Land of the Living (8 page)

Then suddenly everything was quiet and it was as if the light that hurt and the terrible sounds were gradually fading away from me. Everything was fading and going grey and far off, like night falling, and you just want it to be day. Just want it to be snow.

When I woke up, I didn’t know if it was the next morning or many mornings later. The world was in black and white but I knew that it wasn’t the world. It was me. I felt like there was a grey filter over my eyes, bleaching the colour out. My tongue felt dry and fluffy. I felt fidgety and irritable. I wanted to scratch myself or scratch somebody else. I wanted to get up and do something, but I didn’t know what. Breakfast tasted of cardboard and cotton wool. Every noise made me wince.

I lay in the bed and thought dark thoughts and then made plans, which involved getting up and finding someone, anyone, in authority and telling them that it was time for me to go home, and then finding Detective Inspector Cross and telling him to bloody get on with his inquiry, and somewhere in the middle of this a woman came in. No nurse’s uniform, no white coat. She must have been in her fifties. Red-haired, pale freckly skin, rimless glasses. She wore a honey-coloured sweater, shiny grey trousers. She smiled at me.

‘I’m Dr Beddoes,’ she said. There was a pause. ‘Irene Beddoes.’ That was Irene rhyming with ‘sheen’ and ‘clean’ rather than with ‘eenymeeny’. ‘I saw you yesterday afternoon. Do you remember our conversation?’

‘No.’

‘You were drifting in and out of sleep. I wasn’t sure how much you were taking in.’

I had slept and still I felt tired. Tired and grey.

‘I’ve been seen by a neurologist,’ I said. ‘He tested my memory. I’ve been put into a machine. I’ve been examined for physical injuries and been patched up a bit. What are you here for?’

Her concerned smile only wavered a little. ‘We thought you might like someone to talk to.’

‘I’ve talked to the police.’

‘I know.’

‘Are you a psychiatrist?’

‘Among other things.’ She gestured at the chair. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

‘No, of course not.’

She dragged it over and sat by the bed. She smelt nice; subtly fragrant. I thought of spring flowers.

‘I talked to Jack Cross,’ she said. ‘He told me your story. You’ve been through a terrifying ordeal.’

‘I’m just happy to have escaped,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you to see me as some sort of victim. I think I’m doing OK, you know. For several days I was dead. It may sound stupid but it was true. I was above ground, I was breathing and eating, but I knew I was dead. I didn’t exist in the same world that everyone else occupied. What do you call it? The land of the living. The place where people worry about money and sex and paying bills. Mainly through luck I escaped and I’m alive again and I just think every day is something I never thought I’d be allowed.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Beddoes said, but still looking concerned for me.

‘The other thing is that I’m not ill. I know I was knocked around a bit. I know that I’ve got a problem with my memory because I got a bang on the head. But I feel fine on the whole. A bit unreal, maybe. And this isn’t how I imagined it would be.’

‘What would be?’

‘Being free. I’m lying in this bed in an old itchy nightie that doesn’t belong to me and people bringing me awful food on a trolley and people coming and sitting next to my bed and looking at me with anxious expressions on their faces and talking to me in a soft voice as if they were trying to talk me off a window-sill. What I really want is to get back to my flat and get on with my life. See my friends. Go to a pub again, to a café, walk down ordinary streets in my own clothes, go dancing, lie in bed on a Sunday morning with the sun streaming in through the windows, eat what I want when I want, go for a walk at night down by the river… But he’s still out there, in the world I want to be in. If you want to know, that’s what I really can’t get out of my mind, the idea that he’s still walking the streets.’

There was a silence and I felt a bit embarrassed by my outburst. But she didn’t look too disconcerted.

‘Your flat,’ she said. ‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s not exactly mine,’ I said. ‘It actually belongs to my… to the guy I live with. Terry.’

‘Has he been in to see you?’

‘He’s away. I’ve tried calling but he must be working somewhere — he travels a lot.’

‘Have you seen anyone else? Family or friends?’

‘No. I just want to get out of here and then I’ll call them.’ She looked at me and I felt a need to explain. ‘I guess I’m putting off telling my story,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know how to tell it because it’s still not finished. I want there to be a proper ending to it before I begin, if you see what I mean.’

‘You want him to be caught first?’

‘Yes.’

‘But maybe, in the meantime, you could talk to me.’

‘Maybe,’ I said cautiously. ‘What I really want to do, though — the one thing I know I need — is to get out of here. It’s as if this hospital is a half-way house between being in prison and being free. I’m in limbo here.’

Dr Beddoes contemplated me for a moment. ‘Something terrible happened to you, Abbie. You’re being dealt with by about five different specialities at the hospital and that’s not to mention the police. It’s quite a logistical struggle to get everybody to communicate. But as far as I understand there is a general agreement that you should stay here for at least a couple more days. For a start, I know that the neurologists want to keep you under observation for a time, just in case. And the police obviously are very worried indeed. The man you encountered must be exceptionally dangerous and they would rather have you in a more secure environment while they make certain decisions.’

‘Do they think I might be under threat?’

‘I can’t speak for them, but I think it’s extremely difficult to assess. That’s part of the problem. What I want to say is that I would like to use the next couple of days to talk to you. Obviously it’s up to you but I think I could be helpful to you. Not just that. It’s possible that if we talk things over we might come up with details that could assist the police, but that would only be by the way. You talk about just wanting to get back to your normal life.’ There was now a sudden, long pause that I found disconcerting. ‘I’m thinking about how to put this. You might not find it as easy to return to your life as you assume. It may be that you take things with you from an experience like this.’

‘You think I’m contaminated by it?’

‘Contaminated?’ She looked for a moment as if she were smelling the contamination, or trying to sniff it out. ‘No. But you had a normal life, then suddenly you were thrown out of it into a terrible horror. Now you have to return to normality. You have to decide what to do with this thing that happened. We all need to find ways of accommodating things that have happened to us. I think that if we talked, I could help you do that.’

I looked away from her and I saw the greyness of the world again. When I spoke it was as much to myself as to her. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to accommodate someone wanting to kidnap and kill me. That’s the first thing. The second is that my life wasn’t as smooth as all that before it happened. But I’ll give it a try.’

‘We’ll meet for a chat,’ she said. ‘And you aren’t going to have to lie on a couch. We can do it in more pleasant surroundings, if you like.’

‘That would be great.’

‘I may even be able to find somewhere that serves proper coffee.’

‘That would be the most therapeutic thing of all.’

She smiled and stood up and shook my hand and left. When Dr Beddoes arrived, I had wanted to turn my back to her and close my eyes. Now that she had gone, I was shocked to realize that I already missed her.

‘Sadie?’

‘Abbie!’ Her voice was warm and clear, and relief spread through me. ‘Where are you calling from?’ she said. ‘Are you still on holiday?’

‘Holiday? No. No, I’m in hospital, Sadie.’

‘My God! What’s wrong?’

‘Can you come and see me? I can’t talk about it over the phone.’

‘How do I know he didn’t rape me?’

Jack Cross was sitting on the chair by my bed, fiddling with the tight knot of his tie. He nodded at the question, then said: ‘We can’t know for sure, but there’s no suggestion of that.’

‘How do you know?’

‘When you were admitted to hospital, you were, well, examined, et cetera, et cetera.’

‘And?’

‘And there was no evidence of sexual assault.’

‘That’s something, at least.’ I felt curiously blank. ‘So what else has happened?’

‘We’re building up a picture,’ he said carefully.

‘But…’

‘One of the people we obviously want to talk to is your boyfriend, Terence Wilmott.’

‘And?’

‘How would you describe your relationship with him?’

‘Why on earth should I say anything about it at all? What’s Terry got to do with anything?’

‘As I said, we’re building up a picture.’

‘Well, we’re fine,’ I said defensively. ‘We have our ups and downs, of course.’

‘What sort of downs?’

‘It wasn’t Terry, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘What?’

‘He didn’t do this. I know the man concealed his voice and I didn’t see him but it wasn’t Terry. I know Terry’s smell. I know him backwards and forwards. He’ll be back soon from wherever he’s gone off to and then you can talk to him.’

‘He’s not abroad.’

‘Oh?’ I looked at him then. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘His passport’s still in his flat.’

‘Is it? Well, he must be in the UK, then.’

‘Yes. Somewhere.’

∗

I stood in front of the mirror and saw a stranger there. I was no longer me. I was someone else. A thin woman with matted hair and a bruised face. Chalky-grey skin. Sharp bones. Glassy, frightened eyes. I looked like a dead person.

I met Dr Beddoes in a courtyard in the hospital because, although it was so cold, I had a longing to be outside. The nurses had found me a giant strawberry-pink quilted coat. The courtyard had clearly been designed to be soothing to neurotic patients. It was too shady for grass, but there were plants with huge dark green fronds and the centrepiece was a water feature. A large bronze pot was full and permanently overflowing with water running down the outside. I was alone for a few minutes, so I wandered over and examined it. It looked like a machine for wasting water but I noticed an opening around the base, so I supposed that it was sucked back up again. Round and round for ever.

Irene Beddoes had brought us both mugs of coffee and biscuits wrapped in Cellophane. We sat on a slightly damp wooden bench. She gestured at the wet ornament.

‘They got that because I thought it would be relaxing in a Japanese, Zen sort of way,’ she said. ‘I find it rather creepy.’

‘Why?’

‘Wasn’t there someone in hell who was condemned to spend the whole of eternity trying to fill a huge earthenware jar with water — a jar that had a hole in it?’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I shouldn’t have told you. I may have spoiled it for you.’

‘I like it; I like the sound. It’s a happy sound.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ she said.

It felt wonderful but a bit strange to be sitting outside on this sunny winter day. I only sipped at my mug of coffee. I had to be careful. I already felt on edge. Too much caffeine would turn me into a basket case.

‘How are you doing?’ she asked. It seemed a fairly inept beginning.

‘You know what I hate about being in hospital? People are being nice and everything and I’ve got my own room and a TV, but still there’s something about being in a room where people don’t have to knock before they come in. People I’ve never seen before come in and clean or bring food and the nice ones give me a nod and the others just get on with it.’

‘Do you get scared?’

I didn’t answer at first. I took another sip of coffee and a bite of my biscuit. Then I said, ‘Yes, of course. I mean, I think I get scared in different ways — I’m scared thinking about what it was like; remembering it all over again, almost as if I was still inside it and had never got away. The whole thing kind of closes in on me, like I’m underwater or something. Drowning in it. Most of the time I try not to let myself remember. I try and push it away from me. Perhaps I shouldn’t do that. Do you think it’s healthier to go over it?’ I didn’t give her time to answer. ‘And the other thing I get scared about is the idea that he hasn’t been caught. And that maybe he’s just waiting for me to come out and then he’ll grab me again. When I let myself think of that I can’t breathe properly. Everything in my body seems to be breaking up with fear. So, yes. I get scared. Not always, though. Sometimes I just feel very, very lucky to be alive. But I wish they’d catch him. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to feel safe again, until that happens.’

Irene Beddoes was the first person I’d met whom I could talk to about what had happened to me in that room, and what I had felt. She wasn’t a friend. I could tell her about my sense of losing myself, of being turned, bit by bit, into an animal, or an object. I told her about his laugh, his whisper, the bucket. I told her I’d wet myself. I told her about how I would have done anything, let him do anything to me, in order to stay alive. And she listened, saying nothing. I talked and I talked until my voice grew weary. Then I stopped and leant towards her. ‘Do you think you can help me remember my lost days?’

‘My concern, my job, is what’s happening in your head, what you’ve been going through and what you are still going through. If it results in anything that helps the investigation, then that’s a bonus. The police are doing everything they can, Abbie.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve given them much to go on.’

‘Your job is to get better.’

I sat back in my chair. I looked up at the floors of the hospital surrounding us. One floor up a small boy with a high forehead and a solemn face was looking down at us. I could hear the hum of traffic outside, the sound of horns.

‘You know one of my nightmares?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘I’ve got lots of them, actually. Like being back in that room again. And I hate being in this limbo, I feel trapped. But sometimes I fear that I’m going to leave hospital, go back to my life and it’ll just go back to normal and the man will never be found and the only trace there’ll be will be the bits of memory of him like a worm crawling around in my head eating me up.’