The Deepest Cut Page 2

  Back on the ward, all the other patients were staring.

  Dr Sanderson drew the curtains around the bed. The cubicle was small as it was, without four more people in it. Dr Verma stared at me; Dr Sanderson at my notes. The nurse shoved a thermometer in my ear and my dad stood at the end of my bed, biting his nails and staring me out.

  My jaw was tight and my breathing shallow.

  I was done for. It was over. I couldn’t fight them on this.

  I let my eyes close, heavy from the injection, while they did whatever it was they had to do to get me put away.

  I was getting locked up in the nut house and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  They took me there in a minibus ambulance. I was strapped to a wheelchair, and off my face on a second injection they’d given me just before we left. I was on my own. Dad had done a runner as soon as all the paperwork was signed. He was probably standing outside the bookies drinking a Strongbow and telling all his mates how pathetic I was.

  When we pulled up, a nurse unstrapped me from the wheelchair and helped me out the ambulance.

  ‘Whoa there, lovey,’ she said when my legs wobbled underneath me. She held me upright and waited until I was steady again before we moved on.

  The place didn’t look like a mental hospital. It wasn’t tall, dark, and looming. There was no big, dramatic entrance. There were no crazies running naked around the gardens. There were no bright flashes of lightning, no dramatic crashes of thunder, no crows squawking, threatening to peck your brains out. The building was modern and bathed in sunshine; but it didn’t matter how peaceful and inviting it was, I still didn’t want to go in.

  ‘Come on, Adam,’ the nurse said. She put her hand on my shoulder and walked me up the path towards the door.

  She put a key code in, the door beeped, she held it open for me and we went inside.

  ‘Come on, up the stairs,’ she said, putting her hand in the small of my back.

  At the top of a few flights of stairs was a set of doors with another key code thing on. She put the code in and it beeped just like the one downstairs and then she led me in.

  ‘This is Peacock Ward,’ she said. ‘I’m going to show you straight to your room so you can get some rest.’

  She took me down a dark corridor with no windows. None of the rooms had doors on except the bathroom. It was as quiet and peaceful inside as it was outside. It was confusing. Maybe I was the only suspected mental person in the world.

  My room was one off the hallway with no door. The walls were a disgusting mustard colour and some of the paint was peeling off the white ceiling. There was a small white sink in the corner, a built-in wardrobe and a single bed. Above the bed was a small window with bars on the outside.

  ‘No bag with you, then?’ The nurse asked. ‘Let me find you something clean to wear.’ She walked away, her shoes squeaking along the floor as she went.

  I was trapped. I knew they wanted to make me better but they had no chance. The only thing that would make me better would be having Jake back, so unless they were God, or they had a time machine, it wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Right, here we go.’ The nurse and her squeaky shoes were back with a pair of grey joggers, a white T-shirt and a black sweater. ‘They OK? I’m just going to pop and get your medication while you change,’ she said.

  I took off my old clothes. They stank. I’d been wearing them for the eight days I’d been in the other hospital. I put on the clean ones the nurse gave me; they were warm and comfortable.

  ‘Pills,’ she was back with a little white cup. It was the same as the ones McDonald’s give you to fill up with ketchup, because they’re too tight to give out packets anymore. It had two tablets in. She also had a plastic cup of water.

  She handed me the pills.

  ‘I’d like you to take these,’ she said. She put the cup of water in my other hand.

  I looked at the tablets and back up at her.

  ‘They’re just to help you relax,’ she said.

  I put them in my mouth and took some water to swallow them back.

  ‘Poke out your tongue,’ she said. She took my chin in her hand and pushed it up, looking in my mouth as she did. ‘Good lad,’ she said.

  I gave her a funny look.

  ‘Just checking. Get some rest,’ she said. Her shoes squeaked as she walked out of the room without looking back.

  That was it? Just get some rest. Nothing else. No doctor coming to see me to tell me what they were going to do with me. No family to settle me in and give me a hug. And definitely no friends to take the mickey out of me for being in the loony bin.

  I was sitting there staring at the stupid yellow wall for ages. The loneliness was suffocating. However many millions and billions of people on this earth and I was on a cold bed, in a room with bars on the windows, and I had nobody. The nurses were there, but only because they were paid to be there. They didn’t know what it felt like to be me. They didn’t know what it felt like to be there that night, and see what happened to Jake, and do what I did. They didn’t care that I couldn’t think about it, because when I did, I couldn’t breathe. They didn’t care that I still didn’t understand how it happened, how in a split second, a moment of madness, everything was destroyed.

  That was what it was, a moment of madness. One quick jab of the knife and everything came crashing down around us and would never be fixed.

  If that knife had never gone in, everything would have been OK.

  Four

  The next morning the place had sprung into life outside my room. I heard laughing, shouting, a TV, and there were smells of food, coffee, and bleach. I wasn’t the only one here and I wasn’t dreaming. I also hadn’t died and this wasn’t some warped version of the afterlife – aka hell. It was real.

  I was too scared to leave my room. I mean, I’d seen my fair share of films set in mental hospitals before and they weren’t exactly fun. I didn’t want to get out of my bed to go and investigate; I was terrified of what I might find.

  It turned out I didn’t have much choice, though. A nurse appeared and told me I’d slept through breakfast, but she’d get me some tea and toast and I could have it in the therapy room while I waited for my therapist.

  ‘Come on, up,’ she said, snapping me out of the thoughts that were running around my head, like how the hell did it all come to this?

  She walked me out of my room and into the corridor. I was surprised that there was nobody standing staring at a wall, or scratching their nails down it, or their own face.

  The noise I’d heard had been coming from a section off the main corridor, by the nurses’ station. It was full of mainly normal-looking teenagers playing pool, watching TV, and there was a game of Monopoly going on

  A few stopped what they were doing and looked at me as I shuffled along behind the nurse. A couple smiled but I couldn’t bring myself to smile back.

  She led me into the therapy room, and inside it was just as cold and uninviting as my own room. There were just a few tables and a stack of blue plastic chairs.

  ‘We do group therapy in here,’ the nurse said. ‘The one-on-one room is busy this morning, so this will have to do.’

  When she walked away, saying she was off to get me some toast, I realised she reminded me of the nurse I met when Jake was in hospital when we were younger. She was cold and grumpy, too. Jake and I had pulled faces at her behind her back, but now there was no Jake there to help me make fun of her. It was just me.

  The door opened and a man walked in. He was about thirty I reckon. I think he thought he was a bit of alright, and a bit cool, because he wasn’t in a suit or doctors’ scrubs like you’d expect. He had jeans on, and Converse, and his hair was quite scruffy like he was pretending not to make an effort with it, but you know he really had.

  He held the door open for the nurse and she plonked a plate of toast and a cup of tea down on the table next to me without saying a word.

  ‘Thank you, Anna,’ the man said, nodding at
her as she went out. Then he put down a pile of papers on the table, got himself a chair from the stack, and sat down opposite me.

  ‘Hi Adam, I’m David.’ He held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. His hand was hovering in the space between us.

  I took a bite of my toast.

  ‘So, Adam, do you know why you’re here?’ He pulled his hand back but he didn’t look offended.

  He had a weird accent. I think it might have been Irish, but it was sort of mixed in with English like he’d been over here a while and the two were blending together.

  ‘Adam?’ He picked up a pad from his papers and flicked through it to a clean page. ‘How are you feeling?’ He asked.

  He was staring at me. It was making me nervous.

  I shrugged.

  ‘What do you remember since taking the overdose, Adam? Do you remember coming here?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you are aware of where you are?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘OK, well you’ll be with us for at least the next few weeks while we try and obtain a diagnosis and put together a treatment plan for you,’ he said.

  He waited for a response. I turned round to get my tea, still trying not to look at him.

  ‘Adam,’ he pulled his chair forwards a bit. The sound of it scraping on the floor made me jump.

  I pulled away from him. I didn’t want him near me.

  ‘It’s OK. I just want to ask you if there’s any reason why you aren’t talking? You haven’t said a single word since you’ve been here. Is it on purpose? Just nod or shake your head for yes or no.’

  I’d been aware of the fact I hadn’t spoken to anyone, not just since I got there, but since I came round from the overdose. It was like I was numb and I just didn’t have anything to say.

  I tried to answer David, but I couldn’t. It was the strangest sensation I’d ever felt, like my brain went to speak, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. I knew I wasn’t doing it on purpose, now I’d tried to speak and couldn’t.

  ‘It’s not on purpose?’ David said.

  I thought I’d try again but it didn’t work. I suddenly felt trapped inside my own body. A feeling of dread was expanding like a huge ball in my gut. I tried to breathe deeply to calm myself down and I shook my head to tell David it wasn’t on purpose.

  ‘OK, that’s OK; we can work around that, no problem.’ He wrote something down on his pad. ‘You OK? Just breathe through it slowly, in with three out with three … in with three …’

  I followed his instructions until my breathing steadied.

  ‘Take a sip of tea?’

  I did as I was told.

  ‘Right, next thing is that your dad has come in today to see you, and to have a bit of a chat with me, which I think is going to help me get a better idea of what’s going on with you while you’re unable to tell me yourself.’ He smiled.

  I knew they’d made him come. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have been there out of choice. Either way, I didn’t want to see him.

  ‘Shall I go and get him? He’s just outside.’ I was hoping maybe he’d just said he was going to come but hadn’t turned up at the last minute. That’d be more like him, to not turn up and leave us wondering where he was that time … the boozer, the bookies or up Jackie’s arse.

  David stood up. ‘I think it will be good for you to see him,’ he said. ‘Plus, he’s brought in some things for you, clothes and stuff.’

  He opened the door and stuck his head out, then held open the door for my dad to come in.

  Dad didn’t look at me as he followed David into the room. David got Dad a chair from the stack and he sat down.

  ‘How you doing, son?’ He asked, but he still wouldn’t look at me.

  I stared at the floor.

  ‘I’m missing you at home, you know. It’s quiet without you around.’

  What a pile of crap. David was watching him closely. I bit my nails and bobbed my leg up and down, trying to distract myself from him. I wanted to get up and walk out of the room, but I knew I had to behave the best I could and not cause a scene because then they’d let me out quicker.

  Nobody was talking. The clock ticking on the wall was the only noise in the room.

  David broke the silence. ‘Didn’t you bring some things in for Adam?’ He asked my dad.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got you some bits,’ Dad said to me. He shook a tatty supermarket carrier bag full of my stuff.

  I didn’t look up.

  ‘That’s nice of your dad, Adam, don’t you think?’ David asked.

  There was no point in David asking me anything because I couldn’t answer. I wanted him to end this and let me go back to my room and away from dad. I didn’t even know why he was here. I bet he wanted to lay into me and tell me what an embarrassment and a failure I was. I bet any money that if David wasn’t there he’d be up in my face all angry and swearing.

  ‘You sleeping alright then, son?’ Dad asked, calmly.

  I wished he’d drop the dad-of-the-year act – it was all for show. The last time he asked me if I was OK, or sleeping, or whatever, was the day after Jake’s funeral and even that was reluctant and only because Polly was there.

  ‘Excuse us please, Adam,’ David said. ‘I’m just going to have a word with your dad outside in private.’ He got up from his chair and walked over to the door, holding it open for Dad who was so hot on his heels I could tell it was the greatest relief for him to be walking away from me.

  I went over to the door to see if I could hear what they were saying. I needed to know so I could try and work out how long they were going to keep me in there.

  ‘I’m afraid Adam seems to be having trouble communicating at the moment,’ David said.

  ‘I noticed,’ my dad said. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s on purpose. I think it could be trauma related–’

  ‘Trauma?’ Dad asked, genuinely confused.

  ‘Mr–’

  ‘Call me Chris,’

  ‘Chris, you are aware of what happened to Adam’s best friend, three months ago? I suspect he’s suffering from what we’d call psychological trauma. How was he after the incident, before he tried to take his own life?’

  ‘Angry, I suppose, I don’t really know. I didn’t really talk to him about it much …’

  ‘Do you know if there were any nightmares at all? Panic attacks? Physical symptoms such as sweating, abdominal pain, shortness of breath?’

  ‘Erm–’

  ‘Any idea at all?’

  ‘No, I don’t really know, like I said we didn’t really talk,’ Dad said.

  ‘Who has been supporting him through his grief, Chris?’

  Silence.

  Then a heavy sigh from my dad. ‘Look, I just came to bring him some stuff, not to feel like I’m the one in therapy. He’s the one with the issues, not me.’

  ‘I don’t want you to feel like this is an inquisition, Chris, not at all. I’m just trying to gain a better understanding of what Adam’s been through, so we can start to help him. You see, the problem we have is we can’t do a full psychological assessment on him until he starts communicating. Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions?’

  Silence.

  ‘OK, fine, the best I can do for him at the moment is offer him a safe environment here, and encourage him to start talking and join in group therapies. When he does, I can start to properly assess the situation and attempt to put a treatment plan in place.’

  ‘Right,’ Dad said.

  ‘Is there anyone else that can be here to offer Adam some support?’ David asked. ‘It will be valuable having someone to visit him regularly, to give him stability and remind him that there is a world waiting for him outside when he’s well enough to leave–’

  ‘Debbie,’ Dad said cutting in. ‘Jake’s mum, he spent all his life round there with them especially after my wife died,’ he paused. ‘There’s Polly, too,’ he said.

  ‘Who is Polly?’ />
  ‘Just some girl he’s been knocking about with. She was the one who found him after his overdose.’

  ‘OK, they’re close?’

  ‘Adam and Polly? I don’t know, but like I said, she’s been knocking about a lot.’

  ‘Right, OK. Do you have contact details for Debbie and Polly, and are you happy for me to share the details of Adam’s condition?’

  I went and sat back on my chair. This was the worst kind of hell ever. They weren’t going to let me out, I was trapped and there was nothing I could do.

  David came back in.

  ‘Not a massive fan of your dad, then?’ He asked, sitting back down.

  I shook my head and he sort of smiled at me.

  ‘It sounds to me like you’ve been to hell and back over the last few months,’ he said.

  I looked at the floor.

  ‘Tell me, though, your dad has just mentioned Debbie, Jake’s mum? I’d like to call her and tell her what’s happened and see if she might want to come and see you. Is that OK?’

  I straightened myself up and looked at him. I nodded but I wanted to tell David there wasn’t a lot of point, that she made it perfectly clear to me at Jake’s funeral that she didn’t want to see me ever again. That she’d never forgive me for what I’d done. She used to be my second mum, but after that night she’d disowned me. I knew, no matter how much I wanted her to; she’d never come and see me.

  ‘And what about Polly? Your dad mentioned you two have been spending a lot of time together since Jake … since it happened. Is she your girlfriend?’

  I shook my head even though that was sort of a lie. I’d only been seeing her for a couple of weeks before it had happened. Afterwards, I had nothing to give her even if she did refuse to go away and had convinced herself that she was going to be my guardian angel and make it all better again.

  ‘Is it OK if I tell her? Would you like to see her?’ David asked and waited patiently.

  I nodded because Dad was probably going to ring her anyway and tell her what had happened, if she didn’t already know. For months, I had been caught in a cycle of wanting her to go away one minute but wanting her to stay the next and, at that moment, I wanted her there.