by Ruth Dugdall
‘You know, Holly, you really handled everything well on Saturday. I saw how sensitively you dealt with Maya, and the family. You’re going to be a fine paramedic.’ He gave her a warm smile, then looked back at his notes. She sensed his need to get on with his work.
‘Jon, can I ask something else? I’d like your professional assessment of Cassandra.’
He kept his gaze neutral, but she sensed his surprise. ‘Why is that?’
She hesitated. ‘Because, as I said, she’s my friend. And I’m worried about her.’
‘Well, I was really concentrating on Maya – all I saw of the daughter was a woman in shock. Understandable under the circumstances.’ He paused, she could feel him pondering something. ‘You know, if you think she needs psychiatric help, that’s really out of our sphere.’
‘I know.’ She could see that this conversation wasn’t going much further. ‘She’s been involved with Clive Marsh. They run a therapy group together at the town library. Maybe I could ask him?’
Jon frowned, then said, ‘Remember patient confidentiality, Holly. You’re in danger of overstepping your professional remit here. Our work is done: you’ve done your duty as a paramedic. If you want to support Cassandra as a friend, of course you can, but please don’t confuse the two. Why don’t you go home and rest, so you’re fresh for this evening’s shift? You look exhausted.’
Holly walked along the hospital corridor, knowing Jon was right. But still her feet took her to Clive’s office, which he used just half the time, his main base being at the Bartlet Hospital. From here, he supervised placements, worked alongside the university to mark student assignments, and provided a counselling service to staff in need of support. Clive’s door was known always to be open to normally stoic medical staff, where a case had got under their skin.
‘Well, Holly,’ he said, tapping his pen on his knee as he leaned back, ‘you did the right thing to seek help. What you witnessed was traumatic – it’s bound to affect you in some way.’
He removed his glasses, which had misted in the overheated air of his office, and Holly saw deep compassion in his eyes before he slid them on again. ‘So, what is it that’s bothering you?’
Now Holly knew she had to be careful.
‘I think it’s processing the idea that Maya shot herself. I’ve been spending time with Cassandra and she doesn’t believe that, but I’m not sure if she’s in the soundest of minds. I’m worried she’s ill, and by supporting her theory I’m not helping her.’ As she said it, Holly realised this was the complete truth. She needed someone to tell her that Cass was sane, that their quest was legitimate, because this would mean that her own instincts were sound. She had hidden her synaesthesia for many years, and she didn’t know if she could trust it. She looked hopefully at the sage man for reassurance.
‘Cassandra woke on Saturday morning to find her mother almost dead. She’s going through the stages associated with a grief response: shock, anger, denial. She’s still trying to process what happened to Maya – she’s very confused. But why would you share that feeling, Holly?’
He was good, she had to give him that. Kindly eyes, warm voice.
‘I suppose I’m not as objective as I should be. I used to live near the farm. I went to the same school as Cassandra, though I was several years below her . . . Everyone used to say the farm was haunted, and us kids would tell each other stories about it. I think seeing Maya, shot like that, in that place may have brought back all those fears.’
‘I see,’ he said, making a bridge with his fingers as he contemplated her. ‘So this call-out has resurrected some deep anxieties.’
His tone was almost hypnotic, lulling her into agreeing. ‘Yes . . . no! Clive, Cass doesn’t believe her mother shot herself and I don’t either. I sense it very strongly – the violence in the farmhouse. It’s why I’m helping Cass.’
Clive cocked his head to one side. ‘You sense it?’
This wasn’t a subject she could talk about with most people. But Clive made her feel she could open up, that in this room she could say anything. ‘I have synaesthesia, Clive, so I see personality as colour. I can also, and I know this sounds weird, feel touch when I see it. I call it my curse and sometimes my gift.’
‘Oh, that’s very interesting,’ he said. She felt herself under his intense scrutiny. ‘So what colour am I?’
‘Salmon-pink,’ she replied without hesitation.
‘Oh. Can’t I be blue? Something more masculine?’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she smiled, enjoying the chance to talk about this without being made to feel like a weirdo. ‘Colours aren’t gendered, not for me. Salmon-pink is comforting, homely. It’s a colour I trust.’
‘You make me sound like a human version of hygge. Can someone’s colour change?’
Holly thought about this. ‘Mm, it can modify. Like, this Swedish guy I’m seeing, Leif. The reason I agreed to date him was because he was such a nice creamy colour, like butter. Only now I know him better I can see the most perfect yellow, like a sun. It’s so powerful to me – I experience it every time we’re together. I could fall in love with him, just because of that damn colour!’
She laughed, but then realised what she’d said. The thought terrified her.
‘I see,’ said Clive, with all the objectivity of a clinician, although his face remained friendly and approachable. ‘Your synaesthesia is intrusive: it could cloud your judgement. And what did you say about experiencing touch?’
‘When I see someone being punched or kissed, either in real life or in a film, I actually feel it. Like it’s actually happening to me. So when I’m in Maya’s study, I can feel her pain, and I’m not sure that’s simply my synaesthesia. I think it may be my imagination. Sometimes it scares me – when I was younger and before I knew the word, I thought I was simply strange.’
‘In my experience, strange can often be marvellous.’ Clive leaned forward to get a better look at Holly, as if studying her for the first time. ‘Synaesthesia has always been around. It’s a trait that affects about four per cent of the population – something that was first described by the ancient Greeks, but in more recent times has only been subject to rigorous study since the 1980s. You have a form called mirror-touch synaesthesia, though you seem to have signs of other forms too.’
‘You’ve heard of this before?’ Holly breathed deeply, relieved. This was the first time she’d spoken to another human about it: before now, her only confidant had been Google.
‘Why don’t I refer you to the research team at Sussex? They’d be delighted to meet you. It could help others, to discover more about this trait. Most importantly, it could help you.’
‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I think I should go – I’ve taken enough of your time and I’m working this evening, I need to go home to rest.’ Talking to Clive in the sanctuary of his office was one thing. But for others to be told was something she couldn’t contemplate. She began to gather up her work bag to leave.
‘Just one thing, Holly. You said when you arrived that you’re worried Cassandra isn’t thinking clearly, and that you may be feeding her delusions, so I’m going to ask you something, in confidence.’ He scanned her face, eyes blinking behind his glasses, and she felt immediately alert. ‘Do you know that Cassandra was previously sectioned?’
‘Sectioned?’ Holly came closer to him and felt his unease as teetering on a ledge. ‘No, I didn’t know that. Just that she’s suffered from paranoia, that she dropped out of university . . .’
‘Two years ago, she suffered a serious psychotic episode: she was a risk to herself and possibly others. That’s why her daughter was sent to boarding school. She was having delusional thoughts, a great deal of paranoia directed towards her partner. We had no choice but to section her.’
Something dawned on Holly. ‘So, that group you run at the library – she’s not your colleague at all then? She’s your patient.’
‘A bit of both,’ Clive said, raising his shoulders in
resignation. ‘After she was discharged, she attended Team Talk, then, about a year ago, I told her she was recovered enough to stop attending. She had a crisis of confidence, so we came to an arrangement.’
Holly was blinded by colour then, one she associated with deceit: a shrouded grey. Cassandra had seemed to be opening up and trusting her, but she’d lied. She gathered her coat around her and turned to go.
‘Thanks for your time, Clive.’
‘You’re welcome,’ He waited until she was almost out of the room before adding, ‘Holly, I’ve told you this in confidence because I’m trying to warn you. Cassandra isn’t a well woman – a trauma like this makes her very vulnerable to relapse. Please don’t do anything to encourage her delusions. If there is anything suspicious about the shooting, then we must trust the police to do their jobs.’
Holly drove home and felt the murky grey colours recede, as though every mile she placed between herself and the hospital gave her greater clarity. She needed distance between herself and Cass. She’d been pulled into a conspiracy theory and hadn’t been thinking straight. How could she judge the potential of a gun by holding a length of cane against herself ? Why should she assume Maya had been shot because of a contract? No, she needed to stay away, to concentrate on her career.
She arrived at her flat with just a few hours to go before she had to return to the hospital for her evening shift. She needed solitude and space to think. Her flat was exactly that: a room with no colour, simple furniture and only a few photographs for decoration. Her brain buzzed, overloaded.
She staggered through the small lounge to the kitchen, all white and cool surface, a space that soothed, and slid onto the stool at the breakfast bar, placing her head on her folded arms, breathing deeply. All she saw in her mind’s eye was Cassandra, the only colour was grey, and it was getting in the way of doing her job. She took the contract Maya had signed and placed it in her desk drawer, not sure what else to do with the damn thing.
I should never have got involved. I haven’t seen Cassandra in twenty years. She wouldn’t have even known who I was if I hadn’t told her. And now the past is snapping back at my heels – nothing good comes from Innocence Lane.
Holly had known since primary school that she was different, since the night in the wood outside Innocence Farm with her brother. It was only later, when she was seventeen and struggling, that, thanks to the internet, she’d learned that the word for her condition was synaesthesia. Today Clive had told her she had the mirror-touch form. But her senses had tricked her with a mirage – she had colluded with Cassandra. Her senses had told her that Maya hadn’t shot herself, but she had overstepped the mark and now she had been sucked in to a false friendship with a woman with severe mental health issues. Just when she was getting her life together, and embarking on a new career, this was pulling her right back to where all her problems had started: Innocence Lane, the ghost, the shooting.
That was where this all led back to, that Halloween night when she was eight years old. She’d avoided it for too long. She logged on to her laptop, and loaded Skype. There was her brother’s name, Jamie Redwood, and the tiny picture in which he and Kaitlin pressed their faces close together, but the icon was closed: he wasn’t online. She looked at her watch and worked out that Jamie would be at work. Instead, she typed a message: Jamie, can you make sure you have Skype open when you’re home, please? We need to talk.
Frustrated, she stared at her laptop screen for answers.
There was only one other person she could think of who was as obsessed with Innocence Lane as she was: Alfie Avon. And he had been at the farm last Friday, so he’d seen Maya just hours before the shooting. Did he think it was an attempted suicide? If he too had doubts, then maybe her senses weren’t misleading her after all. But she couldn’t just rely on Cassandra’s version any more, not without seeking some other perspective. She needed clarity, and she wouldn’t get it from anyone in the Hawke family.
Finding Alfie online wasn’t difficult – he had Facebook and Twitter, as well as his own website. She sent a message via the latter: I’d like to talk to you, in confidence, about Innocence Farm. She left her mobile number, but no name. Even as she pressed ‘send’, she wondered what the hell she was doing, delving deeper rather than backing away.
A tapping on the front door interrupted her thoughts. It could only be Leif – no one else called on her unannounced. When she opened the door, he acted bashful, his head lowered, blond hair over his sea-blue eyes, grinning cheekily and cradling a massive flan dish.
‘I’m sorry, Leif, but I’m due at work later.’
‘But you need to eat first! And I have here a taste of my homeland for you: Västerbottensostpaj.’
She saw he was wearing police uniform: he’d been working today. Immediately, her reluctance to see him vanished. ‘Visitors bearing gifts are always welcome,’ she said, standing aside so he could enter, catching a waft of warm pastry and cheese, so delicious she almost groaned. How could she be hungry, when only minutes ago she’d felt sick? Her body was different to her brain: it functioned normally and needed sustenance.
Leif went straight through to the kitchen, where her laptop was still open at Alfie Avon’s website. He began to find plates and cutlery, making himself at home in a way that made her heart soften. This is what it would be like to live with someone, something she hadn’t done since she’d left her parents’ home in California to return to Suffolk, drawn by echoes of long ago. She envied Jamie for having settled into American life without a backward glance, and for the first time wondered how he managed this.
‘Bonfire night,’ Holly said, after she heard the crack of a rocket coming from a garden nearby. ‘We’ll probably see a few burns this evening.’
Leif frowned. ‘This is a tradition I do not understand, the celebrations of burning this man, Guy Fawkes. When I came home from work some children were pushing a man-doll in a pram and asking for money. Why is this?’
Holly shook her head. ‘Remember, I’m not a native. It’s a mystery to me too, all I know is we’ll be hearing fireworks all night.’
Seated side by side at the breakfast bar, they ate in appreciative silence. A light tapping of rain began to fall at the kitchen window.
‘Rain again,’ Leif said, pleasantly. ‘Always it rains in this country.’
Together they watched the drops patter on the glass, and she realised that she was feeling much better than earlier.
‘So, here’s what I know about Sweden: Abba, snow, and lovely cheese pie. Why on earth did you leave?’
He finished his mouthful and raised his eyebrows. ‘Ja, being lovely is important, but so is being exciting. And England is that for me.’ He slid a hand onto her thigh. ‘My mother was in love with the idea of Hollywood, but for me it was always London.’
‘Ipswich isn’t London. Did you get lost?’
‘Ha! No, I submitted my Bergman thesis idea to several universities in the big city, but Ipswich liked it best. And for that I am most happy, because I like my colleagues, I like this town and now I have met a woman I like very, very much.’
He leaned over and kissed her, forcing her to swallow her mouthful of cheese pie quickly.
‘What about you, Holly? If you think Ipswich is so unlovely, why are you here?’
She shrugged. ‘I think loveliness is a bit overrated too. I moved back to California with the rest of my family when I was eighteen, but I couldn’t settle. Too much sun.’
‘They’re a long way off,’ he said, glancing at the computer screen, where Alfie’s red face gazed out. ‘What brought them to Ipswich?’
She stood to clear away the plates, and closed the lid of her laptop. She pointed to a small photo attached to the fridge, which showed her father at a Giants baseball match, wearing an oversized T-shirt and holding a huge beer. ‘My dad was an Air Force man. He arrived here in the eighties and met my mum in a local nightclub. She said it was love at first sight, and my dad would have made an impression. A black Ame
rican in Ipswich is going to stand out.’
‘You must miss them?’
‘Yeah, but I visit every summer. And we have Skype.’
It did pain her to be away from her parents and Jamie, but the arrangement worked for her too. The solitude suited her and through the new job, she was learning to manage her synaesthesia. If it hadn’t been for the shooting at Innocence Lane, life would feel very good indeed. She wanted to ask Leif about his day, what he’d been doing with the police, although a voice in her head told her to let it be. Jon’s voice, warning her she was overstepping her remit. Clive’s warning her not to be taken in by Cassandra’s delusions. ‘Tell me more about Sweden,’ she said, wanting to be transported away from all these nagging thoughts. ‘What about your family?’
‘My morsa got pregnant when she was having an affair with my father, who was on the town council and married. She got support, but she was still a young single mother. Her only role model for behaving immorally was Ingrid Bergman. Do you know Ingrid’s story?’
Holly shook her head.
‘She was an idol – everyone loved her. An actress, a mother, a wife. Then she ran off with her lover and was hated. She wasn’t even allowed to see her daughter for many years. Morsa used to watch her films obsessively, as if to find answers to her own life. When I was a boy, she’d take me to the old cinema in Malmö whenever a Bergman film was showing. It was a special time.’
‘Is that when you got your interest in films?’
‘For sure. And my love of Ingrid Bergman. And older women!’ He kissed Holly, and leaned in for a deeper kiss, but she pushed him back, slightly affronted.
‘Hey! I’m only a couple of years older than you. What are you, twenty-six?’
‘Twenty-four,’ Leif smiled. ‘But, so what? I think you’re delicious as cheese pie.’ And then, wiping her mouth with his thumb to remove a pastry crumb, he leaned in and kissed her again.
