The Exclusives

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Josephine.’

  ‘Yes? I’m here. Don’t worry.’ She catches me sliding up the sleeve of my school jumper, glancing down at my watch and, for some reason, this makes her cry.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Please what?’

  ‘Please don’t leave me, Josephine.’

  ‘Frey, I have to . . . I have to go somewhere. I need to get something done. It’s urgent. You have to sort yourself out.’

  ‘Please. It’s more important you look after me. I need you.’ There’s a loaded plea in her voice. It’s now seven thirty and, without prior consent from a member of staff, I have to get down to the printer’s and back by eight, otherwise it will be immediate suspension. And if that happens, I’ll get demoted from Head Girl. ‘Frey. I . . . I just, seriously you need to trust me on this one.’

  ‘I trusted you before. I trusted you. Look what has happened to me because of this. Look.’ She rolls down her knickers and there’s a zigzag of lines, so ornately etched into her skin that I think she’s used a stencil. It’s only when I look closer that I realise they are scars. Deep, shiny scars that are fresh. Bulging. I don’t know where to look and I don’t know if it’s from that night or she’s done this to herself but I start to feel sick as well.

  ‘And anyway, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ I say, casually, although my ears sting with hot blood.

  ‘I’ve told someone I shouldn’t have. About us. That night. I had to.’

  I stop what I am doing and stare right into her. ‘You’ve told who?’

  Freya shrugs but I catch her eyes slide to the door and I know instantly who it is.

  ‘Why?! Why did you tell anyone?’

  ‘Because I was so furious with you just now. So hurt we made it all up and you left me in the woods. Why did you do that? Why? I don’t understand you. Just when I was beginning to think we could get through this together.’

  I sit and squeeze my neck. How could I be so stupid as to think she was stable enough not to change her mind? That she wouldn’t waver if I made one wrong move? I place my hands on my lap and breathe through the rioting thoughts. If this gets out, it’ll spread quickly; I’ll have no chance. No chance at anything. I cannot allow that to happen. ‘Me too,’ I reply. ‘Me too.’ I touch Freya’s hand.

  Freya leans over the plughole and is sick again. I rub her back and wash her face with a cloth that’s drying on the radiator.

  We sit there and it’s nine o’clock before Freya can stand up again. I can hear the school bell going, and I can see the flash of torches – the sign that the caretakers are shutting all the gates up. It means it’ll be too risky to leave the school premises. Even though I know most of the security team from our monthly safety meetings, there’s no excuse I can give them that’ll allow me to leave the premises without them alerting a teacher. I’m torn between relief at it being taken out of my hands and imagining Freya’s reaction when she reads the magazine. It’s made even worse by the fact we are here, together, holding hands whilst she’s sick and she’s trying to confide in me about that night. She talks and cries. I don’t say much. The conversation comes out of nowhere and, at first, I’m not sure what she’s talking about because as soon as she opens her mouth, she starts shivering. ‘I don’t know what happened, I just . . .’ she says. I put some more hot water in the bath, squeeze her hand and tell her she has to be quiet or she’s going to make herself sick again but she carries on talking, saying words that only seem to make sense to her. At this moment, when a level of trust has rebuilt, I want so much to ask her about what Sally told me. Whether it’s true. I wonder if I should risk it, in the hope she’ll have memory blank tomorrow but I can’t. Most of all, though, I want to ask her why she felt the need to hide it all from me. The fact she’s sitting here, naked and holding my hand, telling me her take on that night. And all the while she couldn’t, wouldn’t trust me with this other secret.

  It’s only two hours later when she feels strong enough to get out of the tub. I wipe her dry and wrap her in an old, green towel that’s hanging on the back of the door.

  ‘Come on.’ I say, ‘Let’s go downstairs.’ We walk down together and I tuck Freya into bed and fill her a glass of water. ‘Here. Drink this now and I’ll refill it.’ She looks at me as she drinks. I tell her to carry on. ‘Finish. You’ll feel better tomorrow.’ I wait at the end of her bed until she falls asleep, checking that she is breathing. When she rolls over onto her side, I walk back to my dormitory and wonder what I’m going to do about The Lens. How I can stop this huge mistake.

  2014

  ‘I’d like to go to that place, The Cedars, please.’

  Dr McKinnie doesn’t say anything down the phone. I can hear her scribbling away; scratchy strokes against the paper. I wish she’d say something. I’m fidgeting, desperate to get off the phone and leave in case Freya turns up unannounced. After years of fear that Mother’s madness might catch up with me, the fact that I’m willingly throwing myself into an institution to avoid Freya almost makes me smile.

  ‘You would?’ she says, finally.

  ‘Yes, please. I . . . I think it would be a good idea. Just for a few days. I told work I was ill. That I had the shingles so they won’t ask questions.’ There’s a pause in the conversation. I can hear a small intake of breath down the phone and I consider a line of defence to the fact I’ve lied to my colleagues but Dr McKinnie starts speaking.

  ‘Right. Well I’ll arrange everything now, shall I? Do you want to come into my office first?’

  ‘Yes, yes please. I’ll be there in twenty minutes?’ My luggage is already by the door. Amy has been helping me pack, asking me why I’m in such a hurry and why I can’t fold my clothes properly. ‘Let me do it,’ she had said, throwing all my clothes on the bed and starting again.

  ‘Twenty minutes? I didn’t mean quite so soon. Are you OK? Is it that urgent?’ Dr McKinnie’s saying.

  ‘Yes. Kind of.’ I don’t want to go into Freya’s email and that I have to get out of the house straightaway, so I make a weird sob, like a little laugh.

  ‘OK, come in now. I’ll get things ready.’

  Dr McKinnie hasn’t asked how I’m going to pay and I don’t want to think about how much it’ll cost. Would probably be cheaper to book myself into a hotel but at least here I’ll be protected. I’ve got some money, from my mother. A nasty little voice whispers in my mind: how proud she’d be.

  I hand-write a note to Father – I don’t want to go near my computer in case Freya emails again – and tell him a brief rundown of what’s happening. ‘Don’t come and see me for a while,’ I say. ‘Thanks. J.’

  When I’ve got everything packed and ready and called a cab, I say goodbye to Amy and tell her that I won’t be contactable by email or phone. That I’m going ‘somewhere with no signal’.

  ‘I understand.’ She winks as she misinterprets my reasons and hugs me. ‘It’s about time you did something like this,’ she says.

  The Cedars is a large, light building, set on the outskirts of London. It looks like a mini castle, complete with little turrets and stone doves chiselled on the roof. The front lawn is perfectly manicured, bordered with unduly bright flowers. There’s a couple on the bench next to the main entrance. She’s wearing a black and white miniskirt and her hair is dyed pillar-box red – the kind that was fashionable when I was at school, and, for a moment, I get the sense that I’m a teenager again. The sense that everything is a little too big for me.

  The girl stares when I get out of the taxi. Gives me one of those timorous looks that I hate. ‘New?’ she says.

  I nod and instruct the taxi driver to place my bags at the front door. I’m welcomed by Shona, who has a permanent grin on her face and a tone of voice like she’s petting a dying animal. ‘Please, let me show you to your room, dear. You’ll be sleeping on your own,’ she says.

  ‘If you could also give me your phone and anything else? Any sharp objects. There’s a lov
e.’ I’m tempted to leave there and then – it all seems a bit serious and I begin to panic that they might actually believe I am mad, and lock me up forever – but I can’t face the alternative.

  ‘Here.’ I hand her my phone and she puts it in the front pocket of her uniform.

  ‘Come on then, upstairs. Let me help you with your things.’

  ‘No. I mean . . . no, thanks. I’ve got it.’

  ‘If you’re sure, love.’ I nod and, together, we unpack, whilst Shona natters about the weather, her children, cleaning products. ‘And I’ll be taking you down to dinner now, love. Do you need anything else? Happy with your room?’

  ‘Yes.’ And I am – it’s large enough to allow me to breathe but small enough that I don’t feel overwhelmed. The dark brown furniture is ugly and cumbersome, the bedding a sickly avocado green with pink piping and the walls floral chintz, but, all in all, it feels like a generic hotel room, which I’m happy with.

  Shona leaves the room and tells me to be downstairs in ten minutes for grace and supper. She leans forward to straighten out the bedspread and I can smell cigarette smoke and perfume.

  ‘If you need anything else, just call me. You’ll have time tomorrow to go through your therapy sessions and anything else. Oh, and Dr Anthony will be your consultant psychiatrist.’

  ‘Psychiatrist? Oh . . . I’m just in here for a . . .’

  ‘I know, everyone gets a bit fearful when they hear that, love, don’t worry. It’s perfectly normal. Sounds scarier than it is.’

  ‘I’m not scared.’

  Shona gives me a smile and shuts the door.

  It’s ten minutes before I can lift myself back off the bed. I hear echoes of laughter down the corridors, the coo of pigeons and the constant ring of the phone and beeping of the intercom. Again, I’m reminded of school but, this time, I’m not expected to behave in a particular way. I don’t have to do anything except pretend to go along with all this therapy stuff. It’s the most relaxed I’ve felt in years, hiding away in this weird place where everything runs to a strict timetable. I remind myself I’m still in charge though. I won’t be surrendering myself any time soon.

  The dining room is quiet, although the seats are full. No one looks up when I enter, even though the door makes a loud creak. I go and get a plate of food: chicken and gravy, with surprisingly crisp roast potatoes.

  I take a chair next to a small lady with big, gold-rimmed spectacles. She doesn’t look up, but I don’t feel any hostility. We eat in silence and, when she leaves, she gives me a small, shy grin.

  I’m one of the last to finish. I’m enjoying chewing my food, tasting the beefy gravy, the powdery insides of the potatoes. No hurry here. No need to hide. I get talking to a seventeen-year-old girl, whose bones jut out like knives. A nurse keeps waiting for her to finish her food and she’s looking pained, so I tell her I don’t like the gravy. She laughs and manages to swallow a crumb of chicken. I can tell she was once beautiful. Her hair, now straw-like, looked like it used to be thick and luscious, like Freya’s, and then it hits me that I haven’t thought about Mother, or Freya, since I’ve stepped foot in this place. Dr McKinnie has reassured me that I’m not going crazy and Freya will never, ever find me here. This makes me smile and the girl smiles back at me.

  That night, I sleep right through the night, without fear of what lies in store for me in my dreams. I wake up, groggy and overcome with deep slumber, and, although the bell goes for seven, I shut my eyes and go back to sleep. A phone ring wakes me up and it’s Shona, asking me where I am. ‘Dr Anthony is waiting for you,’ she’s saying.

  Dr Anthony’s study is the kind I imagine you would see in a gentleman’s dining club, all dark-red shiny leather and dimly lit reading lamps. He has an unusually low hairline, making him look like he’s constantly frowning.

  ‘Josephine,’ he says, without looking up from the blue paper file on his desk. ‘Josephine Grey.’ I can’t work out if he’s smirking or not.

  ‘Dr Anthony.’ He spends the next few minutes flicking through some papers, humming and ahhing and taking sips of coffee from a china mug with an indeterminate blue logo on it.

  ‘Dr McKinnie,’ he says. ‘Interesting.’

  There’s not one object here that’s out of place. The books are all perfectly aligned, the certificates along his wall in straight rows. Even his pens are laid out in colour co-ordinated rows.

  ‘Right. So Diana referred you. Thinks you might be on the verge of a breakdown?’

  ‘I haven’t heard that specifically from her,’ I reply, nudging one of his pens across his desk. My stomach loops at the thought that all the staff here really do believe something is very wrong with me. He gives a tight grin, leans back in his chair. He realigns the pen and looks at me, daring me to do it again.

  ‘OK. So let’s start with the basics, how are you feeling now?’ I’m suddenly too tired to play games. Paradoxically the long sleep has left me feeling mentally shattered.

  ‘I’m OK, I’m OK. I slept last night for the first time in ages.’

  ‘Really? Well we do try and make it so our patients are as comfortable as possible. So why do you think you are in here?’

  ‘Well, for very unoriginal reasons. Mother just died, and you know . . . I was probably burning myself out, working too hard, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Right. And anything else?’ Dr Anthony is still staring, expressionless, when suddenly I don’t know what comes over me but I find myself saying –

  ‘I’m hiding from someone.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s someone I had history with. Not that kind . . . I mean . . . something happened. Something happened one night and then, after that, more stuff happened. Bad stuff.’

  ‘Can you tell me more about this, please? In your own time.’

  Dr Anthony gives a small encouraging nod but I wish he hadn’t because it makes me feel pressured to say something and, when it comes down to it, I find, as usual, I can’t.

  ‘It’s alright,’ he says. ‘There’s absolutely no hurry.’ His eyes move towards the white clock above the door. ‘We’ve got nearly forty-five minutes left.’ It’s another ten before I speak again. For the rest of the session, we don’t discuss anything in too much detail. He asks me about other pivotal moments in my life: Mother being hospitalised, school, and I skate over his questions with brief, non-committal answers. He’s writing fast and looking at me intently. It puts me off my stride. He calls the end of our session and says he’s looking forward to seeing me again.

  That night, I sleep well again, despite being able to hear the screams from the girl in the room next door. There’s a patient day room which I visit for the first time the next day. It’s got light-blue curtains and wooden chairs. Two beanbags lie, sunken and appealing, so I drag one to the window and take a book, and read before my next group therapy session.

  I’m three chapters in when a girl walks in. I hardly hear her, but I can feel her presence. A weird prickle of energy, firing up my adrenaline. She’s tall. Wearing brown loafers and light blue trousers, the exact same shade as the curtains. She’s got long brown curly hair, a thin tracing of red veins line her cheeks. Something about her is familiar and I can’t work out what. It’s the way she holds her head, the cross of her two front teeth. The recognition is only a flash but it leaves me feeling off-kilter and I can no longer concentrate on my book. She hasn’t seen me yet. Sits on a wooden chair and opens a book with a black and white swirling pattern on the cover. I don’t know whether to move but I keep looking up, trying to figure out where I’ve seen her before. I run through different scenarios and try to place her in them but none connect.

  I get up and leave the room. Her image doesn’t leave me all day. We have a group therapy breathing session and I keep thinking of her face, niggling away at me. That night, though, she’s sitting near me at supper. I try to keep my head down so she doesn’t clock me, just until I’ve worked out if I really do know her, but the hairs on
the back of my neck stand alert and I know she’s looking at me. Staring. When the meal is over, I rush and take my tray to be stacked and I hear someone walking behind me. I speed up and, as I do, I can hear footsteps, quickening in time with my own.

  I get to my room, shut the door and slide down it, head in hands. I’m just imagining things, surely? She’s probably just trying to be friendly and it’s nothing sinister after all. Darkness sets in and, for the first time ever, I have to sleep with the light on.

  The next day, I spend all my free time in my room, until a group therapy session is called. I don’t want to go but Shona tells me I have to complete three stages before I can be discharged. When I arrive, there she is. I’m caught between running and sitting down calmly. By that point, everyone is waiting and Rosemary, the lady in charge, is pointing to the only empty stool and so I’m given no choice but to walk and sit, very still, with my hands on my knees. We go through a few exercises and we are all asked to speak a bit and I don’t remember what I say because that girl, she’s still staring at me, all the time, a half-smile caught on her lips as though she’s about to say something to me.

  She doesn’t, and then Rosemary stands, pulls up her ill-fitting jeans and asks for a volunteer. No one responds and so she says, ‘You, Josephine.’ And when she says my name, the girl opens her mouth slightly, with a silent ‘Ah’ and nods her head.

  ‘Right, here we are, Josephine, if you can show the rest of the group how to stand whilst we breathe, that would be great. Just like this.’ She’s pulling up my spine and straightening my neck but I’m curling myself back down because I can’t breathe like she’s asking me to.

  ‘Josephine? Are you alright?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say.

  ‘OK, well you look a bit faint, why don’t you sit down?’

  I go to my stool and the girl is now leaning forward, eyes open wide, hands mid-air.

  ‘Josephine?’ She’s mouthing, ‘Josephine!’

  Shut up, just shut up, I will the loud monotone to stop. I’m focusing all my energy on keeping still. The second time she says my name, a flashback sparks through me. There’s a residual terror connected to the visual image I have of this lady. The flashback lengthens and I can see who it is. It’s her, I think. It’s definitely her. Her face, once so clean and fresh, has now started to sag and crease but the defining quality of her is still there. That goading, smug look which jars me so much, I cannot move. She knows my past, is all I can think. She knows.