The change in her meds caused a staggering veer in direction. The concrete hat was replaced by something tight around the temples, like the cap her mother used to wear for golf that made her face green and left the crown of her hair exposed. Not enough protection. Too much plastic. She rang Scott from the pay phone and told him she needed her Australian leather Bushman that she kept in the wardrobe, the one with the wide rim that could be pulled down low, that offered cover on all sides. She shuffled to her goodbye meeting.
Dr Patel had her file open. She wore her glasses on a chain. “If the new medication is too much, we can swap to an anti-anxiety again, but we have to look out for a rash.”
We. It wasn’t Dr Patel who felt like she was wearing a golf visor. Dr Patel wore neat shirts with small flowers and her hair was combed and she was the nicest psychiatrist Tessa had ever met but she still hated her.
“Finding the right medication at the right dose is a joint operation.” Glasses jangling at her chest getting caught in the lapels of her jacket as she got out of her chair and held the door for Tessa. Tessa replied what she was always replied, that she could do with a joint if she was offering. It landed with a tight smile and ache into the corridor where nothing waited for her but the lounge. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck leaking opiates and amphetamines; too fast and too slow, a complexity that was easier to achieve than it was to force someone to love you, someone who’d loved you once but didn’t anymore. Her system throbbed; her eyes felt lopsided. Images of her outside life were beginning to filter through to her every day; a home to run, a son to care for, a husband who wanted his dinner. She didn’t feel ready for any of it.
Clive patted the arm of his chair and motioned at the empty armchair opposite, as if Tessa was late for that appointment, too.
She picked up a magazine. “Where’s Derek?”
Derek’s chair had the frightening look of death, it may as well have had a sheet pulled over it. Clive had said any number of times that they’d be needing a plaque, more park bench than last resting place, but given the stains, Tessa wouldn’t be surprised if he’d died in it.
“Careers advice. He’s talking about going back to work.” Clive looked small without his friend, even smaller than with him. His chequered shirt and stone wash jeans decided on in the eighties as if he’d forgotten to grow up, but his face hadn’t.
“Dr P said the C-word.”
“Fuck me,” said Clive, looking at the ceiling.
“She said they were letting me out in time to buy presents.”
In the corner by the Yucca plant, Ethel wailed.
Clive leaned forward, “keep your voice down, pet,” and they both looked at Ethel again. Last week she’d got hold of a pair of scissors and cut the Yucca plant’s leaves into the shapes of animals. Derek had pointed out that if she’d been at the Tate they’d have called it groundbreaking and put it in the Turbine Hall, but Ethel had been chastised and banned from the lounge, the scissors taken away from her, someone had got a bollocking. When she’d returned no one had been able to get near the plant, Ethel stroking each leaf in turn, a cat, a giraffe, a monkey; she said they were her friends.
Roger had gone. Carrie had been moved to Worthing. New faces took up their places unaware that that’s where Roger sat, or Carrie twisted cotton on her finger, attachments and breakages that left those who stayed behind reminded of the futility of growing used to anything. Everything moved on except the illnesses they carried, these unwanted guests that moved with them.
“I remember a few years ago,” Clive searched his pocket for cigarettes that weren’t there, “a nurse put up tinsel by the serving hatch.”
“Fuck’s sake,” said Tessa.
“They had to spray the room with Dettol. Get the stench out.”
Everyone knew you didn’t mention Christmas.
“You going home, then?” He itched his thigh, looked at Derek’s empty chair, then at Tessa.
“Thursday.” Pointless naming a day of the week. Today could be Thursday or Saturday or Tuesday. Nobody knew and nobody cared, but being given your ticket out was like being picked for the Hunger Games, ticked off one by one. “He’ll be back soon.”
“Oh, yeah,” Clive nodded vigorously. “You know he has a PhD from York? Last time they took him back he wrote a paper on climate control and what we can learn from the headhunters of Borneo and promptly fell down the stairs when delivering it to his head of college and the next thing they knew he was teaching classes without his trousers on. He’s always said the trouble with the western world is too many clothes.”
“He’s got a point,” said Tessa, remembering the pond.
“He’s got a lot of points,” replied Clive and his hand drifted out and stroked the arm of Derek’s chair.
Stewed fruit tea, smoking in the courtyard, weeds and damp, something terrible for dinner, was it chili con carne or soup, impossible to tell, everything tasted of stale cigarettes and salt. A poor excuse for a duvet, a night spent waiting for the Diazepam to kick in, a morning spent sleeping and Nurse Ratchet banging on her door telling her to get up, her friend was coming at four. How to pack when she hadn’t packed in the first place, t-shirts and leggings thrown into a bag six weeks ago that Scott had grabbed, a different dressing gown brought in later, her hairbrush and slippers. She didn’t want any of it. It stank of institution. She picked up the hold all that had been bought for Freddie’s sports kit, that had ripped the time he’d caught it in the car door and ripped more when Tessa had tried to grab it out of Scott’s hands the time he’d packed it for her, and she hadn’t seen the ambulance until it was too late. She took it to the lounge and emptied it on the floor in front of Ethel.
Derek, his chair an arm hug around him, Clive happier beside him, but the lounge felt empty anyway. It went like that in these places, the ebb and flow of bodies and troubles, the getting better, the falling ill again. They watched Ethel scrabble about in Tessa’s underwear and socks, find her bathrobe and relieve it of the belt which she tied around her own waist to add to the three already there. The rest of Tessa’s clothes she hung on a chair and bared her teeth at anyone foolish enough to come near. Tessa’s hairbrush she secreted into the folds of her cardigan.
“Don’t think about it,” said Derek, looking away.
Tessa wondered if she tied four belts around her waist and bared her teeth they’d let her stay, too.
“You take care of yourself now, love,” said Clive, his eyes on the clock. “Think of us.”
“Did you get an exit visa?” said Tessa.
Derek blew his nose. “They’re giving me till Friday to decide if living in supported housing fits with my life skills.”
“That’s tomorrow,” said Tessa.
“Next Friday,” said Clive. A lot could happen in a week.
A new patient with hair sticking up like a hedgehog wrote his name in pencil on a badge, stuck it to his jumper and turned his chair to face a circle that wasn’t there.
“Keen,” said Derek. Last week’s group therapy had ended with her in the corridor, unable to fathom how she’d got there. They’d be lining up their chairs by the time Clare arrived.
“Maybe we could swap identities.” She imagined Derek and Clive in her kitchen, Derek and Clive kissing Scott, Derek and Clive living the life of a woman who was supposed to be normal.
“Keep the faith,” said Derek, blowing his nose again.
*
Sunlight glanced over her shoulders as she emerged from the sliding glass doors, an odd walk to the car, her feet unused to shoes, her hair unused to elastics; at the last minute Ethel had crawled out from beneath the Yucca plant and given her a French plait as if she’d never eaten a book or turned over a chair in her life, as if she didn’t wear three cardigans. Derek had said “she used to work at Vidal Sassoon” and stood by it till Clive pointed out that there was a time when her daughters used to come, twin girls, to see her, and they must have been small once, they must have been children off to school. Ethel had kissed the top of Tessa’s head and crawled back to her animals. Derek had given her his sunglasses, aviators from the nineties, they were only slightly too loose. A coat that Clare brought for her, puffy, and white, stained, the zip broken, she’d meant to throw it away with the kitchen. She climbed into Clare’s Subaru; hunched in the front, too big for the seat, too hot for the air but there was comfort in it, too, straw and mud, the smell of outdoors, Styrofoam cups crushed on the floor, a wrapper from the garage, wild bean café, Clare had been at the sausage rolls again. Her life so simple, so unadorned with make up or agony, maybe she could swap places with her instead.
“Have you got my hat?”
“I’ve got your hat.” Clare passed it to her from the rear seat and put the engine into gear. Tessa blew straw from its brim and put it on. They veered out of the carpark and slowed for an ambulance pulling into the drop-off outside the main hospital. She felt Clare look at her.
“It’s going to be all right.”
Was it though? All right felt like a hold all for mediocre, and it could mean anything.
“I’ve made you a curry for supper. It’s tech tonight, Barbara’s picking up Freddy, I’ll come by tomorrow, okay?”
“I want to come.” She didn’t want to be left alone.
“Barbara’s waiting for us at yours.”
“She brought me the script.”
“Who brought you the script?”
“There’s no kiss in it, Clare.”
Clare slowed at the roundabout; her face busy but Tessa always knew when she was lying. She’d pinch her lips, scratch the edges. She’d lied about not fancying a woman at the stables, she lied about being gay, even though everyone knew except Ros who probably couldn’t imagine any woman fancying another woman unless it was her they fancied; she didn’t know why Clare hid it. Clare always said it’s not secret, it’s private, there’s a difference. She scratched her mouth now, and Tessa looked out of the window.
Last time Scott had come in to see her she’d known instantly, the scent of Ros all over him, an animal difference, she’d asked him, what’s happening? and he’d said it’s just a play, Tess. Let it go. Ethel had eaten most of Act One, but Tessa had retrieved enough to know that they were never supposed to touch.
“Tell her to bring Freddy.” She could be forceful when she wanted to be.
Clare sighed, indicated left and with her other hand rang Barbara.
But what was she thinking, really, as she climbed from institution to theatre hall, a dusty and cold cavern of a place, a stage on which Brian struggled with lights, shouting into the dark as spots beamed on and off. She sat at the back, a chair scraped from the row, little attention given, Clare already disappeared into the role of living wife. There, her husband, Tessa’s, and Ruth’s, she saw him put his hand to his brow as if on a ship, searching the darkness for her, she saw Clare whisper something in his ear, she felt with sudden heat the rush of her son’s body as he launched from heavy green curtain into her arms. Freddy. He smelled the same.
But where was Ros? She waited, and they waited, and Diane appeared to be playing two parts and then Clarice, paper thin spent half an hour pretending to waft in a doorway. Clive had done it better. She missed him.
I have caught up this weekend from Chapter One to this Chapter. It's obvious that this novel captured me as I kept reading (with the Super Bowl halftime show muted!)
So, this is a longish comment.
I thought of Yates' Revolutionary Road where he sets off the action with an amateur play. But he drops it once it's served its purpose, while you carry it along as a major theme.
The script in the ward was a great device, although you otherwise captured the dreadful monotony of the place so well that I am greatly relieved Tessa is out!
The character that I love reading about the most is Ros. When she's on the page, my interest is piqued the most. Of course, she needs her supporting cast, but now that she's off to Cara, I'm missing her presence. I'm half rooting for her, half disapproving of her. (is she more interesting because she's beautiful? I think so.)
I appreciate your restraint in revealing backstories. You make us curious and then eventually reward us with more information.
You have a great touch with details building on each other. In this chapter, for example, the hold all for Freddie's sports gear and the hold all for Tess's emotions.
A few things that surprised me.
Primogeniture in favor of Peter? Puzzled me until you wrote about the neglect, which is also carelessness, of Ros's parents. There's a paragraph where you give us insight into Ros's childhood emptiness that she fills with acting. You use the word 'omnipotence" in an unusual way.
"She wasn’t aware that a drip feed of neglect, a daily laceration of the missing can lead a faith to break, an omnipotence to be born, a mind to opt for fantasy, and a body to be so riddled with discomfort that to live amongst its screaming nerve-endings becomes a thing impossible."
"Omnipotence" made me read this key paragraph twice.
A few references/other details I enjoyed that come to top of mind:
Lord Grantham!
Ethel the Unready
Your description of the kiss and where you set it
I have to remember that a "lead" is a "leash"
Most tiresome character so far: Brian
Most annoying character so far: Diane
Gorgeous. Agree, one of the best chapters yet!! Especially appreciate Ethel. Very nice. Just such a crisp character!