They All Fall Down

by Tammy Cohen

  Before she’d even got out of her car Corinne could sense his impatience.

  ‘You’re late.’

  ‘Only five minutes.’

  ‘Seven. I left work early for this.’

  This was what she didn’t miss. The inbuilt reproach in his voice when he spoke to her.

  In reception, with bad grace Duncan surrendered his navy wool coat and leather satchel to be put away in the clinic’s cloakroom. Corinne found herself over-compensating for her ex-husband’s surliness by being too friendly, smiling as she gave the receptionist her fake-fur-lined parka and the enormous leather holdall she lugged everywhere, much to the amusement of her daughters. ‘Oh, just a minute!’ she said. She’d remembered the photo in its frame. The receptionist obligingly went back to retrieve it from her bag.

  ‘Some things never change,’ said Duncan, looking pointedly up at the clock.

  Hannah was in the art room again. Corinne was glad she’d found an interest in here that was separate from the day-to-day business of the clinic, an escape from the endless analysing of feelings and behaviours, the why? why? why? that threaded itself through everything in this place.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Hannah said when she saw her parents walking in together. ‘Two-pronged attack. This must be serious.’

  Laura was in the far corner of the room, helping a woman Corinne didn’t recognize make something out of a large mound of clay. ‘It’s supposed to be a bust of her own head,’ whispered Hannah. ‘But Katy is too scared to start it in case it goes wrong. She’s been there for an hour and a half.’

  ‘How are you, sweetie?’ Duncan laid his hand over his daughter’s, and Corinne had to look away.

  ‘Fine,’ the reply snapped out, and Corinne swung her attention back to Hannah.

  ‘Are you sure? You seem—’

  ‘I’m fine, Dad. Really. I just want to get out of here.’

  ‘I know you do, sweetheart. But you made a promise to Danny.’

  What about his promises to her? Corinne felt like saying, but she bit back the words.

  ‘I just don’t feel safe here.’

  ‘Come on, sweetie. Here’s probably the safest place for you.’ Duncan had his Eminently Reasonable voice on, and it set Corinne’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Two women have died here, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, but they were ill, Hannah. They’d already tried to kill themselves before. That’s why they were in here.’

  Duncan glanced over at Laura, and Corinne wondered if he was trying to impress the attractive art therapist with his air of calm authority.

  ‘I just keep thinking, Mum, about that name Charlie was googling on the day she died. William Kingsley. That’s what those initials WK stand for. It’s got to be relevant somehow. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘How are you getting on, Hannah? Hello, Hannah’s mum and dad!’

  Laura had come over and now stood behind Hannah with a hand on her shoulder so she could look at Hannah’s latest artwork, a pastel picture of someone’s Nike trainer, which stood on a stool in front of her easel. Corinne couldn’t tear her eyes away from the other woman’s hand on her daughter’s shoulder, an unwelcome reminder that Hannah was becoming assimilated in here, forming bonds. Not just passing through.

  ‘Aren’t you cheating, though,’ asked Duncan, ‘taking out the laces so it’s easier to draw?’

  ‘Laces aren’t allowed in here, if you remember, Mr Lovell,’ said Laura.

  ‘Lovell is my actually my daughter’s married name,’ said Duncan sharply, and Corinne could tell he was embarrassed by his faux pas about the laces. ‘I’m Harris. As is my ex-wife here.’

  Ex. It still hurt.

  ‘Your daughter has real talent,’ said Laura. ‘You should be very proud of her.’

  ‘Oh, we are,’ Duncan replied. Corinne saw him squeeze Hannah’s hand.

  On the way back out to his car, however, Duncan was troubled. ‘Didn’t you think Hannah sounded a bit paranoid back there, rambling on about that random name? Remember when she first came in, Dr Roberts warned us to look out for signs of paranoia? Shit, Cor, I thought she was getting better.’

  ‘She is getting better. I’m sure of it.’

  But driving out of the main gates, Corinne couldn’t stop thinking about the expression on Hannah’s face as she’d told them she didn’t feel safe.

  There was no doubt her daughter was feeling genuinely threatened.

  But what if the real threat was coming from inside her own head?

  24

  Hannah

  I didn’t tell Mum and Dad about the rabbit with the hacked-off ears. What would I have said? They already think I’m losing it. I could see it on Dad’s face when I said I didn’t feel safe. A cuddly toy would have been a step too far.

  I can’t resist asking Danny about it, though, when he comes to visit. We are in the rose garden. From the dance studio comes the sound of flamenco-style music and hands clapping and Grace’s voice calling out, ‘Stamp those feet! Harder, harder! Get it all out!’

  ‘I haven’t a clue where that bloody rabbit is,’ Danny tells me. ‘Your mum probably cleared it out, along with the rest of the stuff.’

  ‘All of it?’

  Mum said she’d been helping Danny ‘sort out’ our flat. I’d guessed she might have meant Em—the spare room, but it still hurts. I want to ask what they’ve done with the baby things, but I can’t face hearing that they’ve gone to the charity shop. Someone else’s baby wearing all those lovely clothes.

  ‘So you couldn’t clear out the nursery yourself?’

  Danny looks at me coldly then from under his dark lashes and I want to wind the words back in, like reeling in a fishing line.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Hannah. What did you think? That I was going to kneel on the carpet in the middle of all her stuff and pick out little shoes and toys and have a little cry like she was a real baby? You made her up. That’s the long and short of it. So what does it matter who clears out the baby things? I don’t give a toss if it’s your mum, or the fucking binmen. I just want them out of the house so I can breathe again.’

  It’s the longest speech Danny has made since I first came in here and, afterwards, we both look at each other in surprise. We are sitting outside on the bench and I am smoking a cigarette, even though I know Danny hates it.

  Do I still love you?

  The thought comes out of nowhere, sucking the air from my lungs.

  For the last six years, loving Danny has been one of the defining characteristics of who I am. If a stranger had asked me, I’d have said, I’m Hannah. I work in publishing. I’m married to Danny. It’s one of the pillars that has held the rest of my life up.

  What would happen if someone took it away?

  But now the world slides into focus again as Danny sits back and runs his long fingers through his hair and I recognize him. That is, I recognize him physically rather than intellectually, with my whole body, not just my mind or my eyes.

  Of course I love him. I’d do anything for him.

  Maybe he’s having similar thoughts, because there’s a softening in him when he looks at me now, a blurring of hard lines, that meets with a corresponding dissolving inside me.

  ‘You know, Han, there isn’t a day goes past that I don’t feel guilty about what I did. The affair. That’s what set this whole thing off. I know that, and I have to live with it. But we have to put this behind us now. Or there’s no hope for us.’

  The phrase ‘no hope’ shimmers between us like a heat haze.

  ‘I am moving on,’ I say. ‘I feel like I’ve made a real breakthrough in the last couple of days. Ask Dr Chakraborty.’

  ‘I’ve already talked to Dr Roberts.’

  My heart plummets.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he thinks there’s still a lot more work to do.’

  ‘Maybe I could come home and do the rest of the treatment as an outpatient.’

  Danny has already started shaking his head, even before I’ve finished the
sentence.

  ‘We agreed, Han. You promised you’d stay in here until the doctors think you’re well enough to come home.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think this is the best place for me, Danny. There’s something off about it. People die in here.’

  Danny throws his hands up and hurls himself backwards on the bench.

  ‘Not this again. Please. Not the Charlie thing. Do you realize how crazy you sound? How paranoid?’

  Desperation makes me angry.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe you’d be paranoid too if your husband had screwed around behind your back and lied to you for months. You know there’s nothing forcing me to stay here. The section has been lifted. I could check myself out and come home any time I like.’

  ‘Just don’t expect me to be there when you do.’

  We glare at each other and I have the fleeting impression that he’s no longer my Danny but just some random good-looking thirty-something man. Then his face crumples.

  ‘I need to know you’re better, Hannah. I can’t go through that again. Do you have any idea what it was like? I thought I was about to be a dad.’

  I think about reminding him that I thought I was about to be a mum, but the words stay stoppered in my throat like I am choking back a cough.

  After he’s gone, Stella joins me. It’s a bright day but there’s a biting wind that undercuts the clear, crisp air. Stella has on her coat with the fur collar that makes her look like Greta Garbo.

  ‘Were you waiting for Danny to leave?’

  She shrugs. It bothers me that there’s no love lost between these two. They each seem to feel I’ve been taken in by the other. I hate it when the people I love don’t love each other. It makes me question my own judgement.

  ‘Why don’t you like Danny?’

  ‘He cheated on you. I don’t like cheats.’

  ‘But I’ve forgiven him. And if I can, surely everyone else can too. Besides, what I did to him was much worse.’

  She flashes me a ‘yeah, right’ look and thrusts her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. From the music therapy room behind us comes the sound of three notes of a piano being played over and over again, while in one of the bedrooms above someone is sobbing softly.

  ‘How come you haven’t got anybody?’ I ask her. ‘You’re so lovely, Stella. Why isn’t there a queue of men beating down the door? Or at least your family. Where’s your mum? Your dad?’

  ‘People aren’t my thing,’ says Stella.

  She is smiling, but her cheeks are pink – although that could be from the cold wind – and her hand is at her throat, reaching through the fur collar to worry at her silver cat necklace.

  ‘But haven’t you ever had a long-term boyfriend?’ I persist.

  ‘I went out with someone for five years from when I was fifteen, but Mama and my stepdad didn’t like him.’

  ‘Why? Because he was a bad influence?’

  ‘No. Because he was thirty-eight.’

  ‘Thirty-eight! But that’s not even legal.’

  ‘He was a writer who came in to school to talk about his books. I emailed him afterwards, and that’s how it started. He liked to call me in the evening and tell me what clothes to wear. I had one of those little Flip camcorders and I’d send him footage of me dressed in the clothes he’d chosen.’

  Stella says all this in her everyday, breathy voice as if it were normal and somehow this is even more chilling than what she has just told me.

  ‘But Stella, that’s abuse. You know that, right?’

  Stella smiles.

  ‘Who was abusing who, though?’ she says. ‘I instigated it. And I kept it going even after he tried to finish it.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugs.

  ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here, would I? Isn’t that what we’re all here for – to find out the why? Isn’t that our optimum outcome from all of this?’

  ‘But you’ve never talked about this in Group. Do you discuss it in your one-to-ones?’

  ‘It’s not relevant, Hannah. That girl isn’t who I am any more. She’s gone. I’m a different person now. I even have a different name.’

  ‘Really? So what—’

  ‘Aren’t you two cold? It’s freezing out here. What are you guys talking about?’

  Odelle is shivering, despite the huge puffa coat that dwarfs her tiny frame and the outsize knitted woollen scarf from which her head emerges like a tortoise’s.

  ‘Oh, just boring stuff,’ says Stella.

  Odelle sniffs. Her nose is already bright red from the freezing wind.

  ‘Fine. Whatever. Anyway, Dr See is looking for you, Stella.’

  My startled brain grapples to work out which doctor could have earned that epithet, until I realize that of course she is saying ‘Dr C’. Classic Odelle.

  As Stella stands up to follow Odelle’s hunched shoulders along the path that leads around the back of the clinic and in through the car park, I put a hand on her arm.

  ‘What happened to him? The writer? Please tell me he got done for something.’

  Stella giggles, showing all her small, perfect, white teeth.

  ‘No. But I nearly did.’

  ‘You? What on earth for?’

  ‘Harassment. But like I say, I was a different person then.’

  When I’m alone I find myself shivering. But I don’t think it’s the cold.

  25

  Corinne

  Corinne loved her office.

  It was in one of the university’s cramped department buildings, a gloomy, red-brick, monolithic structure with creaking floors and an antiquated heating system that meant they all boiled through the summer because the radiators never quite turned off while, in winter, the cold wind came gusting through the cracks in the wooden window frames. But her room had a high ceiling and a huge window through which she could observe the goings-on in the swanky high-rise apartment block on the other side of the street. It was lined with shelves on which books, many of them by people Corinne knew well, were stacked two and sometimes three deep.

  Corinne’s name was on the door, and every time she came in, no matter how stressful the day – and university life was becoming increasingly so – she felt a sense of homecoming. Though she’d come to adore her little house, this was definitely the place she felt most convincingly herself.

  Settling down in her padded desk chair, Corinne sighed at the chequerboard of pink and yellow Post-it notes all over her desk. They’d been put there by the new departmental secretary, who looked about twelve, had round writing like a child’s and finished off each message and telephone number with a smiley face. It made Corinne feel old.

  There was a ‘stuff to be dealt with’ pile in the middle of Corinne’s desk that seemed to have doubled in size since she was last in. She pulled the top document off, a printout of a chapter she’d contributed to a book about whether the internet had destroyed pop culture, which had been sent to her for proofreading. She’d written it in that magical period after Hannah announced she was pregnant but before the first signs of odd behaviour, when the world had seemed absurdly benevolent and the future bursting with possibility.

  Even re-reading the first paragraph, a typically dry academic introduction, Corinne was transported back to that time, when the most she had to worry about was getting this chapter written so she could put another tick in the box when it came to personal-assessment time. When she first started at the university, academia was all about the teaching, the interaction with students, the transfer of ideas. But nowadays you were too busy justifying your existence for any of that. Where was the passion? Where was that practically audible mental click when a student finally got it? It was all about value for money these days. Students liked to see exactly what they were paying for. Spreadsheet education, she called it.

  A knock on the door halted Corinne’s musings.

  The man who came in was tall and broad with closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a smile that split his face.

  �
�I’m Paddy?’ he said, seeing her blank look. ‘I’m doing an MA in sociology and anthropology. You’ve kindly agreed to be joint supervisor for my dissertation.’

  ‘Oh God. It’s today! I completely forgot. Of course. Come in.’

  She glanced over to her academic flip calendar, and there he was: Paddy Collins. Mature Student. 11.30 a.m.

  Corinne was so flustered that it took her a good ten minutes, until Paddy was well into his list of the research documents he intended to use, to realize how handsome he was. Not pretty-boy handsome like Danny, but the kind of handsome that crept up on you so you felt you’d discovered it for yourself, like treasure other people had overlooked, and doubly valuable for being hard to find.

  ‘Tell me a bit about yourself,’ she asked when he’d finished. ‘You’re slightly older than my usual students.’

  ‘I’ve got a sourdough starter that’s older than your usual students.’

  Corinne must have looked confused, because he said, ‘You’re not a baker then? Starters are those natural leavening agents you use to make some types of bread. They can last for years. And now I’ve had to explain the hell out of that joke I feel like a right idiot.’

  Paddy smiled and Corinne felt a curious sense of recognition, as if she knew him from somewhere. After they’d finished discussing his dissertation, Paddy seemed in no hurry to leave, happily answering her questions about his background. He’d been a firefighter until he was laid off five years earlier and since then he’d taken a degree and was now doing an MA. He wanted to write a book, make his children proud. Then they talked about children, and divorce. His children were teenagers, still angry about their parents’ split. ‘They get over it,’ she said. Then she wondered if, in fact, that was true.

  They were talking so naturally that for a moment Corinne thought about telling him about Hannah. It was on the tip of her tongue, but then she swallowed it back down. My daughter is in a psychiatric institution. It wasn’t the sort of thing you told strangers. Paddy was her student. She needed to keep a professional distance.

  After he had gone, Corinne couldn’t settle back into work. She gazed out of the window. The luxury flat directly opposite her office was occupied by a middle-aged couple. Sometimes, if Corinne stayed working late, the woman would be there, with her cloud of fair hair and dark, formal clothes, but mostly it was the man she saw. Clearly, he worked from home, because he spent many hours a day at a computer screen, which was framed against one of the windows of the flat. Over the years, Corinne had imagined many careers for him. He was a famous poet, tapping out his latest opus. Or he was a designer, someone creative. At one point, she’d even been convinced he was a politician, certain she recognized him from Question Time.