That night I slept straight through for nine hours, and I awoke thinking about the mirror people. I didn’t get up straight away; until one of the nurses came in with breakfast, I lay perfectly still, staring at a single spot on the ceiling where the paint was beginning to flake away. Since I’d been admitted, I’d spent plenty of time staring at ceilings, but this was different. My mind wasn’t cold and blank. I didn’t even feel sluggish. I felt calm and alert, able to focus on a specific idea and examine it from all angles.
The more I thought about Jocelyn’s theory, the less bizarre it seemed. Yes, there were things about it that were absolutely cuckoo – Mrs Chang’s Mexican double and so forth – but still, overall the idea was not without its merits. It made a strange sort of sense to me, on an intuitive, metaphorical level. Being in here – going crazy – it did feel like your life had been hijacked in some inexplicable way. It did feel like a parallel universe, separated from the real one by only the flimsiest of partitions.
And there was something else, too: like Jocelyn, I knew the precise location of my portal, the where and when that had caused my life to veer off its regular track. Hers was on the Northern Line, somewhere between Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road; mine was the doorway to Simon’s flat. That was where everything had started: the insomnia, Professor Caborn, the weird and racing thoughts. Admittedly, there might have been other contributing factors – other causes stretching further back in time. Yet it was hard to shake the feeling that if I hadn’t entered Simon’s flat that evening, if I’d turned and taken the mirror path back to my normal Wednesday night, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be where I was now – staring at the peeling paintwork in the local mental health ward.
But yesterday the situation had changed again. I hadn’t seen it coming, of course; I’d been so focused on faking my recovery that I failed to notice I was actually getting better, albeit in tiny, plodding increments.
Now it felt as if a hairline crack had appeared in the darkness separating this world from the other; and over the following days, it continued to widen. I was soon noticing further signs of improvement. My sessions with Dr Hadley were no longer something I dreaded. I was reading more and sleeping well. I started to think about the things I might enjoy when I finally got out of this place: a decent cup of coffee, a walk to the shops – small things, but significant, nonetheless.
For a short interlude, everything was getting so much better.
That was before I discovered the truth about Melody.
20
REVELATIONS
I couldn’t stay still that morning. I tried lying with my eyes closed and counting down from a hundred. I tried listening to music as a distraction. I tried reading Gone with the Wind. I managed a few pages before my mind drifted away. After that, I just sat up in bed, checking the clock every few minutes.
He was due to arrive at eleven and would stay for up to an hour, depending on how things went. Right now, I wasn’t sure I’d manage fifteen minutes. This felt weirdly like a first date – same butterflies, same anxieties about what we’d have to say to each other. I’d even thought about putting on some make-up, before deciding it didn’t feel appropriate. There was a part of me, I suppose, that was already preparing a defence. I didn’t want to appear too normal, too bright or healthy. I was still recovering, after all, and I thought no make-up and dressing down – tracksuit bottoms and a plain, baggy top – was the best way to convey this.
Was it slightly manipulative, trying to control his perception of me like this? Possibly; but it would be equally manipulative if I made any sort of effort to look nice. It’s a strange thing, trying to readjust to normal life, with all its complicated social interactions, and it doesn’t get any easier once you start worrying about how best to act natural.
The choice of a first meeting place was likewise something that continued to give me a headache. I’d ruled out the dayroom as I couldn’t imagine trying to have a serious conversation in there, with Homes Under the Hammer blaring in the background and Mrs Chang hovering like a silent spectre in my peripheral vision. The smoking area was, unfortunately, also out of the question. Wonderful as it would have been to be able to smoke, Melody was certain to be present at some point; she had a ten o’clock with Dr Hadley, and I assumed she’d come straight out after that. Of course, she knew Beck was coming, and she knew I was worried about it, but that didn’t mean she’d have the tact to allow us any space for a private conversation. More likely, she’d come over and start talking about ECT or self-mutilation.
That left just a few more options. There was the kitchenette – bright, functional and relatively quiet, with bad instant coffee on tap, but also a high probability of people walking in and out every few minutes. The only other communal space that might work was the non-denominational prayer room – but then we’d have to find a nurse to accompany us off the ward, since one room served the entire mental heath unit. Plus it wasn’t impossible that someone might actually want to use it for prayer.
After a lot of consideration, my bedside had seemed the least problematic choice, and it did have the advantage of meeting expectation. When you visited someone in hospital, you expected to be sitting by a sickbed, and this could work in my favour. It was another of those visual cues that would make it clear I was still in a fragile state. Yet, at the same time, it felt like a bit of a charade. I never stayed in bed this late any more. Not that I was exactly in bed at the moment. I was kind of half in, half out, fully dressed but with the sheets pulled up to my waist; I was certain it all looked far too artful, like someone posing for a painting: Convalescing Girl.
These concerns all disappeared the moment Beck entered the room, to be replaced with a fresh wave of dilemmas that I hadn’t even considered. The first was that I had no idea how to greet him. I ended up performing a strange sort of half-wave, even though he was standing just a few feet away. When he bent to kiss my cheek, the angle I was sitting at meant that I had to twist my waist and neck awkwardly, placing an unsteady hand on his shoulder blade to keep my balance. My whole posture felt stiff and apprehensive.
‘I brought flowers,’ he told me, as he seated himself in the chair by the window, ‘but they were confiscated at reception.’
‘Yes, they’re worried we’ll eat them,’ I replied, immediately wanting to retract this. It would be better, I decided, not to appear facetious. ‘Actually, I think it’s a hospital-wide policy,’ I told him. ‘They get in the way, upset people’s allergies. They can bring in bugs, too. I don’t think you’re allowed flowers even if you’re dying.’
‘Oh . . . What about plastic ones?’
‘I’m not sure about plastic ones.’
There was a small silence. Beck gestured at the book that was still splayed on top of my bedside cabinet. ‘How’s Gone with the Wind?’
I shrugged. ‘About the same as the film. The odd difference here and there. Ashley’s in the Ku Klux Klan.’
Beck smiled because he assumed I was joking, which of course I wasn’t. ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m getting there,’ I replied. ‘They have me on lithium, and I’ve been tolerating it pretty well for a week or so. I still have good days and bad days, but slightly fewer of the latter now. Things are heading in the right direction.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Have the doctors given you any idea of when you might be out?’