by Adam Croft
He smiles again. He must get a lot of this. So many of us are rubbish at speaking to doctors or admitting something’s wrong.
‘Is it something physical?’ he asks.
‘Not really, no.’
He nods. ‘Can you describe how you feel?’
I sigh. ‘I think it’s some sort of post-natal depression.’
‘PPD, we call it. Postpartum depression. But it’s essentially the same thing. What makes you think that’s what you have? Can you describe the symptoms you have for me?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Tiredness. Irritability. I don’t feel like I’m able to connect with my daughter. I just feel... totally wiped out. And kind of paranoid about stuff.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
I think for a moment. Should I tell him I’m so loopy I’ve become paranoid my husband is a murderer? Of course I should. He’s a medical professional. He needs to know the full facts in order to help me.
I look at the floor. ‘Oh. All sorts, really. Nothing specific.’ I force a smile, but inside I’m kicking myself for not saying the words.
‘I understand. Having a baby is a huge thing. It takes an enormous toll on your body and on your mind. Is there any history of depression or mental illness in your family?’
I shake my head. ‘No. None.’
‘Any family history of drug use or childbirth complications?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’ The thought of my mother getting smacked off her tits on heroin elicits a small smile from me, which the doctor thankfully doesn’t notice.
‘I notice your daughter isn’t with you today. Is she with her dad?’
‘No, she’s with my mum. She looks after her a couple of days a week so I can get things done.’
He smiles. ‘I see. And your symptoms. Have they got any better? Worse? Stayed the same?’
It sounds strange, but that’s actually a difficult question to answer. ‘Stayed the same, I guess. Overall, I mean. Some days are worse than others.’
‘And how do you cope when you have really bad days?’
‘I don’t. Not really. I mean, I push on and get through it, but the whole time I’m just dying inside.’ I feel tears starting to well up, so I stop talking. I’m not a cryer. Never have been. And I don’t want to start now.
Doctor Ashford turns away from me for a moment and types a few notes on his computer. I don’t know if he does so because he sensed I was about to become emotional, but I’m thankful to him all the same.
‘And what about thoughts?’ he says. ‘Have you had any dark or destructive thoughts? Any fantasies of harm, anything like that?’
I swallow. Hard. Yes, I’ve become obsessed with the idea that my husband’s a child murderer I scream inside my head, but what comes out of my mouth is ‘No’.
‘And are you breastfeeding?’
‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘Evie’s not great at feeding, but I tend to express and feed her from the bottle. It’s still breast milk.’
‘Okay. I’m not going to prescribe any medication, for a couple of reasons. Partly because of the breastfeeding. Any medication you take will pass on to your baby through your milk. Plus, many of these drugs do tend to make things a bit worse in the short-term, and some can even bring on thoughts of suicide or self-harm, which obviously isn’t something we want to happen. So I think we’re better off pursuing other avenues at the moment.’
‘Do you think it is post-natal depression, then?’ I ask.
‘Postpartum depression. And I don’t know. I’m personally very careful about diagnosing things like that. I’m not the sort of doctor who dishes out drugs like they’re Smarties, and I know myself how physically and mentally draining having children can be. Believe me, it doesn’t stop once they’re walking, either. My eldest’s currently badgering me for thousands a year to go to uni and study Japanese art. I doubt we’ll ever see that money again if that’s his chosen career path,’ he says, laughing. Some people might think that insensitive, but I actually quite like it. It’s just his way of putting himself on a level with his patients.
‘But what else could it be?’
Doctor Ashford raises his eyebrows and sighs. ‘It could be any number of things. Personally, I think PPD is over-diagnosed. If you look at the symptoms,’ he says counting them off on his fingers. ‘Lethargy, anxiety, changes to sleeping patterns, irritability, eating less than you used to... They’re all symptoms of having children, full-stop. Have you tried getting more exercise?’
I wasn’t expecting him to say that, and I’m fairly sure my face tells him so, as he immediately tries to clarify what he meant.
‘Increased exercise can release more serotonin and dopamine, which are what many people refer to as “feel-good hormones”. Low serotonin levels can contribute heavily to symptoms of depression and anxiety.’
I wonder for a moment if he might have a point. Before I fell pregnant with Evie, I used to get quite a lot of exercise. I was the county cross-country champion for three years, and used to go on regular runs. Then I fell pregnant and stopped. The advice the NHS gives is not to make any drastic changes when you fall pregnant. Don’t suddenly start exercising, but don’t make any changes to your regular patterns either. Somehow, though, going on long runs with an unborn baby bouncing around inside me just didn’t feel right. I wanted to stay at home and do all I could to keep the baby safe, especially after all we’d been through to get that far.
‘It sounds ideal,’ I say, ‘but I don’t know how I’m going to get the time to do that. I barely even get time to brush my own teeth, never mind introduce a new exercise regime.’
‘Are you working at the moment?’ he asks. ‘I noticed you mentioned earlier that your mum takes your daughter for a couple of days a week.’
‘She does, but that barely gives me enough time to catch up on housework and tidying. I could get up an hour earlier and go for a run, like I used to years ago, but at the moment every second of sleep is like gold dust to me.’
‘Well, there are other things we can do. But personally I’d recommend trying to get out of the house more. Walk to places instead of driving — that can give you huge health benefits, both mentally and physically. Just getting outside and getting some fresh air can do wonders. It’s all too easy to get cooped up in your own house for weeks when you have a baby. Even a ten-minute walk around the block can do you the world of good.’
‘I’ll give it a go,’ I say, although I don’t feel hopeful. I should, though. Because I know he’s right. I don’t need drugs. I just need to be able to drag myself off my backside and do this for myself — and for Evie.
I think for a moment about telling him that actually I have been having dangerous thoughts, but something tells me not to. Because they aren’t just thoughts, are they? I don’t think I saw a bloodstained cap in our wheelie bin, and I don’t think Chris hid a secret stash of mementoes from Riley Markham. I know both of those things are true. The only thing I don’t know for certain is what those two things mean, but I do know I’m going to need to have a clear head if I’m ever going to get to the truth.
21
Kai Bolton always used to look forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those were the days he got to see his dad.
He still didn’t quite understand why Dad didn’t live with them any more. All he’d been told was that Dad was moving out and Uncle Tony was moving in. Mum and Dad didn’t like each other very much. He’d worked that much out. He wasn’t a kid any more. He was nine.
Mum used to moan at Dad all the time when he was still living with them. She used to call him lazy and useless, as well as some other words he couldn’t remember and some that’d got him in trouble for using at school. Dad wasn’t happy for ages, but now he was a lot better because he had Angela. Mum said he wasn’t allowed to call her Auntie Angela, and that was fine with him. He didn’t like Angela. She had a face that looked a bit like a walnut, and her boobies were way too big.
Mum used to drop Kai over at his dad’s house on
Tuesday and Thursday mornings whenever it was the school holidays. Mum went to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the strict man in the suit said he had to spend at least one day a week with Dad. When it was school time, it was usually a Saturday or a Sunday, but that was rubbish because then he didn’t get to go to the football with Uncle Tony. Or just Tony, as his mum said he should call him. The school holidays were better. At the end of each Tuesday and Thursday, Dad would drive him back home again. It had to be at four o’clock, though, as Dad had to go somewhere after that. He never told Kai where, but Kai guessed it must be somewhere important. Mum got home from work at half past four, and Tony would be home just before seven o’clock, but Mum said Kai was a big boy now and he could wait for half an hour on his own as long as he stayed in the living room and watched TV and didn’t go into the kitchen.
Mum was always worried about the kitchen. She said it had lots of sharp things and appliances that could hurt Kai. But Kai wasn’t stupid. He was nine now.
At nine, you’re big enough to do all sorts of things. Including going in the kitchen. But it was better to keep Mum happy than to annoy her. At nine, you’re big enough to walk home on your own too. That’s what Dad had been telling him for the past few weeks. He told Kai not to tell Mum, though, because she wouldn’t be happy. She still thought he was a baby, and if she found out Kai was walking home from his Dad’s house she’d go mental and never let him go out again. Kai didn’t like the sound of that, so he decided to keep quiet.
Walking home on his own was alright, though. He actually quite liked it. It made him feel older, and anyway it wasn’t that far from Dad’s house to his own house. You could go the long way round by the road or you could cut through the park and down by the river. That was a lot quicker, and you didn’t see so many people, but Mum would go extra mental if she knew he was walking by the river on his own, especially after what happened to that little boy a few weeks ago.
Whenever he walked down here with his Mum she’d always walk by the water and make sure he was on the other side of her, even though he liked walking close to the water. It was stupid. The water wasn’t even deep. It probably wouldn’t even come up to his knees.
All mums worried, though. His mates all said the same thing. Apart from Finlay Keane’s mum. Finlay Keane’s mum was really cool. She let them play Nerf guns inside the house. Kai’s mum wouldn’t even let him have a Nerf gun, and the other boys’ mums sometimes let them play them but only outside in the garden. Finlay’s mum and dad have a massive house though so it wouldn’t really matter because their house is bigger than most people’s gardens. Plus their garden has that fake grass stuff in it so technically it’s more like a carpet and the inside of the house is more like the outside. Kai thought people were weird.
He stopped and looked into the river. He always liked this bit. The water flowed really fast here, and you could see all the pebbles underneath, with the water splitting as it washed over them. He didn’t know how long he stood there watching the water washing over the pebbles, but before he knew what was happening, his legs were dangling a few inches off the floor as the arm crushed his windpipe and lifted him in the air. He tried to scream or call out, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t get the air from his lungs to his mouth, and instead just made a horrible gurgling noise which sounded like his Mum pulling the plug out of the bath.
He tried kicking at whoever was holding him, but he was starting to lose strength in his legs. He felt something rough around his neck — something that scratched and burned a bit. The arm started to let go of him, but he still couldn’t breathe. He landed on his knees on the edge of the river, and brought his hands up to his throat. There was some rope or something tied around his neck. He could hear the blood pulsing in his eardrums, bursting to try and get through the blood vessels but the rope was too tight. It felt like his head was going to burst. His lips hurt. He could see stuff at the edges of his eyes. It was starting to go dark. Just before it went completely dark, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. The last thing Kai saw was the splashes of blood hitting the pebbles, the red liquid marbling in the water as it flowed away downstream.
22
Chris
I feel dirty. As soon as it happens I get a huge burst of excitement and feel as if I’m on top of the world, but that feeling quickly dissipates and turns into a sense that I’m the worst person in the world. It’s incredible how quickly that feeling changes. I don’t know what makes me keep doing it. I know it’s wrong. I know how many lives I’m ruining. I know family units will be smashed apart. But it’s like feeding an addiction.
I’m fairly sure I remember reading somewhere that this is how addictions manifest themselves. It’s that yearning to feel that rush of excitement again, to try and better it. The problem is, the more you do it the less you enjoy it, so the more you need to do it to get the rush. It’s a devastating, never-ending spiral.
If it’s an addiction, I guess this is the hangover. The ‘I’m never drinking again’ bit. But we all know that’s bullshit. After a day or so, none of us can resist that sweet nectar. It’s much the same for me, although my new addiction isn’t alcohol.
I’ve never been the sort to have an addictive personality. Up to now. In many ways, it makes me realise what I’ve been missing all this time. Some people might call it a mid-life crisis, but then again I’ve never really been one to care about what people think. To me, it’s confirmation that I’ve been living a sheltered life for far too long.
But that’s not how I feel right this second. Right now, I feel like my whole world is about to close in on me. Like I’m about to get found out. Megan suspects something. I know she does. She’s been acting even weirder than usual lately, and I’m waiting for the day when she asks me outright. What would I say? It sounds ridiculous, but I really don’t know. It’s one thing keeping things from her and just not telling her, but it’s another thing entirely to lie outright to her face. Having said that, though, the truth isn’t an option.
If I said yes, that would be the end of us. It’d be the end of me. It would be the end of my career and my life as I know it. Having to lie to Megan would be a whole new step. Not that I haven’t been surprised enough recently at the things I never thought I was capable of doing. I guess life is a constant learning curve.
I don’t know about other people, but I tend to get the feeling that nothing is ever complete. I’m always discovering new things about myself. It’s just that, until recently, I never did anything about them. I was quite happy plodding along in my own bubble, oblivious to everything.
Megan was in when I got home. She didn’t say much, which was something of a relief. The hardest thing would be looking her in the eye so soon after what I’d done. Instead, I went upstairs and scrubbed my hands in the sink before showering, trying to get every last trace of it off me.
When I was a kid I used to think that people could see what I was thinking. Over time, I trained myself not to think anything that was even slightly out of the ordinary, for fear that other people would be able to read my thoughts and judge me. Those same feelings are creeping back now. Can people smell sin?
As I use up half a bottle of shower gel and scrub my skin red raw, I know I need to put a stop to this somehow. All I’m doing is hurting people. It needs to stop.
But, deep down, I know I can’t. This is who I am now. I can’t go back, can’t take back the things I’ve done. And all the while I can feel that new part of me growing, building in confidence as the old me starts to wither away into the background like a fading flower.
I look down at my hands as the water runs down my arms and cascades off my fingertips. They look like someone else’s hands. I’m standing in the comfort of my own shower, in my own home, knowing what these hands were doing just half an hour or so earlier. The dichotomy makes my head spin. It’s like looking back at the memory of a film or TV programme. My brain can’t quite reconcile that it was me doing those things. Maybe there’s a reason for that. Perhaps
this is how people get away with it — their brains detach from the reality in an attempt to bridge the gap of cognitive dissonance.
Now we’re getting philosophical, aren’t we? Now we’re getting heavy. But what’s philosophical about it? When you lay it out in the open, it’s a dirty act — something everyone instinctively knows to be wrong. It’s something that can shatter families forever. Yet it still keeps happening. It’s an itch that certain people still feel the unbearable need to scratch. Will that ever end? I doubt it. Somewhere, it’s carved deep into the human psyche.
I know it can’t carry on, though. It just can’t. Sooner or later, you’ll always get found out. It’s a matter of time, quitting while you’re ahead.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s the getting caught that would devastate me the most or the realisation of what I’d done. I like to think it would be the latter, but I wouldn’t put money on it. After all, I know what I’ve done is wrong. There’s no doubting that. But it still doesn’t stop me. Why?
I guess a psychologist would say it’s because I see myself as being above morality. I know that’s not true, though. It’s because I can’t get enough of it. Because it is an addiction. Because the high is so intense it just can’t be topped by anything else — anything moral.
And, like most addicts, I wish I’d never tasted the first drop.
23
Megan
I watch through the kitchen window as Chris wrestles with an old tree stump towards the bottom of the garden. He’s been talking for months about taking it out, but for some reason he seems to have chosen now as the time to do it.
As I rinse the washing up suds off my hands, I can hear the faint sound of Chris’s phone ringing. I know it’s Chris’s phone, because his ringtone is the theme tune from the Star Wars films. I head upstairs to see if I can find it — he’s obviously switched his voicemail off, because the phone just rings and rings.
