‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘But you can’t remember?’
‘There was. It kind of sounded like that but, look, I didn’t really take it in.’
‘Thanks, Amy. You did really well. It must have been tough.’
Ward meeting. I’m feeling really good. I’m feeling pissed off. I’m feeling sad.
She finds Elsie after the patients leave. ‘How’s Elisabeth today?’
‘Much the same.’
‘Who’s been with her?’
‘Mainly Marie during the day. Helen Scott’s coming in for the nights. I know it’s none of my business but round-the-clock care will be costing plenty.’
‘We’ve okayed that with her family.’
‘Although if it goes on for very much longer—’
‘We have to make sure she’s safe.’
‘Yes I know. But—’
‘But you think she should be transferred?’
‘I do. At least for now. She’s been here almost four weeks and in my opinion she’s as unwell as when she came in. I’ll be recommending transferral in my monthly report to Stewart.’
‘I think she’s got a better chance here.’
‘We’re not here to accommodate patients who are acutely ill. We have to consider the welfare of the other patients and, quite frankly, that’s my main concern. The incident the other night has had major repercussions for some of the others.’
‘My opinion is that we also have to carefully consider what’s best for Elisabeth. ’
‘Stephanie, I understand you’re committed to the welfare of this patient and I know how much you want the best for her. But there are other considerations, her own safety being one of them. She’d be better provided for in a secure unit.’
Stephanie feels her face get hot, hears her voice sharpen. She knows she’s being unreasonable but she can’t hold back the words. ‘What you’re saying is lock her up and throw away the key?’
‘You know better than that. I would never suggest any such thing.’ Elsie’s voice is equally sharp.
‘Sorry,’ Stephanie says. ‘I’m very sorry. I’ve been— I’m concerned.’
‘We’re all concerned, Dr Anderson, but we can’t allow personal feelings to interfere with professional judgement. We can’t offer full security to a patient here, certainly not on a long-term basis, and we must consider not only this particular patient’s welfare but others’ as well.’
‘You’re right, of course.’
You’re right, of course. She’s been warned about this throughout Med School, throughout her training. Becoming personally involved obscures professional judgement. With the best intentions in the world you may make totally wrong decisions for a patient because you’ve allowed emotions to become involved. She senses that everyone, Stewart and Anne as well, feel she’s wrong in this, but since Elisabeth has been under her care they’ve given way to her despite their doubts.
And what if she’s mistaken? The wrong choice could have the most serious repercussions. Ultimately this option she’s insisting on could cost Elisabeth her life. It’s conceit that’s obscuring her judgement and, Christ, she’s not reasoning she’s feeling. Feeling she knows what’s right for Elisabeth, this patient who has not so much as spoken to her other than to tell her to fuck off. Any rational consideration at all indicates what is so bloody obvious and that is that Elisabeth has simply not responded to her, in fact, possibly dislikes and definitely distrusts her. She’s out of her depth. Way, way out. She’s not the right doctor here, she’s not considering Elisabeth’s safety nor the other patients’ welfare, not even considering the clinic’s reputation. She’s thinking only of herself. Her own pride.
What she must do is go now to Stewart and tell him she’s consulted with Elsie, reconsidered the situation and recognised that she’s wrong. She must let Elisabeth go.
She makes her way down the corridor. Elisabeth’s door is open. She glances in. Marie is sitting beside the window. It’s warm today. She has the blinds open, the top window slightly ajar. Stephanie’s eyes meet Elisabeth’s.
Marie looks up. ‘Are you—?’
Stephanie hesitates.
‘I could do with a cup of coffee,’ Marie says. ‘That’s if you want some time.’
‘Okay. Sure. I’ll sit with Elisabeth while you get one.’
She takes the chair beside the window rather than the one close to the bed. Does Elisabeth register the change? Nothing in her face would suggest that she does.
She rests her head against the back of the chair. Good to have come to this decision, good to let it go. There’s the faint scent of roses in the room; they’re blooming late this year. Everyone’s saying they can’t remember weather as good as this ever. A long, drawn-out summer. A Central Otago summer.
‘I didn’t grow up here,’ Stephanie says quietly. ‘I grew up in a small town. I had the kind of childhood everyone should have. Kids could do whatever they liked there. Climb up into the rocks, swim in the lake, bike for miles. The summers were always like this, always sweltering hot. When I was a kid it seemed as if summers went on for ever.’
She’s doing exactly what she’s been warned against. Blurring the boundaries. Giving a patient information about her own private life. But she can’t stop herself.
‘When I got older I pretended it was all so boring living in a town where everyone knew everybody else’s business. But I still loved it. In my heart, anyway, I loved it. Sometimes I miss it so much. The way the lake was when you looked out at it first thing in the morning. You know, before we had to. Before we shifted house, my bedroom was upstairs and it had a view right across the water. I never had my curtains pulled. I liked to go to sleep knowing the first thing I’d see when I woke up was the lake.’
Elisabeth is watching her. Perhaps she’s listening. It doesn’t seem to matter either way any more.
‘Then my— Something terrible happened and after that I couldn’t even look at the lake or be near it without thinking about it.’
She’s silent for a moment. She looks across at Elisabeth. There are tears pouring down her cheeks. No sound, only a steady outpouring of tears.
Stephanie goes over to the bed and takes her hand. ‘Elisabeth, please. Let me help you.’
‘No one can.’
It could be your only chance. Try it. ‘Who’s Tracy?’
‘Tracy?’ She tries to pull her hand away.
‘Who’s Tracy? Who is she, Elisabeth?’
‘Beth. It’s Beth.’
‘Okay. Beth. Tell me.’
‘Leave me alone. Just fucking leave me alone.’
15.
But she’s out of bed and she’s agreed to come to Stephanie’s office. It’s taken almost two weeks but Stephanie sees this as a triumph. All she has to do now is to convince Beth to live.
‘Beth,’ she says. ‘Come in.’
Beth sits on the edge of the chair. The bandage has gone, there’s just a sliver of plaster across her wrist.
Stephanie speaks gently, she must be so careful. ‘I’m glad you’ve come.’
She shrugs, gazes towards the window.
Stephanie’s training and experience tells her to wait and not be afraid of the silence. Let the patient speak, give the patient the responsibility. But the silence goes on with Beth sitting unmoving and, in the end, Stephanie’s intuition tells her that if she’s to help Beth at all she has to be honest with her. Honest and direct.
‘I guess you feel I’m responsible for stopping you from doing what you wanted,’ she says. ‘And now I’m expecting you to talk to me.’
Beth looks at her curiously.
‘And you’re right,’ Stephanie says. ‘I am one of the people who’ve encroached on your rights. You decided to take your life and other people intruded on your decision and forced you to live. We’ve given you drugs you don’t want and prevented you from carrying out something you wanted to do as if we have no respect for your wishes.’
Beth’s eyes are fixed on her face, her hands
grip the edges of the chair.
Talk Beth. Come on, say something. Yell at me. Anything.
‘I know you’re feeling so much pain that you just don’t want to live with it any more. But I truly believe that in time you’ll want your life.’
‘What the hell for?’
The expression on Beth’s face is quizzical, faintly amused. Like Stephanie doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Like Stephanie is the same as everyone else, taking it for granted you should keep on living, pretending the bad stuff doesn’t really happen at all, that life is all worthwhile. When anyone with half a brain can see it’s not.
‘I’m hoping I might help you find that out.’
‘I don’t want your help. I don’t even want to be here. Listen, I decided I didn’t want to stay around any more. That was what I wanted, it was how I felt. That was me, can’t you understand that? That was me. Now you guys’ve forced me to stay in here and drugged me up that much I can’t feel anything. Is that what you want? For me to be so drugged-up I’m away in fucking happy-land?’
‘I don’t want that. But I don’t want you to be in so much pain either.’
‘But it’s my pain, okay? My pain, my feelings and you’re fucking trying to take them away from me.’
‘I don’t want to take anything away from you but I want you to give this a try.’
‘You want. Dad wants. Peter wants. What about what I fucking want?’
‘You feel no one’s listening to what you want?’
‘Don’t do that crap. Repeating things back at me. I know what you’re doing with that shit. Look, I want to go now. This is a waste of time. You take away all my fucking rights and then—’ She’s shouting, moving towards the door. If she loses her now she won’t come back, Stephanie is certain of it.
‘Why did you come today?’ She looks directly into her eyes. ‘That was your choice, wasn’t it?’
‘Maybe.’ She’s standing uncertainly by the door.
‘Maybe? ’
‘Maybe I came to get you off my fucking back. Elisabeth? It’s Stephanie. Like I’m some retard or something. Christ.’
‘Or maybe it was because you thought you might possibly get something from it.’
She’s silent, she has her head down, but she’s listening.
‘So what was that?’
‘What was what? Listen, I don’t want anything. Not from you. I want to go.’
‘This time is set aside for you each day, okay?’
She doesn’t come. Not the next day, nor the next and then it’s the weekend. But on Monday she’s at the door.
‘Beth, it’s good to see you.’
She edges further into the chair this time. She looks directly at Stephanie before turning her eyes towards the window.
Wait it out. This time let her speak first.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ She mumbles it, shrugs.
‘I’m pleased you’ve come back.’
‘Yeah, well. Something to do, eh?’
‘I see you’ve starting to join in on the ward meetings.’
Shrugs again. ‘Me and all the other crazies.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Stephanie says it mildly.
‘Well, you wouldn’t would you? It wouldn’t be politically correct.’
‘You think we should all just tell it how it is?’
‘Yeah. Not all this bullshitting around.’
‘Bullshitting around? ’
‘Hey, I told you not to do that. Saying things back to me. I know why you do it.’
‘It goes against everything I’ve learned but, right, okay I’ll try.’
Stephanie grins and surprisingly, oh so surprisingly, Beth smiles back. An open beautiful smile. She has a wide mouth, white even teeth, a dimple on one cheek.
‘So. What do we do here? That is, if I decide to come back. What do we talk about?’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘My childhood, huh? So you can try to work out why I’m this basket-case.’
‘It’s not up to me. That’s your work.’
‘Work?’
‘There’s nothing harder than this.’
She raises her eyes and looks intently at Stephanie. ‘But you want me to talk about my childhood?’
‘Only if you want to.’
‘What you said last week. You said something terrible happened. You said it spoiled everything for you.’
‘Back then it did.’ She keeps her voice level, calm.
‘So if everything was ruined like you said and all that awful crap you hear about every day happens, how come you’re saying it’s worth it to live?’
‘There are good things as well.’
Her voice is angry, harsh, ‘But you never know when some awful thing’s going to come along and knock you down, though, do you? What about all the really bad things, little kids getting cancer and, and wars and global warming and people being beaten up and killed. Like, how can anyone justify having kids with everything that’s going on? There’s really bad things happening all the time, every minute, and everyone just goes right on having kids when it’s actually pure evil bringing little kids into this kind of crap place.’
‘You think it’s wrong to have a child when the world seems so unsafe?’
‘I told you. Don’t do that.’
‘You’re not answering the question.’
‘I already have. It’s what I’m fucking saying, isn’t it? Like, Peter was always on at me let’s have a baby let’s have a baby and he never even thought about whether it would be right for the actual baby. Like, what sort of chance do you think it’d have?’
‘You think Peter hadn’t considered the implications of having a child?’
She’s turned her hand palm upwards, appears to be examining the scar on her wrist. ‘They let them in at Public. Dad and Peter.’
‘Even though you didn’t want to see them?’
‘Right.’
Silence again. Let her do it. Let her initiate it.
‘They were coming out with all this shit they thought they should say I want to look after you, darling. You come first, darling. Darling if I’d only known and all the time I could feel it. They were just full-on, so fucking angry with me. But— It wasn’t even a baby, was it? Not a proper baby. It would have been just, just hardly even as big as, as big as, I don’t know, just so little you’d hardly have been able to see it, would you? Just cells. It wouldn’t have felt anything, would it?’
She’s gazing at Stephanie, her eyes, brimming with tears, entreating her to agree and she does, shaking her head, speaking emphatically.
‘Absolutely not.’
Beth breathes outwards, expelling the air in a gush and leans back in the chair and closes her eyes.
That’s what she came for. That’s what she wanted.
‘I don’t want to see Peter. I don’t want to see Dad either.’
‘Beth, how do you feel about your dad? ’
‘I. Well. I love Dad.’
‘And Peter?’
‘Everyone says I’m lucky to have him because he’s such a nice guy. But it’s like history repeating itself isn’t it? Like Dad and Mum.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean by that.’
‘Everyone thought Dad was this really nice guy and Mum was crazy but he stuck by her anyway.’
‘What do you think?’
She shrugs. ‘How would I know? Anyway, what’s the point of talking about it? Know what my Granny used to say? Least said soonest mended. Probably right. Just shut up and get on with it, eh?’
‘That’s what a lot of families do. I don’t believe it’s the best way, though.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not in the job you’ve got.’ She’s grinning again, challenging.
‘You think it’s best not to analyse things?’
‘I’m saying that’s the way my Granny thought. What I want to know is why you think you’re right.’
‘I’m not saying I’m right. What
I’m saying is I believe that if you don’t talk about the things that hurt and disturb you, they stay with you and hurt you even more.’
Like you, Stephanie? You talk about the important things?
‘Guys like you’ve made a whole fucking industry out of all this, haven’t you? If you didn’t make people believe all that shit you’d be out of a job. Look, I’m going.’
‘You’ve achieved a lot today, Beth. Are you okay to leave now?’
‘Course I’m fucking okay.’
The door closes sharply behind her.
She’s here again. It’s only been three days this time and she’s at the door.
She sits, looks at Stephanie. Her expression is watchful, guarded.
‘I’m here. Okay?’
‘Beth, I’m pleased you’re here. Where would you like to start?’
‘Shouldn’t that be up to you? Shouldn’t you be helping me find myself? Isn’t that your job? Sitting around in this nice warm office listening to people rattle on about their problems.’ She grins. ‘Cushy job, eh?’
Stephanie grins back. ‘I like it.’
‘So how did you land it? How did you become a, what are you?’
‘I’m a trainee psychiatrist.’
‘A trainee? Are you saying I’m being looked after by someone who’s not even qualified? Is having you some sort of bargain-basement deal so they won’t have to pay the full price?’
‘Do you want to talk about that or do you want to talk about something else?’
‘I want to talk about you. Isn’t that a sign of getting better? Showing an interest in other people? So, why do you do this stuff?’
‘You work in a bank, don’t you? Why did you choose that?’
‘Well, shit, it wasn’t exactly like there were a lot of choices were there? Like, Hey Beth, you can do anything you want all you have to do is cast your eyes over all these fantastic opportunities. A job in the bank was what happened to be around when I finished school. It came up so I went for it.’
‘I have the impression you don’t much like it.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything? I thought about going away to town to do Teachers’ College, something like that, but I was already going out with Peter.’
‘You cared enough about Peter to give up your ideas of going to Teachers’ College?’
Hunting BLind: It's Every Family's Deepest Fear Page 11
