Apartment 255

by Bunty Avieson

  ‘She was cornered. She looked … I don’t know … like a trapped animal. She didn’t seem to know where she was or who I was,’ said Tom. His voice had a faint pleading quality that the doctor noted. ‘I don’t believe she attacked me because she wanted to hurt me. She loved me. We were to be married. Are to be married.’ Tom was hoping that was true. If he ignored the recent hell their lives had become, he could almost convince himself.

  ‘Is there a history of violence in your relationship?’ asked Dr Hubert.

  Tom looked blankly at the doctor. It wasn’t just that the question was unexpected, he didn’t understand the concept.

  ‘Has she attacked you before? Hit you or been violent in any way?’

  ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Never.’

  ‘Have you ever hit her?’

  ‘Good heavens, no.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dr Hubert in a flat tone that betrayed nothing. Dr Hubert instinctively believed that Tom hadn’t been violent. But he was by profession and by nature a cautious man. He wouldn’t rely on his instincts alone. He also wasn’t sure he believed that Sarah had not been violent towards him in the past. He considered it a possibility that it may have been a pattern in their relationship. In his twenty-eight years of practice he had encountered battered husbands. They weren’t as common as battered wives but nevertheless they were out there. It was just as demeaning to the male psyche and often they would stay in denial, rather than admit to the shame of abuse.

  Dr Hubert had read the police report of Sarah’s outburst in the RTA office. He had wiped a gob of spit from his arm which Sarah had placed there during her rage while being admitted to his care. He had seen the anger and pain in her wildly staring eyes and felt the force of her demented energy as she raged out of control. He believed he was treating a disturbed young woman, prone to psychotic outbursts. It was too soon for him to make a diagnosis. His approach was to calm her down, settle her into a routine and, when she was back on an even keel, he would work on unravelling her neuroses.

  ‘What do you do for a living, Mr Wilson?’

  Tom briefly outlined his job.

  ‘Sarah tells me her parents live overseas,’ said Dr Hubert. ‘We have been having trouble locating them. The number Sarah gave us is disconnected.’

  Tom was surprised. As far as he knew, Sarah had spoken to them just last week. She must have given the hospital staff a wrong number. That gave him some clue to how she felt. She obviously didn’t want them knowing she was in here.

  ‘Would you have any idea how we could get in touch with them?’

  Tom shook his head.

  Dr Hubert assumed he had been given the wrong number. It wouldn’t be the first time a patient had done that.

  Sarah’s reaction when he had started to ask about her parents had also suggested a tender spot. When she revealed she had been sent away at the age of ten he had asked, in his mildest doctor tone, if she minded that.

  She had screamed at him.

  ‘What do you fucking think?’

  Dr Hubert had written down her response in the file that was now sitting under his clasped hands.

  That had seemed to incense Sarah further and she had screamed at him again. ‘What the fuck are you writing down? That’s my life. How dare you?’

  Dr Hubert hadn’t been offended. He expected it would be a long process, just to get her to trust him, to work with him not against him. He had made further notes to himself about lines to pursue in future sessions. Issues with authority? Dr Hubert thought of Sarah’s blood test results that he had received that day. They had been taken as a matter of course the morning after she was committed. They clearly indicated steroids were present in Sarah’s system. He wondered if drugs might be part of her lifestyle.

  ‘As far as you are aware, did Sarah ever take illegal narcotics?’

  Tom hesitated. He didn’t think so but could he be sure? The idea had been planted in his head by Thel. His eyes betrayed his uncertainty, which Dr Hubert was quick to notice.

  ‘Not as far as I know.’ It sounded lame to Tom’s own ears. He thought he sounded like he was hiding something. ‘She was very health conscious,’ he said firmly. ‘She wouldn’t even take aspirin.’

  Dr Hubert watched Tom’s eyes sidle off his to somewhere over his left shoulder. He seemed to find something of interest there but Dr Hubert knew, without looking, that it was a blank wall.

  ‘Are you aware she had a high level of synthetic hormone in her system?’

  Tom shook his head. A hormone. It sounded like something a gynaecologist might prescribe. Sarah had suffered some problems as a result of the bulimia and had taken different medications but that was years ago. As far as he knew everything had returned to normal.

  ‘No. Could her doctor have prescribed it?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Not likely. But can I have the number of Sarah’s doctor?’

  Tom nodded. He wondered if he should tell him about the bulimia. He decided against it. He was surprised and a little intimidated by the doctor’s attitude. He wasn’t completely sure that they were on the same side. Tom wrote down the name and number of Sarah’s doctor and watched Dr Hubert slide it into the file under his hands. Tom glimpsed a stack of papers, then the folder was shut and Dr Hubert placed his hands over it again, almost protectively.

  ‘Does she ever take cocaine, LSD, marijuana or any other recreational drugs?’

  ‘No. Definitely not,’ said Tom.

  Tom was convincing but Dr Hubert knew a lot about twenty-something lifestyles in inner Sydney. He spent much of his free time sitting in the sparsely furnished backroom of an underfunded Kings Cross halfway house, counselling drug addicts. They didn’t all come from disadvantaged, broken homes. Drug abuse cut across all strata of society. Dr Hubert would continue to consider drugs a possibility until he could rule them out definitively.

  Dr Hubert looked at his watch and stood to leave. ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Wilson. I assure you we will take good care of Sarah.’

  Tom felt the situation slipping out of his control. He had come here expecting to see Sarah and somehow make sense of this madness. Instead, he was floundering.

  ‘Can I see her?’

  Dr Hubert assumed an expression of caring solicitude. He liked this young man but he was thinking of his patient. She was a young woman in crisis, vulnerable and suffering great emotional pain. He would do everything he could to protect her.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mr Wilson. Not right now.’

  He moved towards the door, Sarah’s file tucked under his arm.

  ‘But I’m her fiancé. I have every right to see her. You can’t stop me,’ sputtered Tom.

  Dr Hubert looked over the top of his glasses at Tom. He tried to put it as gently as he could. ‘I have every right. Sarah was brought in by the police and turned over to my care. At this stage I don’t think it would do her any good. She is …’ He searched for the right words. ‘A little … unstable. When she has settled down, perhaps in a few days, we will reconsider the situation. I have your number and we will contact you. Feel free to ring at any time to talk to me. Goodbye, Mr Wilson.’

  Tom felt the frustration welling up inside him as Dr Hubert disappeared through the doorway. He thumped the table angrily.

  In the hallway Dr Hubert recognised the thud and made a mental note. When he got back to his own office he would record it in the file. He would also add his thoughts about the possibilities of domestic violence and drug use. He wasn’t making judgements. They were just new avenues to pursue.

  *

  Thel dished the takeaway Thai dinner onto plates and served Tom and Hal. The three of them sat around the kitchen table dissecting what Tom had told them of his visit to the hospital. Tom felt defeated. He had gone to the hospital with some vain hope of sorting it out, whatever ‘it’ might be, and bringing Sarah home. Instead, he felt as though he had been interrogated. He felt completely powerless in the face of Dr Hubert’s authority. It was late when Hal left and Thel moved into the spare bed
room. She wasn’t quite ready to let her son out of her sight.

  CHAPTER 19

  I’m starting to get it now. It’s a game and we’re on different teams. I’m with the Losers. How did that happen? I didn’t choose that team. I shouldn’t be here.

  They’ve got it all wrong. But they don’t listen to the Losers. What would we know? When you play for the Losers you become invisible.

  Well, I quit, resign, give notice, decamp, renounce, haul my arse out of here. I ain’t playing for the Losers. In fact, I ain’t playing. Full stop.

  Tonight I’m going in. I’m breaking into the whale’s chest cavity. I want to see my innards. They keep having a good look at them, poking around inside me. I want to know what they think they’ve found. After all, they’re my innards.

  *

  Tom was glad Thel was staying. The apartment didn’t seem so lonely knowing she was on the other side of the wall. But he knew he would have trouble sleeping. He wandered into the kitchen to pour a glass of scotch. His hands were shaky and he knocked the sugar bowl onto the floor as he was reaching for a glass. The bowl shattered into a dozen pieces, spilling sugar all over the kitchen floor. He stepped through the mess, grinding the broken porcelain under his feet with a satisfying crackling sound. He would clean it up tomorrow, he thought wearily. He took his drink into the lounge room and collapsed onto the couch. The lights from Toft Monks reflected back at him from Ginny’s apartment, mocking him. He downed the glass and hurled it at the wall. It didn’t break, but left a dent in the plaster, then bounced off, rolling across the carpet. Tom was disappointed. He wanted it to smash into a thousand pieces.

  *

  It was nearly 4 am when Tom woke drenched in sweat. He had had a nightmare. Some nameless terror that he couldn’t recall. The aftertaste was bitter and he was aware of something horrible looming elusively just outside his grasp.

  His mind cranked into gear. Sarah. Dr Hubert. Synthetic hormone. Unstable. Had he ever hit her? They were jumbled thoughts, chasing each other like droplets in a waterfall, disconnected, propelled by their own energy. Ginny. I’ve always loved you. We can be together now. Now. Now.

  Tom wanted to clear his head. He needed to think. He had to piece this together. Something niggled at the back of his brain but whenever he felt he was getting close to it, other thoughts crowded in on top. He tried to make himself relax. He took his mind back to when he was a child. When he had been stressed, Thel had made him close his eyes, picture a campfire and told him to listen to the smoke. It had always helped him relax and he often used the technique when he had trouble sleeping. He lay like that for about twenty minutes, watching tendrils of smoke swirl into abstract shapes above his imaginary fire. He turned his mind inward to listen to the smoke.

  Instead of drifting off to sleep he opened his eyes. He no longer felt tired. He was completely alert. The waterfall of thoughts had slowed to a gently meandering stream. One phrase bubbled to the surface. Synthetic hor mone. Tom had seen that phrase before, a lot. There were pages and pages about synthetic hormones sitting in his briefcase.

  He turned on the kitchen light, shielding his eyes. The sugar bowl lay broken on the polished wood floor, the sugar spilled around it. Tom stared down at it while his eyes grew accustomed to the light. As his focus cleared he realised he was looking at a mass of black dots amongst the spilled sugar. When he looked closer he recognised they were ants, dozens and dozens of dead ants. He frowned. That was odd. He was used to seeing ants in the kitchen. But not dead. Why would they be dead, he wondered. He should clean it up before Thel got up.

  Instead, he sat at the table and opened his briefcase. He rummaged through the various papers and pulled out a wad of pages stapled together. He knew what he was looking for. It was a report he had downloaded from the Internet, taken from America’s National Institute on Drug Abuse and part of their Research Report Series. He looked first under the definition for steroids.

  ‘Anabolic steroids’ is the familiar name for synthetic substances related to the male sex hormones (androgens). They promote the growth of skeletal muscle (anabolic effects) and the development of male sexual characteristics (androgenic effects), and also have some other effects.

  Of course. Steroids was the colloquial name for synthetic hormones. Tom knew the horror side effects of steroid abuse. For months he had been poring over pages of research all about it. He had been immersed in the topic every working moment – talking to doctors, sportspeople and body builders about every facet of it. He flicked to the section of the report titled ‘Side Effects’. It was a well-worn page with a dirty coffee stain in the top corner. He had re-read this page at least once a week while writing his series of articles.

  The side effects were horrific and he knew them by heart. He had concentrated only on the effects on men. The incidence of steroid abuse in women was so small he had planned to run it as a sidebar in his final article. He re-read the section with a fresh eye, as if seeing it for the first time.

  In the female body anabolic steroids cause masculinisation. Breast size and body fat decrease, the skin becomes coarse, the voice deepens. Women may experience excessive growth of body hair, oily hair and skin, acne and an increase in sexual desire.

  Tom turned the page. Psychiatric effects: Homici dal rage, mania, delusions.

  How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he seen this before? Sarah had almost all of those symptoms. He leaned back in the chair, overwhelmed by the torrent of emotions that washed over him. Relief, shame at his own stupidity, sudden blinding understanding.

  Sarah was on steroids. He felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Why was she taking them? The reason didn’t matter. He didn’t care. She would stop and everything would return to normal. They could get back to their life together. He would get his Sare Bear back.

  ‘Oh Sarah,’ he said aloud to the empty kitchen. ‘Why did you do this?’

  He looked at the dead ants on the floor. He didn’t register them. He was remembering what Thel had said about marriage bringing up so many fears.

  ‘You’re not training for a marathon, my darling. Marriage to me won’t be that hard, I promise you.’

  Tom thought about the world of body builders and athletes, which he had been immersed in for the past few months. To obtain steroids you had to be part of that world. He had discovered that steroids were readily available through an underground network that was prevalent in the many private gyms in inner Sydney.

  But Sarah wasn’t a member of a gym. Nor did she know any elite athletes, as far as he knew. She would go for her run every day, on her own, through the park. Did she meet someone secretly? He didn’t like that thought. How much of her life did he not know? he wondered. How would she have got hold of steroids? He hadn’t found any evidence of them amongst her things. And why would she do that? She was obsessive about her body. She bought organic vegetables for God’s sake. She hated artificial substances. That’s why she wouldn’t take drugs.

  His eyes continued to roam over the papers in front of him, but he took in little of what they said.

  Steroid abusers typically ‘stack’ the drugs, meaning that they take two or more different anabolic steroids, mixing oral and/or injectable types, sometimes even including compounds that are designed for veterinary use.

  Tom stopped at the word ‘veterinary’. It jarred for him. It snagged at his brain. It was like seeing someone in a room that didn’t fit. A homeless drunk in a corporate boardroom.

  Veterinary use. A vet. Sarah knew a vet. Ginny. The thought of Ginny conjured up a new vision. Ginny in a black satin sheath. Ginny naked, entwined around him. Ginny wearing just an apron, brushing her breasts against his arm. Ginny with that mad look of lust in her eyes. Repulsion rose in him like black vomit. He read the sentence again. ‘… sometimes even including compounds that are designed for veterinary use.’ Had Sarah got steroids from Ginny?

  Tom thought his head would explode. He felt there was something here, something nearly wit
hin his grasp. If only he could figure it out.

  He walked into the lounge room and looked out across the water at Ginny’s apartment.

  Did you give her steroids? he thought. Was it you? Have you been feeding my Sarah with this poison? His loathing for Ginny had been growing, festering beneath his awareness. He walked back into the kitchen, his mind racing, filled with possibilities. They seemed wild and fanciful, unbelievable. But he let them run, following each tangent until another occurred to him.

  He needed a drink. He stepped over the sugar bowl and its splayed contents, noting again the dead ants. Why were they dead? He reached for a fresh glass, his hand stopping, frozen in midair. It hit him like a physical blow. Why were they dead?

  ‘I’ve always loved you. We can be together now.’ Ginny’s voice rang loudly in his head. He recognised the implication. Now? Why now? Now that Sarah was out of the way?

  He bent down to inspect the ants. There were dozens of them, dotted through the sugar, each curled up. He poked his finger through the pile, as if sorting the ants from the sugar grains. Carefully, he spread the mound across the wooden floor. He noticed a fine white powder, the colour of sugar, but a different texture. He pulled a magnifying glass out of the junk drawer and peered over the mess. The sugar grains were large in comparison, some bound together where they had come into contact with moisture. But there was also a distinctive white powder. The sugar reflected the light, like small crystals, but the powder was flat. The difference was almost imperceptible. Tom wet his finger and placed it on the fine white powder. He put his finger to his lips. He didn’t know what steroids would taste like but he certainly knew the sweetness of sugar. The taste on his tongue wasn’t sweet. It was dry, cloying, like the scent of deodorant that clings to your tongue.

  Tom sat back on his feet. He barely dared to breathe, his body frozen as his mind took flight. He didn’t know how or when but Ginny had planted steroids in their sugar bowl. He was absolutely certain of it. She would have had plenty of opportunity. God, she had a key to their apartment. He had given it to her. When was that? Around Sarah’s birthday. Four months ago. Oh God.