by Ceylan Scott
I said the snow brings out a different side to people, didn’t I?
‘Let’s do it,’ I say, holding out my hand for the other two to shake simultaneously.
‘Now?’ says Jasper, jumping up and grinning.
Elle raises her eyes and looks at me. I shrug.
‘Where are we going to go?’ I ask.
‘Don’t have a fucking clue,’ Elle replies, walking over to the bench with her hand in mine. ‘Who cares, anyway?’
Elle’s right. She doesn’t have a fucking clue at all.
The fence is harder to get over than we anticipate. The snow has softened the wood so it’s slippery and difficult to get a grip, and as I grasp the top of it I can feel a metal nail digging into the palm of my left hand. My legs flail, scraping against the wood, trying to find a hold.
‘Hang on,’ says Jasper, ‘I’ll give you a leg up.’
‘I’ll do it,’ says Elle, cupping my boot in her hands. ‘You’re “physically compromised”, Jasper, don’t forget.’
‘Shut up,’ Jasper snaps, but he’s laughing. ‘Just hurry up.’
I swing my legs over until I’m hanging on the other side from my arms, my ribcage pressed hard against the fence. Once I let go, the ground is further than I think and I land in the snow, winded.
I groan, and hear laughter from the other side of the fence. ‘Come on, then, otherwise I’m going to be the only one in trouble,’ I say.
‘Actually, we’ve changed our minds – see you later, Tay,’ I hear Elle say from the other side of the fence, but before I have time to react Jasper clambers over and joins me.
‘Only joking,’ he says.
I stick out my tongue. Elle follows with a light nimbleness, landing softly in the snow.
‘Welcome to the world beyond,’ she says, opening her arms and presenting to us the grimy car park.
‘Not exactly the promised land,’ Jasper says. ‘We better run.’
It’s difficult to sprint when your lungs are choking on laughter, and I’m left spluttering for breath before we even leave the drive. There is something elating about the day – the icy sunlight, the frozen trees, the cool breath of each inhalation of freedom – that makes me want to spin and scream with giddy excitement, our frozen footsteps in the snow.
And as we turn and run out of the hospital gates, I’m pretty sure I hear the emergency alarm start to screech. That’s another thing – I’m not sure why the gates are open.
The main road is almost deserted because of the snow, and we run through the middle of it along the grit, our shoes crunching on the ground, with each step my heart thumping faster with exhilaration and stress.
‘I can’t believe we’ve done this!’ Jasper says, above heavy breaths.
Elle laughs and spins in circles, her hands extended to the sky. The trees lining the road are heavy with snow, their gnarled brown branches hanging limply under the weight.
‘We’re fucking free!’ she shouts, and grabs my hand as we run through the empty street, our feet soaking from the carpet of sludge.
We finally come to a stop in an alley twenty minutes later. Panting, Jasper crouches down on the pavement, his skinny hands pale and bare in the grey light.
‘Where are we?’ he says, looking up at Elle.
‘Not a clue,’ she says. ‘Doesn’t really matter, though, does it? We can do whatever the hell we want.’
‘How long before you reckon they’ll start looking for us?’
‘I bet they already are,’ I say, remembering the alarm. ‘The police will probably find us soon.’
‘Don’t be so defeatist,’ says Elle, and we start walking again, following the alley as it thins out and meets the road again. Jasper and I follow Elle as she turns on to a cycle path heading away from the road.
It takes us an hour to reach the countryside, walking slowly and deliberately, before we see a thick clump of woodland squatting over the track.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ chatters Elle. ‘The world is so beautiful, and we are invincible!’ She takes my hand again, giggling, her eyes alight with the kind of frenzied happiness that comes from too much snow and too little medication.
It begins to snow again, lightly, flakes falling in the milky light. You can hear the hum of the distant motorway like a nest of bumblebees, but there is nothing near here. A magpie squawks and lands on the path in front of us. One for sorrow. I vaguely look for another one, see a pigeon and decide that will do. I don’t think about the police catching us. I don’t think about my problems, or Dr Flores, or Iris. There is nothing to think about. There are no worries. There is only freedom.
I turn to Elle and Jasper. Jasper’s skinny body is shivering. His lips are grey.
‘I’m really fucking cold,’ he says.
Elle finds it funny. She peels off her jumper and passes it to him as he breathes in small pockets of air between shudders.
‘We’ve hardly been out for long, Jasp, don’t die on us!’
Jasper stabs his middle finger up through the folds in the fabric of her jumper. ‘Whose stupid idea was this, again?’ he says.
‘Elle’s,’ I say. ‘If you die, blame her, not me.’
‘You were my accomplice! I haven’t killed Jasper all on my own, I don’t take all the credit,’ Elle replies, as she continues to skip ahead, unsettling the snow and tossing it up in a cascade of powdery flakes as she goes. ‘Look, you can’t complain, anyway – we can see the whole world!’
The motorway sprawls ahead of us, a seething scar of grey slashed across the landscape. The faint drone of exhausts and engines judders across the snow.
‘It’s a road,’ says Jasper. ‘It’s a road and it’s ugly and we need to turn around.’
‘Don’t be silly, we can’t turn around. Come on!’ says Elle, her face flashing with a reckless energy, her fingers still tightly entwined in mine like a small child. Sun glints off the snow in a hazy reflection. The clouds are etched into smiles. The world is smiling. Elle is smiling. Even Jasper is smiling, because we’re free. If this is what it feels like to be on the run, I can manage that. If being on the run is surges of exhilaration and spontaneity and screams of delight, then I can manage that.
The snow ends as we meet the motorway. Wisps of exhaust fumes and screeching and Jasper clutching my shoulder. Horns bellow, two of them, three, four. Jasper shouts something into my ear but I keep running, my arms stretched upwards into the air, surrendering to the bonnet of each car, but nothing hits. Sprinting, sprinting, gasping breaths of cold petrol air, eyes fixed on the middle of the motorway, Jasper’s fingers digging in. I search desperately for Elle, for a flash of her ginger hair. There is no Elle.
I lurch for the thin strip of pavement in the middle of the motorway, scramble into it.
‘Elle!’
A driver in a pristine Jaguar rolls down his window and swears. Cars pick up speed again. Jasper lets go of my top, panting like a dog.
‘Where is she?’ he says.
I groan. My heart is punching its way out of my chest.
‘I knew . . . I knew this would happen.’ I knew someone was going to get hurt. Jasper nods as if he knows what I am talking about. We stand, facing the first half of the motorway that we’ve just crossed.
‘Knew what would happen?’
‘Elle!’ My voice cracks. I pull her into an awkward hug, her forehead knocking against my jawbones.
‘It’s that anxiety of yours,’ she says with a grin. ‘Always catastrophizing. I’ve been here longer than you two.’
I laugh but it sounds weak. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘I know,’ she says airily. ‘I saw.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I say.
She takes my hand in hers like she always does. ‘Sorry.’ She doesn’t mean it.
‘We need to get to the other side,’ says Jasper eventually.
‘Yeah.’
For the next stretch of road, I am the one clutching the fabric of Elle’s top as she nimbly snakes her way th
rough angry cars. We make it across to the other side in twenty seconds, twenty long and stressful seconds broken only by more slamming brakes and screaming horns.
‘Shit,’ says Jasper as we start to clamber up the other side of the bank, under the gnarled branches of snow-laden trees. ‘Whose stupid idea was that?’
We walk through a fleecy white field, towards a distant cluster of houses that signals civilization. My feet are pierced with needles made from ice. Jasper’s teeth chatter.
‘Let’s find a road,’ says Elle brightly, apparently unaffected.
‘Seriously?’ snaps Jasper. ‘We just got off a road. We could have died.’
‘We weren’t going to die,’ says Elle dismissively. ‘Anyway, I don’t mean that sort of road. You’re cold, and I have an idea.’
Don’t get into vans with strange men, kids. That’s what I’m thinking when Elle prances into the middle of the road, thumb raised in the air, and the first car to stop is a battered Volkswagen camper van, driven by a bearded middle-aged man with a bandana, two eyebrow piercings and an oversized leather jacket.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ mutters Jasper as Elle leans into his open window, grinning like a Cheshire Cat on ecstasy. Across the bonnet of the camper van is a scarlet cartoon image of Ziggy Stardust.
‘He’ll take us!’ Elle shouts delightedly. ‘Let’s go!’
‘We can’t just get into a car with a random man,’ I hiss.
‘Oh, stop being so boring. He’s nice, he’s going to drop us in town!’ Her flushed face looks earnest.
‘He’s wearing a bandana,’ says Jasper quietly.
‘So? What’s that got to do with anything?’ she says sharply. I roll my eyes.
‘Oi, are you lot coming?’ calls the man, leaning out of the van.
‘We can’t stay here, Jasper looks like he’s at death’s door, let’s just go. It’ll be fun!’ With that she links arms with Jasper and manhandles him towards the van. He turns to me with a bewildered expression.
‘I can’t believe you,’ I say, as Elle slides open the door with a flourish. But I follow her.
The camper van is small and cramped inside. A grill coated with the blackened remains of a barbecue lies on one of the seats, and piles of unwashed clothes are dumped in one corner.
‘Just move everything out the way,’ says the man, as he turns the radio down. Some Queen song.
Elle slams the door on Jasper and I, and dives into the front seat. ‘I’m Elle,’ she says brightly. ‘And that’s Jasper, and Tamar.’
‘Ralph,’ he grunts.
Jasper continues to shiver under Elle’s thin jumper. As Ralph revs the engine and begins to trundle over the grit, the nauseating smell of burning rubber wafts into my nostrils. An empty cage that once must have housed some small animal clanks on the floor as we move.
‘Wine gum?’ He passes a packet behind him.
Don’t get into vans with strange men, kids – especially not if they offer you sweeties. Hmm. Let’s hope they’re not drugged.
The snow-covered hills in the distance merge into one huge expanse of white as Ralph presses down on the accelerator and we bundle back towards the town. He turns the radio up when Elle starts a political debate.
‘We need nuclear weapons, though – there are some crazy people out there . . .’
‘Sweetheart, you obviously don’t know a lot about the world, so why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?’
Elle told me that Dr Flores had said she was having delusions, delusions that meant she was special and invincible. ‘What bullshit,’ I’d said, because Elle is the most special and invincible person that I know. She’d laughed. ‘He doesn’t know a thing, does he?’ she’d said.
Two thoughts come into my head now. Either I have been seeing Elle as more wonderful and invincible than she really is, or she is seeing herself as such. Either way, someone is deluded. Not for the first time today, I curse myself for not telling anyone that she’s been spitting out her medication.
We swerve across a roundabout and into the town.
‘Where do you want to get out?’ Ralph says, turning to Jasper and ignoring Elle as she continues to babble about the pros and cons of recycling.
‘Here’s fine,’ says Jasper hastily. ‘Thanks a lot.’ He unclips his seatbelt and jumps out of the van as quickly as he can.
‘Here, your friend’s a weird one, isn’t she?’ Ralph whispers to me as I make to leave.
‘Oh, yeah, don’t mind her,’ I say with a smile, as I jump out after Elle. ‘She’s just clinically insane. Thanks for the lift!’
‘You do realize they’ll kill us if we go back?’ Elle says, running a finger across her throat.
‘Come on, we have to,’ I say. ‘You, especially, have to – you’re sectioned. No offence . . .’
Elle gives me a look, but she isn’t angry. ‘Don’t be so boring. They can’t force me to go back.’
I sigh, because that’s exactly what they can do. That’s where Jasper and I have the upper hand. We are voluntary patients (which means: if you do as you’re told and stay here even though you don’t want to, we won’t section you). Elle, on the other hand, is tied to Lime Grove with the hefty shackles of the law.
Everyone else will be having afternoon snack by now: two yoghurts and an apple (chopped up, of course) for Alice, if she manages to avoid a packet of crisps, like she usually does. Leftover crisps collect over weeks for everyone else. Then they’ll be going into art group together, and they’ll sit in a circle around the art table and Alice will probably paint Patient Will’s hand with acrylic paint, as if it’s henna. It might be unbearably tedious, but at least I could ask Emma for a cup of tea with milk and two sugars, and at least it would be warm.
The police car is on the pavement in front of us before we have time to react. Its blue lights are still flashing as two police officers barge out of the car and round us up.
The first police officer is so burly, he looks as if he is going to burst out of his stab-proof vest at any second.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he shouts. ‘We’ve had half the fucking police force out looking for three missing teenagers. And a shitting air ambulance.’ It’s fair to say he is not pleased. ‘Fucking hell.’
‘So,’ says the second police officer. ‘What’ve you got to say for yourselves? I warn you, it better be good.’
At this, Elle chooses, as she always does, a spectacularly inappropriate time to burst into a fit of helpless laughter.
‘It really isn’t funny. Haven’t you got phones?’
‘No, we don’t,’ says Jasper, as I try to give Elle a cold but subtle glare while the policemen aren’t watching. I think it makes her worse.
The second policeman snorts. ‘No phones? How old are you? Sixteen? Don’t give me that bullshit, one of you must have a phone.’
‘Get in the car,’ says the burly one.
We sit, squashed awkwardly into the back seats, and the policemen climb into the front, bellowing into their walkie-talkies.
‘Yeah, we’ve got them. No worries. Over.’
‘Nice day, was it?’ says the second policemen. ‘Running across motorways?’
‘We’re really sorry,’ says Jasper quietly.
I nod in agreement and try to ignore Elle as she struggles to keep a straight face. The police car smells of petrol and glacé cherries, possibly from the cheap-looking air freshener hanging on the front windscreen. The first policemen sighs pointedly.
‘I don’t doubt that. Probably not seeming like such a funny idea now, eh?’
‘No.’
‘Right, let’s get you idiots back home, then,’ says the second policeman, pulling the car into gear and swerving round into the middle of the road.
‘Who lives closest?’
‘We, um, we live together,’ I cut in.
‘You lot related?’ he says sceptically, turning round and eyeing us.
‘Oh, no, we just—’ begins Jasper.
> ‘We’re from the psychiatric hospital . . . Lime Grove,’ says Elle. She seems to have composed herself.
Like that, the demeanour of the two policemen changes. The first policeman nods, then turns back round and gives us a crooked smile. He has a gold tooth on the right side of his mouth.
‘Well, I hope you had a good day on the outside, you three, but we’re going back to lockdown,’ he says as the car jerks and we head down the slushy road, back to Lime Grove.
The reception we receive when we arrive back at Lime Grove is icier than the weather we’ve just been out in. Dr Flores has gone home, but an army of angry nurses in blue are waiting for us, rage in their faces. The policemen look more scared than we are of Emma’s pulsing temples and widened eyes, and they leave us as soon as we’ve been let in, muttering that their work here is done and they need to go. Emma doesn’t need to say a word to make herself painfully clear. I wish that Elle would stop smirking and fidgeting as we sit on the chairs in the reception, waiting to be searched, one by one.
‘Tamar,’ says Emma icily, ushering me through the first air-lock door without making eye contact. ‘Take off your shoes. And your jumper and bra.’
I do as I am told. Emma doesn’t say anything more, but she has a grim expression on her face as she swipes me down with the metal detector, feels the soles of my shoes. The silence is loud.
‘Sorry . . .’ I venture, as Emma feels the padding of my bra.
‘You’ve been incredibly immature,’ snaps Emma. ‘I don’t want to hear any more from you three for the rest of the evening.’
So that’s that. We are sent to our rooms without dinner (apart from Jasper, he has to have dinner, of course), like naughty children. Elle giggles all the way into her bed.
The first time I slept on the floor of my bedroom in my clothes, I woke to the faint burning smell of a cigarette I had stubbed out on my carpet. Brew, the dog, had found his way next to me, and was sitting upright, panting and wheezing near to my ear. I reached a hand out and squeezed his collar. The dress I’d been wearing was crumpled. I got to the open window and pulled it shut; a sharp breeze had begun to blow into the room with the dawn. My head throbbed, and I put it down to the cigarettes. I could feel their smoky presence still sitting in my throat. Slowly and methodically, I peeled off the dress, its corners encrusted with dry sweat, threw it into the growing pile of unwashed clothes on my chair. Anxiety means you get through clothes quickly. I crawled into bed.
