The Mirror World of Melody Black

by Gavin Extence

  If it hadn’t been for that morning, there would have been no decision to make; I would have called Beck that instant – or I would have had one of the nurses call him from reception, asking him to come in. He knew most of the pertinent facts already, so I wouldn’t have to explain too much, and he was one of the only people I could talk to about something like this without feeling judged. But with the way we’d left things, there were just too many other issues that would get in the way.

  Dr Barbara was my second choice, but the temptation here was simply to wait until she next came in, and I didn’t know when that would be. She’d been visiting less since it became clear that I was improving; the last time I’d seen her was a couple of days ago, when she’d brought in the letters. I could have phoned her, except I was still avoiding my mobile. All those accusing missed calls and texts – yesterday, I might have coped with them, but today there was no chance. So I knew if I were to call Dr Barbara – if I were to call anyone – it would have to wait at least twenty-four hours.

  I was feeling anxious again, and having held out this long, I couldn’t tolerate my nicotine craving any more. I knew, of course, that there was every likelihood I’d see Melody if I went outside, but I had to face her at some point. Appealing as the idea might have been, I couldn’t hide in bed for the rest of my time here. Still, as I left my room and walked down the corridor, my legs felt as if they were someone else’s. Just putting one foot in front of the other seemed a Herculean task.

  She was out there, talking to Lara, a schizotypal kleptomaniac who had arrived last week. I didn’t think that having someone else present would make the situation any easier, and for several moments I stood frozen in the doorway, almost certain I was about to turn round and go back to bed. But then Melody happened to glance in my direction. She immediately grinned, then placed her free hand on her stomach and performed a passable mime of vomiting. News like that tended to travel quickly in this place.

  ‘You look like shit,’ she told me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s how I feel.’

  Melody shrugged and flicked me a cigarette. ‘Listen, you gotta hear this. Lara was just telling me about the time she stole a horse . . .’

  It was hard to respond to this, but I think I managed a wan smile.

  After that, the conversation continued to be entirely inconsequential, but I still found it difficult to keep my composure, to nod in the right places – even to concentrate on what was being said. Something of this must have come across, despite my best efforts, because after Lara had left, Melody immediately asked me if I was okay.

  ‘No, not really,’ I told her.

  She pouted with concern and rested a hand on my shoulder. ‘You see: this is another reason you should stay with me once we’re out of here. We can be like a mini support group for each other.’

  ‘Melody . . .’

  ‘What?’

  She looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Nothing. I’ll think about it. Later.’

  ‘What’s to think about?’

  ‘I have to go now. I don’t think I’m well enough to be up.’

  I didn’t wait for a response. I crushed out my second, half-smoked cigarette, then went back inside.

  It had been a fairly awful experience, but just standing with Melody for those few moments had clarified one thing: I had to speak to Dr Barbara. And if it hadn’t been a Sunday, I might have called her as soon as I got back to my room. But I couldn’t bear the thought of disrupting her weekend yet again.

  So I gave myself one night, which seemed entirely justifiable. In the meantime, I planned to get as much rest as I could, even if this meant getting down on my knees to beg the nurses for some more diazepam. I’d feel better again after I’d slept, and then I’d be in the right frame of mind to call Dr Barbara’s office first thing.

  This wasn’t stalling, I told myself. It was just a very short delay so that I could do things properly. What difference could a few hours make?

  I phoned Dr Barbara’s office at 9.03, by which time she was already with a patient.

  ‘Is it urgent?’ her receptionist asked. But I wasn’t sure how to gauge this.

  ‘It’s quite urgent,’ I replied after a brief hesitation. ‘I’d really appreciate it if she could call me back as soon as she’s free.’

  I figured this would be around ten; even if Dr Barbara had back-to-back appointments, she’d probably find five minutes to call. But having to wait even another hour seemed like a very big ask. I’d been awake since four that morning, and I felt tired and restless all at once. So I did the obvious thing: I went out for a cigarette.

  I thought it would be reasonably safe at this time of the morning, as Melody was not an early riser. She’d often fall back asleep after she’d been woken for breakfast, and then complain loudly, to anyone who would listen, after the nurses returned to wake her a second time. The only exception was when she had ECT – and if this were the case, she’d still be safely elsewhere. As long as I didn’t linger outside more than half an hour or so, I was unlikely to see her. I was unlikely to see anyone, I thought. Nevertheless, I still felt nervous as I walked out to the smoking area that morning – but this wasn’t anything more than the usual anxiety that had characterized the past twenty-four hours.

  Weirdly, some of this anxiety faded when I saw her. I don’t know why, but I suppose there was some initial sense of relief. It didn’t last long, but for a few moments, I felt a little calmer, as if the worst had now happened.

  She knew, of course. That was never in doubt. Her mere presence indicated that something was wrong, and the way she was holding herself told me the rest. She was sitting with her back to the door, shoulders hunched and face lowered, with one hand clasped to her forehead.

  She didn’t realize I was there; there was no way she could have realized. I could have turned and left, had I wanted to. But there wasn’t any point now.

  ‘Melody,’ I said, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible.

  She jumped slightly when I spoke, then turned, the plastic leg of her chair scraping the ground with an abrasive screech. Her hair was tousled just above where her hand had rested, and her eyes were red raw. It looked as if she might have been crying for hours.

  ‘Melody,’ I said again, but she immediately looked away. She took a cigarette from the pack on the table and fumbled with her lighter, sparking it three or four times before she got a flame.

  ‘I Googled you,’ she told me. ‘Wanted to see what else you’d written so I could tell my mum.’

  ‘Melody, I didn’t know.’ I realized how self-contradictory this statement was the second I’d said it. ‘What I mean is I only just found out. Yesterday.’

  She didn’t seem to register this, or if she did, then it didn’t mean anything to her.

  ‘You knew,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just a huge fucked-up coincidence, that’s all.’

  A few weeks ago, I might have said something more. I might have told her that my article wasn’t even about her father, not really. It was about something else: modernity, the anonymity of the city, urban alienation. I might have told her that I was on the verge of going nuts at the time, and couldn’t really be held accountable for what I’d said or done. But now I had no intention of trying to justify my actions. All I wanted was for her to stop hurting. And I knew there was nothing I could say to make this happen.

  We stayed as we were for an agonizing stretch of time, me standing like a statue, her smoking, with her eyes fixed on the ground.

  ‘I thought you were my friend,’ she said eventually.

  ‘I am your friend,’ I told her.

  She let out a small wounded sound, somewhere between a sniff and a whimper.

  I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. There was still nothing I could say. I kept wishing that she’d just look at me, so that I might be able to communicate with her on some other level. But when she did look at me, I almost wished that she hadn’t
. There was something in her gaze that immediately frightened me. It wasn’t anger; anger I could have dealt with. It was something much worse – something cold and unbending, but otherwise impossible to describe.

  She stared at me for a few more empty moments, then raised her half-finished cigarette in her right hand, holding it between her thumb and index finger like a dart. I could see what was about to happen, and I was powerless to stop it.

  ‘Melody, please . . .’

  Slowly, almost casually, and never breaking eye contact, she crushed the rest of her cigarette into the centre of her left palm.

  Then she started screaming.

  22

  OUT

  Melody screamed and screamed.

  It’s a rare thing to be able to say you know the exact quality of someone else’s pain, but in this case, of course, I did. I could remember precisely how that moment felt. It was a pain that obliterated every other sensation and thought, as if a dozen white-hot needles were being fed into your nerves. The only difference between my case and Melody’s was that I’d been drunk when I crushed the cigarette into my flesh. Melody lacked even this token anaesthetic, so, if anything, her pain must have been worse.

  I had my arm around her shoulder in seconds and managed to propel her towards the doorway. She didn’t offer up any resistance, but neither did she do anything to help. I’m not sure how far she was even aware of my presence. It was like trying to steer a shopping trolley with a broken wheel.

  Inside, two nurses were already converging on us, and I could see that some of the other patients had also come out into the corridor to find out what was happening. Melody’s screams had diminished to a series of ragged yelps, but her initial outburst had been loud enough to be heard through the nearest walls and windows. Apparently, I had started yelling too, and as the nurses approached, I managed to convey that Melody had burned her hand and we needed to get it under cold water. I was able to help manoeuvre her to the closest bathroom, but after that some sort of official protocol kicked in and I was ushered out by another nurse.

  As we left, I caught a glimpse of Melody still being held at the sink, her whole body shaking. I remember it very clearly because it was the last time I saw her. Later that morning, she was moved back to Nile.

  Dr Hadley was adamant that I not be allowed to visit, even after I broke down in her office and started sobbing that I had to go and make things better right that instant.

  ‘I think it would be an extremely bad idea,’ she told me again, in a voice that was both gentle and firm.

  Some hours later, after I’d calmed down, I could see that she was right. There was still nothing I could say to Melody, nothing that would make any difference. And anyway, what I really wanted was the impossible. I wanted her to tell me that it wasn’t my fault – that it was just an awful, awful coincidence. I wanted an absolution.

  It’s a unique sort of guilt, when you hurt someone you care about and whom you never intended to hurt; and for a while, I thought it was my unique guilt, as if no one else could ever have experienced anything remotely similar. It was my mum who set me straight, when I tried to explain this feeling to her several weeks later.

  ‘God, Abby,’ she said. ‘You’ll find that most of the hurt you cause in your life will be unintentional. And almost all of it will be inflicted on the people you care about. It’s one of life’s unfortunate ironies. It’s much easier to hurt the people you’re close to.’

  I’ve never thought of my mum as particularly insightful; she’s more insightful than my dad, but that goes without saying. Yet in this instance, I could see that she knew a hell of a lot more than I did. The only intelligent addition I could make to our conversation, at this point, was to quote Oscar Wilde.

  ‘Each man kills the thing he loves,’ I told my mum.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ she replied. ‘Or each woman – just as often.’

  That night – the night after Melody burned herself – I realized it was time for me to leave St Charles. This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the events of the previous day, and it wasn’t a decision I came to lightly.

  I was given more diazepam and slept through for eight unbroken hours, waking around five thirty. After that, I lay wide awake until breakfast, as I had on so many other mornings over the past weeks. But this time was different. My head felt surprisingly clear. I was rested and lucid, and able to look at my situation with a new objectivity.

  Dr Hadley had already convinced me that there was nothing I could do to help Melody at the moment; what she hadn’t said, of course, was that my being here – just a few corridors away – might have the exact opposite effect. But this was something that occurred to me now. I knew that by the time Melody was off Nile, I’d probably be gone, and, in any case, there was no way we’d be put on the same ward again. But still, wouldn’t it be better if I were out of the picture entirely? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this was the one thing I could do to make her time here easier.

  As far as my own recovery went, I honestly believed that I was as well as I was going to get inside a hospital. Being out in the real world was still a daunting prospect, but I could see that my being here served no further purpose. It was odd, but the moment Melody had crushed that cigarette into her hand, it was almost as if I’d been shaken awake from the last grip of a nightmare. Admittedly, I’d felt awful over the past day, but this was not the same as feeling depressed. I found that I could label all my emotions – guilt, fear, sadness, remorse – as if they were ingredients in a recipe, and there was nothing there that wasn’t normal and proportionate given the situation. More importantly, I knew that these feelings would pass. There wasn’t the sense of lethargy and hopelessness that characterizes depression. I wanted to get out of here and get my life back on track; and then, in time, there might be some way I could make things right with Melody.

  I turned all this over in my head several times, rehearsing my lines of reasoning for what was to come. Then, straight after breakfast, I washed, dressed and went to knock on Dr Hadley’s door. I knew she’d be in from around eight thirty, but it was unlikely she’d have anything scheduled that early, so this would be my best chance to say the things I needed to.

  She waved me in and gestured that I should sit. The other chair was already angled towards hers, as if waiting for me.

  I asked about Melody, of course, but there wasn’t much Dr Hadley could tell me – just that she was calmer now, and being taken care of. So after that, I got straight to the point.

  ‘I think I’m ready to leave,’ I told her. ‘The sooner the better.’

  I could see the scepticism written all over her face, but this was as I’d expected.

  ‘You know, Abby,’ she said after a few moments, ‘before yesterday I’d have agreed with you. You were ready to leave, or near enough. But considering everything that’s happened . . . I think it would be prudent to give it a few more days. See how things go.’

  ‘Yesterday clarified a lot of things for me,’ I said, ‘and staying here isn’t going to help me any more; if anything it’s going to be detrimental.’ Then I ran through most of what I’d been thinking that morning, very methodically, setting out my arguments like lines of toy soldiers. The only thing I left out was my realization that this might be better for Melody too, because I knew this would weaken my case. Dr Hadley would be trying to figure out what was best for me, putting all other issues to one side for the moment, and I didn’t want her to think that guilt was my prime motivation here.

  ‘I’m extremely grateful for everything you’ve done for me,’ I concluded, ‘but I honestly think it’s the right time for me to go. You said yourself that it would be better if I made the final decision.’

  Dr Hadley tapped her pen against her cheek a couple of times. ‘Yes, I did,’ she acknowledged. ‘But things were quite a lot simpler then, weren’t they?’

  I decided to change tack and come at this from Dr Hadley’s perspective, because I could see she
wanted to be persuaded, but wasn’t going to agree to anything until she was certain.

  ‘What do you need from me?’ I asked her. ‘I mean, if you were to draw up a checklist of things that had to happen before you’d be happy to let me go, what would be on it?’

  Dr Hadley smiled faintly, perhaps because of how I’d phrased this. ‘First, I’d need to know that you were going somewhere safe and secure, with family or friends to support you. I’d also have to be satisfied that your mood is as stable as you say it is. That would mean at least two more days in here – ideally more – and an independent assessment by one of the other doctors. And you’d have to agree to transitional support for the next few weeks, either as an outpatient or under the supervision of another healthcare professional.’

  I nodded. There was nothing here that seemed problematic. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I also have one other thing to ask you. A favour.’

  Dr Hadley nodded for me to go on.

  ‘Once I’m out, I have something I’d like you to give Melody for me. Or, in any case, there’s something I’m leaving behind for her. You can decide when or whether to pass it on. It’s nothing that will upset her, I promise. It’s . . . well, it’s an apology of sorts – one that I think she’ll understand. But as I’ve said, it’s your decision what to do with it. I trust your judgement.’

  I was out of Dr Hadley’s office a little before nine. Then I went straight back to my room and phoned my mum.

  23

  MIRANDA FROST’S CATS

  They’re called Jasper and Colin, and they live in a two-bedroom cottage on Lindisfarne, a tidal island a couple of miles off the Northumberland coast.

  I’d heard of Lindisfarne before I arrived, but I had no idea what a tidal island was. Turns out it’s pretty straightforward, and obvious when you think about it. Lindisfarne is a tiny finger of land poking out into the North Sea, which becomes cut off from the mainland twice a day by the rising tides. There are two routes on and off the island: you can drive along the causeway, which has carried road traffic since the 1950s, or you can walk across the sand flats, where a rough path is marked out by tall wooden posts that have been driven into the ground every twenty metres or so. Both routes are submerged for up to twelve hours a day, by over six feet of seawater at the highest tides. There are three little huts on stilts – one at the roadside and two spaced out over the sand flats – which serve as refuge points for stranded walkers and motorists, but the locals tell me that it has been a while since they’ve seen a car stuck in the sea. A couple of years ago, the council invested in a large electronic sign that flashes the safe crossing times day and night, and apparently there have been far fewer incidents since then.