The Mirror World of Melody Black (20 page)

Paradoxically, there had been far fewer rules on Nile. On Nile there was really just one rule: no sharps. With that rule in place, we were pretty much left to ourselves. Apart from meals and medication, there was very little to segment the days, and time slid past like a glacier – huge and blank and structureless. And there wasn't any communal space on Nile – not in any meaningful sense. Each separate bed might as well have been a separate universe. Two dozen personal hells, with no connection between them.

But on Amazon no one was allowed to languish. Treatment no longer meant lithium, Thorazine or ECT – or that wasn't
all
it meant. Now there were various therapies to be attended: individual therapy, group therapy, art therapy.

Against all odds, I soon found myself missing Dr Barry. He may have been a prick, but at least when he asked me a question, I knew the difference between a good and bad answer. Unfortunately, it seemed that Dr Barry was permanently confined to psychiatric intensive care, where his massive frame was a constant boon and his lack of interpersonal skills neither here nor there.

In his place, I was assigned a new personal therapist. Her job was to help me develop and implement my personal care plan. All the patients had personal therapists and personal care plans. Except we were no longer referred to as patients. Now we were called service users – as if this were a library or swimming pool.

It felt beyond ridiculous, but I kept telling myself that these games had to be played.

My personal therapist was called Dr Hadley. Hadley was her surname. Her first name was Lisa. She told me I could call her Lisa if I preferred.

I called her Dr Hadley – mostly because I had to keep reminding myself she was a real doctor. Dr Hadley didn't look like a real doctor. She looked like an actress who had been badly miscast. And this was just the start of the problem.

The more I looked at her, the more I realized that Dr Hadley actually resembled
me
in many ways. She was like a better version of me: a little older – early thirties at a push – a little taller; a warmer complexion; much more accomplished. She was a little slimmer, too – at least at the moment – and her hair was a better shade of blonde: rich and honey-hued, where mine, of late, had taken on the appearance of straw on a cloudy day.

I didn't know how I was going to cope with therapy with Dr Hadley.

The smoking area was pretty much indiscernible from the one on Nile. It occupied a small courtyard, surrounded on three sides by bricks and by trees, trellises and the prison-style fence on the other. But for that fence, it could have been any suburban patio: neatly paved, bordered with low-maintenance shrubs and plants. There was a cheap plastic table and four matching chairs, and it was in one of these chairs, in the late afternoon of my second day on Amazon, that I sat smoking my seventh cigarette and listening to my iPod, which I'd discovered at the bottom of my handbag.

Listening to music was a risk, I knew. It was the kind of thing that might have tipped me back over the edge a few days ago – and bursting into tears in one of the communal areas was not part of my plan; I had resolved to keep any crying minimal and private. But when I finally plucked up the courage to press play, I was relieved to find that the music didn't really affect me one way or the other. It was just one more way to block out the external world, and this was my prime objective that day. I was struggling to adjust to people – to people not simply lying motionless in beds, or, at worst, talking to themselves in corridors, but actually wanting things from me: eye contact, acknowledgement, talk. I didn't want to talk to anyone, and I didn't want other people's conversations buzzing in the background. I just wanted to smoke in peace. Wearing my earphones, I thought, was the perfect deterrent to any social interaction.

But it turned out this was just wishful thinking.

There was nothing very remarkable about the girl who sat down next to me – nothing except her age. She was obviously very young; she couldn't have been older than nineteen or twenty, I thought. She was wearing a dark red vest top with shorts and sandals – it was, after all, still a blazing hot summer; as perfect a summer as you ever get in England. This was something that never failed to surprise me, every time I went outside. I don't know why. I suppose there was a part of me that thought the weather should be paying more attention to the turn my life had taken, not just carrying on regardless.

The girl was small. She had very straight dark brown hair cut just above her shoulders. Her forearms were latticed with scars, some old and pale, some red and recent.

I observed all this in a swift, furtive glance, then fixed my eyes back on the parallel lines of the metal fence. I needed my sunglasses, I realized. Then I could look wherever I wanted. I could look at her arms to my heart's content and she'd never know. But the courtyard was almost permanently in shade from the high walls and trees. I couldn't wear sunglasses without looking like I was wearing them to hide something.

If I'd thought I could get away with it, without appearing even crazier, I would have worn my sunglasses throughout the day, even in therapy.
Especially
in therapy. That would have solved the eye contact problem for good.

I was mulling over these thoughts when the dark-haired girl reached over and tapped me on the shoulder.

She smiled, then mouthed something.

I shrugged and pointed to my earphones.

She gestured for me to take them out.

What choice did I have?

‘What are you listening to?' she asked.

My iPod was on shuffle. I wasn't up to making complicated decisions about what music I wanted to hear. Especially since it didn't matter; it was just a shield.

‘I'm listening to “Airwave” by Rank 1,' I told her.

The girl shook her head. ‘Don't know it. Any good?'

‘It's sublime,' I answered automatically.

‘Happy or sad?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘Is it happy music or sad music?'

I had to think about this for several moments. I wasn't sure if the question even made sense. Could all music be placed into one of these two boxes? Or was that an insane way of thinking about music? It didn't seem insane to me, but that told me nothing.

‘It's both,' I decided, eventually. ‘Or it's neither; I'm not sure. It's the kind of music that moulds itself to your mood.'

The girl nodded, looking unconvinced. She didn't get it, I could tell. Not that it mattered. I'd be leaving in a moment. My cigarette was almost down to the filter. I took one more drag, then crushed it out.

‘I'm Melody,' the girl said.

‘Right. How appropriate.'

Melody kept looking at me but didn't say anything.

‘It's a very pretty name,' I added.

I had already slipped my iPod back in my pocket. If I didn't introduce myself, I was under no obligation to stay and talk. But then Melody did something that stopped me in my tracks – pretty much the only thing that could have stopped me. She took out her cigarettes and extended the pack towards me. There were two left.

I looked at them for a few moments, then looked back at Melody. She smiled and gave a small shrug.

I decided at that point that Melody was an idiot. I wouldn't have given away my penultimate cigarette for anything less than immediate freedom. Not when their supply was so uncertain. But if she was offering, there was no way I was going to refuse. I allowed my poised leg muscles to relax.

‘I'm Abby,' I said.

‘Hello, Abby,' she replied. ‘You're new here?'

‘Sort of. I was on Nile for a couple of weeks.'

‘Oh, right. Nile.' Melody gave a small, knowing nod. ‘Did you try to kill yourself?' I looked at her. She lit her cigarette, then shrugged without apology. ‘I was on Nile for a bit. Took a load of pills – about thirty. But I didn't die, obviously. I puked and passed out. Nile was where I woke up.'

‘I don't want to kill myself,' I lied.

Melody nodded effusively. ‘No, of course not. Me neither. Not any more. I'm having ECT three times a week. That seems to have sorted me out. What about you?'

‘Lithium,' I told her. ‘I don't think I'm allowed ECT. It might send me nuts again.'

‘You went nuts?'

‘Yes. Pretty much.'

‘What happened?'

‘I stopped sleeping. Put myself in some stupid, risky situations. Went on a shopping spree.'

Melody snorted some smoke out from her nose. ‘I've been on plenty of those. Nothing crazy about shopping.'

I shrugged. ‘It depends how you go about it. I spent the best part of sixteen hundred pounds in a day – on a hotel room, a dress and a tit tattoo.'

‘Jesus.'

There was a little silence as we both smoked.

‘Can I see it?'

‘See what?'

‘The tit tattoo.'

‘No. You can't.'

This wasn't modesty. What's the point of modesty on the mental ward, with no locks on the bathroom doors? But, still, I had to think of appearances. There was a CCTV camera in one corner of the courtyard, and a chance, at least, that someone was watching. Sharing a conversation with another service user would be seen as a positive step towards recovery; showing her my tits would not. Nevertheless, Melody looked weirdly hurt at my refusal. ‘I have one on my ankle, too,' I told her. ‘You can see that instead.'

My right leg was crossed over my left, so I only had to reach down and raise the bottom of my jeans a little. Melody looked for a few seconds, took it in, then said, ‘You have a scar as well – on your right hand. Looks like a burn.'

Usually, I would have been impressed. People didn't notice my scar, or didn't recognize it for what it was. But Melody had an eye for things like that, which came as no great surprise. And she knew scar tissue when she saw it.

‘Cigarette burn,' I said. With the conversation progressing as it was, I saw no reason not to tell her. What harm could it do? ‘I was drunk. My boyfriend and I were having this stupid fight. I can't even remember what it was about now – that's how stupid it was.' I paused and tapped some ash into the ashtray. It wasn't for dramatic effect. I was deciding whether it was worth ending the story, since Melody could guess the rest. She knew what you'd have to do to get a scar like that. ‘I put it out in my hand,' I told her. ‘Next thing I knew I was in a taxi on my way to A&E.'

‘Wow.' Melody nodded appreciatively. She was, as I'd already surmised, in the very small fraction of the population who wouldn't respond to a story like this by asking
why
I'd decided to burn myself. She understood that there were various possible reasons. ‘How did it feel?' she asked instead.

‘Exquisite, for a second or so. After that, it hurt like hell. The pain was so bad I threw up in the taxi. The worst pain you can imagine.'

I could tell from Melody's face that she
was
imagining it, which probably wasn't healthy for her. But I figured a question that honest deserved an honest answer.

‘So.' Melody let a pillar of ash fall and scatter on the breeze. ‘Have they given you a diagnosis yet?'

‘Yes. Not here, though. I was
diagnosed
a few years back. Type two bipolar. You?'

‘Acute unipolar depression, and maybe some sort of personality disorder as well. They're still deciding. You know what doctors're like.'

I shrugged. ‘They like to find the right box for us.'

We smoked the rest of our cigarettes without saying much. There wasn't much more to say.

Dear Abby,

So here I am again: another letter that you might never read. But Barbara said I should go ahead and write it anyway. She thinks it might do me some good. I've no idea if that's true, but it's not as if I have a lot of other options right now. And I suppose it's liberating, in a way – writing a letter that will probably end up in the bin in a few hours' time. At least I don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing. I figure I can just tell you exactly what's been going through my mind over the past week, good and bad. And if, by some small chance, you are reading this – if you're well enough to read it – then perhaps this is still the best way to go about things. There's no point writing something dishonest, right?

Last night was a bad one for me. I was up until God knows when thinking about us, trying to work out where and when everything went wrong. Because things have gone wrong. That's the conclusion I've been forced to draw. You won't see me, you won't talk to me. If you don't want me around now, of all times, then what exactly does that say about our relationship? The truth is, I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this. I don't want to leave you, I really don't, but more and more, it feels like the choice is out of my hands. You've already left.

For a while, I tried telling myself that perhaps this is for the best. Because if I can't be there for you right now, as you seem to think, then what future can we possibly have? Just more of the same: endless ups and downs which neither of us can do a damn thing to prevent. We'd be better off apart. It stands to reason.

Except, of course, it's not that easy. I'm reminded of that old cliché – one of your favourites: you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. Well, whoever came up with that should have added that you can't choose who you fall in love with either.

So do you know what I ended up thinking about last night? I was trying to list all the reasons we'd be better off apart, and instead I found myself remembering all the details of our first date. You took me to the Tate Modern and made me grade all the paintings A–E. It was a little terrifying, to be honest, or it was at first – less a getting-to-know-you than a weird cultural initiation test. I remember asking you if we couldn't just go for a quiet drink instead, and you told me no, for two reasons: 1) Taste in art was much more revealing than taste in alcohol. 2) You were flat broke, so we had to do something free. Shortly after that, we had our first ever argument – over Francis Bacon's Seated Figure. I graded it C and you went apoplectic and started waxing lyrical about how it was one of only three pieces in the gallery that was beyond reproach and deserved an A++ (along with Souza's Crucifixion and Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus). But the truth is, I'd pretty much stopped looking at the paintings by then. I only had eyes for you, and I came really close to telling you that a couple of times. But I couldn't, of course, not on a first date. It would have sounded too much like a line.