by Gwyneth Rees
‘Excuse me, but last time I looked you were still twelve.’
‘So?’
‘So that’s not exactly a senior citizen!’ He was frowning. ‘Daniel, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me and I’m very proud of you for coping with things as well as you did. But I’m back now and you haven’t grown up overnight, even if that’s how it feels to you at the moment.’
I made a big effort to look like I wasn’t listening – even though I was.
‘I know you weren’t in school today,’ he went on. ‘Mrs Lyle phoned and told me. So where did you go?’
I shrugged. ‘Just around.’ Abby had lent me the key to her house and I’d spent the day there watching videos, but I wasn’t about to say that and get Abby into trouble.
‘Not a good enough answer, I’m afraid, Daniel!’
I looked at him. It was scary how numb I felt inside. ‘I told you I wasn’t going back to that school.’
Dad stared at me for a moment or two. He looked anything but numb. His face was going red. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Daniel. I thought you’d at least want to give it a try, for Mum’s sake.’
‘Mum doesn’t have to go back there either.’
‘What? And lose the position she’s worked for years to achieve? She won’t want that, Daniel. She’ll want to go back to that school and show them what a good job she can do when she’s well again – and I think you should be there to see it. And to support her,’ he added.
‘I thought she was meant to be the one supporting me?’ I said. ‘I thought parents were meant to support their children, not the other way round!’
Instead of coming back with an answer, he stayed silent. Now, that was scary.
The next day Dad surprised me by saying he’d given it some thought and decided that maybe where I went to school was something I should be allowed to choose for myself after all. He said if I really wanted to change schools, then he’d arrange that for me, but that he wanted me to think about it for a bit longer first.
Over the next few days I tried to think what was the best thing to do, but I couldn’t really be bothered thinking about it, because I was thinking all the time about Mum. Dad had said Mum was too ill to have visitors at the moment but that he would take her letters and cards from us if we wanted to write some. Martha drew her lots of pictures and sent her a big get-well card, but I didn’t feel like doing that. I mean, sending a get-well card was the sort of thing you did when someone was an ill version of themselves. With Mum, it was as if all that excess energy I’d watched building up inside her had finally blown the fuse that kept her being herself. So who would I be sending the card to? The person I wanted to send a card to – the person I thought about every night before I went to sleep and every morning as soon as I woke up – wasn’t Mum as she was now. It was my normal Mum.
Then, on the Sunday evening, Dad surprised me by saying that he’d been thinking about it and maybe it was better if he took Martha and me to visit Mum after all, even though she wasn’t completely back to normal yet.
‘I thought you didn’t think psychiatric hospitals were suitable places for children to visit,’ I said, because that was what he’d always said in the past. I had always assumed that was the reason Dad hadn’t taken me to see Mum all those years ago when I was only five and had been missing her really badly.
‘Well, perhaps I was wrong,’ Dad said. ‘Perhaps if children are kept away they end up imagining something even worse than what’s really there.’
I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like Dad was the one whose brain had just received treatment, not Mum.
Martha was excited as Dad drove us up to the hospital that evening after tea. I had hardly been able to eat anything and now I was starting to feel even more nervous. It was nearly three weeks now since we’d seen Mum, and the nearer we got to the place the more uneasy I became. I was tugging at my seat belt to loosen it and unwinding my window and winding it up again and banging my feet against the plastic ledge where Dad keeps the maps and things until Dad got so fed up with telling me to sit still that he gave up. As we turned in through the gates, I suddenly blurted, ‘Dad, I don’t want to go inside.’
Dad glanced over at me. ‘I’ll be with you the whole time, Daniel. Nothing bad’s going to happen. She got moved to a side room today, off the main ward, so we’ll be able to see her without seeing any of the other patients.’
‘I just don’t want to go in there again, OK?’
Dad parked the car and undid his seat belt. ‘Come on, Daniel. You’ll regret it if you don’t come in. Mum’s expecting you.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘I just don’t feel like seeing her right now.’
Dad looked taken aback. ‘OK,’ he finally said briskly. ‘If that’s how you feel. Keep the car doors locked and wait here until we get back.’ I knew he was disappointed in me for saying that I didn’t care and I felt a pang of guilt because I did care. I cared a lot.
I watched them walk into the building, Martha holding Dad’s hand as she skipped along beside him. I looked up at the hospital windows in case Mum was looking out of any of them. She wasn’t. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine her the way she looks when she’s well, her long dark wavy hair tied back and her blue eyes alert and a bit intense-looking. Her voice was easy to hear inside my head. She always spoke very clearly and with a lot of feeling if she was talking about anything she cared about. I wanted to see Mum again really badly. But I knew now that I only wanted to see her when she was that person again. And if that never happened . . . I shuddered. I couldn’t even bear to think about it.
14
A few days later I was watching Neighbours again when our doorbell rang. The mad bomber guy was struggling with the doctor who was trying to take his blood. The mad patient seemed just as crazy as he had done in the beginning, so it didn’t seem like the especially strong medication had helped him at all. I wasn’t meant to be watching Neighbours. I was meant to be doing some school work. I still hadn’t made a decision about school and Dad was making me do school work at home now. He said I had until the end of the week to decide if I wanted to change schools or stay at my current one, but then he’d said that last week too. I’d never known Dad seem so uncertain about anything as he seemed now about my school situation. I hadn’t told Dad my other major worry – that Mum would never go back to being her old self – because every time I thought about telling him, another thought stopped me. I thought how I couldn’t trust him any more.
When I opened the door, Mrs Lyle was standing there holding a big pink envelope in her hand. Mrs Lyle was the last person I’d expected to see. I’d always thought she didn’t like either Mum or me.
‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought this round for your mum. It’s a get well card from all the teachers.’
‘She isn’t here,’ I said. ‘She’s still in hospital.’
‘I know, but we thought you could take it to her. We want her to know that we’re all thinking about her. We didn’t realize at the time, you see. That she was . . . well . . .’ She flushed. ‘None of the other teachers knew about her . . . her medical condition. If we’d known we’d have done more to help.’
‘Daniel, who is it?’ Dad came into the hall.
‘One of my teachers,’ I said, staring at Mrs Lyle, who I still couldn’t imagine wanting to help my mother. Not unless it involved helping her into a straitjacket or injecting her with a syringe full of a tranquillizer or something.
‘Well, invite her in, for goodness sake,’ Dad said. He held out his hand to shake Mrs Lyle’s. She said her first name when she introduced herself to him.
Dad showed her through to the living room and asked me to put the kettle on. I didn’t. Instead I went outside to find Martha, who was bouncing a tennis ball against the side of the house. I felt like doing the opposite of what Dad told me to do most of the time now. We’d had lots of disagreements about stupid things like me leaving the milk out of the fridge when Dad kept telling
me to put it away and me not going to bed on time and stuff like that.
‘What was Mum like when you saw her the other night?’ I asked Martha, grabbing the ball off her and starting to bounce it myself. I always feel better when I’m doing something with my hands.
This was the first time I’d asked her anything about the hospital visit and she eyed me warily, almost as if she knew she might get her head bitten off if she said the wrong thing. ‘She was sleepy. I sang her a song and she said it was lovely.’
‘Did she say anything weird?’
Before Martha could answer, the front door opened and Dad yelled out my name. I thought about running off and pretending I had already gone round to Abby’s or something, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without asking and I wasn’t sure what Dad would do to me if I did. I’d heard him on the phone to Uncle Robert the other night saying how I was really testing the boundaries since he’d got back and how he was trying to stay cool but wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to stop himself from clobbering me. They had talked about Grandma too and Dad’s voice had sounded choked, almost as if he were crying. Except that Dad never cries.
‘I’m here!’ I yelled, going back round to the front door, where Dad was waiting.
He didn’t say anything about the kettle. ‘Mrs Lyle’s got something to tell you. Come inside for a minute.’
I couldn’t think what Mrs Lyle could possibly have to tell me that I’d want to hear, but I followed him inside anyway. Mrs Lyle was sitting on the sofa. She looked up as I came in. ‘Daniel, I wanted to tell you that we all really hope that you decide to come back to school soon. Everyone understands what you’ve been through and we all just want to help. Don’t you think it’s time to put a brave face on it and come back?’
I screwed up my nose. I’d need more than a brave face to survive going back to school again. I’d need a suit of armour to hide inside and even that wouldn’t be enough. Besides, I didn’t trust her. I felt like I couldn’t trust anybody any more. ‘I don’t need any help,’ I said. ‘So you can stop interfering!’ And I ran out of the room.
‘Daniel!’ Dad called out after me, but I didn’t turn back.
Up in my room I flung myself down on my tummy on my bed and wished I could turn back the clock to before we’d ever moved here. I wished I had never met Mrs Lyle or ever set foot in her stupid school. I was never going back there and I didn’t want Mum going back there either.
There was a knock on my bedroom door.
‘Go away!’
The door creaked open and I knew straight away that it was Dad. I wondered if this was the moment when he was going to do the clobbering.
I didn’t get hit. Not even the slightest smack. Like I said before, smacking isn’t Dad’s style. I got a lecture, though. Dad said he didn’t want me being rude to people who were already feeling guilty about the way they’d treated Mum. Now that Mrs Lyle knew that Mum had a mental illness she was being very understanding about the various changes Mum had tried to make up at the school, Dad said. And she had told him she would support Mum as much as she could when she came back. Dad said that a lot of people wouldn’t be more understanding when they found out Mum was mentally ill – they’d be less so. So we should be grateful that Mrs Lyle – and at least some of the other members of staff – were reacting so positively now that they had been told about it.
‘What about the ones who aren’t reacting positively?’ I asked.
‘Mum can handle those people as long as she’s got some support,’ Dad said. He added that, although it would be hard, he thought Mum would want the opportunity to get back into school and face everyone again just as soon as she was able to.
‘She might not,’ I protested. ‘She might be too embarrassed to ever go back!’ And she might not ever be well enough to go back either, I thought.
Dad said not to get Mum’s embarrassment mixed up with my own. Mum would need to get over what she’d done when she was ill, he said. And I would have to get over it too – and forgive her.
‘She’s got an illness, hasn’t she?’ I blurted out. ‘She can’t help it! There’s nothing to forgive her for!’
‘Listen, Daniel,’ he began slowly. ‘I know you blame me for going off to be with Grandma and leaving you . . .’
‘I don’t blame you for that,’ I said tersely, before he could continue.
‘I think you do,’ Dad replied. ‘And I can understand why. But—’
‘That’s not what I blame you for!’ I butted in, so frustrated I wanted to scream at him. Didn’t he understand anything?
‘What then?’ he asked, looking as if he really didn’t know.
‘You shouldn’t have let it happen. And you shouldn’t have lied about it!’ I was starting to cry now.
‘Lied about what?’
‘About Martha being Mum’s baby when she isn’t. Mum wasn’t mad about that – she was right! And you knew that all along!’
Dad looked confused. ‘Daniel, what are you talking about?’
‘You knew the babies were swapped!’ I yelled. ‘You knew Martha and Sophie were swapped and you decided not to tell anyone. It’s . . . It’s . . .’ But I couldn’t put into words how betrayed I felt by the one person I had always completely trusted.
‘Daniel, Martha wasn’t swapped! Your mother was ill when she said that. It’s just not true. I can’t believe you think—’
‘I heard you on the phone to Kate!’ I shouted. ‘You said as long as Martha and Sophie were happy it was OK. But it’s not OK!’
Dad looked like he was trying to figure out what on earth I was getting at. Then, suddenly, light seemed to dawn. ‘Are you talking about the photographs? Martha swapped a photograph with Sophie. She offered it to Sophie in exchange for one of ours. Kate was phoning to apologize and see if we wanted to swap them back, but I didn’t see the point in making a big fuss and upsetting Martha.’
I stared at Dad. For once I was speechless. My head felt like it was spinning with overheard conversations, and horrible thoughts I had had about Dad, and everything Mum had said when she was ill. Everything was swirling around in my head and none of it seemed real any more.
‘Listen, Daniel,’ Dad said, frowning. ‘I’d better get back to Mrs Lyle, but I think we ought to have a little talk about all this when she’s gone, don’t you?’
I’d got out the photograph which I had put at the bottom of one of my drawers because I hadn’t wanted to look at it any more. Now I was sitting looking at it with Dad. ‘In the photo Mum’s baby has dark hair,’ I pointed out shakily. ‘That’s why I thought it couldn’t be Martha.’
‘Martha was born with dark hair,’ Dad explained. ‘It fell out after the first month or two and when it grew back in again it was fair. It happens quite a lot – that a baby’s hair falls out and grows back a different colour. Don’t you remember that happening?’
I shook my head. I couldn’t remember an awful lot about when Martha was a baby. Most of my memories started after Mum came back to live with us again.
‘Martha is your sister, Daniel. There’s no doubt about that. You weren’t really questioning that, were you?’
Slowly it was starting to sink into place. Martha had had dark hair at the beginning and then she had become blonde. It was as simple as that. There was nothing to worry about. She was our baby after all. I felt light-headed with relief, as if I’d just been told I was free to go instead of getting sent to the electric chair or something.
And the best thing was that Dad hadn’t lied to me. He was still the same dad I’d had when he’d left for New Zealand.
‘But didn’t Mum know that’s what happened?’ I asked him. ‘That Martha’s dark hair fell out, I mean?’
‘She didn’t see it happening because she wasn’t with Martha over that time, but I told her about it. She never questioned it until now. But I think she always had a sense that she’d lost the little dark-haired baby she remembered from the hospital. Maybe that feeling got stronger as
she became ill. And seeing Kate must have triggered the thought that Kate had somehow taken her original baby away. People can start believing something is true that isn’t true when they’re mentally ill,’ Dad added. ‘Like believing they’re the queen when they’re not, or thinking someone has swapped their baby for a different baby when they haven’t.’
‘They sound like crazy thoughts to me,’ I said.
Dad nodded slowly. ‘That’s one way of looking at it. But you know, I think those thoughts your mum had – even though they seemed crazy – came out of some real feelings she had about Martha.’
I frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your mother completely missed out on those first months of Martha’s life. Martha had changed so much by the time she saw her again that she didn’t even recognize her. Think what it must have been like for her. It must truly have been like being handed a completely different baby.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She should have kept Martha with her in hospital.’
‘Mum said you wouldn’t let her keep Martha after what happened with that lady,’ I said. ‘After she took all the babies away.’
Dad looked at me. ‘Mum told you about that?’
I nodded.
He sighed. ‘It’s true that all I wanted was to take Martha home after that happened, even though the staff sorted it out so quickly that the babies weren’t really ever in danger. Your mother’s psychiatrist wanted me to let her keep Martha with her. They even moved that other patient to another ward. But I felt too anxious about it to let Martha stay. I thought it would just be a week or two until your mother was well enough to come home again herself, anyway, but she suddenly got very depressed.’ He looked at me. ‘It took the doctors a long time to make her better from that. That’s why she was in hospital for so long and I couldn’t take you to see her.’
I stared at him. I had never heard this part of the story before. Now I knew why I hadn’t got to see Mum when I was little for all that time.
15
