Chapter 57: Lexie
Chapter 58: Harriet
Chapter 59: Lexie
Chapter 60: Harriet
Chapter 61: Lexie
Chapter 62: Harriet
Chapter 63: Lexie
Chapter 64: Lexie
Chapter 65: Harriet
Chapter 66: Lexie
Chapter 67: Harriet
Chapter 68: Lexie
Chapter 69: Harriet
Chapter 70: Lexie
Chapter 71: Harriet
Chapter 72: Lexie
Chapter 73: Harriet
Chapter 74: Lexie
Chapter 75: Lexie
Chapter 76: Harriet
Chapter 77: Lexie
Chapter 78: Harriet
Chapter 79: Lexie
Chapter 80: Harriet
Chapter 81: Lexie
Chapter 82: Harriet
Chapter 83: Lexie
Chapter 84: Harriet
Chapter 85: Lexie
Chapter 86: Harriet
Chapter 87: Lexie
Chapter 88: Harriet
Chapter 89: Lexie
Chapter 90: Harriet
Chapter 91: Lexie
Chapter 92: Harriet
Chapter 93: Lexie
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
About the Publisher
Present
I sit, listening to the drip, drip, drip from a shower that only runs for a short time to prevent me from trying to drown myself.
There is a loud, unidentified bang at the other end of the corridor. A sob that peaks at my door and then peters out like a siren as it moves further away towards its final destination.
I slam my fist down on the gnarly grey-green carpet in frustration. Pick at a thread. Trace the initial that is in my mind: A. A.
A psychiatric hospital is such a difficult place in which to achieve just a few necessary seconds of silence.
Nonetheless, I try again, pressing my ear against the plaster and shutting my eyes, in case dulling my other senses helps me to hear what’s being said on the other side of that wall.
It doesn’t.
My eyes flicker open again, angrily. I look around from my position on the floor and take in what has now become familiar to me after my admission four weeks ago. The mesh on the windows. The slippers – not shoes – that are never far from my toes. The bedside table up there and empty of night creams, of tweezers, of the normal life of a bedside table.
And then I go back to trying to focus on what they – my imminent visitor and her boyfriend – are saying. Because it’s too good an opportunity to miss, when I can hear them, right there.
‘Both of them again,’ announces the nurse as she flings the door open.
She looks at me sitting there on the floor, raises her eyebrows. I stand up slowly, move back to the bed. If she thinks my behaviour is odd, she doesn’t say it. I imagine she gets used to behaviour being odd. Gets used to not saying it.
‘Just sorting out the paperwork and then we’ll let her in,’ she says. ‘He said he’s staying in the waiting room again. Not sure why he bothers coming.’
But he does. Every time it’s the two of them, in a pair like a KitKat.
I press my ear against the wall again, so hard this time that it hurts. But since when did pain bother me?
December
I listen to them have sex, frowning at how uncouth it all sounds.
And then I think – what a hypocrite. Because here I am having sex myself. With a man who I think is called Eli. I wonder if the couple next door can hear us too; if they are having similar thoughts.
Over Eli’s naked, olive-skinned shoulder I glance at the TV. I have no idea who turned it on but they have put it on mute, a breakfast news segment on turkey farming. What an odd juxtaposition, I think, to all of this sex.
As Eli finishes, I look away, embarrassed, from the poultry, then pull my dress back down over my thighs.
‘I’d better head to work,’ he says, no eye contact. I barely have the energy nor inclination to nod.
‘Door’s unlocked,’ I reply, and he slips out without another word.
I exhale and reach down to the floor to pick up my glass then take a sip of amaretto and Coke. It’s 7 a.m. but I haven’t been to bed yet so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. Plus, it’s there and I’m thirsty. The door slams.
I rest my head back against the sofa, look around. Half-full glasses, Pinot Grigio bottles, cigarettes stubbed out into old chocolate dessert ramekins. Crisps, squashed into vinegary hundreds and thousands on a cushion. Student scenes; not what I had thought my life would be at thirty-two.
I
