The Mirror World of Melody Black

by Gavin Extence

  I spent the next ten, maybe even fifteen minutes reading through it. I took my time, and read it twice. After that, I couldn’t do anything much but sit and smoke. It wasn’t that the writing was bad; it was the opposite. And yes, it was just a throwaway fashion piece that I’d planned to hock to Cosmopolitan – but that wasn’t the point either. The prose still glittered. It was warm and witty and engaging. It was the sort of thing I could trim, type up and sell tomorrow – had I felt even the smallest desire to do so. Which I didn’t, of course. Instead, I had that desolate beach feeling again, or a weaker echo of it. I didn’t feel bereft, exactly – just dull and wistful.

  I didn’t notice Melody approaching. The first moment I was conscious of her was when she plonked herself in the seat opposite. She flicked a cigarette across the table before lighting one for herself.

  ‘What you reading?’

  ‘It’s something I wrote when I was manic. The day before I came here.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  I didn’t see any reason to refuse. Melody read through the small stack of paper while I smoked in silence.

  ‘You wrote this when you were nuts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s good.’

  I shrugged. ‘A paradox.’ Then, because I was fairly sure Melody didn’t know this word, I added, ‘I write well when I’m manic. Always have. I wrote that naked in the Dorchester.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was a hot day. I’d just got out the bath—’

  Melody cut me off with a giggle. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. Why did you write it? What’s it for?’

  ‘Oh. It’s my job – was my job.’

  ‘You’re a writer?’

  ‘Yes. Freelance.’ I gestured across at the article. ‘I was planning to sell that to Cosmopolitan.’

  ‘Cool. How much would you get for it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Not a huge amount. Maybe two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Holy shit!’ Melody’s jaw had dropped, which I’d always assumed was just a figure of speech.

  ‘It’s not a lot,’ I assured her. ‘Not when you convert it into an annual salary. I’m lucky if I sell a couple of features a week. Some weeks, I don’t sell any.’

  ‘Yeah, but when you do it’s like hitting the jackpot, isn’t it? It must be good being so brainy.’

  As with everything Melody said, there was no hidden agenda here, no spite or sarcasm. She meant it as a genuine compliment, which left me feeling strangely embarrassed. It occurred to me, then, that this was the first time Melody and I had had a relatively normal conversation about the outside world. We’d clocked up several hours talking about lithium and ECT and self-harm and the other service users, but we’d never got round to discussing the basics. I didn’t even know her surname.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘For work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Trainee nail technician. The pay’s shit, but I like the job. I get to talk to a lot of different people.’ Melody held out her left hand so I could inspect her fingernails. They were neat and well filed, but extremely short. ‘I chewed the fuck out of them on Nile,’ she explained. ‘But they used to be beautiful, trust me. You ever get your nails done?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. I got them done a few weeks ago. My dad was taking me to dinner.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Not really. It was with his new girlfriend. She’s only a few years older than I am.’

  Melody nodded sympathetically. ‘My dad left me and my mum, too, when I was twelve. I didn’t see him very often after that. A few times a year. He’s dead now.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  Melody shrugged, and for once her face was unreadable. She handed me back my Cosmopolitan article, then took two more cigarettes from the pack on the table. It was at this point that she started to tell me about the mirror people. I thought at first that she was trying to change the subject, because it was obvious that neither of us wanted to talk about our fathers, but I suppose, in hindsight, there was a connection of sorts.

  ‘Jocelyn’s got this theory,’ she began. ‘It’s really fucking crazy.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Do you know what parallel worlds are? They’re in Doctor Who sometimes.’

  ‘Doctor Who?’

  ‘Yeah. Jocelyn’s a big Doctor Who fan.’

  ‘I’ve never seen it,’ I told her. ‘But I know what parallel worlds are. I understand the concept.’

  Melody nodded. ‘I had to look them up on my phone. Didn’t think I’d find anything, but there’s actually a shitload about them on Wikipedia.’ Melody paused and took a long drag from her cigarette. ‘Anyway, Jocelyn thinks we’re all living in a parallel world. She thinks she got here by travelling through a portal on the Northern Line. In between Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road.’

  ‘She thinks we’re all living in a parallel world?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘No, not everyone. Just us. Me, you, all the other nuts on the ward. That’s what connects us. We’ve all fallen through portals.’

  ‘On the Northern Line?’

  ‘No, that’s just Jocelyn’s personal portal. They’re all over the place. In lifts and fire exits – places like that. It’s just that Jocelyn happens to know exactly where hers was. She noticed the train wobble as it went through it. She was brought to Nile not long after that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘It gets weirder,’ Melody warned.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘At the same moment Jocelyn passed through the portal, her double from this world passed through the other way. That’s how it works – kind of like a busy nightclub. One in, one out.’

  ‘Oh . . . Jocelyn has a double.’

  ‘Not just Jocelyn. We all have doubles. Everyone here has a double who’s taken over their life back in the original world. And we’ve all realized what’s going on – at least on some level. That’s why we’re here. Whereas the doubles have no idea. They think they’re the originals, so they just get on with our lives as if nothing’s happened. You know: go to work, do the shopping, pay the bills. Jocelyn calls them the mirror people. They’re identical to us in almost every way.’

  ‘Almost every way?’

  ‘Yes, except they’re not locked up on mental wards, of course. Oh, and they’re the opposite colour, too.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Opposite colour. Jocelyn told me her mirror person is white. Sane and white.’

  ‘And mine?’

  Melody shrugged. ‘Black, I guess. Sane and black – same as mine.’

  ‘Right. And Mrs Chang’s?’

  ‘Mexican.’

  ‘Mexican? Because . . . Mexican is the opposite of Chinese?’

  ‘Yes. According to Jocelyn.’

  And that’s when it happened. I don’t think I would have even known, had Melody not pointed it out. It felt so fucking natural.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You’re smiling. You realize that? No, don’t stop! I was starting to think you couldn’t smile.’

  I was too shocked to say anything in reply. Melody reached over the table and placed her hand on mine. It was then that I started to cry, as well. I must have cried for the next two minutes, maybe longer. But I don’t think the smile ever left my face.

  That night I slept straight through for nine hours, and I awoke thinking about the mirror people. I didn’t get up straight away; until one of the nurses came in with breakfast, I lay perfectly still, staring at a single spot on the ceiling where the paint was beginning to flake away. Since I’d been admitted, I’d spent plenty of time staring at ceilings, but this was different. My mind wasn’t cold and blank. I didn’t even feel sluggish. I felt calm and alert, able to focus on a specific idea and examine it from all angles.

  The more I thought about Jocelyn’s theory, the less bizarre it seemed. Yes, there were things about it that were absolutely cuckoo –
Mrs Chang’s Mexican double and so forth – but still, overall the idea was not without its merits. It made a strange sort of sense to me, on an intuitive, metaphorical level. Being in here – going crazy – it did feel like your life had been hijacked in some inexplicable way. It did feel like a parallel universe, separated from the real one by only the flimsiest of partitions.

  And there was something else, too: like Jocelyn, I knew the precise location of my portal, the where and when that had caused my life to veer off its regular track. Hers was on the Northern Line, somewhere between Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road; mine was the doorway to Simon’s flat. That was where everything had started: the insomnia, Professor Caborn, the weird and racing thoughts. Admittedly, there might have been other contributing factors – other causes stretching further back in time. Yet it was hard to shake the feeling that if I hadn’t entered Simon’s flat that evening, if I’d turned and taken the mirror path back to my normal Wednesday night, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be where I was now – staring at the peeling paintwork in the local mental health ward.

  But yesterday the situation had changed again. I hadn’t seen it coming, of course; I’d been so focused on faking my recovery that I failed to notice I was actually getting better, albeit in tiny, plodding increments.

  Now it felt as if a hairline crack had appeared in the darkness separating this world from the other; and over the following days, it continued to widen. I was soon noticing further signs of improvement. My sessions with Dr Hadley were no longer something I dreaded. I was reading more and sleeping well. I started to think about the things I might enjoy when I finally got out of this place: a decent cup of coffee, a walk to the shops – small things, but significant, nonetheless.

  For a short interlude, everything was getting so much better.

  That was before I discovered the truth about Melody.

  20

  REVELATIONS

  I couldn’t stay still that morning. I tried lying with my eyes closed and counting down from a hundred. I tried listening to music as a distraction. I tried reading Gone with the Wind. I managed a few pages before my mind drifted away. After that, I just sat up in bed, checking the clock every few minutes.

  He was due to arrive at eleven and would stay for up to an hour, depending on how things went. Right now, I wasn’t sure I’d manage fifteen minutes. This felt weirdly like a first date – same butterflies, same anxieties about what we’d have to say to each other. I’d even thought about putting on some make-up, before deciding it didn’t feel appropriate. There was a part of me, I suppose, that was already preparing a defence. I didn’t want to appear too normal, too bright or healthy. I was still recovering, after all, and I thought no make-up and dressing down – tracksuit bottoms and a plain, baggy top – was the best way to convey this.

  Was it slightly manipulative, trying to control his perception of me like this? Possibly; but it would be equally manipulative if I made any sort of effort to look nice. It’s a strange thing, trying to readjust to normal life, with all its complicated social interactions, and it doesn’t get any easier once you start worrying about how best to act natural.

  The choice of a first meeting place was likewise something that continued to give me a headache. I’d ruled out the dayroom as I couldn’t imagine trying to have a serious conversation in there, with Homes Under the Hammer blaring in the background and Mrs Chang hovering like a silent spectre in my peripheral vision. The smoking area was, unfortunately, also out of the question. Wonderful as it would have been to be able to smoke, Melody was certain to be present at some point; she had a ten o’clock with Dr Hadley, and I assumed she’d come straight out after that. Of course, she knew Beck was coming, and she knew I was worried about it, but that didn’t mean she’d have the tact to allow us any space for a private conversation. More likely, she’d come over and start talking about ECT or self-mutilation.

  That left just a few more options. There was the kitchenette – bright, functional and relatively quiet, with bad instant coffee on tap, but also a high probability of people walking in and out every few minutes. The only other communal space that might work was the non-denominational prayer room – but then we’d have to find a nurse to accompany us off the ward, since one room served the entire mental heath unit. Plus it wasn’t impossible that someone might actually want to use it for prayer.

  After a lot of consideration, my bedside had seemed the least problematic choice, and it did have the advantage of meeting expectation. When you visited someone in hospital, you expected to be sitting by a sickbed, and this could work in my favour. It was another of those visual cues that would make it clear I was still in a fragile state. Yet, at the same time, it felt like a bit of a charade. I never stayed in bed this late any more. Not that I was exactly in bed at the moment. I was kind of half in, half out, fully dressed but with the sheets pulled up to my waist; I was certain it all looked far too artful, like someone posing for a painting: Convalescing Girl.

  These concerns all disappeared the moment Beck entered the room, to be replaced with a fresh wave of dilemmas that I hadn’t even considered. The first was that I had no idea how to greet him. I ended up performing a strange sort of half-wave, even though he was standing just a few feet away. When he bent to kiss my cheek, the angle I was sitting at meant that I had to twist my waist and neck awkwardly, placing an unsteady hand on his shoulder blade to keep my balance. My whole posture felt stiff and apprehensive.

  ‘I brought flowers,’ he told me, as he seated himself in the chair by the window, ‘but they were confiscated at reception.’

  ‘Yes, they’re worried we’ll eat them,’ I replied, immediately wanting to retract this. It would be better, I decided, not to appear facetious. ‘Actually, I think it’s a hospital-wide policy,’ I told him. ‘They get in the way, upset people’s allergies. They can bring in bugs, too. I don’t think you’re allowed flowers even if you’re dying.’

  ‘Oh . . . What about plastic ones?’

  ‘I’m not sure about plastic ones.’

  There was a small silence. Beck gestured at the book that was still splayed on top of my bedside cabinet. ‘How’s Gone with the Wind?’

  I shrugged. ‘About the same as the film. The odd difference here and there. Ashley’s in the Ku Klux Klan.’

  Beck smiled because he assumed I was joking, which of course I wasn’t. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘I’m getting there,’ I replied. ‘They have me on lithium, and I’ve been tolerating it pretty well for a week or so. I still have good days and bad days, but slightly fewer of the latter now. Things are heading in the right direction.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Have the doctors given you any idea of when you might be out?’

  ‘My personal therapist thinks it could be as soon as next week. But she’s also said that they won’t discharge me until I feel ready, and . . . well, I’m not sure.’

  I could see that he was turning this statement over in his mind, searching for the implications.

  ‘Actually, I’m a little terrified of coming out,’ I blurted. ‘I mean, there’s a lot of stuff I’ll have to deal with. Stuff that—’

  ‘That we’ll have to deal with,’ Beck corrected – and it was such a sweet and generous correction that it made me hate myself for what I had to say next. But I didn’t have much choice. He wasn’t yet in a position to understand what he was offering.

  ‘Listen,’ I began. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done— No, I’m sorry. That’s wrong. That makes it sound like you’re doing me a favour, and I know this is so much more. Let me try again.’ I closed my eyes and took a breath to steady myself. ‘You’ve been incredible, and it’s much more than I deserve.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘No, please let me finish. This is hard enough already.’ I waited for a few moments until he nodded for me to continue.

  ‘You’ve been incredible,’ I repeated. ‘But there are some things I need
to come to terms with on my own. My medication, for one.’

  ‘You’re going to stay on it?’ His voice was measured, but there was still an undertone of alarm there that made me feel oddly vindicated.

  ‘I’m going to try,’ I told him. ‘The way I’ve felt over the past few weeks, since I came here, I don’t ever want to put myself through that again. But that still doesn’t make the decision easy – and yes, I know how hard that is for anyone else to understand. But there are things that I’m going to miss – that I already miss. I can’t help it. I feel diminished, and that’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with.’

  Beck didn’t say anything for a long time, and neither did I.

  ‘Do you know what the worst thing is, for me?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘I can think of a dozen things,’ I said.

  ‘It’s being held at arm’s length all the time. As soon as you feel hurt or scared or threatened it’s like this barrier comes up and nothing’s getting through. The last couple of weeks, not even being allowed to see you – well, I wish I could say that came as a shock, but it didn’t. It felt pretty typical.’

  ‘There’s nothing you could have said or done. I was suicidal. I could barely communicate.’

  ‘God, Abby – you’re so bloody dense sometimes! It’s not about anything I could have said or done. You didn’t have to go through that alone. I could have been there with you. Wouldn’t that have made some sort of difference?’

  ‘I still would have been alone,’ I told him.

  I could see how much the words stung, but I had to be honest at this point. It would be kinder in the long run. Anyway, there was worse to come; and I thought if I didn’t tell him now, then I wouldn’t tell him at all.

  ‘There’s another reason you being here wouldn’t have been helpful,’ I said. ‘For either of us.’