Don’t Stand So Close

by Luana Lewis

  Blue nodded. She was staring at her, pleading with her eyes. What did she want? Comfort? Absolution? Understanding? When there was nothing, no response, no softening of her face, Blue looked away.

  ‘This a very serious allegation. Do you understand? This is not a joke, this isn’t some stupid prank like the ones you’ve pulled at school. My husband took you on as a charity case. You said yourself your mother has no money. He’s been kind to you because he’s a good man. He’s also a brilliant psychiatrist. I’ll bet he paid for all your medication as well? Because if you’d waited for an appointment on the NHS you’d still be bloody waiting. Or off your head, psychotic probably, in a secure adolescent unit. So he takes you on – out of kindness. And now you thank him by lying to get inside his home and making up vicious stories.’ As Stella spoke, her anger was unleashed and grew larger. ‘You’re sick. You’re really sick.’

  You and your father.

  Blue shook her head. She pushed herself backwards, cowering in the corner, as though Stella would hurt her. She was mute, but the bright blue of her eyes made Stella frightened. She was Lawrence Simpson’s daughter, through and through. She had been manipulating Stella all along. Blue had come to Hilltop to destroy her life, or the little that was left of it.

  ‘So now what?’ Stella said. ‘What do you want from me, Blue? You came here to hurt me and to try to destroy my husband, my marriage. So now what?’

  Blue’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t know.’ She was weeping now, playing the victim, and Stella couldn’t stand the sight of her. She got out of her chair and stood in front of the fireplace, turning her back on Blue. She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the cold cast-iron mantelpiece. She should have let Peter deal with her.

  She sensed Blue coming closer, standing behind her. She could feel her breath on her neck.

  ‘I was the one who wanted it,’ Blue said. ‘I wanted him. I made him touch me. He didn’t want to at first but I needed him to touch me.’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ Stella said. ‘Or you’re crazy. Either way, I will never believe you.’

  Now that Blue had started talking, she wouldn’t stop. Touching herself, unbuttoning her top, crawling over to him on her hands and knees, opening his fly … climbing on top … locking the door.

  Stella kept her eyes closed, her back turned. Blue’s words wormed their way inside her brain, burrowing into her thoughts and her gut. She should never have let her in. Hilltop was the one place she was safe, and now Blue would contaminate it all. She wanted to destroy the last thing Stella had left. Max. Her marriage.

  Blue pressed her face into Stella’s back and twisted her arms around her waist. Stella would not turn around. Blue’s forehead dug harder into Stella’s shoulder, her arms gripped tighter.

  ‘Please turn around,’ Blue said. ‘I need you to see—’

  ‘Get away from me!’ Stella dug her fingers into Blue’s arms and wrenched them loose. She turned and shoved her away. Blue stumbled and tripped over the jade Buddha squatting on the hearth. She stayed on the floor, on her hands and knees, her head down and her hair covering her face.

  ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ Stella asked.

  ‘He can’t stop seeing me. He can’t throw me away like a piece of junk. I’m not nothing!’

  Blue was a beast, crouched on her hands and knees. Crying. Unhinged. Unpredictable.

  To look at her made Stella frantic. The thought of Max in his office, alone with her, unable to contain himself.

  It wasn’t true.

  Stella put her hands over her eyes but images of Blue and Max were all over the inside of her eyeballs. The consulting room she knew so well, the armchairs, the antique rug, her blonde hair falling forward, her perfect breasts, her creamy skin, her blazing eyes, her desperate need to be loved. Stella’s stomach twisted and she felt she was going to be sick.

  Blue’s hands were on her again, around her knees, clinging on. ‘Please look at me,’ she said. Stella tried to pull away from the ugly, chewed fingernails but Blue held on. ‘I did want to hurt you. But I don’t any more. I just want you to know.’

  Blue wouldn’t let go. Stella wanted to lash out, to kick her, to slap her and to see red welts blossom across the side of her face. She would love to strangle her. She couldn’t take it any longer. She reached down and grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked Blue’s head back, yanked hard until her arms loosened and she let go of Stella’s legs. Then Stella moved away, a safe distance, leaving her weeping, still crouched on the floor, pleading.

  ‘I’m telling the truth,’ Blue said. ‘I promise. I just want you to believe me.’

  ‘You lied to get into my house and you haven’t stopped lying since. You’ll never get anywhere near my husband again. I’m going to call Peter in here and he is going to take you to a police station. From there you’ll most probably be sent to a secure mental hospital where they’ll lock you up. So you can forget about Max. You can even forget about seeing your mother.’

  She looked straight into Blue’s scared, desperate eyes, feeling the pleasure of the pain she had inflicted.

  This was her house. Max was her husband. She wasn’t going to be pushed around by a teenage runaway. She could see now the benefits of the chemical cocktail of restraints the girl had been taking. Clearly Max had good reasons for prescribing what he did.

  The girl’s eyes darkened. She was staring at her with an unsettling mixture of pity and defiance. Blue stood, straightened her jacket, pushed her hair back. She took a step backwards. Then, she knelt down and lifted the jade statue of Buddha with both hands. She raised it over her head, and ran. She flung the statue right at the window.

  The sound of shattering glass pierced the snow-dampened morning.

  Blue grabbed hold of the sides of the window frame, crying out as glass pierced her palms. She propelled herself through and staggered forwards, her small feet crunching over glass shards and slipping against the frozen snow.

  Ladbroke Grove, Friday 7 January 2011, 11 a.m.

  Her mother started calling her Blue when she was six years old. She had changed her name just like that, without asking if she minded, without telling her why. Her real name was Lauren. She was named after her father, a long time ago, back when her parents didn’t hate each other’s guts. Lauren Simpson.

  Her mother lied to her. She said she had always wanted to call her Blue, because of her eyes, but Lauren knew the real reason. Her other name reminded her mother too much of the man she hated.

  The name change was the first time she could remember being really pissed off with her mother. There were other things, too: she drank, she came home with men who stared at Blue funny, she was sick all the time, some days she couldn’t get out of bed.

  But mostly, Blue hated her father. For leaving them and for not sending any money. And she hated him even more for coming back, for making them hope, and then making everything worse. He would never, ever, leave them in peace. Each time, it would start the same way. The judge would force Blue to go out with him for the day. He was supposed to pick her up and drop her off somewhere far away from the house, at a neutral place. Their home address was supposed to be a secret. Instead, her mother would tell him where they were living, would let him inside; she would dress up, with too much lipstick and perfume. After a while, the arguing would start. And worse.

  It was doing her head in. Her mother promised her she wouldn’t invite him in next time, promised she wouldn’t even come to the door when he dropped Blue off, but she always did.

  Blue loved her mother, but her mother drove her crazy.

  She was in her bedroom, with the door locked. Her mother didn’t like it when she locked herself in, but then her mother wasn’t home to complain. Her room was so tiny, just about big enough for a single bed and a side table and a small chest of drawers with a television on top. Her mother’s room was slightly bigger – you could fit a double bed in it but there wasn’t much space left to walk round it. The bathroom was under the
eaves. You couldn’t even stand up straight if you wanted to shower. Lucky neither of them was very tall. There was never enough money to get to the end of the month. Some came from her father, but her mother complained: it wasn’t enough, he always gave it too late, he made her do things before he’d hand it over, he would only give it to her if she let him come to the house.

  Blue was supposed to be at school. She was supposed to have her appointment with him on a Friday afternoon. She opened her phone and dialled the number of the clinic.

  ‘Grove Road Clinic, Anne speaking.’ Fake cheerfulness, fake friendliness, same as her fake boobs. She felt her own – they weren’t as huge but there was a good handful, and they were nice and firm.

  ‘It’s Lauren,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to have an appointment this afternoon. At four. So – I think maybe it was cancelled but I really need to come in.’

  ‘You couldn’t have had an appointment today,’ she said. ‘Doctor’s away at a meeting.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Is there something I can help you with?’ She sounded more impatient than helpful.

  ‘I need to talk to him. Can you give me his mobile phone number?’

  ‘That won’t be possible.’

  ‘Is that what he said or what you say?’ Blue pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arm around her knees and rocked back and forth. ‘I need an appointment, it’s urgent.’

  ‘I’ll check for you,’ she said. ‘I’m just popping you on hold.’

  Stupid music was coming through the phone. She felt a small spark of hope.

  ‘He said to make an appointment with your GP if you need anything. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not fucking stupid, am I?’ She slammed her phone shut and hurled it at the wall.

  She kept rocking. She had to see him. She had to get him to help her. She rocked harder, pushing herself back and forth with her heels. She could go into the bathroom and get her mother’s razor, those blades were a bitch to get out, but she could do it. Or she could smash one of the picture frames and use a piece of glass. If she cut herself up, then he’d have to take notice. Blue pushed up the sleeve of her top and had a look at her arms, all criss-crossed with thick white lines. She hadn’t been cutting herself since she’d been seeing him; her arms looked better than they used to.

  She was frightened that whatever she might do to herself, he wouldn’t care anyway. She was nothing, she didn’t exist. She may as well be dead. She wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to feel what it was like to be in pain. She pulled out the envelope from her bag. She had taken it off his desk while she waited in his office when he had been late for their appointment, like he sometimes was. Hilltop. She had memorized the address and the postcode, but she had taken the envelope with her, anyway. She wanted something of his, to keep. She had taken his pen, too; it was inside the envelope. She rolled it between her fingers, smelt it.

  She hated being alone and she hated waiting. She changed out of her school uniform, into leggings and trainers and her leather jacket.

  She left the house and headed for the tube station. Tiny flakes of sleet fluttered around her, landed on the concrete pavements and disappeared into nothingness. She felt much better when she was out of the house, moving. She tucked her hair up inside her beanie so it wouldn’t get wet. Tiny white snowflakes bounced off her cheeks and her eyelids. She felt full of energy.

  By the time she was halfway to the station, the snowflakes had grown bigger. When they reached the ground, they turned black and sludgy under people’s feet. The sky was threatening and dark. Blue began to be aware of the cold in her hands, her fingertips had turned bright red. She pulled her beanie down low to cover her forehead and her ears. She tucked her hands into her pockets and walked on, head down. She wasn’t wearing socks and her ankles felt like blocks of ice. She walked faster, trying to stay warm. She considered giving up and going home, where the heating was on, but by that time she’d crossed over the traffic lights and she was already at the entrance to the station.

  She grabbed a tube map: she needed to get to the Metropolitan Line. All she had to do was make one change at Baker Street, it was easy.

  She touched her Oyster card to the yellow circle and waited for the beep. The barriers swung open and she made her way down the steps and on to the windy platform. When the train arrived, it was old and it smelt bad. She sat down on a worn velvet seat and put her feet up. Some fat old guy in a puffy-looking coat gave her a dirty look. She leaned her head back and looked out of the window. Snow eddied and swirled, covering the train tracks.

  Grove Road Clinic, May 2009

  Lawrence Simpson was predictable. He rang the bell of the clinic precisely thirty minutes later.

  The carpet on the stairs was spongy and silent under Stella’s heels and the air in the empty clinic seemed to hover uneasily around her, as if she were an intruder. Anne’s desk was pristine as always. Her pink-striped mug stood next to the empty vase.

  Stella pulled her blazer tighter around her as she opened the door. At least it was still light.

  ‘I really appreciate you going out of your way for me,’ Simpson said. He was on his best behaviour: charming and humble.

  Stella nodded. She led the way up the stairs, once again uneasy, with Simpson behind her, looking at her. She paused at the open doorway and ushered him into the office ahead of her.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she said.

  She wondered if she should close the door of the consulting room – it wasn’t strictly necessary as there was no one else in the clinic, but she closed it anyway, out of habit. She stayed a moment with her hand on the door handle. She wished she wasn’t alone with him, in the empty clinic, with the fast-fading light outside.

  While she delayed, Simpson chose the chair she had sat in during the last interview. Usually she would have placed her clipboard down, in a pre-emptive strike, but she had forgotten and he had seized the moment. His long legs were already tightly crossed, his restless fingers tapping at the arm of his chair.

  Stella sat in the chair opposite. ‘We have sixty minutes,’ she said.

  One side of his mouth curled up into a smirk. ‘Busy night ahead?’

  She looked down at her list of questions. ‘I thought we’d start again, take the interview from the beginning,’ she said.

  His fingers were still drumming a beat against the armrest.

  ‘What’s your understanding of why the judge has asked for a psychological assessment?’ she said.

  ‘As I’ve explained to you, it really has nothing to do with me. My ex-wife has trouble being a competent parent. I want a chance to take over, to do it properly, to give my child a stable home.’

  It was the identical response he had given the last time. Stella despaired. He hadn’t changed his attitude to the assessment. Of course he hadn’t changed. It was only her pride, and some inflated sense of her talent, that had made her offer this useless appointment. She was too invested in this case. She had always had a soft spot for medical professionals. It was her downfall.

  ‘She was very beautiful when she was younger. My wife. She’s let herself go.’

  ‘You mentioned that the last time we met.’

  Her eyes flickered to the window. She just wanted this interview to be over. He was so defensive that she would never gain anything useful from talking to him. He had wasted her precious time again, deliberately. She was damned if she was going to sit through another session of his complaining about the ex-wife.

  ‘Complaining about your ex-wife is not going to help you,’ she said. It was the end of a long day, and her irritation showed.

  His jaw clenched.

  ‘Are you prepared to talk about yourself at all?’ she asked, although she already knew the answer.

  ‘Why bother?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’ve already made up your mind. You know I have no chance of gaining custody. This time round, anyway. Does it give you pleasure, Doctor, watching me suff
er?’

  She was fed up with him. She wished she was out belly dancing, listening to Hannah’s laugh. She wondered why on earth he’d been so insistent on the appointment.

  ‘Earlier today,’ she said, ‘when we talked outside, you mentioned some new information that you wanted me to know about. Something you thought was important to include in the report?’

  ‘Do you have any idea how humiliating this process has been for me?’ He leaned forward in his chair.

  ‘I’m sorry you see it that way,’ she said.

  ‘Are you really?’ His face contorted, filled with frustration and contempt. ‘I shouldn’t be in a psychologist’s office. This entire process is an insult. Your questions are an insult. This is an invasion of my privacy and it’s entirely unwarranted.’

  The appointment had turned into a sparring match. It was even worse than the previous two. She was at a loss for words, she knew there was nothing she could say that could salvage anything. He guarded his inner life like the crown jewels. The way he was behaving now, his anxiety and irritability replaced with outright hostility, she was damn sure he had good reason to conceal what went on inside his head. There was likely to be a lot he did not want professionals to find out about him.

  ‘Then why did you insist on this appointment?’

  ‘Because I have nothing to lose.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘You were going to do a hatchet job. I’ve watched your face when I talk, when I try to explain things to you. You don’t listen. You’re a condescending bitch and you don’t listen.’

  She wanted him out of the office, out of the building, as soon as possible. She stood up. To hell with the report. Simpson wasn’t going to engage with the assessment. He had never had any intention of doing so.

  ‘I think we should end the interview,’ she said. She acted as though nothing was wrong; as though she wasn’t intimidated.

  Simpson remained seated. He uncrossed his legs. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about you, first.’

  She rested her hand on the back of the armchair and resisted the urge to wrench open the door and leave the room.