by Paula Daly
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could talk to him about it.’
‘Isn’t the point that I talk to you?’
‘Well, yes. But what we want is for you to work towards a feeling of ease when you’re around your stepmother. Mutual respect, so to speak. So we don’t have a repeat of the situation where your feelings get out of control, to the point that you attack her again. We haven’t really worked through the details of the attack. Perhaps now would be a good time.’
‘If we must.’
‘Do you find it hard to relive those feelings?’
‘I feel like I talked a lot about the thing when it happened. And there wasn’t actually that much to say. Besides, we have already discussed it, haven’t we?’
‘Not to the extent I would like.’
‘You asked if I attacked Karen because I was told to by voices inside my head. And I said no. You asked if I was under the influence of drugs. And I said—’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Why were you using drugs?’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘But they were found in your locker?’ Jeremy Gleeson tilted his head. Gave Verity a look like, C’mon. You’re not really going to say they were for someone else, are you?
Verity exhaled. Closed her eyes.
All at once she felt silly lying down on his silly couch. She realized she’d been lying there with her arms crossed protectively over her chest, in an attempt to prevent her small breasts pointing skywards. Verity sat upright. Then she asked Jeremy Gleeson if it was okay if she moved to the chair instead. He told her it was and, once she was settled in it, he asked if she now felt comfortable to answer his question.
‘The joints are for my mother,’ said Verity.
No response, so she continued: ‘You’ve probably already heard she has MS. She’s pretty ill. The weed helps. That’s it. No big drama. I don’t get stoned. I don’t like the feeling, to be honest. It makes my stomach swim.’
‘Thank you for your honesty.’
Verity shrugged. ‘What’s next?’
‘Back to the attack on your stepmother.’
Verity rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve already told you—’
‘You’ve told me what the attack wasn’t, Verity,’ he said, ‘but you’ve yet to tell me what it was.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What made you go from doing whatever it was you were doing to putting your hands around Karen’s neck?’
‘She was hurting Brontë,’ Verity said simply.
‘Hurting her how?’
‘Brontë has some kind of weird problem with her hand. She plays the harp and the piano, a lot, like, she has lessons all the time. And suddenly she couldn’t hold things any more. She could barely hold on to a glass, and kept dropping things.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, at first my dad thought it was something like repetitive strain injury and told Karen to cut down on both music lessons and practice…which maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. I can’t remember. But Brontë’s hand was getting really bad and she was getting really distressed. She couldn’t do her homework or even brush her teeth. My dad said he thought it was…what’s the thing golfers get when their hands spasm and they can’t take a putt?’
‘The yips.’
‘Yeah. He said darts players get it, too, and can’t let go of the dart. Well, he thought it was that. He thought it was linked to performance anxiety and that Brontë needed complete rest. Except, one day, I heard shouting and crying. And when I went into the kitchen, Karen had a set of weights on the table—’
‘Weights?’
‘Yeah, dumbbells. Pink. She was screaming at Brontë to hold them in her hand to build the strength back up. And Brontë was crying and shaking with the effort, and I don’t know, a switch kind of flicked in my head and the next thing I knew we were on the floor…and, well, you know the rest.’
‘A switch flicked? That’s what it felt like?’
‘That’s the best way I can describe it.’
‘And did you lose your awareness of what was happening for a time?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’
‘What happened when you realized you were hurting her?’
She paused.
‘Verity?’ Jeremy Gleeson prompted.
Eyes down, brushing the fluff from the hem of her school skirt, Verity asked, ‘Who gets to know about what I tell you in here? Because they said in the hospital it was confidential. But I was there to be assessed, so I’m pretty sure everything goes back to my dad and Karen and whoever else wants to know.’
‘This is entirely between you and me. I don’t have to turn my records over to anyone…Verity, did you know you were hurting Karen?’
She nodded.
‘And how did you feel about that?’ he asked.
‘I knew I had to stop,’ she said. ‘Of course I knew that. The thing is, I really didn’t want to. I’m pretty sure I wanted Karen to stop breathing.’
22
Thursday, 15 October
Antidepressants.
That’s what Bernadette Mercer said.
Noel had been in this situation before, with Bernadette’s daughter, and it hadn’t been an easy conversation to have then either. Ultimately, he’d given in to Bernadette Mercer’s demands and written a script for a course of beta blockers. But he hadn’t done it gladly.
‘Are you sleeping okay, Stephen?’ he’d asked the teenager in front of him.
Stephen Mercer was the kind of awkward, twitchy kid who would cut off his right hand rather than make eye contact. The kind who’d be in charge of the lighting at school productions. Stephen stared fixedly at a spot behind Noel’s shoulder, as if Noel were addressing him from behind the potted palm over in the corner of the room.
‘He wakes up in the night. Don’t you, Stephen?’ his mother said.
‘How often?’ he asked Stephen.
‘Three or four times a night,’ his mother said.
‘Do you use your computer before bedtime?’
‘He has to,’ replied his mother. ‘He won’t get through his work unless he puts in the hours, Dr Bloom. You, of all people, should know that.’
Noel would like to say that this was a rare occurrence, but it wasn’t. He would now see five or six teenagers a week with anxiety-related conditions. Most, though not all, stemmed from exam fear and an increase in the academic workload. Things had changed. In Noel’s day, a few kids from each class were bright – bright enough to go on to university. No one was expected to get straight ‘A’s. The few that did were considered freaks, kids to be avoided because they had no social skills and did odd things like keeping dead squirrels inside their lockers, or studied instead of, say, showering. These days, everyone was expected to get straight ‘A’s. British parents, though they wouldn’t admit it, were sneakily adopting the Chinese model of parenting, whereby anything less than an ‘A’ was considered a failure. ‘Yes, yes,’ they would say, ‘of course there’s more to childhood than endless studying,’ but they still wanted the ‘A’s. They meant that a balanced childhood was okay for someone else’s child. Not theirs.
Their offspring were buckling under the pressure and Noel now regularly saw what were once classed as adult stress-related disorders appearing in children as young as thirteen. He had heard of one case, a girl who’d had a nervous breakdown, sitting her A levels inside a psychiatric unit, after having been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Noel despaired. It was not what he wanted for his own children, not what he wanted for the young people of Windermere either. There had to be more to life, surely?
Of course, he’d cautioned Karen about it, a few days after Brontë’s return, when he could see Karen picking up right where she left off: the reinstatement of the maths and science tutor, the music lessons, some new woman she’d found to sort out Brontë’s reading; and she’d made inquiries about a Saturday drama club. He’d said to Karen, ‘I thought you’d want to tone down all of this nonsense, now that we’ve got Bront
ë back safe and sound.’ Be grateful for what we have, and so forth.
Karen hadn’t replied.
So he had lost his temper. ‘Why can’t you just be content with her the way she is?’ he yelled. ‘Why the need for all this constant…improvement? You carry on, Karen, and you will break this child. Do you understand that?’ And Karen had looked at him with such a strange mixture of confusion, pity and disgust. As if she’d stumbled upon him masturbating joylessly in the shed or something.
‘Apart from the palpitations and the acid reflux, Stephen, which I know we’ve treated in the past, what other symptoms are you experiencing?’
This time, unexpectedly, Stephen spoke up.
‘I’m just really, really tired all the time. I don’t have the energy to do anything.’
Noel used to hear this phrase only from new mothers. TATT would be written in the notes of practically every mother of a newborn; it was natural they were tired all the time – they had a baby to look after. Unless you have a live-in nanny, there’s really no escaping it.
But now he was typing TATT for every other teenager who walked through the door, and he wondered if the UK was on the brink of an epidemic.
‘Have you ever self-harmed or felt suicidal?’ Noel asked.
‘No.’
‘Well, with that in mind, I think, rather than going straight ahead with medication, it would be better for you to have a break from things in general. We all need time to recharge, reboot, and you’re no exception, Stephen. You’re suffering from overload, and I fear that medication is not the answer here. Ultimately, what you need to do is less. Less of everything.’
Stephen looked at his mother.
‘Dr Bloom,’ she said. ‘We went through this with my daughter.’
‘I remember.’
‘And I recall you giving out the same advice then.’
‘It’s the best advice I have.’
‘That’s as may be,’ she said, ‘but Stephen can’t afford to take time off from school. If he misses one lesson he’ll fall behind. The teachers are hardly going to teach him individually upon his return. What he needs is something to get him through this difficult patch right now. We’re not asking that he stay on the pills for ever.’
‘Mrs Mercer, my point is that it’s always difficult. The workload doesn’t let up, that’s the problem. And where the medication might help with his anxiety, it may also make him feel even more tired. And I wonder if that’s the best thing for Stephen, when he’s already struggling with his energy levels.’ He turned to Stephen. ‘What commitments, other than school, do you have at the moment?’
Stephen sighed desolately, as if simply listing his activities was too much. ‘I’m doing Duke of Edinburgh Gold—’
‘Which requires you to do volunteer work and the like, yes?’
‘I help out with swimming lessons after school and on Saturday mornings.’
‘What time on Saturday mornings?’ Noel asked.
‘I have to be at the pool by seven thirty.’
Noel looked briefly at Stephen’s mother to prove his point, but she had her head angled towards her son.
‘Anything else?’ Noel asked.
‘I have a job in a café on Sunday afternoons.’
‘Because he needs to learn the value of money,’ supplied his mother.
‘Anything else?’ Noel asked Stephen.
‘I’m doing Grade Eight French horn.’
‘How much practice does that require?’
‘Supposed to be ninety minutes a night, but I do around thirty.’
‘And which A levels are you doing?’
‘Biology, physics, chemistry and maths.’
‘Because you want to study…?’
‘Dentistry,’ his mother answered proudly.
Noel failed to see how plodding up and down the fells in the pouring rain to gain a Duke of Edinburgh Gold award would enhance a career in dentistry, but he knew better than to ask. These days, it was all about showcasing your abilities to get that elusive university place. Problem was, instead of making these kids stand out as individuals, as leaders, in Noel’s view all it showed was that they could bear more drudgery than the average child.
Come to think of it, though, that might be quite valuable for a career in dentistry.
‘Mrs Mercer,’ Noel said patiently, ‘it would be very easy for me to do as you ask and write a prescription for Stephen for—’
‘Lovely, that would—’
‘Much easier,’ Noel continued. ‘But we need to address the cause of this problem rather than merely treat the symptoms. I can see that you’re concerned about Stephen’s future and I applaud that, it’s the mark of a responsible parent. But this is Stephen’s life, too, and I wonder if he really wants to go down this road?…Stephen?’ Noel prompted.
Stephen hesitated. ‘I’m not really sure what I want to do.’
‘Understandable,’ said Noel. ‘Well, here’s what I suggest. I think you should take a break from the French horn, for a starter. And reduce your volunteering to one session per week or else stop altogether. Focus on your A levels and make sure you don’t use your computer after eight thirty in the evening. That should improve your sleep pattern. Take a thirty-minute walk four or five times a week, and if you can, cut out caffeinated drinks. How does that sound? Can we try it for a fortnight? Does that sound doable?’
‘Doable?’ Mrs Mercer said, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘It sounds positively utopian…On top of that, Stephen will be filling out his UCAS form shortly – so what do you suggest, Dr Bloom? That we simply lie about his extracurricular activities? Pretend he’s still involved in the things he’s not?’
Noel gave her a look like, It’s your call.
He’d probably have lied if it were him. Shown initiative and so forth.
‘Come on, Stephen, get your coat,’ his mother said, standing.
‘I’ll see you both in a fortnight, and then you can report back on how you got on?’ Noel said hopefully. And Mrs Mercer answered, ‘Yes, yes,’ while sweeping her son out of his office without bidding Noel goodbye.
She would be back tomorrow, requesting to see John Ravenscroft instead, Noel presumed. She’d try her luck with him.
John gave out amitriptyline more readily – his reasoning being that the stuff was, at least, pretty benign.
Noel watched Bernadette Mercer exit the room, the sight of her skinny arse saddening him. Because he knew that, if he didn’t do something, it would only be a matter of time before he’d be having this same conversation with Karen.
Before Brontë, too, would need antidepressants, just to get through the working week.
23
NOEL GOT HOME at around seven, to the sound of the phone ringing. He dropped his laptop case in the hallway before answering it.
‘Hello,’ he said.
Nothing.
‘Hello,’ he said again.
He was just about to hang up when he heard the caller’s breath, thick and heavy, down the line. ‘Now, look here—’ Noel began, irritated.
‘Can you put me on to Karen?’
It was a man’s voice. Sounded rather abrupt. Sounded, from his turn of phrase, like he knew Karen.
‘Who should I say is calling?’ Noel said, his interest piqued.
‘Tell her it’s Russell Wallbank. Again.’
Noel carried the phone through to the kitchen, where, unusually, Karen was preparing a meal. Karen liked to say she didn’t cook; she ‘arranged food’. And that’s what she was doing right now: sliding cold, roasted chicken thighs on to plates, along with a sad-looking salad, and some cheese and onion crisps.
‘For you,’ Noel said.
And Karen mouthed, ‘Who is it?’
Noel covered the microphone with his thumb. ‘Russell,’ he said, the guy’s surname having been immediately erased from his memory. ‘Says he’s called before?’
Karen snatched the receiver from Noel and cut the call off without speaking.
This might have surprised Noel under ordinary circumstances, but they’d had a glut of these unsolicited calls of late.
‘Any more trouble today?’ Noel asked, washing his hands at the sink. He’d seen four sets of parents that day with children suspected of having intestinal worms. He scrubbed the skin beneath his nails with a nail brush, as if he were readying himself for surgery (for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice, he remembered from his student days).
‘Just a few nutters,’ Karen replied. ‘All suggesting I hand Brontë over to the authorities. That it’s tantamount to child abuse, what I put her through. Blah blah blah. Nothing new.’
‘Did you respond?’
Karen stopped what she was doing and looked straight at him. ‘Of course I responded. You can’t just let the trolls get away with it. They’ll go on to attack someone else. Someone weaker. Someone vulnerable.’
Noel poured himself a beer. He could only have the one, as they were going out and he’d said he’d drive. A friend of Karen’s was opening a new restaurant-cum-wine bar in Bowness, and they’d been sent an invitation. Noel had tried to get out of it. Twice.
‘Still,’ he said, ‘the police did say that the best response to these people is no response.’
‘That’s right, Noel,’ she said flatly. ‘They did.’
Somehow, after Brontë had returned home, there was an implication in the press that Karen was pretty much responsible for her daughter running away. One headline read: PUSHY TIGER MOTHER DRIVES DAUGHTER TO RUN AWAY and there was an article about the effects of what they called ‘extreme parenting’ and the damage it could do to a child’s wellbeing. Experts were quoted, saying how important it was for a child to have unstructured and unsupervised play. How taking part in too many organized after-school activities could actually be detrimental to a child’s brain development. Then it went on to print a full list of Brontë’s out-of-school activities. ‘I know exactly who it was who sold me down the river,’ Karen said when she read the article. ‘It was that fat woman who sits behind me in church, snivelling into her tissues. She’s never looked me in the eye.’
