by Nicci French
I went into the garden, and saw how my feet made prints in the dew. I told myself that nothing lasts for ever. Spring would come. Spring would come again.
25
‘Other people cope with the drugs, so why shouldn’t I? I just don’t feel like me any more. I feel – I feel grotty. Bad all over.’
Naomi looked at me for a few moments then stood up. ‘Wait here,’ she said.
She returned about twenty minutes later, with a large carrier-bag out of which she pulled packets and cartons. Camomile tea. St John’s wort. Multi-vitamin tablets, fish-oil, and evening-primrose oil capsules. A bottle of lavender bath salts, with a lavender-scented candle to go with it, sticks of incense. Even a CD of allegedly soothing Pan-pipes music.
‘Throw your pills away,’ she said.
I stared at her.
‘Try it.’
‘Don’t tell Charlie,’ I said.
I waited until Charlie had left the house for his run, then picked up the bottles of pills and held them in my hand. I imagined shaking some out into my palm and swallowing them and even the thought made my throat close up. There weren’t many left anyway. They only dole out a few at a time. Just in case, they’d said.
I took them into the downstairs lavatory and pushed open the lids with my thumb. I shook them into the bowl, then flushed and watched the lozenge-shaped capsules swirl and disappear.
At last I was on my own with myself.
I went back into the kitchen, drank the lukewarm tea, washed the mug and, before I could change my mind, went outside into the cold wind. I strode, so quickly that it hurt, to the park where I’d met Charlie that horrible day. I walked round it three times, then home. I even jogged the last bit, although I thought I was going to throw up, and by the end my vision felt a bit blurred. I had a long bath with lavender salts in it. I drank three glasses of water. I slid the CD into the player and listened to the fucking flutes. I tried to concentrate on my inner strength. I waited to see what was going to happen next. I had declared war on myself.
The ghastly dread came slowly, seeping in through the following day. I could feel it as if it were tangible, in my body, in my blood.
In the middle of the second night I heard noises outside, rustling footfalls, and I got up and pressed my face to the windowpane. Was someone out there, lurking among the shadows? I pulled the curtains shut and leaned back against the wall, trembling. I pulled on my dressing-gown and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to think what to do. Call Charlie, that was it. He’d tell me. I opened my mouth and a thin, reedy yell came out.
‘Charlie!’ I called. Then louder, so my throat hurt. ‘Charlie, where are you?’
No reply. He wasn’t in the house. Tears welled in my eyes and I mopped at them with the sleeve of my dressing-gown.
Suddenly I wasn’t frightened any more. Nothing outside could be as bad as the inside of my own head. I went downstairs, opened the back door into the garden and walked out, over the strip of harsh gravel and on to the half-grown lawn. The grass was muddy and cold under my bare feet; the wind slapped my face.
‘Come and get me, then!’ I shouted, as loud as I could. ‘Come on, Rees or Dean or Stuart or Deborah or whoever you bloody are! I don’t care! You’d be doing me a favour.’
I shut my eyes and waited. At least everything would be over soon. This whole mucky business called living.
‘Fucking come on, then!’ I howled, but I knew no one was out there.
There was the noise of a window opening.
‘Most of us are trying to sleep,’ came a voice.
I yelled back, just an open mouth and this high sound pouring out.
‘Stick your head in an oven,’ said the voice.
Go fuck yourself, go top yourself, just go go go. Where were the words coming from, inside or out? I put my fingers into my ears but the words still swilled round and round my brain. I tottered back inside. The hem of my dressing-gown was soaking and my feet throbbed from the gravel and the cold.
I looked at the stairs and they were too steep to climb. I looked at the phone in the hall, but it was too far away and, anyway, there was a voice inside it that muttered unkind words when I held it to my ears. I held up my hands and they were transparent: I could see the blue veins and the bones like claws. I opened a drawer and looked at all the knives, sharp and silver, glinting up at me with their serrated blades. I slipped off my gown and gazed down in disgust at my white, used-up body. I ran my fingers over my aching ribs, over my hurting breasts, up to my throat. I knelt down on the tiles and laid my forehead against their coldness.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t.’
I can’t go on.
And a kind voice came, from no one, from nowhere: You don’t have to, dear heart.
‘I don’t have to,’ I said, aloud this time, relief flooding through me like clear water. ‘I don’t have to go on. I can stop.’
26
It was like a cool hand on my hot sweating brow. I’d finally acknowledged it. I wanted to be dead.
I was able to consider it with a clarity I hadn’t experienced for weeks, and without a shred of doubt. I didn’t want pain or messiness. I didn’t want to damage anybody else more than was absolutely necessary. I worried about Charlie briefly but it was immediately obvious that he would be better off without me. The world would be a more satisfactory place with me not in it.
If there had been a gun on the premises I would have put it into my mouth and pulled the trigger there and then. Nothing else in the house would quite do the trick. I didn’t want to cut my wrists. I wanted to be welcomed into death like an expected guest, not get there by hacking at my skin with a rusty blade. Of course, the scene of my great crack-up had been at London’s star suicide location. I’d surely been drawn to the Archway Road bridge by the whiff of death and despair. People came from all over Britain to jump off it and I was just a few minutes’ walk away. I wouldn’t even need to put on a coat. Yet I wasn’t tempted by it. My reasons seemed absurd, almost a form of bad manners, like a child refusing to eat what was on her plate. There were now all sorts of spikes and railings on the bridge to deter people like me and I doubted my ability to get over them. I had an image of cutting myself and tearing my clothes. Worse than that – and this sounded really stupid, even to me – I’ve always suffered from vertigo. I wanted to drift into death, like a tide going out. I didn’t want it to be a rush of horror.
I had an appointment with Dr Thorne. Charlie wanted to come with me, but I told him I’d prefer to go alone. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘this is something I’m going to have to get used to, isn’t it?’
Dr Thorne had the results of my last blood test. The lithium levels were on the low side so he told me he was going to increase my dose. He was in a good mood. It was a bright, sunny morning and I was the first patient of his day.
‘You look a bit better,’ he said.
‘I feel better,’ I lied brightly. I had dressed with great care and examined myself in the mirror to make sure my clothes were neat, hair brushed, my smile in place.
‘Do you feel any side-effects from the medication?’
‘No,’ I said. Then, because I didn’t want to seem excessively cheerful, I added, ‘My mouth has been dry and I feel a bit puffy. But it’s better than I expected.’
‘Excellent,’ said Dr Thorne. ‘If you drink a bit more than usual, that will sort out the dry mouth.’
‘I’ve been doing that.’
‘Good. How is your mood?’
‘I feel much calmer.’
‘We’ll need longer for the lithium to take full effect.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘And you’re coping with the schedule?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, also untruthfully, of course. I hadn’t taken my medication for over three days now. I didn’t know how Charlie had failed to notice.
‘Good,’ he said.
‘But I’ve got a bit of a problem,’ I said casually.
>
‘What?’
‘Charlie and I thought we might get away for a week or two. We need to spend time alone. I’m not sure where. It might be somewhere remote. I was worried about running out of medication.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Dr Thorne. ‘I’ll write you a prescription to cover it. When are you going away?’
It was so easy.
‘Charlie’s arranging it at the moment,’ I said. ‘One of these last-minute deals. I hope we’ll leave tomorrow, but maybe it’ll turn out to be in a week, two weeks. And I’m not sure how long we’re away for.’
‘Lucky you,’ said Dr Thorne, writing busily. ‘I hate this time of year. It’s the best time for a holiday.’
I’ve read a lot about people killing themselves almost on impulse, suddenly jumping out of an open window or in front of an oncoming train. For me, it really was like preparing for a secret vacation. Everything had to be settled for the following day, which was a Tuesday, because Charlie had told me he was going to be away for the whole day, on a course he said, although I knew he was lying. He was going out after breakfast and he wouldn’t return until early evening. I asked him several times when he was coming back, and he asked me if I would be all right. I smiled and told him I was feeling much better.
After my appointment with Dr Thorne, I went shopping. I bought smoked salmon and brown bread for supper, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, and I bought Charlie some new socks and boxer shorts, which I folded neatly into his drawer when I got home. Somehow it made me feel that I was looking after him even as I was leaving him. It was one of the first wifely things I’d ever done for him, and for a few seconds I thought about what our life could have been like together, in another world. But it was too late for all of that now: I knew I was on a frictionless slide towards oblivion and it was as if I had no volition in the matter any more.
We had a calm evening together, and I went to bed early because I wanted the morning to come quickly. I was about to embark on a long journey and I wanted the waiting to be over and to be gone. I slept long and deeply, and when I woke, Charlie had already left. We hadn’t even said goodbye, but that didn’t matter. How do you say goodbye, anyway? Best just to raise your hand and walk swiftly away, without looking back.
I got up and had a shower, washing my hair. I dressed in loose, comfortable clothes, clean from the drawer. I knew that I was shutting things out of my mind that must not be considered. I was walking across an abyss on a narrow plank. If I didn’t think about the deepness below and the narrowness beneath my feet, I would be able to get to the other side. If I let the deepness and the narrowness into the forefront of my consciousness, I would fall.
I found myself making the bed and stopped, seeing the absurdity of it, then finished it anyway, smoothing the duvet. Everything else would be for other people to deal with.
I had to keep going, not stop and think. From the fridge I took a carton of orange juice and a half-full carton of apple juice. I placed them on the kitchen table with a large tumbler. I went to the bathroom. I had more than three weeks’ worth of medication. That should easily do it. I was on the edge now. Teetering. Once again, I remembered standing as a little girl on walls, on climbing frames, my father below, his arms outstretched. ‘Jump,’ he would say, ‘jump and I’ll catch you.’ He would play a game, suddenly withdrawing his arms, as if he was going to let me fall, but then he would catch me at the last minute. I kept thinking about that game. The funny thing was, however hard I tried, I couldn’t picture his face any more, or Charlie’s. I could picture Meg’s, though.
It suddenly seemed to me that Meg was the one who would suffer most from what I was about to do and would feel the most guilt. I had decided not to write a note, but now, at the last minute, I changed my mind. I picked up a pen and got a scrap of paper from the living room and thought for a few seconds. How do you say sorry, when you know that you’re going to go ahead with it anyway? How do you say goodbye? I didn’t want to talk about her and Charlie and in the end I kept it short: ‘My dear and loyal Meg,’ I wrote. ‘I’m so sorry. So very very sorry. I just want all this to stop. Forgive this, my best and truest friend. All my love, Holly.’
I put the cap back on the pen, laid the note on the kitchen table, and started taking the pills, two at a time, with a gulp of the apple juice and, when that was finished, with the orange juice. It was quick and easy. I went into the hall and noticed that Charlie’s keys were still on the hook and for a moment I worried about how he would let himself in this evening. I climbed the stairs slowly and went to lie on my bed, remembering as I did so how I had smoothed the cover with my hand earlier and what a waste of time that had been. I also thought how stupid it was that I had had the best night’s sleep I could remember and I wondered whether it would make it hard for me to go to sleep now.
I try to turn over but my movement is slug gish and heavy. I try to think of something, anything outside, anything from the past, something beautiful to think about. I think of a mountain and sunshine and it becomes crumbly and breaks into bits and the bits start to fall downwards and go soft and sludgy and then turn dark and sticky. They get very slow and the sunshine fades and the world becomes cold and sludgy and grey and the grey becomes black and the sun… the sun…
I am deep deep down at the bottom of a deep deep pit. Shapes move dimly. Coming for me. I feel movement around me. Sickness in me, a slow, rolling, horrible nausea. Soon it will fade and go and be over. And then something happens. I see the face of my father, looking at me, staring. He isn’t laughing, in the way he used to so often in my childhood, that rude, boisterous, joyful shout of mirth. And he isn’t crying either, crying like a flood that will sweep away the entire world. No. He is just looking into my eyes, very tenderly. Seeing right into me and I don’t mind any more. I am naked at last.
‘Oh, Daddy,’ I say, I try to say, but I am far from speech now. Words fall away, and I know I am descending into silence. I can feel terrible, beautiful life falling away from me: its words, sights, sounds, memories. One by one, I let them go: water falling through cupped hands.
I say to myself, ‘Holly, you’ve let go and you’re falling and soon all will be over. The only hell is in being alive.’
At that moment, out of the encroaching darkness, I feel a sudden, agonizing ache of regret. I have a sudden memory: so vivid that I am really there.
I’m abroad and I’m sitting with Meg in a restaurant on a quayside. It’s been such a long lunch that the sun is low. On the table are plates and empty shells, bottles, jugs, ashtrays. We were both regular smokers then. The sun is shining at a strange angle so that we can see into the water right to the bottom, and it is clear like blue glass. There are fish in shoals picking around the ropes tethering the fishing-boats. Both of us are wearing dresses. I can’t see mine but I can see Meg’s, light blue, tight round her breasts. She’s leaning forward and gig gling but suddenly I’ve turned serious: ‘I’m going to put this away,’ I’m saying. ‘Like in a bottle. And I’ll always have it. In the darkest moments it will be there to help me through.’ Now her hand is on mine. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I can see her dear, dear face.
There is a thought deep in my mind: call Meg. I move and fall heavily from the bed on to the floor. I pull the phone down with me from the bedside table. There is stickiness on my face. I reach for the phone. I look at the numbers. They go into and out of focus. Slowly, with infinite effort, I push them. I hold the receiver to my ear. Nothing. The phone is dead. I can’t think. I don’t know what to do. Everything is too heavy, too far away, too hard. My thoughts are so slow, and each one is heavy, pulled through mud and sludge. I haul myself across the floor, inch by inch, drag ging myself, my fingers pulling me along. Where to? What can I possibly do? I try to raise myself and can’t. My strength is fading. My eyelids feel so heavy I can’t keep them open any longer.
I make a final effort and see something, a silhouette against the window, a familiar shape. A triangle, a leng
th of wire. The sculpture. That awful sculpture. I have a blind, final impulse, a thought I can hardly recognize. I push myself forward against the table, like a snorting, hog gish animal; my face hurts terribly, but still I push and the table tips and there is a terrible smashing and then a further crashing of glass and then of something further off, outside, that wasn’t glass, and then I just fold over and sink into myself, an anchor plummeting into the inky ocean. Down, down, down.
But someone is there. Someone is there and is watching me. I can feel them even though I can’t open my eyes any more. I can sense them, standing beside me. Someone.
I try to open my eyes. A narrow slit of wavering light. And in that slit, I see that there are shoes near my face, blurred in their closeness. I cannot get my eyes to focus and an obscene nausea shudders through me.
But someone is there. I know. I can hear them breathing, high above me. In the world I am leaving.
I reach out my hand to touch the shoes and they move back; first one, then the other. They become distant shapes. My hand tries to follow them but it can’t.
I try to twist my neck so I can see who is wearing the shoes but I can’t. My head is as heavy as a dying planet; ancient, spoiled light dances in front of me, smudged and flickering and about to be extinguished.
I try to say, ‘Help,’ but my lips won’t move, and the breath is drowning in my throat. The tide is going out. Wave after wave rolls back from me and I lie on the deserted shore and feel life ebb away.
And someone is watching me die.
I hear the shoes click away, quite slowly, a final sound before the quiet.
And then the whole world is dark and cold and silent and the last light vanishes.
Dying Twice
