It was the next day that it happened. Not in therapy; outside in the smoking area. With Melody.
I was on my own at first. Paula the paranoid schizophrenic came out for a bit, but we didn’t talk, and she sloped off as soon as she’d finished her cigarette. I think most of the other crazies were in the dayroom or exercise class. Except Melody. She was with her mother, who had a half-day off work.
I’d come out here intending to write something else for Dr Hadley, or at least to see if I could. But I never got that far. I was rummaging for a pen in my handbag, when my hand brushed instead a folded envelope. When I took it out, I discovered it was the last article I’d written – ‘Which Blue is Right for You?’ – frenetically scrawled on eight sheets of embossed Dorchester notepaper.
I spent the next ten, maybe even fifteen minutes reading through it. I took my time, and read it twice. After that, I couldn’t do anything much but sit and smoke. It wasn’t that the writing was bad; it was the opposite. And yes, it was just a throwaway fashion piece that I’d planned to hock to Cosmopolitan – but that wasn’t the point either. The prose still glittered. It was warm and witty and engaging. It was the sort of thing I could trim, type up and sell tomorrow – had I felt even the smallest desire to do so. Which I didn’t, of course. Instead, I had that desolate beach feeling again, or a weaker echo of it. I didn’t feel bereft, exactly – just dull and wistful.
I didn’t notice Melody approaching. The first moment I was conscious of her was when she plonked herself in the seat opposite. She flicked a cigarette across the table before lighting one for herself.
‘What you reading?’
‘It’s something I wrote when I was manic. The day before I came here.’
‘Can I see?’
I didn’t see any reason to refuse. Melody read through the small stack of paper while I smoked in silence.
‘You wrote this when you were nuts?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s good.’
I shrugged. ‘A paradox.’ Then, because I was fairly sure Melody didn’t know this word, I added, ‘I write well when I’m manic. Always have. I wrote that naked in the Dorchester.’
‘Why?’
‘It was a hot day. I’d just got out the bath—’
Melody cut me off with a giggle. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. Why did you write it? What’s it for?’
‘Oh. It’s my job – was my job.’
‘You’re a writer?’
‘Yes. Freelance.’ I gestured across at the article. ‘I was planning to sell that to Cosmopolitan.’
‘Cool. How much would you get for it?’
I shrugged. ‘Not a huge amount. Maybe two hundred pounds.’
‘Holy shit!’ Melody’s jaw had dropped, which I’d always assumed was just a figure of speech.
‘It’s not a lot,’ I assured her. ‘Not when you convert it into an annual salary. I’m lucky if I sell a couple of features a week. Some weeks, I don’t sell any.’
‘Yeah, but when you do it’s like hitting the jackpot, isn’t it? It must be good being so brainy.’
As with everything Melody said, there was no hidden agenda here, no spite or sarcasm. She meant it as a genuine compliment, which left me feeling strangely embarrassed. It occurred to me, then, that this was the first time Melody and I had had a relatively normal conversation about the outside world. We’d clocked up several hours talking about lithium and ECT and self-harm and the other service users, but we’d never got round to discussing the basics. I didn’t even know her surname.
‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘What do you do?’
‘For work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Trainee nail technician. The pay’s shit, but I like the job. I get to talk to a lot of different people.’ Melody held out her left hand so I could inspect her fingernails. They were neat and well filed, but extremely short. ‘I chewed the fuck out of them on Nile,’ she explained. ‘But they used to be beautiful, trust me. You ever get your nails done?’
‘Yes, sometimes. I got them done a few weeks ago. My dad was taking me to dinner.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Not really. It was with his new girlfriend. She’s only a few years older than I am.’
Melody nodded sympathetically. ‘My dad left me and my mum, too, when I was twelve. I didn’t see him very often after that. A few times a year. He’s dead now.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
Melody shrugged, and for once her face was unreadable. She handed me back my Cosmopolitan article, then took two more cigarettes from the pack on the table. It was at this point that she started to tell me about the mirror people. I thought at first that she was trying to change the subject, because it was obvious that neither of us wanted to talk about our fathers, but I suppose, in hindsight, there was a connection of sorts.
‘Jocelyn’s got this theory,’ she began. ‘It’s really fucking crazy.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Do you know what parallel worlds are? They’re in Doctor Who sometimes.’
‘Doctor Who?’
‘Yeah. Jocelyn’s a big Doctor Who fan.’
‘I’ve never seen it,’ I told her. ‘But I know what parallel worlds are. I understand the concept.’
Melody nodded. ‘I had to look them up on my phone. Didn’t think I’d find anything, but there’s actually a shitload about them on Wikipedia.’ Melody paused and took a long drag from her cigarette. ‘Anyway, Jocelyn thinks we’re all living in a parallel world. She thinks she got here by travelling through a portal on the Northern Line. In between Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road.’
‘She thinks we’re all living in a parallel world?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everyone?’
‘No, not everyone. Just us. Me, you, all the other nuts on the ward. That’s what connects us. We’ve all fallen through portals.’
‘On the Northern Line?’
‘No, that’s just Jocelyn’s personal portal. They’re all over the place. In lifts and fire exits – places like that. It’s just that Jocelyn happens to know exactly where hers was. She noticed the train wobble as it went through it. She was brought to Nile not long after that.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘It gets weirder,’ Melody warned.
‘Go on.’
‘At the same moment Jocelyn passed through the portal, her double from this world passed through the other way. That’s how it works – kind of like a busy nightclub. One in, one out.’
‘Oh . . . Jocelyn has a double.’
‘Not just Jocelyn. We all have doubles. Everyone here has a double who’s taken over their life back in the original world. And we’ve all realized what’s going on – at least on some level. That’s why we’re here. Whereas the doubles have no idea. They think they’re the originals, so they just get on with our lives as if nothing’s happened. You know: go to work, do the shopping, pay the bills. Jocelyn calls them the mirror people. They’re identical to us in almost every way.’
‘Almost every way?’
‘Yes, except they’re not locked up on mental wards, of course. Oh, and they’re the opposite colour, too.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Opposite colour. Jocelyn told me her mirror person is white. Sane and white.’
‘And mine?’
Melody shrugged. ‘Black, I guess. Sane and black – same as mine.’
‘Right. And Mrs Chang’s?’
‘Mexican.’
‘Mexican? Because . . . Mexican is the opposite of Chinese?’
‘Yes. According to Jocelyn.’
And that’s when it happened. I don’t think I would have even known, had Melody not pointed it out. It felt so fucking natural.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You’re smiling. You realize that? No, don’t stop! I was starting to think you couldn’t smile.’
I was too shocked to say anything in reply. Melody reached over the table and placed her hand on mine. It was then that I started to cry, as well. I must have cried for the next two minutes, maybe longer. But I don’t think the smile ever left my face.