Behind Her Eyes(66)

Psychotic break. Sociopathic tendencies.

I see where he’s jotted down prescriptions, but everything is vague. Just alluded to. It’s all notes as if for a private record, but I still feel like he’s talking about a stranger – this isn’t Adele.

Marianne not pressing charges. No proof. Have agreed to move. Again.

Marianne was the name Adele gave of the woman in Blackheath. What really happened there? Adele obviously found out he was seeing her, and maybe there was a confrontation? I feel a wave of nausea, imagining myself in that situation. It could easily have been me. I hate the thought of Adele ever finding out what I did, and not because I think she’s crazy, whatever David wants the world to believe, but because she’s my friend. I would hate her to know how I betrayed her.

I look at that note. The Again after moving. How many times have they moved? Adele hasn’t said, and there are no clues here. Maybe when he finally presents all this shit to someone – Dr Sykes maybe – he wants it to look as though he was protecting her but can’t any longer. I study the most recent pages, but his writing is indecipherable. I pick out a couple of words that make my heart almost stop – parents … estate – and my eyes strain trying to make sense of the paragraph of broken sentences around them, but I can’t. This was written drunk, I’m pretty sure of it. I feel as if I’m looking into the mind of a mad person rather than reading a file on one.

The last two pages are virtually bare, but what’s written on them makes me freeze.

Rage out of the blue after the move. Kicked the cat. Stamped on it. Killed it. Too many coincidences.

Then, further down the page—

Was it a threat? Making a point? Medication changed. How many accidents can there be?? Have there ever actually been any?

There’s only one line used on the last page but I stare at it for a long time.

Louise. What to do about her?





39


THEN


She’s been at home alone for two days before David arrives, and she’s surprised at how much at peace she feels. The solitude has been strange after the constant company of Westlands, but it’s also been soothing to her soul. Even at night, in the silence of the countryside where it would be easy to believe she was the last person on earth, she’s felt calm. Not that she ever feels isolated from people and places. Not really. Not with what she can do.

But still, she thinks maybe they were all right, in a way. The young do heal fast. And Fairdale House now feels like a facsimile of her home. The same, but so different without her parents here. She’s even felt strong enough to look inside the charred remains of their rooms and pack up some bits and pieces – her mother’s filigree jewellery box, the silver candlesticks that had been her grandmother’s, other odds and ends that each hold memories for her. Some photographs that were in a box in her bottom drawer that somehow survived the blaze. All taken with her father’s expensive camera and developed in his own darkroom. One of the many hobbies he preferred to being a father. There’s one of her at around fifteen. One of her and David sitting on the kitchen table taken not so long ago. That had been a good evening. Her parents had been drinking and were less disapproving of him that night, a rare time they all spent together. She puts the first picture in one of the boxes, but keeps the second.

She gives it to David when they’re walking through the estate, the air fresh and damp but invigorating. ‘I found this,’ she says, her arm linked through his. He’s been quiet since he arrived, and their reunion was almost awkward. They’d thrown themselves at each other and kissed, both overjoyed to be reunited, but the month apart, and the fire, still sits between them, and after an hour of polite and stilted conversation about Westlands and whether she had everything she needed – even though it was clear she had, and anyway, being David he’d also brought a boot full of food with him – she suggested the walk.

It was the right thing. He was relaxing with every step, and she was annoyed at herself for not thinking that being at the house might affect him too. He’d been there that night. He had the slowly healing scars to prove it. And unlike her, he could remember the fire. She leans her head on his arm as they leave the path behind and trudge into the woods. It’s been raining and the ground is muddy and covered in moss and leaves, but there’s something earthy and wonderful about it.

‘I’ll take it back to uni and frame it,’ he says. ‘That was a good day.’

‘And we’re going to have loads more,’ she says, grinning up at him. ‘A lifetime of them. Once we’re married. Let’s do it at Christmas. Once you break up for the holidays and I’m eighteen and no one can frown at us.’ She pauses. ‘Not that there’s anyone left to frown at us.’

He squeezes her arm. He always gets tongue-tied when it comes to talking about the deep things, and she doesn’t mind that.

‘I was thinking maybe I should drop out of uni for a while,’ he says. ‘To look after you. You know, while you have to stay here.’

She laughs, and she still finds it strange that she can laugh, and she has an ache of missing Rob. She loves David with all her heart, but it’s Rob who gave her laughter back. ‘That would somewhat negate the point of me spending time alone here, wouldn’t it? And anyway, you can’t do that. This is what you’ve always dreamed of. And I’m so proud of you. I’m going to be a doctor’s wife.’