would I? I don’t want to be the person who’s constantly holding you back, smothering that spark that makes you you. But we both know how quickly things can slide. Energy turns to hyperactivity, thrill-seeking, spiralling hedonism, self-destructiveness – at which point it’s far too late to rein you in.
There was a time when I used to be an optimist. I used to think that things were bound to get easier in the future, however distant that future might be. Even when crisis followed crisis, I was always able to convince myself that now, finally, we’d been through the worst. We’d hit rock bottom, but now you were going to get the help you needed, and things would have to improve. I felt that way last year when you burned yourself and had to be hospitalized for forty-eight hours. I felt that way after we’d got through that awful couple of months when you were starting then stopping the lithium. But I don’t feel like that any more. At some point in the past few weeks, I’ve stopped believing that things will get better rather than worse.
So where does that leave us? God, I wish I knew. I’ve been writing for more than an hour now, it’s just gone midnight and I’m still no clearer about anything. There’s just this jumble of contradictions that seems to amount to one giant no-win situation.
I still love you, I still miss you. But I’m no longer sure that’s going to be enough.
19
THE MIRROR PEOPLE
When she wasn’t in therapy or being electrocuted, Melody was almost a permanent feature of the smoking area, as constant and reliable as the twelve-foot security fence. She had an inexhaustible supply of cigarettes thanks to her mother, who brought in a couple of packs most evenings and weekends. Melody would then give them away as freely as condoms in a GUM clinic. This was one of the reasons that Melody was always worth smoking with; but it was not the only reason.
Talking to Melody, it turned out, was far preferable to talking to the sane – mostly because there was none of the usual bullshit to get through: none of the evasion or pretence; no carefully chosen words or timid circling of the point. And there was no need for the inane trivia of everyday life: What do you do? Where do you live? Conversations with Melody didn’t start on the ground floor; they started in the attic, with the stuff your family didn’t even know about, because they’d never asked – and wouldn’t like the answers.
Melody had already been on Amazon for two weeks when I arrived, and this, combined with her endless cigarettes and continual need for chat, meant that she knew pretty much everyone on the ward. She was also a terrible gossip, and before long, I had been indirectly acquainted with the backstories of most of the other inmates.
Amazon’s oldest and longest-serving resident was Mrs Chang, a fifty-nine-year-old Chinese woman who had been on and off psychiatric wards all her adult life. Mrs Chang had been on Amazon so long that she had her own chair in the dayroom – the one opposite the TV – which no one else would use out of respect. For a while, I assumed it was respect, too, that caused Melody to refer to Mrs Chang only by her surname – what with Mrs Chang being so unimaginably old. Or perhaps Melody simply didn’t know Mrs Chang’s first name. Both were reasonable guesses, but neither turned out to be correct. I later discovered that Melody did know Mrs Chang’s first name, but was unable to divulge it; all she could tell me was that it started with an X and was a real mouthful.
Then there was Jocelyn, a six-foot-tall, two-foot-wide black woman in her early thirties who, Melody said, was proper crazy – as if the rest of us were just here for a holiday. Jocelyn had been on Nile for more than a month, and could have been kept there even longer. She’d been transferred not because she was getting any better, but on the grounds that she was completely harmless. Despite her formidable appearance, Jocelyn posed no danger to anyone, least of all herself.
Then there was Paula the paranoid schizophrenic, and Angelina the regular schizophrenic, and obsessive compulsive Claire, and so on and so forth. And I had no doubt that my backstory had likewise done the rounds, since Melody didn’t know the meaning of the word discretion – literally. Within a couple of days, I was probably bipolar Abby, or Abigail Burns, or something similar. But at least it was a level playing field. Thanks to Melody, there were no secrets on the ward, and because every woman in here had attained a comparable level of craziness, there was little stigma in having your psychiatric history served up for general consumption. I never felt judged.