by Carys Jones
“Sebastian is certain that this doctor is the best there is and that he can help her.”
“I don’t know,” Carol unclasped her hands and let one settle over Bill’s. “I just wish she was back to her old, happy self. I thought she was at dinner and then…she just slipped away again. It scares me.”
“She’s just struggling with everything she’s been through, she’ll get better.”
Carol tilted her body so that she was leaning against Bill’s strong shoulder. It was comforting to feel his weight supporting her.
“She will get better,” Bill promised her. “She has to.”
*
“Marie?” Sebastian walked in to the study where Marie remained focused on the computer and the same image of the man in the navy coat who had threw himself beneath an oncoming train.
Marie didn’t turn to look at him as he entered the room.
“Marie, the snow is really coming down, we need to leave for London now.” His voice was stern as he spoke. He noticed that his fiancée was still in her nightwear, not having yet dressed for the day. Her hair was matted upon her head and the scent of sleep still clung to her.
“You need to go get dressed,” he told her.
“In a minute,” Marie mumbled, transfixed by the computer screen.
“What are you looking at?” Sebastian stormed over to her. He didn’t like being ignored, especially when time was of the essence.
He immediately recognised the man from the story which she’d spotted on his iPad.
“Why are you reading about that guy?” he demanded angrily. “Did you know him or something?”
“No-”
“Is he an ex-boyfriend or something?” Bitterness crept in to Sebastian’s voice, mixed with jealousy.
“No,” Marie cried, exiting the page on which the story was being broadcast.
“Then why are you so concerned with some bum who jumped in to the tracks?”
“I’m not,” Marie shut down the entire computer. “He just…looks familiar. I was trying to place him, that’s all.”
Sebastian studied her expression but couldn’t be certain if she was telling the truth. He decided he had no time to decipher what was really going on. The snow kept falling and the appointment with Dr Colton was drawing ever closer.
“Look, can you just go get dressed and then we can leave?”
Marie stood up and smiled weakly at him.
“Sure,” she nodded.
“Great, so downstairs in like ten minutes, ready to go?”
“Actually,” Marie glanced back at the computer screen which was now dark and devoid of information.
“My legs are really aching,” she ran her hands down her legs and winced for effect. “I was thinking of having a bath, giving them a soak to ease up the pain before I have to sit in the car for hours.”
Sebastian clenched his jaw. A bath would take considerably longer than a shower but how could he object when Marie needed the warmth of the water to alleviate her pain? After all, he was the one forcing her to sit in a car for hours, the least he could do was allow her some time to relax and prepare before they left.
“Thirty minutes.” He told her.
“Forty five,” Marie bartered.
“Fine!” Sebastian threw his hands up in defeat. “But please, Marie, don’t dawdle. If this snow gets any worse we can’t leave for London.”
“Would that really be so bad?” Marie asked innocently.
Sebastian sighed and ran a hand down his face. She was so oblivious to what was waiting for her at Dr Colton’s office. She was about to be judged and potentially declared insane and a danger to herself. But she was still Marie, his sweet, beautiful Marie.
“I’ll go bath now,” Marie headed towards the door when Sebastian failed to answer, assuming that his silence was to cover his mounting anger.
She paused in the doorway and turned to face him, her eyes sparkling slightly.
“Thank you for trying so hard to save me, and for never leaving.”
“Its…okay,” Sebastian was caught off guard by the comment. Normally she was so cut off from him by her anger and unhappiness.
“I mean it,” Marie insisted. “Thank you, for everything.”
Sebastian was silent. He wondered how grateful Marie would be once her freedom had been taken from her?
“I love you,” she concluded gently before leaving the study and heading towards the bathroom.
It took a moment for Sebastian to recover from his shock and call after her;
“I love you too,” but he was a few seconds too late and the bathroom door had already closed behind her.
*
“Is she nearly ready?” Bill asked as Sebastian came back downstairs.
“She’s just having a bath, her legs ache,” the younger man explained.
“Ah.”
Both Bill and Carol were enjoying fresh cups of tea as the snow continued to intensify outside.
Sebastian watched the tiny ice fragments dance chaotically in the faint breeze and contemplated letting the elements win. He thought about giving in and remaining in Manchester, never taking Marie back to Dr Colton and just accepting that she believed that she was a princess of some imaginary realm.
As if hearing his doubts Sebastian’s phone began to vibrate in his jean pocket with an incoming call from the doctor’s office. Stepping out of the lounge and in to the hallway he answered the call.
“Dr Colton?”
“Mr Fenwick good morning,” the doctor’s voice sounded slightly hoarse as he spoke. “I just wanted to ensure that we are all set for this evening?”
“I think so,” Sebastian glanced tentatively out of the window. “It’s started snowing here but hopefully we can still get back to London alright.”
“Very good. I just wanted to suggest that following Marie’s recent hallucinations you try and keep something of a constant eye on her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just don’t go leaving her alone for prolonged periods of time. Patients who record daytime hallucinations can display quite erratic, unpredictable behaviours. Often there may be cases of self-harm. It’s just a precaution that it might be worth keeping her in sight, just until I’ve assessed her fully.”
“She’s at home with all her family,” Sebastian explained. “She’s got a pretty consistent set of eyes upon her.”
“Good, good.”
Sebastian’s eyes followed the carpeted stairs up to the landing where just at the top Marie was indulging in a long bath to soak her sore legs. The carpet was a shade of dark green set off against light green walls. It was an acquired taste in terms of interior design, one Sebastian had never appreciated. He found the overall look gaudy and dated.
“She’s just having a bath,” he explained to the doctor. “Her legs still ache from time to time and give her trouble. Once she’s finished we’ll head down to London.”
“Okay, see you soon. Call me if there’s any problems.”
Sebastian ended the call and wandered back in to the living room where the television was now on and Carol and Bill were laughing at some British comedy sketch show.
“That was Marie’s doctor,” he explained to them. “He just wanted to check in on everything.”
“Ooh, do you want a coffee?” Carol sprang up when she realised that Sebastian was the only one in the room without a fresh hot drink.
“I’m not sure I’ve got time.”
“Oh, you have, Marie always takes forever in the bath,” Carol smiled, playing for time. The longer they procrastinated the more snow could fall and the less likely it became that Marie would be leaving for London.
Sebastian deliberated for a moment and then nodded.
“Okay then, thanks.”
As Carol headed off towards the kitchen the comments the doctor had made circled around his mind.
“Do you think Marie is okay in the bath?” he asked both Carol and Bill. “I mean, its okay that she’s alone?”
“It’s just that the doctor suggested we shouldn’t leave her alone,” Sebastian explained.
“We can’t be with her every second of the day,” Bill replied as his most recent bout of laughter subsided. He was thoroughly enjoying what he was watching.
“She has to feel like she’s getting some independence back,” he added.
“Besides, she loves having a bath,” Carol shouted from the kitchen. “Just leave her be for a bit. You can smother her once you’re back in London.”
“Okay,” Sebastian sat in the spare chair in the lounge and tried to focus on the show on the television which was delighting Bill but he couldn’t concentrate. Something didn’t feel right he just wasn’t sure what it was.
*
Marie watched the bath tub slowly fill up. The chrome taps, now dulled and tarnished released a torrent of hot and cold water with a surge of sound as the clear liquid splashed in to the vast space of the tub.
Faded blue tiles lined the bath, some adorned in an image of a sea horse or a scallop shell. Tiles that had once been tasteful had been eroded by time and now looked tired and out of date. But Marie had always felt a fondness for the tiles. As a little girl she’d pretend she was a mermaid in the bathroom and that the sea horse and the scallop shells were relics of her life beneath the sea. A life she could only reconnect with each time she took a bath. A smile pulled on her lips as she recalled those happier times.
Idly Marie let her one hand droop down in to the water to monitor the temperate. She didn’t want to be cold. An array of brightly coloured bottles of bubble bath tried to engage her as they stood in a rainbow row against the wall.
Each brightly coloured liquid boasted its own scent; there was lavender, orange, lime and vanilla but Marie ignored all of them and the renewing qualities they claimed to possess on their labels. She wouldn’t be needing sweetly scented bubbles in her bath.
When the bath tub was just over half way full Marie turned off both taps as securely as she could since the cold tap insisted of continually dripping no matter how many times her father called the plumber out to fix the problem.
Shedding her night clothes Marie descended in to the waiting water. The heat immediately enveloped her body causing her skin to redden.
The sudden warmth was pleasant against her sore legs. She lay down in the bath and extended her legs, savouring the sensation. Since she was relatively short she could comfortably stretch out in the tub with little restriction.
Wiggling her toes she enjoyed the simple pleasure of just being in the bath. Leaning back she submerged her head briefly so that her entire body was coated by the warm water. Resurfacing she exhaled as her hair dripped heavily down her back and in to her eyes. She wished she could linger longer in the warm water but she was already running out of time.
Scanning the various toiletries scattered around the bath she quickly located the item she sought. Stretching out she drew it to her and closed her eyes, picturing what needed to happen. It was a technique she’d been taught in school and often employed in real life.
“Visualise what you want to happen,” her physical education teacher had once told her one rainy July afternoon towards the end of term.
“Visualise it in your mind and make it so.” That had been the summer Marie had successfully vaulted over the gymnastics horse for the first time. She’d felt so proud as she landed on the bright blue crash mat that she thought she might burst.
Before her run up she’d imagined how it would play out. How she’d jump up on the spring board, push her body forward, place her palms upon the waiting horse and then push herself off for a dismount. Standing there, looking down at the spring board and behind it the impossibly high gymnastic horse she was certain that her teacher was demanding the impossible of her.
But she stood there in her gym clothes, her hair high in a ponytail and took a deep breath imaging how it would all play out and then she had run as fast as she could up towards that spring board and it had all worked beautifully.
So as Marie lay in the bath tub of warm water she imagined what needed to happen. Then, opening her eyes slightly she took the lady razor in her hands and pulled it apart, removing the silver blade.
*
Sebastian paced relentlessly across the small space of the living room, unable to settle. He kept alternating his focus between the window outside and the ceiling above.
The snow kept falling and appeared to have started to stick as outside the whole world was turning white.
Carol and Bill sat side by side on the sofa engrossed in the television, enjoying the brief respite from their constant worries over Marie.
“How long has she been up there?” Sebastian asked nervously, checking his designer watch.
“Not long,” Carol answered. “Just relax, let her have some time to herself.”
Sebastian paused and looked upwards at the ceiling on which Christmas streamers had been tacked corner to corner. The sound of running water had stopped almost ten minutes ago, the pipes around the house were now quiet and still.
“The doctor said we should keep a constant eye on her.”
“Let her bath,” Bill objected as though Sebastian were suggesting robbing her of some basic human right, which in a way, he was.
More minutes trickled by like hours and still Marie didn’t resurface. Sebastian was growing increasingly nervous and tense as he strained to hear the sound of water being released from the bath tub positioned above them.
“I should probably just check on her,” he decided, looking to Bill and Carol for approval.
“Give her another minute,” Carol advised. “Then check in on her, see if she needs a hand getting out though she won’t thank you for it.”
*
Marie scratched the small silver blade against the tip of one of her fingers and it drew blood but it wasn’t as sharp as she’d have liked.
She studied it, turning it over in the limited light of the bathroom. She remembered the first time she’d used a wet razor to shave her legs. She’d been fourteen and it was at a sleepover at her friend Katy’s house. Katy insisted that Marie needed to grow up and start shaving like all the other girls did so Marie wet her legs in Katy’s kitchen sink and pulled the razor up them as instructed.
When Marie returned home the following day her legs were littered with small scratches and Carol had been horrified. She pretended she was angry that Marie had hurt herself but deep down she was just pained to see that her beloved little girl was growing up and blossoming in to a woman.
Marie pushed the memory about Katy’s light blue kitchen sink and the first razor she held away and instead thought of the man in the navy coat.
“You know, you just haven’t realised that you possess the knowledge yet. But you need to hurry up, your people need you.”
His hurried words echoed in the recesses of her mind. She remembered how desolate Azriel had been the last time she had returned it to with endless darkness covering what had once been the site of sumptuous golden houses and elaborate water fountains and fields of rich, emerald green grass.
The man in the navy coat had said that he had to get back as he left. Did he return to Azriel through casting his physical shell beneath an oncoming train? Marie was certain that he had. She was certain that finally she had found a way back to her beloved kingdom.
Only hours remained until Azriel would be gone forever. Taking a sharp intake of breath Marie held the razor against the inside of her left wrist and pressed down as hard as she could and drew it back.
The pain of breaking her skin and artery made her gasp so she lowered her mouth in to the water to stifle any screams. She had to force the small razor to complete the cut, grinding her teeth together as she pushed through the pain. The water around her immediately began to turn crimson as blood started gushing out of the fresh wound. Before she lost consci
ousness Marie repeated the action on her right wrist. This time she screamed as she tore open her flesh, the sound muffled by the water and causing bubbles to ripple out around her.
The water continued to darken as it became mixed with her crimson blood. The original heat from the water had dulled and she shivered slightly as she lay there. Once the taps had silenced Marie could clearly hear the drone of the television beneath her but now that sound became more distant, more removed as her vision started to blur.
Her eyelids turned to lead and she suddenly felt impossibly tired, as though she just wanted to sleep forever more.
