The Mirror World of Melody Black

by Gavin Extence

  I love you. I miss you. I don’t think there’s anything else I can add.

  Beck x

  17

  FAKING IT

  When you want to die, smiling is not easy. I discovered this the next morning when the nurse brought my breakfast.

  It was premeditated, of course. After I put my cobalt-blue dress back in the bedside cupboard, I stayed awake for a few hours, planning my first move.

  It seemed simple in principle: a slight reconfiguration of the eyes and mouth, just to let her know that I was pleased to see her, that I was grateful for my cereal.

  The nurse’s sharp recoil told me that I’d got it wrong somehow.

  Later, I spent several minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to understand and correct my error. I had the vague recollection that all primates could smile, and it wasn’t a skill that had to be learned. Baby primates could smile just a few weeks after birth – even those born blind. So why did it seem so unnatural? My mouth felt tense and tremulous, like overstretched elastic. But maybe this wouldn’t be discernible to an outside observer? My lips at least appeared to be curving in the right direction. The bigger problem was my eyes. I’d read somewhere that you could always tell a genuine smile by looking at the eyes rather than the mouth.

  I covered my mouth with a hand and stared straight ahead. Two doll’s eyes stared back, as cold and hard as marbles. I didn’t know how to rectify this.

  Soon the nurse was tapping on the bathroom door.

  I gave up.

  The problem, I later realized, was that I’d started with far too big a step. I couldn’t fake a smile right now – any more than I could recalibrate the hollow monotone of my voice. These things would have to be practised, rebuilt piece by piece. In the meantime, I should think small. I should focus on the small cosmetic changes that I had some hope of effecting.

  I started by washing again. Real washing, as opposed to sluicing myself off once every forty-eight hours. Soap, shampoo – the works. A couple of days later, I asked to borrow a disposable razor and spent the next fifteen minutes shaving my legs under the unflinching gaze of one of the nurses. It took fifteen minutes because I had to concentrate on every stroke. All my nerves were shrieking at me, telling me to press down as hard as I could. And that would have been disastrous. It would have set me back weeks. I kept my eyes locked on their task, thinking only of the endgame.

  When I’d finished, I had a long nap, then spent the rest of the day reading the first chapter of Gone with the Wind. That felt even harder than shaving my legs, but it was an investment worth making. Both the day shift and the night shift saw that I was reading. They could see how engrossed I was.

  I don’t know exactly how long it took me to get off psychiatric intensive care – time was still hazy – but it must have been less than a week. It all seemed much too easy.

  I washed. I read. I dressed myself in my own clothes. When Dr Barry asked me how I was, I told him three or four rather than zero. These scores seemed unfeasibly high to my mind, but he never questioned them. Instead, he marked them on my chart, and soon the evidence of my ‘recovery’ was there for all to see, plotted on a tidy graph.

  It was a monstrous sham, but it was a sham that no one felt inclined to question. Even Dr Barbara, whom I’d assumed would see through my pretences in an instant, seemed content to accept the signs at face value. It helped, I suppose, that I didn’t have to lie to Dr Barbara directly. She wasn’t going to ask me to rate my mood out of ten. She was noting the subtler measures of my improvement: the fact that I’d made a bookmark out of a folded paper towel, and this had started to creep down the vast bulk of Gone with the Wind; the fact that my hair was washed and brushed. I didn’t have to make anything too explicit with Dr Barbara.

  It helped, too, that my face was beginning to give hints of expressive capability. I couldn’t yet manage anything approaching a warm smile – let alone a happy smile – but I could do a passable impression of a brave smile, something that told the outside world I was at least trying.

  Still, it struck me that it took so little; just a few minor changes in demeanour and I was indisputably on the mend. So what, exactly, defined the line between crazy and not crazy? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that sanity was just a matter of behaviour. Its degrees could be measured by the cleanliness of your hair, the set of your facial features, how you respond to a series of social cues.

  For the doctors and nurses, this was what sanity was.

  Although there was no substance underlying my sham recovery, I could still appreciate the several ways in which being off psychiatric intensive care was better than being on it. First, there were fewer nurses. I’m not sure what the staff to patient ratio had been on Nile, but I am certain there were more of them than us. Amazon, where I now found myself, was closer to being a regular hospital ward. There might have been six to eight nurses present at any one time – slightly fewer at night.

  Of course, the practical result of this lower staffing ratio was less supervision. There still weren’t locks on the bathroom doors, but most days I could get through a whole shower without anyone interrupting me. Far better than this, though, was the fact that I could now smoke unsupervised. The move to Amazon had come with all sorts of trusts and privileges that would have been unimaginable on Nile. Previously banned personal effects – house keys, nail files, lighters – were retrieved from the locker room behind the main reception. The keys were superfluous, obviously, but I suppose some psychiatrist somewhere had decided there was an important symbolism implicit in their return – the promise that I was one step closer to my eventual release.

  I was more impressed by the symbolism of the lighter, since this meant I was now trusted not to set myself or others on fire. For several hours after its return, the lighter never left my person. The keys I buried at the bottom of my bag. They were another item I did not want to think about.

  If Nile was essentially a prison, then Amazon was a halfway house, the sheltered accommodation set up to provide a safe transition back to the outside world. At times, it felt no more terrible than a hall of residence – if you allowed yourself to forget that all its residents were insane.

  Amazon Ward was a long L-shaped corridor with a dozen bedrooms leading off it. There was a small kitchen, containing a kettle and a microwave and an always-full fruit bowl, which adjoined a larger dining area with two round tables. Opposite the nurses’ station was the dayroom, where there were sofas and magazines and a television that seemed to be permanently tuned to Homes Under the Hammer. This, I suppose, was someone’s concept of safe viewing – the kind of innocuous daytime programming suited to a group of damaged and fragile women. Except I found Homes Under the Hammer anything but innocuous, and I was willing to bet I was not the only one. Homes Under the Hammer was a programme in which smug, middle-aged idiots bought and sold property, usually generating a huge profit while simultaneously pricing the rest of the population out of the market. These people all owned homes already. Many of them owned multiple homes, which was why they were able to borrow such vast sums of money from the bank. They used phrases like ‘strengthening my portfolio’, and were constantly referring to the ladder.

  I avoided the dayroom whenever I could, but this was not always possible. Because on Amazon, independent movement was not just permitted, it was continually encouraged. If you tried to stay in bed past nine in the morning, it wouldn’t be long before a nurse was opening the curtains and ushering you into one of the communal areas. This was the flipside of greater freedom. With it came caveats – rules and responsibilities.

  Paradoxically, there had been far fewer rules on Nile. On Nile there was really just one rule: no sharps. With that rule in place, we were pretty much left to ourselves. Apart from meals and medication, there was very little to segment the days, and time slid past like a glacier – huge and blank and structureless. And there wasn’t any communal space on Nile – not in any meaningful sense. Each separate bed might as
well have been a separate universe. Two dozen personal hells, with no connection between them.

  But on Amazon no one was allowed to languish. Treatment no longer meant lithium, Thorazine or ECT – or that wasn’t all it meant. Now there were various therapies to be attended: individual therapy, group therapy, art therapy.

  Against all odds, I soon found myself missing Dr Barry. He may have been a prick, but at least when he asked me a question, I knew the difference between a good and bad answer. Unfortunately, it seemed that Dr Barry was permanently confined to psychiatric intensive care, where his massive frame was a constant boon and his lack of interpersonal skills neither here nor there.

  In his place, I was assigned a new personal therapist. Her job was to help me develop and implement my personal care plan. All the patients had personal therapists and personal care plans. Except we were no longer referred to as patients. Now we were called service users – as if this were a library or swimming pool.

  It felt beyond ridiculous, but I kept telling myself that these games had to be played.

  My personal therapist was called Dr Hadley. Hadley was her surname. Her first name was Lisa. She told me I could call her Lisa if I preferred.

  I called her Dr Hadley – mostly because I had to keep reminding myself she was a real doctor. Dr Hadley didn’t look like a real doctor. She looked like an actress who had been badly miscast. And this was just the start of the problem.

  The more I looked at her, the more I realized that Dr Hadley actually resembled me in many ways. She was like a better version of me: a little older – early thirties at a push – a little taller; a warmer complexion; much more accomplished. She was a little slimmer, too – at least at the moment – and her hair was a better shade of blonde: rich and honey-hued, where mine, of late, had taken on the appearance of straw on a cloudy day.

  I didn’t know how I was going to cope with therapy with Dr Hadley.

  The smoking area was pretty much indiscernible from the one on Nile. It occupied a small courtyard, surrounded on three sides by bricks and by trees, trellises and the prison-style fence on the other. But for that fence, it could have been any suburban patio: neatly paved, bordered with low-maintenance shrubs and plants. There was a cheap plastic table and four matching chairs, and it was in one of these chairs, in the late afternoon of my second day on Amazon, that I sat smoking my seventh cigarette and listening to my iPod, which I’d discovered at the bottom of my handbag.

  Listening to music was a risk, I knew. It was the kind of thing that might have tipped me back over the edge a few days ago – and bursting into tears in one of the communal areas was not part of my plan; I had resolved to keep any crying minimal and private. But when I finally plucked up the courage to press play, I was relieved to find that the music didn’t really affect me one way or the other. It was just one more way to block out the external world, and this was my prime objective that day. I was struggling to adjust to people – to people not simply lying motionless in beds, or, at worst, talking to themselves in corridors, but actually wanting things from me: eye contact, acknowledgement, talk. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I didn’t want other people’s conversations buzzing in the background. I just wanted to smoke in peace. Wearing my earphones, I thought, was the perfect deterrent to any social interaction.

  But it turned out this was just wishful thinking.

  There was nothing very remarkable about the girl who sat down next to me – nothing except her age. She was obviously very young; she couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty, I thought. She was wearing a dark red vest top with shorts and sandals – it was, after all, still a blazing hot summer; as perfect a summer as you ever get in England. This was something that never failed to surprise me, every time I went outside. I don’t know why. I suppose there was a part of me that thought the weather should be paying more attention to the turn my life had taken, not just carrying on regardless.

  The girl was small. She had very straight dark brown hair cut just above her shoulders. Her forearms were latticed with scars, some old and pale, some red and recent.

  I observed all this in a swift, furtive glance, then fixed my eyes back on the parallel lines of the metal fence. I needed my sunglasses, I realized. Then I could look wherever I wanted. I could look at her arms to my heart’s content and she’d never know. But the courtyard was almost permanently in shade from the high walls and trees. I couldn’t wear sunglasses without looking like I was wearing them to hide something.

  If I’d thought I could get away with it, without appearing even crazier, I would have worn my sunglasses throughout the day, even in therapy. Especially in therapy. That would have solved the eye contact problem for good.

  I was mulling over these thoughts when the dark-haired girl reached over and tapped me on the shoulder.

  She smiled, then mouthed something.

  I shrugged and pointed to my earphones.

  She gestured for me to take them out.

  What choice did I have?

  ‘What are you listening to?’ she asked.

  My iPod was on shuffle. I wasn’t up to making complicated decisions about what music I wanted to hear. Especially since it didn’t matter; it was just a shield.

  ‘I’m listening to “Airwave” by Rank 1,’ I told her.

  The girl shook her head. ‘Don’t know it. Any good?’

  ‘It’s sublime,’ I answered automatically.

  ‘Happy or sad?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Is it happy music or sad music?’

  I had to think about this for several moments. I wasn’t sure if the question even made sense. Could all music be placed into one of these two boxes? Or was that an insane way of thinking about music? It didn’t seem insane to me, but that told me nothing.

  ‘It’s both,’ I decided, eventually. ‘Or it’s neither; I’m not sure. It’s the kind of music that moulds itself to your mood.’

  The girl nodded, looking unconvinced. She didn’t get it, I could tell. Not that it mattered. I’d be leaving in a moment. My cigarette was almost down to the filter. I took one more drag, then crushed it out.

  ‘I’m Melody,’ the girl said.

  ‘Right. How appropriate.’

  Melody kept looking at me but didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s a very pretty name,’ I added.

  I had already slipped my iPod back in my pocket. If I didn’t introduce myself, I was under no obligation to stay and talk. But then Melody did something that stopped me in my tracks – pretty much the only thing that could have stopped me. She took out her cigarettes and extended the pack towards me. There were two left.

  I looked at them for a few moments, then looked back at Melody. She smiled and gave a small shrug.

  I decided at that point that Melody was an idiot. I wouldn’t have given away my penultimate cigarette for anything less than immediate freedom. Not when their supply was so uncertain. But if she was offering, there was no way I was going to refuse. I allowed my poised leg muscles to relax.

  ‘I’m Abby,’ I said.

  ‘Hello, Abby,’ she replied. ‘You’re new here?’

  ‘Sort of. I was on Nile for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Oh, right. Nile.’ Melody gave a small, knowing nod. ‘Did you try to kill yourself?’ I looked at her. She lit her cigarette, then shrugged without apology. ‘I was on Nile for a bit. Took a load of pills – about thirty. But I didn’t die, obviously. I puked and passed out. Nile was where I woke up.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill myself,’ I lied.

  Melody nodded effusively. ‘No, of course not. Me neither. Not any more. I’m having ECT three times a week. That seems to have sorted me out. What about you?’

  ‘Lithium,’ I told her. ‘I don’t think I’m allowed ECT. It might send me nuts again.’

  ‘You went nuts?’

  ‘Yes. Pretty much.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I stopped sleeping. Put myself in some stup
id, risky situations. Went on a shopping spree.’

  Melody snorted some smoke out from her nose. ‘I’ve been on plenty of those. Nothing crazy about shopping.’

  I shrugged. ‘It depends how you go about it. I spent the best part of sixteen hundred pounds in a day – on a hotel room, a dress and a tit tattoo.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  There was a little silence as we both smoked.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘The tit tattoo.’

  ‘No. You can’t.’

  This wasn’t modesty. What’s the point of modesty on the mental ward, with no locks on the bathroom doors? But, still, I had to think of appearances. There was a CCTV camera in one corner of the courtyard, and a chance, at least, that someone was watching. Sharing a conversation with another service user would be seen as a positive step towards recovery; showing her my tits would not. Nevertheless, Melody looked weirdly hurt at my refusal. ‘I have one on my ankle, too,’ I told her. ‘You can see that instead.’

  My right leg was crossed over my left, so I only had to reach down and raise the bottom of my jeans a little. Melody looked for a few seconds, took it in, then said, ‘You have a scar as well – on your right hand. Looks like a burn.’

  Usually, I would have been impressed. People didn’t notice my scar, or didn’t recognize it for what it was. But Melody had an eye for things like that, which came as no great surprise. And she knew scar tissue when she saw it.

  ‘Cigarette burn,’ I said. With the conversation progressing as it was, I saw no reason not to tell her. What harm could it do? ‘I was drunk. My boyfriend and I were having this stupid fight. I can’t even remember what it was about now – that’s how stupid it was.’ I paused and tapped some ash into the ashtray. It wasn’t for dramatic effect. I was deciding whether it was worth ending the story, since Melody could guess the rest. She knew what you’d have to do to get a scar like that. ‘I put it out in my hand,’ I told her. ‘Next thing I knew I was in a taxi on my way to A&E.’

  ‘Wow.’ Melody nodded appreciatively. She was, as I’d already surmised, in the very small fraction of the population who wouldn’t respond to a story like this by asking why I’d decided to burn myself. She understood that there were various possible reasons. ‘How did it feel?’ she asked instead.