Chapter One.
God, that noise. What is it? Please, someone, make it stop!
But it doesn’t. And slowly, I realise...
It’s me.
Me making the noise. A hollow, harrowing lament. A thousand lost souls bound as one.
The comprehension is a shot of antidote, and one-by-one, my senses begin to crawl into awareness. The darkness behind my eyes, bruised and thumping. The acrid aroma clinging to my nostrils and the back of my throat – the tell-tale sign of a rolled twenty-pound note. The iron tang from where my teeth clamp the insides of my cheeks. And the cold, hard surface beneath my broken body.
I take a sharp inhale, breath rattling in my ribcage like loose nuts and bolts as I desperately try to think. Try to determine where I am. How I got here. Conjuring every ounce of the strength I once held, I force a wiggle into my toes. They snap and crack as if treading on broken glass, yet despite the foreboding soundtrack, they graze something soft. Comforting. Familiar.
My shower mat… It has to be!
Meaning, I must be at home…
Oh god please. Please, let me be at home.
Carried on a vapor of calm, I inch myself up, nausea ambushing every cell as I struggle into an awkward side-seat, head pounding, hanging heavy. Reluctantly, I prise open my sticky lids, my vision appearing like muddy water which has yet to settle. Causing me to blink and blink, and blink again, until sketchy shapes begin to take form and at last, I can see…
My ripped palms and torn knuckles.
Naked thighs.
Bloodied kneecaps.
Swollen ankles.
Filthy, scuffed soles.
With each layer of discovery comes an electric, animated pain, confusion coursing through my body’s war-torn landscape, surging up and out over my bloated tongue and stinging lips, crashing and shattering against the walls and floor and door and ceiling of my tiny bathroom. It’s only once the clamour calms and my head lolls again in exhausted despair, I spy the object which might hold the clues. My Chloe clutch. My favourite unnecessary possession, treated like a prize pet from the day it was purchased, seemingly relegated to my makeshift pillow.
Pitching forward, I seize it urgently, drag it across the mascara-smeared tiles, and delve inside.
I need an explanation.
And I need it fast.
My phone bursts to life, its freshly splintered screen and accusatory glare making me instantly recoil.
11:01
Thursday, 22 February
Shit.
I should have been at work four hours ago! Writing business. Making money. Doing what I do best. On a normal day, I’d launch myself into the shower, then run around drip-drying as I scrape my hair into a messy topknot, snatch a mismatch of designer clothing from my wardrobe and book an overpriced Uber. But today is not normal.
Today, I remain where I am.
I don’t care if I’m late.
I don’t care about the business. Or the money. Or my precious reputation.
I don’t care. About anything.
Peering into my phone’s face, I wait for recognition of mine. But it doesn’t know who I am. Rejecting me, demanding my pin, once, twice, three more times, until finally a thin, transitory message tells me to, Try again in 1 minute. A second later, it’s gone. Hope replaced by a wraithy apparition, staring from the fractured black glass.
Panic sears and pinning the device between my eyebrows, I press hard, and harder still, praying for some sort of download. Answers to my unformed questions.
But nothing comes.
So instead, I thrust it against my chest, urge it to break through my brittle bones and charge the dying organ within. Rocking back-two-three, forth-two-three. Conducted by the cadence of lunacy and the bygone benevolence of my mother’s arms. Hallucinating her lullaby-breath in my hair, and her whispers of conviction which used to sooth me to sanctuary. Feverish echoes from once-upon-a-time, when I was able to call her a mother, and not just Mum.
‘Belle. Darling.’
My mother’s voice.
Real enough to touch.
I squeeze my eyes tight, trapping the words behind my lids before my tears have a chance to wash them away. Yet, my fears appear unfounded. The words… they keep on coming.
‘Darling. How wonderful--- Are you well? So lovely to hear--- Delighted you called. You never normally have time--- Tell me all your news--- When will I see---’ The effusive, twitchy tones of my mother today, breaking one-by-one through my nostalgic delusion, until…
‘Belle? …Darling? Hello? Belle? Are you there?’
It’s real.
Her voice… Emanating from the resurrected phone I cradle in my lacerated palms like some religious offering.
I’ve called my mother!
Why would I call my mother?
I stare at the screen, MUM boldly captioning a photo of the two of us sharing our infamous Julia Roberts smile. Almost perfect reflections of one another, only the lines of time defining us as individuals.
The moment my sister had captured that picture – the moment she’d commented on how identical we looked – Mum had snatched the phone and dived into my Contacts, chewing on her bottom lip as she swiped a thin, paint-stained finger through my endless list of clients. Finally finding her own entry, she’d shot me a glance and quickly, oh-so quickly, attached the photo, then edited her name – Mum to MUM – a small, high-pitched ‘hmm’ concluding her artistry.
‘Now, you’ll definitely know it’s me calling!’ she’d announced, handing back the device as if presenting a trophy. ‘Might mean you’ll pick-up a bit more often, darling.’ She giggled. That light, breathy resonance which had appeared not long after she lost my father. A gauche attempt to substantiate her joke. To deter from what we both knew was the real reason for the hijack – a hungry endeavour to seed the rarity of that photo into my life, ever hopeful it may blossom into something more tangible. In fact, she only managed to achieve the opposite, and her desperation now greets me whenever she calls. Mocking the memory of what could have been one, sweet, scattered moment.
Today, however, as I stare down into her warm-water eyes, I’m sickeningly aware – it's me who’s desperate. Suddenly, undeniably, I want my mum. Need her. The thirteen-year-old me who died the month my father left, rising from the grave to take possession of thirty-three-year-old me.
We need our mother.
Not a conscious desire, but one which stems from somewhere deep inside. The inherent, inexplicable tie to this woman who granted me my first breath. The woman who’s always been there, despite the fact she wasn't for so many years.
‘Mummy,’ I whisper.
But it’s all I manage, the rest of my sentence strangled between the calloused hands of despair.
Because how does a daughter explain to her mother, something she doesn’t understand herself. How does she explain she’s lost? And isn’t sure she wants to be found.
‘…Mummy…’
This attempt resounds only in my head, and the effort swallows me whole. Down, up, and back into another measureless void.
A place I welcome.
A place you still exist.
Chapter Two.
If there was a Pantone called Kind, it would colour-match Ruby’s eyes. Rich, pure, and intensely comforting. Like a mug of Guatemala's finest.
‘Why don’t we start with the reason you’re here?’ Ruby says, holding my gaze from her armchair.
Ruby’s voice is as kind as her eyes. A fleece blanket, straight from the airing cupboard. But her words, strike like bullets.
Observing my trepidation, she leans forwards, a slim golden line chasing her from between the blinds that shield us from the noisy, outside world. It comes to rest an inch above her forehead, quivering amongst curls as black as my outlook, and alive in a way in which I find impossible to connect.
‘It’s alright, Belle.’ Ruby offers a gentle smile. ‘Take your time.’
The way she says my name is soft yet authoritative, her glossy lips meeting in the middle to pronounce the B like a rosebud popping open in the late-spring sunshine. I imagine my mother enunciating it in the same way. How it might have made things different. But that wasn’t a combination Mum was able to achieve. Soft, yes. Authoritative, never.
‘Belle?’ Ruby’s broad-bridged nose dips down towards her pretty, pillowy mouth. ‘Are you okay?’
Fortunately, her tone is tougher than her expression. Empathy, rather than sympathy. Thank god! I can’t stand sympathy. Why staying with Mum – the Queen of Self-Sympathy – these past few days has been so excruciating. Why, when she attempted to turn it my way – two decades too late – it aired like a cringeworthy skit. Mother seeking to comfort daughter, but not quite sure how. Reaching-retracting, reaching-retracting, as though scared to touch me lest my insanity be contagious.
There’s that saying isn’t there – that we choose our parents. That our souls know who is right for this lifetime's purpose. Whenever I hear it, I have to wonder about mine. My purpose, as much as my parents.
I once tried to unravel this concept – both concepts actually – with Harry. Nine years into our relationship, and a couple of weeks into our engagement, when I decided it really was time to discover each other on a deeper level. He’d laughed. Called me a hippy in that lovingly dismissive manner of his, and then moved evenly on to a less rebellious topic.
Me, a hippy? The girl who earns a six-figure-salary from dredging our seas of oil?
All I wanted was a conversation which went beyond the day-to-day and into ‘the bigger picture’ – whatever that meant.
But Harry… Harry liked to remain firmly above ground. Burying his head in the sand was as deep as he’d ever willingly venture.
It was on that occasion, I begrudgingly had to accept, that the deep-dive down the rabbit hole I so desperately yearned, was not to be a shared experience. At least, not with the man with whom I was set to spend the rest of my life. Which is probably why---
‘Belle?’
Ruby’s voice jolts me back, and for a split-second I have to remind myself where I am.
‘I know this can feel overwhelming,’ she says, ‘but it’s important to identify what brought you to me.’ Once again, she leans in, elbows propped on the empty pages of the notepad on her knees, palms pressed into a prayer.
Delving into my vacant brain, I clutch for words, desperately hoping I may discover just two or three I can fit together into an answer which might satisfy us both. In the background, the seconds of an invisible clock murmur by, calculating, condemning, my ineptitude. A distant but recognised chill brushes my body. Regresses me in age, to playtime – ‘Quiz Time’ – with my father. When I’d fumble through encyclopaedias, rummaging for answers I knew I’d never find amidst my fear of letting him down. The tap-tapping on his Casio wristwatch growing faster, his breath growing, louder, more exasperated with every disappointing, disappearing, tick-tock.
Eventually, I’m forced to give in. Give up. And as indignity blooms, tears split my cheeks and collapse my torso to my thighs.
‘This is a safe space, Belle,’ Ruby says, handing me a box of tissues.
And even though I’ve no idea what that means, it brings a flutter of calm. Like a delicate breeze from a landing butterfly.
‘This crying,’ I croak, indicating my wet, swollen face. ‘I don't know what’s wrong with me.’
Ruby’s own face stays straight as she holds my gaze. As though she’s looking straight through my pupils into the puffy, desolate space behind.
‘And you want to understand?’ she says.
It sounds like a question, but she’s just given the answer.
‘Belle, in order to proceed, I’m going to need to understand exactly what encouraged you to seek therapy.’
If I had the ability to laugh, I would, encouraged, not an expression I’d have chosen. Forced, maybe. Coerced. What is the word, for when one has no other choice?
‘So, let’s start there,’ Ruby says, elongating her spine, reaching for a pen, ‘and then we’ll go over a few formalities – something we always do in a first session.’
‘They think it’s exhaustion,’ I say. ‘Work – that’s what I told them. Well, what I told my boss – Benedict.’
The memory brings an urge to vomit. The phone call with Benedict – when I told him the doctor had instructed some time off – still fresh with disrepute. Around me, the room warps, bringing with it the same static which had pulsed between my confession and Benedict’s confusion. Seconds seeming like minutes as I’d listened to Benedict from the other end of the line chewing on his thumb, teeth clacking and lips sucking, something he does whenever he’s figuring out the benefit-to-cost ratio. I’d been moments from passing out, lungs swollen with stagnant air, head swimming with the shame of disappointing him when finally, he’d reclaimed his voice.
‘Absolutely. Of course. No problem...’ Benedict said, evidently satisfied with his calculations. ‘Just tell me how long you need, Mags. Two, three days?’
‘Weeks…’ I admitted.
He’d started to cough. Like he’d inhaled a splinter of nail, or spike of dead cuticle into his windpipe. And then, once again, there was nothing but fuzz.
This time, as Benedict’s silence had reigned, my hearing had become heightened, and without design I eavesdropped on the office in the background. My colleagues, continuing without me – shouting rates, crunching numbers, concluding deals. Vivek’s eager giggle. Jon’s cheeky-chappy banter. Jake’s shapeless vowels, as he sweet-talked my biggest client. Taunting me for my time out. Punishing me for my pathos.
‘Err – um – are you, err… okay, Mags?’ Benedict eventually asked, his usual eloquence stilted by continued attempts to dislodge the disbelief wedged between his tonsils.
‘Exhaustion,’ I lied, desperate to put us both out of our pain.
‘Exhaustion?’ Benedict repeated, like I’d invented a new term.
‘Exhaustion,’ I echoed. Trying to make it real. In both our heads.
‘And then I started to cry,’ I say, offering Ruby a small shrug. ‘Benedict had no idea how to respond. I don’t think he thought I had it in me. He calls me Mags – as in Maggie Thatcher. He tells people it’s because I’m made of iron, but actually, he gave me the nickname when I was promoted – first female director ever, in my department.’
‘A great achievement,’ Ruby smiles.
I try to return the gesture. ‘Thing is… Well, recently, I’ve been wondering… What if that’s why I got the position? You know, to tick a box.’
‘Is there reason for you to believe that, Belle?’
‘Jake – the guy I was promoted over – says it’s the only reason.’
‘What about Benedict? Do you believe he’d have promoted you to tick a box?’
My head shakes of its own accord. ‘He’s the last person to conform to ‘all that’. He couldn’t care less about gender, race, age--- As long as the team’s happy and we’re bringing in money. There’s only one occasion I can even think of when he’s differentiated me from the lads.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, Jake was berating me for being ‘too female’. I’d allowed a client some extra time to think about a deal, and Jake accused me of ‘lacking balls’. The fact was, this client was suspicious of any idea which wasn’t his. I knew if I pushed him too hard, he’d have run. He just needed a night to sleep on it. To convince himself, he was the mastermind, not us – well, me. Jake asked Benedict what he’d have done in that situation, and without hesitation Benedict said there’s no way he’d have given the client any leeway. You should have seen the sanctimonious glee in Jakes’s eyes. His smarmy, snake-lipped smile. The way he grew a whole half-inch, to almost five-foot-seven. But then Benedict laughed. ‘That’s the problem with the male ego, mate,’ he said. ‘We blokes would rather lose the deal, than lose face. Whereas a bird… a bird engages a bit of emotional intelligence and thinks about the long-game. We’ll see, but I reckon Mags has got this spot on.’ It was nice, you know, receiving that reassurance. Doesn’t happen often in my world.’
‘Do you mind Benedict making refence to you like that?’
‘Mags, you mean?’
‘‘A bird’?’
‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ I shrug. ‘You should hear what Jake calls me.’
Ruby scribbles on her pad, pen scratching nosily on the paper.
‘And this occasion you’re referring to?’ Ruby asks, looking back up. ‘Was that before your promotion or after?’
‘Erm, after, I think… Yes, definitely after. It was the same night---’
The rest of my sentence is stifled by an unexpected inhalation, causing the room to once again warp and Ruby's eyebrow to shoot an arrow into the sky.
‘The same night as?’
Her voice is as calm as an ocean under a full moon, yet I can sense the tide turning within her, reaching for my toes.
‘What night are you referring to, Belle?’
‘The night I--- I---’
The night, I met you.
And as the memory comes flooding back, I have to fight not to be swept away.
Looking ahead, I focus determinedly on Ruby’s shirt. On the metronomic rise and fall of the neatly tied bow at her collarbone. The way it ebbs and flows with such envious ease.
‘Belle, your doctor's referral said your collapse occurred after a night out. Is this the occasion you’re speaking of?’
Slowly, methodically, I shake my head, each careful movement biding me time. Because the night to which I refer – there’s no way I can tell her... Not without altering her to the truth.
Not without altering her to you.
Thankfully, Ruby responds in the way I’d hoped, and after hastily jotting down another couple of lines, she consults the stapled papers I presented upon arrival.
‘Your referral letter says, you were unable to explain the events leading up to your collapse,’ Ruby paraphrases. ‘That when you regained consciousness, you were suffering complete memory loss. Unable to explain what had happened prior to waking up. Is this still the case?’
I nod and begin to cry – again.
From behind a wad of fresh Kleenex, I watch Ruby flip onto a new page. A sheet of A4 down – already. I guess this now confirms me as a case study. What one becomes when one loses their mind.
