Forest Gate (8 page)

'Allah gives what you can bear,' she said with the authority of her years. As she wept a black gas filled my head. I couldn't breathe but I did not want to cry. Then some of the women began to sing that old mournful song they always sang in my country when someone died and finally I wept, safe in the weird comfort of their eerie lament.

J
AMES HAD TAUGHT HIMSELF
to tie a slip knot. He thought it was the most solid knot and chose it specifically so that when he killed himself there would be no mistake. He wanted it to be simple, unsentimental. And when he was gone he hoped his family felt they were to blame. He hoped they wouldn't find a doctor who would console them by saying he was suffering from some chemical imbalance. He wasn't.

He did his research. According to Google, divorced or separated men were more likely to commit suicide than any other group. Men were 4.8 times more likely to do it than women, rates of black men that did it between the ages of fifteen and nineteen have increased 114 per cent and recently suicide rates among Australian male Aborigines has shot up by 35 per cent.

But James didn't die. When he opened his eyes he saw them. All of them. Nothing had changed. There was a Chinese-looking doctor – he might have a little dab of black running through his veins – with brown eyes that appeared heavily lined with mascara. His arms were bare and covered with fine hairs. His thick upper arms looked strong beneath his ribbed undershirt, like his face. There was a lot for him to deal with. James's brothers, 1 and 2, were playing furiously on their PlayStation PSPs. Number 3 was whispering in the ear of some white girl he had just met in the emergency room, 4was simultaneously on the phone and searching in his bag, and number 5, the eldest, held a Starbucks coffee and sat staring at James.

There were cut flowers in a glass vase on a shelf opposite the bed; a half-eaten bunch of grapes in a deep bowl, a copy of
Vibe
magazine, a bottle of original Lucozade and three get-well-soon cards with the transparent wrappers still on. Propped slightly apart from anything else on the shelf was an envelope with his name, a first-class stamp.

The scene reminded him of
Central Station
, a Brazilian movie with English subtitles about a woman who works at Central Station, Rio de Janeiro, and who is paid by illiterates to write letters. She witnesses the death of the mother of a boy and together they travel through Brazil on a bus in search of the boy's father. At the end of the film he wakes up in bed with his two brothers and the woman has left him. James used the back of his hand to examine his neck, closing his stinging eyes and trying to make himself invisible.

'He just opened his eyes,' said 5.

His mother jumped from a low chair on his opposite side; her head came into his line of vision. She wore blue jeans, Reeboks and a long black coat that James hated. Slung over the back of her chair were some clothes he recognised as his own. They hung stiffly, like dead skin.

He couldn't believe he was still alive.

'Where?' said his mother and she stuck her head in his face. 'No he didn't. He's still in coma.'

'Mum, please,' said James. 'Do you have to shout like that?'

James felt his breath stank like rotting meat. His heart pounded and his stomach churned. He couldn't tell whether he was hungry or whether he was going to be sick.

'Oh, thank you, sweet Jesus,' said his mother and she began to sob, stroking his head. 'How could you do this? Don't you know how much I love you?'

'Where am I?' James asked. In the distance he could hear the faint sound of sirens.

'Newham General, you prick,' said 1.

'Shhhhhit,' said James, inhaling deeply. He winced at the pain in his throat.

'Shit? What were you thinking, dickbrain? Were you drunk?' said 4.

'He don't drink,' said 2.

'Tell us who did this to you, bruv,' said Number 1 menacingly.

The doctor studied James's chart on a clipboard.

'I can't work like this, people. I may have to ask you all to leave.'

'Ask away. We ain't going nowhere. He's our blood,' said 4.

James's mother glared at the doctor and kissed her teeth. 'Who does he think he is?' she asked of no one in particular.

And then the police walked in, a plain-clothes and a uniformed officer clutching a file.

'Do that Keyser Soze shit. Don't tell 'em nuffin,' said Number 2.

Number 2 had a quick mouth that James could barely tolerate. He shut his eyes and breathed deeply.

James remembered how much he hated the smell of hospitals. The two police officers were standing at his bedside. He opened his eyes, scrutinising each of their faces and feeling a growing sense of alarm. Something terrible had happened. The memory of being on the roof was already fading, like a dream from last week. Bodies, loud voices and shadows pulling him up, the pain shooting down his back and in his throat, the flashing lights and slow rumble of the ambulance, someone with black eyes screaming in his face; choking on his own puke and blood.

'Where's Ash?' he asked.

Nobody spoke for what seemed like a long while.

'Detective Inspector Whittaker. Have we met before?' asked the plain-clothes officer. He was gaunt and wore an unruly beard, speckled with grey.

'No, that was me,' said 2, holding his hands up like a cowboy in surrender.

It was an easy mistake. If James looked like any of his brothers it was Number 2. The inspector spun round and acknowledged the Morrison brothers. They all laughed.

'If by Ash you are referring to Ashvin Al Hassan Mohamed, he's dead. I'm hoping you can help us with our inquiries.'

The inspector had turned his gaze back to James. His eyes were like shattered blue glass.

'Please leave me alone.' James tried to turn his back but his throat felt like it would rip into two. That was when he remembered what they had done and then he couldn't stop the flow of tears.

'I'm afraid I'm going to insist that you all leave. Right now,' said the doctor, growing anxious. 'That includes you, Inspector. This young man needs some rest.'

The doctor's words were like a tent. James entered inside and for a moment he zipped everything out.

Inspector Whittaker narrowed his eyes at the doctor and then leaned closer to James. The look he sent said
I'm not done with you yet
.

When they had all left James glanced up at the IV tubes above his head.

'What are you feeding me?'

'Excuse me?'

'The drip, what's in the drip?'

'Oh, just some pain medication and glucose,' the doctor replied. 'How are we doing?'

'My neck is killing me,' said James. 'When can I go?'

The doctor looked at his clipboard. 'You shouldn't be feeling any pain in your neck because of sensory loss.'

'I don't know what to tell you . . . it hurts like hell.'

'You've just had six stitches in your upper lip. You have an abraded band from the right parieto-occipital region distal to the ear by two inches extending below the jaw above your thyroid cartilage. The skin on your neck was worn away and you still have rope embedded on the right side of the trachea. Your oesophagus is bruised. The left wing of the hyoid bone is fractured and displaced upward – this is all caused by the sudden motion of the body falling and then being suspended, it's extremely common in hangings. You've been lucky, there was no real injury to your spinal cord.'

'What's all that mean in English?'

'It means you're not going home. Not for some time yet. You're dehydrated and suffering from shock though you have a normal pulse, blood pressure and respiration. I'm not sure but you might have an infection. We're still waiting for results. Not to worry though, we'll have you right as rain in next to no time.' The doctor sighed and smiled.

It took some effort but James didn't smile back. All of a sudden 'right as rain' didn't make sense to him. He tried to work it out. How could rain be right? He started to feel angry and he had to force himself to let it go. James looked above his head to the left at the empty fruit bowl. The cards had been removed but the envelope with his name on it and the Lucozade were still there. He looked around blankly and his heart began to race, his breath shut off and then he vomited.

The second time James opened his eyes there was a freshly scrubbed man in his forties with thin cheekbones and funny blond hair – styled like Peter Pan or Tom Cruise – sitting in front of him smiling awkwardly. James closed his eyes again and then reopened them to see if the man was really there. The man smiled as though he realised what James was thinking but he said nothing, just sat there with his legs crossed, smiling. James stared at him for some time. And he stared back. At some point his smile became a half-smile and then he was just sitting there staring. It was discomforting, like stepping out from the warmth into the biting wind.

'You some type of police or what?' asked James.

'It speaks,' the man shouted, clapping his hands together. 'I'm glad we got over our stand-off. Am I with the police? Oh God, no. Do I look like a policeman? You must be kidding, right?'

There he was smiling in James's face again. He was fashionably bearded and smelled of Listerine and aftershave. Dressed in black down to his smart loafers, he was like the spokesperson for the ultra-modern white man. But there was something off. His straight-backed posture, his hair and his skin tone reminded James of an Oompa-Loompa.

'If you're not with the police you need to leave.'

'I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot here, so let me tell you who I am. I am from the Department of Health. I am a psychotherapist and a suicidologist. I have been assigned to your case because I've worked with a member of your family.'

'A member of my family? Who?'

'Your eldest brother. I worked with him for six months.'

'No you didn't.' James couldn't hide his surprise.

'I promise you. For obvious reasons I can't go into specific details but I had to evaluate him before he was moved from Brixton to the category C prison in Stafford. I was assigned to him for six months. I get a lot of work from the Prison Service.'

James sighed, thinking about the distance that had grown between him and his brothers.

'My job is to take an evaluation and make an assessment. Then I'll make a report on your mental state of health determining whether you are a threat to yourself or to the wider community. Based on my report a committee will decide whether you can leave the hospital or not and whether you will be able to return home. What I need to do is to ask you a few questions – it should only take about ten minutes. I'll ask a few standard questions and you just say whatever you feel. However, you must give an answer to each question. Shall we begin?'

His speech sounded rehearsed, almost as if he was recounting an anecdote. James just stared at him blankly. He was thinking about his brother 5, wondering what was going on in his mind.

'Do you mean you could decide to have me sectioned and put in a madhouse just like that?'

'There are a whole myriad of rules and the Mental Health Act Commission reviews all decisions that are appealed.'

'So it's not up to you?'

'Well, not exactly. I don't make up the questions. The governing body sets the questions. So it's up to you and your answers. I tell everyone the same thing, it's very important they take me seriously.

We can't have mentally ill people wandering the streets putting innocent lives and themselves at risk.'

'And if you say I failed your test? How long would I be put away?'

'Until the doctors saw fit to place you back into society.'

James looked at him for a moment. 'Define mental illness.' He was becoming afraid.

'Mental illness is not defined by the Mental Health Act of 1983. People like myself define the type of mental disorder. These types of disorder are schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder and personality disorder.'

James thought of a GO article he'd seen – 'Ten Ways to Spot a New Man' – and then he couldn't help thinking of the therapist having his arse waxed. He smiled.

'Care to share?' asked the therapist.

'I found something funny. That don't make me crazy,' said James.

'I didn't say it did. Why so hostile?'

'Here we go. Have you already made up your mind?'

'Have you already made up
your
mind?'

There was a long pause.

James thought of his brother's friend, Dayo, who had robbed a jeweller's when he was twenty. When he was arrested he panicked and shat himself after being repeatedly kicked in the stomach by three policemen in the back of their van. The police said he was crazy and had him sectioned because he was ashamed and tried to clean up his shit with his hands. He'd been locked away for eleven years. They let him out now and again for supervised visits. James had seen him on one such visit. He was sitting in the kitchen while Dayo spoke to 3 and 5. Dayo told them how, when he had seen his eldest daughter a few years earlier, he had called out to her and she'd run away from him out of fear. He wasn't thinking and ran after her and his day release was revoked for another two years. James had always admired Dayo, wanted to grow up to be like him – a footballer, one of the best in the manor. He'd played for Newham. He'd passed the youth trials for West Ham and even had a picture on his mantel of him sitting with Trevor Brooking that the estate youths were all jealous of. When his daughter ran off like that Dayo stopped fighting; no more appeals, no more day-release applications. He gave up. He'd never get out. If that could happen to Dayo, it could happen to anyone.

The man unzipping his bag broke the long silence. He took out a writing pad.

'May I begin?' he asked in a firmer tone, and continued straight away as though James had said yes.

'First of all, you are not alone, and let me remind you that there is nothing more important than your life. Nothing. My name is Trevor Carrick and I am very pleased to be here.'

He extended his right hand and when James did not extend his, he gave a strained smile.

'Look, I've been working with suicidal people and people with mental health issues for nearly twenty years, and I've been firmly dedicated to their rights and support. The first thing I want you to know is that virtually every person I've worked with who attempted suicide and survived, was glad that they lived. So the emotions that cause suicidal feelings pass. Things get better; the sun does come out. Let me extend that hope to you.'