by Ruth Dugdall
Dad never talked about it, how the gift of the camera had caused the argument and sent Jena spinning from our home and into the path of her attacker, but I could feel his guilt like a heavy coat that shrouded him. He was remote from me, insulated by his agony, and only Mum could soothe him. Mum and the dark room, where his old pictures of Jena could show him the girl he longed to have back. Maybe for a while he could forget that she was gone.
We’d get beeped if Jena moved violently; we’d get one when she was too quiet and too still and the nurses wanted us to come in so that we could shout at her to bring her back from whatever dark place she was in. Whenever we heard the beep, we moved fast.
It was 29 April, four days since the attack. We were on the bus, on the way home, having been at the hospital all afternoon. Beep beep. Mum leaned across the pregnant woman in the seat by the window and pressed the black strip that sets off the bell, over and over until the bus driver shouted, ‘All right, love! I get the message!’
We jumped off the bus as soon as it stopped, Mum half-walking, half-running ahead of me, Dad holding me by the hand as I stumbled to keep up. When we got to the hospital, Mum stopped in her tracks, so that we almost knocked into her.
‘She’s dead. I can feel it.’
Dad crouched on the ground and moaned; he was worn out by the whole experience, too tired to cry. Mum knelt down beside him and cradled him like he was a baby.
‘It’ll be okay, I promise. We’ve still got each other. We’ve still got Sam.’
The three of us began to walk again, not rushing this time, making our way back to the hospital slowly, thinking we were too late. But when we got there, Jena wasn’t dead. She was awake.
The doctors tried to explain it to us, the unpredictable nature of brain injury. They told us that some degree of personality change was to be expected, and that Jena might appear to regress; that her childhood memories would be stronger than more recent ones, that she might lose skills she’d had or gain unexpected ones. One nurse told us about a man in the next ward who woke up speaking French, a language he hadn’t used since he was at school. And all the time Jena lay on the bed, blinking like a doll at the ceiling, as the staff spoke about her to us, like she wasn’t even there. And I felt that she was listening to every word.
Her progress was miraculous, they said. She could speak, with only a little slurring, and though she had no memory of what had happened to her, she knew exactly who she was. Sometimes she seemed just like her old self; at other times, a poor impression. Three days later, they said she was stable enough to be moved to a community hospital in Westerfield, and placed on Eastern Ward, a specialist unit for dementia, a place she didn’t belong. By the middle of May, to the relief of us all, she was moved to Minsmere, the long-term rehabilitation ward. She had her own room, and a timetable of therapy; she was walking around and talking, and sometimes making jokes. Though still not remembering who attacked her.
When Clive opens my door after lunch, I’m waiting for him. I’m seated on the wicker chair, refusing to be vulnerable in my own room, facing the doorway. He pauses, the handle still in his grip, surprised, and I steal my advantage.
‘What are you, Clive? Really, I mean? This unorthodox torture you’re putting me through. Are you even qualified?’
He bends his head down, as if I have asked something interesting, and points to the bed, as if I have the power to stop him sitting down. When he is settled on the thin mattress, each hand clasping a food item, he says, ‘So long as someone is trying to help you, does it really matter?’
‘Of course it fucking does.’
‘Okay.’
He reaches forward and places my two options on the desk behind me, next to the Black Magic box. This time, the alternative to the Enliven is a celery stick, chopped into inch-long pieces and zip-locked in a plastic sandwich bag. Only ten calories, and chewing celery expends more than that. Clever man: he is offering me negative calories versus 220, if only I will do as he says.
He must be getting desperate.
‘You know who I am, Sam. Director of the Bartlet.’
‘I mean, what sort of therapist. Are you even a doctor?’
He laughs, enjoying a joke I wasn’t aware I made. ‘I’m a consultant psychiatrist, though I may be better suited to management.’ He laughs again, as if amused by the joke inside a Christmas cracker. It makes anger run right up me like a shooting pain; it shoots from my mouth.
‘So what are you even doing here with me? Am I just some lab rat for you to poke about with?’
Strong words, but I feel powerless, frustrated that he has all the control and he hasn’t even had the courtesy to label the work he’s doing. He’s working outside any box, not using the worksheets and words I’ve become familiar with, and that scares me. I could get caught out. I could lose control.
‘I hate you,’ I say, and mean it.
‘Good,’ he replies, evenly. ‘That will avoid any complications when we are working together more co-operatively.’
‘I’ll never work with you.’
I watch as he slides the radio from his jacket pocket and begins to ask for assistance. On the desk is the celery. It’s only celery, for fuck’s sake; it’s almost water.
‘Okay!’ I snap, exhausted and broken. I can’t face another can of Enliven. ‘What is it I have to do?’
There is silence. He is watching me.
‘Well, Sam, you’ve already established I do not use conventional methods, so I don’t know. But I’m happy for us to improvise. Let’s try this. You take a photo from that box and talk about it for fifteen minutes.’
I glare at him, but he continues to gaze at me as if it is the simplest request in the world. I turn, and take the Black Magic box in my hands. Inside, the photos shift as if woken.
‘And if I can’t?’
‘You know the answer to that, Sam. You know that the board won’t release you on 1 February if they can’t see any progress. Don’t you want to be free?’
Free. The possibility is as tempting as any food or drink, as necessary in that moment as breathing. I quickly open the lid and take out the second photo from the top. It’s of Ipswich Police Station. I know exactly when I took it, on the first Monday in June, six weeks to the day since Jena was attacked. On 6 June everything started to go wrong. It was also the start of a heatwave.
Oh God, I can almost feel the camera pressed against my cheek, closing my left eye for a moment so everything was pinky-bright. I can almost hear the satisfying click of a moment captured.
And, despite myself, Mum comes back to me, full-focus in my memory. Hair tight in a bun, trowelled-on make-up. Her foundation was melting in the heat, streaking orange down her neck. She was wearing her best heels, the white leather stilettos she’d bought for her pearl anniversary party, so she had to walk slowly and carefully up the steps, clinging to the railing.
Oh Mum.
‘I can’t do it,’ I say, closing the lid so I can no longer see the picture. I can’t talk about my mother. It’s too raw, too sad.
‘Come on, Sam. Fifteen minutes. I know you can do it.’
I look at the can of Enliven. I can’t have more calories, either. Nutrition brings back thoughts, brings back feelings, brings back pain.
‘Just try, Sam. Try to talk.’
I take a breath. ‘Just promise me, Clive.’
‘Promise what?’
‘That you’re not lying to me. That she really is dead.’
He looks confused by this, and his voice is full of concern. ‘I promise, Sam. I would never lie about something as sad as a death. I’m sorry for your loss.’
I feel something loosen inside, a letting go. I wonder if I can actually do this.
By 6 June, my family were regulars at the police station.
Six weeks since my sister Jena was attacked, and a man was helping police with their enquiries. He’d been remanded into custody, though we didn’t have any other details yet. But Detective Sergeant Penny Rickman, who was
responsible for Jena’s case, had asked us to come in, so we were hoping for more news. We wanted to know when we’d get our day in court.
People passed us, on their way to the Job Centre or DSS, flagging in the heat. Across the road, Ipswich Crown Court slumped low under red tiles. Girls in skimpy vest tops, skin turning pink in the blazing sun, gathered in groups to gossip. Boys in white trainers and school shirts talked to pale, blinking men in pinstripe suits who were about to persuade the magistrates that the boys were sorry or pissed or innocent.
No one cared about victims, that’s what I’d learned.
The police station was a dump. A line of orange plastic chairs edged the back wall under a shabby green-baize notice board, layered with old posters and half-thumbed community leaflets. Hanging around were people I knew at a glance to stay clear of; they were the bad sort that Mum was endlessly warning me about.
A white, skinny bloke, grade 1 haircut, shoes for running, leaned against the notice board and grunted some instructions to his mate, who was slouched in the seat next to him. His mate had slightly more hair and flesh, but was still lab-rat pale. Next to them sat a middle-aged woman with purple hair wearing silver flip-flops. An elaborate tattoo on her ankle said LIAM. I imagined the tattooist dabbing away the dots of blood as he sent the needle again and again into her skin.
Mum took the seat as far from them as possible, the plastic squeaking under her, and took off her right shoe, rubbing her foot with her hand. Her heel was pink and sore with a blister-bubble of fluid raised over the bone. She winced as she prodded it.
‘These shoes have never fitted right.’
Mum got tetchy when she was in pain.
‘I can’t,’ I say to Clive, gasping as if I’ve been held underwater.
I have to freeze my thinking, though my real wish is to freeze the past, stop everything right there, with Jena’s case unsolved, and me and my parents getting on with our lives as best we could. I’d just turned sixteen, was taking my GCSEs that month. In September, I planned to start college. I still had a future.
‘Come on,’ says Clive gently, tapping the can of Enliven. ‘You’re doing so well. Just another four minutes.’
I take a deep breath and tell myself that she can’t reach me now. I don’t want more calories; I need oblivion. If I’m to disappear I have to talk, and four minutes isn’t long.
At the entrance to the waiting area a flame of colour caught my eye. I recognised Monica immediately; she was in the year above me, the first year of sixth form, and a drama student. An attention-seeking lot, the sixth-formers had loud arguments in the common room and made up seconds later, hugging each other with lover-like intensity.
Monica walked like a catwalk model, yanking on a red lead, on the end of which stood a bulky British bull terrier with one black eye. For all its tough appearance, the dog seemed nervous.
‘Oi!’ Gloria called from her reception booth, banging her knuckle on the glass. ‘Get that dog out of here. Now!’
Monica pulled the reluctant terrier back outside and tied it to a railing, where it gratefully curled up and put its head on its paws. Turning in their seats, the men eyed Monica through the window the way you might an unusual fruit that looks interesting but difficult to eat. She had hennaed hair, golden eyeshadow and skin like cream – an exotic bird caged within notice boards and grey walls.
The men made me nervous, a feeling that was constant since the attack, and to shield myself from their eyes I lifted the camera. It comforted me, covering half my face and giving me the distance I craved. Through the lens, the scene around me suddenly seemed manageable, because I was distant from it. The camera gave me the objectivity I longed to feel.
Through the viewfinder, I caught Monica in profile and pressed the shutter, just as she was pushing the dog’s bottom out of the way with her foot. I would ask Dad to help me develop it, work some effects into the picture. I’d only had the camera a few weeks, so I still had a lot to learn.
She came inside and saw me. ‘Hey, Sam. Why you take a picture of me?’ Her Eastern European accent made her sound like she was singing. She wrinkled her nose. ‘With that smelly old dog.’
‘Okay, just you.’
She slipped her T-shirt off her shoulder, and the men began to jeer, enjoying the show. She winked at them and smiled flirtatiously. I was hidden behind the camera, but still felt I’d been pulled into something sleazy.
Mum waved her hands in our direction. ‘Oi, young lady! Don’t distract my daughter. She’s taking photos for her art studies, not for some tacky magazine.’
‘Who you say is tacky?’ Monica gave Mum the full benefit of a pout, but Mum couldn’t see that Monica was joking and pulled herself up to her feet.
Ah Mum. Back to her, always.
Her scent was a mix of cheap bubble bath, Oil of Olay and nicotine. When we hugged, she felt like a bag of marshmallows dressed up in scratchy nylon; her kisses were dry and powdery, her cheeks thin, like paper. Mum was chipped nails, gossip mags and bingo. She was bleached blonde (though under the dye she was as dark as Jena and me), and her eyes sparkled when she’d had a Bacardi or two. Just forty-six, she had married my dad when she was seventeen and already pregnant, something neither of her parents forgave her for. And she was protective as a guard dog, ready to attack, if she thought anyone – anyone at all – was trying to hurt her precious family.
She was the fixer in the Hoolihan clan. Dad had retreated into his pain, too bruised to accompany us to the police station, preferring his dark room and photos of the past, but Mum was still ready to take on the world.
‘Dressing like that. You ought to be ashamed.’
‘Like what, you think I dress?’ Monica stalked forward. I tried to steer Mum back to her seat, but she shrugged me off.
‘Flaunting yourself!’
‘Ha!’ Monica went up to Mum, her petite nose level with Mum’s flat, red one. ‘Who you thinking you are, my mother?’
I felt a lurch in my intestines, a familiar sick feeling rising from my gut.
‘Don’t mind her,’ I said to Monica. ‘It’s just we hate this place. You must have heard of what happened to my sister. Well, the police have—’
‘Shut up, Sam!’ Mum clawed at me, catching my forearm with her nail, and I staggered backwards. Along the inside of my arm was a raised blood-red scratch, thin as a piece of thread.
I stop talking, and turn the photo of the police station over so it is facing down on my thigh, the paper sticky on my leg. I look at my arm, but there is no mark. All my wounds are inside.
For the first time, I remember Clive; I was so lost in the past he seemed to disappear. There he is, still seated on the bed, one leg over the other, his hands neatly clasped in his lap. But his face is ruddy, and his eyes twinkle behind the glasses. His voice, when it comes, is rushed with emotion.
‘I was right, then,’ he says, breathing deeply. ‘You do want to go home.’
And then I feel cheated; he’s tricked me into talking with threats of extra calories, and now he’s taunting me with my own weakness. He hands me the celery, watching as I chew and swallow every sinewy piece.
‘Would you like to go to the funeral, Sam? When we have a date, I can make arrangements for you to have a release pass. I could escort you myself.’
‘Can you please piss off now?’ My words are a string of despair. ‘I need to sleep.’
CHAPTER 5
3 January
I need to sleep, but I can’t.
It’s ten past three, darkest velvet outside, but my brain won’t rest. It’s Jena’s fault for sending in the box, my fault for opening it. I should have kept my mouth shut; now my memories are unravelling like a thread being pulled, everything coming apart since they told me of Mum’s death. I wonder about Dad, who has now lost all of his family, and then prefer not to wonder. I erase him from my thoughts, and think only of my shifting bowels, the extra calories sluggishly making their way down my lower intestines. But the toilet is at the end of the echo
ey corridor; it will be cold in there, and I’ll have to pass the nurses’ office, where whoever is on duty will see me and mark it on the log to be passed over, commented upon, when the day staff arrive at seven.
I leave my room, bare feet pattering on the ancient red tiles, the huge arched windows all along the corridor like eyes, the moon casting a white eerie glow along my path, though the edges darken into shadow. The nurses’ room, halfway along, is a beacon of light. I see a canary-blonde mop of hair covering a face, a head propped up by a hand and arm. It’s Birute, who’s Lithuanian and my favourite of all the night staff, mainly because, even though she’s been in Suffolk for fourteen years, her English is terrible, so she can’t ask many questions. She compensates in physical ways, hugs and pats, and I can just about tolerate that. It’s words that break me.
She hears me and lifts her head. She looks tired, and also sad, but then Birute doesn’t understand why we girls just can’t eat. Her grandmother was a prisoner of Stalin and had to beg for food; why would anyone choose to starve themselves? Her logic, of course, is impeccable.
I like that Birute still has pity for us, even when she can see our starving is self-imposed. Other staff members aren’t so generous, like Sian, who thinks we’re just idiots who need to snap out of it.
Birute makes a sound of concern. ‘No sleep, Sam? What matter, hey?’
I shuffle up to her and rub my distended tummy. She places her warm hand over mine. ‘You have pain here?’
I nod. ‘I need the loo.’
‘Okay, sweet.’ And she gets the key.
Together we walk to the end of the corridor, where the toilets and showers are. We pass Fiona’s door with its poster of One Direction, and she’s prettified her nameplate with stickers of the band. Joelle’s door has a pin-up of Audrey Hepburn, and alongside her nameplate is a glamorous photo of her with Mummy and Grandmummy. Stacey’s door is a mess of magazine clippings, reality stars and actresses; I can hear her snoring softly as we move past. Mina has nothing on her door, and the nameplate is blank. No sound comes from within.
