The Deepest Cut (6 page)

My mind felt like it had been put in the washing machine when it spins at the end.

‘Your mum?' Jake whispered. Then he stopped to think. ‘Do you think your dad was having an affair with that woman?'

‘No, he wouldn't do that to my mum,' I whispered back. It didn't make sense.

Jake didn't look that sure and, to be honest, I wasn't that sure, either.

‘She could be his long lost sister,' Jake whispered, and his voice was hopeful.

I didn't respond. I was waiting for one of them to say something else.

‘I will tell him,' Dad said, less angry. ‘Just not yet.'

‘Oh Jesus Christ, Chris.' She was shouting.

‘Shut up, will ya? What do you want me to do, ring him at Jake's and tell him right now, do ya?'

‘Yeah, I think you fuckin' should.' She was screaming at him now. ‘Better that than him come in and catch us at it one day, like she did. Don't want him throwing a paddy, running off, and getting flattened by a transit, do we?'

I barged Jake out of the way and I was down the stairs like thunder, and he was following me and when I got to the kitchen, they were both standing there staring at me like deer caught in the headlights.

‘Adam,' Dad said. ‘I thought you were gonna stay at Jake's?'

‘Well, I'm clearly fucking not,' I shouted and some spit flew out of my mouth. I was shocked that I'd just sworn at him but I couldn't help it.

I looked at her and she was the complete opposite of my mum. She was trampy, her hair was a mess, and she had skin that looked like she spent too much time on sunbeds. She was ugly and just rough. Really, really rough. Just like him.

We were staring at each other, her and I, and I couldn't look away.

‘Is it true?' I asked.

‘Shall we just put the kettle on and have a cup of tea?' She asked it in a softly-softly voice, but actually, I could tell she was enjoying it – the fact I was there, and I knew, and she'd got her own way.

‘Shut up,' I said to her.

‘Don't be rude, Adam,' Dad said.

‘Is it true?' I turned to look at him. My voice was shaking, my fists were properly clenched, and I felt like I was going to just go absolutely mental, any minute.

He looked at her.

‘Is it true?' I asked again. My patience was going. My breathing was fast and shallow. One of them needed to answer my question.

He turned away from me to pour himself a drink.

‘Did Mum catch you two shagging?' I asked. My voice was slow, steady. ‘Is that why she was on the motorway?' It all made sense now.

He cleared his throat.

‘Is that why she was on the motorway?'

Nobody was speaking apart from me.

‘Somebody tell me the truth,' I screamed, so loudly I felt like my head was going to explode.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘She caught us and got into the car and drove off.'

‘Dad?' I turned to him. My whole body was shaking.

He nodded.

I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating. I couldn't get any words or tears or screams out. It was their fault my mum died. Their fault.

I felt Jake's hand on my arm and he pulled me away, stepped in front of me, then squared up to my dad.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself,' Jake said.

I was bent over, trying to breathe or cry or something.

Dad said nothing.

Jake turned to her. ‘And you, too,' he said. Then he took me by the arm and we went straight out the front door. We walked quickly out and to the end of the street.

When we finally turned the corner, away from the house, I collapsed on the floor crying. Jake crouched down and rubbed my back until I calmed down.

That day, my life changed. My family changed in a heartbeat. I went from living happily with my mum and ignoring my bum of a dad, to being all but completely taken in by Debbie and Jake.

Jake wasn't just my friend; he was my brother.

Debbie wasn't just his mum; she was sort of my mum, too.

And that night – the night Jake died – I let them both down in a way that I knew they'd never ever do to me.

Five

‘Dinner time. Didn't you hear the buzzer?' I looked up from my pad. There was a girl standing in my doorway. She was short and had frizzy blonde hair, tied back. Her clothes were all pink. Her glasses were pink, too.

‘Dinnnnnnner, it's dinner time now; you can eat now, it's the proper dinner time, we have to go to the dining room and eat what they give us, and it's important that we do, or we won't get better.' She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘And the tablets will make you feel sick if you don't eat, did they tell you that? They should have told you that.'

She spoke at a million miles an hour, like you'd expect a crazy person to, and it
was
mental.

The nurses had let me go back to my room after I'd finished with David. I'd stayed there writing the stuff he'd asked me to. I'd not seen or heard anyone all afternoon. Now, looking up at the girl in my doorway, I was thinking my fears about everyone in this place being mental and crazy were realistic. Maybe I should try to stay in my room as much as I could. Crazy breeds crazy, everyone knows that, and if I spent time with them maybe I'd end up turning crazy myself. I couldn't have that. I needed to keep my head down and get out of here.

‘Are you coming, or not?' She said, with her hands on her hips. I had a strong feeling she wasn't going to move until I went with her.

‘Come on,' she said, walking into my room, taking my hand and dragging me up. ‘If you don't come for dinner you'll get in trouble, there are rules you know, and you have to stick to them.'

I had no idea where to go for dinner, so I followed her down the corridor. I was conscious of the fact I was still wearing the clothes I'd had on since I got there. I wanted a shower. I wondered if my dad had put shower stuff in the bag he'd brought in. I didn't even know where the bag of my stuff went. I'd forgotten to take it back to my room. Last time I saw it was in the therapy room.

‘Hmmmmm, yummy, smells nice, doesn't it?' The girl asked. She was walking right next to me. ‘I'm Caitlin by the way, what's your name?'

I looked at my feet, knowing I couldn't answer her, and felt a bit rude for it.

We passed the therapy room. I stopped and went to open the door to see if my bag was in there.

‘What do you think you're doing?' Caitlin asked. She grabbed my hand and put herself between me and the door. ‘That room is off limits.' She had the tone of an authoritarian headmistress, but the body of a skinny teenage girl. I wondered what she was in for. She was definitely a bit off the wall.

‘Come on, you two.' A nurse ushered us to carry on down the corridor.

Caitlin rushed ahead, giving me a smug look as she went.

The dining room wasn't that big. There were a couple of blocks of tables with more of the blue chairs. I counted twelve patients. There were nurses in there supervising, too.

It was noisy, full of chatter, and everyone seemed to be behaving. Even though Caitlin was clearly mental, I'd still not seen anyone staring at walls or gouging out their eyeballs and I was pleased.

I felt like the new kid, standing by the door and not knowing quite what to do.

‘Sit down, Adam,' one of the nurses said.

I sat down on an empty chair and in front of me there was a mouldy-green coloured beaker and plastic cutlery. In the middle of the table was a jug of water and some napkins.

Caitlin was sitting opposite me. A girl I didn't know was sitting next to her. We waited for a small white plastic plate of food to be put in front of us. It was a bit like being back in primary school.

It looked like tinned macaroni cheese with a very hard white roll on the side that was impossible to cut with our flimsy plastic cutlery. It didn't look the best, but I didn't care, I was starving. I put my head down to eat.

Laughter came from the corner of the room but I ignored it.

‘Blake, what on earth–?'

‘Blake, take those off now,' someone said. I could tell it was a nurse; it was an adult's voice. A chair scraped across the floor, shoes squeaking.

Caitlin kicked me in the shin.

I glared at her. I wasn't interested in what was going on. I just wanted to eat my dinner and get back to my room.

‘Look,' she whispered, using her eyes to gesture behind her.

‘That's enough, now.' The nurse's stern voice echoed across the room and the room fell deadly silent.

Three tables down, a large, goofy-looking boy, about my age, was wearing a pair of pants on his head.

I recognised those pants. They looked like the SpongeBob SquarePants ones Jake bought me for my birthday as a joke.

I put my fork down. The nurse was struggling to get my carrier bag off Blake's lap. He wouldn't let it go.

‘Oh my God, Blake.' A voice cut through the silence.

A teenage girl was walking towards Blake, looking so bored and so pissed off. She was tall, pretty, and had short pixie-like hair. She was in baggy joggers and a hoodie that had
London
on the front; like the sort you get on the stalls up on Oxford Street.

‘You're such a retard,' she said in Blake's face. ‘Gimme the bag.'

He wouldn't budge.

‘Give it to me,' she screamed in his face. He jumped and let go.

‘Josie,' a nurse addressed her.

‘Don't worry, I've got this,' she said.

She whipped the pants off Blake's head and walked towards me with a big smile on her face.

‘Yours, I believe?' She held out the bag.

My jaw was on the floor. She was amazing. She had more control over Blake than the nurses did.

‘You might wanna get these washed, though.' She put the pants in the bag. ‘Don't know where Blake's been.' She winked at me.

I held out my hand and she hooked the bag over my fingers, and sat down next to me.

‘Show's over, morons,' Josie shouted and the chatter returned.

I couldn't stop staring at her. I was totally mesmerised. I thought I was being a bit psycho, just staring, but she didn't seem to notice.

‘I saw some scruffy-looking bloke bring that bag in earlier. I saw you on the list for therapy this afternoon, knew he was there, put two and two together, got four.'

I sort of smiled at her.

‘Who was the bloke, your dad?'

I nodded.

‘You hate him?'

I nodded again.

‘I hate mine, too, and my mum. They got me put in here,' she sighed.

I looked at my plate. I still had some food left and wanted to eat it but thought it'd be rude while she was sitting talking to me.

‘Yo, Adam,' she poked me in the arm, really hard. ‘You mute?' She asked.

I nodded.

‘Cool,' she said, smiling. ‘I'm Josie,' she held out a small, skinny hand with really dry knuckles.

I shook it. She had a tight grip. It took me by surprise.

She leant in and whispered in my ear, ‘This place can get crazy at times, but stick with me and you'll be all right.' Then she sat back, winked and smiled.

Six

I was outside.

Out of the ward.

I'd gone through the door with the keycode on it, down the stairs and out of the other door with the keycode on it. I was sitting on a bench that was a bit soggy from the rain.

I was free from the dense air of that place, free from its endless, dark corridors and my dingy room. Free from Caitlin being bossy and Blake putting my pants on his head.

The air outside smelt like rain and I was sucking it up. I sat with my face to the sky, smelling it, taking in as much of it as I could because in about five minutes, I'd be back inside that dungeon.

‘Just light this, don't pull on it too much, light it and just hold it, they won't know you're not smoking,' Josie handed me the cigarette she'd just rolled. ‘Make it look like you know what you're doing.' She winked.

Smokers were allowed outside, for supervised fag breaks every couple of hours, after meals and between therapy and activities, Josie had told me.

‘Privileges,' she'd whispered as we were walking down the stairs behind a few of the other smokers and one of the nurses. ‘If you don't smoke you aren't allowed out, so pretend.'

I'm glad she made me go out. The fresh air felt so good.

She handed me a lighter and I put the cigarette in my mouth and tried to light it.

‘Pull on it a bit, but only a tiny bit,' she said. She was watching Damian, the nurse who was supervising us, to make sure he wasn't watching. ‘Shit, just pull on it,' she said in a whispered panic as he started to walk over.

‘I didn't know you were a smoker, Adam.'

‘Bit of a nosy parker, you are,' Josie said.

‘Just doing my job, Josie.' He smiled.

‘Well, you lot have had him doped up to his poor bloody eyeballs and locked up in there, so now he wants to enjoy a fag.'

‘And he can't speak for himself?'

Josie looked up at him with her eyebrows raised. ‘If you did your job properly, you'd know he was mute, so no, he can't speak for himself.'

Damian's face changed. ‘I'm sorry, Adam. It completely slipped my mind,' he said.

I shrugged. There wasn't anything I wanted to say if I could.

He backed off and went over to the others.

‘If I wasn't a raging lesbian, I'd fancy him a bit,' Josie said.

I wouldn't have guessed she was a lesbian. I'd never seen a real lesbian before. I'd only ever seen them in the porn films we'd watched after we hacked into Nathan's dad's computer.